How much the act of secrecy is done by medical staff? A descriptive cross-sectional survey in south of Iran

Some information may be gathered during the medical procedures, including medical records or personal information. Many of them can be considered as secrets. The medical staff has the duty of privacy, which means keeping the secrets away from a third party. Hippocratic Oath accepts no exceptions but modern ethical express the situations in which the disclosure of secrets is allowed, legal, or even necessary. The present study is about to evaluate the act of secrecy in medical staff of the tertiary health care centers affiliated with Jahrom University of Medical Sciences in south of Iran. This cross sectional study is done on 204 members of medical staff of 8 different wards in tertiary health care centers affiliated with Jahrom University of Medical Sciences in south of Iran, using a questionnaire of 31 questions in 5 major categories adding to a data sheet for demographic information (age, gender, ward). Validity and reliability of the questionnaire was proved by previous studies. Collected data analyzed by dependent T-test, Fisher's exact and SPSS.17 using descriptive and deductive statistics. The mean rate of secrecy was 3.82± 0.75. Respecting others in the category of "goals of secrecy" earned 4.48, common medical services in the category of "reasons for disclosure" earned 3.89, damage to the patient in the category of "legal reasons for disclosure" earned 4.05, patient's rights in "personal reasons for secrecy" earned 4.07, and informing the medical managers in "proper way to confront the offenders" with the score 2.85 were the highest scores of each category. The variant Ages (p=0.003) and wards (p=0.03) showed significant differences in the secrecy. Results show that the medical staff is not familiar enough to the legal and ethical indications of secrecy, so holding in-service courses may be effective

Factors Associated With Body Weight Status of Iranian Postgraduate Students in University of Putra Malaysia

Background: Good nutrition, a balanced diet and regular physical activity are foundations of good health. Research has found that dietary patterns change dramatically following the arrival of students in a foreign country. However, nutritional status of Iranian students studying oversea has never been investigated. Objectives: The objective of this study was to determine factors associated with body weight status of Iranian postgraduate students in Universiti of Putra Malaysia (UPM). Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted to determine the body weight status of 210 Iranian postgraduate students aged between 22 and 55 years in University of Putra Malaysia. The associations between body weight status and socio demographics factors and also lifestyle factors (smoking and physical activity) were assessed. Anthropometric factors (height, weight, BMI and waist and hip circumferences) were measured. Chi-square, Spearman Rho and Pearson tests were used for data analysis. Results: From a total of 210 postgraduate students 110 were females, and 100 males. No significant correlation was observed between smoking and BMI (P = 0.4). However, statistically significant correlations were observed between gender (P = 0.007), physical activity (P = 0.02), using protein (P = 0.005), carbohydrate (P = 0.002), fat (P = 0.001), fiber (P = 0.003), vitamin C (P = 0.04), calcium (P = 0.005), waist circumference (P = 0.02), hip circumference (P = 0.001), Waist to Hip Ratio (P = 0.002), and BMI. Conclusions: The nutritional behavior of university students was poor. Therefore, it is essential to encourage young people, including university students to enrich their diets with milk, beans, fruit, and vegetables to decrease the risks of nutrition related disorders

Sequence variation in mitochondrial cox1 and nad1 genes of ascaridoid nematodes in cats and dogs from Iran

The study was conducted to determine the sequence variation in two mitochondrial genes, namely cytochrome c oxidase 1 (pcox1) and NADH dehydrogenase 1 (pnad1) within and among isolates of Toxocara cati, Toxocara canis and Toxascaris leonina. Genomic DNA was extracted from 32 isolates of T. cati, 9 isolates of T. canis and 19 isolates of T. leonina collected from cats and dogs in different geographical areas of Iran. Mitochondrial genes were amplified by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and sequenced. Sequence data were aligned using the BioEdit software and compared with published sequences in GenBank. Phylogenetic analysis was performed using Bayesian inference and maximum likelihood methods. Based on pairwise comparison, intra-species genetic diversity within Iranian isolates of T. cati, T. canis and T. leonina amounted to 0-2.3, 0-1.3 and 0-1.0 for pcox1 and 0-2.0, 0-1.7 and 0-2.6 for pnad1, respectively. Inter-species sequence variation among the three ascaridoid nematodes was significantly higher, being 9.5-16.6 for pcox1 and 11.9-26.7 for pnad1. Sequence and phylogenetic analysis of the pcox1 and pnad1 genes indicated that there is significant genetic diversity within and among isolates of T. cati, T. canis and T. leonina from different areas of Iran, and these genes can be used for studying genetic variation of ascaridoid nematodes. © Cambridge University Press 2014

Productive performance of laying hens fed wheat-based diets included olive pulp with or without a commercial enzyme product

Olive pulp (OP) is the remainder of olive cake (the raw material resulting from extraction of olive oil) after the removal of the seed fractions. It can be achieved by sieving the dry olive cake to separate most of the seeds. To assess effects of dietary inclusion of OP supplementing with a cocktail commercial enzyme on performance of laying hens and egg quality characteristics, one hundred and twenty 80- week-old Lohmann LSL-Lite hens, with an average laying rate of 80.3 ± 3.8% (late production phase) and 1450 ± 14 g live body weight, were divided in 20 cages (n = 6). Hens in 5 cages (replicates) were randomly assigned to feed on one of the 4 experimental diets. Based on a 2×2 factorial arrangement, 4 iso-caloric and iso-nitrogenous diets (ME =2720 kcal/kg and CP=150 g/kg) including OP (0.0 and 90.0 g/kg) and a commercial cocktail enzyme with mostly xylanase activity (Nutrase®, 0.0 or 0.9 g/kg) were formulated. To determine blood biochemical parameters and differentiable count of white blood cells, one hen per replicate was bled via wing vein on day 35 of trial. To determine egg quality parameters, all eggs during three frequent days were collected on week 4 of trial. Collected data of feed intake (FI), egg production (EP), egg mass (EM) and calculated feed conversion ratio (FCR), blood biochemical parameters and egg quality traits during 6 week trial period was analyzed based on completely randomized design. Hens fed the OP-included diet shown decreased EP compared with hens fed the control diet during week 3 of experimental period (p ≤ 0.05). There was no significant difference between hens fed the OP-included diet and the control diet in terms of FI and EM. In addition, the same trend was observed in terms of enzyme effect on FI and EM. Dietary enzyme supplementation improved FCR compared with hens fed the control diet during week 6 of the experimental period (p ≤ 0.05). Including OP in the diets of hens decreased the blood level of triglycerides (p ≤ 0.05). Including OP in the diets of hens increased the yolk index (p ≤ 0.05). From the results of this investigation, it can be concluded that including OP in diets of laying hens up to 9% would not have deleterious effects on bird's productive performance. In addition, dietary supplementation with a cocktail enzyme with mainly xylanase activity improved FCR in hens.Key words: Olive pulp, enzyme, laying hens, performance, egg quality characteristics, blood parameters

Minimal Uncertainty in Momentum: The Effects of IR Gravity on Quantum Mechanics

The effects of the IR aspects of gravity on quantum mechanics is investigated. At large distances where due to gravity the space-time is curved, there appears nonzero minimal uncertainty $\Delta p_{0}$ in the momentum of a quantum mechanical particle. We apply the minimal uncertainty momentum to some quantum mechanical interferometry examples and show that the phase shift depends on the area surrounded by the path of the test particle . We also put some limits on the related parameters. This prediction may be tested through future experiments. The assumption of minimal uncertainty in momentum can also explain the anomalous excess of the mass of the Cooper pair in a rotating thin superconductor ring.Comment: 8 pages, revised version accepted by PR

Effective Field Theory of a Locally Noncommutative Space-Time and Extra Dimensions

We assume that the noncommutativity starts to be visible continuously from a scale $\Lambda_{NC}$. According to this assumption, a two-loop effective action is derived for noncommutative $\phi^{4}$ and $\phi^{3}$ theories from a Wilsonian point of view. We show that these effective theories are free of UV/IR mixing phenomena. We also investigate the positivity constraint on coefficients of higher dimension operators present in the effective theory. This constraint makes the low energy theory to be UV completion of a full theory. Finally, we discuss noncommutativity and extra dimensions. In our effective theories formulated on noncommutative extra dimensions, if the campactification scale $\Lambda_{c}$ is less than the scale $\Lambda_{NC}$, the theory will not suffer from UV/IR mixing.Comment: 25 page