Strong floors and reaction walls are important elements of structural mechanics laboratories. They should be designed before the construction of the laboratory building for efficiency. They have a gallery used for the anchorage of the test models and storage of test equipment. In this paper, a strong floor without a gallery has been designed for an existing laboratory facility. The anchorage system has been designed to fix the model structures to the strong floor. Design issues of strong floor and reaction floor systems are mentioned in the scope of the paper. The construction of the system is simple and economical and provides a comfortable environment for experimental studies.

Carbon nanotubes have unique properties like high stability, high surface to mass ratio and so on which make them suitable for medicinal purpose applications. Treatment of cancer by organoplatinum agents like Cisplatin has become unresponsive in most cases due to low distribution of drug in biological fluids, inability of drug to cross cellular membranes and low stability in biological environments. Recently, carbon nanotubes (CNT) have stimulated much interest to overcome these limitations. Herein, we report the preparation of single-wall carbon nanotube functionalized by diaminedicarboxyplatinum (II) as an analogy of SWCNT-based Carboplatin. Functionalization was started by cyclopropanation through Bingel reaction and by use of diethylmalonate to yield cyclopropane-1, 1-dicarboxy ethyl ester. Final product was obtained by hydrolysis of ester group and then chelation of platinum (IV) by dicarboxylate groups on the surface of SWCNT. Raman and Fourier transform-Infrared spectroscopy (IR), Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and energy dispers ive X-ray spectroscopy (EDAX) truly showed and confirmed the presence of the platinum (II) complex on the side wall of SWCNT. Cytotoxicity evaluation of the functionalized-SWCNTs on HeLa cells showed its higher anticancer ability than Cisplatin as indicated by IC50 value of 13 μ g/mL.

This study was carried out to identify the best required time for stratification along with the optimum time and generation power test of seeds. The treatments include 22 different periods of stratification from 10 to 32 days. The experiment was done as completely random design blocks with four replicate with 30 seeds within each block. The Ending time of stratification period was the same for all treatments. The percentage of rotten seeds, seed germination and rootlet length were measured, and then the obtained data were analyzed statistically. The results indicated that Chilgoza seeds incubated in temperature of 4°C for 33 days could germinate 38%. While the seeds with less than 16 days has no germination power. In general, this study suggests the period of 23-30 days as the best time for stratifying Chilgoza seeds.

Background and Aim: Culture and specific staining (including Zeil-Nelson and fluorescent methods) are standard measures for the diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB). Because these methods are time-consuming and, sometimes, due to their low accuracy faster and more accurate methods are necessitated. Methods, which can substitute invasive procedures, when obtaining smear samples and culture is not possible, and in addition to being simple and fast, they have an acceptable diagnostic accuracy.The aim of the present study was to verify the diagnostic value of blood Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) method in pulmonary TB.Materials and Methods: This case-control study included 64 proven pulmonary TB cases (according to The National TB Protocol) and 28 subjects who were completely healthy. 4.5ml of blood was derived from each participant and then mixed with 0.5ml EDTA. Finally, DNA extraction and PCR testing using SI 6110 primers was performed for all blood samples.Results: Mean age of the cases and controls was 49.8±18.6 and 48.2±18.5, respectively. 49.2% of the cases and 25% of controls were male. Blood PCR in 23 patients with TB was positive, but none of the controls had a positive PCR (thus, sensitivity of 35.7% and specificity of 100%).Conclusion: With regard to specificity of 100% in PCR method (despite its low sensitivity), in conditions where there is no access to an appropriate specimen, a positive blood PCR can obviate invasive procedures and rapid and definitive diagnosis of the disorder and timely treatment of the patient, his life is saved.

Background: The genitourinary system is one of he most common sites of infection in non-pulmonary tuberculosis (TB). The clinical symptoms and radiologic findings of urinary TB are nonspecific. Current diagnostic tests are of low sensitivity and labor-intensive. Therefore, this study was aimed to evaluate diagnostic value of urine PCR in genitourinary tuberculosis (GNTB).Methods: This was a descriptive study on 33 patients with confirmed genitourinary TB. Demographic data, clinical symptoms, laboratory and radiologic findings were collected. For each patient, three consecutive early morning urine specimens were examined by PCR. The diagnostic value of PCR in mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) in comparison with standard microbiological methods was assessed.Findings: There were 33 patients with a mean age of 47.27 16.1 years. The most common presenting symptoms were irritative voiding symptoms (51.5%), flanks pain (27.2%), gross hematuria (9%) and suprapubic pain (9%). Laboratory findings in U/A were hematuria (75.8%) and pyuria (60.6%). IVU was abnormal in 61.5% of patients. Most common abnormalities were pyelocalyceal dilation (44%), ureteral stricture and hydroureter (37%) and multiple small calyceal deformities (25%). Of the 33 patients PCR for MTB was positive in 16 cases (48.5%). In patients with abnormal IVU, PCR was positive in 62.5%.Conclusion: A high index of clinical suspicion is necessary for diagnosis of GUTB. PCR is recommended for instant diagnosis and screening before further examination, it cannot be the only method in identification of GUTB.

This paper addresses a behavior-based fuzzy controller (BFC) for mobile robot wall-following control. The wall-following task is usually used to explore an unknown environment. The proposed BFC consists of three sub-fuzzy controllers, including Straight-based Fuzzy Controller (SFC), Left-based Fuzzy Controller (LFC), and Right-based Fuzzy Controller (RFC). The proposed wall-following controller has three characteristics: the mobile robot keeps a distance from the wall, the mobile robot has a high moving velocity, and the mobile robot has a good robustness ability of disturbance. The proposed BFC will be used to control the real mobile robot. The Pioneer 3-DX mobile robot has sonar sensors in front and sides, and it is used in this study. The inputs of BFC are sonar sensors data and the outputs of BFC are robots left/right wheel speed. Experimental results show that the proposed BFC successfully performs the mobile robot wall-following task in a real unknown environment.