A New Implementation of GMRES Using Generalized Purcell Method

In this paper, a new method based on the generalized Purcell method is proposed to solve the usual least-squares problem arising in the GMRES method. The theoretical aspects and computational results of the method are provided. For the popular iterative method GMRES, the decomposition matrices of the Hessenberg matrix is obtained by using a simple recursive relation instead of Givens rotations. The other advantages of the proposed method are low computational cost and no need for orthogonal decomposition of the Hessenberg matrix or pivoting. The comparisons for ill-conditioned sparse standard matrices are made. They show a good agreement with available literature

Study of Causes, Methods and Complications of Early and Late Miscarriage due to Intentional Abortion in Women referred to Health Centers covered by Shahid Beheshti University

Abstract Introduction: Induced abortion is a major threat to women’s fertility health. In particular, in developing countries and the societies where abortion is illegal, abortions are commonly carried out under unsanitary conditions, causing maternal complications, dangers to maternal health, and women’s future infertility. These consequences are especially evident in Iran where at least 80,000 illegal abortions are done annually. The current study aimed to examine the reasons for abortion, methods of abortion, and its short-term and long-term complications. Methods: This study, which adopted a descriptive design, was conducted among the women who had already carried out abortion and referred to one of the health, therapeutic, and educational centers affiliated with Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences. The participants (N = 360) were selected the data were gleaned through a self-designed questionnaire and statistically analyzed using SPSS version 17. Results: The results of analyzing the data collected through the 369 questionnaires revealed that the mean age of participants was 26 years (SD = 7.2 years). The main reason for abortion was financial problems. With regard to marital status, 91.3% of the participants were married. Also, considering their job, 74.2% of the respondents were housewives, while 15.5% were employed in office jobs. Further, in 55.3% of the cases, abortion had been carried out as a result of the husband’s encouragement. The most common method of abortion was prescribing chemical medications, while the least popular method was intrauterine manipulations (with only 197 women reporting this abortion method). Moreover, 114 participants reported that they had accomplished curettage in a specialist physician’s office without anesthesia. The short-term complications of abortion included abdominal pain after abortion and incomplete abortion. On the other hand, long-term complications entailed visceral injury (1%), complications in the next pregnancy, bleeding in early pregnancy (10.7%), preterm delivery (7.9%), and ectopic pregnancy (7.4%). Conclusions: Scientific and religious education through appropriate procedures along with preventing unwanted pregnancy is a decisive factor in abortion

Evaluation of chemical quality in 17 brands of Iranian bottled drinking waters

Background: The purpose of study was to evaluate and compare chemical quality of Iranian bottled drinking water reported on manufacturer's labeling and standards. Methods: This study was a cross-sectional descriptive study and done during July to December 2008. The bottled mineral water collected from shops randomly were analyzed for all parameters address on manufacturer's labeling and the results were compared with the manufacturer's labeling data, WHO Guideline Values, USEPA Maximum Contaminant Levels and the maximum contaminant levels of drinking water imposed by the Iranian legislation. Statistical analysis on data was done with the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test for normal distribution, the paired t-test to compare the data with manufacturer's labeling and the one-sample t-test to compare with standard and MCL values at P < 0.05 of confidence level. Results: The results showed a statistically significant difference with manufacturer's labeling values, however there was no significant difference between the values of magnesium and pH and manufacturer's labeling values (P> 0.05). In addition, pH and calcium values were significantly higher than their proposed values indicated by Iranian National Legislation and international MCLs (P< 0.05). Conclusion: Our results are extremely important for the health supervisory agencies such as Ministry of Health and Institute of Standards & Industrial Research of Iran to have more effective controls on bottled water industries, and to improve periodical the proposed standard values

A Bi-Objective Airport Gate Scheduling with Controllable Processing Times Using Harmony Search and NSGA-II Algorithms

Optimizing gate scheduling at airports is an old, but also a broad problem. The main purpose of this problem is to find an assignment for the flights arriving at and departing from an airport, while satisfying a set of constraints.A closer look at the literature in this research line shows thatin almost all studies airport gate processing time has been considered as a fix parameter. In this research, however, we investigate a more realistic situation in which airport gate processing time is a controllable. It is also assumed that the possible compression/expansion processing time of a flight can be continuously controlled, i.e. it can be any number in a given interval.Doing sohas some positive effectswhich lead to increasing the total performance at airports’ terminals. Depending on the situation, different objectives become important.. Therefore, a model which simultaneously (1) minimize the total cost of tardiness, earliness, delay andthe compression as well as the expansion costs of job processing time, and (2) minimize passengers overcrowding on gate is presented. In this study, we first propose a mixed-integer programming model for the formulated problem. Due to complexity of problem, two multi-objective meta-heuristic algorithms, i.e. multi-objective harmony search algorithm (MOHSA) and non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGA-II) are applied in order to generate Pareto solutions. For calibrating the parameter of the algorithms, Taguchi method is used and three optimal levels of the algorithm’s performance are selected. The algorithms are tested with real-life data from Mehrabad International Airport for nine medium size test problems. The experimental results show that NSGA-II has better convergence near the true Pareto-optimal front as compared to MOHSA; however, MOHSA finds a better spread in the entire Pareto-optimal region.Finally, it is possible to apply some practical constraints into the model and also test them with even large real-life problems instances

A two-stage method for assessing the efficiency of the three-stage series network data envelopment analysis model with two feedback

Data envelopment analysis models play an important role in decision making. In this paper, one-stage and two-stage nonlinear programming problems are investigated in order to evaluate the efficiency of two types of network data envelopment analysis model. The first type of network data envelopment analysis model has a series structure with three stages and a feedback between the last step and the middle step, the second model has a three-stage series structure with two feedback between the final step and the first step and the middle step. By examining the overall efficiency of the models based on the one-stage programming problem, a two-stage programming problem is also applied in order to evaluate the efficiency of each step. In order to solve one-stage nonlinear programming problems and two-stage linear and nonlinear programming problems derived from modeling, a linearization method based on coordinate transformation, and constant assumption and gradual growth of some variables is presented. In the last section, the proposed methods have been discussed using some numerical examples

Reliability of Ultrasonography in Measuring Deep Abdominal and Lumbar Multifidus Muscle Dimensions in Patients with Unilateral Lumbar Disc Herniation

Introduction: The purpose of this study was to assess the within-day and between-day reliability of abdominal and lumbar multifidus muscle size in patients with unilateral lumbar disc herniation (LDH) using ultrasonography (US). Materials and methods: In this study, 15 patients with unilateral LDH (20-60 years old) were recruited. To assess within-day and between-day reliability, three images were taken with one hour and one week intervals respectively. The images were taken at rest and during contraction. Results: The within-day and between-day reliability of abdominal muscle thickness measurements using US in patients with unilateral lumbar disc herniation (LDH) in both rest and contraction state was found to be high with ICC=0.87 for within and ICC=0.75 for between-day rates of transverse abdominis (TrA) muscles at rest and ICC=0.78 and 0.75, respectively, in contraction state. For internal oblique muscles, ICC=0.70 at rest and 0.79 in contraction state and ICC=0.73 at rest and 0.77 in contraction state were found for within-day and between-day, respectively. Within-day and between-day reliability at rest with ICC=0.76 and 0.76 and in contraction state with ICC=0.75 and 0.74 were demonstrated for the external oblique muscle. Within-day and between-day reliability rates at rest with ICC=0.88 and 0.84, respectively, and in contraction state with ICC=0.84 and 0.80, respectively were demonstrated for the lumbar multifidus muscle. Conclusion: The results of the present study suggest that US is a reliable method for evaluating the thickness of the abdominal and lumbar multifidus muscles. However, further research is recommended to support the findings of the present study.Keywords: Ultrasonography, disc herniation, abdominal muscles, lumbar multifidus muscle, reliabilit

The Jurisprudence Sentence for Euthanasia

For downloading the full-text of this article please click here. Background and Objective:Today, instead of preserving the health and life of people in some health centers, under the pretext of pity, the patients with difficult-to-cure diseases are suggested to accelerate selective death. Euthanasia dates back to ancient Roma and is one of the controversial topics discussed in different legal and jurisprudential aspects in academic circles. With the intent of explaining the jurisprudence sentence for euthanasia, alongside proposing some primary topics, in this article we have tried to introduce a new category based on an effective criterion in the jurisprudence sentence unlike the common categories in scientific circles.Method: This library research is descriptive-analytical for which the articles of years between 1996 and 1997 were studied and reviewed. The procedure was as follows: keywords such as euthanasia, self-killing, retaliation, suicide, self-preservation, and imperative and dispositive rule were searched; then, the Qur`an and the books with jurisprudential and deductive themes such as Fikh va Hoghoogh-e- Tahaffozi by Ayat-Allah Sistani, Vasael Al-Shiea and Mostadrak were used. After analysis, the findings were taught and discussed in 10 sessions of the Hawza classes. All ethical issues were observed in this study and the researchers declared no conflict of interests.Results: The overall eight types of euthanasia and their subcategories are classified into three general major categories:a) Three of them are the case of intentional murdering and imperative rule of prohibition as well as dispositive rule of retaliation. b) One of them is the case of general suicidal that has only imperative prohibition. c) Four of them are the case of general necessity of self-preservation, leaving which has imperative prohibition, and doesn`t have dispositive rule due to self-killing.Conclusion:All of the eight forms of euthanasia are prohibited and we recommend that instead of this, revival be tried. This requires conducting studies to find treatment for difficult-to-cure diseases.For downloading the full-text of this article please click here