This synbiotic (a mixture of seven probiotic strains plus FOS) significantly improved colic symptoms in comparison with placebo.

Background and objectiveAsthma is a growing problem worldwide. Acute exacerbations impose considerable morbidity, mortality, and increased cost. Viral respiratory infections are the most common cause (80–85%) of pediatric asthma exacerbations and admissions to the hospital. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of a new synbiotic Lactocare® on viral respiratory infections and asthma exacerbations in asthmatic children.MethodsIn this double blind, placebo-controlled, randomized clinical trial, 72 children with mild persistent asthma, aged between 6 and 12 years, were randomized to receive either Lactocare®, a Synbiotic containing 1 billion CFU/Capsule of Lactobacillus casei, Lactobacillus rhamnosus, Streptococcus thermophilus, Bifidobacterium breve, Lactobacillus acidophilus, Bifidobacterium infantis, Lactobacillus bulgaricus, and Fructooligosacharide (Zist Takhmir, Tehran, Iran) or placebo daily for 60 days. The primary outcome was the number of viral respiratory infections, and secondary outcomes were school absence, salbutamol and prednisolone usage, outpatient visits, and hospital admission for asthma. The outcomes were compared among study groups using the SPSS 11.5 program and the Mann Whitney and Fisher exact tests.ResultsOf the 72 children who were enrolled with mild persistent asthma, 36 were assigned randomly to be treated with synbiotic and 36 with placebo. The number of viral respiratory infections was significantly higher in placebo group than the synbiotic group during the first month of intervention (0.74 ± 0.12 vs. 0.44 ± 0.1, p < 0.007) but not during the second month (0.5 ± 0.8 vs. 0.5 ± 0.8, p < 0.641). Considering the total duration of the study (two months), infection episodes also were significantly lower in the synbiotic group (0.92 ± 0.15 vs. 0.69 ± 0.11, p < 0.046). Salbutamol consumption was significantly lower in the synbiotic group, but there were no significant differences in school absenteeism, oral prednisolone use, outpatient visits, or hospital admissions.ConclusionThis new synbiotic (a mixture of seven probiotic strains plus fructooligosacharide may reduce episodes of viral infection in asthmatic children.Trial registrationThis study is registered in Iranian Registry of Clinical Trials with registration number of IRCT201509234976N3.FundingThis research was supported financially by the Research Council of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences (Grant Number: 911048).

BackgroundGastrointestinal (GI) bleeding, which has several clinical manifestation and origins, is known as one of the most life-threatening events in children. Several etiologies have been suggested for GI bleeding.ObjectiveTo determine the most important causes of GI bleeding in children referred to Ghaem Hospital and Dr. Sheikh Hospital, Mashhad, Iran.MethodsIn this cross-sectional study, after obtaining written informed consent of their parents, 113 patients aging from newborn infants to 18-year-old children with GI bleeding admitted to Ghaem Hospital and Dr. Sheikh hospital were enrolled in this study from June 2012 to June 2014. After performing routine diagnostic and therapeutic procedures, a checklist containing all necessary information including demographic data, clinical history of patients, endoscopy and pathology findings, clinical and preclinical information were collected. The data were then analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 16.ResultsOf a total 113 study children, 61 (54%) were male and 52 (46%) were female. The results of this study showed that the most important causes of bleeding in upper GI among all admitted patients were prolapse gastropathy (18.6%), esophagitis (15.9%) and esophageal varices, gastritis, and coagulopathy (7.1% for each). The main causes of lower GI bleeding were polyp (32.5%), chronic nonspecific colitis (20.7%), and proctitis (18.2%).ConclusionFindings of this study indicated that prolapse gastropathy and esophagitis are more prevalent causes of upper GI bleeding. Furthermore, esophageal varices were more common in children older than 13 years. Polyp, chronic nonspecific colitis and proctitis are the most prevalent causes of lower GI bleeding.

Packed-bed column process efficiency for cadmium adsorption from aqueous solution was investigated under different bed heights (2.6 to 7.5 cm) and feed flow rates (15 to 30 ml min −1 ). The column was filled with brown seaweed, Sargassum angustifolium. Three simplified models, including Bed Depth Service Time, Thomas, and YoonNelson were employed for describing the experimental breakthrough curves as well as achieving design parameters. Bed lifetime was also evaluated in several consecutive sorption-desorption cycles. Cadmium concentration of 0.005 mg l −1 , as a standard limit for potable water, was considered as the breakthrough concentration. The maximum column performance was achieved 81% at 7.5 cm bed length and flow rate of 15 ml min −1 . Indeed, increasing the bed height increased the sorption performance and service time, while increasing the feed flow rate had a negative effect. Maximum sorption capacity value remained almost constant by the bed height changes; however, increase in the feed flow rate slightly decreased it. The modeling results revealed that the Yoon-Nelson model was more accurate than Thomas for describing the experimental breakthrough data, especially at low flow rates. Column service time predictions were surprisingly achieved using the Bed Depth Service Time model even at extrapolations. 20% reduction in column adsorption efficiency was observed at the end of four consecutive sorption-desorption cycles; however, desorption efficiencies were achieved more than 99% in each cycle.

Three bacterial species of PG01, PG02, and PG03 were isolated from coastal sediments of Bushehr (Iran) as mercury‐resistant bacteria. According to 16S ribosomal DNA gene sequence, the strains were identified as Vibrio natriegens, Vibrio parahaemolyticus, and Oceanimonas baumannii, respectively. Minimum inhibitory concentration test in the presence of HgCl2 revealed that the strain PG02 was the most resistant one, which tolerated up to 45 mg L−1 Hg2+. Tracing the growth curves for the PG02 showed that when it is initially exposed to 5 mg L−1 Hg2+ in the medium, only 10% of its natural growth is reduced, while it simultaneously succeeds to remove 90% of mercury. However, initially 10 mg L−1 Hg2+ in the medium led to 30% growth inhibition and 80% mercury removal. According to a linear relationship between the growth inhibition percentage and the initial mercury concentrations, the median effective concentration was calculated as 21.84 mg L−1 for PG02. Central composite design under response surface methodology well proposed a model with high values of R2 = 0.999 and adjusted R2 = 0.998 which predicted the maximum mercury removal of 89.47% by PG02 under optimum pH of 7.2, temperature of 37.5°C and the initial mercury concentration of 5 mg L−1.

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IntroductionTo supply quality services and healthcare, it is evident that medical ethics and patients’ rights, while providing medical and healthcare services need to be observed. This study was conducted to evaluate observance of the Patients’ Rights Charter among medical staff of educational hospitals affiliated to Mashhad University of Medical Sciences.MethodsThis cross-sectional study was conducted in four educational hospitals in Mashhad on eighty physicians, nurses, nurse aids and medical students. Data were collected using a two-part inventory of patients’ rights, including demographic data and inventory of patients’ rights observance. Data analysis was conducted using SPSS-16 as well as descriptive statistics, independent t-test, chi-square, Spearman correlation coefficient and Pearson correlation.ResultsMean age of subjects was 36.3±8.3. Observance of human rights was perfect by 84.4 percent of subjects. The highest amount of observance of patients’ rights was related to the area of respecting patients’ privacy and observing the principle of confidentiality, which was evaluated to be perfect by all subjects (100%). The lowest value of patients’ rights observance was related to presenting appropriate and adequate information for patients, which was perfect among 48.1% of subjects. There was no significant relation between personal details (age, gender, education and career) and observance of patients’ rights (p>0.05).ConclusionAlthough in this study, the observance of patients’ rights by medical staff is optimal in most areas, the area of providing appropriate and adequate information needs to be promoted. Therefore, it is suggested that more stringent regulatory policies be compiled and implemented to the items of Patients’ Rights Charter along with training courses, to strengthen medical staff’s awareness in this regard.

Keywords:back propagation neural network committee neural network fuzzy genetic algorithm reservoir properties Combining numerous appropriate experts can improve the generalization performance of the group when compared to a single network alone. There are different ways of combining the intelligent systems' outputs in the combiner in the committee neural network, such as simple averaging, gating network, stacking, support vector machine, and genetic algorithm. Premature convergence is a classical problem in finding optimal solution in genetic algorithms. In this paper, we propose a new technique for choosing the female chromosome during sexual selection to avoid the premature convergence in a genetic algorithm. A bi-linear allocation lifetime approach is used to label the chromosomes based on their fitness value, which will then be used to characterize the diversity of the population. The label of the selected male chromosome and the population diversity of the previous generation are then applied within a set of fuzzy rules to select a suitable female chromosome for recombination. Finally, we use fuzzy genetic algorithm methods for combining the output of experts to predict a reservoir parameter in petroleum industry. The results show that the proposed method (fuzzy genetic algorithm) gives the smallest error and highest correlation coefficient compared to five members and genetic algorithm and produces significant information on the reliability of the permeability predictions.