Browsing by Author "Li Z."

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    Genome-wide association study in Turkish and Iranian populations identify rare familial Mediterranean fever gene (MEFV) polymorphisms associated with ankylosing spondylitis
    (Public Library of Science, 2019) Li Z.; Akar S.; Yarkan H.; Lee S.K.; Çetin P.; Can G.; Kenar G.; Çapa F.; Pamuk O.N.; Pehlivan Y.; Cremin K.; de Guzman E.; Harris J.; Wheeler L.; Jamshidi A.; Vojdanian M.; Farhadi E.; Ahmadzadeh N.; Yüce Z.; Dalkılıç E.; Solmaz D.; Akın B.; Dönmez S.; Sarı İ.; Leo P.J.; Kenna T.J.; Önen F.; Mahmoudi M.; Brown M.A.; Akkoc N.
    Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is a highly heritable immune-mediated arthritis common in Turkish and Iranian populations. Familial Mediterranean Fever (FMF) is an autosomal recessive autoinflammatory disease most common in people of Mediterranean origin. MEFV, an FMF-associated gene, is also a candidate gene for AS. We aimed to identify AS susceptibility loci and also examine the association between MEFV and AS in Turkish and Iranian cohorts. We performed genome-wide association studies in 1001 Turkish AS patients and 1011 Turkish controls, and 479 Iranian AS patients and 830 Iranian controls. Serum IL-1β, IL-17 and IL-23 cytokine levels were quantified in Turkish samples. An association of major effect was observed with a novel rare coding variant in MEFV in the Turkish cohort (rs61752717, M694V, OR = 5.3, P = 7.63×10−12), Iranian cohort (OR = 2.9, P = 0.042), and combined dataset (OR = 5.1, P = 1.65×10−13). 99.6% of Turkish AS cases, and 96% of those carrying MEFV rs61752717 variants, did not have FMF. In Turkish subjects, the association of rs61752717 was particularly strong in HLA-B27-negative cases (OR = 7.8, P = 8.93×10−15), but also positive in HLA-B27-positive cases (OR = 4.3, P = 7.69×10−8). Serum IL-1β, IL-17 and IL-23 levels were higher in AS cases than controls. Among AS cases, serum IL-1β and IL-23 levels were increased in MEFV 694V carriers compared with non-carriers. Our data suggest that FMF and AS have overlapping aetiopathogenic mechanisms. Functionally important MEFV mutations, such as M694V, lead to dysregulated inflammasome function and excessive IL-1β function. As IL-1 inhibition is effective in FMF, AS cases carrying FMF-associated MEFV variants may benefit from such therapy. © 2019 Li et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
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    Solidification of PCM with nano powders inside a heat exchanger
    (Elsevier B.V., 2020) Hajizadeh M.R.; Selimefendigil F.; Muhammad T.; Ramzan M.; Babazadeh H.; Li Z.
    Present research was devoted to modeling investigation of paraffin solidification within a wavy channel. Paraffin was mixed with CuO nano powders and creates NEPCM. Changing the surface of duct and working PCM is the main factors of this paper for improving the performance. The outer duct contains NEPCM and air within inner side can be warmer due to discharging process. The outputs indicate that wavy duct has better performance than the straight one due to its shorter solidification duration. Utilizing wavy duct and NEPCM can help the solidification and enhance the rate of process about 38%. Inclusion of nanomaterial leads to lower discharging time. © 2020 Elsevier B.V.
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    A review of rare, poorly known, and morphologically problematic extant marine organic-walled dinoflagellate cyst taxa of the orders Gymnodiniales and Peridiniales from the Northern Hemisphere
    (Elsevier B.V., 2020) Mertens K.N.; Gu H.; Gurdebeke P.R.; Takano Y.; Clarke D.; Aydin H.; Li Z.; Pospelova V.; Shin H.H.; Li Z.; Matsuoka K.; Head M.J.
    Dinoflagellates are a major component of the modern plankton. Of the 2192 species of marine free-living dinoflagellates presently described, an increasing number are being shown to produce resting cysts (probably hypnozygotes) within their life cycle. With rare exception, only the resting cysts fossilize, so they are of central importance in tracing the history of dinoflagellates through geological time. Cysts of many of the more common dinoflagellate species have distinctive morphologies allowing their geographic and stratigraphic occurrences to be traced. An ever-increasing number of taxa are also being shown to produce distinctive and geologically preservable cysts, potentially enhancing our knowledge of the diverse representation of dinoflagellates through time. Here the organic-walled cysts of 73 rare, poorly known or morphologically problematic marine dinoflagellate cyst species belonging to the orders Gymnodiniales (nine species) and Peridiniales (64 species) are reviewed, described and illustrated, and their stratigraphic ranges assessed. The names Echinidinium aculeatum and Echinidinium transparantum are validated. © 2019 Elsevier B.V.
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    Hydrothermal analysis of nanoparticles transportation through a porous compound cavity utilizing two temperature model and radiation heat transfer under the effects of magnetic field
    (Springer, 2020) Li Z.; Selimefendigil F.; Sheikholeslami M.; Shafee A.; Alghamdi M.
    In current text, we developed CVFEM code for nanomaterial hydrothermal management through a permeable compound cavity including two temperature model. Radiation and Lorentz source terms were added in formulations. Impacts of radiation parameter, Rayleigh, Hartmann number, interface heat transfer parameter and nanoparticles’ shape on nanofluid behavior were demonstrated. Contours indicate that convective mode becomes stronger with augment of buoyancy term. By increasing Nhs, conduction becomes more effective and Nusselt number reduces. As radiation term enhances, Nusselt number augments. © 2019, Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.
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    Polygenic Risk Scores have high diagnostic capacity in ankylosing spondylitis
    (BMJ Publishing Group, 2021) Li Z.; Wu X.; Leo P.J.; De Guzman E.; Akkoc N.; Breban M.; MacFarlane G.J.; Mahmoudi M.; Marzo-Ortega H.; Anderson L.K.; Wheeler L.; Chou C.-T.; Harrison A.A.; Stebbings S.; Jones G.T.; Bang S.-Y.; Wang G.; Jamshidi A.; Farhadi E.; Song J.; Lin L.; Li M.; Wei J.C.-C.; Martin N.G.; Wright M.J.; Lee M.; Wang Y.; Zhan J.; Zhang J.-S.; Wang X.; Jin Z.-B.; Weisman M.H.; Gensler L.S.; Ward M.M.; Rahbar M.H.; Diekman L.; Kim T.-H.; Reveille J.D.; Wordsworth B.P.; Xu H.; Brown M.A.
    Objective We sought to test the hypothesis that Polygenic Risk Scores (PRSs) have strong capacity to discriminate cases of ankylosing spondylitis (AS) from healthy controls and individuals in the community with chronic back pain. Methods PRSs were developed and validated in individuals of European and East Asian ethnicity, using data from genome-wide association studies in 15 585 AS cases and 20 452 controls. The discriminatory values of PRSs in these populations were compared with other widely used diagnostic tests, including C-reactive protein (CRP), HLA-B27 and sacroiliac MRI. Results In people of European descent, PRS had high discriminatory capacity with area under the curve (AUC) in receiver operator characteristic analysis of 0.924. This was significantly better than for HLA-B27 testing alone (AUC=0.869), MRI (AUC=0.885) or C-reactive protein (AUC=0.700). PRS developed and validated in individuals of East Asian descent performed similarly (AUC=0.948). Assuming a prior probability of AS of 10% such as in patients with chronic back pain under 45 years of age, compared with HLA-B27 testing alone, PRS provides higher positive values for 35% of patients and negative predictive values for 67.5% of patients. For PRS, in people of European descent, the maximum positive predictive value was 78.2% and negative predictive value was 100%, whereas for HLA-B27, these values were 51.9% and 97.9%, respectively. Conclusions PRS have higher discriminatory capacity for AS than CRP, sacroiliac MRI or HLA-B27 status alone. For optimal performance, PRS should be developed for use in the specific ethnic groups to which they are to be applied. © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2021. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.
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    Thermoluminescence glow-curve deconvolution using analytical expressions: A unified presentation
    (Elsevier Ltd, 2021) Peng J.; Kitis G.; Sadek A.M.; Karsu Asal E.C.; Li Z.
    This study provides a unified presentation of thermoluminescence (TL) glow-curve deconvolution within the framework of the open source R package “tgcd”, according to various analytical expressions that describe first-, second-, general-, and mixed-order kinetics as well as the recently developed semi-analytical expressions that derive from the one trap-one recombination center (OTOR) model that utilizes the Lambert W function or the Wright Omega function. We provide a comprehensive, flexible, convenient, and openly accessible program to analyze TL glow curves according to different models and expressions. The consistency of kinetic parameters determined using different model expressions was assessed using measured TL glow curve of CaF2:Dy. The performance of the computerized glow curve deconvolution (CGCD) method was also tested using simulated glow curves. Results revealed the benefits of comparing kinetic parameters determined from different model expressions and those obtained using experimental TL evaluation methods to assess the reliability of deconvolution results. The accuracy of the CGCD method is dependent upon both the model expressions used and the intrinsic trapping parameters of the TL material. © 2020 Elsevier Ltd