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Cloud data centers face various challenges, such as high energy consumption, environmental impact, and quality of service (QoS) requirements. Dynamic virtual machine (VM) consolidation is an effective approach to address these challenges, but it is a complex optimization problem that involves trade-offs between energy efficiency and QoS satisfaction. Moreover, the workload patterns in cloud data centers are often non-stationary and unpredictable, which makes it difficult to model them. In this paper, we propose a new method for dynamic VM consolidation that optimizes both energy efficiency and QoS objectives. Our approach is based on Markov chains and the artificial feeding birds (AFB) algorithm. Markov chains are used to model the resource utilization of each individual VM and PM based on the changes that happen in workload data. AFB algorithm is a metaheuristic optimization technique that mimics the behavior of birds in nature. We modify the AFB algorithm to suit the characteristics of the VM placement problem and to provide QoS-aware and energy-efficient solutions. Our approach also employs an online step detection method to capture variations in workload patterns. Furthermore, we introduce a new policy for VM selection from overloaded hosts, which considers the abrupt changes in the utilization processes of the VMs. The proposed algorithms are evaluated extensively using the CloudSim Toolkit with real workload data. The proposed system outperforms evaluation policies in multiple metrics, including energy consumption, SLA violations, and other essential metrics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diagnosing benign and malignant glands in thyroid ultrasound images is considered a challenging issue. Recently, deep learning techniques have significantly resulted in extracting features from medical images and classifying them. Convolutional neural networks ignore the hierarchical structure of entities within images and do not pay attention to spatial information as well as the need for a large number of training samples. Capsule networks consist of different hierarchical capsules equivalent to the same layers in the convolutional neural networks. We propose a feature extraction method for ultrasound images based on the capsule network. Then, we combine those deep features with conventional features such as Histogram of Oriented Gradients and Local Binary Pattern together to form a hybrid feature space. We increase the accuracy percentage of a support vector machine (SVM) by balancing and reducing the data dimensions of samples. Since the SVM provides different training kernels according to the sample distribution method, the extracted textural features were categorized using each of these kernels to obtain the result. The parameters of classification evaluation using the researcher-made model have outperformed the other methods in this field. Experimental results showed that the combination of HOG, LBP, and CapsNet methods outperformed the others, with 83.95% accuracy in the SVM with a linear kernel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is ambiguity about the airborne transmission of the SARS-CoV-2. While a distance of 6 feet is considered a safe physical distance, new findings show that the virus can be transmitted more than that distance and cause infection. In hospitals, this may cause the virus to be transmitted from the treatment wards of COVID-19 patients to adjacent wards and infect medical staff, non-COVID-19 patients, and patient companions. The aim of this study was to investigate the presence of coronavirus in the air of ICU and adjacent wards. The low volume sampler (LVS) with two separate inlets for PM2.5 and PM10 was applied to collect indoor air of intensive care unit (ICU) with confirmed COVID- 19 patients and its surroundings. The samples were collected on 0.3μ PTFE filter fitted to the holder. Sampling was done at flow rate of 16.7 l/min for 24 h. The SRAS-CoV-2 virus was isolated using a SinaPure™ Virus Extraction Kit (SINACLON, Iran). The presence of SARS-CoV-2 genome was assessed using a commercially available SARS-CoV-2 Test Kit (Pishtaz-Iran), according to the manufacturer's instructions using One Step plus Real-Time PCR system tool (Applied Biosystems, USA). A total of sixteen samples were taken, and the positive test rate for SRAS-CoV-2 was 12.5 % (2/16). All samples from surrounding (rest room and hallway) were negative, but two air samples from indoor of ICU (next to the patient bed and nursing station) were found to be positive. The results support the possibility of transmitting the SRAS-CoV-2 through the air at a greater distance than what is known as a safe physical distance. Therefore, in addition to maintaining a safe physical distance, other precautions including wearing a face mask, preventing air recirculation, and maximizing the use of natural ventilation should be considered, especially in crowded and enclosed environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes BoF-CP approach which is a novel scheme feature fusion for writer-dependent offline signature verification. At the heart of the new methodology lies feature extraction in surrounded candidate points. In the proposed method, at first, several features of the type of component-oriented and pixel-oriented features are extracted at the region of candidate points. Due to the different geometric structure in different signatures, several short feature vectors are created to the number of candidate points in each image. In the proposed approach, the corresponding homogeneous feature vectors are fused based on standard deviation and variance at the candidate points to create a normalized vector. We called the proposed method Bag of Features in Candidate Point (BoF-CP). Finally, the normalized feature vector enters the classification stage to verify the query samples. To evaluate the proposed method, standard datasets MCYT, GPDS, and CEDAR have been used. According to the experimental results, the proposed approach has been able to import optimal features into the classification algorithm by which the recognition rate in the separation of the genuine and forgery samples has been enhanced. According to the obtained statistical results, the proposed method has improved in several criteria such as average error rate, accuracy, sensitivity, specify as compared to state of the art. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: COVID-19 has become prevalent in the world since December 2019. The further prevalence of the disease can be prevented by correct management of society and increasing knowledge, practices, and attitudes of the people. The present research aimed to evaluate the knowledge, attitudes, and preventive behaviors of people in Hormozgan in the south of Iran toward COVID-19. Subject and methods: The present cross-sectional research was conducted over 2 months (March 2020–April 2020). The online questionnaire comprised four sections: demographic information, knowledge, attitude, and behavior toward COVID-19. Knowledge included 36 items, attitude eight items, and behavior ten items. The collected data were analyzed statistically using SPSS ver. 22. The split-half method was used to test the reliability of knowledge and the estimated value was 0.84. That of attitude and behavior was estimated via Cronbach's alpha and was found to be 0.81 and 0.75, respectively. Results: A total number of 2024 participants with an average age of 33.94 years took part in this research. Of all participants, 64.4% were female. According to the results, 65.8% enjoyed a good level of knowledge and 34.2% enjoyed an average level. In addition, 63.2% demonstrated a good attitude and 36.8% an average level. A large percentage of participants (90.6%) had good practices and only 9.4% had an average level of practices. Conclusion: The present findings show that participants had a relatively good level of knowledge, positive attitude, and good behavior concerning COVID-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Support vector machine faces some problems associated with training time in the presence of large data sets due to the need for high memory and high computational cost. The main problem with Support vector machine occurs during the training phase, which is computationally expensive and depends on the size of the input data set. The high boundary complexity among the classes is another major problem with the most data sets, which will reduce the generalizability. Therefore, this study was conducted to present a useful method for reducing the number of data and boundary complexity, in which the training set is divided into the boundary, non-boundary, and harmful patterns. It has four phases: In the first phase, the information is determined about the neighborhood of each sample with other samples. In the second phase, harmful patterns are removed to reduce the data complexity. In the third phase, the remaining training data samples are divided into the boundary and non-boundary patterns. In phase 4, representatives of non-boundary data are determined and a reduced set is formed through combination of these representatives and boundary patterns. The proposed method is tested with 33 data sets and comparatively evaluated against five of the most successful instance-based condensation algorithms. Experiments showed that the proposed method is better than other methods presented in the research literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The chemical quality of groundwater supplies in two high-risk area (HRA) and low-risk area (LRA) for gastric cancer in Iran was assessed through hydrogeochemical analysis and water quality indices. For this aim, Piper and Schoeller diagrams and water quality index (WQI) were applied. In addition, exposure to nitrate via drinking water and its corresponding risk were also assessed using Monte Carlo simulation technique. Data on physicochemical properties of groundwater resources were obtained from Iran Water Resources Management Company. Sampling and analysis of tap water for nitrate concentration were conducted in two cities of Shiraz (as a representative of LRA) and Ardabil (as a representative of HRA). According to Piper diagrams, the dominant hydrogeochemical facies of groundwater supplies in HRA and LRA were Na–HCO3 (43.75%) and Ca–HCO3 (41.77%), respectively. The predominant cations in groundwater resources of HRA were found to be Na+ (68.06%) and Ca2+ (31.94%). For LRA, the typical cations were in decreasing trend: Ca2+ (39.64%) > Mg2+ (18.35%) > Na+ (17.26%). For two areas, HCO3−, SO42− and Cl− were, respectively, the most frequent anions. Two-sample Wilcoxon test showed that there were statistically significant difference between two areas in terms of anions and cations concentrations (p value < 0.05). The mean of total hardness (Ca2+ + Mg2+) concentration of water supplies in LRA (528.1 mg/L) was higher than HRA (263.1 mg/L), whereas the mean of Na+ concentration was found to be lower in LRA (90.6 mg/L) compared with HRA (108.1 mg/L). The sum of nitrate intake and its risk in LRA was higher than HRA. WQI results showed that drinking water quality in HRA and LRA ranged from excellent to poor and most water resources were of a good quality class. Further studies are suggested to investigate the role of drinking water in the etiology of gastric cancer in Iran. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main aim of this study was to evaluate gamma radiation level in the mineral hot springs of Ardabil province in Iran. In addition, the cancer risk of gamma radiation was assessed for swimmers. Natural gamma radiation was measured using Ion Chamber Survey Meter 451B in 22 springs throughout the province. Gamma was measured at 20 cm and 100 cm above the ground level in 15 locations of each spring. Excess lifetime cancer risk was calculated to investigate the risk of exposure to gamma radiation. The highest and lowest annual absorbed dose rate of gamma were found to be 1.17(10−3) and 1.99(10−3) Sv/y at the height of 20 cm above the ground level and 5.26(10−4) and 1.52(10−3) Sv/y at the height of 100 cm above the ground level, respectively. Excess lifetime cancer risk ranged from 4.57(10−4) to 7.76(10−4) at the height of 20 cm and from 2.06(10−4) to 5.94(10−4) at the height of 100 cm which are lower than global average of 1.45(10−3) declared by the United Nations. Although the risk level in this study is lower than the global average, protective and preventive measures should be considered by individuals and authorities in these areas to reduce the effects of gamma radiation on the health of the swimmers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because of the presence of tannin in the molecular structure of oak extract, this substance is used as a natural coagulant to remove turbidity from water. The aim of this study was to determine the efficiency of this coagulant alone and in combination with polyaluminium chloride (PACl) in turbidity removal from water under optimal conditions. In this experimental study, Iranian oak extract was prepared by maceration method using ethanol 96% as an extractor. Kaolin was used to prepare synthetic turbid water samples. Using the jar test, the optimum concentrations of oak extract and PACl were determined in various concentrations of initial turbidity and pH. Moreover, the central composite design (CCD) method was utilized to design experiments and RSM was applied for analyzing the obtained results. Optimum concentrations of oak extract and PACl were 62.6 mg/L and 52.6 mg/L, respectively. An increase in initial turbidity and pH led to an increase in turbidity removal by the two coagulants. The efficiency of turbidity removal by oak extract and PACl was 63.5% and 66.5%, respectively. The simultaneous application of oak extract and polyaluminium chloride increased removal efficiency (85%) and reduced the total organic carbon concentration (TOC) in water (42.3%). The results showed that the simultaneous application of Iranian oak extract and polyaluminium chloride had an acceptable performance in removing turbidity from water. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Due to the high toxicity of chromium, particularly as Hexavalent chromium Cr (VI), it is removed from industrial effluents before their discharge into the environment by a variety of methods, including loading catalysts onto the polymeric supports. This study focused on the removal of Cr(VI) from aqueous solutions using Amberlite XAD7 resin loaded titanium dioxide (Ti-XAD7). Methods: Ti-XAD7 was synthesized using Amberlite XAD-7 impregnated with titanium tetraethoxide. The prepared Ti-XAD7 was characterized by using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). Isotherms and kinetic studies were carried out to describe the adsorption behavior of adsorbent for the removal of Cr(VI) ions. Quadratic models considering independent variables, i.e. the initial Cr(VI) concentration, adsorbent dosage, time, and pH, were evaluated and optimized to describe the behavior of Cr(VI) adsorption onto the Ti-XAD7 using RSM based on a Five-level-four-factor CCD approach. Results: The accuracy and the fitting of the model were evaluated by ANOVA with R2 > 0.725 and P value = 5.221 × 10−5. The optimum conditions for the adsorption process were an initial Cr(VI) concentration 2750 ppb, contact time of 51.53 min, pH of 8.7, and Ti-XAD7 dosage of 5.05 g/L. The results revealed that the Langmuir and Sips isotherm models with R2 = 0.998 and 0.999 were the best models fitting the experimental data. The adsorption capacity of Ti-XAD7 and RL constant were 2.73 mg/g and 0.063–0.076 based on the Langmuir isotherm, respectively. Kinetic studies also indicated that the adsorption behavior of Cr(VI) was acceptably explained by the Elovich kinetic model with a good fitting (R2 = 0.97). Conclusions: Comparison of the Ti-XAD7 and XAD7 yield in chromium adsorption showed that modified XAD7 had higher removal efficiency (about 98%) compared to XAD7 alone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this systematic review study was to investigate the causal relationship between environmental factors and gastric cancer (GC) in Iran. In a narrow definition, the environment includes water, soil, air, and food. This definition was the main criterion for the inclusion of articles in this study. In addition, exposure to radiation and geographical conditions were considered as less investigated environmental factors in the literatures. International (PubMed, Web of Science, ScienceDirect, Scopus, and Cochran) and national (Scientific Information Database) databases were searched for articles on GC and environmental risk factors in Iran. Twenty-six articles were found to meet the inclusion criteria after title, abstract, and full text review. Risk factors identified for GC include consumption of red meat; high fat, fried, and salted meat; smoked, salted, and fried foods; some dairy products; roasted and fried seeds; strong and hot tea; and un-piped and unchlorinated drinking water, as well as exposure to radiation, loess sediment, soft and grassy soil, soil containing low concentration of molybdenum, and proximity to volcanos. Fresh fruits and vegetable, fresh fish, and honey consumption were recognized as protective agents. Given the risk factors identified, strategies to prevent GC would be educating people to choose a healthy diet and to cook and store food properly, providing access to safe drinking water, taking into account topographical and geographical conditions in choosing a right location to build residential areas, and regulating the use of radiation-emitting devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Gastric cancer (GC) is the first leading cause of cancer-related deaths in Iran. GC is a multifactorial disease and is caused by the interaction of genetic and environmental factors. The aim of this study was to assess the exposure and risk of nitrate intake through fruits and vegetables (F&V) in high-risk area (HRA) and low-risk area (LRA) of GC in Iran. Methods: Twenty nine species of F&V were examined for nitrate by reverse-phase HPLC (RP-HPLC) method. Food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) data of 2000 adults participating in Persian cohort were applied to determine consumption patterns of F&V in those areas. A point-estimate daily intake was applied to compare two areas in terms of nitrate intake. Monte-Carlo simulation technique was applied to estimate chronic daily intake (CDI) of nitrate. Results: The results showed that point-estimate daily intake of nitrate for subjects participated in the study was 2.02 ± 1.02 mg kg−1 day−1 in HRA and 1.98 ± 1.05 mg kg−1 day−1 in LRA. 6.53% of the participants in the HRA, and 5.9% of the participants in the LRA had an unacceptable point-estimate daily intake compared with an acceptable limit of 3.7 mg kg−1 day−1 established by FAO/WHO. CDI of nitrate in HRA was 1.94 ± 0.95 mg kg−1 day−1 and in the LRA was 1.93 ± 1.06 mg kg−1 day−1. Conclusion: The results showed that there is no difference between HRA and LRA in terms of nitrate intake through F&V. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wheat (Triticum aestivum) is an important staple food worldwide used for the manufacture of flour-derived foodstuffs such as bread and noodles. The purpose of this study was to investigate common pesticides in stored wheat at Kermanshah province’s silos in Iran. Continuous sample drop flow microextraction coupled with high-performance liquid chromatography–ultraviolet (HPLC–UV) detection was applied for this purpose. In this technique, a few microliter of organic solvent is transferred to the bottom of a conical test tube and the aqueous solution transforms in form fine droplets while passing through the organic solvent. After extraction, 20 μL of organic solvent containing target analytes was injected into the HPLC–UV. The extraction conditions (including type and volume of extraction solvent, sample solution flow rate, sample solution volume, pH and salt addition) were varied to achieve optimized performance. Under the optimum conditions, the calibration graphs are linear in the range of 0.5–1000 µg kg−1 and limit of detections (LODs) are in the range of 0.2–0.5 µg kg−1. Repeatability (intra-day) and reproducibility (inter-day) of method based on seven replicate measurements of 100 µg kg−1 of target pesticides were in the range of 3.2–5.1% and 4.7–7.2%, respectively. Three out of 36 wheat grain samples contained permethrin exceeding safety levels, but the levels of the other two pesticides in all samples were below the maximum residue levels based on Europe standard level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to determine the concentration of Giardia cyst and Ascaris egg in influent and effluent of six wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in Kermanshah province, Iran, and to assess human health risk imposed by these organisms. Samples were taken from influent and effluent at weekly interval during 6 months. Samples were analyzed for Giardia cyst and Ascaris egg using McMaster egg counting technique according to Bailenger method. The Monte Carlo simulation method was used to calculate daily and annual infection risks. The efficiencies of all WWTPs to remove Giardia cyst and Ascaris egg from raw wastewater were more than 95%. However, maximum concentrations of these organisms were higher than acceptable level in some WWTPs effluents. Maximum concentration of Giardia cyst (2 counts/L) and Ascaris egg (4 counts/L) in effluent were observed in Kermanshah WWTP. The results of risk assessment indicated that annual infection risk related to both organisms were much more than acceptable level (10-4 pppy). Also, the imposed risk by Ascaris was higher than Giardia. There is a need for more precautions to be considered by farmers and other susceptible groups in contact to reclaimed wastewater in agricultural land, landscape and parks. Also, responsible organization should conduct more vigorous safety plans in site where WWTPs effluent is used for irrigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Phthalic acid esters including diethyl phthalate (DEP), which are considered as top-priority and hazardous pollutants have received significant attention over the last decades. It is vital for industries to select the best treatment technology, especially when the DEP concentration in wastewater is high. Meanwhile, anaerobic biofilm-based reactors are considered as a promising option. Therefore, in the present study for the biological removal of DEP from synthetic wastewater two different anaerobic biofilm-based reactors including anaerobic fixed film baffled reactor (AnFFBR) and up-flow anaerobic fixed film fixed bed reactor (UAnFFFBR), were compared from kinetic and performance standpoints. As in the previous studies, only the kinetic coefficients have been calculated and the relationship between kinetic coefficients and their interpretation has not been evaluated the other aim of the present study was to fill this research gap. Results: In optimum conditions, 90.31 and 86.91% of COD as well as 91.11 and 88.72% of DEP removal were achieved for the AnFFBR and UAnFFFBR, respectively. According to kinetic coefficients (except biomass yield) the AnFFBR had better performance as it provided a more favorable condition for microbial growth. The Grau model was selected as the best mathematical model for designing and predicting the bioreactor's performance due to its high coefficients of determination (0.97 < R2). With regard to the insignificant variations of the calculated Grau kinetic coefficients (KG) when the organic loading rate (with constant HRT) increased it can be concluded that both of the bioreactors can tolerate high organic loading rate and their performance is not affected by the applied DEP concentrations. Conclusions: Both the bioreactors were capable of treating low-to-high strength DEP wastewater; however, according to the experimental results and obtained kinetic coefficients, the AnFFBR indicated higher performance. Although the AnFFBR can be considered as a safer treatment option than the UAnFFFBR due to its lower DEP concentrations in sludge the UAnFFFBR had lower VSS/TSS ratio and sludge yield, which could make it more practical for digestion. Finally, both the bioreactors showed considerable methane yield; however, compared to the UAnFFFBR, the AnFFBR had more potential for bioenergy production. Although both the selected bioreactors achieved nearly 90% of DEP removal, they can only be considered as pre-treatment methods according to the standard regulations and should be coupled with further technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of present study was to investigate the phenol adsorption onto a date stone activated carbon (DSAC) in a batch system with considering initial pH, initial phenol concentration, DSAC dosage, and contact time. Four two-parameter isotherm models (Langmuir, Freundlich, Temkin and Dubinin-Radushkevich) and four three-parameter isotherm models (Sips, Redlich-Peterson, Toth and Khan) were used to fit the experimental data. To determine the best-fit isotherm, a statistical method of Goodness of fit (GooF) was applied. An optimization method, according to standard normalized error (SNE), was used to determine the best set of parameters for each isotherm model. GooF analysis indicated that the best isotherm model to describe the phenol adsorption on surface of DSAC was Freundlich with a maximum adsorption capacity of 33.53 mg/g among the two-parameter models and Sips with a maximum adsorption capacity of 11.68 mg/g among the three-parameter isotherms. The results indicated that the DSAC is effective adsorbent for phenol removal from the aqueous solutions in terms of low cost, high availability, and easy production process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pharmaceutical wastewater is one of the major complex and toxic industrial effluents containing little or no biodegradable organic matters. In this study, H2O2/UV based advanced oxidation process (AOP) was used to remove organic materials from pharmaceutical industry effluent. For the chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal radiation of medium pressure mercury vapor UV lamp was used in the presence of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2/UV). Results indicated that the efficiency of COD removal depends on the initial concentration of H2O2, oxidation time and pH. The efficiency of COD removal at low H2O2 concentration was very low even coupled with UV light, which can be attributed to the low generation of hydroxyl radicals (OH•). At high concentration of H2O2 (500 mg/dm³) and optimum pH (pH = 4), 87.6% removal efficiency could be achieved during 70 min oxidation. For high concentration of H2O2 (500 mg/dm³) at pH 3 and 7, the maximum COD removal efficiency was 28.5% and 15.2% respectively, indicating significant roles of pH and H2O2 concentration in the process of COD removal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The physical and chemical quality of the public drinking water supply (tap water), bottled water, and point of use (PoU) treated water was studied comparatively. The analyzed parameters were: turbidity, electrical conductivity, total dissolved solids, pH, hardness, sodium, potassium, chloride, and alkalinity. The samples were taken and analyzed based on standard methods references for the examination of the water and wastewater. The data analysis was conducted by SPSS 16 software. The results show that the concentration of the chemical and physical parameters in all waters is below limits as allowed by national and international drinking water guidelines and standards, although there is significant difference between three types of water. The quality of the tap water is consistent to mentioned guidelines and standards; therefore, the tap water is safe for drinking and it is no need to use other water resources instead of this water. The distrust to public water supply has caused a large number of citizens to use bottled and PoU treated waters for drinking aims. The consumption of these waters imposes huge costs to families because the costs of the 0.25, 1.5, and 20 L bottled waters are about 17,777, 1,776, and 500 times the price of the tap water, respectively. Increased public awareness and confidence about the quality of tap water is needed to prevent the loss of the income of the family. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Emerging and hazardous environmental pollutants like phthalic acid esters (PAEs) are one of the recent concerns worldwide. PAEs are considered to have diverse endocrine disrupting effects on human health. Industrial wastewater has been reported as an important environment with high concentrations of PAEs. In the present study, four short-chain PAEs including diallyl phthalate (DAP), diethyl phthalate (DEP), dimethyl phthalate (DMP), and phthalic acid (PA) were selected as a substrate for anaerobic fixed film fixed bed reactor (AnFFFBR). The process performances of AnFFFBR, and also its kinetic behavior, were evaluated to find the best eco-friendly phthalate from the biodegradability point of view. According to the results and kinetic coefficients, removing and mineralizing of DMP occurred at a higher rate than other phthalates. In optimum conditions 92.5, 84.41, and 80.39% of DMP, COD, and TOC were removed. DAP was found as the most bio-refractory phthalate. The second-order (Grau) model was selected as the best model for describing phthalates removal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: It has reported that aloe vera has protective effects on diabetic disorders. The present study was undertaken to evaluate the protective effect of aloe vera extract on sciatic nerve of diabetic rats. Materials and Methods: A total of 45 adult male rats (220-250 grs) were divided into three groups, i.e., control, diabetic control and diabetic, which received aloe vera (50 mg/kg). Diabetes was induced by intravenous injection of 50 mg/kg streptozotocin. After eight, twelve and sixteen weeks, samples were taken from proximal, middle and distal of sciatic nerve. Structural changes in the sciatic nerve histomorphometric studies were reviewed and data were recorded. The obtained data were analyzed using SPSS. Results: The results showed that the diameter of sciatic nerve axon and myelin decreased in diabetic rats. Our findings indicated that aloe vera as a therapeutic approach can protect histomorphologic alterations induced by peripheral diabetic neuropathy. Conclusion: Our findings indicated that aloe vera as a therapeutic approach can protect histomorphologic alterations induced by peripheral diabetic neuropathy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]