Islamic Azad University of Garmsar

- and ZnO-based photocatalysts are discussed in detail. Several proposed mechanistic routes according to photocatalytic composite structures are provided. Some electrochemical analyses using charge carrier trapping agents and delayed recombination help to plot mechanistic routes according to the direction of photoexcited species (electron-hole pairs) and design more effective photocatalytic processes in terms of cost-effective photocatalysts, saving time and increasing productivity.

Information Technology (IT) adoption is an important field of study in a number of areas, which include small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Due to the numerous advantages of IT, SMEs are trying to adopt IT applications to support their businesses. IT adoption by SMEs differs from larger organizations because of their specific characteristics, such as resources constraints. Therefore, this research aims to provide a better and clearer understanding of IT adoption within SMEs by reviewing and analyzing current IT literature. In this research, the review of literature includes theories, perspectives, empirical research and case studies related to IT adoption, in particular within SMEs from various databases such as Business Premier, Science Direct, JStor, Emerald Insight and Springer Link. The proposed model of effective IT adoption is believed to provide managers, vendors, consultants and governments with a practical synopsis of the IT adoption process in SMEs, which will in turn assist them to be successful with IT institutionalization within these businesses.

The gastrointestinal microbiota affects brain function, including memory and learning. In this study we investigated the effects of probiotics on memory and oxidative stress biomarkers in an experimental model of Alzheimer’s disease. Sixty rats were randomly divided into 5 groups: control; control-probiotics, which received probiotics for 8 weeks; sham operation, which received an intrahippocampal injection of phosphate-buffered saline; Alzheimer, which received an intrahippocampal injection of β-amyloid (Aβ1–42); and Alzheimer-probiotics, which in addition to being injected with Aβ1–42, received 2 g (1 × 10 10 CFU/g) of probiotics (Lactobacillus acidophilus, L. fermentum, Bifidobacterium lactis, and B. longum) for 8 weeks. Memory and learning were measured using the Morris water maze, and oxidative stress biomarkers in the hippocampus were measured using ELISA kits. Morris water maze results indicated that compared with the Alzheimer group, the Alzheimer-probiotics group had significantly improved spatial memory, including shorter escape latency and travelled distance and greater time spent in the target quadrant. There was also improvement in oxidative stress biomarkers such as increased malondialdehyde levels and superoxide dismutase activity following the β-amyloid injection. Overall, it seems that probiotics play a role in improving memory deficit and inhibiting the pathological mechanisms of Alzheimer’s disease by modifying microbiota.

Conceptualization of organizational structure is the manifestation of systematic thought. The organization is composed of elements, relations between elements and structure as a generality composing a unit. Structure is high combination of the relations between organizational elements forming existence philosophy of organizational activity. Systematic view of organization to structure shows that structure is composed of hard elements on one side and soft elements on the other side. The review of literature views structural relations from various aspects. Organizational structure is a way or method by which organizational activities are divided, organized and coordinated. The organizations created the structures to coordinate the activities of work factors and control the member performance. Organizational structure is shown in organizational chart. The present study is descriptive and library method is used for data collection.

Glioblastoma (GBM) is one of the most malignant cancers of central nervous system and due to its sensitive location, surgical resection has high risk and therefore, chemotherapy and radiotherapy are utilized for its treatment. However, chemoresistance and radio-resistance are other problems in GBM treatment. Hence, new therapies based on genes are recommended for treatment of GBM. PTEN is a tumor-suppressor operator in cancer that inhibits PI3K/Akt/mTOR axis in diminishing growth, metastasis and drug resistance. In the current review, the function of PTEN/PI3K/Akt axis in GBM progression is evaluated. Mutation or depletion of PTEN leads to increase in GBM progression. Low expression level of PTEN mediates poor prognosis in GBM and by increasing proliferation and invasion, promotes malignancy of tumor cells. Moreover, loss of PTEN signaling can result in therapy resistance in GBM. Activation of PTEN signaling impairs GBM metabolism via glycolysis inhibition. In contrast to PTEN, PI3K/Akt signaling has oncogenic function and during tumor progression, expression level of PI3K/Akt enhances. PI3K/Akt signaling shows positive association with oncogenic pathways and its expression similar to PTEN signaling, is regulated by non-coding RNAs. PTEN upregulation and PI3K/Akt signaling inhibition by anti-cancer agents can be beneficial in interfering GBM progression. This review emphasizes on the signaling networks related to PTEN/PI3K/Akt and provides new insights for targeting this axis in effective GBM treatment.

To gain a better insight into the selenium nanoparticle (nSe) benefits/toxicity, this experiment was carried out to address the behavior of bitter melon seedlings to nSe (0, 1, 4, 10, 30, and 50 mgL -1 ) or bulk form (selenate). Low doses of nSe increased biomass accumulation, while concentrations of 10 mgL -1 and above were associated with stem bending, impaired root meristem, and severe toxicity. Responses to nSe were distinct from that of bulk in that the nano-type exhibited a higher efficiency to stimulate growth and organogenesis than the bulk. The bulk form displayed higher phytotoxicity than the nano-type counterpart. According to the MSAP-based analysis, nSe mediated substantial variation in DNA cytosine methylation, reflecting the epigenetic modification. By increasing the concentration of nSe, the expression of the WRKY1 transcription factor linearly up-regulated (mean = 7.9fold). Transcriptions of phenylalanine ammonia-lyase (PAL) and 4-Coumarate: CoA-ligase (4CL) genes were also induced. The nSe treatments at low concentrations enhanced the activity of leaf nitrate reductase (mean = 52%) in contrast with the treatment at toxic concentrations. The toxic concentration of nSe increased leaf proline concentration by 80%. The nSe supplement also stimulated the activities of peroxidase (mean = 35%) and catalase (mean = 10%) enzymes. The nSe-treated seedlings exhibited higher PAL activity (mean = 39%) and soluble phenols (mean = 50%). The nSe toxicity was associated with a disrupted differentiation of xylem conducting tissue. The callus formation and performance of the explants originated from the nSe-treated seedlings had a different trend than that of the control. This experiment provides new insights into the nSe-associated advantage/ cytotoxicity

The probiotic viability, physicochemical, mechanical, barrier, and microstructure properties of synbiotic edible films (SEFs) based on duck feet gelatin (DFG) were evaluated. Four synbiotic systems were obtained by mixing four types of prebiotics, namely, dextrin, polydextrose, gum Arabic, and sago starch, with DFG to immobilize of probiotic (Lactobacillus casei ATCC). The ability of DFG to create a suitable matrix to increase probiotic viability was compared with those of other commercial gelatins in a preliminary evaluation. The DFG showed proper probiotic viability compared with other gelatins. The addition of prebiotics reduced the transparency of SEFs and increased color differentiation, uniformity, and complete coverage of probiotic cells. The estimated shelf-life of surviving bacteria in the SEFs stored at 4 and 25 °C showed that gum arabic showed the best performance and enhanced the viability of L. casei by 42% and 45%, respectively. Dextrin, polydextrose, and sago starch enhanced the viability of L. casei at 4 and 25 °C by 26% and 35%, 26% and 5%, and 20% and 5%, respectively. The prebiotics improved the physicochemical, mechanical, and barrier properties of all SEFs, except polydextrose film. The viability of L. casei can be increased with the proper selection of gelatin and prebiotics.

Late detection of depression is having detrimental consequences including suicide thus there is a serious need for an accurate computer-aided system for early diagnosis of depression. In this research, we suggested a novel strategy for the diagnosis of depression based on several geometric features derived from the Electroencephalography (EEG) signal shape of the second-order differential plot (SODP). First, various geometrical features of normal and depression EEG signals were derived from SODP including standard descriptors, a summation of the angles between consecutive vectors, a summation of distances to coordinate, a summation of the triangle area using three successive points, a summation of the shortest distance from each point relative to the 45-degree line, a summation of the centroids to centroid distance of successive triangles, central tendency measure and summation of successive vector lengths. Second, Binary Particle Swarm Optimization was utilized for the selection of suitable features. At last, the features were fed to support vector machine and k-nearest neighbor (KNN) classifiers for the identification of normal and depressed signals. The performance of the proposed framework was evaluated by the recorded bipolar EEG signals from 22 normal and 22 depressed subjects. The results provide an average classification accuracy of 98.79% with the KNN classifier using city-block distance in a ten-fold cross-validation strategy. The proposed system is accurate and can be used for the early diagnosis of depression. We showed that the proposed geometrical features are better than extracted features in the time, frequency, time-frequency domains as it helps in visual inspection and provide up to 17.56% improvement in classification accuracy in contrast to those features.

We study the D-dimensional Schrödinger equation for an energy-dependent Hamiltonian that linearly depends on energy and quadratically on the relative distance. Next, via the Nikiforov—Uvarov (NU) method, we calculate the corresponding eigenfunctions and eigenvalues.

This study attempted to address molecular, developmental, and physiological responses of tomato plants to foliar applications of selenium nanoparticles (nSe) at 0, 3, and 10 mgl-1 or corresponding doses of sodium selenate (BSe). The BSe/nSe treatment at 3 mgl-1 increased shoot and root biomass, while at 10 mgl-1 moderately reduced biomass accumulation. Foliar application of BSe/nSe, especially the latter, at the lower dose enhanced fruit production, and postharvest longevity, while at the higher dose induced moderate toxicity and restricted fruit production. In leaves, the BSe/nSe treatments transcriptionally upregulated miR172 (mean = 3.5-folds). The Se treatments stimulated the expression of the bZIP transcription factor (mean = 9.7-folds). Carotene isomerase (CRTISO) gene was transcriptionally induced in both leaves and fruits of the nSe-treated seedlings by an average of 5.5 folds. Both BSe or nSe at the higher concentration increased proline concentrations, H2O2 accumulation, and lipid peroxidation levels, suggesting oxidative stress and impaired membrane integrity. Both BSe or nSe treatments also led to the induction of enzymatic antioxidants (catalase and peroxidase), an increase in concentrations of ascorbate, non-protein thiols, and soluble phenols, as well as a rise in the activity of phenylalanine ammonia-lyase enzyme. Supplementation at 3 mgl-1 improved the concentration of mineral nutrients (Mg, Fe, and Zn) in fruits. The bioaccumulated Se contents in the nSe-treated plants were much higher than the corresponding concentration of selenate, implying a higher efficacy of the nanoform towards biofortification programs. Se at 10 mgl-1, especially in selenate form, reduced both size and density of pollen grains, indicating its potential toxicity at the higher doses. This study provides novel molecular and physiological insights into the nSe efficacy for improving plant productivity, fruit quality, and fruit post-harvest longevity.

In 21th decade, organizations are faced with changes and must know how they learn and manage the learning to be powerful in comparative market. Knowledge management is the way to improve the conditions of stability of organization. When this way is successfully implemented in organization, the appropriate cultural field has already been paved the way for this system. Different researches show that knowing these two factors as the most important necessity is the priority of activities of organizations’ mangers, and the stability of organization is assured by planning organizational strategy. According to the importance of issue, Denison model is used to investigate the dimensions of organizational culture and Conrad and Newman models are used to evaluate the dimensions of knowledge management the process of knowledge management and the relation between them have been explained after mentioning the review of literature. Finally, in order to strengthen organizational culture and successful deployment of knowledge management offered suggestions.

In this paper, a novel Lyapunov-based robust controller by using meta-heuristic optimization algorithm has been proposed for lateral control of an autonomous vehicle. In the first step, double lane change path has been designed using a fifth-degree polynomial (quantic) function and dynamic constraints. A lane changing path planning method has been used to design the double lane change manoeuvre. In the next step, position and orientation errors have been extracted based on the two-degree-of-freedom vehicle bicycle model. A combination of sliding mode and backstepping controllers has been used to control the steering in this paper. Overall stability of the combined controller has been analytically proved by defining a Lyapunov function and based on Lyapunov stability theorem. The proposed controller includes some constant parameters which have effects on controller performance; therefore, particle swarm optimization algorithm has been used for finding optimum values of these parameters. The comparing result of the proposed controller with backstepping controller illustrated the better performance of the proposed controller, especially in the low road frictions. Simulation of designed controllers has been conducted by linking CarSim software with Matlab/Simulink which provides a nonlinear full vehicle model. The simulation was performed for manoeuvres with different durations and road frictions. The proposed controller has outperformed the backstepping controller, especially in low frictions.

Abstract Deep eutectic solvents (DES) are recently synthesized to cover limitations of conventional solvents. These green solvents have wide ranges of potential usages in real-life applications. Precise measuring or accurate estimating thermophysical properties of DESs is a prerequisite for their successful applications. Density is likely the most crucial affecting characteristic on the solvation ability of DESs. This study utilizes seven machine learning techniques to estimate the density of 149 deep eutectic solvents. The density is anticipated as a function of temperature, critical pressure and temperature, and acentric factor. The LSSVR (least-squares support vector regression) presents the highest accuracy among 1530 constructed intelligent estimators. The LSSVR predicts 1239 densities with the mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) of 0.26% and R 2 = 0.99798. Comparing the LSSVR and four empirical correlations revealed that the earlier possesses the highest accuracy level. The prediction accuracy of the LSSVR (i.e., MAPE = 0. 26%) is 74.5% better than the best-obtained results by the empirical correlations (i.e., MAPE = 1.02%).

The Cholinergic and GABAergic fibers of the medial septal/diagonal band of Broca (MS/ DB) area project to the hippocampus and constitute the septo-hippocampal pathway, which has been proven to play a role in learning and memory. In addition, the hippocampus has bidirectional connections with the septum so that to self-regulate of cholinergic input. The activity of septal and hippocampal neurons is modulated by several neurotransmitter systems including glutamatergic neurons from the entorhinal cortex, serotonergic fibers from the raphe nucleus, dopaminergic neurons from the ventral tegmental area (VTA), histaminergic cells from the tuberomammillary nucleus and adrenergic fibers from the locus coeruleus (LC). Thus, changes in the glutamatergic, serotonergic and other systems-mediated transmission in the MS/DB may influence cholinergic or GABAergic transmission in the hippocampus.

Based on the significant role of spin and pseudospin symmetries in hadron and nuclear spectroscopy, we have investigated Dirac equation under scalar and vector potentials of cotangent hyperbolic form besides a Coulomb tensor interaction via an approximate analytical scheme. The considered potential for small potential parameter resembles the well-established Kratzer potential. In addition, we see how the tensor term removes the degeneracy of doublets. After an acceptable approximation, namely a Pekeris-type one, we see that the problem is simply solved via the quantum mechanical idea of supersymmetry without having to deal with the cumbersome, complicated and time-consuming numerical programming.

In this paper, in order to cope with both parametric and nonparametric uncertainties in the robot model, an optimal Mamdani-type fuzzy logic controller is introduced for trajectory tracking of wheeled mobile robots (WMRs). The dynamic model of a nonholonomic mobile robot was implemented in the Matlab/Simulink environment. The parameters of input and output membership functions, and PID controller coefficients are optimized simultaneously by random inertia weight Particle Swarm Optimization (RNW-PSO). Simulation results show the system performance is desirable.

This study was conducted to evaluate the effects of chitosan nano-encapsulating mint (MEO), thyme (TEO) and cinnamon (CEO) essential oils (EOs) used in the diet on performance, immune responses and intestinal bacteria population in broiler chickens.A total of 600 mixed-sex, 1-d-old Ross 308 broiler chicks were used in a 2 × 4 factorial experiment as completely randomised design with 8 experimental groups (diets) with 5 replicates of 15 chicks each (totally 40 pens). The eight experimental diets consisted of no EO and free distiller water (control); no EO and chitosan nano-encapsulated (CNE) distiller water; and other six treatments with free or CNE form of MEO, TEO and CEO (added at 0.025%, 0.04% and 0.055% respectively to starter, grower and finisher diets).Both EOs and the CNE form had significant (P < 0.05) benefits on improving body weight gain, and feed conversion ratio in periods of 29–42 and 1–42 days. The highest effect was (P < 0.05) obtained in birds receiving TEO, which was intensified by nano-encapsulation. Breast percentage was improved by nano-encapsulation (P < 0.05). The EOs (especially TEO and CEO) and CNE form improved (P < 0.05) serum IgY and IgM concentrations (at 35 and 42 days) and intestinal Lactobacillus spp. and E. coli populations (at 42 days) in broilers. Nano-encapsulated EOs, especially TEO and CEO had (P < 0.05) the largest effect on increasing IgY42 concentrations and the microbial populations.The tested EOs, especially TEO, improved more of the evaluated traits in broiler chickens. Also, Chitosan nano-encapsulation because of its ideal properties can be an effective, suitable and inexpensive method for protecting bioactive compounds and improving effects of the herbal EOs especially thyme in broiler chickens.

Neurodegenerative disorders are complex, progressive, and life-threatening. They cause mortality and disability for millions of people worldwide. Appropriate treatment for neurodegenerative diseases (NDs) is still clinically lacking due to the presence of the blood-brain barrier (BBB). Developing an effective transport system that can cross the BBB and enhance the therapeutic effect of neuroprotective agents has been a major challenge for NDs. Exosomes are endogenous nano-sized vesicles that naturally carry biomolecular cargoes. Many studies have indicated that exosome content, particularly microRNAs (miRNAs), possess biological activities by targeting several signaling pathways involved in apoptosis, inflammation, autophagy, and oxidative stress. Exosome content can influence cellular function in healthy or pathological ways. Furthermore, since exosomes reflect the features of the parental cells, their cargoes offer opportunities for early diagnosis and therapeutic intervention of diseases. Exosomes have unique characteristics that make them ideal for delivering drugs directly to the brain. These characteristics include the ability to pass through the BBB, biocompatibility, stability, and innate targeting properties. This review emphasizes the role of exosomes in alleviating NDs and discusses the associated signaling pathways and molecular mechanisms. Furthermore, the unique biological features of exosomes, making them a promising natural transporter for delivering various medications to the brain to combat several NDs, are also discussed.

Approximate analytical solutions of spin and pseudospin symmetry limits of Dirac equation are reported for the generalized Pöschl-Teller scalar and vector potentials and a Coulomb tensor interaction by Nikiforov-Uvarov method. On the contrary to the cumbersome numerical procedures, the analytical approach followed here can be followed even by the undergraduate students.

Approximate analytical solutions of the D-dimensional Klein—Gordon equation are obtained for the scalar and vector general Hulthén-type potential and position-dependent mass with any l by using the concept of supersymmetric quantum mechanics (SUSYQM). The problem is numerically discussed for some cases of parameters.