Tourism crisis management: The mindful learning from tourism crises

The mindful learning demonstrates how, if barriers are overcome, learning can contribute to effective crisis management through not only mitigating the negative effects but also potentially averting a crisis from occurring. This paper is an attempt to examine how tourism organizations can mindfully learn from crises and disasters and encourage the adoption of a mindful culture in their organizations. The results show that there are many barriers which impede organizations to learn mindfully and adjust themselves to the new situations. It also discusses that most tourism organizations neglected mindful organizational learning and paid more attention to superficial or single loop learning from tourism crises

Fauna and the distribution of Phlebotominae sand flies (Diptera: Psychodidae) in Sanandaj County, Kurdistan Province, west of Iran, 2017

BACKGROUND: Phlebotominae sand flies, belonging to Psychodidae family, are very important because some species of them are biological vector of cutaneous and visceral leishmaniasis in Iran. An investigation was carried out in Sanandaj County, west of Iran, to evaluate the fauna, sex ratio, and species combination.METHODS: The samples collected using sticky traps from indoors and outdoors of 5 villages in year 2017. The traps were fixed before sunset, and collected at sunrise in the morning of the next day. The collected sand flies preserved in 70% ethanol and mounted, using Puri’s medium, and identified using the keys of Iranian sand flies.RESULTS: Totally, 907 sand flies comprising Phlebotomus genus (58%) and Sergentomyia genus (42%) were captured. The collected sand flies consisted of: Phlebotomus papatasi, Phlebotomus perfilliwei, Phlebotomus major, Phlebotomus kandellakii, Phlebotomus sergenti, Sergentomyia sintoni, Sergentomyia dentata, Sergentomyia antennata, and Sergentomyia theodori. Phlebotomus papatasi, Sergentomyia dentata and Sergentomyia sintoni were predominant species, respectively.CONCLUSION: The high abundance of sand flies especially Phlebotomus papatasi can lead to incidence and prevalence of leishmaniasis disease in this region. So, the complementary studies especially, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) studies are suggested to evaluate the infection rate of Leishmania parasite in sand flies and rodents

Effects of Temperature and Particle Size Distribution on Barite Reduction by Carbon monoxide Gas

In this research, a mineral barite powder was reduced by carbon monoxide gas and the effects of reduction time and temperature was investigated as well as barite particle size. Results showed that the best result would be feasible when the barite particle sizes are between (-70 +100) in mesh scale. The barite reduction could reach the maximum level (98%) after reduction by carbon monoxide at 850°C for one hour. Meanwhile, the same amount of reduction could have been achieved in shorter time intervals at higher temperatures. The kinetics model for reduction process was also determined and activation energy was calculated

A case report of stomach and esophagus melanoma with liver metastases in a 63-year-old woman

BACKGROUND: Melanoma originates from melanocytes, which are dendritic pigmented cells. Malignant melanoma is divided into cutaneous and non-cutaneous types, and cutaneous one is the most common type. Gastric melanoma has rarely been reported, and is divided into primary and secondary categories.CASE REPORT: We report a 63-year-old woman with continues epigastric pain complaining of bloody defecation with elucidated blood, lack of appetite, weight loss, and icteric skin. She was a known case of hypertension, and a surgery of the left eye mass was done for her, which the patient's eye was discharged completely. The patient's biopsy sample was not sent for pathology, and there was no pathology result. The patient was evaluated with endoscopy because of epigastric pain of 6 months before. In addition to class A esophagitis, a nodule with an approximate dimension of 1 cm was seen in the Z-line of the esophagus, and two black lesions in the greater curvature of the stomach were seen, which biopsy of all these lesions was done. In the pathological study of biopsy specimens in a microscopic view, the replication of scattered hotspots in submucosa with atypical cells, large nuclei, and dark brown pigmentation were observed. In the immunohistochemistry study, HMB-25, Ki-67, carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), and S100 were positive. Ultimately, the patient was diagnosed with melanoma.CONCLUSION: This report demonstrates the importance of medical documentation in determining the origin of diseases. as, if there was documentary evidence of the evacuated eye mass, differentiation of the primary or metastatic melanoma was possible

Cost effectiveness analysis of Avonex and CinnoVex in Relapsing Remitting MS

INTRODUCTION: Multiple sclerosis is a chronic and degenerative neurological disease characterized by loss of myelin sheath of some neurons in brain and spinal cord. It is associated with high economic burden due to premature deaths and high occurrence of disabilities. The aim of the current study was to determine cost effectiveness of two major products of interferon 1a in patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis. METHOD AND MATERIALS: Altogether, 140 patients who have consumed Avonex and CinnoVex in Relapsing Remitting MS for at least two years were randomly selected (70 patients in each group). Health-related quality of life (HRQoL) was assessed using the adopted MSQoL-54 instrument. Costs were measured and valued from Ministry of Health and Medical Education (MOHME) perspective. Two-way sensitivity analysis was used to check robustness of the results. RESULTS: Patients in CinnoVex group reported significantly higher scores in both physical (69.5 vs. 50.9, P<0.001) and mental (63.3 vs. 56.6, P=0.03) aspects of HRQoL than Avonex group. On the other hand, annual cost of CinnoVex and Avonex were 2410 US and 4515US per patient, respectively (P<0.001). CONCLUSIONS: The results showed that CinnoVex was dominant option over the study period. It is suggested that results of the current study should be considered in allocating resources to MS treatments in Iran. Of course, our findings should be interpreted with caution duo to short term horizon and lack of HRQoL scores at baseline (before the intervention)

The Effects of Openness and Globalization on Inflation: An ARDL Bounds Test Approach

The purpose of this paper is to test the hypothesis first proposed by Romer (1993); suggesting that inflation is lower in more open economies. According to this hypothesis, central banks have a lower incentive to engineer surprise inflations in more-open economies because the Phillips curve is steeper. Furthermore, Comparing with other empirical studies, this paper has used the new KOF globalization index to estimate the relationship between economic globalization and inflation. We utilized the ARDL Bounds test approach to level relationship proposed by Pesaran et al. (2001) for Iranian annual data during 1970-2009. The results from Bounds test approach confirm the existence of the long-run relationship among the variables for both specification. The results show that openness has a negative and significant effect on inflation in short-run but its effect on inflation in long-run is positive. Globalization has a negative and significant effect on inflation in short-run and long-run. Thus, it seems that the new economic globalization (KOF index) which is a broader comprehensive index is a better proxy of openness

Effects of Fe2O3 addition and mechanical activation on thermochemical heat storage properties of the Co3O4/CoO system

Effects of Fe2O3 addition (2-20 wt%) with 1 h mechanical activation on redox reactions of Co3O4 were studied by TG/DSC, SEM, and XRD analyses. The results showed that a Fe2O3 addition from 2 to 15 wt% increases the oxygen release from 1.4 to 3.4 wt% and decreases the reduction onset temperature from 1030 to 960 °C, while it increases the oxygen uptake value and re-oxidation onset temperature respectively from 1.5 to 3.3 wt% and from 930 to 1010 °C. The increase in iron oxide to 20 wt% resulted in loss of heat storage properties due to significant reduction in oxygen release and uptake. Moreover, TG/DSC analyses revealed that reduction enthalpy of as-received Co3O4, 1 h ball milled Co3O4, and 1 h ball milled Co3O4-15% Fe2O3 are 622, 496, and 895 kJ/kg, respectively. Phase identification and TG experiments under argon atmosphere demonstrated that Fe2O3 participates in the reduction process. Furthermore, adding 15 wt% of iron oxide to cobalt oxide and 1 h mechanical activation improved the redox cyclability of cobalt oxide

Openness and Inflation in Iran

Abstract-The purpose of this paper is to test the hypothesis first documented by [1], that inflation is lower in more open economies. According to this hypothesis, central banks have a smaller incentive to engineer surprise inflations in more-open economies because the Phillips curve is steeper. We utilized the ARDL Bounds test approach to level relationship proposed by [2] for Iranian annual data over the period 1973-2007. Results from Bounds test approach confirm existence of long-run relationship among the variables under consideration. The results show that openness has negative and significant effect on inflation in short-run but its effect in long-run is not significant

The influence of parent austenite characteristics on the intervariant boundary network in a lath martensitic steel

The influence of the parent austenite deformation state on the intervariant boundary network (i.e., population, plane orientation, and connectivity) of a lath martensitic microstructure was investigated using conventional EBSD mapping and five-parameter boundary analysis approach along with quantification of boundary connectivity using homology metrics. The lath martensite largely revealed a bimodal misorientation angle distribution, closely matched with the Kurdjumov–Sachs (K–S) orientation relationship. The application of deformation significantly changed the distribution, gradually reducing the intensity of the 60° misorientation angle peak. This was largely ascribed to substructure development within the parent austenite upon deformation, which stimulates particular variant/s having a habit plane (011)α′ closely parallel to the primary (111)γ and/or secondary (11¯¯¯1)γ slip plane. The interaction of these variants eventually promoted specific intervariant boundaries (e.g., 60°/[111], 10.5°/[011], and 49.5°/[110]) at the expense of 60°/[011]. The application of deformation in the parent austenite did not change the intervariant boundary plane character distribution, which mostly exhibited an anisotropic character terminated on {110} planes because of the displacive nature of the martensitic transformation. However, the extent of anisotropy progressively decreased with increasing strain in the austenite prior to transformation. The grain boundary network connectivity was markedly altered due to the local variant selection induced by the deformation. Deformation in the austenite regime generally decreased the connectivity of boundaries having a {110} plane orientation. The intervariant boundaries with the {110} twist character also displayed a similar trend, though the connectivity of {110} tilt boundaries progressively enhanced with increasing strain. The former was closely matched with a decrease in the population of 60°/[110] intervariant boundaries with the strain. The current findings suggest that the intervariant boundary network of lath martensite can be manipulated through changes in the parent austenite deformation state which, in turn, can be used to enhance key final product properties such as toughness.publishedVersio

Tumour suppressive effects of WEE1 gene silencing in breast cancer cells.

Background: WEE1 is a G2/M checkpoint regulator protein. Various studies have indicated that WEE1 could be a good target for cancer therapy. The main aim of this study was to asssess the tumor suppressive potential of WEE1 silencing in two different breast cancer cell lines, MCF7 which carries the wild-type p53 and MDA-MB468 which contains a mutant type. Materials and Methods: After WEE1 knockdown with specific shRNAs downstream effects on cell viability and cell cycle progression were determined using MTT and flow cytometry analyses, respectively. Real-time PCR and Western blotting were conducted to assess the effect of WEE1 inhibition on the expression of apoptotic (p53) and anti-apoptotic (Bcl2) factors and also a growth marker (VEGF). Results: The results showed that WEE1 inhibition could cause a significant decrease in the viability of both MCF7 and MDA-MB-468 breast cancer cell lines by more than 50%. Interestingly, DNA content assays showed a significant increase in apoptotic cells following WEE1 silencing. WEE1 inhibition also induced upregulation of the apoptotic marker, p53, in breast cancer cells. A significant decrease in the expression of VEGF and Bcl-2 was observed following WEE1 inhibition in both cell lines. Conclusions: In concordance with previous studies, our data showed that WEE1 inhibition could induce G2 arrest abrogation and consequent cell death in breast cancer cells. Moreover, in this study, the observed interactions between the pro- and anti-apoptotic proteins and decrease in the angiogenesis marker expression confirm the susceptibility to apoptosis and validate the tumor suppressive effect of WEE1 inhibition in breast cancer cells. Interestingly, the levels of the sensitivity to WEE1 silencing in breast cancer cells, MCF7 and MDA-MB468, seem to be in concordance with the level of p53 expression