Effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy on Occupational Stress and Anxiety of Nurses Caring for Patients With COVID-19 in Tehran

Background: This research aims to evaluate the impact of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) on the occupational stress and the anxiety of nurses. Methods: This was an experimental study with pre-test post-test design with a control group. We included all nurses caring for patients with COVID-19 in governmental hospitals in Tehran during six months of 2020. Beck’s Anxiety Inventory (BAI) and Steinmetz Occupational Stress Questionnaire were used for data collection. Results: Box’s test (P=0.225) showed that the covariance-variance matrices were homogeneous. Levine’s test also indicated that the assumption of variance equality was observed. The amounts of ETA square root showed that 66.3% of the anxiety variance and 51.3% of the occupational stress variance could be predicted in the posttest through ACT. Conclusion: The rate of occupational stress and anxiety of the test group significantly decreased compared with the control group after the intervention. Therefore, ACT could decrease the occupational stress and anxiety of nurses and the therapists could use this approach for improving the mental health of nurses.

Improve the Simulations of Near-Inertial Internal Waves in the Ocean General Circulation Models

The near-inertial wind work and near-inertial internal waves (NIWs) in the ocean have been extensively studied using ocean general circulation models (OGCMs) forced by 6-hourly winds or wind stress obtained from atmospheric reanalysis data. However, the OGCMs interpolate the reanalysis winds or wind stress linearly onto each time step, which partially filters out the wind stress variance in the near-inertial band. In this study, the influence of the linear interpolation on the near-inertial wind work and NIWs is quantified using an eddy-resolving (°) primitive equation ocean model. In addition, a new interpolation method is proposed—the sinc-function interpolation—that overcomes the shortages of the linear interpolation.It is found that the linear interpolation of 6-hourly winds significantly underestimates the near-inertial wind work and NIWs at the midlatitudes. The underestimation of the near-inertial wind work and near-inertial kinetic energy is proportional to the loss of near-inertial wind stress variance due to the linear interpolation. This further weakens the diapycnal mixing in the ocean due to the reduced near-inertial shear variance. Compared to the linear interpolation, the sinc-function interpolation retains all the wind stress variance in the near-inertial band and yields correct magnitudes for the near-inertial wind work and NIWs at the midlatitudes.

The relationship between wellbeing indicators and teacher psychological stress in Eastern Cape public schools in South Africa

Orientation: Positive psychological and subjective wellbeing indicators have proven to be protective against certain physical illnesses but have been rarely assessed in teacher stress.Research purpose: The main objective of this study was to assess the relationship between indicators of wellbeing and stress and to further assess the relative importance of these wellbeing indicators in explaining stress variance in a large sample of Eastern Cape primary and high school teachers in South Africa.Motivation for the study: The majority of teacher stress studies focus on the misfit between the individual’s resources and the environmental demands. There is a scarcity of studies reporting on protective factors in teaching and we know little about their possible role as possible protective factors against stress. This is important in developing stress prevention strategies.Research design, approach and method: A cross-sectional survey was used targeting public school teachers in the Eastern Cape. The sample size was 562 randomly selected teachers from both public primary and high schools.Main findings: The results revealed that stress is prevalent amongst teachers. Subjective and psychological wellbeing factors added significantly to the explained stress variance. Also, both negative affect and role problems had significant positive correlations with stress, whilst psychological wellbeing had a strong inverse relationship with stress.Practical/managerial implications: The results implied that interventions focusing on improving psychological wellbeing and reduction of negative affect can contribute to stress prevention.Contribution/value-add: The results contributed towards a better understanding of the relative importance of wellbeing constructs as protective factors against teacher stress.

Tendencies in Noun Stress in the Southern Aukštaitian Subdialects in Handwritten Sources of the 1950s and 1960s

The article deals with variously stressed nouns that were discovered in the 1950s and 1960s in handwritten sources of the southern Aukštainian subdialects in the archive of dialects of the Language History and Dialectology Department of the Institute of the Lithuanian Language. Data on the nouns and noun forms of the southern Aukštaitians, collected from almost the entire area under study, i.e., fifty-five inhabited settlements, demonstrate two tendencies: stress variance and oxytogenesis.Summarising the collected data, it was established that nouns with the same stem (o, io, ā, ē, ā, i, u and u) are most often stressed in two ways in the southern Aukštaitian area, e.g., kaklas (2/4), žmogùs (4) / žmõgus (2), and others.Words with non-productive i, u, u and consonant stems can also have separate parallels with other stems, or parallel forms of other separate stems, e.g.: vags (4), sing. gen. vagiẽs / vãgio, cf. nom. vãgys / vagia, šuvà (4), sing. gen. šuñs / šunès / šuniẽs / šùnio, etc.The abundance of the variants discovered in these handwritten sources of rather small volume demonstrates the intensity of stress variance in the southern Aukštaitian area in the 1950s and 1960s, which is corroborated by two facts. First, most of the forms of the words with variable stress in the sources under study appear several or even many times. Second, quite a few forms of such nouns were discovered within the same subdialect. Despite all this, nouns in the southern Aukštaitian subdialects are not stressed interchangeably, but according to one accentual paradigm. From two stress variants used in the subdialects, one is main, the other a parallel variant. The nouns in the handwritten sources are stressed in two ways, most often according to the paradigms of stem and mobile accentuation, e.g., bróliai / brolia, sõdžius (2) / sodžiùs (4), etc. The appearance of nouns with dual stress in the southern Aukštaitian subdialects and the tendency towards oxytogenesis are primarily related to the accentual and semantic models of two plurals, simple and collective, which are being reconstructed, e.g., pelis, pl. peliai / collect. pl. peilia.The stress on the singular instrumental endings and/or of the plural accusative forms of nouns with acute stems might also be related to the collective plural. The existence of such forms can be determined by the levelling of the accentual paradigm, cf., pėda, pėd, pėdám(s), pėdùs, pėdas. The possibility that the discussed forms could have been inherited, i.e., could have originated from the oxytonic paradigm, should not be discounted. Undoubtedly, noun accentuation might have been influenced by the factors of stem interaction: the existence of homonymous forms, levelling of the morpho(no)logic paradigm, the conformity of the system, etc. There is also no doubt that the accentuation analogue had an influence as well (especially that of productive stems on unproductive ones).

Probabilistic Analysis of 60-Year Environmental Fatigue Effects for Reactor Components

In NUREG/CR-6674, a probabilistic fracture mechanics analysis was conducted to assess the effects of light water reactor environmental effects on the probability of fatigue initiation and subsequent crack growth leading to leakage and possible core damage. The results were based on stresses for typical locations in BWR and PWR reactors as determined from an analysis reported in NUREG/CR-6260. Although environmental effects were shown to have an insignificant effect on core damage frequency, the study concluded that there could be a significant increase in probability of leakage. A detailed review of the methodology and input conditions used in NUREG/CR-6674 has been completed, including use of an altered probabilistic fatigue curve with more representative high-cycle stress variance and consideration of results from more recent environmental fatigue testing. This revised analysis indicates that environmental effects on the probability of leakage and core damage frequency in an extended nuclear plant operating period are significantly less than previously reported in NUREG/CR-6674. This paper summarizes the analysis performed and the results obtained.

An Experimental Study on Fatigue Life Variance, Residual Stress Variance, and Their Correlation of Face-Turned and Ground Ti 6Al-4V Samples

It is well known that there is a large variance associated with fatigue life. However, in literature little is found on the relationship between manufacturing processes and fatigue variance of the manufactured components. In this research, the influence of machining processes on the fatigue variance of the machined Ti 6Al-4V samples is studied experimentally. The impact is evaluated by comparing the safety ratios of face-turned samples with those of ground samples. The safety ratio is defined as the average fatigue life over the fatigue life with a reliability of 95%. In the computation, it is assumed that fatigue life follows Weibull distribution. Two sets of faced samples and two sets of ground samples are tested for bending fatigue. The test is under constant amplitude in high cycle fatigue regime under room temperature. The results show that the safety ratios of face-turned samples are significantly smaller than are those of ground samples. Consequently, it is suggested that fatigue life variance be considered as a new process capability. This capability serves as a basis in choosing manufacturing processes for making fatigue critical products such as aircraft. Another finding is the positive correlation between the residual stress variation and fatigue life variation. This correlation suggests that a better understanding and prediction of residual stress lead to a better prediction of fatigue life.