Geochemical Assessment of Potential Sources for Nitrate in the Wasia Aquifer, Al Kharj Area, Central Saudi Arabia

Nitrate (NO3−) represents one of the major groundwater constituents with increasing distribution and concentration in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This study aimed to determine potential sources of nitrate in the Early to Late Cretaceous Wasia aquifer system at the Al Kharj area (Central Saudi Arabia) by an integrative approach using groundwater geochemistry, nitrate isotopes (15N–NO3 and 18O–NO3), and tritium (3H) measurements. The lowest saline groundwater samples (TDS = 1400–2000 mg/L) from the peripheral zone were representative for pristine groundwater from the Wasia aquifer with nitrate concentrations below 20 mg/L and low 18O–NO3 ratios (8.7–20.6‰) but enriched 15N–NO3 values (up to 10.8‰). In contrast, 11 out of 34 analyzed water samples from irrigation wells and cattle watering wells exceeded the World Health Organization (WHO) drinking water guideline value for nitrate of 50 mg/L with maximum concentrations of up to 395 mg/L. Nitrate fertilizers and atmospheric deposition are the main sources of nitrate in groundwater in the eastern and northern sections of the study area. The combination of elevated salinities (4940–7330 mg/L), NO3 (111–395 mg/L), boron (516–1430 μg/L), and enriched 18O–NO3 (21.7–25.8‰) ratios with depleted 15N–NO3 (5.7–7.6‰) confirm the local influx of evaporated irrigation water with remnants of dissolved fertilizer into the Wasia groundwater system. There was no evidence for the influx of animal or human wastes from adjacent dairy, poultry, and housing infrastructures. Tritium concentrations below the detection limit of 0.8 TU for most borehole samples implied the absence of recent natural recharge. The estimated annual average N influx of 3.34 to 6.67 kg/ha to the Wasia aquifer requires a combination of atmospheric deposition and anthropogenic sources (mainly nitrate fertilizers) to increase the nitrogen content of the Wasia aquifer

Factors Affecting Bahraini Women Working in the Engineering Fields

The purpose of this study is to explore the current level of contribution of Bahraini women to the engineering fields in the Kingdom of Bahrain, while specifically examining the factors that affect Bahraini women in the engineering profession. This study determines the extent to which the principles and policies of equal opportunity are implemented and their effect on the participation of women in such fields. To achieve the aims of this study, factors such as observation of work environment, characteristics, family responsibilities, culture, and equal opportunity (bias) are discussed and analyzed. This study relies on the descriptive approach, where questionnaires, which were distributed to Bahraini women engineers in both government and private sectors in different positions, are used to collect data. The sample of the respondents was drawn from different age groups and experience levels. The study shows that Arab societies need to support women engineers and try their best to increase the number participating in the engineering fields, which play an important role in the process of economic growth. From the diversity of attitudes and experiences, the status of Bahraini women engineers is not satisfactory at the present time because they must be allowed to participate in the engineering fields equally with their male counterparts in order to improve themselves and their presence and achieve equivalence in engineering fields

Classification Algorithms and Feature Selection Techniques for a Hybrid Diabetes Detection System

Artificial intelligence is a future and valuable tool for early disease recognition and support in patient condition monitoring. It can increase the reliability of the cure and decision making by developing useful systems and algorithms. Healthcare workers, especially nurses and physicians, are overworked due to a massive and unexpected increase in the number of patients during the coronavirus pandemic. In such situations, artificial intelligence techniques could be used to diagnose a patient with life-threatening illnesses. In particular, diseases that increase the risk of hospitalization and death in coronavirus patients, such as high blood pressure, heart disease and diabetes, should be diagnosed at an early stage. This article focuses on diagnosing a diabetic patient through data mining techniques. If we are able to diagnose diabetes in the early stages of the disease, we can force patients to stay home and care for their health, so the risk of being infected with the coronavirus would be reduced. The proposed method has three steps: preprocessing, feature selection and classification. Several combinations of Harmony search algorithm, genetic algorithm, and particle swarm optimization algorithm are examined with K-means for feature selection. The combinations have not examined before for diabetes diagnosis applications. K-nearest neighbor is used for classification of the diabetes dataset. Sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy have been measured to evaluate the results. The results achieved indicate that the proposed method with an accuracy of 91.65% outperformed the results of the earlier methods examined in this article

Impact of opioid-free analgesia on pain severity and patient satisfaction after discharge from surgery: multispecialty, prospective cohort study in 25 countries

Background: Balancing opioid stewardship and the need for adequate analgesia following discharge after surgery is challenging. This study aimed to compare the outcomes for patients discharged with opioid versus opioid-free analgesia after common surgical procedures.Methods: This international, multicentre, prospective cohort study collected data from patients undergoing common acute and elective general surgical, urological, gynaecological, and orthopaedic procedures. The primary outcomes were patient-reported time in severe pain measured on a numerical analogue scale from 0 to 100% and patient-reported satisfaction with pain relief during the first week following discharge. Data were collected by in-hospital chart review and patient telephone interview 1 week after discharge.Results: The study recruited 4273 patients from 144 centres in 25 countries; 1311 patients (30.7%) were prescribed opioid analgesia at discharge. Patients reported being in severe pain for 10 (i.q.r. 1-30)% of the first week after discharge and rated satisfaction with analgesia as 90 (i.q.r. 80-100) of 100. After adjustment for confounders, opioid analgesia on discharge was independently associated with increased pain severity (risk ratio 1.52, 95% c.i. 1.31 to 1.76; P < 0.001) and re-presentation to healthcare providers owing to side-effects of medication (OR 2.38, 95% c.i. 1.36 to 4.17; P = 0.004), but not with satisfaction with analgesia (beta coefficient 0.92, 95% c.i. -1.52 to 3.36; P = 0.468) compared with opioid-free analgesia. Although opioid prescribing varied greatly between high-income and low- and middle-income countries, patient-reported outcomes did not.Conclusion: Opioid analgesia prescription on surgical discharge is associated with a higher risk of re-presentation owing to side-effects of medication and increased patient-reported pain, but not with changes in patient-reported satisfaction. Opioid-free discharge analgesia should be adopted routinely

Red Sea geothermal provinces

'Today, over two billion people in developing countries live without any electricity. They lead lives of misery, walking miles every day for water and firewood, just to survive. What if there was an existing, viable technology, that when developed to its highest potential could increase everyone's standard of living, cut fossil fuel demand and the resultant pollution' said Peter Meisen, President, Global Energy Network Institute in 1997. Even though energy is available, technology was not matured enough to tap this energy in the nineties. Now, with the advancement of drilling technology, extracting heat from hot rocks has become a reality. Very soon when CO2 replaces the circulation fluid to extract heat from granites then both fossil fuel based and renewable energy sources will coexists balancing the CO2 emissions and providing energy, food and water security to the rich and the poor countries. Red Sea rift represents the youngest spreading ridges in the world with a vast amount of heat energy stored on either side. The Red Sea is surrounded by countries with a weak economy. Developing a geothermal energy based economy in countries like Eritrea, Djibouti and Ethiopia will provide food and water security to these countries while for other countries, geothermal energy will help in mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. Although geothermal energy sources are available in all the countries since the opening of the Red Sea, millions of years ago, this was not brought to the light. Oil importing countries became highly dependent on the oil rich countries to sustain their economy and growth and thus remained poor. This book unfolds the huge energy source, hydrothermal and EGS, for the benefit of the poor countries to reduce poverty and lift the socio economic status of these countries. The book deals with i) future energy demand, ii) CO2 emissions associated with fossil fuel based power plants, iii) black carbon emissions associated biomass energy source and iv) strategies to reduce CO2 emissions by using geothermal energy as energy source mix in all the countries-oil exporting and oil importing countries- around the Red Sea. The amount of energy available from hot granites in all the countries is well documented. EGS being the future energy source for mankind, this book will form the basis for future research by young scientists and academicians. Availability of fresh water is a matter of concern for all countries. The only way to satisfy the thirst of a growing population, to meet drinking water demand and food security, is to depend on seawater. A large volume of CO2 is being emitted from desalination plants supported by fossil fuel based energy sources. This book describes the advantages of using geothermal energy sources for the desalination process to meet the growing water and food demand of the countries around the Red Sea. Oil rich countries, using its geothermal resources, can now reduce food imports and become self sufficient in food production. This book gives hope for millions of children living in the underdeveloped countries around the Red Sea to satisfy their hunger and live a decent life with a continuous source of electricity, water and food available. This book ends with a note on the economic benefits of geothermal energy vs other renewables. With the signing of the GGA (Global Geothermal Alliance) by several countries during the December 2015 CoP 21 summit in Paris, policy makers and administrators will work together in implementing the necessary infrastructure and support to develop this clean energy source. © 2016 Taylor & Francis Group, London, UK. All rights reserved

Desalination of Seawater Using Geothermal Energy for Food and Water Security: Arab and Sub-Saharan Countries

Future war will be fought for water. The number of water stressed countries around the world is increasing exponentially with growing population and demand for food. This especially true with respect to Gulf Cooperation Council, Middle East and North Africa, and sub-Saharan countries. Food imports by these countries will exceed > 100 million tons from current 68 million tons. Countries are craving to get into virtual water trade to secure food. These countries have ample geothermal energy resources lying unexploited. An excellent example is Kenya which is able to generate 1228 million kWh electricity from geothermal and another 27,800 million kWh is waiting to be developed. Other countries too have similar geothermal resources waiting to be developed. Governments should adopt suitable energy policies and given priority to develop geothermal energy. The desalinated water could be sold at < US$ 1.6/1000 L (without any hidden cost unlike fossil fuel-supported desalination plants which needs environmental cleanup due to CO2 emissions) in future once geothermal energy is put into operation in desalination process. Future generation can mitigate issues related to CO2 emissions and meet growing freshwater requirement

Water resource management using geothermal energy: Eritrea

Eritrea is a country with rich gold, silver and base-metal deposits and geothermal energy resources associated with all the fivevolcanoes located within the Danakil graben. Due to low rainfall, the country has to depend on imported food and food importshave crossed > 46% in the recent years. Although the cultivable land is about 16,000 km2, only 5030 km2land is being cultivateddue to insufficient water resources. The per capita water requirement is projected to fall below 1300 m3/year from the present1470 m3/year. The country’s GDP has fallen from 1.3% in 2013 to 0.3% in 2015. Each geothermal province associated with theactive volcanoes can support to generate 445 million m3of desalinated water from the Red Sea. Providing basic needs like waterand energy will boost the country’s economy and lift the socio-economic status of 6 million people in the country

Complications of Port-A-Cath using for chemotherapy, drugs, and fluid administration in Mosul city

Port-A-Cath PAC has been increasingly used in cancer patients undergoing long term chemotherapy, however, no previous study has been done in Mosul for verifying its associated complications with chemotherapy administration. Patients and methods: This is a prospective, observational study that evaluated early and late complications and efficacy of US-guided puncture of the right internal jugular vein (RIJV) for PAC placement. It was conducted on patients who were diagnosed and treated in Mosul Oncology Hospitals in the period from Nov. 2017 to Nov. 2019 and had PAC for chemotherapy, drugs, blood and fluid administration. 93 patients were included in this study and followed up for at least 8 months. Results: Of the 93 included patients, there were 50 (53.7%) male and 43 (46.2%) female patients. Their mean age was 51, with a range from 17-80 years. Early complications were found in 14 (15 %) patients and late complications were found in 13 (13.9%) patients. No pneumothorax complication was reported in our study. Mal-position was occurred in 4 patients who underwent implantation without screening. Pulmonary embolism was never found. Wound bleeding was developed in 3 patients. The accidental arterial puncture occurred in 6 patients for whom PAC was inserted without US guidance and managed simply by direct pressure without surgical intervention. Thrombosis was developed in 3 patients that required anticoagulant therapy, mild and superficial wound infection occur in 7 patients. &nbsp; Conclusion: According to our data, it is safe and cost-effective to use PCA in our patients for their psychological satisfaction and prevention of peripheral vein complications and difficulties in getting venous access. In addition, the port can be used in different ways like antibiotic injections, blood transfusion, fluid administration together with the chemotherapy