Preterm birth has been increased over the last two decades, thus leading to higher admissions of preterm infants to the neonatal intensive care units (NICUs). The design of NICUs may have several consequences for the health of infants, parents, and staff. In addition, it has gone through numerous changes in recent years, including the single-family room (SFR). The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of using SFRs in the NICUs on the environmental (outcomes related to NICU environmental features) and clinical outcomes of the infants. Further, the present systematic review study was based on English papers about utilizing SFRs in the NICUs published during 2012-17. The papers were collected by searching the keywords “ neonatal intensive care unit” , “ single-family room” , “ preterm infants” , “ parents’ perspective” , “ staff’ s perspective” , “ infant outcomes” , and “ open-ward care unit” in ISI, Scopus, PubMed, Science Direct, Google Scholar, Magiran, and OVID database. The findings showed that applying SFRs improves clinical and environmental outcomes and that the staff and parents have a positive attitude toward this method. Besides, it costs the same as or even in some models less than the open-ward method and is considered a cost-effective method. Although a consensus may not be achieved on some issues such as maternal stress, language and motor development, intellectual maturation, and to some extent nurses’ satisfaction, in general, using the SFR in the NICUs enhances clinical and environmental outcomes and there is a positive attitude towards this method.

Background: Having information on characteristics of work load of emergency surgical room in 3 working-shifts per day help to manage facilities and health care providers more efficiently. The aim of this study is to evaluate the workload pattern of 3 working-shifts of a day in Nemazee Hospital, southern Iran.Methods: The patients who were admitted in the surgical Emergency Room from April 2007 to May 2008 were enrolled including the patients' demographics, referral sources, the busiest working-shifts and the type of procedures performed in the Emergency Room.Results: 33,837 emergency surgery referrals were recorded, of which 74.7% were male and 25.3% were female with a mean age of 30.8±20.1 years. The busiest working-shift of the day was between 8.00 PM and 8.00 AM, when 48.4% patients were admitted. 12.1% were admitted in the Emergency Room while 4.8% patients were admitted in the hospital wards and 5.6% underwent emergency surgery. 32.4% of them were discharged while 39.7% left the hospital with their own responsibility and 4.7% patients escaped from the hospital. The total number of the deaths during the study period was 0.7%.Conclusion: Our results showed that patients were mainly male teenagers and most of the accidents happened by motorbike during the busiest working-shift of the day from 8 PM to 8 AM. Therefore, it would be useful to persuade health system administrators to set up some educational programs to increase the awareness of families and teenagers regarding trauma and also to allocate more resources to shorten waiting lists.

Objective: To determine the epidemiology and pattern of emergency operating room workload in Nemazee hospital affiliated with Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran. Methods: All surgical emergency operations which were performed in Nemazee hospital, Shiraz, Iran were collected over twelve months (September 2007 to September 2008). The data obtained included indications, presenting symptoms the services provided and the demographic information of the patients.Results: Overall number of recorded emergency operations in this cross sectional descriptive study was 3946, with males constituting 72% of the patients. The highest male/female ratio reported in trauma patients was 6.4:1 with the median age of 23 years, and the mean age of the operated patients was 27.8 years. Second to neurosurgery (19.64%) the general surgery was the busiest discipline in emergency operations (59.14%). Appendectomy (11.77%), double/triple lumen/central venous catheter insertion (9.4%), and fiber optic/rigid bronchoscopy (3.27%) were the commonest general surgical operations. Among trauma patients, neurotrauma was the commonest reason for operation (10%).Conclusion: Based on a new approach toward emergency operating room workload, in our country and centre, we showed that it is necessary to devote particular and individualized attention to the fields of agenda and hospital management of emergency operations. This is due to a high emergency operating room workload and its unique characteristics in our centre in contrast to other hospitals and departments. Although a decision making and operational strategy is recently seen to improve the quality and quantity of emergency services available to our patients, there is still a gap between present and optimal emergency healthcare which should be provided for our residents.

In this paper, we present the results of single-electron tunneling in two-dimensional (2D) hexagonal closed packed arrays of palladium nanoparticles. After inspecting the emergence of Coulomb blockade phenomena, we demonstrate the possibilities of using these arrays as a single-electron tunneling based hydrogen sensor. We assumed arrays of palladium nanoparticles with diameters of 3.5 and 6 nm based on the arrays synthesized experimentally. Using SIMON simulator, we obtained IV characteristics of equivalent circuits, consisting palladium nano-islands and tunneling junctions between source-drain electrodes, before and after exposing to hydrogen gas at room temperature. Resistance and capacitance of tunneling junctions were calculated according to the lattice parameter expansion of palladium nanoparticles at different pressures of hydrogen gas. We observed the change in the total resistance of the device before and after exposure to hydrogen. The obtained results indicate that this configuration show single-electron tunneling and can be used as the hydrogen gas sensor. This sensor can detect concentrations as low as 1.3% in air which is less than ammability concentration.

The purpose of this research was to investigate the relationship between work-family conflict and its antecedent variables. The research's dependent variables included work interference with family (WIF) and family interference with work (FIW). Independent variables were categorized into three groups including work-related (hours spent at work, role conflict, role ambiguity, perceived supervisor support, and working shifts), family-related (hours spent with family, marital status, spousal employment, number of children, and age of youngest child), and demographic (gender, age, tenure, and education) variables. The survey questionnaire, consisting of 38 questions, was administered to 333 operating room technicians of 10 Iranian hospitals to examine the correlations between these variables and also to investigate how much of the variance in work-family conflict can be explained by these variables. The results of correlation and regression analyses reveal that among work-related variables role conflict is positively associated with WIF. Supervisor support and working shift are also weekly related to WIF. None of the family-related variables were correlated with FIW. Among the demographic variables only gender was correlated with FIW but in the opposite direction from what was hypothesized, so that men experienced more FIW than women. The empirical evidence of the work-family conflict phenomenon in a different cultural setting might be of interest to researchers and practitioners.