Panoramic-Based Mandibular Indices and Bone Mineral Density of Femoral Neck and Lumbar Vertebrae in Women

Objective: The aim of this cross-sectional analytic study was to evaluate the diagnostic efficacy of panoramic-based indices of the mandible (Mental Index-MI, Mandibular Cortical Index-MCI and Panoramic Mandibular Index-PMI) and to determine their correlationwith bone mineral density (BMD) of the femoral neck and lumbar vertebrae (L2-L4) in order to assess the possibility of using these parameters as indicators of osteoporosis.Materials and Methods: The mandibular indices of 67 women over 35 years old were measured from panoramic radiographs, and bone densitometry was performed in the femoral neck and lumbar vertebrae (L2-L4), using DXA (Dual Energy X-ray Absorptiometry)technique. The patients were divided into three categories of normal, osteopenic andosteoporotic in each skeletal region. One-way ANOVA and ROC curve analyses were applied.The results were considered statistically significant when the P-value was less than 0.05.Results: Comparing the mean BMD in the femoral neck in women between C1 and C3 subgroups of MCI, a significant difference was detected (P=0.04). The mean PMI in the three skeletal subgroups was not different according to the skeletal region (P>0.05). We found a significant difference in mean MI between normal and osteopenic subgroups in the femoral neck (P=0.042).Conclusion: Using radiomorphometric indices of the mandible (MCI-MI) may be useful in determining the skeletal status of the patients, but is not sufficient for precise evaluation

Circular simple shear extrusion as an alternative for simple shear extrusion technique for producing bulk nanostructured materials

© 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. Recently, simple shear extrusion is introduced to fabricate ultrafine-grained materials. It was designed for billets with square cross-sections and was investigated well previously. This study aims to introduce an alternative design of simple shear extrusion process with a circular cross-section, which is named circular simple shear extrusion. The deformation behavior during the new process is investigated by finite element analysis using ABAQUS/Explicit software package. The load of the process and the strain distribution on the processed-sample are studied by a set of simulations. The results show that, in comparison to conventional simple shear extrusion, the circular simple shear extrusion process needs lower extrusion pressures. Also, the accumulated strains are closer to theoretical ones. The amount of friction force in the process with circular cross-section is lower in comparison with the square one which leads to both, the longer service life of the circular simple shear extrusion dies and the lower cost of production. Hence, this new geometry has a strong potential in terms of industrial applications.Shiraz University (grant number 96-GR-ENG-15)

Experimental Investigation of Turbulence Specifications of Turbidity Currents

The present study investigates the turbulence characteristic of turbidity current experimentally. The three-dimensional Acoustic-Doppler Velocimeter (ADV) was used to measure the instantaneous velocity and characteristics of the turbulent flow. The experiments were conducted in a three-dimensional channel for different discharge flows, concentrations, and bed slopes. Results are expressed at various distances from the inlet, for all flow rates, slopes and concentrations as the distribution of turbulence energy, Reynolds stress and the turbulent intensity. It was concluded that the maximum turbulence intensity happens in both the interface and near the wall. Also, it was observed that the turbulence intensity reaches its minimum where maximum velocity occurs

Effect of Severe Plastic Deformation on Shape Memory and Mechanical Properties of Nanostructured Cu-Zn-Al Alloy

Characterization and mechanical behavior was investigated on Cu-Zn-Al shape memory alloy subjected to severe plastic deformation by equal channel angular pressing (ECAP). The microstructure, phase transformation temperatures and morophological features were studied by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and optical microscope (OM). Homogenous microstructure and grain refinement, which leads to improvement of mechanical properties, was readily achieved by severe plastic deformation (SPD). The XRD results showedtransformation happened from α-phase to martensite phase which induced by the mechanical activated transformation process that has also resulted in the increase of martensite start temperature (MS) after the ECAP process. The alloy’s Vickers hardness increased rapidly from 136 to 217 through the first pass at 400 °C, and then it increased slowly and tended to be stable with increasing of ECAP passes. The yield and compressive strength of specimens increased 242 % and 29 % after ECAP process

An examination of the effects of push and pull factors on Iranian national parks: Boujagh National Park, Iran

This article analyses the push and pull factors that bring visitors to the Iranian national parks. The study used a structured questionnaire to collect data on these factors and the socio-demographic profile of the visitors. Survey conducted in Boujagh National Park, an area of 3177 hectares located in the north of the Iran, produced 400 questionnaires. The factor analysis identified four push and six pull factors underlying visitors’ motives to visit the park. Difference in the push and pull factors in different socio-demographic groups were investigated. It was found that visitors are pushed to the park for relaxing, and pulled by nature as a product. It was also clear that gender, marital status and province of the residence had not a significant influence on the push and pull factors. With the current number of other type of tourism competing for nature based tourism, this kind of information can imply that the management of national parks should not only focus on the identified travel motives, but also focus on other push and pull factors, in order to contribute to the sustainability of parks’ development

Balanced Scorecard with Fuzzy Inference as a Performance Measurement in an Automotive Manufacturing line

Abstract In recent years, the balanced score card (BSC) has been the focus of considerable methodology for strategic cost management in management accounting area since it was originally proposed by Kaplan ,R.S. and Norton, D.P. in 1992. BSC is an approach to performance measurement based on both financial and nonfinancial information from four perspectives which are called financial, customer, internal business process, and learning and growth, in order to balance the traditional financial performance system by several grouping of performance measures: short-term and long-term, internal and external, and current and future. Over time, it has been developed to a strategic management system from a comprehensive performance measure, and used in many organizations such as business, hospital, and autonomy in many countries. In this paper, we propose a general model based on BSC by introducing fuzzy inference mechanism. From this, specialists' knowledge and experience can be effectively reflected during the construction of the practical model. Then we illustrate a practical example for an Automotive Manufacturing Co