Spatial and temporal analysis of myocardial infarction incidence in Zanjan province, Iran

BACKGROUND: Myocardial Infarction (MI) is a major important public health concern and has huge burden on health system across the world. This study aimed to explore the spatial and temporal analysis of the incidence of MI to identify potential clusters of the incidence of MI patterns across rural areas in Zanjan province, Iran. MATERIALS & METHODS: This was a retrospective and geospatial analysis study of the incidence of MI data from nine hospitals during 2014–2018. Three different spatial analysis methods (Spatial autocorrelation, hot spot analysis and cluster and outlier analysis) were used to identify potential clusters and high-risk areas of the incidence of MI at the study area. RESULTS: Three thousand eight hundred twenty patients were registered at Zanjan hospitals due to MI during 2014–2018. The overall age-adjusted incidence rate of MI was 343 cases per 100,000 person which was raised from 88 cases in 2014 to 114 cases in 2018 per 100,000 person-year (a 30% increase, P < 0.001). Golabar region had the highest age-adjusted incidence rate of MI (515 cases per 100,000 person). Five hot spots and one high-high cluster were detected using spatial analysis methods. CONCLUSION: This study showed that there is a great deal of spatial variations in the pattern of the incidence of MI in Zanjan province. The high incidence rate of MI in the study area compared to the national average, is a warning to local health authorities to determine the possible causes of disease incidence and potential drivers of high-risk areas. The spatial cluster analysis provides new evidence for policy-makers to design tailored interventions to reduce the incidence of MI and allocate health resource to unmet need areas. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-021-11695-8

Deepfake Detection of Occluded Images Using a Patch-based Approach

DeepFake involves the use of deep learning and artificial intelligence techniques to produce or change video and image contents typically generated by GANs. Moreover, it can be misused and leads to fictitious news, ethical and financial crimes, and also affects the performance of facial recognition systems. Thus, detection of real or fake images is significant specially to authenticate originality of people's images or videos. One of the most important challenges in this topic is obstruction that decreases the system precision. In this study, we present a deep learning approach using the entire face and face patches to distinguish real/fake images in the presence of obstruction with a three-path decision: first entire-face reasoning, second a decision based on the concatenation of feature vectors of face patches, and third a majority vote decision based on these features. To test our approach, new datasets including real and fake images are created. For producing fake images, StyleGAN and StyleGAN2 are trained by FFHQ images and also StarGAN and PGGAN are trained by CelebA images. The CelebA and FFHQ datasets are used as real images. The proposed approach reaches higher results in early epochs than other methods and increases the SoTA results by 0.4\%-7.9\% in the different built data-sets. Also, we have shown in experimental results that weighing the patches may improve accuracy

Evaluation of CXCR4, VLA4, and VLA5 expression in peripheral mobilized hematopoietic stem cells in presence of Sotalol

     Hematopoietic stem cells (HSC), are considered as an important source for HSCT transplantation. There are several regulators for stem cells migration and homing, among which the nervous system is an important one. This study is going to investigate the   role of nervous system in homing of hematopoietic stem cells.In an experimental study, mononuclear cells were isolated from peripheral blood and treated by a beta adrenergic receptors blocker (Sotalol). After treating the cells with different concentrations 0.5- 500 (mM/ml) for 1- 24 hours, RNA was extracted and the expression of VLA4, VLA5 and CXCR4 genes were determinated through RT-PCR method.The results of this study demonstrated high expression in genes associated with homing of the cells after being treated with drug for 1 hour: CXCR4 gene expression increases in 10 and 50 mM/ml, VLA4 gene expression in 50mM/ml and VLA5 gene expression in 10 mM/ml concentration of Sotalol.Using beta adrenergic receptors blockers in appropriate time and dose of drug can affect the expression of genes which involved in HSCs homing and will lead to high success rate of transplantation of these cells

Understanding the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on health-related quality of life amongst Iranian patients with beta thalassemia major: a grounded theory

Background:The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and the resulting measures can impact daily life and healthcare management amongst patients with beta thalassemia major.Methods:The Corbin and Strauss method of grounded theory was used to explore the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on health-related quality of life (HRQoL) amongst Iranian patients with beta thalassemia major. Semi-structured interviews with 16 patients with thalassemia major in the eastern of Iran were performed. Data collection was conducted from 19 September through 18 November 2020. Collected data were recorded, transcribed, and coded to develop themes and subthemes. Paradigm components were sought to find out what happened to these patients and explore the process and events.Results:Insights from these interviews led to five major themes: ‘changing physical health’, ‘emotional and psychological reactions’, ‘changing the nature of relationships and the scope of social support’, ‘metamorphosis of ongoing healthcare, and ‘functionality and adaptation to new realities.’ The emerging core concept was labelled: ‘maintaining well-being balance.’ The COVID-19 pandemic disturbed the balance of life and health of the patients. Multiple strategies to maintain balance and reduce the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on HRQoL were used by the patients, the healthcare team, and support systems.Conclusions:Due to the fear of COVID-19, the patients with beta thalassemia were less likely to contact healthcare professionals. They considered postponing blood transfusion and abandoned evaluating disease complications. Reduced access to the healthcare system and shifting resources from existing programmes to COVID-19 by the healthcare system were incompatible policies. These policies and strategies had strong and negative effects on the physical domain of HRQoL. The patients experienced a deterioration of emotional functioning. They reported a strong reduction in social functioning and felt lonely. Online interventions supporting mental health and social interactions and telemedicine can help during the times of social distancing and lockdowns

Investigation of the Relationship between Faith and Attitude from the Viewpoint of the Holy Quran

Faith and attitude as two important categories have many similarities and differences. Beliefs and attitudes are not the same, they are different in concept and character, they have established one as a sacred preacher and the other as psychologists. However, the remarkable similarities and the strong relationship between them are illustrated in a descriptive-analytic manner. The paper deals with the central role of "faith" in the verses of the Holy Quran and "attitude" in social psychology. This paper uses a descriptive-analytical research method. The findings of the study indicate that the religious pattern of attitude change as an internal mechanism, by increasing the coefficient of intellectual and spiritual transformation, reaches the highest level of beliefs in three cognitive, emotional and behavioral dimensions