Relationship between the diversity of soil microbial communities and their resistance to different stressors

Straalen, N.M. van [Promotor]Röling, W.F.M. [Copromotor]Niklinska, M. [Copromotor

PP-020 A comparative study of therapeutic effects of Zataria Multiflora vaginal cream and metronidazole vaginal gel on bacterial vaginosis

Núm. de Catàleg de Patrimoni: 744 (Casa de la Ciutat)Llobet, Pere;Clamell Ibáñez, AlíciaPla en detall d'una de les ornamentacions en relleu de l'enteixinat del sostre de l'antiga sala de les eleccions, a la part gòtica de l'Ajuntament de Barcelona, en el moment de la seva restauració. Aquest adornament té forma de l'escut de Barcelon

A framework to select commercial bank partner using fuzzy BSC-DEA method

One of the primary concerns of many corporate organizations is to assess the weakness and strength of their future partners in an attempt to reduce all potential risks involved with them. In this paper, we present a BSC-DEA based model to indentify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of a firm. The proposed model of this paper assumes there are various uncertainties associated with all input/output parameters and uses fuzzy numbers to handle the uncertainties. We also consider a real-world case study of banking industry where four major banks are possible candidates of a partnership and implement the proposed model of this paper for this case study. The results of this study reveal some of the issues such as weakness of electronic banking, services and resource allocation as part of their infrastructure problems

An Item Analysis of Written Multiple-Choice Questions: Kashan University of Medical Sciences

Background: Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs) are one of the most common types of exams used in evaluation of students in any educational setting. The question items making up these exams need to be examined if they are to meaningfully contribute to the student scores. Such characteristics are amenable to examination by item analysis. Objectives: The purpose of this research was to examine the quality of MCQs used in Nursing and Midwifery Faculty and to compare the results with the other faculties in Kashan University of Medical Science in the academic year 2008-2009. Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 101 multiple-choice exams were randomly chosen for the study, and 37 exams were selected from the faculty of nursing and midwifery. The difficulty, discrimination indices and Cronbach’s Alpha were calculated for every exam and then mean values for each index were calculated by LERTAL 5.0 software purchased from Assessment Systems Corporation of the United States. Results: A total of 7062 MCQs in the university and 1793 items in the faculty of nursing and midwifery presented to the students by different instructors were analyzed. The average of difficulty index of the faculty of nursing was 0.5. The discrimination index was 0.36, and the average of Alpha-Cronbach was 0.82 in the faculty of nursing. All the values were significantly better in the faculty of nursing and midwifery compared to the rest of the university. Conclusions: The difficulty index, the discrimination index and the Alpha-Cronbach values in the faculty of nursing were within the acceptable range recommended by experts in the field of educational measurement. However, some of the tests had values less than the recommended

Effects of Zataria Multi-Flora, Shirazi thyme, on the Severity of Premenstrual Syndrome

Background: Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS) is a common problem in women. Zataria multiflora Boiss is a valuable plant. This herbal plant has been used in different conditions. Objectives: The study was performed to investigate the effects of Zataria multiflora Boiss to control PMS symptoms. Materials and Methods: This study was a double-blinded, prospective randomized trial. The study population was the college students living in the dormitories of Isfahan University. Eighty-eight eligible students were randomly divided to intervention and control groups. Students completed the prospective record of the impact and severity of menstrual symptoms (PRISM) calendar including 30 PMS symptoms for four menstrual cycles (two cycles before, and two after the intervention). The intervention group received pearls containing 20 mg of Zataria multi-flora essence (four pearls each day) for two menstrual cycles, seven days before menstruation. The mean difference of PMS severity score between groups was analyzed with Mann-Whitney U test. The difference in frequency score of symptoms was analyzed using repeated-measure analysis of variance. Results: Thirty-eight students in intervention and 37 students in placebo group completed the study. The groups had no significant difference regarding the severity of PMS. Both groups showed a significant improvement in PMS severity score after the intervention. The repeated-measure analysis of variance showed that the frequency of symptoms decreased significantly in the cycles, but it was not different in intervention and placebo groups. Conclusions: Our findings did not support the use of Zataria multiflora Boiss in premenstrual syndrome

Energy efficient geographical and power based clustering algorithm for heterogeneous wireless sensor networks

Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) has gained tremendous research attention recently due to their extensive applications. As sensor nodes being battery operated, many researchers have made attempts to prolong the lifespan of the WSN by reducing the-per node energy consumption and efficiently utilizing the sensor nodes. However, in the tradition WSNs, nodes were homogeneous and hence could not take full advantage of the presence of heterogeneity in the network. To solve this problem in this paper, we propose Geographical and power based clustering algorithm (GPCA): a heterogeneous-aware clustering protocol, which has significant impact on the entire energy dissipation of WSNs. In GPCA, a Virtual Header (VH) transfers data to the nearest VH, and the nearest VH forwards the data to sink node. In this way, the energy dissipation of the entire network is reduced because of the transmitting distance between VHs and the sink that is greatly shortened. Also, a large number of nodes are self-organized by a distributed cluster formation technique. Moreover, a randomized technique is used to rotate the local cluster-heads base on power label in order to evenly distribute the energy load among the sensors in the network. GPCA uses geographical position to enable scalability and robustness for dynamic networks. By using simulation, the proposed GPCA scheme shows superior performance over the current energy-efficient schemes in terms of network lifespan, Energy dissipation and number of alive nodes

The role of motivation and self‐efficacy on the practice of health promotion behaviours in the overweight and obese middle‐aged American women

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/107386/1/ijn12155.pd

Past and projected trends of body mass index and weight status in South Australia:2003 to 2019

OBJECTIVE: Functional data analysis (FDA) is a forecasting approach that, to date, has not been applied to obesity, and that may provide more accurate forecasting analysis to manage uncertainty in public health. This paper uses FDA to provide projections of Body Mass Index (BMI), overweight and obesity in an Australian population through to 2019.  METHODS: Data from the South Australian Monitoring and Surveillance System (January 2003 to December 2012, n=51,618 adults) were collected via telephone interview survey. FDA was conducted in four steps: 1) age-gender specific BMIs for each year were smoothed using a weighted regression; 2) the functional principal components decomposition was applied to estimate the basis functions; 3) an exponential smoothing state space model was used for forecasting the coefficient series; and 4) forecast coefficients were combined with the basis function.  RESULTS: The forecast models suggest that between 2012 and 2019 average BMI will increase from 27.2 kg/m(2) to 28.0 kg/m(2) in males and 26.4 kg/m(2) to 27.6 kg/m(2) in females. The prevalence of obesity is forecast to increase by 6-7 percentage points by 2019 (to 28.7% in males and 29.2% in females).  CONCLUSIONS: Projections identify age-gender groups at greatest risk of obesity over time. The novel approach will be useful to facilitate more accurate planning and policy development