BACKGROUND Demonstration of substantially increased urinary excretion of porphobilinogen is the cornerstone of diagnosing acute porphyria crisis. Because porphobilinogen testing is not implemented on clinical chemistry analysers, respective analyses are available in rather few clinical laboratories. The aim of this study was to critically describe and to evaluate a semi-quantitative rapid test ...

Theileria annulata, as a pathogenic agent of tropical theileriosis, gives rise annually to serious economic losses in cattle industry of Iran. The carrier cattle, harbouring the latent forms of Theileria annulata, play a major role in infecting tick vectors and in disseminating the infection. The aim of this study was determining the carrier cattle, infected with Theileria annulata in Golestan ...

In the paper we investigate solvability of nonlinear optimal Thermal and Diffusion processes control problems defined by semi-linear parabolic equations when the source function nonlinearly depends on the controlling parameters, and nonlinear integral criterion of quality is minimized. We obtained the sufficient conditions of uniqueness of the solution of the boundary value problem and the adjo...

The radiative properties of any porous medium are statistically defined by a cumulated extinction distribution function, a cumulated absorption probability and a bidirectional phase function. These functions are obtained by a Monte Carlo technique, from both the medium morphology data, known or issued from a X or γ ray tomography, and the radiative properties at a scale lower than the tomograph...

In this paper, a simple and effective numerical approach is presented on the basis of the Member Discrete Element Method (MDEM) to investigate static and dynamic responses of steel frames with semi-rigid joints. In the MDEM, structures are discretized into a set of finite rigid particles. The motion equation of each particle is solved by the central difference method and two adjacent arbitraril...

In this paper, development of a semi-two- dimensional mathematical model called SDAR is introduced. The model is composed of two principal modules of hydraulics and sediment transport. The newly developed SDAR model has a number of capabilities including determination of sediment transport rate, aggradation - degradation calculation, longitudinal profile and lateral cross–sectional variation s...

Determination of the amount of sugar in sugar beet is usually accomplished by polarimetric method in sugar industry. This method is not accurate due to impurities such as sodium, potassium and amino-nitrogen that are present and might cause some errors in the evaluation of the technical quality of sugar beet. In this research, 7309 samples of sugar beet from two semi- arid county, Isfahan and C...

For a parameter-dependent system of ordinary differential equations we present a systematic approach to the determination of parameter values near which singular perturbation scenarios (in the sense of Tikhonov and Fenichel) arise. We call these special values Tikhonov parameter values. The principal application we intend is to equations that describe chemical reactions, in the context of quasi...

This descriptive single case study examines the process and implications of the self-determined adoption of an internet-based meeting system in a global company. Self-determination theory and structuration theory are used as theoretical lenses to understand the adoption and use of an ICT system. The data were collected using qualitative semi-structured interviews with eleven system users and an...

Uncalibrated semi-invasive continous monitoring of cardiac index (CI) has recently gained increasing interest. The aim of the present study was to compare the accuracy of CI determination based on arterial waveform analysis with transpulmonary thermodilution. Fifty patients scheduled for elective coronary surgery were studied after induction of anaesthesia and before and after cardiopulmonary b...