Optimal Planning of On-Grid Hybrid Microgrid for Remote Island Using HOMER Software, Kish in Iran

HOMER software functions as a tool for modeling and optimization of an energy generation micropower system based on renewable technologies. In this paper for the first time the monthly real load data have been used in HOMER to design a renewable-based microgrid in grid-connected mode for Kish Island, Iran. The calculations were performed in a way that the designed system could supply the load demand of the studied area with the lowest cost, least pollution, and highest reliability. To overcome the intermittency of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar, a combination of these sources in a hybrid system and installation of battery storage systems were considered. The solar radiation and wind speed data required by the software were obtained from the country’s meteorology and NASA website and used in the software. The analysis results of four scenarios, including national grid/diesel generator, national grid/diesel generator/solar cell, national grid/diesel generator/wind turbine, and national grid/diesel generator/solar cell/wind turbine, showed the prices per kWh of $0.483,$0.505, $0.472,$0.537, respectively. In these scenarios, the share of renewable energies was 0%, 8%, 11%, and 26%, respectively. The highest amount of electricity sold to the national grid was 1597095 kWh/y for the fourth scenario which had also the lowest rate of CO2 emissions by 4128650 kg/y

MTHFR Gene Polymorphisms and Susceptibility to Migraine Attacks

Background and Aim:Migraine consisting of migraine with aura (MA) and migraine without aura (MO) is a painful neurovascular disorder affecting approximately 16% of the general population. A combination of genetic and environmental factors is involved in the pathogenesis of migraine. The MTHFR enzyme is involved in homocysteine (Hcy) metabolism and it has been reported that 1298 A to C and 677 C to T mutations   in the MTHFR gene are associated with an increased in plasma Hcy levels. Hcy is a highly reactive amino acid and causes endothelial injury. Because a plausible theory about vascular impairment in migraine, it is considered that mutations in MTHFR gene and folate metabolism are associated with migraine.Materials and Methods:In total, 75 patients with migraine (24 with MA and 51with MO) in accordance with the IHS criteria participated in this case-control study. Control group were 128 normal matched healthy subjecys who selected from same region without history of migraine or other neurologic disorder after interviewing and examining by a physician. Mean age at entry was 36.42±9.6 and 31.64±8.9 years old in migraine and control group respectively.  MTHFR polymorphisms were investigated by PCR-RFLP.Results:Genotypic results indicated that the prevalence of the MTHFR 677TT genotype in migraine subjects was higher than control (17.3% and 3.1% respectively, P<0.001).  Interestingly the risk of migraine was 6-fold higher in subjects possessing the MTHFR 677T homozygous variant (OR=6.5; CI95%: 2.03-20.76). No significant difference in the prevalence of MTHFR A1298C genotypes was observed in migraine group when compared to controls (P>0.001).Conclusion:It seems that MTHFR C677T is a potential genetic risk factor for migraine attacks, both in MA and MO subclasses in Iranian population. C677T and A1298C joint effect could amplify the potential influence of each SNPs.

Extended tabu search-based scheduling to improve profitability in heterogeneous parallel systems

Higher utilization of existing resources and facilities in order to increase efficiency and profitability is always one of the basic challenges for parallel processing systems and environments, and this challenge becomes more complicated when the system resources are heterogeneous. One way to achieve high efficiency and profitability of heterogeneous parallel systems is to schedule tasks optimally. In this paper, an extended tabu search-based scheduling algorithm (ESTS) is presented to improve the profitability of heterogeneous parallel systems, which can achieve suitable solutions in a short computational time. To evaluate the efficiency of the proposed solution, due to the lack of a suitable criterion to evaluate this problem, the obtained results are compared with both the results of an extended scheduling based on a genetic algorithm (ESGA) with a large number of chromosomes and a high number of generations, as well as an extended scheduling based on a simulated annealing algorithm (ESSA) with a linear temperature reduction. The benchmark files of different sizes were tested under the same conditions, and the comparison of results shows the superiority of the proposed solution in terms of profitability and computational time

Complications of Scorpion Stings in Patients Admitted in Afzalipour Hospital in Kerman

Background: Scorpion sting is one of the medical health problems in tropical and subtropical regions of Iran. This study deals with the frequency of complications of scorpion sting, in patients referred to Afzalipour Hospital in Kerman.Methods: This retrospective descriptive-analytical study was performed using the census sampling method of patients, who referred to Afzalipour Hospital in Kerman following scorpion sting. The statistical population included all patients from 2016 to 2018. After collecting and extracting the data, the results were analyzed by SPSS software.Results: A total of 111 stings were reported, 61 females (55%) and 49 males (45%). Local signs included pain (55), swelling (15.3), erythema (21.6), skin ecchymosis (18.9), tenderness (10.8), and bleeding (1.8%). Systemic symptoms included nausea and vomiting (9), pain (1.8), numbness and paresthesia (3.6), weakness (9) and (86.5) without systemic symptoms. The average number of hospitalization days was 1.77.Conclusion: Clinical manifestations of patients show that species belonging to two families, Buthidae and Hemiscorpidae, are the cause of stings in this province. Stings has been more common in women and in the age group of 21 to 40 years old and more in July. Due to different species with neurotoxic and hemotoxic poison, the development of treatment protocols by trained physicians, who are familiar with clinical manifestations of these arthropods, are essential

Clinical evaluation of the effect of gingival thickness on increasing the width of keratinized and attached gingiva with and without preserving periosteum in an animal study

BACKGROUND AND AIM: The present study was performed in order to assess the effect of gingival thickness on amount of gingival augmentation with and without preserving periosteum. METHODS: The study was conducted on 8 ecotype dogs aged 1-5 years. At the beginning, clinical probing depth and keratinized and attached gingiva width were measured. Totally, 64 sites were operated in this study. Periosteal fenestration and denuded beds were randomly created on opposite sides of upper and lower jaws (4 sites each side). The thickness of gingiva was measured in mucogingival junction after preparation of the beds. The clinical parameters were evaluated 2 months after the surgery. The data were analyzed by Mann-Whitney U, Wilcoxon, and Pearson correlation tests. RESULTS: The results showed the average increased width of keratinized and attached gingiva was 1.8 mm and 2 mm in periosteal fenestration sites and 1.9 mm and 2.3 mm in denudation sites, respectively at 2 months post-surgery. The difference between the width of keratinized gingiva and attached gingiva before and 2 months after operation was significant in both groups (P < 0.001). However, no significant difference was shown between the two groups in terms of attached and keratinized gingival width (P = 0.100 and P = 0.720, respectively). There was no correlation between the thickness of gingiva and the amount of increased width of keratinized and attached gingiva. CONCLUSION: A gingival thickness of 0.8 to 2 mm does not affect the increment of the attached and keratinized gingival width with and without preserving periosteum. KEYWORDS: Gingiva; Denudation; Surger

9-cis-Retinoic Acid and 1,25-dihydroxy Vitamin D3Improve the Differentiation of Neural Stem Cells into Oligodendrocytes through the Inhibition of the Notch and Wnt Signaling Pathways

Background: Differentiating oligodendrocyte precursor cells (OPCs) into oligodendrocytes could be improved by inhibiting signaling pathways such as Wnt and Notch. 9-cis-retinoic acid (9-cis-RA) and 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 (1,25[OH]2D3) can ameliorate oligodendrogenesis. We investigated whether they could increase oligodendrogenesis by inhibiting the Wnt and Notch signaling pathways. Methods: Cortical neural stem cells were isolated from 14-day-old rat embryos and cultured using the neurosphere assay. The cells were treated in 4 different conditions for 1 week: the negative control group received only the basic fibroblast growth factor, the positive control group received only T3 without growth factors, the RA group was treated with 9-cis-RA, and the Vit D3 group was treated with 1,25(OH)2D3. The effects of 9-cis-RA and 1,25(OH)2D3 on the level of the myelin basic protein (MBP) and the gene expression of the SOX10, MBP gene, HES5, and LRP6 were studied using flow cytometry and real-time PCR. The data were analyzed using one-way ANOVA with GraphPad Prism. A P value less than 0.05 was considered significant. Results: The mRNA expressions of the SOX10, MBP, and MBP gene were significantly increased in the treated groups compared with the negative control group; the increase was similar in the 9-cis-RA group and the positive control group. Furthermore, 9-cis-RA significantly decreased the expression of the HES5 gene, a Notch signaling pathway transcription factor, and 1,25(OH)2D3 significantly reduced the expression of the LRP6 gene, a Wnt signaling pathway co-receptor. Conclusion: It seems that 9-cis-RA and 1,25(OH)2D3 are good candidates to improve the differentiation of OPCs into oligodendrocytes

Actualizing fast conducting polymer actuators : design optimization, fabrication, and encapsulation

Conducting polymer actuators offer large strain (> 1%) and high work density, operate at low voltages and can resonate at tens to hundreds of Hertz. Unfortunately, they dry out in air if a solvent-based electrolyte is used, and exchange ions in wet environments, both of which cause their performance to change over time. They also lack a scalable fabrication process through which devices with reproducible performance (especially with fast actuation) are achieved. In this work, we show that a 100 µm poly(styrene-b-isobutylene-b-styrene) encapsulation helps these devices to retain 80% of their stored solvent more than 1000 times longer compared to when there is no encapsulation. The shelf life of the encapsulated device, which is around 4 days when there is no encapsulation, is expected to improve by 600 times with encapsulation. We also developed a new, easily reproducible, and scalable fabrication process through which conducting polymer films as thin as 400 nm can be obtained. High electronic and ionic conductivities of 4 × 10^4 S/m and 4 × 10^-3 S/m, volumetric capacitance of 2.4 × 10^7 F/m3, and strain difference of ~0.65 %, were obtained from thin sprayed films of poly(2,3-dihydro-thieno-1,4-dioxin)-poly(styrene-sulfonate) on porous polyvinylidene fluoride membranes with thicknesses of ~3.5 µm. Using this technique, we showed that 10 mm long, 2 mm wide and 0.125 mm thick trilayers with a steady state peak to peak displacement of ~4.5 mm, and cut off frequency of ~2 Hz, produce a ~0.5 mm displacement up to 50 Hz. In this work, we also modified the already developed 2D transmission line model of trilayer conducting polymer actuators to take into account the effect of contact electrodes and the non-uniform charge-induced strain throughout the volume of the conducting polymer layers. Based on this model, we created a web-based graphical user-interface tool, named ActuaTool, to facilitate the design and modeling of trilayer conducting polymer actuators. This work is paving the way to employ fast conducting polymer actuators in real applications through developing a new fabrication process, their encapsulation and creating a design optimization tool.Applied Science, Faculty ofElectrical and Computer Engineering, Department ofGraduat

Harming body as a red line for Islamic fasting (ahead of publication)

Background: Fasting is the Islamic worship of man in order to approach God.  There is a direct relationship between fasting, abstaining from eating and drinking, and man’s health as well as ill-health. Therefore, through fasting the religious and medical issues are interwoven with each other; so that man can maintain his physical heath by performing a religious worship. Findings: Medical propositions which are based on experience can prove what would be harmful or urgent for body to take. In contrast, religious propositions relying on the meta-physical world are set for all people in every place at every time. Fasting is a religious term and in medicine, it is merely dealt with abstaining from eating and drinking. The concept of harmfulness means making a defect or disorder in the system of body, the recognition of which is the responsibility of medicine and the decision about which is within the responsibility of man. Conclusion: Medical science can determine the effects and consequences of thirst and hunger in the specific hours of the month of Ramadan. According to the religious perspective, it has been emphasized that fasting is for maintaining man’s health, and the conditions in which there is the probability of harmfulness for man’s health due to fasting, man shouldn’t fast. As a result, medical science can determine the interval of fasting

Fasting: Benefits and probable health harmfulness from the Islamic perspective

Fasting is a form of Islamic worship to approach God.  There is a direct relationship between fasting, abstaining from eating and drinking, and an individual’s health as well as his ill-health. Therefore, it is of utmost importance in the Islamic perspective to weigh the spiritual benefits achieved through fasting against its probable harmfulness to an individual’s health. Regarding fasting, the Islamic perspective is based on spiritual and social goals whose achievement centers around fasting according to the Islamic principles. But, in medicine, fasting is merely dealt with abstaining from eating and drinking which is regarded as one aspect of this Islamic ritual. Additionally, the concept of harmfulness is defined as making a defect or disorder occurring in the body, the recognition of which is within the responsibility of medicine and the decision about which is within the responsibility of an individual. Medical science can determine the effects and consequences of thirst and hunger during the month of Ramadan. In the religious perspective, it has been emphasized that fasting is for achieving the divine virtue, and this shouldn’t be in conflict with maintaining man’s health. Therefore, the conditions in which there is the probability of harmfulness to man’s health due to fasting, man shouldn’t fast. As a result, medical science could recognize the conditions in which there is probable harmfulness to man’s health