According to the latest data from the Scopus citation database, which is compiled in collaboration with Elsevier’s abstract and citation database and Stanford University, five faculty members from Damghan University are among the top two percent scientists of the world. The faculty members are as follows:
—Dr. Behnam Pourhassan (Associate Professor, School of Physics)
—Dr. Hamed Fazlollahtabar (Assistant Professor, School of Engineering)
—Dr. Ehsan Nazarzadeh Zare (Assistant Professor, School of Chemistry)
—Dr. Rasul Mohebbi (Assistant Professor, School of Engineering)
—Dr. Ahmad Gholizadeh (Associate Professor, School of Physics)
The data coverage of this database is from 1996 to 2021, ranking the world’s scientists under 22 main subject areas and 176 sub-areas based on multiple indicators. Two main criteria for inclusion in the list of top scientists are the number of references made to the publications of a scientist by other researchers and his/her H-index.
A joint paper by Dr. Ehsan Nazarzadeh Zare (School of Chemistry), Dr. Fatemeh Salimi (School of Biology), and Dr. Iran Goudarzi (School of Biology) has been selected as a highly cited article in 2021 with 28 citations counted. The paper, entitled “Bioactive Carboxymethyl Starch-Based Hydrogels Decorated with CuO Nanoparticles: Antioxidant and Antimicrobial Properties and Accelerated Wound Healing in Vivo”, is published in International Journal of Molecular Sciences with an impact factor of 6.20. In the research reported in this paper, nanocomposite hydrogels of carboxymethyl starch decorated with nanoparticles that were synthesized via copper oxide produced by green synthesis were studied for their biological properties such as biodegradation, antioxidant and antimicrobial properties, and cytotoxicity. The nanocomposite hydrogel was then used as a wound healing material in an animal sample. The results of the study indicated that the prepared hydrogel had excellent properties for healing wounds and preventing infection, as the wounds in the animal sample healed in less than 14 days. To access the full text of the paper, please refer to the following link.
In cooperation with the Canadian Quantum Research Center, Damghan University will be holding “the Second International Conference on Holography and Its Applications” on 25th-26th of January, 2023. Renowned researchers and scientists from Princeton University, University of Naples, University of Waterloo, Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, McGill University, National Observatory of Athens, Zhejiang University, Nuclear Sciences Institute, National Scientific and Technological Research Council, Northwest University, Istanbul Technical University, Middle East Technical University, Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences, Zanjan Graduate University of Basic Sciences, Shahid Beheshti University, Shahrood University of Technology, University of Mazandaran, and Damghan University will be the members of the scientific committee of the conference. Please access the link https://holography2023.du.ac.ir/en/page.php?rid=54 to see the members of the scientific committee.
The conference is held both in person and online, and it deals with various issues of holography; researchers, professors and students are invited to present their achievements in this field in the form of lectures or posters. Articles in English are only accepted for the conference; however, oral presentation in Persian is also welcome. Those interested can submit their articles due December 22, 2022 via https://holography2023.du.ac.ir/.
The main topics of the conference are
- Gauge-Gravity Correspondence
- Holography and Quantum Information
- Black Hole Physics
- Holographic Methods for Condensed Matter Physics
- Applications of Holography in Optics and Laser Physics
- Neutron Stars and Holography
- Holography in Nuclear Physics
- Mathematics, Geometry, and Holography
- Holographic Complexity
- Recent Applications of Holography
Selected articles from the conference will be published in the International Journal of Holography Applications in Physics (see https://jhap.du.ac.ir/). The journal has been issued since the fall of 2021, publishing quality articles by great physicists from all over the world.
A Damghan University faculty member, Dr. Hanif Heidari, has discovered a new method for analyzing the electroencephalogram (EEG) behaviors of patients suffering brain stroke and injuries and understanding the needs of these patients. As Dr. Heydari mentioned, “a significant percentage of patients with brain strokes and nerve damages are not able to speak or move any part of their body, and thus, it is impossible for others to understand these patients’ conditions and needs, making the situation very difficult for the patients themselves and the people around them.” “To open a window to the mental world of these patients and understand their feelings and needs,” Dr. Heidari added, “we, in collaboration with Professor Velichko from Russia, used a new measurement technique (introduced in 2021) to mathematically analyze the EEG behaviors of the patients and detect the needs of the patients with neurological lesions.”
Referring to the research done by other researchers in the past, Dr. Heidari mentioned, “in the previous methods, the number of the channels were very high and the accuracy of the findings was very low. However, in this method, we reduced the number of the channels (from 30 to 8) to diagnose the patient’s behaviors; this significantly lowered the cost, and on the other hand, increased the accuracy of the analysis. It not only helps read the mind of the patients with brain injuries, but also significantly improves the evaluation of the treatment effectiveness.” Referring to a sample patient suffering hemorrhagic stroke, Dr. Heidari said, “in the previous algorithms, it was not possible to detect the movements of the hands and the feet, but now, not only it is possible to detect these movements with 65-70% accuracy, but Continuous EEGs can also evaluate the patient’s recovery process and the effectiveness of the treatment.”
He expressed hopes that with this new method and help offered by artificial intelligence and robotics, we will soon witness smart home devices for communication with patients suffering brain injuries. The results of this research are published in the edited volume “Biomedical Signals Based Computer-Aided Diagnosis for Neurological Disorders” by Springer International Publishing.
Cooperating with researchers from Italy, Turkey, Australia and South Korea, Dr. Ehsan Nazarzadeh-Zare publishes an article entitled “Photoactive polymers-decorated Cu-Al layered double hydroxide hexagonal architectures: A potential non-viral vector for photothermal therapy and co-delivery of DOX/pCRISPR”. A Damghan University faculty member, Dr. Nazarzadeh-Zare said, “Cancer is today the second cause of death worldwide, only after cardiovascular diseases. Of different types of cancer, breast cancer is the second major cause of death in women, after lung cancer, and thus, cancer treatment is a priority for the world community; of course, various types of drugs have entered the market to delay the progression of cancer tumors.” As Dr. Nazarzadeh-Zare added, “Doxorubicin is a common chemotherapy drug for the treatment of breast cancer that increases the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and inhibits the activity of topoisomerase enzymes (i.e., enzymes correcting the structural problems of DNA during the processes of replication, transcription, and gene recombination by making temporary single- or double-stranded cuts) in order to induce cell cycle arrest and disrupt tumor proliferation. However, the use of doxorubicin is limited due to drug resistance.”
Dr. Nazarzadeh-Zare told, “Gene therapy is a technique for introducing genetic materials into the target cells in order to replace mutated genes with healthy ones. Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) are part of the genome of prokaryotic organisms (e.g., bacteria) and are related to the adaptive immune system. This powerful gene-editing tool is employed in various fields, such agriculture and biotechnology.” He also told, “The aim of our research was to synthesize hexahedral Cu-Al LDH decorated with ortho, meta, and para photoactive bioactive nanoparticles of poly (phenylenediamine) as a photoactive carrier for simultaneous delivery of doxorubicin and CRISPR. The experimental results indicated that photoactive nanocarriers with high efficiency were effective for the simultaneous delivery of gene and drug via a photothermal method, which would help deconstruct tumors and treat breast cancer.”
The article has been published in the Chemical Engineering Journal with an impact factor of 16.74. The article can be accessed through https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S138589472203234X.
The International Conference on High Energy Physics is to be held online by the School of Physics in Damghan University on 6 and 7 July, 2022. The main goal of the conference is to discuss the applications of high energy physics in the field of Nuclear and Fundamental Particles Physics. The researchers can submit their articles for either oral presentation or poster presentation, which are then reviewed by the members of the scientific committee. A number of selected articles will be published in the JHAP. In addition, all the presentations and posters will be given a chance for award competition.
Topics:
High Energy Physics—Theory
High Energy Physics—Phenomenology
High Energy Physics—Experiment
High Energy Physics—Lattice
Mathematical Physics
Quantum Physics
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Nuclear Theory
Nuclear Experiment
Important Dates:
Start Date for Registration: 21 March, 2022
Start Date for Article Submission: 21 March, 2022
Deadline for Full-Text Article Submission: 24 June, 2022
Article Acceptance Notification: 30 June, 2022
Conference Date: 6 and 7 July, 2022
Conference Office:
Amir Kabir Building, Damghan University, University Square, Damghan, Iran
Phone: +982335220236
Email: hep2022@du.ac.ir; hep2022du@gmail.com
Please see the conference website at http://hep.du.ac.ir/en for more information.
Maryam Mazinani, a staff member in the School of Physics at Damghan University, did her first ascent in 2022 to the summit of Island Peak at an altitude of 6189 meters. She accomplished this achievement after repeatedly conquering the highest mountains in Iran (including Damavand Peak) and climbing Mount Ararat of Turkey with a height of 5137 meters, Kilimanjaro Summit (the highest peak in Africa) with a height of 5895 meters and Mount Elbrus in Europe with a height of 5642 meters.
On her trip to Nepal, the home of Mount Everest, Mazinani climbed the 5364-meter-high base camp and then ascended the summit of Island Peak (Sagarmatha National Park, the Himalayas) on Tuesday, March 29, 2022.
The First International Conference on Holography and its Applications was virtually held at the School of Physics on March 9 and 10, 2022. The conference hosted more than 120 prominent researchers and professors of physics from all around the world. Dr. Behnam Pourhassan, the scientific secretary of the conference, stated that the conference was cooperated by the Department of Nuclear and Particles Physics at Damghan University and the Canadian Quantum Research Center. Dr. Pourhassan reported that 18 specialists of holography comprised the scientific committee of the conference, who reviewed the submitted papers and invited the speakers. These specialists were from different countries including Iran, Italy, Canada, Turkey, China, Poland, USA and South Africa. In addition, 195 professors, postdoctoral researchers and students of physics from both Iran and around the world registered and participated in the conference.
The participants in the conference were addressed by five keynote speakers, who are well known in their respective fields; moreover, 20 invited speakers presented their latest achievements. The keynote and invited speakers were from Iran, Italy, India, South Africa, Japan, the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden, the United States, Canada, Brazil, Finland, Belgium, Poland and Azerbaijan. The conference also held a total of 45 presentation sessions, consisting of 38 lectures and 7 poster presentations. The lecture sessions were supervised by people from Iran, Greece, Italy and South Africa, and eight papers from Iran, Germany, India and Brazil were selected by the editorial board members of Journal of Holography Applications in Physics[WU1] for publication in this journal. 33,555 visits to the conference website were reported by the end of the conference.
Despite the geographical diversity of the participants, one of the significant accomplishments of this virtual conference was that all conference sessions were held without any occurrence of interruption, cancellation or delay and according to the scheduled program.
In the latest ranking by Times Higher Education (2022), Damghan University, along with 36 other Iranian universities, was among the best young universities (less than 50 years old) in the world. The department of public relations and international scientific cooperation in the Institute for Science Citation (ISC) reported that “from among the 539 best young universities in the Times ranking, the Islamic Republic of Iran had a share of 37 universities.”
The positions of Iranian universities in the Times ranking of best young universities in the world from 2017 to 2022 is given in the following table.
Dr. Dehghani, the head of ISC, said that Sharif University of Technology was present in the ranking from 2012 when it was introduced until 2016, but then the university was more than 50 years old. Also, the major universities in Iran such as University of Tehran, Tehran University of Medical Sciences and Shiraz University, which have been present in other Times rankings, are more than 50 years old and therefore they are not listed in the ranking of best young universities in the world. Dr. Dehghani added, “Times Higher Education presents one of the most eminent international systems for ranking universities, which does so based on 13 performance indicators under the five general criteria of education, research, citation index, industrial income, and international funding in order to make comprehensive and balanced comparisons.”
In the latest report from the Nature Ranking Index, Damghan University not only has succeeded in preserving its highest-ranking position in the Semnan Province, but it also has improved its national rank by three [Link]. In Physics, DU has claimed the 2nd rank in Iran (after the Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences/IPM) [Link] and the 13th rank in the Western Asia [Link]. Globally, DU has ranked 739th in Physics, according to the report [Link].
- 1
- 2
