The relationship between spiritual intelligence and taking responsibility with life quality

Spiritual intelligence as one of the new concepts of intelligence includes a type of adaptability and behavior of problem solving which has the highest levels of growth in different domains of cognitive, moral, emotional, interpersonal etc. and helps out the person for coordination with the surrounding phenomena and achieving internal and external integration as well as enforcement of the spiritual intelligence which is equal with obedience of God which improves the social behavior and taking responsibility. The aim of this research is determining the relationship between spiritual intelligence and responsibility with life quality of students. The population under study includes all the male students studying in guidance schools of the city of Tehran in educational year of 2012-2013 and with the use of multistage sampling method 300 students have been chosen as research sample. For this purpose, in the first stage, Tehran city has been divided into three geographical regions of North, South and Center. In the second stage, for each geographical region one educational region has been selected and in the third stage from each educational region 2 high schools have been selected and in the fourth stage from each high school five class and finally from each class 10 student have been selected randomly. For data collection, 3 standard and normalized questionnaires including King’s spiritual intelligence (2008), life quality questionnaire (SF36) of Warosherbon (2001) as well as the responsibility questionnaire of Kordloo (2010) have been used. For data analysis descriptive statistics and inferential statistics (regression analysis test) have been used. In addition to confirmation of the research hypotheses, the research results indicate that among the subscales of the spiritual intelligence, transcendental awareness have a larger share in explaining life quality of the students, such that as the transcendental awareness the influence it has on life quality increases as well and results in an increase in life quality. In addition to this, among the subscales of taking responsibility, feeling of responsibility has a larger share in explaining the life quality of the students, such that as the feeling of responsibility increases the life quality increases as well. In addition to this, other subscales of taking responsibility including feeling of security, self-esteem, feeling of belonging and taking responsibility also have positive effect on life quality of the students

Risk management, signal processing and econometrics: A new tool for forecasting the risk of disease outbreaks

This paper takes a novel approach for forecasting the risk of disease emergence by combining risk management, signal processing and econometrics to develop a new forecasting approach. We propose quantifying risk using the Value at Risk criterion and then propose a two staged model based on Multivariate Singular Spectrum Analysis and Quantile Regression (MSSA-QR model). The proposed risk measure (PLVaR) and forecasting model (MSSA-QR) is used to forecast the worst cases of waterborne disease outbreaks in 22 European and North American countries based on socio-economic and environmental indica- tors. The results show that the proposed method perfectly forecasts the worst case scenario for less com- mon waterborne diseases whilst the forecasting of more common diseases requires more socio-economic and environmental indicators

Alignment and clustering of phylogenetic markers - implications for microbial diversity studies

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Molecular studies of microbial diversity have provided many insights into the bacterial communities inhabiting the human body and the environment. A common first step in such studies is a survey of conserved marker genes (primarily 16S rRNA) to characterize the taxonomic composition and diversity of these communities. To date, however, there exists significant variability in analysis methods employed in these studies.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Here we provide a critical assessment of current analysis methodologies that cluster sequences into operational taxonomic units (OTUs) and demonstrate that small changes in algorithm parameters can lead to significantly varying results. Our analysis provides strong evidence that the species-level diversity estimates produced using common OTU methodologies are inflated due to overly stringent parameter choices. We further describe an example of how semi-supervised clustering can produce OTUs that are more robust to changes in algorithm parameters.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our results highlight the need for systematic and open evaluation of data analysis methodologies, especially as targeted 16S rRNA diversity studies are increasingly relying on high-throughput sequencing technologies. All data and results from our study are available through the JGI FAMeS website <url>http://fames.jgi-psf.org/</url>.</p

1-Benzyl-2-(4-chloro­phen­yl)-4,5-di­phenyl-1H-imidazole

The mol­ecular conformation of the title compound, C28H21ClN2, is stabilized by an intra­molecular C—H⋯N hydrogen bond. It has many pharmacological properties, such as being an inhibitor of P38 MAP Kinase, and can play an important role in biochemical processes

Trend of cigarette smoking in Iranian adult population from 2000 to 2011 based on four national surveys

Background: Tobacco smoking has been a major health concern for many years. People's awareness of the potential health hazards and government policies might change its pattern and prevalence of use. In order to monitor its conversion, determining the overall pattern of tobacco use and trend analyses would be crucial, which were aimed in the present study. Methods: Patterns of smoking in four national surveys conducted in years 2000, 2005, 2007, and 2011 with 33300, 89337, 5287, and 8837 participants, respectively, were assessed. Current status of cigarette, pipe and water-pipe smoking, the number of cigarettes used per day, and the age of smoking initiation were major parameters. After weighting based on province, residential area, gender, and age group, trend analysis was done through complex samples general linear model using IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 20.0. The values in the first survey (2000) were considered as reference points and categories. Results: While current cigarette smoking prevalence has been decreased (13.5% in 2000 to 11.3% in 2011) P&lt;0.001, the average of pack-years increased. There was no significant decline in the mean age of initiation. It is also true for the prevalence of pipe and water-pipe smoking, which showed no noticeable difference compared to 2000. Conclusion: According to our findings it seems that health policy makers should focus more on designing programs targeting water-pipe consumption and also pay attention to the trends among subgroups for tailoring policies and scheme implementation

Distributions of High-Sensitivity C-Reactive Protein, Total Cholesterol-HDL Ratio and 10-Year Cardiovascular Risk: National Population-Based Study

The present study aimed to evaluate the distributions of High-Sensitivity C-reactive protein, TC-HDL ratio and 10-year risk of cardiovascular diseases among Iranian adult population. We conducted a cross-sectional study on a total of 2125 adults aged 25 to 65. Data of the Third National Surveillance of Risk Factors of Non-Communicable Diseases (SuRFNCD-2007) was used. Anthropometric indices, blood pressure and biochemical measurements had been obtained. Ten-year risk of cardiovascular events was also calculated using different models. Median (interquartile range) and geometric means (95% CI) of hs-CRP were 5.1(3.9) and 4.1(4.38-4.85), respectively. Mean TC-HDL ratio±(SD) was 5.94±2.84 in men and 5.37±1.97 in women (P<0.001). In spite of risk scores (FRS and SCORE), no significant gender and age-related differences were observed in hs-CRP levels. Exclusion of CRP levels≥10 did not change the results. The proportion of high-risk categories using SCORE and FRS models were 3.6 % and 8.8 %, respectively. In comparison with other published data, greater means and median values of High-Sensitivity C-reactive protein were observed. Higher TC-HDL ratio and cardiovascular risk in men than in women were also demonstrated. The issue of screening for cardiovascular diseases has yet to be addressed due to considerable prevalence of elevated CRP and increased risk of cardiovascular events among various subgroups

Design, synthesis and biological evaluation of novel coumarin-based benzamides as potent histone deacetylase inhibitors and anticancer agents

Histone deacetylases (HDACs) are attractive therapeutic targets for the treatment of cancer and other diseases. It has four classes (I-IV), among them especially class I isozyme are involved in promoting tumor cells proliferation, angiogenesis, differentiation, invasion and metastasis and also viable targets for cancer therapeutics. A novel series of coumarin-based benzamides was designed and synthesized as HDAC inhibitors. The cytotoxic activity of the synthesized compounds (8a-u) was evaluated against six human cancer cell lines including HCT116, A2780, MCF7, PC3, HL60 and A549 and a single normal cell line (Huvec). We evaluated their inhibitory activities against pan HDAC and HDAC1 isoform. Four compounds (8f, 8q, 8r and 8u) showed significant cytotoxicity with IC50 in the range of 0.53–57.59 μM on cancer cells and potent pan-HDAC inhibitory activity (consists of HDAC isoenzymes) (IC50 = 0.80–14.81 μM) and HDAC1 inhibitory activity (IC50 = 0.47–0.87 μM and also, had no effect on Huvec (human normal cell line) viability (IC50 > 100 μM). Among them, 8u displayed a higher potency for HDAC1 inhibition with IC50 value of 0.47 ± 0.02 μM near equal to the reference drug Entinostat (IC50 = 0.41 ± 0.06 μM). Molecular docking studies and Molecular dynamics simulation of compound 8a displayed possible mode of interaction between this compound and HDAC1enzym