Background: Nursing interventions tailored to the smoking triggers in patients with non-communicable chronic diseases are essential. However, these interventions are scant due to the nature of factors associated with smoking cessation and the poor understanding of the effect of nurse-led intervention in Iraq.Purpose: This study aimed to determine the dominant smoking triggers and examine the effects of a tailored nursing intervention on smoking behavior in patients with non-communicable chronic diseases.Methods: Convenience samples of 128 patients with non-communicable chronic diseases, male and female patients, who were 18-70 years old, were recruited in this quasi-experimental, randomized comparative trial in the outpatient clinic in one major teaching hospital in Baghdad City, Iraq. The intervention included simple yet specific instructions that were given both orally and in written form to the study samples to enable them to manage their craving to smoke for 6 weeks. The smoking triggers were assessed using Why Do You Smoke questionnaire. Participants were randomly allocated to receive either the nurse-led intervention or standard care. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, independent sample t-tests, logistic regression, and two-sided tests.Results: Stress reduction was the dominant smoking trigger among subjects. The percentage of participants who were either able to completely quit smoking or reduce the number of smoked cigarettes per day (n=19, 29.7%; n=28, 43.8%, respectively) was greater in the study group than those in the control group (n=5, 5.8%; n=5, 5.8%, respectively). Study findings demonstrated significant differences in the inability to improve readiness to quit smoking between the intervention group and control group (p=0.000) at the sixth-week follow-up.Conclusion: The tailored nursing intervention was effective for a successful achievement of smoking reduction and cessation among patients with non-communicable chronic diseases, and a potential to equip nurses in clinical settings to support patients to achieve this is recommended.
In this paper, we characterize the percolation condition for a continuum secondary cognitive radio network under the SINR model. We show that the well-established condition for continuum percolation does not hold true in the SINR regime. Thus, we find the condition under which a cognitive radio network percolates. We argue that due to the SINR requirements of the secondaries along with the interference tolerance of the primaries, not all the deployed secondary nodes necessarily contribute towards the percolation process- even though they might participate in the communication process. We model the invisibility of such nodes using the concept of Poisson thinning, both in the presence and absence of primaries. Invisibility occurs due to nodes
... Show MoreIn this research the performance of 5G mobile system is evaluated through the Ergodic capacity metric. Today, in any wireless communication system, many parameters have a significant role on system performance. Three main parameters are of concern here; the source power, number of antennas, and transmitter-receiver distance. User equipment’s (UEs) with equal and non-equal powers are used to evaluate the system performance in addition to using different antenna techniques to demonstrate the differences between SISO, MIMO, and massive MIMO. Using two mobile stations (MS) with different distances from the base station (BS), resulted in showing how using massive MIMO system will improve the performance than the standar
... Show MoreThe conception and experimental assessment of a removable friction-based shear connector (FBSC) for precast steel-concrete composite bridges is presented. The FBSC uses pre-tensioned high-strength steel bolts that pass through countersunk holes drilled on the top flange of the steel beam. Pre-tensioning of the bolts provides the FBSC with significant frictional resistance that essentially prevents relative slip displacement of the concrete slab with respect to the steel beam under service loading. The countersunk holes are grouted to prevent sudden slip of the FBSC when friction resistance is exceeded. Moreover, the FBSC promotes accelerated bridge construction by fully exploiting prefabrication, does not raise issues relevant to precast co
... Show MoreThe current study aims to investigate the second cycle students’ motives for using electronic games in Oman. The sample consisted of (570) students, (346 males and 224 females). The participants completed an open-ended question which was analyzed based on ground theory. The results showed that (46.820%) of the males and (77.678) of the females played electronic games for pleasure, entertainment, and fun. This first category of motivation got the highest percentage of frequency (58.947%). The motive to become a hacker, a popular YouTuber got the lowest percentage (2.280%). Other students’ motives toward playing electronic games included: filling the leisure time, overcoming boredom, feeling adventures, getting science fiction and chal
... Show MoreIn this study, the feasibility of Forward–Reverse osmosis processes was investigated for treating the oily wastewater. The first stage was applied forward osmosis process to recover pure water from oily wastewater. Sodium chloride (NaCl) and magnesium chloride (MgCl2) salts were used as draw solutions and the membrane that was used in forward osmosis (FO) process was cellulose triacetate (CTA) membrane. The operating parameters studied were: draw solution concentrations (0.25 – 0.75 M), oil concentration in feed solution (FS) (100-1000 ppm), the temperature of FS and draw solution (DS) (30 - 45 °C), pH of FS (4-10) and the flow rate of both DS and FS (20 - 60 l/h). It was found that the water flux and oil concentration in FS increas
... Show MoreThe usage of remote sensing techniques in managing and monitoring the environmental areas is increasing due to the improvement of the sensors used in the observation satellites around the earth. Resolution merge process is used to combine high resolution one band image with another one that have low resolution multi bands image to produce one image that is high in both spatial and spectral resolution. In this work different merging methods were tested to evaluate their enhancement capabilities to extract different environmental areas; Principle component analysis (PCA), Brovey, modified (Intensity, Hue ,Saturation) method and High Pass Filter methods were tested and subjected to visual and statistical comparison for evaluation. Both visu
... Show MoreIn this paper, new approach based on coupled Laplace transformation with decomposition method is proposed to solve type of partial differential equation. Then it’s used to find the accurate solution for heat equation with initial conditions. Four examples introduced to illustrate the accuracy, efficiency of suggested method. The practical results show the importance of suggested method for solve differential equations with high accuracy and easy implemented.
This paper presents a robust control method for the trajectory control of the robotic manipulator. The standard Computed Torque Control (CTC) is an important method in the robotic control systems but its not robust to system uncertainty and external disturbance. The proposed method overcome the system uncertainty and external disturbance problems. In this paper, a robustification term has been added to the standard CTC. The stability of the proposed control method is approved by the Lyapunov stability theorem. The performance of the presented controller is tested by MATLAB-Simulink environment and is compared with different control methods to illustrate its robustness and performance.
In this research a new system identification algorithm is presented for obtaining an optimal set of mathematical models for system with perturbed coefficients, then this algorithm is applied practically by an “On Line System Identification Circuit”, based on real time speed response data of a permanent magnet DC motor. Such set of mathematical models represents the physical plant against all variation which may exist in its parameters, and forms a strong mathematical foundation for stability and performance analysis in control theory problems.
Automation is one of the key systems in modern agriculture, providing potential solutions to the challenges related to the growing world population, demographic shifts, and economic situation. The present article aims to highlight the importance of precision agriculture (PA) and smart agriculture (SA) in increasing agricultural production and the importance of environmental protection in increasing production and reducing traditional production. For this purpose, different types of automation systems in the field of agricultural operations are discussed, as well as smart agriculture technologies including the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), big data analysis, in addition to agricultural robots,
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