Exploring voice barriers and subsequent practices among frontline healthcare workers in Pakistan: a comprehensive mixed-methods analysis.

Background: Voice barriers among frontline healthcare workers hinder safety related to work and patients. Understanding these barriers and practices is crucial to improve voice behavior in healthcare settings. Therefore, this study aims to identify the voice barriers and practices among healthcare workers in Pakistan.

Elucidating the enduring transformations in cellulose-based carbon nanofibers through prolonged isothermal treatment.

This study investigates the conversion of highly acetylated sugarcane bagasse into high-modulus carbon nanofibers (CnNFs) with exceptional electrical conductivity. By electrospinning the bagasse into nanofibers with diameters ranging from 80 nm to 800 nm, a cost-effective CnNFs precursor is obtained. The study reveals the transformation of the cellulose crystalline structure into a stable antiparallel chain arrangement of cellulose II following prolonged isothermal treatment, leading to a remarkable 50 % increase in CnNFs recovery with carbon contents ranging from 80 % to 90 %.

Evaluation of factors causing lateral migration of light non-aqueous phase liquids (LNAPLs) in onshore oil spill accidents.

Contamination of groundwater by harmful substances poses significant risks to both drinking water sources and aquatic ecosystems, making it a critical environmental concern. Most on-land spill events release organic molecules known as light non-aqueous phase liquids (LNAPLs), which then seep into the ground. Due to their low density and organic composition, they tend to float as they reach the water table.

Impact of 3D Printing on the Overall Project Success of Residential Construction Projects Using Structural Equation Modelling.

After a decade of research and development, 3D printing is now an established technique in the construction sector, complete with its own set of accepted standards. The use of 3D printing in construction might potentially improve the outcome of the project as a whole. However, traditional strategies are often used in the residential construction industry in Malaysia, which causes serious public safety and health issues along with a negative impact on the environment.

Influence of hydrogenated diesel/HO blend fuel on diesel engine performance and exhaust emission characterization.

The oxygenated hydro diesel (OHD) is prepared from hydrogen peroxide (HO), acetone, and seaweed polysaccharide. A long-term study was carried out on the OHD fuel blend stability for about a year at various temperatures. The long-term stability shows very stable properties, no easy emulsion breaking, and a long storage period.

Contributions of safety critical success factors and safety program elements to overall project success.

Implementing a safety program is an essential step toward improving safety performance. This research aims to develop an overall project success (OPS) model for building projects through investigating the direct and indirect impact of safety critical success factors (CSFs) on OPS mediated by safety program elements. First, interviews were carried out with experts in the Iraqi construction industry, and then a questionnaire survey was utilized to obtain feedback from construction professionals.

Critical Success Factors of Safety Program Implementation in Construction Projects in Iraq.

The construction sector is recognized as one of the most dangerous industries in the world. The situation is worsening in Iraq, as a result of a lack of attention to safety in the building industry and the poor implementation of safety programs. This research aims to identify the critical safety factors (CSFs) of safety program implementation in the Iraqi construction industry.

Digital Technologies in the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) Industry-A Bibliometric-Qualitative Literature Review of Research Activities.

Digital technologies (DTs) are proven helpful in the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry due to their varied benefits to project stakeholders, such as enhanced visualization, better data sharing, reduction in building waste, increased productivity, sustainable performance and safety improvement. Therefore, researchers have conducted various studies on DTs in the AEC industry over the year; however, this study explores the state-of-the-art research on DTs in the AEC industry by means of a bibliometric-qualitative review method. This research would uncover new knowledge gaps and practical needs in the domain of DTs in the AEC industry.

Safety Program Elements in the Construction Industry: The Case of Iraq.

The construction industries' unsafe conditions require increased efforts to improve safety performance to prevent and reduce accident rates. Safety performance in the Iraqi construction industry is notoriously poor. Despite this condition, safety research has so far been neglected.

Intermolecular Interaction between Heavy Crude Oils and Surfactants during Surfactant-Steam Flooding Process.

The objective of this study is to investigate the intermolecular interactions between the surfactants and the fractions of heavy crude oils. Two possible interactions were considered; polar and ionic interactions for two heavy crude oil-surfactant systems, and 20 surfactant-steam flooding tests were conducted on these crudes by testing nine surfactants (three anionic, three cationic, and three nonionic) with different tail lengths and charged head groups. The performance differences observed in each core flood were discussed through the additional analyses.

Discharge Performance of Zinc-Air Flow Batteries Under the Effects of Sodium Dodecyl Sulfate and Pluronic F-127.

Zinc-air batteries are a promising technology for large-scale electricity storage. However, their practical deployment has been hindered by some issues related to corrosion and passivation of the zinc anode in an alkaline electrolyte. In this work, anionic surfactant sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) and nonionic surfactant Pluronic F-127 (P127) are examined their applicability to enhance the battery performances.

Ethanol as an electrolyte additive for alkaline zinc-air flow batteries.

Zinc-air flow batteries exhibit high energy density and offer several appealing advantages. However, their low efficiency of zinc utilization resulted from passivation and corrosion of the zinc anodes has limited their broad application. In this work, ethanol, which is considered as an environmentally friendly solvent, is examined as an electrolyte additive to potassium hydroxide (KOH) aqueous electrolyte to improve electrochemical performance of the batteries.

A biological inspired fuzzy adaptive window median filter (FAWMF) for enhancing DNA signal processing.

Background And Objective: Digital signal processing techniques commonly employ fixed length window filters to process the signal contents. DNA signals differ in characteristics from common digital signals since they carry nucleotides as contents. The nucleotides own genetic code context and fuzzy behaviors due to their special structure and order in DNA strand.

Novel combination of zero-valent Cu and Ag nanoparticles @ cellulose acetate nanocomposite for the reduction of 4-nitro phenol.

A very simple and low-cost procedure has been adopted to synthesize efficient copper (Cu), silver (Ag) and copper-silver (Cu-Ag) mixed nanoparticles on the surface of pure cellulose acetate (CA) and cellulose acetate-copper oxide nanocomposite (CA-CuO). All nanoparticles loaded onto CA and CA-CuO presented excellent catalytic ability, but Cu-Ag nanoparticles loaded onto CA-CuO (Cu-Ag/CA-CuO) exhibited outstanding catalytic efficiency to convert 4-nitrophenol (4-NP) into 4-aminophenol (4-AP) in the presence of NaBH. Additionally, the Cu-Ag/CA-CuO can be easily recovered by removing the sheet from the reaction media, and can be recycled several times, maintaining high catalytic ability for four cycles.

The effect of faith-based smoking cessation intervention during Ramadan among Malay smokers.

To study the effects of a faith-based smoking cessation intervention during Ramadan among Malay male smokers working in public offices. This was a quasi-experimental study conducted during Ramadan 2015. The intervention was developed based on the constructs within the Theory of Planned Behaviour.

Localized N20 Component of Somatosensory Evoked Magnetic Fields in Frontoparietal Brain Tumor Patients Using Noise-Normalized Approaches.

Purpose: To localize sensorimotor cortical activation in 10 patients with frontoparietal tumors using quantitative magnetoencephalography (MEG) with noise-normalized approaches.

Material And Methods: Somatosensory evoked magnetic fields (SEFs) were elicited in 10 patients with somatosensory tumors and in 10 control participants using electrical stimulation of the median nerve via the right and left wrists. We localized the N20m component of the SEFs using dynamic statistical parametric mapping (dSPM) and standardized low-resolution brain electromagnetic tomography (sLORETA) combined with 3D magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Adsorption performance of coconut shell activated carbon for the removal of chlorate from chlor-alkali brine stream.

Activated carbon from coconut shell was used to investigate the adsorption of chlorate from a chlor-alkali plant's brine stream. The effect of pH, flowrate, chlorate and chloride concentration on the breakthrough curves were studied in small-scale column trials. The results obtained show enhanced adsorption at low flowrates, higher chlorate concentrations, and at a pH of 10.

Surface Tensions of Ionic Liquids: Non-Regular Trend Along the Number of Cyano Groups.

Ionic liquids (ILs) with cyano-functionalized anions are a set of fluids that are still poorly characterized despite their remarkably low viscosities and potential applications. Aiming at providing a comprehensive study on the influence of the number of -CN groups through the surface tension and surface organization of ILs, the surface tensions of imidazolium-based ILs with cyano-functionalized anions were determined at atmospheric pressure and in the (298.15 to 343.

A Microwave Ring-Resonator Sensor for Non-Invasive Assessment of Meat Aging.

The assessment of moisture loss from meat during the aging period is a critical issue for the meat industry. In this article, a non-invasive microwave ring-resonator sensor is presented to evaluate the moisture content, or more precisely water holding capacity (WHC) of broiler meat over a four-week period. The developed sensor has shown significant changes in its resonance frequency and return loss due to reduction in WHC in the studied duration.

On fuzzy semantic similarity measure for DNA coding.

A coding measure scheme numerically translates the DNA sequence to a time domain signal for protein coding regions identification. A number of coding measure schemes based on numerology, geometry, fixed mapping, statistical characteristics and chemical attributes of nucleotides have been proposed in recent decades. Such coding measure schemes lack the biologically meaningful aspects of nucleotide data and hence do not significantly discriminate coding regions from non-coding regions.

A Psychometric Properties of the Malay-version Police Stress Questionnaire.

Background: Police Stress Questionnaire (PSQ) was developed to measure police-specific stressors. The present study was the first to have translated the PSQ to Malay. This study aims to test the reliability, construct validity, and component structure of the Malay-version PSQ.

An algorithmic framework for multiobjective optimization.

Multiobjective (MO) optimization is an emerging field which is increasingly being encountered in many fields globally. Various metaheuristic techniques such as differential evolution (DE), genetic algorithm (GA), gravitational search algorithm (GSA), and particle swarm optimization (PSO) have been used in conjunction with scalarization techniques such as weighted sum approach and the normal-boundary intersection (NBI) method to solve MO problems. Nevertheless, many challenges still arise especially when dealing with problems with multiple objectives (especially in cases more than two).

Artificial bee colony algorithm for solving optimal power flow problem.

This paper proposes an artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm for solving optimal power flow (OPF) problem. The objective of the OPF problem is to minimize total cost of thermal units while satisfying the unit and system constraints such as generator capacity limits, power balance, line flow limits, bus voltages limits, and transformer tap settings limits. The ABC algorithm is an optimization method inspired from the foraging behavior of honey bees.