Drought as a natural phenomenon characterized by a significant decrease of water availability during a period of time and over a large area. In recent years, droughts and its frequent in arid and semi-arid regions like Iran on the one hand, and water demand has been rising on the other hand and, as a result, their impacts are being aggravated. Therefore, the meteorological and hydrological...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the construct and criterion validity of the Euro Qol-5D (EQ-5D), which allows quality-adjusted life-years to be calculated, in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). METHODS Consecutive SLE patients who had been followed at the Renji Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University were recruited. Cross-sectional correlations of the EQ-5D with eq...

OBJECTIVES To evaluate the relationship between disease damage and bone mineral density (BMD) in women with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). METHODS A cross-sectional study was conducted among 307 women with SLE. Patients attended a single clinic visit that included an interview, physical examination, laboratory testing and BMD measurements (hip and/or lumbar spine). Women were stratified ...

Dominant species play key roles in shaping community structure, but their behavior is far from uniform. We speculated that recognition of different behaviors (determined objectively) would be an indicator of the condition of plant communities. We developed a species dominance index (SDI) to identify dominant species and compare their behavior across multiple spatial scales. The SDI is based on ...

The index of composition of an integer n ≥ 2 is defined as λ(n) = (log n)/(log γ(n)), where γ(n) stands for the largest square-free divisor of n. Let φ stand for the Euler totient function. We show that the index of composition of the k-fold iterate of φ(n) is 1 on a set of density 1 and that an analogous result holds if n runs over the set of shifted primes.

Mangrove ecosystems are of high ecological value and occur in tropical subtropical coastal areas. They consist salt-tolerant woody plants highly complex productive. Here, a novel approach was developed to map disturbances evaluate the status Iranian mangroves based on multispectral WorldView-2 Sentinel-2 remote sensing techniques. A land cover generated that serves as basis assess changes compo...

BACKGROUND Altered septal curvature and left ventricular (LV) geometry secondary to right ventricular (RV) dilation render two-dimensional assessment of LV mechanics difficult in repaired tetralogy of Fallot (TOF) patients. The novel three-dimensional (3D) speckle tracking echocardiography enables comprehensive evaluation of true 3D LV mechanics. METHODS AND RESULTS Seventy-six patients aged ...

Stand density management allows a forester to utilize mortality and promote individual tree vigor. However, even after four decades of spacing studies, planning for stand density management remains a difficult problem. Forest management approaches the problem with sophisticated analysis, but the heart of the analysis depends on statistical growth models fit to data from empirical field trials. ...