Use of Digital Library of Medicine by Faculty Members and its Effect on Scientific Production

This study evaluated the use of digital library of medicine by ZUMS faculty members and its effect on their scientific production. This study was a descriptive survey. Data was collected by a researcher-made questionnaire. Reliability of the questionnaire was estimated at 0.87 using Cronbach's alpha. The studied population consisted of ZUMS faculty members. Krejcie-Morgan table was used to determine the sample size (171). Results were analyzed using SPSS-20 software. the most used databases were Scopus and Elsevier. The results showed that the use of digital library of medicine was effective on knowledge production. Chi-square test showed that faculty members significantly had scientific production. Faculty members used digital library to produce research papers in foreign languages (66.7%) and Farsi (58.5%), present papers at national conferences (64.3%) and international conferences (56.1 %). the results showed that faculty members did not use all facilities of digital library; however, this limited use had a very important role in their scientific production

Western medical acupuncture is an alternative medicine or a conventional classic medical manipulation

Western medical acupuncture is an alternative medicine or a conventional classic medical manipulatio

Internet Information-Seeking Behaviour of Students at the University of Medical Sciences in Zahedan Based on Kuhlthau Model

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the information-seeking behaviour of students of General Medicine, odontology and post-graduate students of various fields of medicine who has admitted their theses in 2011-2012 based on Kuhlthau information-seeking behaviour. This study is an analytic survey. The studied group includes 210 theses admitted in the Research Committee of the University which were selected by census method. Crocker standardized questionnaire was used to assess the feelings and thoughts of the Kuhlthau six-stage information-seeking model using a five-choice Likert scale. The present study shows that the studied students pass the various stages of Kuhlthau model by slight differences in different stages of their theses. Their feelings and ideas are more or less similar to the learned pattern except that the fifth and sixth stages which are inconsistent with the model. The Chi-square test and exact Fisher test showed a significant relationship between male and female students in terms of feelings and ideas during different stages of Kuhlthau information seeking model

Evaluation of Quality Services in Zahedan Public Libraries

The present study evaluates the quality of services in public libraries of Zahedan, using the SERVQUAL software. This study is a practical survey. The studied group includes all clients of two public libraries of Zahedan, Kafami and Imam Hussein, with 17000 active and semi-active clients. The sample size was 250 randomly selected. SERVQUAL questionnaire was used to collect data. As the findings show, the studied libraries provided reasonable services in terms of empathy, responsiveness and appropriate environment. However, the quality of services was not reasonable. Measuring the quality of services by customer-focused software SERVQUAL plays an important role in understanding of the quality of services provided by users. A quantitative measure of quality is a rare way to measure services of public institutions, including public libraries. The above software measures the expectations of clients from different aspects of quality services. Improvements in line with expectations will lead to the dynamism and vitality of libraries

Prenatal diagnosis of Sex determining region Y -box transcription factor 2 anophthalmia syndrome caused by germline mosaicism using next-generation sequencing: A case report

Background: Sex determining region Y box transcription factor 2 (SOX2) mutations lead to bilateral anophthalmia with autosomal dominant human inheritance. SOX2 mutations could result in severe ocular phenotypes usually associated with variable systemic defects. Most patients described with SOX2 anophthalmia syndrome possessed de novo mutations in this gene. Case Presentation: In this case report, we describe 2 brothers with mental retardation and bilateral anophthalmia caused due to SOX2 germline mosaicism in unaffected parents. Next-generation DNA sequencing was carried out to determine the family’s possible cause of genetic mutation. Sanger sequencing was performed on the patients and their parents. Prenatal diagnosis was done in both pregnancies of the older brother’s wife via chorionic villus sampling. A novel heterozygous pathogenic frameshift deletion variant (exon1:c.58_80del:p.G20fs) was identified in the SOX2 gene, which was confirmed by Sanger sequencing in both affected brothers and did not exist in healthy parents, indicating germline mosaicism. Conclusion: Most SOX2 mutations known look to arise de novo in probands and are diagnosed through anophthalmia or microphthalmia. Prenatal diagnosis should be offered to healthy parents with a child with SOX2 mutation every pregnancy. Key words: Anophthalmos, SOX2 anophthalmia syndrome, Mosaicism

Optimizing Calibration Procedure to Train a Regression-Based Prediction Model of Actively Generated Lumbar Muscle Moments for Exoskeleton Control

The risk of low-back pain in manual material handling could potentially be reduced by back-support exoskeletons. Preferably, the level of exoskeleton support relates to the required muscular effort, and therefore should be proportional to the moment generated by trunk muscle activities. To this end, a regression-based prediction model of this moment could be implemented in exoskeleton control. Such a model must be calibrated to each user according to subject-specific musculoskeletal properties and lifting technique variability through several calibration tasks. Given that an extensive calibration limits the practical feasibility of implementing this approach in the workspace, we aimed to optimize the calibration for obtaining appropriate predictive accuracy during work-related tasks, i.e., symmetric lifting from the ground, box stacking, lifting from a shelf, and pulling/pushing. The root-mean-square error (RMSE) of prediction for the extensive calibration was 21.9 nm (9% of peak moment) and increased up to 35.0 nm for limited calibrations. The results suggest that a set of three optimally selected calibration trials suffice to approach the extensive calibration accuracy. An optimal calibration set should cover each extreme of the relevant lifting characteristics, i.e., mass lifted, lifting technique, and lifting velocity. The RMSEs for the optimal calibration sets were below 24.8 nm (10% of peak moment), and not substantially different than that of the extensive calibration