Pulmonary tuberculosis and some underlying conditions in Golestan Province of Iran, during 2001-2005

Context: Pulmonary tuberculosis has been a major health problem in Golestan province of Iran. Aims: This descriptive cross-sectional study was performed to evaluate the frequency of coexisting medical conditions and their effects on some epidemiologic factors in patients with pulmonary tuberculosis. Setting and Design: This was a descriptive cross-sectional study. Methods and Material: Demographic information, time of admission in the hospital and coexisting medical conditions (diabetes, chronic renal failure/hemodyalysis, corticosteroids consumption and malignancies) were extracted from the patient's file. Statistical analysis used: Chi-square test was used to assess the relationship between variables. Results: Two hundred forty three patients with pulmonary tuberculosis during 5 years were studied. Out of all, 162 cases (66.7%) did not have any co-morbidities. Diabetes mellitus was found to be the most prevalent condition (23.05%) followed by chronic renal failure, corticosteroid consumption and malignancy ranking second, third and forth in the list (5.8%, 2.5% and 2 respectively). The mean age of the patients was 50.15±19 years old. In the group without co morbidities, male/ female ratio was 1.41/1, but co morbidity with diabetes was significantly more prevalent in females (p<0.05). Conclusions: We suggest screening of tuberculosis in patients with chronic renal failure and diabetes mellitus in our area. Also for patients with pulmonary tuberculosis, diabetes screening should be considered essential

Bone mineral density in Iranian patients: Effects of age, sex, and body mass index

Introduction: Osteoporosis is a multifactorial skeletal disease that is characterized by reduced bone mineral density (BMD). BMD values de-pend on several factors such as age, sex and age at menopause. The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence and changes in bone mineral density in Iranian patients. Meth-ods: Three hundred patients were selected through random sampling technique in 2009. BMD was assessed by Norland (Excell) technique at the lumbar and femoral neck. Weight and height were measured through standard methods. A thorough history was taken from each patient. The data was analyzed using SPSS software version 13.0. P-values less than 0.05 were con-sidered statistically significant. Results: From among the 300 studied patients, 86.6% were fe-male. their mean age was 52.7 years. Their av-erage body mass index (BMI) was 28.14 kg/m2. Mean T-Score at lumbar spine and femoral neck was −1.07 ± 1.19 and −1.75 ± 1.33 respectively. Mean BMD value at lumbar spine and femoral neck was 0.92 ± 0.19 and 0.77 ± 0.16 respectively. The prevalence of osteoporosis at lumbar spine and femoral neck was 33.7% and 16.7, respec-tively. There was a significant correlation be-tween age, BMI and BMD values (P-Value < 0.01). Correlation between gender and BMD value at the lumbar spine and femoral neck was not sig-nificant. Conclusion: This study shows that age- ing and low BMI are risk factors associated with bone loss. it is recommended to measure BMD and implement prevention programs for high- risk people. Keywords: Bone Mineral Density; Body Mass Index;Age; Gende

A TV-Gaussian prior for infinite-dimensional Bayesian inverse problems and its numerical implementations

Many scientific and engineering problems require to perform Bayesian inferences in function spaces, in which the unknowns are of infinite dimension. In such problems, choosing an appropriate prior distribution is an important task. In particular we consider problems where the function to infer is subject to sharp jumps which render the commonly used Gaussian measures unsuitable. On the other hand, the so-called total variation (TV) prior can only be defined in a finite dimensional setting, and does not lead to a well-defined posterior measure in function spaces. In this work we present a TV-Gaussian (TG) prior to address such problems, where the TV term is used to detect sharp jumps of the function, and the Gaussian distribution is used as a reference measure so that it results in a well-defined posterior measure in the function space. We also present an efficient Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm to draw samples from the posterior distribution of the TG prior. With numerical examples we demonstrate the performance of the TG prior and the efficiency of the proposed MCMC algorithm

Abelian Sandpile Model on the Honeycomb Lattice

We check the universality properties of the two-dimensional Abelian sandpile model by computing some of its properties on the honeycomb lattice. Exact expressions for unit height correlation functions in presence of boundaries and for different boundary conditions are derived. Also, we study the statistics of the boundaries of avalanche waves by using the theory of SLE and suggest that these curves are conformally invariant and described by SLE2.Comment: 24 pages, 5 figure

Besov priors for Bayesian inverse problems

We consider the inverse problem of estimating a function $u$ from noisy, possibly nonlinear, observations. We adopt a Bayesian approach to the problem. This approach has a long history for inversion, dating back to 1970, and has, over the last decade, gained importance as a practical tool. However most of the existing theory has been developed for Gaussian prior measures. Recently Lassas, Saksman and Siltanen (Inv. Prob. Imag. 2009) showed how to construct Besov prior measures, based on wavelet expansions with random coefficients, and used these prior measures to study linear inverse problems. In this paper we build on this development of Besov priors to include the case of nonlinear measurements. In doing so a key technical tool, established here, is a Fernique-like theorem for Besov measures. This theorem enables us to identify appropriate conditions on the forward solution operator which, when matched to properties of the prior Besov measure, imply the well-definedness and well-posedness of the posterior measure. We then consider the application of these results to the inverse problem of finding the diffusion coefficient of an elliptic partial differential equation, given noisy measurements of its solution.Comment: 18 page

Involvement of private investors on the financial market of the Russian Federation: analysis of problems and actions of regulating authorit

In this article, the problems of attracting private investment in the financial markets of the Russian Federation are examined. The analysis of measures carried out by the regulator of the financial market on achievement of positive dynamics in attraction of savings of the population in the financial markets is carried out. Conclusions have been made about the need for additional instruments of impact on the population and on the pfessional market participants who would help stimulate the population in choosing the Russian stock market