Job Stress and Work Ability Among Emergency Nurses in Isfahan, Iran

Background: Job stress is one of the most common health problems with clinical and psychological consequences, which can affect work ability among emergency nurses. Nevertheless, more studies are needed to shed light on the status of this disorder and its relevance to work ability in nurses in the emergency departments (EDs). Objectives: The current study aimed to determine job stress among emergency nurses and its association with work ability. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in 2013 in hospitals affiliated to Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran. Two hundred nurses who worked in the EDs were asked to complete a demographic questionnaire and special scales to assess their job stress and work ability. T-tests, analysis of variance, Pearson correlation coefficient and linear regression were used to analyze the data. Results: The mean job stress and work ability scores were 151.09 ± 0.01 and 26.9 ± 8.2, respectively. Fifty-five percent of the subjects had high job stress and fifty-seven percent showed low work ability. A significant indirect correlation was found between job stress and work ability scores in the subjects (P = 0.015). Conclusions: Nurses working in the EDs experience a high level of job stress and low work ability. This may decrease the quality of care and patients’ safety. Fulfilling the staff shortage in ED and improving management behaviors are important in this regard

Отношение членов реанимационной бригады и сопровождающих пациента лиц к присутствию родственников пациента первой степени родства во время сердечно-легочной реанимации в отделениях неотложной помощи

The presence of the patient’s family at their bedside during cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is one of the challenging issues that has been frequently taken into consideration. Considering the importance of this topic. The objective of the present study was conducted to determine the attitude of the CPR team members and the patient’s companions toward the presence of the patient’s first-degree relatives during CPR.Materials and methods. The descriptive-analytical cross-sectional study was conducted on 100 CPR team members of two University Hospitals and 120 near relatives of patients undergoing CPR in 2021. The data were collected by the researcher-made questionnaire and depression, anxiety, stress scale (DASS) during CPR. The collected data were analyzed by SPSS (version 22) statistical software.Results. From the perspective of both the CPR team members and the patient’s companions, the highest mean response was related to the fact that it would be better for the patient to agree on the presence or absence of their family before hospitalization and whether they have favorable conditions. The attitude toward the presence of the patient’s family during CPR was statistically significantly associated with the companions’ gender (p < 0.05) and with the experience of work and participation in CPR of the CPR team members (p < 0.05).Conclusion. Taking into account the different opinions of the CPR team members and the patient’s relatives about the presence of family during resuscitation, additional studies with a large sample size should be carried out.Присутствие семьи пациента у его постели во время проведения сердечно-легочной реанимации (СЛР) является одним из вопросов, привлекающих внимание. Настоящее исследование было проведено с целью определения отношения членов реанимационной бригады и сопровождающих пациента лиц к присутствию родственников пациента первой степени родства во время проведения СЛР.Материалы и методы. Описательно-аналитическое перекрестное исследование проведено в 2 университетских больницах с участием 100 членов команд, проводящих СЛР, и 120 близких родственников пациентов, которым проводили СЛР в 2021 г. Данные были собраны с помощью разработанного исследователем опросника и шкалы стресса, тревоги и депрессии (DASS) во время СЛР. Собранные данные были проанализированы с помощью статистического программного обеспечения SPSS (версия 22).Результаты. С точки зрения как членов команды, проводящей СЛР, так и близких пациента, наиболее значимым был вопрос о том, что самому пациенту было бы лучше договориться о присутствии или отсутствии своей семьи еще до момента госпитализации и выяснить, насколько для этого созданы благоприятные условия. Отношение к присутствию семьи пациента во время СЛР было статистически значимо связано с полом сопровождающего (р < 0,05) и с опытом работы и участия в СЛР членов реанимационной бригады (р < 0,05).Вывод. Учитывая различные мнения членов команды, проводящей СЛР, и близких пациента относительно присутствия семьи во время реанимации, следует провести дополнительные исследования с большим объемом выборки

Using continuous wavelet transform of generalized flexibility matrix in damage identification

Generalized flexibility matrix method has recently been introduced for identifying damages with the aim of overcoming some shortcomings of the approaches based on flexibility matrix. Researchers that use flexibility matrix to detect damages in structures face truncation errors ensue from cut off higher-order mode shapes, which are difficult to measure in practice. In this paper, a new procedure is presented to detect the damage site in a beam-type structure, where generalized flexibility matrix in conjunction with continuous wavelet transform (CWT) is utilized. Since flaws and cracks cause changes in flexibility of a system, this characteristic can be used as a damage indicator. Gaussian wavelet transform with four vanishing moments as a signal processing method is implemented to find the irregularity in a vector obtained from generalized flexibility matrix which is considered as a sign of damage. This method does not need to have either prior knowledge about the intact structure or its finite element model. The proposed technique is evaluated by numerical and experimental case studies

Abnormal Behavior Detection over Normal Data and Abnormal-augmented Data in Crowded Scenes

In this article, we consider the problems of abnormal behavior detection in a high-crowded environment. One of the main issues in abnormal behavior detection is the complexity of the structure patterns between the frames. In this paper, social force and optical flow patterns are used to prepare the system for training the complexity of the structural patterns. The cycle GAN system has been used to train behavioral patterns. Two models of normal and abnormal behavioral patterns are used to evaluate the accuracy of the system detection. In the case of abnormal patterns used for training, due to the lack of this type of behavioral pattern, which is another challenge in detecting the abnormal behaviors, the geometric techniques are used to augment the patterns. If the normal behavioral patterns are used for training, there is no need to augment the patterns because the normal patterns are sufficient. Then, by using the cycle generative adversarial nets (cycle GAN), the normal and abnormal behaviors training will be considered separately. This system produces the social force and optical flow pattern for normal and abnormal behaviors on the first and second sides. We use the cycle GAN system both to train behavioral patterns and to assess the accuracy of abnormal behaviors detection. In the testing phase, if normal behavioral patterns are used for training, the cycle GAN system should not be able to reconstruct the abnormal behavioral patterns with high accuracy

Adaptive Pruning of Convolutional Neural Network

Deep convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have attained remarkable success in numerous visual recognition tasks. There are two challenges when adopting CNNs in real-world applications: a) Existing CNNs are computationally expensive and memory intensive, impeding their use in edge computing; b) there is no standard methodology for designing the CNN architecture for the intended problem. Network pruning/compression has emerged as a research direction to address the first challenge, and it has proven to moderate CNN computational load successfully. For the second challenge, various evolutionary algorithms have been proposed thus far. The algorithm proposed in this paper can be viewed as a solution to both challenges. Instead of using constant predefined criteria to evaluate the filters of CNN layers, the proposed algorithm establishes evaluation criteria in online manner during network training based on the combination of each filter’s profit in its layer and the next layer. In addition, the novel method suggested that it inserts new filters into the CNN layers. The proposed algorithm is not simply a pruning strategy but determines the optimal number of filters. Training on multiple CNN architectures allows us to demonstrate the efficacy of our approach empirically. Compared to current pruning algorithms, our algorithm yields a network with a remarkable prune ratio and accuracy. Despite the relatively high computational cost of an epoch in the proposed algorithm in pruning, altogether it achieves the resultant network faster than other algorithms

The attitude of the resuscitation team members and the patient’s companions toward the presence of the patient’s first-degree relatives during cardiopulmonary resuscitation in the emergency departments

The presence of the patient’s family at their bedside during cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is one of the challenging issues that has been frequently taken into consideration. Considering the importance of this topic. The objective of the present study was conducted to determine the attitude of the CPR team members and the patient’s companions toward the presence of the patient’s first-degree relatives during CPR.Materials and methods. The descriptive-analytical cross-sectional study was conducted on 100 CPR team members of two University Hospitals and 120 near relatives of patients undergoing CPR in 2021. The data were collected by the researcher-made questionnaire and depression, anxiety, stress scale (DASS) during CPR. The collected data were analyzed by SPSS (version 22) statistical software.Results. From the perspective of both the CPR team members and the patient’s companions, the highest mean response was related to the fact that it would be better for the patient to agree on the presence or absence of their family before hospitalization and whether they have favorable conditions. The attitude toward the presence of the patient’s family during CPR was statistically significantly associated with the companions’ gender (p < 0.05) and with the experience of work and participation in CPR of the CPR team members (p < 0.05).Conclusion. Taking into account the different opinions of the CPR team members and the patient’s relatives about the presence of family during resuscitation, additional studies with a large sample size should be carried out

Energy performance and summer thermal comfort of traditional courtyard buildings in a desert climate

Courtyards have been traditionally used as a passive design strategy in desert climates. However, few studies have quantified the thermal performance of this building archetype. This paper explored the indoor and outdoor thermal conditions of a typical courtyard house in Iran. The study was performed in two phases. The first phase showed the effect of the position of the zones located in four sides of the courtyard on their indoor energy use and indoor thermal comfort. The results showed that the east and west sides of the courtyard require the highest cooling demand due to the solar radiation in summer time. Furthermore, maximum discomfort hours occurred in the east zone. In the second phase, hourly air temperature inside and outside of the courtyard were compared during the longest day of the year (21st of June). The results showed that inside of the courtyard was 1.2 °C cooler than the outside on average. Moreover, it was observed that the temperature fluctuations outside of the courtyard were higher than the inside. To sum up, the results showed that courtyards can provide a cooler microclimate in summer time

Electropolymerized Fluorinated Aniline-Based Fiber for Headspace Solid-Phase Microextraction and Gas Chromatographic Determination of Benzaldehyde in Injectable Pharmaceutical Formulations

In this study, a simple method was developed and validated to detect trace levels of benzaldehyde in injectable pharmaceutical formulations by solid-phase microextraction coupled with gas chromatography–flame ionization detector. Polyaniline was electrodeposited on a platinum wire in trifluoroacetic acid solvent by cyclic voltammetry technique. This fiber shows high thermal and mechanical stability and high performance in extraction of benzaldehyde. Extraction and desorption time and temperature, salt effect and gas chromatography parameters were optimized as key parameters. At the optimum conditions, the fiber shows good linearity between peak area ratio of benzaldehyde/3-chlorobenzaldehyde and benzaldehyde concentration in the range of 50–800 ng/mL with percent relative standard deviation values ranging from 0.75 to 8.64% (n 5 3). The limits of quantitation and detection were 50 and 16 ng/mL, respectively. The method has the requisite selectivity, sensitivity, accuracy and precision to assay benzaldehyde in injectable pharmaceutical dosage forms

Different medications for the treatment of Ménière’s disease by intratympanic injection: a systematic review and network meta-analysis

Background: It is generally accepted that intratympanic injection provides an effective approach to manage severe vertigo in Ménière’s disease. Although there are several medications available, that which is the most effective is still subject to debate. Objective: To assess the effectiveness and safety of the different medications used in treatment of Ménière’s disease by intratympanic injection using a network meta-analysis. Methods: PubMed, EMBASE, CINAHL and CENTRAL were searched. Only randomized controlled trials that compared the effectiveness of medications used for intratympanic injection to treat Ménière’s disease with each other or a placebo were included. The primary outcome assessed was the effectiveness of medication in the management of vertigo symptoms. The effectiveness was expressed in terms of risk ratio (RR) with a 95% credible interval (CrI) for individual studies analyzed. Network meta-analyses was performed by Stata version 15.0 using the network package. Results: Nine studies involving 314 patients treated with 5 different medications were included in the present analysis. Number of injections given varied from 1 to 10 and follow-up time from 3 to 28 months. When compared to each other or to a placebo, Gentamicin was found to be the most efficacious medication, followed by Methylprednisolone, Latanoprost, Dexamethasone and Ganciclovir in order of effectiveness. However, no significant difference in efficacy was found between Gentamicin and Methylprednisolone when outcomes from studies with a follow-up time equal to or more than 24 months were analyzed. It was not possible to conduct subgroup and sensitivity analysis because of the limited number of studies that were included. Conclusion: All medications are more effective than a placebo in the treatment of Ménière’s disease by intratympanic injection. According to the SUCRA, Gentamicin ranked the most effective, with Gentamicin and Methylprednisolone equally effective in the long-term. When the potential risk of hearing loss induced by Gentamicin is taken into consideration, Methylprednisolone may be the best choice for treatment of Ménière’s disease by intratympanic injection