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The goal of the research is the creation of sustainable models, to be compared with contemporary municipalities, aiming sustainability. The method of indicator comparisons is promoted by the European Environmental Agency and the European Committee, although that known “sustainable” indicators refer to data from cities that are not sustainable. Identifying the insufficient way to sustainability, the research investigates the function and flows, of 28 autonomous, self-sufficient settlements in Epirus, before the industrialization, based on their cyclical ecosystem behavior, in four fields: political, economic, environmental, and social. The settlements as ecosystems are applied in the DPSIR framework of EEA, giving the perfect function, which concerned political autonomy, self-preservation, a high quality of life and education level, as out-flows culture, legacies, and pan European trade. Therefore, sustainability and cyclical urban ecosystem are indeed identical terms, concerning social, economic, and environmental excellence. The fields are highly interdependent. The basis, or the “Driving force”, for the ecosystemic function to sustainability is an independent-strong local authority, empowered by local economy of the primary sector. These condition in a “green” built environment, is able to achieve strong social cohesion. The ecosystemic-function of the preindustrial models as benchmarks can lead the way to a contemporary sustainability excellence.

【Abstract】 Objective: To analyze the time factor in road traffic accidents (RTAs) in Fars Province of Iran. Methods: This study was conducted in Fars Province, Iran from November 22, 2009 to November 21, 2011. Victims’ information consisted of age, sex, death toll involving dri-vers or passengers of cars, motorcycles and pedestrians, and site of injury etc. Accidents were analyzed in relation to hour of the day, season of the year, lighting condition in-cluding sunrise, sunset, daytime and nighttime. Results: A total of 3 642 deaths (78.3% were males, and the ratio of males to females was about 3.6:1) were studied regarding their autopsy records. There was a steady in-crease in fatal accidents occurring at midnight to 15:59. The risk of being involved in a fatal traffic accident was higher for those injured between 4:00 to 7:59 than at other times (OR=2.13, 95% CI 1.85-2.44). The greatest number of fatal RTAs took place in summer. Mortalities due to RTA during spring and summer were more pronounced at 20:00 to 23:59 and midnight to 3:59, whereas mortalities in fall and winter were more pronounced from 12:00 to 15:59. Conclusion: The high mortality rate of RTA is a major public health problem in Fars Province. Our results indicate that the time is an important factor which contributes to road traffic deaths. Key words: Accidents, traffic; Epidemiology; Mortality; Iran

【Abstract】Objective: To determine the epidemio-logical characteristics of fatal pedestrian accidents in Fars Province of Iran. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in Fars Province of Iran during a 29-month period from March 2009 to July 2011. The data were from the Fars Forensic Medi-cine Registry. In 4 923 recorded road traffic accident fatalities, 971 deaths were due to pedestrian accidents. The demographic and accident-related information were analyzed by SPSS ver-sion 11.5. P value less than 0.05 was considered significant. Results: The mean age of decedents was (47.2±26.2) years, ranging from 6 months to 103 years old. Males ac-counted for 69.8% of all deaths. Fatal accidents were most common in September; 56.1% of the fatal injuries occurred on intracity roads and 33.1% on extracity roads. Fatal head injuries were present in 60.54% of cases. Evaluation of the injury site and the cause of death found that they were significantly associated with age, interval between injury and death. Besides, the type of roads played an important role in mortality. Conclusion: Although the clinical management of trauma patients has been improved in our country in the recent decade, decreasing the burden of injuries needs co-ordination among trauma system organizations. Key words: Accidents, traffic; Epidemiologic studies; Mortality; Iran

【Abstract】Objective: To identify the main character-istics of victims of motorcycle accidents in Fars Province, Iran. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in Fars Province which has the fourth largest population of all 31 provinces in Iran from March 2009 to June 2010. We included data from all 542 recorded cases of fatalities due to motor vehicle accidents. Data were recorded from the foren-sic medicine registry consisting of demographic and acci-dent-related information. Demographic information con-sisted of name, age, sex, status of fatal victim (motorcycle driver vs passenger) and educational level. Results: Of the 2 345 autopsy records from the foren-sic medicine archives, 542 (23.1%) gave the cause of death as motor vehicle accidents. Mean age of these victims was (31.4±16.5) years, and the male to female ratio was 28. Head injury was the most common cause of death in these victims, and overall they tended to have a low level of education. Motorcycle accidents frequently involved younger age groups (15-35 years), and head trauma related with non-use of a helmet was the most common cause of death. Conclusions: Head injury is frequent among victims in the province we studied. This situation may be related to the victims’ low socioeconomic status and little education regarding traffic laws leading to speeding and disregard of these laws along with their weak enforcement. Key words: Accidents, traffic; Motorcycles; Iran

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a rapidly progressive neurodegeneration involving motor neurons. The 3-5 years that patients have to live is marked by day-to-day loss of motor and sometimes cognitive abilities. Enormous amounts of healthcare services and resources are necessary to support patients and their caregivers during this relatively short but burdensome journey. Organization and management of these resources need to best meet patients' expectations and health system efficiency mandates. This can only occur in the setting of multidisciplinary ALS clinics which are known as the gold standard of ALS care worldwide. To introduce this standard to the care of Iranian ALS patients, which is an inevitable quality milestone, a national ALS clinical practice guideline is the necessary first step. The National ALS guideline will serve as the knowledge base for the development of local clinical pathways to guide patient journeys in multidisciplinary ALS clinics. To this end, we gathered a team of national neuromuscular experts as well as experts in related specialties necessary for delivering multidisciplinary care to ALS patients to develop the Iranian ALS clinical practice guideline. Clinical questions were prepared in the Patient, Intervention, Comparison, and Outcome (PICO) format to serve as a guide for the literature search. Considering the lack of adequate national/local studies at this time, a consensus-based approach was taken to evaluate the quality of the retrieved evidence and summarize recommendations.

Abstract The correlation between surface electrical resistivity and modulus of elasticity of fiber-reinforced concrete (FRC) was studied within early ages in this study as a novel nondestructive method for predicting the modulus of elasticity of FRC. In addition to the relationship of the two quantities, the influence of various discrete fibers such as glass, nylon, polypropylene, and steel on the early age properties of FRC was investigated. Twenty-one FRC mixes were designed and tested; including four fiber types, three different fiber volume fractions for each fiber type, and three different water-to-cement ratios for all the different mixes. The surface electrical resistivity meter and resonance testing gauge were used to measure each specimen’s surface electrical resistivity and modulus of elasticity. Early-age dynamic modulus of FRC may be predicted using the mechanical properties and dimension of the fiber, according to proposed mathematical calculations. Statistical analysis was performed on the experimental results and the results acquired by the proposed equations, to examine and proof the accuracy of the proposed equations. The acceptable coefficient of variation of 5–9 percent confirmed the good agreement between the measured and predicted values.

Polypropylene fiber reinforced concrete (PFRC) is becoming more popular for structural purposes due to its durability, electrical resistivity, and mechanical properties. In this study, the influence of polypropylene fiber on the mechanical properties and ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV) of fiber reinforced concrete (FRC) were determined. Six different fiber volume fractions of polypropylene were considered in the experimental investigation with varying water–cement ratios and curing conditions. Non-destructive testing methods were utilized to determine the UPV of the PFRC. Available equations in literature for predicting the RFC’s compressive strength based on UPV values were selected. However, the computed values did not show good agreement with the compressive strengths obtained from the compression testing machine. It was confirmed that polypropylene fibers alter the propagation of UPV, and as a result, the existing equations do not accurately predict the compressive strength for PFRC. Therefore, a practical equation is proposed to accurately evaluate the compressive strength of PFRC with regard to UPV.

Neuropeptides (NPs) and their cognate receptors are critical effectors of diverse physiological processes and behaviors. We recently reported of a noncanonical function of the Drosophila Glucose-6-Phosphatase (G6P) gene in a subset of neurosecretory cells in the central nervous system that governs systemic glucose homeostasis in food-deprived flies. Here, we show that G6P-expressing neurons define six groups of NP-secreting cells, four in the brain and two in the thoracic ganglion. Using the glucose homeostasis phenotype as a screening tool, we find that neurons located in the thoracic ganglion expressing FMRFamide NPs (FMRFaG6P neurons) are necessary and sufficient to maintain systemic glucose homeostasis in starved flies. We further show that G6P is essential in FMRFaG6P neurons for attaining a prominent Golgi apparatus and secreting NPs efficiently. Finally, we establish that G6P-dependent FMRFa signaling is essential for the build-up of glycogen stores in the jump muscle which expresses the receptor for FMRFamides. We propose a general model in which the main role of G6P is to counteract glycolysis in peptidergic neurons for the purpose of optimizing the intracellular environment best suited for the expansion of the Golgi apparatus, boosting release of NPs and enhancing signaling to respective target tissues expressing cognate receptors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children with single ventricle heart disease typically require a series of three operations, (1) Norwood, (2) Glenn, and (3) Fontan, which ultimately results in complete separation of the pulmonary and systemic circuits to improve pulmonary/systemic circulation. In the last stage, the Fontan operation, the inferior vena cava (IVC) is connected to the pulmonary arteries (PAs), allowing the remainder of deoxygenated blood to passively flow to the pulmonary circuit. It is hypothesized that optimizing the Fontan anatomy would lead to decreased power loss and more balanced hepatic flow distribution. One approach to optimizing the geometry is to create a patient-specific digital twin to simulate various configurations of the Fontan conduit, which requires a computational model of the proximal PA anatomy and resistance, as well as the distal Pulmonary Vascular Resistance (PVR), at the Glenn stage. To that end, an optimization pipeline was developed using 3D computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and 0D lumped parameter (LP) simulations to iteratively refine the PVR of each lung by minimizing the simulated flow and pressure error relative to patients' cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) and catheterization (CATH) data. While the PVR can also be estimated directly by computing the ratio of pressure gradients and flow from CATH and CMR data, the computational approach can separately identify the different components of PVR along the Glenn pathway, allowing for a more detailed depiction of the Glenn vasculature. Results indicate good correlation between the optimized PVR of the CFD and LP models (n = 16), with an intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) of 0.998 (p = 0.976) and 0.991 (p = 0.943) for the left and right lung, respectively. Furthermore, compared to CMR flow and CATH pressure data, the optimized PVR estimates result in mean outlet flow and pressure errors of less than 5%. The optimized PVR estimates also agree well with the computed PVR estimates from CATH pressure and CMR flow for both lungs, yielding a mean difference of less than 4%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present research has primarily focused on the production of nanofibrillated lignocellulose (NFLC) instead of nanofibrillated cellulose (NFC), which could be produced with less energy and is expected to have similar uses as NFC, especially in the sectors where the transparency is not important. Furthermore, the effect of energy consumption needed for NFLC production and also the influence of pulping methods on the produced NFLC properties has been surveyed. Through mechanical refining and different passes in microfluidizer, the results showed the average diameter of NFLC declined from around 19000 nm to 36 nm. Soda-NFLC films had higher calliper and lower roughness, compared to those of MEA at given energy consumption in refiner and microfluidizer. For both kinds of pulps, the optimum level of energy consumption to reach the best tensile index of NFLC films was 258 kWh/t, with three passes through microfluidizer. More increase in the number of passes and pressure only resulted in increasing of energy consumption without any positive effect on improving the tensile index. The maximum tensile indices of NFLC films obtained from soda and MEA pulping processes were 113.5 and 119.86 N·m/g, respectively. The burst index of 8.5 kP·m2/g and the energy consumption of 458 kWh/t were obtained for five passes through microfluidizer. With the increase of the number of passes of soda and MEA samples through microfluidizer, the opacity decreased but transparency increased.

This paper deals with modeling and verification of software systems by combining UML diagrams and Pi-calculus. UML 2.0 Activity diagrams are used for modeling the behavior of software systems, while Pi-calculus is used for semantic and verification purposes. More precisely, UML is a semi-formal language and so it needs formal semantics for its constructs and lacks tools for verifying properties. To this end, we propose an approach and a tool called AD2PICALC for transforming UML 2.0 Activity diagrams to Pi-calculus processes using Eclipse Xpand and TGG tools. The obtained Pi-calculus processes are then used as input for Pi-calculus tools, like MWB, to verify some properties as deadlocks, safety, determinism, termination and livelock. We illustrate our contribution through an example from the literature and verify the property of deadlock using MWB tool. The main contribution of this paper lies in the automation of the transformation approach using TGG tools.