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Oil waste is one of the most important pollutants in the oil and gas industry. Since the oil owing in the wells contains significant amount of saltwater, the effluent amount rises upon increasing the oil reservoir extraction. Separating the saltwater from the extracted oil before starting the refinery process plays an essential role in reducing the oil costs and benefiting from the transfer capacity as well. This paper presents a new Chapman-Kolmogorov Equation-Based (CKEB) method to evaluate the availability of a desalination system with three-state equipment and weighted-k-out-of-n configuration. In this system, the equipment is repairable, and each repair facility can repair all equipment types of different sub-systems (pump stations). All failures and repairs were considered to have a constant rate (with exponential distribution) and use the Chapman-Kolmogorov equations to drive the system availability. Then, the presented method was validated using a simulation technique. Finally, the elapsed times of solving both techniques were calculated and compared. The results confirmed the superiority of the CKEB technique in terms of computational time. Compared with the simulation technique, the computational time ratio for the CKEB method was in the range of 0:0002%0:0058% for the small-size problems, 0:05%0:94% for the medium-size problems, and 1.31%-5.39% for the large-size problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Preventive behaviors regarding cervical cancer are essential for women's health. Even though many studies have addressed women's knowledge and attitudes toward cervical cancer, little information is available about their experiences of cervical cancer-preventive behaviors. Thus, the aim of this study is to explore the perceptions and experiences of Iranian women regarding cervical cancer-preventive behaviors., Methods: This study used a qualitative approach and was conducted in Zanjan, Iran. Participants included 27 women, aged 20-60 years, with no previous history of cervical cancer symptoms or diagnosis. Data were obtained through semi-structured in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. Inductive qualitative content analysis was employed to converge and compare themes through participant data., Results: The following six main themes emerged from the analysis: attitudes toward cervical cancer and preventive behaviors, preventive behaviors' concept, self-care, religion and culture, perceived social support, and awareness about cervical cancer and preventive behavior. The findings revealed that several women had misconceptions about cervical cancer and were even superstitious about the causes of it. Fear, shame, and embarrassment were reasons for not undertaking cervical cancer screening. Cervical cancer was also linked to worries about decreased marital satisfaction, sexuality, and femininity. However, religion was considered a positive factor to conducting cancer-preventive behaviors., Conclusions: This study showed that improving knowledge about the causes of cervical cancer, increasing awareness of the potential consequences of it, and creating positive attitudes toward screening behavior might encourage Iranian women to perform cervical cancer-preventive behaviors.