Ethnic differences in transition to first marriage in Iran

This paper, using data from the 2000 Iran Demographic and Health Survey and a range of time-varying district-level contextual information derived from the 1986 and 1996 censuses of Iran, applies a discrete time hazard model to study ethnic differences in women’s transition to first marriage. The model specification accounts for both spatial and temporal changes in the socio-economic context of transition to marriage. We found ethnic-specific responses on women’s marriage timing to changes in the socio-economic context between the mid 1970s and 2000. Some ethnic groups appear to be more resistant to change despite sharing similar changes in their socio-economic context.development, education, ethnicity, Iran, marriage, marriage market, women status

Biosorption of nickel by Halobacillus sp. KN57 isolated from the Miankaleh Wetland, Iran

Heavy metals are generally discharged from untreated wastewater in the aquatic ecosystem. This study was aimed to investigating the effective parameters in the sorption of nickel metal by a native halophile bacterium isolated from sediments of the Miankaleh Wetland in the north of Iran. Halobacillus sp. KN57 as the most resistant Gram-positive strain was selected and identified by phenotypic and phylogenetic properties (16S rRNA). The optimum contact time, pH, temperature, salinity, and initial biosorbent concentration of nickel for this strain were 100 min, 7, 30°C, 10%, 1 g.L-1, and 150 mg.L-1, respectively. The nickel biosorption was 111.11 mg/g by the selected strain under the laboratory conditions, followed Langmuir isotherm with a correlation coefficient of more than 0.98 and the maximum single layer sorption. In addition, the kinetics of nickel biosorption of this strain correspond to a pseudo second order kinetic model with a correlation coefficient of more than 0.99. Scanning electron microscopy was applied to confirm the biosorption of Ni2+ by Halobacillus sp. KN57. Finally, the FT-IR spectrum identified that the amide, carbonyl, and amine functional groups were participated in binding to nickel ions. The results showed that the native bacterial strain (Halobacillus sp. KN57) isolated from Miankaleh Wetland, is potentially a promising biosorbent for sorption of nickel metal

Women\u27s Human Capital and Economic Growth in the Middle East and North Africa

The process of demographic transition has increased the share of the working-age population in Middle East and North Africa (MENA). This situation has created an opportunity for economic growth, called the demographic dividend. Global comparisons show that a favorable age structure has not always resulted in a boost in economic growth. In order to take a full advantage of the MENA’s demographic dividend, it is important to identify different factors contributing to economic growth in this region. Investment in women’s human capital is expected to have important implications for the region’s economic growth and for maximizing the benefits created by the demographic dividend. Using a range of data sources, this paper aims to determine the association between women’s human capital (measured by adult educational attainment and health status) and economic growth (measured by gross national income per capita) in MENA. The findings show a positive association between these two. Specifically, the national-level income is generally higher in countries with lower maternal mortality and higher female literacy, female tertiary education, female life and healthy life expectancies at birth and professional childbirth attendance. Thus, investment in women’s human capital can accelerate the pace of development in MENA

Adult‐onset idiopathic dystonia: a national data‐linkage study to determine epidemiological, social deprivation and mortality characteristics

Background and objectives: Accurate epidemiological information is essential for the improved understanding of dystonia syndromes, as well as better provisioning of clinical services and providing context for diagnostic decision-making. Here, we determine epidemiological, social deprivation and mortality characteristics of adult-onset idiopathic dystonia in the Welsh population.Methods: A retrospective population-based cohort study using anonymised electronic healthcare data in Wales was conducted to identify individuals with dystonia between January 1st 1994 and December 31st 2017. We developed a case-ascertainment algorithm to determine dystonia incidence and prevalence, as well as characterisation of the dystonia cohort, based on social deprivation and mortality.Results: The case-ascertainment algorithm (79% sensitivity) identified 54,966 cases, of these cases, 41,660 had adult-onset idiopathic dystonia (≥ 20 years). Amongst the adult-onset form, the median age at diagnosis was 41 years, with males significantly older at time of diagnosis compared to females. Prevalence rates ranged from 0.02% in 1994 to 1.2% in 2017. The average annual incidence was 87.7/100,000/year, increasing from 49.9/100,000/year (1994) to 96.21/100,000/year (2017). In 2017, people with dystonia had a similar life expectancy to the Welsh population.Discussion: We have developed a case-ascertainment algorithm, supported by the introduction of a neurologist-reviewed validation cohort, providing a platform for future population-based dystonia studies. We have established robust population-level prevalence and incidence values for adult-onset idiopathic forms of dystonia, with this reflecting increasing clinical recognition and identification of causal genes. Underlying causes of death mirrored that of the general population, including circulatory disorders, respiratory disorders, cancers or dementi

Myocardial infarction and stroke subsequent to urinary tract infection (MISSOURI): protocol for a self-controlled case series using linked electronic health records

Introduction There is increasing interest in the relationship between acute infections and acute cardiovascular events. Most previous research has focused on understanding whether the risk of acute cardiovascular events increases following a respiratory tract infection. The relationship between urinary tract infections (UTIs) and acute cardiovascular events is less well studied. Therefore, the aim of this study is to determine whether there is a causal relationship between UTI and acute myocardial infarction (MI) or stroke.Methods and analysis We will undertake a self-controlled case series study using linked anonymised general practice, hospital admission and microbiology data held within the Secure Anonymised Information Linkage (SAIL) Databank. Self-controlled case series is a relatively novel study design where individuals act as their own controls, thereby inherently controlling for time-invariant confounders. Only individuals who experience an exposure and outcome of interest are included.We will identify individuals in the SAIL Databank who have a hospital admission record for acute MI or stroke during the study period of 2010–2020. Individuals will need to be aged 30–100 during the study period and be Welsh residents for inclusion. UTI will be identified using general practice, microbiology and hospital admissions data. We will calculate the incidence of MI and stroke in predefined risk periods following an UTI and in ‘baseline’ periods (without UTI exposure) and use conditional Poisson regression models to derive incidence rate ratios.Ethics and dissemination Data access, research permissions and approvals have been obtained from the SAIL independent Information Governance Review Panel, project number 0972. Findings will be disseminated through conferences, blogs, social media threads and peer-reviewed journals. Results will be of interest internationally to primary and secondary care clinicians who manage UTIs and may inform future clinical trials of preventative therapy

An Information theoretic approach to production and comprehension of discourse markers

Discourse relations are the building blocks of a coherent text. The most important linguistic elements for constructing these relations are discourse markers. The presence of a discourse marker between two discourse segments provides information on the inferences that need to be made for interpretation of the two segments as a whole (e.g., because marks a reason). This thesis presents a new framework for studying human communication at the level of discourse by adapting ideas from information theory. A discourse marker is viewed as a symbol with a measurable amount of relational information. This information is communicated by the writer of a text to guide the reader towards the right semantic decoding. To examine the information theoretic account of discourse markers, we conduct empirical corpus-based investigations, offline crowd-sourced studies and online laboratory experiments. The thesis contributes to computational linguistics by proposing a quantitative meaning representation for discourse markers and showing its advantages over the classic descriptive approaches. For the first time, we show that readers are very sensitive to the fine-grained information encoded in a discourse marker obtained from its natural usage and that writers use explicit marking for less expected relations in terms of linguistic and cognitive predictability. These findings open new directions for implementation of advanced natural language processing systems.Diskursrelationen sind die Bausteine eines kohärenten Texts. Die wichtigsten sprachlichen Elemente für die Konstruktion dieser Relationen sind Diskursmarker. Das Vorhandensein eines Diskursmarkers zwischen zwei Diskurssegmenten liefert Informationen über die Inferenzen, die für die Interpretation der beiden Segmente als Ganzes getroffen werden müssen (zB. weil markiert einen Grund). Diese Dissertation bietet ein neues Framework für die Untersuchung menschlicher Kommunikation auf der Ebene von Diskursrelationen durch Anpassung von denen aus der Informationstheorie. Ein Diskursmarker wird als ein Symbol mit einer messbaren Menge relationaler Information betrachtet. Diese Information wird vom Autoren eines Texts kommuniziert, um den Leser zur richtigen semantischen Decodierung zu führen. Um die informationstheoretische Beschreibung von Diskursmarkern zu untersuchen, führen wir empirische korpusbasierte Untersuchungen durch: offline Crowdsourcing-Studien und online Labor-Experimente. Die Dissertation trägt zur Computerlinguistik bei, indem sie eine quantitative Bedeutungs-Repräsentation zu Diskursmarkern vorschlägt und ihre Vorteile gegenüber den klassischen deskriptiven Ansätzen aufzeigt. Wir zeigen zum ersten Mal, dass Leser sensitiv für feinkörnige Informationen sind, die durch Diskursmarker kodiert werden, und dass Textproduzenten Relationen, die sowohl auf linguistischer Ebene als auch kognitiv weniger vorhersagbar sind, häufiger explizit markieren. Diese Erkenntnisse eröffnen neue Richtungen für die Implementierung fortschrittlicher Systeme der Verarbeitung natürlicher Sprache

Granulosa cells exposed to fibroblast growth factor 8 and 18 reveal early onset of cell growth and survival

Background: Fibroblast growth factors (FGFs) are growth factors that have diverse biological activities including broad mitogenic and cell survival activities. They function through the activation of a specific tyrosine kinase receptor that transduces the signal by activating several intracellular signaling pathways. Objective: To identify the different signaling pathways involved in the mechanism of action of FGF8 and FGF18 on ovine granulosa cells using mass spectrometry. Materials and Methods: Ovine ovarian granulosa cells were harvested from adult sheep independently at the stage of the estrous cycle and were cultured at a density of 500,000 viable cells in 1 ml DMEM/F12 medium for five days. The cells were then treated on day 5 of culture with 10 ng/mL FGF8 and FGF18 for 30 minutes, and total cell protein was collected for mass spectrometry. Results: Mass spectrometry showed that both FGF8 and FGF18 significantly induce simultaneous upregulation of several proteins, including ATF1, STAT3, MAPK1, MAPK3, MAPK14, PLCG1, PLCG2, PKCA, PIK3CA, RAF1, GAB1, and BAG2 (> 1.5-fold; p < 0.01). Conclusion: ATF1 and STAT3 are important transcription factors involved in cell growth, proliferation and survival, and consequently can hamper or rescue the normal ovine reproductive system function

Predictors of time to relapse in amphetamine-type substance users in the matrix treatment program in Iran : a Cox proportional hazard model application

Background: The aim of this study was to determine which predictors influence the risk of relapse among a cohort of amphetamine-type substance (ATS) users in Iran. Methods: A Cox proportional hazards model was conducted to determine factors associated with the relapse time in the Matrix treatment program provided by the Iranian National Center of Addiction Studies (INCAS) between March 2010 and October 2011. Results: Participating in more treatment sessions was associated with a lower probability of relapse. On the other hand, patients with less family support, longer dependence on ATS, and those with an experience of casual sex and a history of criminal offenses were more likely to relapse. Conclusion: This study broadens our understanding of factors influencing the risk of relapse in ATS use among an Iranian sample. The findings can guide practitioners during the treatment program

How compatible are our discourse annotation frameworks? Insights from mapping RST-DT and PDTB annotations

Discourse-annotated corpora are an important resource for the community, but they are often annotated according to different frameworks. This makes joint usage of the annotations difficult, preventing researchers from searching the corpora in a unified way, or using all annotated data jointly to train computational systems. Several theoretical proposals have recently been made for mapping the relational labels of different frameworks to each other, but these proposals have so far not been validated against existing annotations. The two largest discourse relation annotated resources, the Penn Discourse Treebank and the Rhetorical Structure Theory Discourse Treebank, have however been annotated on the same texts, allowing for a direct comparison of the annotation layers. We propose a method for automatically aligning the discourse segments, and then evaluate existing mapping proposals by comparing the empirically observed against the proposed mappings. Our analysis highlights the influence of segmentation on subsequent discourse relation labelling, and shows that while agreement between frameworks is reasonable for explicit relations, agreement on implicit relations is low. We identify several sources of systematic discrepancies between the two annotation schemes and discuss consequences for future annotation and for usage of the existing resources