Prediction of sleep quality and insomnia severity by psychological disorders and acute stress among earthquake survivors in Sarpol-e Zahab, Iran, 2017

Background: Psychological and health outcomes of natural disasters such as earthquakes affect survivors and health services for a long time. In the present study, posttraumatic stress disorders (PTSD), symptoms of psychopathology, sleep quality, and insomnia disorder were investigated among survivors of earthquake occurred at the Western Iran on November 12, 2017. Materials and Methods: This study was conducted on 1031 adult participants from rural and urban areas of Sarpol-e Zahab, a city in Kermanshah Province (Western Iran), who suffered from mental health problems due to the earthquake, a magnitude-7.3 quake, occurred in the Western Iran in 2017. Participants completed the Symptom Checklist 90, Insomnia Severity Index, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, and Self-Rating Scale for PTSD. Data were analyzed using Pearson correlation and multivariate regression analysis by Statistical Package for Social Sciences Software (Version 21). Results: A positive correlation was observed between insomnia severity and all psychopathological symptoms. There was a positive correlation between sleep quality and somatization, obsessive compulsive disorder, depression, and psychoticism. In addition, acute stress was positively correlated with insomnia severity and sleep quality. Conclusion: According to the results of the present study, it is recommended that psychological disorders in earthquake victims be considered to enhance their sleep quality

Effectiveness of cognitive orientation to (daily) occupational performance (CO-OP) on children with cerebral palsy: A mixed design

Background. Cerebral palsy (CP) is the most common cause of physical disabilities during childhood. Therapeutic interventions mainly focus on impairment reduction to address motor-based difficulties. In contrast, Cognitive Orientation to daily Occupational Performance (CO-OP) is a cognitive approach, providing intervention at the level of activity and participation. Aims. This study aims to determine whether the CO-OP approach improves motor skills and achievement in motor-based occupational performance goals in children with CP. Methods and procedures. In this mixed design research (i.e., a multiple baseline single case experimental design and a one-group pretest-posttest design), five children with CP participated in 12 CO-OP intervention sessions. Repeated measures of motor skills for the multiple baseline single case experimental design were taken using the Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency (BOTMP); pre- and post-measures of parent/child perception of performance and satisfaction were identified using the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure (COPM); level of achievement was identified using Goal Attainment Scaling (GAS). Outcomes and results. According to the BOTMP results, all children were able to engage in the CO-OP intervention to improve motor performance. Significant differences after treatment were found in both performance and performance satisfaction ratings using the COPM as rated by parents and children. The GAS results showed progress in achievement levels for all children; all goals were achieved or exceeded. Conclusions and implications. CO-OP intervention can be helpful in improving motor skills and achieving self-identified, motor-based goals in children with CP

Bandwidth management in shared WLAN

In order to reduce cost and administration task, it is desirable for operators to share their WLAN infrastructure (W. Zhuang et al., 2003). In this paper, we focus on bandwidth management in shared WLANs. We propose an algorithm to allocate cell bandwidth to different operators in such a way that the traffic from one logical network can not affect throughput of the users from other ones. Due to its simplicity, this algorithm can be implemented in large WLANs that use Wi-Fi switches for ease of deployment and management of the network. We evaluated the performance of the proposed method by simulating the transmission of FTP and HTTP traffics. The results show that this method has an acceptable performance

The effects of industry, size, business risk and companies performance degree at The use of financial leverage in companies that accepted in Tehran Stock Exchange

نظر به اینکه هدف موسسات بازرگانی حداکثر نمودن ارزش موسسه یا ثروت سهامداران در شرکت های سهامی است لذا این موسسات سعی دارند با اتخاذ سیاست ها و تصمیمات مناسب به این مهم دست یابند. از جمله تلاش هایی که نزدیک شدن به هدف مذکور را میسر می نمایند وظایف مدیریت مالی سازمان هاست. این وظایف در سه گروه اصلی طبقه بندی می شوند: 1. تصمیمات سرمایه گذاری 2. تصمیمات تامین مالی 3. تصمیمات سود هر یک از تصمیمات فوق می بایست در ارتباط با هدف شرکت باشد. ترکیب بهینه و مطلوب هر سه تصمیم، موجب به حداکثر رساندن ارزش شرکت ها می گردد

Alterations in echocardiographic left ventricular function after percutaneous coronary stenting in diabetic patients with isolated severe proximal left anterior descending artery stenosis

Background: There are conflicting theories regarding the use of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) of isolated severe proximal left anterior descending (LAD) artery stenosis in place of left internal mammary artery grafting in diabetic patients. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of PCI on left ventricular function and determine difference between diabetics and non-diabetics. Methods: A prospective study was conducted on 50 patients with isolated severe proximal LAD stenosis: 23 diabetic and 27 non-diabetic patients. Successful PCI with everolimus-eluting stents was performed for all of the patients. These patients underwent transthoracic echocardiography within 24 h before and 1 month after PCI, and alterations in the left ventricular parameters were compared between the two groups. Results: There was a significant 12% increment in the mitral annular peak systolic velocity (s′) (p = 0.02), 21% decrement in the trans mitral early filling deceleration time (DT) (p < 0.001), 10% decrement in the systolic left ventricular internal dimension (LVIDs) (p = 0.002), significant increment in the left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) (p = 0.004), and significant decrement in the left atrial diameter (p = 0.006) in the diabetic patients after performing PCI. Conversely, the non-diabetic patients showed a statistically significant 14% increase in the DT, 6.3% decrease in the s′ velocity, 8% increase in the LVIDs, significant increment in the left atrial diameter and no change in LVEF after PCI. Conclusion: Our study demonstrated that everolimus-eluting stents favorably improved the markers of left ventricular systolic and diastolic function in diabetic patients with isolated severe proximal LAD stenosis compared with those of non-diabetic patients with the same condition

An Evolutionary Neuro-Fuzzy-Based Approach to Estimate the Compressive Strength of Eco-Friendly Concrete Containing Recycled Construction Wastes

There has been a significant increase in construction and demolition (C&amp;D) waste due to the growth of cities and the need for new construction, raising concerns about the impact on the environment of these wastes. By utilising recycled C&amp;D waste, especially in concretes used in construction, further environmental damage can be prevented. By using these concretes, energy consumption and environmental impacts of concrete production can be reduced. The behaviour of these types of concrete in laboratories has been extensively studied, but reliable methods for estimating their behaviour based on the available data are required. Consequently, this research proposes a hybrid intelligent system, Fuzzy Group Method of Data Handling (GMDH)&ndash;Horse herd Optimisation Algorithm (HOA), for predicting one of the most important parameters in concrete structure design, compressive strength. In order to avoid uncertainty in the modelling process, crisp input values were converted to Fuzzy values (Fuzzification). Next, using Fuzzy input variables, the group method of data handling is used to predict the compressive strength of recycled aggregate concrete. The HOA algorithm is one of the newest metaheuristic algorithms being used to optimise the Fuzzy GMDH structure. Several databases containing experimental mix design records containing mixture components are gathered from published documents for compressive strength to assess the accuracy and reliability of the proposed hybrid Fuzzy-based model. Compared to other original approaches, the proposed Fuzzy GMDH model with the HOA optimiser outperformed them in terms of accuracy. A Monte Carlo simulation is also employed for uncertainty analysis of the empirical, standalone, and hybridised models in order to demonstrate that the evolutionary Fuzzy-based approach has less uncertainty than the standalone methods when simulating compressive strength