background: in the recent years, using health technologies to diagnose and treat diseases has had a considerable and accelerated growth. the proper use of these technologies may considerably help in the diagnosis and treatment of different diseases. on the other hand, unlimited and unrestricted entry of these technologies may result in induced demand by service providers. the aim of this study ...

background cervical cancer is the fourth most common cancer among women worldwide. organized cervical screening and vaccination against human papilloma virus (hpv) have been successful interventions for prevention of invasive cervical cancer (icc). because of cultural and religious considerations, icc has low incidence in iran and many other muslim countries. there is no organized cervical scre...

poor adhesion between two successive bituminous layers causes adverse effects on the structural strength of the pavement and develops a numbers of premature failure. to improve the adhesion, it is a general practice to apply a tack coat over an existing or newly constructed bituminous surface before laying another bituminous layer. the main objective of this study is to explore the influence of...

We study how rationing in the public sector influences prices in the private sector. A private firm uses consumers’ cost information for cream-skimming. Only rationed consumers consider purchasing from the private firm. Rich consumers are more willing to pay for an indivisible good, such as a health treatment, than poor consumers. The public supplier decides on a rationing rule, and then the pr...

We present a model of interpersonal attitude used for generating expressive postures for computer animated characters. Our model consists of two principle dimensions, affiliation and status. It takes into account the relationships between the attitudes of two characters and allows for a large degree of variation between characters, both in how they react to other characters’ behaviour and in th...

This case study investigated the effect of body position on the first three formants (F1, F2, F3) of the British English vowels /iː/, /ɛ/, /æ/, /ɔː/ and /uː/ produced by one male native speaker. While F1 remained unaffected significant changes in F2 and F3 were found for certain vowels when they were produced in a supine rather than in an upright position. F2 was significantly lower for /iː/, /...

The inadequate supply of health workers and demand-side barriers due to clinical practice that heeds too little attention to cultural context are serious obstacles to achieving universal health coverage and the fulfillment of the human rights to health, especially for the poor and vulnerable living in remote rural areas. A number of strategies have been deployed to increase both the supply of h...

Background Cervical cancer is the fourth most common cancer among women worldwide. Organized cervical screening and vaccination against human papilloma virus (HPV) have been successful interventions for prevention of invasive cervical cancer (ICC). Because of cultural and religious considerations, ICC has low incidence in Iran and many other Muslim countries. There is no organized cervical scre...