Background: Short-STEM prosthesis for total hip arthroplasty (THA) have been designed to overcome the weakness of standard-STEM prostheses and improve surgical outcomes. The aim of this study was to compare short-STEM with standard-STEM prosthesis outcomes.Methods: This study was performed as a randomized clinical trial. Subjects were selected among patients referred to Sina University Hospital, Tehran, Iran from April 2010 to 2012. THA were performed with short-STEM or standard-STEM prostheses after obtaining written informed consent from patients. Balanced block randomization method was used to get a random sample in each group. Clinical outcomes were evaluated based on Harris Hip Score (HHS). Patients were followed up for at least one year. All patients were examined at 2 weeks, 6 weeks, 3 months, 6 months and one year after surgery. In each visit, Control X-ray was obtained and bone and prosthetic position were assessed. Also, the symptoms such as infection, pain, claudication, ability to climb stairs, using crutches and weight bearing were rechecked. Student t-test was used to compare outcomes in the two groups.Results: A total of eighty four THA were studied. 13 patients were lost to follow-up or had infection and failure. One patient died with the prosthesis in situ from causes not related to the surgery. Therefore, a total of 70 patients were analyzed. Of these, 34 and 36 hips underwent small STEM and standard STEM THA, respectively. The mean age of the patients at the time of operation was 61.1±8.68 years (range, 48-86 years). Most common reasons for arthroplasty were osteoarthritis, avascular necrosis and dysplasia of hip. There were significant differences between the two study groups in bleeding during surgery (P=0.001). There were no significant differences among the study groups in HHS except for 6th week and 3th month (P=0.000).Conclusion: The use of short-STEM prosthesis can improve the performance of patients in short-term but no significant difference with standard-STEM prosthesis in long- term.

Background and Aim: Millions of teeth are saved each year by root canal therapy. Although current treatment modalities offer high levels of success for many condition, an ideal form of therapy might consist of regenerative approach in which a biologically based procedures designed to replace damaged structures, including dentin, root structure and pulp-dentin complex. The aim of this study was to collect information about the STEM cell and their role in new regeneration therapies in endodontics. Literature review: Data was collected by searching Pubmed and Cochrane data bases using key words such as STEM cell, regenerative endodontics, pulp revascularization and tissue engineering. Selected reference text books were searched using the same search strategy. The search results was categorized according to methodological strength; they also selected only if qualified for our inclusion criteria. Although regenerative endodontic procedures are much more effective in regeneration of pulp-like tissue, (pulp-dentin complex), but despite these applications and considerable evolution of certain medical procedures of tissue regeneration, there has not been significant translation of any these therapies into clinical endodontic practice. Conclusion: More studies are required to overcome technical and clinical limitation of pulp and dentin tissue regeneration both to result in pulp-dentin tissue regeneration, and to form the functional structure of the tooth from STEM cells.

Black STEM disease caused by Phoma macdonaldii is one of the most important diseases of SUNFLOWER. Development of resistant cultivars is one of the useful approaches to control this disease. For this purpose, reaction of 10 SUNFLOWER cultivars to the disease was studied in controlled environmental conditions in growth chamber using a randomized complete block design with 3 replications, (each replication consisted of 10 seedlings). Twelve days-old seedlings were inoculated with pycniospore suspension of Phama macdonaldii (106 pycniospore/ml). Ten days after inoculation, the two cotyledon petioles of each seedling were scored on a I to 9 rating scale for the percentage of necrosis on petiole area. The most tolerant cultivars were DK3825 and Argos (scored 4 and 4.4 respectively) and the most susceptible cultivar was Andora (scored 8.70). For comparison of the resistance of cultivars at the seedling and adult plant stages, two other experiments were carried out on four cultivars (resistant and susceptible) at the fifth pair leaves and flowering stages under the same conditions. In both growth stages, the classification of cultivars at the seedling stage was confirmed. Positive and significant correlations between the reaction of cultivars at the fifth pair leaves (r =0.97) and flowering stage (r =0.99) were observed.  

Sclerotinia STEM rot disease caused by Sclerotinia sclerotiorum is one of the most important diseases of SUNFLOWER. Telomeres are nucleoprotein structures at the ends of chromosomes that are essential for maintaining the integrity of the genome. The aim of this study was to determine the alteration of telomerase enzyme gene (tert) expression under fungal infection stress. The expression of tert gene in both susceptible (SDR19) and resistant (LC1064-C) genotypes of SUNFLOWER was evaluated by qRT-PCR after infection with A37 isolate of S. sclerotiorum. The results showed significant and drastic decreased levels of tert expression in both susceptible and resistant genotypes of SUNFLOWER, immediately after fungal infection. This depletion followed by mild variation when infection continued for more hours, which was more constant in resistant line, compared with the susceptible one. In conclusion, the expression of tert gene in SUNFLOWER is downregulated in response to Sclerotinia rot disease.

Entropy gives meaning to energy, but they have always created misconceptions among students, or that learners who had difficulty. Therefore, designing educational content to better learn the concept of entropy and its applications based on the STEM approach and concept map will be an important step for students to learn and acquire skills in the long run. The method of the present study is descriptive-analytical which has been done using the content analysis technique. The statistical sample used is a collection of books, articles, journals, and dissertations related to entropy that were selected and analyzed until the theoretical saturation of the data. By reviewing the literature on how to design entropy educational content, with the guidance of experts in this field, during several round-trip stages of axial coding, topics were determined and then based on the topics assigned, goals for each subject in the content goal table was written. In the present project, learners can perform experiments, practical activities, and knowledge building with new teaching methods and approaches. The STEM approach and concept map are two of the new teaching methods and approaches. Their use in teaching and designing an educational content helps students learn in a long-term and meaningful way, and also leads to exploration and skills acquisition in learners.

In today's society, metals are considered as one of the basic human needs so that life without metals will be very difficult and impossible. The rust formation on iron, silver staining and blue green patina on copper are examples of corrosion. Corrosion leads to the loss of metal equipment and structures, as well as the high waste of energy resources and materials. Therefore, metals should be protected against corrosion damage. In order to prevent possible corrosion damage to metal equipment, it is important to focus on training experts in this field. Training professionals and efficient people in this field will occur in the shadow of proper and principled education. In this study, we design educational content in the field of corrosion and corrosion protection with STEM approach for undergraduate chemistry students, during which the learner performs experiments and knowledge construction by constructing his own hypothesis. The present study is an applied research. The required information for this research has been collected through library studies. In the design of the content, the concepts of corrosion and the factors affecting it, the types of corrosion as well as a variety of corrosion protection methods, including techniques and materials, have been discussed using laboratory activities. It is expected that this research will be useful in improving cognitive concepts learning, improving attitudes, and training experts for entering society as well as labor market.

In this research, the effect of using natural poly lactic acid polymer and MAPP coupling agent on the physical and mechanical properties of composite manufactured using SUNFLOWER STEM flour was studied. For this purpose, three levels of PLA polymer (50, 60 and 70%) and tow levels of MAPP (4 and 6 percent based on dry weight of polymer) were selected as variables. Then, composites were produced and the physical and mechanical properties of the composites including dimensional stability, tensile modulus, flexural modulus and impact resistance were measured. The results showed that increasing the amount of PLA polymer and reducing the portion of SUNFLOWER STEM flour and increasing MAPP up to 6 percent, increased the flexural, and tensile strength and impact resistances and improved dimensional stability of the composites. I In contrast, the tensile and bending modulus of composites were reduced. However, the results revealed that the physical and mechanical properties of the composites made with this polymer and the SUNFLOWER STEM flour were comparable with composites made with other polymers and in some cases it was better.

This paper presents a bi-objective mathematical model for a four-echelon supply chain, including suppliers, producer, distributors and retailers. This model finds the flow among the different levels of the supply chain that minimizes the total cost of the supply chain and maximizes the service level under some restrictions in order to trade-off and justify the obtained solutions. Then, by using a numerical example, the presented model is solved by the STEM method and LINDO software. Finally, the flow among the different levels of the supply chain and the related objective function values are reported.

Sclerotinia basal STEM rot is an important fungal disease of SUNFLOWER. It reduces growth and crop yield worldwide. The aim of this study is identification of resistant lines and confirmation of the accuracy of QTL analysis done for resistance to this disease in previous research in order for their use in SUNFLOWER breeding programs. In this study the expression of transcription factors (AP2 Domain, HD-Zip and MYB Family) responsible for resistance to disease was studied in susceptible (RHA265) and resistant (LC106-C) SUNFLOWER lines challenged with Sclerotinia fungal isolate (SSU53) using Real Time PCR. The results showed that the expression of the studied transcription factors is different in resistant and susceptible SUNFLOWER lines. In particular, expression of the AP2 domain and MYB Family increased significantly in resistant line LC106-C as compared to a susceptible one (RHA265). The results suggest a positive role of AP2 domain and MYB Family in resistance mechanisms of SUNFLOWER plant in response to Sclerotinia fungal disease. According to these results, the line LC106-C can be used as a resistant line for resistance to Sclerotinia disease. In addition, the highest expression level of genes in the resistant line compared to susceptible one confirmed the phenotypic data used in QTL analysis in our previous research. The findings of this study should be useful in SUNFLOWER breeding programs for producing cultivars resistant to disease.