Assessment of Arabian Gulf Seaweeds from Kuwait as Sources of Nutritionally Important Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids (PUFAs)

Funding: We are grateful to the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR) for PhD funding for H.A.-A. We are thankful to the National Unit for Environmental Research and Services (NUERS) at Kuwait University, Project # SRUIL01/13 and the Department of Marine Sciences for providing their facilities and labs. We equally thank the UK Natural Environment Research Council for their support to F.C.K. (program Oceans 2025–WP 4.5 and grants NE/D521522/1 and NE/J023094/1). This work also received support from the Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland pooling initiative. MASTS is funded by the Scottish Funding Council (grant reference HR09011) and contributing institutions. PK would like to acknowledge European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 839151 for fundingPeer reviewedPublisher PD

Ecophysiology of Kuwaiti macroalgae with special emphasis on temperature and salinity tolerance related to the conditions at desalination plant outfalls

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The present work is part of the PhD thesis 'Macroalgal biodiversity of Kuwait, with special emphasis on the vicinity of desalination plants' of Amal H. Hajiya Hasan. We acknowledge the technical assistance of Dr. Hedda Weitz and Mr Mohamed Elgamily for ArcGIS assistance. We acknowledge the funding received to support this work from the Marine Alliance for Science and Technology (grant reference HR09011) to FCK and Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Science (KFAS; grant number PR1712SL18) to DA.Peer reviewedPostprin

Iodine and fluorine concentrations in seaweeds of the Arabian Gulf identified by morphology and DNA barcodes

Acknowledgements: We are grateful to the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR) for PhD funding for Hanan Al-Adilah. We are thankful the sequencing facility in Kuwait University (Project # GS01/02) and Department of Marine Sciences for using their facilities and labs. We would equally like to thank the UK Natural Environment Research Council for their support to FCK (program Oceans 2025 – WP 4.5 and grants NE/D521522/1 and NE/J023094/1). This work also received support from the Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland pooling initiative. MASTS is funded by the Scottish Funding Council (grant reference HR09011) and contributing institutions.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Kuwaitiella rubra gen. et sp. nov. (Bangiales, Rhodophyta), a new filamentous genus and species from the north-western Indian Ocean

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Many thanks to Bivin Thomas, Pupa Kumai and Hedda Weitz for helping in the laboratory and improving this manuscript, to Ioanna Kosma for diving, to Yusuf Buhadi for assistance during field work, archiving and preparation of herbarium specimens, and to Tatiana Mikhaylova for micrographs of previously collected filamentous red algae from Kuwait. We are grateful to La′ala Kuwait Real Estate Company and especially Mr. Fawaz Al-Marzouq for providing the salinity data. The present work is part of MHH's PhD thesis ‘Macroalgal biodiversity of Kuwait, with special emphasis on the vicinity of desalination plants’ funded by a PhD fellowship from the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences. FCK received support from the Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland pooling initiative. MASTS is funded by the Scottish Funding Council (grant reference HR09011) and contributing institutions. Work of AFP was in part supported by the project IDEALG (France: ANR-10-BTBR-04). Research Funding Agence Nationale de la Recherche. Grant Number: 10-BTBR-04 Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland IDEALG. Grant Number: ANR-10-BTBR-04 Scottish Funding Council. Grant Number: HR09011 Marine Alliance for Science and Technology Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of SciencesPeer reviewedPublisher PD

Halogens in seaweeds : Biological and Environmental Significance

Acknowledgments: We are grateful to the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR) for PhD 1129 funding for Hanan Al-Adilah and to the European Commission for a Marie Curie International In- 1130 coming Fellowship (Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme of the European Union un- 1131 der the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 839151) to Puja Kumari. We would equally 1132 like to thank the UK Natural Environment Research Council for their support to FCK (program 1133 Oceans 2025 – WP 4.5 and grants NE/D521522/1 and NE/J023094/1) and LJC (grant NE/N009983/1). 1134 This work also received support from the Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland 1135 pooling initiative. MASTS is funded by the Scottish Funding Council (grant reference HR09011) and 1136 contributing institutions. MCF, FCK and HAA thank the Lorentz Center (funded by the Netherlands 1137 Organization for Scientific Research, NWO, and the University of Leiden) for the organization of 1138 the workshop ‘IODINE: Biogeochemical Cycle of Iodine and Human Health’ (Oct. 4-6, 2017) which 1139 partly inspired this review. LJC acknowledges funding from the European Research Council (ERC) 1140 under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme (project O3-SML; grant agreement no. 1141 833290).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Assessment of the macroalgal diversity of Kuwait by using the Germling Emergence Method

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The present work formed part of the first author’s PhD thesis 'Macroalgal biodiversity of Kuwait, with special emphasis on the vicinity of desalination plants'. We acknowledge Dr. Hedda Weitz (University of Aberdeen) for providing help in the laboratory and from Ioanna Kosma (University of the Aegean) and Andreas Henkel (Kuwait University) for diving and logistics support during the expedition to Kuwait. We acknowledge the funding received to support this work from the Marine Alliance for Science and Technology (grant reference HR09011) to FCK and Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Science (KFAS; grant number PR17125L18) to DA. To Mr. Yusuf Buhadi from the Department of Marine Sciences at Kuwait University for his help in the field work and to Mrs. Nisha V. S. Vadakkhancheril for photographyPeer reviewedPublisher PD

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

Trace element concentrations in seaweeds of the Arabian Gulf identified by morphology and DNA barcodes

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