fahimeh baghbani

Time series forecasting is important in many fields including energy management, power market, and engineering. Therefore, it is vital to introduce new algorithms that can predict time series with high accuracy. Emotional networks have recently been introduced based on emotional processes occurring in the mammalian brain. They have shown desirable numerical properties such as fast response, simple structure, learning capability, and the ability to accurately approximate and address time and complexity issues. However, their use in time-series prediction is at the primary stages. Therefore, we are inspired to use emotional models in the time-series prediction problems. Specifically, we propose to use a continuous radial basis emotional neural network (CRBENN) for time-series prediction. The normal rules of the emotional brain are used to update the network weights and the gradient descent algorithm is used to update the radial basis parameters. The proposed method is compared with two neuro and fuzzy methods in three benchmark problems. The results show the lower prediction error of the proposed method.

Physical and psychological interventions could affect the quality of life (QoL) of women with infertility. The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of dry cupping and counselling with the mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) approach on fertility QoL and conception success in infertile women due to polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS).

This was a two-arm pilot randomized clinical trial from first January 2021 to the end of November 2022. In this regard, 19 women with infertility who were referred to the health centers affiliated with Shiraz University of Medical Sciences and met the inclusion criteria were enrolled in the study. Participants were randomly divided into two groups (10 in the virtual MBCT group and 9 in the cupping group). All participants completed the fertility quality of life (FertiQol) tool before the intervention and three months after the end of the intervention. In addition, after the end of the intervention, a human chorionic gonadotropin test was performed monthly for three months, too. We used ANOVA/ANCOVA and its related effect sizes, including mean difference (MD) and standard mean difference (SMD: Hedges’s g), and chi-square tests to compare the study group outcomes in Stata 14.2. P-values equal to or less than 0.10 were considered significant.

The intervention resulted in significant differences in the mean overall scores of FertiQol between the counseling and cupping groups (61.76±14.28 and 50.65±12.53, respectively) [P=0.091, MD=11.11 (90% CI: 0.33 to 21.89), SMD=1.07 (90%: CI 0.279 to 1.84)]. No significant difference was found in conception rates between the groups after the intervention.

This pilot study found that MBCT improved the fertility QoL in PCOS-related infertility patients better than cupping therapy.Trial registration: IRCT201706110334452N13

The excision repair cross-complementing group 2 (ERCC2 (is a Nucleotide Excision Repair (NER) gene. The ERCC2 c.2251A>C Polymorphism is located in codon 751 of exon 23 which result in amino acid changes (Lys751Gln) in the ERCC2. This Polymorphism is associated with decreased DNA repair capacity cause to genetic instability and carcinogenesis. Thus, we examined the associations between ERCC2 c.2251A>C Polymorphism and sporadic colorectal cancer in Iranian population.

In this case-control study, 291 incident sporadic colorectal cancer cases and 140 controls were analyzed. ERCC2 Genotyping was done using a polymerase chain reaction restriction fragment length poly-morphism (PCR-RFLP).

Genotype frequency of c.2251A>C in ERCC2 in patients and healthy groups was significantly different (p<0.05). The results indicated that the mutant allele (C) can increased significantly risk of colorectal cancer (OR: 1.37; 95% CI: 1.03-1.83). Also, In ERCC2 genotypes, the CC genotype led to an increase in risk of colorectal cancer (OR: 2.37; 95% CI: 1.03-5.48).

According to the Our results the ERCC2 c.2251A>C Polymorphism involved in colorectal cancer susceptibility in Iranian population.

Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide among women. Nowadays, nanoparticles are interested as anti-cancer factors in studies related to cancer therapy. Therefore, the present study aimed to explore cytotoxic effects of zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnONPs) and to evaluate NM23 gene expression in T47D breast cancer cells. The cancerous T47D and normal HEK293 cell lines were treated with different concentration of ZnONPs for 24 hours and the cytotoxicity activity of ZnONPs was analyzed by the MTT assay. Then, the NM23 gene expression was evaluated using the real-time PCR method. According to MTT results, the ZnONPs significantly decreased the viability of T47D cells in dose-dependent manner. Also, the results revealed that the mRNA level of NM23 was up-regulated (7.8-fold) in cells treated with ZnONPs. ZnONPs can destroy cancerous T47D cells compared to normal HEK293 cells. Furthermore, it seems that ZnONPs can modulate metastasis by enhancing the NM23 gene expression level in breast cancer T47D cells. Thus, ZnONPs can be considered as a promising strategy for the treatment of breast cancer.

 Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common cancers. It is the third leading cause of cancer related death. This study aimed to evaluate the phytochemical composition of ethanolic and aqueous Glycyrrhiza glabra root extracts its apoptotic effects against human hepatocarcinoma HepG2 cell line. In the current experimental study, the phyochemical composition of aqueous and ethanolic Glycyrrhiza glabra extract was evaluated by GC/MS method. The HepG2 cells were grown in RPMI1640 supplemented with 10 % (v/v) FBS at 37°C with 5 %carbon dioxide (CO2) atmosphere. The cytotoxicity activities of extracts were measured using MTT after 24 hours. To evaluate the ability of extracts to trigger apoptosis in HepG2 cells, the Hosest8778 staining method was carried out. The phytochemical data of aqueous extract revealed 18 compounds, including Dodecane (13.34%) and 2',6'-Dihydroxyacetophenone bis (trimethylsilyl) ether (12.48%) as the major constitutes. The chemical composition of ethanolic extract showed 17 compounds, including Pentadecane (7.78%), 2,6,11,15-Tetramethylhexadecane (4.67%) as the prominent compounds. The MTT results revealed that the extract-treated cells had a dose-related toxicity effects. The results of Hoechst 33258 staining showed that the nuclear DNA fragmentation was increased in the ethanolic extract treatment compared to aqueous extract. The ethanolic extract of Glycyrrhiza glabra possesses more apoptotic effect on cancer cells and further researches are needed for investigating its potential mechanism

Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed malignancy and the second leading cause of cancer deaths among men in the world. Immunotherapy is a new, non-invasive and effective method for the treatment of cancer, but its side effects on the normal flora of bacteria and opportunistic infections not known yet. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of immunotherapy on Enterococcus faecalis (E. faecalis) virulence gene expression in patients with prostate cancer. In this study, the effect of prostate cancer immunotherapy on the expression level of enterococcal surface protein (esp) gene which is involved in Enterococcus faecalis pathogenesis were investigated. For this purpose, the samples were analysed in three groups; normal individuals 211 men), prostate cancer patients (176 men) before and six months after immunotherapy period. Results showed significant (p=0.00) over expression of esp gene in prostate cancer patients after immunotherapy. There was no significant difference between prostate cancer patients before immunotherapy and healthy subjects. We conclude from these findings that immunotherapy could play a major role in increasing the pathogenicity risk of E. faecalis as a normal microflora. According to current results we suggest that using antibiotic administration in the period of immunotherapy prevents the possibility of opportunistic bacterial infections including E. faecalis.

In traditional medicine and previous studies, Quercus infectoria plants have been suggested as a cancer treatment. The aim of the current study was to investigate the cytotoxic effect of aqueous and hydro alcoholic extracts of Quercus infectoria leaf against colon cancer HT29 cell line and to evaluate the Bax and Bcl-2 gene expression in treated cells. In this study, aqueoFus and hydro alcoholic extracts of Quercus infectoria leaf were prepared. Then, the HT29 and HEK293 cell lines were treated by various concentrations of extracts for 24 hours and the cytotoxicity effect of extracts was estimated by colorimetric MTT (methyl thiazolyl tetrazolium) assay. Finally, the pro-apoptotic Bax and anti-apoptotic Bcl-2 gene expression in treated cells compared to GAPDH reference gene expression was evaluated using real time PCR technique.
Findings: According to the MTT results, the cytotoxic activity of aqueous extract has dose-dependent manner against both cell lines, therefore, the Bax and Bcl-2 gene expression levels in treated cells by aqueous extract were changed 2.8 (p˂0.05) and 2.2-fold (p˃0.05) compared to reference gene, respectively. According to the results, it seems that the aqueous extract of Quercus infectoria leaf has the potential for apoptosis induction in colon cancer HT29 cell line and based on more studies, it can be used as a colon cancer treatment

Glycyrrhiza glabra plants are known to have anti- cancer effects in traditional medicine with high antioxidant properties and few side effects. The aim of the current study was to investigate the cytotoxic activity and apoptotic effect of Glycyrrhiza glabra extracts toward human hepatocarcinoma (HepG2) cell line.

In this study, ethanolic and aqueous extract of Glycyrrhiza glabra was prepared. The HepG2 and HEK293 cell lines were treated with different concentration of extracts for 24 hours. The biological activities of extracts were calculated by using colorimetric MTT (methyl thiazolyl tetrazolium) assay. Then, the apoptotic BAX and anti-apoptotic BCL2 gene expression was evaluated using real time PCR technique.

The extracts have a dose-dependent toxicity effect. BAX and BCL2 gene expression levels in HepG2 cells treated by ethanol extract of Glycyrrhiza glabra were 1.90 ± 0.01 (P

Glycyrrhiza glabra extract (especially ethanoic extract) has potential uses for treatment of liver cancer.

Metastatic Prostate cancer is a lethal disease, but unfortunately the molecular mechanisms that underlie the metastasis of this common cancer are still poorly understood. In advanced stages of the cancer, cells cancerous may spread to the other part of the body specially to bones and lymph nodes. One of the important contributing processes in cancer invasion and metastasis is Epithelial to Mesenchymal Transition (EMT). Overexpression of ZEB1 as a key regulating factor, promotes EMT processes in a variety of cancers. In the present study, to evaluate the expression of ZEB1 and its differences between benign prostate hyperplasia and prostate cancer, 16 patients with BPH and 17 patients with Pca were selected, RNA was extracted and after synthesis of cDNA , ZEB1 expression in mRNA level was analyzed by Real Time PCR. Our results indicated that ZEB1 was overexpressed in Pca samples in comparison to BPH ones (P=0.047). In conclusion our findings suggest that evaluating the expression of ZEB1 is likely to be useful as a prognostic biomarker to diagnose prostate cancer in early stages. Furthermore, due to the critical role of ZEB1 in metastasis promotion of a variety of cancers through regulating other EMT markers, it would be possible to avoid progression and metastasis of prostate cancer by suppressing ZEB1.

The increase in macrolide resistance among Streptococcus pyogenes isolates is a cause to be concerned. To investigate the macrolide resistance trends, phenotypes and genotypes, we examined 40 clinical isolates of Group A Streptococcus (GAS) collected between 2013 and 2014. Susceptibilities to macrolide antimicrobial agents were determined by disk diffusion method and inducible clindamycin resistance was identified using D-zone test. Beside, macrolide resistance genes were detected by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The rates of resistance to erythromycin, azithromycin, clindamycin and clarithromycin were 20%, 20%, 15%, 10% respectively. None of the isolates exhibited resistance to penicillin. Among 8 erythromycin-resistant Streptococcus pyogenes isolates 4 had an M phenotype and 4 had an MLSB phenotype (3 cMLSB and 1 iMLSB). The isolates with cMLSB and iMLSB phenotype had ermA and ermB gene, respectively. Of 16 macrolide-resistant GAS isolates, 5 (31%) harbored the ermB gene and 1 (6%) the ermA. Also, one isolate without any macrolide resistance was positive for ermB gene. We found a high level of macrolide resistance in Streptococcus pyogenes in Iran. Moreover, clindamycin and clarithromycin would be the drugs of choice for treating penicillin-allergic patients. The phenotypes of erythromycin resistance seem to be associated with certain erm genotypes in Streptococcus pyogenes isolates.

Salmonella spp. are enteric pathogen with a worldwide distribution comprising a large number of serovars. Many virulence factors of Salmonella are encoded by located genes on Salmonella pathogenicity islands (SPIs). This study was conducted to investigate the distribution of two SPI-3 related genes in among three serotypes of Iranian salmonella: typhi, paratyphi B and paratyphi C.
A total of 25 salmonella strains were isolated from Iranian patients with clinical symptoms of salmonellosis. All isolated belong to salmonella serotypes of typhi, paratyphi B and paratyphi C. Salmonella isolates were screened for the presence of mgtC and misL genes by PCR amplification method.
Among 25 salmonella strains, 20 (80%) were positive for SPI-3 region. The presence of misL gene in these serotypes of salmonella was as follows: typhi (100%), Paratyphi C (33%), Paratyphi B (25%) and for mgtC: typhi(97%), paratyphC(33%), paratyphiB(0%).
the widely distribution of SPI-3 among Iranian salmonella isolates provide the basic information on the genetic background of virulence as well as molecular properties of three different serotypes of Salmonella. This is the first report on the distribution of SPI-3 in Salmonella isolates from Iran.

Molecular typing is an important tool in surveillance and outbreak investigations of human Salmonella infections. In this study, Subtyping of Salmonella Paratyphi B and C isolates derived from Iranian patients was carried out by RAPD-PCR to assess the extent of genetic diversity of these isolates. Fourteen Salmonella isolates including 6 strains of Salmonella paratyphi B and 8 strains of Salmonella paratyphi C were characterized using RAPD-PCR. Two arbitrary primers, namely OPP-16 and P1254 were used for RAPD analysis and the dendrograms were constructed with NTsys 2.0 computer software. Both primers showed high discriminatory power in differentiating of the related strains of Salmonella. The dendrograms constructed based on RAPD-PCR profiles (with both primers) involving 14 salmonella strains revealed 4 distinct patterns, indicating that these isolates are genetically heterogeneous. Furthermore, a good correlation was not observed between the serotype and the molecular profiles obtained from RAPD data of the Salmonella isolates. The findings of the present study verify the usefulness of RAPD-PCR in characterizing and comparing strains of Salmonella Paratyphi B and C.