Using Data Mining for Facilitating User Contributions in the Social Semantic Web

This thesis utilizes recommender systems to aid the user in contributing to the Social Semantic Web. In this work, we propose a framework that maps domain properties to recommendation technologies. Next, we develop novel recommendation algorithms for improving personalized tag recommendation and for recommendation of semantic relations. Finally, we introduce a framework to analyze different types of potential attacks against social tagging systems and evaluate their impact on those systems

Association of BsmI variant of vitamin D receptor gene with polycystic ovary syndrome: A case-control study

Background: Polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) is an endocrine disorder that affects women’s fertility and causes alterations such as obesity, insulin resistance, menstrual irregularities, and polycystic ovaries. The results of the studies show that the issue of vitamin D and vitamin D receptor (VDR) is controversial for PCOS susceptibility. Objective: To investigate the association of BsmI polymorphism in the VDR gene with metabolic parameters in obese PCOS women. Materials and Methods: In this case-control study, 38 obese subjects with PCOS and 40 unrelated obese individuals were evaluated to determine the allelic and genotypic frequency of BsmI variant by Polymerase Chain Reaction Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism method. Body Mass Index, parathyroid hormone, phosphorus, and calcium were evaluated in all participants. Results: BsmI (rs1544410), (A/G) AA, AG, GG, A, and G percentage of genotypic/allelic frequencies were 65.8, 26.3, 7.9, 78.9, and 21.1 in cases and 57.5, 40, 2.5, 77.5, and 22.5 in controls, respectively. Statistical analysis revealed that the differences in genotypic (p = 0.31)/allelic (p = 0.83) frequencies and dominant (p = 0.45)/recessive (p = 0.35) models between the cases and controls were not significant. This study indicates no association between the BsmI genotypes and metabolic parameters. Conclusion: It can be concluded that VDR BsmI (rs1544410) Intron 8 (A > G) was not associated with obesity along with PCOS susceptibility in the studied groups. Key words: Vitamin D receptor, Polycystic ovary syndrome, Genetic association study

Joint Inference of Structure and Diffusion in Partially Observed Social Networks

Access to complete data in large scale networks is often infeasible. Therefore, the problem of missing data is a crucial and unavoidable issue in analysis and modeling of real-world social networks. However, most of the research on different aspects of social networks do not consider this limitation. One effective way to solve this problem is to recover the missing data as a pre-processing step. The present paper tries to infer the unobserved data from both diffusion network and network structure by learning a model from the partially observed data. We develop a probabilistic generative model called "DiffStru" to jointly discover the hidden links of network structure and the omitted diffusion activities. The interrelations among links of nodes and cascade processes are utilized in the proposed method via learning coupled low dimensional latent factors. In addition to inferring the unseen data, the learned latent factors may also help network classification problems such as community detection. Simulation results on synthetic and real-world datasets show the excellent performance of the proposed method in terms of link prediction and discovering the identity and infection time of invisible social behaviors

Recent advances on biocompatible and biodegradable nanoparticles as gene carriers

Introduction: Gene therapy mainly depends on the use of appropriate delivery vehicles with no induction of immune responses and toxicity. The limitations of viral gene carriers such as induction of immunogenicity, random integration in the genome of the host, limitations in the size, has led to a movement toward non-viral systems with much safer properties. Biodegradable and biocompatible polymeric nanocarriers due to several unique properties such as excellent biocompatibility, prolonged gene circulation time, prevented gene degradation, passive targeting by using the enhanced permeability and retention (EPR) effect, and possibility of modulating polymers structure to obtain desirable therapeutic efficacy, are among the most promising systems for gene delivery. However, biodegradable gene delivery systems have some limitations such as inadequate stability and slow release of therapeutics which have to be overcome. Thus, a variety of advanced functional biodegradable delivery systems with more efficient gene delivery activity has recently been introduced. Areas covered: This review summarizes different aspects of biodegradable and biocompatible nano carriers including formulation, mechanism of intracellular uptake, various potential applications of biodegradable nanoparticles and finally recent studies on the therapeutic efficacy of these nanoparticles in sustained delivery of genes

The impact of endogenous estrogen exposure duration on fracture incidence : a longitudinal cohort study

Author's accepted version (postprint).This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Oxford University Press in Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism on 04/05/2022.Available online: https://academic.oup.com/jcem/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1210/clinem/dgac248/6580306?redirectedFrom=fulltextacceptedVersio

Effects of auditory processing training on speech perception and brainstem plastisity in adolescents with autism spectrum disorders

Objective Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorderA major problem of ASD is speech perception impairment in the presence of background noise. Additionally, researchers have reported temporal auditory processing impairment in these patients. In the present study, we evaluated the effects of a temporal-based rehabilitation program on improvement of speech perception in the presence of noise using the speech auditory brainstem response (sABR). Materials & Methods Twenty-eight adolescents with high functional ASD with the mean age of 14.35±1.86 were randomly selected and divided into the ASD group (11 males and three females), and the control group (13 males and one female). All subjects had a normal hearing and intelligence threshold and had no history of neurological disorder. The speech perception test was performed in signal-to-noise ratios of zero and +10. The intervention group received a temporal processing-based auditory rehabilitation program and the control group received a conventional rehabilitation program (P<0.05 was considered significant). Results speech perception in noise after rehabilitation was significantly higher in intervention group (P <0.001) and the latency of all sABR waves in the rehabilitation group was lower than that of the control group. Conclusion Improvement of speech perception in noisy environments and the reduced latency of sABR waves after a temporal processing-based rehabilitation program and one month later, points to the role of auditory temporal processing training program highlight the role of brainstem neural plasticity in speech processin