Background: Sulfur dioxide is a colorless gas, released from burning of coal, high-sulfur coal, and diesel fuel. Sulfur dioxide harms human health by reacting with the moisture in the nose, nasal cavity and throat and this is the way by which it destroys the nerves in the respiratory system.Objectives: The aim of this study was to focus on identifying the effects associated with sulfur dioxide on health in Ahvaz, Iran.Materials and Methods: Data collections were performed by Ahvaz meteorological organization and the department of environment. Sampling was performed for 24 hours in four stations. Methods of sampling and analysis were according to US environmental protection agency (EPA) guideline. Afterwards, we processed the raw data including instruction set correction of averaging, coding and filtering by Excel software and then, the impact of meteorological parameters were converted as the input file to the AirQ model. Finally, we calculated the health effects of exposure to sulfur dioxide.Results: According to the findings, the concentration of sulfur dioxide in Ahvaz had an annual average of 51 mg/m3. Sum of the numbers of hospital admissions for respiratory diseases attributed to sulfur dioxide was 25 cases in 2012. Approximately, 5% of the total hospital admissions for respiratory disease and respiratory mortality happened when sulfur dioxide concentration was more than 10 mg/m3.Conclusions: According to the results of this study, this increase could be due to higher fuel consumption, usage of gasoline in vehicles, oil industry, and steel and heavy industries in Ahwaz. The risk of mortality and morbidity were detected at the current concentrations of air pollutants.

We introduce  Ciri c-generalized quasicontractive fuzzy mappings and pro-vide the necessary and sufficient conditions of having a unique endpoint for such mappings. Then we introduce --quasicontractive fuzzy mappings, es-tablishing an endpoint result for them. Finally, we provide some results as an application.

Many researchers have provided certain interesting results for endpoints of some contractions in metric spaces. In this paper, we introduce --contractive multivalued mappings in F-metric spaces and establish some endpoint results in this framework. An illustrative example is given to elaborate the usability of our main result. In the sequel, we give some endpoint theorems for Suzuki-type contractive multivalued mappings and provide an application to integral equations.

endpoint detection is very important undertaking on the side of getting a good understanding and figuring out if a plasma etching process is done in the right way, especially if the etched area is very small (0.1%). It truly is a crucial part of supplying repeatable effects in every single wafer. When the film being etched has been completely cleared, the endpoint is reached. To ensure the desired device performance on the produced integrated circuit, the high optical emission spectroscopy (OES) sensor is employed. The huge number of gathered wavelengths (profiles) is then analyzed and pre-processed using a new proposed simple algorithm named Spectra peak selection (SPS) to select the important wavelengths, then we employ wavelet analysis (WA) to enhance the performance of detection by suppressing noise and redundant information.The selected and treated OES wavelengths are then used in modified multivariate control charts (MEWMA and Hotelling) for three statistics (mean, SD and CV) and windowed polynomial regression for mean. The employ of three aforementioned statistics is motivated by controlling mean shift, variance shift and their ratio (CV) if both mean and SD are not stable. The control charts show their performance in detecting endpoint especially W-mean Hotelling chart and the worst result is given by CV statistic. As the best detection of endpoint is given by the W-Hotelling mean statistic, this statistic will be used to construct a windowed wavelet Hotelling polynomial regression. This latter can only identify the window containing endpoint phenomenon.

Background and Objective: Here,it is tried to assess an insight behind using IFN-G, IL-2,IL-4, and IL-10 biomarkers as potential surrogate endpoints for skin diseases caused by exposure to mustard gas. Potentially, a biomarker is a valid surrogate if assessment of the treatment effect based on surrogate endpoint leads to the same result based on true clinical endpoint.Materials and Methods: In Sardasht-Iran Cohort study including 328 individuals, 235 subjects exposed to mustard gas taken from Sardasht as the exposed group and 93 subjects not exposed to mustard gas taken from Rabat, through comparison of related risk ratios, it is tried to assess whether IFN-G, IL-2, IL-4, and IL-10 biomarkers can be offered as potential surrogates for skin disorders caused by exposure to mustard gas.Results: It was found out that IL-2 (at three levels of serum, mitogen and mitogen-nill), IL-10 (at four levels of serum, mitogen, mitogen-nill and nill), and IL-4 (at two levels of mitogen and mitogen-nill) can be used as surrogates, because the survey of no exposure effect of mustard gas based on these biomarkers would led to the same conclusion of the same survey based on existence or non-existence of skin disorders as true clinical endpoint. But IL-4 at serum level and IFN-G at three levels do not have this property.Conclusion: Using IL-2 at three levels, IL-10 at four levels and IL-4 at two levels, the study of no exposure effect of mustard gas on skin disorders can be tested without waiting for skin disorders as the true clinical endpoints.

Background and Objectives: Breast cancer is the leading cause of death from cancer among women. In developing countries, the patients’ survival is less than developed countries. Metastasis, as an intermediate event, affects the survival of breast cancer patients. This study aimed to evaluate the survival of patients after surgery considering metastasis, as the intermediate event, using the illness-death model.Methods: In this study, 165 cases of Iranian breast cancer patients who underwent surgery during 2006-2014 were investigated. The patients’ characteristics and their intermediate and final status were collected from their medical records. The illness-death model was used to assess prognostic factors in all stages of disease.Results: The risk of metastasis in patients with tumor size between 2-5 cm was 3.8 times higher than patients whose tumors were below 2 cm (P=0.009). Patients who had 3 to 6 lymph nodes involved were 3.1 times more likely to have metastases that those with less than 2 lymph nodes (P=0.003). Also, the grade of tumor and HER-2 had a significant role in metastasis (P=0.04).Conclusion: Using the illness-death model that is suitable for the analysis of such data, it was found that lymph node involved and tumor size had a significant role in metastasis. So, early detection of cancer is required to prevent metastasis and death.

BACKGROUND: GReliable prediction of patient response to fluid resuscitation is a crucial issue in the management of hemorrhagic shock. OBJECTIVES: This study was designed to investigate vertebral heart score (VHS) variation in fluid resuscitation of hemorrhagic shock patients and the feasibility of this method in determining resuscitation endpoint. METHODS: VHS values were assessed using previously published standard method in left to right lateral view. After induction of anesthesia (control assessments), hemorrhagic shock was induced by blood withdrawal to a mean arterial pressure of 40 to 50 mmHg within 30 minutes and then maintained in hypovolemic situation for an additional 30 minutes (second and third stages of assessments). Afterward, the dogs were randomly assigned to two groups which received 20 ml/kg lactated Ringer’ s solution or 5 ml/kg Hydroxyethyl starch, in four consecutive 15 minute intervals (fourth stage of assessments). One hour after the last resuscitation step, final radiographic assessments were performed. RESUTLS: Hemorrhagic shock caused significant decrease in VHS values to a mean of 7. 7 vertebrae (P<0. 05). Following the fluid resuscitation VHS increased and returned to pre-shock values in both groups. CONCLUSIONS: This study confirms that the breed-specific VHS assessment can be a useful method in monitoring of patient’ s response to fluid therapy and determination of resuscitation endpoint in dogs with hemorrhagic shock.