Trends and cardiovascular mortality effects of state-level blood pressure and uncontrolled hypertension in the United States.

BACKGROUND: Blood pressure is an important risk factor for cardiovascular disease and mortality and has lifestyle and healthcare determinants that vary across states. Only self-reported hypertension status is measured at the state level in the United States. Our aim was to estimate levels and trends in state-level mean systolic blood pressure (SBP), the prevalence of uncontrolled systolic hypertension, and cardiovascular mortality attributable to all levels of higher-than-optimal SBP. METHODS AND RESULTS: We estimated the relationship between actual SBP/uncontrolled hypertension and self-reported hypertension, use of blood pressure medication, and a set of health system and sociodemographic variables in the nationally representative National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. We applied this relationship to identical variables from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System to estimate state-specific mean SBP and uncontrolled hypertension. We used the comparative risk assessment methods to estimate cardiovascular mortality attributable to higher-than-optimal SBP. In 2001-2003, age-standardized uncontrolled hypertension prevalence was highest in the District of Columbia, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Texas, Georgia, and South Carolina (18% to 21% for men and 24% to 26% for women) and lowest in Vermont, Minnesota, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Iowa, and Colorado (15% to 16% for men and approximately 21% for women). Women had a higher prevalence of uncontrolled hypertension than men in every state by 4 (Arizona) to 7 (Kansas) percentage points. In the 1990s, uncontrolled hypertension in women increased the most in Idaho and Oregon (by 6 percentage points) and the least in the District of Columbia and Mississippi (by 3 percentage points). For men, the worst-performing states were New Mexico and Louisiana (decrease of 0.6 and 1.3 percentage points), and the best-performing states were Vermont and Indiana (decrease of 4 and 3 percentage points). Age-standardized cardiovascular mortality attributable to higher-than-optimal SBP ranged from 200 to 220 per 100,000 (Minnesota and Massachusetts) to 360 to 370 per 100,000 (District of Columbia and Mississippi) for women and from 210 per 100,000 (Colorado and Utah) to 370 per 100,000 (Mississippi) and 410 per 100,000 (District of Columbia) for men. CONCLUSIONS: Lifestyle and pharmacological interventions for lowering blood pressure are particularly needed in the South and Appalachia, and with emphasis on control among women. Self-reported data on hypertension diagnosis from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System can be used to obtain unbiased state-level estimates of blood pressure and uncontrolled hypertension as benchmarks for priority setting and for designing and evaluating intervention programs

Priorização dos projetos aeroportuários de kish usando a tomada de decisões multicritério (ponderação: entropia de shannon)

In many organizations, selection of the project and activities related to the management of selected projects throughout their lifecycle are considered among the important activities. In a multi-project environment, rare resources play an important limiting role and the allocation of resources is a crucial factor in success. In the situation studied in this research, some projects should be chosen and implemented from among several projects available in Kish Island airport so that the greatest profit is obtained with respect to the limited resources. This study was conducted using the multi-criteria decision-making approach (MCDM). The structure of the multi-criteria decision-making approach is of importance for solving different types of problems in the fields related to project management, including the time when the project manager is faced with decision problem-solving and often several contradictory views, as a result of which managers can enhance their performance in controlling the project activities, especially in a dynamic and variable environment.En muchas organizaciones, la selección del proyecto y las actividades relacionadas con la gestión de los proyectos seleccionados a lo largo de su ciclo de vida se consideran entre las actividades importantes. En un entorno de proyectos múltiples, los recursos raros desempeñan un papel importante de limitación y la asignación de recursos es un factor crucial para el éxito. En la situación estudiada en esta investigación, algunos proyectos deberían elegirse e implementarse entre varios proyectos disponibles en el aeropuerto de Kish Island para obtener el mayor beneficio con respecto a los recursos limitados. Este estudio se realizó utilizando el enfoque de toma de decisiones multicriterio (MCDM). La estructura del enfoque de toma de decisiones multicriterio es importante para resolver diferentes tipos de problemas en los campos relacionados con la gestión de proyectos, incluido el momento en que el gerente de proyectos se enfrenta con la resolución de problemas de decisión y, a menudo, con puntos de vista contradictorios, como resultado de lo cual los gerentes pueden mejorar su desempeño en el control de las actividades del proyecto, especialmente en un entorno dinámico y variable.Em muitas organizações, a seleção do projeto e das atividades relacionadas ao gerenciamento de projetos selecionados em todo o seu ciclo de vida é considerada uma das atividades importantes. Em um ambiente multiprojeto, recursos raros desempenham um importante papel limitante e a alocação de recursos é um fator crucial para o sucesso. Na situação estudada nesta pesquisa, alguns projetos devem ser escolhidos e implementados dentre os vários projetos disponíveis no aeroporto de Kish Island para que o maior lucro seja obtido com relação aos recursos limitados. Este estudo foi conduzido usando a abordagem multi-critério de tomada de decisão (MCDM). A estrutura da abordagem multi-critério de tomada de decisão é importante para resolver diferentes tipos de problemas nos campos relacionados ao gerenciamento de projetos, incluindo o momento em que o gerente de projeto é confrontado com a resolução de problemas e muitas vezes várias visões contraditórias. resultado do qual os gerentes podem melhorar seu desempenho no controle das atividades do projeto, especialmente em um ambiente dinâmico e variável

A study on the efficiency of EFQM versus Bass method: Evidence from national land and housing organization

Leadership style plays essential role on the success of organizations. The proposed study of this paper compares the efficiency of leadership study based on EFQM and Bass models in national land and housing organization of Iran. The proposed study of this paper designs a questionnaire and distributes it among all managers on this organization. The study covers all different levels of management including middle and top-level management. The results of the survey indicate that the average efficiency of EFQM model is located in 2.727

Measuring relative efficiency of applied science and technology universities in province of Semnan, Iran and providing suggestions for merging units

University of applied science and technology has been designed to create a platform for multilateral activities such as industrial, military and academic in developing countries to promote science and scientific research applications. These universities are responsible to promote practical training in quantitative and qualitative indicators and they provide appropriate infrastructure to implement theoretical graduates to solve practical problems to build necessary infrastructure to transfer modern technology into developing countries. During the past few years, there have been tremendous development on these units but some of them have not been efficient. In this paper, we present an empirical study to measure the relative efficiencies of various units of applied science and technology universities using data envelopment analysis. The proposed model of this paper uses two inputs including human resources as well as total assets and two outputs including the number of graduate students as well as operating profit. The results of the study have indicated that some of the units are inefficient and need to be merged with other units to increase the relative efficiency of these universities

Performance measurement using balanced scorecard: A case study of pipe industry

Strategic assessment of the organizational performance in the industrial environment is one of the primary and essential prerequisites for developing improvement plans in organizations. This issue is so crucial that one of the on-going affairs in the organizations is to identify the weakness and strength points. One of the effective models for assessing the organizations performance is balance scorecard (BSC) model, which examines all the aspects of an organization. The proposed study of this paper investigates the existing strategic objectives in the strategy map of a pipe company located in city of Shiraz, Iran. The proposed study of this paper designs a questionnaire and distributes it among 31 managers, 94 regular employees and 110 customers of this firm for the fiscal year ended 2011. The results of our study indicate that the firm could reach 41.4% of its financial objectives, 87.38% of its customers’ requirements, 66.13% of internal processes and 70.94% of its learning necessities according to four major BSC requirements. In summary, the firm could reach 66.45 % of its requirements during the fiscal year of 2011

Investigating the effect of advertisement on consumer behavior

During the past few years, there has been tremendous increase in advertisement expenses all over the world. Therefore, it is important to examine, to investigate and to evaluate the performance of advertisement to reach organizations’ objectives. This paper presents an empirical investigation using highly reliable and efficient method called AIDA, which consists of four factors: attention, interest, desire and action. The study is implemented for one of Iranian food suppliers called TABAROK located in city of Mashad, Iran. The survey selects a sample of 300 regular customers and distributes a standard questionnaire among them. Cronbach alpha has been calculated as 0.93, which is well above the minimum desirable level. Using Spearman correlation test, the study confirms that all four components of the survey influences consumer behavior, positively. The study also indicates that there were some positive and meaningful correlations among various components of the survey. In addition, applying Freedman test indicates that advertisement has the highest impact on convincing consumer to purchase product

Performance measurement of administration services using balance scorecard and Kano model

This paper performs a survey to measure the performance of an administration unit in Iran based on a popular technique of balance scorecard. The study also uses Kano model to prioritize various factors and to provide necessary recommendation to improve the performance of different units. The survey has indicated that while these offices do well in terms of financial figures as well as customer perspective, they perform poorly in terms of learning and growth. According to our survey, it is essential to use information technology in general service offices, properly. In addition, these administrative agencies need to use hardware and software packages, more efficiently and these two basic items have received much attraction

An empirical study on relationship between intellectual capital and organizational entrepreneurship: A case study of Islamic Azad university of Semnan

This paper presents an empirical study to investigate the relationship between intellectual capital and organizational entrepreneurship. The proposed model of this paper designs a questionnaire and distributes it among some employees of Islamic Azad University of Semnan branch. For the proposed study, organizational entrepreneurship is considered as independent variable and intellectual capital components are considered as dependent variables. The questionnaire consists of 25 questions in eight different categories. In order to validate the overall questionnaire we have used Cronbach alpha where it was 72.9 for intellectual capital and it was 79.2 for Intrapreneurship. The results of testing various hypotheses indicate that there were positive and meaningful relationships between these two components

The neglected sociobehavioral risk factors of low birth weight

Background: Low Birth Weight (LBW) is one of the most important health indicators in the world. It has certain known and unknown causes. The present study was designed to evaluate the role of socio-behavioral factors on neonatal birth weight.Methods: The current case-control study was conducted on 300 eligible neonates (150 LBW infants as cases and 150 normal body weight infants as controls) in 2015. The national pregnancy care forms of the neonates kept in heath care centers in Kerman were used. The data was analyzed running Independent samples t-test, Chi square test, and Fisher’s Exact test in SPSS. The significance level was set as 0.05.Results: Preterm birth (P<0.001), number of primary care during pregnancy (P=0.001), mother’s age (P=0.049), consumption of supplements during pregnancy (P=0.03), and history of substance abuse in mothers (P=0.03) were found to have significant roles in having LBW neonate.Conclusion: Identifying the sociobehavioral risk factors of Preterm labor and modifying them to prevent preterm birth are essential approaches to prevent LBW. Governments should pay special attention to nutritional status of teenage and young girls to have healthy mothers and babies in the future. Women of childbearing age should be screened and educated about risky behaviors. Pregnancy care and support should be delivered to all pregnant women according to the standard methods.