Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices (KAP) Regarding Menstruation among School Girls in West of Iran: A Population Based Cross-Sectional Study

Background Menstruation is a challenging situation for young women in whom a poor hygiene practice can result in infertility and reproductive system diseases. Attitude and knowledge are two factors related to each other, and reflected in people’s practice. This study aimed to assess the KAP, and their association among teenage girls in Western Iran. Materials and Methods A cross-sectional study of 728 girls, selected randomly among 28,370 school girls studying in classes 7th (12y) and 10th (15y) was conducted in 2016, in Kermanshah, West of Iran. A self-made questionnaire was used to gather data including participants’ demographic characteristics and their KAP toward menstruation. Using SPSS software (version 23.0) the relationships between outcome variables and predicting variables were evaluated. Results Participants’ mean age and menarche age were (14.6±1.4 years), and (12.5±1.0 years), respectively. About 92% were found to have a relatively positive attitude, 64% had a poor knowledge and 81% expressed a poor practice toward menstruation. Mothers (37.4 %) were the main source of information for most participants. Age (r=0.360), family income (r=0.186), and the source of information (r=0.112) were significantly positively associated with their level of knowledge. Participants 'practice regarding menstruation was significantly associated with age and mother's education (P ≤ 0.05). Conclusion Although the total attitude of school girls in terms of menstruation was at a relatively positive level, mostly had poor knowledge and practiced poor. Given the poor level of knowledge and practice, school girls in Western Iran need to be trained regarding menstruation hygiene and developing their skills to care for themselves during menstruation periods

Investigating the Effect of Mechanical Activation Parameters on Structural Changes and Leaching Rate of Molybdenite Concentrate

AbstractIn this research, mechanical activation (MA) was employed for leaching rate improvement of molybdenite concentrate in nitric acid media. These experiments were performed in two groups: with and without aluminum oxide (alumina). A full factorial design was used for each group of experiments. Leaching rate increment up to 5 times was observed only in 2hours activation procedure. XRD analysis demonstrated structural disordering in activated MoS2. TEM images showed that particle size has been reduced to nanoscale. The initial powder size was 80% between 2-44μm and dropped to about 10nm and 140nm in MA experiments with and without alumina, respectively. This size reduction would be the main reason of leaching rate enhancement which is more achievable in MA in presence of alumina. The results demonstrate that alumina has a motivating effect in activation procedure to achieve a nanostructure molybdenite. Analysis of variance revealed milling speed is the main parameter in MA without alumina, while, ball to powder ratio is the most important factor in MA procedure in presence of alumina on leaching rate

Characterization of plug and slug multiphase flows by means of image analysis

Multiphase flow is involved in a wide range of applications, and among the flow patterns that a multiphase mixture may develop in its flow, the intermittent one is particularly complex both in behaviour and for analysis. Experimental analysis about the characteristics of the flow structures (plugs and slugs) is therefore still mandatory for a detailed description of the phenomenon. In this work an image-based technique for the determination of the plug/slug characteristics was applied to air-water, oil-air and three-phase oil-water-air flows in horizontal ducts with different diameters, with superficial velocities of the phases in the range 0.2-2.1 m/s. The technique is based on the acquisition of a video of the flow and the conversion of each frame (or part of it) into a Boolean signal, in which the non-zero part represents the structure of interest. Concatenation of such signals along the singleton dimension creates a space-time representation of the flow, from which information about the flow velocities, the structure lengths and frequencies and the void fraction can be extracted. Focus here is particularly on the performances of the technique when using high-speed videos. The results were also compared with the predictions of the drift-flux model

Synthesis of a Multilayer Ceramic Membrane Used for Hydrogen Separation at High Temperature

A multilayer composite ceramic membrane was prepared by depositing a nano-scale layer of SiO2 on top of a modified porous alumina support by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method. The modification of the support was carried out by adding a graded layer of Al2O3 (γ-alumina phase), using sol-gel method. An optimized temperature of 700 K for intermediate layer calcination was gained by XRD analysis. Cross-sectional images obtained from SEM showed that the intermediate γ-alumina layer had a thickness of about 2 μm and the top selective silica layer was quite dense and uniform with a thickness of about 90-100 nm. Permeation tests showed a very good flux of 10-6-10-7 mol m-2 s-2 Pa-1 for H2 with selectivities over CO2, N2 and CH4 up to 500. By performing different tests with various deposition times, it was concluded that by changing CVD time from 3 h to 6 h H2/CO2 selectivity increased from 32 to 573, although H2  permeation flux reduced about 50 percent

Preparation of BaCe0.9Yb0.1O3-δ asymmetrical membrane for hydrogen separation at high tempratures

A mixed proton–electron conducting perovskite was synthesized by liquid-citrate method and the corresponding membrane was prepared by pressing followed by sintering. The hydrogen permeability of BaCe0.9Yb0.1O3-δ was studied as a function of temperature and hydrogen partial pressure (PH2) gradient. Using 100% dry hydrogen at 1173 K, the hydrogen permeation rate of dense membranes (1.63 mm thick) for a mixture of 60% H2/He was 0.000293 mol/(m2 s). The phase structure of powder was characterized by X-ray diffraction and thermogravimetry (TG). Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used to investigate the microstructure of sintered membrane. Activation energy estimated with Arrhenius equation was 29 kJ/mol

Gender-based difference in early mortality among patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction: insights from Kermanshah STEMI Registry.

Introduction: This study aimed to evaluate the in-hospital mortality of patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI), according to gender and other likely risk factors. Methods: This study reports on data relating to 1,484 consecutive patients with STEMI registered from June 2016 to May 2018 in the Western Iran STEMI Registry. Data were collected using a standardized case report developed by the European Observational Registry Program (EORP). The relationship between in-hospital mortality and potential predicting variables was assessed multivariable logistic regression. Differences between groups in mortality rates were compared using chi-square tests and independent t-tests. Results: Out of the 1484 patients, 311(21%) were female. Women were different from men in terms of age (65.8 vs. 59), prevalence of hypertension (HTN) (63.7% vs. 35.4%), diabetes mellitus (DM) (37.7% vs. 16.2%), hypercholesterolemia (36.7% vs. 18.5%) and the history of previous congestive heart failure (CHF) (6.6% vs. 3.0%). Smoking was more prevalent among men (55.9% vs. 13.2%). Although the in-hospital mortality rate was higher in women (11.6% vs. 5.5%), after adjusting for other risk factors, female sex was not an independent predictor for in-hospital mortality. Multivariable analysis identified that age and higher Killip class (≥II) were significantly associated with in-hospital mortality rate. Conclusion: In-hospital mortality after STEMI in women was higher than men. However, the role of sex as an independent predictor of mortality disappeared in regression analysis. The gender based difference in in-hospital mortality after STEMI may be related to the poorer cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factor profile of the women

Monotone iterative procedure and systems of a finite number of nonlinear fractional differential equations

The aim of the paper is to present a nontrivial and natural extension of the comparison result and the monotone iterative procedure based on upper and lower solutions, which were recently established in (Wang et al. in Appl. Math. Lett. 25:1019-1024, 2012), to the case of any finite number of nonlinear fractional differential equations.The author is very grateful to the reviewers for the remarks, which improved the final version of the manuscript. This article was financially supported by University of Łódź as a part of donation for the research activities aimed at the development of young scientists, grant no. 545/1117

Water holdup estimation from pressure drop measurements in oil-water two-phase flows by means of the two-fluid model

The Two-Fluid Model (TFM) has been applied to determine water holdup from pressure drop measurements for core-annular flows in horizontal pipes. The fluids are Milpar 220 oil (Ïo=890 kg/m3, μo=0.832 Paâ¢s at 20 °C) and tap water (μw=1.026Ã10-3 Paâ¢s at 20°C). The investigated volume flow rates range from 2 to 6 m3/h, for water, and from 1 to 3.5 m3/h, for oil, respectively. The results are in very good agreement with available experimental data from the literature and a simple correlation between water holdup and water input fraction has been benchmarked to the overall data set. Eventually, the TFM endowed with the holdup correlation has been adopted to predict the pressure drop with quite satisfactory results: 98% of data fall within a percentage error of ±10%, 99% of the data fall within ±15%, and all the data are predicted within ±20%. On the other hand, the mean absolute relative error for the pressure drop reduction factor is 5.5%