A STUDY OF HYDATID CYST CASES IN IRAN, A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW

Hydatid cyst is an infectious disease common between humans and animals which is spread worldwide and has been known to humans since old times. Different accounts have been presented on the individual characteristics of people suffering from hydatid cyst, clinical course, different treatment and diagnosis methods, and its recurrence. The hydatid cyst infection exits in various parts of the world, and Iran is on the endemic belt of the disease, in a way that different rates have been reported in different studies. Depending on climate conditions, social customs, nutritional status, and the amount of contact with canidae animals, incidence rates of up to 10 have been reported in human populations for these diseases. The present research is a systematic review study. In order to find the studies conducted in Iran, the articles in national and international journals and dissertations available on Magiran, Iranmedex, SID, Google-scholar, and PubMed databases were used, and more than 100 articles were found, among which 14 articles related to the topic that met the criteria for entering the study were investigated. The data collected were analyzed by SPSS version 18 through using descriptive-analytical statistics and chi-squared statistical test (X-2 test). The results of the study showed that infection rate in the liver of cows to hydatid cyst is 62, while lung infection in native and hybrid breeds in the city of Baneh is 7.75. In rural area of Tehran, 437 person, 276 women and 161 men, in the age range of 4-76 years of age were studied, and one person was positive and seven persons were suspected to the disease. The results of the present study showed that, although the infection rate of hydatid cyst in urban and developed parts of Iran is at an acceptable and satisfactory level, the statistics in lesser-developed areas is endemic and alarming and deserves paying more attention and developing organized plans to control the disease

Arabic goal-oriented conversational agent based on pattern matching and knowledge trees

Conversational Agents (CA's) are computer agents used in applications to converse with humans using natural language dialogues. They are widely used in different fields like industry, education, marketing, health, and other services. Goal Oriented Conversational Agents (GO-CAs) are agents having a deep strategic purpose which enables them to direct conversations to achieve a certain goal using a specific domain. Typically (CA's) are programmed to have a set of rules that guide the conversation with the user. One technique used to script CA's is through pattern matching algorithms. Such algorithms are used to match the user's dialogue and instigate the conversation through writing a series of scripts that contains the rules and patterns relevant to the domain. Throughout the conversation, values can be extracted from the user's dialogue which allows the CA to respond with the correct answer. CA's have been mainly developed for the English language and very limited work has been carried out in Arabic. This is mainly due to the complexity of the language and the lack of resources supporting the Arabic language. This paper proposes a new CA architecture based on a pattern matching algorithm for the development of a goal orientated Arabic Conversational Agents (ACA). The ACA incorporates a new scripting language and knowledge engineering is used to construct the domain. A prototype ACA was developed and the Iraqi passport system was used as a domain to evaluate the new ACA. The ACA was tested and evaluated by experts within the Iraq Consulate with encouraging results and received positive feedback

Vulnerability Assessment of a Civic Tower Using Ambient Vibration Tests

This paper focuses on the vulnerability assessment of a civic tower built in 1512, which is now considered a national monument. It is the original bell tower of S. Ambrogio church that was destroyed in 1809. Experimental investigations have been carried out on this historical tower. First, detailed investigations have been carried out to identify the geometry of the tower as well as the mechanical features of the constituting materials. Then, ambient vibration tests have been applied using five Micro Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) sensors to detect of the main dynamic features, e.g., modal parameters and damping. Two output-only identification methods, including Frequency Domain Decomposition and Random Decrement Techniques, have been used. The outcomes of the modal identification have been employed to inform the FE model. The numerical analysis can be used for vulnerability assessment, providing a valuable picture of possible damage evolution, tower collapse mechanism, and subsequently, useful hints for the execution of structural retrofitting strategies

A first order evaluation of the capacity of a healthcare network under emergency

Immediately after an earthquake a healthcare system within a city, comprising several hospitals, endures an extraordinary demand. This paper proposes a new methodology to estimate whether the hospital network has enough capacity to withstand the emergency caused by an earthquake. The ability of healthcare facilities and to provide a broad spectrum of emergency services immediately after a seismic event is assessed through a metamodel that assumes waiting time as main response parameter to assess the hospital network performance. The First Aid network of San Francisco subjected to a 7.2 Mw magnitude earthquake has been used as case study. The total number of injuries and their distributions among the six major San Francisco’s Emergency Departments have been assessed and compared with their capacity that has been determined using a survey conducted by the medical staff of the hospitals. The numerical results have shown that three of the six considered San Francisco’s hospitals cannot provide emergency services to the estimated injured. Two alternatives have been proposed to improve the performance of the network. The first one redistributes existing resources while the second one considers additional resources by designing a new Emergency Department

A Model For General Periodic Excitation With Random Disturbance and its Application

Many vibration problems involve a general periodic excitation such as those of a triangular or rectangular waveform. In practice, the periodic excitation may become disordered due to uncertainties. This paper presents a stochastic model for general periodic excitations with random disturbances which is constructed by introducing random amplitude and phase disturbances to individual terms in the Fourier series of the corresponding deterministic periodic function. Mean square convergence of the random Fourier series are discussed. Monte Carlo simulation of disordered sawtooth, triangular, and quadratic wave forms are illustrated. An application of the excitation is demonstrated by vibration analysis of a single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) hydraulic valve system subjected to a disordered periodic fluid pressure. In the present study only the phase disturbance is considered. Effects of the intensity of phase modulation on up to fourth order moment response and the convergence rate of the random Fourier series are studied by numerical results. It is found that a small random disturbance in a general periodic excitation may significantly change the response moment

Estimation growth parameters of Parastromateus niger in the coastal waters of Sistan and Baluchestan, Oman Sea

Using length frequency information collected for Parastromateus niger catch in the coastal waters of Sistan and Baluchestan, Oman Sea, we estimated growth parameters of the fish. The data were collected of the fork length of around 887 fish each month during 2001. The length infinity (L∞), growth coefficient (K) and the length at age zero (t0) of the fish measured as 57.8 cm, 0.3 per year and -0.003 respectively. The relationship between the length and weight of the fish was estimated as 0.0469 for “a” , 2.829 for "b" and 0.914 for the correlation coefficient. The average length of the fish in different months of the year calculated and a Tukey test showed that this was significantly different

Growth, photosynthesis and biomass allocation of different kenaf (Hibiscus cannabinus L.,) accessions grown on sandy soil.

Growth, photosynthesis, and biomass allocation of kenaf accessions were investigated. Forty kenaf accessions from tropical and subtropical regions of the world were grown on marginal sandy soil in a field at Kelantan to determine differences in their growth, photosynthesis and biomass allocation. The experiment was arranged using three replicates in a randomized complete block design. Basal diameter, plant height, leaf number, leaf area and photosynthesis were measured, these being the determinants of growth and biomass production. Plant roots, stems and leaves were separated and biomass content determined at harvest. Accession 35 had the highest value for basal diameter (17.44 mm), plant height (251.73 cm), leaf quantity (81.55), leaf area (1455.62 cm2 plant-1) and photosynthesis (16.92 µmol m-2s-1), followed by accession 28. A positive relationship was noticed between plant height, leaf area, photosynthesis, biomass production, root mass and leaf area. Total biomass for the different kenaf accessions ranged from 26.26 to 93.06 g plant-1 (-1 needs to be superscripted). Stems accounted for the greatest proportion of dry mass (67.05%), followed by roots(21.15%). Dry mass accumulation in the stem was highest in accession 35, followed by accession 28. Using cluster analysis, the accessions were divided into two major groups, in which accessions 35 and 28 from the first group had the highest values of all measured parameters. The results of the study will aid in the selection of better accessions for growers to produce kenaf that is best suited to marginal sandy soil

The effect of hydro-alcoholic extract of celery (Apium graveolens) leaves on serum level of testosterone, FSH and LH in male rats

Background and Objective: Celery (Apium graveolens) is a plant from Apiaceae family with high nutritional and medicinal use.This plant has many phytoestrogens that can affect the pituitary-gonadal axis. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of hydro-alcoholic extract of celery leaves on serum level of testosterone, FSH and LH in male rats. Materials and Methods: In this experimental study, thirty-two male wistar rats were randomly divided into four groups of eight rats each. The control group did not receive anything. The sham group received distilled water (as a solvent), and the experimental groups received doses of 200 and 300 mg/kg/ BW of hydro-alcoholic extract of celery leaves for 20 days. The extract was gavaged once a day. One day after the last gavage, the rats were anaesthetized and blood samples were collected from the heart and then serum levels of testosterone, LH and FSH were measured. The data were analyzed using SPSS software and ANOVA test. Results: Concentration of LH in the treatment group with doses of 200 mg/kg (0.39±0.02 mIU/dl) reduced in comparison with control (0.67±0.01 mIU/dl) and sham (0.73±0.02 mIU/dl) groups (P0.05). Conclusion: The results indicated that the administration of 200 mg/kg doses of celery extract causes a significant reduction in serum LH concentration, but it has no effect on ganadotropin and testosterone hormones in highest doses used in this study. This finding may be due to the presence of flavonoid and antioxidant proporties of celery

Protective effects of vitamin C and chitosan on blood biochemical parameters in common carp (Cyprinus carpio) exposed to paraquat

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the protective effects of vitamin C and chitosan on blood biochemical parameters of common carp which are exposed to paraquat. Fish were fed enriched diet with chitosan (1000 mg Kg-1 feed), Vitamin C (1000 mg Kg-1 feed) and vitamin C combined with chitosan and were simultaneously exposed to 0.02 mg L-1 paraquat for 21 days. The results of this study showed that paraquat significantly increased aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activities, and significantly increased glucose, cholesterol, triglycerides, urea and creatinine levels as compared with control group (p0.05). Although administration of vitamin C or chitosan (alone) prevented changes in certain blood biochemical parameters in fish exposed to paraquat, the results showed that antioxidant properties of vitamin C are more than chitosan. However, administration of vitamin C and chitosan complex may prevent oxidative stress and inhibit changes in blood biochemical parameters in fish exposed to paraquat

On a New Three-Step Class of Methods and Its Acceleration for Nonlinear Equations

A class of derivative-free methods without memory for approximating a simple zero of a nonlinear equation is presented. The proposed class uses four function evaluations per iteration with convergence order eight. Therefore, it is an optimal three-step scheme without memory based on Kung-Traub conjecture. Moreover, the proposed class has an accelerator parameter with the property that it can increase the convergence rate from eight to twelve without any new functional evaluations. Thus, we construct a with memory method that increases considerably efficiency index from 81/4≈1.681 to 121/4≈1.861. Illustrations are also included to support the underlying theory