فهرست مطالب mehrdad aghaie

Recently, due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, much concern has been raised about patients with chronic diseases who may become more susceptible to the disease. The present cross-sectional study aimed to characterize the clinical course of COVID-19 in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). In addition, a possible correlation between the immunosuppression state and the incidence of COVID-19 is investigated. In May 2020, 500 SLE patients registered in the database of Golestan Rheumatology Research Center (Golestan province, Iran) were selected for this cross-sectional study. Using a questionnaire, patients were contacted by telephone to collect data including demographic characteristics, disease status, drug use, and new clinical symptoms. Data were analyzed using SPSS software version 24.0. Of the 500 selected patients, 355 responded to the phone calls and subsequently enrolled in the study. Among the enrolled patients, 25 were classified as COVID-19 positive, including eight hospitalized patients, of which two required intensive care and subsequently died. COVID-19 incidence was significantly lower in the immunosuppressed patients (2.2% vs. 10%, P=0.01). There was no significant correlation between hydroxychloroquine consumption and the incidence of COVID-19 in SLE patients. Fever, fatigue, dyspnea, and dry cough were the most common clinical symptoms. Our results showed that COVID-19 incidence was lower in immunosuppressed than the non-immunosuppressed SLE patients. Further studies are required to substantiate the role of immunosuppression in the development of COVID-19.A preprint version of this study was published at https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-78704/v1 with doi: https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-78704/v1

Fibromyalgia syndrome is a chronic disease with extensive musculoskeletal pain that primarily involves women and also it has negatively effects on many aspects of psychological and social life. Cognitive-behavioral therapy examines dysfunctional emotions and maladaptive cognitive behaviors, processes, and themes, and cognitive-behavioral hypnotherapy combines hypnotherapy with the methods and concepts of cognitive-behavioral therapy. The aim of this study was to compare the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral therapy with cognitive-behavioral hypnotherapy on sexual satisfaction of women with fibromyalgia syndrome.

This clinical trial study was done on 9 women with fibromyalgia syndrome who referred to rheumatology clinic in Gorgan, northern Iran in 2020. The patients were randomly divided into three groups including cognitive-behavioral therapy, combination cognitive-behavioral hypnotherapy and control group. The treatments used were performed for 8 sessions separately for 2 groups of 3 people in Pars Tavan Comprehensive Center. Control group did not receive any intervention. A multidimensional sexual satisfaction questionnaire of Roshan 2014 was used to evaluate patients.

Sexual satisfaction in post-test on both interventional group showed a significant improvement compared to control group (P<0.05). Cognitive-behavioral hypnotherapy with 59.38% was more effective than cognitive-behavioral therapy with 43.01 and also it was the same 2 month after follow up (P<0.05).

Combined therapy of cognitive-behavioral hypnotherapy increased sexual satisfaction in women with fibromyalgia syndrome more than cognitive-behavioral therapy.

Rheumatoid arthritis and periodontitis are chronic inflamma-tory diseases with a possible bidirectional relationship. This link may be affected by many factors like drug consumption.

This study was designed to evaluate the periodontal condition in patients with rheumatoid arthritis, considering the effect of disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs.

This case-control study included 25 newly diagnosed rheumatoid arthritis patients with negative history of taking anti-rheumatic drugs, 25 patients who received anti-rheumatic drugs for more than three years and 50 healthy individuals as a control group. Periodontal indices, including plaque index, gingival index, probing depth, clinical attachment loss, and rheumatologic indices were recorded and compared between these groups.

Rheumatoid arthritis patients were significantly more affected by periodontitis compared with healthy subjects (p= 0.006). There was no significant difference in rheuma-tologic indices between patients with and without periodontitis. Clinical attachment loss in old rheumatoid arthritis patients and gingival index in newly diagnosed ones were signifi-cantly more compared to the control group (p= 0.003 and p< 0.001 respectively). We could not find a linear relationship between the severity of rheumatoid arthritis and chronic peri-odontitis (p= 0.1, r= -0.224).

Periodontitis and clinical attachment loss were more in patients with rheuma-toid arthritis than the healthy group, especially in drug consumers. Gingival index in pa-tients without the history of consuming anti-rheumatic drugs was significantly higher than those who were drug consumers, indicating the effect of the medications on the signs of inflammation.

In this investigation repetitive upsetting-extrusion (RUE) process was used to investigate the effect of severe plastic deformation on the microstructural changes and flow behavior of commercial pure copper. Initial material together with two passes, four passes and eight passes of RUE in annealed and non-annealed condition were studied. Results show that grain refinement, in the scale of nano meter, has mostly been achieved only after two passes of RUE which is essentially a combination of one upsetting and one extrusion path. Increasing the number of passes after four passes of RUE did not have discernible effect on the grain refinement. Such a behavior is explained to be due to saturation of dislocations and the formation of high angle grain boundaries after only two passes of RUE. The grains after eight passes of RUE process even became slightly larger than the two and the four passes of RUE. This was related to restoration phenomena occurring during high number of passes of RUE. Flow strength of the material after different passes substantially increased, though the rate at which the flow stress increased declined by increasing the number of passes. ETMB model were used to explain the deformation behavior of the RUE samples.

Recent developments in nanostructured products draw considerable attention to ultrafine grained materials. These materials are normally manufactured by different severe plastic deformation (SPD) methods. In the present study, analytical models and finite element method (FEM) are used to calculate strain imposed to a specimen that was deformed by equal channel angular pressing (ECAP). In addition, strain inhomogeneity in term of coefficient of deviation (CV) for an aluminum alloy (AA6101) processed under ECAP was calculated. Dies with 90º, 105º and 120º intersecting angles were modeled based on FEM. Furthermore, the effect of friction on force-displacement curves was investigated using analytical and numerical approaches. Moreover, the energy loss that is due to friction was computed. Strains calculated by FEM for different die angles were identical to those evaluated by analytical models. Based on numerical and analytical models, it has been shown that strain inhomogeneity increases when the angle between two channels decreases.

Using cold working fastener holes is a simple life enhancement procedure that strengthens metallic components by retarding crack growth around a hole. In the present paper, the residual stress field that is induced by the hole expansion process is obtained based on different material models namely elastic perfect plastic, isotropic hardening and kinematic hardening using three-dimensional finite element method. Moreover, crack closure analysis was performed following introduction of residual stress. The effect of modeling parameters such as percent of cold work, remote tensile stress and crack length is considered. Crack closure analysis indicates that the material model would affects normalized crack opening loads especially at low level of remote tensile stress where small scale yielding is dominant. Cold work simulation results indicate that the residual stress variation through the thickness is considerable. At low stress level, the effect of material behavior model is considerable and at high stress levels the crack opening load is dropped. Moreover, increasing the cold work interference percent results in a higher and deeper compressive residual stress.

Cytotoxic lymphocyte antigen-4 (CTLA-4) plays an important role in regulating T cell activation. CTLA-4 gene polymorphisms are related with genetic susceptibility to various autoimmune diseases, including systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). We analyzed the role of CTLA-4 polymorphisms at positions -318CT in patients who suffer from SLE. This study was performed on 180 SLE patients referred to 5th Azar University Hospital in Gorgan, Iran. Three hundred and four ethnically-and age-matched healthy controls with no history of autoimmune diseases entered the study between 5th May 2008 and 23rd October 2009. DNA was extracted from blood samples according to the standard procedure. Polymerase chain reaction- restriction fragments length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) was used to analyze the genotype and allele frequencies of this polymorphism. PCR was carried out using the following primers: forward 5′-AAATGAATTGGACTGGATGGT-3′ and reverse 5′-TTACGAGAAAGGAAGCCGT G-3′. The frequency of alleles and genotypes were assessed using direct counting. Chi-square test and Fisher’s exact test were used to compare the association between the alleles and genotype frequencies and SLE. P<0.05 were considered statistically significant. The CC genotype was observed in 94.5% of the SLE patients and 82.4% of the controls; the difference was statistically significant (P=0.0001, OR=3.51, CI95%=1.77-7.53). The CT genotype, on the other hand, was more frequently observed in the control group (17.1% vs. 5.5%, P=0.0001, OR=0.28). T allele was significantly more common in the controls compared to SLE patients (P=0.0001, OR=0.26, CI95%=0.13-0.53). Our results suggest that the -318C/T polymorphism of CTLA-4 gene might play a significant role in the genetic susceptibility to SLE. Therefore, further studies on populations, especially from other Middle East countries, are needed to confirm our results.

Cytotoxic lymphocyte antigen-4 (CTLA-4) plays an important role in regulating T cell activation. CTLA-4 gene polymorphism is related to genetic susceptibility to various autoimmune diseases, including systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). This study aimed to evaluate the role of CTLA-4 polymorphism at positions-1661AG in patients with SLE. This study was performed on 180 SLE patients referred to 5th Azar educational hospital (Gorgan, Iran, during 2010-2011) and 304 ethnically-and age-matched healthy controls. Polymerase chain reaction restriction fragments length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) was used to analyze the genotype and allele frequencies of this polymorphism. No statistically significant difference was observed between the studied genotypic and allelic frequencies between the SLE patients and healthy controls. Moreover, no significant correlation was found between the different risk factors (e.g., age, ethnicity, history of the disease and the parent's relationship) and the different genotypes. Results suggest that the -1661AG polymorphism in the promoter region of the CTLA-4 gene has no role in the genetic susceptibility to SLE.

Cytotoxic T lymphocyte-associated antigen-4 (CTLA-4) is an important negative regulator of T-cell responses. The49AG polymorphism of the CTLA-4 gene may be associated with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) risk، but the results from previous published studies have been inconsistent. We carried out a meta-analysis search to assess this association more precisely. A systematic search of six electronic databases (Pubmed، Science direct، OVID، Iran doc، Iran medex and SID: Scientefic Information Database) was performed for relevant articles published between 1978 and 2011. The odds ratio (OR) and its 95% confidence interval (95%CI) were used to assess the strength of the association. We evaluated both fixed and random effect models، depending on the presence of between-study heterogeneity. The data were analyzed using STATA software. A total of 15 independent studies on the CTLA-4 gene 49AG polymorphism and SLE، including 1705 cases and 2299 controls were used in the meta-analysis. No significant association was found between 49AG polymorphism and SLE risk in the overall or subgroup analyses. This meta-analysis showed no significant association between 49AG polymorphism and SLE susceptibility. Large-scale and well-designed case-control studies are suggested.

Cytotoxic T lymphocyte-associated antigen-4 (CTLA-4) is an important negative regulator of Tcell responses. The -1722TC polymorphism of the CTLA-4 gene may be associated with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) risk, but related results from previous studies have been inconsistent. We carried out a metaanalysis to assess this association more precisely. A systematic search through PubMed, Science Direct, and OVID, Iran doc, Iranmedex and SID (Scientific Information Database) databases was performed with the last search updated on December 30, 2011. The odds of ratio (OR) and its 95% confidence interval (95%CI) were used to assess the strength of the association. We evaluated both fixed and random effect models, depending on the presence of between-study heterogeneity. The analyses were conducted using STATA software, version 11.0. A total of 9 independent studies on the CTLA-4 gene -1722TC polymorphism and SLE, including 1422 cases and 1417 controls were used in this meta-analysis. In the present meta analysis, we found a significant association between -1722TC polymorphism and SLE risk in the overall analysis (TT versus TC/CC: OR=1.18, 95%CI 0.84-1.66, p= 0.32; TT/TC versus CC: OR = 2.06, 95%CI 1.07–3.99, p= 0.03; TT versus CC: OR = 2.32, 95%CI 1.62–3.32, p< 0.001; TC versus CC: OR = 1.99, 95%CI 1.42–2.78, p<0.001; TT versus TC: OR = 1.2, 95%CI 0.86–1.66, p= 0.28; T versus C: OR = 1.22, 95%CI 0.91–1.64, p= 0.16). In the subgroup analysis by ethnicity, -1722TC polymorphism was significantly associated with SLE risk in Asian population. This meta-analysis suggests a significant association between -1722TC polymorphism and SLE susceptibility. Large-scale and well-designed case-control studies are necessary to validate the risk identified in the present meta-analysis.

Cytotoxic lymphocyte antigen-4 (CTLA-4) plays an important role in regulating T cell activities. CTLA-4 gene polymorphisms are associated with genetic susceptibility to various autoimmune diseases, including systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). The present study was conducted to analyze the role of CTLA-4 polymorphism at positions −1722TC in patients suffering from SLE. Samples were collected from 180 SLE patients and 304 healthy people. Both groups were equal in terms of age and ethnicity. Polymerase chain reaction restriction fragments length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) was used to analyze the genotype and allele frequencies of these polymorphisms. Data were analyzed by SPSS software. No statistically significant difference was observed between the studied genotypic and allelic frequencies, SLE patients and the controls. There was a significant correlation between age range 15-45 and TT genotype (P<0.0001). However, no significant correlation was found between other risk factors and different genotypes. The results suggested that 1722TC polymorphism in the promoter region of the CTLA-4 gene does not play any role in the genetic susceptibility to SLE.

To evaluate the relation between BMI, diabetes and thyroid diseases with osteoporosis. From 3000 subjects referred to the densitometry centers of Gorgan, 300 subjects were selected via a systematic random sampling method. Individual characteristics, Diabetes (according to Symptoms and FBS results), Thyroid diseases (according to TSH and T4 level results) and densitometry results were collected from densitometry records. Data were analyzed by SPSS and chi square, ANOVA and simple linear regression tests. A p-value less than 0.05 considered as a significant. BMI mean was 28.14 kg/m2, lumbar and femoral BMD mean was 0.92and 0.77 respectively. BMI Mean ± SD in osteoporotic subjects in lumbar and femoral region was 25.94 ± 5.62 and 26.95 ± 5.20. Relation between BMI and osteoporosis in lumbar and femoral region was significant but relation between diabetes and thyroid diseases with osteoporosis in lumbar and femoral region was not significant. Simple linear regression results shows that BMI was statistically significant with osteoporosis in lumbar (B: 0.013) and femoral (B: 0.004) region. Our finding revealed that underweight subjects are more susceptible to osteoporosis but this study could not detect any association between diabetes and thyroid disease with osteoporosis.

Excellent wear resistance, impact resistance together with good thermal stability of carbide coatings that created by Thermo Reactive Diffusion(TRD), makes it favorable in technological respect. This research investigated kinetics of vanadium carbide coating on DIN:1.2367 hot work steel. These processes carried out in solid medium containing powders of ferro-vanadium, ammonium chloride and alumina To investigation the kinetics of these processes, coating layer thickness measured for 0.5, 1.5, 3 and 4.5 hours at different temperatures of 950, 1050 and 1150 °C. According to time and temperature, layer thickness obtained between 2.3 to 32.2 X-ray diffraction analyses, optical and scanning electron microscope with EDX spot analyser employed to characterize coating layer properties. Relation between temperature and activation energy obtained as Arrhenius equation and growth rate constant and activation energy obtained, 7.98x10-4 Cm2/s and 173.2 KJ/mol correspondingly. Finally characterized that to obtain minimum porosity in coating layer, processes must carry out in low temperature as far as possible.