Persian Heritage Image Binarization Competition (PHIBC 2012)

The first competition on the binarization of historical Persian documents and manuscripts (PHIBC 2012) has been organized in conjunction with the first Iranian conference on pattern recognition and image analysis (PRIA 2013). The main objective of PHIBC 2012 is to evaluate performance of the binarization methodologies, when applied on the Persian heritage images. This paper provides a report on the methodology and performance of the three submitted algorithms based on evaluation measures has been used.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, conferenc

A Case Report of Topiramate-induced Acute Myopia

Acute myopia following use of some drugs is a relatively rare condition. Topiramate prescribed for seizure prophylaxis is one of these drugs. In this paper a case of acute transient myopia after taking topiramate is reported. The reported patient is a 28-year old woman who had no history of any eye disease. Following consumption of topiramate pill for one week, she had found blurred vision since one day prior to the admission. A complete ocular examinations revealed acute bilateral myopia. This disease was resolved about 48 hours after discontinuation of topiromate. Due to the wide spectrum of indications for the administration of Topiramate, neurologists and psychiatrists should be aware of its ocular side effects. In conclusion, ocular complications following this drug should be taken seriously and be subjected to ophthalmic counsaltation. Keywords: Topiramate, Myopia, Drug side effect

Particle Entrainment Studies From Dry and Wet Bed

During the Fluid Coking Process™ bitumen is sprayed into a fluidized bed of hot coke particles. The bitumen undergoes thermal cracking and is converted into gasses, condensable vapors, and solid coke, which deposits on the coke particles. These vapors rise through the vessel and result in entrainment of coke particles. Wet fine coke particles from the freeboard region enter the cyclone and contribute to the fouling of the Coker cyclones which can lead to the premature shut-down of Fluid Cokers. The primary objective of this research is to determine how bed wetness affects entrainment. First, a new fluidized bed was constructed, and a novel pseudo-isokinetic sampling was developed and tested to collect entrained solids. Then the entrainment from the dry bed in the bubbling and the turbulent regime was investigated. The cluster analysis was performed and showed an improvement in predicting the flux of solids ejected from bed surface, above the TDH, and across the freeboard. In the next chapter, the effect of the different levels of bed wetness on flux and size distribution of the entrained particles was studied, and the results were compared to the ones obtained for the dry bed. It was observed that in the bubbling regime, the presence of liquid can change the bubble properties in the bed which will affect the entrainment. However, the effect of low liquid loading on entrainment in turbulent regime was found to be negligible. In the final chapter, RPT was employed and it was found that the motion of ejected clusters in the freeboard could not be tracked as the clusters move too fast for the strength of radioactive that was used. Moreover, a new model to measure the entrainment of clusters in the freeboard using a modified radioactive tracer technique in which the detectors are collimated was proposed. It was found that this method only provides the decay coefficient of the clusters flux decay

Development of Infrared Transmitter Using Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Laser

Developing good IR transmitter shall consider its complexity and type of emitter. Light emitting diode (LED) which is the most commonly used as an emitter is challenged by emerging technology called vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL). However, the use of VCSEL for infrared signaling has not been reported before. VCSEL is claimed to be easier and more efficient than LED. This research is focusing on development of an infrared transmitter using vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) instead of LED. Several design options, which are based on simple gates, MAXIM chips and microprocessor, were explored. Finally, test and analysis were carried out to evaluate the suitability of VCSEL as an infrared transmitter. By comparing the output power of VCSEL and LED; it was obtained that VCSEL can provide efficient power utilizatio

Incorporating Betweenness Centrality in Compressive Sensing for Congestion Detection

This paper presents a new Compressive Sensing (CS) scheme for detecting network congested links. We focus on decreasing the required number of measurements to detect all congested links in the context of network tomography. We have expanded the LASSO objective function by adding a new term corresponding to the prior knowledge based on the relationship between the congested links and the corresponding link Betweenness Centrality (BC). The accuracy of the proposed model is verified by simulations on two real datasets. The results demonstrate that our model outperformed the state-of-the-art CS based method with significant improvements in terms of F-Score

Comparison of Microleakage of MTA and CEM Cement Apical Plugs in Three Different Media

Introduction: Microleakage is of the causes of endodontic treatment failure. The aim of this in vitro study, was to compare the microleakage of mineral trioxide aggregate (MTA) and calcium-enriched mixture (CEM) cement apical plugs in three environments. Methods and Materials: A total of 130 human extracted single rooted teeth were collected. After decoronation, preparation of the root canal space and simulation of open apices, 5 teeth were selected as positive and negative control groups and the rest of the samples were randomly divided into two groups (MTA plug and CEM cement plug) and each group was divided into 3 subgroups (dry, contaminated with saliva and contaminated with blood). In each group apical plug was placed into the canal. After full setting of the apical plug, microleakage of the samples were evaluated using fluid filtration method and the data were analyzed using two-way analysis of variance. Results: In dry and saliva contaminated environments, the leakage of MTA samples were 40.906±2.081 and 39.608±2.081, respectively which was significantly more than that of CEM cement samples (26.977±2.081 and 27.000±2.081, respectively). However, in blood-contaminated environments, the amount of leakage in MTA group (21.640±2.081) was significantly lower than CEM cement group (44.358±2.081). Conclusion: According to the results of this study, in dry and saliva-contaminated conditions CEM cement provides significantly better seal in comparison to MTA.Keywords: Calcium-Enriched Mixture Cement; Microleakage; Mineral Trioxide Aggregat

The Relationship between Iranian EFL Teachers’ Emotional Intelligence and their Teaching Style

The present study aimed to detect and compare the most preferred teaching styles by Iranian English teachers in public schools and private language institutes and investigate the possible relationship between EFL teachers’ teaching styles and aspects of their emotional intelligence.  The participants were 100 EFL teachers from public schools and private language institutes in Iran, Shiraz. The Persian version of the Bar-On Emotional Quotient Inventory and Grasha’s Style Inventory (TSI) was used to measure the teachers’ emotional intelligence and teaching styles, respectively. Concerning teaching style preference, formal authority style for EFL teachers of schools and facilitator style for teachers of the private institute was the most preferred styles. In addition, the least preferred styles were ‘delegator’ and ‘formal authority’ styles for public school teachers and private institute teachers, respectively. Regarding emotional intelligence, the lowest mean scores were observed in the Stress Management dimension, and the highest was related to the General Mood dimension. Furthermore, ‘general mood’, as a dimension of emotional intelligence, was highly correlated with ‘formal authority’ and ‘expert style’, both of which were public school teachers’ preferred styles. Public School teachers were relatively weak at using ‘personal model’, ‘facilitator’, and ‘delegator’ teaching styles. Thus, it is recommended that they adapt themselves to these styles

Evaluating the Accuracy of Two Microleakage Assessment Methods for Mineral Trioxide Aggregate and Calcium-enriched Mixture Cement

Introduction: Multiple methods for evaluating microleakage have been introduced over the years, but there has been no agreement as to which technique will give more accurate results. The aim of this study was to compare the accuracy and results of fluid filtration and marginal adaptation methods for mineral trioxide aggregate (MTA) and calcium-enriched mixture (CEM) cement apical plugs. Methods and Materials: A total of 250 single-rooted human teeth were collected. The teeth were decoronated, the root canals were prepared and open apex condition was stimulated by passing #1 to 4 Peeso Reamer drills from apical foramen. Five teeth were selected as the positive and negative controls and the rest of the samples were randomly allocated to two groups of MTA and CEM cement plugs. In each group, apical plug was placed into the canal. After the apical plugs were completely set, microleakage and marginal adaptation of the samples were evaluated using fluid filtration method and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), respectively. The obtained results were analyzed by independent-samples t test. Results: Gap between plug and dentin walls and air bubbles displacement was higher in MTA group compared to the CEM cement group, though this difference between MTA group and CEM cement group was not statistically significant. Conclusion: According to the obtained results, it seems that there is a direct relationship between the two methods of microleakage assessment. Keywords: Calcium-enriched Mixture Cement; Marginal Adaptation; Microleakage; Mineral Trioxide Aggregat