Sharif Digital Repository

Dental professionals are in a unique position to promote smoking cessation among their patients. We evaluated the effects of a brief counselling intervention by a dentist on patients' attitude towards the role of dentists in tobacco cessation programmes. In a semi-experimental study in Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran, 70 eligible smokers were selected and randomly assigned to intervention and control groups. The initial attitudes of the patients regarding tobacco cessation counselling services provided by the dentist were determined using a validated questionnaire. The intervention group received a brief chair-side counselling by a dentist based on the 5 A's approach, while no intervention... 

Pemphigus vulgaris is an autoimmune disease, in which the role of Th17 cytokines needs to be further explored. This study was performed to assess serum levels of three interleukins (IL) required for Th17 differentiation (IL-β, IL-6 and IL-23) and two specific Th17 cytokines (IL- 17 and IL-22) in a group of patients with pemphigus vulgaris, at baseline, 3 weeks and 6 months after of treatment. Correlations between anti-desmogleins and cytokines with disease severity as well as the influence of therapy on the above factors were assessed. Forty-three first-admitted pemphigus vulgaris patients with the active disease entered the study, but only 31 completed the study. Forty-five healthy... 

In this paper, distributed electroencephalographic (EEG) sources in the brain have been mapped with the objective of early diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD). To this end, records from a montage of a high-density EEG from 17 early AD patients and 17 matched healthy control subjects were considered. Subjects were in eyes-closed, resting-state condition. Cortical EEG sources were modeled by the standardized low-resolution brain electromagnetic tomography (sLORETA) method. Relative logarithmic power spectral density values were obtained in the four conventional frequency bands (alpha, beta, delta, and theta) and 12 cortical regions. Results show that in the left brain hemisphere, the theta... 

Cardiovascular diseases are very common and are one of the main reasons of death. Being among the major types of these diseases, correct and in-time diagnosis of coronary artery disease (CAD) is very important. Angiography is the most accurate CAD diagnosis method; however, it has many side effects and is costly. Existing studies have used several features in collecting data from patients, while applying different data mining algorithms to achieve methods with high accuracy and less side effects and costs. In this paper, a dataset called Z-Alizadeh Sani with 303 patients and 54 features, is introduced which utilizes several effective features. Also, a feature creation method is proposed to... 

Several studies have investigated road traffic deaths, but few have compared by road user type. Iran, with an estimated 44 road traffic deaths per 100,000 population in 2002 had higher road traffic deaths than any other country for which reliable estimates can be made. So, the present study was conducted on road death data and identified fatal accident distribution by age, gender and head injury as well as the influences of age and gender on deaths at accident scenes for all road user groups. Data used in this study are on fatal road accidents recorded by forensic medicine experts of the Khorasan Razavi province in Mashhad, the capital of the province, the second largest city and the largest... 

Endothelial dysfunction assessment has received considerable attention due to its potential in early screening of cardiovascular diseases. Since the seminal work by Celermajer in flow-mediated dilation (FMD) based on B-mode ultrasound measurement of the brachial artery dilation following limb ischemia, many attempts have been made toward applying this method to clinical, non-invasive endothelial dysfunction assessment. One major obstacle toward achieving this objective has been the relative high cost of the required setup and skilled manpower. Such limitations have prompted the investigation of other non-invasively accessible signals such as the photoplethysmogram (PPG) in relation to FMD.... 

Objectives. Stressors have a serious role in precipitating mental and somatic disorders and are an interesting subject for many clinical and community-based studies. Hence, the proper and accurate measurement of them is very important. We revised the stressful life event (SLE) questionnaire by adding weights to the events in order to measure and determine a cut point. Methods. A total of 4569 adults aged between 18 and 85 years completed the SLE questionnaire and the general health questionnaire-12 (GHQ-12). A hybrid model of genetic algorithm (GA) and artificial neural networks (ANNs) was applied to extract the relation between the stressful life events (evaluated by a 6-point Likert scale)... 

This study was designed to investigate the effect of changing the location of the center of mass (COM) of transfemoral prostheses on the spatiotemporal and kinematical characteristics of the amputee gait, while maintaining the prosthetic mass fixed. Ten men with unilateral traumatic transfemoral amputation participated in gait analysis, 2-min walk and subject preference tests. Weights were added to the original prosthetic legs in three conditions: 600. g added to the ankle, 600. g added at 10. cm distal to the prosthetic knee, and 300. g added to the ankle, and 300. g at 10. cm distal to the knee. For each prosthetic mass condition, the stride and step lengths, stepping speed, stance, swing... 

Smoking is known as a major cause of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and hence immediate and effective interventions are required for its elimination. This study aimed to collect valid data with regard to cigarette smoking in adult population of north of Iran for policy making by a meta-analysis of the documents of national non-communicable disease risk factors surveillance system. We investigated relevant evidences by searching in published and non-electronic databases. Data were extracted based on variables such as year of the study, sex, age group and prevalence of smoking habit. Based on results of heterogeneity, we applied fixed or random effects model to estimate the... 

Functional connectivity in human brain can be represented as a network using electroencephalography (EEG) signals. These networks--whose nodes can vary from tens to hundreds--are characterized by neurobiologically meaningful graph theory metrics. This study investigates the degree to which various graph metrics depend upon the network size. To this end, EEGs from 32 normal subjects were recorded and functional networks of three different sizes were extracted. A state-space based method was used to calculate cross-correlation matrices between different brain regions. These correlation matrices were used to construct binary adjacency connectomes, which were assessed with regards to a number of... 

This article, introduces a new haptic robot, wrist-RoboHab, for upper limb rehabilitation of post stroke, orthopedic and Parkinson patients., The robot is designed for hand movement therapy and could be used for both treatment and evaluation purposes in three operational states; forearm supination/pronation, wrist flexion/extension and ulnar/radial deviation. At first the mechanical design and control system are described. Then the results of a case study are demonstrated. Clinical results, showed an improvement in Fugle-Meyer, AROM, power and the biomechanical assessment of the spasticity in a chronic patient. Furthermore, it was approved that the robot can have a good interaction with... 

We consider electroencephalograms (EEGs) of healthy individuals and compare the properties of the brain functional networks found through two methods: unpartialized and partialized cross-correlations. The networks obtained by partial correlations are fundamentally different from those constructed through unpartial correlations in terms of graph metrics. In particular, they have completely different connection efficiency, clustering coefficient, assortativity, degree variability, and synchronization properties. Unpartial correlations are simple to compute and they can be easily applied to large-scale systems, yet they cannot prevent the prediction of non-direct edges. In contrast, partial... 

Muscle force partitioning methods and musculoskeletal system simplifications are key modeling issues that can alter outcomes, and thus change conclusions and recommendations addressed to health and safety professionals. A critical modeling concern is the use of single-joint equilibrium to estimate muscle forces and joint loads in a multi-joint system, an unjustified simplification made by most lumbar spine biomechanical models. In the context of common occupational tasks, an EMG-assisted optimization method (EMGAO) is modified in this study to simultaneously account for the equilibrium at all lumbar joints (M-EMGAO). The results of this improved approach were compared to those of its... 

Objective Psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES) are paroxysmal events that, in contrast to epileptic seizures, are related to psychological causes without the presence of epileptiform EEG changes. Recent models suggest a multifactorial basis for PNES. A potentially paramount, but currently poorly understood factor is the interplay between psychiatric features and a specific vulnerability of the brain leading to a clinical picture that resembles epilepsy. Hypothesising that functional cerebral network abnormalities may predispose to the clinical phenotype, the authors undertook a characterisation of the functional connectivity in PNES patients. Methods The authors analysed the whole-head... 

Study Design.: A descriptive overview of the literature. Objective.: To present a comprehensive descriptive overview of the published papers about epidemiologic features, burden, and current management of low back pain (LBP) in Iran. Summary OF Background Data.: Little is known about the epidemiology, burden, and management of LBP in developing and low- to middle-income countries, such as Iran. Methods.: A literature search was carried out using MEDLINE database to assess existing literature about prevalence, disease burden, impact, and current management of nonspecific LBP in Iran. Results.: Twenty-six articles matched inclusion criteria and included in the study. The findings related to... 

Background: Diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) is a non-invasive method for investigating the brain white matter structure and can be used to evaluate fiber bundles. However, due to practical constraints, DWI data acquired in clinics are low resolution. New method: This paper proposes a method for interpolation of orientation distribution functions (ODFs). To this end, fuzzy clustering is applied to segment ODFs based on the principal diffusion directions (PDDs). Next, a cluster is modeled by a tensor so that an ODF is represented by a mixture of tensors. For interpolation, each tensor is rotated separately. Results: The method is applied on the synthetic and real DWI data of control and... 

Background: Performance indices provide quantitative measures for the quality of motion, and therefore, assist in analyzing and monitoring patients' progress. Measurement of performance indices requires costly devices, such as motion capture systems. Recent developments of sensors for game controllers, such as Microsoft Kinect, have motivated many researchers to develop affordable systems for performance measurement applicable to home and clinical care. In this work, the capability of Kinect in finding motion performance indices was assessed by analyzing intra-session and inter-session test-retest reliability. Method: Eighteen stroke patients and twelve healthy subjects participated in this... 

Background: Many studies have been conducted on the changes in the balance capabilities of stroke patients. However, results regarding the effects of dual-task activities on postural control in these patients have been variable. Objective: To evaluate the effects of a short-term memory task on the sway characteristics of stroke patients. Method: Center of pressure (COP) fluctuations were measured in three levels of postural difficulty (rigid surface with closed and open eyes and foamsurface with closed eyes), aswell as two levels of cognitive difficulty (easy and difficult). COP parameters included mean velocity, standard deviation of velocity in both medial-lateral (M.L) and... 

Epidemiological studies are divided over the causative role of body weight (BW) in low back pain. Biomechanical modeling is a valuable approach to examine the effect of changes in BW on spinal loads and risk of back pain. Changes in BW have not been properly simulated by previous models as associated alterations in model inputs on the musculature and moment arm of gravity loads have been neglected. A detailed, multi-joint, scalable model of the thoracolumbar spine is used to study the effect of BW (varying at five levels, i.e., 51, 68, 85, 102, and 119kg) on the L5-S1 spinal loads during various static symmetric activities while scaling moment arms and physiological cross-sectional areas of... 

The interhemispheric asymmetries that originate from connectivity-related structuring of the cortex are compromised in schizophrenia (SZ). Under the assumption that such abnormalities affect functional connectivity, we analyzed its correlate - EEG synchronization - in SZ patients and matched controls. We applied multivariate synchronization measures based on Laplacian EEG and tuned to various spatial scales. Compared to the controls who had rightward asymmetry at a local level (EEG power), rightward anterior and leftward posterior asymmetries at an intraregional level (1st and 2nd order S-estimator), and rightward global asymmetry (hemispheric S-estimator), SZ patients showed generally...