Autism and Probable Prerequisites: Severe and Scheduled Prenatal Stresses at Spotligh

Background: Due to the importance of prenatal maternal stress as environmental factor on autism, the influ-ence of prenatal maternal psychological agitations was assessed in relation with the risk of autism. Methods: In this case-control study, some mothers of autistic children in Isfahan, central Iran, in 2014, were retrospectively compared with control mothers in terms of quantity, quality, andschedule of exposure to 45 stressful events in a 15-month period. In addition, dividing the stressors into two groups of genome-dependent/independent events, their prevalence was separately scrutinized and compared among patient and control families. Results: Although the child’s risk of autism increases significantly with the increase of maternal stress during months 4-7 of pregnancy, the increased stress during months 2-3 of pregnancy can lead to a significant increase in the severity of autism affliction as well as a slight but significant increase in the possibility of LFA in afflicted children (P<0.05). The overall prevalence of genome-dependent stressful events among two patient and control groups was significantly higher than that of genome-independent events (P=0.000), but genome-dependent events led to more stress inpatient families. Conclusion: Although the present study consistent with recent findings in the fields of epigenetics and gene-environment interactions can confirm the role of severe and scheduled prenatal stresses in causing autism, it does not deny the necessity of a perspective and wider study in Isfahan and Iran

Determining the significant contributing factors to the occurrence of human errors in the urban construction projects: A Delphi-SWARA study approach

The construction industry is believed to be more susceptible to human errors than other industries because of its unique characteristics, particularly when it comes to urban construction projects (UCP). Despite the considerable attention given to human errors in construction sector, there has been a lack of emphasis on analysing these errors in specific projects like construction in urban environments with distinct complexities. Hence, this paper seeks to determine and assess the critical factors influencing human errors associated with the UCP. In this vein, Three rounds of Delphi surveys were done with 17 specialists in safety and construction management. According to the Delphi survey results, 35 substantial factors that contribute to the incidence of human errors in the UCP were discovered. Then, an empirical questionnaire based on the 5-point Likert scale of measurement was developed and distributed among 37 construction experts to assess the level of impact that each factor on occurring human error in the UCP. The questionnaire had 35 influential factors related to human errors, categorised into five primary divisions (environmental, technological/information systems, individual (permanently related), individual (temporarily related), and organisational). Before the distribution, the reliability and validity of the questionnaire were evaluated and confirmed. The factors were ranked using the Step-wise Weight Assessment Ratio Analysis (SWARA) technique at this point. The research findings indicated that the criterion of “technological factors/information systems” is the most crucial, with the criterion of “individual factors (permanently related)” coming in second and the criterion of “environmental factors” coming in third. The sub-criterion “weak maintenance management systems” scores first in the general ranking of sub-criteria, indicating traditional network systems, the absence of appropriate tools and equipment, and a lack of understanding of required resources. The sub-criterion “defects in details and information and lack of design dynamism” is placed second, while the sub-criterion “violation of safety regulations (use of drugs, etc.)” is ranked third. The study results can help industry practitioners make more educated judgements to minimise and manage human errors in the UCP

A comparative study of patient safety in the intensive care units

Aim This study aimed to assess patient-safety principles in ICUs. Design This is a descriptive-comparative study. Methods The research environment includes ICUs of hospitals affiliated to the two universities of medical sciences in Tehran. Sampling was done by census using Time and Event Sampling methods. Research instrument was “Patient Safety Principles Checklist”. Data analysis was performed using SPSS-20 and descriptive-inferential statistics with a significance level of 0.05. Results There is no significant difference (p-value = .15) in the level of observance of patient-safety principles in two university-affiliated hospitals A (133.26 ± 9.14) and B (128.16 ± 18.01). Evaluation of the mean scores obtained in each dimension and in each of the ICUs was showed that only in dimension No.3 the difference was significant (F[68,2] = 5.20, p-value = .008) and in the AICUs (16.13 ± 1.8) (p-value = .04), it was significantly lower than other ICUs. Identifying risk factors for the patient’s immunity reduces the side effects of patient care

Field Programmable Nanowire Interconnect

No abstract available

Modeling of reliability for programmable nanowires interconnect

No abstract available

Reliability Issues of Nanowires in FPNI Technology

No abstract available

Bayesian Pursuit Algorithm for Sparse Representation

International audienceIn this paper, we propose a Bayesian Pursuit algorithm for sparse representation. It uses both the simplicity of the pursuit algorithms and optimal Bayesian framework to determine active atoms in sparse representation of a signal. We show that using Bayesian Hypothesis testing to determine the active atoms from the correlations leads to an efficient activity measure. Simulation results show that our suggested algorithm has better performance among the algorithms which have been implemented in our simulations in most of the cases