Determination of the most important factors influencing the fertility patterns of single child and without child families in Shahr-e-kord city in 2013

Introduction: The rapid decline in fertility rate and disassembling in the balance of age pyramid can exert irreparable damages to the country's economic and social structures. In this study, effective factors which could affect the fertility patterns among families with one or without child were investigated. Materials & Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 180 married women were recruited from many health centers by random simple sampling. Inclusion criteria were married women who had married at least 2 years ago and with no child as well as the married women who had only a child over 4 years old. Data collection instrument was a valid and reliable researcher-designed questionnaire (α=0.73) used to determine demographic data and to measure maternal attitudes toward childbearing. The data was analyzed by the SPSS software, version 16.

Exploring the effect of intravenous lipid emulsion in acute methamphetamine toxicity

Objective(s): The increasing use of methamphetamine (METH) in the last decades has made it the second most abused drug. Advancs in the area of intravenous lipid emulsion (ILE) have led to its potential application in the treatment of poisoning. The present study aims to investigate the potential role of ILE as an antidote for acute METH poisoning. Materials and Methods: Two groups of six male rats were treated by METH (45 mg/kg), intraperitoneally. Five to seven min later, they received an infusion of 18.6 ml/kg ILE 20% through the tail vein or normal saline (NS). Locomotor and behavioral activity was assessed at different time after METH administration. Body temperature and survival rates were also evaluated. Brain and internal organs were then removed for histological examination and TUNEL assay. Results: ILE therapy for METH poisoning in rats could prevent rats mortalities and returned the METH-induced hyperthermia to normal rates (

Laser bending of tailor machined blanks: Effect of start point of scan path and irradiation direction relation to step of

Laser bending is a process of gradually adding plastic strain to a metal component to generate desired shape. In this paper, laser bending of tailor machined blanks has been investigated experimentally. For this purpose, effects of start point of scan path and also irradiation direction relation to step (position of variance in sheet thickness) of the tailor machined blank on the obtained bending angles are investigated. The results show that irradiation path from rim of thick section to rim of thin section of the tailor machined blank leads to more bending angles in comparison with irradiation path from thin section to thick section of tailor machined blank. Also, it is concluded from results that when the step of tailor machined blank is positioned in the opposite direction to the laser beam, more bending angles are obtained in the laser formed tailor machined blank in comparison with positioning of step of tailor machined blank toward the laser beam. The results indicate that the bending angle of tailor machined blank is increased with increasing the laser output power and decreasing the laser scanning speed

An institutional analysis of tourism business environment and entrepreneurship of Iran

The analysis of the quality of the business environment and tourism entrepreneurship is one of the most important preconditions for improving the tourism business environment. In this regard, the new institutional economy, which focuses on the institutional environment, interprets the relations of tourist actors, which undeniable influence of government, laws and governance structure is undeniable. In this research, an explanation of the factors influencing the institutional environment of the tourism sector has been attempted with the concept of institutionalism and a qualitative approach (thematic analysis). Therefore, through in-depth interviews with 24 economic and tourism experts, institutional factors affecting the business environment and tourism entrepreneurship were identified and explained. The results of the research identified three main themes: the legal system, government policies and science and technology with their sub-themes, It was identified that the business environment of tourism is affected by them and the management and organization..

MaxEnt brings comparable results when the input data are being completed; Model parameterization of four species distribution models

Abstract Species distribution models (SDMs) are practical tools to assess the habitat suitability of species with numerous applications in environmental management and conservation planning. The manipulation of the input data to deal with their spatial bias is one of the advantageous methods to enhance the performance of SDMs. However, the development of a model parameterization approach covering different SDMs to achieve well‐performing models has rarely been implemented. We integrated input data manipulation and model tuning for four commonly‐used SDMs: generalized linear model (GLM), gradient boosted model (GBM), random forest (RF), and maximum entropy (MaxEnt), and compared their predictive performance to model geographically imbalanced‐biased data of a rare species complex of mountain vipers. Models were tuned up based on a range of model‐specific parameters considering two background selection methods: random and background weighting schemes. The performance of the fine‐tuned models was assessed based on recently identified localities of the species. The results indicated that although the fine‐tuned version of all models shows great performance in predicting training data (AUC > 0.9 and TSS > 0.5), they produce different results in classifying out‐of‐bag data. The GBM and RF with higher sensitivity of training data showed more different performances. The GLM, despite having high predictive performance for test data, showed lower specificity. It was only the MaxEnt model that showed high predictive performance and comparable results for identifying test data in both random and background weighting procedures. Our results highlight that while GBM and RF are prone to overfitting training data and GLM over‐predict nonsampled areas MaxEnt is capable of producing results that are both predictable (extrapolative) and complex (interpolative). We discuss the assumptions of each model and conclude that MaxEnt could be considered as a practical method to cope with imbalanced‐biased data in species distribution modeling approaches

Anti-Proliferative Potential of Fluorinated Curcumin Analogues: Experimental and Computational Analysis and Review of the Literature

BACKGROUND: Curcuminoids, flavoring, and coloring agents in food have potent antioxidant, anti-tumor activity, and anti-inflammatory effects. However, they are rapidly metabolized to lesser active metabolites. Therefore, various studies have been conducted to synthesize new and stable curcumin analogues with enhanced therapeutic activity. METHODS: Fluorinated curcumin compounds (2a-2f) were synthesized by Knoevenagel condensation between fluorobenzaldehydes (1a-1f) with curcumin. Fluorinated demethoxycurcumin (3a) was synthesized by condensation between demethoxycurcumin and 3,4-difluorobenzaldehyde (1f). The structures of these compounds were confirmed by FTIR, 1H-NMR, 13C-NMR, 19FNMR, and mass spectroscopy. Antiproliferative activities of these synthetic compounds were evaluated against breast cancer cells (4T1), melanoma cancer cells (B16F10), and normal cell lines (NIH 3T3) using MTT assay. The interaction of curcumin, 2f and 3a with several proteins (1HCL, 2ZOQ, 3D94, 5EW3, 4WA9, 1XKK, 6CCY) was investigated. The structural preservation of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) was investigated by molecular dynamics simulation. RESULTS: The spectroscopic data obtained confirmed the proposed structure of fluorinated analogues. The results showed that compounds 2f and 3a inhibited cancer cells proliferation significantly more than other compounds. Compounds 2f and 3a showed the highest affinity and lowest binding energy with EGFR. The binding energies were -7.8, -10, and - 9.8 kcal/mol for curcumin, 2f and 3a with EGFR, respectively. The molecular docking results demonstrated that compounds 2f and 3a were firmly bound in a complex with EGFR via the formation of a hydrogen bond. CONCLUSION: In summary, we found that fluorinated demethoxycurcumin and fluorinated curcumin induces cancer cell death and binds to EGFR with high affinity

Seroprevalence of Varicella-Zoster Virus IgG Among Students of Babol University of Medical Sciences: Importance of Vaccine Strategy for Women of Reproductive Age (2016-2017)

Background and Aims: Chickenpox is a highly contagious disease caused by infection with Varicella Zoster Virus (VZV). Although it is usually a self-limited disease, but severe complications may occasionally occur. The aim of this study was to investigate the seroprevalence of VZV antibody among students of Babol University of Medical Sciences especially female students in reproductive age. Materials and Methods: 270 students were enrolled to our study. After signing a written informed consent, demographic data and 5 ml blood sample were collected from each participant. Following serum isolation, each serum sample was assessed by ELISA technique for VZV IgG. Results and Conclusion: Of two hundred and seventy students, 197 were female and 73 were male. Out of female students, 145 students (73.6%) were single and in reproductive age. 17.3% of female students and 8.2% of male students were seronegative and susceptible to VZV infection. Besides, 7.9% of unmarried male students and 20.7% of unmarried female students were susceptible to VZV infection. The highest susceptibility to VZV was seen in 18-21 years age group. Therefore, more than 20% of unmarried female students were susceptible to VZV, which can be important regarding infection during pregnancy and subsequent severe complications. Consequently, vaccination for VZV in susceptible students especially unmarried female students is recommended

The possibility of spatial mapping of SOC content in olive groves under integrated production using easy-to-obtain ancillary data in a Mediterranean area [version 2; peer review: 1 approved, 2 approved with reservations, 2 not approved]

Background Unlike most of Europe, Andalucía in southern Spain as a Mediterranean area still lacks digital maps of SOC content provided by machine learning algorithms. The wide diversity of climate, geology, hydrology, landscape, topography, vegetation, and micro-relief data as easy-to-obtain covariates facilitated the development of digital soil mapping (DSM). The purpose of this research is to model and map the spatial distribution of SOC at three depths, in an area of approximately 10000 km2 located in Seville and Cordoba Provinces, and to use R programming to compare two machine learning techniques (cubist and random forest) for developing SOC maps at multiple depths. Methods Environmental covariates used in this research include nine derivatives from digital elevation models (DEM), three climatic variables and finally eighteen remotely-sensed spectral data (band ratios calculated by the acquired Landsat-8 OLI and Sentinel-2A MSI in July 2019). In total, 300 soil samples from 100 points were taken (0-25 cm). The purpose of this research is to model and map the spatial distribution of SOC, in an area with approximately 10000 km2 located in Seville and Cordoba Provinces, and to compare two machine learning techniques (cubist and random forest) by R programming. Results The findings showed that the novel approach for integrating the indices using Landsat-8 OLI and Sentinel-2A MSI satellite data had a better result. Conclusions Finally, we obtained evidence that the resolution of satellite images is more important in modelling and digital mapping