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Background: Renal failure is a major public health problem in the world. These patients experience high levels of psychological tension, anxiety, and depression, which leads to their lowered quality of life, increased health care costs, and early mortality. Due to medication side effects in these patients, non‑medicational methods are more in demand now. This study aimed to investigate the effect of hope therapy on depression, anxiety, and stress among the patients undergoing hemodialysis. Materials and Methods: This is a clinical trial. Fifty patients undergoing hemodialysis were selected. Patients were assigned to two groups of hope therapy and placebo. Intervention of hope therapy was administered for 60-90 min during dialysis sessions once a week for eight sessions. In the placebo group, non‑specific intervention was administered with the same number of sessions. Depression, Anxiety, and Stress scale (DASS)‑21 questionnaire was completed at the end of the last session and 4 weeks later. Data were analyzed by paired t‑test, repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA), and least significant difference (LSD) post hoc test through SPSS 18. Results: There was a significant difference in mean scores of depression, anxiety, and stress in hope therapy group before, immediately after, and 1 month after intervention (P < 0.05), while there was no significant difference in mean scores of depression, anxiety, and stress before and immediately after intervention in the placebo group. Changes in mean scores of depression, anxiety, and stress were significantly higher in hope therapy group compared to placebo (P < 0.05). Conclusions: The obtained results showed that hope therapy is effective on reduction of depression, anxiety, and stress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dielectric filters can provide compact solutions for filter design problems. However, most dielectrics exhibit uniaxial properties, as well as, losses that will undoubtedly affect performance if not accounted for. This paper derives dispersion relations for lossy uniaxial media in dielectric waveguides and also accounts for lossy conducting walls. The waveguide discontinuity problem in the presence of lossy uniaxial media and finite conductivity waveguide walls, is calculated by mode matching technique and the results are applied to a Ka band filter. The design specifications for the proposed filter are a 32.5 GHz center frequency with 6%. Good agreement between simulated and measured results are shown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT A simple design procedure for a double ridge waveguide low-pass filter (LPF) is proposed in this article. The procedure follows similar steps involved in a stepped impedance microstrip LPF. The starting point is calculating lumped element low-pass prototypes and converting them to the double ridge waveguide sections. Step discontinuities are also studied and a lumped element model is proposed by comparing S parameters calculated by HFSS software. The results are then applied to design a six order maximally flat double ridge LPF with 4 GHz cutoff frequency. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 56:120-124, 2014 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Promotion and provision of individuals' health is one of the bases for development in societies. Students' mental health is very important in each society. Students of medical sciences universities, especially nursing students, are under various stresses in clinical environment, in addition to the stress they experience in theoretical education environment. With regard to the importance of nursing students' general health and considering the various existing strategies to promote general health components, use of complementary treatments is more considered because of their better public acceptance, low costs, and fewer complications. One of the new strategies in this regard is laughter Yoga. The present study was conducted with an aim to define the effect of laughter Yoga on general health among nursing students. Materials and Methods: This is a quasi-experimental two-group three-step study conducted on 38 male nursing students in the nursing and midwifery school of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences in 2012. In the study group, eight 1 h sessions of laughter Yoga were held (two sessions a week), and in the control group, no intervention was conducted. The data of the present study were collected by Goldberg and Hiller's General Health Questionnaire and analyzed by SPSS version 12. Results: The findings showed a significant difference in the mean scores of general health before and after laughter Yoga intervention in the two groups of study and control. Conclusions: The findings showed that laughter Yoga had a positive effect on students' general health and improved the signs of physical and sleep disorders, lowered anxiety and depression, and promoted their social function. Therefore, laughter Yoga can be used as one of the effective strategies on students' general health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Mood disorders related behaviors are imposed on family members and influence the family's mental atmosphere and level of quality of life. Therefore, the researchers decided to study the effect of group psycho-educational program on the quality of life in families of patients with mood disorders. Materials and Methods: This is a two-group interventional study conducted on 32 members of families of the patients with mood disorders selected through random sampling. A group psycho-educational program was conducted in ten 90-min sessions (twice a week) for the study group. (World Health Organization's Quality of Life-BREF WHOQOL-BREF ) questionnaire was adopted in the study and was filled before, immediately after, and 1 month after the intervention. Results: Independent t-test showed a significant difference in the scores of quality of life in the domains of mental health, social communications, and environmental health, immediately after and 1 month after intervention in the study group compared to the control group. Repeated measure analysis of variance showed a significant increase in the mean scores of quality of life in the study group. Conclusions: The results showed that the impact of group psycho-educational program is observed in the prevention of reduction in quality of life and its promotion in the families of patients with mood disorders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This study aimed to describe attributors of family stressors which cause rehospitalizations in patients with psychotic disorders. Materials and methods: In a cross sectional study (during 2006-7) 203 randomly selected psychiatric readmitted patients with psychotic diagnosis and registered demographic and psychiatric clinical data were included. Family stressors as the possible cause of readmission were asked through a structured interview by the psychiatrist. Results: Family factors were reported as a cause in 132 (60.6%) cases. Poor family support (n=88; 43.3%) and family conflict (n=58; 28.6%) were the two most prevalent family stressors, respectively. Bivariate analysis showed that admission due to family issues was different among men and women (79.1% vs. 38.7%, respectively p<0.001) and according to job situation (p<0.001), and literacy (p=0.036). According to logistic regression, gender (men) was the only predictor of admission due to family issues (OR=5.989, CI=3.220-11.141, p<0.001). Conclusion: Family factors are prevalent causes of return to hospital in patients with psychotic disorders, and this is more prevalent in men. An approach to decrease the marital stressors is needed in patients with psychotic disorders. In this approach, increasing family support and decreasing family conflict are essential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

5-Fluorouracil (5FU) is a chemotherapy drug used to treat various cancers, such as colorectal, prostate, skin, pancreas, and stomach, as an ointment or solution. However, its consumption has several side effects. Therefore, a new derivative of fluorouracil containing 5-Amino-1H-tetrazole was designed and synthesized through multi-step synthesis to reduce urea excretion and toxicity. The effectiveness of the synthesized drug on the Adenocarcinoma gastric cell line (AGS) gastric cancer cell line was evaluated using the 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) test, which showed that the new 5-fluorouracil (5FU) analog, with an IC 50 of 15.67 µg/mL, is more effective in inhibiting the proliferation of AGS cells after 24 h compared to both synthesized and reported 5FU. In addition, In-silico studies showed that the new 5FU derivative based on amino tetrazole, with a binding energy of -7.2 kcal/mol, exhibits greater anti-cancer activity against the BCL2 enzyme than 5FU, with a binding energy of - 4.8 kcal/mol. It is predicted that the new 5FU derivative will be effective in treating gastric and colorectal cancers. The new derivative of the 5-fluorouracil drug was characterized and identified using FTIR and NMR spectroscopy.Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma.

Hydro-alcoholic fruit extract of Cordia myxa was considerably effective on curing acute inflammation in mouse model. Previous studies suggested significant anti-inflammatory activities as well as potential anticancer agent of α-amyrins in seeds. Inhibition of Cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) and 5-Lipooxygenase (5-LOX) is significant in cancer prevention and therapeutics although this inhibition with chemo-drugs has its own side-effects. It is shown that these enzymes pathways are related to several cancers including colon, breast and lung cancer. This study was conducted based on Cordia species' α-amyrins as a safer natural anti-cancer compound for inhibition of COX-2 and 5-LOX enzymes by molecular docking. The X-ray crystal structure of COX2 / 5-LOX enzymes and α-amyrins was retrieved and energetically minimized respectively. The binding site and surface of enzymes were detected. Docking studies were performed by AutoDock 4.2 using Lamarckian genetic algorithm (LGA). Finally drug likeness, molecular pharmacokinetic properties and toxicity of α-amyrins was calculated. Molecular Docking revealed hydrogen and hydrophobic interactions between α-amyrins with both active sites of COX-2 and 5-LOX enzymes. Interestingly, it covalently bonded to Fe cofactor of 5-LOX enzyme and chelated this molecule. Base on binding energies (∆G) α-amyrin has more inhibitory effects on 5-LOX (-10.45 Kcal/mol) than COX-2 (-8.02 Kcal/mol). Analysis of molecular pharmacokinetic parameters suggested that α-amyrins complied with most sets of Lipinski's rules, and so it could be a suitable ligand for docking studies. Eventually, bioactivity score showed α-amyrins possess considerable biological activities as nuclear receptor, enzyme inhibitor, GPCR and protease inhibitor ligand. These results clearly demonstrate that α-amyrins could act as potential highly selective COX-/5-LOX inhibitor. Also, it is a safe compound in comparison with classical non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) that are known as cancer preventive agents, since it is free of side effects on human body and it can be a promising drug for cancer therapeutics.

Background: Violence at work is considered as part of the occupational hazards which can affect medical staff and have undesirable effects on quality of patients care. Anger management training causes increases the ability of individuals to change behavior and also can increase the ability of the individual in controlling the excitation in the undesirable conditions. This study aimed to determine the effect of anger management training program by nursing staff on violence rate against them., Methods: This was a two-group, two-phase, semi-experimental study. Sixty six qualified nurses employed in emergency unit of Al-Zahra Hospital were divided into test and control groups. In this study, the modified questionnaire of World Health Organization was used with adequate validity and reliability to measure the violence rate and anger control. Thereafter, the test group received anger management training for four 60-minute sessions., Results: The results of the study showed that there was no significant difference between the two groups in terms of demographic characteristics except marital status. In addition, there was a significant difference between the two groups in frequency distribution of psychological violence against nurses after the intervention, but there was no significant difference between the two groups in frequency distribution of physical violence against nurses., Conclusions: The results of this study corroborated the findings of the previous studies. Therefore, increase in self-control and communication skills and problem solving skills at the time of dealing with the patients and their relatives is a step in reducing one of the factors of violence at workplace.

Background: Stress has been defined as a barrier to concentration, problem solving, decision making, and other necessary abilities for students' learning; it also has some symptoms and illnesses in the students such as depression and anxiety. In reviewing stress and its consequences, the methods of coping with stress in the method of response to it would be more important than the nature of stress itself. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the effectiveness of stress management training program on depression, anxiety and stress rate of the nursing students., Methods: This parallel group randomized quasi-experimental trial, was done on 68 Bs nursing students of Nursing and Midwifery School in Isfahan University of Medical Sciences from 2010 to 2011. The questionnaires of this study consisted of individual characteristics and Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-42). In a random fashion, The intervention group was trained with stress management training program in 8 two hours sessions, twice a week. The questionnaires were completed by both groups before, after and one month after the study., Results: The results of the study indicated that there was no significant difference before the intervention in depression, anxiety and stress mean scores in the two groups. After the intervention, the mean scores of anxiety and stress in the intervention group was 5.09 (4.87) and 8.93 (6.01) and in the control group was 10 (6.45) and 13.17 (7.20), that reduction in depression mean score was significantly greater in the intervention group in the control group (p = 0.040). Furthermore, the mean scores of anxiety and stress showed a significant difference between the two groups (Anxiety p = 0.001; Stress p = 0.011); this reduction also had been remained after a month., Conclusions: According to the results of the present study, holding stress management training program workshops in different courses of the mental health department can improve mental health of the students.

Background: Life skills have different effects on various aspects of the mental health. Social adjustment prepares adolescents for entering to the adulthood. On the other hand, humor and joking in the education is considered as a stress reducer and learning increaser. Therefore, the present study conducted aimed to determine the effect of acquiring life skills through humor on the social adjustment rate of the high school girls., Methods: This was a two-group semi-experimental study including three phases. The study population included 69 first year high school female students of Isfahan Department of Education district 3 who were selected in simple random sampling. First of all, the social adjustment rate was measured using California Personality Inventory. Thereafter, life skills education was conducted using humor during five sessions. Finally, a test was taken in order to assess the acquisition of the life skills in which passing score was required for re-completing the questionnaire. The data were analyzed using software SPSS(10) and independent and paired t-tests., Results: The findings of the study indicated that the mean score of the social adjustment statistically had a significant difference in the intervention group before and after the intervention. Furthermore, statistically, there was a significant difference between mean score of the social adjustment in the control group and test group after conducting the intervention., Conclusions: The findings of the study indicated that life skills education has been increased through humor on the social adjustment rate of the high school girl students. Considering the efficacy of learning life skills on the social adjustment and results of the other studies which were in accordance with the present study, implementing such trainings with a new method comprehensively is recommended in the schools.