mahmoud mohammadzadeh

Saffron petals are known as one of the richest sources of anthocyanin. Considering the significant production statistics of this plant and high consumption of anthocyanin as an authorized food color in Iran, its industrial extraction can be worthy to be considered. In this study, with an industrial approach (determination of parameters considering industrial extraction), conditions for extracting monomeric anthocyanin from saffron petals using a single solvent of citric acid have been investigated, for the first time. Among the reasons for this choice to replace other solvents studied in previous studies, we can mention the availability and allowability of this substance in the food industry. The variables of solvent to dry plant tissue ratio in the range of 10 to 60 ml/g, extraction temperature in the range of 25 to 35 °C, solvent concentration percentage in the range of 5 to 20 and extraction time of 2 to 120 minutes were considered for this experiment. After obtaining the most appropriate model to the laboratory data output, using the surface-response method, extraction conditions were optimized in order to achieve the highest amount of extracted anthocyanin. According to the obtained coefficients, ratio of solvent to dry petals was recognized as the most significant extraction variable. Solvent ratio to dry petals of 10 ml/g, solvent concentration percentage of 5.04, extraction temperature of 25 °C and extraction time of 179.555 minutes were determined as the optimal extraction conditions. Extraction time of up to 180 minutes was considered to optimize. Model predicted the amount of extracted anthocyanin in the optimal conditions was 688.944 mg/l.

Medical universities have the important task of educating professional human resources. Familiarizing students with the university environment seems to be necessary to achieve a basic level of attitude and skills. Students entering the clinical externship course face difficulties such asunfamiliarity with hospital environment. Therefore, the student committee of Educational Development Center of Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences and Yazd Standing Committee Of Medical Education (SCOME, IMSA- Yazd) designed and performed the study “We and Externship ” to make externs be familiar with the clinical environment.
The workshops took place in Shahid Sadoughi of Yazd hospital, in January 2014 and 2015. 4 interns (6th and 7th year medical students) explained the specifiedtopics . At the beginning and the end of the session, pretest and posttest were distributed among the participants. The satisfaction level was assessed at the end of the session.
65 (72.2%) out of 90 participants answered the questionnaires. The mean scores of pretest and posttest were 8.29± 3.28 and 15.59± 3.53, respectively. The presented topics resolved the educational need of 49 (73.3%) students. 31 students (47.7%) felt prepared to enter externship course after this workshop. 61 students (93.8%) said their information about this course has increased and for 57 students (88.7%) the topics of workshops were practical.
Familiarizing externs to the hospital environment and the rules of each wards in the hospital before the clinical course is necessary and it is suggested to put this externship course in the curriculum and the topics are taught by interns.

Millions of children around the world live on the street. They are at higher risk of viral diseases (eg. hepatitis B virus) because of physical, sexual and drug abuse. The aim of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of hepatitis B virus (HBV) and its risk factors in Isfahan street children. In a cross-sectional study, we selected 399 street children. After getting information and performing the tests for HBs Ag, HBs Ab and HBc Ab, data were analyzed by SPSS software version 15 used t-test, χ2, Mann-Whitney and logistic regression. We studied 271 (68%) boys and 128 (32%) girls. Their mean age was 12.74 ± 3.27 years. In our study, poverty was the main motivation for street children (68% of participants). 91.7%, 94.7% and 96.7% of the participants had no history of smoking, drinking alcoholic beverages or drug abuse, respectively. 34.4% of girls and 4.4% of boys (P = 0.001) were sexually abused and 68% of girls and 17.3% of boys (P = 0.001) were involved in physical fighting. HBs Ag, HBs Ab and HBc Ab seroprevalence were 3.3%, 14.4% and 2.1% respectively. No significant statistical difference was between HBV-seroprevalence and its probable risk factors. KEducational programs for safer behaviors, training them to improve their quality of life, and hepatitis B vaccination in those who are non-immune should be performed.

Lifelong behavior and risk factors of chronic diseases extend from earlylife to adulthood. It seems that dietary habits and unhealthy food consumption, as well aspassive smoking play an important role in the development of such diseases. Multiplestudies have shown that healthy lifestyle education in preschool children improves theirknowledge, attitude and practice about healthy lifestyle. This study was conducted toevaluate the effect of lifestyle education with educational posters in daycare centers onpreschool children. In an interventional study, 250 preschool children were selected via 2-stagerandom cluster sampling and taught tips on healthy lifestyle via educational posters. Theirknowledge on healthy lifestyle was assessed before and after (1 week and 3 months)education via a picture-questionnaire, and their practice and behavior were assessed before and after education via their favorite choice of snack in daycare centers. Collected data were analyzed using SPSS13 by paired t-test and Man Whitney test. The knowledge and practice scores of the studied subjects improvedsignificantly one week after intervention compared with baseline, and persisted until the third month after education. Healthy lifestyle education via poster for preschool children can significantlyimprove their knowledge and practice towards healthy lifestyle.