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Cancer is a chronic disease that is spreading day by day. Most people with cancer suffer from a lot of anxiety and stress. With regard to this issue, the present study investigated the effect of group training program for stress-inoculation on existential anxiety and resilience of cancer patients. The study was a randomized clinical trial conducted on 30 people with cancer who referred to Imam Reza Hospital in Kermanshah, Iran. Then they were randomly divided into two groups of intervention and control. The Connor-Davidson Resilience Questionnaire was used to collect information. Before the intervention, both groups completed the questionnaires. Then the intervention group received 8 sessions of 60-90-min stress-inoculation training. At the end of the intervention, both groups completed the research questionnaires immediately and after one month. The data was analyzed using SPSS25. The results showed a significant decrease in existential anxiety (p [less than or equal to] 0.001) and an increase in resilience (p [less than or equal to] 0.001) after stress-immunization training in the intervention group. During one month of follow-up, the results showed a significant decrease in existential anxiety (p [less than or equal to] 0.001), but no significant increase in resilience (p = 0.064). According to the results of this study, group training program for stress-inoculation has reduced the level of existential anxiety and resilience in cancer patients. Therefore, it is recommended that stress-inoculation training be considered in cancer patients. Trial registration: Iranian Registry of Clinical Trials IRCT20130812014333N100. Registered 2018-08-29, https://www.irct.ir/search/result?query=IRCT20130812014333N100, Author(s): Sara Ahmadi [sup.1] , Nader Salari [sup.2] , Jahangir Rezaei [sup.3] , Mahmoud Rahmati [sup.4] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.412112.5, 0000 0001 2012 5829, Student research committee, School of Nursing [...]

Introduction: Hemodialysis is a crucial treatment for patients with chronic renal failure. Despite its effectiveness in managing end-stage renal failure, hemodialysis patients face multiple physical and psychological stressors. Recognizing the interconnectedness of body and soul, religious and spiritual views can potentially provide valuable support. Previous research has indicated that spiritual beliefs impact patients’ health and self-esteem. This study surveys the relationship between spiritual intervention and self-esteem in hemodialysis patients in the Iranian population. Material and methods: The study is semi-experimental and involves 44 hemodialysis patients in Kermanshah in 2016. After convenience sampling, the patients were divided into two groups, control (22 patients) and intervention (22 patients), using random allocation. For the intervention group, spiritual-religious sessions lasting 45-60 minutes were scheduled twice a week in a group format. Inclusion criteria for participation included being 18 years or older, having undergone hemodialysis for at least 6 months, and providing informed consent. Data collection involved assessing demographic features and using the Coppersmith Self-Esteem Scale. Finally, the data were analyzed using the independent sample t-test, Fisher’s exact test and the chi-square test. P < 0.05 was considered as statistically significant. Results: Before the intervention, mean self-esteem in the intervention group was 23.80 ±1.99. Mean self-esteem in the control group was 23.85 ±2.03. After the intervention, mean self-esteem in the intervention group increased significantly to 37.28 ±2.53 after the spiritual-religious intervention (p < 0.05). Mean self-esteem in the control group remained relatively stable at 23.42 ±1.88 (p > 0.05). Conclusions: The findings suggest that spiritual-religious sessions have a positive effect on the self-esteem of hemodialysis patients. Incorporating spiritual care into the patients’ overall care program may contribute to improving their self-esteem. Therefore, recognizing the holistic needs of patients, including their spiritual well-being, can enhance patients’ self-esteem during the challenging process of hemodialysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, nano‐filtration membranes are made by the reaction between a reactive functional group on the surface of a tight ultrafiltration membrane and a charged branched polymer. This reaction makes the selective layer of the nanofiltration membrane, which plays an essential role in membrane performance. A molecular dynamics simulation with a reactive force field was used to investigate the reaction of carboxylated polyethersulfone as the functional group of the ultrafiltration membrane with polyethyleneimine. Experimental elucidation of the reaction between the PEI amine and carboxyl groups is challenging, and an MD simulation was thus employed. Furthermore, the simulation results show that the PEI and carboxylated polyethersulfone polymers react with each other in a temperature‐dependent manner. While no reaction occurs at 298 K, carboxylated polyethersulfone and PEI begin to react when the temperature is increased from 298 to 323 K. Furthermore, a reversible reaction was observed with a subsequent increase in temperature to 353 K. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of highly toxic solvents presents significant risks to both the environment and human health. Therefore, the adoption of green solvents will be crucial for achieving sustainable membrane production. This work reports the use of inexpensive environmentally friendly biobased and biodegradable cyclic carbonate solvents, namely ethylene carbonate (EC), propylene carbonate (PC), and butylene carbonate (BC), to fabricate polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) membranes. The solvent dependence of the phase inversion mechanisms, morphology, crystalline structures, and polymorphism of the prepared PVDF membranes were investigated. Polymorph analysis revealed that membrane fabrication in EC or PC yielded exclusively the β-phase product, whereas PVDF membrane fabrication in BC yielded a mixture of α and β phase material. The mechanism of β-phase formation was investigated using molecular dynamics simulation and shown to depend on the extent of hydrogen bonding at the polymer–solvent interface. The PVDF membrane formed in EC exhibited the highest porosity and pure water permeability, and was therefore tested in direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD), exhibiting promising results in terms of permeate flux and salt rejection. These results suggest that large-scale production of piezoelectric PVDF membranes using green solvents should be practically feasible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Nursing education programs are designed to decrease the gap between theory and practice. It is believed that internship programs can decrease this gap. An internship program has newly been implemented in Kermanshah Nursing School. However, the efficiency of this program has not been assessed. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to explore the challenges related to the internship education of nursing students. Methods: The study was conducted as qualitative research. The participants were eight nursing students who had at least one semester of experience in internship. They were selected through purposive sampling. Data gathering was done through semi-structured interviews, which were recorded and analyzed through a three-stage content analysis approach. For data management, MAXQDA-10 was used. Results: Out of the eight participants, three were male, and all were in the final year of their education. In total, 423 primary codes emerged after analyses, which were placed in seven categories, including: education before internship, lack of support, planning difficulties, interaction with staff, invisible evaluation, welfare defects, and professional identity. Conclusion: The study revealed the challenges of the internship program for nursing students in Iran. Some of the problems were related to educational background, others were associated with the shortcomings of the cultural aspects of the context. Therefore, it is recommended to optimize the clinical training of nursing students in the internship program by addressing these challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Molecular dynamic simulations have been served to investigate various properties of methane/water system at two extreme conditions: away from hydrate formation and threshold it. The results that compare the two conditions have been discussed in the terms of surface tension, mean square displacement (MSD), diffusion coefficient, radial distribution function and thermodynamic functions. Investigation over a timescale of 500 ps demonstrated that the thermodynamic functions at 275 K and high pressures (corresponding to the hydrate formation threshold) are smaller than that of at 298 K, implying that the hydrate formation threshold is more stable. An increase in the system pressure and temperature leads to a decrease in the surface tension because of decreasing the intermolecular attractive forces. Besides, the comparison of oxygen–oxygen, carbon–carbon and carbon-oxygen radial distribution functions at temperatures of 275 and 298 K has been indicated that the height of peaks decreases due to increasing the temperature, demonstrating that the system become more stable at the threshold of hydrate formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Solubility of all proposed molecular models of asphaltene in various solvents is studied through molecular dynamics simulation to find the structural parameters which have a determining effect on asphaltene solubility. It is found that higher numbers of aromatic rings and heteroatoms such as oxygen, nitrogen, and sulphur in the molecular structure of asphaltenes raises their solubility in the solvents, whereas the length of aliphatic group, which increases the chain length, lowers their solubility. In addition, a cubic correlation equation for evaluating the asphaltene solubility parameter as a ratio of number of aromatic rings in the asphaltene molecular core to the number of carbon atoms in the asphaltene side chains is proposed. The results indicate that the relative energy difference (RED) of asphaltene models and isopropyl benzene, as a solvent, is the lowest compared with other solvents. To elucidate the mechanism of asphaltene dissolution in the common solvents the solubility of two asphaltene structural models in three solvents, including isopropyl benzene, toluene, and heptane, were studied by evaluating the radial distribution functions (RDFs) of the asphaltenes, and the results confirm that asphaltene has the highest solubility in isopropyl benzene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The adsorption isotherm of hydrogen in zeolites FAU, LTA, KFI, RWY, RHO and TSC has been simulated employing grand canonical Monte Carlo procedure for a temperature range of 77 to 95 K and different pressures. The effects of structural composition, unit cell volume, framework density and specific surface area of zeolite on hydrogen adsorption in zeolites were investigated. The results clearly show that the adsorption of hydrogen in zeolites with the same silica density is a function of oxygen density at low pressures, and it is approximately the same at intermediate pressures. Nevertheless, at high pressures, the adsorption of hydrogen is a function of pore diameter for zeolites with same silica density. The effect of specific surface area on the adsorption isotherm of hydrogen on zeolites with approximately the same specific surface area is significant at low and high pressures. The results clearly indicate that the adsorption of hydrogen in RWY zeolite has maximum value at 77 K and at high pressures. The optimum condition of pressure for hydrogen adsorption isotherm in RWY zeolite is determined to be 600 bar. At a temperature of 77 K and a pressure of 600 bar, the adsorption of hydrogen in RWY zeolite is 6.93 wt %. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Grand Canonical Monte Carlo simulation is used to study adsorption of nitrogen on new type of zeolites such as IHW, IWV, SIV, UFI, and MSE at temperature range 273–325K and pressures up to 50bars. The optimum parameters of Lennard–Jones potential are evaluated and their effects on the simulation results are examined. Besides, the effects of temperature, pressure, framework density (FD) and oxygen density in unit cell on the adsorption isotherms are investigated. Although, the adsorption of nitrogen is a complex function of pressure, temperature, and pore structure of zeolite, it is found that, at room temperature, the adsorption increases linearly with increasing pressure. The results show that IWV type of zeolite gives the greatest adsorption at sufficiently high pressure. At low pressure, the effect of oxygen density in simulation box on the adsorption isotherms is higher than pore diameter. At high pressure, the effect of temperature on the adsorption isotherm does not depend on structural composition of zeolites. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• Reverse non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations (RNEMD) is used to investigate thermal conductivity of Polyamide 6. • Thermal conductivity of Polyamide 6 increases with the Degree of Polymerization (DOP) and reaches a constant value at high DOPs. • Polydispersity Index (PDI) does not have a significant influence on the thermal conductivity of the Polyamide 6. • The thermal conductivity increases linearly with the density. • The thermal conductivity is highly affected by the Fraction of Free Volume (FFV) of the system. In this study, the influence of both molecular weight (expressed as the degree of polymerization (DOP)) and Polydispersity index (PDI) on the thermal conductivity of Polyamide 6 (Nylon 6) were investigated by means of reverse non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations (RNEMD). At first, physical properties such as density and the solubility parameter were calculated to confirm the accuracy of the simulation results. Afterwards, variations in thermal conductivity with DOP and PDI were investigated. The simulation results show that the thermal conductivity of Polyamide 6 is 0.25 ± 0.002 W/(mK) which is in good agreement with the experimental data of 0.24–0.25 W/(mK). In addition, based on the simulation results, the thermal conductivity of Polyamide 6 has increased with the DOP and a plateau has been achieved at high DOPs. It was observed that varying PDI does not have a significant effect on the thermal conductivity at a constant value of average molecular weight. The dependency of thermal conductivity to the polymer density was also investigated and it was observed that by enhancing the polymer density, the thermal conductivity increases linearly. It was also concluded that the thermal conductivity is severely affected by system's fraction of free volume. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract The formation of organic sediments, especially asphaltene in reservoirs, wells and equipment, has a harmful effect on the oil production economy, which reduces oil production and can block oil production facilities. In order to investigate the asphaltene aggregation and solubility, a series of molecular dynamics simulations in different conditions were performed on two famous asphaltene based model, of M1 and VI. VI asphaltene has two high aliphatic side chains, whereas M1 asphaltene has only two methyl groups on its sides. The simulation results show that the solubility parameter increases with increasing number of aromatic rings and decreasing the number of carbon atoms in the side chain. The aggregation of asphaltene molecules in toluene, heptane and isopropyl benzene solvents and also in the mixture of solvents has been investigated. The results show that the aggregation of M1 asphaltene in toluene and isopropyl benzene is lower than that of VI asphaltene. The mixture isopropyl benzene-heptane is appropriate solvent for both asphaltenes M1 and VI which represents less interaction between asphaltene molecules. The effect of six types of inhibitors on the aggregation of asphaltene was investigated. Based on the simulation results, the aggregation of asphaltene with the presence of DETPMP inhibitor significantly decreases due to the delay in the growth of crystals and by increasing the concentration of all used inhibitors, their inhibitory properties were decreased. Graphical abstract Image 1 Highlights • Aggregation of asphaltene was studied by molecular simulation. • Relationship solubility parameter and asphaltenes structure were studied. Solubility parameter of pure asphaltene and different solvents were calculated. • Effects of inhibitors on the aggregation of asphaltene were studied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Removal of cadmium ions from an aquatic solution was investigated by low-cost adsorbents and compared when modifying them by Fe-S nanoparticles. Nanocomposites were synthesized by a new experimental method under simple and inexpensive procedure by Fe-S nanoparticles, which possessed good characteristics of the surface area and magnetic property. These nanocomposite adsorbents removed cadmium at larger percentages than pure adsorbents. Iron filings had only a minor effect on the removal of cadmium, but when they were modified with Fe-S nanoparticles, the adsorption rate reached over 98.5%. Under operating conditions of pH 7, a concentration of 3 ppm, and a flow rate of 5 ml/min, the highest cadmium adsorption in water was caused by the iron nanocomposite. Display Omitted [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aims to assess the predictive accuracy of SOFA, MODS, and LODS scores in determining the mortality of elderly undergoing open heart surgery with delirium., Methods: A prospective study involved 111 elderly patients who met the inclusion criteria. Data were collected using scoring systems: SOFA, MODS, and LODS., Results: Upon final follow-up, 86.5 % of the patients had recovered, 13.5 % had died. Sensitivity, specificity, negative, and positive predictive values for predicting mortality in elderly patients were calculated for the SOFA score as 99 %, 73 %, 98 %, and 76 %, respectively. For the MODS score, these values were 95 %, 60 %, 95 %, and 67 %; for the LODS score, they were 92 %, 73 %, 92 %, and 75 %, respectively. The overall accuracy of the three scores-SOFA, MODS, and LODS-was 84 %, 76 %, and 82 %, respectively., Conclusion: The results indicated that the SOFA score exhibited the highest sensitivity and specificity in predicting mortality among elderly individuals., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Background: Drug dependence or substance use disorder not only affects a person's life but also brings a lot of challenges for families and communities and imposes heavy burdens on them. There are various therapies in the domain of addiction whose main purposes are to reduce or to cut down substance abuse., Objective: This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of group spiritual intervention on selfesteem and happiness among male clients undergoing methadone maintenance treatment., Methods: This study was an intervention study in which 60 clients affected with substance abuse and undergoing methadone maintenance treatment were recruited. The study samples were selected through convenience sampling method and then divided randomly into two groups of 30 individuals: intervention and control. The intervention group attended group spiritual interventions for 10 sessions. Self-esteem and happiness among the study participants were also measured through Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory and Oxford Happiness Questionnaire before and after the intervention., Results: The results showed a significant difference between both intervention and control groups in terms of self-esteem and happiness (P < 0.05); so that the participants in the intervention group demonstrated a significant improvement in their self-esteem and happiness., Conclusion: It was concluded that group spiritual intervention as a useful method could be effective in enhancing self-esteem and happiness among addicted individuals undergoing methadone maintenance treatment. The given treatment could be also used as a complementary therapy beside methadone maintenance treatment to reduce the likelihood of people returning to substance abuse., (Copyright© Bentham Science Publishers; For any queries, please email at epub@benthamscience.net.)