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Gaza Strip is exposed to the danger of the novel coronavirus pandemic ‘nCOVID‐19’ spread, which exacerbates the crises severity on this besieged area since 2007. This study aims to identify the preventive actions during the action effectiveness implemented by the Central Emergency Committee and the Ministry of Health to reduce the coronavirus spread in Gaza Strip. The researchers have followed the descriptive and the analytical methodology of the purposive sample responses data from the preventive medicine workers, the security team, and the members of the Central Emergency Committee.The most important results of the study showed that targeted peoples have been reexamined several times to ensure that they are recovered from the disease with an average of 81.0%. The reliability and accuracy of the detection tests of the coronavirus disease were of an average of 79.33%. In addition, the results demonstrate the existence of a strong correlation between the preventive action taken by the Central Emergency Committee and the effectiveness of the procedures to prevent the coronavirus pandemic. Also, the study shows a statistical significance effect at the level of significance (α ≤ 0.05) regarding the prevention procedures from the coronavirus pandemic and the effectiveness of the procedures.

This study aimed to analyze the risks that affect the Umm al-Nasr village (north of Gaza Strip), which include wars, floods, and the Corona virus disease-19 (COVID-19) pandemic, which may require the emergency committee to identify places for sanitary isolation in the case of infection or provide shelters in the disasters such as wars and floods. A plan that contains procedures for managing the displacement of the citizens according to the type of the disaster and the suggested safe shelters were prepared. Individuals infected with COVID-19 are isolated in central places or their home. Responding procedures for the emergency committee in Umm al-Nasr municipality were prepared to deal with displaced people. A mathematical model was designed to simulate choosing a shelter for the citizens of this village depending on the type of crisis. The results showed the different conditions that may affect the displacement operation, such as the type of shelter, the allocated area, the number of displaced citizens, the type of disaster, and the required speed to reach the shelter. This study recommended advancing the capabilities of the community to confront risks and COVID- 19. Besides, perfect planning plays a significant role in saving lives, time, and effort. Therefore, it is needed to cooperate with the local authorities, such as municipalities, ministry of health, civil defense, and international institutions to implement a response action during disasters, and the necessity of closing residential areas and isolating them if new cases of COVID-19 appear.

WOS: 000455908800007, PubMed ID: 30745939, OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study is to detect the prevalence and the factors associated with influenza and pneumococcal vaccination and outcomes of vaccination during 2013-2014 season in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in Turkey. METHODS: This was a multicenter retrospective cohort study performed in 53 different centers in Turkey. RESULTS: During the study period, 4968 patients were included. COPD was staged as GOLD 1-2-3-4 in 9.0%, 42.8%, 35.0%, and 13.2% of the patients, respectively. Influenza vaccination rate in the previous year was 37.9%; and pneumococcus vaccination rate, at least once during in a life time, was 13.3%. Patients with older age, higher level of education, more severe COPD, and comorbidities, ex-smokers, and patients residing in urban areas had higher rates of influenza vaccination. Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that advanced age, higher education levels, presence of comorbidities, higher COPD stages, and exacerbation rates were associated with both influenza and pneumococcal vaccination. The number of annual physician/outpatient visits and hospitalizations due to COPD exacerbation was 2.73 +/- 2.85 and 0.92 +/- 1.58 per year, respectively. Patients with older age, lower education levels, more severe COPD, comorbid diseases, and lower body mass index and patients who are male and are residing in rural areas and vaccinated for influenza had significantly higher rates of COPD exacerbation. CONCLUSIONS: The rates of influenza and pneumococcal vaccination in COPD patients were quite low, and the number of annual physician/outpatient visits and hospitalizations due to COPD exacerbation was high in Turkey. Advanced age, higher education levels, comorbidities, and higher COPD stages were associated with both influenza and pneumococcal vaccination.

The aim of this study is to establish procedures to protect the residents of the Umm al-Nasr border village from the dangers of wars and military violations by preparing emergency management procedures for emergency personnel to protect the population and properties, as well as designing a model that simulates the Emergency Operations Department in the northern Gaza Strip. In addition, a mathematical equation was designed to calculate the strength of the true steadfastness of the society to defend the community in the event of war. The researchers used the analytical descriptive approach and the interview with the officials in the municipality of the village. The most important results of this study were the preparation of the risk matrix for the village of Umm al-Nasr by identifying the risks and analyzing them, determining the consequences and probability of each disaster threatening the village, designing a model showing the emergency operations and the effective institutions, and how to link the operations and coordination between the central chamber and the emergency committee besides the working institutions. In the field of relief, rescue and shelter as well as preparing preparedness and response measures in the event of war threatening the village. This study recommended the proper planning of the emergency management through the preparation of effective preparedness measures that seek to preserve life and property, and to protect the fragile communities in the Gaza Strip, especially the community of Umm al-Nasr to strengthen its steadfastness in the economic, environmental, and health sectors.

The study aimed to identifying methods and ways of managing infectious diseases and controlling infection within the Internal Medicine departments in Shifa Medical Complex and working on improving them on scientific and practical bases , Due to the importance of the study and the attempt to collect all data, a descriptive and analytical approach was adopted in order to reach the results of the study, Where the researchers made several field visits within the corridors of the Internal Medicine Hospital departments in order to know the ways of management of infectious diseases and deal with them, and was the work of several interviews with stakeholders and competence in subject of the study, Accordingly, the study reached many results and the most important is: The level of awareness and scientific and practical knowledge of health staff about management of infectious diseases and infection control in the event of a pandemic or disease is not at the required level, This is due to the lack of experience and adequate knowledge to manage infectious diseases and the lack of available resources, It was found that most of the obstacles that hinder infectious disease management process is: The acute shortage of necessary protective equipment, supplies and tools, The design of the internal environment of the Internal Medicine departments is not suitable for the management of infectious diseases but contributes to their spread, and lack of a clear protocol for proper handling of infectious diseases, Accordingly, a set of recommendations was developed based on the findings of this study and the most important is: conducting scientific and practical training and educational courses periodically specializes in the field of infectious disease management and infection control for all health staff within the hospital departments, Providing an appropriate working environment that contributes to reducing the spread of infection.

Objectives: This study was aimed to determine (1) the associations between adherence to warfarin, social support, perception of illness, and demographic factors on the quality of international normalized ratios (INRs); as well as (2) the relationship between the patients’ scores in the Malaysian medication adherence scale (MALMAS) and their current INRs. Method: This cross-sectional survey was conducted from November 2017 to January 2018 at the warfarin clinic of Jerantut Hospital, Malaysia. Results: Some 58 participants were recruited, of whom 70.7% were diagnosed with atrial fibrillation (AF). Overall, 87.9% of the participants claimed adherence to their warfarin regimens. Patients with good-quality INR therapy were significantly older, had a higher median income and longer appointment durations. In terms of illness perception (IP), participants with good-quality INR therapy had significantly lower scores in the identity, personal control, and consequence domains. Overall, the total scores for IP were significantly lower in the good-quality INR therapy. Meanwhile, the MALMAS scores were significantly lower in patients with sub-therapeutic current INR. However, there were no associations between warfarin adherence and perceived social support with current TTR. Conclusion: Monitoring of demographic factors and IP’s domains is vital since they were associated with quality of INR therapy. Meanwhile, the occurrence of sub-therapeutic current INR should raise suspicion of poor adherence in these patients. Overall, IP and MALMAS are useful tools that should be integrated into the patient care protocols. Article Type: Original Research

This study aimed to evaluate the status of medical waste management in dental clinics in Khan Younis governorate (case study) in terms of sorting of hazardous medical waste, collection of waste in sealed bags when filled, transportation through transport trucks for the disposal of medical waste. The researchers used field interview methodology and the direct observation of the clinic and ask a set of questions to the staff in the clinic. The most important findings of the study that there was no proper process of sorting of medical waste where it is random and there was no application of instructions of the laws of the World Health Organization for waste management properly so that it is disposed of by the Ministry of Health in Gaza Governorates incinerators. The study recommended the need for a special system for sorting of hazardous medical waste from non-hazardous medical waste at the source of its production in proper methods and promoting the development of legislation as policies for the management of health waste for health safety and raising awareness among health institutions employees about the concept of medical waste management.

This study aimed to identify the effectiveness of the application of the medical waste management system in Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza, and contribute to building the concept of integrated management of medical waste treatment. The researchers used the descriptive analytical approach to achieve the results and answer the questions of the study through interviews with the staff who are directly related to the management of medical waste. It was clear from the results of the study that insufficient medical preventive measures were taken with regard to the preventive vaccination of working crews, especially cleaners. The large workload, the apparent lack of medicines & medical supplies and the beds of the affected people also affected the performance of the staff and the quality of service provided to the sick and injured. The results of the study also showed that the events of the Return Marches had a great impact on the performance of the work crews through the large increase in the volume and pressure of work, which in turn led to an increase in the volume of medical waste, especially human organs. One of the most important recommendations of this study is the necessity of enacting the relevant laws to control the medical waste management system and activating this system through coordinating efforts, defining responsibilities among the various concerned bodies, activating the role of the inspection and control unit at the Ministry of Health to conduct visits and periodic evaluation of medical waste management, conducting tests and vaccinations periodically and according to a specific program for the hospital staff. In addition to the allocation of closed places to collect medical waste containers after sorting instead of leaving it in the facilities and corridors of the hospital waiting to be transferred to the storage site.

Harun, M. S., Aziz, M. R. A., Noor, M. N. M., & R, S. N. M. (2019). The Determinants of CSR disclosure: A Study of Malaysian Islamic Banks. International Journal of Academic Research Business and Social Sciences, 9(5), 441–449.

The study aimed to identify the hazardous raw materials used in the Teba Manufactureand to indicate the preventive measures to deal with the risk of hazardous materials in the detergent manufactures. To achieve this aim، the researchers used the descriptive analytical approach to describe the preventive measures used in the Teba Manufacture، Analysis and effective planning to deal with the risk of hazardous materials through field visit and direct observation and interviews with stakeholders. The researchers reached a number of results، the most important of which is need for periodic inspection of hazardous facilities. The Manufacture works on the implementation of prevention and safety measures under difficult economic conditions. The researchers recommended to develop risk management mechanisms for hazardous materials in industrial facilities and to provide vapors for the process of manufacturing.

There are only a few studies in the literature investigating the effects of gestational age on developmental dysplasia of the hip. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of gestational age on hip ultrasound findings in the early neonatal period in preterm newborns born between 30th and 36th weeks of gestational age. Between January 2008 and December 2013, a total of 788 hips of 394 premature newborns with a gestational age of up to 36th weeks who underwent hip ultrasonography in the first week of their life were retrospectively examined. The distribution of roof angles and hip types in terms of sexes was compared between groups. Birth weight, birth height, a, and beta angles were analyzed in terms of the gestational age. The mean gestational age was 33.07 weeks (SD 2.09; between 30th and 36th). Six hundred and seven hips were classified as type I, 154 as type IIa, 21 as type IIc, and 6 as type III. In the 30th week, type IIc hips in females and type III hips in males were statistically significantly higher (P=0.001). In the 34th week, type IIc hips in males were statistically significantly higher than the females (P=0.013). In the 35th week, type IIa hips in females hips were statistically significantly higher than the males (P=0.008). Among all preterm infants, type IIc hips were more common in the 30th, 31st, 32nd, and 34th weeks, whereas type III hips were statistically significantly more common in the 30th week (P=0.0001). The 30th, 31st, 32nd, and 34th weeks of age are gestational ages that should be considered in terms of dysplastic and subluxed hips in premature newborns. Copyright (C) 2018 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved.

Studies have shown that the mean or median phosphate levels were related to certain factors although applying this finding into the clinical setting is challenging. In this study, we attempted to determine treatment characteristics for patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) on maintenance hemodialysis (MHD) having hyperphosphatemia or hypophosphatemia in comparison with those with normal phosphate level. This was a cross-sectional survey conducted at HD units of Central Pahang Cluster Hospitals, Malaysia, in April 2017 involving 110 ESRD patients on MHD. About 40% of the study patients had normo-or hyperphosphatemia. As many as 84.5% (n = 93) of our patients were prescribed calcium carbonate (CC); the phosphate level was not affected by phosphate binder (PB) adherence. None of our patients received more than one type of PBs. Although there were no significant differences in any factors between normo- and hyperphosphatemic patients, 64% (n = 28) of the hyperphosphatemic patients did not receive the recommended maximum PB dose. In addition, 42% (n = 30) of patients with normo- and hyperphosphatemia prescribed CC received more than the recommended daily elemental calcium. On the other hand, our hypophosphatemic patients tended to be significantly older and had lower HD duration compared to normophosphatemic patients. No other significant differences were found in medication factors between normo- and hypophos-phatemic patients. There is potential to maximize phosphate control in hyperphosphatemic patients in Malaysia by maximizing PB therapy. On the other hand, proactive supervision is required in caring and prescribing for hypophosphatemic patients, especially the older patients.

BACKGROUND & AIMS: Endoscopist-directed propofol sedation (EDP) remains controversial. We sought to update the safety experience of EDP and estimate the cost of using anesthesia specialists for endoscopic sedation. METHODS: We reviewed all published work using EDP. We contacted all endoscopists performing EDP for endoscopy that we were aware of to obtain their safety experience. These complications were available in all patients: endotracheal intubations, permanent neurologic injuries, and death. RESULTS: A total of 646,080 (223,656 published and 422,424 unpublished) EDP cases were identified. Endotracheal intubations, permanent neurologic injuries, and deaths were 11, 0, and 4, respectively. Deaths occurred in 2 patients with pancreatic cancer, a severely handicapped patient with mental retardation, and a patient with severe cardiomyopathy. The overall number of cases requiring mask ventilation was 489 (0.1%) of 569,220 cases with data available. For sites specifying mask ventilation risk by procedure type, 185 (0.1%) of 185,245 patients and 20 (0.01%) of 142,863 patients required mask ventilation during their esophagogastroduodenoscopy or colonoscopy, respectively (P < .001). The estimated cost per life-year saved to substitute anesthesia specialists in these cases, assuming they would have prevented all deaths, was $5.3 million. CONCLUSIONS: EDP thus far has a lower mortality rate than that in published data on endoscopist-delivered benzodiazepines and opioids and a comparable rate to that in published data on general anesthesia by anesthesiologists. In the cases described here, use of anesthesia specialists to deliver propofol would have had high costs relative to any potential benefit.

Problem statement: Many published studies have found that more than 50% of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system implementations have failed due to the failure of system usability and does not fulfilled user expectation. This study presented the issues that contributed to the failures of CRM system and proposed a prototype of CRM system developed using Human Computer Interaction approaches in order to resolve the identified issues. Approach: In order to capture the users' requirements, a single in-depth case study of a multinational company was chosen in this research, in which the background, current conditions and environmental interactions were observed, recorded and analyzed for stages of patterns in relation to internal and external influences. Some techniques of blended data gathering which are interviews, naturalistic observation and studying user documentation were employed and then the prototype of CRM system was developed which incorporated User-Centered Design (UCD) approach, Hierarchical Task Analysis (HTA), metaphor and identification of users' behaviors and characteristics. The implementation of these techniques, were then measured in terms of usability. Results: Based on the usability testing conducted, the results showed that most of the users agreed that the system is comfortable to work with by taking the quality attributes of learnability, memorizeablity, utility, sortability, font, visualization, user metaphor, information easy view and color as measurement parameters. Conclusions/Recommendations: By combining all these techniques, a comfort level for the users that leads to user satisfaction and higher usability degree can be achieved in a proposed CRM system. Thus, it was important that the companies should put usability quality attribute into a consideration before developing or procuring CRM system to ensure the implementation successfulness of the CRM system.

110V Nickel-Cadmium batteries had been in use in TNB substation as standby supply to operate a relay when a fault occur in a downstream electrical equipment so that the fault would not trip an upstream substation. Recently, due to interest in Smart Grid technologies for asset management and testing, the online battery monitoring application is studied in Tenaga Nasional Berhad. Important battery condition parameters such as floating cell voltage, temperature and internal resistance are gathered from the site and sent to TNB Research laboratory, about 30 km away via a private fibre-optics network. This paper compares the result of remote monitoring and discharge test system with manual testing system.

Abstract The matured field is located in the Sarawak offshore, Malaysia. Discovered in 1968, the field is an anticlinal structure with vertically stacked reservoirs deposited in a shoreface environment. The brown field has been producing under active aquifer drive with a very high recovery factor. The field is currently producing with more than 85% WC and has significant levels of uncertainties with respect to oil-water contacts, flank structure, depth of spill points, production allocation, SCAL and residual oil saturation. Major challenges were observed in building fine static models for further dynamic simulation work. A coarse mega model were built covering all reservoirs to capture the STOIIP uncertainties in the field as well as to support an integrated conventional approach to locate the remaining oil and estimating the potential infill reserves. A robust workflow were developed to identify the infill opportunities by integrating material balance study, case hole logs information, water diagnostic plots, decline curve analysis and many more. The comprehensive LTRO methodologies applied has been successful in identifying the location of the remaining oil as well as estimating the potential reserve. This approach has also managed to accelerate field development plan and afforded the team efficient resource optimization by avoiding the more time consuming re-cycling the conventional static-dynamic modeling approach. Introduction The field is located 20 km offshore Sarawak in water depths of 100 ft. The field, which was discovered in May 1968, fell under the BDO PSC, which was to expire on 31stMarch 2018. A new EOR PSC was signed on 16thJanuary 2012, which extends the expiry date to 2040. The field structure consists of a 30,000 by 9,000 ft elongated anticline running NE-SW and comprises a series of stacked reservoirs at a depth of 4000 to 9500 ft. The field is considered structurally simple, with a normal growth fault affecting only the deep reservoirs and no other faults visible on 2D seismic or in the wells. The field reservoirs were deposited some 20–23 million years ago during Cycle V of the late Miocene in a lower coastal plain to coastal environment. The depositional environment of this field is dominated by a sequence of shore-face deposits, which formed 6–11 million years ago during Cycle V of the late Miocene. Sands are loosely consolidated, fine to very fine grained and interbedded with layers of silts and clays. Porosity ranges from 14 to 26 % with a field-wide mean of 20%. The permeabilities are in the order of 50 to 3000mD. Net sand thicknesses are less than 30 ft, with most individual sands around 10 ft. The reservoirs are subdivided into three categories (Figure 1): Shallow Reservoirs at depths of 4000 to 5300 ft, which are characterized by large gas caps and mostly thin oil rims, and are currently considered unfaulted.

The growing focus on software development has highlighted the importance of software process. Over the last few years, many large foreign organizations like Motorola, Thales, Lockheed Martin and other organizations have adopted the software process improvement model to provide effective software process management and control of the software they developed. What about the IT Company in Malaysia? This research attempts to identify and analyze the extent of Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) and other associated process model or frameworks in Malaysian organizations. Surveys in Malaysian software organizations which have an experience in initiating and conducting software process improvement initiative have been conducted. There were 20 respondents involved in this research. Most of the respondents were professionals who are directly involved in SPI initiative. This paper will present a survey analysis on organization's initiative in CMMI, IT Service Management and Other framework. From the survey, most of the organizations do not plan to implement IT service management framework such as AS8018 ICT Service Management, HP ITSM (IT service Management Reference Model), MOF (Microsoft Operations Framework), IBM SMSL (Systems Manage Solution Lifecycle, and CobiT (Control Objectives for Information and related Technology). Most of the organizations have implemented CMM/CMMI in their organizations. Other than that, they also implemented ISO 9001, Balance Scorecard and also PMBOK. From the result, it shows that most of the organizations in Malaysia have already shifted to the new paradigm by enforcing software process improvement in their organization.

The idea of the OSCMR is to manage software configuration items (CSCI) of various software development processes. OSCMR has been designed and developed to run on the Internet and features simple user interfaces. It also has been designed to help beginners having a simple view of the software development process. Next, OSCMR is flexible enough to adapt itself to different software development methodologies. CSCI in OSCMR is referred to any documents from early phase of software development until the end of the software development process. It can contain anything that can be stored and distributed in electronic form such as source codes, compiled executables, change request forms, software testing materials, and others. In this paper, we discuss the overview of OSCMR.

Software Risk Management involves analyzing risks that were encountered in the past and taking specific actions to prevent the occurrence of those types of risks in the future. The risks may have been identified on other projects as well as in earlier stages or tasks of the current project. We have select small scale software development project to perform the assessment for software risk management practices. We are embedded in the project for the duration of two weeks. We have participated and observe the software risk management practices in that project. Data is gathered by interviewing members of the project, distributing questionnaires, observing the work done, and by analyzing work artifacts and other available documents. The purpose of the assessment is to measure the strengths and weaknesses of the practices it that project. From the assessment, we have come out with a specific recommendations and also characterization indicator to indicate the level of software risk management practices in that project.

The accuracy and the efficacy of radiological diagnosis depend, to a large extent, on the conditions under which radiographs and images are viewed. This mainly involves the luminance of the display devices and the ambient room illumination. We report a perceptual study to investigate the relationship between detectability and monitor luminance as well as ambient illuminance. A statistical test pattern was used in this study, and the test pattern was developed using Microsoft® Visual Basic 6. The test pattern contained a set of randomised contrast detail objects, that is, disks of different diameters (0.7, 1.0, 1.4, and 2.0 mm) and contrasts against a black background (2.7, 3.9, 5.5, and 7.8%), simulating lesions in digital images. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was used in this study. The results indicated that a set of optimal viewing conditions exists and that it has a significant effect on detectability performance.