Pan-Islamism. Attempt of Political Islam in the Restoration of Caliphate a Century after its Abolition in 1924

The phase of geo-political developments taking place in the Middle East as the aftermath of so called Arab Spring has entered the region into a new era of imbroglio transition. One of the peculiarities of the ME new era is the major event of emergence of the Islamic State proclaiming the re-establishment of a new Caliphate. Moreover, the restoration of Muslim Ummah as ever continuing discourse is not limited to IS. It has its crucial fundamental nostalgic origin in the Political philosophy of Islam, which wishes to form the Ummah under the doctrine of Caliphate system, which has long history since the emergence of Islam in the seventh century. What is remarkably important to pan-Islamists is that in their view the reconstruction of the Ummah is a reaction of political Islam to the Sykes-Picot agreement. This paper individuates itself by examining the socio-political manifestation of caliphate from perspective of Islamists struggling to restore the institution of Caliphate since its destruction in 1924

Equilibrium and synthetic studies of methylene blue dye removal using ash of walnut shell

Background and Aims: Wastewater treatment and color removal is always one of the most important measures to control pollution from industrial effluents especially in the textile and dyeing industry. This industry is one of the largest producers of organic compounds and color. For this reason, their treatment conditions are complicated and difficult. This study investigates the efficacy of ash produced from walnut shell as a natural adsorbent in color removal of methylene blue (MB) from aqueous solutions in the experimental condition.Materials and Methods: At present study, effect of various operating parameters such as pH (2-13), reaction time (30-250 min), amount of adsorbent dosage (0.2-5 g/l) and initial concentration of dye (25-250 mg/l) on color removal from synthetic wastewater were studied. Also the adsorption behavior of dyes by isotherms of Freundlich and Langmuir and synthetic of adsorption were conducted using excel program and regression coefficient.Results: Maximum removal efficiency of methylene blue (93.25%) were achieved at optimal pH 10, reaction time 150 min, adsorbent dosage 3 g/l and initial dye concentration 100 mg/l. Data of this study was fitted with Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms and more fitted with Freundlich (R=0.8500). Also, kinetic adsorption study showed that for initial dye concentrations 100, 150 and 200 mg/l, pseudo-second order kinetic is more favorable (R2=0.9900).Conclusion: More than 90% removal efficiency for MB dye showed that this adsorbent is an effective natural compound and also inexpensive for treatment processes. Hence, using this technique and process was recommended for dye pollutants removal from aqueous environments.Key words: Walnut, methylene blue dye, adsorption kinetics, equilibrium isother

Role of circ-FOXO3 and miR-23a in radiosensitivity of breast cancer

Identifying the radiosensitivity of cells before radiotherapy (RT) in breast cancer (BC) patients allows appropriate switching between routinely used treatment regimens and reduces adverse side effects in exposed patients. In this study, blood was collected from 60 women diagnosed with Invasive Ductal Carcinoma (IDC) BC and 20 healthy women. To predict cellular radiosensitivity, a standard G2-chromosomal assay was performed. From these 60 samples, 20 BC patients were found to be radiosensitive based on the G2 assay. Therefore, molecular studies were finally performed on two equal groups (20 samples each) of patients with and without cellular radiosensitivity. QPCR was performed to examine the expression levels of circ-FOXO3 and miR-23a in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) and RNA sensitivity and specificity were determined by plotting Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curves. Binary logistic regression was performed to identify RNA involvement in BC and cellular radiosensitivity (CR) in BC patients. Meanwhile, qPCR was used to compare differential RNA expression in the radiosensitive MCF-7 and radioresistant MDA-MB-231 cell lines. An annexin -V FITC/PI binding assay was used to measure cell apoptosis 24 and 48 h after 2 Gy, 4 Gy, and 8 Gy gamma-irradiation. Results indicated that circ-FOXO3 was downregulated and miR-23a was upregulated in BC patients. RNA expression levels were directly associated with CR. Cell line results showed that circ-FOXO3 overexpression induced apoptosis in the MCF-7 cell line and miR-23a overexpression inhibited apoptosis in the MDA-MB-231 cell line. Evaluation of the ROC curves revealed that both RNAs had acceptable specificity and sensitivity in predicting CR in BC patients. Binary logistic regression showed that both RNAs were also successful in predicting breast cancer. Although only circ-FOXO3 has been shown to predict CR in BC patients, circ-FOXO3 may function as a tumor suppressor and miR-23a may function as oncomiR in BC. Circ-FOXO3 and miR-23a may be promising potential biomarkers for BC prediction. Furthermore, Circ-FOXO3 could be a potential biomarker for predicting CR in BC patients.</p

"FROM THE I TO THE WE": DESIRE AND BECOMING IN CARSON MCCULLERS’ THE MEMBER OF THE WEDDING

Carson McCullers’ The Member of the Wedding depicts the anxieties and issues of a tomboy approaching her adulthood and her difficulty making proper connection with her peers. Due to her seemingly peculiar behavior and ambivalence regarding issues of gender, Frankie is mostly left out from peer gatherings, which leaves her with more tensions. However, through her abnormal demeanor in terms of identity and gender, we see that she is dealing with high levels of desire. Drawing on the philosophical concepts of Gilles Deleuze regarding subjectivity, gender, and desire, this article argues that through her positive desire, Frankie becomes a nomad who sets foot on new horizons of experience, and her hopes for the upcoming wedding is an example of such longing for experience. It is also argued that while she is highly under the influence of affects, instead of striving for becoming a member of the wedding, Frankie yearns for novel encounters in order to become the wedding itself, and finally become reconciled to the world in its entirety

The effectiveness of parent-based pivotal response treatment on social health and psychological well-being among mothers with autistic children

Introduction: Parents of children with autism are increasingly are considered as one of the primary source of intervention for their children, also there is an increasing demand for access to effective interventions for families who have children with autism. The aim of this study is to investigate the impact of parent-based pivotal response treatment (PRT) on social health (the amount of interaction a person has with their community) among mothers with autistic children.Methods: The present study is a semi-experimental research and its design consists of pretest, posttest with control group and a sample of 40 mothers with autistic children referring to the educational and rehabilitation center of Tehran and Karaj from fall to winter of 2016., participants  were selected in two groups of control (20 people) and tested (20 people). To measure the independent variables in the pretest, post-test questionnaires, Reef psychological well-being and the social health of Keyes and Shapiro (short form) were used. The experimental group was trained for PRT during three months. Ultimately, the collected data were analyzed applying SPSS software via paired t-test and independent t-test method.  Results: The results showed that there was significant increase in scales of social heath and psychological well-being in both experimental group and control group; but the increment was significantly higher in experimental group (P &lt; 0.001; P &lt; 0.023 respectively).Conclusion: According to benefits of parental intervention in treatment and importance of increasing therapy sessions for children with autism, it is recommended that this therapy method in conjunction with conventional methods is offered to parents of children with autism specially mothers.

The survey of electrocoagulation Process for removal dye Reactive Orange 16 from aqueous solutions using sacrificial iron electrodes

ABSTRACT Discharge of textile industries colored wastewaters without enough treatment into natural water supplies cause serious damages to the environment. This study was performed to investigate the effect of electrocoagulation for dye removal from synthetic wastewater using iron electrodes. Removal of dye reactive orange 16 (RO16) by electrocoagulation using iron electrode was conducted in a batch reactor with volume 1 liter. The effect of operating parameters such as current density, initial concentration of dye, pH and contact time was studied and the electrical energy consumption was calculated. The maximum efficiency of hardness removal which was obtained in current density of 20mA/cm2, optimum concentration 50mg L-1, optimum pH 5.5, reaction time of 30 min and NaCL concentration 1.5g/l are equal to 99.27%. Also COD removal efficiency is increased to 66%. Results show, electrocoagulation process by iron electrode is an effective method for reactive dye removal from colored wastewater

Scientometric analysis of Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Medical Imaging publications of Iran in the Web of Science and Scopus Databases

     Scientometric analysis should be given great heed in university and research centers for various research and educational reasons. This study aimed to carry out a scientometirc analysis of Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Medical Imaging articles authored by Iranian researchers and published in journals indexed in the Web of Science and Scopus databases from 2001 to 2016. This is a cross-sectional descriptive study in which as many as 3335 documents authored by Iranian researchers were identified on the two citation databases using field-specific keywords. HistCite™, MS Excel and VOSviewer™ were used to analyze the data. The study discovered that in terms of publications in both citation databases, Iran is almost among the top 30 countries in quantitative and qualitative studies. Iran's contribution was, however, very low in both web of Science (0.32%) and Scopus (0.52%). It was found that “Iranian Journal of Radiation Research” and “Iranian Journal of Radiology” are indexed in both databases; Tehran University of Medical Sciences and University of Tehran are also the most contributing institutions in the databases. According to the findings of the study, it is recommended that Iranian researchers increase their scientific cooperation with researchers from other leading countries in these fields including the United States, Japan and Germany to gain a better quantity and quality of publications