Primary Sjögren's syndrome (pSS) is a systemic autoimmune disease with exocrine gland dysfunction and multi-organ involvement. Recent progress in understanding the pathogenesis of pSS offers an opportunity to find new biomarkers for the diagnosis and assessment of disease activity. Screening noninvasive biomarkers from the saliva and tears has significant potential. The need for specific and se...

Several meta-analyses have investigated the association between physical activity and affective states and have found evidence suggesting that exercise exerts a positive effect on affective state. However, in this field of research, most studies have conducted between-subject analyses. Nonetheless, there is more and more interest in the within-subject associations between physical activity and ...

In a recent meta-analysis, only 53% of disorganized infants were predicted by parental Unresolved states of mind on the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI). The goal of this study was to identify additional predictors of infant disorganization on the AAI by developing and validating an interview-wide coding system for Hostile/Helpless (H/H) parental states of mind with respect to attachment. Mater...

background and aims: ankylosing spondylitis (as) is an idiopathic chronic inflammatory disease mainly involves sacroiliac and axial joints; but it may also have extra-articular involvement. accordingly, this study was designed to determine the frequency of cardiac involvement among patients with ankylosing spondylitis. methods: this study was performed as a descriptive-analytical cross-section...

behçet’s disease (bd) is a multisystem disorder with potential ability to influence the pregnancy outcome and pregnancy is associated with several physiologic alterations which can lead to potential changes in the course of the disease. we studied 77 pregnancies in 69 women with bd. the disease activity was calculated by two methods for three periods of before, during and after pregnancy to eva...

In the latest issue of this journal, Lefevre et al.’s paper [1] raises the important question of how to combine belief functions from different sources and how to manage conflicts. They propose a parametrized combination rule that includes several existing combination rules as special cases. Their method is based on so-called weighting factors that determine how conflicting masses are to be dis...

In many languages, quantificational and focusing elements may not intervene between a wh-phrase and the interrogative complementizer by which it is licensed. Among the semantic approaches to explaining this phenomenon, there are two that make different predictions as to the intervener status of focus particles. According to the first approach, all focus particles are interveners. According to t...

background and purpose: the movement of spiritual leadership is a special kind of service-centered leadership which looks forward to progress and staff control. job involvement also emphasizes timely attendance of staff, feeling successful at work, and sense of optimism and success about the future of the organization. therefore, this study investigated the relation between spiritual leadership...

background heart failure is a major cause of death in thalassemia. the study aimed to determine the diagnostic value of n terminal pro b type natriuretic peptide (nt-pro bnp), to early diagnose the cardiac involvement in beta- thalassemia major patients. materials and methods  80 thalassemia patients aged 7 to 18 years old (patients group), and 80 healthy age and gender matched controls were en...

mitochondrial disorders (mids) require biochemical or genetic investigations for being diagnosed. in some cases, however, the diagnosis can be suspected upon the syndromic phenotype or upon clinical presentation and family history, as in the following case. the patient was a 74-year-old male admitted for worsening of pre-existing left-sided ptosis and ophthalmoparesis after a birthday party. th...