[ effect of 8-weeks compound exercises training with omega-3 and l-carnitine supplementation intake on serum levels of visfatin in type 2 diabetic women]

Introduction: The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of 8 weeks of compound exercises with simultaneous omega-3 and l-carnitine supplementation on serum levels of Visfatin in type II Diabetic Women

Materials and Methods: This quasi-experimental study included a pretest and post-test with 5 experimental groups and one control group. Participants of the study were type II diabetic women, average age 52.7 +/- 1.6 years and body mass index 29.82 +/- 4.35 kg/m[2], who were randomly divided into 6 groups of 10 individuals each: 1. Exercise+placebo 2. Exercise+omega-3, 3. Exercise+L carnitine, 4. Exercise+ omega 3+ L- carnitine, 5. L-carnitine+omega-3 and 6. The control group. Omega-3 supplementation groups daily consumed 2000 mg of omega-3 and L-carnitine group 500 mg L-carnitine either. Training included 3 sessions per week, each session consisted of 30 minutes of aerobic exercise with 60-70% of maximum heart rate and 30-40 minute of circular resistance training with 60% of repetition maximum [1RM]

Results: T-test showed that visfatin levels in groups 3, 4 and 5 [p0.05

Conclusion: The results of this study, show that compound exercises, along with and simultaneous supplementation of Omega-3 and with l-carnitine, are appropriate stimuli to curtail visfatin levels and reduce risk factors in type 2 diabetic women

Modified culture methodology for specific detection of blastocystis hominis in stool samples

Blastocystis hominis provides major challenges for laboratory diagnosis due to its polymorphic nature in wet mounts which can result in confusion with other protozoa, yeast or even fat globules. Studies revealed that simple smears were less sensitive than in vitro cultivation using different media for the detection of B. hominis in stool specimens. Cultures of B. hominis are usually enriched by different types of sera to enhance growth and multiplication of the parasite. The aim of this study is to assess the use of two sera types other than horse serum that is commonly used in culture media for the growth, multiplication and detection of B. hominis in examined stool samples and comparing the results with those obtained using horse serum. Fifty stool samples were collected from patients suffering from different colonic manifestations attending Cairo University Hospitals. The samples were freshly cultured in three different culture media using horse serum [in Jones' medium], donkey serum [as a modification in Jones' medium] and human plasma [in modified Pavlova's medium] in adequate preparations. Cultures were then left for incubation and examined by direct microscopy to detect Blastocystis hominis. The results showed of 50 stool samples studied, 18 samples [36%] were positive results for 3. hominis. The number of positive results obtained by horse serum, donkey serum and human plasma were 13, 18 and 11 respectively. Paired comparisons were made between each 2 cultures with each culture set as a reference once to detect the most appropriate one for diagnosis. When horse was set as the reference method, donkey serum showed a sensitivity of 100% and specificity of 86.5% with a 90% agreement between the 2 methods. While human plasma showed a sensitivity of 46.2% and specificity of 86.5% with an agreement of 76%. In addition, the vacuolar form was the commonest pattern observed in this study throughout all the three cultures

[ effect of C-bar Splint on hand function in 8-12 years old spastic diplegic children]

Cerebral palsy [CP] is a neurodevelopmental disorder caused by nonprogressive lesions. This disorder produces motor impairment deficits in early infancy. Hand function is essential in performing activities of daily living for everyone, including individuals with cerebral palsy. Adequate first web space is essential for web space expansion, thumb abduction, and a wide range of thumb mobility and hand function. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of C-bar splint on hand function and strength and also wrist and thumb range of motion [ROM] of dominant hand of 8-12 years old children with spastic diplegic cerebral palsy. The design of this study was before- after and quasi-experimental. According with inclusion criteria, 8 to 12 years old children with spastic diplegia from physical - motor special school at Tehran [8 boys and 5 girls], were studied. They used a C-bar splint [40 degree of palmer abduction of thumb] for 8 weeks [6-8 hours during day and 4-6 hours at night]. In this study, hand function was evaluated by Jebsen Taylor Hand Function Test, hand strength by MIE dynamometer and thumb and wrist ROM by Goniometer. During intervention, they received routine occupational therapy program. The results of this study showed significant improvement in hand function [P=0.001], and thumb range of motion [P=0.02]. The data did not show any significant improvement in wrist ROM and hand strength. According to the result of this study, it seems that using C-bar splint can be an effective method in improvement of hand function and thumb ROM in 8-12 years old children with spastic diplegia

Equality in distribution of human resources: the case of Iran's ministry of health and medical education

Equity in access to and utilization of health services is a common goal of policy-makers in most countries. The fair allocation of human resources is one of the dimensions of equity, which was evaluated in this study. We evaluated the equity of human resources' distribution among Iran's medical science universities between 2005 and 2009 by inequality measures including Lorenze curve, Gini coefficient and Rabin hood indexes. In the distribution 60403 recruitment licenses among medical universities with 72456140 covered populations, Gini coefficient was 0.167 and Robin Hood Index 0.11. Calculations indicated Recruitment licenses are equitably distributed in MOH and ME of Iran. However a portion of recruitment licenses should redistributed for achieving perfect equal distribution among all public medical universities of Iran

Allocation of health resources according to the type and size of Iranian governmental hospitals

Due to consuming about 50%-80% of health resources, hospitals are the greatest and costly operational units in Iranian Health system. so allocation of resources specially human and space resources as the most expensive ones is really important for further controlling of costs, analysis of costs and making suitable policies for increasing the profitability and allocation of resources and improvement of quality. This paper intends to describe and analyze any allocation of resources in 530 university hospitals in Iran. The final goal of this research is to provide a data bank according which there is a basis for more scientific budget allocation of state's hospitals from the size and type of application points of view. The relevant index of person to bed was 2.04 for human resources. All hospitals more than 300 beds are located in benefiting areas from which 17 cases are educational and 2 cases are therapeutic. This is necessary to mention that the rate of management group forces to total personnel at deprived areas is about 2.5% more than benefiting areas. Because 60-80% of hospital costs are applied for human forces, all managers of hospitals are obliged to revise their policies in attraction and employment of human force in order to benefit from such a valuable resource and prevent from expensive costs. So any employment of personnel should be based upon real needs of hospital

[Validity and reliability of Persion version of home falls and accident screening tool in Iraniaian elderly]

One of the common problems in elderly people is falling. The effort to identify environmental risk factors at home and their modifications may control falls and injury in the elderly. Home FAST as a valid and reliable screening tool is used to identify elderly at risk of falling at home and in society. International quality of life assessment [IQOLA] was used for validity and reliability of Home fast. After forward and backward translation, the questionnaire was evaluated for content validity by 5 occupational therapists. Sixty participants aged over 65 were randomly selected through five geographical regions of Tehran. Inter-rater and test-retest with one week interval were conducted by two occupational therapists. Agreement among experts about the validity of screening tool of Home FAST [x[2]= 25.008] were more than 96%.The correlations of test-retest with relative and absolute coefficients were high [ICC = 0.72 and SEM = 0.89]. Also, the correlation coefficients between the raters with absolute and relative [ICC = 0.88 and SEM = 0.54] were significant, indicating the high reliability of this test. This study shows the reliability and validity of the test are high. Since, test items are conformable to fall prevention goals, these results can be expected. The tool can be used by professionals

effect of verbal instructions on allocation of attention on postural control in young adults

The importance of cognitive resources was shown in dual task studies of postural control. However, there was no definite evidence on how verbal instructions influence the allocation of attention to postural control. Therefore, the objective of this study is to explore the effect of verbal instructions on postural performance. this Cross-sectional study was performed in 20 young adults [23.95 +/- 3.31]. Parallel standing/ hard surface, parallel standing/ foam surface, tandem standing/ hard surface were used as postural tasks and the choice reaction time task were conducted as cognitive task. Dual- task performance was measured under three different instructions including to pay attention to cognitive task, to postural task, and equal attention to both tasks. Comparing the performance of postural tasks under three different instructions were conducted by One-way ANOVA and showed in parallel standing on hard surface [p=0.831], parallel standing on foam [p=0.433], tandem standing on hard surface [p=0.912] for path length of COP and instructions in parallel standing on hard surface [p=0.308], parallel standing on foam [p=0.414], tandem standing on hard surface [p=0.867] for mean velocity were not significant. Postural performance in single and dual task conditions was significant only in parallel standing/ foam surface [p=0.046]. various instructions could not influence the amount of attention allocated to automatic postural tasks

Excess sludge minimization in conventional activated sludge pilot plant; by three chemical matters

The excess sludge treatment and sludge disposal are major factors to the over-all economy of wastewater treatment plants [WWTP]. The ideal solution to the problem of sludge disposal is to combine sludge minimization with contamination removal at the source. In this study, the effect of ozonation, chlorination and 3,3,4,5-tetrachlorosalicylanilide [TCS] to treat part of the return activated sludge flow with the intention of reducing the overall plant yield in a conventional activated sludge pilot, were investigated in a side-stream pilot reactor. It was found that in the case of ozonation 8% g O[3]/g MLSS, and in the case of chlorination 2% g Cl[2]/g MLSS produce the best results. In the utilization of TCS method, the excess sludge production was reduced by 80% per day at a TCS dose of 1% g TCS/g MLSS. In all the above experiments a reduction in the volume of the excess sludge was achieved, while the efficiency of removal chemical oxygen demand [COD] from the reactor without the use of those methods was not significantly different

Dicephalus dibrachius with anencephaly

We present a case of inferior conjunction in a rare type of conjoined twins, dicephalus in a male fetus. The male fetus was born to a 24-year-old, gravida 2, and para 0, who had medical abortion at 15 weeks of gestation due to anencephaly with meningoencephalocele revealed by ultrasound examination. The fetus was born with 2 anencephalic heads with a bifurcation of the vertebral column and presence of 2 spinal cords. The other viscera and limbs were normal in number and location as for a male singleton. This case illustrates the relationship between conjoined twining, and neural tube defect more particularly anencephaly with a male zygote, which is an unusual presentation for this type of zygote gender