This study investigated whether trinitroglycerine (TNG) as nitric oxide (NO) releasing agent had anti-leishmanial effects and mediated pathology in BALB/c mice infected with Leishmania major. Cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL), a zoonotic infection caused by leishmania protozoa is still one of the health problems in the world and in Iran. NO is involved in host immune responses against intracellular L. major, and leishmania killing by macrophages is mediated by this substance. Moreover, application of CL treatment with NO-donors has been recently indicated. In our study, TNG was used for its ability to increase NO and to modify CL infection in mice, in order to evaluate NO effects on lesion size and formation, parasite proliferation inside macrophages, amastigote visceralization in target organs, and NO induction in plasma and organ suspensions. Data obtained in this study indicated that TNG increased plasma and liver-NO, reduced lesion sizes, removed amastigotes from lesions, livers, spleens, and lymph nodes, declined proliferation of amastigotes, hepatomegaly, and increased survival rate. However, TNG reduced spleen-NO and had no significant effects on spelenomegaly. The results show that TNG therapy reduced leishmaniasis and pathology in association with raised NO levels. TNG had some antiparasitic activity by reduction of positive smears from lesions, livers, spleens, and lymph nodes, which could emphasize the role of TNG to inhibit visceralization of L. major in target organs.
Animal Structures/parasitology ; Animals ; Antiprotozoal Agents/chemistry/*therapeutic use ; Female ; Leishmania major/*drug effects/immunology ; Leishmaniasis, Cutaneous ; Macrophages/parasitology ; Mice ; Mice, Inbred BALB C ; Nitric Oxide/blood/metabolism/*pharmacology ; Nitroglycerin/*analogs & derivatives/*therapeutic use ; Severity of Illness Index ; Skin/pathology ; Survival Analysis

OBJECTIVES: To compare narrative skills between fourth and fifth grades of Persian-speaking students with hearing impairments and typical hearing students of the same grade and also to evaluate the effects of group, sex, hearing age, and educational grade of the students on their spoken/written narrative performance. METHODS: The subjects were 174 students aged 10–13 years, 54 of whom wore cochlear implants, 60 suffered from moderate to severe hearing losses and wore hearing aids, with the remaining 60 students being typical hearing in terms of the sense of hearing. The micro- and macrostructure components of spoken and written narrative were elicited from a pictorial story (The Playful Little Elephant) and then scored by raters. RESULTS: Compared to the typical hearing, the students with hearing impairments had significantly lower scores in all of the microstructure components of narratives. However, the findings showed no significant difference among different groups in macrostructure components of narratives. It was also revealed that the students had equal performance in spoken and written narrative. Finally, factor analysis manifested that group, sex, hearing age, and educational level of children might alter the outcome measures in various interactions. CONCLUSION: Although cochlear implantation was more effective than hearing aid on spoken and written narrative skills, the Persian-speaking students with hearing impairments were seen to need additional trainings on microstructure components of spoken/written narrative.
Child ; Cochlear Implantation ; Cochlear Implants* ; Hearing Aids* ; Hearing Loss ; Hearing* ; Humans ; Narration ; Outcome Assessment (Health Care)

BACKGROUND: The increasing production of un-recycled waste is a great threat to public health. Therefore, assessment and measurement of people's beliefs and perceptions with regard to these threats can contribute to the development of suitable educational messages promoting waste separation behaviors. This study aimed to carry out the scale development and psychometric evaluation of behaviors and beliefs associated with waste separation among female students. METHOD: This methodological research was performed in 2019. The primary questionnaire was developed based on the assessment of waste separation beliefs and behaviors based on the extended parallel process model. Afterwards, to confirm the content and face validity of the research tool, the opinions of 14 faculty members and certain students were asked for, respectively. In order to assess the construct validity of the questionnaire, exploratory factor analysis was performed based on the data collected from 386 female students in Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Iran. The internal and external reliability of the tool was determined through estimating Cronbach's alpha and test-retest based on intraclass correlation (ICC) index, respectively. RESULTS: The mean age and academic semester of the students were 22 ± 1.9 years and 5.58 ± 2.6, respectively. The primary version of the questionnaire was designed with 65 items; one item was omitted during the content validity process. Construct validity with factor analysis technique yielded nine dimensions including 64 items with a factor loading above 0.3. The overall reliability of the research tool was confirmed at Cronbach's alpha of 0.87. Furthermore, the ICC of the entire questionnaire was 0.89. CONCLUSION According to the results of the study, the final 64-item questionnaire could be used by various researchers to assess waste separation beliefs and behaviors considering suitable psychometric features.
Female ; Humans ; Iran ; Medical Waste Disposal ; Psychometrics ; Students, Medical ; psychology ; Young Adult