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Wetlands as a situ for the growth of native plants, as a habitat for certain species of fish and aquatic birds, and because of their potential economic, cultural and recreational services, are valuable heritage so their protection and conservation is very essential. Mostly due to the absence of wetlands services’ valuation, lack of special regulations, and lack of guarantee for these properties, resources and services of wetlands are not utilized appropriately, and destructed and evacuated in a free and unrestricted fashion, leading to inefficiency in use. The purpose of this study is the economic valuation of Gavkhony wetland ecosystem attributes, estimation of implicit price for attributes, impact assessment of socio-economic variables such as age, marriage, indigenous, family size and education on willingness to pay (WTP), and analyzing welfare and compensation variation due to variation of hypothetical policy. The approach being used is choice experiment that is a subset of choice modeling procedure and stated preference method. Data were collected from six different choice experiments provided in the questionnaires, which were filled out by 500 randomly selected households in Isfahan and Varzaneh cities in the spring and summer of 2013. Each questionnaire contained 72 hypothetical policies, 36 choice sets, 2442 observations and 7327 rows of data. Nested Logitech models and Hausman-MacFadden test were used in order to estimate the visitors’ WTP for improving attribute levels for Gavkhony wetland. This procedure was used on the basis of multinomial discrete choice analysis of preferences, Lancaster’s theory of value and the theory of random utility function. The Hausman-MacFadden test results showed that cross-elasticity between the first and third options was the same. Thus, these two options were placed in the second nest. The results further showed that the visitors had WTP for preserving forest diversity and vegetation of wetlands and its surrounding; preserve of natural habitats and organisms life of wetland (bird, fish and animals); wetland hygiene (preventing industrial and domestic effluent, and water salinity); and increasing the water surface (increasing wetland water inlet). The values estimated for these four aspects correspondingly were 8636, 12584, 11553 and 4740 Rials. Some socio-economic variables such as gender, marriage, age, family expenditure, education and being native had a positive impact on the visitors’ WTP. The surplus welfareresults showed that in 72 hypothetical policies, option 1 had the most positive welfare, and option 5 had the most negative welfare for the users of Govkhony wetland. The surplus welfare results based on WTP estimation provide important tools for policy making.

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Background: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune inflammatory disease of the central nervous system. Toxoplasma gondii infection is one of the risk factors of MS. Knowing the correlation between T. gondii infection and MS could lead to a better understanding of the disease incidence. This study aimed to assess the correlation between T. gondii infection and the disease incidence in infected individuals.
Materials & Methods: Serum samples of 38 MS patients referring to the neurology clinic of Ghaem hospital in Mashhad in 2019 were analyzed by Pishtazteb commercial kit for anti-T. gondii IgG and IgM antibodies using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The obtained data were analyzed with SPSS software Version 20.
Findings: Among the 79 tested individuals, 22 were positive, and 57 were negative for anti-T. gondii IgG antibodies. Among the negative cases, 29 (50.9%) had MS, and 28 (49.1%) were controls. Among the positive cases, nine (40.9%) patients had MS, and the remaining 13 (59.1%) were controls. The frequency of IgG antibody in the case and control groups was not significantly different (p= .427). Anti-T. gondii IgM antibody was negative in all samples. There was no significant difference between the types of MS regarding the frequency of anti-T. gondii antibodies (p= .402).
Conclusion:  No significant difference was found in the frequency of anti-T. gondii IgG antibodies between the two groups. However, further studies with larger sample sizes are recommended to gain a better understanding of the relationship between anti-T. gondii IgG antibody positivity and MS incidence

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Background: Viral infections may play a significant role in the development of heart failure, especially in people with related cardiac conditions such as myocarditis. Hepatitis B and D viruses (HBV-HDV) are potentially fatal liver infections. This study examined the influence of metabolic syndrome and its associated disorders.
Materials & Methods: This cross-sectional study investigated hepatitis D antibody and hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) in 239 people aged 35 to 65 years in Mashhad, Khorasan Razavi Province, Iran in 2018-2019. There were two study groups: those with cardiovascular diseases (CVD) and healthy individuals. Serum samples of all subjects in both groups were examined using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA).
Findings: HDV infection was detected in none of the study groups. Only one patient (0.8%) in the case group tested positive for HBsAg. The average LDL (low-density lipoprotein) (p= .8) and cholesterol (p= .3) levels in terms of lipid profiles were similar in both groups. Although the mean high-density lipoprotein (HDL) level in the patient group was lower, the mean triglyceride level in this group was higher than in the control group. Fasting blood sugar (FBS) (p= .009) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) levels were significantly higher in CVD patients, while 59.3% of them exhibited metabolic syndrome.
Conclusion: This study results demonstrate no connection between HBV/HDV infection and cardiovascular diseases. The findings confirm that metabolic syndrome and hyperglycemia are underlying factors in cardiovascular diseases. Changes in HDL and triglyceride levels could impact cardiovascular diseases more than other lipids.

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This paper is aimed at analyzing population density, population division and economic distance on regional economic growth, using Panel Data models for 28 provinces of Iran over the period 2001-2006. The results show that religious and ethnic divisions and economic distance have negative effect and population density has positive effect on regional economic growth in Iran.