Sharif Digital Repository

Small diameter vascular grafts (<6 mm) are highly demanded for patients suffering from severe occluded arteries to be used as a bypass or substituted conduit. Fabricating a graft with appropriate structural, mechanical and cell growth properties which has simultaneously anti-thrombogenic trait is a challenge nowadays. Here, we proposed a bilayer heparinized vascular graft that can mimic the structural and mechanical characteristics close to those of the native coronary artery by combining electrospinning and freeze drying methods. In this study, the inner layer was made by co-electrospinning of synthetic polymer, poly-caprolactone (PCL) and the natural polymer, gelatin (Gel). Also, heparin... 

Small diameter vascular grafts (<6 mm) are highly demanded for patients suffering from severe occluded arteries to be used as a bypass or substituted conduit. Fabricating a graft with appropriate structural, mechanical and cell growth properties which has simultaneously anti-thrombogenic trait is a challenge nowadays. Here, we proposed a bilayer heparinized vascular graft that can mimic the structural and mechanical characteristics close to those of the native coronary artery by combining electrospinning and freeze drying methods. In this study, the inner layer was made by co-electrospinning of synthetic polymer, poly-caprolactone (PCL) and the natural polymer, gelatin (Gel). Also, heparin... 

Excessive loads on the human spine is recognized as a risk factor for back injuries/pain. Various lifting analysis tools such as musculoskeletal models, regression equations and NIOSH (National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health) lifting equation (NLE) have been proposed to evaluate and mitigate associated risks during manual material handling activities. Present study aims to compare predicted spinal loads from 5 different lifting analysis tools as well as to critically evaluate the NIOSH recommended weight limit (RWL). Spinal loads were estimated under different symmetric/asymmetric lifting tasks in which hand-load mass at each task was set based on RWL from NLE. Estimated... 

A Takagi-Sugeno adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (TSFIS) model is developed and applied to a dataset of wellhead flow-test data for the Resalat oil field located offshore southern Iran, the objective is to assist in the prediction and control of multi-phase flow rates of oil and gas through the wellhead chokes. For this purpose, 182 test data points (Appendix 1) related to the Resalat field are evaluated. In order to predict production flow rate (QL) expressed as stock-tank barrels per day (STB/D), this dataset includes four selected input variables: upstream pressure (Pwh); wellhead choke sizes (D64); gas to liquid ratio (GLR); and, base solids and water including some water-soluble... 

This study presents a bilayer structure as a skin scaffold comprised of an electrospun sheet layer made of polycaprolactone and polyvinil alcohol and a porous hydrogel layer made of chitosan and gelatin. The hydrogel layer was fabricated by employing the freeze-gelation technique. The bilayer structure was achieved by pouring the hydrogel solution on the electrospun sheet at the bottom of a mold followed by the freeze-gelation technique to obtain a porous structure in the hydrogel. The hydrogel and hydrogel-electrospun samples were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, swelling, tensile strength, in vitro and in vivo analyses. From a mechanical strength standpoint, the combination... 

Background: Human papillomavirus (HPV)-associated malignancy remain a main cause of cancer in men and women. Cancer immunotherapy has represented great potential as a new promising cancer therapeutic approach. Here, we report Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) as a carrier for the delivery of oncolytic Newcastle disease virus (NDV) for the treatment of HPV-associated tumor. Methods: For this purpose, MSCs obtained from the bone marrow of C57BL mice, then cultured and characterized subsequently by the flow cytometry analysis for the presence of cell surface markers. In this study, we sought out to determine the impacts of MSCs loaded with oncolytic NDV on splenic T cell and cytokine immune... 

With continual rapid developments in the biomedical field and understanding of the important mechanisms and pharmacokinetics of biological molecules, controlled drug delivery systems (CDDSs) have been at the forefront over conventional drug delivery systems. Over the past several years, scientists have placed boundless energy and time into exploiting a wide variety of excipients, particularly diverse polymers, both natural and synthetic. More recently, the development of nano polymer blends has achieved noteworthy attention due to their amazing properties, such as biocompatibility, biodegradability and more importantly, their pivotal role in controlled and sustained drug release in vitro and... 

Poly (lactate-co-glycolate) (PLGA) is a typical biocompatible and biodegradable synthetic polymer. The addition of TiO2 nanoparticles has shown to improve compressive modulus of PLGA scaffolds and reduced fast degradation. A novel method has been applied to fabricate PLGA/TiO2 scaffolds without using any inorganic solvent, with aim of improving the biocompatibility, macroscale morphology, and well inter-connected pores efficacy: Air–Liquid Foaming. Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM) revealed an increase in interconnected porosity of up to 98%. As well the compressive testing showed enhancement in modulus. Bioactivity and in vitro degradation were studied with immersion of... 

The optimal design of a casting feeding system is considered. The problem is formulated as the volume constrained topology optimization and is solved with the finite element analysis, explicit design sensitivity, and numerical optimization. In contrast to the traditional topology optimization where the objective function is defined on the design space, in the presented method, the design space is a subset of the complement of the objective function space. To accelerate optimization procedure, the nonlinear unsteady heat transfer equation is approximated with a Poisson-like equation. The feasibility of the presented method is supported with illustrative examples. © 2007 Springer-Verlag  

Nonlinear numerical modeling of masonry-infilled frames is one of the most complicated problems in structural engineering field. This complexity is attributed to the existence of joints as the major source of weakness and material nonlinearities as well as the infill-frame interaction which cannot be properly modeled using the traditional finite element methods. Although there are many numerical studies available on solid masonry-infilled steel frames' behavior, however, few researches have been conducted on infilled frames with openings. In this paper a two-dimensional numerical model using the specialized discrete element method (DEM) software UDEC (2004) is developed for the nonlinear... 

A nonlinear seismic soil-pile-structure interaction (SSPSI) analysis of fixed offshore platforms constructed on pile foundations including both vertical and battered piles is presented. The analysis is carried out in time domain and the effects of soil nonlinearity, discontinuity at pile soil interfaces, energy dissipation through soil radiation damping, formation of soil layers on bed rock, structural material nonlinearity and geometrical nonlinearity are considered. A combination of FEM approach and BNWF approach is used in modeling pile (substructure), platform structure (superstructure) and soil media. Gapping in clay is modeled by a special connector configuration. To find out the... 

Design technology is expected to rise to electronic system-level (ESL). This necessitates new techniques and tools for synthesizing ESL designs and for verifying them before and after ESL synthesis. A promising verification strategy for future very complex designs is to initially verify the design at the highest level of abstraction, and then check the equivalence of the lower level automatically generated models against that initial golden model. We present one such approach to simulation-based functional verification implemented in our ESL design methodology called ODYSSEY. Our ESL synthesis tool generates a transaction-level model (TLM) at TLM level 2 (i.e., design with partial timing)... 

Efficient environmental management calls for the consideration of multiple pollutants, for which two main types of transferable discharge permit (TDP) program have been described: separate permits that manage each pollutant individually in separate markets, with each permit based on the quantity of the pollutant or its environmental effects, and weighted-sum permits that aggregate several pollutants as a single commodity to be traded in a single market. In this paper, we perform a mathematical analysis of TDP programs for multiple pollutants that jointly affect the environment (i.e., interactive pollutants) and demonstrate the practicality of this approach for cost-efficient maintenance of... 

In this paper the gain dynamics of an erbium-doped fiber laser (EDFL) with an inhomogeneous active medium in the presence of ion pairs is modeled. A two-level model for single ions and a three-level model for ion pairs are employed to write the propagation and rate equations of inhomogeneous laser medium. The governing equations are an uncountable system of partial differential equations (PDEs). By employing the moment method, the system of PDEs is converted to a finite system of ordinary differential equations (ODEs). The Solution of the system of ODEs is used to analyze the output power of a high concentration EDFL. As it expected, theoretical results show that the threshold pumping power... 

Conductive self -electrical stimuli bioactive scaffolds could be used the potential for peripheral nerve regeneration with the maximum efficiency. To produce such conductive self-electrical stimuli bioactive scaffolds, chopped spun piezoelectric nanofibers of polyvinylidene fluoride/mesoporous silica nanoparticle (PVDF/MCM41) are prepared and incorporated in gellan/polyaniline/graphene (gellan/PAG) nanocomposites which have been previously prepared by incorporation of polyaniline/graphene (PAG) nanoparticles in gellan gel at 80 °C. Highly conductive binary doped polyaniline/graphene nanoparticles are prepared by chemical oxidative polymerization of aniline monomer using in-suite... 

Injectable hydrogels which mimic the physicochemical and electromechanical properties of cardiac tissue is advantageous for cardiac tissue engineering. Here, a newly-developed in situ forming double-network hydrogel derived from biological macromolecules (oxidized alginate (OA) and myocardial extracellular matrix (ECM)) with improved mechanical properties and electrical conductivity was optimized. 3-(2-aminoethyl amino) propyltrimethoxysilane (APTMS)-functionalized reduced graphene oxide (Amine-rGO) was added to this system with varied concentrations to promote electromechanical properties of the hydrogel. Alginate was partially oxidized with an oxidation degree of 5% and the resulting OA... 

Urban transportation is one of the leading causes of air pollution in big cities. In-use emissions of vehicles are higher than the emission control certification levels. The current study uses a roadside remote sensing emission monitoring campaign to investigate (a) fraction of high emitters in the light-duty vehicle (LDV) fleet and their contributions to the total emissions, (b) emission inspection (I/M) programs' effectiveness, and (c) alternate fuel (natural gas) encouragement policy. LDVs consist of passenger or freight transport vehicles with four wheels equivalent to classes M1 and N1 of European union vehicle classifications. The motivation is to assess the current emission inspection... 

Controlling topographic features at all length scales is of great importance for the interaction of cells with tissue regenerative materials. We utilized an indirect three-dimensional printing method to fabricate polymeric scaffolds with pre-defined and controlled external and internal architecture that had an interconnected structure with macro- (400-500 μm) and micro- (∼25 μm) porosity. Polycaprolactone (PCL) was used as model system to study the kinetics of tissue growth within porous scaffolds. The surface of the scaffolds was decorated with TiO2 and bioactive glass (BG) nanoparticles to the better match to nanoarchitecture of extracellular matrix (ECM). Micrometric BG particles were... 

The performance of cellular solids in biomedical applications relies strongly on a detailed understanding of the effects of pore topology on mechanical properties. This study aims at characterizing the failure mechanism of scaffolds based on nodal connectivity (number of struts that meet in joints) and geometry of the pores. Plastic models of scaffolds having the same relative density but different cubic and trigonal unit cells were designed and then fabricated via three dimensional (3-D) printing. Unit cells were repeated in different arrangements in 3-D space. An in-situ imaging technique was utilized to study the progressive deformation of the scaffold models. Different nodal... 

Reduced graphene oxide nanoplatelets (rGONPs) were synthesized by sonication of covalently PEGylated GO sheets followed by a chemical reduction using hydrazine and bovine serum albumin. Human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs), as a fundamental factor in tissue engineering, were isolated from umbilical cord blood (as a recently proposed source for extracting fresh hMSCs) to investigate, for the first time, the size-dependent cyto- and geno-toxic effects of the rGONPs on the cells. The cell viability test showed significant cell destructions by 1.0 μg/mL rGONPs with average lateral dimensions (ALDs) of 11±4 nm, while the rGO sheets with ALDs of 3.8±0.4 μm could exhibit a significant cytotoxic...