Self-esteem, general and sexual self-concepts in blind people

Background: People with visual disability have lower self-esteem and social skills than sighted people. This study was designed to describe self-esteem and general and sexual self-concepts in blind people. Materials and Methods: This was a cross-sectional study, conducted in the Isfahan University of Medical Sciences in 2013-2014. In this study, 138 visually impaired people participated from Isfahan Province Welfare Organization and were interviewed for measuring of self-esteem and self-concept using Eysenck self-esteem and Rogers’ self-concept questionnaires. The correlation between above two variables was measured using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software by Pearson correlation test. Results: Mean [± standard deviation (SD)] age of patients was 30.9 ± 8 years. The mean (±SD) of general self-concept score was 11 ± 5.83. The mean (±SD) of self-esteem score was 16.62 ± 2.85. Pearson correlation results showed a significant positive correlation between self-esteem and general self-concept (r = 0.19, P = 0.025). The mean of sexual self-concept scores in five subscales (sexual anxiety, sexual self-efficacy, sexual self-esteem, sexual fear, and sexual depression) were correspondingly 11 ± 4.41, 19.53 ± 4.53, 12.96 ± 4.19, 13.48 ± 1.76, and 5.38 ± 2.36. Self-esteem and self-concept had significant positive correlation with sexual anxiety (r = 0.49; P < 0.001) (r =-.23; P < 0.001) and sexual fear (r = 0.25; P = 0.003) (r = 0.18; P = 0.02) and negative correlation with sexual self-efficacy (r =-0.26; P = 0.002) (r =-0.28; P = 0.001) and sexual-esteem (r =-0.34; P < 0.001) (r =-0.34; P < 0.001). Conclusion: Self-esteem and self-concept had significant correlation with sexual anxiety and sexual fear; and negative correlation with sexual self-efficacy and sexual-esteem. © 2015 Journal of Research in Medical Sciences

Temporal and spatial variations in percentage cover of macroalgae on rocky shores in South of Caspian Sea (Astara to Babolsar)

The most important primary producers of rocky shores are macroalgae. The present study investigated the temporal–spatial changes, the percentage of coverage and the influence of abiotic factors on macroalgae on rocky shores of southern Caspian Sea. Ten sampling stations were selected in the natural and artificial rocky shores from Astara to Babolsar. Sampling lasted for one year and took place every 2 months from September 2013 to July 2014 using a 50×50 quadrate sampler. Epibenthic macroalgae consisted of 2 genus, Cladophora and Entromorpha, from green algae and one genus, Laurenica, from red algae. The average water temperature, salinity, pH, dissolved oxygen and water conductivity were 16.48 °C, 9.87ppt, 8.27, 9.89 mg/l and 16.52 m/s, respectively. According to the results, the maximum algal coverage was observed in September (70.50 %) and the minimum coverage was observed in January (21.50 %). Results of one-way ANOVA indicated that the mean of algal coverage in various months of the year were significantly different (P<0.05). One-way ANOSIM ecosystem similarity test indicated that the coverage rates of the stations were homologous and similar. The results also showed that temperature has a significant effect on macroalgae coverage ratio on rocky shores in the southern Caspian Sea

Study of fish meal substitution with earthworm in diet of rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss)

This experiment was carried out to evaluate the effect of earthworm (Eisenia fetida) in diet for rainbow trout in a complete randomized design with 5 treatments in triplicates using 15 cages in a pound for 8 weeks. Ten fish with average weight 120 g was stocked in each replication. The earthworm (as fed) at the levels of 0, 25, 50, 75 and 100% was replaced with fish meal in rainbow trout diet. Results showed that feed intake decreased significantly (P b0.05). The chemical composition analysis of fish meat showed that there were no significant effects between control and 25% and 50% earthworm in diet for dry matter, crude protein and ash, but fat content significantly decreased as earthworm increased (P < 0.05). This present study showed that the earthworm (Eisenia fetida) can be used in rainbow trout diet up to 50% instead of fish meal

Camera motion estimation through planar deformation determination

In this paper, we propose a global method for estimating the motion of a camera which films a static scene. Our approach is direct, fast and robust, and deals with adjacent frames of a sequence. It is based on a quadratic approximation of the deformation between two images, in the case of a scene with constant depth in the camera coordinate system. This condition is very restrictive but we show that provided translation and depth inverse variations are small enough, the error on optical flow involved by the approximation of depths by a constant is small. In this context, we propose a new model of camera motion, that allows to separate the image deformation in a similarity and a ``purely'' projective application, due to change of optical axis direction. This model leads to a quadratic approximation of image deformation that we estimate with an M-estimator; we can immediatly deduce camera motion parameters.Comment: 21 pages, version modifi\'ee accept\'e le 20 mars 200

Conformational Free-Energy Landscapes for a Peptide in Saline Environments

AbstractThe conformations that proteins adopt in solution are a function of both their primary structure and surrounding aqueous environment. Recent experimental and computational work on small peptides, e.g., polyK, polyE, and polyR, have highlighted an interesting and unusual behavior in the presence of aqueous ions such as ClO4−, Na+, and K+. Notwithstanding the aforementioned studies, as of this writing, the nature of the driving force induced by the presence of ions and its role on the conformational stability of peptides remains only partially understood. Molecular-dynamics simulations have been performed on the heptapeptide AEAAAEA in NaCl and KCl solutions at concentrations of 0.5, 1.0, and 2.0 M. Metadynamics in conjunction with a three-dimensional model reaction coordinate was used to sample the conformational space of the peptide. All simulations were run for 2 μs. Free-energy landscapes were computed over the model reaction coordinate for the peptide in each saline assay as well as in the absence of ions. Circular dichroism spectra were also calculated from each trajectory. In the presence of Na+ and K+ ions, no increase in helicity is observed with respect to the conformation in pure water

A Neural-Network-Based Approach to Recognizing 3D Arm Movement

[[abstract]]Gesture recognition is needed for a variety of applications. One particular application of gesture-based systems is to implement a speaking aid for the deaf. Among several factors constituting a hand gesture, the arm movement pattern is one of the most challenging features to recognize. In this paper, we propose a neural-network-based approach to recognition of spatio-tempora patterns of nonlinear 3D arm movements. Compared to Hidden-Markov-Model-based methods, the most appealing property of the proposed method is its simplicity. The effectiveness of this method is evaluated by a database consisted of 10 persons.[[notice]]補正完畢[[journaltype]]國外[[incitationindex]]EI[[booktype]]紙本[[countrycodes]]SG