Forage source (alfalfa hay vs wheat straw) and rumen undegradable to degradable protein ratio: Effects on growth performance, microbial protein yield, digestibility, blood metabolites, and behavior of Holstein dairy calves

Aim of the study: The effects of forage source (alfalfa hay; AH vs. wheat straw; WS) with rumen undegradable to degradable protein ratio [low ratio (LR) = 28:72; high ratio (HR) = 36:64] were evaluated in young dairy calves.Area of study: Arak, Iran.Material and methods: Forty-eight 3-d old female Holstein dairy calves (44.5 kg of BW) were allocated in four treatments: (1) AH with low dietary RUP:RDP ratio (AH-LR); (2) AH with high dietary RUP:RDP ratio (AH-HR); (3) WS with low dietary RUP:RDP ratio (WS-LR); and (4) WS with high dietary RUP:RDP ratio (WS-HR), being RDP and RUP rumen degradable and undegradable proteins, respectively. The calves weaned on d 53 of the experiment and remained in the study until d 73 of age.Main results: The average daily gain and feed efficiency were improved in dairy calves receiving HR diets compared to LR diets during the post-weaning period (p<0.05). The fecal score (p=0.03) and neutral detergent fiber digestibility (p=0.04) were improved when calves fed WS diets compared to AH diets. Feeding HR diets increased allantoin (p=0.04) and microbial protein yield, and reduced blood urea nitrogen concentration (p=0.03) compared to LR diets. Assessing the interaction effects of the experimental factors resulted that the greatest BW, wither height, and blood beta-hydroxybutyrate, and the lowest urinary N concentration were observed in the WS-HR treatment (p<0.05).Research highlights: Feeding WS with high RUP:RDP ratio is recommendable in dairy calves due to the improvement in gain and N efficiency

Hospital Patient Safety Culture in Developing Countries: A Comparative Study in Ilam City, Iran.

Aims: In this study, patient safety culture was assessed in four educational hospitals in Ilam city, Iran. Study Design and Setting: A cross-sectional study was carried out in four educational hospitals (Imam Khomeini, Mustafa Khomeini, Taleghani and Kowsar hospitals) in Ilam city (Iran). Study Duration: The study was conducted over 2014. Methods: The data collection was conducted via the Iranian version of Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture (HSOPSC) questionnaire. The questionnaire contains 42 items that evaluates 12 dimensions of patient safety culture. Results: The results showed that 47% of the participants had 1- 5 years of work experience and 71.1% of them worked more than 40 hours per week in hospital. The mean positive answers score of the safety culture in this study was obtained 40% that was much lower than the benchmark (64%). The highest and lowest percentages of the positive answer were attributed to teamwork within units (70%) and non-punitive response to error (11%), respectively. Conclusion: In order to increase the patient safety culture in the hospitals, the number of professional staff should be increased and a practical plan about the patient safety culture should be provided. Moreover, the hospitals management should support the staff to report errors without fear of the punishment

Error and Stability Estimates of the Least-Squares Variational Kernel-Based Methods for Second Order PDEs

We consider the least-squares variational kernel-based methods for numerical solution of partial differential equations. Indeed, we focus on least-squares principles to develop meshfree methods to find the numerical solution of a general second order ADN elliptic boundary value problem in domain $\Omega \subset \mathbb{R}^d$ under Dirichlet boundary conditions. Most notably, in these principles it is not assumed that differential operator is self-adjoint or positive definite as it would have to be in the Rayleigh-Ritz setting. However, the new scheme leads to a symmetric and positive definite algebraic system allowing us to circumvent the compatibility conditions arising in standard and mixed-Galerkin methods. In particular, the resulting method does not require certain subspaces satisfying any boundary condition. The trial space for discretization is provided via standard kernels that reproduce $H^\tau(\Omega)$, $\tau>d/2$, as their native spaces. Therefore, the smoothness of the approximation functions can be arbitrary increased without any additional task. The solvability of the scheme is proved and the error estimates are derived for functions in appropriate Sobolev spaces. For the weighted discrete least-squares principles, we show that the optimal rate of convergence in $L^2(\Omega)$ is accessible. Furthermore, for $d \le 3$, the proposed method has optimal rate of convergence in $H^k(\Omega)$ whenever $k \le \tau$. The condition number of the final linear system is approximated in terms of discterization quality. Finally, the results of some computational experiments support the theoretical error bounds.Comment: This paper includes 29 pages, 1 figure and 2 table

The study of the impact of political marketing on citizens' political participation promotion in Uromia province

The purpose of this research is the study of the impact of political marketing on Citizens' Political Participation Promotion in Uromia province. For doing this study, 301 persons among political elites and activists of Uromia were selected as sample based on stratified random sampling and answered to the questionnaire about citizens' political marketing and participation. Finally, the obtained data were analyzed using Pearson's correlation coefficient and multivariate linear regression. Results indicated that using partial-political, scheduling, symbols, media based-political tools and depending on religious-revolutionary symbols results in increasing Uromia citizens' political participation

The study of the impact of political marketing on citizens' political participation promotion in Uromia province

The purpose of this research is the study of the impact of political marketing on Citizens' Political Participation Promotion in Uromia province. For doing this study, 301 persons among political elites and activists of Uromia were selected as sample based on stratified random sampling and answered to the questionnaire about citizens' political marketing and participation. Finally, the obtained data were analyzed using Pearson's correlation coefficient and multivariate linear regression. Results indicated that using partial-political, scheduling, symbols, media based-political tools and depending on religious-revolutionary symbols results in increasing Uromia citizens' political participation

An integrated strategy for vehicle active suspension and anti-lock braking systems

In this paper, a decentralized integrated control structure is developed based on a quarter car vehicle model including longitudinal and vertical dynamics. In this structure, the anti-lock braking system (ABS) is designed to decrease the stopping distance by regulating the longitudinal slip for improved safety during hard braking while the active suspension system (ASS) decreases the sprung mass acceleration to improve the ride comfort on irregular roads. During hard braking, it is preferred for conventional ASS to control the variations of tire deflection to improve the braking performance. How ever, in a new strategy, it is shown that if the ABS controller follows the optimal longitudinal slip varied with the vehicle speed and tire normal force instead of a constant value, the dependency of ASS and ABS is decreased. In this way, the ABS performance has high quality performance even in the presence of passive suspension. Application of ASS causes more reduction in the body vibration to provide more ride comfort during braking. As a conclusion, when the ASS is integrated with the proposed strategy of ABS, the overall ride and safety performances are simultaneously improved during hard braking on a good road spectrum.</span

Effects of Oil Price Shocks and Economic Fluctuations of Trading Partners on Iran\u27s Ports Throughput

This study aims to estimate the effects of oil price shocks on seaborne trade in Iran; in particular, port throughput of three leading ports through economic fluctuations of three major trading partners of Iran, based on quarterly data for the period of 1999Q2 to 2018Q1. We apply a standard vector autoregressive (VAR) approach using Cholesky decomposition. The results indicate that with increasing oil revenues in short-run, seaborne trade be further directed towards Shahid Rajaei port while rising oil revenues changes the combination of goods handled in Emam Khomeini and Bushehr ports. In the long run, the share of oil price fluctuations in explaining the variations of Shahid Rajaei port throughput is higher than the other two. In fact, increases in oil revenues cause an increase in the volume of industrial and containerized seaborne cargo trade

Assessment of peppermint, clove, cumin essential oils and silver nano particles on biochemical and shelf life of Citrus limon (L.)

Natural and chemical compounds are used to increase the biochemical and shelf life of citrus fruits. The effect of nano silver particles and three essential oils: peppermint, carnation, cumin, were investigated on morphological, biochemical and shelf life of the lemon fruit. The first factor consisted of 13 different substances and the second factor was three the level of storage periods (zero, one, and two months after harvest). The results showed that the treatments significantly affected the fruit weight, diameter, length, decay percentage, total soluble solids, vitamin C, electrolyte leakage and titratable acidity. Peppermint essential oil showed a 70% reduction of decay percentage compared to with the control. Five percent of nano silver and 500 µL/L of clove essential oil maintained better fruit quality than control. Although the effects of silver nano-particle were significant, considering the environmental concerns we recommend using plant essential oils to prolong the postharvest shelf life of lemon fruits

Assessment of peppermint, clove, cumin essential oils and silver nano particles on biochemical and shelf life of <em>Citrus limon</em> (L.)

269-275Natural and chemical compounds are used to increase the biochemical and shelf life of citrus fruits. The effect of nano silver particles and three essential oils: peppermint, carnation, cumin, were investigated on morphological, biochemical and shelf life of the lemon fruit. The first factor consisted of 13 different substances and the second factor was three the level of storage periods (zero, one, and two months after harvest). The results showed that the treatments significantly affected the fruit weight, diameter, length, decay percentage, total soluble solids, vitamin C, electrolyte leakage and titratable acidity. Peppermint essential oil showed a 70% reduction of decay percentage compared to with the control. Five percent of nano silver and 500 µL/L of clove essential oil maintained better fruit quality than control. Although the effects of silver nano-particle were significant, considering the environmental concerns we recommend using plant essential oils to prolong the postharvest shelf life of lemon fruits