Sharif Digital Repository

Public concern over environmental issues such as ecosystem degradation is high. However, restoring coupled human-natural systems requires integration across many science, technology, engineering, management, and governance topics that are presently fragmented. Here, we synthesized 544 peer-reviewed articles published through September 2020 on the desiccation and nascent recovery of Lake Urmia in northwest Iran. We answered nine questions of scientific and popular interest about causes, impacts, stabilization, recovery, and next steps. We find: (1) Expansion of irrigated agriculture, dam construction, and mismanagement impacted the lake more than temperature increases and precipitation... 

The present study evaluates the application of top-down steel demand estimation in developing countries. The anticipated steel demand for the case of Iran is calculated by three methods, including the growth model (GM), the intensity of use hypothesis (IUH), and the fixed stock paradigm (FCP). GM shows a broad range of apparent steel demand based on the assumed growth factor. When the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita reaches 13,000 dollars per person (constant 2010 US$), the IUH method estimates the consumption peak consumption at around 500 kg steel per capita per year, which is being expected between 2040 and 2060 depending on the economic growth assumptions. Since fluctuations in... 

Controlling evaporation plays an essential role in arid and semi-arid water resources systems where it accounts for a considerable amount of reservoirs outflow. In this study, we have evaluated evaporation reduction efficiency of different kinds of self-assembled nano-thickness films. The films consist of six different combinations of stearyl and cetyl alcohols with additives such as jojoba oil, stearic acid, and calcium hydroxide. The study lasted from July to August and utilized two pairs of class A evaporation pans: one pair was semi-floating on Chitgar lake water surface while the other one was located on the shore. The experimental results showed that a monolayer containing 3:1 stearyl... 

Renewable hydrogen production plays a key role in transitioning to a hydrogen economy. For this, developing countries are encouraged to keep up with industrialized nations. As such, this study seeks to evaluate the potential of all capital cities of Iran in terms of solar-based hydrogen production and prioritize the nominated alternatives. This step is highly valued because finding the most suitable place for this purpose can lead to substantial outcomes and consequently avoid failure. Therefore, here a 20-kW solar power plant is simulated by PVsyst 6.7 software and meteorological data of 31 capital cities is extracted using Meteonorm 7.1 software. Considering all losses associated with... 

In recent years, the number and severity of natural disasters occurring in various regions of the world have increased dramatically incurring heavy financial and human losses. Therefore, decision-makers have been concerned with ways of providing relief to reduce the losses. Here, we present a multi-objective bi-level model for disaster location-routing problem that provides the needed supplies through multiple suppliers, considering the supply risk. Moreover, to reduce the risk and increase efficiency, special attention is given to people's help for supplying goods having high priority and low risk. At the first level of the model, the cost and time objectives are considered, and at the... 

Chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP) is an acquired immunological disorder. Although the precise pathoetiology of CIDP has not been clarified yet, it is believed that both B and T cells of immune system contribute in this disorder. Based on the importance of human leukocyte antigen (HLA) cluster in the regulation of immune responses, this family of proteins is putative determinants of risk of CIDP. We conducted the current investigation to appraise association between HLA alleles/genotypes/haplotypes and risk of CIDP in Iranian patients. HLA-DQB1*02 allele was significantly more prevalent among cases compared with controls (OR [95% CI] = 4.82 [2.06, 11.3], P value =... 

Understanding of how anthropogenic droughts occur in socio-hydrological systems is critical in studying resilience of these systems. This is especially relevant when a “lock-in” toward watershed desiccation occurs as an emergent outcome of coupling among social dynamics and surface and underground water processes. How the various processes collectively fit together to reinforce such a lock-in and what may be a critical or ignored feedback worsening the state of the socio-hydrological systems remains poorly understood. Here we tackle this gap by focusing on the case of Lake Urmia in Iran, a saline lake that faces the same fate as that of Aral Sea due to over-extraction of water sources that... 

Thermal stratification accompanied by a release of nutrients from sediment is a serious problem for the management of water quality. Water aeration and mixing technology can be widely used to control endogenous pollution and algae growth in reservoirs and lakes by water quality managers. In this research, a diffuser aeration system, was installed in a water column, in the Mamloo stratified Reservoir; and the impact of artificial aeration was brought under extensive assessment in relevance with the qualitative and biological parameters of the water, during the preliminary 6 d of aeration. The results showed that the thermal stratification was remarkably disturbed. After aeration, the amount... 

In this research, a green solid catalyst of phosphomolybdic acid (HPA) prated on Chitosan was synthesized to produce biodiesel. The prepared catalyst was characterized using Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (FESEM), Energy Dispersive X-Ray (EDX), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and XRF analyses. The catalyst was applied in microwave-assisted trans-esterification of Pomegranate oil, and the biodiesel production process was optimized by response surface methodology based on central composite design (RSM-CCD). The effect of influential reaction parameters, including time (33–142 min), catalyst weight (0.15–5.6 wt%), and methanol to oil molar... 

Objective: This study analyzes the effects of lifestyle, nutrition, and diets on the status and risks of apparent (symptomatic) COVID-19 infection in Iranian families. Materials and Methods: A relatively extensive questionnaire survey was conducted on more than 20,000 Iranian families (residing in more than 1000 different urban and rural areas in the Islamic Republic of Iran) to collect the big data of COVID-19 and develop a lifestyle dataset. The collected big data included the records of lifestyle effects (e.g. nutrition, water consumption resources, physical exercise, smoking, age, gender, health and disease factors, etc.) on the status of COVID-19 infection in families (i.e. residents of... 

Iran is situated in a wind belt. However, the installed wind capacity in Iran is around 300 MW, which is minuscule compared with the global 651 GW capacity as of 2021. Using novel data from wind trackers across Iran, the paper’s findings show immense potential for wind energy in Iran from a technical perspective. While attractive policies are already in place to incentivize wind energy development in Iran, the feed-in tariff (FiT) for wind energy has dropped to around 3 cents per kWh because of the sharp depreciation of the Iranian rial between 2018 and 2020. This paper shows that there is no economic justification for the development of wind farms in Iran at such low FiTs. A minimum FiT of... 

Purpose Whole genome sequencing of SARS-CoV2 is important to find useful information about the viral lineages, variants of interests and variants of concern. As there are not enough data about the circulating SARS-CoV2 variants in Iran, we sequenced 54 SARS-CoV2 genomes during the 5 waves of pandemic in Iran. Methods After viral RNA extraction from clinical samples collected during the COVID-19 pandemic, next generation sequencing was performed using the Nextseq platform. The sequencing data were analyzed and compared with reference sequences. Results During the 1st wave, V and L clades were detected. The second wave was recognized by G, GH and GR clades. Circulating clades during the 3rd... 

Background: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most common malignancies in the world and has a high mortality rate. It is believed that dysfunction in the expression of mucins and aberrant expression of some lncRNAs are associated with the occurrence and development of CRC. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to investigate the expression of MUC15, MUC16, MUC20, PCAT1, CCAT1 and HOTAIR genes in colorectal cancer and its relationship with clinicopathological variables. Materials and methods: This research was prospective case-control study. Tumors from CRC patients were collected from the Taleghani Hospital, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. RNA... 

In this case–control study, class І and ІІ human leukocyte antigen (HLA) alleles in Iranian patients with benign and severe cutaneous adverse drug reactions (CADRs) due to aromatic anticonvulsants and antibiotics were evaluated. Patients diagnosed with CADRs (based on clinical and laboratory findings) with a Naranjo score of ≥ 4 underwent blood sampling and HLA-DNA typing. The control group comprised 90 healthy Iranian adults. Alleles with a frequency of more than two were reported. Deviations from Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium were not observed. Eighty patients with CADRs including 54 females and 26 males with a mean age of 41.49 ± 16.08 years were enrolled in this study. The culprit drugs... 

In the real world, there are complex decision-making problems in which a variety of intertwined factors and hierarchical structures exist, and it is difficult or impossible to solve these problems using classical methods. The prioritization of circular economy (CE) adoption barriers is one such complex problem that cannot be solved using current classical methods. Hence, in this paper, for the first time, a new method, namely, FBWDS, is developed. FBWDS derives from the combination of fuzzy best–worst method (BWM), fuzzy decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL), and Supermatrix structure. This proposed method establishes weights of the intertwined factors in hierarchical... 

Extreme weather events such as heat waves and cold spells affect people’s lives. This study develops a probabilistic framework to evaluate heat waves and cold spells. As case studies, average daily temperatures of meteorological stations of the two cities (Tehran and Vancouver) from 1995 to 2016 are used to identify four main indicators including intensity, average intensity, duration, and the rate of the occurrence. In addition, probabilistic spatial analysis of the events is obtained through MODIS’s land surface temperature product. To include possible uncertainties, the predictive probability distributions of the intensity and duration are derived using a Bayesian scheme and Monte Carlo... 

The price elasticity of gasoline demand is a key parameter in evaluation of various policies. However, most of the literature uses aggregate data to identify this elasticity. Temporal and spatial aggregation make such elasticity estimates biased. We employ a unique dataset of all gasoline transactions in Iran during a 4-month period around an unexpected exogenous price change to identify that price elasticity. We also identify a significant withholding behavior by consumers in response to anticipated price changes. The consumers reduce or postpone their purchases when they expect a decrease in prices. Controlling for date fixed effects would eliminate homogeneous withholding responses.... 

There is no doubt that education is the key to development. An important step in evaluating the condition of education in a society is to estimate the rate of return to education in that society. This paper estimates the private rate of return to schooling for men born in 1951–1983 in Iran using a pseudo-panel fixed-effect model. This is the first study that measures unbiasedly the rate of return to schooling in Iran. We construct the pseudo-panel data using six repeated cross sections of Household Expenditures and Income Surveys between 2008 and 2013. Our estimates show that the overall rate of return is around 9% based on the pseudo-panel fixed-effect approach. The estimates reveal a... 

Reinforcing the correlation between Gas and Electricity Systems (G&ESs) susceptible to diverse factors ranging from anthropogenic climate change to the advent of new conversion/generation technologies has remarkably brought into focus the co-expansion of G&ESs using a new concept so-called Energy Hub (EH) as well as the potential of storage systems. To assess the effectiveness of EH approach and the role of storages in the coordinated plans of G&ES, this study proposes a comprehensive EH-based planning model for co-expansion of G&ES supply chains with respect to the role of Gas Storage Systems (GSSs). As a Mixed-Integer Linear Programming (MILP) problem, the model is applied to a real... 

In recent years, declining fossil fuel reserves and increasing environmental concerns led to higher utilization of renewable energy source (RES). One of the RES is Solar energy which is abundantly found in different areas of the globe, particularly in Iran. The aim of this research is to select a suitable site for constructing a solar power plant to generate electricity-hydrogen in southern Iran, Kerman province. For this purpose, a new hybrid Multi criteria decision making method is used. The Stepwise Weight Assessment Ratio Analysis (SWARA)method is used to weigh the criteria and the Measurement of alternatives and ranking according to Compromise solution (MARCOS)method is used to rank...