How much the act of secrecy is done by medical staff? A descriptive cross-sectional survey in south of Iran

Some information may be gathered during the medical procedures, including medical records or personal information. Many of them can be considered as secrets. The medical staff has the duty of privacy, which means keeping the secrets away from a third party. Hippocratic Oath accepts no exceptions but modern ethical express the situations in which the disclosure of secrets is allowed, legal, or even necessary. The present study is about to evaluate the act of secrecy in medical staff of the tertiary health care centers affiliated with Jahrom University of Medical Sciences in south of Iran. This cross sectional study is done on 204 members of medical staff of 8 different wards in tertiary health care centers affiliated with Jahrom University of Medical Sciences in south of Iran, using a questionnaire of 31 questions in 5 major categories adding to a data sheet for demographic information (age, gender, ward). Validity and reliability of the questionnaire was proved by previous studies. Collected data analyzed by dependent T-test, Fisher's exact and SPSS.17 using descriptive and deductive statistics. The mean rate of secrecy was 3.82± 0.75. Respecting others in the category of "goals of secrecy" earned 4.48, common medical services in the category of "reasons for disclosure" earned 3.89, damage to the patient in the category of "legal reasons for disclosure" earned 4.05, patient's rights in "personal reasons for secrecy" earned 4.07, and informing the medical managers in "proper way to confront the offenders" with the score 2.85 were the highest scores of each category. The variant Ages (p=0.003) and wards (p=0.03) showed significant differences in the secrecy. Results show that the medical staff is not familiar enough to the legal and ethical indications of secrecy, so holding in-service courses may be effective

Risk estimation of heavy metals from consumption of silver pomfret and tiger tooth croaker in Hormozagan Province

In the present study, accumulation of manganese, cadmium, zinc, iron and copper in the commercially fish species (silver pomfret and tiger tooth croaker) caught from Bandarabbas coasts at 2010 was measured and the risk of daily intake of them in Hormozagan urban population was estimated. The average concentrations (µ/g dry weight) of manganese, cadmium, zinc, iron, and copper in the muscle tissue of silver pomfret were 1.248, 0.217, 14.444, 2.397 and 3.300, respectively, while the concentration of them in tiger tooth croaker were 1.009, 0.403, 12.564, 4.467 and 2.366, respectively. According to fish consumption rate, urban populations of the province were divided into four groups; low, medium, high and very high. The target hazard quotient (THQ) in each group calculated separately. The THQ of all groups were much lower than 1 in the two fish. The results showed that urban populations of the province have not any risk due to accumulation of the studied heavy metals

Mercury Bioaccumulation in Some Commercially Valuable Marine Organisms from Mosa Bay, Persian Gulf

ABSTRACT: This study was undertaken to determine the concentration of mercury in edible muscle of five commercially valuable marine organisms from Mosa Bay, Persian Gulf, Iran. The total mercury concentrations were determined by cold vapour atomic absorption spectrophotometry and expressed in µg/g dry weight. Certified reference materials were used for each batch of analysis. Mercury concentration was 0.373 µg/g for Liza abu, 1.172 µg/g Sparidentex hasta, 0.445µg/g for Acanthopagrus latus, 0.390 µg/g for Thunnus tonggol, and 0.360 µg/g for Fenneropenaeus indicus. Carnivorous fish had higher level of mercury than non-carnivorous. Statistical analysis revealed weak correlation between fish mercury concentration and length for all studied organisms. The observed concentrations were comparable to those found in other areas of the Persian Gulf and were lower than the WHO guideline of 0.5 mg/kg wet weight. Our result demonstrated that estimated daily and weekly intakes of mercury via consumption of fish flesh were far below the PTDI and PTWI values recommended by FAO/WHO

A new method based on Type-2 fuzzy neural network for accurate wind power forecasting under uncertain data

© 2017 Elsevier Ltd Nowadays, due to some environmental restrictions and decrease of fossil fuel sources, renewable energy sources and specifically wind power plants have a major part of energy generation in the industrial countries. To this end, the accurate forecasting of wind power is considered as an important and influential factor for the management and planning of power systems. In this paper, a novel intelligent method is proposed to provide an accurate forecast of the medium-term and long-term wind power by using the uncertain data from an online supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system and the numerical weather prediction (NWP). This new method is based on the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm and applied to train the Type-2 fuzzy neural network (T2FNN) which is called T2FNN-PSO. The presented method combines both of fuzzy system's expert knowledge and the neural network's learning capability for accurate forecasting of the wind power. In addition, the T2FNN-PSO can appropriately handle the uncertainties associated with the measured parameters from SCADA system, the numerical weather prediction and measuring tools. The proposed method is applied on a case study of a real wind farm. The obtained simulation results validate effectiveness and applicability of the proposed method for a practical solution to an accurate wind power forecasting in a power system control center

Dynamic performance improvement of an ultra-lift Luo DC–DC converter by using a type-2 fuzzy neural controller

© 2018 Due to the uncertainty associated with the structure and electrical elements of DC–DC converters and the nonlinear performance of these modules, designing an effective controller is highly complicated and also technically challenging. This paper employs a new control approach based on type-2 fuzzy neural controller (T2FNC) in order to improve the dynamic response of an ultra-lift Luo DC–DC converter under different operational conditions. The proposed controller can rapidly stabilize the output voltage of converter to expected values by tuning the converter switching duty cycle. This controller can tackle the uncertainties associated with the structure of converters, measured control signals and measuring devices. Moreover, a new intelligent method based on firefly algorithm is applied to tune the parameters of T2FNC. In order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control approach, the proposed controller is compared to PI and fuzzy controllers under different operational conditions. Results validate efficiency of proposed T2FNC

Reduction the Number of Power Electronic Devices of a Cascaded Multilevel Inverter Based on New General Topology

In this paper, a new cascaded multilevel inverter by capability of increasing the number of output voltage levels with reduced number of power switches is proposed. The proposed topology consists of series connection of a number of proposed basic multilevel units. In order to generate all voltage levels at the output, five different algorithms are proposed to determine the magnitude of DC voltage sources. Reduction of the used power switches and the variety of DC voltage sources magnitudes are two main advantages of the proposed topology. These results are obtained by comparison of the proposed inverter with the H-bridge cascaded multilevel inverter and one of recently presented topologies. The remarkable ability of the proposed topology with its algorithms in generating all voltage levels (even and odd) is verified through PSCAD/EMTDC simulation and experimental results of a 17-level inverter

Effect of Antioxidants on the Outcome of Therapy in Paraquat-intoxicated Patients

Purpose: The present study was conducted to determine the effect of vitamins C and E administration on the outcome of therapy in patients with paraquat intoxication admitted in the Poisoning EmergencyDepartment (PED) of Noor Teaching General Hospital, Isfahan, Iran.Methods: We studied retrospectively medical records of 186 patients admitted to the PED in two different study periods: 157 patients were evaluated from 1985 to 2001 (first study period) in which patients received conventional treatment protocol consisting of fluid replacement, oral absorbents, haemodialysis, etc, Also, 29 other patients were assessed from 2001 to 2005 (second study period) in which vitamins C and E had been administered to the patients, in addition to the conventional protocol.The patients' mortality rate after the first study period was compared to that of the second one, with regard to the impact of the additional therapeutic intervention (use of antioxidant vitamins).Results: Most of the patients (40.5 %) had ingested more than 20 mL of 20 % paraquat solution and were admitted to the hospital during the first 4 h after exposure. Paraquat poisoning was more common in men (76.6 %), young adults in the age group 19 - 34 (47 %) and during summer (43.3 %). Mean (± SE) length of hospital stay was 62.6 ± 15.6 h. Overall mortality rates were 31 and 55.2 % in the first and second periods, respectively.Conclusion: Although the addition of antioxidants (vitamins C and E) to the conventional therapy did not reduce the mortality rate, other dependent variables including different doses of antioxidants may beconsidered for future studies

Shelf-life determination of tiger-toothed Croaker (Otolithes ruber) during flake ice storage

Quality of tiger-toothed croaker stored in flake ice was studied for 19 days by sensory, chemical (total volatile basic nitrogen (TVB-N)), (thiobarbituric values (TBA)), pH and microbial (total viable count, TVC) methods. Sensory scheme was modified according to the panelists perception and a specific schema was created for this fish. Sensory analyses showed that: "gills color and odor", "convexity of eyes", "peritoneum" and "elasticity of flesh" are the best sensory parameters. Results of sensory and microbial analyses had high correlation. Total viable count of flesh was 2.86 log cfu g-1 at first day and reached the limiting level of TVC (106) after 15 days of storage (P<0.05). TVB-N levels were 15.31mg/100 g tissue at the first day of storage and reached 36.52mg/100 g at the end of storage day (P<0.05). Measuring amounts of TVB-N showed that total volatile basic nitrogen is a good quality index for tiger-toothed croaker during ice storage. The initial level of TBA was 0.83mg of malondialdehyde per kg flesh (mg MDA/kg) and increased to 3.75mg MDA/kg at the end of storage. TBA levels were less than limiting level (5mg MDA/kg) over the period of storage. According to the results, shelf-life of tiger-toothed croaker was determined 15 days during ice storage