The Effects of Electronic Waste Burning on Lead Concentration in Water and Blood in South West Hebron: Descriptive-Comparative Study

Electronic waste (E-waste) is a collective name for all electronic devices which have been expired of their useful life periods like discarded computers, computer peripherals, mobile phones, televisions, and others. E-waste has increased the total waste volume and after dismantling and burning, it releases various toxic and carcinogenic gases and metals which are posing a threat to human health and also contaminate the environment (Kowsar, Khan et al. 2010).Great acknowledge to the European Union for their financial support, this project was totally funded by the European Union commission in Jerusalem, under the theme of PFP projects. Also the authors would like to acknowledge Mohammad Thaineh, Teacher Physiotherapy Department Ahliya University for their contributions and assistance during all over the study stages. Great thanks go to Eng. Safa Sultan for her contribution in editing and final conceptualization of the report. Many thanks also go to the two municipalities of South west Hebron and Halhul for their cooperation. Special thanks to all participants for their voluntary participation and their time. Finally thanks go to the Medical Relief Society for their kindly cooperation

The Effect of Mobile Health Applications on the Knowledge of Patients of Heart Failure

Background: A lack of knowledge among patients with Heart Failure represents a significant problem that could lead to an increase in adverse outcomes, such as the length of hospitalization; and readmission rate. Objective: This study aimed to identify the effects of mobile health education applications on the knowledge of patients with Heart Failure and identify the associated factors that would contribute to patients’ knowledge. Methods: A Quasi-experimental design (two groups pretest-posttest design). A non-probability convenient sample of 160 patients was recruited. The participants were assigned randomly to an experimental group and a control group. The Dutch Heart Failure Knowledge scale was used to assess patients’ levels of knowledge. Descriptive statistics, independent t-tests, and multiple regression analysis were used to analyze the data. Result: The total number of participants was 126. The overall Jordanian patients’ level of knowledge regarding the non-pharmacological management of Heart Failure was moderate (M= 9.4, SD=2.07). Significant differences between study groups were found in terms of levels of knowledge. The intervention group (M=12.26, SD=2.36)  had significantly higher mean scores of knowledge level about Heart Failure compared to the control group (M=9.76, SD=2.01); t=6.361, p=.000). The result of the regression analysis was significant (adjusted R2  =.222, F(16,109)= 3.226, P=.000). Conclusion: Mobile health education applications could be a promising solution for managing different chronic diseases, particularly patients with HF. The implication to Nursing: Mobile health could be a more cost-effective approach to patient education than other traditional approaches recently applied in clinical practice

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

Reducing the environmental impact of surgery on a global scale: systematic review and co-prioritization with healthcare workers in 132 countries

Abstract Background Healthcare cannot achieve net-zero carbon without addressing operating theatres. The aim of this study was to prioritize feasible interventions to reduce the environmental impact of operating theatres. Methods This study adopted a four-phase Delphi consensus co-prioritization methodology. In phase 1, a systematic review of published interventions and global consultation of perioperative healthcare professionals were used to longlist interventions. In phase 2, iterative thematic analysis consolidated comparable interventions into a shortlist. In phase 3, the shortlist was co-prioritized based on patient and clinician views on acceptability, feasibility, and safety. In phase 4, ranked lists of interventions were presented by their relevance to high-income countries and low–middle-income countries. Results In phase 1, 43 interventions were identified, which had low uptake in practice according to 3042 professionals globally. In phase 2, a shortlist of 15 intervention domains was generated. In phase 3, interventions were deemed acceptable for more than 90 per cent of patients except for reducing general anaesthesia (84 per cent) and re-sterilization of ‘single-use’ consumables (86 per cent). In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for high-income countries were: introducing recycling; reducing use of anaesthetic gases; and appropriate clinical waste processing. In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for low–middle-income countries were: introducing reusable surgical devices; reducing use of consumables; and reducing the use of general anaesthesia. Conclusion This is a step toward environmentally sustainable operating environments with actionable interventions applicable to both high– and low–middle–income countries

Improvement of tunable acousto-optic filter performances with optical double pass in the interaction area

International audienc

Dynamic behavior of a multiwavelength acousto-optic filter

International audienceWavelength tunable filtering in optical telecommunications can be done by taking advantages of the acousto-optic interaction in anisotropic medium and especially with a quasi-collinear interaction in paratellurite crystal. The objective of the paper is to point out the limit of the functioning of such a component, in the case of a multi-wavelength filter application. The dynamic behavior (i.e. the temporal evolution) of the optical diffraction efficiency according to the operating conditions is presented and discussed. Experimental and simulation results, in telecommunication wavelength range, are shown

Architecture de filtres acousto-optiques accordables en interaction quasi-colineaire avec double passage du faisceau optique dans la zone d’interaction

National audienceNous présentons différentes architectures de filtres optiques basées sur l’utilisation de l'interaction acousto-optique quasi-colinéaire afin d'améliorer les performances en termes de diaphonie et de sélectivité. Ces architectures sont basées sur un double passage de l'onde optique dans le cristal et tirent profit du caractère anisotrope de l’interaction

Characterisation of the Wavelength Dependence of a MultiTransducer Acousto-Optic Switch

International audienceThe growth of Internet traffic has led to a dramatic increase of data transmission capability in telecommunication networks. This can be satisfied by using optical communication systems exploiting the almost unlimited transmission bandwidth of optical fibres. In particular, wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) technology offers an attractive means to increase network capacities. Unfortunately, it remains the essential problem of the limited speed of the electronic switching components. This issue has inspired active research in all optical switching systems. Among several proposed technologies to realize optical switches, the acousto-optic technology seems to be attractive because it presents some interesting characteristics such as short configuration time and no moving parts. Consequently, optical switch sensitivity to the wavelength must be very low in order to ensure efficient temporal demultiplexing for WDM applications. For a few years, we have worked on the development of a 2X2 switch based on an acousto-optic Bragg cell for telecommunication applications. This acousto-optic switch is designed to have a low crosstalk level (< -50 dB) and a short switching time (< 200 ns) @ 1550 nm. The Bragg cell is made of piezoelectric phased array transducers bonded to a crystalline material (TeO2). In order to realize the 2X2 switch, we create two Bragg gratings in the same crystal by driving the transducers with two RF signals f1 and f2 simultaneously. Each diffraction grating acts as a deflector for one of the inputs, and should have no influence on the other. One of the gratings must be tilted with respect to the other one. The tilt is done by driving the transducer elements separately by equal amplitude RF signals (f2) whose phases are increased by an amount of fe degree per element. The switch is a fibered system using two coupling systems, one at the input of the acousto-optic cell and another one at the output made of a Fourier lens and a microlens array. In this paper, we present the wavelength dependence of the acousto-optic switch developed in our laboratory. We characterise both the diffraction efficiency and the coupling efficiency as a function of the optical wavelength over the 1500 - 1600 nm range.First, the diffraction efficiency has been measured when only one and then two Bragg gratings were simultaneously generated in the crystal in order to observe the influence of nonlinear effects. In our experimental configuration, the diffraction efficiency dependence on the wavelength is less than 2 dB over the wavelength range. Moreover, the diffraction efficiency reaches down to -7 dB in the worse case for an acousto-optic power consumption of 1.6 W. Those experimental measurements are well correlated to simulation results.We also measured the coupling efficiency in optical single mode fibre array according to the wavelength. The optical coupling losses increase when the wavelength moves away from the central value 1550 nm because the diffraction direction slightly changes. We show that these coupling losses reduce a lot the bandwidth performance of the switch. The switch bandwidth defined at -1.5 dB is then about 50 nm around 1550 nm

Optical double-pass in an acousto-optic tunable filter in quasi-collinear interaction

International audienceThe paper presents the architecture of an acousto-optic tunable filter (AOTF) close-to-collinear interaction, in order to improved performances in terms of crosstalk and selectivity: the FWHM (Full width at half maximum) is decreased and the side lobe level is reduced. This filter architecture is based on a double-pass of the optical wave in the crystal and takes advantage of the anisotropic interaction

Amélioration de la sélectivité et du niveau des lobes secondaires d'un filtre acousto-optique accordable.

National audienceDans cet article nous présentons une architecture d’un filtre acousto-optique en interaction quasi-colinéaire permettant d'améliorer ses performances en termes de crosstalk et de sélectivité. Cette architecture est basée sur un double passage de l'onde optique dans le cristal en tirant profit du caractère anisotrope de l’interaction