Sharif Digital Repository

Background: Accurate and up-to-date assessment of demographic metrics is crucial for understanding a wide range of social, economic, and public health issues that affect populations worldwide. The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2019 produced updated and comprehensive demographic assessments of the key indicators of fertility, mortality, migration, and population for 204 countries and territories and selected subnational locations from 1950 to 2019. Methods: 8078 country-years of vital registration and sample registration data, 938 surveys, 349 censuses, and 238 other sources were identified and used to estimate age-specific fertility. Spatiotemporal... 

Cardiovascular diseases are the number one cause of heart failure and death in the world, and the transplantation of the heart is an effective and viable choice for treatment despite presenting many disadvantages (most notably, transplant heart availability). To overcome this problem, cardiac tissue engineering is considered a promising approach by using implantable artificial blood vessels, injectable gels, and cardiac patches (to name a few) made from biodegradable polymers. Biodegradable polymers are classified into two main categories: natural and synthetic polymers. Natural biodegradable polymers have some distinct advantages such as biodegradability, abundant availability, and... 

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper. © 2020, The Author(s)  

A double burden of malnutrition occurs when individuals, household members or communities experience both undernutrition and overweight. Here, we show geospatial estimates of overweight and wasting prevalence among children under 5 years of age in 105 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) from 2000 to 2017 and aggregate these to policy-relevant administrative units. Wasting decreased overall across LMICs between 2000 and 2017, from 8.4% (62.3 (55.1–70.8) million) to 6.4% (58.3 (47.6–70.7) million), but is predicted to remain above the World Health Organization’s Global Nutrition Target of <5% in over half of LMICs by 2025. Prevalence of overweight increased from 5.2% (30 (22.8–38.5)... 

Background Across low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs), one in ten deaths in children younger than 5 years is attributable to diarrhoea. The substantial between-country variation in both diarrhoea incidence and mortality is attributable to interventions that protect children, prevent infection, and treat disease. Identifying subnational regions with the highest burden and mapping associated risk factors can aid in reducing preventable childhood diarrhoea. Methods We used Bayesian model-based geostatistics and a geolocated dataset comprising 15 072 746 children younger than 5 years from 466 surveys in 94 LMICs, in combination with findings of the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries,... 

Reiner RC Jr, Hay SI. Mapping geographical inequalities in childhood diarrhoeal morbidity and mortality in low-income and middle-income countries, 2000–17: analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017. Lancet 2020; 395: 1779–801—In this Article, the author byline has been amended to Local Burden of Disease Diarrhoea Collaborators. This correction has been made to the online version as of June 4, 2020, and the printed version is correct. © 2020 Elsevier Ltd  

The safe, highly effective measles vaccine has been recommended globally since 1974, yet in 2017 there were more than 17 million cases of measles and 83,400 deaths in children under 5 years old, and more than 99% of both occurred in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs)1–4. Globally comparable, annual, local estimates of routine first-dose measles-containing vaccine (MCV1) coverage are critical for understanding geographically precise immunity patterns, progress towards the targets of the Global Vaccine Action Plan (GVAP), and high-risk areas amid disruptions to vaccination programmes caused by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)5–8. Here we generated annual estimates of routine childhood... 

Background: Oral rehydration solution (ORS) is a form of oral rehydration therapy (ORT) for diarrhoea that has the potential to drastically reduce child mortality; yet, according to UNICEF estimates, less than half of children younger than 5 years with diarrhoea in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) received ORS in 2016. A variety of recommended home fluids (RHF) exist as alternative forms of ORT; however, it is unclear whether RHF prevent child mortality. Previous studies have shown considerable variation between countries in ORS and RHF use, but subnational variation is unknown. This study aims to produce high-resolution geospatial estimates of relative and absolute coverage of... 

Currently there is no standard test collection for evaluation of Farsi information retrieval systems. In this paper we introduce Mahak, the first complete test collection generally available for evaluating Farsi information retrieval systems. In addition, we have used different methods for constructing Mahak qrels and we have compared performance of these methods  

Although so many advances have been proposed in the field of artificial intelligence and superconductivity, there are few reports on their combination. On the other hand, because of the nonlinear and multivariable characteristics of the superconductive elements and capabilities of neural networks in this field, it seems useful to apply the neural networks to model and control the superconductive phenomena or devices. In this paper, a new constructive neural network (CNN) trained by two different optimization algorithms; back-propagation and genetic algorithm, is proposed which models the behavior of the superconductive fault current limiters (SFCLs). Simulation results show that the proposed... 

In the present work we report the enhanced UV light photocatalytic performance of cadmium titanate photocatalyst by MoO 3 for Drug pollutant degradation. The nano photocatalyst sample was synthesized employing the Pechini-ultrasonic-hydrothermal route. Therefore, the nano photocatalyst were characterized by various analytical devices. The wide scan X-ray photoelectron spectral study confirmed the MoO 3 in the CdTiO 3 matrix. The crystallite size calculated with the Debye-Scherrer equation (55.4, 57.0, 61.2 and 63.1 nm for pure CdTiO 3 , MoCdTi-0, MoCdTi-1, and MoCdTi-2 nanocomposites, respectively). SEM micrographs revealed nanowire morphology indicated the crystalline nature of the sample.... 

This paper presents modeling of Series Static Voltage Restorer (SSVR) in load flow calculations for steadystate voltage compensation. An accurate model for SSVR is derived to use in load flow calculations. The rating of this device as well as direction of required reactive power injection to compensate voltage to the desired value (1p.u.) is derived and discussed analytically and mathematically using pahsor diagram method. Since performance of SSVR varies when it reaches to its maximum capacity, modeling of SSVR in its maximum rating of reactive power injection is derived. The validity of the proposed model is examined using two standard distribution systems consisting of 33 and 69 nodes,... 

In this paper, an incompressible smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) method is presented to solve unsteady free-surface flows. Both Newtonian and viscoelastic fluids are considered. In the case of viscoelastic fluids, both the Maxwell and Oldroyd-B models are investigated. The proposed SPH method uses a Poisson pressure equation to satisfy the incompressibility constraints. The solution algorithm is an explicit predictor-corrector scheme and employs an adaptive smoothing length based on density variations. To alleviate the numerical difficulties encountered when fluid is highly stretched, an artificial stress term is incorporated into the momentum equation which reduces the risk of... 

In the last decades, much attention has been paid to the design of multi-speaker voice conversion. In this work, a new method for voice conversion (VC) using nonlinear principal component analysis (NLPCA) is presented. The principal components are extracted and transformed by a feed-forward neural network which is trained by combination of Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Back-Propagation (BP). Common pre- and post-processing approaches are applied to increase the quality of the synthesized speech. The results indicate that the proposed method can be considered as a step towards multi-speaker Voice conversion. © 2007 IEEE  

This study presents a comprehensive review of the Land subsidence (LS) cases, as a worldwide environmental, geological, and global geohazard concern. Here, 290 case studies around the world mostly conducted in large metropolitan cities (e.g. Bangkok, Beijing, California, Houston, Mexico City, Shanghai, Jakarta, and Tokyo) in 41 countries were collected. The spatial distribution of LS characteristics (e.g. intensity, magnitude, and affected area), impacts, and influential factors are scrutinized. Worldwide attempts to remedy the crisis of LS were also investigated in this review. It is shown that the coastal plains and river deltaic regions are of high-frequent subsided areas around the world... 

Exclusive breastfeeding (EBF)—giving infants only breast-milk for the first 6 months of life—is a component of optimal breastfeeding practices effective in preventing child morbidity and mortality. EBF practices are known to vary by population and comparable subnational estimates of prevalence and progress across low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are required for planning policy and interventions. Here we present a geospatial analysis of EBF prevalence estimates from 2000 to 2018 across 94 LMICs mapped to policy-relevant administrative units (for example, districts), quantify subnational inequalities and their changes over time, and estimate probabilities of meeting the World Health... 

Background: Measuring routine childhood vaccination is crucial to inform global vaccine policies and programme implementation, and to track progress towards targets set by the Global Vaccine Action Plan (GVAP) and Immunization Agenda 2030. Robust estimates of routine vaccine coverage are needed to identify past successes and persistent vulnerabilities. Drawing from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2020, Release 1, we did a systematic analysis of global, regional, and national vaccine coverage trends using a statistical framework, by vaccine and over time. Methods: For this analysis we collated 55 326 country-specific, cohort-specific, year-specific,... 

SnO2 is considered as one of the high specific capacity anode materials for Lithium-ion batteries. However, the low electrical conductivity of SnO2 limits its applications. This manuscript reports a simple and efficient approach for the synthesis of Sb-doped SnO2 nanowires (NWs) core and carbon shell structure which effectively enhances the electrical conductivity and electrochemical performance of SnO2 nanostructures. Sb doping was performed during the vapor-liquid-solid synthesis of SnO2 NWs in a horizontal furnace. Subsequently, carbon nanolayer was coated on the NWs using the DC Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition approach. The carbon-coated shell improves the Solid-Electrolyte...