Journals
2019 EN
Mortaza TaheriAnganeh · Seyyed Hossein Khatami · Zeinab Jamali
+3 more
An elevated cholesterol level might lead to cardiovascular disease (CVD). Statins block the cholesterol synthesis pathway in the liver. Atorvastatin is the most widespread statin worldwide and, its chemical synthesis requires toxic catalysts, resulting in environmental pollution. Hence, enzymatic synthesis of atorvastatin is desirable. This process could be done by Lactobacillus kefir alcohol dehydrogenase (LKADH). Therefore, recombinant enzyme secretion by Escherichia coli using signal peptides (SPs) might result in easy production and purification. To achieve this objective, we used some online bioinformatics web servers to evaluate the suitable SPs for translocation of LKADH into extracellular spaces. "Signal Peptide Website" and "UniProt" were utilized to retrieve the SPs and LKADH sequences. "SignalP 4.1" was used to determine SPs and their cleavage site location and the results were rechecked by "Philius". Physicochemical features of SPs were evaluated by "ProtParam", then solubility of their fusion with LKADH was assessed by "Protein-sol". Finally, secretion pathway and sub-cellular localization of the selected stable and soluble LKADH fusions were predicted by "PRED-TAT" and "ProtCompB". Amongst the 41 evaluated SPs, only LPTA_ECOLI, SUBF_BACSU, CHIS_BACSU, SACB_BACAM, CDGT_BACST and AMY_BACLI could translocate LKADH out of cytoplasm. The six selected SPs in the result section were suitable to design a soluble secretory LKADH that accelerate its scale-up production and might be useful in future experimental researches.
Journals
2019 EN
Mortaza Taheri-Anganeh · Seyyed Hossein Khatami · Zeinab Jamali
+4 more
Methicillin-resistant (MRSA) is a challenging infectious agent worldwide. The ever growing antibiotic resistance has made the researchers to look for new anti-staphylococcal agents. Autolysins are staphylococcal enzymes that lyse bacterial cell wall for cell division. Autolysins can be used as novel enzybiotics (enzymes have antibiotic effects) for staphylococcal infections. LytU is a newly explored autolysin. SH3b is a potent cell wall binding domain that can be fused to lytic enzymes to increase their activity. The aim of this study was to design a novel and efficient fusion enzybiotic that could lyse staphylococcal cell wall peptidoglycan by disrupting the bacteria. LytU-SH3b fusion construct was synthesized and LytU was amplified through the construct, using overhang PCR. The fusion and native forms that had his-tag were synthesized by recombinant technology in BL21 (DE3) strain and purified utilizing Ni-NTA agarose beads. LytU and LytU-SH3b activity and potency were assessed using plate lysis assay, turbidity reduction assay and minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) tests. All these tests showed that LytU-SH3b has more activity and potency than LytU. LytU-SH3b has MIC 421 fold lesser than LytU. Finally, LytU-SH3b is a novel and efficient recombinant enzybiotic that can lyse MRSA as an alternative to chemical small molecule antibiotics.
Resource
2019 EN
Marzieh Amiriyan · Abdolali Shojaeiyan · Abbas Yadollahi
+2 more
Fenugreek is one of the important edible and medicinal vegetables that have a long history of cultivation and consumption. Characterize the extent of the genetic diversity among landraces will provide a good context for future breeding programs and genetic resource preservation. Genetic diversity and population structure of 88 individuals of eight landraces of Iranian fenugreek evaluated based on SRAP markers. Seventy-two bands generated from 6 primers in which 56 (80.11%) band were polymorph. Hamadan landrace showed the lowest values of percentage of polymorphic loci (67.86), Nei's gene diversity index (0.24), number of effective alleles (1.40) and Shannon’s Information index (0.36). Nei’s genetic distance matrix revealed the highest genetic distance between Hamadan and Yazd (0.203) and the highest genetic similarity between Mahallat and Varamin (0.036) landraces. The most gene flow was between Mahallat and Varamin landraces (Nm=8.36) and the least was between Shiraz and Hamadan landraces (Nm=0.66). An extent admixture of alleles between the Iranian fenugreek landraces was observed by the population structure. Mantel test indicated that the genetic differentiation and gene flow is not associated with geographic distance in Iranian fenugreek landraces. Our observations indicated SRAP is an efficient technique to reveal genetic diversity and population structure of Iranian fenugreek landrace.
Journals
2019 EN
Zeinab M. Omar · Mohammed Tahseen Alagha · Tawfig Abas
+1 more
Recently, voice becomes one of the methods commonly used to control the electronic appliances, because of easily being reproduced by human compared to other efforts needed to operate to control some other appliances. There are many places which are hard or dangerous to approach by human and there are many people with disabilities do not have the dexterity necessary to control a keypad or a joystick on electrical devices. The aim of this study is to build a mobile robotic system, which can be controlled by analyzing the human voice commands. The robot will identify the voice commands and take action based on received signal. In general, the robotic system consists of the voice recognition module (AD-VR3) which serves as the ear that will listen and interpret the voice command, while the Arduino serve as the brain of the system that will process and coordinate the correct output of the input command to control the robot motors to perform the action. Keywords— Arduino, robot; voice recognition, brain, disabilities, joystick.
Journals
2019 EN
Zeinab Atif Ahmed Osman · Sara Elsadig Babiker · Nihad Elsadig Babiker
Contraceptives are intentional prevention of conception through the use of various devices sexual practices, chemicals, drugs or surgical procedures become a contraceptive if its purpose is to prevent a woman from becoming pregnant. This is a cross sectional study conducted at ALnow Hospital Khartoum, Sudan, the study aimed to estimate D.dimer levels among Sudanese women take contraceptive pill. 50 Women uses contraceptive pill used as a cases and 50 apparently health women were used as a control. Three ml of venous blood samples were collected from each subject in 3.8% tri-sodium citrate (9:1 vol/vol) for D-dimer analysis. The study revealed that was clearly significant increase in D.dimer in women take oral contraceptive pill (p.value 0.000), also the study concluded that D-dimer level was increased in users oral contraceptive Sudanese women, that is increase the coagubility of the blood and might be become as a risk factor.
Society of Pharmaceutical Tecnocrats
Journals
2019 EN
zeinab Niknejat · Majid Movahed
Jihad is a central but variable concept in the Islamic fundamentalism discourse. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) as the latest product of this discourse defined media jihad as an important aspect of this obligation by conceptual and exemplary development of jihad. In this research, by applying social semiotics method, a semiotic analysis of media jihad was conducted by emphasizing their photographic activities on some published photos of ISIS and also efforts were made to discover the intrinsic meaning of ISIS on this concept. By committing themselves to social semiotics presumptions, the authors tried to explore underlying layers of photos and reveal the social and cultural contexts, as well as power relations as the background of this semiotics. In this study, some codes such as companionship of ISIS soldiers with visual and media tools, companionship of media and visual tools with military and violent weapons and active participation of women in the jihad media, which consists of a system of signs were analyzed and such analyses were discussed in social and cultural contexts such as power, dual space, and switch from writing to image. Finally, the meaning that is generally understood of media jihad was quite different from what exists in Islam about jihad.
Journals
2019 EN
Mandana Khodashahi · Nayyereh Saadati · Zahra Rezaieyazdi
+2 more
Background and Aims: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is the most common chronic inflammatory disease of the joints. To the best of our knowledge, inflammation is considered as the main stimulant of platelets, and there is an association between the mean platelet volume (MPV) and platelet reactivity. Increased platelet counts may be observed during the clinical active stages of RA patients and reduce in the remission period. The present study investigated the role of platelet indices in RA and its relationship with disease activity. Materials and Methods: This was an observational cross-sectional study, which was performed on 105 patients with RA and 35 participants as control group referred to Ghaem hospital of Mashhad in 2017. The participants were divided into 4 groups, including 1) the patients with newly diagnosed RA, 2) the patients with active RA, 3) the patients in remission, and 4) the controls. After completing the interview and questionnaire, 10 cc blood samples were obtained from all the subjects. The platelet number (PLT) and mean platelet volume (MPV) was measured. Results:The mean age of the participants was 49.06±11.08 years. MPV was higher in patients with RA than healthy control group (p
Journals
2019 EN
Zeinab Rashed · Sameh E. Ahmed · Abdelraheem M. Aly
The present numerical investigation aims to analysis the enhancement heat transfer in the nanofluid filled-complex geometries saturated with a partially layered porous medium. The vertical walls of the cavity are taken as complex wavy geometries. The horizontal walls of the cavity are flat with insulated temperature. The complex wavy cavity is filled with a nanofluid and the upper half of the wavy cavity is saturated with the porous medium. In the analysis, the governing equations are formulated for natural convection under the Boussinesq approximation in various environments including pure-fluid, nanofluid, and porous medium. In this investigation, the effects of the Rayleigh number (103≤Ra≤105), Darcy parameter (10−6≤ Da ≤10−3), thermophoresis parameter (0.1≤ Nt ≤0.5), nanofluid buoyancy ratio (0.1≤ Nr ≤0.5), Brownian motion parameter (0.1≤Nb≤0.5), inclination angle (0°≤ γ ≤90°), and geometry parameters α1 and R have been studied on the streamlines, temperature, nanoparticles volume fraction, local Nusselt number Nu and the local Sherwood number Sh. It is found that, the performance of the heat transfer can be improved by adjusting the geometry parameters of the wavy surface. Overall, the results showed that the nanofluid parameters enhance the convection heat transfer and the obtained results provide a useful insight for enhancing heat transfer in two separate layers of nanofluid and porous medium inside complex-wavy cavity.
Vinča Institute of Nuclear Sciences
Journals
2019 EN
Zeinab Hazbavi · Seyed Hamidreza Sadeghi · Mehdi Gholamalifard
Accelerated soil erosion is one of the most important detrimental factors affecting the quality of the watershed health. Due to different environmental pressures and drivers, the effort is needed for ecological health and resilience assessment in regards to erosion changeability. However, this important subject has not been adequately studied yet. Towards this, in the present research, an innovative approach was developed for conceptualizing the watershed health dynamics in viewpoint of soil erosion. A risk-based study was conducted to quantitatively characterize the spatiotemporal variability of erosion-based health in an industrialized watershed i.e., the Shazand Watershed using the conceptual reliability, resilience and vulnerability (RelResVul) framework for four node years of 1986, 1998, 2008 and 2014. To this end, the soil erosion was estimated at monthly scale in 24 sub-watersheds by applying the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE). The RelResVul indicators were then computed according to the threshold defined for the study watershed. A geometric mean was used to combine the three risk indicators and the erosion-based watershed health index was ultimately calculated for each study sub-watershed. Additionally, the change detection analysis was conducted over the years of 1986 to 2014. According to the results of erosion-based the RelResVul indices, very healthy, healthy, moderately healthy, unhealthy and very un-healthy conditions in the Shazand Watershed were respectively distributed over some 67, 25, zero, zero and eight percent for 1986; 50, 13, eight, zero and 29 % for 1998; 71, eight, 83, zero, zero and eight percent for 2008 and finally 71, zero, 17, zero and 12 % for 2014. The results of change detection revealed an oscillating trend of erosion-based watershed health index during the whole study period (1986 -2014). So that, during periods of 1986-1998, 1986-2008 and 1986-2014, the watershed health decreased at tune of 23, 13 and six percent, respectively. Whilst, the watershed health improved during study periods of 1998-2008 (13 %), 2008-2014 (eight percent) and 1998-2014 (22 %). The results also identified ‘hot spots’ of the most important index of land degradation and ‘bright spots’ of land improvement in the Shazand Watershed.The proposed approach would provide a sustainable framework supporting decision makers to comprehend health-related soil erosion targets according to the integrated watershed management plans.
Journals
2019 EN
Hani Albasoos · Zeinab Mohammed Ali · Asila S Al Hasni
+1 more
Relations between the Sultanate of Oman and the Islamic Republic of Iran extend back to the ancient civilisations that inhabited both regions. At first, trade was the only connection between the two countries. This later evolved into the Persian occupation of Oman which ended in the first century BC after the battle of Saloot. However, these ancient relations are irrelevant to this paper which seeks to examine the nature of the relations between the two states in current times. Oman recognizes Iran as an ancient civilization, not just a new or modernized state. Oman does not ignore the role of Iran in the region and gives it its deserved attention. This is because Oman understands Iran’s significant contemporary and historical position in the Middle East.It is undoubted that Omani influence reached the Iranian territories through the message of Islam. This was the result of Omani merchants and travelers who sailed through the golden strait (Hormuz) to the Iranian border. Moreover, some Persian and Arab tribes settled in the north cost of Oman and lived peacefully together till the modern days. Oman-Iran’s relationship is based on reciprocal respect and not interfering in the internal affairs of both states. The security and logistic cooperation between the two states was very strong in the 1970s and reached its peak in 1977, when the Shah of Iran visited Oman. In the 1970s, Oman signed several agreements, many of which were with Iran, to secure itself from communist threats.