Sharif Digital Repository

Suppressor of cytokine signalling (SOCS) family comprises a group of proteins that impede JAK/STAT signalling, thus being involved in the pathogenesis of immune-related conditions. In the present work, we aimed at identification of the role of SOCS genes in the pathogenesis of periodontitis through evaluation of their expression levels both in the circulation and in the affected tissues of patients. Thus, we measured expression levels of SOCS1-3 and SOCS5 transcripts in the blood and gingival samples of patients with periodontitis in comparison with control samples obtained during dental crown lengthening. Expressions of SOCS1, SOCS2, SOCS3 and SOCS5 genes were similar between gingival... 

Due to size minimization and increment in the frequency of electronic devices, efficient and reliable methods for thermal management are required to reduce operating temperature, enhance stability, increase lifetime and user comfort. To prevent the damages of leakage and corrosion which occur in conventional heat sinks, proposing innovative thermal management methods has always been welcomed. Regarding these issues and based on the energy storage unit concept, in this study, a passive heat sink (HS) is fabricated and characterized for electronic chipset cooling with heat fluxes of 2000 to 4000 W/m2 utilizing phase change material (PCM) and nano-additive PCM (NPCM). The presented cooling... 

A study has been made to determine the influence of the carbon content on the kinetics of dynamic and static recrystallization during and after hot deformation of carbon steels. For this purpose, single- and double-hit hot compression experiments at various strain rates and temperatures together with the Avrami-type kinetics equation and Bergstrom approach have been utilized to investigate recrystallization behavior. The results show that the apparent activation energy of hot deformation decreases with increasing carbon content and this phenomenon results in a faster dynamic recrystallization at high temperatures and/or low strain rates. Also, increasing carbon content leads to a higher rate... 

Background: Combating viral hepatitis is part of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and WHO has put forth hepatitis B elimination targets in its Global Health Sector Strategy on Viral Hepatitis (WHO-GHSS) and Interim Guidance for Country Validation of Viral Hepatitis Elimination (WHO Interim Guidance). We estimated the global, regional, and national prevalence of hepatitis B virus (HBV), as well as mortality and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) due to HBV, as part of the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2019. This included estimates for 194 WHO member states, for which we compared our estimates to WHO elimination targets. Methods: The primary... 

Side-channel attacks are a group of powerful attacks in hardware security that exploit the deficiencies in the implementation of systems. Timing side-channel attacks are one of the main side-channel attack categories that use the time difference of running an operation in different states. Many powerful attacks can be classified into this type of attack, including cache attacks. The limitation of these attacks is the need to run the spy program on the victim’s system. Various studies have tried to overcome this limitation by implementing these attacks remotely on JavaScript and WebAssembly. This paper provides the first comprehensive evaluation of timing side-channel attacks on JavaScript... 

Multi-party computation (MPC) allows each peer to take part in the execution of a common function with their private share of data without the need to expose it to other participants. The Legendre symbol is a pseudo-random function (PRF) that is suitable for MPC protocols due to their efficient evaluation process compared to other symmetric primitives. Recently, Legendre-based PRFs have also been employed in the construction of a post-quantum signature scheme, namely LegRoast. In this paper, we propose, to the best of our knowledge, the first hardware implementations for the Legendre symbol by three approaches: 1) low-area, 2) high-speed, and 3) high-frequency. The high-speed architecture... 

Nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) is an important regulator of immune responses and is involved in the pathoetiology of periodontitis. We have measured levels of four NF-κB-related genes, namely CEBPA, CEBPA-DT, FBXL19-AS and DILC in blood and tissue samples of patients with chronic periodontitis compared with controls. Expression of CEBPA-DT was significantly lower in blood of patients compared with controls (Ratio of mean expression (RME) = 0.13, P value = 0.01). This pattern was also seen among male subgroups (RME = 0.10, P value = 0.01). FBXL19-AS was down-regulated in venous blood of total patients compared with controls (RME = 0.03, P value < 0.001) and in patients of both sexes compared... 

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 =... 

Over the past decades, there has been a dramatic increase in the frequency of natural disasters, which are the leading causes of large-scale power outages. This paper, therefore, assesses the significance and role of optimal tie-line construction in improving the service restoration performance of unbalanced power distribution systems in the aftermath of high-impact low-probability incidents. In doing so, a restoration process aware stochastic mixed-integer linear programming model is developed to find the optimal locations for new tie-line construction in unbalanced three-phase distribution systems. In particular, the restoration process of distribution systems, including the fault... 

Hyperdimensional (HD) computing is a lightweight machine learning method widely used in Internet of Things applications for classification tasks. Although many hardware accelerators are proposed to improve the performance of HD, they suffer from low flexibility that makes them not practical in most real-life scenarios. To improve the flexibility, an open-source instruction set architecture (ISA) called RISC-V has been employed and extended for a specific application such as machine learning. This article aims to improve the efficiency and flexibility of HD computing for resource-constrained applications. To this end, we extend a RISC-V core (RI5CY) for HD computing called RISC-HD. First, to... 

Electricity demand forecast is necessary for power systems' operation scheduling and management. However, power consumption is uncertain and depends on several factors. Moreover, since the onset of covid-19, the electricity consumption pattern went through significant changes across the globe, which made the forecasting demand more challenging. This is mainly due to the fact that pandemic-driven restrictions changed people's lifestyles and work activities. This calls for new forecasting algorithms to more effectively handle these conditions. In this paper, ensemble-based machine learning models are utilized for this task. The lockdown temporal policies are added to the feature set in order... 

Background: The exact pathogenic mechanism causes hair miniaturization during androgenic alopecia (AGA) has not been delineated. Recent evidence has shown a role for non-coding regulatory RNAs, such as microRNAs (miRNAs), in skin and hair disease. There is no reported information about the role of miRNAs in hair epithelial cells of AGA. Objectives: To investigate the roles of miRNAs affecting AGA in normal and patient's epithelial hair cells. Methods: Normal follicular stem and progenitor cells, as well as follicular patient's stem cells, were sorted from hair follicles, and a miRNA q-PCR profiling to compare the expression of 748 miRNA (miRs) in sorted cells were performed. Further, we... 

Inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathies are a group of peripheral nerve system disorders in which immune reactions are dysregulated. Cytokines have noticeable roles in the regulation of these responses. We compared transcript levels of nine cytokine coding genes namely IL-1B, IL-2, IL-4, IL-6, IL-8, IL-17A, IFN-G, TGF-B and TNF-A in the peripheral blood of patients with acute and chronic kinds of this condition (AIDP and CIDP) and healthy persons. Expression of IL-17A was significantly lower in female AIDP cases compared with female controls (Expression Ratio = 0.02, P value = 0.02). Expression of this cytokine was higher in female CIDP cases compared with female AIDP cases... 

An example of zeolite selectivity (MFI → MOR) driven by synthesis aging time has been studied. Using N,N,N′,N′-tetramethyl-N,N′-dipropyl-ethylenediammonium diiodide (TMDP) as an organic structure-directing agent (OSDA), the zeolite phases obtained at 2 h (MFI 97%), 8 h (MFI 84%, MOR 16%) and 24 h (MFI 43%, MOR 57%) have been characterized by powder X-ray diffraction. The results suggest that at intermediate aging time, namely 8 h and 24 h, the dominant phase (MFI) is displaced by MOR. Different techniques (FT-IR, Raman, 13C MAS NMR, TGA/DTG and HC microanalysis) have been employed to verify the OSDA integrity and occlusion inside the zeolite micropores as well as to quantify the water and... 

Protein inhibitors of activated STAT (PIAS) are involved in the regulation of the JAK/STAT signaling pathway and have interactions with NF-κB, p73 and p53. These proteins regulate immune responses; therefore dysregulation in their expression leads to several immune-mediated disorders. In the present study, we examined expression of PIAS1-4 in peripheral blood of patients with acute/chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy (AIDP/CIDP) compared with healthy subjects. We demonstrated down-regulation of all PIAS genes in both AIDP and CIDP cases compared with controls. Similarly, comparisons in gender-based groups revealed down-regulation of these gene0s in patients of each... 

Acute and chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathies (AIDP and CIDP) are two immune-related conditions in the peripheral nervous system. In the current study, we assessed expression levels of Beta-secretase (BACE1), brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and their antisense transcripts in the peripheral blood of AIDP and CIDP patients compared with age- and sex-matched controls to assess their potential as biomarkers for these conditions. Expressions of BACE1 and BACE1-AS were down-regulated in CIDP cases compared with controls (Ratios of mean expressions=0.01 and 0.03; P values= 1.07E-08, respectively). On the other hand, expressions of BDNF and BDNF-AS were up-regulated... 

Background: Periodontitis is a chronic inflammatory disorder with a complex etiology. Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been shown to affect pathoetiology of periodontitis. We aimed at identification of expression of five lncRNAs, namely Linc0116, Linc00667, CDK6-AS1, FENDRR and DIRC3 in the circulation and gingival tissues of these patients compared with healthy controls. Methods: In a pilot case–control study, we compared expressions of Linc0116, Linc00667, CDK6-AS1, FENDRR and DIRC3 lncRNAs between blood and tissue samples of patients with periodontitis and healthy controls using real time quantitative PCR technique. The present work was performed on samples got from 26 patients with... 

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 =... 

Migraine is a complex disabling condition which is associated with dysregulation of several pathways particularly those being associated with immune responses. In order to assess contribution of protein inhibitor of activated STAT (PIAS) in the pathogenesis of migraine, we quantified expression levels of PIAS1–PIAS4 genes in the circulation of patients with migraine compared with controls. Expression of PIAS1 was substantially lower in total migraineurs compared with controls (ratio of mean expressions (RME) = 0.18, SE = 0.29, P value < 0.001) and in both male and female migraineurs compared with sex-matched controls. Expression of PIAS2 was lower in migraineurs without aura compared with... 

Efficient sunlight harvesting is of great significance for environmental remediation through photocatalysis. Herein, very small (20 nm) upconverter SrF2:Yb,Tm@CaF2:Yb@Fluorine-doped TiO2heteronanoparticles (denoted as UCNPs@TiO2) with strong UV-blue emission and broadband photocatalytic performance were prepared via a facile three-step hydrothermal method for the first time. The SrF2:Yb,Tm upconverter nanoparticles (NPs) were produced as the light-emitting core, epitaxially grown CaF2:Yb as the middle shell to enhance the upconversion luminescence output and TiO2as the photocatalyst outermost layer. Superior photocatalytic functioning of UCNPs@TiO2was affirmed through methylene blue (MB)...