Effects of small-scale farmers' adaptation behaviors in drought conditions on household food security level in West Azerbaijan province

This study was conducted with the general purpose of the effects of adaptation behaviors of small-scale farmers in drought conditions on the level of household food security. The statistical population of the study included all small-scale farmers in West Azerbaijan province. The sample size was estimated using Krejcie and Morgan table of 430 small-scale rural household heads. The main research tool was a questionnaire whose validity was confirmed by a panel of experts and its reliability was confirmed by Cronbach's alpha coefficient. Data analysis was performed by SPSS19 software. The results showed that the rural households studied did not have adequate food security in drought conditions. In addition, factor analysis classified adaptation behaviors into three categories: active adaptation strategies, self-control, and integration. The results of ordinal regression also showed that adaptation classes have positive and significant effects on improving food security of rural households

Ovarian development of Caspian roach, Rutilus caspicus, in southern Caspian Sea: A histological and ultrastructural study

The histology and ultrastructure of the ovarian maturation process in Caspian roach, Rutilus caspicus, was studied. A total 170 female specimens were collected from the Gharasoo River, Bandar Turkmen, the southern Caspian Sea to evaluate its maturation cycle. Based on the results, its ovarian follicle’s development could classified into six stages by distinct characteristics. Minimum and maximum diameter of oocytes were recorded in the chromatin-nucleolus and maturation stages as 56.34±3.74 and 918.83±14.82 µm, respectively. The zona radiata was observed from the cortical alveoli stage and its maximum diameter measured in the secondary vitellogenesis stage as 93.11±23.0 µm. Gonadosomatic index (GSI) reached to its peak in mid-March and its sharp drop in the late April showed its spawning period from late March or early April till the end of April. A positive correlation was found between the GSI and HSI in the vitellogenesis stage. The results also revealed Caspian roach as iteroparous synchronous spawner

Identification of mutations in rpoB, pncA, embB, and ubiA genes among drug-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis clinical isolates from Iran

Mycobacterium tuberculosis resistant to effective first-line drugs (FLDs) has challenged national and global tuberculosis control programs. This study aimed to identify mutations in 4 genes related to rifampin, pyrazinamide, and ethambutol resistance among clinical isolates of M. tuberculosis from southwestern Iran. After drug susceptibility testing of 6620 M. tuberculosis clinical isolates by proportional method, a total of 24 FLD-resistant strains were included in the study. Fragments of rpoB, pncA, embB, and ubiA genes were amplified and sequenced to mine the mutations by pairwise alignment with the corresponding M. tuberculosis H37Rv genes. Phenotypic resistance to rifampin, isoniazid, and ethambutol was detected in 67, 54, and 33% (n 5 16, 13, and 8) of the isolates, respectively. Of rifampin-resistant isolates, 31% (5/16) were mono-resistant, and 56% (9/16) were multidrug-resistant (MDR). In 100% of rifampin-resistant isolates, mutations were found in the rifampin resistancedetermining region (RRDR) of the rpoB, with S450L substitution being the most common, especially in MDRs (77.8%, 7/9). Resistance-conferring mutations in pncA were present in 12.5% (3/24) of FLD-resistant isolates. The embB and ubiA mutations were found in 62.5 and 12.5% (5/8 and 1/8) of ethambutol-resistant isolates, respectively, of which the embB D354A was the most common substitution (37.5%, 3/8). Sixteen distinct mutations were identified, one of which was novel. The sequence analysis of the RRDR segment was the best way to detect rifampin resistance. The rpoB S450L substitution could be a helpful molecular marker to predict MDR. In other genes, no mutation was identified as a reliable marker

Emergence of High-level Gentamicin Resistance among Enterococci Clinical Isolates from Burn Patients in South-west of Iran: Vancomycin Still Working

Enterococcus faecalis and Enterococcus faecium are among the main agents associated with nosocomial infections with high mortality in immunocompromised patients. Antibiotic resistance, especially against gentamicin and vancomycin among Enterococci, is a risk factor that could increase the morbidity and mortality rate. 179 Enterococci isolates from burn patients were included in this study. Antibiotic susceptibility testing was done using the disk diffusion test and minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) was evaluated by agar microdilution. Vancomycin and gentamicin resistance associated genes including vanA, vanB, vanC, aac (6’)-Ie aph(2’’), aph(3’)-IIIa and ant(4’)-Ia were detected by PCR and their statistical relation with antibiotic resistance was evaluated. E. faecalis was the more prevalent strain among our local isolates and showed a higher antibiotic resistance in comparison to E. faecium. Vancomycin had a good antibacterial effect on the Enterococcus spp. isolates; however, resistance to this antibiotic and a high-level gentamicin resistance (HLGR) phenotype were observed. Among van operon genes, vanA was the most prevalent gene and among the gentamicin resistance genes, aph (3’)-IIIa was more frequent. The HLGR Enterococci are a real challenge in nosocomial infections. Vancomycin is a key antibiotic to treat such infections but emergence of VRE in our region could be a real concern and, therefore, phenotypic and molecular surveillance must be considered

Electrocardiogram Changes in Patients With Acute Ethanol Poisoning

Background: Alcohol consumption leads to a significant number of deaths, mostly in men, worldwide. Considering the effect of ethanol toxicity on the heart, we studied various Electrocardiographic (ECG) changes in patients with acute ethanol poisoning. Methods: A cross-sectional study was performed on patients admitted to Khorshid Hospital (affiliated to Isfahan University of Medical Sciences) due to ethanol poisoning. All 15- to 50-year-old patients with acute ethanol intoxication were included in the study (N=250). The patients’ information, including the demographic characteristics, clinical manifestations, and ECG changes were recorded and analyzed. Different variables were compared between the patients with or without ECG changes.Results: Most of the research patients (n=208) were men (83.82%). The Mean±SD age of the study patients was 26.8±8.87 years. About 54.8% of the patients presented abnormal ECG. The changes in ECG were not significantly different based on the demographic characteristic and clinical manifestations. The time interval between ethanol consumption and admission was significantly higher in patients with abnormal ECG, compared to those with normal ECG (Mean±SD: 7.09±10.67 vs. 4.77± 4.54 hours, respectively) (P=0.03).Conclusion: ECG changes are common in patients with ethanol poisoning. The time interval between ethanol consumption to hospital admission may be an important factor in the occurrence of ECG changes

Alterations in histological structure, blood estrogen and progesterone levels after oral administration of garlic extract in yellowfin seabream (Acanthopagrus latus)

In this study, the effects of garlic phytoestrogen extract on gonad maturation along with estrogen and progesterone levels in yellowfin seabream (Acanthopagrus latus) were investigated. A total of 60 yellowfin seabreams were caught from Naseri pond in Khuzestan Province, Southwest Iran and transported to the laboratory. Fish were treated in four groups receiving garlic extract with doses of 0 (control), 0.5, 1 and 2 % of diet (T1, T2 and T3, respectively). Each treatment consisted of three replicates. The fish were fed twice a day at 3% of body weight for 14 days. For histological study, samples were taken from the gonads. In order to assay the hormone levels, samples were taken from the caudal vein of the fish on days 0, 7, 10 and 14. The histological results showed that garlic extract in the lowest dose caused a decrease in vitellogenesis, however, in higher doses an elevation in vitellogenesis and also the tendency of this hermaphrodite fish gonads to be female. The highest amount of vitellogenesis was reported in T1 on 10th day. In total, elevating in the amount of this extract initially upraised the number of vitellogenic follicles and promotion of ovarian maturation. However, higher doses and also increasing the administration time of the extract exhibited inverse results. Measuring the levels of hormones showed a significant change in their plasma levels during the experiment, so that an increase in level of estrogen was observed in all three prescribed doses and an increase in level of progesterone was observed in higher doses (T2 and T3; p<0.05). The results of the present study indicate the effect of garlic phytoestrogen extract on growth and maturation of ovaries

Heavy metal Concentration in Belanger&apos;s Croaker Fish, Johnius belangerii from Petrochemical Waste Receiving Estuary in the Persian Gulf, Iran

Abstract. Musa Estuary is receives various type of discharges such as petrochemical, industrial and urban waste, it also is a habitat for Johnius belangerii. This study was carried out to determine heavy metal concentrations in J. belangerii. Fish samples were taken from 5 creeks and acid digested for their heavy metal contents. Results showed that the highest level of Cd, Co, Cu, Ni and Pb was 7.21, 1.08, 1.12, 2.72 and 4.57 in liver, 1.88, 1.04, 2.09, 9.43 and 6.83 in gill and 0.14, ND, 5.61, 2.43 and 3.78 in muscle respectively. The level of heavy metals in muscle was lower than WHO standard, however the level of metals in fish were decreased by the increase of distance from PETZON. It is suggested that biomonitoring of contaminants in this estuary could serve as a good estimate of environmental health

Automatic classification between COVID-19 and Non-COVID-19 pneumonia using symptoms, comorbidities, and laboratory findings : the Khorshid COVID cohort study

Coronavirus disease-2019, also known as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), was a disaster in 2020. Accurate and early diagnosis of coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) is still essential for health policymaking. Reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) has been performed as the operational gold standard for COVID-19 diagnosis. We aimed to design and implement a reliable COVID-19 diagnosis method to provide the risk of infection using demographics, symptoms and signs, blood markers, and family history of diseases to have excellent agreement with the results obtained by the RT-PCR and CT-scan. Our study primarily used sample data from a 1-year hospital-based prospective COVID-19 open-cohort, the Khorshid COVID Cohort (KCC) study. A sample of 634 patients with COVID-19 and 118 patients with pneumonia with similar characteristics whose RT-PCR and chest CT scan were negative (as the control group) (dataset 1) was used to design the system and for internal validation. Two other online datasets, namely, some symptoms (dataset 2) and blood tests (dataset 3), were also analyzed. A combination of one-hot encoding, stability feature selection, over-sampling, and an ensemble classifier was used. Ten-fold stratified cross-validation was performed. In addition to gender and symptom duration, signs and symptoms, blood biomarkers, and comorbidities were selected. Performance indices of the cross-validated confusion matrix for dataset 1 were as follows: sensitivity of 96% [confidence interval, CI, 95%: 94–98], specificity of 95% [90–99], positive predictive value (PPV) of 99% [98–100], negative predictive value (NPV) of 82% [76–89], diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) of 496 [198–1,245], area under the ROC (AUC) of 0.96 [0.94–0.97], Matthews Correlation Coefficient (MCC) of 0.87 [0.85–0.88], accuracy of 96% [94–98], and Cohen's Kappa of 0.86 [0.81–0.91]. The proposed algorithm showed excellent diagnosis accuracy and class-labeling agreement, and fair discriminant power. The AUC on the datasets 2 and 3 was 0.97 [0.96–0.98] and 0.92 [0.91–0.94], respectively. The most important feature was white blood cell count, shortness of breath, and C-reactive protein for datasets 1, 2, and 3, respectively. The proposed algorithm is, thus, a promising COVID-19 diagnosis method, which could be an amendment to simple blood tests and screening of symptoms. However, the RT-PCR and chest CT-scan, performed as the gold standard, are not 100% accurate.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Typology of International Obligations

The UN charter as the foremost instrument in giving birth to International contemporary order- has laid the foundation of a new regime which is deemed by many as a revolution against Westphalia order of International law. This profound evolution is chiefly based on introduction of sociological premises as the main guide line in framing the International order. Learning lessons from its short lived inchoate predecessor – The Covenant of the League of Nations 1919 – the new regime along with structural concepts, resorts to globalized normative sociological norms in its attempt to frame the new order. In realization of its set targets however, the system suffers a quite number of deficiencies; that is there exist norms and structures in the system that may adversely affect its desired goals. Nonetheless, the introduction of the new order under the auspices of the principles and the perspectives are set forth in the charter requires appropriate legal mechanisms in order to open door to realization of legal universalism era – a step forward towards further development of reciprocal order - a target desired while formulation of the charter was underway. Emerging of new International commitments serve as prominent legal tools to regulate and arrange the new order. Such rights and duties, which take various forms and consequence, are governed by corresponding legal regimes. These regimes, which have roots in their predecessors and any future generation of regime will be emerged, shall evolve based on the needs, requirements and developments that may arise time to time. This paper aims at studying International obligations and their corresponding legal regimes with regards to their existing status in International interactions

Genealogy of Enenrgy Obligations in the Light of Case Study of Investment Obligations of Energy Charter Treaty

Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) is an International Agreement which provides a multilateral outline for transborder coopretion on Enenrgy. Bearing in mind the continuance of economic and Enenrgy Crisis around the world and paying attention to increasing importance of energy in internatinal relations and due to the direct impact of energy and its influence on resolving the International community problems, some states and International organizations introduce new vision on the nature of international obligations in the field of enenrgy and its charactrestics. On this base, surveying the legal status of International treaties –namely ECT- will aid us undrestanding the stream and its process of fornation among International Subjects. That is what is going on in this paper