abstract background ulcerative colitis (uc) is characterized by recurrent episodes of inflammation limited to the mucosal layer of the colon. calprotectin is a zinc and calcium binding protein derived from neutrophils and monocytes. it is easily detectable in tissue samples, body fluids, and stools, which makes it a potentially valuable marker of inflammation. the aim of the current study is to...

background : the international study of asthma and allergies in childhood (isaac) is used to define the prevalence and severity of asthma in different regions. in this study we followed the performance of the isaac video and written questionnaires (vq and wq) to classify asthma in 13-14 yr-old schoolchildren.   methods: the present study was carried out on 3540 school children 13 to 14-yrs-old ...

The objective was to study the association between birth weight and the insulin sensitivity index. Altogether, 331 unrelated Caucasian subjects aged 18-32 years with measures of the insulin sensitivity index and insulin secretion during a combined intravenous glucose and tolbutamide tolerance test were included in the study. The data on birth weight and length were obtained from the midwife rec...

The purpose of this study is finding the sensitivity of central bank independence measurements on its impact on inflation in Iran. To this aim different measurements of the central bank independence were calculated using the indices of Grilli et al. (1991), Cukierman et al. (1992), Mathew (2006) and Dumiter (2009) for the period 1961-2012 . Although results of correlation between CBI index and ...

The kinematic sensitivity is a unit-consistent measure that has been recently proposed as a mechanism performance index to compare robot architectures. This paper presents a robust geometric approach for computing this index for the case of planar parallel mechanisms. The physical meaning of the kinematic sensitivity is investigated through different combinations of the Euclidean and infinity n...

An adaptive watermarking technique is introduced in this work. A regional perceptual classi er is employed to assign a noise sensitivity index to each region. The watermark is inserted in the original image according to this index by using block DCT. The detection of the watermark is designed to achieve a desired false alarm probability.

Automated force measurement is one of the most important technologies in realizing intelligent automation systems. However, while many methods are available for micro-force sensing, measuring large three-dimensional (3D) forces and loads remains a significant challenge. Accordingly, the present study proposes a novel 3D force sensor based on a parallel mechanism. The transformation function and...