Smoking among male medical sciences students in Semnan, Islamic Republic of Iran

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Empirical equations for the prediction of PGA and pseudo spectral accelerations using Iranian strong-motion data

A recently compiled, comprehensive, and good-quality strong-motion database of the Iranian earthquakes has been used to develop local empiri- cal equations for the prediction of peak ground acceleration (PGA) and 5%-damped pseudo- spectral accelerations (PSA) up to 4.0 s. The equa- tions account for style of faulting and four site classes and use the horizontal distance from the surface projection of the rupture plane as a distance measure. The model predicts the geometric mean of horizontal components and the vertical-to-horizontal ratio. A total of 1551 free-field acceleration time histories recorded at distances of up to 200 km from 200 shallow earthquakes (depth < 30 km) with mo- ment magnitudes ranging from Mw 4.0 to 7.3 are used to perform regression analysis using the ran- dom effects algorithm of Abrahamson and Youngs (Bull Seism Soc Am 82:505–510, 1992), which considers between-events as well as within-events errors. Due to the limited data used in the develop- ment of previous Iranian ground motion prediction equations (GMPEs) and strong trade-offs between different terms of GMPEs, it is likely that the pre- viously determined models might have less preci- sion on their coefficients in comparison to the cur- rent study. The richer database of the current study allows improving on prior works by considering additional variables that could not previously be adequately constrained. Here, a functional form used by Boore and Atkinson (Earthquake Spect 24:99– 138, 2008) and Bindi et al. (Bull Seism Soc Am 9:1899–1920, 2011) has been adopted that allows accounting for the saturation of ground motions at close distances. A regression has been also per- formed for the V/H in order to retrieve vertical components by scaling horizontal spectra. In order to take into account epistemic uncertainty, the new model can be used along with other appropriate GMPEs through a logic tree framework for seismic hazard assessment in Iran and Middle East region.Published263-2856T. Studi di pericolosità sismica e da maremotoJCR Journa

The Application of Urban Health Equity Aassessment and Response Tool (Urban HEART) in Tehran; Concepts and Framework

Background:Inequalities in health are ever increasing among different communities of either affluent or disadvantaged especially in urban areas.To identify and address inequalities in health and its determinants among societies, urban health equity assessment and response tool (Urban HEART) in four 'policy domains' related to social determinants of health, has been developed by WHO Kobe Centre (WKC) and piloted in several countries. The tool was extended to six policy domains in Tehran and the number of indicators was doubled. This paper describes the concept of Urban HEART, its development, study protocol and pilot implementation in Tehran.   Methods/Design: Sixty five indicators in 6 domains related to inequalities in health and social determinants of health (SDH) namely 'physical and infrastructure','human and social', 'economic','governance', 'health',and'nutrition', were developed and approved in an international workshop held in Tehran in April 2008. Acomprehensive questionnaire with 12 sections was developed to be administered in a large population based survey in Tehran.Discussion: This is the first report of urban health equity assessment and response tool (Urban HEART) project which was conducted in Tehran. Year 2010 has been devoted to 'Urbanisation and Health' by the World Health Organisation, when 1000 cities are supposed to join a global plan to raise health in the urban areas. The Urban HEART project is supposed to play an important role henceforth