The Study of Nursing Personnel, s Workload Caused by Patient Transferring

Background and aims: One of the nursing staff’s responsibilities is patient transferring. The disproportionate burden imposed on the person according to his ability is the most important causes of occupational accidents and injuries. This study was aimed to evaluate nurses' workload caused by patient transferring in khatam ol anbiya hospital (s) in Tehran. Methods: This was a descriptive- analytic study. Its research community is all Khatam (s) nursing staff 260 of which were selected using convenience sampling and Morgan table. Using patient transfer assessment index (PTAI), the staff’s scores were calculated in terms of transfer and finally the data were analyzed using descriptive statistics (average and standard deviation), inferential statistics (Pearson correlation coefficient, Anova) and SPSS. Results: The people involved in the study had the average age (35.40±6.65yrs), work experience (11.36±5.71yrs), hight (1.73±5.79m) and weight (73.82±8.72kg), and body mass index (24.57±2.4). Statistical test results showed that none of the participants uses relocation equipment when transferring patients and based on PTAI, workload at danger level equaled to 0% at level 1, 8.07% at level 2, and 91.93% at level 3. Besides, nurse and nurse aid’s average PTAI score was equal to (32.83±17.14) and (42.25±12.46), respectively, which was significantly related to workload (P=0.001). Conclusion: The results showed that the workload caused by patient transferring in nursing personnel is at a high risk. Thus, it is recommended to teach proper ergonomics principles and to use transfer equipment (non-mechanical and mechanical) in order to reduce the workload caused by patient transferring

The effect of aquaculture effluents on water quality parameters of Haraz River

In this study, a water quality model of Haraz basin was used as an evaluative tool to estimate the spatial distribution of variables that are related to water quality and nutrient loads of the Haraz River. Previous studies performed in this river indicate that trout culture activity along the Haraz River have led to various changes in the water quality parameters. In the present work, the possible effects of two additional fish farms with a production capacity of 50 tons, located on the Haraz within 1 km distance from each other were evaluated in terms of their effects on the streams water quality. A water quality model was developed in order to investigate the spatial distribution of water quality variables. The model also used to estimate the dissolved oxygen (DO), biological oxygen demand (BOD5) and nutrients along the stream

A qualitative study on personal information management (PIM) in clinical and basic sciences faculty members of a medical university in Iran

Background: Personal Information Management (PIM) refers to the tools and activities to save and retrieve personal information for future uses. This study examined the PIM activities of faculty members of Iran University of Medical Sciences (IUMS) regarding their preferred PIM tools and four aspects of acquiring, organizing, storing and retrieving personal information. Methods: The qualitative design was based on phenomenology approach and we carried out 37 interviews with clinical and basic sciences faculty members of IUMS in 2014. The participants were selected using a random sampling method. All interviews were recorded by a digital voice recorder, and then transcribed, codified and finally analyzed using NVivo 8 software. Results: The use of PIM electronic tools (e-tools) was below expectation among the studied sample and just 37 had reasonable knowledge of PIM e-tools such as, external hard drivers, flash memories etc. However, all participants used both paper and electronic devices to store and access information. Internal mass memories (in Laptops) and flash memories were the most used e-tools to save information. Most participants used "subject" (41.00) and "file name" (33.7 ) to save, organize and retrieve their stored information. Most users preferred paper-based rather than electronic tools to keep their personal information. Conclusion: Faculty members had little knowledge about PIM techniques and tools. Those who organized personal information could easier retrieve the stored information for future uses. Enhancing familiarity with PIM tools and training courses of PIM tools and techniques are suggested

Machine learning to detect brain lesions in focal epilepsy

PURPOSE: Identifying areas of abnormality on MRI brain scans in individuals with focal epilepsy is funda- mental to the diagnosis and treatment of the condition. However, in about a third of patients with focal epilepsy, brain scans appear to be normal (MRI-negative) as human observers cannot detect any abnormality with cur- rent imaging technology. The objective of this paper is to provide a novel approach in presenting localization using machine learning in order to locate areas of abnormality on patients with focal epilepsy on a per-voxel basis by comparing them with healthy controls. As a proof-of-concept, the technique is first applied to patients with visible lesions providing a ground truth (MRI-positive), but future work will extend this to MRI-negative subjects. METHODS: Our data consists of multi-modal brain MR images from 62 healthy control subjects and 44 MRI- positive patients with focal epilepsy. We utilized a support vector machine (SVM) as our probabilistic classifier and train it with two classes of data. We generate probability maps applying our machine learning classifier on all voxels of a test subjects to visualize the predictions. Overlap scores are used to evaluate the classifier performance in MRI-positive patients. RESULTS: Our model reached 83% specificity, 91% sensitivity, and an Area Under the Curve (AUC) of 0.896 for the task of voxel-based classification of normal versus abnormal voxels. In addition, Dice scores of up to 0.66 were achieved for the overlap measure of lesion probability map and the ground truth labels annotated by a neurologist. CONCLUSION: We demonstrated a novel approach in presenting localization using machine learning tech- niques to localize focal epilepsy lesions from multi-modal MR images

The Study of Cognitive Function and Related Factors in Patients With Heart Failure

Background: Cognitive impairment is increasingly recognized as a common adverse consequence of heart failure. Both Heart failure and cognitive impairment are associated with frequent hospitalization and increased mortality, particularly when they occur simultaneously. Objectives: To determine cognitive function and related factors in patients with heart failure. Materials and Methods: In this descriptive cross-sectional study, we assessed 239 patients with heart failure. Data were collected by Mini Mental status Examination, Charlson comorbidity index and NYHA classification system. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, chi-square test, t-test and logistic regression analysis. Results: The mean score of cognitive function was 21.68 ± 4.51. In total, 155 patients (64.9%) had cognitive impairment. Significant associations were found between the status of cognitive impairment and gender (P < 0.002), education level (P < 0.000), living location (P < 0.000), marital status (P < 0.03), living arrangement (P < 0.001 ), employment status (P < 0.000), income (P < 0.02), being the head of family (P < 0.03), the family size (P < 0.02), having a supplemental insurance (P < 0.003) and the patient’s comorbidities (P < 0.02). However, in logistic regression analysis, only education and supplementary insurance could predict cognitive status which indicates that patients with supplementary insurance and higher education levels were more likely to maintain optimal cognitive function. Conclusions: More than a half of the subjects had cognitive impairment. As the level of patients cognitive functioning affects their behaviors and daily living activities, it is recommended that patients with heart failure should be assessed for their cognitive functioning

A new report of terrestrial Parasitengona mites (Acari: Prostigmata: Trombidiidae) from Iran

During 2009, in the course of a faunistic survey of terrestrial Parasitengona mites in Jahrom region, Ronaldothrombium bellator (Southcott, 1986) (Acari, Trombidiidae) was collected and identified for the first time from Iran. It was collected as ectoparasite of an unidentified Araneae, which is a new host for R. bellator

Coupled fixed point results on metric spaces defined by binary operations

In parallel with the various generalizations of the Banach fixed point theorem in metric spaces, this theory is also transported to some different types of spaces including ultra metric spaces, fuzzy metric spaces, uniform spaces, partial metric spaces, $b$-metric spaces etc. In this context, first we define a binary normed operation on nonnegative real numbers and give some examples. Then we recall the concept of $T$-metric space and some important and fundamental properties of it. A $T$-metric space is a $3$-tuple $(X, T, \diamond)$, where $X$ is a nonempty set, $\diamond$ is a binary normed operation and $T$ is a $T$-metric on $X$. Since the triangular inequality of $T$-metric depends on a binary operation, which includes the sum as a special case, a $T$-metric space is a real generalization of ordinary metric space. As main results, we present three coupled fixed point theorems for bivariate mappings satisfying some certain contractive inequalities on a complete $T$-metric space. It is easily seen that not only existence but also uniqueness of coupled fixed point guaranteed in these theorems. Also, we provide some suitable examples that illustrate our results