Existence of non-negative solutions for semilinear elliptic systems via variational methods

In this paper we consider a semilinear elliptic system with nonlinearities, indefinite weight functions and critical growth terms in bounded domains. The existence result of nontrivial nonnegative solutions is obtained by variational methods.&nbsp

Study of Status Anxiety among Librarians of Central Libraries of Public Universities in Tehran

Objective: The purpose of this research is to investigate the status anxiety and its dimensions among librarians of central libraries of public universities in Tehran. Methodology: This research is an applied and survey research. The research sample was the librarians of central libraries of public universities in Tehran of Tehran. A questionnaire was used to collect the data, which includes 65 questions under three individual, organizational, and socio-cultural dimensions. Descriptive and inferential statistics including Friedman test, independent t test, F test, and Pearson correlation test were used to describe and analyze the data. Findings: The findings showed that the level of status anxiety in terms of the individual dimension is higher than the organizational and socio-cultural dimensions. The average of status anxiety is high in the individual dimension and moderate in the organizational and socio-cultural dimensions. In addition, there is no significant difference in the level of status anxiety in terms of gender, age, and professional experience of librarians, and dignity anxiety is experienced by all librarians of central libraries of public universities in Tehran. Conclusion: Since the librarians of university libraries are part of the official system of university education and research and deal with a diverse range of students in different fields, it is desirable to reduce the status anxiety in their profession and to create a sense of value and self-confidence in them. Training librarians to manage their anxiety, providing fair wages and welfare for librarians as best as possible, and introducing the values of the librarianship profession through mass media and social networks, can help to increase self-confidence and reduce the status anxiety of librarians from the individual, organizational, and socio-cultural point of view

Public and Private Hospital Nurses' Perceptions of the Ethical Climate in Their Work Settings, Sari City, 2011

Background: Nurses’ perceptions of ethical climate patterns have certain undeniable effects on hospitals. There is little evidence of possible differences in this element between public and private hospitals and contributing factors. Objectives: This study investigated whether the perceptions of the ethical climate in nurses’ working in public hospitals differ from that of nurses in private hospitals, and which factors may affect nurses’ perceptions. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study of randomly selected registered nurses (n = 235), working in four public hospitals affiliated to Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, and three private hospitals, was conducted in Sari City, Iran. A self-administered questionnaire, containing demographic characteristics and the Hospital Ethical Climate Survey (HECS), were used to assess registered nurses’ perceptions of public and private hospitals ethical climate. An independent t-test and one-way ANOVA were used to analyze the data. Results: Across the five factors of HECS, the highest and lowest mean scores pertained to managers and physicians, respectively, in both public and private hospitals. Nurses who had a conditional employment situation and those working in pediatric intensive care units showed significantly more positive perceptions of the ethical work climate when compared to their peers (P < 0.05). Although the mean score of ethical work climate in private hospitals (3.82 ± 0.61) was higher than that in public hospitals (3.76 ± 0.54), no significant difference was found (P = 0.44). Conclusions: Hospital managers need to discover better ways to promote safety and health programs for their staff according to nurses’ area of work and their type of units. They should also encourage greater levels of participation in safety-enhancing initiatives in the hospital’s ethical climate, especially in the areas of nurses’ perceptions of their physician colleagues, and for nurses with a conditional employment situation

The Effect of Adding Low-Dose Naloxone to Intrathecal Morphine on Postoperative Pain and Morphine Related Side Effects after Cesarean Section: A Double-Blind, Randomized, Clinical Trial

BACKGROUND: Nowadays, spinal anaesthesia is a suitable choice for most elective and emergency cesarean section (C-section) deliveries. AIM: This study aimed to determine the effect of adding low-dose naloxone to intrathecal morphine on postoperative pain and morphine related side effects after C-section. MATERIAL AND METHODS: In the present double-blind, randomised clinical trial, 70 women aged over 18 years, who were candidates for elective medical C-section under spinal anaesthesia were selected and randomly assigned to either the study group or the control group. For spinal anaesthesia, 10 mg of Bupivacaine plus 100 μg of morphine was administered for all patients. However, patients in the study group received 20 µg of naloxone intrathecally; but the patients in the control group only received normal saline as a placebo. After surgery, patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) pump with paracetamol (Apotel®) was connected to each patient. The intensity of postoperative pain in the patients was evaluated and recorded using Visual Acuity Screening (VAS) at 2, 4, 6 and 24 hours after the surgery. The patients were also examined for postoperative nausea and pruritus. RESULTS: Regardless of the groups to which the patients were assigned, a significant difference in pain intensity was observed during the study period (time effect; p &lt; 0.001). Although the intensity of pain was lower in the study group, the difference was not statistically significant (group effect; p = 0.84). Also, there was no group time interaction between pain intensity and the times studied (p = 0.61). The incidence rates of postoperative nausea and pruritus were significantly lower in the study group compared to the control group (p &lt; 0.001). CONCLUSION: According to the results of this study, adding low dose naloxone to intrathecal morphine did not significantly change postoperative pain intensity in the patients undergone elective C-section using spinal anaesthesia; however, significantly decreased the severity of postoperative nausea and pruritus

The Solvability of Concave-Convex Quasilinear Elliptic Systems Involving pp-Laplacian and Critical Sobolev Exponent

In this work, we study the existence of non-trivial multiple solutions for a class of quasilinear elliptic systems equipped with concave-convex nonlinearities and critical growth terms in bounded domains. By using the variational method, especially Nehari manifold and Palais-Smale condition, we prove the existence and multiplicity results of positive solutions

Survey of Views of Medical Students on Telemedicine Methods Developed in the Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, Iran

Background & Objective: Telemedicine is the use of new communication and information technologies to provide clinical services, health care, and transferring of information for care of patients from a geographical distance. The aim of this research was to determine the views of medical students on the development of telemedicine procedures in the Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, Iran. Methods: A sample of 90 medical students was selected randomly in the first semester of study of 2011-12. The student's views were assessed using a questionnaire of 33 questions consisting of three parts: demographic data, questions in five areas (organizational factors, technological factors, stakeholders, agents, information literacy, and environmental factors), and student use of the various areas of technology (computers, internet, medical websites, medical applications, and etc.) Results: In the questions concerning the scope of the organizational factors 65.5% of students had a positive opinion in regard to "admission to the structural changes in the organization". Among the factors of technology 86.7% of students had positive views on "broadband access", in the factors of stakeholders 58.9% on "empowering the private sector in implementing telemedicine", in the information literacy 75.5% on "students' skills in using computers and the Internet", and in the environmental factors 80.0% on "economic factors for the plan". Conclusion: Students believed the role of economic factors (cost, appropriate technology, and etc.) to be more important than cultural factors (physician-patient interaction, culture, community support, willingness of the family, and etcetera). Keywords Vision Telemedicine Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences Ira

Investigating the relationship between carotid intima-media thickness, flow-mediated dilatation in brachial artery and nuclear heart scan in patients with rheumatoid arthritis for evaluation of asymptomatic cardiac ischemia and atherosclerotic changes

Background: Cardiovascular disease is the most common cause of death worldwide. In order to prevent and treat heart diseases, we need to estimate the trend of non-cardiac diseases with the cardiovascular system. Arthritis Rheumatoid is a chronic immune/inflammatory process which leads to subclinical atherosclerosis and increases cardiovascular disease. We examined the patients who referred to our nuclear medicine center for MPI and correlated their findings with flow-mediated dilatation (FMD) of the brachial artery and carotid intima-media thickness (CIMT) in arthritis rheumatoid patients. Material and methods: A total 30 known cases with arthritis rheumatoid were referred to our department for MPI and the single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) imaging were visually and quantitatively evaluated by two nuclear medicine physicians and the correlation of the measured FMD and CIMT were evaluated and compared with ultrasonography data. Demographic information such as gender, age and sex and medical history (risk factors, cardiovascular sign and symptoms, lab findings, medication etc…) were recorded in questionnaire sheets and were analyzed by SPSS.20. Chi-square and student t-test were used for further analysis. Results: The mean CIMT (R = 0.452 ± 0.07, L = 0.447 ± 0.08) and %FMD (R = 7.22 ± 8.66, L = 6.42 ± 11.88) were measured for all subjects. Age was the only parameter correlated with both right and left CIMT (P = 0.033 and P = 0.024, respectively). Among the patients, 26.7% had mild ischemia (SSS &lt; 8) and 3 of them suffered from active arthritis rheumatoid. All patients with RA showed normal ventricular ejection fraction and normal volumes and among them, 93.3% had normal functional performance (normal wall motion…). Moreover, the mean CIMT and %FMD were not significantly different in ischemic and non-ischemic patients. Among ischemic patients, just the course of the disease was associated with CIMT and none of the parameters was correlated with FMD. Conclusions: There is no significant statistical difference between ischemic and non-ischemic patients and also the functional performance with values of CIMT and FMD. Among all populations, the parameter of age, and in ischemic group, the course of disease were found as the only variable correlated with CIMT

Clinical Study The Comparison of Pain Caused by Suprapubic Aspiration and Transurethral Catheterization Methods for Sterile Urine Collection in Neonates: A Randomized Controlled Study

This study was performed to compare the levels of pain experienced by young infants undergoing either suprapubic aspiration (SPA) or transurethral catheterization (TUC) for the collection of sterile urine samples. This prospective randomized clinical trial was conducted in hospitalized neonates in a university-affiliated hospital. Patients who required urine cultures were randomly assigned into one of two groups, the SPA or TUC group. The infants&apos; faces were videotaped, and the changes in the facial expression and physiological parameters during the procedure were scored using the Premature Infant Pain Profile (PIPP) in a blind manner. The primary outcome was the severity of the pain experienced during each procedure, and the secondary outcomes were the success rate, the duration, and the complications of each procedure. Ninety-four percent of male infants in the TUC group and 77.3% in the SPA group were uncircumcised ( = 0.1). The mean (SD) of the PIPP pain scores did not differ between groups (9.95 ± 3.7 in SPA and 9.64 ± 3.2 in TUC, = 0.6). The duration of TUC was longer. Both methods can be used to collect urine from neonates, but the difficulty of performing TUC on females and uncircumcised males should be considered

The Comparison of Pain Caused by Suprapubic Aspiration and Transurethral Catheterization Methods for Sterile Urine Collection in Neonates: A Randomized Controlled Study

This study was performed to compare the levels of pain experienced by young infants undergoing either suprapubic aspiration (SPA) or transurethral catheterization (TUC) for the collection of sterile urine samples. This prospective randomized clinical trial was conducted in hospitalized neonates in a university-affiliated hospital. Patients who required urine cultures were randomly assigned into one of two groups, the SPA or TUC group. The infants’ faces were videotaped, and the changes in the facial expression and physiological parameters during the procedure were scored using the Premature Infant Pain Profile (PIPP) in a blind manner. The primary outcome was the severity of the pain experienced during each procedure, and the secondary outcomes were the success rate, the duration, and the complications of each procedure. Ninety-four percent of male infants in the TUC group and 77.3% in the SPA group were uncircumcised (P=0.1). The mean (SD) of the PIPP pain scores did not differ between groups (9.95 ± 3.7 in SPA and 9.64 ± 3.2 in TUC, P=0.6). The duration of TUC was longer. Both methods can be used to collect urine from neonates, but the difficulty of performing TUC on females and uncircumcised males should be considered

Depression and Anxiety Disorders among Patients with Psoriasis: A Hospital-Based Case-Control Study

Background. Psoriasis is a common, genetically determined inflammatory and proliferative disease of the skin. Psychological stress can exacerbate the disease. This study sought to investigate the depression and anxiety disorders among patients with psoriasis and control group. Method. In this hospital-based case-control study, One hundred patients with psoriasis (case) referred to the dermatology department and 100 patients with otolaryngology problems and dermatological healthy volunteers (control) who referred to the Otolaryngology Department of Bouali Sina Hospital in Sari, Iran, in 2007 were studied. Demographic characteristics were recorded. Beck Depression Inventory and Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Scale I-II were administered to the patients in both groups. Data were analyzed using SPSS statistical software and descriptive statistical tests. Results. From One-hundred patients in each group, 44 (45%) were men. Depression score was 67% and 12% in psoriatic patients and control, respectively. The Beck depression scores of patients with psoriasis were significantly higher than scores of the control group (<0.05). Based on Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Scale, anxiety was found in 45% of patients in case group and 18% of controls. Conclusion. The results revealed that psoriatic patients reported significantly higher degrees of depression and anxiety than controls. In addition, psoriatic women were more depressed than psoriatic men