Addressing Health Disparities Among Homeless in Alachua County through Community-Based Participatory Research.

Introduction. In states such as Florida that did not expand Medicaid, a large number of economically disadvantaged individuals do not qualify for subsidies to buy health insurance through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) 2. This leaves the health needs of Florida’s homeless population largely unaddressed. Nearly 48.1% of Alachua County’s homeless population has disabling conditions 16. This confirms a pressing need to understand the homeless population\u27s healthcare needs, knowledge, and barriers in accessing healthcare. Methods. We used a Community-Based Participatory Research model in conducting health fairs and needs assessment surveys, incentivizing participation, and providing education about existing resources. The surveys were conducted at two homeless meal service sites and consisted of 22 questions regarding access to healthcare, utilization, and satisfaction. Health fairs consisted of blood pressure, blood glucose, and mental health screening. Patient participation was encouraged through games, prizes and food. Results. Of the population we surveyed, 100% have income levels below $11,490, therefore all uninsured fall into the ACA coverage gap. Those less than 65 years of age do not qualify for Medicare unless disabled. Some qualify for Medicaid as shown in tables. Fifty-eight percent were uninsured and did not get any treatment for their illnesses. Additionally, 67% had no knowledge of free local healthcare clinics. Discussion/Conclusion. The majority of this population falls into the ACA Coverage Gap, lacks knowledge about free community clinics, and inappropriately uses the ED. Future implications of this research involve advocacy to expand Medicaid in Florida and enroll those who are eligible for health insurance. Vital goals include outreach by free healthcare clinics to make healthcare more accessible, as well as building trust with the community through continued outreach initiatives. A community-Based Participatory Research Model is an effective tool to increasing collaboration among diverse members of the community in order to bring meaningful and positive change to the health of populations

Extremely low profile flexible antenna for medical body area networks

Medical Body Area Networks (MBAN) are widely used in healthcare systems employing in- and on-body applications. An extremely low profile patch antenna for the MBANs is presented in this paper. The antenna consists of two flexible printed circuit boards (FPCB) separated by an air gap and uses a rectangular radiating patch with four slots. Two variants of the antenna having single and dual band operation are discussed. The single band antenna operates at 2.4 GHz while the dual band antenna works at frequencies of 2.4 GHz and 4.3 GHz. Both versions of the proposed antenna offer good bandwidth, high gain and radiation coverage for the MBAN applications

A feasibility study of electrical energy generation from municipal solid waste in Iraq: Najaf case study

In several developing countries, the electricity crisis obstructs both socio-economic and technological sustainable evolution. Also, it leads to reducing job availability due to shut down several industries or relocate to neighbouring countries to such an issue. A Najaf City is an important holy and tourist city in the middle of Iraq country. Indeed, waste management in An Najaf City needs to be reconsidered to be used as an energy source. In this article, we investigated and listed the waste quantity which produced recently (one year) respect to waste types and types of content. Data collected from the waste products for one year and are used as a key factor to study the feasibility of generating electrical energy from collected MSWs. The proposed model was simulated and tested respect to cost analysis factor of the suggested power plant by Homer pro simulation software. Results were very encouraging and competitive to the current energy production cost based on the production cost of the Kwh prospective among the conventional methods in Iraq. The proposed scenario provide proper and secure waste proposal technique with low-cost

Husbands' involvement in delivery care utilization in rural Bangladesh: A qualitative study

Abstract Background A primary cause of high maternal mortality in Bangladesh is lack of access to professional delivery care. Examining the role of the family, particularly the husband, during pregnancy and childbirth is important to understanding women's access to and utilization of professional maternal health services that can prevent maternal mortality. This qualitative study examines husbands' involvement during childbirth and professional delivery care utilization in a rural sub-district of Netrokona district, Bangladesh. Methods Using purposive sampling, ten households utilizing a skilled attendant during the birth of the youngest child were selected and matched with ten households utilizing an untrained traditional birth attendant, or dhatri. Households were selected based on a set of inclusion criteria, such as approximate household income, ethnicity, and distance to the nearest hospital. Twenty semi-structured interviews were conducted in Bangla with husbands in these households in June 2010. Interviews were transcribed, translated into English, and analyzed using NVivo 9.0. Results By purposefully selecting households that differed on the type of provider utilized during delivery, common themes--high costs, poor transportation, and long distances to health facilities--were eliminated as sufficient barriers to the utilization of professional delivery care. Divergent themes, namely husbands' social support and perceived social norms, were identified as underlying factors associated with delivery care utilization. We found that husbands whose wives utilized professional delivery care provided emotional, instrumental and informational support to their wives during delivery and believed that medical intervention was necessary. By contrast, husbands whose wives utilized an untrained dhatri at home were uninvolved during delivery and believed childbirth should take place at home according to local traditions. Conclusions This study provides novel evidence about male involvement during childbirth in rural Bangladesh. These findings have important implications for program planners, who should pursue culturally sensitive ways to involve husbands in maternal health interventions and assess the effectiveness of education strategies targeted at husbands.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/112942/1/12884_2011_Article_487.pd

Impact of design and operating parameters on the thermal performance of heat pipes:A review

The goal of this research is to review how different technologies have affected heat pipes' thermal performance and critically evaluate the progress that has been made in this area. Heat pipe's thermal efficiency has been greatly improved because of the implementation of novel approaches proposed by some researchers. Manufacturing various forms of grooves, inner surface treatment, manufacturing different types of fins, using embedded heat pipes, producing rough inner surfaces, utilizing nanofluid as a working fluid, using a non-condensable gas, etc. are some of the primary ways mentioned and examined. Researchers in this field have found that heat pipe efficiency might be improved by the use of the aforementioned strategies; however, some of these approaches have practical limitations. These researchers have a good understanding of how to optimize the change settings for the best optimization outcomes and can help us choose which technique to use in a particular scenario. This paper presents an experimental and numerical review of studies related to the behavior of heat pipes to understand how they affect thermal performance through a change in configuration, structure, design, and operating parameters. “Overall, the results of the published works show that the improving of the efficiency of the heat pipes by applying different techniques: 1) enhancement of the design parameters (like filling ratio, tilt angle, type of working fluids, and dimensions of the heat pipes), 2) modified configurations (like inserts fins, grooved, by-pass line between evaporator and condenser, roughness of the inner surface, utilized tiny pillars, corrugated configuration portion in the evaporator, and adding a vortex alternator), 3) using different nano-fluids as working fluids, and 4) hybrid heat pipes is (31.8–75%), (12.4%−35.5%), (16–87.2%), and (53% −86.7%), respectively.

Impact of design and operating parameters on the thermal performance of heat pipes:A review

The goal of this research is to review how different technologies have affected heat pipes' thermal performance and critically evaluate the progress that has been made in this area. Heat pipe's thermal efficiency has been greatly improved because of the implementation of novel approaches proposed by some researchers. Manufacturing various forms of grooves, inner surface treatment, manufacturing different types of fins, using embedded heat pipes, producing rough inner surfaces, utilizing nanofluid as a working fluid, using a non-condensable gas, etc. are some of the primary ways mentioned and examined. Researchers in this field have found that heat pipe efficiency might be improved by the use of the aforementioned strategies; however, some of these approaches have practical limitations. These researchers have a good understanding of how to optimize the change settings for the best optimization outcomes and can help us choose which technique to use in a particular scenario. This paper presents an experimental and numerical review of studies related to the behavior of heat pipes to understand how they affect thermal performance through a change in configuration, structure, design, and operating parameters. “Overall, the results of the published works show that the improving of the efficiency of the heat pipes by applying different techniques: 1) enhancement of the design parameters (like filling ratio, tilt angle, type of working fluids, and dimensions of the heat pipes), 2) modified configurations (like inserts fins, grooved, by-pass line between evaporator and condenser, roughness of the inner surface, utilized tiny pillars, corrugated configuration portion in the evaporator, and adding a vortex alternator), 3) using different nano-fluids as working fluids, and 4) hybrid heat pipes is (31.8–75%), (12.4%−35.5%), (16–87.2%), and (53% −86.7%), respectively.

Validating the Measurement of Social Capital in Bangladesh: A Cognitive Approach

Despite the growing evidence linking social capital to improvements in health and health behaviors, reliable measures of social capital are lacking in low-income countries. To accurately measure social capital in new contexts, there is a need to validate social capital survey questions in each new cultural setting. In this article we examine the content validity of the measurement of social capital in Bangladesh using qualitative methods. In December 2012, we conducted four focus group discussions and 32 cognitive interviews in one rural subdistrict (Durgapur) and one urban slum (Mirpur). We used the findings from the focus groups and cognitive interviews to create a new social capital survey instrument that can be used by health and development organizations in Bangladesh. Furthermore, in this article we provide insight into social capital survey research in general, including suggestions for the measurement of group membership, social support, collective action, and social trust

Thermodynamics and Kinetics of Inhibition of Aluminum in Hydrochloric Acid by Date Palm Leaf Extract

The corrosion behavior of commercial aluminum in HCl was investigated by gravimetric method in absence and presence of date palm leaf extract (DPLE) as inhibitor. Corrosion rates in absence of extract ranged from 2.4-8.0 mg/cm2/h in the temperature range 20- 50\ubaC but decreased down to 0.30-2.6 mg/cm2/h in presence of the inhibitor. Hot-water extract of date palm leaves has shown inhibition efficiency (IE) of 40- 88% at the tested conditions. IE was found to increase with increasing inhibitor concentration from 0.2 to 0.6 g/L and decrease as temperature increased. Data showed that Langmuir adsorption isotherm represents surface coverage versus extract concentration data indicating that inhibition is due to monolayer adsorption of extract components on aluminum surface. Low activation energy and enthalpy values support physical adsorption mechanism. SEM-EDS microanalysis of aluminum surface supported the inhibitive effect of the extract at the metal surface

First Comprehensive In Silico

GalNAc-T1, a key candidate of GalNac-transferases genes family that is involved in mucin-type O-linked glycosylation pathway, is expressed in most biological tissues and cell types. Despite the reported association of GalNAc-T1 gene mutations with human disease susceptibility, the comprehensive computational analysis of coding, noncoding and regulatory SNPs, and their functional impacts on protein level, still remains unknown. Therefore, sequence- and structure-based computational tools were employed to screen the entire listed coding SNPs of GalNAc-T1 gene in order to identify and characterize them. Our concordant in silico analysis by SIFT, PolyPhen-2, PANTHER-cSNP, and SNPeffect tools, identified the potential nsSNPs (S143P, G258V, and Y414D variants) from 18 nsSNPs of GalNAc-T1. Additionally, 2 regulatory SNPs (rs72964406 and #x26; rs34304568) were also identified in GalNAc-T1 by using FastSNP tool. Using multiple computational approaches, we have systematically classified the functional mutations in regulatory and coding regions that can modify expression and function of GalNAc-T1 enzyme. These genetic variants can further assist in better understanding the wide range of disease susceptibility associated with the mucin-based cell signalling and pathogenic binding, and may help to develop novel therapeutic elements for associated diseases