Masculinity and Immigrant Health Practices: How Male Kurdish Immigrants to the United States Think about and Practice Health

Researchers have identified a host of factors that influence immigrant men’s understanding of and commitment to health, but overall the scholarship is still unsettled, in large part because the experiences of immigrant groups are so varied. In this paper, based on interviews with Kurdish immigrants in the United States, we demonstrate that the field of health provides both opportunities and pitfalls for men whose social, familial, and masculine aspirations simultaneously pull them into American life and push them towards a segregated existence. We conclude that men use a discourse of health to simultaneously assert themselves as men and maintain their connections to their original culture, just as they use a discourse of masculine responsibility to account for the health-related choices they make

An electronic irrigation system using IoT and neural networks

One of the approaches that fall under the alternative application of water on earth or soil is electronic irrigation. It is aware of the need to irrigate crops, restore the vegetation of difficult soil in arid areas, and because of dry spells, as our state has experienced in recent years. Other issues, such as increasing plant growth while lowering the value of agriculture, necessitate installing an irrigation system that cuts back effort, reduces farm and field employees, and minimizes monetary matters within the construction of agricultural comes is crucial. Soil wetness measure is incredibly tough; thus the economic maintaining of its target levels. The answer to this drawback is an automatic irrigation system. This analysis proposed an electronic irrigation system that reduces users' effort to plant care. The system kernel is the self-learning Kohonen Neural Network, which depends on the reading of the detector of soil wetness, plant type, and forecast data. The soil wetness detector indicates the soil wetness level. Also, the system is mechanically started once the wetness level is not up to the extent necessary for the plant's growth. When the system reaches the soil wetness level, it is mechanically stopped for a defined period of morning and evening. As a soil wetness level differs from one plant kind to a different, 3 plant varieties area unit used during this analysis. Beginning the system littered with the weather data, is saving time and effort for the employees

Mother's attitudes toward obesity among school children in Babylon

Abstract:  Background Obesity has been declared by the (WHO) as a major public health problem and global epidemic, in general a body mass index of 30 kg/m² or greater is considered obese, and according to the WHO too more than 1.5 billion adults are overweight, parents and mothers play a great role in choosing and preparing foodObjectives: The aim of the current study is to identify the attitude of mothers toward obesity among schoolchildren.   Methods and materials: A cross-sectional study was carried out in Al- Kawthar primary health center in Babylon between the 1st of April to the 1st of October to identify the attitude of mothers toward obesity among school children. A convenient random sample size of (50) mothers was selected to accomplish the study.Results: Total number of the mothers was 50 majority were aged from 25-28 years old, mothers who are not working represent (82%), to achieve the aim of the study and for the identification of the attitude of the mothers the researchers determine the sample scores within the positive and the negative attitude by using lekert scale of five levels and according to that it was found that sample has negative attitude t- test tabulated value represented (1.22) at p (0.05). the most important results was that negative attitudes affect obesity like it is considered as a beauty sign or conducting such a selection and cooking mistakes  or dealing with some practices like consuming unhealthy food. Study recommended the importance of using of the educational aids to change their attitudes and practices about food preparation and selection especially with the school children because of the risk and also MOH must conduct this subject as a National health program and include that in the parents- school meetings.Conclusion: The study concluded that there were poor levels in knowledge and attitude of mothers toward obesity among children school. Recommendation: The present study recommended that Ministry Of Health must develop programs to follow up any children gaining abnormal weight as, this health problem must be included in the meeting of the school and parents give more information to mothers about the same issue to enforce or change their attitudes.Key words: Attitude, schoolchildren, obesity, body mass inde

Five Bivalve Species from the Recently Discovered Coral Reef in the Marine Coastal Waters of Iraq

In the present report five bivalve species are newly recorded from the recently discovered coral reef in the coastal waters of Iraq, North West Arabian Gulf. The bivalves were inhabit a hard coral substratum as well as sand and mud substrata, at depth ranging from 7-10 m. The region is characterized by high temperature subtropical climate (temperature range: 14-34 C˚). The identified mulluscan bivalves namely Chlamys livida, Pinna bicolor, Malvifundus normalis, Barbatia decussate, and Lithophaga robusta. All the present specimens bivalves were living animals and they classified according to morphological characteristics. Specimens were deposited at the Genetic Legacy Laboratory and Museum of the Marine Science Center/ University of Basrah

Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System for Prediction of Surgery Time for Ischemic Stroke Patients

With the advent of machine learning techniques, creation and utilization of prediction models for different medical procedures including prediction of diagnosis, treatment and recovery of different medical conditions has become the norm. Recent studies focus on the automation of infarction volume growth rate prediction by the utilization of machine learning techniques. These techniques when effectively applied, could significantly help in reducing the time needed to attend to stroke patients. We propose, in this proposal, a Fuzzy Inference System that can determine when a stroke patient should undergo Decompressive Hemicraniectomy. The second infarction volume growth rate and the decision whether a patient needs to undergo this procedure, both predicted outputs of two trained models, act as inputs to this system. While the initial prediction model, that which predicts the second infarction volume growth rate is adopted from an earlier model, we propose the later model in this paper. Three Machine Learning techniques - Support Vector Machine, Artificial Neural Network and Adaptive Neuro Fuzzy Inference System with and without the feature reduction technique of Principle Component Analysis were modelled and evaluated, the best of which was selected to model the proposed prediction model. We also defined the structure of Fuzzy Inference System along with its rules and obtained an overall accuracy of 95.7% with a precision of 1 showing promising results from the use of fuzzy logic

Inexpensive organic dyes-sensitized zinc oxide nanoparticles photoanode for solar cells devices

Zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO NPs) were synthesized using a hydrothermal route. The prepared ZnO NPs were characterized by x-ray diffraction (XRD), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM), UV–vis spectroscopy, and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy. The XRD patterns confirmed the standard hexagonal wurtzite structure of ZnO NPs, and the calculated value of the average particle size was 23.34 nm. HR-TEM micrographs of ZnO NPs showed semispherical particle morphologies and their sizes lie between 10 and 40 nm. The estimated average size distribution of ZnO NPs was 21.35 6.01 nm. UV–vis spectrum of ZnO NPs revealed the highest absorption band at 360.5 nm, and the Eg was 3.70 0.01 eV. The PL spectrum emission was deconvoluted by eight peaks into two regions [near-ultraviolet (NUV) and visible that caused from the defects]. Two groups of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) thin film devices based on ZnO NPs were sensitized in different concentration solutions of 0.1, 0.32, and 0.5 mM of eosin B (EB) and eosin Y (EY) dyes. The sensitized DSSCs device with 0.32-mM dye of EY displayed higher efficiency and its performance parameters are much better among all other fabricated DSSCs devices. The short current density (Jsc) increased from 1.59 to 4:97 mA∕cm2 and the Voc enhanced from 0.36 to 0.46 V. The conversion efficiency from light to electricity showed a significant improvement from 0.29% to 0.94%. The transient open circuit photovoltage decay (TOCPVD) was measured to estimate the apparent electron lifetime or response time (τn) or the electron recombination rate (krec), using the double exponential function for first time to fit the experiment data of TOCPVD. The results revealed that the EY dye can be used as an efficient and an inexpensive dye for DSSCs.This research activity carried out between Gaza and Cairo-Egypt was financially supported by Qatar Charity IBHATH Project grant funded by the Gulf Cooperation Council for the Reconstruction of Gaza through the Islamic Development Bank.Zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO NPs) were synthesized using a hydrothermal route. The prepared ZnO NPs were characterized by x-ray diffraction (XRD), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM), UV–vis spectroscopy, and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy. The XRD patterns confirmed the standard hexagonal wurtzite structure of ZnO NPs, and the calculated value of the average particle size was 23.34 nm. HR-TEM micrographs of ZnO NPs showed semispherical particle morphologies and their sizes lie between 10 and 40 nm. The estimated average size distribution of ZnO NPs was 21.35 6.01 nm. UV–vis spectrum of ZnO NPs revealed the highest absorption band at 360.5 nm, and the Eg was 3.70 0.01 eV. The PL spectrum emission was deconvoluted by eight peaks into two regions [near-ultraviolet (NUV) and visible that caused from the defects]. Two groups of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) thin film devices based on ZnO NPs were sensitized in different concentration solutions of 0.1, 0.32, and 0.5 mM of eosin B (EB) and eosin Y (EY) dyes. The sensitized DSSCs device with 0.32-mM dye of EY displayed higher efficiency and its performance parameters are much better among all other fabricated DSSCs devices. The short current density (Jsc) increased from 1.59 to 4:97 mA∕cm2 and the Voc enhanced from 0.36 to 0.46 V. The conversion efficiency from light to electricity showed a significant improvement from 0.29% to 0.94%. The transient open circuit photovoltage decay (TOCPVD) was measured to estimate the apparent electron lifetime or response time (τn) or the electron recombination rate (krec), using the double exponential function for first time to fit the experiment data of TOCPVD. The results revealed that the EY dye can be used as an efficient and an inexpensive dye for DSSCs

Necessity and concerns about lipid-lowering medical treatments and risk factors for non-adherence: A cross-sectional study in Palestine

Aims: Strong evidence indicates that drugs reduce blood lipids and improve cardiovascular end-points, leading to their wide usage. However, the success of these drugs can be affected by poor patient's adherence to prescribed medication. This study aimed to evaluate medication adherence in patients with dyslipidaemia in association with patient beliefs about medicines. Methods: The study was conducted from January 2019 to July 2019 at the middle governmental primary healthcare clinics in Ramallah and Bethlehem cities, and used a cross-sectional design. Adherence was determined using the 4-item Morisky medication adherence scale, while beliefs were determined using the Beliefs about Medicines Questionnaire. Results: Of 220 patients, 185 agreed to participate in the study, resulting in a response rate of 84.1%. Of the participants, 106 (57.3%) were men, and almost half (88, 46.5%) were ≥56 years. Medication non-adherence was high (47.6%), but a majority (65.5%) reported believing their treatment to be necessary for their continued good health. Accordingly, the mean necessity score (17.3, SD 3.7) significantly outweighed (P < .001) the mean concerns score (14.0, SD 3.5). Multivariate regression demonstrated four variables to be significantly correlated with non-adherence: illiterate (OR = 2.52; CI: 0.9-4.3; P = .03), polypharmacy (OR = 3.18; CI: 1.9-5.7; P = .007), having comorbidity (OR = 3.10; CI: 2.2-4.6; P = .005) and having concerns about side effects (OR = 2.89; CI: 1.1-4.6, P = .04). Conclusion: Non-adherence among patients taking lipid-lowering agents was high despite most holding positive beliefs regarding medication necessity. This may be due to concern also being high. Physicians should identify and target high-risk patients and individualise their treatment plans in order to achieve adequate control of dyslipidaemia.We thank all workers at health clinics at Ramallah and Bethlehem who helped in finishing this study and also we thank the participants who willingly accepted to share for the purpose of this study

Manufacturing and Study the performance of Selective Surfaces that used in flat plate Solar Collectors

In this research an experimental study has done for testing the thermal performance of selective surfaces used in solar collectors for substrate of iron, galvanized iron and aluminum which are commercially available. The coating process for the samples has done in two ways, the electroplating and the chemical spray pyrolysis. The results of the thermal performance test of these samples are comparing with the thermal performance of a sample without paint and other paint with black paint without shines commercially available. For the electroplated samples, the performance study has done for different immersion time in plating bath, the distance between electrical poles, the current density, and area ratio of the sample plated area to the nickel pole face area. The chemical sprayed pyrolysis samples, study has done for different coating times, atomizing gas pressures, distance between the aperture of atomizer and the sample and the paint mass flow rate. The results showed that the best performance of the iron's samples is the sample which is coated with two layers. The first layer is of zinc done by electroplating where the time of plating is (2 min.) and the second layer is of black nickel done by electroplating, where the time is (20 min.), the distance between the poles is (6 cm), the current density is (0.15 A/dm2 ) and area ratio of the sample plated area to the nickel pole face area is equal to (1). The percentage of the increasing in heat storage of electroplating sample to galvanized iron sample without paint at the beginning of testing the performance of samples and at the end were (58.23%& 44.97%) respectively. For aluminum samples, the best performance was regarded for two samples electroplating sample and chemical spray pyrolysis sample. The best electroplating sample was coated with a layer of black nickel where the time of plating is (20 min.), the distance between the poles is (6 cm), the current density is (0.15 A/dm2) and area ratio of the sample plated area to the nickel pole face area is equal to (1). While the best chemical spray pyrolysis sample has been coated with a layer of black nickel where the time of plating is (16 sec.) and the distance between the aperture of the reservoir and the surface of the sample is (27 cm), the amount of flow is (4.8 ml / min.), the atomizing gas pressure is (1 bar) and temperature of the sample surface is (290 0C)

Survey instruments used in clinical and epidemiological research on waterpipe tobacco smoking: a systematic review

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The primary objective was to systematically review the medical literature for instruments validated for use in epidemiological and clinical research on waterpipe smoking.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We searched the following databases: MEDLINE, EMBASE, and ISI the Web of Science. We selected studies using a two-stage duplicate and independent screening process. We included papers reporting on the development and/or validation of survey instruments to measure waterpipe tobacco consumption or related concepts. Two reviewers used a standardized and pilot tested data abstraction form to collect data from each eligible study using a duplicate and independent screening process. We also determined the percentage of observational studies assessing the health effects of waterpipe tobacco smoking and the percentage of studies of prevalence of waterpipe tobacco smoking that have used validated survey instruments.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We identified a total of five survey instruments. One instrument was designed to measure knowledge, attitudes, and waterpipe use among pregnant women and was shown to have internal consistency and content validity. Three instruments were designed to measure waterpipe tobacco consumption, two of which were reported to have face validity. The fifth instrument was designed to measure waterpipe dependence and was rigorously developed and validated. One of the studies of prevalence and none of the studies of health effects of waterpipe smoking used validated instruments.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>A number of instruments for measuring the use of and dependence on waterpipe smoking exist. Future research should study content validity and cross cultural adaptation of these instruments.</p

New multiport robotic surgical systems: a comprehensive literature review of clinical outcomes in urology

Over the past 20 years, the field of robotic surgery has largely been dominated by the da Vinci robotic platform. Nevertheless, numerous novel multiport robotic surgical systems have been developed over the past decade, and some have recently been introduced into clinical practice. This nonsystematic review aims to describe novel surgical robotic systems, their individual designs, and their reported uses and clinical outcomes within the field of urologic surgery. Specifically, we performed a comprehensive review of the literature regarding the use of the Senhance robotic system, the CMR-Versius robotic system, and the Hugo RAS in urologic procedures. Systems with fewer published uses are also described, including the Avatera, Hintori, and Dexter. Notable features of each system are compared, with a particular emphasis on factors differentiating each system from the da Vinci robotic system