Libyan Foreign Policy under Gaddafi: From Confrontation to Voluntary Partnership with the West

The political upheaval known as the Islamic Awakening, which has gripped the Arab Middle East since 2011, in one case led to the overthrow of the ruling regime in Libya through Western military intervention. The military intervention came as Gaddafi's foreign policy shifted from an anti-Western orientation to voluntary engagement with the West, and relations seemingly normalized. But despite these changes, the onset of the internal Libyan crisis led to a practical and immediate response by the Western coalition aimed at overthrowing Gaddafi. This study, while theoretically studying Libyan foreign policy in the framework of James Rosena's theory and using a descriptive-explanatory method, seeks to answer the main question of why Gaddafi pursued an interactive and participatory foreign policy with the West in the last decade of his rule. But after the beginning of the popular uprising, the Western countries in the form of NATO began to intervene militarily in this country? The main hypothesis is that despite pursuing a policy of interaction with the West; Lack of trust between the parties and the lack of social, economic and political reforms and the continuation of internal discontent led the Western countries to support the fall of Gaddafi as the crisis in Libya began

Assessment of relative efficiency of countries in attaining human development sub indexes

Competitiveness and human development are two major aspects of nations' performance. However, the main objective of competitiveness should be to improve human development. In the current study, we aimed to examine the relative efficiency of countries in achieving the aforementioned target. In other words, the question is whether competitiveness has led to human development. To this end, we selected 31 countries with the same category in human development (high human development) and also with available data on competitiveness and its components. Due to the nature of the study, we used Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method. The model used in this study employed three subindexes of global competitiveness including basic requirements, efficiency enhancers, and innovation and sophistication factors as input variables and three subindexes of human development including life expectancy at birth, mean years of schooling, and per capita national income as output variables. Since, as noted, the goal of countries (DMUs) is to improve human development; this study employed an output-oriented DEA model. Though, a DEA model with either constant or variable return to scale could be used, this paper employs DEA with constant return to scale because variable case has extended to accommodate scale effects while in our case (where countries in the role of units under assessment are large enough) intrinsic scale effects do not exist and also CRS models have higher separable power for differentiating efficient and inefficient units. And finally after running the model we found that 9 out of 31 assessed countries are technically efficient which implies that these 9 countries have used competitiveness subindexes to attain expected values of human development sub-indexes. In 2012 Iran is an inefficient unit, having a technical efficiency rank of 19th among the assessed countries. As in this paper there are two kinds of variables, i.e. input and output variables, the most effective subindex which have lowered Iran's rank are life expectancy at birth for input variables and efficiency enhancers for output variables. Moreover, Albania and Venezuela have been introduced as reference set for Iran in this year

A Rule Based Classification Model to Predict Colon Cancer Survival

Introduction: Colon cancer is the second most common cancer in the world and fourth most common cancer in both sexes in Iran, whose % 8.12 of all cancers in the covers. Predict the outcome of cancer and basic clinical data about it is very important. Data mining techniques can be used to predict cancer outcome. In our country, data mining studies on colon cancer, not covered as lung or breast cancers. It seems can be with identify factors influencing on survival and modify them, increased survival of colon cancer patients. Then according to high rates of colon cancer and the benefits of data mining to predict survival, in this study examined factors influencing on the survival of these patients. Materials and Methods: We use a dataset with four attributes that include the records of 570 patients in which 327 Patients (57.4%) and 243 (42.6%) patients were males and females respectively. Trees Random Forest (TRF), AdaBoost (AD), RBF Network (RBFN), and Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) machine learning techniques with 10-cross fold technique were used with the proposed model for the prediction of colon cancer survival. The performance of machine learning techniques were evaluated with accuracy, precision, sensitivity, specificity, and area under ROC curve. Results: Out of 570 patients, 338 patients and 232 patients were alive and dead respectively. In this Study, at first sight it seems that among this techniques, Trees Random Forest (TRF) technique showed better results in comparison to other techniques (AD, RBFN and MLP). The accuracy, sensitivity, specificity and the area under ROC curve of TRF are 0.76, 0.808, 0.70 and 0.83, respectively. Conclusions: In this study seems that Trees Random Forest model (TRF) which is a rule based classification model was the best model with the highest level of accuracy. Therefore, this model is recommended as a useful tool for colon cancer survival prediction as well as medical decision making

LIF Spectroscopy of Fruits: Study of Excitation Wavelength Independence

In fluorescence spectroscopy, fluorescence emissiongenerally occurs from the excited state with the lowest energy. This is known as "Kasha's rule" and is a general principle with only a few rare exceptions. As a consequence,the emission wavelength is independent of the excitation wavelength. In order to select an appropriate excitation source in fluorescence spectroscopy,it is very important to know the relation between the excitation source wavelength and the emission wavelength. The aim of this paper isto study the excitation-wavelength-independent fluorescence emission of some fruits. To do so, a fluorescence spectrometer controlled by labVIEW software was developed forcollecting the fluorescence spectra ofsome famous fruits.A semiconductor laser and light emitting diodes with different wavelengths was used as the excitation sources

Evaluation of antidepressant-like effect of hydroalcoholic extract of Passiflora incarnata in animal models of depression in male mice

Introduction: Passiflora incarnata (PI) is one of the commonest herbal anti-anxiety and sedative agents. The aim of the present study was to investigate the antidepressant effect of hydroalcoholic extract of PI in forced swim test (FST) and tail suspension test (TST) in male mice. Methods: In this experimental study, 48 male mice were randomly divided into 6 groups of 8: Negative and positive control groups received normal saline (10 ml/kg), fluoxetine (20 mg/kg) and imipramine (30 mg/kg), respectively and treatment groups received extracts of PI (200, 400 and 800 mg/kg). Immobility, swimming and climbing behaviors were recorded during 6-min. Results: All doses of PI extract compared to control group significantly reduced the duration of immobility time in both of two tests (p&lt;0.001). Also, these extracts increased swimming time (p&lt;0.001) without significant change of climbing time. Conclusion: PI has considerable antidepressant-like effect in animal models of depression. However, further studies are needed to determine its exact mechanism of action.</p

Antibacterial effects of <em>Solanum tuberosum</em> peel ethanol extract in vitro

Introduction: Today, medicinal plants are being widely used due to being natural, available, and cheaper than synthetic drugs and having minimum side effects. Since there were reports about the antibacterial properties of Solanum tuberosum (SE), the aim of this study was to investigate the antibacterial effects of SE ethanol extract in vitro condition on Streptococcus pyogenes, Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Klebsiella pneumoniae Methods: Ethanol extract of SE peel was prepared by maceration method. Initially, antibacterial activity of ethanol extract of SE was qualitatively determined by disk diffusion test; then, the minimum inhibitory concentration and minimum bactericidal concentration were qualitatively determined by micro-dilution method. Results: SE peel extract had antibacterial properties and its effect was more pronounced on gram-positive bacteria, especially S. aureus (0.62&plusmn;0.00 mg/ml). The extract had antibacterial activity on gram-negative bacteria, P. aeruginosa, too (8.33&plusmn;2.88 mg/ml). Conclusion: SE peel extract has antibacterial activity and its effect on gram-positive bacteria was more pronounced than the investigated gram-negative bacteria. Therefore, it is suggested that SE peel constituent compounds be determined and to determine the exact mechanism of its antibacterial properties, and more comprehensive research be done to apply it, clinically.</p

Case Fatality Rate of COVID-19: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Objective: The ongoing novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is the main cause of morbidity and mortality due to its contagious nature and absence of vaccine and treatment. Although there are considerable primary studies that reported extremely variable case fatality rate (CFR) of COVID-19, there is no review study that attempted to estimate CFR of COVID-19. The current systematic review and meta-analysis was aimed to estimate the pooled CFR of COVID-19. Methods: Electronic databases: PubMed, Science Direct, Scopus and Google Scholar were searched to retrieve the eligible primary studies that reported CFR of COVID-19. Keywords: ("COVID-19"OR "COVID-2019" OR "severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2"OR "severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2" OR "2019-nCoV" OR "SARS-CoV-2" OR "2019nCoV" OR (("Wuhan" AND ("coronavirus" OR "coronavirus")) AND (2019/12[PDAT] OR 2020[PDAT]))) AND ("mortality "OR "mortality" OR ("case" AND "fatality" AND "rate") OR "case fatality rate") were used as free text and MeSH term in searching process. Random-effects model used to estimate the CFR in this study. I2 statistic, Cochran’s Q test and T2 were used to assess the available heterogeneity between included studies. Results: The overall pooled CFR of COVID 19 was 10.0 %( 95% CI: 8.0-11.0); P&lt;0.001; I2 = 99.7). The pooled CFR of COVID 19 in general population was 1.0% (95% CI: 1.0–3.0); P&lt;0.001; I2 = 94.3), while in hospitalized patients was 13.0 % (95% CI: 9.0–17.0); P&lt;0.001, I2 = 95.6). The pooled CFR in patients admitted in intensive care unit (ICU) was 37.0 % (95% CI: 24.0–51.0); P&lt;0.001, I2 = 97.8) and in patients older than 50 years was 19.0 % (95% CI: 13.0–24.0); P&lt;0.001; I2 = 99.8). Conclusion: The present review results highlighted the need of transparency in testing and reporting policies and denominators used in CFR estimation. It is also necessary reporting the cases age, sex and the comorbidity distribution of all patients which important in comparing the CFR among different segments of population

Availability and helpful environment of school health services in Rawalpindi and Islamabad region

Objective: To assess the status of health services and environment in the public and private schools of Rawalpindi and Islamabad.Methodology: A cross sectional study was conducted at Islamabad Medical and Dental College, Islamabad from April to September 2017. A survey was done in the schools of Rawalpindi and Islamabad through a questionnaire, distributed to the school heads and/or administrators. The study outcome was measured in terms of status of school health services and health environment.. Out of the total list of government, private and semi government schools the number for visit and interview was selected systematically. Data was entered and analyzed by using SPSS 20 version. Results: Overall 60.1% schools had a health team. Health teams were found in 47.6% of government, 58.3% of private and 80.0% of semi government schools. Only 42.4% had received any health-related training for students or personnel in the schools, 28.3% schools had presence of doctor while 30.9% had a nurse. Safe drinking water and adequate washroom facility was available in majority of schools along with playing area and proper lighting and ventilation condition. Conclusion: School health services are very poor at the schools in Rawalpindi and Islamabad region. There is lack of health training for students and staff with only 42.4% getting it

Implementation of webcam-based hyperspectral imaging system

In the present work, a hyperspectral imaging system (imaging spectrometer) using a commercial webcam has been designed and developed. This system was able to capture two-dimensional spectra (in emission, transmission and reflection modes) directly from the scene in the desired wavelengths. Imaging of the object is done directly by linear sweep (pushbroom method). To do so, the spectrometer is equipped with a suitable collecting lens and a linear travel stage. A 1920 x 1080 pixel CMOS webcam was used as a detector. The spectrometer has been calibrated by the reference spectral lines of standard lamps. The spectral resolution of this system was about 2nm and its spatial resolution was about 1 mm for a 10 cm long object. The hardware solution is based on data acquisition working on the USB platform and controlled by a LabVIEW program. In this system, the initial output was a three-dimensional matrix in which two dimensions of the matrix were related to the spatial information of the object and the third dimension was the spectrum of any point of the object. Finally, the images in different wavelengths were created by reforming the data of the matrix. The free spectral range (FSR) of the system was 400 to 1100 nm. The system was successfully tested for some applications, such as plasma diagnosis as well as applications in food and agriculture sciences