Validation of the World Health Organization-5 well-being index; assessment of maternal well-being and its associated factors

Objective: The aim of this study was to validate the World Health Organization-5 Well-Being Index (WHO-5) in a sample of pregnant Iranian women, to explore the changes in maternal well-being from pregnancy to postpartum, and to determine the factors associated with maternal well-being. Materials and Methods: This study included 341 pregnant women that presented to healthcare centers affiliated with Shahroud University of Medical Sciences, Iran, in 2011. The participants completed the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28) and Farsi version of WHO-5 during the third trimester of pregnancy and at 2 months postpartum. Results: Cronbach's alpha coefficient for WHO-5 items was 0.85. The correlation coefficient between WHO-5 and GHQ-28 was -0.64 (P < 0.001). Exploratory factor analysis yielded 1 factor with an eigen value equal to 3.15, which explained 63.1% of the total variance. Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the 1-factor structure. The area under ROC curve was 0.82. A WHO-5 cut-off score of <50 exhibited optimal sensitivity (0.84) and specificity (0.59) for identifying psychological symptoms (GHQ-28 score ≥24). There was a significant difference between third trimester (58.4 ± 22) and postpartum (64.1 ± 22.3) mean WHO-5 scores (P < 0.001). Maternal level of education (OR = 1.130; 95% CI: 1.307, 1.232) was the only predictor of maternal well-being during third trimester. Breastfeeding difficulty (OR = 0.923; 95% CI: 0.882, 0.965) and maternal well-being scores during third trimester (OR = 1.038; 95% CI: 1.019, 1.058) were predictors of maternal well-being during the postpartum period. Conclusions: The Farsi version of WHO-5 was observed to be a reliable and valid instrument for screening psychological symptoms in pregnant Iranian women. The present findings show that maternal well-being improved following childbirth

Quality of life after cesarean and vaginal delivery

Objective: Cesarean rates in recent decades have been increasing and a number of studies have shown that cesarean increases maternal morbidities. The aim of this study is to compare the quality of life after cesarean and vaginal delivery. Methods: This prospective study was carried out on 356 pregnant women visiting urban health centers in Shahroud City, Northeast Iran, in 2011. The subjects completed the quality of life questionnaire in the third trimester of pregnancy and at 8 weeks postpartum. Results: In primiparas, the mean global QOL scores for the cesarean and vaginal delivery groups were 67.65±12.7 and 72.12±11.8, respectively. Also, the scores for the physical, psychological and social domains of QOL as well as the global score of QOL were higher in the vaginal delivery group than the cesarean group (p<0.05). In the case of primiparas, multiple regression analysis revealed that after adjusting for education, desirability of pregnancy and the General Health Questionnaire score, the delivery type remained as a predictor of the scores for the physical (R2=1.7%; B=-3.826; p=0.031; CI [-7.301, -.350]) and social (R2=2.5%; B=-5.708; p=0.017; CI [-10.392, -1.023]) domains of QOL and the global QOL score (R2=2.6%; B=-4.065; p=0.006; CI [-6.964, -1.164]). While multiparas, there was no relationship between QOL and type of delivery. Conclusion: In this sample of low-risk women, cesarean negatively affected the QOL of primiparas. More studies with larger sample sizes should be conducted to examine the effects of cesarean on QOL in both primiparas and multiparas within a shorter period after delivery. © OMSB, 2013

The role of T regulatory lymphocytes in lymphoma

T regulatory cells play a crucial role in immunological unresponsiveness to selfantigens and in suppressing excessive immune responses deleterious to the host. T regulatory cells are produced in the thymus as a functionally mature subpopulation of T cells. They can be induced from naive T cells in the periphery and express their marker as a forkhead/winged helix transcription factor called FoxP3. In patients with lymphomas where T regulatory cells serve as suppressor anti-tumor cytotoxicity, decreased numbers of T regulatory cells are associated with a favorable prognosis. In contrast, in patients with lymphomas where T regulatory cells function as anti-tumor cytotoxic agents, enhanced numbers of T regulatory cells are associated with a favorable prognosis. Tumors actively promote the accumulation of these cells through several mechanisms that involve activation of naturally occurring T regulatory cells as well as conversion of non-T regulatory cells into T regulatory cells. Tumor-derived prostaglandin E2 can increase T regulatory cell activity and induce a regulatory phenotype in CD4+CD25+T cells. On the other hand, a balance between T regulatory and Th17 cells is essential for maintaining homeostasis of anti-tumor immunity. Accelerating processes such as increasing the amounts of IL-6 or IL-17 can enhance FoxP3 T regulatory cell expression and result in a lymphoma or inactivation of T cell CD4+. This effect is the reason for malignancy and a reduction in anti-tumor immune response. In this systematic review we intend to analyze this relationship. We have collected and analyzed the majority of recently published articles on the role of T regulatory cells as a review article

The Association of the Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) with the Pathogenesis of Helicobacter pylori

H. pylori pathogenesis is related to various virulence factor which some of them involved to adhesions. Urease as a main pathogenecity factor to attach to HLA-II is expressed on the surface of Gastric Epithelial Cells (GECs). Apoptosis induced by caspase3 activation as a result of urease effects on Spermine-Spermidine cycle. There is a contribution of HLA-DQA1 gene to the host's response against H. pylon. HLA allele type as an immune-genetic factors are related to host susceptibility to H. pylori. HLA-DQA1 might be contributed to the susceptibility or resistance to H. pylori infection. Based on the existed evidences the current review aimed to evaluate the results obtained by different studies carried out so far on correlation of human HLA and the pathogenesis of the H. pylori in gastric epithelial cells

Stabilization of internal space in noncommutative multidimensional cosmology

We study the cosmological aspects of a noncommutative, multidimensional universe where the matter source is assumed to be a scalar field which does not commute with the internal scale factor. We show that such noncommutativity results in the internal dimensions being stabilizedComment: 8 pages, 1 figure, to appear in IJMP

Analysis of the rare semileptonic B_c \rar P(D,D_s) l^{+}l^{-}/\nu\bar{\nu} decays within QCD sum rules

Considering the gluon condensate corrections, the form factors relevant to the semileptonic rare B_c \rar D,D_s(J^{P}=0^{-}) l^{+}l^{-} with $l=\tau,\mu,e$ and B_c \rar D,D_s(J^{P}=0^{-})\nu\bar{\nu} transitions are calculated in the framework of the three point QCD sum rules. The heavy quark effective theory limit of the form factors are computed. The branching fraction of these decays are also evaluated and compared with the predictions of the relativistic constituent quark model. Analyzing of such type transitions could give useful information about the strong interactions inside the pseudoscalar $D_{s}$ meson and its structure.Comment: 32 Pages, 8 Figures and 6 Table

Asymptotically Non-Static Kerr-deSitter Spacetime With No Event Horizon

We present our derivations for Kerr-deSitter metric in a proper comoving coordinate system.It asymptotically approaches to the deSitter metric in Robertson-walker form.This has been done by considring the stationary axially-symmetric spacetime in which motion of particle is integrable.That is the Hamilton-Jacobi and Klein-Gordon equations are separable.In this form it is asymptotically consistent with comoving frame.Comment: Title changed,revised arguments,results unchanged

Field fluctuations near a conducting plate and Casimir-Polder forces in the presence of boundary conditions

We consider vacuum fluctuations of the quantum electromagnetic field in the presence of an infinite and perfectly conducting plate. We evaluate how the change of vacuum fluctuations due to the plate modifies the Casimir-Polder potential between two atoms placed near the plate. We use two different methods to evaluate the Casimir-Polder potential in the presence of the plate. They also give new insights on the role of boundary conditions in the Casimir-Polder interatomic potential, as well as indications for possible generalizations to more complicated boundary conditions.Comment: 10 page

The cosmological implications of a fundamental length: a DSR inspired de-Sitter spacetime

We study a de-Sitter model in the framework of a Deformed Special Relativity (DSR) inspired structure. The effects of this framework appear as the existence of a fundamental length which influences the behavior of the scale factor. We show that such a deformation can either be used to control the unbounded growth of the scale factor in the present accelerating phase or account for the inflationary era in the early evolution of the universe.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, to appear in JCA

Comparative study of many-body perturbation theory and time-dependent density functional theory in the out-of-equilibrium Anderson model

We study time-dependent electron transport through an Anderson model. The electronic interactions on the impurity site are included via the self-energy approximations at Hartree-Fock (HF), second Born (2B), GW, and T-Matrix level as well as within a time-dependent density functional (TDDFT) scheme based on the adiabatic Bethe-Ansatz local density approximation (ABALDA) for the exchange correlation potential. The Anderson model is driven out of equilibrium by applying a bias to the leads and its nonequilibrium dynamics is determined by real-time propagation. The time-dependent currents and densities are compared to benchmark results obtained with the time-dependent density matrix renormalization group (tDMRG) method. Many-body perturbation theory beyond HF gives results in close agreement with tDMRG especially within the 2B approximation. We find that the TDDFT approach with the ABALDA approximation produces accurate results for the densities on the impurity site but overestimates the currents. This problem is found to have its origin in an overestimation of the lead densities which indicates that the exchange correlation potential must attain nonzero values in the leads.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figure