A novel Ce-MOF/PES mixed matrix membrane; synthesis, characterization and antifouling evaluation

Farrokh Mohammadnezhad,Mostafa Feyzi,Sirus Zinadini 한국공업화학회 2019 Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Vol.71 No.-

A new polyethersulfone (PES) nanofiltration membrane, modified with nanocrystalline Ce(III)metal–organic framework (MOF), was produced via the phase inversion method and characterizedusing scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), water contact angle andporosity measurements. The morphology and performance of these membranes were investigated interms of pure waterflux, water contact angle, fouling parameters and dye removal. Modified PESmembranes showed an increase in the pure waterflux relative to the bare membrane. The changes insublayer and skin layer of modified membranes and also increased pore size and porosity is obvious fromthe SEM images of PES membranes porosity measurements. Moreover, the surface hydrophilicity of theMOF embedded membranes was improved due to the tendency of water to the membrane surface. Theantifouling properties of the membranes were evaluated by powder milk solution and measuring thefluxrecovery ratio (FRR). The results revealed the modified membrane with 0.5 wt.% of MOF nanoparticle(NPs) had the best antifouling property and also the highest porosity and waterflux. Nanofiltrationperformance of membranes was appraised by probing of the retention of Direct Red 16. The resultshowed that all the modified membranes have a higher dye rejection capacity than the bare PESmembrane.

Pineal and Suprasellar Germinoma Cooccurence with Vertebra Plana: A Case Report

( Farrokh Seilanian Toosi ),( Behzad Aminzadeh ),( Mohammad Faraji Rad ),( Sirous Nekooei ),( Mahsa Nahidi ),( Ehsan Keykhosravi ) 대한뇌종양학회 대한신경종양학회 2018 Brain Tumor Research and Treatment Vol.6 No.2

Germinoma is the most common type of intracranial germ cell tumors (GCTs). Pineal gland and suprasellar region are the most frequent sites of central nervous system (CNS) involvement. Intracranial masses caused by Langerhans cell histiocytosis (LCH) mimics features of CNS GCTs. LCH frequently involve spine and is the most common cause of vertebra plana in children. A 15-year-old boy presented with progressing symptoms of polydipsia, polyuria, general headache, nausea and severe back pain. Brain MRI showed brain tumor with simultaneous involvement of suprasellar region and pineal gland. An excisional biopsy of suprasellar mass was done. The pathologic assessment confirmed the diagnosis of germinoma. Patient’s treatment continued accordingly. A spine MRI, done due to persistent backache, showed a vertebra plana. We reevaluated the primary diagnosis suspecting LCH. Germinoma of CNS was confirmed and a biopsy of vertebral lesion resulted in hemangioma. Thus we report a case of CNS germinoma with co-occurrence of vertebra plana. We emphasized the importance of histopathologic diagnosis of pineal/suprasellar masses and primary investigation of other CNS regions including spine for possible metastasis or comorbidities.

Statistical Data Editing in Scientific Articles

Farrokh Habibzadeh 대한의학회 2017 Journal of Korean medical science Vol.32 No.7

Scientific journals are important scholarly forums for sharing research findings. Editors have important roles in safeguarding standards of scientific publication and should be familiar with correct presentation of results, among other core competencies. Editors do not have access to the raw data and should thus rely on clues in the submitted manuscripts. To identify probable errors, they should look for inconsistencies in presented results. Common statistical problems that can be picked up by a knowledgeable manuscript editor are discussed in this article. Manuscripts should contain a detailed section on statistical analyses of the data. Numbers should be reported with appropriate precisions. Standard error of the mean (SEM) should not be reported as an index of data dispersion. Mean (standard deviation [SD]) and median (interquartile range [IQR]) should be used for description of normally and non-normally distributed data, respectively. If possible, it is better to report 95% confidence interval (CI) for statistics, at least for main outcome variables. And, P values should be presented, and interpreted with caution, if there is a hypothesis. To advance knowledge and skills of their members, associations of journal editors are better to develop training courses on basic statistics and research methodology for non-experts. This would in turn improve research reporting and safeguard the body of scientific evidence

Open Access Journals in the Middle East and Iran

Farrokh Habibzadeh 대한의학회 2019 Journal of Korean medical science Vol.34 No.16

More than 15 years ago, influenced by the high penetration of the Internet and the worldwide web, open access (OA) publishers and journals were born.1 Having great influence on scientific writing and journalism, OA movement should be considered one of the most important events occurred during the last decades. Many publishers have adopted OA policy either for profit (e.g., BioMed Central) or not for profit (e.g., Public Library of Science).1 Numerous journals have also adopted the policy either completely or partially.

Experimental Evaluation of Relationship between Shear Deformation and Pinching in Lightweight-aggregate Reinforced Concrete Beams

Farrokh Aghamohammadzadeh,Hassan Afshin,Masoud Nekooei 대한토목학회 2019 KSCE Journal of Civil Engineering Vol.23 No.1

An experimental program was arranged to investigate the relationship between shear deformation and pinching in lightweightaggregate reinforced concrete beams under cyclic loading. Lightweight-aggregate reinforced concrete beams and their connection to column were selected for the purpose of this study and their flexural and shear behaviors experimentally were investigated. Damaged part of the beams was determined after the test. Using the results, values of beam tip displacement, curvature, and shear distortion in the plastic hinge region of beam were measured and components of shear and flexural deformation of the beam were calculated. Investigations were also performed on the effect of damage extension at the beam-column connection joint as well as effect of shear deformation on pinching increase. It was concluded that, in the lightweight-aggregate reinforced concrete beams in which the damaged part was extended to the beam-column joint, pinching was higher and also shear deformation has a larger contribution of the total beam deformation.

Immunogenicity of EIT chimeric protein expressed in transplastomic tobacco plants towards development of an oral vaccine against Escherichia coli O157:H7

Farrokh Karimi,Amir Mousavi,Houshang Alizadeh,Ali Hatef Salmanian,Sima Rafati 한국식물생명공학회 2013 Plant biotechnology reports Vol.7 No.4

Chloroplast genetic engineering offers an opportunity for high level expression and cost-effective recombinant protein production. Escherichia coli O157:H7 is one of the most important zoonotic pathogens causing hemorrhagic colitis (HC) and the life-threatening hemolytic- uremic syndrome in humans worldwide. The occurrence of zoonotic E. coli O157:H7 outbreaks in recent years has led to increased efforts in the development of safe and cost-effective immunogenic antigens against E. coli O157:H7. EspA and Tir/Intimin proteins are the important virulence factors which are encoded by the LEE locus of enterohemorrhagic E. coli. In this study, we hypothesized that the high level expression of the chimeric form of these effectors in chloroplasts and using tobacco transplastomic plants as an oral delivery system for the development of an edible-base vaccine would induce an immune response for the prevention of E. coli 0157:H7 attachment and colonization in animal model mice. The prokaryotic codonoptimizedEIT protein was expressed in plastid genome via chloroplast transformation. Putative transplastomic plants were analyzed by PCR, and Southern blot analysis confirmingchloroplast integration and homoplasmy in the T1 progeny. Immunoblotting and ELISA assays demonstrated that the EIT protein was expressed in chloroplasts and accumulated up to 1.4 % of total soluble protein in leaf tissue. In mice orally immunized with transplastomic tobacco plant leaves, high immunological responses (IgG and IgA specific antibodies) were detected in serum and feces. Finally, the challenging assay with E. coli O157:H7 in immunized mice showed reduced bacterial shedding.

A discussion on hard rock TBM cutter wear and cutterhead intervention interval length evaluation

Farrokh, Ebrahim,Kim, Dae Young Elsevier 2018 Tunnelling and underground space technology Vol.81 No.-

<P><B>Abstract</B></P> <P>Cutter wear is an important issue for hard rock TBMs as it is directly related to the time and cost of tunneling. It may even become more important for a closed faced TBM tunneling when the planning for a costly intervention becomes very crucial. The major goal of this study is to provide more accurate empirical methods for the cutter wear and optimum intervention interval evaluation. This needs abrasivity index or wear index measurement from various tunnels in different rock types as well as the actual cutter consumption information. To achieve this goal, two methods are adopted. The first method entails compiling TBM performance data and cerchar abrasivity index (CAI) information from various past case histories and data analysis to propose a new empirical formula for the specific cutter weight loss. The second method involves abrasivity measurement using a new proposed laboratory test for a set of available samples from some recently completed tunnels and data analysis to provide an alternative empirical method for specific cutter weight loss prediction. The new abrasion test (NAT), proposed in this paper, is aimed to improve the process of abrasivity measurement using a constant cross section small disc to partially mimic the real disc cutter interaction with the tunnel face. The results show that both of the achieved new empirical formulas provide a better prediction as compared to the well-known Gehring model. They also provide information to predict optimum cutterhead intervention interval length and the number of worn-out cutters. A full-scale test is also conducted to check the validity of the new formulas. In the final section of this paper, the method to evaluate the optimum intervention interval length and the number of worn-out cutters is described and its prediction is evaluated for a tunnel project in Singapore. The evaluation of the new methods proposed in this paper shows a very good agreement with the actual cutter consumption and intervention interval length. The outcomes of this paper can be very useful in both planning and construction stages of a TBM tunneling project where the intervention interval length and cutter wear become critical decision making factors for scheduling and cost evaluation and for reducing the risks of unwanted severe damage on the cutters.</P> <P><B>Highlights</B></P> <P> <UL> <LI> A CAI-based model is developed based on the information of 25 TBM tunnels/reaches. </LI> <LI> NAT is introduced to improve the rock abrasivity evaluation for TBM applications. </LI> <LI> RCM is used to validate the correlation of NAT model for cutter life evaluation. </LI> <LI> The method to evaluate the optimum intervention interval length has been explained. </LI> <LI> The performance of the new methods were checked using the info of a recent project. </LI> </UL> </P>

The Acceptable Text Similarity Level in Manuscripts Submitted to Scientific Journals

Habibzadeh Farrokh 대한의학회 2023 Journal of Korean medical science Vol.38 No.31

Plagiarism is among commonly identified scientific misconducts in submitted manuscripts. Some journals routinely check the level of text similarity in the submitted manuscripts at the time of submission and reject the submission on the fly if the text similarity score exceeds a set cut-off value (e.g., 20%). Herein, I present a manuscript with 32% text similarity, yet without any instances of text plagiarism. This underlines the fact that text similarity is not necessarily tantamount to text plagiarism. Every instance of text similarity should be examined with scrutiny by a trained person in the editorial office. A high text similarity score does not always imply plagiarism; a low score, on the other hand, does not guarantee absence of plagiarism. There is no cut-off for text similarity to imply text plagiarism.

GPTZero Performance in Identifying Artificial Intelligence-Generated Medical Texts: A Preliminary Study

Habibzadeh Farrokh 대한의학회 2023 Journal of Korean medical science Vol.38 No.38

Background: With emergence of chatbots to help authors with scientific writings, editors should have tools to identify artificial intelligence-generated texts. GPTZero is among the first websites that has sought media attention claiming to differentiate machine-generated from human-written texts. Methods: Using 20 text pieces generated by ChatGPT in response to arbitrary questions on various topics in medicine and 30 pieces chosen from previously published medical articles, the performance of GPTZero was assessed. Results: GPTZero had a sensitivity of 0.65 (95% confidence interval, 0.41–0.85); specificity, 0.90 (0.73–0.98); accuracy, 0.80 (0.66–0.90); and positive and negative likelihood ratios, 6.5 (2.1–19.9) and 0.4 (0.2–0.7), respectively. Conclusion: GPTZero has a low false-positive (classifying a human-written text as machinegenerated) and a high false-negative rate (classifying a machine-generated text as human-written).

Employing Unprofessional Editors for Handling Submissions in Scholarly Journals

Habibzadeh Farrokh 대한의학회 2023 Journal of Korean medical science Vol.38 No.40