Professor Madjid Samii Awarded as Top World Neurosurgeon
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2014
Compiled By: Firouzeh Mirrazavi
Deputy Editor of Iran Review
*Professor Madjid Samii Awarded as Top World Neurosurgeon
The world renowned Iranian scientist in neurological surgery Professor Majid Samii has garnered the 2014 Golden Neuron Award.
The award was announced during a ceremony held at the biannual meeting of the World Academy of Neurological Surgery in Vienna on October 11.
Many leading scientists and neurological surgery scholars have flocked to the biannual meeting that kicked off on October 9 and will run until October 12.
Iranian neurosurgeon and medical scientist, Professor Samii, had earlier received the 2014 Leibniz Ring Prize in Berlin.
Prof. Samii is renowned worldwide for his life trajectory and especially for his work in the Project Africa 100.
The 70-year-old scientist Professor Samii is known as Iranian-German neurosurgeon that has been the president of the International Society for Neurosurgery. He was also elected as the founding president of the Congress of International Neurosurgeons (MASCIN) in 2003.
While the scientific study of the nervous system has increased significantly during the second half of the twentieth century, Professor Samii has recently launched the project of constructing an advanced neurology center in Iran.
*Iranian name 'Homa' selected for asteroid
An Iranian name was chosen for an asteroid out of 1500 other names suggested in an
international campaign to name LA1986 (3988) minor planet.
Near Earth Objects (NEO) Project Group of Space Generation Advisory Council held an international campaign last year to name the asteroid in which citizens across the world could suggest their names.
Homa Saman-Abadi and Foad Kordani from Iran took part in the campaign, suggesting the name Homa. International Astronomical Union chose the name 'Homa' for the minor planet.
In Iranian myth, Homa is the name of the bird who brings happiness for anyone who sees it. It also sends the message of happiness.
Homa Saman-Abadi whose name has been selected for the small planet, said, "I am so happy that my name has been picked. I want to seize the opportunity and express my feelings.... I wished that the planet will bring happiness for anyone who sees it, and it can be the source of love, peace, joy and pleasure for people on the earth."
Director of Near Earth Objects (NEO) Project Group of Space Generation Advisory Council Alex Karl called the campaign a 'great success'. He also congratulated the two Iranians who offered the name Homa for the planet. Citizens of 85 countries took part in the event. LA1986 (3988), named 'Homa' was discovered on June 4, 1986 in Palomar Observatory in California.
*Iranian helps design robot snake
An Iranian scientist Hamid Marvi, along with his colleagues at Carnegie Mellon University, took inspiration from sidewinder snakes and designed a robot that can slide across the sand, for potential use in search-and-rescue missions.
According to ISNA, it was once something biologists only vaguely understood and roboticists only dreamed of replicating.
By studying the snakes in a unique bed of inclined sand and using a snake-like robot to test ideas spawned by observing the real animals, both biologists and roboticists have now gained long-sought insights.
In a study published in the 10th issue of the journal Science, researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and Zoo Atlanta report that sidewinders improve their ability to traverse sandy slopes by simply increasing the amount of their body area in contact with the granular surfaces they are climbing.
As part of the study, principles used by the sidewinders to gracefully climb sand dunes were tested using a modular snake robot developed at Carnegie Mellon.
Before the study, the snake robot could use one component of sidewinding motion to move across ground level, but was unable to climb the inclined sand track the way real snakes could readily ascend.
In a real-world application — an archeological mission in Red Sea caves — sandy inclines were especially challenging to the robot.
However, when the robot was programmed with the unique wave motion discovered in the sidewinders, it was able to climb slopes that had previously been unattainable. “Our initial idea was to use the robot as a physical model to learn what the snakes experienced,” said Daniel Goldman, an associate professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Physics.
“By studying the animal and the physical model simultaneously, we learned important general principles that allowed us to not only understand the animal, but also to improve the robot.”
The detailed study showed that both horizontal and vertical motion had to be understood and then replicated on the snake-like robot for it to be useful on sloping sand. “Think of the motion as an elliptical cylinder enveloped by a revolving tread, similar to that of a tank,” said Howie Choset, professor of robotics at Carnegie Mellon. “As the tread circulates around the cylinder, it is constantly placing itself down in front of the direction of motion and picking itself up in the back. The snake lifts somebody segments while others remain on the ground, and as the slope increases, the cross section of the cylinder flattens.” At Zoo Atlanta, the researchers observed several sidewinders as they moved in a large enclosure containing sand from the Arizona desert where the snakes live.
The enclosure could be raised to create different angles in the sand, and air could be blown into the chamber from below, smoothing the sand after each snake was studied. Motion of the snakes was recorded using high-speed video cameras which helped the researchers understand how the animals were moving their bodies.
“We realized that the sidewinder snakes use a template for climbing on sand, two orthogonal waves that they can control independently,” said Hamid Marvi, a postdoctoral fellow at Carnegie Mellon who conducted the experiments while he was a graduate student in the laboratory of David Hu, an associate professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Mechanical Engineering.
“We used the snake robot to systematically study the failure modes in sidewinding. We learned there are three different failure regimes, which we can avoid by carefully adjusting the aspect ratio of the two waves, thus controlling the area of the body in contact with the sand."
*Iran expert helping develop IoT platform
An Iranian expert and postdoctoral fellow at the University of British Colombia is helping develop a revolutionary platform for a new technology called the Internet of Things (IoT).
Ali Kashani, the Vancouver-based Energy Aware Technology’s vice president of software, is helping the company develop the Neurio platform, billed as a revolutionary new technology that makes an ordinary home smart.
The evolution of the IoT involves the embedding of sensors in physical objects. The sensors are, in turn, linked through networks to computers that analyze the vast amounts of data they produce.
Neurio’s development, however, has drawn upon the fact that all electronic devices have a power signature, hence just enlisting the help of a Wi-Fi power sensor.
Kashani has described Neurio as the “brain of the home,” not a “fancy” remote control, like other smart-home products.
“Now in your pocket, it’s your phone that is reminding you no matter if you are downstairs, taking the garbage out, listening to music in the living room,” he said. “So it’s going to change the way that home operates.”
Energy Aware Technology’s founder and CEO Janice Cheam has predicted that Neurio would make the home “become an active member of the family.”
“The home of the future, I would say, it’s more about anticipating and getting you that information when you need it, without you having to go and search for it,” she said.
*Iran shines in ISI rankings
Head of ISC announced that Iran’s place in world rankings in different scientific scales such as engineering and chemistry have considerably improved.Head of the Islamic World Science Citation Center (ISC) Ja’far Mehrdad announced that Iran has ranked 16 in engineering and 19 in chemistry in the rankings of Institute for Scientific Information (ISI).
Iran has submitted about 26 thousand articles in the field of engineering to which 106,542 references have been made.
Ja’far Mehrdad noted that Iran holds a significant place in the world rankings in different scientific scales based on ESI documentation and said, “Iran's scientific production is quite notable in chemistry. During the past 10 years, Iranian scientists have achieved the ranking of 19 among 140 countries.”
The first ranking belongs to the USA with more than 200 thousand articles submitted. The next rankings belong to China, Japan, German, India, France, Russia, Spain, England and South Korea respectively.
Between the ranking of 11 and 19, which belongs to Iran, there are countries such as Italy, Canada, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Australia, Taiwan, Poland and Sweden.
Iran has taken wide strides in science and technology, particularly in medical and medicinal fields, in recent years.
The Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) founded by Eugene Garfield in 1960, maintains citation databases covering thousands of academic journals. This database allows a researcher to identify which articles have been cited most frequently, and who has cited them.
*Iranian engineer wins 2014 O.H. Ammann Research Fellowship Award
Mahdi Arezoumandi, an Iranian structural engineer from Qom, has won one of the five awards of 2014 O.H. Ammann Research Fellowships in Structural Engineering.The O. H. Ammann Research Fellowship in Structural Engineering is bestowed annually to a member for the purpose of encouraging the creation of new knowledge in the field of structural design and construction. This year, one of the five winners was an Iranian structural engineer from Qom, Mahdi Arezoumandi.
After completing his Master’s Degree in Earthquake/Structural Engineering from Tehran Polytechnic in 2002, Mahdi Arezoumandi worked as a structural engineer at Small Industries and Industrial Park Organization (SIIPO) where he was involved in the design of a wide range of civil engineering structures. He came to the United States to continue his education in structural engineering in 2009, seeking PhD degree at Missouri University of Science and Technology.
He has published 19 journal papers and 11 conference papers so far, won couple of scholarships from Post Tensioning Institute (PTI) and Chi Epsilon Honor Society, and awarded the Nevada Medal for Distinguished Graduate Student Paper in Bridge Engineering in 2013.
More recently, he was awarded the National University Transportation Center (NUTC) student of the year in 2014.He has served as a vice president of both Chi Epsilon Honor Society and the Council of Graduate Student (CGS) at Missouri University of Science and Technology.
In regard to his proposal, Arezoumandi explained, “Concrete is one of the most common type of human-made product in the world the main constituent of which is cement.”
“Studies show that for every kilogram of cement produced, about one kilogram of carbon dioxide is released, which is harmful,” he continued, “One way to solve this problem and reduce the amount of released CO2 is to produce concrete from fly ash which I have evaluated in my PhD research.”
Fly ash is a by-product of coal-fired electric generating plants. The use of these byproducts offers environmental advantages by diverting the material from the wastestream, reducing the energy investment in processing virgin materials, conserving virgin materials, and allaying pollution.
*Iran to establish largest Oncology Research Center in region
The ground-breaking ceremony of the largest Oncology Research Center in the region was held at Rasht, northern Iran, on September 2.
Professor Madjid Samii, renowned neurosurgeon, and Professor Ali Akbar Sayyari, deputy health minister, attended the ceremony.
Gilan Medical University and Oncology Research Center are establishing the center with the support of Professor Samii.
The center will be built in four years in an area of 20,000 square meters.
Samii was also commemorated in the ceremony for his 50-year scientific efforts.
Born in 1937 in Rasht, Professor Samii received his MD in neurosurgery at the age of 33. He has been the president of the International Society for Neurosurgery and was elected as the founding president of the Congress of International Neurosurgeons in 2003.
Also in 2004, the Board of Directors of the Social Security Organization of Iran has offered Professor Samii the chairmanship of Neurosurgical Department in Tehran’s Milad hospital. Under his leadership, a very strong educational program for the staff has been implemented.
The department is now one of the most developed neurosurgical centers. Since 2006, Professor Samii has set annual international neurosurgical symposiums in motion in Tehran.
*Iranians discover direct MS-diet link
Iranian scientists in Lund University in Sweden have discovered a direct link between MS and food.
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune disease that affects the central nervous system and renders the brain ineffective in sending messages to the rest of the body.
Though we know relatively little about multiple sclerosis, recently it was discovered that MS not only affects the brain tissue but also the intestinal system. This significant discovery by an Iranian scientist can be a new clue toward discovering methods to treat this disease.
In an exclusive interview with Mehr News Agency, Dr. Shahram Lavasani, associate professor in the university’s Department of Biology, explained about this recent discovery. Excerpts follow:
When did you begin your studies on MS and the intestinal system, and what led you to focus on the intestines of patients with MS?
It has been 10 years since we started this project. From the very beginning we have been conscious of the fact that one should not be totally focused on tissues attacked by the immune system. What we have learned from MS so far is that the immune system is attacked which causes the loss of the insulating myelin sheath. Thus, the transmission of signals from the brain to the various organs is impaired. In the past, there have always been speculations about the intestinal system as being affected by MS and now we have been able to present evidence for it.
But until now it has been thought that genetics is mostly responsible for MS?
Yes, for a long time genetics was held solely responsible for causing MS, and much research has been done into it; yet, no one has been able to prove that gene is the only deciding factor. It is now known, however, that environmental factors are also effective.
