Photographic Facial Soft Tissue Analysis by Means of Linear and Angular Measurements in an Adolescent Persian Population.

To obtain objective average measurements of the profile and frontal facial soft tissue to be used as a guide for aesthetic treatment goals. Methods and Materials : This observational study included 110 females and 130 males high school students aged 16-18 years. None of the subjects had any facial deformities. All of them and their parents gave consent to take part in this study. In each case, two standard photographs of profile and frontal views were taken 27 landmarks were digitized on photographs. The mean, standard deviation, and range for a total of 43 facial indices were calculated digitally by computer software. The Student's t-test was used to compare males and females. Results : The ratio between the lower and middle facial thirds was one to one, but the height of the upper facial third was proportionally smaller than the other two-thirds in both sexes. Boys had greater nasal length, depth, and prominence than girls with statistically significant differences. Both upper and lower lips were more prominent in girls than in boys. All measurements of the chin showed sexual dimorphism characterized by greater chin height and prominence and deeper mentolabial sulcus. Boys had greater facial dimensions than girls. Mouth width, nasal base width, and intercanthal distance were significantly greater in boys. Conclusion : The labial, nasal, and chin areas showed sexual dimorphism in most of the parameters used in this study. Boys had larger faces, greater facial heights, longer nasal, labial, and chin lengths, and greater nasal, labial, and chin prominence

Evaluation of lipid peroxidation, lipid profile and antioxidant status in patients with non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus in Najaf / Iraq.

Abstract:Background:Diabetes mellitus arises when insufficient insulin is produced, or when the available insulin does not function correctly. Without insulin, the amount of glucose in the blood stream is abnormally high, causing unquenchable thirst and frequent urination. The body’s inability to store or use glucose causes hunger and weight loss (1) . Type 2 diabetes – occurs when there is a severe lack of insulin due to the destruction of most or all of the beta (ß – cells) in the islets of Langerhans. Diabetes mellitus is considered to be one of a rank of free radical diseases which propagates complications with increased free radical formation. Oxidative stress is increased in diabetes mellitus owing to the increase in the production of oxygen free radicals and a deficiency in antioxidant defense mechanisms. Lipid peroxidation of cellular structures, a consequence of increased oxygen free radicals, is thought to play an important role in atherosclerosis and microvascular complications of diabetes mellitus. Hyperlipidaemia has also been reported as one of the causative factors for increased lipid peroxidation in diabetes mellitus. The study was designed to find out the relationship between lipid peroxidation, and complication of diabetes mellitus and to   estimate the mutual relationship between serum lipoproteins levels and diabetes severity (2). Keywords: Diabetes mellitus, Lipid profile, Glutathion, Oxidative stress (Malondialdehyde), Catalase and Uric aci

CALPHAD-based modelling of the temperature-composition-structure relationship during physical vapor deposition of Mg-Ca thin films

The temperature-dependent composition and phase formation during physical vapor deposition (PVD) of Mg-Ca thin films is modelled using a CALPHAD-based approach. Considering the Mg and Ca sublimation fluxes calculated based on the vapor pressure obtained by employing equilibrium thermochemical calculations, experimentally observed synthesis temperature trends in thin film composition and phase formation are reproduced. The model is a significant step towards understanding how synthesis parameters control composition and thereby phase formation in PVD of metals with high vapor pressures.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figure

Effect montmorillonite clay as aggregate in lightweight concrete cement-free

Light weight concrete has many advantages that can be used in the construction of buildings. Perhaps one of the most important of these features is its light weight, which contributes a lot to reducing stress on the soil, which provides the possibility of rising buildings and increasing the number of floors. In addition to its role in thermal insulation and its impact on reducing the consumption of energy sources in cooling and heating, light weight concrete is considered one of the sustainability factors in buildings. One of the second major factors in sustainability is to reduce or avoid the use of cement in the manufacture of this concrete, because of the harmful effects of cement on the environment and global warming. Cement-free concrete is considered a sustainable material in terms of its depletion of the waste materials and spin-off products from different industries apposite of consumption of natural resources in the cement industry (mud, limestone). In this research first aim is to produce lightweight cement-free concrete using pozolanic material and montmorillonite clay as coarse and fine aggregate. Studying some properties of producing light weight concrete (density, compression, tensile,) with different ages (7, 28, 56) days

Concurrent Application Bias Scheduling for Energy Efficiency of Heterogeneous Multi-Core platforms

Minimizing energy consumption of concurrent applications on heterogeneous multi-core platforms is challenging given the diversity in energy-performance profiles of both the applications and hardware. Adaptive learning techniques made the exhaustive Pareto-optimal space exploration practically feasible to identify an energy-efficient configuration. The existing approaches consider a single application's characteristic for optimizing energy consumption. However, an optimal configuration for a given single application may not be optimal when a new application arrives. Although some related works do consider concurrent applications scenarios, these approaches overlook the weight of total energy consumption per application, restricting those from prioritizing among applications. We address this limitation by considering the mutual effect of concurrent applications on system-wide energy consumption to adapt resource configuration at run-time. We characterize each application's power-performance profile as a weighted bias through off-line profiling. We infer this model combined with an on-line predictive strategy to make resource allocation decisions for minimizing energy consumption while honoring performance requirements. The proposed strategy is implemented as a user-space process and evaluated on a heterogeneous hardware platform of Odroid XU3 over the Rodinia benchmark suite. Experimental results show up to 61% of energy saving compared to the standard baseline of Linux governors and up to 27% of energy gain compared to state-of-the-art adaptive learning-based resource management techniques.</p

Heat induction in two-dimensional graphene–Fe3O4 nanohybrids for magnetic hyperthermia applications with artificial neural network modeling

We report the synthesis and characterization of graphene functionalized with iron (Fe3+) oxide (G-Fe3O4) nanohybrids for radio-frequency magnetic hyperthermia application. We adopted the wet chemical procedure, using various contents of Fe3O4 (magnetite) from 0–100% for making two-dimensional graphene–Fe3O4 nanohybrids. The homogeneous dispersal of Fe3O4 nanoparticles decorated on the graphene surface combined with their biocompatibility and high thermal conductivity make them an excellent material for magnetic hyperthermia. The morphological and magnetic properties of the nanohybrids were studied using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and a vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM), respectively. The smart magnetic platforms were exposed to an alternating current (AC) magnetic field of 633 kHz and of strength 9.1 mT for studying their hyperthermic performance. The localized antitumor effects were investigated with artificial neural network modeling. A neural net time-series model was developed for the assessment of the best nanohybrid composition to serve the purpose with an accuracy close to 100%. Six Nonlinear Autoregressive with External Input (NARX) models were obtained, one for each of the components. The assessment of the accuracy of the predicted results has been done on the basis of Mean Squared Error (MSE). The highest Mean Squared Error value was obtained for the nanohybrid containing 45% magnetite and 55% graphene (F45G55) in the training phase i.e., 0.44703, which is where the model achieved optimal results after 71 epochs. The F45G55 nanohybrid was found to be the best for hyperthermia applications in low dosage with the highest specific absorption rate (SAR) and mean squared error values

Probing Mechanical Properties of Graphene with Raman Spectroscopy

The use of Raman scattering techniques to study the mechanical properties of graphene films is reviewed here. The determination of Gruneisen parameters of suspended graphene sheets under uni- and bi-axial strain is discussed and the values are compared to theoretical predictions. The effects of the graphene-substrate interaction on strain and to the temperature evolution of the graphene Raman spectra are discussed. Finally, the relation between mechanical and thermal properties is presented along with the characterization of thermal properties of graphene with Raman spectroscopy.Comment: To appear in the Journal of Materials Scienc

Thermal Properties of Graphene, Carbon Nanotubes and Nanostructured Carbon Materials

Recent years witnessed a rapid growth of interest of scientific and engineering communities to thermal properties of materials. Carbon allotropes and derivatives occupy a unique place in terms of their ability to conduct heat. The room-temperature thermal conductivity of carbon materials span an extraordinary large range - of over five orders of magnitude - from the lowest in amorphous carbons to the highest in graphene and carbon nanotubes. I review thermal and thermoelectric properties of carbon materials focusing on recent results for graphene, carbon nanotubes and nanostructured carbon materials with different degrees of disorder. A special attention is given to the unusual size dependence of heat conduction in two-dimensional crystals and, specifically, in graphene. I also describe prospects of applications of graphene and carbon materials for thermal management of electronics.Comment: Review Paper; 37 manuscript pages; 4 figures and 2 boxe

Towards a Quality-of-Thing based Approach for Assigning Things to Federations

In the context of an Internet-of-Things (IoT) ecosystem, this paper discusses 2 necessary stages for managing federations of things. The first stage defines things in terms of duties and non-functional properties that define the quality of these duties. And, the second stage uses these properties to assign appropriate things to future federations. Specialized into adhoc and planned, federations are expected to satisfy needs and requirements of real-life situations like traffic control that arise at run-time. A set of experiments using a mix of real and simulated datasets, demonstrate the technical doability of thing assignment to federations and are presented in the paper, as well

A laboratory demonstration of rail grinding and analysis of running roughness and wear

Rail grinding has been widely used for rail maintenance to keep the performance of the rail track at satisfactory levels. However, there is a lack of knowledge on the relationship between different grinding parameters and the effect on the rails and the post-grinding evolution of roughness and wear. Rail undergoes significant levels of stress during grinding to remove any defects that appear during its life-cycle which can cause significant microstructural change. By developing a method of demonstrating rail grinding it will allow further investigation of the process and potentially the exploration of different grinding patterns. Moreover, an analysis of the roughness of wheel and rail is an input parameter in most modern simulation tools that could be associated with the coefficient of friction. This paper reports a laboratory demonstration of rail grinding followed by a series of tests to determine the wear of the rail and if there is a relationship between friction coefficient and roughness. The rail specimens that were ground have undergone a phase transformation and showed White Etching Layer (WEL) on the contact surface. This was found to initially act protectively for the rail disc reducing the wear rates, but then contributed to crack formation. No clear long-term correlation was identified between the coefficient of friction and roughness during the testing, however a relationship could be drawn when test periods were studied individually