Parkinson's Disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder assumed to involve different areas of CNS and PNS. Thus, Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) is used to examine the areas engaged in PD neurodegeneration. In the present study, we computed average tract length and fiber volume as a measure of white matter integrity and adopted Network Based Statistics (NBS) to conduct group analyses between age- and gender-matched PD patients and healthy control connectivity matrices. NBS is a powerful statistical tool that utilizes the presence of every link in connectivity matrices and controls family wise error rates (in weak sense). The major regions with significantly reduced interconnecting fiber volume or average tract length were cingulum, temporal lobe, frontal lobe, parahippocampus, hippocampus, olfactory lobe, and occipital lobe.

Introduction:Human T-cell lymphotropic virus (HTLV-I) is associated with adult T cell leukemia/lymphoma (ATL) and HTLV-I-associated myelopathy/tropical spastic paraparesis (HAM/TSP). The major routes of HTLV-I transmission are mother-to-child, sexual contact, and blood transfusion. Mashhad is one of the main endemic areas in the world for HTLV-I, and minimizing the risk of HTLV-I transmission through blood transfusion is one of the main duties of the Blood Transfusion Center in Mashhad. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of HTLV-I in the blood donor population in Mashhad during 2011-2013.Methods:All the blood donors in Mashhad from March 2011 to April 2013 who were diagnosed with HTLV-I on the ELISA screening test and the Western blot confirmatory test were included in this seroepidemiological study.Results:From 174,662 blood donors, 327 donors were confirmed to be infected with HTLV-I according to Western blot assay. The seropositive donors ranged in age from 17 to 59, and their mean age was 39.88±10.49 years. The overall prevalence rates of HTLV-I infection were calculated as 0.18% and 0.19%, respectively.Conclusion:Due to the lower frequency of infection in regular blood donors, younger individuals, and people with higher education levels, the selection of blood donors from these populations should be further considered.

Background and Objectives:Human T-cell lymphotropic virus type-I (HTLV-I) infection is considered as a public health challenge in endemic areas. The virus is associated with severe diseases, such as adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma, and HTLV-I-associated myelopathy/tropical spastic paraparesis. One of the major routes of the HTLV-I transmission includes blood transfusion. Sabzevar is located in the endemic region of HTLV-I infection. The aim of the present study was to determine the seroprevalence of HTLV-I infection in the blood donors in Sabzevar.Materials and Methods:A total of 35,067 blood donors in Sabzevar from March 2009 to April 2012 who were screened with HTLV-I on the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay screening test were included in this survey. Reactive samples that confirmed by western blot were considered to be seropositive cases. The required data were obtained from blood donors’ database of blood transfusion service.Results:The overall prevalence of HTLV-1 based on the positive result of western blot test was 0.14%. The seropositive donors aged 17–59 years with a mean age of 38.10 ± 11.82. The prevalence rates of HTLV-I infection in 3 years of study were 0.19%, 0.14%, and 0.09%, respectively. A significant relation between age, sex, educational level, and history of blood donation was observed with seropositivity of HTLV-I.Conclusion:The improvement of donor selection and laboratory screening caused a decline in the prevalence of infection in blood donors. Given the lower prevalence of infection in regular donors with lower age and higher educational level, more efforts should be done to attract blood donors from these populations.

One of the health needs of every society is the availability of blood and its products. Increasing development of medicine has resulted in increased medical interventions and surgeries. Therefore, the need for blood and its products has increased. This trend has led to worries of countries and challenges of blood transfusion centers to supply sufficient, safe blood. Voluntary blood donation is the main source of providing blood and its products, both of which are important to the health of patients who need blood. This brief paper deals with the importance of women's donations of blood.

Inventory managers in the blood supply chain always seek timely and proper response to their customers, which is essential because of the perishability and uncertainty of blood demand and the direct relationship of its presence or non-presence with human life. On the other hand, timely and regular delivery of blood to consumers is vital, as the weakness in delivery and transportation policies results in increased shortages, returns, blood loss and significant decrease in the quality of blood required by patients. Given the significance of this for the blood transfusion network, the paper tried to design a comprehensive and integrated optimal model of blood transfusion network logistics management by blood group to reduce the cost of losses, returns and blood shortages. This model is divided into two parts: Inventory management and routing. A combination of simulation techniques and neural network with several recurrent layers was used to evaluate the optimal inventory management and a multi-objective planning model was designed to determine the delivery and distribution of blood to consumers. The model designed was implemented in Khorasan Razavi Blood Transfusion Network with a main base, six central bases and 54 hospitals. Solving the model led to estimating the f consumer demand, the optimal value of target inventory and re-ordering point of central bases and hospitals, and blood distribution from the supplier to its consumers that decreased the units of blood returned to bases, increased inventory availability, and reduced costs significantly.