Background and Aim: angular cheilitis is a common condition among dental patients. However, it often responds poorly to antifungal treatment, and the use of corticosteroids can lead to lesion recurrence or medication resistance. This study aimed to assess the frequency of Staphylococcus aureus in patients who visited the Oral and Maxillofacial Medicine Department at Yazd Dental Faculty in 2017. Methods: This case- control study included 163 participants, with 65 patients diagnosed with angular cheilitis in the case group and 98 healthy individuals in the control group. Swabs were collected and inoculated on blood agar and Sabouraud dextrose agar. The cultures were then examined for the presence of Staphylococcus aureus and Candida albicans. Data were analyzed using SPSS software, employing Chi- square and t-tests, with a significance level set at  p < 0.05. Results: The study included 98 healthy individuals and 65 patients with angular cheilitis. The results indicated that Staphylococcus aureus was not detected in either the patient or control group (p < 0.9). A higher prevalence of angular cheilitis was observed among female patients. Additionally, there was a direct correlation between the presence of angular cheilitis and Candida albicans. Conclusion: The findings suggest that Staphylococcus aureus is not a contributing factor in angular cheilitis lesions. Therefore, antibiotic treatment for refractory cases should be postponed until microbial cultures confirm bacterial involvement.

Surface faulting is hazardous for buildings and transportation systems constructed adjacent to or over the active faults, causing irreparable damages. These structures must be designed by taking into account the negative effects of surface faulting. With increasing population growth and the need to expand cities, especially in areas facing economic constraints or land shortages in large cities, the feasibility of constructing in active fault zones has increasingly concerned the attention of the Civil Engineers. Therefore, geotechnical measures, particularly laying reinforced soil foundations, contribute significantly to the reduction of undesirable effects of surface faulting. This research conducted a series of tests on foundations reinforced with geogrid, geocell, and a combination of both, subject to normal faulting, to reduce surface faulting hazards. The research simulated the behavior of a 1. 5-m wide strip foundation, placed over 6-m thick alluvium, subjected to a displacement of 60 cm. Seven tests were conducted by different types and numbers of reinforcement, which were scaled to 10. Image analysis was applied to examine the ground settlement profile, angular distortion, and fault propagation path. The results indicated that reinforcements used in the reinforced soil foundation could effectively reduce angular distortion, cause uniform settlement, and divert the fault propagation path to protect the structure against faulting. Moreover, angular distortion was reduced by 60, 30, 70, 80, and 80%, respectively in foundations reinforced with one layer of geogrid, one layer of geocell, a combination of one layer of geogrid and one layer of geocell, two layers of geogrid, and three layers of geogrid. The results also revealed that adding more than three layers of geogrid did not affect angular distortion reduction. Increased stiffness and interaction due to the increase of geogrid layers have increased the rigidity of the reinforced soil bed and prevented the propagation of the fault path below the foundation. The fault path deviates to the end of the geogrid layers, so it has a considerable and reliable distance from the foundation. Therefore, the effect of increasing the geogrid layer and reducing the structural damage due to reducing the angular distortion of the foundation, uniform subsidence, and shear bond distribution in a wider range due to increased stiffness and soil-reinforcement interaction is observed. Meanwhile, the deflection of the fault to the left of the foundation occurs to the extent that the foundation is almost without settlement and angular distortion in the fixed part of the foundation due to the increase in soil stiffness due to the increase of geogrid layers, and maximum soil settlement is transferred to the left end of the geogrid due to fault deflection. According to the results, increasing more than two layers of geogrid does not affect reducing angular distortion. The effect of the geocell layer on improving the behavior of soil foundation subject to normal faulting is to reduce 30% angular distortion, which is less effective than other reinforcements. In addition, the geocell layer has a negligible effect on the deviation of the fault path compared to the other reinforcements used in this study.

Transfer alignment of master and slave systems plays a key role in the inertial navigation accuracy of the marine cooperative vehicles. Accuracy enhancement of misalignment angle and orientation estimation is the main purpose of the transfer alignment. Velocity and orientation matching is a well-known method for transfer alignment. However, in many applications, there are no velocity measurements of both the master and slave systems due to weight, dimensional and technological limitations of accurate speed sensors, such as Doppler Velocity Loggers (DVL). angular velocity configuration is a suitable solution for transfer alignment in this situation. However, the orientation error cannot be estimated in this configuration. Taking this drawback into account, a new configuration based on using the integral of angular velocity in addition to angular velocity measurement is presented for transfer alignment in the current research. Furthermore, appropriate abilities are considered to estimate the dynamic misalignment angle, orientation error and also measurement errors of the slave gyroscope. Two linear and non-linear observation models are developed for the transfer alignment configuration. The simulation results reveal the appropriate performance of the proposed configuration for marine application, especially when there are no accurate velocity measurements. Based on the simulation results, the performance of the non-linear observation model is better than linear ones in dynamic misalignment angle estimation. Moreover, it can be inferred from the orientation error estimation that rich data in high-maneuvered motion is necessary for required estimation accuracy. Additionally, 200 runs of Monte-Carlo simulation are developed and the estimation RMSE are presented.

Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) is a common method for the investigation of brain white matter. In this method, it is assumed that diffusion of water molecules is Gaussian and so, it fails in fiber crossings where this assumption does not hold. High angular Resolution Diffusion Imaging (HARDI) allows more accurate investigation of microstructures of the brain white matter; it can present fiber crossing in each voxel. HARDI contains complex orientation information of the fibers.Therefore, registration of these images is more complicated than the scalar images. In this paper, we propose a HARDI registration algorithm based on the feature vectors that are extracted from the Orientation Distribution Functions (ODFs) in each voxel. Hammer similarity measure is used to match the feature vectors and thin-plate spline (TPS) based registration is used for spatial registration of the skeleton and its neighbors. A re-orientation strategy is utilized to re-orient the ODFs after spatial registration. Finally, we evaluate our method based on the differences in principal diffusion direction and we will show that utilizing the skeleton as landmark in the registration results in accurate alignment of HARDI data.

One major disadvantage of many arc welding processes is welding-induced residual stresses and distortions. The non-uniform heating and cooling during arc welding result in non-uniform expansion and contraction of the weld and surrounding base material, which produces undesirable residual stresses and deformations in the welded joint. A number of methods can be used to control welding-induced distortions. The methods used for controlling welding distortions affect residual stresses and vice versa. One practical method for minimizing welding angular distortions is the use of clamping. In this paper, the effect of clamping and clamp releasing time on welding residual stresses and distortions in the single-pass butt welding of 304 stainless steel plates are investigated. Cases with and without clamping have been studied, and residual stresses and angular distortions have been predicted by three-dimensional finite element simulation. Moreover, experiments have been carried out to measure temperature histories, angular distortions and residual stresses for the unclamped case to verify the numerical model. The results of this study revealed that clamping and clamp release time have a great inuence on the distribution of residual stresses and final angular distortions. Using clamping during welding and releasing after cooling to ambient temperature can significantly reduce the amount of final angular distortions.

As the anatomical condition of the limbs is extremely important for production performance, animal welfare, as well as economic consequences, it is very important to study the types of limbs malformations in infants and provide corrective measures. A congenital malformation of the animal's limbs is more common in calves, lambs, and foals, involving flexor and extensor tendons in the fetlock and pastern joints. Deformities of the wrist and palmar-carpal joint in the forelimbs are the most common congenital deformities in calves. A non-surgical treatment is performed in cases whose limbs can be opened with the hand, and the ventral part of the fingers is in contact with the ground. The use of surgical treatment is mainly reserved for severe cases of deformity and calves with insufficient correction after splints and casts have failed. Generally, calves with flexion deformity have a good prognosis. angular deformity of the limb refers to the deviation of the limb outward (valgus) or inward (varus). An Dorso-Palmar (Plantar) position is necessary to examine and measure the deformity's anatomical position. angular deformities associated with abnormal bone growth plates can be corrected by removing the bone matrix or delaying on growth plate using of fixation through the growth plate. Furthermore, there are two other surgical methods for correcting angular deformity: osteotomy using the closing wedge and the step-wise method. angular deformities related to imbalances in growth plates have a good prognosis. Secondary angular deformity caused by orthopedic injuries in the opposite limb has a poor prognosis.

In this study, the finite element technique was used to analyze the thermo-mechanical behavior of the submerged arc butt-welded plates. In order to investigate the effects of the welding parameters on the magnitude of the submerged arc welding process efficiency, the distortions obtained from the finite element simulation were compared with experimental results. For studying the effects of welding voltage, current and speed on SAW process, finite element model with acceptable accuracy was developed. Welding efficiency of each sample were estimated by calibration of the finite element model. The angular distortions were studied in carbon steel plates of 12 millimeter thickness. Statistical analysis shows that the welding voltage and speed have no significant effect on the SAW efficiency. It is observed that by increasing the welding current, the magnitude of the welding efficiency increased significantly.