Regular dorsal dimples and damaged mites of Varroa destructor in some Iranian honey bees (Apis mellifera)

The frequency of damaged Varroadestructor Anderson and Trueman (Mesostigmata: Varroidae) found on the bottom board of hives of the honey bee, Apis mellifera L. (Hymenoptera: Apidae) has been used as an indicator of the degree of tolerance or resistance of honey bee colonies against mites. However, it is not clear that this measure is adequate. These injuries should be separated from regular dorsal dimples that have a developmental origin. To investigate damage to Varroa mites and regular dorsal dimples, 32 honey bee (A. mellifera) colonies were selected from four Iranian provinces: Isfahan, Markazi, Qazvin, and Tehran. These colonies were part of the National Honey bee Breeding Program that resulted in province-specific races. In April, Varroa mites were collected from heavily infested colonies and used to infest the 32 experimental colonies. In August, 20 of these colonies were selected (five colonies from each province). Adult bees from these colonies were placed in cages and after introducing mites, damaged mites were collected from each cage every day. The average percentage of injured mites ranged from 0.6 to 3.0% in four provinces. The results did not show any statistical differences between the colonies within provinces for injuries to mites, but there were some differences among province-specific lines. Two kinds of injuries to the mites were observed: injuries to legs and pedipalps, and injuries to other parts of the body. There were also some regular dorsal dimples on dorsal idiosoma of the mites that were placed in categories separate from mites damaged by bees. This type of classification helps identifying damage to mites and comparing them with developmental origin symptoms, and may provide criteria for selecting bees tolerant or resistant to this mite

The Application of NCaRBS to the Trendelenburg Test and Total Hip Arthroplasty Outcome

This paper compares the frontal plane hip func- tion of subject’s known to have had hip arthroplasty via either the lateral (LA) or posterior (PA) surgical approaches and a group of subjects associated with no pathology (NP). This is investigated through the Trendelenburg test using 3D motion analysis and classification. Here, a recent develop- ment on the Classification and Ranking Belief Simplex (CaRBS) technique, able to undertake n-state classification, so termed NCaRBS is employed. The relationship between post-operative hip function measured during a Trendelen- burg Test using three patient characteristics (pelvic obliquity, frontal plane hip moment and frontal plane hip power) of LA, PA and NP subjects are modelled together. Using these characteristics, the classification accuracy was 93.75% for NP, 57.14% for LA, 38.46% for PA. There was a clear distinction between NP and post-surgical function. 3/6 LA subjects and 6/8 PA subjects were misclassified as having NP function, implying that greater function is restored following the PA to surgery. NCaRBS achieved a higher accuracy (65.116%) than through a linear discriminant analysis (48.837%). A Neural Network with two-nodes achieved the same accuracy (65.116%) and as expected was further improved with three-nodes (69.767%). A valuable benefit to the employment of the NCaRBS technique is the graphical exposition of the contribution of patient characteristics to the classification analysis

The decision rule approach to optimization under uncertainty: methodology and applications

Dynamic decision-making under uncertainty has a long and distinguished history in operations research. Due to the curse of dimensionality, solution schemes that naïvely partition or discretize the support of the random problem parameters are limited to small and medium-sized problems, or they require restrictive modeling assumptions (e.g., absence of recourse actions). In the last few decades, several solution techniques have been proposed that aim to alleviate the curse of dimensionality. Amongst these is the decision rule approach, which faithfully models the random process and instead approximates the feasible region of the decision problem. In this paper, we survey the major theoretical findings relating to this approach, and we investigate its potential in two applications areas

Conjugation of glucosamine with Gd3+-based nanoporous silica using a heterobifunctional ANB-NOS crosslinker for imaging of cancer cells

Bita Mehravi,1 Mohsen Ahmadi,1 Massoud Amanlou,2 Ahmad Mostaar,1 Mehdi Shafiee Ardestani,3 Negar Ghalandarlaki4 1Biomedical Engineering and Medical Physics Department, Faculty of Medicine, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences,Tehran, Iran; 2Department of Medicinal Chemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy and Drug Design and Development Research Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran, 3Department of RadioPharmacy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, 4Department of Biological Science, School of Science, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran Background: The aim of this study was to synthesize Gd3+-based silica nanoparticles that conjugate easily with glucosamine and to investigate their use as a nanoprobe for detection of human fibrosarcoma cells. Methods: Based on the structure of the 2-fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose molecule (18FDG), a new compound consisting of D-glucose (1.1 nm) was conjugated with a Gd3+-based mesoporous silica nanoparticle using an N-5-azido-2-nitrobenzoyloxy succinimide (ANB-NOS) crosslinker. The contrast agent obtained was characterized using a variety of methods, including Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, nitrogen physisorption, thermogravimetric analysis, scanning and transmission electron microscopy, and inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES). In vitro studies included cell toxicity, apoptosis, tumor necrosis factor-alpha, and hexokinase assays, and in vivo tests consisted of evaluation of blood glucose levels using the contrast compound and tumor imaging. The cellular uptake study was validated using ICP-AES. Magnetic resonance relaxivity of the contrast agent was determined using a 1.5 Tesla scanner. Results: ANB-NOS was found to be the preferred linker for attaching glucosamine onto the surface of the mesoporous silica nanospheres. The r1 relaxivity for the nanoparticles was 17.70 mM-1s-1 per Gd3+ ion, which is 4.4 times larger than that for Magnevist® (r1 approximately 4 mM-1s-1 per Gd3+ ion). The compound showed suitable cellular uptake (75.6% ± 2.01%) without any appreciable cytotoxicity. Conclusion: Our results suggest that covalently attaching glucosamine molecules to mesoporous silica nanoparticles enables effective targeted delivery of a contrast agent. Keywords: gadolinium, glucosamine, mesoporous silica nanospheres, magnetic resonance imaging, N-5-azido-2-nitrobenzoyloxy succinimide, photoactivatio

Cellular uptake and imaging studies of glycosylated silica nanoprobe (GSN) in human colon adenocarcinoma (HT 29 cell line)

Bita Mehravi,1 Mohsen Ahmadi,1 Massoud Amanlou,2 Ahmad Mostaar,1 Mehdi Shafiee Ardestani,3 Negar Ghalandarlaki41Biomedical Engineering and Medical Physics Department, Faculty of Medicine, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran; 2Department of Medicinal Chemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy and Drug Design and Development Research Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran; 3Department of Radiopharmacy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran; 4Department of Biological Science, School of Science, Science and Research branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, IranPurpose: In recent years, molecular imaging by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has gained prominence in the detection of tumor cells. The scope of this study is on molecular imaging and on the cellular uptake study of a glycosylated silica nanoprobe (GSN).Methods: In this study, intracellular uptake (HT 29 cell line) of GSN was analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively with inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy, flow cytometry, and fluorescent microscopy. In vitro and in vivo relaxometry of this nanoparticle was determined using a 3 Tesla MRI; biodistribution of GSN and Magnevist® were measured in different tissues.Results: Results suggest that the cellular uptake of GSN was about 70%. The r1 relaxivity of this nanoparticle in the cells was measured to be 12.9 ± 1.6 mM-1 s-1 and on a per lanthanide gadolinium (Gd3+) basis. Results also indicate an average cellular uptake of 0.7 ± 0.009 pg Gd3+ per cell. It should be noted that 3-(4,5-Dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay demonstrated that the cells were effectively labeled without cytotoxicity, and that using MRI for quantitative estimation of delivery and uptake of targeted contrast agents and early detection of human colon cancer cells using targeted contrast agents, is feasible.Conclusion: These results showed that GSN provided a critical guideline in selecting these nanoparticles as an appropriate contrast agent for nanomedicine applications.Keywords: cellular uptake, contrast agent, glucosamine, mesoporous silica nanospheres, molecular imaging, MR

Phytosynthesis of silver nanoparticles using Artemisia marschalliana Sprengel aerial part extract and assessment of their antioxidant, anticancer, and antibacterial properties

Soheil Salehi,1 Seyed Ataollah Sadat Shandiz,2 Farinaz Ghanbar,3 Mohammad Raouf Darvish,4 Mehdi Shafiee Ardestani,5 Amir Mirzaie,2 Mohsen Jafari6 1Department of Phytochemistry and Essential Oils Technology, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Pharmaceutical Sciences Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran (IAUPS), 2Young Researchers and Elite Club, East Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, 3Department of Biology, Tehran North Branch, 4Department of Chemistry, Shahre-Rey Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, 5Department of Radiopharmacy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, 6Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, Ahvaz, Iran Abstract: A rapid phytosynthesis of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) using an extract from the aerial parts of Artemisia marschalliana Sprengel was investigated in this study. The synthesized AgNPs using A. marschalliana extract was analyzed by UV–visible spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and further characterized by transmission electron microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, zeta potential, and energy-dispersive spectroscopy. Characteristic absorption bands of AgNPs were found near 430 nm in the UV–vis spectrum. Energy-dispersive spectroscopy analysis of AgNPs in the energy range 2–4 keV confirmed the silver signal due to surface plasmon resonance. Scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy results revealed that the AgNPs were mostly spherical with an average size ranging from 5 nm to 50 nm. The zeta potential value of -31 mV confirmed the stability of the AgNPs. AgNPs produced using the aqueous A. marschalliana extract might serve as a potent in vitro antioxidant, as revealed by 2,2-diphenyl-1-picryl hydrazyl assay. The present study demonstrates the anticancer properties of phytosynthesized AgNPs against human gastric carcinoma AGS cells. AgNPs exerted a dose-dependent inhibitory effect on the viability of cells. Real-time polymerase chain reaction was used for the investigation of Bax and Bcl-2 gene expression in cancer and normal cell lines. Our findings show that the mRNA levels of pro-apoptotic Bax gene expression were significantly upregulated, while the expression of anti-apoptotic Bcl-2 was declined in cells treated with AgNPs compared to normal cells. In addition, flow cytometric analysis showed that the number of early and late apoptotic AGS cells was significantly enhanced following treatment with AgNPs as compared to untreated cells. In addition, the AgNPs showed strong antibacterial properties against tested pathogenic bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus cereus, Acinetobacter baumannii, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Based on the obtained data, we suggest that phytosynthesized AgNPs are good alternatives in the treatment of diseases because of the presence of bioactive agents. Keywords: silver nanoparticles, Artemisia marschalliana Sprengel, anticancer, antibacteria