Distribution of Leishmania major zymodemes in relation to populations of Phlebotomus papatasi sand flies

Phlebotomus papatasi (Scopoli) (Diptera: Psychodidae) is the main vector of Leishmania major Yakimoff & Schokhor (Kinetoplastida: Trypanosomatidae), the causative agent of zoonotic cutaneous leishmaniasis in the Old World. Multilocus enzyme electrophoresis (MLEE) was extensively used to type different L. major stocks allover the world. Multilocus microsatellite typing (MLMT) has been recently used to investigate P. papatasi sand flies at population and subpopulation levels. In this article, the association between geographical distribution of L. major zymodemes and the distribution of populations and subpopulations of L. major vector; P. papatasi are discussed

HIV/ AIDS in Palestine: A growing concern

According to the United Nations AIDS reports in 2018, the Middle East and North Africa region is considered an area of increasing concern for HIV infection due to high mortality associated with AIDS. The incidence of HIV/AIDS in Palestine between 1988 and 2017 as reported by the Palestinian Ministry of Health was analyzed. A total of 98 cases were reported (79 AIDS patients and 19 HIV positives). A nationwide surveillance is needed to understand the epidemiology of HIV infection in the country. Identification of the HIV risk factors and health outreach directed to the public are essentially crucial prevention measures that should be implemented by the Palestinian Ministry of Health.Funding source None. Acknowledgement Palestinian Ministry of Health and Zamallah Academic Development program sponsored by Taawon Association

Assessment of Human Performance in Industry 5.0 Research Via Eye-Tracking and Cognitive Biases

Manufacturing assembly is combining previously made components or subassemblies into a final finished product. The assembly process can be manual, hybrid, or fully automated. Human operators who are involved in assembly use their judgment to perform the process. They collaborate with the other work agents such as assembly machines, robots, smart technologies, and computer interfaces. The recent Industrial revolution, Industry 5.0, exploits human expertise in collaboration with efficient and accurate machines. Manufacturing facilities that feature Industry 5.0 work settings require higher expectations, higher accuracy, sustainability solutions, mass customization of products, more human involvement, and digital technologies in smart workstations. Given these features, the cognitive load exerted on human workers in this environment is continuously increasing, leading to the use of cognitive heuristics. Cognitive biases are getting more attention in the cognitive ergonomics field, to help understand the operational behavior of workers. Manufacturing facilities can integrate cognitive assistance systems to work in parallel with physical and sensorial assistance systems. Cognitive assistance systems help toward better work conditions for workers and better overall system performance. This research explores the impact of human thinking style and using a cognitive assistance system on workers\u27 cognitive load, bias-related human performance, and user satisfaction. This research presents the design and experimental implementation of a research framework based on a well-established three-layer model for implementing Industry 5.0 in manufacturing. The research framework was designed to apply the dual-system theory and cognitive assistance in Assembly 5.0. Two experiments are presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed research framework. A cognitive assistance system was designed and compared to a benchmark system from LEGO ® Company. Subjective and objective measures were used to assess the thinking style, cognitive load, bias-related human performance, and user satisfaction in Assembly 5.0. As Industry 5.0 requires higher expectations, higher accuracy, smart workstations, and higher complexity, cognitive assistance systems can reduce the cognitive load and maintain the work efficiency and user satisfaction. Therefore, this work is important to industry to expand the use of cognitive ergonomic tools and employ them for A5.0 workers\u27 benefits

Assessment of Human Performance in Industry 5.0 Research Via Eye-Tracking and Cognitive Biases

Manufacturing assembly is combining previously made components or subassemblies into a final finished product. The assembly process can be manual, hybrid, or fully automated. Human operators who are involved in assembly use their judgment to perform the process. They collaborate with the other work agents such as assembly machines, robots, smart technologies, and computer interfaces. The recent Industrial revolution, Industry 5.0, exploits human expertise in collaboration with efficient and accurate machines. Manufacturing facilities that feature Industry 5.0 work settings require higher expectations, higher accuracy, sustainability solutions, mass customization of products, more human involvement, and digital technologies in smart workstations. Given these features, the cognitive load exerted on human workers in this environment is continuously increasing, leading to the use of cognitive heuristics. Cognitive biases are getting more attention in the cognitive ergonomics field, to help understand the operational behavior of workers. Manufacturing facilities can integrate cognitive assistance systems to work in parallel with physical and sensorial assistance systems. Cognitive assistance systems help toward better work conditions for workers and better overall system performance. This research explores the impact of human thinking style and using a cognitive assistance system on workers\u27 cognitive load, bias-related human performance, and user satisfaction. This research presents the design and experimental implementation of a research framework based on a well-established three-layer model for implementing Industry 5.0 in manufacturing. The research framework was designed to apply the dual-system theory and cognitive assistance in Assembly 5.0. Two experiments are presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed research framework. A cognitive assistance system was designed and compared to a benchmark system from LEGO ® Company. Subjective and objective measures were used to assess the thinking style, cognitive load, bias-related human performance, and user satisfaction in Assembly 5.0. As Industry 5.0 requires higher expectations, higher accuracy, smart workstations, and higher complexity, cognitive assistance systems can reduce the cognitive load and maintain the work efficiency and user satisfaction. Therefore, this work is important to industry to expand the use of cognitive ergonomic tools and employ them for A5.0 workers\u27 benefits

Knowledge and awareness of radiation hazards among Palestinian radio technologists

This study investigated 94.4% of Palestinian radio technologists and the mean percentage of correct answers for knowledge and awareness questions was 26.4%. The percentage of correct answers for questions testing knowledge of the ALARA (As Low As Reasonably Achievable) principle and hormesis hypothesis was 66.5% and 17.2%, respectively. Radio technologists with education level higher than bachelor degree and < 5 years' work experience showed a significantly higher level of knowledge. The most radiosensitive organs were correctly identified as the lungs and stomach by 6.9% and 4.9%, respectively, and 2.5% correctly identified the gonads as the next most radiosensitive organ. There was a serious deficit in knowledge and awareness of radiation hazards among Palestinian radio technologists, which may expose patients to unnecessary doses of ionizing radiation. This indicates the need for mandatory training and education about radiation protection in all Palestinian healthcare institutions.Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank Dr. Abed A. Sabbah, for his assistance with the statistical analysis, and Dr. Hussein A. Sharkh and Dr. Tewfeik Al-Jundi for their invaluable detailed advices on radiation and medical imaging. We are grateful to Miss Sarah Whitear for English language editing. Funding: None

Enhancement Of Manchester Encoding Technique By Combining IT With A Hash Function

This study proposes a combination of Manchester encoding technique and SHA-1 hash function, to provide a secure data transmission over a client/server environment by sending the message digest along with the message, and compare it with a new generated message digest on the server. Hash function improves integrity to the transmitted message. Manchester encoding technique is chosen to encode the transmitted message because it encodes both data and clocks into a form of synchronous bit stream. The modification of the message during the transmission, results in changing the message digest. This shows that including the SHA-1 hash function with Manchester encoding technique the integrity of the data can be accomplished

Patients with Cancer Receiving Radiotherapy Health Education: Integrative Literature Review

Background: Currently, radiotherapy is a backbone of cancer therapy and provides cure or palliative care for large numbers of cancer population. Patient information and education are important aspects of treatment which vary depending on the treatment site, length of the treatment, and type of the treatment. Purpose: Assess the effectiveness of patient's educational intervention on the health status and correlated symptoms in patients with cancer undergoing radiotherapy treatment. Methods: An integrative literature review design is used. A literature search is performed using three databases: CINAHL, MEDLINE via PubMed, and Cochrane Library using the combination of four key words. Nine articles were reviewed and considered in this review. Findings: In the reviewed articles, there was a positive relationship between educational interventions and the patient's health status and associated symptoms regarding radiotherapy treatment. There was a consistency in the articles regarding the best time for education to be delivered, the most appropriate formatting for the education interventions, role of nurses regarding the effectiveness of delivering education, and the limitations which came across these studies. Conclusion: Patient education has a positive effect on the general health status for the patient with cancer, and on the related-symptoms associated with radiotherapy. Implications: The role of oncology nurses must be expanded to include nurse educators who are responsible for appropriate education of patient with cancer from the early diagnosis to the late stages of cancer. Recommendations: Further investigations are required toward the patient's understanding about radiotherapy treatment and its related symptoms. Keywords: patient education, health promotion, radiotherapy, cance

Concept of Body Image as Perceived by Students of Al-Quds University

This study aims to identify the concept of body image as perceived by the students of Al-Quds University in Palestine: in the light of sex, school year, college, and residence variables. To achieve the objective of this study, the validity and reliability tool, was used to measure the concept of body image on a sample of about (287) male and female students. The total degree of results showed that the concepts percentage of body image among college students were high, whereas no statistically significant differences were found for all variables of the study. In the light of the study’s results, the researchers recommended a set of recommendations

The performance of the vehicular communication-clustering process

For the new wireless systems and beyond, the intelligent transportation system is considered as one of the main features that could be covered in the new research topics. Furthermore, both high-speed data transmission and data processing play a crucial role for these generations. Our work covers two main propositions in order to attain an improvement in such intelligent systems performance. A clustering algorithm is proposed and presented for grouping mobile nodes based on their speeds with some modified head assignments processes. This will be combined with a parallel-processing technique that enhances the QoS. Mainly, this work concerns enhancing the V2V data transmission and the processing speed. Thus, a wavelet processing stage has been imposed to optimize the transmitted power phenomenon. In order to check the validity of such proposition, five main efficiency factors have been investigated; namely complementary cumulative distributions, bit rates, energy efficiency, the lifetime of cluster head and the ordinary nodes reattaching-head average times.

Epidemiology of Enterobiasis in Palestine

Enteropiasis is a parasitic disease caused by the pinworm; Enterobius vermicularis. In this report, the prevalence of Enterobius vermicularis infection in the West Bank and Gaza strip was investigated based on Palestinian Ministry of Health reports from 2008 to 2018. A total of 29,390 cases was reported, 29,061 (98.9%) in the West Bank, and 329 cases (1.1%) in Gaza Strip. The results of the present study show that E. vermicularis infection is highly prevalent among people living in the West Bank and to lesser extend in Gaza Strip. There is a need for joint and concentrated efforts from the Palestinian government and public health services to control this infection. Personal hygiene, education and living conditions and overcrowding are risk factors associated with the spread of infection