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An abstract of the study "The Location Hospitals Using Fuzzy Logic Combining AHP and TOPSIS Environment ARCGIS" by A. Poorahmad and colleagues is presented.

Background Around the world, spiritual care in nursing is a critical part of providing holistic care, but within our profession, there is a lack of certainty over the meaning of spirituality and delivery of spiritual care, including nurses thinking of spirituality as religion. Methods We adopted the eight-step Walker and Avant's concept analysis approach to provide a definition of the concept, searching and analysing international and national online databases. Inclusion criterion included that articles were published between 1950 and 2012 in English or Persian language. Finally, 151 articles and 7 books were included in the analysis. Findings The attributes of spiritual care are healing presence, therapeutic use of self, intuitive sense, exploration of the spiritual perspective, patient-centredness, meaning-centred therapeutic intervention and creation of a spiritually nurturing environment. Spiritual care is a subjective and dynamic concept, a unique aspect of care that integrates all the other aspects. It emerges in the context of nurses' awareness of the transcendent dimension of life and reflects a patient's reality. The provision of spiritual care leads to positive consequences such as healing for patients and promotion of spiritual awareness for nurses. Implications for Nursing and Health Policy The conceptual definition of spiritual care provided in this study can help clinical nurses, educators and nurse managers to develop and implement evidence-based health policies, comprehensive staff training programmes and practical quality assessment guidelines to try to ensure that all nurses are competent to include relevant spiritual care in practice. Conclusion A comprehensive definition of the concept of spiritual care ensued. The findings can facilitate further development of nursing knowledge and practice in spiritual care and facilitate correction of common misconceptions about the provision of spiritual care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports the fatty acid composition of the oil extracts fromQuercus brantiifruits growing in Kohgiloye va Boyer Ahmad province in southwestern Iran. The oil fromQ. brantiifruits was extracted with hexane in Soxhlet apparatus and subsequently identified and determined by using gas chromatography–mass spectroscopy. The results revealed that the major fatty acids were oleic acid (52.99–66.14%), linoleic acid (10.80–11.11%), palmitic acid (8.08–10.06%), stearic acid (0.74–1.57%), α-linolenic acid (0.19–0.35%), erucic acid (0.12–0.15%) and arachidic acid (0.12–0.13%). The total proportion of unsaturated and saturated oil was 64.60–77.27% and 9.17–11.75%, respectively. Results indicate that the fruits ofQ. brantiicontained 0.19–0.35% omega-3, 10.92–14.77% omega-6 and 53.14–66.26% omega-9. Therefore,Q. brantiican be introduced as rich sources of fatty acid in food dietary and medical health. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper shows the importance of the incompressibility of nuclear matter on analyzing the fusion excitation functions, average angular momenta, and astrophysical S factor at energies far below the Coulomb barrier for the asymmetric systems 28Si + 94Mo and 28Si + l00Mo. Moreover, our predictions for threshold energy of fall-off phenomena, Es, are in good agreement with semi-empirical formulas of Es for 28Si + 94,l00Mo systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hospital wastewater has special importance since having pathogens, radioactive materials, pharmaceutical wastes and heavy metals. Removing them into environment without any treatment may cause serious problems for the public health. Membrane Biological Reactor is the combination of the activated sludge and membrane filters. This research has investigated the performance of the Nano-Filtration in a Membrane Biological Reactor (NF-MBR) in the pilot scale in comparison to the activated sludge system which is very common in hospitals and has been utilized in the Babol hospital's wastewater treatment plant. NF-MBR pilot make the chance for the biological process to act in long SRT (in this case 62 days). Therefore the MLSS concentration in the aeration tank reach to over 6000 mg/l. TDS and EC removal is obtained 60% and turbidity and TSS removal is obtained up to 99%. The advantageous of this system were having no sludge removal in the experimental period, no chemical backwash of the nano-membranes and excellent and nearly constant quality of the effluent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Around the world, spiritual care in nursing is a critical part of providing holistic care, but within our profession, there is a lack of certainty over the meaning of spirituality and delivery of spiritual care, including nurses thinking of spirituality as religion. Methods We adopted the eight-step Walker and Avant's concept analysis approach to provide a definition of the concept, searching and analysing international and national online databases. Inclusion criterion included that articles were published between 1950 and 2012 in English or Persian language. Finally, 151 articles and 7 books were included in the analysis. Findings The attributes of spiritual care are healing presence, therapeutic use of self, intuitive sense, exploration of the spiritual perspective, patient-centredness, meaning-centred therapeutic intervention and creation of a spiritually nurturing environment. Spiritual care is a subjective and dynamic concept, a unique aspect of care that integrates all the other aspects. It emerges in the context of nurses' awareness of the transcendent dimension of life and reflects a patient's reality. The provision of spiritual care leads to positive consequences such as healing for patients and promotion of spiritual awareness for nurses. Implications for Nursing and Health Policy The conceptual definition of spiritual care provided in this study can help clinical nurses, educators and nurse managers to develop and implement evidence-based health policies, comprehensive staff training programmes and practical quality assessment guidelines to try to ensure that all nurses are competent to include relevant spiritual care in practice. Conclusion A comprehensive definition of the concept of spiritual care ensued. The findings can facilitate further development of nursing knowledge and practice in spiritual care and facilitate correction of common misconceptions about the provision of spiritual care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: MoSi2–30wt.% TiC nanocomposite powder was successfully synthesized by ball milling and following heat treatment. Effect of milling time and annealing temperature were investigated. The products synthesis and reactions progress were characterized by XRD. Morphology and microstructure of milled powders were monitored by SEM and TEM, respectively. Results showed that the synthesis of this composite begins after 10h of milling and progresses gradually up to 30h of milling. MoSi2–TiC composite was completely synthesized after annealing of 30h milled powder at 900°C. On the basis of Reitveld refinement method, the mean grain size and microstrain of 13.2nm and 0.44% were obtained, respectively for 30h milled powder that is in consistent with TEM image. In the spite of grain growth and strain release, this nanocomposite powder maintained its nanostructure after annealing. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The dynamic economic load dispatch problem (DELDP), with the consideration of valve-point effects, is a complicated non-linear constrained optimization problem with nonsmooth and non-convex characteristics. The main goal of DELDP is to find out the optimal generation schedule of the generators corresponding to the most economical operating point of the system over the considered timing horizon. In this paper, a new swarm based optimization algorithm, so called gravitational search algorithm (GSA) has been proposed to solve the DELDP with considering valve-point effects and transmission power loss constraints. The performance of the proposed method is rigorously tested for optimality, convergence, robustness and computational efficiency on a 10-unit test system with a 24-h load demand at each 1-h time intervals which is so well-known and common in literature. The proposed algorithm also takes care of different constraints like power balance, ramp rate limits and generation limits. The simulation results reveal that, compared with other methods reported in literatures recently, the proposed GSA method are capable of obtaining better quality solutions with higher efficiency. In addition, sensitivity analysis has been performed on the controlling parameters of GSA to reach the best arrangement for them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Neuropathic pain is a type of chronic pain resulting from injury to the peripheral or central nervous system. Moreover, lithium is the main medication used to treat bipolar (manic-depression) disorder and some recent studies have also confirmed the neuroprotective effects of lithium. Considering the most common cause of neuropathic pain, nerve injury, the present study was designed to evaluate the effect of lithium on neuropathic pain induced by partial ligation of sciatic nerve in rat. Materials and Methods: This experimental study was conducted on 40 adult male rats. Neuropathic pain was induced by a partial sciatic nerve ligation model and animals were randomly divided into five groups: a control group that underwent the surgical procedure without sciatic nerve ligation and four experimental groups which received normal saline and different doses of lithium (5, 10 and 15 mg/kg, i.p.). Heat hyperalgesia, mechanical and cold allodynia were assessed at 3, 5, 7, 10 and 14 days after surgery. Results: According to the results, lithium (5, 10 and 15 mg/kg) significantly reduced heat hyperalgesia and cold allodynia induced by partial sciatic nerve ligation (P<0.01), while it reduced mechanical allodynia only at high doses (10 and 15 mg/kg). Conclusion: Lithium has an analgesic effect on neuropathic pain induced by partial ligation of sciatic nerve in rat. Further investigations would be needed to confirm the analgesic effect of lithium and its mechanisms of action in neuropathic pain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents Clonal Selection Algorithm (CSA) to obtain the optimal location and parameters of Unified Power Flow Controller (UPFC) in deregulated electric power system. UPFC has great flexibility that can control the active and reactive power flow and bus voltages, simultaneously. UPFC is applied to maximize the system loadability subject to the transmission line capacity limits. The results of the proposed optimization problem are compared to Harmony Search algorithm (HSA) that they were evaluated in our prior work. These results are compared with those obtained from CSA to show the effectiveness of the proposed method in finding the best solution for the optimization problem. The proposed approach is conducted and tested on IEEE 9-bus and IEEE 14-bus test systems. The results show that the loadability of the power transmission system can be effectively enhanced through the optimal location and proper parameters selection of the UPFC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Lack of coordination in clinical education of nursing, the method of health care after graduation, and the existence of many problems in fulfilling the aims of clinical teaching encouraged the researchers to conduct this research, aiming at investigating the quality and obstacles of clinical teaching in nursing. Method: This is a cross-sectional descriptive study on 90 individuals (clinical teachers, senior M.S. students of nursing and 30 nurses). 3 self-made questionnaires were used to collect the data. Results: The results showed that the quality of clinical teaching in viewpoint of the majority of students (73.3%) is weak and for the majority of clinical teachers (86.7%) it is moderate .The X2 statistical test revealed a significant difference between the viewpoints of these two groups. As to the problems and obstacles in achieving the aims of clinical teaching, 100% of the students stated the inadequacies concerning the clinical teachers. 96.6% of the clinical teachers indicated that the existing insufficiencies in the curriculum and environmental factors are the obstacles in this regard. 100% of the nursing staff emphasized lack of familiarization of the personnel with the aim of clinical teaching of nursing students which is the main problem. Conclusion: To improve the quality of clinical teaching in nursing, it is recommended that there should be a cooperation among clinical teachers, nurses, head nurses, educational supervisors, and nursing managers in preparing curriculum plans in nursing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: We present a generalization of Mizoguchi and Takahashi’s fixed point theorem for single-valued mappings in partially ordered metric spaces. As an application of the main result, we give an existence and uniqueness theorem for the solution of a periodic boundary value problem. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Aims: Considering that melatonin is known as an effective ROS scavenger, it may be able to improve the invitro oocyte maturation and the fetal quality. This study was designed to determine the effect of melatonin on invitro oocyte maturation and fertilization and cleavage and blastocyst development rate in mice. Materials & Methods: This experimental study was carried out in the cellular-molecular center of Gilan Medical University in 2010. The cumulus-oocyte complex (COC) and germinal vesicle were obtained from mice. COCs were cultured for 18 hours in maturation medium (supplemented with different doses of melatonin (100, 10, 1 μM, 100, 10μM) and control group and their maturation rate was assessed. Then two pre-nucleus embryos were cultured in T6 medium supplemented with different doses of melatonin and embryos' developmental rate was recorded until blastocyst stage by inverted microscope. Data were analyzed using Chisquare test by SPSS 13 software. Results: 1, 10 and 100 μM concentrations of melatonin had positive effect on in-vitro oocyte maturation and fertilization in mice compared to the control group (p<0.01). In addition, the cleavage and blastocyst development rate increased in presence of 10and 100 nM of melatonin (p<0.01). Conclusion: Melatonin as an effective ROS scavenger has positive influence on in-vitro oocytes maturation and embryos' development promotion in mice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Noticing the practical significance of stem cells, this study was conducted to culture and screen bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells derived from Raf and Hilline chicken strains and investigate the effect of age and race on the morphology and differentiation of the generated cells. Materials and Methods: In this fundamental study, bone marrow cells from 3 to 25 day-old Raf and Hiline chicken strains were cultured in low glucose DMEM, 10% BFS. Then third passage bone marrow cells of the two strains were compared in terms of morphology, differentiation to bone, cartilage, and adiposity. Data were analyzed through SPSS software. Results: In culturing Raf chicken derived bone marrow cells, in contrast to Hiline chicken strain, colonization took place and they almost had a better fibroblastic morphology. The results indicated higher yields of differentiation to bone, cartilage, and adipose tissues in Raf chicken derived bone marrow cells than Hiline chicken. These differences were statistically significant. Also, 15 days was the most suitable age for screening the mesenchymal stem cells of chicken. Conclusion: Screening and proliferation of mesenchymal stem cells from 15-day old Raf chicken bone marrow cells are good resources for differentiation and purification of chicken bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we establish stability of quadratic double centralizers and quadratic multipliers on Banach algebras. We also prove the super stability of quadratic double centralizers on Banach algebras which are weakly commutative and weakly without order, and of quadratic multipliers on Banach algebras which are weakly without order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the design of a synchronous reference frame control strategy for single-phase inverter-based islanded distributed generation systems. Since, the implementation of these regulators requires a minimum of two independent phases in the system, a second orthogonal phase is generated using a first order all pass filter. The essence of the proposed control strategy is to use a SRFPI controller to regulate the output voltage, together with a simple inner capacitor current regulating loop to stabilize the system and a voltage-feedforward loop to improve the system robustness. A detailed design procedure for the proposed control strategy is presented based on a frequency-response approach. Practical implementation aspects and the phase margin of the system are taken into account during the design process. Extensive simulations confirm the validity of the proposed strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are several strategies that can be utilized to improve transfection efficiency while reducing the cytotoxicity of polyethyleneimine (PEI) as a promising non-viral gene delivery vector. In this study, we evaluated the potential use of lysine-histidine (KH) peptides in modifying the PEI 10 kDa structure and enhancing its efficiency while maintaining low toxicity of PEI. PEI 10 kDa was modified with 6-bromohexanoic acid (alkyl) to increase its lipophilicity. Then, ethylenediamine (EDA) was attached to the carboxylic groups of PEI-hexanoate to restore the primary amines of PEI. Subsequently, six different KH short peptides were conjugated to PEIs and evaluated for the effect of the KH sequence on vector transfection efficiency and cytotoxicity. The transfection efficiency of PEI-peptides complexed with a luciferase reporter gene (pRLCMV) in Neuro-2A murine neuroblastoma cells showed that the PEI conjugated to KHHHKKHHHK peptide had a significantly higher rate of gene transfection efficiency in comparison with other KH peptides. This peptide was conjugated to PEI-alkyl and PEI-alkyl-EDA and significant improvement in efficiency with minimal cytotoxicity was observed. The results obtained suggest that the sequence and content of KH peptides will have a significant impact on the transfection efficiency of modified PEI 10 kDa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a novel control strategy for parallel inverters of distributed generation units in an ac distribution System. The proposed control technique, based on the droop control method, uses only locally measurable feedback signals. This method is usually applied to achieve good active and reactive power sharing when communication between the inverters is difficult due to its physical location. An instantaneous current control loop is also included in the novel controller to ensure proper sharing of harmonic components when supplying nonlinear loads. The simulation results presented indicate that the scheme effectively achieves the goals of power sharing in the presence of load transient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate an Erdös problem on almost quadratic functions on R. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: One way of embryo preservation is cryopreservation, but this process may damage and lead to the loss of the embryos, and bring about chromosomal abnormality. This has led researchers to seek techniques for short term preservation of embryos in 0-10 °C temperatures. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of short time exposure to 4°C temperature on the expression profiles of mono-carboxylic transporter genes 1,2 ,3, and 4(MCT1-4) in 4-cell mouse embryos. Materials and Methods: In this fundamental study, forty 4-cell mouse embryos from NMRI strain were randomly divided into two groups. The first group consisted of fresh 4-cell embryos, and the second group included 4-cell mouse embryos that were exposed to 4°C temperature for 24 hours. After RT-PCR, the samples were electro-phoresised for expressing the MTC1-4 genes. Results: The expression of MCT 1-3 was observed in the first group, but the obtained results did not indicate their expression in the second group. Conclusion: Preservation of 4-cell embryos in 4°C for 24 hours inhibits the expression of MCT 1-3 genes. Keeping embryos in 4°C temperature is not a proper way for their short time preservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Identifying the problems which exist in clinical education and setting to solve them will lead to the improvement of quality of medical care services. This study was conducted to fulfill this goal. Materials and Methods: In this descriptive-analytic research which was carried out in 2008, the views of the medical trainees and interns, who had at least gone through two major clinical courses at Arak University of Medical Sciences, about the obstacles of clinical education were evaluated. For achieving this purpose, a questionnaire containing 56 questions on 6 problem areas including clinical education spaces, educational facilities, cooperation of health and treatment personnel, clinical assessment and teaching methods, and clinical curriculum design methods was administered. Results: The quality of clinical education in the view of 41% of medical trainees and 48% of interns was seen to be at an average level. Assessment methods of clinical education, on the other hand, were rated as weak by 28.7% of trainees and 32% of interns. Also, 29.3% of trainees and 31.7% of interns evaluated the use of educational spaces to be at a weak level. Additionally, the quality of clinical teaching methods, educational facilities, cooperation of health and treatment personnel, and the design of clinical curriculum were seen at an average level. Conclusion: This study highlighted the importance of determining learning experiences, applying proper teaching methods, conducting continuous generative evaluations, using simulated environments and educational spaces congruent with graduates' future employment opportunities, and enhancing students' level of motivation, as effective strategies for the improvement of the quality of medical education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a new interaction prediction approach for hierarchical control of non-linear large-scale systems is presented. The proposed approach uses a new gradient-type coordination scheme which is robust with respect to the parameters' variation, and also has a good convergence rate. In classical coordination strategies, which can be divided into the gradient-type and substitution-type approaches, it is not possible to improve the robustness and the convergence rate at the same time, since by increasing one the other decreases. The proposed approach has the main advantages of the gradient-type algorithms in being independent of the parameter's variation and also the initial guess of the coordination vector. In addition, because of the proposed coordination strategy, in which the update of the coordination vector directly causes the reduction of the coordination error, the number of iterations is considerably reduced. The robustness and convergence rate of the proposed approach against the other interaction prediction approaches are shown through simulations of a benchmark problem. The simulation results also show the effectiveness of the proposed approach in solving constrained optimisation problems having non-quadratic cost functions. Comparisons are also made with the solutions obtained using centralised approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and the purpose of the study: MEN1 is an important tumor suppressor gene that encodes a nuclear protein called menin. Recent data suggest that interactions between menin and other proteins have important roles in control of the cell cycle and apoptosis. In addition, estrogen receptor (ER), an important prognostic factor is differentially expressed in breast cancer cells. In this study the MEN1 gene and protein expression in MCF7, T47D and MDA-MB-468 breast cancer cell lines with different ER status following exposure to adriamycin (ADR) was investigated. Materials and methods: Cytotoxicity of ADR on these cell lines was determined using MTT assay. The mRNA and protein levels were analyzed in tested cell lines using RT-PCR and immunocytochemistry (ICC) assays, respectively. Results: ADR cytotoxicity was highest on MDA-MB-468 and lowest on MCF7 cells. MEN1 mRNA showed significant decrease after ADR exposure only in the MDA-MB-468 cell line. Menin protein expression was higher in MDA-MB-468 and lower in MCF7 cells. Conclusion: Differential molecular responses to adriamycin were observed in cancer cell lines. Molecular data also suggest that MEN1 as a new biomarker can be used in combination with current biomarkers for prediction of response to chemotherapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Forced convection in an open-ended vertical eccentric annulus with different eccentricities has been experimentally studied with several heat fluxes and inlet air velocities. Constant heat flux outer tube and insulated inner tube boundary conditions were used. The wall temperature of the outer tube was measured along the length for different eccentricities. Results indicate that with the increase of eccentricity, the convection heat transfer coefficient increases. Also, as the Reynolds number is increased a crest is formed in the temperature variation along the length. An empirical relation is derived for the Nusselt number as a function of the Reynolds number and eccentricity. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Biomedical Co–29Cr–6Mo alloy is one of the alloys that are suitable for laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) additive manufacturing and as an implant material is often used in situations of critical and cyclic loading. Thus, fatigue crack growth (FCG) behaviour and resistance of the alloy processed by LPBF are an important consideration for dental and orthopaedic applications. In this study, FCG testing has been conducted to evaluate how build direction (BD) dependent grain/cell structure in relation to crack growth direction (CD), either CD⊥BD or CD//BD, affects FCG behaviour. It has been found that the threshold stress intensity factor (ΔK Th) value is significantly higher and the values of c and m in Paris equation are slightly lower for CD//BD samples than the values for CD⊥BD samples, respectively. Failure analysis has revealed that the effects of the commonly known defect, lack of fusion, on both ΔK Th and FCG rate are weak. It has been identified that crack has mainly propagated in a transgranular and transcellular manner, consistent with the observation of the crack path being more torturous and with the higher crack growth resistance determined in CD//BD samples than in CD⊥BD samples. This will be further discussed linking the difference in the size of crack segment, which is BD and thus grain/cell length dependent, to the roughness-induced crack closure mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]