Globalization of Culture and Religious Tourism

This study proceeded to examine the relationship between cultural globalization and religious tourism. Giddens and Robertson’s theory was applied to test the research hypotheses. The method is quantitative and required population of study came to be 400 pilgrims of Shah-e-Cheragh Holey Shrine, aged 18-65, randomly selected and analyzed. The data were collected by giving questionnaires, and were analyzed using SPSS software. This study totally involved 5 hypotheses, one of which is rejected. The results indicated that modern info-communicative technology and individualism hold a strongly negative relationship with religious tourism, while awareness against globalization reveals no relationship with religious tourism

Scenario modelling of basin-scale, shallow landslide sediment yield, Valsassina, Italian Southern Alps

International audienceThe SHETRAN model for determining the sediment yield arising from shallow landsliding at the scale of a river catchment was applied to the 180-km2 Valsassina basin in the Italian Southern Alps, with the aim of demonstrating that the model can simulate long term patterns of landsliding and the associated sediment yields and that it can be used to explore the sensitivity of the landslide sediment supply system to changes in catchment characteristics. The model was found to reproduce the observed spatial distribution of landslides from a 50-year record very well but probably with an overestimate of the annual rate of landsliding. Simulated sediment yields were within the range observed in a wider region of northern Italy. However, the results suggest that the supply of shallow landslide material to the channel network contributes relatively little to the overall long term sediment yield compared with other sources. The model was applied for scenarios of possible future climate (drier and warmer) and land use (fully forested hillslopes). For both scenarios, there is a modest reduction in shallow landslide occurrence and the overall sediment yield. This suggests that any current schemes for mitigating sediment yield impact in Valsassina remain valid. The application highlights the need for further research in eliminating the large number of unconditionally unsafe landslide sites typically predicted by the model and in avoiding large overestimates of landslide occurrence

Proposing a Model for Religious Tourism Development: Evidence from Iran

This study proposes a model for religious tourism as one of the most promising types of tourism worldwide, by focusing on the conditions of Iran as a potentially popular destination for religious tourism. The study relies on a mixed (qualitative and quantitative) method. The qualitative phase identifies the model dimensions and strategies. To do this, practitioners and experts were interviewed and the data collected were investigated through the thematic analysis method. This process revealed four main dimensions and 18 subsidiary strategies. In the quantitative phase, the dimensions and strategies identified were arranged in a questionnaire and through the survey method, were prioritised by experts in the Iranian tourism industry. The data analysis results, based on intuitionistic fuzzy AHP, revealed that the most important dimensions in religious tourism, as assessed by experts and practitioners in the Iranian tourism industry, were: ‘marketing strategies’, ‘HR training and development’, ‘reinforcing executive management structures’, and ‘implementing information technology.’ Finally, following a comparison of the results with those of another studies in this field, some executive and research-related suggestions are proposed

Representation of Arbean's Walk in Cyberspace: Sociological semiotic analysis of Arbean's Walk's images on Instagram

In the present study, we studied published images on Instagram social network about Arbean's Walk as a platform for making Arbaens rituals meaning and representing it in the Cyberspace. Using the Sociological semiotic analysis of these images provided a deep analysis of photographic images, symbols, semiotic resources, and socio-cultural backgrounds; and the researcher achieved a representation method about Arbean walking on Instagram by theories such as dual space approach and display community. This constructed meaning which is also influenced by political power relations has been analyzed by factors such as going to achieve, difficulty and journey suffering, family, celebrities, flags and posters, transgendering and Selfie photography. The incidents of Karbala are a very rich source of meanings that semiotic analyzers benefit from it by making ideal surreal and attach it to the reality. Ultimately, Arbaen' Walk is defined as a ritual compounded with photographic processes and visualization is becoming to be a part of this ritual. This ritual is represented as an active and demanding action and redefines the concept of the Ummah by displaying family and social bonds. Arbaeen's walk, while active in its feminine dimensions and culturally and nationally diverse, is moving towards becoming a normalized, superficial affair

Soluble Fas might serve as a diagnostic tool for gastric adenocarcinoma

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Fas (Apo-1/CD95) and its specific ligand (FasL) are key elements in apoptosis. They have been studied in different malignancies but there are few published studies about the soluble forms of these markers (i.e. sFas/sFasL) in gastric cancer. We have compared the serum levels of sFas/sFasL in gastric adenocarcinoma patients and cases with pre-neoplastic lesions as potential markers for early diagnosis, and investigated their relation with clinicopathological characteristics.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Fifty-nine newly-diagnosed cases of gastric adenocarcinoma who had undergone gastrectomy, along with 62 endoscopically- and histologically-confirmed non-cancer individuals were enrolled in this study. sFas/sFasL serum levels were detected by Enzyme Linked Immunosurbent Assay.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Mean serum sFas level was significantly higher in gastric cancer patients than in control group (305.97 ± 63.71 (pg/ml) vs. 92.98 ± 4.95 (pg/ml), P < 0.001); while the mean serum level of sFasL was lower in patients with gastric adenocarcinoma (0.138 ± 0.04 (pg/ml) vs. 0.150 ± 0.02 (pg/ml), P < 0.001). Mean serum levels of sFas/sFasL were significantly different in both intestinal/diffuse and cardiac/non-cardiac subtypes when compared to the control group (P < 0.001). There was an increase in the serum level of sFas from the first steps of pre-neoplastic lesions to gastric adenocarcinoma (P < 0.001). Patients who had no lymph node involvement (<it>N₀</it>) showed significantly higher serum levels of sFas compared to others (P = 0.044).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Production of sFas may play a critical role in the carcinogenesis of intestinal-type gastric cancer. sFas serum level may serve as a non-invasive tool for early diagnosis of gastric cancer.</p

p16INK4a hypermethylation and p53, p16 and MDM2 protein expression in Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Tumor suppressor genes <it>p53 </it>and <it>p16</it>^INK4aand the proto-oncogene <it>MDM2 </it>are considered to be essential G1 cell cycle regulatory genes whose loss of function is associated with ESCC carcinogenesis. We assessed the aberrant methylation of the <it>p16 </it>gene and its impact on <it>p16</it>^{<it>INK4a </it>}protein expression and correlations with <it>p53 </it>and <it>MDM2 </it>protein expressions in patients with ESCC in the Golestan province of northeastern Iran in which ESCC has the highest incidence of cancer, well above the world average.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Cancerous tissues and the adjacent normal tissue obtained from 50 ESCC patients were assessed with Methylation-Specific-PCR to examine the methylation status of <it>p16</it>. The expression of <it>p16</it>, <it>p53 </it>and <it>MDM2 </it>proteins was detected by immunohistochemical staining.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Abnormal expression of <it>p16 </it>and <it>p53</it>, but not <it>MDM2</it>, was significantly higher in the tumoral tissue. <it>p53 </it>was concomitantly accumulated in ESCC tumor along with <it>MDM2 </it>overexpression and <it>p16 </it>negative expression. Aberrant methylation of the <it>p16</it>^{<it>INK4a </it>}gene was detected in 31/50 (62%) of esophageal tumor samples, while two of the adjacent normal mucosa were methylated (P < 0.001). <it>p16</it>^{<it>INK4a </it>}aberrant methylation was significantly associated with decreased <it>p16 </it>protein expression (P = 0.033), as well as the overexpression of <it>p53 </it>(P = 0.020).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p><it>p16 </it>hypermethylation is the principal mechanism of <it>p16 </it>protein underexpression and plays an important role in ESCC development. It is associated with p53 protein overexpression and may influence the accumulation of abnormally expressed proteins in <it>p53-MDM2 </it>and <it>p16-Rb </it>pathways, suggesting a possible cross-talk of the involved pathways in ESCC development.</p

Frequency and genotypic distribution of GB virus C (GBV-C) among Colombian population with Hepatitis B (HBV) or Hepatitis C (HCV) infection

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>GB virus C (GBV-C) is an enveloped positive-sense ssRNA virus belonging to the <it>Flaviviridae </it>family. Studies on the genetic variability of the GBV-C reveals the existence of six genotypes: genotype 1 predominates in West Africa, genotype 2 in Europe and America, genotype 3 in Asia, genotype 4 in Southwest Asia, genotype 5 in South Africa and genotype 6 in Indonesia. The aim of this study was to determine the frequency and genotypic distribution of GBV-C in the Colombian population.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Two groups were analyzed: i) 408 Colombian blood donors infected with HCV (n = 250) and HBV (n = 158) from Bogotá and ii) 99 indigenous people with HBV infection from Leticia, Amazonas. A fragment of 344 bp from the 5' untranslated region (5' UTR) was amplified by nested RT PCR. Viral sequences were genotyped by phylogenetic analysis using reference sequences from each genotype obtained from GenBank (n = 160). Bayesian phylogenetic analyses were conducted using Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) approach to obtain the MCC tree using BEAST v.1.5.3.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Among blood donors, from 158 HBsAg positive samples, eight 5.06% (n = 8) were positive for GBV-C and from 250 anti-HCV positive samples, 3.2%(n = 8) were positive for GBV-C. Also, 7.7% (n = 7) GBV-C positive samples were found among indigenous people from Leticia. A phylogenetic analysis revealed the presence of the following GBV-C genotypes among blood donors: 2a (41.6%), 1 (33.3%), 3 (16.6%) and 2b (8.3%). All genotype 1 sequences were found in co-infection with HBV and 4/5 sequences genotype 2a were found in co-infection with HCV. All sequences from indigenous people from Leticia were classified as genotype 3. The presence of GBV-C infection was not correlated with the sex (p = 0.43), age (p = 0.38) or origin (p = 0.17).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>It was found a high frequency of GBV-C genotype 1 and 2 in blood donors. The presence of genotype 3 in indigenous population was previously reported from Santa Marta region in Colombia and in native people from Venezuela and Bolivia. This fact may be correlated to the ancient movements of Asian people to South America a long time ago.</p

Real-time solutions of parametric thermo-hydro-mechanical problems with proper generalized decomposition

Tesi en modalitat de cotutela: Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya i Université libre de Bruxelles(English) The Proper Generalized Decomposition (PGD) is a mathematical framework belonging to the Model Order Reduction (MOR) class of techniques. To the best of the author's knowledge, this methodology has not been applied to transient coupled Thermo-Hydro-Mechanical (THM) problems in porous media. THM models have been developed for various geo-environmental applications, such as enhanced oil recovery, geothermal energy extraction, and deep geological repositories. This thesis studies the application of the PGD technique to THM problems, drawing inspiration from the concept of deep geological repositories. The study demonstrates how the PGD methodology can be used to obtain real-time solutions to THM problems, using a simplified deep geological repository as an example. The developed generalized solutions provided by PGD are perfectly suited to be used in multi-query situations, such as parameter identification and calibration procedures, optimization, or uncertainty quantification. The extremely fast response obtained after the training phase opens the doors to real-time inversions, control situations, or simply increasing the accuracy of the inverse identification procedures by allowing a much larger number of evaluations of the objective function when compared to traditional discretization techniques. This work presents two main contributions. First, it provides a detailed description of the separated discrete operators that are required in the PGD methodology when material parameters, geometrical parameters, or a combination of both are considered. This is done in the context of transient coupled THM problems. Second, the study investigates several configurations related to the use of the PGD methodology in the context of coupled problems and transient problems. Two models of a simplified deep geological repository problem are presented to show the capabilities of the proposed methodology. The first one is parametrized by the physical properties of the host rock (elastic modulus, thermal conductivity, hydraulic conductivity). This would be useful, for example, in the solution of an inverse problem to characterize the actual properties of the rock. The second model addresses a geometrical parametrization that controls the distance between the canisters when the repository is set to a grid canister. This is intended for the study and design the repository and to determine, for example, an optimal distance avoiding temperature runouts. The study as a whole employs a combination of techniques (PGD with coupled THM in porous media) to produce a range of solutions and an efficient solver that functions in real-time.(Español) En este trabajo se proponen métodos numéricos basados en la técnica de Proper Generalized Decomposition (PGD) para la solución de problemas Termo-Hidro-Mecánicos (THM). Esta clase de problemas se surge de una gran cantidad de aplicaciones en ingeniería. Algunos ejemplos son las aplicaciones geoambientales, como la recuperación mejorada de petróleo, la extracción de energía geotérmica y los repositorios geológicos profundos. En esta tesis se centra en la aplicación de PGD a problemas THM en particular para problemas de almacenaje de residuos radioactivos en repositorios geológicos profundos. Una característica de esta aplicación es que comúnmente es difícil conocer con precisión las propiedades físicas de las rocas en profundidad. Esto lleva a la necesidad de resolver problemas inversos para identificar estás propiedades y esto requiere de muchas y costosas soluciones de las ecuaciones involucradas. En esta tesis se propone una metodología numérica que permite la evaluación de problemas THM en tiempo real, de manera que cualquier problema inverso se vuelve barato incluso cuando requiera de miles de evaluaciones. Las “soluciones generalizadas” producidas por PGD son adecuadas para ser utilizadas en situaciones de “múltiples consultas”, como la identificación y calibración de parámetros, la optimización o la cuantificación de incertidumbres. La respuesta extremadamente rápida obtenida después de la fase de entrenamiento abre las puertas a inversiones en tiempo real, situaciones de control o simplemente aumenta la precisión de los procedimientos de identificación inversa al permitir un número mucho mayor de evaluaciones de la función objetivo en comparación con las técnicas de discretización tradicionales. Este trabajo presenta dos contribuciones principales. En primer lugar, proporciona una descripción detallada de los operadores discretos separados que son necesarios en la metodología PGD cuando se consideran parámetros materiales, parámetros geométricos o una combinación de ambos. Esto se hace en el contexto de problemas transitorios acoplados THM. En segundo lugar, el estudio investiga varias configuraciones relacionadas con el uso de la metodología PGD en el contexto de problemas acoplados y problemas transitorios. Se presentan dos modelos de un problema de repositorio geológico profundo simplificado para mostrar las capacidades de la metodología propuesta. El primero está parametrizado por las propiedades físicas de la roca (módulo elástico, conductividad térmica, conductividad hidráulica). El segundo modelo aborda una parametrización geométrica que controla la distancia entre los contenedores cuando el repositorio se coloca en una red de contenedores. Esto sería útil para estudiar y diseñar el repositorio y determinar, por ejemplo, una distancia óptima evitando sobrecalentamientos.DOCTORAT ERASMUS MUNDUS EN SIMULACIÓ EN ENGINYERIA I DESENVOLUPAMENT DE L'EMPRENEDORIA (Pla 2013

Assessment of retinal structure and visual function in association with diabetic peripheral neuropathy

Diabetes is an increasingly prevalent disease worldwide. Providing early management of the complications can prevent morbidity and mortality in this population. Peripheral neuropathy, a significant complication of diabetes, is the major cause of foot ulceration and amputation in diabetes. Delay in attending to complication of the disease contributes to significant medical expenses for diabetic patients and the community. Early structural changes to the neural components of the retina have been demonstrated to occur prior to the clinically visible retinal vasculature complication of diabetic retinopathy. Additionally visual functionloss has been shown to exist before the ophthalmoscopic manifestations of vasculature damage. The purpose of this thesis was to evaluate the relationship between diabetic peripheral neuropathy and both retinal structure and visual function. The key question was whether diabetic peripheral neuropathy is the potential underlying factor responsible for retinal anatomical change and visual functional loss in people with diabetes. This study was conducted on a cohort with type 2 diabetes. Retinal nerve fibre layer thickness was assessed by means of Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT). Visual function was assessed using two different methods; Standard Automated Perimetry (SAP) and flicker perimetry were performed within the central 30 degrees of fixation. The level of diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN) was assessed using two techniques - Quantitative Sensory Testing and Neuropathy Disability Score (NDS). These techniques are known to be capable of detecting DPN at very early stages. NDS has also been shown as a gold standard for detecting 'risk of foot ulceration'. Findings reported in this thesis showed that RNFL thickness, particularly in the inferior quadrant, has a significant association with severity of DPN when the condition has been assessed using NDS. More specifically it was observed that inferior RNFL thickness has the ability to differentiate individuals who are at higher risk of foot ulceration from those who are at lower risk, indicating that RNFL thickness can predict late-staged DPN. Investigating the association between RNFL and QST did not show any meaningful interaction, which indicates that RNFL thickness for this cohort was not as predictive of neuropathy status as NDS. In both of these studies, control participants did not have different results from the type 2 cohort who did not DPN suggesting that RNFL thickness is not a marker for diagnosing DPN at early stages. The latter finding also indicated that diabetes per se, is unlikely to affect the RNFL thickness. Visual function as measured by SAP and flicker perimetry was found to be associated with severity of peripheral neuropathy as measured by NDS. These findings were also capable of differentiating individuals at higher risk of foot ulceration; however, visual function also proved not to be a maker for early diagnosis of DPN. It was found that neither SAP, nor flicker sensitivity have meaningful associations with DPN when neuropathy status was measured using QST. Importantly diabetic retinopathy did not explain any of the findings in these experiments. The work described here is valuable as no other research to date has investigated the association between diabetic peripheral neuropathy and either retinal structure or visual function