On the Achievable Rates of Pairwise Multiway Relay Channels

In this paper, we study the effect of users' transmission ordering on the common rate and sum rate of pairwise multiway relay channels (MWRCs) with functional-decode-forward strategy. To this end, we first develop a graphical model for the data transmission in a pairwise MWRC. Using this model, we then find the optimal orderings that achieve the maximum common rate and sum rate of the system. The achieved maximum common and sum rate are also found. Moreover, we show that the performance gap between optimal orderings and a random ordering vanishes when SNR increases. Computer simulations are presented for better illustration of the results.Comment: Extended version of "On the Achievable Rates of Pairwise Multiway Relay Channels" accepted for ISIT 201

Factors Affecting Patients Undergoing Cosmetic Surgery in Bushehr, Southern Iran

BACKGROUND Although, there have been extensive research on the motivations driving patient to undergo cosmetic procedures, there is still a big question mark on the persuasive factors which may lead individuals to undergo cosmetic surgery. The present study evaluated various factors affecting patients undergoing cosmetic surgery in Bushehr, Southern Iran. METHODS From 24th March 2011 to 24th March 2012, eighty-one women and 20 men who wished to be operated in Fatemeh Zahra Hospital in Bushehr, Southern Iran and Pars Clinic, Iran were enrolled by a simple random sampling method. They all completed a questionnaire to consider reasons for cosmetic procedures. The collected data were statistically analyzed. RESULTS Demographical, sociological and psychological factors such as age, gender, educational level, marital status, media, perceived risks, output quality, depression and self-improvement were determined as factors affecting tendency of individuals to undergo cosmetic surgery in this region. Trend to undergo cosmetic surgery was more prevalent in educational below bachelor degree, married subjects, women population of 30-45 years age group. Education level, age, marital status and gender were respectively the influential factors in deciding to undergo cosmetic surgery. Among the socio-psychological factors, self-improvement, finding a better job opportunity, rivalry, media, health status as well as depression were the most persuasive factors to encourage people to undergo cosmetic surgery too. Cost risk was not important for our samples in decision making to undergo cosmetic surgery. CONCLUSION We need to fully understand the way in which the combination of demographic, social and psychological factors influence decision-making to undergo cosmetic surgery

Investigating the Effect and Immunity of Tissue Plasminogen Activator in the Treatment of Acute Ischemic Stroke

Background and Objective: Although current evidence has demonstrated the efficacy and immunity of Alteplase, further studies are needed to evaluate its functioning in the therapeutic system. This study aims to assess the effect and immunity of tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) in the treatment of acute ischemic stroke (AIS).Methods: This study was conducted as a retrospective observational study on patients with AIS referred to Ahvaz Golestan Hospital in 2017-2018. By using the hospital database, demographic information, the cause of lack of thrombolytic therapy, the onset of symptoms and admission were extracted. The National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) at the time of referral, 24 hours after treatment, and at the time of discharge, the modified Rankin Scale (mRS) scores at discharge time and 3 months after discharge, complications and mortality at the time of admission and 3 months after discharge were recorded.Results: The mean of the event to needle (hrs) was significantly lower in the tPA group (P <0.0001), and delay in visiting time and loss of golden time were of the main reasons for not receiving tPA in the control group. The mean difference and the decrease in NIHSS score 24 hours after admission and discharge in the tPA group was significantly higher (P <0.0001). At the time of discharge, the mean score of mRS in the two groups was not significantly different. Three months after treatment, the mean score of mRS in the tPA group was significantly lower than that in the control group (P <0.05). The percentage of patients with bleeding complications was higher in the tPA group (7.27%) than that in the control group (4.89%). The percentage of deaths during the hospital stay in the tPA group (3.64%) was higher than that in the control group (1.63%).Conclusion: Patients with AIS under intravenous thrombolytic therapy with tPA showed improvement in functional measurements and neurological outcomes compared with the control group. Lack of significant difference in the rate of complications and mortality between the two groups indicated the safety and high efficacy of thrombolytic therapy in patients with AIS

The Effect of Uric Acid as a Predisposing Factor on Polyneuropathy in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

Background: Since serum uric acid is a controllable and modifiable factor in diabetic patients, identifying the risk factors and accelerating the incidence of neuropathy in these patients plays an important role, and can reduce its level, and the patient's disability, as well as additional therapeutic costs for the patient and the health system in the country. Method: In this retrospective cohort study conducted at the Golestan Hospital in 2015-2017, the study population was 100 type 2 diabetic patients based on NCS of 54 patients with polyneuropathy. First, the demographic data on clinical examinations, lab tests, and uric acid levels in these patients were recorded on a checklist. Then, in 2017, patients were reassessed for clinical investigations and lab tests, and all data entered on the previous checklist. Finally, all the data were analyzed using the SPSS v23. Results: The mean age of patients with polyneuropathy was 51.77 years, and there was a significant relationship between age, BMI and duration of diabetes with neuropathy, but there was no significant difference in gender, smoking and hypertension. The mean serum level of uric acid in the two years ago was 3.85 mg/dl, and at the time of the study, it was 4.18 ±1.55 mg/dl. There was no significant difference in serum levels of this substance after two years of follow up in patients with polyneuropathy (P=0.139). The incidence of polyneuropathy was reported by NCS findings of 54%. In other words, 54% of diabetic patients developed diabetic polyneuropathy for two years. Conclusion: Polyneuropathy is a common complication in diabetic patients, and the serum levels of uric acid over time cannot have a significant effect on the incidence of this disorder

The Investigation of the Impact of Health Belief Model Based Training on Brest Self-Exam in Women Referred to Health Centers

Background and objective: Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women .More than 90 percent of patients are treated if diagnosed early. This study has been done to investigate the impact of Health Belief Model based training in the creation of the BSE behavior Methods: This study is a controlled intervention one performed on 180 women referred to health centers Torbat Heydaryieh which 90 people were in the intervention group and 90 people were in the control group. Before doing intervention training, a questionnaire designed based on HBM was completed by the investigating units. Then intervention training was carried out in intervention group using lecture, questions, and answers. Two month after the intervention, post tests were given using the same questionnaire. The data was analyzed by using spss 18 software, independent t-test, paired t-test and chi-square and was considered significant Results: Independent T-Test showed that before intervention, the difference between mean scores of knowledge and HBM structures of control and intervention groups was not statistically significant. But this difference was significant after the intervention Conclusion: It seems that, a training program designed based on HBM is effective to create the behavior of BSE. It is suggested educational programs Implemented  on based Health Belief Model In order to improve the performance of women. Paper Type: Research Articl

Optimizing the ultimate recovery by infill drilling using streamline simulation

Even though numerical simulators that use the finite difference approach to model the oil and gas fields and to forecast the field performance are popular in the petroleum industry, they suffer from a very long central processing unit (CPU) time in the complex reservoirs with large number of grids. This issue could be resolved by streamline simulation and it could significantly decrease the runtime. This work explains the the streamline simulation concept and then a real oil field is studied using this technique, the streamline simulation is conducted by a commercial simulator, i.e., FrontSim streamline simulator and then the model was analyzed to find the optimum location of infill wells. In this work, 34 different cases were studied using Streamline simulation method and FrontSim software by considering different arrangement of infill wells. It was concluded that a significant enhancement in the ultimate recovery factor of the oil reservoir could be attained by considering different arrangement of the infill horizontal and vertical wells. It was highlighted that the ultimate recovery factor could be increased significantly, i.e., 13%. Additionally the water cut of the field could be reduced significantly. The novelty of this work is to capture the impact of both vertical and horizontal wells on the ultimate recovery enhancement simultaneously using the concept of streamline simulation and optimization of the field performance using streamline simulation concept

Kinetic and thermodynamic study of beta-Boswellic acid interaction with Tau protein investigated by surface plasmon resonance and molecular modeling methods

Introduction: Beta-Boswellic acid (BBA) is a pentacyclic terpene which has been obtained from frankincense and its beneficial effects on neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD) have been addressed. Methods: In the present study, thermodynamic and kinetic aspects of BBA interaction with Tau protein as one of the important proteins involved in AD in the absence and presence of glucose has been investigated using surface plasmon resonance (SPR) method. Tau protein was immobilized onto the carboxy methyl dextran chip and its binding interactions with BBA were studied at physiological pH at various temperatures. Glucose interference with these interactions was also investigated. Results: Results showed that BBA forms a stable complex with Tau (KD=8.45×10-7 M) at 298 K. Molecular modeling analysis showed a hydrophobic interaction between BBA and HVPGGG segment of R2 and R4 repeated domains of Tau. Conclusion: The binding affinity increased by temperature enhancement, while it decreased significantly in the presence of glucose. Both association and dissociation of the BBA-Tau complex were accompanied with an entropic activation barrier; however, positive enthalpy and entropy changes revealed that hydrophobic bonding is the main force involved in the interaction

An investigation into sub-critical choke flow performance in high rate gas condensate wells

There are some correlations in the literature to predict the gas and liquid flow rate through wellhead chokes under subcritical flow condition. Majority of these empirical correlations are developed based on limited production data sets that were collected from a small number of fields. Therefore these correlations are valid within the parameters’ variation ranges of those fields. If such correlations are used elsewhere for the prediction of the subcritical choke flow performance of the other fields, this will lead to significant errors. Additionally, there are only a few empirical correlations for sub-critical choke flow performance in high rate gas condensate wells. These led the authors toward developing a new empirical correlation based on a wider production data set from different gas condensate fields in the world. 234 production data points were collected from a large number of production wells in twenty different gas condensate fields with diverse reservoir conditions and different production history. Non-linear regression analysis method is applied to the production. The new correlation is validated with a new set of data points from some other production wells to confirm the accuracy of the established correlation. The results show that the new correlation had minimal errors and predicted the gas flow rate more accurately compared to the other three existing models over a wider range of the parameters’ variation ranges

Experimental Study on Plasmodium berghei, Anopheles Stephensi, and BALB/c Mouse System: Implications for Malaria Transmission Blocking Assays

Background:Plasmodium berghei is a rodent malaria parasiteand has been very valuable means in the progress of our understanding of the essential molecular and cellular biology of the malaria parasites. Availability of hosts such as mice and vectors such as Anopheles stephensi has made this parasite a suitable system to study the parasite-host and vector-parasite relationships. Numerous studies have described life cycle and parameters influencing maintenance of the parasite within the mice or the mosquito. In this paper we revealed more details and have addressed some parameters and points influence maintenance of various life stages of the parasite (merozoites, macrogametocytes, ookinetes, oocysts and sporozoites) in the laboratory model P.berghei–A.stephensi-BALB/c mouse. This study helps understanding the biology of vertebrate-parasite and mosquito-malaria interactions that may aid in the development of a new generation of drug/vaccine and vector-based measures for malaria control