Search results for: medical equipment remanufacture

Authors: Saeed Alshahri

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Introduction: Our study aims to estimate the characteristics & causes of TSCI at King Fahad Medical City (KFMC) in Riyadh city in order to hypothesize strategy for primary prevention of traumatic spinal cord injury. Method: Cross-sectional, retrospective study was conducted on all TSCI patients who aged 14 and above and who were admitted to rehabilitation center of King Fahad Medical City from January 2012 to December 2015. Furthermore, a descriptive analysis was conducted while considering factors including age, gender, marital status, educational level and causes of injury and characteristics of injury. Results: Total of 216 patients were admitted during this period, mean age was 28.94, majority of patients were male (86.5%), 71.7% of total patients were high school level of education or less, 68% were single, RTA was the main cause with 90.7% and the main result of TSCI was complete paraplegia 37%. Furthermore, statistically, we found that males are at a low risk of having incomplete paraplegia compared to female (p = 0.035, RRR=0.35). Conclusion: The rate of TSCI related to RTA has increased in Saudi Arabia in previous years despite the government’s efforts to decrease RTA. It’s clear that we need TSCI registry data developed on the basis of international data standards to have a clear idea about the exact etiology of TSCI in Saudi Arabia. This will assist in planning for primary prevention.

Keywords: traumatic spinal cord injury, road traffic accident, Saudi Arabia, spinal cord injury

Procedia PDF Downloads 347

Authors: Shuja Alharbi

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Oil and Gas industry has many applications considered as toxic or hazardous, where process fluid leakage is not permitted and leads to health, safety, and environmental impacts. Caustic/Acidic applications, High Benzene Concentrations, Hydrogen sulfide rich oil/gas as well as liquids operating above their auto-ignition temperatures are examples of such liquids that pose as a risk to the industry operation, and for those, special arrangements are in place to allow for the safe operation environment. Pumps in the industry requires special attention, specifically in the interface between the fluid and the environment, where the potential of leakages are foreseen. Mechanical Seals are used to contain the fluid within the equipment, but the prices are ever increasing for such seals, along with maintenance, design, and operating requirements. Several alternatives to seals are being employed nowadays, such as Sealless systems, which is hermitically sealed from the atmosphere and does not require sealing. This technology is considered relatively new and requires more studies to understand the limitations and factors associated from an owner and design perspective. Things like financial factors, maintenance factors, and design limitation should be studies further in order to have a mature and reliable technical solution available to end users.

Keywords: pump, sealless, selection, failure

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Authors: Thomas Ejobowah Boye, Philip Oghenetega Ekpon

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The paper examines the availability and the utilization of recreational facilities for prison inmate’s rehabilitation in Nigeria. In order to carry out the study the researchers visited sampled prisons in the six geo-political zones in Nigeria. Instant assessment of available recreational facilities was carried out. Inmates were asked to tick a self-design questionnaire that was validated by experts in the Departments of Physical and Health Education, Delta State University and the College of Physical Education, Mosogar on available recreational facilities and activities engaged in by them. The data collected was subjected to percentage analysis. The study revealed that there is little or no standard recreational facilities in all the prisons visited. Considering the role physical activities play in the overall development of individuals physically, mentally, emotionally, morally, and socially it was recommended that the authorities of the Nigerian prisons should as a matter of urgency include recreational activities as a means of reforming and rehabilitating prison inmates. To achieve the desire to rehabilitate prison inmates the researchers also recommended that facilities and equipment should be made available in all prisons in Nigeria.

Keywords: facility, prison, recreation, rehabilitation

Procedia PDF Downloads 598

Authors: Sanjay Adhikesaven

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Workplace accidents are a critical problem that causes many deaths, injuries, and financial losses. Climate change has a severe impact on industrial workers, partially caused by global warming. To reduce such casualties, it is important to proactively find unsafe environments where injuries could occur by detecting the use of personal protective equipment (PPE) and identifying unsafe activities. Thus, we propose an industrial workplace alerting and monitoring platform to detect PPE use and classify unsafe activity in group settings involving multiple humans and objects over a long period of time. Our proposed method is the first to analyze prolonged actions involving multiple people or objects. It benefits from combining pose estimation with PPE detection in one platform. Additionally, we propose the first open-source annotated data set with video data from industrial workplaces annotated with the action classifications and detected PPE. The proposed system can be implemented within the surveillance cameras already present in industrial settings, making it a practical and effective solution.

Keywords: computer vision, deep learning, workplace safety, automation

Procedia PDF Downloads 103

Authors: Manganyi Patricia Siphiwe

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Work environments are characterised by performance pressure and mechanisation, which lead to job stress and the dehumanisation of work spaces. The personnel’s competence to accomplish job responsibilities and high job demands lead to a substantial load of health. Therefore, providing employees with conducive working environments is essential. In order to attain it, the employer should ensure that responsive and institutional safe systems are in place. The employer’s responses to employees’ needs are of significance to a healthy and developmental work environment. Denying employees a developmental and flourishing workplace is to deprive a workplace of being humane. Stressors coming from various aspects in the workplace can yield undue pressure and undesired responses for the workforces. Against the profiled background, this paper examines the causes and consequences of workplace stress within the Emergency Medical sector. The paper utilised a qualitative methodology and in-depth interviews for data collection with the purposively sampled emergency medical personnel. The findings showed that workplace stress has been associated with high demands and lack of support which has an adverse effect on biopsychosocial wellbeing of employees. This paper, therefore, recommends an engaged involvement of social workers through work organisational initiatives, such as Employee Assistance Programmes (EAP) and related labour relations policy activities to promote positive and developmental working environments.

Keywords: stress, employee, workplace, wellbeing

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Authors: Dimitar Karastoyanov, Todor Penchev

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The paper presents the research of a kind of autonomous mobile robots, intended for work and adaptive perception in unknown and unstructured environment. The objective are robots, dedicated for multi-sensory environment perception and exploration, like measurements and samples taking, discovering and putting a mark on the objects as well as environment interactions–transportation, carrying in and out of equipment and objects. At that ground classification of the different types mobile robots in accordance with the way of locomotion (wheel- or chain-driven, walking, etc.), used drive mechanisms, kind of sensors, end effectors, area of application, etc. is made. Modular system for the mechanical construction of the mobile robots is proposed. Special PLC on the base of AtMega128 processor for robot control is developed. Electronic modules for the wireless communication on the base of Jennic processor as well as the specific software are developed. The methods, means and algorithms for adaptive environment behaviour and tasks realization are examined. The methods of group control of mobile robots and for suspicious objects detecting and handling are discussed too.

Keywords: mobile robots, wireless communications, environment investigations, group control, suspicious objects

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Authors: Abdesselam Babouri, Ahcène Lemzadmi, M Rahmane, B. Belhadi, N. Abouchi

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Medical monitoring aims at monitoring and remotely controlling the vital physiological parameters of the patient. The physiological sensors provide repetitive measurements of these parameters in the form of electrical signals that vary continuously over time. Various measures allow informing us about the health of the person's physiological data (weight, blood pressure, heart rate or specific to a disease), environmental conditions (temperature, humidity, light, noise level) and displacement and movements (physical efforts and the completion of major daily living activities). The collected data will allow monitoring the patient’s condition and alerting in case of modification. They are also used in the diagnosis and decision making on medical treatment and the health of the patient. This work presents the implementation of a monitoring system to be used for the control of physiological parameters.

Keywords: clinical monitoring, physiological parameters, biomedical sensors, personal health

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Authors: Jan C. Droste, Justine Burns, Nithin Narayan

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Introduction: Life-threatening detrimental effects of inappropriate adrenaline (epinephrine) administration, e.g., by giving the wrong dose, in the context of anaphylaxis management is well documented in the medical literature. Half of the fatal anaphylactic reactions in the UK are iatrogenic, and the median time to a cardio-respiratory arrest can be as short as 5 minutes. It is therefore imperative that hospital doctors of all grades have active and accurate knowledge of the correct route, site, and dosage of administration of adrenaline. Given this time constraint and the potential fatal outcome with inappropriate management of anaphylaxis, it is alarming that surveys over the last 15 years have repeatedly shown only a minority of doctors to have accurate knowledge of adrenaline administration as recommended by the UK Resuscitation Council guidelines (2008 updated 2012). This comparison of survey results of the medical workforce over several years in a small NHS District General Hospital was conducted in order to establish the effect of the employment of multiple educational methods regarding adrenaline administration in anaphylaxis in adults. Methods: Between 2010 and 2017, several education methods and tools were used to repeatedly inform the medical workforce (doctors and advanced clinical practitioners) in a single district general hospital regarding the treatment of anaphylaxis in adults. Whilst the senior staff remained largely the same cohort, junior staff had changed fully in every survey. Examples included: (i) Formal teaching -in Grand Rounds; during the junior doctors’ induction process; advanced life support courses (ii) In-situ simulation training performed by the clinical skills simulation team –several ad hoc sessions and one 3-day event in 2017 visiting 16 separate clinical areas performing an acute anaphylaxis scenario using actors- around 100 individuals from multi-disciplinary teams were involved (iii) Hospital-wide distribution of the simulation event via the Trust’s Simulation Newsletter (iv) Laminated algorithms were attached to the 'crash trolleys' (v) A short email 'alert' was sent to all medical staff 3 weeks prior to the survey detailing the emergency treatment of anaphylaxis (vi) In addition, the performance of the surveys themselves represented a teaching opportunity when gaps in knowledge could be addressed. Face to face surveys were carried out in 2010 ('pre-intervention), 2015, and 2017, in the latter two occasions including advanced clinical practitioners (ACP). All surveys consisted of convenience samples. If verbal consent to conduct the survey was obtained, the medical practitioners' answers were recorded immediately on a data collection sheet. Results: There was a sustained improvement in the knowledge of the medical workforce from 2010 to 2017: Answers improved regarding correct drug by 11% (84%, 95%, and 95%); the correct route by 20% (76%, 90%, and 96%); correct site by 40% (43%, 83%, and 83%) and the correct dose by 45% (27%, 54%, and 72%). Overall, knowledge of all components -correct drug, route, site, and dose-improved from 13% in 2010 to 62% in 2017. Conclusion: This survey comparison shows knowledge of the medical workforce regarding adrenaline administration for treatment of anaphylaxis in adults can be considerably improved by employing a variety of educational methods.

Keywords: adrenaline, anaphylaxis, epinephrine, medical education, patient safety

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Authors: M. Hadavi, Z. Hashemi

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Learning strategies play an important role in the development of language skills. Vocabulary learning strategies as the backbone of these strategies have become a major part of English language teaching. This study is a comparative analysis of Vocabulary Learning Strategies (VLS) use and preference among freshmen and senior EFL medical sciences students with different fields of study. 449 students (236 freshman and 213 seniors) participated in the study. 64.6% were female and 35.4% were male. The instrument utilized in this research was a questionnaire consisting of 41 items related to the students’ approach to vocabulary learning. The items were classified under eight sections as dictionary strategies, guessing strategies, study preferences, memory strategies, autonomy, note- taking strategies, selective attention, and social strategies. The participants were asked to answer each item with a 5-point Likert-style frequency scale as follows:1) I never or almost never do this, 2) I don’t usually do this, 3) I sometimes do this, 4) I usually do this, and 5)I always or almost always do this. The results indicated that freshmen students and particularly surgical technology students used more strategies compared to the seniors. Overall guessing and dictionary strategies were the most frequently used strategies among all the learners (p=0/000). The mean and standard deviation of using VLS in the students who had no previous history of participating in the private English language classes was less than the students who had attended these type of classes (p=0/000). Female students tended to use social and study preference strategies whereas male students used mostly guessing and dictionary strategies. It can be concluded that the senior students under instruction from the university have learned to rely on themselves and choose the autonomous strategies more, while freshmen students use more strategies that are related to the study preferences.

Keywords: vocabulary leaning strategies, medical sciences, students, linguistics

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Authors: Naeemeh Silvari

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The tourism industry is important for different nations in two ways. Apart from economic benefits, it provides a basis for getting acquainted with the culture of different regions of the world. Depending on the capacities and contexts of their geography, countries try to attract more people to their country in different ways. Health tourism has been an important branch of the tourism industry in recent years, and many countries around the world are trying to make progress in this field and attract many tourists from around the world. Iran, like many developing countries in the Middle East and East Asia, is trying to improve and develop tourist attractions in the field of health. Due to the cheapness of providing medical services to tourists, many people have traveled to Iran for medical and health care. However, there is a long way to go before recognizing and reaching the desired position in this field. Due to the direct relationship between tourism and culture, the negative attitude towards the context of Iran has caused foreign travelers not to choose this country as their tourist destination. In this article, we tried to study the change in their attitude towards Iran by using semi-structured interviews of foreign travelers who traveled to Iran for treatment and medical services. The text of the interviews was coded and analyzed by MAX QDA software. Many of the people in the sample were from Middle Eastern and Arabic-speaking countries. Influenced by the media, they felt rejected by the Iranians before the trip. During their stay in Iran and in connection with the health care staff, in the first stage, they pointed out that many of their anxieties about the kind of treatment of Iranians have been allayed. In addition to the satisfaction with the medical services provided, they considered the atmosphere of Iranians' interaction with foreign travelers to be relatively appropriate, and some stated that Iran would be the destination of their leisure trip in the future. At the end of the research, policymakers were suggested that in order to resolve cultural contradictions rooted in values, they should first be recognized and seek to use other opportunities to resolve contradictions and form interactions with other cultures.

Keywords: cultural conflict, health tourism, cultural prejudice, advertising and media

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Authors: Shir Daphna-Tekoah, Nurit Eitan-Gutman, Uri Balla

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Background: Systemic documentation is essential in social work practice. Collaboration between an institution of higher education and social work health care services enabled adaptation of the medical documentation model of SOAP in the field of social work, by creating the ISOAPS model (Introduction, Subjective, Objective, Assessment, Plan, Summary) model. Aims: The article describes the ISOAPS model and its implementation in the field of social work, as a tool for standardization of documentation and the enhancement of multidisciplinary collaboration. Methods: We examined the changes in standardization using a mixed methods study, both before and after implementation of the model. A review of social workers’ documentation was carried out by medical staff and social workers in the Clalit Healthcare Services, the largest provider of public and semi-private health services in Israel. After implementation of the model, semi-structured qualitative interviews were undertaken. Main findings: The percentage of reviewers who evaluated their documentation as correct increased from 46%, prior to implementation, to 61% after implementation. After implementation, 81% of the social workers noted that their documentation had become standardized. The training process prepared them for the change in documentation and most of them (83%) started using the model on a regular basis. The qualitative data indicate that the use of the ISOAPS model creates uniform documentation, improves standards and is important to teach social work students. Conclusions: The ISOAPS model standardizes documentation and promotes communication between social workers and medical staffs. Implications for practice: In the intricate realm of healthcare, efficient documentation systems are pivotal to ensuring coherent interdisciplinary communication and patient care. The ISOAPS model emerges as a quintessential instrument, meticulously tailored to the nuances of social work documentation. While it extends its utility across the broad spectrum of social work, its specificity is most pronounced in the medical domain. This model not only exemplifies rigorous academic and professional standards but also serves as a testament to the potential of contextualized documentation systems in elevating the overall stature of social work within healthcare. Such a strategic documentation tool can not only streamline the intricate processes inherent in medical social work but also underscore the indispensable role that social workers play in the broader healthcare ecosystem.

Keywords: ISOAPS, professional documentation, medial social-work, social work

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Authors: N. W. Paul, M. Banerjee

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Discussing the nexus between global health policy and local practices, this article addresses the recent Ebola outbreak as a role model for narrative co-constructions of epidemic risk. We will demonstrate in how far a theory-driven and methodologically rooted analysis of narrativity can help to improve mechanisms of prevention and intervention whenever epidemic risk needs to be addressed locally in order to contribute to global health. Analyzing the narrative transformation of Ebola, we will also address issues of transcultural problem-solving and of normative questions at stake. In this regard, we seek to contribute to a better understanding of a key question of global health and justice as well as to the underlying ethical questions. By highlighting and analyzing the functions of narratives, this paper provides a translational approach to refine our practices by which we address epidemic risk, be it on the national, the transnational or the global scale.

Keywords: ebola, epidemic risk, medical ethics, medical humanities

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Authors: P. Vosynek, T. Návrat, M. Peč, J. Pořízka, P. Diviš

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Changes of mechanical properties and response behavior of bones is an important external sign of medical problems like osteoporosis, bone remodeling after fracture or surgery, osteointegration, or bone tissue loss of astronauts in space. Measuring of mechanical behavior of bones in physiological and osteoporotic states, quantified by different degrees of protein (collagen) and mineral loss, is thus an important topic in biomechanical research. This contribution deals with the relation between mechanical properties of the turkey long bone–tibia in physiological, demineralized, and deproteinized state. Three methods for comparison were used: densitometry, three point bending and harmonic response analysis. The results help to find correlations between the methods and estimate their possible application in medical practice.

Keywords: bone properties, long bone, osteoporosis, response behavior

Procedia PDF Downloads 483

Authors: Yu-Lin Shen, Ming-Kuen Chang

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In addition to a considerable amount of machinery and equipment, intricacies of the transmission pipeline exist in Petrochemical plants. Long term corrosion may lead to pipeline thinning and rupture, causing serious safety concerns. With the advances in non-destructive testing technology, more rapid and long-range ultrasonic detection techniques are often used for pipeline inspection, EMAT without coupling to detect, it is a non-contact ultrasonic, suitable for detecting elevated temperature or roughened e surface of line. In this study, we prepared artificial defects in pipeline for Electromagnetic Acoustic Transducer testing (EMAT) to survey the relationship between the defect location, sizing and the EMAT signal. It was found that the signal amplitude of EMAT exhibited greater signal attenuation with larger defect depth and length. In addition, with bigger flat hole diameter, greater amplitude attenuation was obtained. In summary, signal amplitude attenuation of EMAT was affected by the defect depth, defect length and the hole diameter and size.

Keywords: EMAT, artificial defect, NDT, ultrasonic testing

Procedia PDF Downloads 350

Authors: Olawale Johnson

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The cry and agitation for the creation of equal opportunities is one of the major reasons behind the social menace countries of the world experience. As the poor, continue to demand for the dividends of economic growth, countries of the world are in a state of dilemma because, despite impressive growth figures, the poor are still far below the empowerment line. However, evidence from the Asian Tigers has proven that with the adoption and efficient utilization of information technology, a growth miracle is not far-fetched. With the mind-boggling pace of technological innovation, the need to ensure that the innovative products are all connected has become vital. Technologies that did not exist a few years ago have become vital equipment used to underlie every aspect of our economy from medicine to banking to sports. The need to connect things sensors, actuators and smart systems with the aim of ensuring person-to-object, object-to-object communications has promoted the need of internet of things. As developing countries struggle with delivering inclusiveness, the Internet of Everything is perceived to be the miracle that will deliver this in no time. This paper examines how the Asian Tigers have been able to promote inclusive growth through the Internet of Everything.

Keywords: inclusive growth, internet of everything, innovation, embedded systems and smart technologies

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Authors: Javier Sedano-Cibrián, Julio Manuel de Luis-Ruiz, Rubén Pérez-Álvarez, Raúl Pereda-García, Beatriz Malagón-Picón

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Structural inspection activities are necessary to ensure the correct functioning of infrastructures. Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) techniques have become more popular than traditional techniques. Specifically, UAV Photogrammetry allows time and cost savings. The development of this technology has permitted the use of low-cost thermal sensors in UAVs. The representation of 3D thermal models with this type of equipment is in continuous evolution. The direct processing of thermal images usually leads to errors and inaccurate results. A methodology is proposed for the generation of 3D thermal models using dual sensors, which involves the application of visible Red-Blue-Green (RGB) and thermal images in parallel. Hence, the RGB images are used as the basis for the generation of the model geometry, and the thermal images are the source of the surface temperature information that is projected onto the model. Mining/industrial facilities representations that are obtained can be used for inspection activities.

Keywords: aerial thermography, data processing, drone, low-cost, point cloud

Procedia PDF Downloads 144

Authors: Nicholus M. Warstadt, Andres D. Mallipudi, Oluwadamilola Idowu, Joshua Rodriguez, Madison M. Hunt, Soma Pathak, Laura P. Weber

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Endotracheal intubation is a core procedure performed by emergency physicians. This procedure is a high risk, and failure results in substantial morbidity and mortality. Fiberoptic intubation (FOI) is the standard of care in difficult airway protocols, yet no widespread practice exists for training emergency medicine (EM) residents in the technical acquisition of FOI skills. Simulation on mannequins is commonly utilized to teach advanced airway techniques. As part of a program to introduce FOI into our ED, residents received hands-on training in FOI as part of our weekly resident education conference. We hypothesized that prior to the hands-on training, residents had little experience with FOI and were uncomfortable with using fiberoptic as a modality. We further hypothesized that resident comfort with FOI would increase following the training. The education intervention consisted of two hours of focused airway teaching and skills acquisition for PGY 1-4 residents. One hour was dedicated to four case-based learning stations focusing on standard, pediatric, facial trauma, and burn airways. Direct, video, and fiberoptic airway equipment were available to use at the residents’ discretion to intubate mannequins at each station. The second hour involved direct instructor supervision and immediate feedback during deliberate practice for FOI of a mannequin. Prior to the hands-on training, a pre-survey was sent via email to all EM residents at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. The pre-survey asked how many FOI residents have performed in the ED, OR, and on a mannequin. The pre-survey and a post-survey asked residents to rate their comfort with FOI on a 5-point Likert scale ("extremely uncomfortable", "somewhat uncomfortable", "neither comfortable nor uncomfortable", "somewhat comfortable", and "extremely comfortable"). The post-survey was administered on site immediately following the training. A two-sample chi-square test of independence was calculated comparing self-reported resident comfort on the pre- and post-survey (α ≤ 0.05). Thirty-six of a total of 70 residents (51.4%) completed the pre-survey. Of pre-survey respondents, 34 residents (94.4%) had performed 0, 1 resident (2.8%) had performed 1, and 1 resident (2.8%) had performed 2 FOI in the ED. Twenty-five residents (69.4%) had performed 0, 6 residents (16.7%) had performed 1, 2 residents (5.6%) had performed 2, 1 resident (2.8%) had performed 3, and 2 residents (5.6%) had performed 4 FOI in the OR. Seven residents (19.4%) had performed 0, and 16 residents (44.4%) had performed 5 or greater FOI on a mannequin. 29 residents (41.4%) attended the hands-on training, and 27 out of 29 residents (93.1%) completed the post-survey. Self-reported resident comfort with FOI significantly increased in post-survey compared to pre-survey questionnaire responses (p = 0.00034). Twenty-one of 27 residents (77.8%) report being “somewhat comfortable” or “extremely comfortable” with FOI on the post-survey, compared to 9 of 35 residents (25.8%) on the pre-survey. We show that dedicated FOI training is associated with increased learner comfort with such techniques. Further direction includes studying technical competency, skill retention, translation to direct patient care, and optimal frequency and methodology of future FOI education.

Keywords: airway, emergency medicine, fiberoptic intubation, medical simulation, skill acquisition

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Authors: Shashi Sharma, Uaday Singh, V. K. Katiyar

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Blood flow through a stenosed tube, which is of great interest to mechanical engineers as well as medical researchers. If stenosis exists in an artery, normal blood flow is disturbed. The deposition of fatty substances, cholesterol, cellular waste products in the inner lining of an artery results to plaque formation .The present study deals with a mathematical model for blood flow in constricted arteries. Blood is considered as a Newtonian, incompressible, unsteady and laminar fluid flowing in a cylindrical rigid tube along the axial direction. A time varying pressure gradient is applied in the axial direction. An analytical solution is obtained using the numerical inversion method for Laplace Transform for calculating the velocity profile of fluid as well as particles.

Keywords: blood flow, stenosis, Newtonian fluid, medical biology and genetics

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Authors: Ting Hsiang Chang, Cheng Zuo Tsai

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In recent years, sports culture dominated in Taiwan, which spurred the rapid development of the sports industry. More innovative and high-tech sporting goods were developed to provide choices for consumers. Nowadays, Taiwan has gradually entered the aging society where people pay more attention to health promotion, delay of aging and other related issues among senior. However, it is an undeniable fact that moderate exercise is a great help to delay aging. Therefore, how senior select the appropriate sporting goods, including sports shoes, sportswear, sports equipment, and even the sports brands when engaged in various kinds of sports, are explored in this research. Therefore, this study sets the reference indicators by exploring the brands of sporting goods, that senior aged 50-70 choose in a fog peak district, the Taichung City, as the subjects of study by answering a questionnaire. Also, this study offers recommendations in terms of the design, marketing or selling of sporting goods for the senior, and how owners of sports brands or related sports industries should target them.

Keywords: senior, aging, sporting goods, sports brand

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Authors: Nikhil Verma, Akshay Kant Mishra, Rishabh Rastogi, Bikarama Prasad Yadav

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Emerging fire incidents are the protuberant contributor out turning into life loss, property damage and importantly firefighters. It insinuates that a firefighting and rescue operation of the existing equipment or apparatus and their proficiency is limited, particularly in annihilating firefighting environments. The proposed methodology will help in developing a technology which can be useful in minimizing the risks and losses due to fire. In this paper, design and development of combat mini vehicle comprising of multi-purpose nozzle system is proposed which can target diverse fires simultaneously at distinct time and location. Basically, the system is semi-automated type protection system which can be manoeuvred by controller. Designing of robust vehicle based on semi-automated protection type system is consummated using SolidWorks platform. Concept of developing a robust vehicle will help to fight fires in multiple directions reducing the time required to douse multiple fires.

Keywords: fire douse vehicle, multiple fires, multi-purpose nozzle, semi-automated system

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Authors: Shilpa Murthy, Hazlina Binti Abu Bakar, Juliet Mathew, Chandrashekhar Thummala Hlly Sreerama Reddy, Pathiyil Ravi Shankar

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Simulation is defined as a technique that replaces or expands real experiences with guided experiences that interactively imitate real-world processes or systems. Simulation enables learners to train in a safe and non-threatening environment. For decades, simulation has been considered an integral part of clinical teaching and learning strategy in medical education. The several types of simulation used in medical education and the clinical environment can be applied to several models, including full-body mannequins, task trainers, standardized simulated patients, virtual or computer-generated simulation, or Hybrid simulation that can be used to facilitate learning. Simulation allows healthcare practitioners to acquire skills and experience while taking care of patient safety. The recent COVID pandemic has also led to an increase in simulation use, as there were limitations on medical student placements in hospitals and clinics. The learning is tailored according to the educational needs of students to make the learning experience more valuable. Simulation in the pre-clinical years has challenges with resource constraints, effective curricular integration, student engagement and motivation, and evidence of educational impact, to mention a few. As instructors, we may have more reliance on the use of simulation for pre-clinical students while the students’ confidence levels and perceived competence are to be evaluated. Our research question was whether the implementation of simulation-based learning positively influences preclinical medical students' confidence levels and perceived competence. This study was done to align the teaching activities with the student’s learning experience to introduce more low-fidelity simulation-based teaching sessions for pre-clinical years and to obtain students’ input into the curriculum development as part of inclusivity. The study was carried out at International Medical University, involving pre-clinical year (Medical) students who were started with low-fidelity simulation-based medical education from their first semester and were gradually introduced to medium fidelity, too. The Student Satisfaction and Self-Confidence in Learning Scale questionnaire from the National League of Nursing was employed to collect the responses. The internal consistency reliability for the survey items was tested with Cronbach’s alpha using an Excel file. IBM SPSS for Windows version 28.0 was used to analyze the data. Spearman’s rank correlation was used to analyze the correlation between students’ satisfaction and self-confidence in learning. The significance level was set at p value less than 0.05. The results from this study have prompted the researchers to undertake a larger-scale evaluation, which is currently underway. The current results show that 70% of students agreed that the teaching methods used in the simulation were helpful and effective. The sessions are dependent on the learning materials that are provided and how the facilitators engage the students and make the session more enjoyable. The feedback provided inputs on the following areas to focus on while designing simulations for pre-clinical students. There are quality learning materials, an interactive environment, motivating content, skills and knowledge of the facilitator, and effective feedback.

Keywords: low-fidelity simulation, pre-clinical simulation, students satisfaction, self-confidence

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Authors: T. Prabakaran

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Gas Insulated Substations (GIS) are widely used as important switchgear equipment because of its high reliability, low space requirement, low risk factor and easy maintenance, yet some failures have been reported. Some of the failures are due to presence of metallic particles inside the GIS compartment. The defect can be generated in GIS during production, maintenance, installation and can be due to ageing of the component. The Ultra-High Frequency (UHF) method is used to diagnose the insulation condition of GIS by detecting the PD signals in GIS. This paper identifies PD patterns for free moving particle defect and particle fixed on cone using UHF method. As insulation failure usually starts with PD activity, this paper investigates the differences in PD characteristics in SF6 gas with different types of defects. Experimental results show that correct identification of defects can be achieved based on considered PD characteristics. The method can be applied to prove the quality of assembly work at commissioning, also on a regular basis after many years in service to detect aged and conducting particles as a part of the condition based maintenance.

Keywords: gas insulated substation, partial discharge, free moving particle defect, particle fixed on cone defect, ultra high frequency method

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Authors: M. A. Salman, G. Al-Nuwaibit, M. Safar, M. Rughaibi, A. Al-Mesri

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Barium sulfate (BaSO₄) is a hard scaling usually precipitates on the surface of equipment in many industrial systems, as oil and gas production, desalination and cooling and boiler operation. It is a scale that extremely resistance to both chemical and mechanical cleaning. So, BaSO₄ is a problematic and expensive scaling. Although barium ions are present in most natural waters at a very low concentration as low as 0.008 mg/l, it could result of scaling problems in the presence of high concentration of sulfate ion or when mixing with incompatible waters as in oil produced water. The scaling potential of BaSO₄ using seawater at the intake of seven desalination plants in Kuwait, brine water and Kuwait oil produced water was calculated and compared then the best location in regards of barium sulfate scaling was reported. Finally, a physical treatment method (magnetic treatment method) and chemical treatment method were used to control BaSO₄ scaling using saturated solutions at different operating temperatures, flow velocities, feed pHs and different magnetic strengths. The results of the two methods were discussed, and the more economical one with the reasonable performance was recommended, which is the physical treatment method.

Keywords: magnetic field strength, flow velocity, retention time, barium sulfate

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Authors: Yina Donald Orga

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Osun Osogbo festival is one of the biggest art festivals in Nigeria with over 235, 518 tourist visits in 2014. The purpose of this study is to generate data on the tourists’ perception of Osun Osogbo Festival in Osogbo, Osun State Nigeria. Based on the population of 199, 860 tourist visits at Osun Osogbo festival in 2013, Krejcie and Morgan sample size table was used to select 768 tourists/respondents. Likert questionnaire were used to elicit data from the respondents. Descriptive statistic was used to describe the characteristics of respondents and analyse the tourists’ perception of the festival. The findings from data analysed suggest that the trend of domestic and international tourist visits in the past ten years for the festival had shown a consistent increase since 2004 except in 2007 and 2008 and continue to increase up to 2013. This is an indication that the tourists are satisfied with traditional, historical and authenticity features of the festival. Also, findings from the study revealed that the tourists are not satisfied with the number of toilets at Osun Sacred Grove, crowd control of visitors during the festival, medical personnel to cater for visitors during the festival, etc. In view of the findings of the study, the following recommendations are suggested; provision of more toilets at Osun Sacred grove, Osogbo Heritage Council to recruit festival guides to help control the huge crowd at the festival, the Government of State of Osun in conjunction with Red Cross Society should engage adequate medical personnel to cater for medical needs of visitors at the festival, etc.

Keywords: festival, perception, positive, tourists

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Authors: Patsara Sirikamonsin, Sathapath Kilaso

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This research aims to study the media and information demand for public relations in Salaya, Nakhonpathom. The research objectives are: 1. to research on conflicts of communication and seeking solutions and improvements of media information in Salaya, Nakhonpathom; 2. to study about opinions and demand for media information to reach out the improvements of people communications among Salaya, Nakhonpathom; 3. to explore the factors related to relationship and behaviors on obtaining media information for public relations among Salaya, Nakhonpathom. The research is conducted by questionnaire which is interpreted by statistical analysis concluding with analysis, frequency, percentage, average and standard deviations. The research results demonstrate: 1. The conflicts of communications among Salaya, Nakhonpathom are lacking equipment and technological knowledge and public relations. 2. Most people have demand on media improvements for vastly broadcasting public relations in order to nourish the social values. This research intentionally is to create the infographic media which are easily accessible, uncomplicated and popular, in the present.

Keywords: media and information, the public relation printed media, local learning resource

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Authors: ShuYing Chung, Minchuan Huang, Iping Chen

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Taking the medical staff in an emergency ward of a medical center in Central Taiwan as the research object, the questionnaire data were collected by anonymous and voluntary reporting methods with structured questionnaire to explore the actual situation, willingness and attitude of organ donation. Only 80 valid questionnaires were collected. Among the 8 questions, the average correct rate was 5.9 + 1.2, and the correct rate was 73.13%. The willingness of organ donation that 7.5% of the people are not willing; 92.5% of the people are willing, of which 62.5% have considered but have not yet decided; 21.3% are willing but have not signed the consent of organ donation; They have signed the consent of organ donation 8.7%. The average total score (standard deviation) of attitude towards organ donation was 36.2. There is no significant difference between the demographic variables and the awareness and willingness of organ donation, but there is a significant correlation between the marital status and the attitude of organ donation.

Keywords: clinical psychology, organ donation, doctors affecting psychological disorders, commitment

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Authors: Klaus Peter Scherer, Daniel Knöll, Constantin Rieder

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Problem and Purpose: Intelligent systems are available and helpful to support the human being decision process, especially when complex surgical eye interventions are necessary and must be performed. Normally, such a decision support system consists of a knowledge-based module, which is responsible for the real assistance power, given by an explanation and logical reasoning processes. The interview based acquisition and generation of the complex knowledge itself is very crucial, because there are different correlations between the complex parameters. So, in this project (semi)automated self-learning methods are researched and developed for an enhancement of the quality of such a decision support system. Methods: For ophthalmic data sets of real patients in a hospital, advanced data mining procedures seem to be very helpful. Especially subgroup analysis methods are developed, extended and used to analyze and find out the correlations and conditional dependencies between the structured patient data. After finding causal dependencies, a ranking must be performed for the generation of rule-based representations. For this, anonymous patient data are transformed into a special machine language format. The imported data are used as input for algorithms of conditioned probability methods to calculate the parameter distributions concerning a special given goal parameter. Results: In the field of knowledge discovery advanced methods and applications could be performed to produce operation and patient related correlations. So, new knowledge was generated by finding causal relations between the operational equipment, the medical instances and patient specific history by a dependency ranking process. After transformation in association rules logically based representations were available for the clinical experts to evaluate the new knowledge. The structured data sets take account of about 80 parameters as special characteristic features per patient. For different extended patient groups (100, 300, 500), as well one target value as well multi-target values were set for the subgroup analysis. So the newly generated hypotheses could be interpreted regarding the dependency or independency of patient number. Conclusions: The aim and the advantage of such a semi-automatically self-learning process are the extensions of the knowledge base by finding new parameter correlations. The discovered knowledge is transformed into association rules and serves as rule-based representation of the knowledge in the knowledge base. Even more, than one goal parameter of interest can be considered by the semi-automated learning process. With ranking procedures, the most strong premises and also conjunctive associated conditions can be found to conclude the interested goal parameter. So the knowledge, hidden in structured tables or lists can be extracted as rule-based representation. This is a real assistance power for the communication with the clinical experts.

Keywords: an expert system, knowledge-based support, ophthalmic decision support, self-learning methods

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Authors: Jui-Hung Hung, Ching-Liang Hsieh, Yi-Wen Lin

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Modern medicine highly emphasizes the importance of palliative treatment. The inception of palliative and hospice care recently developed into the concept of caring for the patients’ and families’ physical, psychological and spiritual problems. There are several benefits related to palliative care such as reducing medical expenses, decreasing patients’ suffer, and supporting patient go through the finale of the life. Nowadays, in Taiwan, over 60-70% terminal cancer patients were covered in hospice care, and the coverage rate increased annually. Acupuncture is a well-known therapy used more than thousand years to relieve symptoms of cancer patient. Many reports showed that, even in the Western society, many reputable medical centers can provide Acupuncture therapy for patients. Accordingly, using Acupuncture for cancer patient care is a global trend. There are increased evidences indicate that Acupuncture can relieve the symptoms for cancer patients including pain, reduce the dosage of anesthetic, improve the cancer-related fatigue, relieve the chemotherapy-related nausea and vomiting, ease anxiety mood and even improving the quality of life. Furthermore, some trials show that Acupuncture may help relieve xerostomia, hot flash, sleep disorders, and some GI discomfort and so on. Acupuncture therapy has many advantages for clinical use with effective, low-cost, minimal side effect, suitable for cancer patients and even for elderly population. Especially in nowadays, there are more diversified challenges in modern medicine, all of them will make the higher medical budget. We suggest that Acupuncture will be one of methods for palliative care for cancer patients.

Keywords: Acupuncture, cancer, integrative medicine, palliative care

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Authors: Santosh Kumar, M. Muralidhar

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The term ‘ergonomics’ is derived from two Greek words: ‘ergon’, meaning work and ‘nomoi’, meaning natural laws. Ergonomics is the study of how working conditions, machines and equipment can be arranged in order that people can work with them more efficiently. In this research communication an attempt has been made to study the effect of hand-arm vibrational exposure on the workers of a gear manufacturing plant by comparison of potential Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS) symptoms and effect of different exposure levels of vibration on occurrence of CTS in actual industrial environment. Chi square test and correlation analysis have been considered for statistical analysis. From Chi square test, it has been found that the potential CTS symptoms occurrence is significantly dependent on the level of vibrational exposure. Data analysis indicates that 40.51% workers having potential CTS symptoms are exposed to vibration. Correlation analysis reveals that potential CTS symptoms are significantly correlated with exposure to level of vibration from handheld tools and to repetitive wrist movements.

Keywords: CTS symptoms, hand-arm vibration, ergonomics, physical tests

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Authors: Robab Abdolkhani, Farzin Halabchi, Reza Safdari, Goli Arji

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Background and purpose: The quality of health record depends on the quality of its content and proper documentation. Minimum data set makes a standard method for collecting key data elements that make them easy to understand and enable comparison. The aim of this study was to determine the minimum data set for Iranian athletes’ health records. Methods: This study is an applied research of a descriptive comparative type which was carried out in 2013. By using internal and external forms of documentation, a checklist was created that included data elements of athletes health record and was subjected to debate in Delphi method by experts in the field of sports medicine and health information management. Results: From 97 elements which were subjected to discussion, 85 elements by more than 75 percent of the participants (as the main elements) and 12 elements by 50 to 75 percent of the participants (as the proposed elements) were agreed upon. In about 97 elements of the case, there was no significant difference between responses of alumni groups of sport pathology and sports medicine specialists with medical record, medical informatics and information management professionals. Conclusion: Minimum data set of Iranian athletes’ health record with four information categories including demographic information, health history, assessment and treatment plan was presented. The proposed model is available for manual and electronic medical records.

Keywords: Documentation, Health record, Minimum data set, Sports medicine

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