Reducing the amount of required propane refrigerant in the condenser of a commercial air-conditioner by increasing the inlet temperature

The use of synthetic refrigerants in the refrigeration and air conditioning sector is now obsolete due to the fact that they are not environmental friendly. They damage ozone layer and cause global warming which have both direct and indirect adverse effects on humans and environment. Today, the use of alternative refrigerants is well accepted. Hydrocarbon refrigerants are natural compounds, which do not damage the ozone layer, and have very little impact on global warming. The use of a simple hydrocarbon, propane, as a refrigerant is becoming increasingly popular these days due to its high heat capacity and its short lifetime in the atmosphere. However, since propane is extremely flammable, it is prudent to minimize the amount of propane in the system in order to reduce the risks associated with leakage of the explosive gas. In this research, the possibility of reducing the mass of propane in the condenser without sacrificing the heat transfer capacity of the system has been investigated. In an air-conditioner or refrigeration system, condenser accommodates the most mass of the refrigerant compared with those in the other parts of the system. A MATLAB script has been developed which model the performance of a commercial portable air-conditioner. The results show that by increasing the working temperature of condenser from 30oC to 46oC at the ambient temperature of 27oC, about forty percent propane mass saving is achievable. These temperatures are still far below the critical (370oC) and auto-ignition (540oC) temperatures of propane

How much the act of secrecy is done by medical staff? A descriptive cross-sectional survey in south of Iran

Some information may be gathered during the medical procedures, including medical records or personal information. Many of them can be considered as secrets. The medical staff has the duty of privacy, which means keeping the secrets away from a third party. Hippocratic Oath accepts no exceptions but modern ethical express the situations in which the disclosure of secrets is allowed, legal, or even necessary. The present study is about to evaluate the act of secrecy in medical staff of the tertiary health care centers affiliated with Jahrom University of Medical Sciences in south of Iran. This cross sectional study is done on 204 members of medical staff of 8 different wards in tertiary health care centers affiliated with Jahrom University of Medical Sciences in south of Iran, using a questionnaire of 31 questions in 5 major categories adding to a data sheet for demographic information (age, gender, ward). Validity and reliability of the questionnaire was proved by previous studies. Collected data analyzed by dependent T-test, Fisher's exact and SPSS.17 using descriptive and deductive statistics. The mean rate of secrecy was 3.82± 0.75. Respecting others in the category of "goals of secrecy" earned 4.48, common medical services in the category of "reasons for disclosure" earned 3.89, damage to the patient in the category of "legal reasons for disclosure" earned 4.05, patient's rights in "personal reasons for secrecy" earned 4.07, and informing the medical managers in "proper way to confront the offenders" with the score 2.85 were the highest scores of each category. The variant Ages (p=0.003) and wards (p=0.03) showed significant differences in the secrecy. Results show that the medical staff is not familiar enough to the legal and ethical indications of secrecy, so holding in-service courses may be effective

Examining the Relationship Between Self-Care and Professional Quality of Life in Counseling and Clinical Psychology Trainees

Helping professionals are systemically exposed to the suffering of their clients, resulting in emotional and behavioral consequences. Stamm’s (2010) theoretical framework for professional quality of life is characterized by the positive (compassion satisfaction) and negative (burnout and secondary traumatic stress) facets of the work of helping professionals. Graduate students in the fields of counseling and psychology are establishing life-long professional practices, caught between the demands of caring for others and attending to their own needs. The present study assessed the frequency of self-care practices among clinical psychology and clinical mental health counseling graduate students to predict their professional quality of life, an undertaking that has been overlooked in previous investigations. This study’s contributions are unique given that typologies of burnout were also assessed utilizing the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory (CBI; Kristensen, Borritz, Villadsen, & Christensen, 2005), and programmatic differences were explored. Results of bivariate regression analyses revealed that engagement in self-care was a positive predictor of compassion satisfaction and a negative predictor of burnout. In examining typologies, self-care was found to be an inverse predictor of work-related and client-related burnout. The implications of these findings are discussed in the context of academic training, organizational and institutional policies, and the developmental trajectory of helping professionals. Prospective investigations should seek to examine the relationship between compassion fatigue and self-care among counseling and clinical psychology trainees. Prevention, advocacy, and intervention efforts are salient to professional quality of life; thus, future explorations should evaluate the implementation and efficacy of these self-care initiatives