Development of tunable high pressure CO2 laser for lidar measurements of pollutants and wind velocities

The problem of laser energy extraction at a tunable monochromatic frequency from an energetic high pressure CO2 pulsed laser plasma, for application to remote sensing of atmospheric pollutants by Differential Absorption Lidar (DIAL) and of wind velocities by Doppler Lidar, was investigated. The energy extraction principle analyzed is based on transient injection locking (TIL) at a tunable frequency. Several critical experiments for high gain power amplification by TIL are presented

Survey on enrichment of Artemia urmiana nauplii with oxolinic acid and determination of its accumulation rate in different dosages and times

The nauplii of Artemia urmiana was enriched with oxolinic acid and the accumulation rate of this antibacterial drug in different times and dosages was determined. The nauplii which were hatched out of cysts from Urmia Lake's Artemia were incubated in the antibiotic/ seawater suspension with dosages of 25, 50, 75 and 100mg/l of oxolinic acid, in intervals of 2, 4, 6 and 8 hours. All factors including salinity, pH, aeration, dosage and enrichment time were kept the same for all treatments. Each treatment was repeated three times. After enrichment, the concentration of oxolinic acid per sample was determined by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). One way ANOVA and Duncan's tests were implemented to analyze the data

Effect of gamma irradiation on fatty acid composition of rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) fillets

The present study was conducted to evaluate the effect of low-dose gamma irradiation (0, 1, 3 and 5 kGy) on fatty acid composition of Rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) fillet. Among all of the fatty acids, oleic acid (C18:1) (with mean 33.50±3.02 g/100 g fatty acids) and myristoleic acid (C14:1) (with mean 0.41±0.26 g/100 g fatty acids) were the most predominant and the lowest fatty acids in all irradiated and non-irradiated samples, respectively. Statistical analysis showed that there were no significant differences (P>0.05) in level of all fatty acids, saturated fatty acids (SFA), unsaturated fatty acids (USFA), mono unsaturated fatty acids (MUFA) and poly unsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) between Rainbow trout fillet control and irradiated in 1, 3 and 5 kGy. Therefore irradiation process and different doses of irradiation in this study (1, 3 and 5 kGy) had no significant effect (P>0.05) on fatty acid composition

EFFECT OF KEYFRAMES EXTRACTION FROM THERMAL INFRARED VIDEO STREAM TO GENERATE DENSE POINT CLOUD OF THE BUILDING'S FACADE

Keyframes extraction is required and effective for the 3D reconstruction of objects from a thermal video sequence to increase geometric accuracy, reduce the volume of aerial triangulation calculations, and generate the dense point cloud. The primary goal and focus of this paper are to assess the effect of keyframes extraction from the thermal infrared video sequence on the geometric accuracy of the dense point cloud generated. The method of keyframes extraction of thermal infrared video presented in this paper consists of three basic steps. (A) The ability to identify and remove blur frames from non-blur frames in a sequence of recorded frames. (B) The ability to apply the standard baseline condition between sequence frames to establish the overlap condition and prevent the creation of degeneracy conditions. (C) Evaluating degeneracy conditions and keyframes extraction using Geometric Robust Information Criteria (GRIC). The performance evaluation criteria for keyframes extraction in the generation of the thermal infrared dense point cloud in this paper are to assess the increase in density of the generated three-dimensional point cloud and reduce reprojection error. Based on the results and assessments presented in this paper, using keyframes increases the density of the thermal infrared dense point cloud by about 0.03% to 0.10% of points per square meter. It reduces the reprojection error by about 0.005% of pixels (2 times)

Enhancement of Kerr nonlinearity via multi-photon coherence

We propose a new method of resonant enhancement of optical Kerr nonlinearity using multi-level atomic coherence. The enhancement is accompanied by suppression of the other linear and nonlinear susceptibility terms of the medium. We show that the effect results in a modification of the nonlinear Faraday rotation of light propagating in an Rb87 vapor cell by changing the ellipticity of the light.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures Submitted to Optics Letter

Velocity-selective resonance dips in the probe absorption spectra of Rb D2 transitions induced by a pump laser

We report experimental observation of velocity-selective resonances in the Doppler-broadened probe absorption spectra of 85Rb and 87Rb D2 transitions in the presence of a strong copropagating pump laser locked to a frequency within the Doppler profile of the transition. The set of three dips having the separation of allowed hyperfine transitions can be moved along the Doppler profile by tuning the pump laser frequency indicating a resonance between the pump laser frequency and the velocity shifted probe laser frequency.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure

The study of heavy metals (Lead and Iron) contamination in cultured Oncorhynchus mykiss of Guilan province

This study was carried out in three farmed rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) of Guilan Province. Heavy metals (Iron and Lead) were measured using Atomic absorption spectrometry in food, water and fish muscles of farms. The amounts of Iron and Lead (Mean ±SD) in all water samples from studied farms were 55.29±2.71 and 2.066±0.714 µg/L, respectively. The amounts of Iron and Lead (Mean± SD) in consumed feed of studied farms were 494.51± 89.18 and 3.494± 1.462 mg/kg, respectively. Also, the amounts of Iron and lead in fish muscle of studied farms were measured as 7.715± 1.050 and 0.39970± 0.073 mg/kg, respectively. The obtained results revealed the existence of higher amounts of iron in fish muscle above Codex standard, 2001 and lower amounts of lead levels from the mentioned standard in studied farms. The obtained data showed no significant differences in water, food and muscle of fish in studied areas (p>0.05)

Can public-private partnership (PPP) improve hospitals' performance indicators?

Background: This study was conducted to compare the main performance indicators of Hasheminejad hospital before and after implementing PPP model. Methods: This cross sectional study was conducted in Iran in 2015. Performance indicators of Hasheminejad hospital, the only Iranian unit that implemented PPP model, were applied. Data were collected based on a researcher-designed checklist after ensuring its validity and reliability. Data were analyzed applying SPSS21, and the Shapiro-Wilk test was used to examine the relevant data normalization. After confirming the normality of the data, descriptive statistics and paired t test were used to analyze the data at a significant level of 0.05. Results: Dramatic variations were observed in the status of the studied indicators after the implementation of PPP in Hasheminejad hospital, and the changes were statistically significant in all these indicators (p < 0.05). Conclusion: It seems that implementing PPP in Hasheminejad hospital can be considered as a successful experience in Iran's health sector. The significant improvement in this hospital's performance indicators can emphasize the effective role of PPP in administration of this hospital. However, service quality and patient satisfaction should be considered as qualitative indicators, along with the present quantitative indicators because better judgment about the changes was achieved in this hospital after implementing PPP. © Iran University of Medical Sciences

Quality assessment of services provided by health centers in Mashhad, Iran: SERVQUAL versus HEALTHQUAL scales

Background: Primary health care is the entry point to the health-care system and regarded as an essential step to achieving universal health coverage. The present study aimed at evaluating the quality of health-care services provided in health centers in Mashhad, Iran. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study implemented among 200 health service users who were referring to four health centers in Mashhad during January to June 2019. The quality of services in health centers was evaluated with the SERVQUAL and HEALTHQUAL models. Data was analyzed by employing paired t-test and independent sample t-test using SPSS version 16 software. The Levene test was used for examining the equality of variance (homogeneity). Significance level of all the tests was considered when p � 0.05. Results: According to the results of SERVQUAL questionnaire, the average scores of health service users� expectations and perceptions were 4.97 and 3.26, respectively, and the quality gap in the provided services was equal to � 1.7. Based on HEALTHQUAL questionnaire, the average scores of health service users� perception and expectations were 4.72 and 3.25, respectively, and the quality gap in the provided services was equal to � 1.16. Empathy was the highest quality dimension (� 2.019) based on SERVQUAL model, and efficiency dimension was the highest based on HEALTHQUAL model (� 1.761). Conclusions: The findings of the current study showed a negative gap between the service users� expectations and perceptions in both models. Therefore, the results of this study helps the health managers and policymakers to plan effective interventions for improving the provided services emphasizing the dimensions with the wider gaps. © 2021, The Author(s)

Narrowing of EIT resonance in a Doppler Broadened Medium

We derive an analytic expression for the linewidth of EIT resonance in a Doppler broadened system. It is shown here that for relatively low intensity of the driving field the EIT linewidth is proportional to the square root of intensity and is independent of the Doppler width, similar to the laser induced line narrowing effect by Feld and Javan. In the limit of high intensity we recover the usual power broadening case where EIT linewidth is proportional to the intensity and inversely proportional to the Doppler width.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure