Psychosocial interventions for infertile couples:A scoping review

Objective:To bring out current evidence regarding psycho-social interventions for infertility care,and identify the best practices in clinical care.Methods:An in-depth literature review on infertility care intervention was conducted using data from multiple databases:PubMed,EMBASE,Google Scholar,and PsycINFO.The relevant articles selected were between 2008 and 2022.Results:A literature search turned up 1798 citations,of which 25 studies were included after rigorous analysis.Various intervention categories have been constantly utilised to provide support and promote mental health,of which acceptance and commitment therapy(ACT)and cognitive behaviour therapy(CBT)were used most frequently.The interventions exhibited diversity in both content and composition,and addressed a wide range of issues.Conclusions:The review emphasizes that psycho-social interventions have a positive effect on psychological issues,relationships,and pregnancies among couples and can be incorporated into fertility-care practices.

Coupled DEM-FDM analyses of the effects of falling rock’s shape and impact angle on response of granular cushion and rock shed

Rock shed is an effective protection measure against rockfall.To investigate the influences of falling rock’s shape and impact angle on the impact effect of the cushioned rock shed,a modeling approach for a rock shed with a cushion layer using PFC-FLAC.The granular cushion is modeled as an aggregate of discrete non-cohesion particles,while the concrete plate and the beam are modeled as zones.The falling rock with different sphericities and impact angles is modeled as a rigid assembly.The numerical model is validated by comparing the simulation results with experimental and numerical results from previous literature.This model is applied to analyze the effects of rock shape and impact angle on the dynamic interaction effects between falling rock and cushioned rock shed,including the impact force,transmitted bottom force,penetration depth,and plate deflection.The numerical results show that the variation in the falling rock’s shape has different effects on the falling rock with different impact angles.These findings could support rock shed design by revealing the limitations of the assumptions in the past research,which may result in unsafe rock sheds for some rockfall cases.

Quality of life of infertile couples in the Gaza Strip, Palestine

Objective:To investigate the quality of life of infertile couples who seek in vitro fertilizations(IVFs)by gender in the Gaza Strip,Palestine.Methods:A cross-sectional study was conducted,from February 2019 to November 2019,among 383 infertile couples selected through convenient sampling.A valid and reliable Arabic version of the fertility quality of life questionnaire(FertiQoL)was used in data collection.One way analysis of variance and independent t-test were applied to compare between males and females.Results:The mean age of males and females was(34.54±8.54)years and(29.28±6.71)years,respectively.More than half of them had university degree(64%and 60%,respectively).The mean duration of infertility was(5.66±3.54)years.The mean males’scores of FertiQoL and its subscales(emotion,mind/body,social,core,tolerability,and treatment)were significantly higher than females’scores(P<0.05).Conclusions:Males have higher scores of FertiQoL and its subscales than females.The mean score of FertiQoL increases with better education,but decreases with increase of age,duration of marriage,duration of infertility and number of IVF attempts.Routine psychological assessment and counseling are necessary for infertile women taking into considerations factors affecting their quality of life.

Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) and its application in life sciences

Inductively-coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) has made much progress since its birth in the late 1990s. This paper will give a rather systematic overview on the use of this technique in new devices and technologies related to plasma source, sample-introducing device and detecting spectrometer etc. In this overview, an emphasis will be put on the evaluation of the ICP- MS technique in combination with a series of physical, chemical and biological techniques, such as laser ablation (LA), capillary electrophoresis (CE) and high performance liquid chromatograph (HPLC), along with their representative high accuracy and high sensitivity. Finally, comprehensive and fruitful applications of the ICP-MS and its combinative techniques in the detection of trace metallic elements and isotopes in complex biological and environmental samples will be revealed.

Soliton solution and interaction property for a coupled modified Korteweg-de Vries (mKdV) system

Hirota＇s bilinear direct method is applied to constructing soliton solutions to a special coupled modified Korteweg- de Vries （mKdV） system. Some physical properties such as the spatiotemporal evolution, waveform structure, interactive phenomena of solitons are discussed, especially in the two-soliton case. It is found that different interactive behaviours of solitary waves take place under different parameter conditions of overtaking collision in this system. It is verified that the elastic interaction phenomena exist in this （1＋1）-dimensional integrable coupled model.

Soliton Solutions of Coupled KdV System from Hirota's Bilinear Direct Method

With Hirota＇s bilinear direct method, we study the special coupled KdV system to obtain its new soliton solutions. Then we further discuss soliton evolution, corresponding structures, and interesting interactive phenomena in detail with plot. As a result, we find that after the interaction, the solitons make elastic collision and there are no exchanges of their physical quantities including energy, velocity and shape except the phase shift.

Crystalline and amorphous metal sulfide composite electrode materials with long cycle life:Preparation and performance of hybrid capacitors

Crystalline@amorphous NiCo_(2)S_(4)@MoS_(2)(v-NCS@MS)nanostructures were designed and constructed via an ethylene glycol-induced strategy with hydrothermal synthesis and solvothermal method,which simultaneously realized the defect regulation of crystal NiCo_(2)S_(4) in the core.Taking advantage of the flexible protection of an amor-phous shell and the high capacity of a conductive core with defects,the v-NCS@MS electrode exhibited high specif-ic capacity(1034 mAh·g^(-1) at 1 A·g^(-1))and outstanding rate capability.Moreover,a hybrid supercapacitor was assembled with v-NCS@MS as cathode and activated carbon(AC)as anode,which can achieve remarkably high specific energy of 111 Wh·kg^(-1) at a specific power of 219 W·kg^(-1) and outstanding capacity retention of 80.5%after 15000 cycling at different current densities.

Economy, environmental assessment and energy conservation for separation of isopropanol/diisopropyl ether/water multi-azeotropes via extractive distillation coupled pervaporation process

This wok proposed the extraction distillation coupled pervaporation(ED+PV) technology process using two different solvents to separate isopropanol(IPA) and diisopropyl ether(DIPE) from DIPE/IPA/H_(2)O ternary heterogeneous azeotropes in industrial wastewater from the synthesis of isopropanol in this study.Based on strict design specifications, simulation and sequential iteration methods are used for process design and optimization. Compared to the ethylene glycol(EG)-EG+H_(2)O process and the 1,3-propanediol(PDO)-IPA+H_(2)O process, the total annual cost(TAC) of the EG-IPA+H_(2)O process decreased by 20.76% and 7.86%(PDO). Compared to the EG-EG+H_(2)O process, the TAC of the PDO-IPA+H_(2)O process reduced 14%, but the global warming potential(GWP) and human toxicity of the PDO-IPA+H_(2)O process increased 11.3% and 4.07% respectively. Compared to the PDO-IPA+H_(2)O process, the EG-IPA+H_(2)O process saves 7.86%(TAC), 9.78%(GWP) and 9.85%(human toxicity). The ED+PV process with EG is superior to PDO in factors of TAC, energy consumption, human toxicity and environment. The EG-IPA+H_(2)O process changed the separation order of the products of the multi-azeotropic system, reduced the cost and energy conservation of the system, and enhanced the environmental protection evaluation of the process, is the best process through life cycle assessment for analyzing the economy, energy conservation, environmental assessment and human toxicity, designing cleaner products, controlling waste discharge, and promoting the chemical purification industry. This work provides a new process design and optimized separation ideas, will have a good guiding significance for the research and application separation of multi-azeotropic mixture with mixed solvents in organic wastewater from the cleaner chemical production, has been up to standard wastewater discharge process, and realized the development goal of carbon peak and carbon neutrality in the sustainable development of chemical clean industry.

The Hirota bilinear method for the coupled Burgers equation and the high-order Boussinesq-Burgers equation

This paper studies the coupled Burgers equation and the high-order Boussinesq-Burgers equation. The Hirota bilinear method is applied to show that the two equations are completely integrable. Multiple-kink （soliton） solutions and multiple-singular-kink （soliton） solutions are derived for the two equations.

The Inertial Manifolds for a Class of Higher-Order Coupled Kirchhoff-Type Equations

In this paper, we mainly deal with a class of higher-order coupled Kirch-hoff-type equations. At first, we take advantage of Hadamard’s graph to get the equivalent form of the original equations. Then, the inertial manifolds are proved by using spectral gap condition. The main result we gained is that the inertial manifolds are established under the proper assumptions of M(s) and gi(u,v), i=1, 2.

Modified two-grid method for solving coupled Navier-Stokes/Darcy model based on Newton iteration

A new decoupled two-gird algorithm with the Newton iteration is proposed for solving the coupled Navier-Stokes/Darcy model which describes a fluid flow filtrating through porous media. Moreover the error estimate is given, which shows that the same order of accuracy can be achieved as solving the system directly in the fine mesh when h = H2. Both theoretical analysis and numerical experiments illustrate the efficiency of the algorithm for solving the coupled problem.

Isoleucine, an Essential Amino Acid, Induces the Expression of Human <i>β</i>Defensin 2 through the Activation of the G-Protein Coupled Receptor-ERK Pathway in the Intestinal Epithelia

Anti-microbial peptides are essential for the intestinal innate immunity that protects the intestinal epithelia from attacks by foreign pathogens. Human β-defensin (HBD) is one of the pivotal anti-microbial peptides that are expressed in the colonic epithelia. This study investigated the effect and the signaling mechanism of inducible β-defensin HBD2 by an essential amino acid, isoleucine (Ile) in colonic epithelial cells. Here we examined the expression level of HBD2 on induction of Ile in epithelial cells, and checked this pathway. HBD2 mRNA was induced by co-incubation with IL-1α and Ile in Caco2 cells, but not by Ile alone. An inhibitor of either ERK or Gi, a subunit of G-proteins, reduced the induction of HBD2 mRNA by Ile. The treatment with Ile also increased the intracellular calcium ion concentration, thus suggesting that the GPCR and ERK signaling pathway mediate the effects of Ile. These results indicate that an essential amino acid, Ile, enhances the expression of an inducible β-defensin, namely HBD2, by IL-1α through the activation of GPCRs and ERK signaling pathway. The administration of Ile may therefore represent a possible option to safely treat intestinal inflammation.

Verification of an operational ocean circulation-surface wave coupled forecasting system for the China＇s seas

An operational ocean circulation-surface wave coupled forecasting system for the seas off China and adjacent areas（OCFS-C） is developed based on parallelized circulation and wave models. It has been in operation since November 1, 2007. In this paper we comprehensively present the simulation and verification of the system, whose distinguishing feature is that the wave-induced mixing is coupled in the circulation model. In particular, with nested technique the resolution in the China＇s seas has been updated to（1/24）° from the global model with（1/2）°resolution. Besides, daily remote sensing sea surface temperature（SST） data have been assimilated into the model to generate a hot restart field for OCFS-C. Moreover, inter-comparisons between forecasting and independent observational data are performed to evaluate the effectiveness of OCFS-C in upper-ocean quantities predictions, including SST, mixed layer depth（MLD） and subsurface temperature. Except in conventional statistical metrics, non-dimensional skill scores（SS） is also used to evaluate forecast skill. Observations from buoys and Argo profiles are used for lead time and real time validations, which give a large SS value（more than 0.90）. Besides, prediction skill for the seasonal variation of SST is confirmed. Comparisons of subsurface temperatures with Argo profiles data indicate that OCFS-C has low skill in predicting subsurface temperatures between 100 m and 150 m. Nevertheless, inter-comparisons of MLD reveal that the MLD from model is shallower than that from Argo profiles by about 12 m, i.e., OCFS-C is successful and steady in MLD predictions. Validation of 1-d, 2-d and 3-d forecasting SST shows that our operational ocean circulation-surface wave coupled forecasting model has reasonable accuracy in the upper ocean.

Application of Mixed Differential Quadrature Method for Solving the Coupled Two-Dimensional Incompressible Navier-Stokes Equation and Heat Equation

The traditional differential quadrature method was improved by using theupwind difference scheme for the convective terms to solve the coupled two-dimensionalincompressible Navier-stokes equations and heat equation. The new method was compared with theconventional differential quadrature method in the aspects of convergence and accuracy. The resultsshow that the new method is more accurate, and has better convergence than the conventionaldifferential quadrature method for numerically computing the steady-state solution.

Exact solutions for the coupled Klein-Gordon-Schrǒdinger equations using the extended F-expansion method

The extended F-expansion method or mapping method is used to construct exact solutions for the coupled KleinGordon Schr/Sdinger equations （K-G-S equations） by the aid of the symbolic computation system Mathematica. More solutions in the Jacobi elliptic function form are obtained, including the single Jacobi elliptic function solutions, combined Jacobi elliptic function solutions, rational solutions, triangular solutions, soliton solutions and combined soliton solutions.

Soliton fusion and fission for the high-order coupled nonlinear Schr?dinger system in fiber lasers

With the rapid development of communication technology,optical fiber communication has become a key research area in communications.When there are two signals in the optical fiber,the transmission of them can be abstracted as a high-order coupled nonlinear Schr¨odinger system.In this paper,by using the Hirota’s method,we construct the bilinear forms,and study the analytical solution of three solitons in the case of focusing interactions.In addition,by adjusting different wave numbers for phase control,we further discuss the influence of wave numbers on soliton transmissions.It is verified that wave numbers k_(11),k_(21),k_(31),k_(22),and k_(32)can control the fusion and fission of solitons.The results are beneficial to the study of all-optical switches and fiber lasers in nonlinear optics.

Insights into the structural biology of G-protein coupled receptors impacts drug design for central nervous system neurodegenerative processes

In the last few years, there have been important new insights into the structural biology of G-protein coupled receptors. It is now known that allosteric binding sites are involved in the affinity and selec- tivity of ligands for G-protein coupled receptors, and that signaling by these receptors involves both G-protein dependent and independent pathways. The present review outlines the physiological and pharmacological implications of this perspective for the design of new drugs to treat disorders of the central nervous system. Specifically, new possibilities are explored in relation to allosteric and or- thosteric binding sites on dopamine receptors for the treatment of Parkinson＇s disease, and on muscarinic receptors for Alzheimer＇s disease. Future research can seek to identify ligands that can bind to more than one site on the same receptor, or simultaneously bind to two receptors and form a dimer. For example, the design of bivalent drugs that can reach homo/hetero-dimers of D2 dopa- mine receptor holds promise as a relevant therapeutic strategy for Parkinson＇s disease. Regarding the treatment of Alzheimer＇s disease, the design of dualsteric ligands for mono-oligomeric mus- carinic receptors could increase therapeutic effectiveness by generating potent compounds that could activate more than one signaling pathway.

Positive Solutions for Singular Boundary Value Problems of Coupled Systems of Nonlinear Differential Equations

We establish the existence of positive solutions for singular boundary value problems of coupled systems? The proof relies on Schauder’s fixed point theorem. Some recent results in the literature are generalized and improved.

基于海德平衡理论的S⁃O⁃R模式在妇科肿瘤病人中应用的临床效果观察

目的:分析探讨基于海德平衡理论的S⁃O⁃R模式干预在妇科肿瘤病人中的临床效果。方法:选取2020年5月—2023年7月我院收治的妇科肿瘤病人80例,随机分为对照组和研究组,各40例。对照组实施常规干预,研究组在对照组基础上,实施基于海德平衡理论的S⁃O⁃R模式干预。比较两组干预前后心理状态、疾病不确定感、生活质量及并发症发生率。结果:干预后,研究组焦虑抑郁量表中焦虑状态、抑郁状态评分均低于对照组(P<0.001);研究组复杂性、不确定性评分低于对照组(P<0.001);研究组诺丁汉健康量表中精力维度、情感维度、社会活动维度评分均低于对照组(P<0.05);研究组并发症总发生率低于对照组(P<0.05)。结论:妇科肿瘤病人S⁃O⁃R模式干预中引入海德平衡理论可减轻其疾病不确定感,改善心理状态及生活质量,降低并发症发生率。

基于Snyder希望理论的健康行为护理对老年肝硬化患者影响的研究

目的探讨基于Snyder希望理论的健康行为护理对老年肝硬化患者自护能力及健康行为的影响。方法选取2022年1月至2024年1月该院收治的89例老年肝硬化患者为研究对象,以随机数字表法分为对照组(常规护理)44例和观察组(基于Snyder希望理论的健康行为护理)45例,比较分析2组干预情况。结果干预后,观察组患者较对照组自护能力评分更高,健康认知[(78.52±4.96)分vs.(71.84±6.13)分]、健康行为[(181.43±6.49)分vs.(167.81±7.67)分]、生活质量评分均高于对照组,差异均有统计学意义(P<0.05)。结论基于Snyder希望理论的健康行为护理可提高老年肝硬化患者自护能力,改善其健康认知水平、健康行为,提高其生活质量。