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Food waste plays a crucial role in environmental and human health issues. To address these issues, intelligent packaging systems are proposed for the accurate assessment of the quality of food products. Intelligent packaging is a technology that integrates sensing systems with conventional packaging to provide smart sensing communication functions for real‐time food quality monitoring. The most important parts of this technology are generally classified as quantitative sensors (sensors) and qualitative sensors (indicators). Since seafood and meat products can spoil easily if not stored properly, applying intelligent packaging for real‐time monitoring of the safety of these products is beneficial. In this review, the spoiling process and essential performance characteristics are indicators of the quality of these food products are first discussed. Then, The characteristics and importance of various sensors and indicators that can be used for seafood and meat quality monitoring are presented. While discussing these topics, an updated review of recent scientific studies, preconditions, materials, advantages, and limitations are provided. Furthermore, the future need for improvements in intelligent packaging systems for real‐time quality and safety monitoring of food products is discussed. Finally, several important research examples of the challenges and perspectives of intelligent packaging applications for meat and seafood quality monitoring are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

pH determination is an essential experiment in many chemistry laboratories. It requires a potentiometric instrument with extremely low input bias current to accurately measure the voltage between a pH sensing electrode and a reference electrode. In this technology report, we propose an open-source potentiometric instrument for pH determination experiments with Bluetooth wireless connectivity. The hardware is built on a solderless breadboard and mainly composed of an Arduino Nano microcontroller, a 16-bit analog-to-digital converter, two electronic buffer amplifiers, a temperature sensor, and a Bluetooth module with a total cost around $50 (US dollars, including a portable power supply ~$10). The software is written in Arduino Sketch and the cross-platform Python language, both of which the students can access and modify freely. The instrument was demonstrated with a traditional glass electrode and a custom palladium/palladium oxide pH sensing electrode, and compared with a commercial pH meter. Results showed that both the accuracy and precision of the developed instrument are adequate for teaching purposes. Understanding the workings of electronics of the pH meter can inform the students of the mechanism of pH determination.

Introduction: Most of the decisions regarding diagnosis and treatment are based on laboratory test results. Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are among the most common infections in humans. The changing antimicrobial sensitivity in UTI requires appropriate antibiotics. Antimicrobial resistance is an emerging problem in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia where the complete reversal of antimicrobial resistance is difficult due to irrational use of antibiotics. Objectives: This study aimed to determine the most common bacterial agents causing UTI in different seasons among patients who were admitted to Buraidah Central Hospital (BCH), Saudi Arabia. The study also evaluated the link between prescribing and resistance toward antimicrobials. Materials and Methods: A 6-month retrospective study was conducted among adult patients who were admitted to the inpatient department at BCH. A total of 379 files were collected from microbiological laboratory for inpatients. Results: Most UTI-causing bacteria prevailed in the same season. Of 15 bacterial strains, 12 were significantly correlated with 20 (of a total of 40) antibiotics that were used. Most bacteria were gram-negative. Gram-negative bacilli including Escherichia coli, Klebsiella spp., and Pseudomonadaceae and gram-positive Enterococcus faecalis were most frequently causing UTIs. Conclusion: Overall prevalence of antibiotic resistance was negative in bacterial isolates. However, the relationship between antimicrobial prescribing and antimicrobial resistance was significantly negative among UTI patients in BCH, Saudi Arabia.

The ubiquitous existence of COVID-19 has required the management of congested areas such as workplaces. As a result, the use of a variety of inspiring tools to deal with the spread of COVID-19 has been required, including internet of things, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and geofencing technologies. In this work, an efficient approach based on the use of ML and geofencing technology is proposed to monitor and control the density of persons in workplaces during working hours. In particular, the workplace environment is divided into a number of geofences in which each person is associated with a set of geofences that make up their own cluster using a dynamic user-centric clustering scheme. Different metrics are used to generate a unique geofence digital signature (GDS) such as Wi-Fi basic service set identifier, Wi-Fi received signal strength indication, and magnetic field data, which can be collected using the person’s smartphone. Then, these metrics are utilized by different ML techniques to generate the GDS for each indoor geofence and each building geofence as well as to detect whether the person is in their cluster. In addition, a Layered-Architecture Geofence Division method is considered to reduce the processing overhead at the person’s smartphone. Our experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach can perform well in a real workplace environment. The results show that the system accuracy is about 98.25% in indoor geofences and 76% in building geofences.

Background Spinal anesthesia avoids the hazards of airway management during general anesthesia. Shivering is a frequent risk factor in patients undergoing lower half operations under spinal anesthesia. Premedication with intravenous serotonin receptor antagonists such as granisetron has been used to overcome this problem. Ketamine increases arterial pressure and heart rate and may decrease core-to-peripheral redistribution of heat. Moreover, pethidine which is considered as a time-tested drug for control of shivering can be of value for shivering prophylaxis. Objective This study evaluates the efficacy of granisetron, ketamine, and pethidine on shivering in patients undergoing lower half operation under spinal anesthesia. Patients and methods A total of 60 patients were assigned to three equal groups: group G received 3 mg granisetron, group K received 25 mg ketamine, and group P received 25 mg pethidine 5 min before spinal anesthesia. The incidence of shivering episodes was recorded at baseline monitoring, intraoperatively, and postoperatively. Moreover, propagation and regression of motor and sensory block were assessed. Results Regarding mean arterial blood pressure, there was significant decrease in group P in comparison with groups G and K. Regarding decreased incidence of shivering, there was no significant difference between the study groups. Regarding incidence of nausea and vomiting, there was significant decrease incidence in group G compared with groups K and P. Moreover, there was significant difference regarding faster time to regression of sensory block in group G in comparison with groups K and P. Conclusion In patients undergoing lower half surgery under spinal anesthesia, prophylactic intravenous administration of 3 mg granisetron, 25 mg ketamine, or 25 mg pethidine 5 min before induction of spinal anesthesia significantly reduced the severity of shivering. Regression of sensory block was faster with granisetron than ketamine and pethidine. Moreover, prophylactic granisetron also reduces nausea and vomiting and the need of antiemetics.

Electrochemical sensors are used to measure target analytes in water, meat, fruits, or vegetables, to ensure their safety, security, and integrity for human use. In this paper, a solution‐based fabrication process is presented for a biodegradable electrochemical free chlorine sensor using asparagine that is functionalized onto graphene oxide (GO). An ink solution of the GO functionalized with asparagine is synthesized, and then deposited onto a screen‐printed carbon electrode (SPCE) using a spin coater. The sensor shows high a sensitivity of 0.30 µA ppm−1 over a linear range of 0–8 ppm with a hysteresis‐limited resolution of 0.2 ppm after achieving a steady state at 50 s. From the development and testing of the free chlorine sensor, over 9000 datapoints are collected and used for training an artificial neural network (ANN) model to quantify and characterize the factors affecting the free chlorine sensor's performance, and model its degradation characteristics. The model reports a low mean absolute error (MAE) of 0.1603 and a high model accuracy with a Pearson correlation coefficient (PCC) of 0.9950, demonstrating that these degradation characteristics can be modeled and be used to compensate the degraded performance characteristics of the free chlorine sensors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Anismus is a functional disorder characterized by dyssynergia and incoordination of pelvic floor muscular contractions at defecation. Despite normal propulsive power used when attempting to defecate, a hypertonic pelvic floor dysfunction results in nonrelaxation or even paradoxical contraction of puborectalis muscle, resulting in failure to straighten the anorectal angle, hence impaired stool evacuation. This study aims at evaluating the outcome of injection of botulinum toxin type-A (BTX-A) in puborectalis muscle in patients with anismus. Patients and methods The study included 50 patients who were presented with symptoms of obstructed defecation (OD) and were diagnosed as anismus and failed conservative treatment and biofeedback training. Ultrasound-guided BTX-A injections into puborectalis muscle were done. All patients were followed up for 6 months for OD symptoms and manometric findings. Results The current study included 50 patients with a mean age of 36.6±11.9 years presented with anismus for a mean duration of 6.8±2.64 months. There was a statistically significant improvement in the Longo score of OD at 1, 3, and 6 months when compared with the initial values (P<0.001), while there was no statistically significant difference noticed in the defecation frequency at 3 and 6 months when compared with the initial records. There was a statistically significant decrease in both resting and squeeze pressures after 3 and 6 months when compared with the initial records (P<0.001). The overall satisfaction significantly increased to 68 and 64% after 3 and 6 months, respectively, when compared with 0% satisfaction reported at the initial assessment. Conclusion According to the current results, injection of BTX-A therapy in puborectalis muscle in patients with anismus is assumed to be effective for short term with good overall satisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human gait analysis aims to assess gait mechanics and to identify the deviations from “normal” gait patterns by using meaningful parameters extracted from gait data. As each parameter indicates different gait characteristics, a proper combination of key parameters is required to perform an overall gait assessment. Therefore, in this study, we introduced a simple gait index derived from the most important gait parameters (walking speed, maximum knee flexion angle, stride length, and stance-swing phase ratio) to quantify overall gait quality. We performed a systematic review to select the parameters and analyzed a gait dataset (120 healthy subjects) to develop the index and to determine the healthy range (0.50 – 0.67). To validate the parameter selection and to justify the defined index range, we applied a support vector machine algorithm to classify the dataset based on the selected parameters and achieved a high classification accuracy (∼95%). Also, we explored other published datasets that are in good agreement with the proposed index prediction, reinforcing the reliability and effectiveness of the developed gait index. The gait index can be used as a reference for preliminary assessment of human gait conditions and to quickly identify abnormal gait patterns and possible relation to health issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]