Short-course treatment in neurobrucellosis: A study in Iran

Neurobrucellosis is a rare neurological complication of brucellosis. This report describes 19 patients of neurobrucellosis and they accounted for 8% of all cases of brucellosis admitted to Shiraz University Hospitals over a period of eight years. Headache, fever, fatigue, drowsiness and neck stiffness were the common clinical features. Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) showed pleocytosis in 100%, elevated protein levels in 89% and low glucose level in 47% of the patients. All the patients improved with specific antibiotic treatment. Of the 19 patients, 10 (52.5%) patients received treatment for 8 to 28 weeks. Duration of antibiotic treatment was: 8-14 weeks in 8 (42%) patients; 24-28 weeks in 2 (10.5%) patients; 6 months in 7 (37%) patients; 12 months in 1 (5.3%) patient; and 18 months in 1 (5.3%) patient. Clinicians in endemic areas should consider the likelihood of neurobrucellosis in patients with unexplained neurological and psychiatric symptoms

Feature extraction and selection for Arabic tweets authorship authentication

© 2017, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg. In tweet authentication, we are concerned with correctly attributing a tweet to its true author based on its textual content. The more general problem of authenticating long documents has been studied before and the most common approach relies on the intuitive idea that each author has a unique style that can be captured using stylometric features (SF). Inspired by the success of modern automatic document classification problem, some researchers followed the Bag-Of-Words (BOW) approach for authenticating long documents. In this work, we consider both approaches and their application on authenticating tweets, which represent additional challenges due to the limitation in their sizes. We focus on the Arabic language due to its importance and the scarcity of works related on it. We create different sets of features from both approaches and compare the performance of different classifiers using them. We experiment with various feature selection techniques in order to extract the most discriminating features. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study of its kind to combine these different sets of features for authorship analysis of Arabic tweets. The results show that combining all the feature sets we compute yields the best results

Understanding the adoption of business analytics and intelligence

Cruz-Jesus, F., Oliveira, T., & Naranjo, M. (2018). Understanding the adoption of business analytics and intelligence. In Á. Rocha, H. Adeli, L. P. Reis, & S. Costanzo (Eds.), Trends and Advances in Information Systems and Technologies, pp. 1094-1103. (Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing; Vol. 745). Springer Verlag. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-77703-0_106Our work addresses the factors that influence the adoption of business analytics and intelligence (BAI) among firms. Grounded on some of the most prominent adoption models for technological innovations, we developed a conceptual model especially suited for BAI. Based on this we propose an instrument in which relevant hypotheses will be derived and tested by means of statistical analysis. We hope that the findings derived from our analysis may offer important insights for practitioners and researchers regarding the drivers that lead to BAI adoption in firms. Although other studies have already focused on the adoption of technological innovations by firms, research on BAI is scarce, hence the relevancy of our research.authorsversionpublishe

The study of establishment of rainbow trout culture and hatchery farms on Zayanderood’s River region in Caharmahal and Bakhtiyari Province

The aim of this study was to find the best location for establishment of rainbow trout culture and hatcheries farms on Zayanderood’s river region in Charmahal and Bakhtiyari province. This survey carried out over ten station along Zayanderood’s river. The result of physical and chemical analysis showd that the annual average of air temperature varied from 9.5oC - 10oC where the pH annual average value were between 7.5 and 8.8. the dissolve oxygen concentration in stations except in rainbow trout farm effluent were above 10 mg/l. the other chemical , pollutant as well as pesticides levels were under the limiting concentration for rainbow trout culture and Hatcheries activity. The plankton survey showed that the Bacillurophyta were the dominant group of phytoplankton where protozoa constituted the most abundant group of zooplankton the Benthic organisms sensitive to pollutant in particular Epirus were dominant group in all stations. In regard to fishes presence in river, five species of Ciprinidae, one species from Balitoridae and one species from salmonidae families were identified. The capacity for development of rainbow trout culture for tow phase period in Zayanderood’s river region with respect to self purification potential (self purification potential were determined from the oxidation of the effluent of the only active trout farm of the river region), minimum of 10 L/s water requirement for production of trout in concrete canal and pond system and 1 L/S water need for production in semi circular closed system were estimated to be 5202 metric tons

Evaluating the Implementation of Family Physician Program in Urban and Rural Areas of Mazandaran Province Based on Process Approach

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Assessing health systems paves the way for reforms in structures and processes to achieve better results. Therefore, the present study was conducted to evaluate the implementation of family physician program in urban and rural areas of Mazandaran province using process approach. METHODS: This cross-sectional study was conducted in 2017 among 238 managers, health experts and health insurance experts who were selected by census from 12 cities. Data were collected and evaluated using a researcher-made questionnaire with high validity and reliability, which evaluates urban and rural family physician program in three domains of structure, process and outcomes. FINDINGS: The mean score of the domain of structure (4.27±27.38), process (4.33±0.41) and outcomes (4.31±0.39) of rural family physician program was significantly higher than urban family physician program (p<0.001). In the urban family physician program, the most important dimension in the domain of structure was equipment (3.35±0.76), in the domain of process was care for non-communicable diseases (3.15±1.06) and in the domain of outcomes was reasonable prescription of medicine (3.07±1.02). In the rural family physician program, the most important dimension in the domain of structure was physical space (4.41±0.60) and in the dimensions of process and outcomes, the health of mothers and children (4.20±0.90) and the improvement of health promotion indicators (4.33±0.76) were more important, respectively. CONCLUSION: Based on the results of this study in three domains of structure, process and outcomes, the rural family physician program was relatively better than the urban family physician program

The Effects of Life Skills Training on Marital Satisfaction of Married Women: A Case Study in Dogonbadan, Iran

Background & Aim: Successful family relationships and marital satisfaction largely depends on couples’ awareness of their marital or parental roles. Marital relations training could provide adaptation with expected roles for both husband and wife. The main objective of the present study was to evaluate the effectiveness of life skills training on marital satisfaction in married women. Methods: The present quasi-experimental study which was carried out in 2010 examined fifty married women in Dogonbadan, Iran. The Enrich Marital Satisfaction Questionnaire and related demographic data which was collected prior and one year after training, were used for the study. T-test was used for data analysis. Results: The mean age, average number of children, and the average length of marriage were 35, 1.8, and 10.36 years respectively. The average of all scores was significantly different in pretest and post test (p<0.002). Also, the scores of personality objects (p<0.05), marital relationships (p<0.001), conflict resolution (p<0.001), and financial and economic monitoring (p<0.001) were significantly different. The differences in mean scores of subscales in relationship with relatives and friends, leisure activities, and marriage and children were not statistically significant. Conclusion: The results showed that marital skills' training is effective in improving the marital status and satisfaction, and also improved the quality of life among married couples

Analysis of the Results of Cardiovascular Disease Risk Assessment Program

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Risk assessment is one of the most important strategies in estimating the risk of cardiovascular disease and controlling the risk factors. In Iran, half of all deaths and 79% of deaths due to non-communicable diseases are attributed to cardiovascular diseases. The aim of this study was to analyze the results of cardiovascular disease risk assessment program in Mazandaran province. METHODS: This cross-sectional study was performed in 2019 on 600 patients referred to comprehensive health centers of Noor and Mahmoudabad cities in Mazandaran province. The data collection tool was a checklist containing the risk factors studied in the SIB system. Descriptive statistics such as mean, standard deviation, frequency and percentage as well as analytical statistical tests such as chi-square, regression and analysis of variance were used using SPSS software version 19. FINDINGS: The prevalence of risk factors for cardiovascular disease including history of diabetes, history of hypertension, obesity, high cholesterol, family history of diabetes and heart disease were 36.5%, 45.5%, 42.3%, 34.8%, 23.5% and 10%, respectively. The four variables of age, history of diabetes and hypertension, and blood cholesterol levels were significantly associated with the 10-year risk of cardiovascular disease. With increasing one year of age, the 10-year risk level increased by 15% (p<0.001), and by seven times in people with a history of diabetes (p<0.001) and increased by 83% in people with a history of high blood pressure compared to others individuals (p=0.022). CONCLUSION: The results of the study showed that in Mazandaran province, four variables of age, history of diabetes and hypertension and cholesterol levels are the most common factors that are associated with 10-year risk of cardiovascular disease

Effects of calcitonin nasal spray on serum bone resorptive marker CTX and other laboratory findings in osteopenic menopausal women: a clinical trial

Background: Various therapeutic options such as calcitonin have been suggested for patients with low bone density, despite uncertain efficacy in most patients. C-telopeptide of type I collagen (CTX) is a new bone marker used for the assessment of bone resorption. The aim of this study was to evaluate the therapeutic effects of nasal spray calcitonin in women with osteopenia via serum CTX and other laboratory tests. Methods: We conducted a self controlled clinical trial in 2009 on 105 women of menopausal age diagnosed in Baqiyatallah Hospital Clinic with osteopenia based on a bone mineral density score of 1.5 SD lower than peak bone mass. The patients were assigned to receive nasal spray calcitonin (200 IU/day), calcium (1000 mg/day) and Vit-D (400 IU/day) for 6 months. Serum CTX and other laboratory parameters were measured before and after the treatment. The data were analyzed by SPSS, version 17, using t-tests and a P<0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: Fifty-two patients completed the study and the mean CTX level decreased significantly from 3.10±2.03 to 2.61±1.82 pmol/lit (P<0.001), but total serum levels of PTH, Ca, AST, ALT and Alkaline Ph decreased insignificantly. Conclusion: It seems that nasal spray of calcitonin is significantly effective in preventing disease progression and treatment of low bone density by inhibiting bone tissue resorption indicated by CTX although further studies with larger samples sizes and inclusion of control groups are warranted