Showing papers by "Kharazmi University published in 2013"
TL;DR: In this article, the authors presented a detailed landslide susceptibility mapping study by binary logistic regression, analytical hierarchy process, and statistical index models and an assessment of their performances, where the study area covers the north of Tehran metropolitan, Iran.
Abstract: The current research presents a detailed landslide susceptibility mapping study by binary logistic regression, analytical hierarchy process, and statistical index models and an assessment of their performances. The study area covers the north of Tehran metropolitan, Iran. When conducting the study, in the first stage, a landslide inventory map with a total of 528 landslide locations was compiled from various sources such as aerial photographs, satellite images, and field surveys. Then, the landslide inventory was randomly split into a testing dataset 70 % (370 landslide locations) for training the models, and the remaining 30 % (158 landslides locations) was used for validation purpose. Twelve landslide conditioning factors such as slope degree, slope aspect, altitude, plan curvature, normalized difference vegetation index, land use, lithology, distance from rivers, distance from roads, distance from faults, stream power index, and slope-length were considered during the present study. Subsequently, landslide susceptibility maps were produced using binary logistic regression (BLR), analytical hierarchy process (AHP), and statistical index (SI) models in ArcGIS. The validation dataset, which was not used in the modeling process, was considered to validate the landslide susceptibility maps using the receiver operating characteristic curves and frequency ratio plot. The validation results showed that the area under the curve (AUC) for three mentioned models vary from 0.7570 to 0.8520 $$ ({\text{AUC}}_{\text{AHP}} = 75.70\;\% ,\;{\text{AUC}}_{\text{SI}} = 80.37\;\% ,\;{\text{and}}\;{\text{AUC}}_{\text{BLR}} = 85.20\;\% ) $$
. Also, plot of the frequency ratio for the four landslide susceptibility classes of the three landslide susceptibility models was validated our results. Hence, it is concluded that the binary logistic regression model employed in this study showed reasonably good accuracy in predicting the landslide susceptibility of study area. Meanwhile, the results obtained in this study also showed that the statistical index model can be used as a simple tool in the assessment of landslide susceptibility when a sufficient number of data are obtained.
304 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the effect of polypropylene fiber reinforcement on sand was evaluated in a triaxial compression test at confining pressures of 100, 300 and 500 kPa. The addition of fibers increased peak and residual shear strength of soil and changed its brittle behavior to a more ductile one.
192 citations
TL;DR: The nature of the integration of qualitative and quantitative methods in terms of research designs, sampling designs, and quality of interpretations is examined, revealing concurrent designs are more prevalent than sequential designs and that studies make limited use of mixed designs that are detailed in the mixed methods literature.
Abstract: Despite criticisms questioning its raison d'etre (e.g., Giddings & Grant, 2007), mixed methods research has been welcomed in social research as a methodology in its own right (Greene, 2008). Recently, it has also been acknowledged and advocated in applied linguistics (Dornyei, 2007; Hashemi, 2012). In an attempt to investigate the status of this relatively new trend in applied linguistics, the current study examines the nature of the integration of qualitative and quantitative methods in terms of research designs, sampling designs, and quality of interpretations. Content analysis of 205 research articles published in seven comprehensive international peer reviewed applied linguistics journals between 1995 and 2008 reveals that concurrent designs are more prevalent than sequential designs and that studies make limited use of mixed designs that are detailed in the mixed methods literature. Moreover, although a considerable number of articles used both qualitative and quantitative methods, only a small number achieved high degrees of integration at various stages of the study as a quality standard for mixed research. The study concludes with several implications for making more effective use of mixed methods research in applied linguistics and calls for a more systematic treatment of this trend as a versatile research methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
109 citations
TL;DR: A novel integrated approach which exploits features of uniform robust scale invariant feature transform (UR-SIFT) and PIIFD and is robust against low content contrast of color images and large content, appearance, and scale changes between color and other retinal image modalities like the fluorescein angiography.
Abstract: Existing algorithms based on scale invariant feature transform (SIFT) and Harris corners such as edge-driven dual-bootstrap iterative closest point and Harris-partial intensity invariant feature descriptor (PIIFD) respectivley have been shown to be robust in registering multimodal retinal images. However, they fail to register color retinal images with other modalities in the presence of large content or scale changes. Moreover, the approaches need preprocessing operations such as image resizing to do well. This restricts the application of image registration for further analysis such as change detection and image fusion. Motivated by the need for efficient registration of multimodal retinal image pairs, this paper introduces a novel integrated approach which exploits features of uniform robust scale invariant feature transform (UR-SIFT) and PIIFD. The approach is robust against low content contrast of color images and large content, appearance, and scale changes between color and other retinal image modalities like the fluorescein angiography. Due to low efficiency of standard SIFT detector for multimodal images, the UR-SIFT algorithm extracts high stable and distinctive features in the full distribution of location and scale in images. Then, feature points are adequate and repeatable. Moreover, the PIIFD descriptor is symmetric to contrast, which makes it suitable for robust multimodal image registration. After the UR-SIFT feature extraction and the PIIFD descriptor generation in images, an initial cross-matching process is performed and followed by a mismatch elimination algorithm. Our dataset consists of 120 pairs of multimodal retinal images. Experiment results show the outperformance of the UR-SIFT-PIIFD over the Harris-PIIFD and similar algorithms in terms of efficiency and positional accuracy.
97 citations
TL;DR: Chronic daily administration of FTY720 significantly attenuated the Aβ42-induced learning and memory impairment and prevented the hippocampus neuronal damage as well as caspase-3 activation, suggesting that S1P receptors and signaling pathways may provide a potential target for the treatment of AD.
Abstract: Imbalanced lipid metabolism and increase in the ceramide-to-S1P ratio in the brain have been postulated to play a role in amyloidogenesis, neuroinflammatory reactions, and neuronal apoptosis in Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathology. FTY720, the immunomodulatory sphingosine 1-phosphate (S1P) analog, has recently gained interest because of its CNS-directed effects. In addition to its immunomodulatory functions in multiple sclerosis, FTY720 possesses anti-inflammatory and neuroprotective roles in different cerebral ischemia models. In the present study, we examined the effects of FTY720 in a rat model of AD. Memory deficit was induced by bilateral intrahippocampus injection of beta-amyloid peptide (Aβ(42)) and examined through the Morris water maze test. The extent of histological injury in the hippocampus and the activation of caspase-3 were determined respectively by Nissl staining and Western blotting. Chronic daily administration of FTY720 (1 mg/kg, i.p., 14 days) significantly attenuated the Aβ(42)-induced learning and memory impairment and prevented the hippocampus neuronal damage as well as caspase-3 activation. These data show for the first time that FTY720 has a beneficial effect in restoring memory loss in Aβ(42)-induced neurotoxicity and also suggest that S1P receptors and signaling pathways may provide a potential target for the treatment of AD.
92 citations
TL;DR: The efficiency of nanofibrils to remove dyes was more than that of charcoal, which is considered as one of the most common substances used for azo dye remediation which may be due to its well dispersion in the aqueous solutions, and slower rates of the coagulation than the adsorption process.
90 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigated English language teaching (ELT) curriculum planning in Iran's Ministry of Education and its implementation by teachers and found that there are no pre-defined linguistic and professional criteria for evaluating teachers, and planning for students' assessment is limited to a set of general guidelines.
Abstract: The present study investigates English language teaching (ELT) curriculum planning in Iran's Ministry of Education and its implementation by teachers. We studied programme evaluation; needs analysis; the ELT-specific documents; communication channels between planning and practice levels; teacher evaluation and student assessment; interpretation and re-examination of national policies within the Ministry; and the criteria set for ELT material development. Instrumentation included: curriculum documents; interviews with Ministry officials, material developers and headteachers; and teacher questionnaires. Results attested to the lack of any ELT-specific document for material development and absence of research-based needs assessment as the foundation of the programmes. Also, there are no pre-defined linguistic and professional criteria for evaluating teachers, and planning for students' assessment is limited to a set of general guidelines. Moreover, there is neither a programme evaluation nor an ELT evaluatio...
87 citations
TL;DR: It is demonstrated that EnSCs could be programmed into oligodendrocyte progenitor cells and may convince to consider these cells as suitable source for cell therapy of neurodegenerative diseases.
Abstract: Oligodendrocytes are myelinating cells in the central nervous system that form the myelin sheath of axons to support rapid nerve conduction. Human endometrial stromal cells (EnSCs) are the abundant and easy available source for cell replacement therapy. In the present study, the EnSCs were coaxed to oligodendrocyte progenitor programming by induction of neuronal condition media, including bFGF, epidermal growth factor, and platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF)-AA signaling molecules as well as triiodothyronine. Differentiated cells were analyzed for expression of oligodendrocytic markers by quantitative reverse transcription PCR and immunocytochemistry. The results showed the expression of oligodendrocyte lineage markers such as nestin, PDGF receptor alpha (PDGFRα), Sox10, and Olig2 in the level of mRNAs. The expression of nestin and PDGFRα increased after 8 days posttreatment. Interestingly, the expression of nestin and PDGFRα genes at the levels of mRNA and proteins decreased 24 days after induction. The expression of A2B5, O4, and Olig2 proteins in EnSCs was confirmed using immunocytochemistry. The results confirmed that EnSCs could response to the signaling molecules which routinely applied for oligodendrocyte differentiation. Here for the first time, we demonstrated that EnSCs could be programmed into oligodendrocyte progenitor cells and may convince to consider these cells as suitable source for cell therapy of neurodegenerative diseases.
62 citations
TL;DR: Mobile users were the fastest-growing group and will rise rapidly to a million by December 2012 and that their visits were very different in the aggregate from those arising from fixed platforms, which confirms that informationseeking behavior is platform-specific and the latest platforms are changing it all again.
Abstract: According to estimates the mobile device will soon be the main platform for searching the web, and yet our knowledge of how mobile consumers use information, and how that differs from desktops/laptops users, is imperfect. The paper sets out to correct this through an analysis of the logs of a major cultural website, Europeana. The behavior of nearly 70,000 mobile users was examined over a period of more than a year and compared with that for PC users of the same site and for the same period. The analyses conducted include: size and growth of use, time patterns of use; geographical location of users, digital collections used; comparative information-seeking behavior using dashboard metrics, clustering of users according to their information seeking, and user satisfaction. The main findings were that mobile users were the fastest-growing group and will rise rapidly to a million by December 2012 and that their visits were very different in the aggregate from those arising from fixed platforms. Mobile visits could be described as being information “lite”: typically shorter, less interactive, and less content viewed per visit. Use took a social rather than office pattern, with mobile use peaking at nights and weekends. The variation between different mobile devices was large, with information seeking on the iPad similar to that for PCs and laptops and that for smartphones very different indeed. The research further confirms that informationseeking behavior is platform-specific and the latest platforms are changing it all again. Websites will have to adapt.
58 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the effect of confining pressure on the compressional and shear wave velocities (VP, VS) and on the dynamic to static Young's modulus ratio (Ed/Es) was investigated under dry conditions on limestone core specimens from an oil well in the southwest of Iran.
Abstract: We carried out laboratory experiments under dry conditions on limestone core specimens of Sarvak formation obtained from an oil well in the southwest of Iran. Our objective was to study the effect of confining pressure on the compressional and shear wave velocities (VP, VS), and on the dynamic to static Young’s modulus ratio (Ed/Es). Furthermore, we made attempts to predict VP and VS at atmospheric pressure based on the same velocities at various confining pressures. These analyses revealed that, below a critical pressure with an increase in confinement VP and VS increased exponentially, representing a poroelastic regime. Above a critical pressure, however, the trend was linear. Likewise, we observed that with an increase in confinement, Ed/Es initially decreased exponentially, followed by a linear decreasing trend above the critical pressure. This indicated that Es is more responsive than Ed. Accordingly, these observations infer that it is possible to predict Es based on Ed at different confinin...
55 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a feed-forward artificial neural network together with Lambert W function is used to determine the characteristics of silicon solar cell, module and plastic solar cell and the results showed that the proposed method has the accuracy which is much better than other methods and secondly, the current and power errors are generally very lower than these errors in other methods even at the Maximum Power Point (MPP).
TL;DR: Detailed anthropometric data was presented that differentiated levels of success in male handball teams playing in the 2013 world championships, and should serve as a reference for the average standing stature, body mass, and BMI of handball players for particular positions at the professional level.
Abstract: Identifying the anthropometric measures of successful and less successful handball players may be helpful in developing a talent identification and development model, allowing for the determination of key physical capacities required for elite performance. The purpose of the study was to describe the anthropometric characteristics, including age, standing stature, body mass and body mass index (BMI) in handball players who participated in the 2013 Men's Handball World Championships. Secondly, the objective was to identify the possible differences in these parameters in terms of individual playing positions (goalkeeper, back, center back, wing, line player). Rosters with handball player's age, standing stature, and body mass were obtained from the International Handball Federation website. The research material included 409 handball players (24 teams). National teams were organized by their ranks and sub-grouped using their continents and playing positions. The results of the analyses of variance demonstrated significant differences in age (F=2.30; p=0.044; Partial ŋ2=0.028), standing stature (F=14.02; p=0.0001; Partial ŋ2=0.148), and body mass (F=5.88; p=0.0001; Partial ŋ2=0.068) among the groups (G1-G6). Players in G1 had the highest standing stature and body mass, while players in G6 had the lowest age and body mass values. The backs and line players were the tallest. In addition, the measurement of body mass showed that the line players had the highest body mass and BMI values. In conclusion, this study presented anthropometric data that differentiated levels of success in male handball teams playing in the 2013 world championships. This information should serve as a reference for the average standing stature, body mass, and BMI of handball players for particular positions at the professional level.
TL;DR: Using orthoses with different mechanisms such as proprioceptive intervention might be a useful method in orthotic treatment and assessing plantar pressure can also be an efficient quantitative outcome measure for clinicians in evidence-based foot orthosis prescription.
Abstract: Background:Previous studies have suggested that orthoses with different constructions could alter gait parameters in flexible flatfoot. However, there is less evidence about the effect of insoles w...
TL;DR: A review on the synthesis, structural investigation, and applications of binaphthyl-based macromolecules can be found in this paper, where a brief overview on the design and synthesis of direct or indirect-linked binaph-based monomers is presented.
Abstract: Binaphthyl-based systems have been under extensive investigation during the past years as sensors, host molecules, asymmetric catalysts, chiral-conjugated polymers, and high performance materials. This review mainly focuses on the synthesis, structural investigation, and applications of binaphthyl-based macromolecules. It begins with a brief overview on design and synthesis of direct or indirect-linked binaphthyl-based monomers. Fundamentals of the synthesis and macromolecular structure of binaphthyl hosts as chiral catalysts for various asymmetric organic reactions are then provided. In addition, recent complexation studies of some podands and macrocycles derived from binaphthyls are highlighted. Furthermore, the synthesis and properties of main chain chiral conjugated polymers having optically active 1,1′-binaphthyls are discussed. Finally, we focus on recent work involving the incorporation of binaphthyl units into the macromolecules backbone to prepare processable high performance polymers.
TL;DR: This homogeneous DNA detection scheme is simple, rapid and efficient, does not require excessive washing and separation steps, and is likely to be useful for the construction of a nanobiosensor for Helicobacter species.
Abstract: We report on a method for the sensitive determination of Helicobacter that is based on fluorescence resonance energy transfer using two oligonucleotide probes labeled with CdTe quantum dots (QDs) and 5-carboxytetramethylrhodamine (Tamra) respectively. QDs labeled with an amino-modified first oligonucleotide, and a Tamra-labeled second oligonucleotide were added to the DNA targets upon which hybridization occurred. The resulting assembly brings the Tamra fluorophore (the acceptor) and the QDs (the donor) into close proximity and causes fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) to occur upon photoexcitation of the donor. In the absence of target DNA, on the other hand, the probes are not ligated, and no emission by the Tamra fluorophore is produced due to the lack of FRET. The feasibility of the method was demonstrated by the detection of a synthetic 210-mer nucleotide derived from Helicobacter on a nanomolar level. This homogeneous DNA detection scheme is simple, rapid and efficient, does not require excessive washing and separation steps, and is likely to be useful for the construction of a nanobiosensor for Helicobacter species.
TL;DR: Interestingly MSCs supported the prolonged in vitro proliferation of hiPSCs along with maintenance of their pluripotency, and suggest human mesenchymal stem cells as an appropriate feeder layer for human iPSCs culture for clinical applications and cell therapy.
Abstract: Feeder layers have been applied extensively to support the growth and stemness potential of stem cells for in vitro cultures. Mouse embryonic fibroblast and mouse fibroblast cell line (SNL) are common feeder cells for human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) culture. Because of some problems in the use of these animal feeders and in order to simplify the therapeutic application of hiPSCs, we tested human adult bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) as a potent feeder system. This method benefits from prevention of possible contamination of animal origin feeder systems. hiPSCs transferred onto mitotically inactivated hMSCs and passaged every 5 days. Prior to this culture, MSCs were characterized by flow cytometry of their surface markers and evaluation of their osteogenic and adipogenic differentiation potentials. The morphology, expressions of some specific pluripotency markers such as SSEA-3, NANOG and TRA-1-60, alkaline phosphates activity, formation embryoid bodies and their differentiation potentials of iPSCs on SNL and MSC feeder layers were evaluated. To investigate the prolonged maintenance of pluripotency, the quantitative transcriptions of some pluripotency markers including OCT4, SOX2, NANOG and REX1 were compared in the iPS clones on SNL or MSC feeders. Human iPSCs cultured on human MSCs feeder were slightly thinner and flatter than ones on the other feeder system. Interestingly MSCs supported the prolonged in vitro proliferation of hiPSCs along with maintenance of their pluripotency. Altogether our results suggest human mesenchymal stem cells as an appropriate feeder layer for human iPSCs culture for clinical applications and cell therapy.
TL;DR: It is concluded that, for the narrowest tubes, the water solubility of BN tubes is slightly greater than that of SiC followed by carbon and BP nanotubes.
Abstract: A density functional theory study was carried out to predict the electrostatic potentials as well as average local ionization energies on both the outer and the inner surfaces of carbon, boron-nitride (BN), boron-phosphide (BP) and silicon-carbide (SiC) single-walled nanotubes. For each nanotube, the effect of tube radius on the surface potentials and calculated average local ionization energies was investigated. It is found that SiC and BN nanotubes have much stronger and more variable surface potentials than do carbon and BP nanotubes. For the SiC, BN and BP nanotubes, there are characteristic patterns of positive and negative sites on the outer lateral surfaces. On the other hand, a general feature of all of the systems studied is that stronger potentials are associated with regions of higher curvature. According to the evaluated surface electrostatic potentials, it is concluded that, for the narrowest tubes, the water solubility of BN tubes is slightly greater than that of SiC followed by carbon and BP nanotubes.
TL;DR: The results show that GA has better performance than MA in terms of average objective function value and average run time using the two comparison procedures.
Abstract: In this paper, a multi-item multiperiod inventory control problem with all-unit and/or incremental quantity discount policies under limited storage capacity is presented. The independent random demand rates of the items in the periods are known and the items are supplied in distinct batch sizes. The cost consists of ordering, holding, and purchasing. The objective is to find the optimal order quantities of all items in different periods such that the total inventory cost is minimized and the constraint is satisfied. A mixed binary integer programming model is first developed to model the problem. Then, a parameter-tuned genetic algorithm (GA) is employed to solve it. Since there is no benchmark available in the literature, a memetic algorithm (MA) is utilized as well to validate and verify the results obtained. The model implementation is next presented using some numerical examples and finally the performances of the proposed GA and MA are compared using two statistical tests and a simple additive weighting method. The results show that GA has better performance than MA in terms of average objective function value and average run time using the two comparison procedures.
TL;DR: A density functional theory study is carried out to investigate the geometries and electronic structure of pristine and carbon-doped (8, 0) single-walled boron nitride nanotubes (BNNTs) as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: A density functional theory study is carried out to investigate the geometries and electronic structure of pristine and carbon-doped (8, 0) single-walled boron nitride nanotubes (BNNTs). In order to understand the effect of impurities or doping on (8, 0) single-walled BNNT, we simulated C-doping in six different ways. Geometry optimizations reveal that in the considered models, B–N bond lengths are not significantly influenced by C-doping. Based on the quantum theory of atoms in molecules analysis, charge density accumulation for axial B–N bond critical points (BCPs) of pristine BNNT is slightly larger than zigzag ones. However, due to C-doping at the B- or N-tips, the evaluated electron density tends to decrease slightly at both axial and zigzag B–N BCPs. Besides, results indicate that influence of C-doping on properties of the (8, 0) BNNT could be also detected by values of chemical shielding isotropy (σ
iso) and anisotropy (Δσ).
TL;DR: In this paper, a robust and accurate algorithm for solving both linear and nonlinear singular boundary value problems is proposed, which employs the Chebyshev wavelets operational matrix of derivative and product operation matrix.
TL;DR: Data have indicated that hESCs primed with Rapa, and induced by a lower concentration of activin A, could lead to DE that had the capability to further differentiate into HLCs and PP cells, but not PE cells.
Abstract: Despite the enormous progress in studying definitive endoderm (DE) differentiation from human embryonic stem cells (hESCs), none of the reported protocols have produced a universal, cost-effective, and competent DE with the capability to further differentiate into endodermal derivatives. In this study, by using a 2-step differentiation strategy, we have treated hESCs for 1 day with “priming” small molecules (SM), [stauprimide, NSC-308848, rapamycin (Rapa), and/or CHIR] and for the next 3 days with “inducing” SM (LY294002, cymarin, IDE1, and/or IDE2) in conjunction with activin A. In the positive control group, we treated hESCs with Wnt3a (25 ng/mL) for 1 day and activin A (100 ng/mL; W/A100-A100) for the next 3 days. Gene expression analysis showed that treatment of hESCs with 100 nM Rapa and 50 ng/mL activin A (Rapa-A50) out of 25 combinations of factors gave rise to higher expressions of 2 DE-specific genes, SOX17 and FOXA2. Similar results were obtained after treating 2 other hESC lines with this regim...
TL;DR: The results obtained indicated that both the cytotoxicity and cellular uptake of platinum were enhanced by its entrapment in β-CN-CS nanovehicles, suggesting that this novel drug-delivery system enables drugs to be thermodynamically stable in aqueous solutions and is potentially useful for targeted oral-del delivery applications.
TL;DR: Two meta-heuristic algorithms namely, the non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II) and multi-objective particle swarm optimization (MOPSO) algorithm, are proposed and the results show while both algorithms are efficient to solve the model and the solution qualities of the two algorithms do not differ significantly, the computational CPU time of MOPSO is considerably lower than that of NSGA- II.
TL;DR: A new fuzzy profit maximization inventory model with shortages is proposed that is formulated and solved using geometric programming and fuzzy optimization techniques to derive an approximation of the results’ membership functions.
TL;DR: The EnSCs could be programmed into pre-oligodendrocyte cells by overexpression of miR-219, and may convince to consider these cells as safe source for cell replacement therapy of neurodegenerative diseases.
TL;DR: In this article, a covalent attachment of chloropropyl silyl groups and reaction with 1-methyl imidazole on the surface of the silica-coated magnetite nanoparticles was described.
TL;DR: In this paper, a new well dispersed molybdenum-Schiff base complex covalently attached to the surface of multi-wall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) was reported.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors define 10 microfacies units from the Sarvak Formation in four facies belts: (i) tidal flat, (ii) lagoonal, (iii) shoal, and (iv) open marine.
TL;DR: Chronic administration of SEW2871 inhibited the reduction of S1PR1 expression and ameliorated spatial memory impairment in the Morris water maze task in rats, and attenuated the Aβ1-42-induced hippocampal neuronal loss according to Nissl staining findings.
Abstract: Sphingosine-1 phosphate (S1P) is involved in a variety of cellular processes via activation of S1P receptors (S1PRs; S1PR1 to S1PR5) that are highly expressed in the brain. It has been shown that the level of S1P is reduced in the brain of Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients. However, there is no study designed to evaluate the expression of S1PRs in AD brains. The objectives of the present work are (1) to examine the expression of S1PR1-3 in the hippocampus of beta amyloid (Aβ) 1-42 injected rats and (2) to clarify the effects of chronic S1PR1 activation on S1PR1-3 levels, spatial memory deficit and hippocampal damage in AD rats. SEW2871, the S1PR1 selective agonist, repeatedly was injected intraperitoneally during a period of two weeks. Upon Western Blot data bilateral intrahippocampal injection of Aβ1-42 decreased the expression of S1PR1 while increased S1PR2 level and did not affect that of S1PR3. We found that chronic administration of SEW2871 inhibited the reduction of S1PR1 expression and ameliorated spatial memory impairment in the Morris water maze task in rats. In addition, SEW2871 attenuated the Aβ1-42-induced hippocampal neuronal loss according to Nissl staining findings. Data in the current study highlights the importance of S1PR1 signaling pathway deregulation in AD development and suggests that activation of S1PR1 may represent a potential approach for developing new therapeutics to manage memory deficit and apoptosis associated with neurodegenerative disorders such as AD.
TL;DR: In this paper, the roles of positive and negative affect in well-being were studied in two different societies, namely the Iranian and the Swedish, and the results showed that, whereas there was no difference between Iranian and Swedish participants in their general level of life satisfaction, differences with regard to positive or negative affect were found.
Abstract: The roles of positive and negative affect in well-being were studied in two different societies, namely the Iranian and the Swedish. A total of 606 university students (296 Iranian and 310 Swedish) participated in the study. The results showed that, whereas there was no difference between Iranian and Swedish participants in their general level of life satisfaction, differences with regard to positive and negative affect were found. Swedish participants had more positive affect, whereas Iranian participants had more negative affect. In the Swedish sample, the most predictive factor of flourishing was positive affect, while there was a balance affect (between positive and negative affects) in the Iranian sample. The results are discussed from a individualistic–collectivistic perspective.