The effect of home visits on quality of life of elderly having Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) discharged from Khalij Fars hospital in Bandar Abbas

Background and aims: According to the increasing prevalence of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), and decreasing the quality of life these patients, the present study was aimed to investigate the effect of home visits on the quality of life of elderly suffering from COPD hospitalized in the Khalij Fars hospital of Bandar Abbas, Iran in 2015. Methods: The current quasi- experimental study was carried on in Khalij Fars hospital of Bandar Abbas, Iran on 62 elderly suffering from COPD with moderate intensity in 2015-2016 based on Spirometry results and the specialist`s recognition. The data collection tools were demographic questionnaire and quality of life questionnaire (SF-36). The data were analyzed by SPSS software, and using the independent T-test, and K2. Results: Based on results in the study, it was not observed a significant difference between two groups in terms of gender (P=0.793), marital status (P=0.998), habitation (P=0.704), education (P=0.145), and economic situation (P=0.605). There was a significant difference in the total score of the educated group compared to the none- educated group (P<0.0001), and the average score of the intervention groups before the test was 51.90 while this number increased to 66.73% after intervention. The rate of readmission was 66.7% in the control group and 57.4% in the case group. It shows that home visits have been effective in reducing re-hospitalization of elderly people (P=0.028). Conclusion: Regarding these findings, the education program along with home-visiting had improved the quality of life of elderly having Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary (COPD). Also, home visits aimed at maintaining health and independence of older people to prevent their disability after discharge from care facilities are considered a necessity

Concurrent Effects of Bleaching Materials and the Size of Root Canal Preparation on Cervical Dentin Microhardness

Introduction: The aim of the present study was to evaluate the concurrent effect of root canal preparation size and intra coronal bleaching on dentin microhardness. Methods and Materials: Seventy-two intact anterior teeth were root canal treated and randomly divided into two groups (n=36) according to the size of coronal root canal preparation. The coronal portions of the canals were then enlarged with #2 and 4 Peeso reamers, respectively. Following root canal obturation, teeth were assigned into three groups (n=12) to be treated with bleaching agents containing 35% hydrogen peroxide (HP), sodium perborate (SP) and distilled water as control group. The teeth were stored at 37ºC and 100% humidity for 7 days. Dentinal blocks with 3 mm thickness were obtained from the cervical region and Vickers microhardness number (VHN) were measured for outer and inner dentin in each tooth sample. Data were analyzed using two-way ANOVA and Tukey’s HSD tests. Results: In the outer dentin, the mean VHN in the HP and control groups showed statistically significant differences (P=0.047). The mean VHN of inner dentin for the large preparation size was statistically higher in comparison to the small preparation size (P=0.042). There was a statistically significant difference in the mean VHN of inner dentin with small preparation size between HP and SP groups (P=0.029) and HP and control groups (P=0.021). Conclusion: Intra coronal bleaching with 35% hydrogen peroxide, affects the inner and outer dentin significantly. Excessive removal of cervical dentin, following root canal preparation, alongside the adverse effect of bleaching materials on dentin could result in the tooth fracture.Keywords: Hardness Test; Hydrogen Peroxide; Sodium Perborate; Tooth Bleachin

Investigating the role of commercialization on purchase intention

This paper presents a study to determine the role of commercialization on purchase intention in auto industry. The study designs a questionnaire in Likert scale and distributes it among some randomly selected people who lived in city of Tehran, Iran. The study investigates the effects of four factors including competitive condition, product development strategy, competitive advantage and economic growth on customers’ intention to purchase. Using structural equation modeling the study has determined a positive and meaningful relationship between each four components and purchase intention. In our study, the highest impact belongs to competitive condition followed by product development strategy

Studying the effect of risk management on stock returns of companies listed in Tehran Stock Exchange

This study examines the relationship between risk management and stock returns of companies listed in Tehran Stock Exchange. To do this, 73 companies during the period of 2005 to 2010 were selected. The effects of different variables on risk management including working capital, current assets, and current liabilities (independent variables) on stock returns (the dependent variable) of companies were studied. The purpose of it is to know the following issues: 1. Studying the relationship between current assets changes and stock return changes 2. Studying the relationship between current liabilities changes and stock return changes 3. Studying the relationship between working capital changes and stock return changes 4. Studying the relationship between risk management approach and stock return changes. For the analysis, the Pearson correlation and regression are used. Also, by the use of security exchange site and Tadbir Pardaz Software, the raw data of companies were directly gathered from Tehran Stock Exchange and financial statements of companies, and EXCEL and SPSS Softwares were used for data analysis. The results demonstrate that there is no significant relationship between any of the risk management variables and stock returns of companies in Tehran Stock Exchange during the years 2005 to 2010

Studying the effect of risk management on stock returns of companies listed in Tehran Stock Exchange

This study examines the relationship between risk management and stock returns of companies listed in Tehran Stock Exchange. To do this, 73 companies during the period of 2005 to 2010 were selected. The effects of different variables on risk management including working capital, current assets, and current liabilities (independent variables) on stock returns (the dependent variable) of companies were studied. The purpose of it is to know the following issues: 1. Studying the relationship between current assets changes and stock return changes 2. Studying the relationship between current liabilities changes and stock return changes 3. Studying the relationship between working capital changes and stock return changes 4. Studying the relationship between risk management approach and stock return changes. For the analysis, the Pearson correlation and regression are used. Also, by the use of security exchange site and Tadbir Pardaz Software, the raw data of companies were directly gathered from Tehran Stock Exchange and financial statements of companies, and EXCEL and SPSS Softwares were used for data analysis. The results demonstrate that there is no significant relationship between any of the risk management variables and stock returns of companies in Tehran Stock Exchange during the years 2005 to 2010

Bi-Directional ConvLSTM U-Net with Densley Connected Convolutions

In recent years, deep learning-based networks have achieved state-of-the-art performance in medical image segmentation. Among the existing networks, U-Net has been successfully applied on medical image segmentation. In this paper, we propose an extension of U-Net, Bi-directional ConvLSTM U-Net with Densely connected convolutions (BCDU-Net), for medical image segmentation, in which we take full advantages of U-Net, bi-directional ConvLSTM (BConvLSTM) and the mechanism of dense convolutions. Instead of a simple concatenation in the skip connection of U-Net, we employ BConvLSTM to combine the feature maps extracted from the corresponding encoding path and the previous decoding up-convolutional layer in a non-linear way. To strengthen feature propagation and encourage feature reuse, we use densely connected convolutions in the last convolutional layer of the encoding path. Finally, we can accelerate the convergence speed of the proposed network by employing batch normalization (BN). The proposed model is evaluated on three datasets of: retinal blood vessel segmentation, skin lesion segmentation, and lung nodule segmentation, achieving state-of-the-art performance

The impact of packaging on product competition

The primary objective of this paper is to detect important factors, which are influencing competitive advantage. The proposed model of this paper uses sampling technique to measure characteristics of society. There are eight independent variables for the proposed study of this paper including packaging endurance, easy distribution, customer promotion through packaging, packaging structure, packaging as silent advertiser, diversity of packaging, clean and healthy packaging and innovation in packaging. The proposed study uses structural equation modeling to either accept or reject all hypotheses associated with the proposed study of this paper. The population of this study includes all managers and experts who are involved in packaging products. We used simple sampling technique and chooses 300 from a population of 450 people who are considered as the population of this survey. Cronbach alpha was determined as 0.732, which is above the minimum acceptable level. The results confirm that all mentioned factors influence competitiveness, effectively

Survey of clinical features, pathogenesis and therapeutic options for Ebola haemorrhagic fever

      The genus Ebola virus first was recognized in 1976, when two outbreaks occurred in Zaire and Sudan. Ebola virus disease (EVD) is a highly contagious disease that can affect both human and nonhuman primates: Zaire ebolavirus (ZEBOV), Sudan ebolavirus (SEBOV), Côte d’Ivoire ebolavirus (CEBOV), Bundibugyo ebolavirus (BEBOV) and Reston ebolavirus (REBOV) are five members of the Filoviridae family that can cause haemorrhagic fever. EVD is transmitted by direct contact with contaminated blood or other biological fluids of the infected animals such as chimpanzees, gorillas, fruit bats, monkeys, forest antelope and porcupines found ill or dead or in the rainforest. Ebola is responsible for different clinical futures that can be ranged from fever, headache, arthralgia, myalgia, abdominal pain, anorexia and vomiting to severe respiratory disorders, viral hemorrhagic fever, cardio-vascular disorders and hypovolaemic shock.  Although there is no specific treatment for EVD, considerable advances like use of monoclonal antibody, intefron and Favipiravir/T-705 as effective chemotherapeutic agent in treatment of EBV have been made. To date, 25 outbreaks of EVD have been reported. Hence, EVD as a zoonotic disease should be more focused not only in endemic area but also in throughout the world. Awareness of the disease and routes of transmission and also continuous surveillance to combat disease and outbreaks is necessary

Prevalence of Catheter-associated bacteriuria in patients who received short-term catheterization in the northeast of Iran

Background: Catheter-associated (CA) bacteriuria is a result of the extensive usage of urinary catheterization. Once a catheter is placed, many patients achieve bacteriuria, even with the use of greatest consideration and care of the catheter. In this study, we decided to evaluate the prevalence of Catheter-associated bacteriuria in patients who received short-term catheterization in the northeast of Iran.Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study during one year (among 2014-2015) 275 patients who have admitted recently and have no history of catheterization and drug consumption were included. Three samples were taken from patients before, one day after catheterization and after removal of the catheter. The urine samples were analyzed and cultured on the suitable media. Antibiotics susceptibility testing was performed by disk diffusion method. Then, data analyzed using SPSS software by Student t-test. In addition, the p values less than 0.05 were considered as significant.Results: In general, the rate of catheter-associated bacteriuria in these hospitals was 68% (187 cases of 275). The mean age of the participants and patients with bacteriuria were 41±1.2 and 24.8±6.2 years old, respectively. The most common isolated bacteria were Escherichia coli (50.6%) followed by Staphylococcus aureus and Klebsiella pneumonia (21.6%). The highest sensitivity was reported against kanamycin (68.9%) and highest resistance was observed against ampicillin with a rate of 96.3%.Conclusion: For prevention of healthcare-associated UTI, correct catheterization and use of the closed catheter system is recommended. In addition, before prescribing any antibiotics it should be paying attention to the antibiotics susceptibility testing results