Sensitivity and Specificity of Procalcitonin in Diagnosis of Neonatal Sepsis

Background and Objective: According to the fact that neonatal infection is a challenging diagnosis field, several studies have tried to test sensitivity and specificity of diagnostic tests. This study was conducted to evaluate the sensitivity and specificity of procalcitonin (PCT) as a single early marker of neonatal sepsis. Materials and Methods: In this study, 150 neonates admitted to NICU and neonatal ward in Shahrekord Hajar hospital were enrolled. A full workup including blood cultureand other tests and PCT was conductede. Sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values for PCT was determined. Results: It was found out that 8 patients had definite infection, 15 patients had possible infection, and 127 patients had no infection. Although PCT was not able to significantly differentiate between those with definite and possible infections (p>0.05), but there was a significant difference for frequency of abnormal PCT between non-infectious patients and other patients. Sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values of PCT was 87.5%, 87.4%, 30.4%, 99.1%, and 87.41% respectively. Conclusion: Beside the limitation of the sample size, the satisfactory diagnostic characteristics of PCT highlight it as a good measure for diagnosis of neonatal sepsis. Further studies are essential to be carried out

The role of personal and social characteristics on acceptance of new telephone banking services

For over two decades, telephone banking has steadily become a useful feature and all banks have tried to provide this feature as part of their services. In this paper, we present an empirical investigation to study the role of personal and social characteristics on acceptance of new telephone banking services. The proposed study designs two questionnaires and distributes them among 384 randomly selected people who use telephone banking in city of Tehran, Iran. Using structural equation modeling, the study examines various hypotheses and the results of our survey indicate that there were some positive and meaningful relationships between perception usefulness and users’ attitude, perception and ease of use, perception and intention to use as well as perception and intention to use. In addition, the study has detected a negative and meaningful relationship between personal risk and intention to use and perception of personal time and intention to use among mobile users

Formal Specification, Verification and Repair of Contiki\u27s Scheduler

This article presents an approach for model extraction, formal specification, verification, and repair of the scheduler of Contiki, which is an event-driven lightweight operating system for the Internet of Things (IoT). We first derive a state machine-based abstraction of the scheduler\u27s modes of operation along with the control flow abstractions of the scheduler\u27s most important functions. We then use a set of transformation rules to formally specify the scheduler and all its internal functions in Promela. Additional contributions with respect to the conference version of this article include (1) modeling nested function calls in the Promela model of the scheduler using a novel technique amenable to model checking in SPIN; (2) modeling protothreads in Promela; (3) specifying and formally verifying 12 critical requirements of the scheduler; (4) detecting new design flaws in Contiki\u27s scheduler for the first time (to the best of our knowledge); (5) repairing the model and the source code of Contiki\u27s scheduler towards fixing the flaws detected through verification, as well as regression verification of the entire model of the scheduler; and (6) experimentally analyzing the time and space costs of verification before and after repair. The proposed formal model of Contiki\u27s scheduler along with novel modeling techniques enhance our knowledge regarding the most critical components of Contiki and provide reusable methods for formal specification and verification of other event-driven operating systems used in Cyber Physical Systems (CPSs) and the IoT

A Promela Model for Contiki\u27s Scheduler

This paper presents a formal model for the scheduler of Contiki, which is an event-driven lightweight Operating System for the Internet of Things (IoT). The proposed formal model enhances our knowledge regarding the most critical components of Contiki, namely its process and event queues, and its scheduler. We first derive a state machine-based abstraction of the scheduler\u27s modes of operation along with the control flow abstractions of the scheduler\u27s most important functions. We then use a set of transformation rules to generate the formal specifications of the scheduler in Promela. The generated Promela model enables simulation and verification of the scheduler in the SPIN model checker, which makes the proposed model a valuable artifact for researchers, educators and developers of Contiki. We also report on some design flaws we discovered during model extraction, simulation and verification. The contributions of this paper can readily be extended to other lightweight event-driven operating systems for Cyber Physical Systems (CPS) and IoT

Analysis of Scientific–Executive Capability and Up-to-date of Iran's Parliament Approvals in Drought Crisis Management

Drought is one of the most complex and at the same time most underrated phenomena compared to other natural disasters, yet it has had drastic, and sometimes catastrophic, effects on essential human activities across the world since ancient times. Drought is a slow-moving hazard with negative social and environmental consequences. Crisis management is part of the drought management cycle. In Iran, crisis management is the primary strategy adopted against this crisis, and consists of a spectrum of related regulations that codify the responsibilities of every organization, institution, and people from all walks of life against drought. One of the main flaws in crisis management is the absence of suitable laws and regulations and their proper execution. This study aims to review drought crisis management focusing on parliament approvals. The study results showed that there are no comprehensive and exclusive regulations against drought in Iran. There were also certain challenges associated with the implementation of these laws. This study can help reduce vulnerabilities and improve coordination in the management of drought crisis

Investigating the effect of different green marketing on brand loyalty

Green marketing plays important role on developing different business plans without harming environment. Green marketing may also help us find more loyal customers since many people do care about taking care of environment and prefer purchasing only green products and services. In this paper, we present an empirical investigation to find the effect of different green strategies on brand loyalty. The proposed study designs a questionnaire and distributes it among 384 randomly selected people who purchase various brands in city of Tehran, Iran. The gathered data are analyzed using structural equation modeling and the results indicate that different green marketing strategies including green pricing, green promotion, green distribution positively influence brand loyalty

Biological function and molecular mechanism of piRNA in cancer

Cancer is the second leading cause of death globally. piRNAs, which are a novel type of identified small noncoding RNA (ncRNA), play a crucial role in cancer genomics. In recent years, a relatively large number of studies have demonstrated that several piRNA are aberrantly expressed in various kinds of cancers including gastric cancer, bladder cancer, breast cancer, colorectal cancer and Lung cancer and may probably serve as a novel therapeutic target and biomarker for cancer treatment. The present review summarized current advances in our knowledge of the roles of piRNAs in cancer. Keywords: Cancer, PiRNA, Noncoding RNA, Gene silencing, RNA