• The Korean Journal of Pain
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.265-271
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• 2017

Background: Health care services effort to provide alternative cardiac rehabilitation (CR) models to serve patients according to their preferences and needs. So, the present study aimed to assess and compare the effects of hospital-based and hybrid CR programs on chest pain intensity and discomfort in cardiac surgery patients. Methods: In this prospective study, 110 cardiac surgery patients were invited to the CR department of a hospital in the western part of Iran between March and July 2016. Patients were divided into two groups: hospital-based and hybrid CR. The hospital-based program included 26 sessions, and the hybrid program included 10 training sessions and exercise. The Brief Pain Inventory and Pain Discomfort Scale were used as research instrument, and data were analyzed using the paired t-test and ANCOVA. Results: The results indicated that both hospital-based and hybrid CR are effective in reducing the chest pain intensity and discomfort of cardiac surgery patients (P < 0.05). In addition, the comparison of scores before and after treatment using ANCOVA shows that no significant differences were observed between the two programs (P > 0.05). Conclusions: Traditional hospital-based CR delivery is still the first choice for treatment in developing countries. However, hybrid CR is as effective as a hospital-based program in reducing pain components and it includes only 38% of the total cost in comparison to hospital-based delivery. So, we recommend using hybrid CR according with the recommendations of American Heart Association about using CR for the management of angina symptoms.

• Advances in Energy Research
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.107-128
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• 2017

Energy is a major component of almost all economic, production, and service activities, and rapid population growth, urbanization and industrialization have led to ever growing demand for energy. Limited energy resources and increasingly evident environmental effects of fossil fuel consumption has led to a growing awareness about the importance of further use of renewable energy sources in the countries energy portfolio. Renewable hydrogen production is a convenient method for storage of unstable renewable energy sources such as wind and solar energy for use in other place or time. In this study, suitability of 25 cities located in Iran's western region for renewable hydrogen production are evaluated by multi-criteria decision making techniques including TOPSIS, VIKOR, ELECTRE, SAW, Fuzzy TOPSIS, and also hybrid ranking techniques. The choice of suitable location for the centralized renewable hydrogen production is associated with various technical, economic, social, geographic, and political criteria. This paper describes the criteria affecting the hydrogen production potential in the study region. Determined criteria are weighted with Shannon entropy method, and Angstrom model and wind power model are used to estimate respectively the solar and wind energy production potential in each city and each month. Assuming the use of proton exchange membrane electrolyzer for hydrogen production, the renewable hydrogen production potential of each city is then estimated based on the obtained wind and solar energy generation potentials. The rankings obtained with MCDMs show that Kermanshah is the best option for renewable hydrogen production, and evaluation of renewable hydrogen production capacities show that Gilangharb has the highest capacity among the studied cities.