Prevalence rate of Cryptosporidium infection in hemodialysis patients in Iran

Cryptosporidium is one of the most common causes of diarrhea in the world, which can be severe and prolonged in immunocompromised patients. We compared the prevalence rate of Cryptosporidium infection in hemodialysis patients and 2 control groups (i.e., their healthy family members and normal population). Stool specimens of 104 adult outpatient chronic hemodialysis patients, their 91 healthy family members, and 140 healthy individuals were examined for the presence of Cryptosporidium oocysts by using a modified acid-fast staining method. Twelve (11.5%) dialysis patients were infected with Cryptosporidium. This was significantly higher than 4 (4.4%), and 5 (3.6%) cases in the 2 control groups, respectively (p < 0.05). There was no significant difference between the 2 control groups. The prevalence rate of Cryptosporidium infection did not correlate with patients' sex, age, duration of dialysis, history of kidney transplantation, or history of taking immunosuppressive drugs. However, it was significantly higher in diabetics vs. nondiabetics (19.4% vs. 8.3%, respectively, p < 0.05). Our results indicate that the prevalence rate of Cryptosporidium infection is considerably higher in dialysis patients than in the general population. Moreover, dialyzed diabetic patients had the highest rate of infection. As hemodialysis patients are candidates for renal transplantation, general preventive measures against acquiring Cryptosporidium infection must be considered.     

Chemical and electrochemical syntheses of a graphite fluoro-tris(pentafluoroethyl)borate intercalation compound

Graphite intercalation compounds (GICs) of composition C_x[FB(C₂F₅)₃] · δF are prepared for the first time by the intercalation of fluoro-tris(pentafluoroethyl)borate anion, [FB(C₂F₅)₃]⁻_, under ambient conditions in 48% hydrofluoric acid containing the oxidant K₂[MnF₆]. Powder XRD data indicate that products are of mixed stages 2 and 3 after reactions for 1-20 h, with a gallery height of 0.87 nm. The intercalate orientation is modeled using an energy-minimized anion structure. Microwave digestion followed by B and F elemental analyses, along with thermogravimetric analyses provide compositional x and δ parameters for the GICs obtained. In addition, C_x[FB(C₂F₅)₃] · δCH₃NO₂ with stage 2 is prepared by electrochemical oxidation of graphite in a nitromethane solution and characterized as above.     

Feasibility study of the application of solar heating systems in Iran

This study outlines the economic feasibility for utilization of solar heating systems for some buildings in the selected typical cities in different climatic regions of Iran. The feasibility of application of the solar heating systems has been determined by means of proper economic criteria and a life time of 25 years for capital investment. It has been found that utilization of such systems could be feasible in some of the regions for specific applications.     

Empirical solvent-mediated potentials hold for both intra-molecular and inter-molecular inter-residue interactions

Whether knowledge-based intra-molecular inter-residue potentials are valid to represent inter-molecular interactions taking place at protein-protein interfaces has been questioned in several studies. Differences in the chain connectivity effect and in residue packing geometry between interfaces and single chain monomers have been pointed out as possible sources of distinct energetics for the two cases. In the present study, the interfacial regions of protein-protein complexes are examined to extract inter-molecular inter-residue potentials, using the same statistical methods as those previously adopted for intra-molecular residue pairs. Two sets of energy parameters are derived, corresponding to solvent-mediation and "average residue" mediation. The former set is shown to be highly correlated (correlation coefficient 0.89) with that previously obtained for inter-residue interactions within single chain monomers, while the latter exhibits a weaker correlation (0.69) with its intra-molecular counterpart. In addition to the close similarity of intra- and inter-molecular solvent-mediated potentials, they are shown to be significantly more residue-specific and thereby discriminative compared to the residue-mediated ones, indicating that solvent-mediation plays a major role in controlling the effective inter-residue interactions, either at interfaces, or within single monomers. Based on this observation, a reduced set of energy parameters comprising 20 one-body and 3 two-body terms is proposed (as opposed to the 20 x 20 tables of inter-residue potentials), which reproduces the conventional 20 x 20 tables with a correlation coefficient of 0.99.     

Immobilization of invertase onto crosslinked poly(p‐chloromethylstyrene) beads

Invertase was immobilized onto poly(p‐chloromethylstyrene) (PCMS) beads that were produced by a suspension polymerization with an average size of 186 μm. The beads had a nonporous but reasonably rough surface. Because of this, a reasonably large external surface area (i.e., 14.1 m²/g) could be achieved with the proposed carrier. A two‐step functionalization protocol was followed for the covalent attachment of invertase onto the bead surface. For this purpose, a polymeric ligand that carried amine groups, polyethylenimine (PEI), was covalently attached onto the bead surface by a direct chemical reaction. Next, the free amine groups of PEI were activated by glutaraldehyde. Invertase was covalently attached onto the bead surface via the direct chemical reaction between aldehyde and amine groups. The appropriate enzyme binding conditions and the batch‐reactor performance of the immobilized enzyme system were investigated. Under optimum immobilization conditions, 19 mg of invertase was immobilized onto each gram of beads with 80% retained activity after immobilization. The effects of pH and temperature on the immobilized invertase activity were determined and compared with the free enzyme. The kinetic parameters K_M and V_M were determined with the Michealis–Menten model. K_M of immobilized invertase was 1.75 folds higher than that of the free invertase. The immobilization caused a significant improvement in the thermal stability of invertase, especially in the range of 55–65°C. No significant internal diffusion limitation was detected in the immobilized enzyme system, probably due to the surface morphology of the selected carrier. This result was confirmed by the determination of the activation energies of both free and immobilized invertases. The activity half‐life of the immobilized invertase was approximately 5 times longer than that of the free enzyme. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 83: 1268–1279, 2002     

Critical properties and acentric factors of ionic liquids

Since most ionic liquids (ILs) decompose before reaching their critical state, the experimental measurement of their critical properties are not possible. In this study, the critical temperatures, critical pressures and acentric factors of ten commonly investigated ILs were determined by making an optimum fit of the calculated vapor-liquid equilibrium data of binary mixtures of CO₂+IL to the experimental values found in literature. For this purpose, the Peng-Robinson equation of state (PR EoS) and the differential evolution optimization method were used. The ILs considered were 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate ([emim][PF₆]), 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl) imide ([emim][Tf₂N]), 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate ([bmim][BF₄]), 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate ([bmim][PF₆]), 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl) imide ([bmim][Tf₂N]), 1-hexyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate ([hmim][BF₄]), 1-hexyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate ([hmim][PF₆]), 1-hexyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl) imide ([hmim][Tf₂N]), 1-octyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate ([omim][BF₄]) and 1-octyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate ([omim][PF₆]). To evaluate the ability of the determined parameters in predicting the phase behavior of systems other than the systems that were used for parameter optimization, both sets of parameters obtained in this work and that of Valderrama et al. were used to predict bubble-point pressures of CHF₃+[bmim][PF₆] (by using the PR EoS and the Soave-Redlich-Kwong equation of state. The bubble-point pressures of CO₂+IL systems optimized in this study by the PR EoS were also determined using the Soave-Redlich-Kwong equation of state (SRK EoS). In addition, liquid densities of pure ILs were predicted using a generalized correlation proposed by Valderrama and Abu-Shark. In all cases, the various predicted properties of these ten ILs, were in better agreement with the experimental data, using the critical properties and acentric factor obtained in this study, compared to the values suggested by Valderrama et al.     

Transfer matrix approach to earthquake amplification through layered soils

In this paper, the system transfer matrix for layered soil is obtained as the continued product of the transfer matrices for each individual layer. To determine the transfer function for the medium, the Laplace transformation is used to suppress the time variable in the governing equation, and the fact that the continuity of the shearing stress and the displacement (or equivalently of their transforms) must be maintained across each interface, naturally suggests their choice as the components of a state vector. After the problem has been recast into a transfer matrix setting, the continuity of the state vector is automatically assured by continued matrix multiplication.The transfer matrix for a single soil layer is considered first, for which the complex amplification is obtained. The influence of various levels of damping on the amplification is discussed, and it is shown that the response to a harmonic input is easily determined since the complex amplification is precisely the frequency response function. The multilayered medium is considered next, and it is shown that the amplification term is found through the multiplication of layer transfer matrices. Time response can then be obtained by means of a Fourier inversion which is easily accomplished through a fast Fourier transform algorithm. Finally, the problem of a soil layer on semi-infinite rock is considered in the absence of damping. Since the solution of this problem can be readily obtained in closed form, its discussion and interpretation are relatively simple. The fact that the transmission and reflection of waves at the soil-rock interface does not occur is analytically demonstrated, and explained on physical grounds.