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Objective: Social media addiction and academic procrastination are common and prevalent problems among students, leading to numerous negative consequences. The aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness of mindfulness training on social media addiction and academic procrastination in students. Methods and Materials: The research method was quasi-experimental with a pre-test, post-test, and control group design. From the student population of the Faculty of Psychology at Tehran University of Medical Sciences, 35 individuals were selected using convenience sampling and randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. Research tools included the Social Media Addiction Questionnaire (Ahmadi et al., 2016) and the Academic Procrastination Questionnaire (Solomon & Rothblum, 1984). The experimental group underwent mindfulness training intervention for 10 sessions of 90 minutes each. At the end, a post-test was administered to both groups, and the data were analyzed using covariance analysis. Findings: The results of the covariance analysis showed that mindfulness training had an effect on social media addiction (F = 21.456) and academic procrastination (F = 17.878) in students (p ≤ 0.001). Conclusion: Based on the research findings, it is suggested that psychological interventions such as mindfulness be used to reduce social media usage and academic procrastination in students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: The study aimed to evaluate the effects of aerobic exercise applied with bodyweight-supported treadmill (BWSTT) or cycle ergometer (CE) in Parkinson's patients. Patients and methods: In the prospective single-blind study, 38 Parkinson's patients with Hoehn-Yahr Stage 1-3 were randomized into the CE and BWSTT groups between May 2019 and March 2020. Evaluations before and after six weeks of treatment included a six-min walking test with a software device as the primary outcome and functional balance tests (Tinetti balance and gait test, one-leg stance balance test) as secondary outcomes. Both groups received 40 min of aerobic exercise three days per week with conventional rehabilitation and various methods. CE and BWSTT groups were created. The aerobic exercise program was designed based on treatment recommendations for Parkinson's patients of the American College of Sports Medicine (CE test, with the Karvonen formula, 40-60% reserve). Posttreatment and pretreatment evaluations were compared within and between groups. Results: The six-week aerobic exercise program was completed by 16 participants (9 males, 7 females; mean age: 65.9±8.1; range, 47 to 78 years) in the CE group and 15 participants (9 males, 6 females; mean age: 62.5±7.5; range, 49 to 79 years) in the BWSTT group. The demographic characteristics of the patients were similar. Primary and secondary outcomes were significantly different after treatment than before treatment in both groups. There were no significant differences between the groups in outcomes. Conclusion: The results showed that both methods are effective and not superior to each other. Aerobic exercise programs led by experienced clinicians can benefit patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New observations of the eclipsing binary system V1848 Ori were carried out using the V filter resulting in a determination of new times of minima and new ephemeris were obtained. We presented the first complete analysis of the system’s orbital period behavior and analysis of O-C diagram done by the GA and MCMC approaches in OCFit code. The O-C diagram demonstrates a sinusoidal trend in the data; this trend suggests a cyclic change caused by the LITE effect with a period of 10.57 years and an amplitude of 7.182 minutes. It appears that there is a third body with mass function of f (m3) = 0.0058 M⊙ in this binary system. The light curves were analyzed using the Wilson-Devinney code to determine some geometrical and physical parameters of the system. These results show that V1848 Ori is a contact W UMa binary system with the mass ratio of q = 0.76 and a weak fillout factor of 5.8%. The O’Connell effect was not seen in the light curve and there is no need to add spot.

The present study reports a simple, template free and controllable one-step synthesis of a series of amorphous, crystalline, and triphasic TiO2 nanoparticles utilizing titanium(IV) ethoxide as a molecular precursor. By reacting the titanium ethoxide in a mixture of ethanol, acetic acid, and water at reflux temperatures while varying the ratios of the reaction components, it was possible to obtain TiO2 nanoparticles possessing high surface areas and pore volumes as well as diverse crystalline structures. The synthesized nanoparticles were characterized by FT-IR, XRD, SEM, TEM, TG, DTA, DTG, DRS, and argon sorption. X-ray diffraction and sorption analyses conclusively show that using an excess of ethanol resulted in the formation of an amorphous TiO2 with a high surface area. Furthermore, an increase in the water content while slightly reducing the amount of acid but keeping ethanol still at excess resulted in the formation of a crystalline anatase phase, whereas the reaction in the absence of ethanol led to the formation of a triphasic material consisting of anatase (40.5%), rutile (25.5%), and brookite (34%). Under the optimized conditions, it was possible to produce amorphous and crystalline porous titanium dioxide with high surface areas of 350 and 310 m2 g−1 respectively at low temperatures without subsequent heat treatment, which is reflected in their catalytic properties. Investigation of the photocatalytic and catalytic abilities of the synthesized nanoparticles to degrade and to reduce methylene blue (MB), respectively, as well as reduction of nitroaromatic compounds in aqueous media revealed that the amorphous materials showed the best performance with degradation of up to 94–99% of MB within 10 minutes. The kinetic studies also revealed that all nanoparticles exhibited high catalytic activity for the reduction of MB within a short time (3–4 min) and showed good agreement with a pseudo-first-order reaction model. The derived rate constants for the catalytic reduction of 2-NP, 3-NP, 4-NP, 2-NA, and 3-NA (NP = nitrophenol and NA = nitroaniline) with amorphous TiO2 nanoparticles (Ti-9), as the best catalyst, are 0.67 min−1, 0.24 min−1, 1.46 min−1, 0.56 min−1, and 0.21 min−1, respectively. From the data, we can deduce that a high specific surface area, the occurrence of defects as well as the crystallinity of the materials play an essential role in the photocatalytic and catalytic performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the field of determination of vitamin B9 (folic acid, FA), we have described the development of a sensitive electrochemical sensor through promoting the screen-printed electrode (SPE) and taking the advantage of zinc ferrite magnetic nanoparticles (ZnFe2O4MNPs). Cyclic voltammetry (CV) experiments demonstrated the powerful activity of ZnFe2O4MNPs/SPE for electrooxidation of FA by showing the prominent oxidation peak at 600 mV vs. Ag/AgCl. By differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) measurements, a linear relation between current response and concentration of vitamin B9 was determined in the range of 1.0–100.0 µM, and detection limit is found to be 0.3 µM (S/N=3). Except high sensitivity, the developed sensor demonstrated high stability, reproducibility and repeatability, and was also successfully applied to specify FA in real samples of vitamin B9 tablets and human urine.

Summary: Based on the fact that the follicular phase in the menstrual cycle has length variation, it has been assumed that the duration of oestrogen (E2) administration could also be variable; therefore, for the first time, this randomized clinical trial study was conducted to investigate and compare the duration of estradiol administration and the effect on pregnancy outcomes in the cleavage-stage frozen embryo transfer (FET) cycle. We included women aged 20–40 with a normal uterus on hysteroscopy between September and December 2022 and who were divided randomly into three groups: group A [ n = 79; 8–11 days of oestrogen before progesterone (P4) supplementation], group B (n = 78; 12–14 days of oestrogen before P4 supplementation), and group C (n = 76; 15–18 days of estrogen before P4 supplementation). Serum levels for E2 on the initial progesterone day and P4 on the transfer day were measured. The effect of the duration of E2 administration on clinical pregnancy and pregnancy loss was investigated. We found no significant differences between the three groups in the clinical pregnancy rate (P = 0.696) and clinical abortion rate (P = 0.925) according to the duration of the E2. There was no significant difference in the E2, P4 levels, and endometrial thickness in pregnant vs. non-pregnant women. The mean of the E2 and P4 levels was 300.03 ± 22.21 and 25.36 ± 5.78, respectively. Our findings suggest that variation in the length of E2 administration (8–18 days) before progesterone initiation in day 3 FET cycles does not affect pregnancy outcome and transfer time can be flexibly arranged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]