Sexual Function, Mental Well-being and Quality of Life among Kurdish Circumcised Women in Iran.

Background: Female genital mutilation is an intentional inhumane procedure that threatens girls and women's health. It is especially widespread in developing countries due to cultural, traditional and religious preferences. The aim of the current study was to investigate how circumcision affects women's sexual function.

Comparative Clinical Study of the Wound Healing Effects of a Novel Micropore Particle Technology: Effects on Wounds, Venous Leg Ulcers, and Diabetic Foot Ulcers.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine the wound healing effects of Acapsil, a white, odorless powder based on micropore particle technology (MPPT) (Willingsford Ltd, Southampton, UK) by comparing it to Gentaxane (Gentaksan, Borshchagovsky CCP, Kyiv, Ukraine) (polydimethylsiloxane powder with gentamicin antibiotic) and Ioddicerin (Farmak, Kyiv, Ukraine) (iodine with dimethyl sulfoxide [DMSO]).

Materials And Methods: The study included 266 patients with primarily trophic ulcers caused by pancreatic diabetes and venous insufficiency of the lower extremities, carbuncles, phlegmons, infected third- or fourth-degree heat burns, and infiltrations of postoperative wounds. The products were applied once daily to the wound until it was clean (ie, free from necrosis, pus, and fibrinogenous thickenings).

Circulating hematopoietic progenitor cells in patients affected by Chornobyl accident.

Unlabelled: High radiation sensitivity of stem cells and their ability to accumulate sublethal radiation damage provides the basis for investigation of hematopoietic progenitors using in vivo culture methodology. Unique samples of peripheral blood and bone marrow were derived from the patients affected by Chornobyl accident during liquidation campaign.

Aim: To investigate functional activity of circulating hematopoietic progenitor cells from peripheral blood and bone marrow of cleanup workers in early and remote periods after the accident at Chornobyl nuclear power plant (CNPP).

Patterns of harm reduction service utilization and HIV incidence among people who inject drugs in Ukraine: A two-part latent profile analysis.

Background: Program utilization patterns are described within a large network of harm reduction service providers in Ukraine. The relationship between utilization patterns and HIV incidence is determined among people who inject drugs (PWID) controlling for oblast-level HIV incidence and treatment/syringe coverage.

Methods: Data were extracted from the network's monitoring and evaluation database (January 2011-September 2014, n=327,758 clients).

Patterns of informal patient payments in Bulgaria, Hungary and Ukraine: a comparison across countries, years and type of services.

Informal payments for health care are a well-known phenomenon in many health care systems around the world. While informal payments could be an important source of health care financing, they have an adverse impact on efficiency and access to care, and are a major impediment to ongoing health care reforms. This paper aims to study the scale and patterns of informal patient payments for out-patient and in-patient services in three former-socialist countries: Bulgaria, Hungary and Ukraine.

Beta-amylase gene variability in introgressive wheat lines.

Variability of the beta-amylase gene in bread wheat, artificial amphidiploids, and derived introgression wheat lines was analyzed. Variation in homeologous beta-amylase sequences caused by the presence of MITE (Miniature Inverted-Repeat Transposable Element) and its footprint has been identified in bread wheat. The previously unknown location of MITE in Triticum urartu and T.

Enhanced starch hydrolysis using α-amylase immobilized on cellulose ultrafiltration affinity membrane.

In order to prepare ultrafiltration membranes possessing biocatalytic properties, α-amylase has been immobilized on cellulose membranes. Enzyme immobilization was based on a covalent bonding between chitosan and a surface of cellulose membrane, followed by an attachment of Cibacron Blue F3G-A dye as affinity ligand. Various factors affecting the immobilization process, such as enzyme concentration, pH of modifying solution, zeta-potential of membrane surface, and stability of immobilized enzyme were studied.

Overall satisfaction of health care users with the quality of and access to health care services: a cross-sectional study in six Central and Eastern European countries.

Background: The measurement of consumer satisfaction is an essential part of the assessment of health care services in terms of service quality and health care system responsiveness. Studies across Europe have described various strategies health care users employ to secure services with good quality and quick access. In Central and Eastern European countries, such strategies also include informal payments to health care providers.

A "Common Factors" Approach to Developing Culturally Tailored HIV Prevention Interventions.

The current dominant model of HIV prevention intervention dissemination involves packaging interventions developed in one context, training providers to implement that specific intervention, and evaluating the extent to which providers implement it with fidelity. Research shows that providers rarely implement these programs with fidelity due to perceived incompatibility, resource constraints, and preference for locally generated solutions. In this study, we used the concept of "common factors," or broad constructs shared by most evidence-based HIV prevention interventions, to train service providers to develop their own programs.

Rashba Torque Driven Domain Wall Motion in Magnetic Helices.

Manipulation of the domain wall propagation in magnetic wires is a key practical task for a number of devices including racetrack memory and magnetic logic. Recently, curvilinear effects emerged as an efficient mean to impact substantially the statics and dynamics of magnetic textures. Here, we demonstrate that the curvilinear form of the exchange interaction of a magnetic helix results in an effective anisotropy term and Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction with a complete set of Lifshitz invariants for a one-dimensional system.

Manganese(II) Complexes with Schiff Bases Immobilized on Nanosilica as Catalysts of the Reaction of Ozone Decomposition.

In this article, we submit the description of synthesis and identification of manganese(II) complexes with pyrogenic nanosilica-immobilized (d av = 10 nm; S sp = 290 m(2)/g) hydroxyaldimine ligands [Formula: see text]: salicilaldiminopropyl (L1); 5-bromosalicilaldiminopropyl (L2); 2-hydroxynaphtaldiminopropyl (L3); 2-hydroxy-3-methoxybenzaldiminopropyl (L4); 2-hydroxy-3,5-dichloroacetophenoniminopropyl (L5); and 4-hydroxy-3-methoxybenzaldiminopropyl (L6). The ligands and complexes were characterized by UV-VIS and IR spectrometry. Nanocomposites consisting of complexes [Formula: see text] showed a high catalytic activity in low-temperature ozone decomposition in the range of concentrations between 2.

The impact of early life stress on risk of tobacco smoking initiation by adolescents.

Aims: Our study aimed to examine the association between early life stress and early initiation of alcohol and tobacco use.

Design: This prospective cohort study of women and children belongs to the Ukrainian component of the European Longitudinal Study of Pregnancy and Childhood.

Setting: Dniprodzerzhynsk, a city of some 250,000 inhabitants in south central Ukraine.

Functional activity of CD34-positive cells in chronic myeloid leukemia patients with different response to imatinib therapy.

Introduction: It is believed that the reason of the leukemic clone cell resistance to treatment with tyrosine kinase inhibitors during chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is mutations in the genome of an early bone marrow progenitor cells that are CD34-positive. Such cells, regardless of treatment, acquire ability to proliferation and differentiation. This leads to the re-expansion of the CD34(+) cells.

Smoke-Free Universities Help Students Avoid Establishing Smoking by Means of Facilitating Quitting.

Background: This study aimed to clarify whether smoke-free policies affect the initiation or the quitting of smoking among young adults.

Methods: In this natural quasi-experiment study, three universities with different enforcement of smoke-free policies were considered in Kazan City, Russian Federation. Exposure data were collected in 2008-2009 through measurement of particulate matter concentrations in typical sets of premises in each university to distinguish smoke-free universities (SFU) and those not smoke-free (NSFU).

Effects of hydrodynamic retardation and interparticle interactions on the self-assembly in a drying droplet containing suspended solid particles.

Self-assembly of particles, suspended in a drying droplet, were studied by the Monte Carlo method. The Brownian diffusion of particles was simulated accounting for the effect of hydrodynamic retardation and interparticle interactions. The model allowed for explaining formation of the "coffee ring" patterns even without accounting for the radial flows towards the three-phase contact line.

To pay or not to pay? A multicountry study on informal payments for health-care services and consumers' perceptions.

Background: Although the literature offers various theoretical explanations for the existence of informal patient payments, empirical research has mostly focused on socio-demographic features as determinants of these payments. The role of health-care users' perceptions on informal payments are rarely taken into account especially in multicountry surveys.

Objective: Our aim is to examine the association between informal payments for health-care services and perceptions of health-care consumers about paying informally as well as socio-demographic characteristics.

Solitary state at the edge of synchrony in ensembles with attractive and repulsive interactions.

We discuss the desynchronization transition in networks of globally coupled identical oscillators with attractive and repulsive interactions. We show that, if attractive and repulsive groups act in antiphase or close to that, a solitary state emerges with a single repulsive oscillator split up from the others fully synchronized. With further increase of the repulsing strength, the synchronized cluster becomes fuzzy and the dynamics is given by a variety of stationary states with zero common forcing.

Willingness and ability to pay for physician services in six Central and Eastern European countries.

Patient charges for physician services are implemented in high-income countries and often are considered in the Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). However, there is no evidence on the potential consumption effects of service charges in these countries. This study provides evidence on the potential impact of patient charges on the consumption of specialized physician services in six CEE countries: Bulgaria, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and Ukraine.

The potential for bridging: HIV status awareness and risky sexual behaviour of injection drug users who have non-injecting permanent partners in Ukraine.

Objective: To quantify potential bridging of HIV transmission between the injection drug using subpopulation to the non-injection drug using population through unprotected heterosexual sex.

Design: Secondary analysis of cross-sectional data.

Methods: A sub-sample of participants who reported having a permanent partner who are not injection drug users and have not injected drugs in the past (N=1379) was selected from a survey implemented in 26 Ukrainian cities in 2011.

Preferences for physician services in Ukraine: a discrete choice experiment.

Evidence on preferences of Ukrainian consumers for healthcare improvements can help to design reforms that correspond to societal priorities. This study aims to elicit and to place monetary values on public preferences for out-patient physician services in Ukraine. The method of discrete choice experiment is used on a sample of 303 respondents, representative of the adult Ukrainian population.

Willingness to pay for physician services at a primary contact in Ukraine: results of a contingent valuation study.

Background: The existence of quasi-formal and informal payments in the Ukrainian health care system jeopardizes equity and creates barriers to access to proper care. Patient payment policies that better match patient preferences are necessary. We analyze the potential and feasibility of official patient charges for public health care services in Ukraine by studying the patterns of fee acceptability, ability and willingness to pay (WTP) for public health care among population groups.

Informal patient payments in maternity hospitals in Kiev, Ukraine.

Maternity care in Ukraine is a government priority. However, it has not undergone substantial changes since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Similar to the entire health care sector in Ukraine, maternity care suffers from inefficient funding, which results in low quality and poor access to services.

Recall of tobacco pack health warnings by the population in Ukraine and its association with the perceived tobacco health hazard.

Objectives: After years of prevalence of smoking increase, Ukraine observes its decline. Recent tobacco control measures included smoke-free policies, new textual health warnings (THW) since late 2006, ban of outdoor tobacco advertising since January 2009 and tobacco tax increase since late 2008. The objective was to estimate potential contribution of THW to smoking decline process in Ukraine.

Empirical studies on informal patient payments for health care services: a systematic and critical review of research methods and instruments.

Background: Empirical evidence demonstrates that informal patient payments are an important feature of many health care systems. However, the study of these payments is a challenging task because of their potentially illegal and sensitive nature. The aim of this paper is to provide a systematic review and analysis of key methodological difficulties in measuring informal patient payments.