Ancient Migratory Events in the Middle East: New Clues from the Y-Chromosome Variation of Modern Iranians

Knowledge of high resolution Y-chromosome haplogroup diversification within Iran provides important geographic context regarding the spread and compartmentalization of male lineages in the Middle East and southwestern Asia. At present, the Iranian population is characterized by an extraordinary mix of different ethnic groups speaking a variety of Indo-Iranian, Semitic and Turkic languages. Despite these features, only few studies have investigated the multiethnic components of the Iranian gene pool. In this survey 938 Iranian male DNAs belonging to 15 ethnic groups from 14 Iranian provinces were analyzed for 84 Y-chromosome biallelic markers and 10 STRs. The results show an autochthonous but non-homogeneous ancient background mainly composed by J2a sub-clades with different external contributions. The phylogeography of the main haplogroups allowed identifying post-glacial and Neolithic expansions toward western Eurasia but also recent movements towards the Iranian region from western Eurasia (R1b-L23), Central Asia (Q-M25), Asia Minor (J2a-M92) and southern Mesopotamia (J1-Page08). In spite of the presence of important geographic barriers (Zagros and Alborz mountain ranges, and the Dasht-e Kavir and Dash-e Lut deserts) which may have limited gene flow, AMOVA analysis revealed that language, in addition to geography, has played an important role in shaping the nowadays Iranian gene pool. Overall, this study provides a portrait of the Y-chromosomal variation in Iran, useful for depicting a more comprehensive history of the peoples of this area as well as for reconstructing ancient migration routes. In addition, our results evidence the important role of the Iranian plateau as source and recipient of gene flow between culturally and genetically distinct population

Air quality data series estimation based on machine learning approaches for urban environments

Air pollution is one of the main environmental problems in residential areas. In many cases, the effects of air pollution on human health can be prevented by forecasting the air quality in the next day. In order to predict the 1 day in advance air quality index (AQI) of Orumiyeh city, the hybrid single decomposition (HSD) and hybrid two-phase decomposition (HTPD) models were used. In the first step, the AQI data were decomposed by complementary ensemble empirical mode decomposition with adaptive noise (CEEMDAN) and was hybridized with general regression neural network (GRNN) and extreme learning machine (ELM) as HSD models. In the second step, using variational mode decomposition (VMD) technique the results of the first intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) of CEEMDAN model were decomposed into nine VMs and were predicted by GRNN and ELM models to obtain IMF1. Finally, in the third step, GRNN and ELM were used again to predict the IMFS as HTPD models. Results showed that in predicting AQI series data by HSD models both CEEMDAN-ELM and CEEMDAN-GRNN models were similarly accurate. Among all the models used, the accuracy of CEEMDAN-VMD-GRNN as the HTPD model was the highest in the training phase (R2 = 0.98, RMSE = 4.13 and MAE = 2.99) and in the testing phase (R2 = 0.74, RMSE = 5.45 and MAE = 3.87). It can be concluded that HTPD models have more accurate results to predict AQI data compared with HSD models. © 2020, Springer Nature B.V

Citation and quantitative analysis for articles of scientific- research journal of “SALAMAT KAR- E- IRAN”, Tehran University of Medical Sciences

Background and aimsNowadays study on journals is a common work. Thus, for the first time scientific- research journal of “SALAMAT KAR- E- IRAN” has considered to be study.MethodsImportant qualitative indices in studying articles were selected at first (such as distribution of study type, number of studies and balance between subjects), then based on original documents of all volumes, they were analyzed (by Microsoft Excel 2010 software) and results were calculated via descriptive statistics methods. ResultsResults from survey and evaluation of 12 published volumes (106 articles) showed that the majority of articles were about ergonomics and safety issues. However, in some other subjects there was no article at all. Majority of them have cited the English references. Consensus was a method that has used more than the other sampling methods. Research articles conducted by Male authors were five times more than articles written by females and; Total team corporation coefficient was calculated to be 0.62. Conclusion it was concluded that there was no proper distribution between subjects of articles. English references have cited more than Persian references because of a lack in Persian references or infirmity of a comprehensive indexing system. Considering the methodological point of view the majority of studies were of observational. However, interventional and high level studies can be performed in this field, conditions and facilities must be provided in order to achieve a higher quality and quantity of studies

Comparison of impacts of friction massage, stretching exercises and analgesics on pain relief in primary fibromyalgia syndrome: a randomized clinical trial

Background: Stretching exercises and massage therapy are both suggested for pain relief in fibromyalgia syndrome. Previous studies have not proved their superiority over each other. This study compared the therapeutic effects of friction massage, stretching exercises, and analgesics on pain relief in patients with fibromyalgia syndrome.Methods: We evaluated 129 female patients with the diagnosis of primary fibromyalgia visited at the physical medicine clinics of Baqiyatallah Hospital in Tehran, Iran during 2010- 2011. Patients were randomly divided into three groups: the first group received 400 mg ibuprofen P.O. (3 times per day) and 25 mg nortriptyline (daily) P.O. as analgesic, the second group was treated by friction massage and the third group performed stretching exercises. Patients were assessed three times (initially, after one and four weeks) by visual analogue scale (VAS).Results: The mean age of participants was 60.46 years. The mean age in each treatment group was 46.66 years in medication group, 46.73 years in stretching group and 46.65 years in friction massage group. Changes in VAS score over 4 weeks were 2.4, 3.1 and 1.9, in the first, second, and third groups, respectively. The changes in VAS were significantly different in the first and second groups rather than the controls (P<0.05).Conclusion: The effect of stretch exercise on pain relief was similar to analgesics, but it was more effective than friction massage. Moreover, the therapeutic effect of stretching exercise on pain relief upon four weeks was more permanent than friction massage but it was similar to analgesics

Development of the models to estimate particulate matter from thermal infrared band of Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper

Particulate matter concentration and assess- ment of its movement pattern is crucial in air pollution studies. However, no study has been conducted to deter- mine the PM 10concentration using atmospheric correction of thermal band by temperature of nearest dark pixels group (TNDPG) of this band. For that purpose, 16 Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper plus ETM+ images for San- andaj and Tehran in Iran were utilized to determine the amount of PM 10 concentration in the air. Thermal infrared (band 6) of all images was also used to determine the ground station temperature (GST b6) and temperature of nearest dark pixels group. Based on atmospheric correction of images using temperature retrieval from Landsat ETM+ , three empirical models were established. Non- linear correlation coefficient with polynomial equation was used to analyze the correlations between particulate matter concentration and the ground station temperature for the three models. Similar analyses were also undertaken for three stations in Klang Valley, Malaysia, using 11 Landsat ETM+ images to show the effectiveness of the model in different region. The data analysis indicated a good cor- relation coefficient R = 0.89 and R = 0.91 between the trend of the result of temperature of nearest dark pixels group b6 - (GST b6 - GST) model and the trend of PM 10 concentration in Iran and Malaysia, respectively. This study reveals the applicability of the thermal band of Landsat TM and ETM+ to determine the PM 10 concentration over large areas

High-resolution melting curve analysis: a novel method for identification of Mycoplasma species isolated from clinical cases of bovine and porcine respiratory disease

Mycoplasma species cause wide ranges of infectious diseases in human and animals. The aim of the present study was to evaluate a real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) followed by a high-resolution melting curve assay (HRM) for rapid differentiation of Mycoplasma species isolated from clinical cases of bovine and porcine respiratory disease. Lung samples from suspected cases to respiratory infections from cows and pigs were cultured on specific media, and the extracted DNA were tested by conventional polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assays for Mycoplasma. A set of universal primers specific for the 16S ribosomal RNA gene was designed and used for RT-PCR and HRM. The HRM analysis was able to differentiate between five different species of Mycoplasmas, namely, M. hyopneumoniae, M. bovis, M. hyorhinis, M. hyosynoviae and other uncultured Mycoplasma. All results were confirmed based on 16S rRNA gene sequencing. This rapid and reliable assay was as a simple alternative to PCR and sequencing, differentiating bovine and porcine mycoplasmas in species level.Ania Ahani Azari, Reza Amanollahi, Razi Jafari Jozani, Darren J. Trott, Farhid Hemmatzade