Background and aims: Presence of antibiotics as emerging pollutants have aroused increasing concerns. The modelling of electrocoagulation process with ultrasound in the removal of Ciprofloxacin in aqueous solutions was aimed in the present study. Materials and Methods: In this study a reactor with 1000 mL volume was used. Copper and iron electrodes were exploited as cathode and anode electrodes. Electrodes were connected to a direct electrical current supply as monopolar. The optimization of pH, current density, initial concentration of CIP and reaction time were conducted by CCD and finally suitable model was presented. In optimized conditions, the amount of electrode corrosion, COD and TOC removal, changes in the UV-Vis adsorption and FT-IR spectrum was measured. All procedures in study were conducted ethically. Results: Optimum conditions were found to occur at pH, current density, and reaction time of 7. 4, 1.5 In this situation the predicted and.A and 30 min, respectively in 15 mg CIP /L as an initial concentration actual efficiencies were 88.21 and 86.37 %, respectively. Also, a moderate COD and TOC removal, about 64 and 51 percent was achieved, respectively. Result of FT-IR analysis showed considerable changes in functional groups during removal process. Synergist effect of US in electrocoagulation process was estimated to be only 14 percent. Conclusion: The results indicate that the proposed process have a good efficiency in CIP removal. It is possible to decrease the concentrations of similar pollutants before their discharge to the environment by the use of this method.

Background and Aims: Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer diseases among women. The survival rate of breast cancer patients is long and, as a result, patients are greatly affected by cancer, its complications and consequences. Materials and Methods: The research design was descriptive – cross sectional. About 150 patients (women) with breast cancer were candidate for chemotherapy referred to the ward of Oncology in Shohada Tajrish and Taleghani Hospitals, both under the auspicious of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical science, 2017. The standard Quality of life Questionnaire (EROTC QLQ_C30) and its breast cancer supplementary measure (QLQ-BR 23) Questionnaire developed by the European Organization for Research and treatment of cancer were respectively used to measure the quality of life and for demography, within one stage. Finally, the data was analyzed using SPSS16 statistical software through ANOVA and Pearson tests. All ethical issues were considered throughout the study. Results: The average age of women whom surveyed was 47.81±8.21, which 74.7 percent of them were married. The average score of the global health status of respondents undergone the survey was 538818.20±. Among the functional scores, the highest score was related to cognitive indexes 68.77± 30.30. Economic difficulties showed the highest score of 69.11 27.33± among symptom scales. Physical,emotional and cognitive functioning, and also the disease symptoms such as fatigue, nausea and vomiting, pain, dyspnoea, insomnia, constipation and economic difficulties were among the variables demonstrating significance relationship with quality of life in Univariate Analysis. Conclusion: The results of this study show the inappropriate conditions regarding the quality of life in some general and specific symptom scales of the patients under the survey. Therefore, the importance of paying more attention to this matter and designing of suitable actions for enhancing the quality of their life is expected.

Background and Aims: Organizational structure and culture influence the performance of an organization. Various factors, on the other hand, affect the structure and culture of an organization. This study aimed to examine the relationship between managers’ leadership style and organizational structure as well as culture in Qazvin hospitals, Qazvin, Iran. Materials and Methods: The present descriptive and cross-sectional study was conducted through the use of leadership (including transformational, transactional and laissez-fair dimensions), organizational structure (including mechanistic and organic dimensions) and organizational culture (including attention to details, creativity, risk taking, stability, team- working and power distance dimensions) questionnaires. The questionnaires were distributed among hospital employees and managers using stratified random issues such as informed consent, sampling method. Data were analyzed using SPSS software. Ethical confidentiality of information and researchers’ objectivity were all considered. Results: Qazvin hospitals mainly had a mechanic and bureaucratic structure. The hospitals also revealed to have a moderate organizational culture. Stability and paying attention to details dimensions of organizational culture achieved higher scores. On the other hand, power distance, team working, risk taking and creativity achieved moderate scores. The prevalent leadership style of managers was transformational. There was a meaningful statistical relationship between managers’ leadership styles and organizational structure and culture of Qazvin hospitals. Transformational leadership had the most impact on power distance and creativity dimensions of organizational culture. Conclusion: Identifying organizational structure and culture types as well as using an appropriate leadership style could improve hospitals’ productivity.

Background and Aims: Environmental pollution by heavy metals has received much attention in recent years. Therefore, this study aims to remove lead and cadmium ions by using silica-coated magnetic nanoparticles modified with mercaptopropyltrimethoxysilane (MPTMS) from aqueous solutions. Materials and methods: In this study, Fe3O4@SiO2-SH magnetic nanoparticles were synthesized via the simplified co-precipitation method at 80°C. The structure and morphology properties of synthesized nanoparticles were characterized by XRD, FT-IR, SEM and TEM. Finally, the adsorption experiments were performed in aqueous media. All stages of this research were conducted ethically. Results: According to the results, Fe3O4@SiO2-SH nanoparticles have a uniform distribution with a spherical Fe3O4 core and SiO2 shell, modified by thiol functional groups. The efficiency of synthesized adsorbent in the removal of metal ions was also investigated considering parameters such as pH, adsorbent dose and contact time. The optimum conditions for lead and cadmium removal were obtained at pH 5 to 6, contact time 40 min and absorbent dose 0.8 g/L. The kinetic and isotherm studies underlined that the process of adsorption of both metal ions follows the second-order (R2> 0.98) and Langmuir isotherm (R2>0.98) models. Conclusion: Based on the results obtained, synthesized Fe3O4@SiO2-SH magnetic nanoparticles can present proper efficiency in the removal of lead and cadmium ions from aqueous media under optimum conditions.

Background and Aims: The effectiveness of health education programs depends to a large extent on the correct use of existing theories and models. Extended Parallel Process Model is considered as one of the effective models in health education having influential structures in studies on health behaviours. Therefore, the present study set out to study the use of Extended Parallel Process Model in health related behaviours through a systematic approach. Materials and methods: Scoups, Springer, Google Scholar, Science Direct and Iranian databases including Iran Medes, SID, Magiran, etc were all considered in this study. Extended parallel process and Developed parallel process were used as two keywords in the searches. There were 25 papers in English and Persian, 22 of which were studied. Ethical issues were considered in all stages of the research, and there was no bias and confinement on the part of the researcher. Results: The findings of this study showed that through the use of all the structures of the parallel process model, especially the perceived self-efficacy construct, the effectiveness of training has been increased in conducted interventional studies. In cross-sectional studies, on the other hand, all structures, especially perceived self-efficacy and sensitivity of perception as well as perceived severity have been important predictors for intention and behaviour. Conclusion: Our results revealed that Extended parallel process model can be used to prevent and control many risky behaviours before the subject exposed to risk factors.