Trans- Obturator Tape (TOT) efficacy in management of stress urinary incontinence and the impact on quality of life: A study in 54 patients

Background: Stress urinary incontinence is a major confounding factor which impairs health quality in women. Some procedures cannot resolve it's impact on life quality. This study aims to assess a less common and newly method; use of transobturator tension- free vaginal tapes (TOT) in regard to short- term and long-term morbidity and impact on patient's quality of life (QOL). Methods: Fifty four patients diagnosed with urinary stress incontinence, underwent a transobturator tension free vaginal tape procedure with or whitout prolapse surgery. Pre and post operative quality of life assessed with Incontinence- specific Quality of Life questionnaire (I-QOL), and objective and subjective cure rate according to patients signs and symptoms before operation, early and late surgical complications like hemorrhage, Injury and/ or perforation of bladder, intestine, urethra and infection were mentioned. Results: The overall intraoperative and early post-operative complication rates were 5.5 and 3.7, respectively. No case of hematoma, bladder or bowel injury was seen. I-QOL scores were significantly higher after surgery. The mean I-QOL score were 23.6 and 64 before and after surgery respectively (p<0.0001). This improvement was independent of the concomitant pelvic floor repair surgery, menopause, underlying diseases, number of parity, body mass index (BMI) and age. The global rate of objective cure was 94.4 (p<0.0001). The majority of women were satisfied with the outcome. (subjective cure was 90.7- p<0.001). Conclusions: This study demonstrates that the TOT approach in the treatment of stress urinary incontinence is a safe and effective procedure which promotes health quality of life

Prevalence of cutaneus leishmaniasis in Kashan, 1994-2000

Background: Due to augmented spread of cutaneus leishmaniasis in our country that impose great economic problems for the sufferers and also with respect to the lack of informative data regarding its status in Kashan, The present study was conducted in 1994-2000 to determine the prevalence of cutaneus leishmaniasis in patients referring to parasitology laboratories in Kashan.Material and methods : A descriptive study was carried on all referred patients to laboratories during a 7- year period, 1994-2000. Initial data including age, sex, occupation, place of resident, and number of lesions were all recorded. Suspected individuals were asked for samples and Leishman body was surveyed by a microscope following the gimsa staining. Results : The incidence rate of cutaneus Leishmaniasis was reported 50.2 in females and 49.2 in males. The highest prevalence rate (37.9) was shown in 0-10 years old subjects. More than one active lesion was reported in 30.3 of individuals. Hands were more commonly affected (45.6). Conclusion : With respect to the increased prevalence of cutaneus leishmaniasis in Kashan, health care observers should pay further attention on preventing the disease sprea

Chronic Pelvic Pain frequency among a group of Iranian employed women

&quot;nBackground: Chronic Pelvic Pain (CPP), a common health problem in women, characterized by lower abdominal pain that has lasted at least for six months. Although, it&apos;s annual prevalence estimated 3.8 to 49%, there is no data in Iranian society. This study was aimed at gathering comprehensive and reliable data regarding the prevalence of CPP in female employees at two university hospitals in Tehran in 2006-2007. &quot;nMethods: A cross-Sectional study was conducted to determine the CPP prevalence on 303 volunteer females aged 19-63(34.7&amp;plusmn;9.2) years, working in two university hospitals, Tehran. A designed questionnaire with four parts containing questions regarding demographic information, gynecological, urinary and gastrointestinal symptoms was used. The ethical committee of the Shaheed Beheshti Medical University approved the study. &quot;nResults: The prevalence of present pelvic pain unrelated to menstrual cycle was 22.3% and totally 10.2% subjects suffered from CPP during the last 6-12 months. Our data showed a significant difference in prevalence of CPP between women with and without vaginal delivery (37% VS. 24 P=0.036%). There was a significant relationship between incomplete and hard defecation and occurrence of CPP (p&amp;lt;0.001). The prevalence of LBP &amp;amp; PPD in women with CPP was higher than women with no CPP (p&amp;lt;0.001). &quot;nConclusions: Regarding to the prevalence of CPP and its relationship with gynecological, urinary, musculoskeletal and gastrointestinal factors, we emphasize on a multidisciplinary approach for management of CPP, also recommend performing further community-based epidemiological studies

Unsupervised online change point detection in high-dimensional time series

A critical problem in time series analysis is change point detection, which identifies the times when the underlying distribution of a time series abruptly changes. However, several shortcomings limit the use of some existing techniques in real-world applications. First, several change point detection techniques are offline methods, where the whole time series needs to be stored before change point detection can be performed. These methods are not applicable to streaming time series. Second, most techniques assume that the time series is low-dimensional and hence have problems handling high-dimensional time series, where not all dimensions may cause the change. Finally, most methods require user-defined parameters that need to be chosen based on the observed data, which limits their applicability to new unseen data. To address these issues, we propose an Information Gain-based method that does not require prior distributional knowledge for detecting change points and handles high-dimensional time series. The advantages of our proposed method compared to the state-of-the-art algorithms are demonstrated from theoretical basis, as well as via experiments on four synthetic and three real-world human activity datasets

Solute micro-segregation profile and associated precipitation in cast Al-Mg-Si alloy

The micro-segregation in the as-cast AA6082 aluminium alloy were investigated across a range of length scales using a combination of analytical electron microscopes. It is found that the micro-segregation bands form an inter-connected network following grain boundaries and inter-dendritic channels. The micro-segregation can be divided into major micro-segregation and minor micro-segregation; the former is mainly on the grain boundaries consisting of iron-bearing intermetallic; the latter occurs both, along the grain boundaries and inter-dendritic channels, consisting mainly of Mg and Si alloying elements. The atomic-scale imaging reveals that in the minor-segregation bands, the supersaturated solute concertation has formed precipitates that had either nucleated heterogeneously on the dislocation network or homogeneously inside the aluminium matrix. The heterogeneously nucleated precipitates in the dislocation lines are composed of a mixture of phases down the precipitation sequence meanwhile, the homogenously grown ones are discrete phases that appear at the early stages of the precipitation sequence.UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council LiME [EP/N007638/1]

Coronary Artery Disease Risk Factors in an Urban and Peri-urban Setting, Kerman, Southeastern Iran (KERCADR Study): Methodology and Preliminary Report

Background: This article was to present the sampling and measurements methods and the main preliminary findings of the KERCADR cohort study (first round) in an urban and peri-urban setting, Kerman, southeastern Iran2009-11. Method: 5900 (3238 female) people aged between 15 to 75 years were recruited in the household survey by non-proportional to size one-stage cluster sampling. Trained internal specialists, general practitioners, clinical psychologists and dentists have assessed the study subjects by person-assisted questionnaires regarding different NCD risk factors including cigarette and opium smoking, physical activity, nutrition habits, anxiety, depression, obesity, hypertension and oral health. Blood samples were also collected for determining FBS, HbA1c, cholesterol and triglyceride. Weighted standardized prevalence estimates were calculated by STATA 10 survey analysis package. Results: The participation rate was more than 95% in all subgroups. Cigarette smoking (18.4% vs. 1.2%), opium use (17.8% vs. 3.0%) and triglyceridemia (16.1% vs. 12.0%) were significantly higher among men than women. In contrast, women were presented with higher level of sever anxiety (29.1% vs. 16.7%), obesity (16.8% vs. 9.2%), low-physical activity (45.1% vs. 39.2%) and uncontrolled diabetes (60.2% vs. 31.0%). More than 68% of all subjects have presented with moderate to severe gingival index scores. Conclusion: The first round of the KERCADR cohort with sufficient sample size and response rate provided precise estimates for the main clinical and para-clinical NCD risk factors. These evidences need to be translated into public health interventions and monitored in the next rounds of the cohort

Effect of Fe3+ Doping in the Photocatalytic Properties of BaSnO3 Perovskite

<div><p>In the last ten years, stannates with perovskite structure have been tested as photocatalysts. In spite of the ability of perovskite materials to accommodate different cations in its structure, evaluation of doped stannates is not a common task in the photocatalysis area. In this work, Fe3+ doped BaSnO3 was synthesized by the modified Pechini method, with calcination between 300 and 800ºC/4 h. The powder precursor was characterized by thermogravimetry after partial elimination of carbon. Characterization after the second calcination step was done by X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy and UV-visible spectroscopy. Materials were tested in the photocatalytic discoloration of the Remazol Golden Yellow azo dye under UVC irradiation. Higher photocatalytic efficiency was observed under acid media. As no meaningful adsorption was observed at this condition we believe that an indirect mechanism prevails. Fe3+ doping decreased the band gap and favored the photocatalytic reaction, which may be assigned to the formation of intermediate levels inside the band gap.</p></div