Milk and Protein Intake by Pregnant Women Affects Growth of Foetus

The study assessed the effects of the daily intake of milk and protein by pregnant women on foetal growth and determined the growth pattern and velocity of growth. A total of 504 ultrasound observations from 156 respondents were collected following a cross-sectional design in the last trimester of pregnancy; majority of them were in the last month of pregnancy. De facto and purposive sampling was done, and direct interviews of affluent pregnant women were conducted. Kruskal-Wallis test shows that majority of the respondents had tendency to consume 155.65 to 465.17 mL of milk per day, resulting in better and higher foetal growth. Most respondents consumed about 50-70 g of protein per day, and the foetal growth measurements, such as abdomen-circumference, femur length, biparietal diameter, and head-circumference, on an average, were higher in the same group. Quadratic regression model exhibited that all the traits of growth pattern in Model 1 (low milk and protein intake) appeared to have more mode of decline, in contrast to Model 2 (more milk and protein intake), which shows better growth. In addition, velocity of growth pattern was obtained through the first derivative of quadratic regression of growth pattern. Moreover, 95% confidence interval calculated for regression line slope of Model 1 and Model 2 showed that the estimation point (2 B2) of Model 1 does not lay into 95% CI of Model 2; so, statistical significance assorted and also the same trend conversely hold for Model 2. The rate of growth was highly influenced by maternal milk and protein intake. These findings suggest that contribution of common nutrients or other nutritional factors present in milk and protein promote the growth of foetus

Early feeding and growth pattern in infants:Using a three-variate longitudinal model derived from Gaussian copula function

Background: The Gaussian copula model was used to generate joint distributions for continuous longitudinal variables on infant types of feeding and longitudinal measures of height, weight and head circumference  Methods: The study was performed longitudinally in rural areas of southern part of Iran, on children from birth to 9 months of age. Out of 319 infants with serial anthropometric measurements from birth, and 2, 4, 6, 7 and 9 months old, 120 were included. Infants were divided into three groups (breast fed, formula fed and both milk types). A three-variate longitudinal model including Copula function was used to estimate the effect of feeding on growth pattern. All the analyses were performed using SAS version 9.4 (Proc NLmix).  Results: Ninety infants (75%) were breastfed, sixteen (13.3%) were formula fed and fourteen (11.7%) had combined feeding. Copula model showed that, breast fed children had a better weight gain (β=0.627 95% CI 0.217-1.038 P = 0.003), height (β=2.603 95% CI 1.023-4.183 P = 0.001) and head circumference (β=0.8 95% CI 0.069- 1.531 P = 0.0) as compared to formula fed children. R2 for Copula model was (wt=0.52, ht=0.96, hc=0.84).  Conclusions: Implication of Copula model was easy to perform. Estimation of the parameters in copula model indicated that, breast milk consumption had a positive effect on the growth of infants

The Frequency of Human Polyomavirus BK in Patients with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus: A Cross-Sectional Case-Control Study

Background and Aim: Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is an autoimmune disease and human polyomavirus BK (BKV) can be reactivated in patients with SLE due to the changes in the immune system and use of immunosuppressive drugs. In this study, we evaluated the prevalence of BKV infection among patients with SLE referred to Golestan hospital in Ahvaz, Iran between April 2013 to June 2016. Methods: In this cross-sectional study we studied 75 individuals including 40 patients with SLE and 35 normal individuals. Urine and blood samples were taken and DNA was extracted from urine and plasma. Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) test was used to detect the BKV genome and positive samples were sequenced to confirm BKV. BioEdit software and MEGA 6.0 software were used for phylogenetic analysis to assemble the viral genome. A phylogenetic tree was constructed by neighbor-joining analysis with 1,000 replicates of the bootstrap resampling test using Mega 6.0. Statistical analysis was done by SPSS version 22. Results: Among the 40 patients, 2 (5%) were men and 38 (95%) were women.  The mean age of the patients was 39±10 years. 2.5% of plasma from patients with SLE were positive for BKV but none of the controls were positive in this regard.0% of control groups (p=0.346). Whereas in urine samples, 17.5% and 11.4% (p=0.458) of patients and the control group, were positive for BKV, respectively. However, there was no statistically significant difference between the patients and controls. Conclusion: BKV reactivation occurs in 17.5% of patients with SLE during immunosuppression therapy. Therefore, more studies on BKV DNA by highly sensitive molecular assays in Patients with SLE seem to be necessary. *Corresponding Author: Gholam Abbas Kaydani; Email: [email protected] Please cite this article as: Behzadi Sheikhrobat S, Kaydani GA, Makvandi M, Rajaee E, Ahmadi Angali K. The Frequency of Human Polyomavirus BK in Patients with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus: A Cross-Sectional Case-Control Study. Arch Med Lab Sci. 2021;7:1-6 (e5). https://doi.org/10.22037/amls.v7.3399

Early feeding and growth pattern in infants: Using a three-variate longitudinal model derived from Gaussian copula function

Background: The Gaussian copula model was used to generate joint distributions for continuous longitudinal variables on infant types of feeding and longitudinal measures of height, weight and head circumference  Methods: The study was performed longitudinally in rural areas of southern part of Iran, on children from birth to 9 months of age. Out of 319 infants with serial anthropometric measurements from birth, and 2, 4, 6, 7 and 9 months old, 120 were included. Infants were divided into three groups (breast fed, formula fed and both milk types). A three-variate longitudinal model including Copula function was used to estimate the effect of feeding on growth pattern. All the analyses were performed using SAS version 9.4 (Proc NLmix).  Results: Ninety infants (75%) were breastfed, sixteen (13.3%) were formula fed and fourteen (11.7%) had combined feeding. Copula model showed that, breast fed children had a better weight gain (β=0.627 95% CI 0.217-1.038 P = 0.003), height (β=2.603 95% CI 1.023-4.183 P = 0.001) and head circumference (β=0.8 95% CI 0.069- 1.531 P = 0.0) as compared to formula fed children. R2 for Copula model was (wt=0.52, ht=0.96, hc=0.84).  Conclusions: Implication of Copula model was easy to perform. Estimation of the parameters in copula model indicated that, breast milk consumption had a positive effect on the growth of infants.&nbsp

Evaluation of Temporal and Spatial Variations of Water Quality Parameters in Zohreh River, Iran

Discriminant analysis (DA) and principal component analysis (PCA), as multivariate statistical techniques, are used to interpret large complex water quality data and assess their temporal and spatial variation in the basin of the Zohreh river. In this study, data sets of 16 water quality parameters collected from 1966 to 2013) in 4 stations (1554 observations for each parameter) were analyzed. PCA for data sets of Kheirabad, Poleflour, Chambostan and Dehmolla stations resulted in 4, 4, 4, and 3 latent factors accounting for 88.985%, 93.828%, 88.648%, and 88.68% of the total variance in water quality parameters, respectively. It is indicated that total dissolved solids (TDS), electrical conductivity (EC), chlorides (Cl−), sodium (Na), sodium absorption ratio (SAR), and %Na were responsible for water quality variations which are mainly related to natural and anthropogenic pollution sources including climate effects, gypsum, and salt crystals in the supratidal of Zohreh river delta, fault zones of Chamshir I and II, drainage of sugarcane fields, and domestic and industrial wastewaters discharge into the river. DA reduced the data set to only seven parameters (discharge, temperature, electrical conductivity, HCO3-, Cl-, %Na, and T-Hardness), affording more than 58.5% correct assignations in temporal evaluations and describing responsible parameters for large variations in the quality of the Zohreh river

Assessing Reliability and Validity of an Instrument for Measuring Resilience Safety Culture in Sociotechnical Systems

Background: Safety culture, acting as the oil necessary in an efficient safety management system, has its own weaknesses in the current conceptualization and utilization in practice. As a new approach, resilience safety culture (RSC) has been proposed to reduce these weaknesses and improve safety culture; however, it requires a valid and reliable instrument to be measured. This study aimed at evaluating the reliability and validity of such an instrument in measuring the RSC in sociotechnical systems. Methods: The researchers designed an instrument based on resilience engineering principles and safety culture as the first instrument to measure the RSC. The RSC instrument was distributed among 354 staff members from 12 units of an anonymous petrochemical plant through hand delivery. Content validity, confirmatory, and exploratory factor analysis were used to examine the construct validity, and Cronbach alpha and test-retest were employed to examine the reliability of the instrument. Results: The results of the content validity index and content validity ratio were calculated as 0.97 and 0.83, respectively. The explanatory factor analysis showed 14 factors with 68.29% total variance and 0.88 Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin index. The results were also confirmed with confirmatory factor analysis (relative Chi-square = 2453.49, Root Mean Square Error of Approximation = 0.04). The reliability of the RSC instrument, as measured by internal consistency, was found to be satisfactory (Cronbach α = 0.94). The results of test-retest reliability was r = 0.85, p < 0.001. Conclusion: The results of the study suggest that the measure shows acceptable validity and reliability. Keywords: Instrument, Reliability, Resilience safety culture, Validit

Survey noise exposure and fasting and their effect on salivary cortisol on hospital staff

Introduction: One of the most important risk factors in workplace is noise pollution and it affects the quality of human life. Especially these effects on the hospital environment are more impressive because these workplaces should be calm. This study aimed to investigate the combined effects of noise exposure and fasting on saliva cortisol levels at two hospitals staff. Method: This study included 75 participants of two hospital worker.A calibrated noise level meter (Cel- 231, UK) was used to measurement noise levels in two hospitals parts. Also, Saliva cortisol levels assessed in two different situations: fasting and feeding. Descriptive statistics, paired sample t-test and regression analysis were used as statistical tools of this study with P&lt;0.05. Results: our result showed that sound pressure levels (mean ± SD) in Amiralmomenei hospital and Abozar hospital were 75.3±6 and 76.9±5, respectively. Salivary cortisol levels in samples with normal feeding and fasting showed significant difference (P&lt;0.05).Also, comparison between salivary cortisol levels in without noise exposure and noise exposure in fasting time showed significant difference (P&lt;0.05). Salivary cortisol levels in workers in two hospitals were different (P&lt;0.05).