A Contextual Topic Modeling and Content Analysis of Iranian laws and Regulations

A constitution is the highest legal document of a country and serves as a guide for the establishment of other laws. The constitution defines the political principles, structure, hierarchy, position, and limits of the political power of a country's government. It determines and guarantees the rights of citizens. This study aimed at topic modeling of Iranian laws. As part of this research, 11760 laws were collected from the Dotic website. Then, topic modeling was conducted on the title and content of the regularizations using LDA. Data analysis with topic modeling led to the identification of 10 topics including Economic, Customs, Housing and Urban Development, Agriculture, Insurance, Legal and judicial, Cultural, Information Technology, Political, and Government. The largest topic, Economic, accounts for 29% of regulations, while the smallest are Political and Government, accounting for 2%. This research utilizes a topic modeling method in exploring law texts and identifying trends in regularizations from 2016-2023. In this study, it was found that regularizations constitute a significant percentage of law, most of which are related to economics and customs. Cultural regularizations have increased in 2023. It can be concluded any law enacted each year can reflect society's conditions and legislators' top concerns

Investigation of Nepotism in Public Sector Organizations in Iran and its Impact on Employee’s Performance

Due to dominant culture in the countries in transition, one of the issues to be investigated in these countries is the phenomenon of nepotism in the organizations which, as an environmental factor, could affect the employees’ performance. This study attempts to examine the functions of nepotism in Iranian public sector organizations and evaluate its impact on employees' performance. Research methodology of this study is descriptive- survey.  Thus, after an overview on theoretical bases and for the aim of collecting the required data, 150 questionnaires were distributed among administrative employees of Zahedan Municipality. Our findings showed that nepotism is a challenging issue that affects the performance of employees in the administrative systems of Iranian public sector. It was also found that nepotism, as an environmental factor, has made the performance of organization to be consistent with it, through overcoming intra-organizational factors

Cooperation Networks and Innovation Performance of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs)

In recent years, the globalization drive has removed the barriers traditionally created by dividing competitive environments of micro and macro companies. Companies of any size initiated competitive sharing. Coexistence of micro and macro companies is increasingly prospering through entering micro companies into macro companies’ value chain. Since over 95% of production units in Iran classified as small and medium industries, such enterprises achieve significant portions in gross domestic production and value added. Therefore, this library study describes that how coexistence of smaller firms with larger companies, in recent years, was useful on innovation and technology of removing size inherent limitations and achieving required performance in global competition. Moreover, vertical and horizontal cooperation with customers, providers, and other participators play a significant and distinctive role in innovation process of small and medium organizations

Cloudy Spine Meta-System Proposed Model in Small Businesses Process Management

Cloudy computing by offering the scalable infrastructure and available capabilities as a service for small and medium-sized businesses has changed the game. It is a paradigm that computing resources are available anywhere and anytime and businesses can take advantage of it in the same way as they consume utilities like water and electricity. Due to the important role of small and medium-sized businesses in Iran economy, the aim of this study is to design a cloudy Spine for small businesses. According to the views of experts in the field of IT and cloudy computing, information and data in this field are collected by observing, preliminary and systematically interviews. Studies show that this business model provides a win-win solutions for small and medium-sized businesses provider and cloud service consumer. At the end, it is presented for the cloudy Spine model

Clinical studies relation of metabolic syndrome with neoplastic lesion colon and rectum in persons with age 50 years and higher

زمینه و هدف: اطلاعات کمی در مورد رابطه بین سندرم متابولیک و احتمال بروز سرطان بدخیم کولورکتال وجود دارد. لذا از این مطالعه به منظور بررسی مقایسه ای بین ضایعات کلورکتال در افراد با و بدون سندرم متابولیک طراحی و انجام شده است. روش بررسی: این مطالعه به صورت توصیفی تحلیلی در بین 114 بیمار 50 سال و بالاتر (بامیانگین سنی8/50±60/69 سال) مراجعه کننده به درمانگاه بیمارستان شریعتی اصفهان انجام گرفت. بعد از انجام آزمایشات بیماران به دو گروه با و بدون سندرم متابولیک تقسیم شدند و برای هر دو گروه کولونوسکوپی انجام شد. سپس بر اساس وجود پولیپ آدنوم با پاتولوژی پیشرفته و یا پولیپ آدنوم بدون پاتولوژی پیشرفته نیز به دو گروه تقسیم و با یکدیگر مقایسه شدند. داده ها توسط نرم افزار SPSS و با استفاده از آزمون کای اسکور تجزیه و تحلیل شدند. یافته ها: از 119 مورد بیمار که وارد مطالعه شدند، 45/6٪ مبتلا به سندرم متابولیک بودند. و در 42/2٪ این افراد پولیپ آدنوم مشاهده شد که 63/6٪ از این پولیپ های آدنوم پاتولوژی پیشرفته داشتند. این در حالی است که فقط در 12/9٪ افراد بدون سندرم متابولیک، پولیپ های آدنوم مشاهده شد که از این تعداد، 25٪ دارای پاتولوژی پیشرفته بودند..شیوع آدنوم در مردها (41/5) بیشتراز زن ها (17/5) بود (0/0

Arginase 1 (Arg1) as an Up-Regulated Gene in COVID-19 Patients: A Promising Marker in COVID-19 Immunopathy

Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak, caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has been declared a global pandemic. It is well-established that SARS-CoV-2 infection can lead to dysregulated immune responses. Arginase-1 (Arg1), which has a pivotal role in immune cells, can be expressed in most of the myeloid cells, e.g., neutrophils and macrophages. Arg1 has been associated with the suppression of antiviral immune responses. Methods: Whole blood was taken from 21 COVID-19 patients and 21 healthy individuals, and after RNA extraction and complementary DNA (cDNA) synthesis, gene expression of Arg1 was measured by real-time PCR. Results: The qPCR results showed that the expression of Arg1 was significantly increased in COVID-19 patients compared to healthy individuals (p < 0.01). The relative expression analysis demonstrated there were approximately 2.3 times increased Arg1 expression in the whole blood of COVID-19 patients. Furthermore, the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis showed a considerable diagnostic value for Arg1 expression in COVID-19 (p = 0.0002 and AUC = 0.8401). Conclusion: Arg1 might be a promising marker in the pathogenesis of the disease, and it could be a valuable diagnostic tool

The Role of Hemoglobin Subunit Delta in the Immunopathy of Multiple Sclerosis: Mitochondria Matters

Although the exact pathophysiology of MS has not been identified, mitochondrial stress can be one of the culprits in MS development. Herein, we have applied microarray analysis, single-cell sequencing analysis, and ex vivo study to elucidate the role of mitochondrial stress in PBMCs of MS patients

Coronavirus Disease 2019: A Brief Review of the Clinical Manifestations and Pathogenesis to the Novel Management Approaches and Treatments

The recent outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) or coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in China, which spread to the rest of the world, led the World Health Organization to classify it as a global pandemic. COVID-19 belongs to the Bettacoronavirus genus of the Coronaviridae family, and it mainly spreads through the respiratory tract. Studies have now confirmed a human-to-human transmission as the primary pathway of spread. COVID-19 patients with a history of diseases such as respiratory system diseases, immune deficiency, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer are prone to adverse events (admission to the intensive care unit requiring invasive ventilation or even death). The current focus has been on the development of novel therapeutics, including antivirals, monoclonal antibodies, and vaccines. However, although there is undoubtedly an urgent need to identify effective treatment options against infection with COVID-19, it is equally important to clarify management protocols for the other significant diseases from which these patients may suffer, including cancer. This review summarizes the current evidence regarding the epidemiology, pathogenesis, and management of patients with COVID-19. It also aims to provide the reader with insights into COVID-19 in pregnant patients and those with cancer, outlining necessary precautions relevant to cancer patients. Finally, we provide the available evidence on the latest potent antiviral drugs and vaccines of COVID-19 and the ongoing drug trials

Power Dissipation and Thermal Transport of Two-Dimensional (2D) Electronic Devices

The preceding decade have witnessed incredible advances in the research of two-dimensional (2D) materials such as graphene, transition metal carbides and nitrides (MXenes), and transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs). Since their discovery, 2D materials have enabled the design of nano-scale devices with unique functionalities that are otherwise unavailable in conventional 3D systems. This dissertation focus on the electrical an thermal properties of these materials and presents the study of (1) contribution of the encapsulating layers and (2) surface parameters to the thermal transport at the van der Waals interfaces, (3) synthesis of quasi-binary TMDC alloys through computationally predicted stability maps, and (4) the phase‐dependent band gap engineering in alloys induced by charge density wave (CDW) phases. In the first and second project, power dissipation and thermal management in the nanoscale structures are investigated which is of great importance for the design and operation of energy-efficient 2D nano-devices. Energy transport is heavily dependent of the thermal boundary conductance (TBC) at the van der Waals interfaces, particularly coupling at the interface of 2D channels with their underlying 3D substrates. A low TBC with underlying substrates puts an extrinsic limitation on the ability of 2D materials to conduct heat and dissipate the applied power. In this project a novel self-heating/self-sensing electrical thermometry platform based on atomically thin Ti3C2Tz MXene sheets is developed, which enables experimental investigation of the thermal transport at a Ti3C2Tz/SiO2 interface, with and without an encapsulating layer. Furthermore, the hydrophilic nature and variability of MXene surface terminations together with their metallic nature, provide a new platform to study the effect of the surface parameters on the thermal transport through and along the 2D flakes. In the third project, at theory-guided synthesis approach is employed to achieve 25 unexplored quasi-binary TMDC alloys through computationally predicted stability maps and equilibrium temperature-composition phase diagrams. Compared to other 2D materials, TMDCs exhibit diverse, exciting physical properties, including topological insulator behavior, superconductivity, valley polarization, and superior electrocatalytic activity compared to noble metals. Their properties can be further tuned — or even new properties engineered — by alloying two different elements at either the transition metal or the chalcogen site to form quasi-binary alloys, or by simultaneous alloying at both the sites to form quaternary alloys. The synthesized alloys can be exfoliated into 2D structures, and some of them exhibit: (i) outstanding thermal stability tested up to 1230K, (ii) exceptionally high electrochemical activity for CO2 reduction reaction, (iii) excellent energy efficiency in a high rate Li-air battery, and (iv) high break-down current density for interconnect applications. In the last project, a novel form of bandgap engineering involving alloying non‐isovalent cations in a 2D transition metal dichalcogenide (TMDC) is presented. By alloying semiconducting MoSe2 with metallic NbSe2, two structural phases of Mo0.5Nb0.5Se2, the 1T and 2H phases, are produced each with emergent electronic structure. At room temperature, it is observed that the 1T and 2H phases are semiconducting and metallic, respectively. For the 1T structure, scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy (STM/STS) is used to measure band gaps. Electron diffraction patterns of the 1T structure obtained at room temperature show the presence of a nearly commensurate charge density wave (NCCDW) phase with periodic lattice distortions