The study of correlation between forward head posture and neck pain in Iranian office workers

Objectives: Factors such as prolonged sitting at work or improper posture of head during work may have a great role in neck pain occurrence among office employees, particularly among those who work with computers. Although some studies claim a significant difference in head posture between patients and pain-free participants, in literature the forward head posture (FHP) has not always been associated with neck pain. Since head, cervical and thoracic postures and their relation with neck pain has not been studied in Iranian office employees, the purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between some work-related and individual factors, such as poor posture, with neck pain in the office employees. Material and Methods: It was a cross-sectional correlation study carried out to explore the relationship between neck pain and sagittal postures of cervical and thoracic spine among office employees in forward looking position and also in a working position. Forty-six subjects without neck pain and 55 with neck pain were examined using a photographic method. Thoracic and cervical postures were measured using the high thoracic (HT) and craniovertebral (CV) angles, respectively. Results: High thoracic and CV angles were positively correlated with the presence of neck pain only in working position (p 0.05). Conclusions: Our findings have revealed that office employees had a defective posture while working and that the improper posture was more severe in the office employees who suffered from the neck pain

Enterovirus and Parechovirus meningitis in children: a review of the epidemiology, diagnostic challenges, and significance of on-site CSF virology tests in tropical paediatric patients’ care

Enteroviruses and Parechoviruses are increasingly recognized as the cause of aseptic meningitis, especially in the paediatric age group. However, because of indistinguishable clinical features with bacterial meningitis, many clinicians cannot make a clear distinction in disease presentation, and a large number of cases go undiagnosed. Although polymerase chain reaction is the current standard diagnostic approach, it takes many hours or days to get a result and these tests are not available at primary and secondary levels of care in many resource-poor countries. Furthermore, diagnosis is often difficult in children due to nonspecific cellular and biochemical cerebrospinal fluid findings. Some affected children may develop neurologic or/and systemic complications, resulting in prolonged hospital admission, increasing the risk of avoidable deaths, and healthcare expenditures. This review focuses on epidemiology, presentation, and diagnosis of Enterovirus and Parechovirus meningitis, highlighting the challenges in diagnosis and the potential roles of on-site CSF virology tests in improving the quality of paediatric patient’s care. The information provided should help early case detection, thereby ensuring avoidance of unnecessary antibiotics, minimal complications, a short period of hospital stays, and a reduction in healthcare-associated costs. Keywords: Aseptic meningitis; Enterovirus; Parechovirus; Diagnostic challenge; On-site virology test; Children   FrenchTitle: Méningite à Entérovirus et Parechovirus chez les enfants: un examen de l’épidémiologie, des défis diagnostiques et de l’importance du tests virologique sur site du LCR dans les soins aux patients pédiatriques tropicaux   Les entérovirus et les parechovirus sont de plus en plus reconnus comme la cause de la méningite aseptique, en particulier dans le groupe d'âge pédiatrique. Cependant, en raison des caractéristiques cliniques indiscernables de la méningite bactérienne, de nombreux cliniciens ne peuvent pas faire une distinction claire dans la présentation de la maladie, et un grand nombre de cas ne sont pas diagnostiqués. Bien que la réaction en chaîne par polymérase soit l'approche diagnostique standard actuelle, il faut plusieurs heures ou jours pour obtenir un résultat et ces tests ne sont pas disponibles aux niveaux de soins primaires et secondaires dans de nombreux pays pauvres en ressources. En outre, le diagnostic est souvent difficile chez les enfants en raison de découvertes non spécifiques du liquide céphalo-rachidien cellulaire et biochimique. Certains enfants atteints peuvent développer des complications neurologiques ou systémiques, entraînant une hospitalisation  prolongée, augmentant le risque de décès évitables et les dépenses de santé. Cette revue se concentre sur l'épidémiologie, la présentation et le diagnostic de la méningite à entérovirus et parechovirus, mettant en évidence les défis du diagnostic et les rôles potentiels des tests virologiques sur place dans le LCR dans  l'amélioration de la qualité des soins aux patients pédiatriques. Les informations fournies devraient contribuer à la détection précoce des cas, garantissant ainsi d'éviter les antibiotiques inutiles, des complications minimales, une courte période d'hospitalisation et une réduction des coûts associés aux soins de santé. Mots clés: méningite aseptique; Entérovirus; Parechovirus; Défi diagnostique; Test de virologie sur place;  Enfant

Sexual orientation, theory of mind and empathy: A comparison of male homosexual and male and female heterosexuals

Background: Researchers have been investigating similarities of and differences between homosexuals and heterosexuals for past few decades. Several studies have shown that in the particular domain (e.g., spatial ability), male homosexuals would resemble female heterosexuals better than male heterosexuals. Executive function, however, has received more attention than social cognition in this line of research. Methods: This study focuses on theory of mind and empathy as two important components of social cognition in male homosexuals (N=14), male heterosexuals (N=15) and female heterosexuals (N=14). Results: Applying Reading the Mind in the Eyes test and the Empathy Quotient, no significant difference between groups was identified. Conclusion: This study suggests that similarities of male homosexuals and female heterosexuals may be confined to executive function and not extended to some social cognition abilities like theory of mind or empathy

A hybrid approach to achieve organizational agility: An empirical study of a food company

Purpose: In today’s intense global competition, agility is advocated as a fundamental characteristic for business survival and competitiveness. The purpose of this paper is to propose a practical methodology to achieve and enhance organizational agility based on strategic objectives. Design/methodology/approach: In the first step, a set of key performance indicators (KPIs) of the organization being studied are recognized and classified under the perspectives of balanced scorecard (BSC). Critical success factors are then identified by ranking the KPIs according to their importance in achieving organizational strategic objectives using the Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS). In the second step, three houses of quality (HOQs) are constructed sequentially to identify and rank the main agile attributes, agile enablers, and improvement paths. In addition, in order to translate linguistics judgments of practitioners into numerical values in building HOQs, fuzzy logic is employed. Findings: The capability of the proposed methodology is demonstrated by applying it to a case of a multi-national food company in Iran. Through the application, the company could find the most suitable improvement paths to improve its organizational agility. Research limitations/implications: A limited number of KPIs were chosen due to computational and visual constraints related to HOQs. Another limitation, similar to other agility studies, which facilitate decision making among agility metrics, was that the metrics were more industry-specific and less inclusive. Practical implications: A strong practical advantage for the application of the methodology over directly choosing agility metrics without linking them is that through the methodology, the right metrics were selected that match organization’s core values and marketing objectives. While metrics may ostensibly seem unrelated or inappropriate, they actually contributed to the right areas where there were gaps between the current and desired level of agility. It would otherwise be impossible to choose the right metrics without a structured methodology. Originality/value: This paper proposes a novel methodology for achieving organizational agility. By utilizing and linking several tools such as BSC, fuzzy TOPSIS, and quality function deployment (QFD), the proposed approach enables organizations to identify the most appropriate agile attributes, agile enablers, and subsequently agile improvement paths

Laterality in emotional language processing in first and second language

Language is a cognitive function that is asymmetrically distributed across both hemispheres, with left dominance for most linguistic operations. One key question of interest in cognitive neuroscience studies is related to the contribution of both hemispheres in bilingualism. Previous work shows a difference of both hemispheres for auditory processing of emotional and non-emotional words in bilinguals and monolinguals. In this study, we examined the differences between both hemispheres in the processing of emotional and non-emotional words of mother tongue language and foreign language. Sixty university students with Persian mother tongue and English as their second language were included. Differences between hemispheres were compared using the dichotic listening test. We tested the effect of hemisphere, language and emotion and their interaction. The right ear (associated with the left hemisphere) showed an advantage for the processing of all words in the first language, and positive words in the second language. Overall, our findings support previous studies reporting left-hemispheric dominance in late bilinguals for processing auditory stimuli

VirtualEMF: a Model Virtualization Tool

International audienceSpecification of complex systems involves several heterogeneous and interrelated models. Model composition is a crucial (and complex) modeling activity that allows combining different system perspectives into a single cross-domain view. Current composition solutions fail to fully address the problem, presenting important limitations concerning efficiency, interoperability, and/or synchronization. To cope with these issues, in this demo we introduce VirtualEMF: a model composition tool based on the concept of a virtual model, i.e., a model that do not hold concrete data, but that redirects all its model manipulation operations to the set of base models from which it was generated

Higher Order and boundary Scaling Fields in the Abelian Sandpile Model

The Abelian Sandpile Model (ASM) is a paradigm of self-organized criticality (SOC) which is related to $c=-2$ conformal field theory. The conformal fields corresponding to some height clusters have been suggested before. Here we derive the first corrections to such fields, in a field theoretical approach, when the lattice parameter is non-vanishing and consider them in the presence of a boundary.Comment: 7 pages, no figure

SafeSlice: A model slicing and design safety inspection tool for SysML

Software safety certification involves checking that the software design meets the (software) safety requirements. In practice, inspections are one of the primary vehicles for ensuring that safety requirements are satisfied by the design. Unless the safety-related aspects of the design are clearly delineated, the inspections conducted by safety assessors would have to consider the entire design, although only small fragments of the design may be related to safety. In a model-driven development context, this means that the assessors have to browse through large models, understand them, and identify the safety-related fragments. This is time-consuming and error-prone, specially noting that the assessors are often third-party regulatory bodies who were not involved in the design. To address this problem, we describe in this paper a prototype tool called, SafeSlice, that enables one to automatically extract the safety-related slices (fragments) of design models. The main enabler for our slicing technique is the traceability between the safety requirements and the design, established by following a structured design methodology that we propose. Our work is grounded on SysML, which is being increasingly used for expressing the design of safety-critical systems. We have validated our work through two case studies and a control experiment which we briefly outline in the paper. © 2011 ACM