chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (copd) is a condition associated with inflammation in lungs and airways. the impacts of inflammatory process is not limited to respiratory system but extend to extrapulmonary organs with resultant complications involving endocrine, metabolic and cardiovascular systems. the extent and severity of inflammation may be partly estimated by serum measurement of s...

OBJECTIVE To present the occurrence, characteristics, etiology, interference, and medication of chronic pain among the elderly living independently at home. DESIGN/SETTING A total of 460 subjects in three cohorts aged 75, 80 and 85 years respectively received visits by communal home-care department nurses for a cross-sectional survey. Of them, 175 had chronic (duration ≥ 3 months) pain with a...

BACKGROUND Maternal and offspring immediate and long-term health are affected by pregnancy weight gain and maternal weight. This study was designed to determine feasibility of: 1) recruiting a socio-economically and racially/ethnically diverse sample of pregnant women into a longitudinal observational study, including consenting the women for serial biologic specimen evaluations; 2) implementin...

development of water resources projects are recognized as a basis of the development planning in the water resources sector. in addition to the quality of output results, following the schedule , continuous documentation and evaluation during the project is the one of the major challenges. in order to improve water study framework with high quality and scheduling and reduce the study process, t...

BACKGROUND Tools for the evaluation, improvement and promotion of the teaching excellence of faculty remain elusive in residency settings. This study investigates (i) the reliability and validity of the data yielded by using two new instruments for evaluating the teaching qualities of medical faculty, (ii) the instruments' potential for differentiating between faculty, and (iii) the number of r...

INTRODUCTION Ultrasound has become indispensable in medicine for diagnosis and therapeutics. In Internal Medicine Residency Training Program (IMRTP), there is a deficiency of a structured, competency-based musculoskeletal ultrasound (MSKUS) training despite its growing popularity. METHODS We conducted a feasibility study for incorporating MSKUS in IMRTP and competency assessment. We recruited...

Meta-Analysis of the Findings on the Effects of Descriptive Evaluation on Learning Outcomes   A. Aali, Ph.D.* R. Mobaarak Ghamsari**   Changing the way that students’ learning is evaluated to what is called descriptive evaluation during the past decade has been the focus of many studies with conflicting results. To clarify the picture and determine the true impact of this t...