Prediction of water quality from printed wiring board processes

The main source of wastewater contamination in the printed wiring board industry is from drag-out of process chemicals during the manufacturing process. Previous drag-out prediction equations are primarily a function of fluid viscosity and board withdrawal rate, and do not account for the many additional variables common in industry. A series of laboratory drag-out experiments were conducted on simulated alkaline cleaner/conditioner and microetch process baths to quantify drag out volumes for a range of fluid properties and process variables. Results of the experiments compared favorably with published drag-out volumes. The mean dragout volume for all experiments was around 91 mL/m², with literature values ranging from 16 to 203 mL/m². The results also indicate that previous predictive equations do not consistently predict drag-out for the range of variables in PWB manufacturing. Predictive equations for the alkaline cleaner/conditioner bath predicted values ranging from about 65 percent below to 40 percent above measured values. Two equations performed very well for the microetch bath, predicting values within 8 percent ,but others predicted poorly at 40 to 75 percent below measured values

Critical and Ictal Phases in Simulated EEG Signals on a Small-World Network

Healthy brain function is marked by neuronal network dynamics at or near the critical phase, which separates regimes of instability and stasis. A failure to remain at this critical point can lead to neurological disorders such as epilepsy, which is associated with pathological synchronization of neuronal oscillations. Using full Hodgkin-Huxley (HH) simulations on a Small-World Network, we are able to generate synthetic electroencephalogram (EEG) signals with intervals corresponding to seizure (ictal) or non-seizure (interictal) states that can occur based on the hyperexcitability of the artificial neurons and the strength and topology of the synaptic connections between them. These interictal simulations can be further classified into scale-free critical phases and disjoint subcritical exponential phases. By changing the HH parameters, we can model seizures due to a variety of causes, including traumatic brain injury (TBI), congenital channelopathies, and idiopathic etiologies, as well as the effects of anticonvulsant drugs. The results of this work may be used to help identify parameters from actual patient EEG or electrocorticographic (ECoG) data associated with ictogenesis, as well as generating simulated data for training machine-learning seizure prediction algorithms

Use of Nursing Staff Competency Assessment for Quality Improvement in Urgent Care Clinic in PHC, Riyadh

The Primary Health Care (PHC) of Family & Community Medicine (FCM), Prince Sultan Military Medical City (PSMMC), manages a huge number of patients, both in urgent care clinics and in other PHC services. In March 2024, they implemented an initiative to improve the competence training and assessment for the nursing staff at urgent care clinics for FCM PHC. Improving nurse performance will support providing quality healthcare services. Local problem is the high load of patients attending the clinics with due requirements by physician order, such as medication, dressing, and ECG (electrocardiogram). The aim is to improve nursing staff performance in order to accommodate the increased demand for health care services. Centers of PHC of FCM are rendering their services during the weekdays from 07:00 until 16:00. The sample data came from the mega centers that are extending their services for more than 8 hours and/or lasting until 24 hours, including weekends. Centers like KAMAH and Wazarat are working for 24 hours and seven days a week, with six sessions with 12 nurses each day. While Salam, Oreija, and SRHC are rendering their services for three sessions with six nurses a day. Lastly, Yasmeen Center is rendering its services for four sessions with eight nurses per day. From the six centers, 308 sessions in a month with 196 nurses in total are providing quality health care service in urgent care clinics. In March 2024, they started the initiative of improving the competence of the nurses through monitoring, direct observation for nurse performance, auditing, counseling, and giving incentives. From March 2024 until July 2024, there is an upward trend of procedures completed by the nursing staff conducted in urgent care clinics in PHC. A total of 31,658 medication administration services were provided during the seven months of the quality improvement project; the majority were conducted in Wazarat –14,648 medication administration. With a total of 14,573 dressings and an ECG of 6,652. There is a noticeable upward improvement in urgent care clinic services provided by the nursing staff following the quality improvement project conducted in March 2024. It is recommended to generalize this quality improvement in nurse competence, training, and assessment will have a positive impact on quality health services provided in PHC

Improving Nursing Leadership and Management Skills in PHC, Riyadh

Leadership and management are necessary for all potential registered nurse (RN) leaders. Every nurse has some degree of management and leadership responsibility. The healthcare workforce, effective leadership, and decision-making are priority topics. Other topics include achieving clinical and operational excellence, which includes, but is not limited to, innovation, patient advocacy, quality, diversity, equity, and adapting to changes in hospital and interdepartmental policies and procedures. This is a pre- and post-study for leadership training aiming to equip all potential RN leaders with confidence and knowledge in leading the center for achieving sustainable success of the organization. Through interactive lectures and workshops, the objective of the study is to enhance knowledge regarding staff plan management, to develop administrative and management skills, to enhance knowledge regarding supply management and storage standards, to ensure compliance with infection control protocols, JCI and CBAHI standards, and to improve knowledge on preceptorship & training programs. From the pre-exam of the seven staff who participated in the nursing leadership and management program, the percentage ranges from 34% as the lowest score to 86% as the highest score. An increase in percentage that ranges from 91% to 98%, which is a significant improvement after conducting the team leadership and management skills lecture. Leadership training positively impacts all parameter scores of leadership and management skills related to nursing administration, supply and storage, infection control and safety, training and preceptorship, and National and International standards of JCI and CBAHI

Challenges for Improving Nursing Documentation at PHCs, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Background: Family and Community Medicine Department is providing quality primary health care service through its 16 peripherals PHCs that are providing direct patients care and performing documentation on patients' charts on electronic nursing records (Rabet system). Each of these peripherals is taking a sample of 10% of their total patient census per session, subject to submission every Sunday of the week for audit for compliance to completeness. Nursing documentation is a legal record and communication for continuity of care; it is an important function of professional nursing practice. The project aimed to examine the current practice of nursing documentation and develop a project for improvement. The project was conducted from January to July 2024. It is based on the fundamental concepts of assessment and documentation.Methods: Nursing documentation uses electronic nursing records (Rabet system) in entering data for each patient and this is the documentation-guiding framework. In this initiative, we approached the problem by multiple interventions. The memo released by the Director of Nursing dated August 02, 2023, asking all the staff nurses to follow strict compliance to documentation completeness criteria in order to improve documentation practice. An audit was continuously conducted weekly from January up to July 2024, followed by a monthly meeting to all Head Nurses citing the full adherence of each staff. Per peripherals there are two staff nurses who are covering the screening area for documentation and with 16 peripherals; two of these peripherals are having 24hrs duty (6 sessions), while the other peripherals they are having regular 3 sessions. Verbal counseling to those staff who are neglecting to complete the documentation process. The nursing documentation completion rates before the implementation of the action plan /intervention were compared with the completion rates after the implementation. The increase in nursing documentation completion rates in post-intervention implementation was attributed to the effectiveness of the intervention.Results: The nursing documentation completion rates during the months when the action plan was still being developed were notably low, with January 2024 at 51%, February at 65%, and March at 81%. After the implementation of the intervention strategy, the completion rates improved, reaching 90% in April 2024, 91% in May and June, and 96% in July 2024. This demonstrates the effectiveness of the intervention implementation in improving nursing documentation compliance.Conclusion: The nursing Documentation Completeness Project had a significant impact on improving the completion rate of nursing documentation. The goal of the project is to guarantee that patient information is regularly and accurately captured by standardizing and optimizing nursing documentation procedures. This project enhances clinical decision-making, lowers the risk of errors, fosters continuity of care, and increases communication between medical personnel.Recommendations: Adopting the Nursing Documentation Completeness Project is suggested as an essential strategy for improving the standard of nursing documentation completeness for effective patient care

Association and Interaction Analyses of GABBR1 and GABBR2 with Nicotine Dependence in European- and African-American Populations

Previous studies have demonstrated that the γ-aminobutyric acid type B (GABAB) receptor plays an essential role in modulating neurotransmitter release and regulating the activity of ion channels and adenyl cyclase. However, whether the naturally occurring polymorphisms in the two GABAB receptor subunit genes interact with each other to alter susceptibility to nicotine dependence (ND) remains largely unknown. In this study, we genotyped 5 and 33 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) for GABAB receptor subunit 1 and 2 genes (GABBR1, GABBR2), respectively, in a sample of 2037 individuals from 602 nuclear families of African- American (AA) or European-American (EA) origin. We conducted association analyses to determine (1) the association of each subunit gene with ND at both the individual SNP and haplotype levels and (2) the collective effect(s) of SNPs in both GABAB subunits on the development of ND. Several individual SNPs and haplotypes in GABBR2 were significantly associated with ND in both ethnic samples. Two haplotypes in AAs and one haplotype in EAs showed a protective effect against ND, whilst two other haplotypes in AAs and three haplotypes in EAs showed a risk effect for developing ND. Interestingly, these significant haplotypes were confined to two regions of GABBR2 in the AA and EA samples. Additionally, we found two minor haplotypes in GABBR1 to be positively associated with Heaviness of Smoking Index (HSI) in the EA sample. Finally, we demonstrated the presence of epistasis between GABBR1 and GABBR2 for developing ND. The variants of GABBR1 and GABBR2 are significantly associated with ND, and the involvement of GABBR1 is most likely through its interaction with GABBR2, whereas GABBR2 polymorphisms directly alter susceptibility to ND. Future studies are needed with more dense SNP coverage of GABBR1 and GABBR2 to verify the epistatic effects of the two subunit genes

Associations of Variants in CHRNA5/A3/B4 Gene Cluster with Smoking Behaviors in a Korean Population

Multiple genome-wide and targeted association studies reveal a significant association of variants in the CHRNA5-CHRNA3-CHRNB4 (CHRNA5/A3/B4) gene cluster on chromosome 15 with nicotine dependence. The subjects examined in most of these studies had a European origin. However, considering the distinct linkage disequilibrium patterns in European and other ethnic populations, it would be of tremendous interest to determine whether such associations could be replicated in populations of other ethnicities, such as Asians. In this study, we performed comprehensive association and interaction analyses for 32 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in CHRNA5/A3/B4 with smoking initiation (SI), smoking quantity (SQ), and smoking cessation (SC) in a Korean sample (N = 8,842). We found nominally significant associations of 7 SNPs with at least one smoking-related phenotype in the total sample (SI: P = 0.015∼0.023; SQ: P = 0.008∼0.028; SC: P = 0.018∼0.047) and the male sample (SI: P = 0.001∼0.023; SQ: P = 0.001∼0.046; SC: P = 0.01). A spectrum of haplotypes formed by three consecutive SNPs located between rs16969948 in CHRNA5 and rs6495316 in the intergenic region downstream from the 5′ end of CHRNB4 was associated with these three smoking-related phenotypes in both the total and the male sample. Notably, associations of these variants and haplotypes with SC appear to be much weaker than those with SI and SQ. In addition, we performed an interaction analysis of SNPs within the cluster using the generalized multifactor dimensionality reduction method and found a significant interaction of SNPs rs7163730 in LOC123688, rs6495308 in CHRNA3, and rs7166158, rs8043123, and rs11072793 in the intergenic region downstream from the 5′ end of CHRNB4 to be influencing SI in the male sample. Considering that fewer than 5% of the female participants were smokers, we did not perform any analysis on female subjects specifically. Together, our detected associations of variants in the CHRNA5/A3/B4 cluster with SI, SQ, and SC in the Korean smoker samples provide strong evidence for the contribution of this cluster to the etiology of SI, ND, and SC in this Asian population

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

The Role of Contract Training by Academic Institutions in Corporate Education and Training Programs

This study explored the role of contract training provided by North Texas higher education institutions in the education and training programs administered by area businesses employing more than 100 people. A survey instrument was mailed to corporate trainers that were members of the Dallas Chapter of the American Society of Training and Development in businesses employing more than 100 people. A total list of 292 trainers generated 71 usable responses. The purposes of this study were to: (a) determine the extent to which corporations use academic institutions for contract training, (b) determine the academic institutions in North Texas that training managers in the Dallas area believe are suitable contract training partners, (c) identify what subject areas are perceived as top educational priorities by training managers and are perceived to be suitable for contract training by academic institutions, (d) determine educational and training subjects for which corporations would be willing or prefer to utilize contract training by academic institutions, and (e) identify the subjects in which corporations currently use contract training by academic institutions

An In vitro investigation of morphollogical and Immunocytochemical chances etc.

Do rat aged dorsal root ganglion neurons need nerve growth factor for survival: An in vitro investigation of morphological and immunocytochemical changes in rat dorsal root ganglion during aging