Comprehensive scoping review of palliative care development in Africa: recent advances and persistent gaps.

Worldwide 56·8 million people need palliative care (PC), and Africa shows the highest demand. This study updates the 2017 review of African PC development, using a scoping review methodology based on Arksey and O'Malley's framework and the PRISMA-ScR checklist. The review was conducted across PUBMED, CINAHL, Embase, government websites, and the African PC Association Atlas, from 2017 to 2023, charting its progress using the new WHO framework for PC Development, which, in addition to Services, Education, Medicines, and Policies, two new dimensions were incorporated: Research and Empowerment of people and Communities.

Implementing the WHO Indicators for Assessing Palliative Care Development in Three Countries: A Do-It-Yourself Approach.

Context: Palliative care is an essential health service, with over 56.8 million people needing it yearly, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. The World Health Assembly has recognized palliative care as an ethical responsibility and called for comprehensive primary health care.

From static snapshots to dynamic panoramas: the evolution and future vision of palliative care atlas in cross-national perspectives.

Palliative care is essential to global health services as it improves the quality of life of patients, their families and caregivers. The ATLANTES Global Observatory of Palliative Care (University of Navarra) was created a decade ago to promote a positive attitude towards patients with advanced illness in society and medicine. To do so, and over the past 15 years, ATLANTES has mapped palliative care data worldwide using public health, macro and comparative perspectives in different atlases.

Enhancing Global Development of Palliative Care: Insights from Country Experts on ATLANTES Observatory's Role.

Despite a steady increase in palliative care (PC)-oriented research, authentic engagement of stakeholders with findings needs to be more used. This study aimed to explore how ATLANTES Observatory can effectively promote the global development of PC by engaging with stakeholders and addressing their specific needs and priorities. An international e-survey among Observatory collaborators explored key audiences, best ways to reach them, and priority activities.

Proton Conductivity through Polybenzimidazole Composite Membranes Containing Silica Nanofiber Mats.

The quest for sustainable and more efficient energy-converting devices has been the focus of researchers' efforts in the past decades. In this study, SiO nanofiber mats were fabricated through an electrospinning process and later functionalized using silane chemistry to introduce different polar groups -OH (neutral), -SOH (acidic) and -NH (basic). The modified nanofiber mats were embedded in PBI to fabricate mixed matrix membranes.

Ionic Liquid Composite Polybenzimidazol Membranes for High Temperature PEMFC Applications.

A series of proton exchange membranes based on polybenzimidazole (PBI) were prepared using the low cost ionic liquids (ILs) derived from 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium (BMIM) bearing different anions as conductive fillers in the polymeric matrix with the aim of enhancing the proton conductivity of PBI membranes. The composite membranes prepared by casting method (containing 5 wt. % of IL) exhibited good thermal, dimensional, mechanical, and oxidative stability for fuel cell applications.

Novel wireless sensor system for dynamic characterization of borehole heat exchangers.

The design and field test of a novel sensor system based in autonomous wireless sensors to measure the temperature of the heat transfer fluid along a borehole heat exchanger (BHE) is presented. The system, by means of two special valves, inserts and extracts miniaturized wireless sensors inside the pipes of the borehole, which are carried by the thermal fluid. Each sensor is embedded in a small sphere of just 25 mm diameter and 8 gr weight, containing a transceiver, a microcontroller, a temperature sensor and a power supply.

Forward-backward equations for nonlinear propagation in axially invariant optical systems.

We present a general framework to deal with forward and backward components of the electromagnetic field in axially invariant nonlinear optical systems, which include those having any type of linear or nonlinear transverse inhomogeneities. With a minimum amount of approximations, we obtain a system of two first-order equations for forward and backward components, explicitly showing the nonlinear couplings among them. The modal approach used allows for an effective reduction of the dimensionality of the original problem from 3 + 1 (three spatial dimensions plus one time dimension) to 1 + 1 (one spatial dimension plus one frequency dimension).