Psychometric properties of the king spiritual intelligence questionnaire (KSIQ) in physical veterans of Iran-Iraq warfare

Aims: The study's purpose was to determine reliability and validity of the King spiritual intelligence questionnaires in veterans of Iran-Iraq Warfare. Methods: In this cross sectional study, 300 veterans of the Iran-Iraq war completed the King spiritual intelligence questionnaires. Principal components analysis (PCA) with varimax rotation was used to assess domain structure of the King spiritual intelligence questionnaires. Internal and external consistency reliability was assessed with Cronbach's alpha and intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC). Results: Internal consistency of King spiritual intelligence questions estimated with Cronbach's alpha, 0.872 and intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC).872 (CI 95%: 0.84 -0.89). The construct validity of the questionnaire was calculated using exploratory factor analysis that showed 3 factors with Eigen values of greater than one, which explained in total 44.7% of the variance. (1, 8 items, α= 0.87; 2, 5. items; α = 0.89; 3, 2 items, α= 0.51). Conclusion: The Persian version of King spiritual intelligence questionnaire demonstrated suitable validity and reliability among the Veterans of Iran-Iraq Warfare. With the consideration of the proper psychometric characteristics, this questionnaire can be used to further research spiritual intelligence in this population

Impact of melatonin supplementation in the rat spermatogenesis subjected to forced swimming exercise

Oxygen consumption increases many times during exercise, which can increase reactive oxygen species. It negatively affects fertility in male athletes. Melatonin is exerting a regulatory role at different levels of the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis. However, there is no evidence that the protective effects of melatonin persist after long duration exercise on the spermatogenesis. Therefore, this study was conducted to examine the impacts of melatonin on the testis following the administration of swimming exercise. Rats were separated into five different groups, including Control, sham M: received the solvent of melatonin, M: received melatonin, S: the exercise protocol, MS: received melatonin and the exercise protocol. After 8weeks, animals were scarified and antioxidant enzymes levels of testes, spermatogenic cells apoptosis and sperm quality were measured. Swimming decreased all parameters of spermatozoa. Nevertheless, melatonin could significantly improve the progressive motility of spermatozoa in MS rats. Swimming caused an increased apoptosis of S group and decreased all antioxidant enzymes. Melatonin could drastically reduce apoptosis and increased these enzymes. Therefore, melatonin seems to induce the production of antioxidant enzymes of testicular tissues and diminish the extent of apoptotic changes caused by forced exercise on the testis, which can, in turn, ameliorate the sperm parameters

Clinical significance of mild inferolateral wall ischemia of the left ventricle on 99mTc-MIBI myocardial perfusion single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT)

INTRODUCTION: Mild ischemia in the inferolateral wall on myocardial perfusion imaging is seen frequently in practice. The aim of this study is to assess the importance of the above issue on myocardial perfusion SPECT with coronary angiography. PATIENTS AND METHODS: All patients enrolled in this study exhibited mild ischemia of the inferolateral wall on myocardial single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) with 99mTc-MIBI, using the 20 left ventricular segments model. Each patient completed a questionnaire, including type of chest pain, risk factors, and previous examinations, and all cases were followed up for one year. Luminal stenosis of >50% was classified as significant stenosis on coronary angiography. A p value < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. RESULTS: During investigation, 105 cases had mild ischemia on myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) of which 36 subjects (22 male and 14 female) underwent coronary angiography. The mean age was 56.62±10.23 years old (age range: 36-73 years). The inferolateral wall was compared to the left circumflex (LCX) territory. Nineteen out of 36 (52.7%) cases had stenosis in the LCX. Twenty-three of 105 (21.90%) underwent revascularization during the one year follow up. In multiple logistic regressions, with LCX stenosis on angiography as the dependent variable, only abnormal MPI was independently associated significantly. CONCLUSIONS: The findings of the study may indicate that even a mild perfusion defect in the inferolateral wall should be carefully managed, especially in high-risk subjects for coronary artery disease. European Review for Medical and Pharmacological Sciences Clinical significance of mild inferolateral wall ischemia of the left ventricle on 99mTc-MIBI myocardial perfusion single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) M. ASSADI, A. ABDI-ARDEKANI1, M. POURBEHI2, A. AMINI2, H. JAVADI3, I. NABIPOUR, M. ABBASZADEH3, M. ASSADI3 The Persian Gulf Tropical Medicine Research Center, Bushehr University of Medical Sciences, Bushehr, Iran 1Department of Cardiology, Bushehr Heart Center, Faculty of Medicine, Bushehr University of Medical Sciences, Bushehr, Iran 2Golestan Research Center of Gastroenterology and Hepatology (GRCGH), Golestan University of Medical Sciences (GUOMS), Gorgan, Iran 3The Persian Gulf Nuclear Medicine Research Center, Bushehr University of Medical Sciences

The association of rate pressure product (RPP) and myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) findings: A preliminary study

Introduction: The product of heart rate and systolic blood pressure, termed as rate-pressure product (RPP), is a very reliable indicator of myocardial oxygen demand and is widely used clinically. There have been previous attempts to describe the relationship between RPP and the onset of pain in angina pectoris. The current study aimed to evaluate the association between RPP results and scan findings.Materials and methods: In total, 497 patients with suspected coronary artery disease (CAD) underwent gated, single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) imaging with dipyridamole, exercise, or dobutamine stress, and were included in this study. Baseline and maximum heart rate (HR), systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), and electrocardiogram (ECG) results were recorded. The rate-pressure product (RPP) was calculated as the product of heart rate and systolic arterial pressure for both baseline and maximum measures. The difference between the RPP max and the basal RPP is known as the RPP reserve. Researchers also obtained semi-quantitative analyses of myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI), using gated software, demographic information, risk factors of CAD, and pretest likelihoods of CAD using nomograms.Result: Four hundred and ninety-seven cases, including 426 patients with dipyridamole stress, 59 with exercise stress, and 12 with dobutamine stress, underwent myocardial perfusion imaging. Scan results were positive in 194 (45.5) and negative in 232 (54.5) patients with dipyridamole stress. In patients with exercise stress, the scan was positive in 24 (40.7) cases and negative in 35 (59.3) cases. In dobutamine stressed patients, the scan was positive in 6 (50) cases and negative in the 6 remaining cases. Dipyridamole stress resulted in a significant difference between HR at rest and at maximum (28.95 ± 24.53, p-value<0.0001), between systolic BP at rest and maximum (6.75 ± 12.50, p-value<0.0001) and between diastolic BP at rest and maximum (1.45 ± 5.80; p-value<0.0001). There was a significant correlation between sum stress scores (SSS) and reserved RPP (r= -0.12, p-value<0.001) which, in dipyridamole patients, was r=-0.18, p-value=0.0001). In addition, there was a significant association between reserved RPP and risk of CAD (p-value<0.001). In the patients with dipyridamole stress, the ejection fraction (EF) change (odds ratio =0.92; 95 CI: 0.86-0.98; p=0.01), reserve RPP (odds ratio =1.00; 95 CI: 1.00-1.00; p=0.04), risk of CAD (odds ratio =5.80; 95 CI: 3.21-10.50; p<0.0001) and age (odds ratio =0.94; 95 CI: 0.89-0.98; p=0.01) were associated significantly with MPI results, using multiple logistic regressions.Conclusion. The study demonstrated that RPP is associated with MPI findings using gated SPECT imaging with dipyridamole stress. However, to confirm this preliminary result, further studies are mandatory. © The Author(s) 2012

Concepts and Dimensions in Continuous Midwifery Care Models Based on the Experiences and Expectations of Stakeholders: A Meta-Synthesis

Context: Pregnant women’s have access to different models of care especially to those who provide continuous care and this is one of the recommendations of the world health organization (WHO) for promoting maternal health. Moreover, to provide adequate services in care models, the experiences and perceptions of mothers, providers of prenatal care, and other stakeholders should be taken into consideration. Objectives: A systematic meta-synthesis was carried out to inquire into the findings of some qualitative studies aimed to explore the concept and dimensions of continuous midwifery care including experiences, perspectives and perceptions of engaged people. Data Sources: This study was the first step of an action research designed to develop a midwifery model of care. Qualitative research articles published between 2005 and 2015 on experiences, attitudes, expectations and opinions of stakeholders in models of midwifery care were collected from Google scholar, Elsevier, and PubMed databases. Study Selection: Following the various stages of the scrutiny of the abstracts and contents of the collected articles, five faculty members finally selected 21 qualitative research articles as eligible for inclusion in the meta-synthesis. Results: The findings of meta-synthesis showed that continuous midwifery care for pregnantwomenas a highly important process revolves around at least five basic themes: continuity of care, compliance with needs satisfaction levels, regulation of care environment, and the philosophy of providing continuous care. Conclusions: Given the importance of access to healthcare as a right for pregnant women and given the key role of continuous midwifery care in health promotion and maternal satisfaction, it is suggested based on the results of the study that rigorous local and national research in this area to be carried out so that adequate models of continuous midwifery care can be designed and implemented based on the findings

A review of the most important native medicinal plants of Iran effective on leishmaniasis according to Iranian ethnobotanical references

The World Health Organization has declared that leishmaniasis is one of the six leading infectious diseases of tropical regions. The disease is transmitted to humans by the bite of sandflies from the genus Phlebotomus and develops cutaneous, mucosal or visceral clinical forms. Although cutaneous leishmaniasis is not a main health issue in terms of mortality, it causes numerous problems due to long period of the wound, tremendous healthcare costs, remaining scar, the likelihood of developing secondary infections or associated complications and sometimes malignancies in the scar site, and complications due to available pharmacotherapies. Studies are being conducted on medicinal plants to identify a suitable drug against Leishmania to treat leishmaniasis. We sought to identify medicinal plants that are used to treat cutaneous leishmaniasis according to references of Iranian traditional medicine. To conduct this review, Leishmania, leishmaniasis, ethnobotany, Iran, and medicinal plants were used to retrieve relevant publications indexed in databases including Scopus, Islamic World Science Citation Center, Scientific Information Database, and Magiran. According to the findings of this review, nine medicinal plants native to Iran are used to treat leishmaniasis. Medicinal plants Calotropis procera, Morus alba, Nerium oleander, Emex spinose, Artemisia absinthium, Artemisia absinthium, and etc are used to treat the wound according to herbal and traditional references. According to phytochemical analysis of these plants, gutaprecha, prenylated flavonoid, scopolin, reseosaid, skimmin, mulberroside A, astroglide, artemisinin, quercetin, and lawson are the most important active anti-leishmaniasis compounds with pharmaceutical potential as well as antiparasitic and disinfectant properties. These compounds can also be used to treat leishmaniasis wound

Elevated expression of artemis in human fibroblast cells is associated with cellular radiosensitivity and increased apoptosis

Copyright @ 2012 Nature Publishing GroupThis article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.Background: The objective of this study was to determine the molecular mechanism(s) responsible for cellular radiosensitivity in two human fibroblast cell lines 84BR and 175BR derived from two cancer patients. Methods: Clonogenic assays were performed following exposure to increasing doses of gamma radiation to confirm radiosensitivity. γ-H2AX foci assays were used to determine the efficiency of DNA double strand break (DSB) repair in cells. Quantitative-PCR (Q-PCR) established the expression levels of key DNA DSB repair proteins. Imaging flow cytometry using Annexin V-FITC was used to compare artemis expression and apoptosis in cells. Results: Clonogenic cellular hypersensitivity in the 84BR and 175BR cell lines was associated with a defect in DNA DSB repair measured by the γ-H2AX foci assay. Q-PCR analysis and imaging flow cytometry revealed a two-fold overexpression of the artemis DNA repair gene which was associated with an increased level of apoptosis in the cells before and after radiation exposure. Over-expression of normal artemis protein in a normal immortalised fibroblast cell line NB1-Tert resulted in increased radiosensitivity and apoptosis. Conclusion: We conclude elevated expression of artemis is associated with higher levels of DNA DSB, radiosensitivity and elevated apoptosis in two radio-hypersensitive cell lines. These data reveal a potentially novel mechanism responsible for radiosensitivity and show that increased artemis expression in cells can result in either radiation resistance or enhanced sensitivity.This work was supported in part by The Vidal Sassoon Foundation USA. This article is made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund

Numerical Solution of System of N–Coupled Nonlinear Schrödinger Equations via Two Variants of the Meshless Local Petrov–Galerkin (MLPG) Method

In this paper three numerical techniques are proposed for solving the system of N-coupled nonlinear Schrödinger (CNLS) equations. Firstly, we obtain a time discrete scheme by approximating the first-order time derivative via the forward finite difference formula, then for obtaining a full discretization scheme, we use the Kansa’s approach to approximate the spatial derivatives via radial basis functions (RBFs) collocation methodology. We introduce the moving least squares (MLS) approximation and radial point interpolation method (RPIM) with their shape functions, separately. It should be noted that the shape functions of RPIM unlike the shape functions of the MLS approximation have kronecker delta property. Also, we implement the local meshless Petrov-Galerkin (MLPG) and local RPIM (LRPIM) techniques for obtaining two full discretization schemes for the numerical solution of the mentioned equation in the two-dimensional case. In the meshless local weak forms for obtaining an approximate solution for the node i in every sub-domain we use the shape functions of the moving least squares (MLS) and RPIM meshless approximations. The main aim of this paper is to show that the meshless methods based on the global form i.e. radial basis functions collocation method and local weak form i.e. MLPG and LRPIM techniques are also simple in implementation and suitable for the treatment of the system of coupled nonlinear Schrödinger equations. We show that the RBFs collocation scheme provides a simple implementation for computing long-range solitary solutions considered by coupled nonlinear Schrödinger equations and the conserved quantities mass and energy almost are constant. Of course selecting small enough time step, obtains conserved quantities which are exactly fixed. Also several test problems including the two-dimensional case are given and numerical simulations are reported. We compare the obtained numerical results with together. The numerical results confirm the efficiency of the proposed schemes

An experimental investigation of the effective parameters on wet washing of biodiesel purification

The purity level of biodiesel has a strong effect on fuel properties and on engine life. Therefore, a purification step is necessary. Generally, there are two accepted methods for purifying biodiesel: wet washing and dry washing. In this research, the effective parameters on wet purification of biodiesel were investigated. Three types of biodiesel wash water (tap water, distilled water and water with 3% phosphoric acid), three wet washing temperatures (30, 45 and 60°C), and three levels of water to biodiesel ratios (0.5, 1 and 1.5 v/v) were used. In order to perform the wet washing of biodiesel, a bubble washing technique was used. The catalyst, soap and water residue were considered as the criteria to choose the optimum water washing condition and were measured after the wet washing of crude biodiesel. The results showed that the best condition for catalyst and soap removal from biodiesel are acidified water, a temperature of 60°C and a water to biodiesel ratio of 1.5 (v/v). Also, the least amount of water residue in the final purified biodiesel was observed when using tap water at a temperature of 60°C and a water to biodiesel ratio of 0.5 (v/v)

Air quality and thermal comfort in office buildings: Results of a large indoor environmental quality survey

This paper presents results of over 34,000 survey responses to air quality and thermal comfort questions in 215 buildings in US, Canada, and Finland. Results show that 80% or more of the occupants expressed satisfaction with their thermal comfort in only 11% of the buildings surveyed. Air quality scores were somewhat higher, with 26% of buildings having 80% or occupant satisfaction. With respect to thermal comfort and air quality performance goals set out by standards, most buildings appear to be falling far short. Occupant surveys offer a means to systematically measure this performance, and also to provide diagnostic information for building designers and operators