Antibacterial Properties of Bacteriocin Purified from Serratia marcescens and Computerized Assessment of its Interaction with Antigen 43 in Escherichia coli.

Bacteriocins are a kind of antimicrobial peptides that kill or inhibit the growth of bacterial strains. The purpose of this study was to investigate the antibacterial effect of Serratia marcescens on several pathogenic bacterial strains. Bacteriocin produced by S. marcescens was purified by chromatography with Sephadex G-75 column, and its antibacterial effect on gram-negative bacteria, including Escherichia coli ATCC 700928, Pseudomonas aeruginosa PTCC 1707, S. marcescens PTCC 1621, Vibrio fischeri PTCC 1693, and Vibrio harveyi PTCC 1755, were evaluated by the disk diffusion method. The structure of bacteriocin was determined by nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. The interaction of bacteriocin with the antigen 43 (Ag43) of E. coli was evaluated by the molecular docking method. Bacteriocin extracted from bacterial isolates had antibacterial activity on E. coli strains but not on other studied strains. Bioinformatics analysis also showed bacteriocin docking with Ag43 with an energy of -159.968 kJ/mol. Natural compounds, such as bacteriocin, can be an alternative to common chemical compounds and antibiotics. To reach a definite conclusion in this regard, there is a need for further research and understanding of their mechanism of action.

Assessment of narrative writing by Persian-speaking students with hearing impairments.

OBJECTIVE: Previous studies have highlighted that narrative skill is critical to the development of the literacy skills by children. Children with cochlear implants (CI) and hearing aids (HA) may have problems in narrative development compared to peers with healthy hearing (HH). There is no exact data about the narrative writing ability of Persian-speaking students who are hearing-impaired. This study was undertaken to compare the microstructure and macrostructure scores for narrative writing of Persian-speaking students who are hearing-impaired and peers with HH. DESIGN: This was a cross-sectional descriptive-analytical study. SETTING: The subjects were recruited from elementary schools in the city of Tehran. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 144 elementary school students were participated. OUTCOME MEASURES: The written narratives were elicited using a wordless pictorial storybook story. Three-way ANOVA with post hoc adjusted Bonferroni test was applied to determine the main effects and interactions of grounded variables on the microstructure and macrostructure components of narrative writing. RESULTS: No significant differences were observed in the macrostructure components of narrative writing between hearing-impaired and HH students. Factors analysis showed that the 4th grade HH students had significantly the highest scores, and the 3rd grade HA students had significantly the lowest scores in microstructure components of narrative writing. CONCLUSION: The findings revealed that hearing-impaired students similarly to their HH peers can transmit the main idea (macrostructure) of narrative writing, but show critical difficulties when using complete grammatical elements (microstructures) to form sentences to convey the idea in the narrative.

Assessment of the Effects of IL9, IL9R, IL17A, and IL17F Gene Polymorphisms on Women with Allergic Rhinitis in Shahrekord, Iran.

BACKGROUND: The genes encoding IL9, IL9R, IL17A, and IL17F have recently been implicated in the genetic basis of rhinitis and allergy. AIM: The purpose of this study was to assess the association of the single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of IL9, IL9R, IL17A, and IL17F and potential interaction of these genes with the determination of IgE levels in women with allergic rhinitis (AR) in Shahrekord, Iran. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: In a case-control study, SNPs from the IL9, IL9R, IL17A, and IL17F were genotyped in 394 random samples including 195 AR patients and 199 normal controls. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay was performed for the determination of serum total IgE levels. The Student's t-test was used to compare the differences. The Chi-square test was performed to compare proportions of cases with different clinical features among cases with different genotypes. The genotype and allele frequencies were obtained by direct counting. Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium was tested between cases and controls separately. The relative risk associated with rare alleles was estimated as an odds ratio with 95% confidence interval. P ≤ 0.05 was considered statistically significant. RESULTS: The rs731476 SNP in the IL9R was significantly associated with the AR phenotype in women. No association was found between any of the other SNPs in IL9, IL17A, and IL17F genes and AR. In the gene-gene interaction analysis, we found that IL9R/IL9 genotype rs731476 T-/rs2069885 G conferred a higher risk for AR phenotype development. We also did not find a significant association in terms of IgE levels between cases and controls. CONCLUSION: Our result suggests that the rs731476 SNP located in the IL9R is associated with an increased susceptibility to AR in females. In a subsequent gene-gene interaction analysis, the rs731476 T-/rs2069885 G-genotype combination (IL9R/IL9) has significantly been associated with the development of the AR phenotype.

Optical side scattering radiometry for high resolution, wide dynamic range longitudinal assessment of optical fibers.

Current optical reflectometric techniques used to characterize optical fibers have to trade-off longitudinal range with spatial resolution and therefore struggle to provide simultaneously wide dynamic range (>20dB) and high resolution (<10cm). In this work, we develop and present a technique we refer to as Optical Side Scattering Radiometry (OSSR) capable of resolving discrete and distributed scattering properties of fibers along their length with up to 60dB dynamic range and 5cm spatial resolution. Our setup is first validated on a standard single mode telecoms fiber. Then we apply it to a record-length 11km hollow core photonic band-gap fiber (HC-PBGF) the characterization requirements of which lie far beyond the capability of standard optical reflectometric instruments. We next demonstrate use of the technique to investigate and explain the unusually high loss observed in another HC-PBGF and finally demonstrate its flexibility by measuring a HC-PBGF operating at a wavelength of 2µm. In all of these examples, good agreement between the OSSR measurements and other well-established (but more limited) characterization methods, i.e. cutback loss and OTDR, was obtained.

Optimization of petroleum refinery effluent treatment in a UASB reactor using response surface methodology.

An upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) bioreactor was successfully used for the treatment of petroleum refinery effluent. Before optimization, chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal was 81% at a constant organic loading rate (OLR) of 0.4 kg/m(3) d and a hydraulic retention time (HRT) of 48 h. The rate of biogas production was 559 mL/h at an HRT of 40 h and an influent COD of 1000 mg/L. Response surface methodology (RSM) was applied to predict the behaviors of influent COD, upflow velocity (V(up)) and HRT in the bioreactor. RSM showed that the best models for COD removal and biogas production rate were the reduced quadratic and cubic models, respectively. The optimum region, identified based on two critical responses, was an influent COD of 630 mg/L, a V(up) of 0.27 m/h, and an HRT of 21.4 h. This resulted in a 76.3% COD removal efficiency and a 0.25 L biogas/L feed d biogas production rate.

Urologic diseases in the Islamic Republic of Iran: what are the public health priorities?

This study was designed to estimate the burden of urologic diseases in the Islamic Republic of Iran as a practical method for defining public health priorities. Using World Health Organization guidelines for national burden of disease studies, 6 steps were performed: selecting diseases to include; dynamic modelling of diseases; gathering data about urologic diseases; computing the local disability weights of urologic diseases; data analysis with DisMod II; and computing the disability-adjusted life years for each disease. Renal calculus, acute cystitis, chronic prostatitis, benign prostate hyperplasia, male infertility and adult polycystic kidney disease comprised the greatest burden.

Wife abuse in Esfahan, Islamic Republic of Iran, 2002.

We carried out a cross-sectional study with cluster random sampling to study the status of wife abuse in Esfahan from April to July 2002. We interviewed 386 married women using a standard questionnaire. Mean age was 35.7 years (range 15-78 years). Prevalence of wife abuse was 36.8%; incidence was 29.3%. Types of abuse included inattention to wife's feelings 44.8%, threatening to prevent communicating with the wife's family 38.1%, slapping 31.9% and beating 27.2%. Husband's age, use of drugs or alcohol, smoking, income and number of children were all associated with wife abuse (P < 0.05). We recommend further investigation to detect the risk factors for wife abuse in this community along with mass education concerning sexual responsibility and conduct towards wives. We also advocate the promotion of supportive measures for abused women.