Objective(s):MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of short RNAs that control the biological processes including cell proliferation, apoptosis and development. Aberrant expression of miRNAs was determined in the different stages of tumor development and metastasis. To study the effect of silibinin on miRNAs expression, we evaluated quantitative expression of miR-21 and miR-155 as two oncomiRs and seve...

Original data envelopment analysis models treat decision-making units as independent entities. This feature of data envelopment analysis results in significant diversity in input and output weights, which is irrelevant and problematic from the managerial point of view. In this regard, several methodologies have been developed to measure the efficiency scores based on common weights. Specificall...

We study the technological pre-conditions for a cost-minimizing choice of technique in the presence of government emission targets on by-products of production. Whether a by-product is a desirable commodity or an undesirable pollutant is determined endogeneously as part of the price-quantity equilibrium solution. Non-trivial counterexamples highlight the potential risk of over-ambitious polluti...

This article examines the use of analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to choose a priority for different purposes which have been used in fishery optimal management in the Sea of Oman. There are several stakeholder groups in the multi-objective planning methods. In this study, the AHP is used to determine the preferences (weight) of stakeholder groups for each of the objectives in the fisheries ind...

Protein specific aptamers are highly applicable affinity ligands in different fields of research and clinical applications. They have been developed against various targets, in particular, bio-macromolecules such as proteins. Among human proteins, the coagulation factors are the most attractive targets for aptamer selection and their specific aptamers had valuable characteristics in therapeutic...

Vacuolating cytotoxin (VacA) is one of the most important virulence factors of H. pylori (Hp), which isthe only toxic protein that is secreted from Hp cell into the culture supernatant. The effects of VacA oneukaryotic systems is the subject of many previous and on going research studies. Intracellular targetsfor this toxin include: late endosomal and lysosomal compartments, m...

Cost efficiency measures the cost of resource by output production. While conventional cost efficiency models set targets separately for each DMU, There are cases where the Central decision making is seeking the above targets, and at the same tries to obtain the target of Min cost efficiency for the total consumption. in this paper we consider that there is a centralized decision maker (DM). In...