Association between anti-β2GP1 autoantibody with Acute Coronary Syndrome

Background and aim: Atherosclerosis is a chronic autoimmune inflammatory disease that remains the most common cause of death in the globe. This affects the vascular wall and leads to coronary artery diseases. Several studies have evaluated the association between auto-antibodies and cardiovascular disease. One of the candidate autoantigens is the Beta 2-glycoprotein I (β2GPI). Determining risk factor of the coronary heart diseases is of huge significance, so we carried out the comparative study of Anti-β2GP1 autoantibody level in patients with Acute Coronary Syndrome and healthy controls in Gorgan, Iran. Method: A case-control, study was conducted on 179 subjects in 2007 in whom 79 subjects were healthy (Control group) and 100 subjects had coronary artery disease (Case group). A questionnaire was filled by all subjects. Blood and serum samples were assessed by commercial ELISA tests measuring IgM and IgG auto-antibodies to β2GP1 antigen. Data were analyzed using student t-test and Fisher test. Results: The positivity of IgG and IgM isotypes for anti-β2-GPI antibodies in serum of the cases were %68.6 and %43, respectively. Our results also indicated that frequency of IgG and IgM autoanti-beta2-GPI isotypes in serum of the controls were %48.1 and %2.5, respectively. The results from the serum of the subjects showed that IgG-antibody against β2GPI was found in %50 of the female cases and %73.2 of the male cases (P<0.01). On the other hand, this values were %48.5 of females and %47.8 of males in control group (P<0.05). Conclusion: Our finding shows that there is a relation between serum levels of IgG-antibodies against β2GP and coronary artery diseases

The Relationship Between Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder After Childbirth and Social Support and Marital Satisfaction

Background: Childbirth is among the most significant and pleasant events in a woman’s life. This event can be a traumatic event and a threat to the mother’s mental health. This study recognizes the relationship between Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) after childbirth and social support and marital satisfaction.Methods: This Cross-sectional analytical study was performed on a sample of 400 mothers who had delivered at Shohadaye-15-Khordad Hospital in Varamin (in two groups with &amp; without PTSD). The research instruments include the Demographic, Midwifery, Neonatal Factors checklist, Enrich Marital Satisfaction, Weinfeld and Tigman Social Support, and the PTSD Symptoms Scale. We used SPSS to analyze the descriptive and Pearson correlation and logistic regression data. A P&lt;0.05 was considered significant.Results: The prevalence of PTDS in this study was equal to 16.8%. There was no significant correlation between the mean of the total score of PTSD in all dimensions with social support (P&gt;0.05). Marital satisfaction significantly affected the probability of PTSD after childbirth (P=0.001). There was a significant correlation between PTSD total score and dimension of avoidance symptoms and infant gender (P=0.038). There was also a significant correlation between gestational age and avoidance symptoms (P=0.001) and type of nutrition feeding and motivational symptoms (P=0.041) of PTSD dimensions.Conclusion: According to the relationship between marital satisfaction and PTSD, it is recommended to design suitable interventions to improve the marital status and promptly diagnose the susceptible mothers to prevent the spread of this complication

Competency and Cultural Similarity: Underlying Factors of an Effective Interprofessional Communication in the Emergency Ward: A Qualitative Study

Introduction: Despite its importance, interprofessional communication in emergency wards seems unfavorable. Identifying the underlying factors of an effective interprofessional communication can help care providers better design appropriate interventions. This study was designed to explore factors that influence interprofessional communication in the emergency wards. Method: A qualitative study was conducted by means of semi-structured interviews with 22 participants with a variety of jobs, positions, ages, genders, and work experiences. Data analysis was performed with content analysis method with inductive approach. Results: Data analysis revealed 4 categories of underlying effective factors of interprofessional communication in the emergency ward knowledge and skill, communication skills, the positive effect of religion on communication, similar demographic characteristics. These 4 categories revealed the 2 main themes of competency and cultural similarity. Conclusion: This study provided a better understanding of underlying factors in interprofessional communication in the emergency ward. Improving the knowledge and skills of health providers in the emergency ward, and employing personnel with common culture and demographic variables can improve interprofessional communication in the emergency ward. Interprofessional communication has a major role in the outcome of patient care and job satisfaction of staff thus, it is of great importance. Keywords: Interprofessional communication, Emergency ward, Underlying factors, Content analysi

Molecular Interactions between Asphaltene and Surfactants in a Hydrocarbon Solvent: Application to Asphaltene Dispersion

Heavy oil and bitumen supply the vast majority of energy resources in Canada. Different methods can be implemented to produce oil from such unconventional resources. Surfactants are employed as an additive to water/steam to improve an injected fluid&rsquo;s effectiveness and enhance oil recovery. One of the main fractions in bitumen is asphaltene, which is a non-symmetrical molecule. Studies of interactions between surfactants, anionic, and non-anionic, and asphaltene have been very limited in the literature. In this paper, we employed molecular dynamics (MD) simulation to theoretically focus on the interactions between surfactant molecules and different types of asphaltene molecules observed in real oil sands. Both non-anionic and anionic surfactants showed promising results in terms of dispersant efficiency; however, their performance depends on the asphaltene architecture. Moreover, a hydrogen/carbon (H/C) ratio of asphaltenes plays an inevitable role in asphaltene aggregation behavior. A higher H/C ratio resulted in decreasing asphaltene aggregation tendency. The results of these studies will give a deep understanding of the interactions between asphaltene and surfactant molecules

Machine learning-based models for predicting permeability impairment due to scale deposition

Abstract Water injection is one of the robust techniques to maintain the reservoir pressure and produce trapped oil from oil reservoirs and improve an oil recovery factor. However, incompatibility between injected water and reservoir water causes an unflavored issue named “scale deposition.” Owing to the deposited scales, effective permeability of a reservoir reduced, and pore throats might be plugged. To determine formation damage owing to scale deposition during a water injection process, two well-known machine learning methods, least squares support vector machine (LSSVM) and artificial neural network (ANN), are employed in the present paper. To improve the performance of the LSSVM method, a metaheuristic optimization algorithm, genetic algorithm (GA), is used. The constructed LSSVM model is examined using real formation damage data samples experimentally measured, which was reported in the literature. According to the obtained outputs of the above models, LSSVM has a high performance based on the correlation coefficient, and infinitesimal uncertainty based on a relative error between the model predictions and the corresponding actual data samples was less than 15%. Outcomes from this study indicate the useful application of the LSSVM approach in the prediction of permeability reduction due to scale deposition, and it can lead to a better and more reliable understanding of formation damage effects through water flooding without expensive laboratory measurements

Molecular Dynamics Investigation of Wettability Alteration of Quartz Surface under Thermal Recovery Processes

One of the primary methods for bitumen and heavy oil recovery is a steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) process. However, the mechanisms related to wettability alteration under the SAGD process still need to be fully understood. In this study, we used MD simulation to evaluate the wettability alteration under a steam injection process for bitumen and heavy oil recovery. Various oil droplets with different asphaltene contents were considered to determine the effect of an asphaltene content on the adsorption of the oil droplets onto quartz surfaces and wettability alteration. Based on the MD simulation outputs, the higher the asphaltene content, the higher the adsorption energy between the bitumen/heavy oil and quartz surfaces due to coulombic interactions. Additionally, the quartz surfaces became more oil-wet at temperatures well beyond the water boiling temperature; however, they were extremely water-wet at ambient conditions. The results of this work provide in-depth information regarding wettability alteration during in situ thermal processes for bitumen and heavy oil recovery. Furthermore, they provide helpful information for optimizing the in situ thermal processes for successful operations

Molecular Dynamics Investigation of Wettability Alteration of Quartz Surface under Thermal Recovery Processes

One of the primary methods for bitumen and heavy oil recovery is a steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) process. However, the mechanisms related to wettability alteration under the SAGD process still need to be fully understood. In this study, we used MD simulation to evaluate the wettability alteration under a steam injection process for bitumen and heavy oil recovery. Various oil droplets with different asphaltene contents were considered to determine the effect of an asphaltene content on the adsorption of the oil droplets onto quartz surfaces and wettability alteration. Based on the MD simulation outputs, the higher the asphaltene content, the higher the adsorption energy between the bitumen/heavy oil and quartz surfaces due to coulombic interactions. Additionally, the quartz surfaces became more oil-wet at temperatures well beyond the water boiling temperature; however, they were extremely water-wet at ambient conditions. The results of this work provide in-depth information regarding wettability alteration during in situ thermal processes for bitumen and heavy oil recovery. Furthermore, they provide helpful information for optimizing the in situ thermal processes for successful operations

Spectral-spatial classification method for hyperspectral images using stacked sparse autoencoder suitable in limited labelled samples situation

Recently, deep learning (DL)-based methods have attracted increasing attention for hyperspectral images (HSIs) classification. However, the complex structure and limited number of labelled training samples of HSIs negatively affect the performance of DL models. In this paper, a spectral-spatial classification method is proposed based on the combination of local and global spatial information, including extended multi-attribute profiles and multiscale Gabor features, with sparse stacked autoencoder (GEAE). GEAE stacks the spatial and spectral information to form the fused features. Also, GEAE generates virtual samples using weighted average of available samples for expanding the training set so that many parameters of DL network can be learned optimally in limited labelled samples situations. Therefore, the similarity between samples is determined with distance metric learning to overcome the problems of Euclidean distance-based similarity metrics. The experimental results on three HSIs datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of the GEAE in comparison to some existing classification methods

Comparing the Quality of Life Between Active and Non-Active Elderly Women With an Emphasis on Physical Activity

Objectives Among different people, especially the elderly who are undergoing their specific physical, emotional, and psychological conditions, quality of life is considered an issue that is of paramount importance. The present study aims to make a comparison between the quality of life in elderly women who lead an active life with those with a non-active one with special emphasis on physical activity. Methods & Materials The study is a descriptive research including a sample population of 176 elderly women over 60 years old in Bandar-e Gaz city in Iran. Convenience sampling was performed. To obtain the required data, a Short Form-36 (SF-36) questionnaire was used. For statistical analysis, Kolmogorov-Smirnov (K-S) test and Mann&ndash;Whitney U test were used. All the statistical operations were done using SPSS Statistics 20 in significance level of P&le;0.05.&nbsp; &nbsp; Results The results of study indicate that the average age of active and non-active women were 65.69&plusmn;5.45 and 64.32&plusmn;5.14 respectively. The active elderly women enjoyed a higher quality of life than the non-active ones considering indicators such as physical performance limitations, physical and emotional problems, and pain and public health. However, in terms of social function indicator, no significant difference was noted between them. Mental and public health indicators are considered as the most important aspects of quality of life. Conclusion The findings of this study suggested engaging in regular physical activity as it could work as a significant strategy to improve the quality of life among the elderly. Therefore, it is strongly recommended that the officials dealing with public health create appropriate facilities for&nbsp; the physical activity and sports of the elderly women

Challenges of Female Nurses in Disasters: A Qualitative Study

Background: Awareness of nurses&rsquo; experiences is helpful to identify current problems in providing services during disasters. In this regard, better planning and preparation may reduce the problems of this large group of health care providers. This study aimed to investigate the experiences of female nurses in providing services during disasters. Materials and Methods: This is a qualitative study with content analysis approach. The participants comprised 15 nurses with experience in providing healthcare services during disasters. Samples were recruited by purposive sampling method and sampling was continued until data saturation. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, then analyzed by manifest content analysis. Results: Based on experiences and perceptions of nurses, three main categories found out of analyses of the obtained data were as follows: &ldquo;the importance of paying attention to the specific needs of female nurses,&rdquo; &ldquo;places for female nurses during disastrous period,&rdquo; and &ldquo;the importance of the presence of female nurses in providing services.&rdquo; Conclusion: Many factors affect the services delivered by female nurses. The results of this study showed that the specific needs of female nurses, who are the main body of Iranian nurses, could maximize their performance and minimize their psychological and emotional damages