Study on the conflicts between work and family at the Kashan University of Medical Sciences, Iran

With both professional and personal responsibilities, employees often conflict when reconciling the demands of family and work. The study aimed to investigate whether work to family conflict experienced by employees of Kashan University of medical sciences differed from family to work conflict.A cross sectional study was carried out in 2014. A random sample of 202 employees in the four schools affiliated with Kashan University of medical sciences located in central of Iran was selected and responded to items of the questionnaires using a 7-point Likert scale. Work-family conflict was measured using Carlson et al.'s 18 items scale. Higher values indicate higher levels of work to family conflict and family to work conflict. Analysis was carried out using SPSS 16.Employees experienced work-family conflict in the two directions. Work to family conflict with mean of 31.5510.68 was significantly (t=9.87, P<0.001) more than family to work conflict with 25.588.77. They experienced different time-, strain-, and behavior-based work to family conflicts than time-, strain-, and behavior-based family to work conflicts (P<0.01).Work to family conflict was more than family to work conflict. Therefore, University authorities should try to improve working conditions through changing the working culture and re-looking into their work structure and employment policies to moderate the experience of work to family conflicts encountered by the employees

Influence of psychological empowerment on organizational commitment among medical employees in a hospital setting

Introduction: people within organizations are a key factor for efficiency. Thus employee empowerment has become a popular management strategy. The study aimed to investigate the relationship between psychological empowerment and organizational commitment among medical staff of a hospital in Zahedan city. Methods: This cross sectional study was carried out in 2013. A random sample of 172 medical employees in Khatam-ol-Anbia hospital at Zahedan city was selected and responded to items of the questionnaires using a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 to 7. For measuring psychological empowerment and organizational commitment, Mishra & Spreitzer's scale and Meyer and Allen's questionnaire were used. A higher score means a higher degree of psychological empowerment or organizational commitment. Analysis was carried out using SPSS. Results: The level of organizational commitment and psychological empowerment significantly were higher than average. There was a significant positive relationship between employees' empowerment and their commitment to organization. Psychological empowerment was a significant predictor of organizational commitment (β = .524). Out of the five dimensions of empowerment three dimensions are significant predictors of commitment and explain 37,1% of the variance in commitment. Conclusions: Due to The positive influence of psychological empowerment on organizational commitment, programs for in-service education should focus on facilitating psychological empowerment to improve and increase organizational commitment. Also, since impact of employees psychological empowerment on organizational commitment partially supported, there are other variables that influence the organizational commitment

Quality gap of family health care services in Kashan health centers: an Iranian viewpoint

Patients' viewpoints are commonly used to assess quality of care in diverse healthcare organizations. This permits managerial decisions to be made based on knowledge rather than conjecture. The purpose of the current study is to investigate quality gap of family health care through measuring differences between clients' perceptions and expectations at Kashan city health centers in Iran.Methodology: A cross-sectional design was applied in 2013. The study sample was composed of 384 women clients of family health services randomly selected from Kashan city health centers. The SERVQUAL questionnaire was used for data collection. Service quality gap was measured by computing the difference between the rating respondents assign to expectations and perceptions statements. For pair wise comparison of the expectations and perceptions the Wilcoxon Signed Rank test was used. Internal consistency of the scale was confirmed with Cronbach's Alpha coefficients (.81 for expectations and .84 for perceptions).Findings: In all dimensions of the services a significant (P<0.001) negative quality gap was observed. The maximum quality gap was in the tangibility (-0.60±0.37) and the minimum one was in the responsiveness (-0.41±0.31) dimension. The findings of the research demonstrated that there was negative gap between clients' expectations and perceptions in all dimensions of the services. Thus, family health care managers should apply improvements in all five dimensions of the services

Learning Robust Model Predictive Control for Voltage Control of Islanded Microgrid

This paper proposes a novel control design for voltage tracking of an islanded AC microgrid in the presence of {nonlinear} loads and parametric uncertainties at the primary level of control. The proposed method is based on the Tube-Based Robust Model Predictive Control (RMPC), an online optimization-based method which can handle the constraints and uncertainties as well. The challenge with this method is the conservativeness imposed by designing the tube based on the worst-case scenario of the uncertainties. This weakness is amended in this paper by employing a combination of a learning-based Gaussian Process (GP) regression and RMPC. The advantage of using GP is that both the mean and variance of the loads are predicted at each iteration based on the real data, and the resulted values of mean and the bound of confidence are utilized to design the tube in RMPC. The theoretical results are also provided to prove the recursive feasibility and stability of the proposed learning based RMPC. Finally, the simulation results are carried out on both single and multiple DG (Distributed Generation) units

Clinical trials for stem cell therapies

In recent years, clinical trials with stem cells have taken the emerging field in many new directions. While numerous teams continue to refine and expand the role of bone marrow and cord blood stem cells for their vanguard uses in blood and immune disorders, many others are looking to expand the uses of the various types of stem cells found in bone marrow and cord blood, in particular mesenchymal stem cells, to uses beyond those that could be corrected by replacing cells in their own lineage. Early results from these trials have produced mixed results often showing minor or transitory improvements that may be attributed to extracellular factors. More research teams are accelerating the use of other types of adult stem cells, in particular neural stem cells for diseases where beneficial outcome could result from either in-lineage cell replacement or extracellular factors. At the same time, the first three trials using cells derived from pluripotent cells have begun

Quality Gap in Educational Services at Zahedan University of Medical Sciences: Students Viewpoints about Current and Optimal Condition

Introduction. The first basic step in developing any quality improvement program is determining the quality gap and, adopting strategies for removing or reducing this gap. This study was performed to determine the quality gap in educational services at Zahedan University of Medical Sciences, based on students’ perceptions and expectations. Methods. In this cross-sectional descriptive study, 386 students selected by stratified random sampling method, were studied in the year 2004. A questionnaire which measured the quality gap in 5 dimensions of service, and proved to be valid and reliable, was used for data collection. For data analysis, descriptive statistics, Willcoxon and Friedman tests were applied using SPSS software. Results. According to the majority of students (81.6%) there was an overall negative quality gap in educational services. The smallest gap with the mean and standard deviation of -1.10 0.99 belonged to "reliability" dimension and the largest gap with the mean and standard deviation of -1.73 1.04 to "responsiveness". There was a significant difference in quality gap between five dimensions. Conclusion. A negative quality gap in five dimensions of services was observed. It is recommended that workshops on customer serving, communication skills and personnel’s technical skills development be held. Also, allocating more resources for improving educational facilities and physical environment is suggested

Comparison of Quality Gap of Physiotherapy Services in Public and Private Centers in Zahedan City Using SERVQUAL Model (Iran)

Background and Objectives: In order to provide better services in physiotherapy centers, factors such as awareness of perception and expectations of service recipients, determination of the gap between these two categories, plays a very important role. This study was conducted with the objective of evaluating the quality of physiotherapy services provided in public and private physiotherapy centers of Zahedan city using SERVQUAL model. &nbsp; Methods: In this analytical cross-sectional study, 480 individuals referred to public and private physiotherapy clinics of Zahedan city in 2015, were selected using stratified random sampling method. Data were collected using SERVQUAL standard questionnaie. Data were analyzed by Wilcoxon, Mann-Whitney, Kruskal-Wallis, and Spearman correlation coefficient tests. &nbsp; Results: There was a negative quality gap in all five dimensions of quality of services&nbsp; (including tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy) provided in both public and private centers. The highest mean quality gap in public clinic was in the tangibility or physical domain (-0.53&plusmn;0.36) and in private clinic was in empathy domain (-0.47&plusmn;0.39), and the lowest mean quality gap in both public and private clinics, was in assurance domain. There was no sinnificant relationship between age, sex, and education level with quality gap in both public and private clinics (p>0.05). &nbsp; Conclusion: The clients&rsquo; expectations in all domains of quality of services was higher than their perceptions. Therefore, it is required to improve quality of services in all domains both private and public physiotherapy clinic. &nbsp