Docking-Based Screening of Cell-Penetrating Peptides with Antiviral Features and Ebola Virus Proteins as a Drug Discovery Approach to Develop a Treatment for Ebola Virus Disease

Ebola drug discovery continues to be challenging as yet. Proteins of the virus should be targeted at the relevant biologically active site for drug or inhibitor binding to be effective. In this regard, by considering the important role of Ebola virus proteins in the viral mechanisms of this viral disease, the Ebola proteins are selected as our drug targets in this study. The discovery of novel therapeutic molecules or peptides will be highly expensive; therefore, we attempted to identify possible antigens of EBOV proteins by conducting docking-based screening of cell penetrating peptides (CPPs) that have antiviral potential features utilizing Hex software version 8.0.0. The E-value scores obtained in this research were very much higher than the previously reported docking studies. CPPs that possess suitable interaction with the targets would be specified as promising candidates for further in vitro and in vivo examination aimed at developing new drugs for Ebola infection treatment

Development of Learning Modules for Sustainable Life Cycle Product Design: A Constructionist Approach

Constructionism is an approach to learning in which learners construct their own understanding and knowledge through making a meaningful product. A cyberlearning environment for sustainable life cycle engineering design has been developed based upon this approach through a multi-university research project funded by the NSF entitled “Constructionism in Learning: Sustainable Life Cycle Engineering (CooL:SLiCE).” The pedagogic significance of CooL:SLiCE is to better enable university students to learn about sustainable product life cycle engineering design by realizing effective learning modules for personalized environmentally-responsible product design. The CooL:SliCE platform has developed a web-based portal with three learning modules: 1) Sustainable product architecture and supplier selection (S-PASS), 2) Visualization and CAD design, and 3) Manufacturing analysis. To test these modules, students from three different universities with different engineering backgrounds were asked to design sustainable multi-copters through the developed web-based portal. A case study of this intercollegiate collaborative pilot project is developed from multiple data sources to describe the effectiveness of constructionism to engage students in learning sustainable life-cycle engineering

The Effect of Instruction of Islamic life Skills on Self-regulation Learning Strategies, Identity Styles and Development of Moral Sense in Students

For downloading the full-text of this article please click here.Background and Objective: Islamic life skills are the abilities that develop by emphasizing religious instructions and continuous practice, prepare adolescents for encountering life problems and increase their social and mental abilities and skills. Accordingly, the need for interventions at the education level to prevent social harms is more highly felt. The present study examined the effect of instruction of Islamic life skills on self-regulation learning strategies, identity styles and development of moral sense in students.Methods: This was an interventional study involving a clinical trial in which a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design was used. The statistical population included all the high school students in male-only schools in the first grade in region 22 of Tehran, who were selected using multi-stage cluster sampling and out of which Shahid Motahhari School was randomly selected. Forty students were selected from this school using accessible sampling, who were assigned to experimental (n=20) and control (n=20) groups. The former received eight weekly sessions of intervention in the form of instruction of Islamic life skills. The data collection instruments included Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ), Identity Styles Questionnaire (6G-ISI) and Defining Issues Test (DIT). The collected data was analyzed using covariance analysis. In this study, all the ethical considerations were observed and the authors reported to conflicts of interest.Results: Based on the findings, instruction of Islamic life skills caused improved scores in self-regulation learning strategies (metacognitive=0.27 and cognitive=0.59). It also led to changes in normative identity (0.43) and commitment (0.76). Instruction of life skills accounted for 37% of the variance in students’ development of moral sense.Conclusion: Instruction of Islamic life skills enables students to develop an independent identity as a pious adolescent committed to religious values, develop their ability to define issues, improve their self-regulation learning strategies and change their knowledge, values and opinions into real abilities.For downloading the full-text of this article please click here.Please cite this article as: Norouzi-Kouhdasht R, Mahdian MJ, Babaei A, Raoufi K, Rajabzadeh Z, Karamkhani M. The Effect of Instruction of Islamic life Skills on Self-regulation Learning Strategies, Identity Styles and Development of Moral Sense in Students. Journal of Pizhūhish dar dīn va salāmat. 2020;6(1):116-130. https://doi.org/10.22037/jrrh.v6i1.1815

Wound Healing Activity of a New Formulation from Platelet Lysate

Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) is an attractive preparation in regenerative medicine due to its potential role on the healing process in different experimental models. This study was designed to investigate the wound healing activity of a new formulation of PRP. Different gel-based formulations of PRP were prepared. Open excision wounds were made on the back of male Sprague-Dawley rats, and PRP gel was administered topically once daily until the wounds healed completely (12 days). The results revealed that the tested PRP formulation significantly accelerated the wound healing process by increasing the wound contracting, tissue granulization, vascularization, and collagen regeneration. Interestingly, we found that there were no significant differences between PRP formulation and its gel base in all above mentioned parameters. Although this investigation showed that PRP formulation had significant wound healing effects, but the PRP gel base also had significant wound healing properties. This might indicate the wound healing properties of the PRP gel ingredients in the current investigation.</p

A Network-Based Importance Measurement Index for Bridge Security Risk Assessment and Prioritisation

In the related literature, conventional approaches to assessing security risk and prioritising bridges have focused on unique characteristics. Although the unique characteristics appropriately reflect the economic and social consequences of failure, they neglect the consequences of a bridge failure at the network level. If network owners and operators prioritise bridges solely based on their unique characteristics, bridges with low object-level importance and high network-level importance have very low chances to get priority. In this paper, a bridge importance measurement index α(e) has been presented, prioritising bridges based on their unique characteristics, location and network topology. To describe how to use this index α(e), three numerical examples were provided. While the first example was related to a simple hypothetical network, the second and third examples were real networks related to the bridges of Wroclaw city. Using these examples, the results of bridge prioritisation obtained in the unique-characteristics-only state were compared to the state in which α(e) had been used. Results showed that considering the location of the bridge and the topological characteristics of the network change the bridges prioritisation. For instance, in the second example, it was observed that the use of the α(e), made bridge Bolesława Krzywoustego the essential bridge, while bridge Grunwaldzki was the essential bridge under the previous prioritisation made by researchers. However, the results of the third example showed that bridge Milenijny, which was considered the essential network bridge as stated in the previous prioritisation made by researchers, was again selected as the most critical bridge based on the α(e)

ORIENTAL JOURNAL OF CHEMISTRY Determination of Cd(II), Zn(II) and Ag(I)in Different Matrixes After Solid Phase Extraction on Sodium Dodecyl Sulfate(SDS)- Coated Alumina as their 2,3 Di Hydro 2,3 ParatolylQinazoline (1 H)-4 one (DPTQO) by FlameAtomic Absor

ABSTRACT A sensitive and selective solid phase extraction procedure for the determination of traces of Cd(II), Zn(II) and Ag(I) ions has been developed. An alumina-sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) coated on with 2,3 Di Hydro 2,3 paratolylQinazoline (1 H)-4 one (DPTQO). The influences of the analytical parameters including pH and sample volume were investigated.Common coexisting ions did not interfere on the separation and determination of analytes under study. The adsorbed analytes were desorbed by using 6mL of 4 mol L -1 nitric acid. for Ag + detection limit for Cd(II), Zn(II) and Ag(I) ions were found to be 1.4, 1.3 and1.12(ng mL -1 ), respectively.It was found that the recovery for Cd 2+ , Zn 2+ and Ag + ions were 97.7, 98.2 and 98.0 with RSD of 1.9, 1.8 and 1.7. It was also observed that recovery for repeated recovery on the same solid phase not varies more than 3%. The presented procedurewas successfully applied for determination of analytes in radiology wastewater, amalgam, natural water and blood samples

بررسی تأثیر آموزش آداب و مهارت‌های زندگی اسلامی بر راهبردهای یادگیری خودتنظیمی، سبک‌های هویتی و رشد اخلاقی دانش‌آموزان

خلفية البحث وأهدافه: ان مهارات الحياة الاسلامية هي الطاقات التي تنمو مع التأكيد على التعاليم الدينية والمثابرة المستمرة عليها وتجهز الشباب لمواجهة قضايا الحياة و زيادة قدراتهم و مهاراتهم النفسية-الاجتماعية. لهذا السبب نشعر بضرورة لبعض التدخلات اكثر من قبل لكي نتمكن من الحد من الأضرار الاجتماعية على مستوى التعليم والتربية. إن الهدف من الدراسة هذه هو مناقشة تأثير تعلم أداب ومهارات الحياة الاسلامية على إستراتيجيات التنظيم الذاتي للتعلم، أنماط الهوية والنمو الاخلاقي عند التلاميذ. منهجية البحث: هذه الدراسة هي من نوع الاختبار السريري. لقد شمل المجتمع الاحصائي للدراسة، التلاميذ الصبيان في المرحلة الثانوية الاولى في المنطقة رقم 22 بمدينة طهران وحيث تم إختيارهم بأسلوب أخذ عينات عنقودية متعددة المراحل؛ بنحو تم فيه إختيار عدد من الثانويات من بين المدارس الثانوية في المنطقة 22 ومن بين هؤلاء تم اختيار ثانوية الشهيد مطهري لمجتمع هذه الدراسة و تم وضع 40 شخصا من تلامذتها وبأسلوب أخذ العينات المتاحة وبشكل عشوائي في مجموعتي اختبار (20 شخص) ومراقبة (20 شخص). الأشخاص الخاضعون للاختبار في مجموعة الاختبار تلقوا في ثمانية جلسات أسبوعية تداخل تعليم مهارات الحياة الاسلامية. وكانت أدوات تجميع المعلومات هي الاستمارات الاستراتيجية في التنظيم الذاتي للتعلم (MSLQ)، أنماط الهوية (ISI) واصدار الاحكام الاخلاقية (DIT) وتمت مناقشة المعلومات بأسلوب تحليل التغاير. تمت مراعاة جميع الموارد الأخلاقية في هذا البحث وإضافة إلى ذلك فإن مؤلفي البحث لم يشيروا الى اي تضارب في المصالح. الكشوفات: استنادا الى النتائج الحاصلة، ان تعلم مهارات الحياة الاسلامية أدى الى التغيير في العلامات الاستراتيجية في التنظيم الذاتي للتعلم (ما وراء المعرفة= 27/0 و المعرفة= 59/0) وأدى هذا التعلم الى حدوث تغييرات في متغيرات الهوية السلوكية (43/0) والإلتزام (76/0) وكذلك أظهرت نتائج هذه الدراسة أن 37% من مجموع التباين او الفروقات الفردية في النمو الاخلاقي للتلاميذ، كانت مرتبطة بتعلم أداب ومهارات الحياة الاسلامية. الاستنتاج: تعلم مهارات الحياة الاسلامية سوف يجعل التلاميذ قادرين على الوصول الى هوية مستقلة عن أنفسهم كشاب متدين ذي تمسك بالقيم الدينية، نمو أصدار الحكم الاخلاقي وتحسين أستراتيجيات التنظيم الذاتي للتعلم وهذا الأمر يساعدهم على أن يتحول علمهم، قيمهم ووجهات نظرهم الى طاقات وقدرات حقيقية. &nbsp; يتم استناد المقالة على الترتيب التالي: Norouzi-Kouhdasht R, Mahdian MJ, Babaei A, Raoufi K, Rajabzadeh Z, Karamkhani M. The Effect of Instruction of Islamic life Skills on Self-regulation Learning Strategies, Identity Styles and Development of Moral Sense in Students. Journal of Pizhūhish dar dīn va salāmat. 2020;6(1):116-130. https://doi.org/10.22037/jrrh.v6i1.18153Background and Objective: Islamic life skills are the abilities that develop by emphasizing religious instructions and continuous practice, prepare adolescents for encountering life problems and increase their social and mental abilities and skills. Accordingly, the need for interventions at the education level to prevent social harms is more highly felt. The present study examined the effect of instruction of Islamic life skills on self-regulation learning strategies, identity styles and development of moral sense in students. Methods: This was an interventional study involving a clinical trial in which a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design was used. The statistical population included all the high school students in male-only schools in the first grade in region 22 of Tehran, who were selected using multi-stage cluster sampling and out of which Shahid Motahhari School was randomly selected. Forty students were selected from this school using accessible sampling, who were assigned to experimental (n=20) and control (n=20) groups. The former received eight weekly sessions of intervention in the form of instruction of Islamic life skills. The data collection instruments included Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ), Identity Styles Questionnaire (6G-ISI) and Defining Issues Test (DIT). The collected data was analyzed using covariance analysis. In this study, all the ethical considerations were observed and the authors reported to conflicts of interest. Results: Based on the findings, instruction of Islamic life skills caused improved scores in self-regulation learning strategies (metacognitive=0.27 and cognitive=0.59). It also led to changes in normative identity (0.43) and commitment (0.76). Instruction of life skills accounted for 37% of the variance in students’ development of moral sense. Conclusion: Instruction of Islamic life skills enables students to develop an independent identity as a pious adolescent committed to religious values, develop their ability to define issues, improve their self-regulation learning strategies and change their knowledge, values and opinions into real abilities. Please cite this article as: Norouzi-Kouhdasht R, Mahdian MJ, Babaei A, Raoufi K, Rajabzadeh Z, Karamkhani M. The Effect of Instruction of Islamic life Skills on Self-regulation Learning Strategies, Identity Styles and Development of Moral Sense in Students. Journal of Pizhūhish dar dīn va salāmat. 2020;6(1):116-130. https://doi.org/10.22037/jrrh.v6i1.18153سابقه و هدف: مهارت‌های زندگی اسلامی&nbsp;توانایی‌هایی هستند که با تأکید بر آموزه‌های دینی و تمرین مداوم پرورش می‌یابند و نوجوانان را برای روبه‌رو شدن با مسائل زندگی و افزایش توانایی‌ها و مهارت‌های&nbsp;روانی-اجتماعی&nbsp;آماده می‌کنند. ازاین‌رو، لزوم مداخلاتی که بتواند در سطح آموزش و پرورش از آسیب‌های اجتماعی پیشگیری کند، بیشتر از قبل احساس می‌شود. هدف پژوهش حاضر بررسی تأثیر آموزش آداب و مهارت‌های زندگی اسلامی بر راهبردهای یادگیری خودتنظیمی، سبک‌های هویتی و رشد اخلاقی دانش‌آموزان بود. روش کار: این پژوهش از نوع کارآزمایی بالینی بود. جامعۀ مورد مطالعه دانش‌آموزان پسر مقطع متوسطۀ اول منطقۀ 22 شهر تهران بودند که به روش نمونه‌گیری خوشه‌ای چندمرحله‌ای انتخاب شدند؛ بدین صورت که از بین مدارس منطقۀ 22، چند دبیرستان انتخاب شدند و از بین آنها دبیرستان شهید مطهری جامعۀ پژوهش قرار گرفت و 40 نفر از دانش‌آموزان آن به روش نمونه‌گیری دردسترس انتخاب و به شیوۀ تصادفی در دو گروه آزمایش (20 نفر) و کنترل (20 نفر) قرار گرفتند. آزمودنی‌های گروه آزمایش در هشت جلسۀ هفتگی، مداخلۀ آموزش مهارت‌های زندگی اسلامی دریافت کردند. ابزار گردآوری داده‌ها پرسش‌نامه‌های راهبردهای یادگیری خودتنظیمی (MSLQ)، سبک‌های هویتی (ISI) و قضاوت اخلاقی (DIT) بود و داده‌ها به روش تحلیل کوواریانس بررسی شد. در این پژوهش همۀ موارد اخلاقی رعایت شده است و مؤلفان مقاله تضاد منافعی گزارش نکرده‌اند. یافته‌ها: بر اساس نتایج به‌دست‌آمده، آموزش مهارت‌های زندگی اسلامی موجب تغییر در نمرات راهبردهای یادگیری خودتنظیمی (فراشناختی= 27/0 و شناختی= 59/0) شده و این آموزش تغییراتی در متغیّرهای هویت هنجاری (43 /0) و تعهد (76/0) به وجود آورده است. همچنین نتایج این مطالعه نشان داد 37 درصد کل واریانس یا تفاوت‌های فردی در رشد اخلاقی دانش‌آموزان مربوط به آموزش آداب و مهارت‌های زندگی اسلامی بوده است. نتیجه‌گیری: آموزش مهارت‌های زندگی اسلامی دانش‌آموزان را قادر می‌سازد که به هویت مستقلی از خود به‌عنوان یک نوجوان متدین با پایندی به ارزش‌های دینی، رشد قضاوت اخلاقی و بهبود راهبردهای یادگیری خودتنظیمی دست یابند و به آنان کمک می‌کند که دانش، ارزش‌ها و دیدگاه‌های خود را به توانایی‌های واقعی تبدیل کنند. استناد مقاله به این صورت است: Norouzi-Kouhdasht R, Mahdian MJ, Babaei A, Raoufi K, Rajabzadeh Z, Karamkhani M. The Effect of Instruction of Islamic life Skills on Self-regulation Learning Strategies, Identity Styles and Development of Moral Sense in Students. Journal of Pizhūhish dar dīn va salāmat. 2020;6(1): 116-130. https://doi.org/10.22037/jrrh.v6i1.1815