Evaluation of scientific status of endocrine, diabetes, and metabolism research centers in Iran using exergy method

The aim of this study was to determine the scientific status of endocrine, diabetes and metabolism research centers in Iran using exergy method in terms of scientific publications indexed in the Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar database in 2013. This study is a cross-sectional one. The study population included 6 Iranian endocrine, diabetes and metabolism research centers. Data were collected by referring to the Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Education personally and also using the above-mentioned citation databases. Data were analyzed using Microsoft Excel and descriptive statistics. The results revealed that endocrine, diabetes and metabolism research centers of Shahid Beheshti and Tehran University of Medical Sciences were top centers in Iran in terms of the quality of scientific publications. Diabetes Research Center of Ahvaz University of Medical Sciences was found to have the weakest performance. This article is the results of the first study in Iran, regarding the evaluation of research centers by exergy analysis

La précarité d’emploi, la pluriactivité et la polyactivité chez les musiciens montréalais

Le travail des artistes en général, constitue un champ scientifique peu étudié en sciences sociales, particulièrement en ce qui a trait aux conditions d’effectuation du travail des musiciens. Cela explique notre raison d’étudier les conditions de travail des musiciens qui résident à Montréal. En effet, notre étude se base sur deux questions fondamentales, c’est-à-dire, la précarité de l’emploi oblige-t-elle les musiciens montréalais à opter pour un modèle de vie professionnel pluriactif et polyactif? Et quelle signification attribuent ces professionnels à cette pluriactivité et polyactivité? Ce projet se base sur deux axes. Le premier concerne la précarité d’emploi qui caractérise le marché du travail musical et le recours contraint à la pluriactivité et à la polyactivité, et le second axe concerne le recours des musiciens montréalais à ces deux phénomènes comme une stratégie et une opportunité professionnelle. L’incertitude quant à l’avenir professionnel et au revenu qui caractérise le travail des musiciens montréalais, joue un rôle important dans la précarisation du travail de ces professionnels. En effet, la précarité d’emploi est un facteur fondamental qui pousse ceux-ci vers un cumul d’emplois. En ce qui concerne la pluriactivité, celle-ci regroupe toutes les ressources de revenus du musicien venant des emplois artistiques liés à son champ d’expertise. En ce qui concerne la polyactivité, celle-ci regroupe toutes les activités qui sont en dehors de son champ d’expertise principal (artistique et non-artistique). Malgré la nature contrainte de ce modèle de vie pluriactif et polyactif, celui-ci présente une stratégie efficace face aux défis qui existent sur le marché du travail musical et aborde une opportunité de socialisation pour ces professionnels. Notre recherche étant de nature qualitative, nous optons pour une approche empirique exploratoire hybride. Nous avons réalisé dix entrevues semi-dirigées portant sur la vie professionnelle de nos participants.The work of artists in general constitutes a scientific field that has been under-researched in social sciences, particularly regarding the conditions under which musicians work. This explains our reason for studying the working conditions of musicians who reside in Montreal. Indeed, our study is based on two fundamental questions, that is to say, does the precariousness of employment among Montreal musicians force them to opt for pluriactivity and polyactivity in their professional life? And what significance do these professionals attribute to this pluriactivity and polyactivity? This project is based on two axes. The first concerns the precariousness of employment that characterizes the musical labor market and the forced recourse to pluriactivity and polyactivity, and the second axis concerns the recourse of Montreal musicians to these two phenomena as a strategy and a professional opportunity. The uncertainty about the professional future and the income that characterizes the work of Montreal musicians plays an important role in the precariousness of the work of these professionals. Indeed, job insecurity is a fundamental factor that pushes them towards multiple job holding. Regarding pluriactivity, this brings together all of the musician's income resources from artistic jobs linked to his field of expertise. As for polyactivity, this includes all activities that are outside of his main field of expertise (artistic and non-artistic). Despite the constrained nature of this pluriactive and polyactive model of professional life, it presents an effective strategy to face the challenges that exist in the musical labor market and addresses a socialization opportunity for these professionals. Our research follows a qualitative approach in which we opt for an exploratory and hybrid empirical technique. We have also conducted ten semi-structured interviews concerning the professional life of our participants.کار هنرمندان به طور کلی یک زمینه علمی است که در علوم اجتماعی ، خصوصاً با توجه به شرایط کاری موسیقی دانها ، به طور کمی مورد مطالعه قرار گرفته است. این امر دلیل ما را برای مطالعه شرایط کار نوازندگان ساکن مونترال توضیح می دهد. بدون شک، تحقیق ما بر دو سوال اساسی استوار است. به این معنا که آیا نا امنی شغلی در بین نوازندگان مونترآلی، آنها را مجبور به چندکاری می کند؟ و این که این‌چند کاری چه معنی برای این نوازنده ها دارد؟ این پروژه بر دو محوراستوار است. اولین مورد مربوط به ناامنی شغلی است که مشخصه بازار کار موسیقی دانان و توسل اجباری به چند فعالیتی می باشد و محور دوم مربوط به توسل موسیقیدانان مونترال به این پدیده به عنوان یک استراتژی و یک فرصت حرفه ای است. عدم اطمینان در مورد آینده شغلی و درآمد که ویژگی کار نوازندگان مونترال است ، نقش مهمی در به خطر افتادن کار این متخصصان دارد. در واقع ، عدم امنیت شغلی عاملی اساسی است که آنها را به سمت نگهداری چند شغلی سوق می دهد. چند شغلی این امکان را به نوازنده می دهد تا منابع مختلف درآمد را در اختیار داشته باشد که مرتبط با شغل اصلی وی به عنوان نوازنده می باشند. در مورد نوع دیگری از چند فعالیتی باید ذکر کرد که ، شامل کلیه فعالیتهایی است که خارج از حوزه اصلی تخصص نوازنده (هنری و غیر هنری) است. علیرغم ماهیت محدود کننده این مدل زندگی حرفه ای چندمنظوره و چند فعالیتی ، این یک استراتژی موثر برای مقابله با چالشهایی که در بازار کار موسیقی وجود دارد و همچنین فرصتی برای اجتماعی شدن این متخصصان به حساب می آید. تحقیق ما از یک رویکرد کیفی پیروی می کند که در آن ما یک روش تجربی اکتشافی را انتخاب می کنیم. ما همچنین ده مصاحبه نیمه ساخت یافته در مورد زندگی حرفه ای شرکت کنندگان خود انجام داده ایم

The Status of Knowledge Management in the Libraries of selected Medical Sciences Universities in Tehran: Using Bukowitz and Williams Model

Introduction: Libraries are considered to be an important link in the knowledge management chain at universities as the basis for gathering, processing, storing and distributing knowledge. So this research was done with the aim of investigating the knowledge management status in selected libraries of medical sciences universities in Tehran using the Beckowitz and William model. Methods: in term of goals, this research is Applicability and was conducted in descriptive way and scrolling method. A questionnaire was used to collect information that its validity was estimated by experts and its reliability was calculated by Cronbach's alpha. The Research community consisted of 153 managers and librarians of central and faculty libraries of Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Iran University of Medical Sciences and Shahid-beheshtie University of Medical Sciences Results: The results showed that the mean scores of knowledge management status in libraries of Tehran University of Medical Sciences were 144/85 and more than average.  Also between the components studied, the mean score for components of knowledge deployment, knowledge learning, knowledge sharing and knowledge removal were more than average, the knowledge creation / maintenance was average and knowledge assessment and finding knowledge were lower than average. Conclusion: The findings showed that the knowledge management selected libraries status of medical sciences universities in Tehran was desirable. Therefore, according to past research and comparison with them, it can be concluded that knowledge management in mentioned libraries progressing

Evaluation of scientific status of endocrine, diabetes, and metabolism research centers in Iran using exergy method

The aim of this study was to determine the scientific status of endocrine, diabetes and metabolism research centers in Iran using exergy method in terms of scientific publications indexed in the Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar database in 2013. This study is a cross-sectional one. The study population included 6 Iranian endocrine, diabetes and metabolism research centers. Data were collected by referring to the Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Education personally and also using the above-mentioned citation databases. Data were analyzed using Microsoft Excel and descriptive statistics. The results revealed that endocrine, diabetes and metabolism research centers of Shahid Beheshti and Tehran University of Medical Sciences were top centers in Iran in terms of the quality of scientific publications. Diabetes Research Center of Ahvaz University of Medical Sciences was found to have the weakest performance. This article is the results of the first study in Iran, regarding the evaluation of research centers by exergy analysis

Control and simulation of robotic swarms in heterogeneous environments

Simulation provides a low cost method of initial testing of control for robotic swarms. The expansion of robotic swarms to heterogeneous environments drives the need to model cooperative operation in those environments. The Autonomous Control Engineering center at The University of Texas at San Antonio is investigating methods of simulation techniques and simulation environments. This paper presents results from adapting simulation tools for diverse environments.<br /

Vitamin D and Musculoskeletal Status in Nova Scotian Women Who Wear Concealing Clothing

Bone and muscle weakness due to vitamin D deficiency is common among Muslim women who reside in sunny, equatorial countries. The purpose of this study was to determine if living in a northern maritime location additionally disadvantages women who wear concealing clothes. A cross-sectional matched pair design was used to compare women who habitually wore concealing clothing with women who dressed according to western norms. Each premenopausal hijab-wearing woman (n = 11) was matched by age, height, weight and skin tone with a western-dressed woman. Subjects were tested by hand grip dynamometry to assess muscular strength and by quantitative ultrasound at the calcaneus to assess bone status. Nutritional intake was obtained by 24 h recall. Serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (s-25(OH)D) status was determined in seven matched pairs. The hijab group had lower s-25(OH)D than women who wore western clothes (40 ± 28 vs. 81 ± 32 nmol/L, p= 0.01). Grip strength in the right hand was lower in the hijab-wearing women (p = 0.05) but this appeared to be due to less participation in intense exercise. Bone status did not differ between groups (p= 0.9). Dietary intake of vitamin D was lower in the hijab-wearers (316 ± 353 vs. 601 ± 341 IU/day, p= 0.001). This pilot study suggests that women living in a northern maritime location appear to be at risk for vitamin D insufficiency and therefore should consider taking vitamin D supplements

Clinical and Laboratory Findings in Iranian Children with Cyclic Neutropenia

Cyclic neutropenia is a rare immunodeficiency syndrome, characterized by regular periodic oscillations in the circulating neutrophil count from normal to neutropenic levels through 3 weeks period, and lasting for 3-6 days. In order to determine the clinical features of cyclic neutropenia, this study was performed. Seven patients with cyclic neutropenia (3 males and 4 females), who experienced neutropenic periods every 3 weeks (5 with severe and 2 with moderate neutropenia), were investigated in this study. They had been referred to Iranian Primary Immunodeficiency Registry during 23 years (1980-2003). The range of patients' ages was from 7 to 13 years (median 11 years). The median age at the onset of the disease was 12 months (1 month- 2 years) and the median age of diagnosis was 2 (1.5-5) years, with a median diagnosis delay of 1 year (2 months- 5 years). Neutropenia was associated with leukopenia (3 patients), anemia (3 patients), and thrombocytopenia (1 patient). Patients were asymptomatic in healthy phase, but during the episode of neutropenia suffered from aphthous ulcers, abscesses and overwhelming infections. The most commonly occurred manifestations were: otitis media (6 cases), oral ulcers (5 cases), abscesses (4 cases), pneumonia (3 cases), diarrhea (3 cases), oral candidiasis (3 cases), cutaneous infections (2 cases), and periodontitis (2 cases). One of these patients subsequently died because of recurrent infections. Unusual, persistent or severe infections should be the initiating factors to search for an immune deficiency syndrome such as cyclic neutropenia, because a delay in diagnosis may result in chronic infection, irretrievable end-organ damage or even death of the patient

Congenital hypothyroidism

Congenital hypothyroidism (CH) occurs in approximately 1:2,000 to 1:4,000 newborns. The clinical manifestations are often subtle or not present at birth. This likely is due to trans-placental passage of some maternal thyroid hormone, while many infants have some thyroid production of their own. Common symptoms include decreased activity and increased sleep, feeding difficulty, constipation, and prolonged jaundice. On examination, common signs include myxedematous facies, large fontanels, macroglossia, a distended abdomen with umbilical hernia, and hypotonia. CH is classified into permanent and transient forms, which in turn can be divided into primary, secondary, or peripheral etiologies. Thyroid dysgenesis accounts for 85% of permanent, primary CH, while inborn errors of thyroid hormone biosynthesis (dyshormonogeneses) account for 10-15% of cases. Secondary or central CH may occur with isolated TSH deficiency, but more commonly it is associated with congenital hypopitiutarism. Transient CH most commonly occurs in preterm infants born in areas of endemic iodine deficiency. In countries with newborn screening programs in place, infants with CH are diagnosed after detection by screening tests. The diagnosis should be confirmed by finding an elevated serum TSH and low T4 or free T4 level. Other diagnostic tests, such as thyroid radionuclide uptake and scan, thyroid sonography, or serum thyroglobulin determination may help pinpoint the underlying etiology, although treatment may be started without these tests. Levothyroxine is the treatment of choice; the recommended starting dose is 10 to 15 mcg/kg/day. The immediate goals of treatment are to rapidly raise the serum T4 above 130 nmol/L (10 ug/dL) and normalize serum TSH levels. Frequent laboratory monitoring in infancy is essential to ensure optimal neurocognitive outcome. Serum TSH and free T4 should be measured every 1-2 months in the first 6 months of life and every 3-4 months thereafter. In general, the prognosis of infants detected by screening and started on treatment early is excellent, with IQs similar to sibling or classmate controls. Studies show that a lower neurocognitive outcome may occur in those infants started at a later age (> 30 days of age), on lower l-thyroxine doses than currently recommended, and in those infants with more severe hypothyroidism