BACKGROUND Remarkable advances in educational measurement have proved need to the implementation of modern and appropriate methods of clinical evaluation. This study was carried out to compare the effect of applying direct observation procedural skills and routine evaluation method on clinical skills of nursing students. METHODS This randomized clinical trial was conducted on students of Nurs...

Lung volumes in irreversible diffuse obstructive pulmonary syndromes (DOPS(I)) have been studied by using an analog of the lung that simulates an 18-breath nitrogen washout. The functional residual capacity (FRC), the dead space volume (Vd), the distribution of ventilation, as well as the pattern of lung emptying have been measured in normal subjects and those with obstructive syndromes. The Vd...

{ Collision detection is of paramount importance for many applications in computer graphics and visualization. Typically, the input to a collision detection algorithm is a large number of geometric objects comprising an environment, together with a set of objects moving within the environment. In addition to determining accurately the contacts that occur between pairs of objects, one needs also...

Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are high-energy-consuming units. Reasonable operation strategies can enable WWTPs to meet discharge standards while reducing the operating cost. In this study, activated sludge model 2d (ASM2d), Pareto analysis of variance (ANOVA), and response surface methodology (RSM) were jointly used simulate optimize a lab-scale anaerobic-anoxic-oxic (AAO) reactor. The o...

Background: Evaluation is an essential and integral part of medical education. Based on the evidence, current common methods are less effective due to lack accurate assessment students' clinical skills. Clinical evaluation students in form direct observation practical situations will increase their ability deal with events specific patient situations. Objectives: In this study, effectiveness pr...

Dopamine beta-hydroxylase (DbetaH) deficiency is a very rare form of primary autonomic failure characterized by a complete absence of noradrenaline and adrenaline in plasma together with increased dopamine plasma levels. The prevalence of DbetaH deficiency is unknown. Only a limited number of cases with this disease have been reported. DbetaH deficiency is mainly characterized by cardiovascular...

In recent years, researchers from the genetic algorithm (GA) community have developed several approaches to enhance the performance of traditional GAs for dynamic optimization problems (DOPs). Among these approaches, one technique is to maintain the diversity of the population by inserting random immigrants into the population. This chapter investigates a self-organizing random immigrants schem...