The Study of Learning Styles, Thinking Styles, and English Language Academic Self-efficacy among the Students of Islamic Azad University of Behbahan Considering Their Field of Study and Gender

The purpose of the present paper was the study of learning styles, thinking styles, and English language academic self-efficacy among the students of Islamic Azad University of Behbahan considering their field of study and gender. The method of the study was 'surveying' in nature. The statistical population pool of the study included all the students of the Islamic Azad University of Behbahan (7941). The sample (367 students) was determined based on Morgan and Jesri table and was selected via stratified sampling technique. To collect data, Kolb's learning styles questionnaire, Sternberg's thinking styles questionnaire and the researcher-made questionnaire on the English lesson academic self-efficacy of students were used. In order to analyze the data, different statistical techniques which included mean, standard deviation, t-test, and chi square were utilized for examining the difference between the variables of gender and field of study. The results showed that the engineering students had more academic self-efficacy than humanities students. The rate of academic self-efficacy among male students was greater than that among female students. Male students had more assimilate learning style but female students had more divergent learning style. Humanities students had more divergent accommodate learning styles, but engineering students had more convergent and assimilate learning styles. The results also showed that the prevailing thinking style among male students was the judicial thinking style, but the prevailing thinking style among female students was the executive thinking style. Humanities students had more executive thinking style, but engineering students had more legislative thinking style

Growth Performance, Hemato-Immunological Responses, and Digestive Enzyme Activities in Silvery-Black Porgy (Sparidentex hasta) Fed Dietary Bovine Lactoferrin

An 8-week study was conducted to evaluate three different diets supplemented with bovine lactoferrin (LF) at 0 (control), 800, and 1200 mg LF kg−1 diet on somatic growth, hemato-immunological parameters, antioxidant status, and digestive enzyme activities in silvery-black porgy (Sparidentex hasta) juveniles. Fish fed the 800 mg LF kg−1 diet had higher growth performance and feed utilization parameters than the other groups. Hematological and liver antioxidant parameters were not affected by dietary LF supplementation. Fish fed the 800 mg LF kg−1 diet had higher plasma lysozyme activity values than the other groups. Total protease activity was higher in fish fed LF-supplemented diets than the control group. Results indicated that diet supplemented with 800 mg kg−1 for 8 weeks enhanced somatic growth performance, lysozyme activity, and proteolytic digestive enzyme activities in S. hasta, as well as improving feed efficiency parameters like the protein efficiency and feed conversion ratios.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Global, regional, and national incidence, prevalence, and years lived with disability for 354 diseases and injuries for 195 countries and territories, 1990-2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017.

The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries and Risk Factors 2017 includes a comprehensive assessment of incidence, prevalence, and years lived with disability (YLDs) for 354 causes in 195 countries and territories from 1990 to 2017. Previous GBD studies have shown how the decline of mortality rates from 1990 to 2016 has led to an increase in life expectancy, an ageing global population, and an expansion of the non-fatal burden of disease and injury. These studies have also shown how a substantial portion of the world's population experiences non-fatal health loss with considerable heterogeneity among different causes, locations, ages, and sexes. Ongoing objectives of the GBD study include increasing the level of estimation detail, improving analytical strategies, and increasing the amount of high-quality data. METHODS: We estimated incidence and prevalence for 354 diseases and injuries and 3484 sequelae. We used an updated and extensive body of literature studies, survey data, surveillance data, inpatient admission records, outpatient visit records, and health insurance claims, and additionally used results from cause of death models to inform estimates using a total of 68 781 data sources. Newly available clinical data from India, Iran, Japan, Jordan, Nepal, China, Brazil, Norway, and Italy were incorporated, as well as updated claims data from the USA and new claims data from Taiwan (province of China) and Singapore. We used DisMod-MR 2.1, a Bayesian meta-regression tool, as the main method of estimation, ensuring consistency between rates of incidence, prevalence, remission, and cause of death for each condition. YLDs were estimated as the product of a prevalence estimate and a disability weight for health states of each mutually exclusive sequela, adjusted for comorbidity. We updated the Socio-demographic Index (SDI), a summary development indicator of income per capita, years of schooling, and total fertility rate. Additionally, we calculated differences between male and female YLDs to identify divergent trends across sexes. GBD 2017 complies with the Guidelines for Accurate and Transparent Health Estimates Reporting

Burden of disease scenarios for 204 countries and territories, 2022–2050: a forecasting analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021

Background: Future trends in disease burden and drivers of health are of great interest to policy makers and the public at large. This information can be used for policy and long-term health investment, planning, and prioritisation. We have expanded and improved upon previous forecasts produced as part of the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) and provide a reference forecast (the most likely future), and alternative scenarios assessing disease burden trajectories if selected sets of risk factors were eliminated from current levels by 2050. Methods: Using forecasts of major drivers of health such as the Socio-demographic Index (SDI; a composite measure of lag-distributed income per capita, mean years of education, and total fertility under 25 years of age) and the full set of risk factor exposures captured by GBD, we provide cause-specific forecasts of mortality, years of life lost (YLLs), years lived with disability (YLDs), and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) by age and sex from 2022 to 2050 for 204 countries and territories, 21 GBD regions, seven super-regions, and the world. All analyses were done at the cause-specific level so that only risk factors deemed causal by the GBD comparative risk assessment influenced future trajectories of mortality for each disease. Cause-specific mortality was modelled using mixed-effects models with SDI and time as the main covariates, and the combined impact of causal risk factors as an offset in the model. At the all-cause mortality level, we captured unexplained variation by modelling residuals with an autoregressive integrated moving average model with drift attenuation. These all-cause forecasts constrained the cause-specific forecasts at successively deeper levels of the GBD cause hierarchy using cascading mortality models, thus ensuring a robust estimate of cause-specific mortality. For non-fatal measures (eg, low back pain), incidence and prevalence were forecasted from mixed-effects models with SDI as the main covariate, and YLDs were computed from the resulting prevalence forecasts and average disability weights from GBD. Alternative future scenarios were constructed by replacing appropriate reference trajectories for risk factors with hypothetical trajectories of gradual elimination of risk factor exposure from current levels to 2050. The scenarios were constructed from various sets of risk factors: environmental risks (Safer Environment scenario), risks associated with communicable, maternal, neonatal, and nutritional diseases (CMNNs; Improved Childhood Nutrition and Vaccination scenario), risks associated with major non-communicable diseases (NCDs; Improved Behavioural and Metabolic Risks scenario), and the combined effects of these three scenarios. Using the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways climate scenarios SSP2-4.5 as reference and SSP1-1.9 as an optimistic alternative in the Safer Environment scenario, we accounted for climate change impact on health by using the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change temperature forecasts and published trajectories of ambient air pollution for the same two scenarios. Life expectancy and healthy life expectancy were computed using standard methods. The forecasting framework includes computing the age-sex-specific future population for each location and separately for each scenario. 95% uncertainty intervals (UIs) for each individual future estimate were derived from the 2·5th and 97·5th percentiles of distributions generated from propagating 500 draws through the multistage computational pipeline. Findings: In the reference scenario forecast, global and super-regional life expectancy increased from 2022 to 2050, but improvement was at a slower pace than in the three decades preceding the COVID-19 pandemic (beginning in 2020). Gains in future life expectancy were forecasted to be greatest in super-regions with comparatively low life expectancies (such as sub-Saharan Africa) compared with super-regions with higher life expectancies (such as the high-income super-region), leading to a trend towards convergence in life expectancy across locations between now and 2050. At the super-region level, forecasted healthy life expectancy patterns were similar to those of life expectancies. Forecasts for the reference scenario found that health will improve in the coming decades, with all-cause age-standardised DALY rates decreasing in every GBD super-region. The total DALY burden measured in counts, however, will increase in every super-region, largely a function of population ageing and growth. We also forecasted that both DALY counts and age-standardised DALY rates will continue to shift from CMNNs to NCDs, with the most pronounced shifts occurring in sub-Saharan Africa (60·1% [95% UI 56·8–63·1] of DALYs were from CMNNs in 2022 compared with 35·8% [31·0–45·0] in 2050) and south Asia (31·7% [29·2–34·1] to 15·5% [13·7–17·5]). This shift is reflected in the leading global causes of DALYs, with the top four causes in 2050 being ischaemic heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, compared with 2022, with ischaemic heart disease, neonatal disorders, stroke, and lower respiratory infections at the top. The global proportion of DALYs due to YLDs likewise increased from 33·8% (27·4–40·3) to 41·1% (33·9–48·1) from 2022 to 2050, demonstrating an important shift in overall disease burden towards morbidity and away from premature death. The largest shift of this kind was forecasted for sub-Saharan Africa, from 20·1% (15·6–25·3) of DALYs due to YLDs in 2022 to 35·6% (26·5–43·0) in 2050. In the assessment of alternative future scenarios, the combined effects of the scenarios (Safer Environment, Improved Childhood Nutrition and Vaccination, and Improved Behavioural and Metabolic Risks scenarios) demonstrated an important decrease in the global burden of DALYs in 2050 of 15·4% (13·5–17·5) compared with the reference scenario, with decreases across super-regions ranging from 10·4% (9·7–11·3) in the high-income super-region to 23·9% (20·7–27·3) in north Africa and the Middle East. The Safer Environment scenario had its largest decrease in sub-Saharan Africa (5·2% [3·5–6·8]), the Improved Behavioural and Metabolic Risks scenario in north Africa and the Middle East (23·2% [20·2–26·5]), and the Improved Nutrition and Vaccination scenario in sub-Saharan Africa (2·0% [–0·6 to 3·6]). Interpretation: Globally, life expectancy and age-standardised disease burden were forecasted to improve between 2022 and 2050, with the majority of the burden continuing to shift from CMNNs to NCDs. That said, continued progress on reducing the CMNN disease burden will be dependent on maintaining investment in and policy emphasis on CMNN disease prevention and treatment. Mostly due to growth and ageing of populations, the number of deaths and DALYs due to all causes combined will generally increase. By constructing alternative future scenarios wherein certain risk exposures are eliminated by 2050, we have shown that opportunities exist to substantially improve health outcomes in the future through concerted efforts to prevent exposure to well established risk factors and to expand access to key health interventions

Global, regional, and national incidence, prevalence, and years lived with disability for 354 diseases and injuries for 195 countries and territories, 1990-2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017

The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2017 (GBD 2017) includes a comprehensive assessment of incidence, prevalence, and years lived with disability (YLDs) for 354 causes in 195 countries and territories from 1990 to 2017. Previous GBD studies have shown how the decline of mortality rates from 1990 to 2016 has led to an increase in life expectancy, an ageing global population, and an expansion of the non-fatal burden of disease and injury. These studies have also shown how a substantial portion of the world's population experiences non-fatal health loss with considerable heterogeneity among different causes, locations, ages, and sexes. Ongoing objectives of the GBD study include increasing the level of estimation detail, improving analytical strategies, and increasing the amount of high-quality data.; We estimated incidence and prevalence for 354 diseases and injuries and 3484 sequelae. We used an updated and extensive body of literature studies, survey data, surveillance data, inpatient admission records, outpatient visit records, and health insurance claims, and additionally used results from cause of death models to inform estimates using a total of 68 781 data sources. Newly available clinical data from India, Iran, Japan, Jordan, Nepal, China, Brazil, Norway, and Italy were incorporated, as well as updated claims data from the USA and new claims data from Taiwan (province of China) and Singapore. We used DisMod-MR 2.1, a Bayesian meta-regression tool, as the main method of estimation, ensuring consistency between rates of incidence, prevalence, remission, and cause of death for each condition. YLDs were estimated as the product of a prevalence estimate and a disability weight for health states of each mutually exclusive sequela, adjusted for comorbidity. We updated the Socio-demographic Index (SDI), a summary development indicator of income per capita, years of schooling, and total fertility rate. Additionally, we calculated differences between male and female YLDs to identify divergent trends across sexes. GBD 2017 complies with the Guidelines for Accurate and Transparent Health Estimates Reporting. Globally, for females, the causes with the greatest age-standardised prevalence were oral disorders, headache disorders, and haemoglobinopathies and haemolytic anaemias in both 1990 and 2017. For males, the causes with the greatest age-standardised prevalence were oral disorders, headache disorders, and tuberculosis including latent tuberculosis infection in both 1990 and 2017. In terms of YLDs, low back pain, headache disorders, and dietary iron deficiency were the leading Level 3 causes of YLD counts in 1990, whereas low back pain, headache disorders, and depressive disorders were the leading causes in 2017 for both sexes combined. All-cause age-standardised YLD rates decreased by 3·9% (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 3·1-4·6) from 1990 to 2017; however, the all-age YLD rate increased by 7·2% (6·0-8·4) while the total sum of global YLDs increased from 562 million (421-723) to 853 million (642-1100). The increases for males and females were similar, with increases in all-age YLD rates of 7·9% (6·6-9·2) for males and 6·5% (5·4-7·7) for females. We found significant differences between males and females in terms of age-standardised prevalence estimates for multiple causes. The causes with the greatest relative differences between sexes in 2017 included substance use disorders (3018 cases [95% UI 2782-3252] per 100 000 in males vs s1400 [1279-1524] per 100 000 in females), transport injuries (3322 [3082-3583] vs 2336 [2154-2535]), and self-harm and interpersonal violence (3265 [2943-3630] vs 5643 [5057-6302]). Global all-cause age-standardised YLD rates have improved only slightly over a period spanning nearly three decades. However, the magnitude of the non-fatal disease burden has expanded globally, with increasing numbers of people who have a wide spectrum of conditions. A subset of conditions has remained globally pervasive since 1990, whereas other conditions have displayed more dynamic trends, with different ages, sexes, and geographies across the globe experiencing varying burdens and trends of health loss. This study emphasises how global improvements in premature mortality for select conditions have led to older populations with complex and potentially expensive diseases, yet also highlights global achievements in certain domains of disease and injury

A modified random pore model for carbonation reaction of calcium oxide with carbon dioxide

In this work, the random pore model was modified for a general concentration dependency and also bulk flow effect, in order to predict the carbonation reaction of calcium oxide with carbon dioxide. This reaction is one of the main methods for carbon dioxide capture from industrial flue gases. Different kinetic rate concentration functions were tested with the various literature experimental data for finding the best reaction constants and rate functions. Moreover, an exponential function for the diffusion of carbon dioxide through the product layer was proposed from the whole experimental conversion-time profiles

Determination of serum paraoxonase phenotype distribution by double-substrate method in patients with coronary artery disease

Introduction: Considering the high incidence of patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) in the Iranian population and a preventive role of serum paraoxonase (PON1) in development of CAD, the present study was designed to determine the distribution of PON1 phenotypes in patients with CAD. Materials and Methods: A total of 61 patients with coronary stenosis of <50% and 63 patients with coronary stenosis of >70% were included in this study. Paraoxonase and arylesterase activities were measured using paraoxon and phenylacetate as substrate, respectively. Phenotyping of the PON1 Q192R polymorphism was determined by calculating the ratio of salt-stimulated paraoxonase activity to arylesterase activity (double-substrate method). Results: Patients with stenosis of <50 % were separated into three distinct phenotypes at ratios of 2.14 and 5.99 and the population with stenosis of >70% at ratios of 2.42 and 5.91. In patients with stenosis of <50%, PON1 phenotype frequencies were 41% (Q phenotype), 46% (QR phenotype) and 13% (R phenotype). Frequencies of Q, QR and R phenotypes in patients with stenosis of >70% were 48%, 41% and 11%, respectively. Conclusions: Based on his study and other studies conducted in Iran, it can be concluded that in the Iranian population there is no statistically difference in phenotype distribution of PON1 between patients with CAD (with severe stenosis or mild stenosis) and healthy individuals

Paraoxonase and Arylesterase activities of human serum paraoxonase in coronary artery disease

Introduction: Considering the importance of serum paraoxonase (PON1) in preventing fromproduction of oxidized low-density lipoprotein (LDL), and consequently, its role in prohibiting fromdevelopment of atherosclerosis, we investigated paraoxonase and arylesterase activities of PON1 inpatients with coronary artery disease (CAD) and with different coronary stenosis.Materials and Methods: In the present study, 120 patients with CAD were examined and theirstenosis documented by coronary angiography. Then, the patients were divided into two groups: 60patients with less than 50% of stenosis and 60 patients with more than 70% of stenosis. Paraoxonaseand arylesterase activity was measured with substrates of paraoxon and phenylacetate, respectively.The effects of eight drugs, which are prescribed in cardiovascular diseases, were assayed onparaoxonase activity.Results: There were no significant differences in LDL-C, total cholesterol and triglyceride levelsbetween two groups, but HDL levels in patients with >70% of stenosis were significantly decreased ascompared with those of patients who had <50% of stenosis (P<0.03). Both paraoxonase andarylesterase activity in patients with >70% of stenosis were significantly lower (P<0.05) than patientswith<50% of stenosis.Conclusion: Paraoxonase and arylesterase activities of PON1 and HDL levels in patients with>70% of stenosis were lower than patients with <50% of stenosis. In other words, the PON1 activitiesand HDL levels decrease with progression of atheroma. Therefore, the study might support theimportant role of HDL-bound PON1 in preventing from formation of ox-LDL and its anti-atherogenicactivity