Benchmarking of the Current Solid Waste Management System in Karbala, Iraq, Using Wasteaware Benchmark Indicators

Solid waste management (SWM) poses severe problems to the authorities of the city of Kerbala, one of the main tourism centres in Iraq. Due to the city’s limited funds, it is crucial to evaluate the priorities for improvements in SWM services to tackle this problem efficiently. This paper employed Wasteaware benchmark indicators for integrated and sustainable solid waste management to evaluate the city SWM system performance. The data used in this evaluation was collected by in-depth interviews with the management authorities and field observations over two months in 2016. The outcomes showed that the SWM system in the city is weak. It therefore requires several improvements in physical infrastructure and management. Disposal and recycling were the highest priority to be improved among SWM physical components. While, in the management, the authority should have clear strategy for SWM and stakeholders such as public, private waste sector, and informal waste collectors should be included in SWM planning to improve the management services. This study can provide a starting point for the city authorities to prioritise their actions to improve the current SWM system

Investigating municipal solid waste management system performance during the Arba’een event in the city of Kerbala, Iraq

Every year, many religious events attended by 300 million pilgrims take place in many holy cities and sites around the world. However, research on municipal solid waste is limited despite the reputation of religious events to generate substantial amounts of waste. This research aims to address this gap and contribute to new knowledge on municipal solid waste management at religious events by investigating and evaluating the municipal solid waste management system applied at the Arba’een event in Kerbala, one of the largest religious events in Iraq. Field observations and in-depth interviews with nine senior managers from Kerbala’s municipalities were conducted during the event in 2016, to develop an overall picture of the municipal solid waste management system applied during the event. The data were analysed using thematic analysis and fed to the ‘Wasteaware’ benchmark indicators framework to evaluate the performance of the event system. The results indicated that the system suffers from operational and governance weaknesses. Despite a focus on municipal solid waste collection and transportation, the collection coverage is only ~ 70%. There is no controlled landfill site in Kerbala. It is estimated that currently ~ 5% of the event municipal solid waste is recycled by informal recyclers: there is no formal recycling scheme. Kerbala does not perform well regarding governance. The inclusivity of providers and users of the municipal solid waste management services is minimal during the event, as the majority of stakeholders are not included in decision-making processes. Municipal solid waste management services are delivered free of charge, thus significantly influencing the financial sustainability of the system. This study recommends that MSW recycling should be encouraged through integrating the informal sector, improving public awareness and introducing a formal recycling scheme to make the event municipal solid waste management system effective and financially sustainable

Public participation in solid waste management during mega festivals: A pilot study

Large festivals with over 50,000 participants have become a customary but hardly investigated practice in many countries across the world. Festivals management is increasingly being complicated because of their negative consequences such as solid waste accumulation and the destruction to the hosting city attractions. Recycling is an important process to reduce the negative consequences of the waste which public plays an extremely important role regarding its success. Therefore, this study is dedicated to explore campers’ environmental awareness and willingness to participate in the solid waste source separation during mega festivals in Kerbala city, Iraq. The outcome of a structured questionnaire survey completed by 20 camps’ managers during one mega festival showed low environmental awareness among the participants. On the other hand, the majority of the campers were willing to separate their wastes during mega festivals. These results can be invested in establishing a base for implementing a recycling scheme during such festivals

Generating and Adding Flows on Locally Complete Metric Spaces

As a generalization of a vector field on a manifold, the notion of an arc field on a locally complete metric space was introduced in \cite{BC}. In that paper, the authors proved an analogue of the Cauchy-Lipschitz Theorem i.e they showed the existence and uniqueness of solution curves for a time independent arc field. In this paper, we extend the result to the time dependent case, namely we show the existence and uniqueness of solution curves for a time dependent arc field. We also introduce the notion of the sum of two time dependent arc fields and show existence and uniqueness of solution curves for this sum.Comment: 29 pages,6 figure

Estimating solid waste generation by hospitality industry during major festivals: a quantification model based on multiple regression

Mega-religious festivals hosted in the city of Kerbala, Iraq, annually generate huge quantities of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) which negatively impacts the environment and human health when poorly managed. The hospitality sector, specifically hotels, is one of the major sources of MSW generated during these festivals. Because it is essential to establish a proper waste management system for such festivals, accurate information regarding MSW generation is required. This study therefore investigated the rate of production of MSW from hotels in Kerbala during mega festivals. A field questionnaire survey was conducted with 150 hotels during the Arba’een festival, one of the largest festivals in the world, attended by about 18 million participants, to identify how much MSW is produced and what features of hotels impact on this. Hotel managers responded to questions regarding features of the hotel such as size (Hs), expenditure (Hex), area (Ha) and number of staff (Hst). An on-site audit was also carried out with all participated hotels to estimate the mass of MSW generated from these hotels. The results indicate that MSW produced by hotels varies widely. In general, it was found that each hotel guest produces an estimated 0.89 kg of MSW per day. However, this figure varies according to the hotels’ rating. Average rates of MSW production from two and five star hotels were 0.83 and 1.22 kg per guest per day, respectively. Statistically, it was found that the relationship between MSW production and hotel features can be modelled with an R2 of 0.799, where the influence of hotel feature on MSW production followed the order Hs > Hex > Hst

Cadaveric renal transplantation using kidneys from donors greater than 60 years old

Transplantation of kidneys from donors over the age of 60 yr is controversial. However, as the demand for cadaveric kidneys far exceeds the supply, exploration of the usefulness of kidneys outside the currently accepted donor pool is necessary. Between January 1987 and July 1989, 31 (5.5%) of the 558 cadaveric renal transplants performed at the University of Pittsburgh utilized organs from donors older than 60 yr. Median recipient age was 41 yr (range 24-71 yr); 4 recipients were diabetic and 6 had panel-reactive antibody levels greater than 20% at the time of transplant. All recipients were treated with cyclosporine, prednisone and azathioprine. The 1-yr allograft survival was 65% which was less than but not statistically different from the graft survival of 80% in a retrospective selected control group who received grafts from younger donors aged 11 to 50 yr. However, the 1-yr graft survival of older donor kidneys with cold ischemia time greater than 48 hours was 38%, which was significantly poorer than the 78% 1-yr graft survival seen with cold ischemia times less than 48 h (p=0.04 Breslow). The mean serum creatinine was significantly higher in the older donor kidneys at 1, 3, and 12 months post-transplant than in the control kidneys even when kidneys with greater than 48 h of cold ischemia time were excluded. In summary, transplantation of cadaver kidneys from donors older than 60 yr results in acceptable graft survival rates. These kidneys are more susceptible to cold ischemic injury and function with a higher serum creatinine than kidneys from younger donors. Expansion of the donor pool by the use of older donor kidneys in selected recipients could have an impact on alleviating the chronic national cadaver kidney shortage

Hoteliers’ attitude towards solid waste source separation through mega festivals: A pilot study in Karbala

Management of solid waste generated from religious gathering has been, until now, the topic of few studies. This is confusing as the religious festivals are significant Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) generators and, in the same time, mismanagement of the generated MSW can cause grave threats to the environment. Source separation is an effective method to minimize the amount of the generated waste where the community plays a vital part about its success. This paper aims to identify hotels managers’ attitude and readiness to be part in a proposed MSW source separation plan during mega events in the city of Kerbala, Iraq. This is done using a pilot survey conducted with 29 hotel managers’ during one religious festival. Mixed method approach with the assistance of questionnaire was employed for collecting data about hoteliers waste management awareness and willingness to practise source separation. The result indicates that, although the majority of the hoteliers have low awareness about MSW management subjects, (65.5 %) were willing to practice MSW source separation. In addition, the hoteliers suggest that developing waste storage system by providing recycling bins will encourage pilgrims to practice source separation. Thus, Kerbala MSW management authority can use the result of this study to implement MSW source separation program during religious events

The Effect of Transposable Element Insertions on Gene Expression Evolution in Rodents

Background:Many genomes contain a substantial number of transposable elements (TEs), a few of which are known to be involved in regulating gene expression. However, recent observations suggest that TEs may have played a very important role in the evolution of gene expression because many conserved non-genic sequences, some of which are know to be involved in gene regulation, resemble TEs. Results:Here we investigate whether new TE insertions affect gene expression profiles by testing whether gene expression divergence between mouse and rat is correlated to the numbers of new transposable elements inserted near genes. We show that expression divergence is significantly correlated to the number of new LTR and SINE elements, but not to the numbers of LINEs. We also show that expression divergence is not significantly correlated to the numbers of ancestral TEs in most cases, which suggests that the correlations between expression divergence and the numbers of new TEs are causal in nature. We quantify the effect and estimate that TE insertion has accounted for ~20% (95% confidence interval: 12% to 26%) of all expression profile divergence in rodents. Conclusions:We conclude that TE insertions may have had a major impact on the evolution of gene expression levels in rodents

The development of a waste management system in Kerbala during major pilgrimage events: determination of solid waste composition

Several religious events take place annually in Kerbala, Iraq, attracting approximately 20 million pilgrims. Consequently, huge amounts of solid waste are generated which have a direct effect on both the environment and human health. The management of such waste poses a serious and complex problem for the city authorities. Therefore, establishing accurate and reliable information about this issue is valuable in terms of waste management planning and resource recovery application. The aim of this study is to analyze the composition of said solid waste during these religious events. To achieve this goal, a field investigation was conducted at three temporary transfer stations, over 10 days, during one event in Kerbala. Sampling and data analysis were carried out based on the ASTM D5231-92 (2003) standard method. Sixty samples of unprocessed solid waste were collected and manually sorted into six different categories: organics, plastics, paper, metals, glass and miscellaneous wastes. The results show that organic waste constituted the main waste category (57%) with paper, plastics and miscellaneous at 15%, 14.6% and 6.5%, respectively. These findings indicate that because of the high percentage of food waste, there exists a strong potential for energy generation or composting. In addition, plastics, papers, metals and glass have the potential to be separated and collected for recycling purposes. These results can be taken as a baseline for developing a successful waste management system in Kerbala city and other cities that have similar major pilgrimage events

Nonhospice Palliative Care Within the Treatment of End‐Stage Liver Disease

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/155544/1/hep31226.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/155544/2/hep31226_am.pd