Book review: policing sexuality: the mann act and the making of the FBI by Jessica R. Piley

Policing Sexuality links the crusade against sex trafficking to the rapid growth of the US agency the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). In pursuit of offenders, working prostitutes were imprisoned at dramatically increased rates, while their male clients were seldom prosecuted. Nafiseh Sharifi thinks Pliley’s intriguing and easy to read book is a brilliant resource for historians and researchers in the field of gender

Clinical Characteristics of Fatal Cases of COVID-19 in Tabriz, Iran: An Analysis of 111 Patients

Introduction: The rapid worldwide spread, in addition to the morbidity and mortality associated with the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), have raised concern throughout the world. Identifying the characteristics of patients who died of COVID-19 is essential to implement preventive measures. Objective: We aimed at investigating these characteristics among the Iranian population in Tabriz. Methods: In this case series, we analyzed clinical characteristics, laboratory parameters, and imaging findings of 111 patients with a reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR)-confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis who died during hospitalization. The studied patients had been admitted to the hospital between February 2020 and May 2020. Results: The median age of patients was 73 years (IQR, 62-82 years) and approximately 70% of them were male. The median oxygen saturation on admission was 88% (IQR, 80-92%) and dyspnea, cough, and fever were the most common presenting symptoms. Among comorbidities, diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular diseases were more frequently observed among patients who had a fatal outcome. While ground-glass opacity was the most commonly reported finding on chest computed tomography, 5% of the patients had no abnormal finding on imaging. Chloroquine was the most frequently used medication for treatment. Conclusion: Our results showed that the majority of COVID-19 deaths occurred in male elderly with decreased levels of oxygen saturation and elevated levels of lactate dehydrogenase and erythrocyte sedimentation rate on admission

The Effect of Gates-Glidden Drills on the Quality of Root Canal Treatment by Pre-Clinical Dental Students

AIM: This study was conducted to investigate the effect of applying Gates-Glidden (GG) drill by pre-clinical dental students on root canal treatment quality. METHOD: A total of 56 first molars consisting of 168 canals were selected in this study. For this purpose, 56 students who had been formerly trained by two methods of root canal preparation were randomly divided into two groups (n = 28). Group 1: the step-down method by GG and Group 2: step-back technique without GG. The prepared teeth were filled with gutta-percha/ZOE sealer using lateral condensation. Periapical radiographs were taken before and the following treatment to survey occurrence of preparation errors and CBCT images to determine residual dentine at furcation region. RESULTS: The findings showed that among 10 error types in specimens prepared by students, the occurrence of underfilling, overfilling, inappropriate, ledge formation, and single cone was more common without GG. There were no significant differences in residual dentine amount at furcation region between preparation with and without using GG (P > 0.05). CONCLUSION: Using GG for root canal preparation by dental students resulted in low errors and not an increased dentine removal risk

A green, inexpensive and efficient organocatalyzed procedure for aqueous aldol condensations

A facile and general procedure is presented for diethylamine-catalyzed double crossed aldol condensation of cyclic ketones with various aromatic aldehydes under aqueous conditions. Excellent yields of 3,5-bisarylmethylidenes of homocyclic and heterocyclic ketones are achieved in a one-pot procedure. Furthermore, the methodology is efficiently applied to the synthesis of chalcones from their corresponding methyl ketones. In the majority of the cases studied, products precipitate from the reaction mixtures and the medium is recycled in subsequent several reactions without significant loss of activity

Mapping 123 million neonatal, infant and child deaths between 2000 and 2017

Since 2000, many countries have achieved considerable success in improving child survival, but localized progress remains unclear. To inform efforts towards United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 3.2—to end preventable child deaths by 2030—we need consistently estimated data at the subnational level regarding child mortality rates and trends. Here we quantified, for the period 2000–2017, the subnational variation in mortality rates and number of deaths of neonates, infants and children under 5 years of age within 99 low- and middle-income countries using a geostatistical survival model. We estimated that 32% of children under 5 in these countries lived in districts that had attained rates of 25 or fewer child deaths per 1,000 live births by 2017, and that 58% of child deaths between 2000 and 2017 in these countries could have been averted in the absence of geographical inequality. This study enables the identification of high-mortality clusters, patterns of progress and geographical inequalities to inform appropriate investments and implementations that will help to improve the health of all populations

Book review: Oral history off the record: toward an ethnography of practice by Anna Sheftel and Stacey Zembrzycki

"Oral History off the Record: Toward an Ethnography of Practice." Anna Sheftel and Stacey Zembrzycki (eds.). Palgrave Macmillan. October 2013. --- Most discussions of oral history method are rooted in abstract ideas about what interviewing should be and should achieve. However, interviews are ultimately personal interactions between human beings, and rarely conform to a methodological ideal. The struggles interviewers face while conducting interviews mostly go unacknowledged, and this collection aims to show that a full account of oral history methodology must include honest and rigorous analyses of actual practice, allowing us to embrace the uncertainties that define a human-centered methodology. Nafiseh Sharifi is impressed with this collection and recommends it to students and practitioners of oral history

بررسی پایایی آزمون ـ بازآزمون و بین آزمونگران تست عملکرد دست جبسون تیلور در کودکان فلج مغزی

چکیده مقدمه: مشکلات عملکردی اندام فوقانی از رایج ترین اختلالاتی است که به دنبال فلج مغزی بوجود می آیند. کودکانی که بعلت مشکلات عصبی ـ عضلانی مانند فلج مغزی در عملکرد دست دچار مشکل هستند، فرصت کمتری برای دریافت اطلاعات از محیط و درک تاثیر عملکردشان بر محیط دارند و در نتیجه تجربه ی آنها در انجام فعالیتها کاهش می یابد. با توجه به میزان اختلال عملکرد دست و اهمیت آن در کودکان فلج مغزی بر آن شدیم که پایایی تست جبسون تیلور را در کودکان فلج مغزی مورد بررسی قرار دهیم. مواد و روش ها: پژوهش از نوع غیر تجربی و روش شناختی و به صورت تحلیلی و توصیفی است. در این مطالعه 33 کودک فلج مغزی دایپلژی 12- 8 ساله به صورت نمونه گیری غیراحتمالی ساده بررسی شد که این کودکان از هردو جنس بودند و از تمام مدارس استثنایی جسمی حرکتی سطح تهران انتخاب شدند. در این مطالعه عملکرد دست با حضور همزمان دو کارشناس بوسیله تست جبسون تیلور ارزیابی شد( پایایی بین آزمونگر). سپس یک هفته بعد، یک آزمونگر ارزیابی را دوباره انجام داد(پایایی درون آزمونگر) و با استفاده از ضریب همبستگی درونی، پایایی بررسی شد. یافته ها: نتایج نشان دهنده همبستگی بالا در توافق دو آزمونگر (P=0/001 و ICC=0/998) و توافق در یک آزمونگر (P=0/001 و ICC=0/95) بوده است. نتیجه گیری: نتایج تحقیق نشان داد که در کودکان دایپلژی 12- 8 ساله پایایی آزمون ـ بازآزمون و بین آزمونگران تست جبسون تیلور بالا بوده است. بنابراین به عنوان یک ابزار کلینیکی پایا برای ارزیابی عملکرد دست این کودکان پیشنهاد می شود. کلید واژه ها: پایایی آزمون ـ بازآزمون، پایایی بین آزمونگران، فلج مغزی، تست جبسون تیلو

Aggregates of plasmonic nanoparticles for broadband light trapping in dye-sensitized solar cells

Metallic nanoparticles (NPs) have not been effective in improving the overall performance of the cells with micrometer-thick absorbing layers mainly due to the parasitic optical dissipation in the metal. Here, using both experiment and theory, we demonstrate that aggregates of metallic NPs enhance the light absorption of dye-sensitized solar cells of a few micrometer-thick light absorbing layers. The composite electrode containing the optimal concentration of 5 wt% Au@SiO2 aggregates shows the enhancement of 80% and 52% in external quantum efficiency and photocurrent density, respectively. The superior performance of the aggregates relative to NP is attributed to their larger scattering efficiency using full-wave optical simulations. This is further confirmed by optical spectroscopic measurements showing that a large fraction of the incident light couples into the diffused components because of the presence of these metallic aggregates. The optical absorption enhancement is broadband and it is particularly strong at wavelengths larger than 680 nm where the optical absorption of dye molecules is weak