The Relationship between Environmental Performance Index, Economic Growth and Public Health Expenditures: Panel Cointegration Approach

Introduction: Economic growth has a direct impact on public health expenditures; also, itindirectly affects public health expenditures through the environment’s quality. Therefore,this study aimed to investigate the relationship between environmental performance index,economic growth, and public health expenditures in countries with high and very highhuman development index.Methods: The present descriptive-analytical and applied study was performed on 16 countrieswith high and very high human development index. The time-series data required for theyears 2006-2018 were extracted from the World Bank and United Nations database andenvironmental performance index extracted from the Yale University website. Im, Pesaranand Shin (IPS), Levin, Lin, and Chu (LLC), Augmented Dickey–Fuller (ADF)– Fisher, andPhillips-Perron (PP)–Fisher tests for stationary and Pedroni and Kao tests for cointegrationwere used. The study model was estimated by the DOLS cointegration method in Eviews 10software.Results: The mean environmental performance index for selected countries with very highand high human development index was 79.04 and 64.71, respectively; also, the elasticity ofpublic health expenditures to gross national production, environmental performance index,physician supply, and urbanization ratio were 0.96, -2.41, 0.441 and 0.448, respectively.Conclusion: Increasing economic growth, urbanization ratio, and physician supply hada positive effect, and improving environmental performance index had a negative effecton public health expenditures. Therefore, to reduce public health expenditures, policiesare recommended to maintain environmental sustainability and reduce environmentalpollutants, and to invest in advanced equipment to purify pollutant gases. Maintaining andincreasing economic growth is also essential for adopting policies to increase physicians andinvest in health infrastructure

Influence of T shape baffles arrangement on flow hydraulic characteristics in fishways

Hydraulic structures constructed along the rivers cause disturbances in the natural process of aquatic life and the ecosystem of the region. In order to solve this problem, fishway structure is widely used to facilitate the communication path between downstream and upstream of hydraulic structures crossing the river and to eliminate the inability of fish to swim upstream and also to facilitate their movement downstream of dams. The different types of this structure should be designed to absorb the type of migratory fish in the area and to pass them safely and out of the outlet, without injuring the fish or creating unnecessary delays for the adult spawning fish. Therefore, in the present study, in order to determine the optimal configuration of the T shape baffles used in the path, three types of arrangements were numerically simulated using OpenFOAM software and K-ε turbulence model. These three types of arrangements are consecutive, alternate and also reversed. Then, the results of the numerical model were validated by comparing it with the results of the related laboratory model. The findings indicate that the numerical model is in good agreement with the laboratory results. Among the three configurations, taking into account different factors, the reverse location of T-shaped baffles with 68.3% backwater, 86.2% flow at less than 0.5 m/s, 84.1% turbulent kinetic energy values less than 0.02 square meters per square second and also 61% energy dissipation percentage, had the best performance

Investigation of Local Scouring around Hydrodynamic and Circular Pile Groups under the Influence of River Material Harvesting Pits

Mining activities can endanger the stability of hydraulic structures. Numerical modeling of local scouring around hydrodynamic and circular bridge pile groups, due to the action of clear water conditions via non-cohesive sediment, was performed using a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model, a large eddy simulation (LES) turbulence model, and a van Rijn sedimentary model with FLOW-3D software. The pile groups were positioned upstream and downstream of a sand mining pit. The results showed that the scour depth around the downstream pile group was greater than that of the upstream one. Using hydrodynamic piers reduced the scour depth upstream of all piers and the material harvesting pit. The maximum reduction in scour depth was observed in front of the fifth pier, with a 29% reduction in scour depth. Additionally, for all models, as the material harvesting pit was moved downstream, the downstream turbulence was enhanced and stronger flow reversal and horseshoe vortices were detected in from of the downstream pile group. The flow patterns around the pile group showed that the presence of hydrodynamic piers in the upstream pile group leads to a decrease in the maximum flow velocity, whereas, when such piers were positioned in the downstream pile group, the velocity increases

Iranian scientific outputs in the field of energy and fuel, and their comparison with those of the Middle East countries

Background and aim: Today, the quantitative and qualitative research on the scientific outputs of various fields has been considered in universities and scientific centers. The aim of this study was to evaluate the status of Iran's scientific outputs in the field of energy and fuel and compare it with that of the Middle East countries. Material and methods: In this applied and scientometric study, the data were collected by advanced searching in the Web of Science. These data were related to the energy and fuel from 1998 to 2017. HistCite and VOSviewer were used to analyze the data and draw the scientific maps, and Excel software was applied for statistical analysis. Findings: The results showed that Iran had 10870 indexed documents in the field of energy and fuel. The highest number of documents was published in 2016. In terms of the number of documents in this field, Iran ranked 13th in the world and first in the Middle East. Moreover, in terms of international cooperation in the world and Middle East, Iran was the most cooperative with the United States and Turkey. The most common keywords used by Iranian researchers were optimization, genetic algorithm and exergy, respectively. Furthermore, by reviewing the topics in the most cited articles of the world, it was found that these articles were more focused on renewable energy while in Iran, more focused on non-renewable energy. Conclusion: The findings indicated that the Iran’s documents had growing trend in this field. Although Iran has a good position in the Middle East in terms of the number of documents, it has a poor performance in terms of the number of citations and Hirsch index, which should be taken into consideration

Genetic variance components of the growth curve for Isfahan indigenous chicken

BACKGROUND: Being able to model a growth curve using three or four non-linear functional parameters could help explain the growth phenomenon in a precise way and would allow the comparison of an animal's development rate, optimize management and feeding strategies and guide animal production strategies.OBJECTIVE: The goal of this study was to estimate the genetic parameters of growth traits of Isfahan indigenous chicken in Iran and to determine the best non-linear model describing the growth curve.METHODS: The prediction of additive genetic parameters was performed using the REML method by WOMBAT. Direct heritability of the studied traits and genetic correlations between them were obtained. The Logistic, Gompertz, von Bertalanffy, Brody, Negative exponential, Weibull, Janoschek and Bridges models were compared based on the coefficient of determination (R2 ), mean square error (MSE) and akaike information criterion.RESULTS: The Gompertz model was identified as the best model for describing the growth curve for Isfahan native chicken. The heritability of maturity weights (A), initial weight (B) and maturity rate (K) parameters were 0.223 ± 0.002, 0.016 ± 0.005 and 0.087 ± 0.001, respectively.CONCLUSION: This study shows that Isfahan indigenous chicken has the genetic potential for improving growth and reproduction based on their desirable heritabilities and correlations using appropriate models.</p

Study on seismic behavior of a concrete elevated tank with frame shaped base using SMA damper

Shape memory alloys are considered as novel materials, and during the recent decades, these materials are increasingly used with different applications in various fields of science and engineering. Shaped memory alloys are extensively used in the field of structures and earthquake engineering. These alloys are so expensive, and they are not sufficiently economical to be used in structures, so scholars sought to find a combination usage of these materials along with steel in order to achieve the maximum efficiency. We can make any structure resistant enough against the dynamic loads and forces exerted due to earthquakes, by placing a new member in the structure, so called Damper, which is regarded as a factor with a capability of dissipating the energy. In the present paper, an elevated tank with a capacity of 1500 m3 and frame-shaped base of 37.5 m in height, equipped with SMA damper at the tank-to-beam connection has been analyzed. It should be noted that the SMA material was used on first and seventh storey of the frame-shaped base. A numerical model of the tank was developed using Abaqus software and it was analyzed by applying EL-Centro earthquake record. Then, the best placement states of the SMA dampers indicating a better seismic behaviour were proposed. The findings indicate that an elevated tank with SMA damper has a better seismic behaviour, especially in the upper section of the beam, compared to other models

Diagnostic value of mitral Z-value in mortality of patients with tetralogy of Fallot: A seven-year experiment

Background: Tetralogy of Fallot (TF) in some Iranian patients is different in that the mitral z-value is significantly lower than normal. The present study was conducted to investigate the effect of the mitral Z-value on post-surgery mortality. Materials and Methods: The present retrospective analytical study was conducted on surgery candidate patients diagnosed with TF who had attended Shahid Modarres Hospital in Tehran between late March 2012 and late March 2019. Once the type of treatment and the need for surgery were decided and the mitral size and Z-value were determined, the patients underwent surgery, and then divided into two groups based on the outcome (death or discharge). Results: A total of 160 patients entered the study over seven years, of whom, 110 were discharged (group 1) and 50 died (group 2). There were no significant differences between the two groups in terms of gender. The patients' mean age was 8.96±8.09 years in the group 1 and 3.16±2.7 years in the group 2 (P&lt;0.000). Mean mitral Z-value was -2.26±2.11 in the group 1 (ranging from -7.1 to +1.3) and -3.48±1.71 in the group 2 (ranging from -6 to -1.1), and Independent Sample Test showed no significant difference between the two groups (P=0.271). Conclusion: The mitral Z-value was significantly lower than normal in participating patients with TF, which could indicate hypo-plasticity of the left ventricle in Iranian patients with TF. No significant difference was found between the two groups in terms of surgical complications. In other words, the mitral Z-value had no effect on mortality of patients with TF

Brain diffusion MRI biomarkers after oncology treatments

In addition to providing a measurement of the tumor’s size and dimensions, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) provides excellent noninvasive radiographic detection of tumor location. The MRI technique is an important modality that has been shown to be useful in the prognosis, diagnosis, treatment planning, and evaluation of response and recurrence in solid cancers. Diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) is an imaging technique that quantifies water mobility. This imaging approach is good for identifying sub-voxel microstructure of tissues, correlates with tumor cellularity, and has been proven to be valuable in the early assessment of cytotoxic treatment for a variety of malignancies. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) is an MRI method that assesses the preferred amount of water transport inside tissues. This enables precise measurements of water diffusion, which changes according to the direction of white matter fibers, their density, and myelination.  This measurement corresponds to some related variables: fractional anisotropy (FA), mean diffusivity (MD), radial diffusivity (RD), axial diffusivity (AD), and others. DTI biomarkers can detect subtle changes in white matter microstructure and integrity following radiation therapy (RT) or chemoradiotherapy, which may have implications for cognitive function and quality of life. In our study, these indices were evaluated after brain chemoradiotherapy

An Integrated Bioinformatics Approach to Identify Network Derived Hub Genes in Starving Zebrafish

The present study was aimed at identifying causative hub genes within modules formed by co-expression and protein&ndash;protein interaction (PPI) networks, followed by Bayesian network (BN) construction in the liver transcriptome of starved zebrafish. To this end, the GSE11107 and GSE112272 datasets from the GEO databases were downloaded and meta-analyzed using the MetaDE package, an add-on R package. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified based upon expression intensity N(&micro; = 0.2, &sigma;2 = 0.4). Reconstruction of BNs was performed by the bnlearn R package on genes within modules using STRINGdb and CEMiTool. ndufs5 (shared among PPI, BN and COEX), rps26, rpl10, sdhc (shared between PPI and BN), ndufa6, ndufa10, ndufb8 (shared between PPI and COEX), skp1, atp5h, ndufb10, rpl5b, zgc:193613, zgc:123327, zgc:123178, wu:fc58f10, zgc:111986, wu:fc37b12, taldo1, wu:fb62f08, zgc:64133 and acp5a (shared between COEX and BN) were identified as causative hub genes affecting gene expression in the liver of starving zebrafish. Future work will shed light on using integrative analyses of miRNA and DNA microarrays simultaneously, and performing in silico and experimental validation of these hub-causative (CST) genes affecting starvation in zebrafish

Immediate Results of Percutaneous Mitral Balloon Valvuloplasty in Patients with Mitral Stenosis

Introduction: Mitral stenosis is a prevalent valvular disease in developing countries. Percutaneous mitral balloon valvuloplasty (PMBV) is the gold standard treatment. The main objective of this study was to assess the initial results of PMBV in patients with mitral stenosis during 16 years (2002-2018) in Mashhad, Iran. Materials and Methods: From April 2002 to March 2018, 770 patients underwent PMV in department of cardiology. PMV was performed by the antegrade transseptal method using the Inoue balloon. Results: The obtained success rate was 97%. In this study, the valve area increased from 0.9±1.1 to 1.8±0.2 cm2 (