Laboratory colonization of Lucilia sericata Meigen (Diptera: Caliphoridae) strain from Hashtgerd, Iran.

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES: The treatment of wounds with live green bottle fly larvae is receiving considerable attention in many countries. Laboratory rearing of Lucilia sericata is crucially important for the treatment of wounds. STUDY DESIGN: The study was carried out for mass rearing of green bottle flies from April to November 2010. Hand catch and net trap baited with beef and cattle liver were used to collect adult flies from the field. The collected samples were placed in appropriately labeled tubes and sent to the laboratory. Adult stage flies reared in the insectary were used for species identification using specific keys. RESULTS: A total of 89 flies (55 females and 34 males) were collected from Hashtgerd area. In the first generation, 299 flies were produced in the laboratory including 105 (35.12%) males, and 194 (64.88%) females. The female/male sex ratio was 1.61 for parents, whereas it was 1.84, 1.30 for F1 and F2 generations respectively. In total, 432 flies were reared in F3 generation including 173 (40.04%) males, and 259 (59.96%) females, and the sex ratio was 1.49. CONCLUSION: Setting up the mass rearing of sheep blowfly at the School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences is an important step in producing candidate flies for the treatment of myiasis by maggot therapy in future.

Effect of insulin on Blattela germanica Linnacus.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the sensitivity of Blattela germanica L (B. germanica L) to differenct doses of insulin. METHODS: B. germanica were reared in laboratory conditions at (25±2) °C and (50±5)% relative humidity (RH), and exposure period of 12:12 L/D. Different concentrations, viz. 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25 µ of insulin N, R, (N+R) were prepared and injected to 10 treated cockroaches with another 10 cockroaches which were injected with normal saline as control group. RESULTS: Insulin N with a dose of 20 µ caused more than 70% mortality of B. germanica in this study. There was a significant difference between 20 µ of insulin N with other doses of 5, 10, 15 and 25 µ, and its comparison with other forms of medication also showed obvious difference (P<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: It can be concluded that effective drug doses of insulin which can be used as posion bait or gel against German cockroaches could be utilized in the control of B. germanica in the future field studies.

ECG Feature Extraction Based on Multiresolution Wavelet Transform.

In this work, we have developed and evaluated an electrocardiogram (ECG) feature extraction system based on the multi-resolution wavelet transform. ECG signals from Modified Lead II (MLII) are chosen for processing. The result of applying two wavelet filters (D4 and D6) of different length on the signal is compared. The wavelet filter with scaling function more closely to the shape of the ECG signal achieved better detection. In the first step, the ECG signal was de-noised by removing the corresponding wavelet coefficients at higher scales. Then, QRS complexes are detected and each complex is used to locate the peaks of the individual waves, including onsets and offsets of the P and T waves which are present in one cardiac cycle. We evaluated the algorithm on MIT-BIH Database, the manually annotated database, for validation purposes. The proposed QRS detector achieved sensitivity of 75. 2 % 18 . 99 .. and a positive predictivity of 45 . 4 % 00 . 98 .. over the validation database.

Borderline ovarian tumours: clinical analysis of 38 cases.

Thirty-eight patients with ovarian tumours of low malignant potential (borderline) were diagnosed and treated in Tehran University Gynecology Oncology Department from 1991 to 2002, and have been reviewed. In this study age, clinical behavior, symptoms, surgical stage, type of tumour, surgery, adjuvant treatment, survival and recurrences were evaluated. A retrospective chart review was performed on these 38 patients who were treated for histopathologically confirmed tumours of low malignant potential between 1991-2002. The mean age was 34.4 years, range (14-83) (SD: 18.33). Post surgical FIGO staging was: Stage I=93.75%, stage III 6.25%. Histologic subtypes were: Serous 76.31% (29 patients), Mucinous 21.05% (8 patients), Mixed types 2.63% (1 patient). Mean pre-operative CA125 value was 114.90 (SD: +/- 90.30). Thirty-three percent of patients had only a simple cyst in ultrasonography. Conservative surgery was performed in 76.32% (29 patients). More radical surgery (TAH + BSO) was performed in 9 patients (23.68%). There were 6 recurrences. Three patients with recurrence and invasive implants received chemotherapy and secondary surgery was performed. Survival rate was 100% at 3 years for all stages and 89% at 5 years. One patient died of recurrent disease at 48 months after initial diagnosis. Our data suggest that LMP tumours are most frequently diagnosed in stage I. Most common histological type was serous, and 5 of the recurrences of (6 patients) were initially diagnosed at stage I, and had been treated with conservative surgery with no adjuvant therapy.