Sharif Digital Repository

Bayesian regularised genetic neural network (BRGNN) has been used for modelling the inhibition activity of 141 biphenylalanine derivatives as integrin antagonists. Three local pattern search (PS) methods, simulated annealing and threshold acceptance were combined with BRGNN in the form of a hybrid genetic algorithm (HGA). The results obtained revealed that PS is a suitable method for improving the ability of BRGNN to break out from the local minima. The proposed HGA technique is able to retrieve important variables from complex systems and nonlinear search spaces for optimisation. Two models with 8-3-1 artificial neural network (ANN) architectures were developed for describingα 4β 7 and α 4β... 

The objective of this study was to propose a new analytical model for studying response of head impacts. Head is modeled by fluidfilled ellipsoidal shell of inconstant thickness impacted by a solid elastic sphere. Modeling the head as an ellipsoid is more realistic than modeling it as a sphere, the previous model existing in the literature [3]-[8]. In this model, the effect of Hertzian contact stiffness and local shell stiffness are combined to derive explicit equations for impact duration, the peak force transmitted to head, and the head injury criterion. One of the advantages of the model presented is sensitivity to the site of impact. A comparison between the present analytical results... 

In this paper the two-point boundary value problem (BVP) of the cantilever deflection at nano-scale separations subjected to van der Waals and electrostatic forces is investigated using analytical and numerical methods to obtain the instability point of the beam. In the analytical treatment of the BVP, the nonlinear differential equation of the model is transformed into the integral form by using the Green's function of the cantilever beam. Then, closed-form solutions are obtained by assuming an appropriate shape function for the beam deflection to evaluate the integrals. In the numerical method, the BVP is solved with the MATLAB BVP solver, which implements a collocation method for... 

Blood oxygenation is the main performance characteristic of capillary membrane oxygenators (CMOs). Handling of natural blood in in vitro investigations of CMOs is quite complex and time-consuming. Since the conventional blood analog fluids (e.g. water/glycerol) lack a substance with an affinity to capture oxygen comparable to hemoglobin's affinity, in this study a novel approach using modified sulfite solution is proposed to address this challenge. The solution comprises sodium sulfite as a component, simulating the role of hemoglobin in blood oxygenation. This approach is validated by OTR (oxygen transfer rate) measured using native porcine blood, in two types of commercially available... 

Background: Cancer is the first cause of death in developed countries. The heterogeneous nature of cancer requires patient-specified treatment plans. One reliable approach is collecting Circulating Tumour Cells (CTCs) and using them for prognosis and drug response assessment purposes. CTCs are rare and their separation from normal cell requires high-accuracy methods. Methods: A microfluidic cell capture device to separate CTCs from peripheral blood is presented in this study. The CTC separation device applies hydrodynamic forces to categorize cells according to their sizes. The proposed device is designed and evaluated by numerical simulations and validated experimentally. The simulation... 

STUDY DESIGN. Cultural translation and psychometric testing. OBJECTIVE. To translate and validate the Iranian versions of the Neck Disability Index (NDI-IR) and the Neck Pain and Disability Scale (NPDS-IR). SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA. The widely used the NDI and the NPDS scales have not been translated and validated for Persian-speaking patients with neck pain. This was to provide a validated instrument to measure functional status in patients with neck pain in Iran. METHODS. The translation and cultural adaptation of the original questionnaires were carried out in accordance with the published guidelines. One hundred and eighty-five patients with neck pain were participated in the study.... 

Muscle fatigue affects the underlying EMG-force relationship on which EMG-assisted biomechanical models rely. The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of short duration muscle fatigue on the muscle gain value. Participants performed controlled, isometric trunk extension exertions at 10, 20, and 30 degrees of trunk flexion and controlled isokinetic trunk extension exertions at 5 and 15°/sec on five separate days. Fatigue of the lumbar extensors was generated by moderate-intensity, trunk extension exertions. Participants performed controlled test contractions at defined intervals throughout the fatiguing bout and the EMG activities of trunk muscles were collected. These EMG data were... 

Background: Cardiotocography (CTG) is the most widely used tool for fetal surveillance. The visual analysis of fetal heart rate (FHR) traces largely depends on the expertise and experience of the clinician involved. Several approaches have been proposed for the effective interpretation of FHR. In this paper, a new approach for FHR feature extraction based on empirical mode decomposition (EMD) is proposed, which was used along with support vector machine (SVM) for the classification of FHR recordings as 'normal' or 'at risk'.Methods: The FHR were recorded from 15 subjects at a sampling rate of 4 Hz and a dataset consisting of 90 randomly selected records of 20 minutes duration was formed from... 

The aims of this study were to culturally adapt and validate the Persian version of Foot and Ankle Outcome Score (FAOS) and present data on its psychometric properties for patients with different foot and ankle problems. The Persian version of FAOS was developed after a standard forward-backward translation and cultural adaptation process. The sample included 93 patients with foot and ankle disorders who were asked to complete two questionnaires: FAOS and Short-Form 36 Health Survey (SF-36). To determine test-retest reliability, 60 randomly chosen patients completed the FAOS again 2 to 6 days after the first administration. Test-retest reliability and internal consistency were assessed using... 

The dummies currently used for predicting vehicle occupant response during frontal crashes or whole-body vibration provide insufficient information about spinal loads. Although they aptly approximate upper-body rotations in different loading scenarios, they overlook spinal loads, which are crucial to injury assessment. This paper aims to develop a modified dummy finite element (FE) model with a detailed viscoelastic lumbar spine. This model has been developed and validated against in-vitro and in-silico data under different loading conditions, and its predicted ranges of motion (RoM) and intradiscal pressure (IDP) maintain close correspondence with the in-vitro data. The dominant frequency... 

Cultural adaptation and validation of the Persian version of the Arthritis Measurement Scales 2-Short Form (AIMS2-SF). The translation and cultural adaptation of the original questionnaire was carried out in accordance with published guidelines. Three hundred and fifty consecutive Persian-speaking patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) were asked to complete the AIMS2-SF, the Short Form Health Survey (SF-36), and four visual analog scales (VAS) for pain, joint stiffness, and patient's and physician's global assessment to test convergent validity. In addition, 90 randomly selected patients were asked to complete the questionnaire 48 h later for the second time. Moderate to high correlation... 

Background: The development of endoscopic sinus surgery (ESS) training simulators for clinical environment applications has reduced the existing shortcomings in conventional teaching methods, creating a standard environment for trainers and trainees in a more accurate and repeatable fashion. Materials and methods: In this research, the validation study of an ESS training simulator has been addressed. It is important to consider components that guide trainees to improve their hand movements control in the orbital floor removal in an ESS operation. Therefore, we defined three tasks to perform: pre-experiment learning, training, and evaluation. In these tasks, the critical regions introduced in... 

Biomechanical modeling approaches require body posture to evaluate the risk of spine injury during manual material handling. The procedure to measure body posture via motion-analysis techniques as well as the subsequent calculations of lumbosacral moments and spine loads by, respectively, inverse-dynamic and musculoskeletal models are complex and time-consuming. We aim to develop easy-to-use yet accurate artificial neural networks (ANNs) that predict 3D whole-body posture (ANNposture), segmental orientations (ANNangle), and lumbosacral moments (ANNmoment) based on our measurements during load-handling activities. Fifteen individuals each performed 135 load-handling activities by reaching (0... 

The present study aims to investigate the impact of nanoparticle migration due to Brownian motion and thermophoresis on Ag-MgO/Water hybrid nanofluid natural convection. An enclosure with sinusoidal wavy walls is considered for this investigation; right and cold walls of this enclosure are in constant temperature while the upper and bottom walls are insulated. This simulation follows Buongiorno's mathematical model; Brownian and thermophoresis diffusion of Ag occurs in MgO-Water nanofluid while the diffusion of MgO happens in Ag-water nanofluid. The result indicates that Nu number increments up to 11% by increasing thermophoresis diffusion for both nanoparticles. Also, increasing Brownian... 

Background: One of the most widely used evaluation methods in miRNA experiments is qRT-PCR. However, selecting suitable internal controls (IC) is crucial for qRT-PCR experiments. Currently, there is no consensus on the ICs for miRNA qRT-PCR experiments in breast cancer. To this end, we tried to identify the most stable (the least expression alteration) and promising miRNAs in normal and tumor breast tissues by employing TCGA miRNA-Seq data and then experimentally validated them on fresh clinical samples. Methods: A multi-component scoring system was used which takes into account multiple expression stability criteria as well as correlation with clinical characteristics. Furthermore, we... 

Isolation and characterization of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) found in blood samples of cancer patients have been considered as a reliable source for cancer prognosis and diagnosis. A new continuous microfluidic platform has been designed in this investigation for simultaneous capture and characterization of CTCs based on their deformability. The deformability-based chip (D-Chip) consists of two sections of separation and characterization where slanted weirs with a gap of 7 μm were considered. Although sometimes CTCs and leukocytes have the same size, the deformability differs in such a way that can be exploited for enrichment purposes. MCF7 and MDA-MB-231 cell lines were used for the... 

Objectives. Stressors have a serious role in precipitating mental and somatic disorders and are an interesting subject for many clinical and community-based studies. Hence, the proper and accurate measurement of them is very important. We revised the stressful life event (SLE) questionnaire by adding weights to the events in order to measure and determine a cut point. Methods. A total of 4569 adults aged between 18 and 85 years completed the SLE questionnaire and the general health questionnaire-12 (GHQ-12). A hybrid model of genetic algorithm (GA) and artificial neural networks (ANNs) was applied to extract the relation between the stressful life events (evaluated by a 6-point Likert scale)... 

In the present work, the roles of inorganic oxide nanoparticles on the extraction efficiency of polyethylene terephthalate-based nanocomposites were extensively studied. Four fiber coatings based on polyethylene terephthalate nanocomposites containing different types of nanoparticles along with a pristine polyethylene terephthalate polymer were conveniently electrospun on stainless steel wires. The applicability of new fiber coatings were examined by headspace-solid phase microextraction of some environmentally important volatile organic compound such as benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene (BTEX), as model compounds, from aqueous samples. Subsequently, the extracted analytes were... 

Goal: Continuous blood pressure (BP) monitoring can provide invaluable information about individuals' health conditions. However, BP is conventionally measured using inconvenient cuff-based instruments, which prevents continuous BP monitoring. This paper presents an efficient algorithm, based on the pulse arrival time (PAT), for the continuous and cuffless estimation of the systolic BP, diastolic blood pressure (DBP), and mean arterial pressure (MAP) values. Methods: The proposed framework estimates the BP values through processing vital signals and extracting two types of features, which are based on either physiological parameters or whole-based representation of vital signals. Finally,... 

Background. The Arthritis Impact Measurement Scales 2 (AIMS2) has not been translated and validated for Persian-speaking patients with osteoarthritis of the knee. This was to provide a validated instrument to measure functional disability and health-related quality of life in patients with osteoarthritis of the knee in Iran. The aim of this study was to culturally adapt and validate the AIMS2 for Persian-speaking patients with osteoarthritis of the knee in Iran. Methods. A consecutive sample of patients with knee osteoarthritis were asked to complete the AIMS2, the Short Form Health Survey (SF-36) and four visual analog scales for pain, joint stiffness, patient's and physician's global...