The Impact of Cultivation of Medicinal Plants on the Economic Income of Rural Settlements Case study of Kalat city villages

Medicinal plants, as part of natural resources, have been one of the most important sources of human food and medicine for generations. Diversification of the rural economy is considered as a tool to accelerate economic development at various levels¸ this approach is considered as one of the most important strategies for the development and economic sustainability of rural settlements in Iran¸ because it has a great effect on promoting the welfare and security of the region's economy. According to the economic policies of the country based on the development of non-oil exports, it is necessary to pay attention to the export of agricultural products¸ therefore, by planting valuable medicinal species, it is possible to plan the texts, while developing the economy and provision the needs of domestic industries, and it also earned significant foreign exchange earnings from the export of medicinal plant products. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of cultivation of medicinal plants on the economic development of rural settlements (case study of villages in Kalat city). The present research is applied in terms of purpose and is descriptive-analytical in terms of method. The sample population includes 7 villages of Kalat city (Abgarm, Aghdash, Qara Tikan, Garou, Qoleh Zoo, Sini and Soroud) with 1589 families, which amount to 5283 people. According to the research results, planting medicinal plants, on average, generates 523.6 more in revenue generation than planting crops

An investigation of intellectual capital impact on companies' market value and financial performace

The main objective of the present study is to measure intellectual capital and investigate its effect on market value and performance measures of 60 Iranian firms listed in Tehran Stock Exchange from three different industries including pharmaceutical products, chemical products and automobile and parts manufacturing industries during the period of 2009-2012. The obtained results indicated that, in pharmaceutical products and automobile and parts manufacturing industry, market value is significantly and positively affected by IC and its components, except for structural capital efficiency and, moreover, in chemical products industry, IC has not any significant relationship with market value, but, some of its components including human capital efficiency and capital employed efficiency have significantly positive relationship with market value indicator. Regarding IC effect on performance measures, it is worth noting that two performance measures of return on asset (ROA) and return on equity (ROE) are significantly associated to IC and some of its components in all three types of industry especially pharmaceutical products and automobile and parts manufacturing industries. Revenue growth (GR), as another performance measure, is significantly affected by IC and its components only in automobile and parts manufacturing industry. Accordingly, it can be concluded that these observed relationships are moderately affected by industry rype. Keywords: intellectual capital, market value, financial performance, Tehran Stock Exchange

Diagnostic accuracy of frozen section in Central nervous system lesions, a 10-year study.

How to Cite This Article: Khoddami M, Akbarzadeh A, Mordai A, Bidari Zerehpoush F, Alipour H, Samadzadeh S, Alipour B.Diagnostic Accuracy of Frozen Section of Central Nervous System Lesions: A 10-Year Study. Iran J Child Neurol. 2015 Winter;9(1):25-30. AbstractObjectiveDefinitive diagnosis of the central nervous system (CNS) lesions is unknown prior to histopathological examination. To determine the method and the endpoint for surgery, intraoperative evaluation of the lesion helps the surgeon.In this study, the diagnostic accuracy and pitfalls of using frozen section (FS) ofCNS lesions is determined.Materials & MethodsIn this retrospective study, we analyzed the results of FS and permanent diagnoses of all CNS lesions by reviewing reports from 3 general hospitals between March 2001 and March 2011.Results273 cases were reviewed and patients with an age range from 3 to 77 years of age were considered. 166 (60.4%) had complete concordance between FS and permanent section diagnosis, 83 (30.2%) had partial concordance, and 24 cases (9.5%) were discordant. Considering the concordant and partially concordant cases, the accuracy rate was 99.5%, sensitivity was 91.4%, specificity was 99.7%, and positive and negative predictive values were 88.4% and 99.8%, respectively.ConclusionOur results show high sensitivity and specificity of FS diagnosis in the evaluation of CNS lesions. A Kappa agreement score of 0.88 shows high concordance for FS results with permanent section. Pathologist’s misinterpretation, small biopsy samples (not representative of the entire tumor), suboptimal slides, and inadequate information about tumor location and radiologic findings appear to be the major causes for these discrepancies indicated from our study. ReferencesTaxy JB, Anthony G. Biopsy interpretation: the frozen section. 1st ed. China: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; 2010. P.301-3.Somerset HL, Kleinschmidt-DeMasters BK. Approach to the intraoperative consultation for neurosurgical specimens. Adv Anat Pathol 2011; 18:446-9. doi: 10.1097/ PAP.0b013e3182169934.Regragui A, Amarti Riffi A, Maher M, El Khamlichi A, Saidi A. Accuracy of Intraoperative diagnosis in central nervous system tumors: report of 1315 cases. Neurochirurgie 2003; 49(2-3 Pt 1):67-72.Plesec TP, Prayson RA. Frozen section discrepancy in the evaluation of central nervous system tumors. Arch Pathol Lab Med 2007; 131:1532-40.Savargaonkar P, Farmer PM. Utility of intra-operative consultations for the diagnosis of central nervous system lesions. Ann Clin Lab Sci 2001; 31:133-9.Talan-Hraniloviæ J, Vuèiæ M, Ulamec M, Belicza M. Intraoperative frozen section analysis in of the central nervous system and pituitary gland pathology. Acta Clin Croat 2005; 44:217-21.Roessler K, Dietrich W, Kitz K. High diagnostic accuracy of cytologic smears of central nervous system tumors. A 15-year experience based on 4,172 patients. Acta Cytol 2002; 46:667-74.Ud Din N, Memon A, Idress R, Ahmad Z, Hasan S. Central Nervous System Lesions: Correlation of  Intraoperative and Final Diagnoses, Six Year Experience at a Referral Centre in a Developing Country, Pakistan. Asian Pac J Cancer Prev 2011; 12:1435-7.Burger PC, Scheithauer BW. Tumors of the Central Nervous System. In: AFIP Atlas of Tumor Pathology Series 4. Washington DC: American Registry of Pathology; 2007.Louis DN, Ohgaki H, Wiestler OD, Cavenee WK, Burger PC, Jouvet A, et al. The 2007 WHO Classification of Tumours of the Central Nervous System. Acta Neuropathol. 2007; 114: 97–109. doi: 10.1007/s00401- 007-0243-

The Nonlinear Relationship between Bank Credits and Agricultural Employment in Mazandaran Province

Mazandaran province is one of the most important agricultural areas in Iran. Researches findings show that the role of bank credits is really important due to the lack of available funds in agricultural sector. In this study, the relationship between allocation of Agricultural Bank credits of Iran as professional bank section and agricultural employment was studied in the Mazandaran province based on a threshold error correction model during 1981-2011. The results show that the impact of credits on agricultural employment has been significantly different in upper and lower level of estimated threshold. The estimated threshold is about 44 percent for bank credits. The impact of bank credits on agricultural employment will be significantly negative when they exceeds from the threshold point. The results confirm transfer of capital from agriculture to other sections, resulting in a lack of integrated management for credit allocation system

Imputation in missing not at random SNPs data using EM algorithm

    The relation between single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and some diseases has been concerned by many researchers. Also the missing SNPs are quite common in genetic association studies. Hence, this article investigates the relation between existing SNPs in DNMT1 of human chromosome 19 with colorectal cancer. This article aims is to presents an imputation method for missing SNPs not at random. In this case-control study, 100 patients suffering from colorectal cancer consulting with the Research Institute for Gastroenterology and Liver Disease of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences were considered as the case group and 100 other patients consulting with the same research institute were considered as the control group and the genetic test was applied in order to identify the genotype of the 6 SNPs of the DNMT1 of chromosom 19 for all the patients under investigation. The obtained data were analyzed using logistic regression, then a fraction of the data was eliminated both at random and not at random and the imputation was done through the EM algorithm and the logistic regression coefficients variation before and after the imputation was compared. The results of this study implied that in both methods, at random and not at random missing SNPs, the estimation of the logistic regression coefficients after the imputation through EM algorithm has a greater correspondence to the results obtained from the complete data in comparison with the method of eliminating the missing values.

Relation between clinical features and gastric emptying time in diabetic patients

BACKGROUND: Gastroparesis is characterized by delayed gastric emptying. This pathology is usually observed in patients with diabetes. One standard approach to quantitative assessment of gastric emptying is scintigraphic study. The aim of present study was to perform scintigraphic study of gastric emptying time in patient with diabetes and to find its correlation with patients’ characteristics. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Gastric emptying was assessed in 19 patients with type 2 diabetes (mean age of 61.04 ± 6.09 years) and 6 healthy volunteers. Characteristics of the patients were sex, age, duration of diabetes, blood sugar and serum HbA1c level. RESULTS: Results of present study revealed that gastric emptying half time was significantly larger in patients with type 2 diabetes as compared with healthy volunteers (P-value < 0.05). While correlation of sex, age, duration of diabetes and blood sugar with gastric emptying time was not statistically significant, HbA1c level had significant effect on gastric emptying time. CONCLUSION: Results of this prospective study indicated that level of serum HbA1c is an effecting factor on gastric emptying time in patients with type 2 diabetes; however, these preliminary findings should be validated in larger and well-designed studie

Techno-Economic Assessment of the AHP Based Selected Method for Separating Formic Acid from an Aqueous Effluent

Formic acid (FA) is used across the world for a wide variety of applications spanning from chemical production to textile and pharmaceutical industries. FA can be synthesized efficiently from the lignocellulosic biomass constituent carbohydrates by acid hydrolysis in a dilute aqueous reaction media. Since FA forms an azeotrope with water, its purification, water recycle and reuse are vital to establishing a cost-competitive process. In this study, the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) was implemented to determine the desired separation method for isolating FA from a 3 wt.% aqueous solution by considering the advantages and disadvantages of each process. Four parameters named as scalable, quality of the final product, repeatable, and energy consumption were defined as criteria to perform AHP analysis. Furthermore, six alternative approaches namely (i) azeotropic distillation, (ii) extractive distillation with a liquid solvent and (iii) solid salt, (iv) the combination of liquid solvent and solid salt, (v) pressure-swing distillation, and (vi) liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) were examined to decide the most preferred separation method with respect to the goal, which is the desired separation method. The AHP results indicated that the alternative approach, the LLE and the scalable criteria have the highest preference with 39.4% and 54% priority, respectively. The proposed process based on the alternative approach could extract 99% of FA by using diethyl ether. Moreover, an estimated minimum selling price (MSP) of 2.48 $/kg FA with 97.4% purity was achieved by using techno-economic assessment for a typical plant with 1715 ton/day capacity

EFFECTIVENESS OF WET-CUPPING IN TREATMENT OF BALB/C MICE INFECTED BY LEISHMANIA MAJOR; PILOT RANDOMIZED TRIAL

Background: Cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) caused by Leishmania major is common in Middle East countries. Most therapies are limited and there is no effective vaccine for leishmaniasis. It has been reported that the ancient practice of wet cupping has been effective in treatment of drug resistant CL in humans. The purpose of this present study was to evaluate the efficacy of wet-cupping in treatment of L. major infected BALB/C mice. Methods: We designed a randomized clinical trial using 12 male BALB/c mice, aged 8-10 weeks (six mice for each experimental and control group). Each mouse was infected with L. major on the left hind footpad. Mice in the experimental group underwent wet-cupping once a week, up to 6 weeks. The appearance of local reaction in the parasite inoculated paw was monitored and footpad thickness was measured for 7 weeks in both groups. Then all mice were killed and their spleen and lymph node cells were cultured and the level of IFN- γ and IL-4 of cultured cells supernatant were measured as the markers of TH1 and TH2, respectively. Results: Lesion size thickness in the intervention mice seemed to grow faster than control ones. There were no significant differences in animal weight, spleen and lymph node weight and total cell number. The level of INF-γ and IL-4 produced by spleen cells of intervention mice was not significantly different from control mice (p=NS). Conclusion: Our study showed that wet-cupping has no significant treatment effect on coetaneous leishmaniasis in BALB/c mice. Interestingly, the disease was more severe in the intervention group

Relation between clinical features and gastric emptying time in diabetic patients

BACKGROUND: Gastroparesis is characterized by delayed gastric emptying. This pathology is usually observed in patients with diabetes. One standard approach to quantitative assessment of gastric emptying is scintigraphic study. The aim of present study was to perform scintigraphic study of gastric emptying time in patient with diabetes and to find its correlation with patients’ characteristics. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Gastric emptying was assessed in 19 patients with type 2 diabetes (mean age of 61.04 ± 6.09 years) and 6 healthy volunteers. Characteristics of the patients were sex, age, duration of diabetes, blood sugar and serum HbA1c level. RESULTS: Results of present study revealed that gastric emptying half time was significantly larger in patients with type 2 diabetes as compared with healthy volunteers (P-value &lt; 0.05). While correlation of sex, age, duration of diabetes and blood sugar with gastric emptying time was not statistically significant, HbA1c level had significant effect on gastric emptying time. CONCLUSION: Results of this prospective study indicated that level of serum HbA1c is an effecting factor on gastric emptying time in patients with type 2 diabetes; however, these preliminary findings should be validated in larger and well-designed studies