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Dairy products may affect hypertension (HTN) risk. The aim of this study was to examine the association between fermented and nonfermented dairy foods and HTN in a sample of premature coronary artery disease (PCAD) subjects. This cross‐sectional study was performed on 1854 PCAD patients. A 110‐item food frequency questionnaire was used to assess dietary intakes. HTN was considered if systolic blood pressure was 140 mmHg and higher and/or diastolic blood pressure was 90 mmHg and higher. The odds ratio of HTN across the quartiles of different types of dairy products was evaluated by binary logistic regression. The mean (SD) of dairy products consumption was 339.8 (223.5) g/day, of which 285.4 g/day was fermented dairy products. In the crude model, participants in the fourth quartile of fermented dairy products had lesser risk of HTN compared to the bottom quartile (OR = 0.70, 95% CI: 0.52, 0.96; p for trend =.058). However, after considering the possible confounders, the significance disappeared. Subjects in the top quartile of high‐fat fermented dairy products had 34% lower risk for HTN compared to the bottom quartile (95% CI: 0.49, 0.88; p for trend <.001). Adjustment for potential risk factors weakened the association but remained significant (OR = 0.73, 95% CI: 0.53, 1.01; p for trend =.001). Nonsignificant relation was detected between low‐fat fermented, low‐fat nonfermented, and high‐fat nonfermented dairy products and HTN. Moderate consumption of high‐fat fermented dairy products, in a population with low consumption of dairy foods, might relate to reduced likelihood of HTN. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Family is foundational to Iranian culture and society and traditional families have been upheld by religious and political institutions since ancient times. However, the incidence of single‐parent families in Iran is increasing and literature on treating dysfunction in these families in therapy is lacking. This study examines the effectiveness of structural family therapy (SFT) in addressing problems in family functioning and children's behavior in single‐parent Iranian families using a single‐case, multiple baseline, ABA design. Participants included five single mothers and their children who received SFT for 8 weeks following a baseline phase. Participants were assessed during the baseline, therapy, and follow‐up phases using the Child Behavior Checklist and the Family Assessment Device. The data were analyzed visually and quantitatively. Results indicated that the treatment was effective in decreasing behavior problems and improving family functioning and that treatment effects were statistically significant and stable through the follow‐up period. Research and clinical implications and limitations are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: BACKGROUND: PEBA and nano‐ZnO have been discussed for membrane modification and for gas separation in different studies and in mixed matrix membranes (i.e. PEBA/TiO2, PE/ZnO); however, no report has been published on the gas transport properties of ZnO/PEBA hybrid membranes. RESULTS: Molecular simulation and experimental approaches were done using PEBA 1657 mixed matrix membranes (MMMs) loaded with ZnO nanorod‐ and nanosphere shaped nanomaterials at 0.5 wt% and 1 wt% loading to investigate the gas separation properties of these MMMs. Structural characterizationwas carried out by FESEM, AFM, BET and FTIR on synthesized membranes, and FFV and WAXD on the simulated membrane cells to study their structural properties. Thermal analysis was carried out by TGA, DMTA and calculation of the glass transition temperature to investigate the thermal properties of the MMMs. The results showed that the addition of ZnO filler significantly improved both the physical and thermal properties of the MMMs based on the characterization tests. The transport properties of the MMMs for three single light gas molecules (CO2, CH4 and N2) were investigated using experimental set‐up testing (permeability and selectivity), and also by molecular dynamic and Monte Carlo approaches in molecular simulation (diffusivity and solubility). The addition of ZnO nanomaterials in both shapes to the polymeric membrane significantly increased the transport properties; for example, CO2 permeability increased from 120 for membrane without nanomaterial to 135 barrer for membrane with 0.5 wt% of nanosphere ZnO and 157 barrer for membrane with 0.5 wt% nanorod ZnO. CONCLUSION: The permeability of CH4 and N2 gases into all samples showed no significant change with an increase in pressure or ZnO loading which is likely due to the penetration paths in the membranes. The membrane with 1 wt% ZnO nanorods had the best performance in the Robeson upper bound 2008 diagram. This sample is thus suggested for industrial development. The simulation results showed a similar trend for the membranes and gas molecules, with an error of 25% to 65% from experimental results. We conclude that the PEBA/1 wt% ZnO nanorods membrane could be an ideal solid polymer membrane for gas separation applications. © 2018 Society of Chemical Industry [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The expertise of human experts can be formally extracted from their written documents, research projects, and everyday activities. The process whereby experts are recognized according to their activities is called expert finding. In this paper, we propose an approach to identify the experts in a given field according to the content of 3 easily accessible sources of information: (a) “Publications,” (b) “Social interactions,” and (c) “Scientometric information.” We employed the Dempster‐Shafer theory to combine the results obtained from individual sources to find a final unified ranking. In Digital Bibliography & Library Project standard data, it is shown that the Dempster‐Shafer combination creates a desired synergy between 2 bodies of knowledge, which improves the precision of the top‐ranked results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]