Women's voices: The journey towards cyberfeminism in Iran

The working paper looks at the history of Iranian media by and for women, culminating in cyberfeminism. The main focus are women's websites and cyber campaigns dedicated to improving women's rights, and how they helped to mobilize Iranian women's movements. There are two main case studies: The main case study on websites is the "Feminist School" as an important site for feminist discourse and women's movements managed from inside Iran. The main case study in relation to cyber campaigns is the "My stealthy freedom" campaign which is undertaken from outside Iran. Through these two case studies, the paper aims to answer the following questions: To what extent and how do these sites provide strategic opportunities for the Iranian women's movement to advocating gender equality and women's rights? And did the cyber campaign help to build coalitions between women's movements inside Iran and diaspora activism outside of Iran? The case studies are based on the author’s earlier work on the history of the women' movement, interviews with leaders and directors of women's websites and directors of mobilizing cyber campaigns along with self-reflective and discourse analysis of the websites and campaigns. A biography of the author can be found here: (http://www.pen-deutschland.de/en/themen/writers-in-exile/ehemalige-stipendiaten/mansoureh-shojaee/

covering simplicial game complex

In this paper, we introduce a simplicial complex representation for finite non-cooperative games in the strategic form. The covering space of the simplicial game complex is introduced and we show that the covering complex is a powerful tool to find Nash Equilibrium simplices. This representation allows us to model the cost functions of a game as a weight number on a dual vertex of the strategy situation in some stars. It yields a canonical direct sum decomposition of an arbitrary game into three components, as the potential, harmonic and nonstrategic components.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures, 1 algorith

Microbiome profile associated with malignant pleural effusion.

INTRODUCTION:There is ongoing research into the development of novel molecular markers that may complement fluid cytology malignant pleural effusion (MPE) diagnosis. In this exploratory pilot study, we hypothesized that there are distinct differences in the pleural fluid microbiome profile of malignant and non-malignant pleural diseases. METHOD:From a prospectively enrolled pleural fluid biorepository, samples of MPE were included. Non-MPE effusion were included as comparators. 16S rRNA gene V4 region amplicon sequencing was performed. Exact Sequence Variants (ESVs) were used for diversity analyses. The Shannon and Richness indices of alpha diversity and UniFrac beta diversity measures were tested for significance using permutational multivariate analysis of variance. Analyses of Composition of Microbiome was used to identify differentially abundant bacterial ESVs between the groups controlled for multiple hypothesis testing. RESULTS:38 patients with MPE and 9 with non-MPE were included. A subgroup of patients with metastatic adenocarcinoma histology were identified among MPE group (adenocarcinoma of lung origin (LA-MPE) = 11, breast origin (BA-MPE) = 11). MPE presented with significantly greater alpha diversity compared to non-MPE group. Within the MPE group, BA-MPE was more diverse compared to LA-MPE group. In multivariable analysis, ESVs belonging to family S24-7 and genera Allobaculum, Stenotrophomonas, and Epulopiscium were significantly enriched in the malignant group compared to the non-malignant group. CONCLUSION:Our results are the first to demonstrate a microbiome signature according to MPE and non-MPE. The role of microbiome in pleural effusion pathogenesis needs further exploration

Isolation and identification bacteria and fungi of spoilage in kilka meal production in Guilan Province

We Collected 75 samples from fish meal factories in Guilan Province (codes: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7) based on two times per month during June to December 2001. Standard reference are used in bacterial and fungous identification. The isolated bacteria are E. coli Proteus spp., Citrobac ter spp., Shigella spp., Enterobacter Aerogens Salmonella spp., Klebsiella spp., Hafina Alvei Yersinia Enterocolitica, Edwardsiella spp., Staphylococcus spp., Bacillus spp., Pseudomonas spp., Clostridium spp., Aeromonas Hydrophila Streptococcus spp. The hightest and lowest bacterial conamination observed in E. col/ and Hafina Alvei respectively. The most important isolated fungi were Aspergillus spp., Penicillium spp., Yeasts Rizopous spp. The maximum and minimum fungi decay in samples were Penicillium spp., and Rizopus respectively. The most and the least microbial spoilage have been seen in factories 1 and 2 respectively

Correlation Between Health-Related Quality of Life in Veterans With Chronic Spinal Cord Injury and Their Caregiving Spouses

Background: Recently, investigations have indicated that caring of a chronically ill family member strongly influences the health status and the quality of life (QOL) of the caregiving family members. Objectives: The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between health-related QOL of veterans with chronic spinal cord injury and their caregiving spouses. Patients and Methods: We designed a cross-sectional study including two groups; veterans with chronic spinal cord injury and their caregiving wives who were living in the city of Mashhad, Iran. The patients with spinal cord injury were veterans from the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988). All the participants filled out the short form 36 (SF-36) health survey questionnaire. A Pearson correlation coefficient was calculated for the scales of the two groups. Results: The mean age and standard deviation of veterans and their spouses were 48.5 ± 5.9 and 44.8 ± 7.2, respectively and their number of children ranged between 0-6. Our data analysis showed that there was a significant difference between the two groups in some domains of the SF-36, including PF, MH, PCS, MCS, BP and GH (P < 0.05), but there was no significant difference in RP, VT, SF and RE between the two groups. Conclusions: The results indicate that a decrease in health status level of veterans, physically and mentally, can affect the health-related QOL of their caregiving spouses

Rapid Detection of Toxoplasma gondii Antigen in Experimentally Infected Mice by Dot- ELISA

Background: Toxoplasmosis is a worldwide endemic disease. In congenitally infected infants and AIDS patients, toxoplasmosis causes high rates of morbidity and mortality. In these cases antibody detection is difficult; so detection of parasite or its components could be useful tool for early detection and following treatment of the infection.Methods: Sixty-three BALB/c mice were injected intra-peritoneal with 5×103 tachyzoites of Toxoplasma gondii RH strain, nine mice were sacrificed daily for 7 days. Fourteen mice were in­jected with phosphate buffer saline as control group. Dot-ELISA was performed for detection of T.gondii antigen in mice sera and capture - ELISA was done as golden standard assay too.Results : Toxoplasma gondii antigen was detected from day 2 in mice sera ; 22% of mice sera on day 2, 33% on day 3,77% on day 4 and 100% on day 5 till their death on day 7 had shown antigene­mia by dot - ELISA, no positive result was detected in control mice by dot- ELISA.Conclusion: Dot-ELISA is a sensitive method for diagnosis of T. gondii infection in the animal model; also, this technique is more rapid and easy to perform method in comparison with cap­ture-ELISA