• Journal of Pharmacopuncture
• /
• v.16 no.2
• /
• pp.15-22
• /
• 2013

Objective: Evaluations of the in-vitro anti-bacterial activities of aqueous extracts of Acacia catechu (L.F.)Willd, Castanea sativa, Ephedra sinica stapf and Shilajita mumiyo against gram-positive bacteria (Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus pneumonia) and gram-negative bacteria (Escherichia coli, klebsiella pneumoniae, Proteus mirabilis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa) are reasonable since these ethnomedicinal plants have been used in Persian folk medicine for treating skin diseases, venereal diseases, respiratory problems and nervous disorders for ages. Methods: The well diffusion method (KB testing) with a concentration of $250{\mu}g/disc$ was used for evaluating the minimal inhibitory concentrations (MIC). Maximum synergistic effects of different combinations of components were also observed. Results: A particular combination of Acacia catechu (L.F.) Willd, Castanea sativa, Ephedra sinica stapf and shilajita mumiyo extracts possesses an outstanding anti-bacterial activity. It's inhibiting effect on microorganisms is significant when compared to the control group (P<0.05). Staphylococcus aureus was the most sensitive microorganism. The highest anti-bacterial activity against gram-positive bacteria (Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus pneumonia) or gram-negative bacteria (Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumonia, Proteus mirabilis, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa) was exerted by formula number 2 (table 1). Conclusion: The results reveal the presence of anti-bacterial activities of Acacia catechu, Castanea sativa husk, Ephedra sp. and Mumiyo against gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria. Synergistic effects in a combined formula, especially in formula number 2 (ASLAN$^{(R)}$) can lead to potential sources of new antiseptic agents for treatment of acute or chronic skin ulcers. These results considering the significant anti-bacterial effect of the present formulation, support ethnopharmacological uses against diarrheal and venereal diseases and demonstrate use of these plants to treat infectious diseases.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.9 no.6
• /
• pp.2089-2097
• /
• 2014

Negative corona onset characteristics of the stranded conductors based on the ultra-high voltage (UHV) corona cage were studied in the paper. Based on the corona self-sustaining criterion in extreme uneven electric fields and the secondary emission process of the photoelectrons, the corona onset calculation model in the UHV corona cage is established and the corona current tests of the single LGJ900-75, 6 bundle LGJ900-75, 8 bundle LGJ400-35 conductors in dry and rain conditions were done in the UHV corona cage, and the rain rates are 2.4 mm/h, 20 mm/h and 30 mm/h. Corona onset electric field strength is gained by E-I tangent method, and the onset electric field strength in dry condition proves that the calculation model can be used to calculate the corona onset characteristics of the bundle conductors in the UHV corona cage. A further analysis proves that: the negative corona onset voltage of the conductor increases with the bundle number and the diameter of the sub conductor, but decreases with the bundle space in the corona cage. The onset electric field strength is influenced little by bundle space and bundle number, but decreases with the increase of the diameter of the sub-conductor. The surface irregularity coefficient decreases with the rain rate.

• Journal of Veterinary Clinics
• /
• v.29 no.1
• /
• pp.58-62
• /
• 2012

To protect aquatic animal health of importing countries from the potential risks associated with exotic diseases introduced through international trade of live aquatic animals, inspection of designated commodities at ports of entry is a critical component of the safeguarding system. The only way to be 100% confident that no fishes in a shipment are infected with a specific agent is to test every fish in the commodity imported with a perfect diagnostic test. For the majority of cases, this is unrealistic since the group of interest may very large particularly for aquatic animals, or imperfect tests are often available. It is, therefore, more common to test a fixed proportion of a group by preplanned sampling schemes. However, decision making based on results of testing the sample can provide quite a chance that infected groups may be misclassified as uninfected, depending on sampling strategy employed. The objective of this study was to determine the possibility that one or more fishes in the group imported being infected but tests negative after inspecting samples. This question is critical to government authorities to examine whether sampling plan is sufficient to achieve the purpose intended for. At fixed population size, the maximum number of infected fishes when all tests negative was decreased as the sampling fraction increased. The probability of including at least one undetected but infected fish in a group for negative tests increased with the number of fish tested or true prevalence. The risk was much lesser where high sensitivity test was assumed; when increasing test sensitivity from 0.9 to 0.99, this risk was dramatically reduced to about a tenth or a fourth for prevalence ranges from 2 to 10%, given sample size ranges from 10 to 200. Based on the preliminary analysis, the author concluded that current sampling plan testing 4-8% of the import proposal for human consumption still can yield high false negative results. Therefore, from the quarantine inspection point of view, an enforced commodity-specific sampling design that accounts for the cost of testing with an imperfect test at the specified design prevalence is urgent.

• Journal of Family Resource Management and Policy Review
• /
• v.18 no.2
• /
• pp.1-15
• /
• 2014

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of lifestyle on the perceived value of children in university students. Questionnaires were distributed to 467 university students with questions covering topics including general personal information and characteristics, lifestyle type, and value of children. First, a cluster analysis based on lifestyle showed that the subjects could be categorized into three groups: negative-leisure types, active-achievement types, and affirmative-fidelity types. The negative-leisure type was highly leisure-oriented and showed a negative self-value; the active-achievement type showed a perspective that valued personal and occupational self-development and a high level of labor-oriented value; and the affirmative-fidelity type favored materialism, seeking occupational aptitude and worth and showing a positive self-value. Second, an investigation of the impact of these three lifestyle types on the students' value of children revealed that the active-achievement type group had high level of belief in the necessity of childbirth, the affirmative-fidelity type group highly valued fulfilling an active parent role, and the active-achievement type group were inclined to delay childbirth. Further, the negative-leisure type group wanted the lowest number of children, while the affirmative-fidelity type group wanted the highest number of children. This study reveals that university students' lifestyle does have an effect on their value of children. It is therefore proposed that a value-focused population education for increasing fertility should relate not only to individuals' value of children but also to their broader lifestyle.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
• /
• v.15 no.5
• /
• pp.457-464
• /
• 2009

The weak classifier of AdaBoost algorithm is a central classification element that uses a single criterion separating positive and negative learning candidates. Finding the best criterion to separate two feature distributions influences learning capacity of the algorithm. A common way to classify the distributions is to use the mean value of the features. However, positive and negative distributions of Haar-like feature as an image descriptor are hard to classify by a single threshold. The poor classification ability of the single threshold also increases the number of boosting operations, and finally results in a poor classifier. This paper proposes a weak classifier that uses multiple criterions by adding a probabilistic criterion of the positive candidate distribution with the conventional mean classifier: the positive distribution has low variation and the values are closer to the mean while the negative distribution has large variation and values are widely spread. The difference in the variance for the positive and negative distributions is used as an additional criterion. In the learning procedure, we use a new classifier that provides a better classifier between them by selective switching between the mean and standard deviation. We call this new type of combined classifier the "Mixed Weak Classifier". The proposed weak classifier is more robust than the mean classifier alone and decreases the number of boosting operations to be converged.

• KOREAN JOURNAL OF CROP SCIENCE
• /
• v.26 no.4
• /
• pp.357-362
• /
• 1981

This study was conducted to examine the best population density and agronomic characteristics affected by different row-widths and planting-spaces within row in safflower. As both row-width and spacing were narrowed, plant height and height to first branch were increased, and the number of branch per plant showed decrease. Plant height showed negative correlation with row-width, height to first branch showed negative correlation with row-width x spacing, and number of branch per plant had positive correlation with row width, and row-width x spacing but negative correlation with plant height. Yield was affected by spacing and row-width x spacing. In spacing, 5cm plot performed the best yield, and 30 x 5cm population density was the best cultural method to increase safflower yield. Yield had negative correlation with spacing and row-width x spacing, but positive correlation with height to first branch.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
• /
• v.13 no.11
• /
• pp.5767-5772
• /
• 2012

Introduction: Identification of simple and measurable prognostic factors is an important issue in treatment evaluation of breast cancer. The present study was conducted to evaluate the prognostic role of vascular invasion in lymph node negative breast cancer patients. Methods: in a retrospective design, we analyzed the recorded profiles of the 1,640 patients treated in the breast cancer department of Motahari clinic affiliated to Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran, from January 1999 to December 2012. Overall and adjusted survivals were evaluated by the Cox proportional hazard model. All the hypotheses were considered two-sided and a p-value of 0.05 or less was considered as statistically significant. Results: Mean age in lymph node negative and positive patients was 50.0 and 49.8 respectively. In lymph node negative patients, the number of nodes, tumor size, lymphatic invasion, vascular invasion, progesterone receptor, and nuclear grade were significant predictors. In lymph node and lymphatic negative patients, vascular invasion also played a significant prognostic role in the survival which was not evident in lymph node negative patients with lymphatic invasion. Discussion: The results of our large cohort study, with long term follow up and using multivariate Cox proportional model and comparative design showed a significant prognostic role of vascular invasion in early breast cancer patients. Vascular invasion as an independent prognostic factor in lymph node negative invasive breast cancer.

• International Journal of Highway Engineering
• /
• v.18 no.4
• /
• pp.83-92
• /
• 2016

PURPOSES : The purpose of this study was to develop safety performance functions (SPFs) that use zero-inflated negative binomial regression models for urban intersections in central business districts (CBDs), and to compare the statistical significance of developed models against that of regular negative binomial regression models. METHODS : To develop and analyze the SPFs of intersections in CBDs, data acquisition was conducted for dependent and independent variables in areas of study. We analyzed the SPFs using zero-inflated negative binomial regression model as well as regular negative binomial regression model. We then compared the results by analyzing the statistical significance of the models. RESULTS : SPFs were estimated for all accidents and injury accidents at intersections in CBDs in terms of variables such as AADT, Number of Lanes at Major Roads, Median Barriers, Right Turn with an Exclusive Turn Lane, Turning Guideline, and Front Signal. We also estimated the log-likelihood at convergence and the likelihood ratio of SPFs for comparing the zero-inflated model with the regular model. In he SPFs, estimated log-likelihood at convergence and the likelihood ratio of the zero-inflated model were at -836.736, 0.193 and -836.415, 0.195. Also estimated the log-likelihood at convergence and likelihood ratio of the regular model were at -843.547, 0.187 and -842.631, 0.189, respectively. These figures demonstrate that zero-inflated negative binomial regression models can better explain traffic accidents at intersections in CBDs. CONCLUSIONS : SPFs that use a zero-inflated negative binomial regression model demonstrate better statistical significance compared with those that use a regular negative binomial regression model.

• Journal of Convergence for Information Technology
• /
• v.10 no.12
• /
• pp.256-265
• /
• 2020

This study examines the effects of perceived service employee support on customer's negative silence, defensive silence and acquiescent silence, and the effects of such negative silence on relationship retention intention. Through this, we would like to discuss the negative effects of customer's negative silence and suggest strategies to reduce negative silence. This study employed questionnaire survey. The total number of questionnaires used in the final analysis was 220. A structural equation model was used for hypothesis analysis. As a result, the perceived service employee support has a significant negative effect on the defensive silence and acquiescent silence in the failure situation. In addition, acquiescent silence had a significant negative effect on relationship retention intentions and defensive silence had no significant effect on relationship retention intentions. Acquiescent silence had a higher negative effect on relationship maintenance intention than defensive silence, indicating that acquiescent silence was worse than defensive silence.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
• /
• v.17 no.6
• /
• pp.2941-2946
• /
• 2016

Background: The limitations of total serum PSA values remain problematic, especially after an initial negative prostate biopsy. In this prospective study of Chilean men with a continued suspicion of prostate cancer due to a persistently elevated total serum PSA, abnormal digital rectal examination and initial negative prostate biopsy were compared with the use of the on-line Chun nomagram, detection of primary malignant circulating prostate cells (CPCs) and free percent PSA to predict a positive second prostate biopsy. We hypothesized that men negative for circulating prostate cells have a small risk of clinically significant prostate cancer and thus may be conservatively observed. Men positive for circulating prostate cells should undergo biopsy to confirm prostate cancer. Materials and Methods: Consecutive men with a continued suspicion of prostate cancer underwent 12 core TRUS prostate biopsy; age, total serum PSA and percentage free PSA and Chun nomagram scores were registered. Immediately before biopsy an 8ml blood simple was taken to detect primary mCPCs. Mononuclear cells were obtained by differential gel centrifugation and identified using double immunostaining with anti-PSA and anti-P504S. Biopsies were classifed as cancer/no-cancer, mCPC detecton test as negative/positive and the total number of cells/8ml registered. Areas under the curve (AUC) for percentage free PSA, Chun score and CPCs were calculated and compared. Diagnostic yields were calculated with reference to the number of possible biopsies that could be avoided and the number of clinically significant cancers that would be missed. Results: A total of 164 men underwent a second biopsy; 41 (25%) had cancer; the AUCs were 0.65 for free PSA, 0.76 for the Chun score and 0.87 for CPC detection, the last having a significantly superior prediction value (p=0.01). Using cut off values of free PSA <10%, Chun score >50% and ${\geq}1$ CPC detected, CPC detection had a higher diagnostic yield. Some 4/41 cancers complied with the criteria for active surveillance, free PSA and the Chun score missed a higher number of significant cancers when compared with CPC detection. Conclusions: Primary CPC detection outperformed the use of free PSA and the Chun nomagram in predicting clinically significant prostate cancer at repeat prostate biopsy.