The Relationship between Maternal Haemoglobin and Haematocrit with Low Birth Weight and Preterm Labour

Background & aim: Low levels of maternal haemoglobin and haematocrit in the first, second, and third trimesters are considered as possible risk factors regarding low birth weight (LBW) and preterm labour (PTL). The present study aimed to evaluate the relationship between maternal haemoglobin (Hb) and haematocrit (HCT) levels with LBW and PTL. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 383 pregnant women who were admitted in postnatal ward and gave birth to live neonates. Maternal Hb and HCT levels in the first, second, and third trimesters were obtained from medical records. The data were analysed using chi-square test by SPSS software (version 19). Results: A total of 383 pregnant women with the mean age of 25.5 years were participated in this study. There was a significant relationship between maternal HCT in the first, second, and third trimesters with LBW (

Mapping of Groundwater Salinity Using Dual Reciprocity Boundary Element Method in Nuq Region, Rafsanjan

In this study, a new numerical method based on Dual Reciprocity Boundary Element Method (DRBEM) is presented to interpolate scattered data. For this purpose, water samples were taken from 120 wells in Nuq region, Rafsanjan, for salinity measurements. The proposed estimator was compared with respect to its precision with the conventional ones, i.e., ordinary kriging and inverse distance weighting (IDW) while the spatial mapping of ground water salinity was performed in the study area. Besides, a more revealing measure of performance was obtained by computing the mean rank of each interpolation method. Results revealed the superiority of DRBEM over the kriging and IDW methods due to its lower root mean square error (RMSE) and relative root mean square error (RMSE%) as well as its higher goodness of prediction index (G) . It was also found that DRBEM is the most accurate one when the mean rank and standard deviations of the ranks are used to avoid the outlier effects in assessing the prediction performance of the three methods. Nevertheless, further research is required before DRBEM could be properly combined with ancillary variables to improve the interpolation performance and to develop a user-friendly algorithm that can be implemented in a GIS package

Highly sensitive asymmetric and symmetric cancer sensors with ultra-high-quality factor and resolution power

Abstract In the paper, we proposed two new highly sensitive and compact biosensors with ultra-high-quality factors based on the 1-D binary photonic crystal (silicon/air thin layer) with a defect layer. The proposed asymmetric and symmetric biosensors have just a few periods (two to five) on both sides of the defect layer and the normal cell group (INOK) and cancer cells group (YD-10B) are considered for the studies. The effects of different parameters including silicon layer thickness, air layer thickness, defect layer thickness, substrate position, number of periods, and light incident angle are considered in the biosensor operation and the biosensors are optimized based on the sensitivity. The results demonstrate that the sensitivity and defect mode wavelength of the sensors are independent of the substrate position. However, the quality factor and FOM of the sensors significantly depend on the substrate position and they are improved significantly in the symmetric sensor (~ 37% improvement in optimum condition). Also, the high sensitivities of the sensors are maintained over a wide range of silicon and air thicknesses, which is a valuable achievement in the manufacturing process. Furthermore, the sensitivity of the optimized biosensors with a defect layer thickness of 10 microns and only two periods reaches S ~ 2811 nm/RIU which is an excellent sensitivity for an optical biosensor

Scattered Data Interpolation based on Dual Reciprocity Boundary Element Method with Unknown Boundary Conditions

Abstract: A numerical method based on Dual Reciprocity Boundary Element Method (DRBEM) has presented to interpolate twodimensional data with arbitrary pattern. This method is performed without specific boundary conditions. It claimed that interpolation function is true on the Poisson equation with unknown source function. The source function is estimated by radial basis functions expansion. Finally, numerical sampling has conducted on some specific functions as primary functions and interpolation values of numerical sampling have compared to primary function values in order to evaluate accuracy and precision of the method