Differential Attentional Responding by Planned and Emergency Caesarean-Section Versus Vaginally Delivered Infants and Adults

Search asymmetry occurs when feature-present targets are detected more easily than feature-absent targets, resulting in an efficient search (i.e. flat RT - set size function) for feature- present targets, but an inefficient search (i.e. increasing RT set size function) for feature-absent targets. Both 3-month-old infants and adults have been found to exhibit a search asymmetry when assessed with saccade latencies (Adler & Gallego, 2014). Additionally, caesarean-section delivered infants exhibit slower attention and saccadic latencies than those born vaginally (Adler & Wong-Kee-You, 2015). This study is designed to determine the relative effects of different birth experiences on attention and search asymmetry performance and whether differences persist in adulthood. Two different visual circular arrays were presented: feature-present target among feature-absent distractors (R among Ps) or feature-absent target among feature-present distractors (P among Rs) with array set sizes of 1, 3, 5, 8. Results indicated that infants and adults saccadic latencies were unaffected by set size in feature-present arrays, suggesting an efficient search. Both caesarean-section born infants and adults had slower saccadic latencies when compared to the vaginal groups. Interestingly, infants born via planned caesarean-section were slower when compared to an emergency caesarean-section. There were no differences in saccadic latencies, however, between emergency and planned caesarean-section adults, suggesting that any difference due to planned vs emergency caesarean-sections does not persist into adulthood. For feature absent targets, both infants and adults exhibited increasing saccadic latencies with set size, suggesting an inefficient search. These findings suggest that any caesarean-section birth influences bottom-up attention and requires greater reliance on top-down processing even into adulthood. Thus, the development of attentional mechanisms can be influenced by early birth experiences that also impact adulthood

Co-authorship patterns and networks in the scientific publications of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences

The increasing amount of scientific collaboration has led to an increase  in the quality of scientific publications. The goal of this article is to analyze the co-authorship patterns and networks in SBUMS’s scientific publications in WOS from 2009 to 2013. Hence, the co-authorship indicators and ratio of national to international collaborations are determined. This research is a descriptive survey including scientometric approaches. HistCite and NWB software is used to draw and analyze the networks. The findings show that the scientific publications of SBUMS are 6633 publications. The most productive authors are Fereidoun Azizi and Mohamad Reza Zali. The maximum number of scientific publications is allocated to the articles written by more than 5 authors. Collaborative Index (CI), Degree of Collaboration (DC), and Collaborative Coefficient (CC) are 4.27, 0.96, and 0.71 respectively. The ratio of national to international collaborations is 4.78. In co-authorship networks, there are 12825 nodes (authors) that are linked with 97618 edges. The highest degree and betweenness centrality belongs to Masjedi showing the communication paths of other nodes overtaking them. The most international collaboration belongs to the USA. The collaboration of authors in SBUMS is almost good but the international collaboration is not so. Encouraging policies for the further collaboration of authors surely leads to increasing the quality and quantity of the scientific publications. It is recommended to repeat the network analysis in different periods of time.

Criminal Poisoning: A Hospital-Based Survey in an Academic Center of Iran

Background: One of the most common medical emergencies worldwide is deliberate or accidental poisoning. The ever-increasing consumption of toxins and fatal drugs is getting more critical by the time. The purpose of intentional poisoning is to harm self and others. It includes objectives like robbery, sexual abusing (rape). The perpetrators of sedative and hypnotic drugs could sedate patients and make them sleepy. Methods: This descriptive, cross-sectional study investigated the suspected Drug-Facilitated Crime (DFC) admitted patients and Outpatient Department (OPD) in the emergency room and toxicology ward. A researcher-made questionnaire was completed for each patient. The biological samples (urine, blood) were provided to a clinical toxicology lab.Results: The information of 40 suspected DFC patients was analyzed. 70% of intoxicated patients were men, and 30% were women. The patients’ mean age was 31-43 years; 42% were low in education, and 37% were self-employed. Furthermore, 75% of total intoxicated patients had a sedentary level of consciousness. Approximately 92.5% had one positive substance test, and 7.5% had negative lab test results. The most used drug was diazepam, by 70%. The motivation for poisoning was 80% robbery, 12.5% for rape, and 7.5% were no diagnostic.Conclusion: The prevalence of poisoning, especially deliberate poisoning, is dramatically growing in this part of the world. Accordingly, this study reveals the flexibility of criminals in Tehran Province, Iran. Thus, the Ministry of Health should seriously control legal and illegal drugs purchase

Grain Quality of Maize Cultivars as a Function of Planting Dates, Irrigation and Nitrogen Stress: A Case Study from Semiarid Conditions of Iran

Maize grain is an important source of human and animal feed, and its quality can be affected by management practices and climatic conditions. This study aimed to evaluate the concentration and composition of starch, protein and oil in grain of maize cultivars in response to different planting dates (20 June and 21 July), irrigation (12-day and 6-day intervals) and nitrogen rates (0 and 184 kg N ha(-1)). The first two principal components (PCs) accounted for 84.5% of the total variation. High N fertilization increased protein (by 6.0 and 10.9 g kg(-1)) and total nonessential amino acids (by 3.4 and 2.4 g kg(-1)) during 2018 and 2019, respectively. With the high irrigation rate, the high N rate increased oil, total unsaturated fatty acids, and starch and amylopectin, whereas with the low irrigation rate, there was no effect of the N rate. With earlier planting, total saturated fatty acids were higher. The findings highlight the complicated relationship between the different factors and how they affect quality characteristics of maize grain. There was a large impact of year, which to a great extent cannot be controlled, even in this environment where water supply was controlled and rainfall did not affect the results

Design Of Mems Inductor And Varactor For Low Noise Voltage Controlled Oscillators

Micro-Electro-Mechanical-Systems (MEMS) technology has been used to develop high quality factor (Q), low cost and low power consumption circuit blocks in RF communication systems. This research focuses on the design of high-performance MEMS inductor and varactor for use in Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) voltage controlled oscillators (VCO) operating at 2.4 GHz. The air suspended inductor has been designed using MEMS technology to reduce the resistive loss and the substrate loss. Lowresistivity material has been used. A MEMS two-gap tunable capacitor, using two parallel plates (one fixed and one movable), has been designed. The capacitance can be varied by applying low voltage to the movable plate. The pull-in voltage has been optimized to achieve low phase noise, low power consumption, and a wide frequency tuning range for VCO. The MEMS inductor and MEMS capacitor have been used in the design of VCO. The inductor has been modeled with a physical, equivalent two-port model known as Yue's model to compute the parameters and Q factor of the inductor. The designed inductor has a Q factor of 27 and the inductance is about 2.87nH at 2.4GHz. The capacitor has a value of 2.04 pF capacitance and Q factor of 40 at 2.4 GHz. The proposed MEMS inductor and varactor has been used in simulation of VCO to determine the effect of high Q factor on the VCO phase noise. The active part of the circuit has been designed using CMOS. Based on the simulation, low phase noise and low power consumption have been obtained simultaneously. The results of - 117.7 dBc/Hz at 1 00 KHz and 11m W have been achieved for phase noise and power consumption of VCO respectively

Phenotypic Traits, Grain Yield and Yield Components of Maize Cultivars Under Combinations of Management Practices in Semi-arid Conditions of Iran

In semi-arid regions, selecting cultivars and planning management practices are critical issues for improving yields and reducing risks of maize cultivation in the short summer cropping season. This study aimed to assess the responses of grain yield (GY) and important phenotypic characteristics of maize cultivars from different maturity groups under various irrigation regimes, planting dates, and nitrogen rates, in a 2-year experiment. According to the clusters identified in the loading plot, stover yield, radiation use efficiency (RUE), height, leaf greenness index, stem weight, and ear size during flowering (VT/R1) were strongly correlated with GY, yield components and harvest index. Based on analysis of variance, more irrigation or N, or their interaction often increased GY, rows ear(-1), grains row(-1) and hundred-grain weight. Late planting decreased GY of KSC704 (late maturity cultivar). KSC260 (early maturity cultivar) had greater flexibility in planting time, required less days for maturity, and had less water consumption. The findings highlight the physiological basis of the relationship between the different phenotypic characteristics and how they affect GY and its components. They were in line with the established theories that higher RUE, biomass and sink activity (e.g. grain weight and numbers, and larger ear size) are associated with better genetic gains to produce high GY. Although the results were not consistent between years, findings suggested the good performance of recently released early maturity cultivars for use during the summer growing season

Coherent back-scattering near the two-dimensional metal-insulator transition

We have studied corrections to conductivity due to the coherent backscattering in low-disordered two-dimensional electron systems in silicon for a range of electron densities including the vicinity of the metal-insulator transition, where the dramatic increase of the spin susceptibility has been observed earlier. We show that the corrections, which exist deeper in the metallic phase, weaken upon approaching to the transition and practically vanish at the critical density, thus suggesting that the localization is suppressed near and at the transition even in zero field.Comment: to appear in PR

Neuroticism and Attentional Biases for Threatening Stimulus

The role of the different dimensions of the personality in the cognitive processing includes some important research areas in the field of cognitive psychology. The present study aimed to investigate differences of attentional bias in individual with up and down neuroticism. For this purpose, 130 subjects (67 people with high neuroticism and 63 people with low neuroticism) were completed word-picture task and the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. The main and interactive effect and Pearson correlation coefficient were used to investigate the relationship between neuroticism and Attentional bias. The results showed that people with high neuroticism compared to people with low neuroticism perform slower in experimental trials. In addition, the resulting correlation coefficient indicated a positive and meaningful relationship between neuroticism and Attentional bias, it seems that along with increased scores of people in neuroticism, more Attentional bias was showing by them. These findings indicated that the necessity of using treatment strategies tailored to the characteristics of personality was multiplied