BACKGROUND The high incidence of age-related hearing loss demands accessible, low cost hearing screenings for prevention and hearing health promotion. This study assessed performance of self report (SR) against audiometry, and prevalence of hearing difficulty when screening hearing in middle-aged and younger adults, including smokers and nonsmokers. METHODS Prospective participants (N = 219) ...

Iran has suitable conditions for cultivating high-quality varieties of hazelnuts (Corylus avellana L.). Most of hazelnut orchards in Iran have been established by planting native genotypes. Aspergillus flavus Link. (AF) is a filamentous fungus affecting hazelnut kernels in orchards and during storage conditions. The most widely explored strategy for reducing aflatoxin contamin...

Abstract Generally all orogenic ultrapotassic rocks are formed after melting of metasomatized sub-continental lithospheric mantle via subducted crustal mica-bearing lithologies. Here we present another possible model, based on the study small Stomanovo monzonite porphyry intrusion in Central Rhodope Massif, Bulgaria. The dated at 30.50 ± 0.46 Ma is intruded into voluminous Oligocene (31.63 0.40...

In this paper, we present a texture classification method based on texton learned via sparse representation (SR) with new feature histogram maps in the classification of emphysema. First, an overcomplete dictionary of textons is learned via KSVD learning on every class image patches in the training dataset. In this stage, high-pass filter is introduced to exclude patches in smooth area to speed...

OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to noninvasively image the electrophysiological (EP) substrate of human ventricles after myocardial infarction and define its characteristics. BACKGROUND Ventricular infarct border zone is characterized by abnormal cellular electrophysiology and altered structural architecture and is a key contributor to arrhythmogenesis. The ability to noninvasively image...

An investigation was made to study the efficacy of dosage and time of administration in maternal vaccination. Mothers of nile tilapia were vaccinated by intraperitoneal injection with adjuvant-heat killed Streptococcus iniae at one and two weeks after spawning at the dosages of 0,2 ml/kg and 0,4 ml/kg body weight. Unvaccinated mothers were used as control. Agglutinating antibody titers in the b...

Mice deficient in scavenger receptor class B type I (SR-BI) and apolipoprotein E (apoE) [double knockout (DKO) mice] develop dyslipidemia, accelerated atherosclerosis, and myocardial infarction, and die prematurely. We examined effects of apoE and SR-BI deficiency on macrophage cholesterol homeostasis. DKO macrophages had increased total cholesterol (TC) stores (220-380 microg/mg protein) compa...