Design of a microwave based mobile thermo-chemical unit for biomedical waste treatment

Biomedical waste (BMW) contains pathogenic microorganisms that may severely harm the community and environment. Due to the Covid pandemic-2019, isolated wards at health care units and even due to the home treated patients; vast quantities of BMW are generated. Covid-19 converts even ordinary waste such as gloves, testing kits, and personal protective equipment into high-risk BMW. The appropriate disposal of such waste involves safety, affordability, and efficacy; hence can be considered a complex issue. A solution proposed in this article is an OSBMWTU (on-site biomedical waste treatment unit) by using microwave radiation. The possibility of enhancing the thermal effect of microwave radiation by using chemical additives was tested. The proposed machine reduces waste volume, inactivates microorganisms, and disposes BMW on-site. Findings suggest that adding butter spray to microwave radiation enhances thermal effectiveness by 43%, increasing treatment temperature while minimizing time, power, and running costs. The proposed machine will work automatically after filling the BMW, thus, minimizing the human involvement. It prevents bio-hazardous waste accumulation and decreases its volume by up to 80%. The designed machine is characterized by safety, low cost, and small dimensions. A machine that can handle 72 kg BMW/day can be set up on-site in an area of 1.5 m2. The suggestion of the proposed machine as a BMW management and treatment system will reduce environmental pollution due to BMW during COVID-19 and even after the pandemic

Heating Effects of Microwave Radiation on Disposable Materials in the Presence of Various Soaking Media

The ability of various soaking media in enhancing the temperature of waste materials, once they are exposed to microwaves has been investigated. Such information helps development of microwave techniques to destroy viruses, spores and other microorganisms by temperature enhancement if they may not be affected by microwave radiation itself. Oily media were observed to have higher elevation in temperature; however, they have the inherent drawback of sticking into the inner surface of the container. Such drawbacks can be minimized by using enclosed non-stick container for the microwave application. Among aqueous fluids, commonly found detergent solution showed the best performance in raising the temperature. Such material has many other advantages such as, low cost, non-toxic nature, environment friendliness, ready availability etc

Heating Effects of Microwave Radiation on Disposable Materials in the Presence of Various Soaking Media

The ability of various soaking media in enhancing the temperature of waste materials, once they are exposed to microwaves has been investigated. Such information helps development of microwave techniques to destroy viruses, spores and other microorganisms by temperature enhancement if they may not be affected by microwave radiation itself. Oily media were observed to have higher elevation in temperature; however, they have the inherent drawback of sticking into the inner surface of the container. Such drawbacks can be minimized by using enclosed non-stick container for the microwave application. Among aqueous fluids, commonly found detergent solution showed the best performance in raising the temperature. Such material has many other advantages such as, low cost, non-toxic nature, environment friendliness, ready availability etc

Effect of the applied pressure on the essential characteristics of sodium starch glycolate tablets

Immediate onset of action in a lot of cases is extensively used than ordinary therapy, however; produce tablets with acceptable features as tensile strength, suitable with acceptable industrial limits, reduced ordered unit segregation tendency, and rapidly or appropriate disintegration time, is a classic problem. Use disintegrant is considered one of corner stone to achieve pharmaceutical tablets that meet requirements of recommended tablet formulation in the markets. Sodium Starch Glycolate as an elastic material (super disintegrant) is the component of compacted tablets by direct compression in current work. Uniaxial compaction process was implemented by utilizing a universal testing machine. The tablets were compacted under applied load ranging from 75 to 375 MPa. A 13 mm diameter cylindrical die was used to characterize the compression behaviour of the 1.0 ± 0.01 g of material. Number of the evidences from this study is, the tabletted powder characteristics and the volume-pressure measurements relationship were investigated. The recommended tablet formulations were evaluated by using elastic relaxation, indirect tensile strength, friability, and disintegration tests. Applying load higher than 150 Mpa produces compacts with a longer disintegration time, low elastic relaxation, in addition to tensile strength and friability percentage identical to recommended tablets formulation in the markets

Application of microwaves in health care solid waste disinfection

This thesis intensively investigates the management of solid health care waste (HCW) and technologies available for collection at the generation point, segregation, transportation, storage and disposal. Many national and international environmental and health agencies have revealed their concerns towards these wastes as they may cause serious infectious diseases such as hepatitis, tuberculosis and HIV / AIDS. In addition, it would appear that most of the health care facilities and hospitals do not have adequate management and disposal technology systems which consequently leads to health and environmental problems of hygiene and sanitation in and out of hospital. Accordingly, the focus point of this thesis is to enhance the performance of the HCW management system, to achieve a high level of cleanliness and to protect humans and the environment from infection generated from HCW. This point arises from the need for appropriate management of that contains disease causing agents. Effective HCW management and disposal can be performed only by considering various components of the waste management system which are comprehensively investigated in this research. This study was conducted in two leading government hospitals in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, namely Serdang Hospital and Ampang Hospital. The study was initiated by site visits to the two general hospitals in order to investigate the HCW management components, the amount of the waste, the required cost, and the handling and transportation stages. Then, the disposal technology used to destroy the waste was examined and compared with various treatment technologies as the treatment and disposal of HCW are complementary stages to protect the environment. The results of site visits provided a wealth of data and were very useful to obtain real and practical findings in order to make a decision using information that is as accurate as possible. Based on the results obtained, the HCW management systems in these hospitals, the data collected on the amount of generated waste, and the required cost for managing the systems have been covered and estimated. Due to the bed occupancy rates which are influenced by the geographical location of the hospitals, the figures are higher in Serdang than in the Ampang hospital, and the monthly averages of the HCW generated and the associated management cost are higher for Serdang than for Ampang hospital. The current study then proceeds to propose microwave technology to be used as a disinfection technology in addition to assistance by shredding the artificial HCW before applying microwave radiation. To evaluate the efficacy of microwave disinfection technique, artificial HCW was inoculated with the most common disease causing bacteria in HCW, namely, Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) and Escherichia coli O157:H7(E. coliO157:H7). The assessment of the ability of microwave radiation to kill the selected bacteria was conducted by counting the bacterial cells before and after treatment with respect to the microwave radiation power and the time duration of the process. The most striking observation to emerge from the bioengineering work is that the bacteria reduced from five million cells per 500 gram of artificial HCW to non-viable bacteria after just 2.5 minutes of treatment with 700 W of microwave power for both species of bacteria. The findings show the influencing factor for killing the investigated bacteria is the microwave radiation; not temperature as bacteria are killed at the best range of temperature for growth. With this completed, the best solution has been selected to provide the highest confidence in the on-site HCW treatment in order to eliminate cross contamination, and by opting for microwave treatment technology to disinfect HCW on-site and at the point it is generated. By employing the conditions determined in this current study (700 W radiation and 2.5 minutes) which leads to complete bacterial reduction, if implemented, then the scientific result presented in this work can be used as a foundation study to build up an on-site HCW treatment machine by using microwave radiation as the disinfecting technology

Enhancing cotton sustainability: Multi-factorial intercropping, irrigation, and weed effects on productivity, quality and physiology

Drought stress and weed infestation are significant factors that significantly decrease cotton yield. Increasing the variety of plants within a cotton field ecosystem can strengthen its stability and protect it from susceptibility to both biotic and abiotic pressures. In this two-year experiment (2021 and 2022), the effects of intercropping systems (four growth conditions including mono- and inter-cropped cotton varieties Golestan and Hekmat with Nepeta crispa and dragon's head (Lallemantia iberica)), irrigation (three intervals of 3, 6, and 9 days), and weed competition (weed-free and weedy plots) on the agronomic performance, physiological characteristics, and seed quality of cotton in a semi-arid region of Iran were studied. In 2021, the volume of irrigation water applied was 9873, 6100, and 4650 m3 ha−1 for irrigation intervals of 3, 6, and 9 days, respectively. In 2022, the volumes were 9071, 5605, and 4272 m3 ha−1 for the corresponding irrigation intervals. Over two years, Xanthium strumarium, Amaranthus retroflexus, and Portulaca oleracea were the dominant weed species. Weeds had the most significant impact on total dry weight; weed control increased plant vigor and growth, ranging from 1.4 to 2.3 times, while weed impact on cottonseed yield ranged from 18% to 96% reduction. Increasing irrigation intervals resulted in reductions in various parameters, with decreases of 39%–80% in total dry weight, 34%–57% in cottonseed yield, and 48%–72% in lint yield. The harvest indices for seed cotton, cottonseed, and lint ranged from 35.3% to 56.5%, 18.3%–35.0%, and 15.4%–20.5%, respectively. Weeds were responsible for a 17% decrease in the 1000-seed weight. As the irrigation intervals increased from 3 days to 6 days and 9 days, the number of bolls per plant decreased by 19%–85%. Extending the irrigation interval from 3 days to 6 days and 9 days resulted in a substantial decrease in the photosynthetic rate, ranging from 42% to 92%. Mono-cropped Golestan performed well under unstressed conditions such as 3-day interval irrigation and weed-free conditions. On the other hand, intercropped Hekmat demonstrated better resilience to both moisture and weed stresses. The LER (Land equivalent ratio) indices of both intercropping systems were generally favorable, indicating higher productivity compared to sole cropping. The intercropping systems consistently showed the highest LER indices under weedy conditions, highlighting the significance of intercropping as a valuable method in integrated weed management

A normative study of the raven coloured progressive matrices test for omani hildren aged 5-11 years*

Raven’s Coloured Progressive Matrices test has been extensively used across a wide variety of settings in different countries all over the world as a fair culture measure of non-verbal intelligence. The objective of the present study is to extract norms of the test for Omani children. The test was applied on an individual basis on a random sample of 1042 children from different age groups ranging from 5 to 11 years old. All of the estimated psychometric properties including validity, reliability, and norms indicate that the test could be practically utilized when applied in several situations. The study has a number of implications including that the Ministry of Education may use it to diagnose and detect those children with learning difficulties; the Ministry of Health may use it in hospitals to measure the IQ of certain patients in order to make medical decisions. In addition, researchers in psychological and social areas would be able to conduct studies aiming at measuring the intelligence of children

Global economic burden of unmet surgical need for appendicitis

Background There is a substantial gap in provision of adequate surgical care in many low- and middle-income countries. This study aimed to identify the economic burden of unmet surgical need for the common condition of appendicitis. Methods Data on the incidence of appendicitis from 170 countries and two different approaches were used to estimate numbers of patients who do not receive surgery: as a fixed proportion of the total unmet surgical need per country (approach 1); and based on country income status (approach 2). Indirect costs with current levels of access and local quality, and those if quality were at the standards of high-income countries, were estimated. A human capital approach was applied, focusing on the economic burden resulting from premature death and absenteeism. Results Excess mortality was 4185 per 100 000 cases of appendicitis using approach 1 and 3448 per 100 000 using approach 2. The economic burden of continuing current levels of access and local quality was US $92 492 million using approach 1 and$73 141 million using approach 2. The economic burden of not providing surgical care to the standards of high-income countries was $95 004 million using approach 1 and$75 666 million using approach 2. The largest share of these costs resulted from premature death (97.7 per cent) and lack of access (97.0 per cent) in contrast to lack of quality. Conclusion For a comparatively non-complex emergency condition such as appendicitis, increasing access to care should be prioritized. Although improving quality of care should not be neglected, increasing provision of care at current standards could reduce societal costs substantially