Comparative Efficacy of Three Control Protocols of Head Lice (Pediculus Humanus Capitis) Infesting Schoolchildren in Mashhad City, Iran

Background: Head lice infestation constitutes a serious health problem in marginalized areas where schoolchildren and their families are mostly affected. This study aimed to compare 3 lice control protocols approved by Ministry of  Health and Medical Education, based on 1% permethrin shampoo, 4% dimethicone lotion and (1:1) vinegar wet combing for the treatment of outpatients of Imam Reza Hospital of Mashhad city (Iran). Materials and Methods: The quasi-experimental before-and-after design was applied to evaluate the effectiveness of protocols, using SPSS  software version 16.0. The study involved 154 infested individuals from both sexes during 2015 and 2016. The patients were clustered into 4-age categories; 13-year-old and their demographics were recorded. The results were recorded on weekly basis by a hospital-based dermatologist and an entomologist. Application times of permethrin, dimethicone and vinegar were 8-10 min, 8 h and 20-30 min respectively. Results: Age, gender, familly size and hair length were the most significant demographic variants involved in treatments outcomes at P ≤ 0.05. The protocols showed different efficacies a week after intervention keeping the same trend to the end. The dimethicone treated group indicated the highest control levels (86% and 74%). The recovery rates at first endpoint were 86, 64.2 and 60.8%, and at the second endpoint were 74, 45.3 and 45.1% for dimethicone, permethrin and vinegar respectively. Dimethicone was 4.3 times more potent than either of vinegar or permethrin (

Persistence of earnings and prediction of future cash flows: the role of timely recognition of bad news

Timely recognition of losses and expenses compared to revenues and increased values precipitates future expenses to match with current revenues. Thus, timely recognition of losses acts to reduce the persistence of earnings. However, it is expected that a more timely recognition of negative cash flows, as bad news, increase the power of earnings for predicting future cash flows. This study investigates the effects of the timely recognition of bad news (loss) versus the good news on the decrease of the persistence of earnings, and the effect of negative cash flows on forecasting future cash flows. In this study, two pooling type models and a panel type model have been used to estimate the persistence of earnings and cash flows. Seventy eight firms that were listed in the Tehran Stock Exchange during the period 2003–2010 were duly reviewed. The results of this research proved that the timely recognition of loss does not affect the persistence and the power of earnings for the purpose of forecasting future cash flows. The findings imply that conservatism does not distort persistence of earnings

Harmonized clinical trial methodologies for localized cutaneous leishmaniasis and potential for extensive network with capacities for clinical evaluation

International audienceINTRODUCTION: Progress with the treatment of cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) has been hampered by inconsistent methodologies used to assess treatment effects. A sizable number of trials conducted over the years has generated only weak evidence backing current treatment recommendations, as shown by systematic reviews on old-world and new-world CL (OWCL and NWCL).MATERIALS AND METHODS: Using a previously published guidance paper on CL treatment trial methodology as the reference, consensus was sought on key parameters including core eligibility and outcome measures, among OWCL (7 countries, 10 trial sites) and NWCL (7 countries, 11 trial sites) during two separate meetings.RESULTS: Findings and level of consensus within and between OWCL and NWCL sites are presented and discussed. In addition, CL trial site characteristics and capacities are summarized.CONCLUSIONS: The consensus reached allows standardization of future clinical research across OWCL and NWCL sites. We encourage CL researchers to adopt and adapt as required the proposed parameters and outcomes in their future trials and provide feedback on their experience. The expertise afforded between the two sets of clinical sites provides the basis for a powerful consortium with potential for extensive, standardized assessment of interventions for CL and faster approval of candidate treatments

Continuous Media in Discrete Objects: Support for Collaborative Multimedia

Multimedia has the same potential to revolutionize human-computer interfaces that bitmapped workstations have realized over the last decade. Achieving this potential requires the development of programming environments with integrated support for multimedia. SuiteSound is one such environment. SuiteSound is built in the Suite object-based system on a conventional UNIX operating system. SuiteSound objects incorporate multimedia by creating flows, which are streams of multimedia data moving through a sequence of objects. Flows bridge the gap between objects representing the state of an entity at a discrete point in time and space and continuous media such as live audio or video. This paper describes the design and implementation of SuiteSound on the Sun SparcStation. Three SuiteSound applications are described in detail: a teleconferencing tool, a voice annotator, and a collaborative software inspection tool. Experiences using the SuiteSound environment and applications are detailed, a ..

CAIS: Collaborative Asynchronous Inspection of Software

Many software engineering tasks have a synchronous component that requires the participants to assemble together at the same time and place. This approach is expensive in terms of traveling, scheduling and human resources. Existing computer tools mitigate these constraints by adding structure to the meeting, providing on-line document support, and distributing the participants over geographic boundaries. The constraint remains, however, that all participants participate at the same time. We propose relaxing the time constraint in software engineering tasks to resolve issues non-concurrently, in effect reducing (and in some cases eliminating) the need for the synchronous meeting. We hypothesize that support for asynchrony will enable software engineering teams to work together as effectively in different times as in same time. We have chosen software inspection as our candidate software engineering task because it is well-understood, highly-structured, and widely-practiced. We have de..

Lupoid Cutaneous Leishmaniasis: Review

Introduction: Leishmaniasis is an infectious disease currently threatens 350 million people in 88 countries. Lupoid leishmaniasis occurs as a result of the host response, in which despite an intensified hypersensitivity the cell mediated immunity cannot sterilize lesions. A chronic granulomatous inflammation remains active for a long time. To summarize the articles published about Lupoid leishmaniasis. Materials and Methods: a systematic web base search was conducted in PubMed up to July 2015. We included articles with available abstract in English language. Manual searching was done within the reference list of articles.  Results: Two reviewers independently reviewed and assessed eligibility criteria, assessed quality, and extracted data. Conclusion: Some patients have periods of relapse and remission at the site of inoculation of parasites and others suffer from chronic injury for years. In the case of effective disease treatment several studies have been conducted, so far, no satisfactory results have been achieved

Association between MMP9 Promoter Polymorphism and Breast Cancer Progression in Northwest of Iran

Abstract Background: MMP9, as a member of the MMPs family, codes a protein that is able to provide suitable infrastructures for the migration of cancer cells and angiogenesis within tumor. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between -1562 C> T polymorphism in MMP9 promoter and progression of breast cancer in northwest of Iran. Materials and Methods: In this case-control study, 187 females from northwest of Iran were involved. Polymorphism of interest was determined by PCR-RFLP method using enzyme PaeI and statistical analysis was done by Med Calc software. Results: Distribution of CC genotype in cancer and control groups was,44 and 62.5, tespectively and distribution of CT genotype in cancer and control groups was 56 and 37.5, respectively, In the statistical analysis, χ2 and p value were respectively, 5.4 and 0.01. There is a significant association between this polymorphism and lymph nodes involvement and presence of tumor larger than 2cm3 (respectively p= 0.005 and p = 0.03). The results of this study showed -1562 C> T polymorphism in MMP9 promoter is associated with stage II and higher stages of breast cancer in our population. Furthermore, CT genotype may increase the risk of lymph node metastasis and presence of tumor larger than 2 cm3 (OR= 4). Conclusion: According to the results of this study, MMP9 (-1562 C> T) polymorphism may be used as a biomarker for breast cancer prognosis. Although, to achieve more definitive results, it is necessary to examine a larger population