payam amini

Tuberculosis (TB) and infection of Hepatitis C virus (HCV) have appeared as major public health problems. The present systematic review and meta-analysis aimed at determining the relationship between TB and the risk of HCV infection.

Google Scholar, Embase, Medline, Pubmed, web of sciences (ISI), and Scopus were searched until March 2022. The pooled ORs of HCV in patients with TB were calculated utilizing the random-effect model with a 95% confidence interval (CI). test was utilized for evaluating the heterogeneity. To check publication bias Egger and Beggs' tests were used.

From among 1500 articles from 2006 to 2020, 13 studies were examined and analyzed based on the inclusion/exclusion criteria. The overall risk of HCV infection in patients with TB was (OR: 1.34, 95% CI: 1.10-1.63, P=0.001). According to the type of the countries subgroup analysis, the risk of HCV infection in patients with TB in developing countries was (OR: 1.95, 95% CI: 1.00-3.80), which was higher than the risk in developed countries (OR: 1.47, 95% CI: 1.42-1.52). In addition, the risk of hepatitis C infection in men compared to women (OR: 1.84, 95% CI: 1.75-1.94, P=0.001) and in age groups over 65 yr compared to other age groups (OR: 1.46, 95% CI: 0.98-2.16) was significantly higher.

The results of this study emphasized the importance of screening HCV in patients with TB. Being aware of the presence or absence of HCV in these patients can contribute to their effective treatment.

 Psoriasis is one of the most common skin disorders in humans and is believed to have genetic foundations. The aim of this study is to identify potential genetic biomarkers for psoriasis using penalized methods.

 The gene chip GSE55201, which included 74 individuals (34 patients with psoriasis and 30 healthy individuals), was obtained from GEO. Three penalized approaches were used in logistic regression, including Least Absolute Shrinkage Selection Operator, Minimax Concave Penalty, and Smoothing Clipped Absolute Deviation, to identify the most important genes associated with psoriasis. To validate the results, Random Forest was used to assess the predictive power of the selected genes in a validation dataset.

 The analysis identified ADORA3 and C16orf72 as two genes that were commonly associated with psoriasis. The independent samples t-test revealed significantly higher expression of ADORA3 and C16orf72 among psoriasis cases (p<0.001). The area under the ROC curve for predicting psoriasis was 0.88 (95% CI: 0.80-0.96) for ADORA3 and 0.75 (95% CI: 0.75-0.94) for C16orf72. The Random Forest analysis showed that the model using these genes had a prediction probability of 0.68 (95% CI: 0.53-0.83).

 Among all the methods used, MCP outperformed other penalties, selecting a smaller subset with compatible performance. Two key genes, ADORA3 and C16orf72, were found to be associated with psoriasis and were identified for further study. These genes may serve as genetic biomarkers for predicting psoriasis.

Tuberculosis is a principal public health issue. Reducing and controlling tuberculosis did not result in the expected success despite implementing effective preventive and therapeutic programs, one of the reasons for which is the delay in definitive diagnosis. Therefore, creating a diagnostic aid system for tuberculosis screening can help in the early diagnosis of this disease. This research aims to use machine learning techniques to identify economic, social, and environmental factors affecting tuberculosis.  

This case-control study included 80 individuals with TB and 172 participants as controls. During January-October 2021, information was collected from thirty-six health centers in Ahvaz, southwest Iran. Five different machine learning approaches were used to identify factors associated with TB, including BMI, sex, age , marital status, education, employment status, size of the family, monthly income, cigarette smoking, hookah smoking, history of chronic illness, history of imprisonment, history of hospital admission, first-class family, second-class family, third-class family, friend, co-worker, neighbor, market, store, hospital, health center, workplace, restaurant, park, mosque, Basij base, Hairdressers and school. The data was analyzed using the  statistical programming R software version 4.1.1.   

According to the calculated evaluation criteria, the accuracy level of 5 SVM, RF, LSSVM, KNN, and NB models is 0.99, 0.72, 0.97,0.99, and 0.95, respectively, and except for RF, the other models had the highest accuracy. Among the 39 investigated variables, 16 factors including First-class family (20.83%), friend (17.01%), health center (41.67%), hospital (24.74%), store (18.49%), market (14.32%), workplace (9.46%), history of hospital admission (51.82%), BMI (43.75%), sex (40.36%), age (22.83%), educational status (60.59%), employment status (43.58%), monthly income (63.80%), addiction (44.10%), history of imprisonment (38.19%) were of the highest importance on tuberculosis.  

The obtained results demonstrated that machine-learning techniques are effective  in identifying economic, social, and environmental factors associated with tuberculosis. Identifying these different factors plays a significant role in preventing and performing appropriate and timely interventions to control this disease.

Women who undergo in vitro fertilization (IVF) cycles should successfully go via multiple stages (i.e.,clinical pregnancy, no abortion under 12 weeks, no abortion under 20 weeks, and delivery) to achieve a live birth. Inthis study, data from multiple IVF cycles and its multiple stages were reanalyzed to illustrate the success factors associatedwith various stages of IVF cycles in a population of Iranian infertile women. This historical cohort study includes 3676 assisted reproductive technology (ART) cycles.Covariates take into account in this study were women’s age, type of infertility (primary, secondary), body mass index(BMI), cause of infertility, history of abortion, duration of infertility, number of oocytes, number of embryos, fertilizationrate, semen factors (Spermogram) and having polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) during IVF cycles. Joint modelingwas fitted to apply informative cluster size. Increasing age un women was associated with an increase in the BMI and a positive history of abortion andPCOS, and also, an increase in the number of treatment cycles, while in men was associated with the negative spermogram.With the increase in the number of treatment cycles, the result of the IVF success decreased, but with theincrease in the number of embryos, fertilization rate and also, quality and / or quantity parameters of spermogram, weencountered with an increase in the IVF success rate. It seems that a joint model of the number of treatment cycles and the result of IVF is a valuable statistical modelthat does not ignore the significant effect of cycle numbers, while this issue is ignored usually in the univariate models.

Psoriasis, an immune-mediated disorder, is a multifactorial disease of unidentified cause. This study aims to discover the possible biomarkers of this papulosquamous skin disease. The gene chip GSE55201, resulted from an experimental study, including 44 psoriasis patients and 30 healthy controls was downloaded from GEO and weighted gene co-expression network analysis was utilized to identify the hub genes. The key modules were determined using the module eigenvalues. We used biological functions, cellular components, and molecular functions in the Gene Ontology analysis and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes enrichment analysis in the gene metabolic pathway were used for enrichment analysis. Adjacency matrix was built by using power adjacency function and the power to turn the correlation to adjacency matrix was 4 with a topology fit index of 0.92. Using the weighted gene co-expression network analysis, 11 modules were identified. The green-yellow module eigenvalues were significantly associated with psoriasis (Pearson correlation=0.53, p<0.001). Candidate hub genes were determined by their higher connectivity and relationship with module eigenvalue. The genes including SIGLEC8, IL5RA, CCR3, RNASE2, CPA3, GATA2, c-KIT, and PRSS33 were recorded as the hub genes. In summary we can conclude that SIGLEC8, IL5RA, CCR3, RNASE2, CPA3, GATA2, c-KIT, and PRSS33 have an important role in the immune response regulation and could be considered as a potential diagnostic biomarker and therapeutic target for Psoriasis.

Overhead cranes play a vital role in guiding steel industries and maintaining their normal condition. These machines are operated by humans and pose a great risk of accidents that may occur due to mistakes made by operators. According to the mentioned contents, the non-negligible effects of noise on the physical and mental health of people in the work environment, the complexity and sensitivity of overhead crane operators, as well as the serious injuries caused by the error of this task, this study aimed at the effect of exposure to noise on mental workload, noise sensitivity and general and mental health of overhead crane operators in one of the steel industries in southern Iran.

This study was conducted in two phases. In the first phase, the worker's exposure to the sound level was carefully evaluated. In this way, the sound pressure leveling was done during the operator's duty and in the crane cabin according to the recommendation of ISO 9612. In the second phase of the research, after determining the level of exposure of overhead crane operators to noise, noise sensitivity questionnaires, mental assessment of exposure to noise conditions, and general health questionnaires were distributed and subjected to statistical analysis. Statistical analysis of data was done using SPSS version 22 software. Using a one-way analysis of variance, independent t-test, and Pearson's correlation coefficient, the relationship between different factors was investigated. In this study, a significance level of 5% was considered.

The average equivalent level of exposure of overhead crane operators for 8 hours is 76.4 dB and the maximum and minimum equivalent levels of 8-hour exposure, respectively; 84 and 68.2 dB were obtained. The results of this study showed that there is a significant relationship between the variables of gender, marital status, and working hours with noise sensitivity and the variables of gender, education, a mental crisis in the last month and second job with mental load, and the variable of mental crisis in the last month with general health (P<0.05). Pearson's correlation coefficient was used to investigate the relationship between noise sensitivity, mental load, and general health with sound. The results showed, there is no significant relationship between noise sensitivity, mental load, and general health with sound (P> 0.05). There is a negative or inverse relationship between noise sensitivity and general sound health. This means that with the increase in volume, sensitivity to sound and general health will decrease and vice versa.

The results of this research can provide the necessary platform to improve the working conditions of overhead crane operators to prevent the occurrence of inconveniences and problems of inaudible noise in values ​​less than 85 dB.

The factors affecting children’s growth and development have been discussed in various research studies. This study evaluates the association between growth and development of under 12-month-old children in Iran. This cross-sectional study uses the Ages & Stages Questionnaire (ASQ) data and demographic characteristics in the child's health records of 15,885 Iranian children in Arak city up to March 2017. The impact of growth disorder, type of delivery, preterm birth, at birth weight/height/head circumference, gross motor, problem-solving, personal-social, communication, and fine motor on the participants’ head circumference/weight/height was assessed. Unadjusted analyses were done using independent sample t-test, Pearson correlation test and one-way analysis of variance. Multiple multivariate regression was utilized for adjusted effects. P-values less than 0.05 were considered statistically significant. Head circumference was associated with growth disorder, type of delivery, and preterm birth. Children with known and unknown growth disorders had 610.19 and 160.58 grams less weight than those without any growth disorder. Gross motor and personal-social aspects of ASQ were found to be associated with weight at the age of 12-month old. Height at 12-months was affected by growth disorder, gross motor, personal-social, communication, and fine motor. Results of this study show that cesarean type of delivery, preterm birth, and low birth weight are the impacting factors associated with negative children growth trends and lower developmental status at the age of 12 months.

The outbreak of Covid-19 virus has affected many issues, including the students’ education. Distancing from face-to-face educational environment, the disruption of leisure and social activities, and the separation from friends are some of the quarantine consequences, which can affect issues such as students’ academic satisfaction and motivation. Therefore, this study aimed was to examine the level of academic satisfaction and motivation during Covid-19 quarantine among rehabilitation students of Ahwaz University of Medical Sciences. This cross-sectional analytical study was performed on 180 Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences rehabilitation students with a convenient sampling method from 2020 August to July 2021. To evaluate the level of academic motivation, the Persian version of Harter’s academic motivation questionnaire was electronically used, and to assess the level of academic satisfaction, the questionnaire by Shakornia et al. (2014) was electronically used. To investigate the association between academic motivation and academic satisfaction, the chi-square independence test (or Fisher’s exact test in case of the sparsity of contingency table) was used. Data analysis was performed using SPSS 22 software at a significant level of 0.05. The results showed that there is a significant correlation between academic satisfaction and intrinsic motivation (P=0.047), but there is no significant correlation between the academic satisfaction and extrinsic motivation (P=0.165) and academic satisfaction score and overall academic motivation (P=0.752). The correlation between academic satisfaction and field of study is significant (P=0.004). This study showed that despite the prevalence of Covid-19 and changes in educational methods during this period, the rate of academic motivation and academic satisfaction is almost high in most rehabilitation students of Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences. To investigate the strengths and weaknesses of education and the factors affecting the use of online education, students’ learning, and their academic motivation and satisfaction, it is recommended to examine the level of students’ academic motivation and satisfaction in different universities during the Covid-19 pandemic

Isolated pancreatic islets are valuable resources for a wide range of research, including cell replacement studies and cell-based platforms for diabetes drug discovery and disease modeling. Islet isolation is a complex and stepwise procedure aiming to obtain pure, viable, and functional islets for in vitro and in vivo studies. It should be noted that differences in rodent strains, gender, weight, and density gradients may affect the isolated islet’s properties. We evaluated the variables affecting the rat islet isolation procedure to reach the maximum islet yield and functionality, which would be critical for further studies on islet regenerative biology.

The present experimental study compared the yield and purity of isolated islets from nondiabetic rats of two different strains. Next, islet particle number (IPN) and islet equivalent (IEQ) were compared between males and females, and the weight range that yields the highest number of islets was investigated. Moreover, the influence of three different density gradients, namely Histopaque, Pancoll, and Lymphodex, on final isolated islets purity and yield were assessed. Finally, the viability and functionality of isolated islets were measured.

The IEQ, IPN, and purity of isolated islets in 15 Lister hooded rats (LHRs) were significantly (P≤0.05) higher than those of the other strains. Male LHRs resulted in significantly higher IEQ compared to females (P≤0.05). Moreover, IPN and IEQ did not significantly vary among different weight groups. Also, the utilization of Histopaque and Pancoll leads to higher yield and purity. In vivo assessments of the isolated islets presented significantly reduced blood glucose percentage in the transplanted group on days 2-5 following transplantation.

Based on these results, an optimal protocol for isolating high-quality rat islets with a constant yield, purity, and function has been established as an essential platform for developing diabetes research.

Objectives :

One of the challenges facing societies today is the increased medical expenses of the elderly. Therefore, identifying the factors associated with this increase can help health policymakers control the costs imposed on the elderly and their families. This study aims to identify the factors related to the increase in hospitalization costs of the elderly with circulatory system diseases using the generalized gamma marginalized two-part model.

Methods & Materials :

In this retrospective cohort study, 335 samples were selected by a simple random sampling method from among the older patients of Imam Khomeini and Golestan hospitals in Ahvaz, Iran during 2015-2016 having circulatory system diseases and age ≥60 years. The relationship of age, gender, hospitalization status in intensive care unit (ICU), marital status, admission season, and number of hospitalization days with the increase in treatment costs of the elderly was examined using the generalized gamma marginalized two-part model in SAS  9.4 software. The response variable was the patients’ treatment costs. The significance level was set at 0.05.

Results :

The mean age of participants was 70.718.27 years, where 54% were female and 46% were male. The average medical costs in patients admitted to ICU was 3.70 times higher than that in patients who were not admitted to this unit. The odds ratio showed that, for each day of increase in hospital stay, the hospitalization costs of the patients increased by 1.11. The hospitalization costs for older men were 1.67 times higher than in older women. In single patients, it was 2 times higher than in married patients. Moreover, with each year of increase in age (after age 60), the hospitalization costs increased by 0.96. Using the marginalized two-part model, it was found that the variables of age, number of hospitalization days, marital status, gender, and admission to ICU had a significant relationship with the increase in the hospitalization costs of the elderly (P<0.05).

Conclusion:

 The burden of hospitalization costs on younger elderly with circulatory system diseases is higher. Older men incur more hospital costs than older women, and single elderly people incur more hospital costs than married ones. The increase in the number of hospitalization days is another factor that can increase the hospitalization costs of the older patients, especially in those admitted to ICU.

 Considering the necessity of integrating medical education and the provision of medical services to patients, observing patient rights during medical education is a major challenge. Therefore, the present study was conducted with the aim of investigating the conflict between medical education and patient rights from the perspective of interns.

 This descriptive-analytical study was conducted at Jundishapur University, Ahvaz in 2021. The study population consisted of the medical interns who had passed at least six months of their internship period. The researcher developed a 5-point Likert scale questionnaire to conduct a survey among interns and the validity and the reliability of the questionnaire was confirmed. The data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics tests in SPSS 26 software.

Ethical Considerations: 

All ethical standards were observed during the research process, including ensuring data confidentiality and obtaining the participants’ consent.

 Based on the participants’ answers, medical students’ level of awareness of patient rights charter was significantly lower than average, with the median of 3 (3-2) out of 5 and p-value=0.022. In addition, the level of patient rights observance on the part of interns was significantly lower than the average, with the mean of 2.68±0.89 and p-value=0.00. The lowest score belonged to ensuring the confidentiality of patients’ secrets and their medical records, with the median of 2 (3-1) and p-value=0.001. The level of disruption in students' education due to the necessity of observing patient rights was significantly higher than average, with the median of 3.25 (2.3-75.50) and p-value=0.017. The highest score belonged to patients’ preventing medical interns from doing medical examinations, with the median of 3 (3-4) and p-value=0.03.

 The results of the present study indicated that in the educational process, patient rights are observed less than average, and patients cause disruption in the educational process through preventing interns from doing medical examinations and not cooperating with them.

Measles is a feverish condition labeled among the most infectious viral illnesses in the globe. Despite the presence of a secure, accessible, affordable and efficient vaccine, measles continues to be a worldwide concern.

This epidemiologic study used machine learning and time series methods to assess factors that placed people at a higher risk of measles. The study contained the measles incidence in Markazi Province, the center of Iran, from Apr 1997 to Feb 2020. In addition to machine learning, zero-inflated negative binomial regression for time series was utilized to assess development of measles over time.

The incidence of measles was 14.5% over the recent 24 years and a constant trend of almost zero cases were observed from 2002 to 2020. The order of independent variable importance were recent years, age, vaccination, rhinorrhea, male sex, contact with measles patients, cough, conjunctivitis, ethnic, and fever. Only 7 new cases were forecasted for the next two years. Bagging and random forest were the most accurate classification methods.

Even if the numbers of new cases were almost zero during recent years, age and contact were responsible for non-occurrence of measles. October and May are prone to have new cases for 2021 and 2022.

Employees' awareness about safety is a required element to develop a safe behavior so that it allows designing programs to improve safety performance at work. Therefore, the present study attempts to examine the effects of organizational culture on personal safety level with employees' satisfaction as a mediation variable.

This descriptive-analytical and cross-sectional study was conducted with 229 steel industry workers using a standard questionnaire. The questionnaire had 47 items arranged in two sections, including demographics and job information as section one and organizational culture, personnel safety awareness, and employees' satisfaction as section two. Data analyses were done using SPSS and LISREL, and the relationships between the variables were determined using a structural equations model.

The mean score of satisfaction and personnel safety awareness was equal to 54.58 and 8.65, respectively. The highest mean score of organizational culture dimensions was obtained for patriarchy vs. matriarchy (33.2), and the lowest mean score was obtained for individualism vs. collectivism (16.08). Organizational culture was notably and positively affected by individualism vs. collectivism, avoiding uncertainty, and distance from power. In addition, there was a significant relationship between the total mean score of the dimensions of the organizational culture questionnaire and work wards (P<0.001).

The study showed that organizational culture has a direct relationship with personnel safety awareness and job satisfaction. These results point out that the human factor has the most important role in preventing occupational accidents. Accordingly, businesses and employers should establish and disseminate organizational culture in their organizations.

 Recently, coronavirus has become a major cause of death and hospital admission worldwide. This study was aimed to assess the factors associated with the presentation via ambulance and time to in-hospital death or discharge from the hospital using a multilevel joint modeling approach.

 In this historical cohort study, hospitalized patients with COVID-19 were included from 34 medical centers in Khuzestan province, Iran, from February 18th, 2020, to January 5th, 2021. Joint model analysis was used to assess the impact of demographic and clinical characteristics on the mode of hospital presentation and time to death/discharge from hospitals in Khuzestan province, Iran.

 Among 22,356 patients, 14.2% presented to the hospital via ambulance, and 11.2% died in the hospital. The odds of ambulance use was higher in patients with older age, male sex, comorbidities including respiratory disease, diabetes, cancer, and drug abuse, and symptoms such as respiratory distress and loss of consciousness. Older age, male sex, a higher burden of comorbidities, symptoms of chest pain, respiratory distress, and loss of consciousness, and admission to intensive care unit were predictors of in-hospital mortality. The median survival time was longer for patients with COVID-19 who self-presented to the hospital compared to those who presented with ambulance (31 vs 20 days; log-rank P<0.001).

 Several demographic and clinical factors were found to predict the EMS utilization and in-hospital mortality in patients hospitalized with COVID-19 and can be used for risk-stratification. Controlling for the predictors of ambulance use in COVID-19 infection may help improve patient outcomes.

COVID-19, which began in December 2019 in China, can have a broader impact on individuals' mental dimensions. Meanwhile, the medical staff battling this epidemic are more at risk of mental and emotional problems.  This study aimed to examine the level of stress, anxiety, and depression and their relationship with the level of knowledge of medical staff battling in COVID-19 pandemic treatment.

This descriptive-analytical study was conducted on 641 medical staff using an online platform to design the questionnaire, and its link was placed in different groups of social networks all over the country  in which the medical staff battling COVID 19 were members. Statistical analysis was performed by SPSS 25 and Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, independent samples t-test, independent one-way analysis of variance, and chi-square.

Higher knowledge about COVID-19 was associated with younger age, clinicians, and nurses. Moreover, females were more knowledgeable in terms of support; while males were more reliable in washing hands and disinfecting wet places. Based on the categorical version of psychological factors, the majority of cases had severe stress ( 39.80 % ), normal depression ( 48.50 % ), and normal anxiety ( 57.30 % ). Finally, it was found that married participants had more knowledge about COVID-19, but knew less about its fatality.

Studies have shown negative psychological experiences caused by COVID-19 in nurses, including negative emotions, such as fatigue, discomfort, helplessness due to high-intensity work, anxiety, and worry about family members.

Identifying the potential risk factors of the length of stay in hospital (LOSH) in COVID-19 patients could help the health system meet future demand for hospital beds.

This study aimed to determine the factors affecting the length of stay in hospital in COVID-19 patients in Hamadan, the west of Iran.

This cross-sectional study recruited 512 hospitalized COVID-19 patients in Hamadan city. Demographic, clinical, and medical laboratory characteristics of the patients and their survival status were assessed by a checklist. Univariate and multiple negative binomial regressions were used by Stata 12.

The median hospitalization length for COVID-19 patients was five days (range: 0 to 47). In the discharged patients, the adjusted incidence rate ratios (95% CI) of LOSH for females, rural residents, patients with a history of diabetes and cardiovascular disease, SPO2 less than 88%, prothrombin time higher than 13 s, platelet count lower than 130 × 1000 µL, blood sugar higher than 105 mg/dL, and intensive care unit experience were 1.16 (1.03, 1.44), 1.22 (1.03, 1.44), 1.43 (1.07, 1.92), 1.41 (1.23, 1.61), 0.82 (0.71, 0.93), 1.32 (1.11, 1.56), 1.18 (1.03, 1.36), and 1.85 (1.59, 2.17) compared to their references, respectively.

Our study added new insight into LOSH determining factors that could be used for future planning in combating the need for hospital beds. The present study revealed that some demographic, social, and clinical variables could increase the IRR of a more extended hospital stay.

One of the complications of hemodialysis treatment is hypotension, which can increase morbidity and mortality and compromise dialysis efficacy. Dialysate temperature is an important factor that contributes to hemodynamic stability during hemodialysis. This study investigated the effect of dialysate temperature on the patients' blood pressure and pulse rate. Model-based approaches were used to produce more reliable results compared with traditional methods.

A total of 30 patients were studied during 9 dialysis sessions. Dialysate temperatures were 37°C,36°C and 35° C. A joint longitudinal model was used to analyze both responses of blood pressure and pulserate, simultaneously.

The results showed that low-dialysate temperature was not significantly associated with higher systolic blood pressure (p>0.05) or a higher pulse rate (p>0.05) either during or after dialysis. Pulse rate and blood pressure were higher for women during dialysate (p<0.001). However, increasing age was associated with higher blood pressure and a lower pulse rate (p<0.001).

Using several separate, repeated measure analysis of variances may produce misleading results, when there is more than one response variable measured over time, Multivariate statistical methods (including joint longitudinal models), should be used.

Patients with COVID-19 have shown a wide variety of symptoms and mortality rates in different communities.

This study aimed to compare the epidemiological, clinical, and paraclinical features of patients with COVID-19 who have overcome the disease with patients who died.

All hospitalized patients admitted to Special Corona Hospital who had a positive real-time PCR test for SARS-CoV-2 from January to March 2020 were included in the study. Clinical characteristics, date of disease onset, hospital admission date, and the severity of COVID-19 were obtained from each patient’smedical records. Independent sample t-test was used to compare continuous variables between the groups of the discharged and expired patients. The independence between categorical variables and the outcome was assessed by Chi-square or Fisher’s exact tests.

The order of essential variables for admission as the starting time are pH, WBC count, loss of consciousness, neutrophil count, base excess (BE), HCO3, age, BUN, O2 saturation, and lymphocyte count.

In the current study, the mortality rate of COVID-19 was 30% and was significantly associated with critical disease intensity, fever, chills, loss of consciousness, ischemic heart disease (IHD) history, Parkinson’s disease, invasive O2 therapy, and troponin level.

Psychosocial factors are among the factors affecting employee productivity. Since few studies have been done in this field, this study was conducted to investigate the relationship between psychosocial factors regarding productivity.

This cross-sectional and descriptive-analytical study was conducted in 2020 among 105 employees of a food distribution company in Ahvaz. Data collection tools included demographic information questionnaire, Copenhagen Psychosocial Factors Questionnaire (COPSOQ) and Goldsmith Hershey Productivity Questionnaire. Independent t-test, one-way analysis of variance and Pearson correlation coefficient were used to investigate the relationship between variables.

The results showed that there was no significant relationship between any of the demographic variables with the score of psychosocial factors and productivity (P> 0.05). Psychosocial factor 2 has a negative and significant relationship with the average score of productivity, ability, role clarity, organizational support, motivation, feedback and credibility. And psychosocial factor 4 has a negative and significant relationship with motivation. The mean score of psychosocial factors, factor 1 and 3 showed a positive and significant relationship with the mean score of productivity, ability, role clarity, organizational support, motivation, feedback and credibility.

Considering the role of psychosocial factors on employeechr('39') productivity, it is necessary to consider organizational interventions in order to control effective psychosocial factors. More attention to psychosocial factors in the workplace can play an effective role in the efficiency and productivity of employees and the organization.

In vitro fertilization (IVF) is a useful assisted reproductive technology to achieve pregnancy in infertilecouples. However, it is very important to optimize the success rate after IVF by controlling for its influencing factors.This study aims to classify successful deliveries after IVF according to couples’ characteristics and available data onoocytes, sperm, and embryos using several classification methods. This historical cohort study was conducted in a referral infertility centre located inTehran, Iran. The patients’ demographic and clinical variables for 6071 cycles during March 21, 2011 to March20, 2014 were collected. We used six different machine learning approaches including support vector machine(SVM), extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost), logistic regression (LR), random forest (RF), naïve Bayes (NB),and linear discriminant analysis (LDA) to predict successful delivery. The results of the performed methods werecompared using accuracy tools. The rate of successful delivery was 81.2% among 4930 cycles. The total accuracy of the results exposed RFhad the best performance among the six approaches (ACC=0.81). Regarding the importance of variables, total numberof embryos, number of injected oocytes, cause of infertility, female age, and polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) werethe most important factors predicting successful delivery. A successful delivery following IVF in infertile individuals is considerably affected by the number ofembryos, number of injected oocytes, cause of infertility, female age, and PCOS.

Screw loosening is one of the most common problems associated with implant-supported prostheses. The type and material of the abutment play an important role in the esthetic appearance of implant-supported restorations. Metal abutments create an unaesthetic grayish halo in the gingival margin of the implant due to the reflection of light from the surface of titanium abutment. Zirconia is highly popular for the fabrication of abutments due to its optimal color, along with the quality of light transmission and its resistance. The present study aimed to evaluate the torque loss in titanium and one- and two-piece zirconia abutments under cyclic loading.

In general, 24 abutments in three groups (n=8) of one- and two-piece zirconia abutments, and titanium abutments were evaluated in this experimental study. The abutments were attached to the analog of fixtures with 30 N/cm torque and the samples were subjected to loads applied to the center of abutments at 30° angle. After cyclic loading, the removal torque value was measured for each abutment and its numerical mean was calculated as well. Finally, the groups were compared using SPSS16 via ANOVA and Games-Howell tests at a 0.05 level of significance.

The mean removal torque value was 23.925, 23.913, and 22.538 N/cm in titanium and two- and one-piece zirconia abutments, respectively, with no statistically significant difference in between (P>0.05).

The highest mean removal torque value belonged to prefabricated titanium abutments while the lowest value was related to one-piece zirconia abutments.

Diagnosis of enamel caries and evaluation of proximal caries depth are some of the main problems in caries detection. In this study, a new method based on image processing techniques proposed that applied to radiographic images. The purpose of this method was to automatically identify and segment decayed areas of the teeth.

For this study which was done in Hamedan province of Iran, several molar and pre-molar teeth images with 158 inter-proximal surfaces were selected. Sixty teeth with dentinal caries, 31 enamel restricted caries, 11 DEJ limited caries, and finally 56 surfaces without any caries were detected. The teeth were placed inside the prepared acrylic blocks, and the intra-proximal and occlusal contacts of the teeth were reconstructed. Then digital imaging was performed, and the results considered as the input of the proposed image processing method. In the proposed method, after preprocessing of images, by applying morphological operators, and with the help of the K-means clustering, caries were automatically detected. The final results and information were analyzed by SPSS software.

The sensitivity of the proposed method was 86.7% for dentinal caries, 67.7% for enamel caries, and 63.6% of caries that limited to DEJ. The specificity was 100%, and the overall sensitivity reported as 78.4%. There was no false positive, the false negative and the accuracy of the method were 21.6% and 86% respectively.

The findings of the present study show that the software designed to detect proximal caries has acceptable diagnostic accuracy. In the proposed method, based on observations, the sensitivity of caries detection improves with an increase in depth of decay. Therefore, it qualifies better in detecting dentinal caries than enamel and DEJ caries.

Accuracy of measurements obtained from cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) images, which is a diagnostic tool in dentistry, is an important issue. The aim of this study was to compare the ability of different operators in measuring dimensions using CBCT software.

In this experimental study, 35 different areas using opaque objects and drilling cavities were prepared on 3 phantoms which were made from fresh beef ribs. Then each phantom was scanned by CBCT Promax 3D. The mentioned areas were measured on CBCT images 2 times with one week interval by four observer groups consisting two radiologists, two periodontists, two maxillofacial surgeons, and two general dentists. Obtained measurements from each group of observers were compared with those of other groups and also with measurements of a digital caliper as a gold standard by intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC). Then the measured dimensions, with respect to their application, were divided into three clusters including cluster 1: 2-7 mm, cluster 2: 7-16 mm, and cluster 3: more than 16 mm. T test was used to compare the mean value of each cluster with the mean value of the gold standard.

In general, based on ICC, inter- and intra-observer agreement, agreement between observer groups, and agreement between each group and the gold standard were significant. The results of t test showed a significant difference between the mean value of data and that of gold standard in clusters 1 and 3.

Generally, high accuracy and reliability were reported for different specialists of dentistry and general dentists in measuring the dimensions of objects and cavities in CBCT images.

Infertility is a public health problem and can lead to depressive symptoms. In recent years, the WHO-five Well-being Index (WHO-5) has been used as a screening measure for depression, but study on psychometric properties in people with infertility is scarce. The objective of this study was to examine the reliability and validity of the Persian version of the WHO-5 in people with infertility.

Overall, 539 infertile patients from a referral infertility center in Tehran, Iran in the period between May and Aug 2017, completed the WHO-5, along with other psychological measures: the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). Construct validity and internal consistency of WHO-5 were evaluated using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and Cronbach’s alpha, respectively. Convergent validity was examined by relationship with PHQ-9 and HADS.

The prevalence of poor well-being was 44.3% and that of depression was 18.6%. CFA confirmed the unidimensional factor structure of the WHO-5. Internal consistency of the WHO-5 was good (Cronbach’s alpha=0.858). The WHO-5 significantly correlated with the PHQ-9 (r=-0.522), HADS-anxiety (r=-0.524) and HADS-depression (r=-0.630), confirming convergent validity.

The WHO-5 is a short and easy to use questionnaire with satisfactory reliability and validity that appears suitable for use as a screening test for depressive symptom in infertile people. In addition, the prevalence of depression and poor well-being was very high in this population.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of time elapsed after extraction on the buccolingual angulation of alveolar bone in the posterior mandibular region using cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) images. Material & The CBCT images of 56 patients who referred to the Radiology Department of Hamadan Dental School, Hamadan, Iran, were evaluated in this study. The scans were performed using the New Tom 3G scanner. The patients were divided into three groups regarding the time elapsed after extraction, namely: 6 month-2 years, 2-5years and >5 years.  Buccolingual angulation of ridge in the second premolar, first molar, and second molar areas on both sides (with and without tooth) were measured in cross-section views (slice thickness: 1mm, interval: 2mm) using NNT viewer software. The data were analyzed in SPSS software (Version. 22) through paired t-test and regression. The changing of buccolingual angulation in the second molar area in each group was not statistically significant (P<0.05). In the first molar area, buccolingual angulation increased in the time elapsed after 6 months-2years and over 5 years and it was statistically significant (P<0.05). However, regarding the time elapsed between 2-5 years, the difference was close to the margin of statistical significance. In the second premolar area, changes were not statistically significant in time elapsed from 6 months to 2 years and 2-5 years; however,  it was significant regarding the time elapsed after extraction of over 5 years (P<0.05). The elapsed time did not have any significant effect on the buccolingual angulation in the toothless area of the second molar. Regarding the first molar area, tooth extraction increased the buccolingual angulation. In addition, an increase was observed in the buccolingual angulation after 5 years of the tooth extraction at the area of the second molar.