Search

Background:Residency programs leading to board certification are important for safe and competent Radiation Oncology (RO) practice. In some developing nations, there is a gap in this field. This work addresses the experience that was accomplished to establish such a program in Iraq despite all the challenges that faces a country under war. Methods:Descriptive report of challenges faced in a developing country that is still reeling from war, the steps taken to overcome these challenges and outcomes after graduation of two classes. Results:After over 18 months of prerequisite technical and logistical preparations, a group of local and external faculty members were invited to establish the required syllabus of a structured RO residency program in Iraq. It is comprised of a total of 100 post-graduate academic credits over a 48-months period after clinical internship. First year evaluations included regular practical assessments; seven in-house papers covering RO, cancer and radiation biology, medical physics, radiological anatomy and diagnostic oncology, tumor pathology, onco-pharmacology, and medical statistics, research methodology, and cancer epidemiology, followed by a comprehensive examination. Subsequent evaluations were on an annual bases with enrollment in the American College of Radiology In-Training examination in RO. Final assessment included logbook and skills' reviews, graduation thesis or peer-review publication, two-papers' written examination, and an exit practical examination. Conclusions:Given the political, economic and social difficulties in post-war Iraq, it was a major challenge to establish a residency program in RO. Despite the significant difficulties, the first residency program leading to board certification in RO was successfully started in Iraq. The new specialists will help in addressing the shortage of radiation oncologists in the country.

The semantic reasoning (العلّة) is the explanation of the linguistic phenomenon, the influence behind it and the explanation of the reasons that made it the way it is used. The scholars guided a group of semantic causes, and this guidance is based on hearing the Arabs from what was transmitted in the correct narration outside the limit of the few to the point of abundance. while it was proven from the eloquent documented speech, they were invoked in directing holy verses to confirm and rejecting what has been proved through hearing the ancestor’s speeches. While scholars mistily are committed to rules of the semantic reasoning, there are some discussions about how, when and if the semantic reasoning could be followed. Among these disputes is pronunciation of (و) in the holy verse: "وَالَّذِينَ اتَّخَذُواْ مَسْجِدًا ضِرَارًا" (Al-Tawba, 107). This research is dedicated to discuss the phenomena in Arabic language.

At present, deep learning is widely used in a broad range of arenas. A convolutional neural networks (CNN) is becoming the star of deep learning as it gives the best and most precise results when cracking real-world problems. In this work, a brief description of the applications of CNNs in two areas will be presented: First, in computer vision, generally, that is, scene labeling, face recognition, action recognition, and image classification; Second, in natural language processing, that is, the fields of speech recognition and text classification.

Background: Residency programs leading to board certification are important for safe and competent Radiation Oncology (RO) practice. In some developing nations, there is a gap in this field. This work addresses the experience that was accomplished to establish such a program in Iraq despite all the challenges that faces a country under war. Methods: Descriptive report of challenges faced in a developing country that is still reeling from war, the steps taken to overcome these challenges and outcomes after graduation of two classes. Results: After over 18 months of prerequisite technical and logistical preparations, a group of local and external faculty members were invited to establish the required syllabus of a structured RO residency program in Iraq. It is comprised of a total of 100 post-graduate academic credits over a 48-months period after clinical internship. First year evaluations included regular practical assessments; seven in-house papers covering RO, cancer and radiation biology, medical physics, radiological anatomy and diagnostic oncology, tumor pathology, onco-pharmacology, and medical statistics, research methodology, and cancer epidemiology, followed by a comprehensive examination. Subsequent evaluations were on an annual bases with enrollment in the American College of Radiology In-Training examination in RO. Final assessment included logbook and skills' reviews, graduation thesis or peer-review publication, two-papers’ written examination, and an exit practical examination. Conclusions: Given the political, economic and social difficulties in post-war Iraq, it was a major challenge to establish a residency program in RO. Despite the significant difficulties, the first residency program leading to board certification in RO was successfully started in Iraq. The new specialists will help in addressing the shortage of radiation oncologists in the country. Keywords: Radiation oncology residency, War-torn nation, Developing country, Iraq

Background and objective: Identifying factors affecting the level of knowledge and attitude towards the harms of smoking and determining the exact effect of each of these factors, including health literacy could help to improve knowledge and attitudes toward the harms of smoking. Therefore, this study aimed to identify the effect of health literacy levels on knowledge and attitudes towards the harms of smoking Methods: This cross-sectional and correlational study was conducted on 347 dormitory students of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran. single-stage random cluster sampling was used and data were collected using HELIA for urban population aged between 18-65 years old and researcher-made questionnaire that measured knowledge and attitudes towards smoking and its harms and then were analyzed using descriptive statistics and logistic regression test. Results: The mean and standard deviation of health literacy score was 70.52 ± 14.12 out of 100. The mean and standard deviation of knowledge and attitude scores were 16.65 ± 1.62 and 53.03 ± 10.33, respectively. Health literacy was significantly associated with knowledge and attitudes towards the harms of smoking. Accordingly, inadequate, relatively adequate, adequate and excellent levels of health literacy were significantly associated to knowledge and attitude towards the harms of smoking. Conclusion: Due to the effect of health literacy on knowledge and attitude of students about the harmful effects of smoking, the design of related educational programs should pay particular attention to the level of health literacy of the audience Paper Type: Research Article.

The objectives of research were to create tree ring chronology of juniper trees and investigation on the relationship between the growth rate of the tree and the climate. Juniper trees are naturally distributed in High Mountain with semi-arid and arctic climate condition of Iran. Samples were collected from 20 trees in Shah-Kouh Mountain with 54° 42´ 58˝ longitude and 36° 61´ 01˝ latitude coordinate. Increment core were prepared and analyzed. The time span for tree ring chronology was 271 year (1741-2012 AD). Tree ring chronology statistic for MS, EPS, SNR, were 5.6, 0.85, 0.29 respectively. Correlation between tree ring index and climate data showed that mean temperature in the previous growing season is an important factor for growth of juniper trees. The result of this research can help the development of climate data and is useful for the creation of weather atlas.

During 2008, a severe deluge in Sari caused huge damages and Cupressus sempervirens l. var. horizantalis trees in botany garden of Natural Sciences College were also fallen by the overflow. To perform the study the fallen trees disks and cores of standing trees were prepared. Using Lintab Measurement Table, the width of each growth ring per year and their average were calculated. The raw data related to rings growth were standardized by method of ARSTAN and index average of growth rings was recorded. To study the relationship between climatic variables and C. sempervirens rings growth, data of Babolsar and Tajan synoptic stations were found. The observation results of fallen trees in flat sites showed that C. sempervirens is not resistant against deluge and in the places which ground water table is raised; C. sempervirens is not suggested for planting. Numerical results also indicated that the mean growth ring is about 3.62 mm per year. Taking into account the bark width, the average of trunk diameter after 40 years was about 30 cm. Temperature increase during the Past years had caused the trend of growth width to reduce. Also the relation of index average of growth with rainfall showed that precipitation is an effective factor on C. sempervirens growth and as a result, the average of rainfall in April had a positive and significance effect on C. sempervirens growth (R= 0.61 and P

Objective(s): A far-reaching body of the literature highlights that continuous performing of diabetes self-management behaviors is effective on diabetics. Nowadays among self-care behaviors, physical activity is the most important behavior that influences diabetes control. This study aimed to understand and predict physical activity behavior based on the extended theory of reasoned action among women with type 2 diabetes, in Khoy located in Western North of Iran.Methods: An eligible sample of 352 women with type 2 diabetes, referring to a Diabetes Clinic and the Charity Foundation for Diabetes Disease participated in the study. Appropriate instruments were designed to measure the variables of interest (diabetes knowledge, personal beliefs, subjective norm, self-efficacy and behavioral intention along with physical activity behavior). Reliability and validity of the instruments were examined and approved. Statistical analyses of study were conducted by SPSS package.Results: The findings of investigation indicated that there exists a statistical significant correlation among independent constructs of proposed model with Model-related dependent variables, as among constructs of model, self-efficacy was the strongest predictor of intentions among women with type 2 diabetes. This construct both directly and indirectly affected physical activity behavior. In addition to self efficacy, diabetics' physical activity also is influenced by other variables of model and sociodemographic factors.Conclusion: Our findings suggest the high ability of the extended theory of reasoned action with self-efficacy in forecasting and explaining physical activity can be a base for educational intervention. Thus, for improving diabetics' physical activity behavior and finally controlling the disease, using educational interventions based on proposed model are necessary.

Introduction: Despite the fact that cervical cancer is highly preventable, it still continues to occur, even among women who have access to cancer screening and treatment services. This study aimed to determine the effect of health education program based on Health Belief Model on the performance Pap smear test. Material and Methods: This random clinical trial was carried out on 120 women in Zarandieh. Data were collected using a valid and reliable questionnaire based on Health Belief Model which was completed by the participants. After the analysis of pre-test results, the educational program was designed and the experimental group participated in 3 educational sessions during one week. Two months after the intervention, a post-test was performed and analyzed using t-test، t-paired and x2. Results: Our findings indicated that mean scores of HBM Model constructs (self-efficacy, susceptibility, severity, benefit and barriers perceived) were significantly increased in the experimental group compared to the controls after the intervention. Also, performance of pap smear test increased significantly among the experimental group as compared to the controls after the intervention(P

Plants such as tree species respond to their surrounding environmental variations over their biological life cycle. One of the techniques to study the tree response to environmental conditions is dendrochronolog. In this study, 20 samples were prepared from 10 Zelkova carpinifolia trees in Badleh-Sari area. The effects of climate variables (precipitation and temperature) on annual rings of Zelkova carpinifolia trees were examined. Samples rings cross-date was determined using dendrochronological method. Also a chronology of 78 years period was made (1932-2012 AD). Mean Sensitivity (MS), mean correlation coefficient between the samples (trees), EPS and SNR, were determined as 20%, 0.5, 0.88 and 4.11 respectively. Analysis of the relationship between growth and climate over the period of 1951 – 2005, using response function (RF) showed that temperature did not significantly affect growth but total precipitation in February had positive effect (r = 0.45 p