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Aim: Despite the evidence suggesting the positive impact of the immediate mother-newborn Skin-to-Skin Contact (SCC), it has not yet been adopted to use for healthy newborn in Iran. No study has explained the reasons. This study aimed to survey midwives' opinions about the predisposing factors in SCC at birth in Tehran hospitals in 2014.
Method: The samples, in this cross sectional descriptive study, were 292 midwives who worked in labour wards, and a multi- stage cluster sampling was applied. First we applied stratified and simple random approaches. Then they were classified into educational, social security, and private groups. Data collection instrument was a self- developed questionnaire consisting of 9 demographic characteristics and 38 items concerning the predisposing factors in SCC. We applied face/content validity and item impact method for the instrument's validity. For assessing the internal consistency of the instrument, Cronbach's alpha coefficient was used. All statistical analyses were performed using the SPSS-18.
Findings: The findings showed that 95.5% of the midwives possessed good knowledge of SSC, 93.2% had positive attitudes, 96.6% believed in SSC effects, and 94.9% had a good self-efficacy perception. The Cronbach‟s alpha coefficient of the 38-item instrument showed excellent internal consistency (α=0.88), and it was valid and reliable to measure predisposing factors in SSC.
Conclusion: The knowledge and attitudes of conducting SSC at birth were evaluated at “good” and “positive”, respectively. Therefore, we suggest further analytic studies to determine how these factors could affect on midwife behaviour.

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Aims: Increasing energy consumption in the building and the use of construction materials with the increase in the amount of construction, causes environmental degradation and excessive consumption of fossil fuels. Nature has undergone its evolutionary process over the centuries and has reached its most optimal form, structure, and constituent materials. The goal of biomimicry is to be inspired by nature to increase efficiency with the help of sustainable solutions. The purpose of this study is to investigate and identify the capabilities of silica sponge for use in various building components to achieve the best possible options.

Methods: The collection of basic information is through the library and using the articles of valid and up-to-date scientific journals and the research method is descriptive-analytical. Theoretical concepts are expressed from the descriptive method and qualitative content analysis is performed.

Results: The results of the research provide the possibility of inspiring siliceous sponge with special features at different levels of biomimicry for different components of the building and design and ideation of the form, structure, process, and function of the sponge in an optimal state in the direction of the bionic structure.

Conclusion: By analyzing the form, function, structure, process, and how the sponge interacts with its surroundings, which has reached its optimal form and structure in interaction with its surroundings over the centuries, we can come up with an idea for sustainability and synchronization, achieved mostly with the environment, minimum energy consumption in the building and having optimal components.
 

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With increasing urban population, the need for underground spaces increases and deep excavation is an inevitable affair in civil projects. deep tunnels and large buildings require deep excavations, which is a must use some techniques for stabilize it. grouted soil nail is a popular reinforcement to stabilize slopes, excavations and retaining walls. This method has been introduced to Hong Kong in the mid-1980s and has become an alternative solution to the conventional slope stabilizing methods such as compaction, earth retaining structure, or reduced inclination of the slope, etc. this method is based on sewing the potential failure wedge of soil on the stable soil using some inactive (un-prestressed) elements. the shear strength-displacement behavior at the interface between the grouted nail and surrounding soil is an important parameter in design of various geotechnical engineering projects, for example, soil nails, retaining walls, shallow foundations, pile foundations, etc. in soil nail system, the most common method to measure the interface shear strength is pullout test. It is also possible to determine the interface strength based on the development of resistance between soil and grout in direct shear tests. However, accurate perception of the shear behavior in the connection area of the soil and grout is essential to reach an optimum design. In other words, the interaction between soil and grouted nail is necessary to design an optimum soil nail system. the most common method for determination grouted soil interface resistance is pullout test but there is another experiment that can yield acceptable results. The current study investigates the interface shear behavior between cement-grout and granular soil in direct shear test with different grout pressures ( up to bar) and different overburden pressures ( up to 300 kPa). For this purpose, a number of direct shear tests are performed by modifying of the standard shear box for injection of grout. “Firozkooh” sand is used in this study. The soil is compacted to the relative density of % and the slurry is sprayed with pressure on its surface. Furthermore, results of two pullout tests were used for verification. These pullout test have already been presented in another study with different normal stress and grout pressure. it is shown that the results of direct shear test and pullout test at interface are similar. this may indicate the proper function of direct shear test as a suitable choice alongside pullout test. It was observed that shear stress–displacement curves of the soil-grout interface in direct shear tests are similar to the soil-soil tests; which are classified under different grouting pressures. In addition, increasing grout pressure increases shear strength by increasing the angle of friction and bonding of soil and slurry. The effect of adhesion is dominant. it is shown that The interface shear stress under different grouting pressures is greater than the shear stress of soil under the same normal stresses. it is shown that grouting pressure and normal stress have influence on the behavior of soil-cement interface. Therefore, interface shear strength increases with increase in overburden and injection pressure. The variation of the interface shear strength is approximately linear versus grouting pressure. Finally, a formula is proposed for interface shear strength considering grouting pressure.

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The expansion of underground activities and smuggling of goods threats the employment in Iran. This study estimates the volume of smuggling in Iran by using multiple-cause-multiple causes (MIMIC) model and applying maximum likelihood method over the period 1979-2017. Then the effect of smuggling on employment is investigated by using ARDL Bounding test method. The results of smuggling time series show that despite some fluctuations, the smuggling has been generally increasing. The findings of regression model indicate that expansion of smuggling has a negative impact on employment in the short- and long-run.

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Objective: Crocin, an important saffron ingredient, showed anticancer activity in a variety of cancer types, particularly breast cancer. However, little information is available on the mechanism of its action. Previous studies indicate apoptosis induction by crocin in some cancer cells. This study aims to investigate the effect of crocin on the MDA-MB-468 breast cancer cell line in order to investigate its effect on caspase 9 (Cas9) and cleaved-Cas9, expression and splicing of XBP1, and accumulation of LC3-II.
Methods: We used the MTT assay to investigate the cytotoxic effect of crocin on MDA-MB-468 breast cancer cells. Next, Cas9 and cleaved-Cas9 levels were evaluated by Western blot analysis. Splicing of XBP1 mRNA and expression of the spliced protein (XBP1s) was investigated by RT-PCR and Western blot, respectively. The accumulation of LC3-II was also evaluated by Western blot. The obtained results were analyzed and reported by Image J software.
Results: The results showed a time and dose-dependent cytotoxic effect of crocin in MDA-MB-468 cells. The expression of Cas9 and its cleavage, therefore, the ratio of cleaved-Cas9/Cas9 significantly increased. Crocin treatment led to a noticeable increase in splicing of XBP1 mRNA, expression of XBP1s, accumulation of LC3-II, and increased the LC3-II/LC3-I ratio in these cells.
Conclusion: The data have shown induction of apoptosis in these breast cancer cell lines after crocin treatment. Because of the observed changes in UPR markers and autophagy, it seems that these pathways are possibly involved in this process and in intracellular regulations.

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Retaining structure or retaining wall is a wall that acts as supporting structure and the stability of another structure. This wall is used for preventing collapse of soil and generally wherever lateral support is needed. The retaining wall can be designed as gravity, cantilever and supported. Considering that the retaining walls are essential in protecting the related structures to them, therefore, studying the dynamic behavior of these structures is very important due to the financial and human damages. Such structures should be stable against the forces acting on the wall. In addition to static loads, which are always an inseparable part of the calculations of such walls, forces such as cyclic forces caused by the movement of machinery and also dynamic forces caused by earthquake occur on the wall during the period of operation. These forces can be effected on retaining walls and should be investigated and evaluated. Trying to investigate and analyze the dynamic behavior of different retaining walls is one of the most challenging for different researchers.
The wavelet theory in the dynamic analysis of the issues related to civil engineering is going to be widespread. This research aims to investigate the effect of using wavelet theory in the dynamic analyses of concrete retaining walls. For this purpose, a soil medium along with concrete retaining walls with different dimensions (heights) are considered. Dynamic analyses are performed based on the finite element method. In the first stage of modeling, the Sarpol-e Zahab earthquake record is filtered during four steps using the discrete wavelet theory. The numerical models are prepared and subjected to the available records. The percentage of the difference in the results of the analyses done with the records obtained from the different steps of filtering record with wavelet compared to the analyses done with the main record, along with the reduction of the time consumption, is evaluated. As expected, the best match of the post-filtering results to the main earthquake results is for the first-step filter. It can be seen that even the first step filter reduces the analysis time by about 60%. Based on the obtained results, the difference between the results obtained with the filtered records becomes less compared to the main earthquake with the increase in the height of the wall. It has also been observed that acceptable results are still obtained, and the analysis time is reduced by almost 80% until the third step filter.
It should be noted that the Mohr-Coulomb behavioral model is used in the conducted analyzes in this research. This behavioral model is not inherently able to model hysteresis damping behavior at low strains. Therefore, this issue can affect the results of deformations and stresses obtained from dynamic analysis. However, the purpose of this research is to evaluate the performance of the wavelet in the dynamic analysis of the retaining wall. Considering that in all the analyses (both the performed analysis with the main earthquake and the performed analyzes with the wavelet filtered records) the same structure and trend are used, it can be concluded that the effect of using the wavelet compared to the main earthquake gives an acceptable overview and quality