Comparison of the health indicators of the state health sites and health indicators which have been outsourced to private sector healt facility south of Tehran, Iran in 2009

Background and aim: After 4 years of delegating health services to private health centers in south of Tehrant, it is necessary to evaluate reaching the goals. The aim of this study was to examine the outcomes of delegating health service to private sector via comparing the private sector with governmental ones. Methods: In this analytical study, 2 sites from the number of non-governmental sites were chosen and checked and its health indicators were addressed. A form was used to collect data from the findings of these paper-based information services units and data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and χ 2 test in the minitab software. Results: Among the health indicators of children, those that were related to infants under 2 months and 5-year children were more favorable in private sector and those differences were statistically significant (P<0.05). In other children age groups, the public sector indicators were more favorable (P<0.05). In addition, the coverage of family planning programs and under 1- year vaccination were significantly lower in private sector (P<0.05). But, maternal care was significantly igher in private sector (P<0.05). h Conclusion: According to the results of this study, it seems necessary to promote the programs related to under 5-year care and family planning and vaccination. So, financial regulations with the aim of improving service delivery seems essential

Generating Information-Diverse Microwave Speckle Patterns Inside a Room at a Single Frequency With a Dynamic Metasurface Aperture

We demonstrate that dynamic metasurface apertures (DMAs) are capable of generating a multitude of highly uncorrelated speckle patterns in a typical residential environment at a single frequency. We use a DMA implemented as an electrically-large cavity excited by a single port and loaded with many individually-addressable tunable metamaterial radiators. We placed such a DMA in one corner of a plywood-walled L-shape room transmitting microwave signals at 19 GHz as we changed the tuning states of the metamaterial radiators. In another corner, in the non-line-of-sight of the DMA, we conducted a scan of the field generated by the DMA. For comparison, we also performed a similar test where the DMA was replaced by a simple dipole antenna with fixed pattern but generating a signal that spanned 19-24 GHz. Using singular value decomposition of the scanned data, we demonstrate that the DMA can generate a multitude of highly uncorrelated speckle patterns at a single frequency. In contrast, a dipole antenna with a fixed pattern can only generate such a highly uncorrelated set of patterns when operating over a large bandwidth. The experimental results of this paper suggest that DMAs can be used to capture a diversity of information at a single frequency which can be used for single frequency computational imaging systems, NLOS motion detection, gesture recognition systems, and more

Effects of salicylic acid application on two almond cultivars under salinity stress

The effects of salinity stress on the physiological processes and biochemical compounds of plants were reported. Salicylic acid (SA), as one of the main phytohormones, is a signal molecule that alleviates the negative influences of salinity. This study was conducted to investigate the protective role of SA in improving the salinity tolerance of two almond cultivars. Two almond cultivars (\u27Tuono\u27 and \u27Sahand\u27) grafted on the GN (Garnem) rootstock were exposed to different levels of salinity stress (0, 2, 6 and 8 dS·m-1) and treated with SA (0, 1 and 2 mM). The results showed that salinity stress significantly reduced the plant height, Fv/Fm, protein and total phenolic content (TPC), whereas Na and Cl content in roots, proline content and antioxidant enzymes activities, including superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), ascorbate peroxidase (APX), guaiacol peroxidase (POD) and glutathione peroxidase (GPX), significantly increased in response to salinity stress. Rootstock and scion diameter, and also leaves number of selected shoots significantly increased at 2 and 6 dS·m-1 of salinity, and then significantly decreased at 8 dS·m-1 of salinity. Furthermore, it was found SA treatment significantly alleviated the negative effects of salinity by enhancing morphological characteristics, Fv/Fm, accumulation of Na and Cl in roots, proline content, protein and TPC and also by enhancing the SOD, CAT, APX, POD and GPX activities. Taken together, the results showed that \u27Sahand\u27 cultivar treated with SA had a better response to salinity stress compared with \u27Tuono\u27 cultivar. Therefore, the use of \u27Sahand\u27 cultivar and application of SA could be recommended as a practical tool under salinity conditions

Experimental Synthetic Aperture Radar with Dynamic Metasurfaces

We investigate the use of a dynamic metasurface as the transmitting antenna for a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging system. The dynamic metasurface consists of a one-dimensional microstrip waveguide with complementary electric resonator (cELC) elements patterned into the upper conductor. Integrated into each of the cELCs are two diodes that can be used to shift each cELC resonance out of band with an applied voltage. The aperture is designed to operate at K band frequencies (17.5 to 20.3 GHz), with a bandwidth of 2.8 GHz. We experimentally demonstrate imaging with a fabricated metasurface aperture using existing SAR modalities, showing image quality comparable to traditional antennas. The agility of this aperture allows it to operate in spotlight and stripmap SAR modes, as well as in a third modality inspired by computational imaging strategies. We describe its operation in detail, demonstrate high-quality imaging in both 2D and 3D, and examine various trade-offs governing the integration of dynamic metasurfaces in future SAR imaging platforms

Systematic Physics-Compliant Analysis of Over-the-Air Channel Equalization in RIS-Parametrized Wireless Networks-on-Chip

Wireless networks-on-chip (WNoCs) are an enticing complementary interconnect technology for multi-core chips but face severe resource constraints. Being limited to simple on-off-keying modulation, the reverberant nature of the chip enclosure imposes limits on allowed modulation speeds in sight of inter-symbol interference, casting doubts on the competitiveness of WNoCs as interconnect technology. Fortunately, this vexing problem was recently overcome by parametrizing the on-chip radio environment with a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS). By suitably configuring the RIS, selected channel impulse responses (CIRs) can be tuned to be (almost) pulse-like despite rich scattering thanks to judiciously tailored multi-bounce path interferences. However, the exploration of this "over-the-air" (OTA) equalization is thwarted by (i) the overwhelming complexity of the propagation environment, and (ii) the non-linear dependence of the CIR on the RIS configuration, requiring a costly and lengthy full-wave simulation for every optimization step. Here, we show that a reduced-basis physics-compliant model for RIS-parametrized WNoCs can be calibrated with a single full-wave simulation. Thereby, we unlock the possibility of predicting the CIR for any RIS configuration almost instantaneously without any additional full-wave simulation. We leverage this new tool to systematically explore OTA equalization in RIS-parametrized WNoCs regarding the optimal choice of delay time for the RIS-shaped CIR's peak. We also study the simultaneous optimization of multiple on-chip wireless links for broadcasting. Looking forward, the introduced tools will enable the efficient exploration of various types of OTA analog computing in RIS-parametrized WNoCs.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, submitted to an IEEE Journa

Generating Information-Diverse Microwave Speckle Patterns Inside a Room at a Single Frequency With a Dynamic Metasurface Aperture

We demonstrate that dynamic metasurface apertures (DMAs) are capable of generating a multitude of highly uncorrelated speckle patterns in a typical residential environment at a single frequency. We use a DMA implemented as an electrically-large cavity excited by a single port and loaded with many individually-addressable tunable metamaterial radiators. We placed such a DMA in one corner of a plywood-walled L-shape room transmitting microwave signals at 19 GHz as we changed the tuning states of the metamaterial radiators. In another corner, in the non-line-of-sight of the DMA, we conducted a scan of the field generated by the DMA. For comparison, we also performed a similar test where the DMA was replaced by a simple dipole antenna with fixed pattern but generating a signal that spanned 19-24 GHz. Using singular value decomposition of the scanned data, we demonstrate that the DMA can generate a multitude of highly uncorrelated speckle patterns at a single frequency. In contrast, a dipole antenna with a fixed pattern can only generate such a highly uncorrelated set of patterns when operating over a large bandwidth. The experimental results of this paper suggest that DMAs can be used to capture a diversity of information at a single frequency which can be used for single frequency computational imaging systems, NLOS motion detection, gesture recognition systems, and more