The New Perceptions on Life of Iranian Patients with Ankylosing Spondylitis: A Qualitative Study

Various studies suggest that ankylosing spondylitis (AS) as a chronic inflammatory disease with many disabilities can have impacts on different aspects of patients’ life. Despite many quantitative studies, only few qualitative studies have thus far been published on this subject. For the first time, the present study aims at gaining insight into the life experience of Iranian AS patients. We performed a content analysis through semi-structured interviews with twenty-eight patients diagnosed with AS, including three females and twenty-five males with an average age of 38.5 years, to gain insight into their experiences. Whatever the patients expressed was written and transcribed verbatim. Then, we did analysis of the results after each interview. The detailed information completely extracted from the interviews was classified as sub-themes and main themes. Three main themes were identified by the analysis: (i) “Always with pain” describing the effects were found in regard to pain on patients’ life, (ii) “The perceived limitation” describing many difficulties that people may face in the society as a result of their disease, and (iii) “Fearing the unknown future” which implies to both patients and their families have concerns about the future and what will happen. Our research findings in line with other qualitative studies showed that AS disease puts a heavy and intolerable burden on patients and their family. It seems that the experiences of people living with AS can be useful to meet challenges caused by the disease and it can enhance their coping with the disease

Presenting a suitable model for psychological resilience of employees of stock exchange brokerages in Tehran

AbstractThe purpose of this research is to provide a suitable model for the psychological resilience of employees of stock exchange brokerages in Tehran. The current research is applicable in terms of its purpose, and a cross-sectional survey in terms of the research implementation method, and is specifically based on structural equation modeling. The research community is all the employees of Refah Bank, Mellat Bank, San'at-o-Ma'dan Bank, Kar-Afarin Bank, Melli Bank and Aagah Brokerage in Tehran. 209 people were selected according to Cochran's formula as a quantitative sample. The sampling method in this research is stratified. The collection tool in this research is a researcher-made questionnaire. SPSS software was used to analyze data; and AMOS software was used to design the final research model. The findings of the research showed that in order to confirm the final research model, a confirmatory factor analysis was performed. According to the obtained results, the factor load of all three components "applying individual's creativity and innovation in the work environment", "cognitive tendencies of the individual's socialization in the work environment" and "creating the capacity for greater resilience" were higher than the recommended values, and the model fit indices show acceptable values.Extended AbstractIntroduction One of the factors influencing people's mental health is their job. Regardless of providing financial resources and satisfying some basic human needs such as a sense of self-worth, employment can be a source of psychological stress and affect the mental and physical health of employees. The World Health Organization defines mental health as: balanced and harmonious communication with others, changing and modifying the personal and social environment, and resolving conflicts and personal desires in a reasonable and appropriate manner. Job security within the organization means that the organization is dependent on the work commitment, work system, quality work and courage and expertise of the employees, not that the people and employees of the organization are dependent on the organization through official employment. This issue will lead to improving the level of resilience of employees and make their career path smoother and they will experiment better experiences than in the past (Mughli & Vajdani, 2019). Stock brokerages in the financial markets, due to the wide and daily changes in the tools of exchange and transactions, as well as the large volume of financial circulation in this part of the economy, have the capacity to create many potential crises and impulses. Today, many financial crises have occurred in the world, which often originate from the nature of markets (Felipe & Estrada, 2020). Financial markets undergo significant changes and fluctuations due to changes in other markets and investors' decisions. There are a set of factors called behavioral factors that influence the decisions of investors and affect the stock exchange as the main pillars of the capital market in the country (Ahmadi, 2016). Therefore, the researcher is trying to reach the goal of presenting the model having an effect on the psychological resilience of employees of stock brokerages in Tehran. Theoretical framework Holling was the first to define resilience in ecology: he defined resilience as the ability of systems to absorb changes and withstand them (Holling, 1973). Resilience is also defined as "the ability of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganize while undergoing change so that the system still maintains its same function, structure, characteristics, and feedback (Ghiathund & Abdul Shah, 2015). In the current situation where the country is facing many sanctions and pressures, Iran's capital market can also prevent the turbulence of parallel markets such as currency and gold by attracting stray liquidity that has led to economic growth. For this reason, the discussion of the resilience of employees of stock exchange brokerages has become very important in the current situation (Hassanzadeh et al, 2020). Soltani (2022) investigated the role of psychological empowerment on job resilience and job satisfaction of employees of knowledge-based companies. The research results indicate that psychological empowerment has a direct relationship with job resilience and job satisfaction of employees of knowledge-based companies. Maleki Tabas et al, (2022) investigated the effects of the components of spiritual intelligence on the psychological well-being of students with the mediating role of psychological resilience. The results of the research indicated a positive and significant effect of spiritual intelligence on resilience and psychological well-being, and a positive and significant effect of resilience on psychological well-being. Finally, the effect of spiritual intelligence on psychological well-being was obtained with the mediating role of resilience equal to 0.63, which shows the positive effect. Methodology This research is applicable in terms of its purpose, and a cross-sectional survey in terms of the research implementation method, and the sample selection is purposeful. The statistical population of this research is all the employees of the brokerages (Refah Bank, 81 people; Mellat Bank, 46 people; San'at-o-Ma'dan Bank, 120 people; Kar Afarin Bank, 44 people; Melli Bank, 80 people; and Aagah Brokerage, 90 people), which is a total of 461 employees. These agencies are located in Tehran. According to these agencies and according to Cochran's formula, 209 people were selected as samples. The sampling method in this research is stratified. A researcher-made questionnaire was used to collect data related to the variable. Discussion and Results  In order to investigate the hypothesis of the research, the modeling of structural equations, the method of structural equation modeling with the help of spss software was used to test the hypotheses from inferential statistics. Then, amos software was used to test the hypotheses or the conceptual model of the research, and the results showed that the chi-square value equal to 13.29 was obtained in the investigated factor model, which is significant at the 99% confidence level. This value shows the low fit of the model. The fitted chi-square value, which is calculated by dividing the chi-square by the degree of freedom, is equal to 3, which is within the recommended range. The RMSEA value equal to 0.098 was obtained, which is within the recommended range and shows the high fit of the model with the collected data. The Goodness of Fit Index (GFI) is equal to 0.94, the Adjusted Goodness of Fit Index (AGFI) is equal to 0.93, and the Normalized Fit Index (NFI) is equal to 0.92; Therefore, the fit indices of the model also show favorable values. According to these cases, it can be said that the desired model has good explanatory power. Also, in the investigated factor model, the chi-square value is equal to 1116.24, which is significant at the 99% confidence level. This value shows the low fit of the model. The fitted chi-square value, which is calculated by dividing the chi-square by the degree of freedom, is equal to 3, which is within the recommended range. The RMSEA value equal to 0.098 was obtained, which is within the recommended range and shows the high fit of the model with the collected data. The Goodness of Fit Index (GFI) is equal to 0.92, the Adjusted Goodness of Fit Index (AGFI) is equal to 0.91, and the Normalized Fit Index (NFI) is equal to 0.90; Therefore, the fit indices of the model also show favorable values. According to these cases, it can be said that the desired model has good explanatory power. Conclusion The present study was conducted with the aim of providing a suitable model for the psychological resilience of employees of stock exchange brokerages in Tehran. This finding is in line with the findings of researchers such as Frotan et al, (2018), Afshar et al, (2016), Tracey (2015) and Annarelli & Nonino (2015), Ebrahimi et al, (2017), and (Chit Karan, 2016). Management has a very important role among internal organizational factors, therefore, the current research points out the requirement to pay more attention to improving the level of managerial knowledge and learning new management methods. Demer et al, (2011) have emphasized the role of knowledge-based, entrepreneurial and innovative forces and as a factor influencing resilience. Therefore, the results of the current research, in line with this finding, emphasize the empowerment of employees for personal development and social skills. In this regard, it can be said that resilience is not a characteristic or trait that some people have and others don't have; to be more precise, resilience is a problem that can be taught and people can be empowered with appropriate training. According to the present research, it is suggested that agencies have the necessary provision for the access of specialists from other departments in case of issues that people are not able to solve and deal with. As mentioned, support resources are one of the important components of resilience. Therefore, resilient people ask for help from these sources whenever the need arises. Based on this, it is suggested that agencies provide these resources including (and not limited to) psychologists and expert consultants, to employees

A Rare Case of Gastrointestinal Tract Foreign Body; Glassy Stomach

Ingestion of foreign bodies is common and conservative treatment can eliminated most particlesfrom the gastrointestinal tractunless peritoneal signs appear. A 22-year-old man presented to emergency department who had ingested glass particles of a crushed beverage bottle. He complained of epigastric and periumbilical pain. Physical examination did not revealany peritoneal signs. Abdominal X-ray showed stomach full of small glass particles. Conservative treatment, without any surgical intervention,resulted insafely eliminating glass particlesin this patient

A systematic review about anti leishmaniasis effects of Allium species from 2000 to 2017

Introduction: Leishmania is a major public health problem worldwide. The aim of the present study was to investigate medicinal plants with anti-Leishmania activity which used in the world. Methods and Results: Data were systematically gathered from five English databases including Ebsco, Science Direct, PubMed, Google Scholar and Scopus, and four Persian databases including Magiran, Irandoc, Iran medex, and the Scientific Information Database (SID) from 2000 to April 2017. Obtained information included plant family, extraction method, extract concentration, animal models and parasite species. A total of 27 papers, including 44 experiments (26 in-vitro and 18 in-vivo), were eligible between 2000 and 2017 for systemic review and meta-analysis. Various species of Allium spp. were studied in Leishmania species. The study showed that there is not much diversity among studies. Result showed the highest proportion of Allium species used in the world as anti-leishmaniasis was Allium sativum. Conclusions: The present systemic review provides valuable information about natural products with anti-Leishmania activity, which would be examined in future experimental,  clinical trials, and herbal combination therapy

Classification of voice disorder in children with cochlear implantation and hearing aid using multiple classifier fusion

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Speech production and speech phonetic features gradually improve in children by obtaining audio feedback after cochlear implantation or using hearing aids. The aim of this study was to develop and evaluate automated classification of voice disorder in children with cochlear implantation and hearing aids.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We considered 4 disorder categories in children's voice using the following definitions:</p> <p>Level_1: Children who produce spontaneous phonation and use words spontaneously and imitatively.</p> <p>Level_2: Children, who produce spontaneous phonation, use words spontaneously and make short sentences imitatively.</p> <p>Level_3: Children, who produce spontaneous phonations, use words and arbitrary sentences spontaneously.</p> <p>Level_4: Normal children without any hearing loss background. Thirty Persian children participated in the study, including six children in each level from one to three and 12 children in level four. Voice samples of five isolated Persian words "mashin", "mar", "moosh", "gav" and "mouz" were analyzed. Four levels of the voice quality were considered, the higher the level the less significant the speech disorder. "Frame-based" and "word-based" features were extracted from voice signals. The frame-based features include intensity, fundamental frequency, formants, nasality and approximate entropy and word-based features include phase space features and wavelet coefficients. For frame-based features, hidden Markov models were used as classifiers and for word-based features, neural network was used.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>After Classifiers fusion with three methods: Majority Voting Rule, Linear Combination and Stacked fusion, the best classification rates were obtained using frame-based and word-based features with MVR rule (level 1:100%, level 2: 93.75%, level 3: 100%, level 4: 94%).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Result of this study may help speech pathologists follow up voice disorder recovery in children with cochlear implantation or hearing aid who are in the same age range.</p

Downregulation of ITM2A Gene Expression in Macrophages of Patients with Ankylosing Spondylitis

Objectives: Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is a rheumatic disorder that is mostly determined by genetic and environmental factors. Given the known importance of macrophage in AS pathogenesis, we investigated the transcriptional profile of macrophage cells in the disease. Methods and Results: Two approaches of differential expression and subsequently, weighted gene co-expression network analysis was utilized to analyze a publicly available microarray dataset of macrophages. Integral membrane protein 2A (ITM2A) was among the most significant genes with a decreased trend in the common results of both methods. In order to confirm the finding, the expression of ITM2A was evaluated in monocyte-derived (M2-like) and M1 macrophages obtained from 14 AS patients and 14 controls. Macrophages were differentiated from whole-blood separated monocytes by 7 days incubating with macrophage colony-stimulating factor and then macrophages specific markers were verified with the flow cytometer. M1 polarization was induced by IFN-gamma and lipopolysaccharide. Finally, relative gene expression analysis by real-time polymerase chain reaction revealed a significant downregulation of the ITM2A gene in both M2 like and M1 macrophages of the AS group compared to the control. Conclusion: Since ITM2A plays a critical role in osteo- and chondrogenic cellular differentiation, our finding may provide new insights into AS pathogenesis.Peer reviewe

Evaluation of the association between KIR polymorphisms and systemic sclerosis : a meta-analysis

Background: The results of investigations on the association between killer cell immunoglobulin-like receptor (KIR) gene polymorphisms and the risk of systemic sclerosis (SSc) are inconsistent. To comprehensively evaluate the influence of KIR polymorphisms on the risk of SSc, this meta-analysis was performed. Methods: A systematic literature search was performed in electronic databases including Scopus and PubMed/ MEDLINE to find all available studies involving KIR gene family polymorphisms and SSc risk prior to July 2019. Pooled odds ratios (ORs) and their corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were measured to detect associations between KIR gene family polymorphisms and SSc risk. Results: Five articles, comprising 571 patients and 796 healthy participants, evaluating the KIR gene family polymorphisms were included in the final meta-analysis according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, and 16 KIR genes were assessed. None of the KIR genes were significantly associated with the risk of SSc. Conclusions: The current meta-analysis provides evidence that KIR genes might not be potential risk factors for SSc risk