Ali Sadighi, Hossein Samadi Kafil, Khalil Maleki Chollou, Milad Maleki, Towhid Babazadeh, Zahra Ardeshiri, Ali Bahadori,
Volume 6, Issue 1 (Winter 2020)
Abstract
Aims: Brucellosis is one of the most common diseases between humans and animals (zoonosis); one of its transmission routs is through the consumption of infected cattle dairy products. Since Sarab city has a large cattle population, and traditional dairy production and processing practices are still prevalent in this region and are known as tourist attractions and souvenirs of the region, this study aimed to investigate the prevalence of infection in employees of traditional dairy products workshops in Sarab in 2018.
Materials & Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted on 196 employees of traditional dairy production and packaging workshops. Blood samples were obtained from all subjects in order to determine the serological status of the patients. After sera isolation, Rose Bengal, seroagglutination in tube (Wright), 2-mercaptoethanol (2ME), and ELISA tests were used to evaluate them.
Findings: In this study, the disease prevalence in the subjects with the mean age of 33±4.2 years was determined as 2, 1, 1, and 1% using Rose Bengal, Wright, 2-mercaptoethanol, and ELISA tests, respectively. The mean knowledge score of the employees in dairy products workshops was 31±5.7, and by increasing age and duration of work, knowledge about brucellosis was also increased
Conclusion: In this study, the mean knowledge score showed the average knowledge of the subjects about brucellosis. The disease prevalence in this occupational group was lower than that reported in other studies conducted on other at-risk occupational groups in other parts of Iran and the world. Therefore, health personnel should take the necessary measures against brucellosis.
Volume 13, Issue 2 (5-2013)
Abstract
Abstract:
Heavy transport costs have lead researchers in the field towards more efficient techniques to reduce peak period congestion. One such technique is telecommuting which is planned to, in line with the most travel demand management techniques, to decrease motorized trips during commuting hours. By allowing employees to work from home or a center near home equipped with telecommunication technologies, telecommuting causes an increase in efficiency of the urban transport system and a decrease in fuel consumption costs, air pollution costs and the need to invest infrastructures. Identification of the actual demand for telecommuting is a prime to analyzing the potential consequences of telecommuting in mobility improvement, congestion reduction, and energy conservation. Considering the vast socio-economic dimensions of this technique, the present paper intends to model telecommuting demand for the metropolitan of Tehran, Iran, by employing the artificial neural network (ANN) approach. ANNs are applied as a modeling tool for the complex systems of recognition and prediction, inspired by the interconnectivity of the human nervous system. ANN simulates adaptive interaction between processing elements in parallel architecture. A multi-layer perceptron model using error back propagation is deployed to predict the suitable number of weekdays telecommuting for each employment category. Using the data from an interview-filled questionnaire, designed for this purpose, various structures of ANN models were calibrated based on 80 percent of a 676 size sample. The remaining 20 percent of the preference data was preserved to assess the prediction strength of the model as it encounters unforeseen cases. Four endogenous inputs that inferred from organizational characteristics of employees arrayed the neural network model. Due to unordered nominal values of independent variables, ANN was determined to be an appropriate approach to recognize the telecommuting suitability pattern. The proposed neural network is composed of 21 neurons in 3 layers with tan-sigmoid, log-sigmoid, and linear transfer functions in the corresponding hidden and output layers. Results of the proposed model with 171 unknown parameters, converging after 1800 iterations, indicated a fair capability to replicate observations, such that mean square error, coefficient of determination, and percent correct criteria for the test set equaled, respectively, 1.177, 0.19 and 39 percent. The ANN model successfully estimated the stated quantities of telecommuting days per week, within a range of one day error, to 86 percent and 84 percent correct for the train and test sets, respectively. The evaluation results of train and test subsets are relatively close, which indicates a low generalization error, meanwhile demonstrates the reliability of ANNs to forecast the telecommuting demand.
Volume 20, Issue 1 (January 2020)
Abstract
Hydrodynamic coefficients have primary importance in determining the maneuvering characteristic of a marine vehicle. The use of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methods due to the lower cost of these methods compared to laboratory methods in determination of hydrodynamic coefficients have always been considered. Validation of the CFD methods and enhancing their accuracy are the major topics in the application of CFD for the underwater vehicle. The hydrodynamic coefficients of an elliptical-shape underwater vehicle and the effect of motion amplitude and velocity parameters have been investigated by the STAR-CCM+ software and through dynamic overset meshing. The results of the simulations have been compared and analyzed and the error reduction criteria have been presented considering the amplitude dimensions and velocity values in the simulation. In addition, an innovative method for simultaneous calculation of hydrodynamic coefficients of surge motion has been presented which shows good accuracy by comparing the results with theoretical and laboratory data.
Volume 22, Issue 1 (6-2018)
Abstract
Corporate reputation is stakeholders overall assessment of company over time. The Corporate reputation could affect company's financial performance where company's financial performance could affect corporate reputation. Accordingly, it can explain relationship between these behaviors where relationship between the two can be considered. Therefore, in this study, the correlation between corporate reputation and financial performance is examined. For this purpose, 64 samples of listed companies on the Stock Exchange during the period of 2011-2015 were selected. Using simultaneous equations (3SLS) the interaction between them has studied. Results show that the corporate reputation and financial performance has positive interaction. The findings could be useful for investors, managers and other users to establish the relationship between corporate reputation and financial performance.
