In recent years, there has been growing interest in measuring the efficiency of hospitals in Iran and several studies have been conducted on the topic. The main objective of this paper was to review studies in the field of hospital efficiency and examine the estimated technical efficiency (TE) of Iranian hospitals.

Background: The higher risk of death resulting from excess adiposity may be attenuated by physical activity (PA). However, the theoretical number of deaths reduced by eliminating physical inactivity compared with overall and abdominal obesity remains unclear. Objective: We examined whether overall and abdominal adiposity modified the association between PA and all-cause mortality and estimated the

Breast cancer is the most common cancer form among women in the Western world. Although treatment has improved during the last decades, there is still a significant proportion of the patients who are not cured. To further improve clinical outcome we need new treatment strategies, new prognostic markers, and new treatment predictive factors for personalized medicine.In this dissertation I have focu

A 41-year-old woman with SAPHO syndrome presented with numbness of her left arm followed by a generalized seizure. Computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging of the brain revealed a small ring enhancing lesion in the right parietal lobe with adjacent meningeal thickening and enhancement. Surgical removal and histopathology showed evidence of severe chronic sterile inflammation and no malig

Residual stresses have in the past been introduced to manipulate growth rates and shapes of cracks under cyclic loads. Previously, the effectiveness of shot peening in retarding the rate of fatigue crack growth was experimentally studied. It was shown that the compressive residual stresses arising from the shot peening process can affect the rate of crack growth. Laser shock peening can produce a

Environmental impacts from incineration, decentralised composting and centralised anaerobic digestion of solid organic household waste are compared using the EASEWASTE LCA-tool. The comparison is based on a full scale case study in southern Sweden and used input-data related to aspects such as source-separation behaviour, transport distances, etc. are site-specific. Results show that biological tr

Differently homogenised and heat treated potato pulp, used as a dietary fibre additive in low-fat sausages, gave rise to an enhanced instrumentally and sensory measured firmness and compactness, respectively. This is believed to be due to the high content of insoluble fibre, which creates a fibrous network that enhances the texture of the sausage, while not interfering with the meat protein networ

The BH3 interacting-domain death agonist (BID) is a pro-apoptotic protein involved in death receptor-induced and mitochondria-mediated apoptosis. Recently, it has also been suggested that BID is involved in the regulation of inflammatory responses in the central nervous system. We found that BID deficiency protected organotypic hippocampal slice cultures in vitro from neuronal injury induced by ox

To outline a framework for preparedness planning at the organizational level.

Abstract in UndeterminedThis paper presents a filtering ADC for the LTE communication standard, where a second-order Delta-Sigma modulator (DSM) is incorporated into the third-order Chebychev channel-select filter (CSF) of the radio receiver. The CSF introduces an additional third-order suppression of both thermal and quantization DSM noise, while the CSF transfer function is maintained. A design

AimTo identify the factors responsible for the low health-related quality of life associated with foot ulcers and the relative importance of these factors. MethodsA total of 1232 patients with a new foot ulcer, who presented at one of the 14 centres in 10 European countries participating in the Eurodiale study, were included in this cross-sectional study. Patient and ulcer characteristics were obt

High poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) (PHB) content and volumetric productivity were achieved by fed-batch culture of Halomonas boliviensis using a defined medium. Initial shake flask cultivations in a minimal medium revealed that the growth of H. boliviensis was supported only when the medium was supplemented with aspartic acid, glycine, or glutamine. Addition of 0.1% (w/v) glutamine in the medium resulte

Oxidative stress (i.e., more oxidants than antioxidants) has been proposed as a proximate currency in life-history trade-offs, which if studied in an ecological setting allow a more realistic perspective on the origin and evolution of trade-offs. Therefore, the aim here was to investigate the impact of ecological and individual factors for variation in markers of oxidative stress using both experi

Specimens of Planolites, a tubular ichnofossil, from the Harkless Formation (Cambrian of Nevada) are commonly rimmed by thin layers of limonite, a probable pseudomorph after pyrite, suggesting that bacterially induced biomineralization played a key role in the preservation of the burrows. Organic material secreted by a vermiform, infaunal tracemaker is inferred to have formed the substrate for a b

The determination of temperature distribution is an essential task when flames are characterized. We propose a new approach for flame thermometry based on laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) utilizing the temperature dependency of the breakdown threshold laser pulse energy. Calibration measurements are carried out in heated gas flows and post-combustion gases. Compositional effects on the

Photoelectron-Auger electron coincidence spectroscopy is a powerful tool for the investigation of Auger decay processes with different core-ionized intermediate states. In this paper we describe an investigation into the Auger decay of the O-2 molecule, with the purpose of bringing new insight into the dynamics of the core hole decay mechanism. Using a novel experimental approach to measuring such

This study aims to determine the potential origin of Olea pollen recorded in Badajoz in the Southwest of the Iberian Peninsula during 2009-2011. This was achieved using a combination of daily average and diurnal (hourly) airborne Olea pollen counts recorded at Badajoz (south-western Spain) and A parts per thousand vora (south-eastern Portugal), an inventory of olive groves in the studied area and

The principle of force feedback is to design a sensor as a feedback system where the action of the measured variable is compensated by a force generated by feedback. Force feedback has contributed significantly to improve the quality of sensors. A characteristic feature of MEMS devices is that they are subject to random disturbances, such as Brownian motion, Johnson-Nyquist noise, and tunneling no