Immediate Antecedents of Intentions for Having Children in Southeast Iranian Women.

BACKGROUND: Over the last decade, Iran has experienced a declining birth trend. Identifying the proximate determinants of fertility intentions among married women is informative for population studies. This study aimed to examine the importance of three immediate antecedents of fertility intention. METHODS: We invited 1,100 married women to complete a well-validated questionnaire based on the theory of planned behavior (TPB). The sampling framework consisted of visitors attending hospitals in two cities in southeastern Iran. Intention for having children was measured using the item "Do you intend to have a/another child during the next 3 years?" Attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control were measured using eight, three, and three items, respectively. Structural equation modeling was used to specify the model and to test the predictive ability of the TPB constructs. RESULTS: The response rate was 90.7% (N=998), and the mean±standard deviation age of the respondents was 34.8±7.4 years. More than 50% of the respondents reported intending to have a child in the next 3 years. All three TPB model constructs showed significant associations with fertility intentions. The standardized beta coefficients for attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control were 0.74, 0.41, and 0.55, respectively. CONCLUSION: The TPB model showed that psychological mechanisms play an important role in predicting the childbearing intentions of married women in Iran. Of the three TPB constructs, attitude was the strongest predictor of the intention to have a child.

Promising influences of zingerone against natural and chemical toxins: A comprehensive and mechanistic review.

Zingerone is a flavor phytochemical present in ginger, a flowering plant belonging to the Zingiberaceae family used as a condiment and herbal remedy. It possesses anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and anti-apoptotic properties and also exhibits protective effects against radiation, chemicals, biological toxins, and oxidative stress. The current comprehensive literature review was performed in order to assess the therapeutical and protective properties of zingerone against various chemical and natural toxins by considering the mechanisms of action. Extensive searches were performed on Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed, and Google Scholar databases. Zingerone lessens oxidative stress, inflammation, apoptosis, and oxidative DNA damage by increasing the activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), glutathione (GSH), and glutathione peroxidase (GPX). It prevents alginate production, which increases the cell's susceptibility to macrophages, serum, and antibiotics and dramatically lowers the generation of proinflammatory cytokines brought on by lipopolysaccharide (LPS). Cytokine production, MAPK, and NF-κB activation are all inhibited dose-dependently by zingerone. Zingerone also reduces 8-OHdG over-expression in the liver tissue and the expression of NADPH oxidase 4 (NOX4), inflammatory cytokines (e.g., IFN-γ, IL-17, IL-6, COX-2, TNF-α, and iNOS mRNA level), decreases macrophage inflammatory protein cytokines and eliminates free radicals. It also suppresses matrix metalloproteinase-2 (MMP-2) and MMP-9 during tumor progression, showing its anti-angiogenic activity. Strong radioprotective properties of zingerone are demonstrated against radiation-induced toxicity. The authors hope this review gives researchers some insight into conducting novel clinical and preclinical studies on pharmaceutical applications and the efficiency of zingerone in cancer treatment, and drug adverse effects.

Public Stigma Toward Female and Male Opium and Heroin Users. An Experimental Test of Attribution Theory and the Familiarity Hypothesis.

Drug abuse and addiction exist around the world. People addicted to drugs such as opium or heroin often encounter dehumanizing discriminatory behaviors and health-care systems that are reluctant to provide services. Experiencing discrimination often serves as a barrier to receiving help or finding a home or work. Therefore, it is important to better understand the mechanisms that lead to the stigmatization of drug addiction and who is more prone to stigmatizing behaviors. There is also a dearth of research on whether different patterns of stigma exist in men and women. Therefore, this study investigated factors affecting gender-specific stigmatization in the context of drug addiction. In our vignette study (NMensample = 320 and NWomensample = 320) in Iran, we experimentally varied signals and signaling events regarding a person with drug addiction (i.e., NVignettes = 32 per sample), based on Attribution Theory, before assessing stigmatizing cognitions (e.g., blameworthiness), affective responses (e.g., anger), and discriminatory inclinations (e.g., segregation) with the Attribution Questionnaire. We also tested assumptions from the Familiarity Hypothesis by assessing indicators of respondents' familiarity with drug addiction (e.g., knowledge about addiction). Results, for example, show higher stigma if the person used "harder" drugs, displayed aggressive behavior, or had a less controllable drug urge. Self-attributed knowledge about addiction or prior drug use increased some forms of stigma, but diminished others. These findings only partially converged between men and women. We suggest that anti-stigma initiatives should consider information about the stigmatized person, conditions of the addiction, and characteristics of stigmatizers.

CMOS approach to compressed-domain image acquisition.

A hardware implementation of a real-time compressed-domain image acquisition system is demonstrated. The system performs front-end computational imaging, whereby the inner product between an image and an arbitrarily-specified mask is implemented in silicon. The acquisition system is based on an intelligent readout integrated circuit (iROIC) that is capable of providing independent bias voltages to individual detectors, which enables implementation of spatial multiplication with any prescribed mask through a bias-controlled response-modulation mechanism. The modulated pixels are summed up in the image grabber to generate the compressed samples, namely aperture-coded coefficients, of an image. A rigorous bias-selection algorithm is presented to the readout circuit, which exploits the bias-dependent nature of the imager's responsivity. Proven functionality of the hardware in transform coding compressed image acquisition, silicon-level compressive sampling, in pixel nonuniformity correction and hardware-level implementation of region-based enhancement is demonstrated.

CMOS-compatible plenoptic detector for LED lighting applications.

LED lighting systems with large color gamuts, with multiple LEDs spanning the visible spectrum, offer the potential of increased lighting efficiency, improved human health and productivity, and visible light communications addressing the explosive growth in wireless communications. The control of this "smart lighting system" requires a silicon-integrated-circuit-compatible, visible, plenoptic (angle and wavelength) detector. A detector element, based on an offset-grating-coupled dielectric waveguide structure and a silicon photodetector, is demonstrated with an angular resolution of less than 1° and a wavelength resolution of less than 5 nm.

Large-Area Semiconducting Graphene Nanomesh Tailored by Interferometric Lithography.

Graphene nanostructures are attracting a great deal of interest because of newly emerging properties originating from quantum confinement effects. We report on using interferometric lithography to fabricate uniform, chip-scale, semiconducting graphene nanomesh (GNM) with sub-10 nm neck widths (smallest edge-to-edge distance between two nanoholes). This approach is based on fast, low-cost, and high-yield lithographic technologies and demonstrates the feasibility of cost-effective development of large-scale semiconducting graphene sheets and devices. The GNM is estimated to have a room temperature energy bandgap of ~30 meV. Raman studies showed that the G band of the GNM experiences a blue shift and broadening compared to pristine graphene, a change which was attributed to quantum confinement and localization effects. A single-layer GNM field effect transistor exhibited promising drive current of ~3.9 µA/µm and ON/OFF current ratios of ~35 at room temperature. The ON/OFF current ratio of the GNM-device displayed distinct temperature dependence with about 24-fold enhancement at 77 K.

Evaluation of the analgesic effect of ketamine as an additive to intrathecal bupivacaine in patients undergoing cesarean section.

OBJECTIVE: Nowadays, conventional analgesic agents, which are widely used for pain relief after cesarean section, provide suboptimal analgesia with occasional serious side effects. We designed a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study to evaluate the analgesic efficacy of intrathecal ketamine added to bupivacaine after cesarean section. METHODS: Sixty patients scheduled for cesarean section under spinal anesthesia were randomly allocated to one of the two groups to receive either bupivacaine 10 mg combined with 0.1 mg/kg ketamine, or bupivacaine 10 mg combined with 0.5 mL distilled water intrathecally. The time to the first analgesic request, analgesic requirement in the first 24 hours after surgery, onset times of sensory and motor blockades, the durations of sensory and motor blockades, and the incidences of adverse effects such as hypotension, ephedrine requirement, bradycardia, and hypoxemia, were recorded. RESULTS: Patients who received ketamine had a significantly prolonged duration of anesthesia compared with those who did not in the control group [95% confidence intervals (CI) 195-217; p = 0.001]. The mean time to the first analgesic request was also significantly longer in ketamine group (95% CI 252.5-275; p < 0.001). The total analgesic consumption in the 24 hours following surgery significantly lessened in the ketamine group compared with that of the control group (95% CI 2-2.5; p < 0.001). The two groups did not differ significantly in intraoperative and postoperative side effects. CONCLUSION: Intrathecal ketamine 0.1 mg/kg co-administered with spinal bupivacaine elongated the time to the first analgesic request and lessened the total analgesic consumption in the first 24 postoperative hours in comparison with bupivacaine alone in the control group following elective cesarean delivery.