Introduction: One of the most important issues in tobacco control is to organize smoking cessation programs. It is necessary to find nicotine dependency in smokers to be able to choose the proper treatment method; this is found by Fagerstorm Test. For easier assessment of cigarette dependency, this study was designed for the first time in Iran.Methods: This cross-sectional study was carried out during 2006-2008 in smoking cessation clinic of Tobacco Prevention and Control Research Center affiliated to Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences. All the entrants of a four-session per week program of smoking cessation, have been assessed by Firestorm Test by a physician. Those who quit smoking were followed after 6 and 12 months.Results: 822 participants (72% male) with mean age of 42.5±13 years (range: 18-86) were studied. 71% of them were married. The mean score of Fagerstrom Test for 754 persons was 5.8±2.6 (range: 0-10, frequency of 0: 4%, frequency of 10: 6%), with median of 5 and mode of 8 (106 persons, 14.05%). The scores of 218 persons (29%) were below 4 (low dependency), 38% were between 5-7 (medium dependency) and 33% were between 8-10 (high dependency). Pierson Coefficient between total score and the first question (first time smoking in the morning) was 0.82. Besides, evaluation of Kronbach α in first question omission had maximum effect (-0.10) on the test result.Conclusion: Smoking during the first 5 minutes in the morning had the most important effect on finding high nicotine dependency.

Social isolation is one prevalent social deficiencies among adolescents. Reasons of social isolation in adolescents are not clear yet. One of the variables that have attracted researchers in recent years to the etiology of social isolation is the dependence on new communication technologies, especially the Internet. This study aimed to determine the relationship between cyberspace dependency and social isolation in adolescents. This study conducted with a survey and cross-sectional design. Statistical population was high school students in Yazd. 535 (218 male and 317 female) adolescents selected using proportional stratified sampling. Instruments of data gathering are: Internet Addiction Test (IAT); and The UCLA Loneliness Scale-version 3 (UCLALS-v3). Cyberspace dependency prevalence rate in this research was 21. 7%. Significant difference were found between normal and dependent to cyberspace users, regarding the general social isolation (P <. 01); and components of isolation (P <. 01); relational association (P <. 01); and collective association (P <. 05). Hierarchical multiple linear regression analysis showed that cyberspace dependency, explained for 12. 2% of the variance of social isolation. Cyberspace dependency is a main risk factor for adolescent's social isolation and increases the risk of social isolation among adolescents. According to this result, preventive behavioral and cognitive interventions are necessary in order to change the internet use pattern and reducing the social isolation among adolescents.

This paper proposes a 2.4 GHz active mixer without passive inductor for the transceiver system. Taking into account the design requirements of the mixer, a double-balanced down-conversion structure with active inductor and negative resistance is designed. The proposed mixer with 130 nm CMOS technology is designed and simulated using Cadence software at 1.5 V supply voltage. Although we had to compromise conversion gain with linearity, we were able to achieve very high conversion gain with average linearity. Based on the results of post-layout simulations, the conversion gain of 27.57 dB, IIP3 equal to -7.88 dBm, 1-dB compression point equal to -17.34 dBm and IIP2 equal to 44.22 dBm with power consumption of 2.5 mW was obtained for the proposed mixer. The chip size without input and output pads is 95.18 µm × 117.68 µm, which leads to a chip area of 0.0112mm2.

This work investigates the channel thickness dependency of high-k gate dielectric-based complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) inverter circuit built using a conventional double-gate metal gate oxide semiconductor field-effect transistor (DG-MOSFET). It is espied that the use of high-k dielectric as a gate oxide in n/p DG-MOSFET based CMOS inverter results in a high noise margin as well as gain. It is also found that delay performance of the inverter circuit also gets upgraded slightly by using high-k gate dielectric materials. Further, it is observed that the scaling down of channel thickness (TSi) improves the noise margin (NM), and gain (A) at the cost of propagation delay (Pd). Moreover, it is also observed that the changes in noise margin (Δ, NM = NM(K=40) –,NM(K=3. 9)), propagation delay (Δ, Pd = Pd (K=40) –,Pd (K=3. 9)), and gain (Δ, A = A(K=40) –,A(K=3. 9)) gets hinder at lower TSi. Therefore, it is apposite to look at lower channel thickness (~6 nm) while designing high-k gate dielectric-based DG-MOSFET for CMOS inverter cell.

Background: Myocardial infarction (MI) is a heart condition caused by the suspension of blood circulation in a part of the myocardium. There are different risk factors contributing to a heart attack. Some believe that endorphins and endogenous opioids play an important role in causing MIs.Objectives: This study intended to determine the relationship between opium dependency and mortality rate among patients with MI.Patients and Methods: This retrospective study investigated patients who had MI for the first time and were hospitalized in the coronary care unit (CCU) of Khatamolanbia hospital in Zahedan, Iran, from 2007 to 2010. These patients were either opium dependent or not. Four hundred patients were selected. The patients’ possibilities of death and re-hospitalization after the first MI were confirmed over the phone. Data was analyzed through t-test and chi-squared test.Results: Of all the patients, 19.5% were opium-dependent. The mortality rate in the non-opium-dependent group was 5.9%, while in the dependent group this rate was 11.5% (P=0.072). The number of re-hospitalizations due to heart problems was higher in the opium-dependent patients (P<0.001).Conclusions: There was no meaningful relationship between the mortality rate of patients with MI who were either opium-dependent or non-opium-dependent. The number of re-hospitalizations due to heart problems was meaningfully higher in the opium-dependent patients; hence, educating people and training them on the destructive effects of opium, specifically in patients with heart conditions is highly recommended.

Methamphetamine use and dependency is a serious public health problem with implications across multiple areas from societal impact to burden on psychiatric and medical resources. Different areas such as East and Southeast Asia, Australia, Middle West and Western areas of United States and some regions of Great Britain are suffering from Methamphetamine use and related problems. An estimated 8% of admissions to substance abuse treatment programs are associated to stimulants with Methamphetamine misuse. The comparison of demographic characteristics and variety of substances in Methadone maintenance clinic of Baharan Psychiatry Hospital in Zahrdan, Iran in 2009-2011, has reported an increasing proceeding of methamphetamine use from 6% to about 20%. The Administrator of Health and Social anti-drug campaign declared that the substance related psychotic symptoms are noticeable among Methamphetamine users, it has also been reported that 50% of patients of psychiatric wards consist of Methamphetamine users psychosis patients, which would bring a number of harmful demerits to this the wards.

Dear Editor, Pediatric mortality remains a public health priority world-wide, and is amongst factors that reflect the health of children in the population (1). In developing countries, more researches on the nature of the diseases will decrease the burden of preventable deaths. Also, limited health resources motivate health authorities to accomplish new preventive and therapeutic protocols to minimize mortality among pediatric patients (2). In spite of all efforts in promoting children’s health, there is not much information on pattern of childhood mortality in Sultanate of Oman.