The effects of group play therapy on self-concept among 7 to 11 year-old children suffering from thalassemia major

Background: Children suffering from thalassemia have higher levels of depression and lower levels of self-concept. Objectives: The aim of this study was to determine if group play therapy could significantly increase self-concept among children with thalassemia major ages 7 to 11 years old in teaching hospitals of Golestan province, Iran, in 2012. Patients and Methods: In this randomized, controlled clinical trial, 60 children with thalassemia major were randomly assigned to intervention (30 children) and control (30 children) groups. The intervention included eight 45 to 60 minute sessions during four weeks, during which the intervention group received group play therapy. The control group received no interventions. Selfconcept was measured three times using the Piers-Harris children’s self-concept scale: before, immediately after, and a month after the intervention. Results: For the intervention group, results showed that the mean self-concept score was significantly higher at the second point in time compared to the baseline (P 0.05). Conclusions: The results showed that group play therapy improves self-concept in children suffering from thalassemia major. © 2016, Iranian Red Crescent Medical Journal

Electrically zipping bending actuators for prosthetic fingers

State-of-the-art prosthetics use traditional ‘muscle-tendon’ systems to flex and extend fingers. The main consumer complaint is the weight of a prosthetic, aggravated by this complicated mechanism. This letter introduces an electrically zipping bending actuator (EZBA), a soft actuator that fuses structure and function into one component, reducing the weight of a single bending actuator to 2.5g. These actuators use the dielectrophoretic liquid zipping (DLZ) actuation concept, employing an amplified electrostatic force to attract two thin insulated electrodes. Holding the bottom strip in place and moving the tip of the top strip backwards creates a buckle, a crucial part of creating a bending movement using electrostatic attraction. During actuation, the buckle decreases in size and pushes the top end of the EZBA downwards and bends the whole structure. To evaluate the actuator's performance, tip bending and generated force were measured and compared to those achieved by a human finger. The actuator bent to 89.6° (45.8mm) and achieved a grip force of 177 m

Interior Point Decoding for Linear Vector Channels

In this paper, a novel decoding algorithm for low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes based on convex optimization is presented. The decoding algorithm, called interior point decoding, is designed for linear vector channels. The linear vector channels include many practically important channels such as inter symbol interference channels and partial response channels. It is shown that the maximum likelihood decoding (MLD) rule for a linear vector channel can be relaxed to a convex optimization problem, which is called a relaxed MLD problem. The proposed decoding algorithm is based on a numerical optimization technique so called interior point method with barrier function. Approximate variations of the gradient descent and the Newton methods are used to solve the convex optimization problem. In a decoding process of the proposed algorithm, a search point always lies in the fundamental polytope defined based on a low-density parity-check matrix. Compared with a convectional joint message passing decoder, the proposed decoding algorithm achieves better BER performance with less complexity in the case of partial response channels in many cases.Comment: 18 pages, 17 figures, The paper has been submitted to IEEE Transaction on Information Theor

Adaptation in Mothers of Educable Mentally Retarded Children

Background: Adaptation is an important process for humans. Children, who are physically or mentally disabled, impose special stresses on their families, parents and in particular on their mothers. Objectives: This study examines the relationship between the characteristics of mothers who have educable mentally retarded children, and their adaptation based on Roy’s adaptation model. Patients and Methods: This descriptive study was performed on 40 mothers of educable mentally retarded children referred to the single exceptional school in Aran va Bidgol City, Iran, during 2010 - 11. An adaptation questionnaire based on Roy’s adaptation model and demographic questionnaire were completed by the subjects. The results were analyzed using SPSS software version 16. Descriptive statistics and a Fisher’s exact test were used. Results: The overall adaptation of mothers was satisfactory. There was a significant relationship between the child’s birth order (P = 0.04) and the time of awareness of the child’s problem (P = 0.02), with adaptation levels in mothers who had a mentally retarded child. Conclusions: The child’s birth order and the time of awareness of the child’s problem were related to the mother’s adaptation level