Sharif Digital Repository

Microfluidic devices are beneficial in miniaturizing and multiplexing various cellular assays in a single platform. Chondrogenesis is known to pertain to chemical, topographical, and mechanical cues in the microenvironment. Mechanical cues themselves have numerous parameters such as strain magnitude, frequency, and stimulation time. Effects of different strain magnitudes on the chondrogenic differentiation of adult stem cells have not been explored thoroughly. Here, a new multilayer microdevice is presented for the unidirectional compressive stimulation of cells in a three-dimensional cell culture. Numerical simulations were performed to evaluate and optimize the design. Results showed a... 

Molecular dynamics simulations of four ionic liquids (ILs) based on the [Tf2N] bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide anion, and imidazolium cations with different alkyl side chains have been performed. These simulations investigate the influence of butyl side chain elimination, tail amine functional addition, and C2 methylation on the dynamics and transport properties of this family of ionic liquids at 400 K. In our earlier work (J. Chem. Eng. Data, 2014, 59, 2834-2849), a suite of thermodynamic quantities and microscopic structures of these ILs were studied by classical molecular dynamics simulations and ab initio calculations. In this work, the dynamics of the ILs are studied by calculating... 

One of the most important biological components is lipid nanobio membrane. The lipid membranes of alive cells and their mechanical properties play an important role in biophysical investigations. Some proteins affect the shape and properties of the nanobio membrane while interacting with it. In this study a multiscale approach is experienced: first a 100ns all atom (fine-grained) molecular dynamics simulation is done to investigate the binding of CTX A3, a protein from snake venom, to a phosphatidylcholine lipid bilayer, second, a 5 micro seconds coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulation is carried out to compute the pressure tensor, lateral pressure, surface tension, and first moment of... 

Endothelial cell migration is a crucial step in the process of new blood vessel formation - a necessary process to maintain cell viability inside thick tissue constructs. Here, we report a new method for maintaining cell viability and inducing cell migration using a perfused microfluidic platform based on collagen gel and a gradient hydrogel sheet. Due to the helpful role of the extracellular matrix components in cell viability, we developed a hydrogel sheet from decellularized tissue (DT) of the bovine heart and chitosan (CS). The results showed that hydrogel sheets with an optimum weight ratio of CS/DT = 2 possess a porosity of around 75%, a mechanical strength of 23 kPa, and display cell... 

In this study, the feasibility of producing power and hydrogen from the waste heat of different City Gate Stations (CGSs) is investigated to select the optimal working conditions. A thermodynamic model is developed for a proposed system combined of the CGS station, the Rankin cycle and the extended hydrogen production cycle. Initially, six CGS stations are simulated based on energy, exergy-economic and environmental analysis and then a comparative study is conducted between different stations. The results of numerical modeling show that the Mashhad-old station with 5315 kW and 31.062 ton/year has the highest amount of power and hydrogen production among other stations, respectively. It is... 

A very important part of the living cells of biological systems is the lipid membrane. The mechanical properties of this membrane play an important role in biophysical studies. Investigation as to how the insertion of additional phospholipids in one leaflet of a bilayer affects the physical properties of the obtained asymmetric lipid membrane is of recent practical interest. In this work a coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulation was carried out in order to compute the pressure tensor, the lateral pressure, the surface tension and the first moment of lateral pressure in each leaflet of such a bilayer. Our simulations indicate that adding more phospholipids into one monolayer results in... 

The lipid membranes of living cells form an integral part of biological systems, and the mechanical properties of these membranes play an important role in biophysical investigations. One interesting problem to be evaluated is the effect of protein insertion in one leaflet of a bilayer on the physical properties of lipid membrane. In the present study, an all atom (fine-grained) molecular dynamics simulation is used to investigate the binding of cytotoxin A3 (CTX A3), a cytotoxin from snake venom, to a phosphatidylcholine lipid bilayer. Then, a 5 ms coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulation is carried out to compute the pressure tensor, lateral pressure, surface tension, and first moment... 

Uranium (VI) sorption using an anionic exchanger resin, namely Amberlite IRA910, in the presence of sulfate anions was the subject of current study. Batch sorption experiments were carried out to evaluate the influence of operational parameters such as pH, contact time, initial concentration and existence of various anions (including phosphate, sulfate, chloride, fluoride, and nitrate) in the solution on Amberlite IRA910 sorption behavior. Experiments revealed that uranium adsorption was fulfiled at pH>3 and 50 min to amount of 80%. Kinetics study revealed that the pseudo-second-order model showed better curve-fitting regression of the experimental data than the pseudo-first-order one.... 

Learning a foreign language encompasses a process of trial and error that can lead to the progression of the learner's interlanguage, meaning that the learners make use of their language knowledge that receives feedback and brings about progress through diagnosis of the problems and being corrected by the teacher. Therefore, there exists a need to analyze the underlying reasons causing the students to remain taciturn with a low willingness to communicate (WTC) during a language class. There has been much work done investigating the role of the learner's stable personal characteristics (traits) along with their situational changes at a specific time (states) that influence the student's... 

Using 3-D scanned data to analyze and extract pore network plays a vital role in investigation of porous media's characteristics. In this paper, a new simple method is developed to detect pores and throats for analyzing the connectivity and permeability of the network. This automated method utilizes some of the common and well-known image processing functions which are widely accessible by researchers and this has led to an easy algorithm implementation. In this method, after polishing and quality control of images, using city-block distance function and watershed segmentation algorithm, pores and throats are detected and 3-D network is produced. This method can also be applied on 2-D images... 

In this paper, we try to recognize and distinguish different groups of arrhythmia using novel features which have been obtained from the heart rate's phase space in recent years. For this purpose, we used Triangular Phase Space Mapping (TPSM) and Parabolic Phase Space Mapping (PPSM). For recognition, we used three groups of 15 subjects using the Physionet database (Arrhythmia, Congestive Heart Failure (CHF), and Atrial Fibrillation (AF)) with Normal Sinus Rhythm (NSR). The obtained features discriminate arrhythmia from NSR by p