Sharif Digital Repository

Electrospinning of composite polymer solutions provides fantastic potential to prepare novel nanofibers for use in a variety of applications. The addition of graphene (G) and graphene oxide (GO) nanosheets to bioactive polymers was found to enhance their conductivity and biocompatibility. Composite conductive nanofibers of polyaniline (PANI) and polyacrylonitrile (PAN) with G and GO nanosheets were prepared by an electrospinning process. The fabricated membranes were investigated by physical and chemical examinations including scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Raman spectroscopy, x-ray diffraction (XRD) and tensile assay. The muscle satellite cells enriched by a pre-plating technique were... 

In this study, QuEChERS combined with dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction is developed for extraction of ten pesticides in complex sample matrices of water and milk. In this regard, effective factors of proposed extraction technique combined with gas chromatography with flame ionization detector were designed, modeled, and optimized using central composite design, multiple linear regression, and Nelder–Mead simplex optimization. Later, univariate calibration model for ten pesticides was developed in concentration range of 0.5–100 ng/mL. Surprisingly, quadratic calibration behavior was observed for some of the pesticides. In this regard, Mandel's test was used for evaluating linearity... 

Background: Autonomous grasping of soft tissues can facilitate the robotic surgery procedures. The previous attempts for implementing auto-grasping have been based on a simplistic representation of the actual surgery maneuvers. Method: A generalized three-zone grasp model was introduced to consider the effect of the pull force angulation on the grasp mode, that is, damage, slip, or safe grasp. Also, an extended auto-grasping algorithm was proposed in which the trigger force is automatically controlled against the pull force magnitude and direction, to achieve a safe and secure grasp. Results: The autonomous grasping experiments against a varying pull force in a phantom study indicated a good... 

Core-shell iron-gold (Fe@Au) nanoparticles were synthesized by a facile reverse micelle procedure and the effect of water to surfactant molar ratio (w) on the size, size distribution and magnetic properties of the nanoparticles was studied. MTT assay was utilized to evaluate the cell toxicity of the nanoparticles. To functionalize the particles for MRI imaging and targeted drug delivery, the particles were coated by polyglycerol through capping with thiol followed by polymerization of glycidol. The characteristics of the particles were examined by X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), vibrating sample magnetometere (VSM), UV-visible spectroscopy, and Fourier... 

At present, nanoparticles are used for various biomedical applications where they facilitate laboratory diagnostics and therapeutics. More specifically for drug delivery purposes, the use of nanoparticles is attracting increasing attention due to their unique capabilities and their negligible side effects not only in cancer therapy but also in the treatment of other ailments. Among all types of nanoparticles, biocompatible superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) with proper surface architecture and conjugated targeting ligands/proteins have attracted a great deal of attention for drug delivery applications. This review covers recent advances in the development of SPIONs together... 

We previously reported that MR01, an indigenous strain of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, was able to produce a rhamnolipid-type biosurfactant. Here, we attempted to define the structural properties of this natural product. The analysis of the extracted biosurfactant by thin-layer chromatography (TLC) revealed the presence of two compounds corresponding to those of authentic mono- and di-rhamnolipid. The identity of two structurally distinguished rhamnolipids was confirmed by 1H and 13C nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. Liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry (LC/MS) of extracted biosurfactant revealed up to seventeen different rhamnolipid congeners. Further quantification showed... 

Since physiological and pathological processes occur at nano-environments, nanotechnology has considered as an efficient tool for designing of next generation specific biomolecules with enhanced pharmacodynamic and pharmacodynamic properties. In the current investigation, by control of the size and hydrodynamic volume at the nanoscale, for the first time, physicochemical and pharmacokinetic properties of an anti-VEGFA nanobody was remarkably improved by attachment of a Proline-Alanine-Serine (PAS) rich sequence. The results elucidated unexpected impressive effects of PAS sequence on physicochemical properties especially on size, hydrodynamics radius, and even solubility of nanobody. CD... 

A method based on direct immersion solid-phase microextraction (DI-SPME) coupled with high performance liquid chromatography combined with post-column photochemically induced fluorimetry derivatization and fluorescence detection (HPLC-PIF-FD) was developed to extract three pyrethroid insecticides, i.e. cyfluthrin, cypermethrin, and flumethrin from water samples. A sol-gel based coating fiber using 3-(trimethoxysilyl propyl) amine as precursor was prepared and used for the extraction of the pyrethroids from groundwater samples. A post-column photochemical reactor was designed and constructed for the derivatization of these environmentally important pollutants to increase their fluorescence... 

We have used a hierarchical multiscale modeling scheme for the analysis of cortical bone considering it as a nanocomposite. This scheme consists of definition of two boundary value problems, one for macroscale, and another for microscale. The coupling between these scales is done by using the homogenization technique. At every material point in which the constitutive model is needed, a microscale boundary value problem is defined using a macroscopic kinematical quantity and solved. Using the described scheme, we have studied elastic properties of cortical bone considering its nanoscale microstructural constituents with various mineral volume fractions. Since the microstructure of bone... 

The purpose of this study was to develop the structure-toxicity relationships for a large group of 268 substituted benzene to the ciliate Tetrahymena pyriformis using mechanistically interpretable descriptors. The shuffling-adaptive neuro fuzzy inference system (Shuffling-ANFIS) has been successfully applied to select the important factors affecting the toxicity of substituted benzenes to T. pyriformis. The results of the proposed model were compared with the model of linear-free energy response surface and also the principal component analysis Bayesian-regularized neural network (PCA-BRANN) trained using the same data. The presented model shows a better statistical parameter in comparison... 

The current study was designed to assess the association between temporal variations in urban PM2.5 chemical composition, sources, and the oxidative stress and inflammatory response in an alveolar macrophage (AM) model. A year-long sampling campaign collected PM2.5 samples at the Sharif University in Tehran, Iran. PM-induced reactive oxygen species (ROS) production was measured both with an acellular dithiothreitol consumption assay (DTT-ROS; ranged from 2.1 to 9.3 nmoles min−1 m−3) and an in vitro macrophage-mediated ROS production assay (AM-ROS; ranged from 125 to 1213 μg Zymosan equivalents m−3). The production of tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α; ranged from ~60 to 518 pg TNF-α m−3)...