In Iraq, because of the dramatic turnovers facing the country for three decades, pharmacists continue to experience significant professional challenges in both the public and private sectors. The present study aimed to explore the professional challenges and obstacles facing Iraqi pharmacists working in public hospitals. This qualitative study included face-to-face semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions with hospital pharmacists. The participants were selected purposefully (with ≥ 3 years of experience) to work at governmental hospitals in Karbala province between December 2022 and April 2023. The audio-recording interviews were scripted. Thematic analyses were used to generate themes and subthemes from the interviews. Thirty-two pharmacists participated in this study. The study found that there are many challenges facing Iraqi pharmacists in hospitals. Some of which are related to the pharmacists themselves, such as suboptimal competency with an overwhelming number of pharmacists in each hospital, while the others are related to suboptimal organizational conditions, such as inadequate interdisciplinary collaboration, an unfriendly hospital environment as patients' confrontation, unequal task distributions, and inadequate technology and tools. According to the study findings, greater emphasis should be placed on improving multidisciplinary teamwork, pharmacist competency, the pharmacists' role in hospitals and securing the supply of essential medicines. Most participants recommend enhancing quality over quantity of pharmacists in addition to finding areas and horizons to benefit from these large numbers of pharmacists. Keywords: Iraqi pharmacists, hospital pharmacists, challenges, obstacles, Qualitative study.
This paper deals with modelling and control of Euler-Bernoulli smart beam interacting with a fluid medium. Several distributed piezo-patches (actuators and/or sensors) are bonded on the surface of the target beam. To model the vibrating beam properly, the effect of the piezo-patches and the hydrodynamic loads should be taken into account carefully. The partial differential equation PDE for the target oscillating beam is derived considering the piezo-actuators as input controls. Fluid forces are decomposed into two components: 1) hydrodynamic forces due to the beam oscillations, and 2) external (disturbance) hydrodynamic loads independent of beam motion. Then the PDE is discretized usi
The new multidentate Schiff-base (E)-6,6′-((1E,1′E)-(ethane-1,2-diylbis(azan-1-yl-1-ylidene))bis(methan-1-yl-ylidene))bis(4-methyl-2-((E)(pyridine-2-ylmethylimino)methyl)phenol) H2L and its polymeric binuclear metal complexes with Cr(III), Mn(II), Fe(II), Co(II), Ni(II), Cu(II), Zn(II), Cd(II) and Hg(II) are reported. The reaction of 2,6-diformyl-4-methyl-phenol with ethylenediamine in mole ratios of 2:1 gave the precursor 3,3′-(1E,1′E)-(ethane-1,2-diylbis(azan-1-yl-1ylidene))bis(methan-1-yl-1-ylidene)bis(2-hydroxy-5-methylbenzaldehyde) W. Condensation of the precursor with 2-(amino-methyl)pyridine in mole ratios of 1:2 gave the new N6O2 multidentate Schiff-base ligand H2L. Upon complex formation, the ligand behaves as a dibasic oct
... Show MoreToday’s academics have a major hurdle in solving combinatorial problems in the actual world. It is nevertheless possible to use optimization techniques to find, design, and solve a genuine optimal solution to a particular problem, despite the limitations of the applied approach. A surge in interest in population-based optimization methodologies has spawned a plethora of new and improved approaches to a wide range of engineering problems. Optimizing test suites is a combinatorial testing challenge that has been demonstrated to be an extremely difficult combinatorial optimization limitation of the research. The authors have proposed an almost infallible method for selecting combinatorial test cases. It uses a hybrid whale–gray wol
... Show MoreA novel welded demountable shear connector for sustainable steel-concrete composite structures is proposed. The proposed connector consists of a grout-filled steel tube bolted to a compatible partially threaded stud, which is welded on a steel section. This connector allows for an easy deconstruction at the end of the service life of a building, promoting the reuse of both the concrete slabs and the steel sections. This paper presents the experimental evaluation of the structural behavior of the proposed connector using a horizontal pushout test arrangement. The effects of various parameters, including the tube thickness, the presence of grout infill, and the concrete slab compressive strength, were assessed. A nonlinear finite element mode
... Show MoreRutting has a significant impact on the pavements' performance. Rutting depth is often used as a parameter to assess the quality of pavements. The Asphalt Institute (AI) design method prescribes a maximum allowable rutting depth of 13mm, whereas the AASHTO design method stipulates a critical serviceability index of 2.5 which is equivalent to an average rutting depth of 15mm. In this research, static and repeated compression tests were performed to evaluate the permanent strain based on (1) the relationship between mix properties (asphalt content and type), and (2) testing temperature. The results indicated that the accumulated plastic strain was higher during the repeated load test than that during the static load tests. Notably, temperatur
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In this work, an experimental investigation has been done for heat transfer by natural-convection through a horizontal concentric annulus with porous media effects. The porous structure in gap spacing consists of a glass balls and replaced by plastic (PVC) balls with different sizes. The outer surface of outer tube is isothermally cooled while the outer surface of inner tube is heated with constant heat flux condition. The inner tube is heated with different supplied electrical power levels. Four different radius ratios of annulus are used. The effects of porous media material, particles size and annulus radius ratio on heat dissipation in terms of average Nusselt number have been analyzed. |
The energy requirements of corn silage harvesters and the application of precision agricultural techniques are essential for efficient and productive agricultural practices. The article aims to review previous studies on the energy requirements needed for different corn silage harvesting machines, and on the other hand, to present methods for measuring corn silage productivity directly in the field and monitoring it based on microcontrollers and artificial intelligence techniques. The process of making corn silage is done by cutting green fodder plants into small pieces, so special harvesters are used for this, called corn silage harvesters. The purpose of harvesting corn silage is to efficiently collect and store as many digestible nutrien
... Show MoreThis paper proposes a new approach, of Clustering Ultrasound images using the Hybrid Filter (CUHF) to determine the gender of the fetus in the early stages. The possible advantage of CUHF, a better result can be achieved when fuzzy c-mean FCM returns incorrect clusters. The proposed approach is conducted in two steps. Firstly, a preprocessing step to decrease the noise presented in ultrasound images by applying the filters: Local Binary Pattern (LBP), median, median and discrete wavelet (DWT),(median, DWT & LBP) and (median & Laplacian) ML. Secondly, implementing Fuzzy C-Mean (FCM) for clustering the resulted images from the first step. Amongst those filters, Median & Laplace has recorded a better accuracy. Our experimental evaluation on re
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