Investigating the Effect of Modafinil on Marked Brain Regions’ Functional Connectivity While Resting in Young, Healthy Individuals, Using Variance Component Longitudinal Model

Introduction: In recent years, investigating the differences in Functional Connectivity (FC) network in different brain regions in Functional Magnetic Resonance Imagining (fMRI) has appealed to neurological researchers. Examining the functional connectivity differences between two groups can assist in improving neurological disorders cure. The present study explores the differences in functional connectivity between two groups, one using Modafinil and the other placebo, as to consider the impact of this medicine, concerning functional connectivity of regions of interests among young, healthy people. Materials and Methods: Data was downloaded from website "Open fMRI." Downloaded data included 26 young, healthy men with no history of mental disease. They are divided into two groups of 13. The first group received 100 mgr Modafinil, and the second group 100mgr placebo. Three scans were taken from each group during the time. The data were analyzed through a longitudinal model, using a variance component. Results: Exploring the functional connectivity difference between the two groups, using intervention and placebo in the baseline effect did not show a significant statistical difference, but investigating the functional connectivity difference between the two groups in longitudinal trends showed a significant statistical difference in Inter-Hemispheric and Right- Brainstem. Conclusion: According to the present study's findings, Modafinil did not increase functional connectivity in most investigated regions.   &nbsp

The effect of nutrition education on knowledge, attitude and practice of type 1 diabetic patients from Aligoodarz

چکیده: زمینه و هدف: مراقبت های پزشکی- تغذیه ای در بیماران مبتلا به دیابت از بروز و پیشرفت عوارض جلوگیری می کند. یافته های متناقضی در زمینه تأثیر آگاهی بر بهبود کنترل متابولیک بیماران مبتلا به دیابت نوع 1 وجود دارد. این بررسی با هدف تعیین تأثیر آموزش تغذیه بر آگاهی، نگرش و عملکرد مبتلایان به دیابت نوع 1 انجام شد. روش بررسی: در یک مطالعه مداخله ای قبل و بعد کلیه بیماران مبتلا به دیابت نوع 1 شهرستان الیگودرز (30 نفر) مورد بررسی قرار گرفتند. در شروع مطالعه فراسنج های بیوشیمیایی با روش های استاندارد اندازه گیری و پرسشنامه KAP (Knowledge Attitude Practices) سپس یاد آمد خوراک سه روزه، تکمیل گردید. بیماران به مدت 12 ساعت در زمینه کلیات بیماری دیابت، عوارض آن، نحوه پیشگیری و مراقبت های لازم جهت به تأخیر انداختن عوارض و تغذیه در بیماری دیابت و جانشین های مواد غذایی آموزش دیدند و سه ماه بعد از آموزش مجدداً فراسنج های بیوشیمیایی اندازه گیری و پرسشنامه KAP و یادآمد خوراک تکمیل شد و داده های قبل و بعد از آموزش مقایسه شدند. داده ها با استفاده از نرم افزارهای SPSS و Nuatritionist3 و آزمون های آماری t مزدوج و مک نمار تجزیه و تحلیل شدند. یافته ها: نتایج این مطالعه نشان داد که آموزش، تغییر معنی داری در میانگین وزن، نمایه توده بدنی (BMI)، فشــارخون سیستولیک و دیاستولیک، میزان مصرف انرژی و درشت مغذی ها ایجاد نکرد (05/0p>)، ولی باعث کاهش معنی داری در میزان قند خون ناشتا، کلسترول تام، درصد هموگلوبین گلیکوزیله (HbAlc)، LDL (Low Density Lipoprotein) سرم و تعداد دفعات هیپوگلیسمی در هفته گردید (001/0

Reliability of functional connectivity in resting-state functional MRI

     Functional MRI is a noninvasive method in brain imaging. Localization, classification, prediction and connectivity are the most common issues. Functional connectivity is a branch of fMRI that focuses on connectivity between voxels and ROIs. There are several methods for investigating functional connectivity such as correlation analysis. In any field, it is very important that results of any research have reliability according to the experiment. Any methods and measurement instruments need to be reliable. Without reliability, results are meaningless and our research is not trustworthy. Brain imaging can be used as a valuable tool for pre-surgical planning, so the results should be highly reproducible. Test-retest reliability can be explored using the intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC). I2C2 is an extent of ICC to verify the reliability in high-dimensional data as imaging studies. 13 subjects of test-retest resting-state fMRI are used to investigate reliability. I2C2 of four ROIs are also computed (Caudate, Cingulate, Cuneus and Precentral regions). Functional connectivity is found to have moderate reliability ranging 0.6244 to 0.6941. 95% confidence interval of I2C2 is calculated by nonparametric bootstrap in which CI of Caudate region I2C2 has the shortest length.

Spatial analysis of CO and PM10 pollutants in Tehran city

     Nowadays, air pollution in cities with regard to its harmful outcomes has been turned into one of the serious challenges in urban management. Pollutants as Carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and the aerosols that are known to be among the most important factors related to heart, vascular, and lung disease, have underlined public welfare and health, and the organizations concerned with community health undertake remarkable expenses for disease coming out of these pollutants per year. Awareness of the air situation and its quality over periods and the process of air pollutants’ changes in locations, and especially detection of high risk places can play an important and efficient role in urban health management and land use policy-making. In this paper, for the prediction of the possibility of occurring a pollutant in different locations, based on location information, one modern method of analysis entitled indicator kriging method is introduced. Since, nowadays, CO and PM10 are the two major pollutants in Tehran city, using the mentioned method, the probability of occurrence of each of them in Dey 1390 along with their accuracy is being measured and then a map is provided for the possible occurrence of these pollutants over the whole city of Tehran. 

Assessment of care offered to the healthy newborn in the natural normal vaginal delivery and the cesarean section

Background and aims: Care services to infants in the length of primary time after birth has much effect on the health and decrease of their mortality and morbidity. This study aimed to assess the care provided to the healthy newborn in the normal vaginal delivery (NVD) and the cesarean section (CS) in the hospitals affiliated with Shahrekord University of Medical Sciences. Methods: This descriptive study has been performed upon 282 healthy term infants (104 CS and 178 NVD cases) through direct observation and using the health care evaluation checklists. Data were analyzed using , SPSS software and t-test and Mann- Whitney tests. Results: The average of total health infant services among all of the samples was 58/3% and the percentage of agreement with standard of healthy infants care was more in NVD than CS labor (P=0.011). The emergency acts to retrieve and supporting services to feed infants with mothers’ milk in the CS group were more than NVD infants, but these infants received poor care in the area of primary procedures and assessment, and procedures to contact to mothers and infant. Also, the length of skin contact time between infants and their mothers after delivery and initiating to feed infants with mothers’ milk in the primary time in the CS group was lower than NVD infants(P=0.000). Conclusion: Assessment of care services to healthy infants in hospitals under study had average quality and its quality was even lower in CS labors than NVD labors. Therefore, it can be performed more procedures to promote quality of care services to infants by health approaches in mothers education to develop NVD and reduce active CS

The effects of low intensity aerobic exercise on blood pressur

چکیده: زمینه و هدف: کاهش فعالیتهای جسمی (کم تحرکی) و پرفشاری خون هر دو از عوامل خطر در ایجاد بیماریهای قلبی و عروقی و سکته های مغزی می باشند. کنترل فشارخون در محدوده طبیعی می تواند از ایجاد این عوارض پیشگیری کند یا آنها را به تعویق اندازد. استفاده از روشهای غیر دارویی یکی از اقدامات مهم در کنترل فشارخون می باشد. این مطالعه با هدف بررسی تأثیر ورزش پیاده روی با شدت پایین بر فشارخون کارمندان مبتلا به پرفشاری خون اولیه، انجام شد. روش بررسی: پژوهش حاضر یک مطالعه نیمه تجربی است که در آن 36 کارمند مبتلا به پرفشاری خون اولیه مراجعه کننده به مراکز بهداشتی درمانی شهر بروجن در یک برنامه ورزشی پیاده روی با شدت پایین به مدت 4 هفته، هر هفته 3 بار و هر بار به مدت 30-20 دقیقه شرکت کردند. سرعت پیاده روی در حدی تعیین شد که ضربان قلب در محدوده 60-50 درصد حداکثر ضربان قلب باشد. قبل از ورود به برنامه ورزشی، بلافاصله بعد از آن و یک هفته بعد متغیرهای پژوهش (فشارخون، نبض، وزن و شاخص توده بدنی) مورد اندازه گیری قرار گرفتند. داده ها با استفاده از آزمونهای آماری t زوجی و آنالیز واریانس با اندازه گیری‌های مکرر تجزیه و تحلیل شدند. یافته ها: میانگین سنی واحدهای مورد پژوهش 5±13/46 سال بود. قبل و پس از مداخله به ترتیب میانگین فشارخون سیستولیک 12±04/150 و 11±5/149 (05/0p>)، فشارخون دیاستولیک 6±6/88 و 5±6/84 (001/0

Exploring the Perceptions and Experiences of Women with Gestational Diabetes Regarding Their Sexual Function: A Qualitative Study

Background & aim: Gestational diabetes is is associated with some degree of sexual dysfunction in women. Therefore, this study aimed to explore the perceptions and experiences of women with gestational diabetes regarding their sexual function.Methods: This study was a qualitative research using the conventional content analysis approach and was conducted from April to December 2020 in Mazandaran Province, Iran. The participants included 15 women with gestational diabetes, six key individuals, and two husbands of women with gestational diabetes who were selected using a purposive sampling. The data were collected through in-depth semi-structured interviews. The content analysis approach was used based on the Graneheim and Lundman (2004) method. Guba and Lincoln's criteria including credibility, transferability, confirmability, and dependability were applied to achieve trustworthiness. MAXQDA10 software was used for data management.Results: Data analysis illustrated four themes: "sexual problems in women with gestational diabetes", "worries and problems caused by gestational diabetes", "non-comprehensive services", and " need to empower the individuals and significant others ". Conclusion: Worries and problems caused by gestational diabetes that develop in women who receive inappropriate and non-comprehensive services can affect their sexual function. Therefore the supportive role of health care providers and significant others are necessary to empower the patients to overcome their sexual problems

The impact of vitamin D changes during pregnancy on the development of maternal adverse events: A random forest analysis

Background: Maternal vitamin D deficiency during pregnancy has been associated with various maternal adverse events (MAE). However, the evidence regarding the effect of vitamin D supplementation on these outcomes is still inconclusive. Methods: This secondary analysis utilized a case–control design. 403 samples with MAE and 403 samples without any outcomes were selected from the Khuzestan Vitamin D Deficiency Screening Program in Pregnancy study. Random forest (RF) analysis was used to evaluate the effect of maternal vitamin D changes during pregnancy on MAE. Results: The results showed that women who remained deficient (35.2%) or who worsened from sufficient to deficient (30.0%) had more MAE than women who improved (16.4%) or stayed sufficient (11.8%). The RF model had an AUC of 0.74, sensitivity of 72.6%, and specificity of 69%, which indicate a moderate to high performance for predicting MAE. The ranked variables revealed that systolic blood pressure is the most important variable for MAE, followed by diastolic blood pressure and vitamin D changes during pregnancy. Conclusion: This study provides evidence that maternal vitamin D changes during pregnancy have a significant impact on MAE. Our findings suggest that monitoring and treatment of vitamin D deficiency during pregnancy may be a potential preventive strategy for reducing the risk of MAE. The presented RF model had a moderate to high performance for predicting MAE

Prediction of low birth weight using Random Forest: A comparison with Logistic Regression

Low birth weight (neonate weighing less than 2500 g) is associated with several maternal and fetal factors, all interrelated with each other [1]. This study is aimed to survey maternal risk factors associated with low birth weight neonates using data mining (Random Forest) to account for interactions between them. We also intended to compare Random Forest with traditional Logistic regression. The dataset used in the present study consisted of 600 volunteer pregnant women.  This cross-sectional study was carried out in Milad hospital, Tehran, during 2005-2009. Ten potential risk factors that are commonly associated with low birth weight were selected by using Random Forest technique. Several criteria such as the area under ROC curve were considered in comparing Random Forest with Logistic Regression.According to both criteria, four top rank variables identified by Random Forest were pregnancy age, body mass index during the third three months of pregnancy, mother’s age and body mass index during the first three months of pregnancy, respectively. In addition, in terms of different criteria the Random Forest technique outperformed the Logistic regression (area under ROC curve: 93% ; Total Accuracy:95% ; Kappa Coefficient: 66%).The results of the present study showed that using Random Forest improved the prediction of low birth weight compared with Logistic Regression. This is because of the fact that the former accounts for all interactions between covariates. Therefore, this approach is a promising classifier for predicting low birth weight

Relationship between Structural and Intermediary Determinants of Health and Preterm Delivery

Abstract Background: Preterm birth is a major health problem that leads to infant morbidity and mortality. The main goal of this study was to find the relationship between social determinants of health and preterm delivery. Methods: A prospective longitudinal cohort study was carried out on 500 pregnant women in their 24th to 28th gestational weeks in 2012. The pregnant women filled out a self-report questionnaire on the structural determinant, perceived stress, and perceived social support. The participants were followed up until labor and the data about mother and the newborn were collected after labor. The data were analyzed by SPSS 21 and Lisrel 8.8 software programs using pathway analysis. Results: The final path model fit well (CFI=0.96; RMSEA=0.060). Path analysis showed that among structural factors, income had a direct effect (β=0.06) and the factors of income (β=0.00594), number of children (family size) (β=-0.024), as well as mother's education (β=-0.0084) had the greatest overall effect on gestational age at birth respectively. Also, the results showed that among intermediate factors of social determinants of health, stress in the direct path (β=-0.12) and among the overall effects, the perceived stress (β=-0.12) and perceived social support (β=0.0396) affected the gestational age at birth. Conclusion: The current study showed that some structural and intermediary determinants such as income and perceived stress had an effect on preterm labor