• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.635-639
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• 2015

Background: In the absence of routine screening program for cervical cancer in Iran and high rate of diagnosed cancer in its advanced stage, recognition of sociodemographic factors related to delayed diagnosis of cancer in Iran could be helpful in reducing the burden of disease in our community. The aim of this study was to determine the stage of cervical cancer at diagnosis and factors related to delayed diagnosis of cervical cancer in Isfahan, Iran. Materials and Methods: In this cross sectional study women diagnosed with cervical cancer for the first time by histo-pathological examination were enrolled. According to the clinical and paraclinical findings and staging of the cancer, they were classified into early and delayed diagnosis of cervical cancer. Sociodemographic factors were compared in the two groups. Results: In this study of 55 women mean age was $48.3{\pm}12.0.$ According to our classification 6/55 (10.9%) and 49/55 (89.1%) of them had early and delayed diagnosis of cervical cancer. Delayed diagnosis of the cancer was significantly higher in patients with lower degree of education, lower socioeconomic status, having smoker and addict husband and those who did not have a history of Pap smear test (p<0.05). Conclusions: The results of this study indicated risk factors related to delayed diagnosis of cervical cancer. The affected women should be targeted for implementation of specialized educational programmes for improving knowledge and screening test.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.13
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• pp.5439-5444
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• 2015

Background: One of the main causes of delay in diagnosis of oral cancer is lack of awareness about aetiology and symptoms among the general population. The aim of this study was to assess the knowledge and practice of patients regarding oral cancer and their attitude towards tobacco cessation. Materials and Methods: This study was carried out in Isfahan-Iran in 2014. A 29-item self-administrated questionnaire was designed and piloted and distributed to patients attending dental clinics. Questions were focused on awareness about oral cancer risk factors, signs and symptoms, places in the mouth which are more susceptible and attitude toward tobacco cessation. Chi-square, T-test, ANOVA and logistic regression tests were used for statistical analysis. Results: A total of 546 valid completed questionnaires were obtained. The mean knowledge score of patients was 4.1(${\pm}2.7$) out of 13. Some 80% of patients did not know about early manifestations of oral cancer. Only 18% knew the most likely sites of oral cancer. Only 43.1% and 65.2% of patients reported alcohol and tobacco consumption as the main risk factors but they had a fair knowledge about other risk factors. There was no significant difference in Knowledge level between patients regarding their sex, educational levels and age. Most patents (90%) expected their dentists to warn them about the harmful effects of smoking and showed willingness to quit if recommended. Conclusions: Knowledge about oral cancer was found to be quite low. It seems necessary to increase the level of public awareness using educational programs with cooperation of dentists in tobacco cessation programs.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.14
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• pp.5669-5673
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• 2015

Background: Breast cancer is the most prevalent kind of cancer among women in Iran. Regarding the importance of cancer prevention and considerable variation of breast cancer incidence in different parts of the country, it is necessary to recognize regions with high incidence of breast cancer and evaluate the role of potential risk factors by use of advanced statistical models. The present study focussed on incidence of breast cancer in Iran at the province level and also explored the impact of some prominent covariates using Bayesian models. Materials and Methods: All patients diagnosed with breast cancer in Iran from 2005 to 2008 were included in the study. Smoking, fruit and vegetable intake, physical activity, obesity and the Human Development Index (HDI), measured at the province level, were considered as potential modulating factors. Gamma-Poisson, log normal and BYM models were used to estimate the relative risk of breast cancer in this ecological investigation with and without adjustment for the covariates. Results: The unadjusted BYM model had the best fit among applied models. Without adjustment, Isfahan, Yazd, and Tehran had the highest incidences and Sistan- Baluchestan and Chaharmahal-Bakhtiari had the lowest. With the adjusted model, Khorasan-Razavi, Lorestan and Hamedan had the highest and Ardebil and Kohgiluyeh-Boyerahmad the lowest incidences. A significantly direct association was found between breast cancer incidence and HDI. Conclusions: BYM model has better fit, because it contains parameters that allow including effects from neighbors. Since HDI is a significant variable, it is also recommended that HDI should be considered in future investigations. This study showed that Yazd, Isfahan and Tehran provinces feature the highest crude incidences of breast cancer.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.333-338
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• 2015

Background: Oral health professionals are responsible in Iran for providing a brief tobacco cessation program to smoker patients. The aim of this study was to assess Iranian dental student and dentist practice, knowledge and attitudes toward smoking cessation programs. Materials and Methods: A valid and reliable self-administered questionnaire was designed and distributed to 150 dentists working in Isfahan-Iran and 60 dental students. Some questions were developed based on the expected 5A tobacco cessation protocol. Statements on attitudes focused on professional responsibility towards smoking cessation and its effectiveness. Chi-square, ANOVA, and t test were used for statistical analysis. Results: The cessation program in dental settings covers a small group of patients (18%). Some 69.1% (n=96) of dentists reported asking their patients about tobacco use, 64% (n=83) advising their patients to quit, 33.8% (n=47) assessing their patients willingness to quit and 20% (n=28) reported helping their patients in changing their behavior. A far lower percentage reported active involvement in arranging assistance for smokers to quit (4.3%, n=5). Some 22% of students and 26% of dentists disagreed that the tobacco cessation programs should be as part of dentists' professional responsibility and 70% of them were willing to follow the protocol of tobacco cessation for patients. Conclusions: Iranian dentist performance regarding tobacco cessation is weak. Dentists and students indicated their lack of knowledge as the major reason for non-adherence to the protocol. Therefore, planning to encourage dentist to follow the protocol needs continuous educational programs.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.13 no.7
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• pp.3053-3059
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• 2012

Human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) is a member of the epidermal growth factor receptor family of receptor tyrosine kinases that plays important roles in all processes of cell development. Their overexpression is related to many cancers, including examples in the breast, ovaries and stomach. Anticancer therapies targeting the HER2 receptor have shown promise, and monoclonal antibodies against subdomains II and IV of the HER2 extra-cellular domain (ECD), Pertuzumab and Herceptin, are currently used in treatments for some types of breast cancers. Since anti HER2 antibodies targeting distinct epitopes have different biological effects on cancer cells; in this research linear and conformational B cell epitopes of HER2 ECD, subdomain III, were identified by bioinformatics analyses using a combination of linear B cell epitope prediction web servers such as ABCpred, BCPREDs, Bepired, Bcepred and Elliprro. Then, Discotope, CBtope and SUPERFICIAL software tools were employed for conformational B cell epitope prediction. In contrast to previously reported epitopes of HER2 ECD we predicted conformational B cell epitopes $P1_C$: 378-393 (PESFDGDPASNTAPLQ) and $P2_C$: 500-510 (PEDECVGEGLA) by the integrated strategy and P4: PESFDGD-X-TAPLQ; P5: PESFDGDP X TAPLQ; P6: ESFDGDP X NTAPLQP; P7: PESFDGDP-X-NTAPLQ; P8: ESFDG-XX-TAPLQPEQL and P9: ESFDGDP-X-NTAPLQP by SUPERFICIAL software. These epitopes could be further used as peptide antigens to actively immune mice for development of new monoclonal antibodies and peptide cancer vaccines that target different epitopes or structural domains of HER2 ECD.

• Restorative Dentistry and Endodontics
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• v.39 no.4
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• pp.303-309
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• 2014

Objectives: Hydrogen peroxide ($H_2O_2$) surface treatment of fiber posts has been reported to increase bond strength of fiber posts to resin cements. However, residual oxygen radicals might jeopardize the bonding procedure. This study examined the effect of three antioxidant agents on the bond strength of fiber posts to conventional and self-adhesive resin cements. Materials and Methods: Post spaces were prepared in forty human maxillary second premolars. Posts were divided into five groups of 8 each: G1 (control), no pre-treatment; G2, 10% $H_2O_2$ pre-treatment; G3, G4 and G5. After $H_2O_2$ application, Hesperidin (HES), Sodium Ascorbate (SA) or Rosmarinic acid (RA) was applied on each group respectively. In each group four posts were cemented with Duo-Link conventional resin cement and the others with self-adhesive BisCem cement. Push-out test was performed and data were analyzed using 2-way ANOVA and tukey's post-hoc test (${\alpha}=0.05$). Results: There was a statistically significant interaction between the cement type and post surface treatment on push-out bond strength of fiber posts (p < 0.001, F = 16). Also it was shown that different posts' surface treatments significantly affect the push-out bond strength of fiber posts (p = 0.001). $H_2O_2$ treated posts (G2) and control posts (G1) cemented with Duo-link showed the highest ($15.96{\pm}5.07MPa$) and lowest bond strengths ($6.79{\pm}3.94$) respectively. Conclusions: It was concluded that $H_2O_2$ surface treatment might enhance the bond strength of fiber posts cemented with conventional resin cements. The effect of antioxidants as post's surface treatment agents depends on the characteristics of resin cements used for bonding procedure.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.69-79
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• 2014

The scheduling scheme in packet switching networks is one of the most critical features that can affect the performance of the network. Hence, many scheduling algorithms have been suggested and some indices, such as fairness and latency, have been proposed for the comparison of their performances. While the nature of Internet traffic is bursty, traditional scheduling algorithms try to smooth the traffic and serve the users based on this smoothed traffic. As a result, the fairness index mainly considers this smoothed traffic and the service rate as the main parameter to differentiate among different sessions or flows. This work uses burstiness as a differentiating factor to evaluate scheduling algorithms proposed in the literature. To achieve this goal, a new index that evaluates the performance of a scheduler with bursty traffic is introduced. Additionally, this paper introduces a new scheduler that not only uses arrival rates but also considers burstiness parameters in its scheduling algorithms.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.175-184
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• 2009

In this paper, a method for optimal measurement placement in the problem of static harmonic state estimation in power systems is proposed. At first, for achieving to a suitable method by considering the precision factor of the estimation, a procedure based on Genetic Algorithm (GA) for optimal placement is suggested. Optimal placement by regarding the precision factor has an evident solution, and the proposed method is successful in achieving the mentioned solution. But, the previous applied method, which is called the Sequential Elimination (SE) algorithm, can not achieve to the evident solution of the mentioned problem. Finally, considering both precision and economic factors together in solving the optimal placement problem, a practical method based on GA is proposed. The simulation results are shown an improvement in the precision of the estimation by using the proposed method.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.1980-1990
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• 2017

A study on the multi-objective optimization of Interior Permanent-Magnet Synchronous Motors (IPMSMs) with 2, 3, 4 and 5 flux barriers per magnetic pole, based on Genetic Algorithm (GA) is presented by considering the aspect of irreversible demagnetization. Applying the 2004 Toyota Prius single-layer IPMSM as the reference machine, the asymmetrical two-, three-, four- and five-layer rotor models with the same amount of Permanent-Magnets (PMs) is presented to improve the torque characteristics, i.e., reducing the torque pulsation and increasing the average torque. A reduction of the torque pulsations is achieved by adopting different and asymmetrical flux barrier geometries in each magnetic pole of the rotor topology. The demagnetization performance in the PMs is considered as well as the motor performance; and analyzed by using finite element method (FEM) for verification of the optimal solutions.

• Journal of Construction Engineering and Project Management
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.53-59
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• 2014

Project managers are responsible to conduct project on time with least amount of costs and the most possible quality with respect to shortage of resources and environmental certainties. They have to make the best decision to reach such conflicting objects. In this study the project scheduling with multi goals-multi modes was planned in fuzzy conditions under resource constraints and expanded by fuzzy goal programing (FGP). The project cost was calculated by the price of renewable resources and the quality criteria were evaluated by the quality function deployment method (QFD). Finally the model was verified by a construction case study with 22 activities along with solving by GAMS. The results showed that this model could provide a systematic framework to facilitate the decision making process and made the project managers to be able to schedule the project closer to reality.