Background: As the traditional indicators of the operative outcomes, including morbidity and mortality, cannot give suffi cient information on a patient’ s physical, mental, emotional, and functional well-being alone, we aimed to compare life quality in the patients under open vein Harvesting (OVH) and endoscopic vein Harvesting (EVH) techniques after four years of follow-up. Methods: This prospective cohort study followed all the patients who were scheduled for off-pump CABG in the Mashhad-based Imam Reza Hospital, in October 2013, for 4 years. Accordingly, data related to their quality of life were collected, and their life quality was then compared using the WHOQOL-BREF scale. T-test, chi-squared, Fisher exact test, and relative risk were also used. Results: This study was conducted on a total of 103 patients under the two techniques of OVH (n = 53) and EVH (n = 50). The diff erence between the EVH (4. 7%) and OVH (16. 3%) groups at the demographic characteristics was the Transient Ischemic Attack (P = 0. 023). After a 4-years follow-up period, no signifi cant diff erences were observed between the patients undergoing the two techniques of OVH and EVH in all the domains of life quality. Conclusions: According to the obtained results, there was no diff erence in the quality of life between the patients undergoing OVH and EVH techniques over a four-year period. In this regard, further investigations are recommended on the quality of life in patients under the two techniques of OVH and EVH with long-term follow-up periods.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Jordan is among the most water-scarce countries in the world. The scarcity of water resources in Jordan is driving the development and advances of non-conventional water techniques that enable integrated management of water resources in addressing water scarcity challenges and promoting sustainable water use. Water Harvesting of rainwater and fog techniques is one of the viable solutions to mitigate the water scarcity effects in Jordan. This study aimed to evaluate the quantity of rainwater and fog collected through the utilization of solar panels, while also conducting a feasibility analysis on the economic and environmental aspects of employing solar panels for rainwater and fog Harvesting in a solar farm situated in Jordan.METHODS: In the present study, an in-situ experiment is conducted to investigate rainwater and fog Harvesting from solar panels' surfaces that are widely spread in Jordan. The solar farm situated in Hai Al Sahabah, south of Amman, Jordan, incorporates an experimental arrangement that involves the installation of gutters, pipes, and water tanks beneath two solar panel samples. These panels have a total area of 4 square meters and will be monitored for a duration of 60 days.FINDING: The results of the experiment show that the total quantity of the harvested rainwater using two solar panels was 444 liters ranging from 0.8 liters per day to 117.66 liters per day, and the total harvested fog quantity was 28 liters ranging from 0.25 liters per day to 9.75 liters per day. The multilinear regression technique was employed to establish a correlation between the amount of harvested water and the crucial factors of wind direction, wind speed, relative humidity, and temperature at the solar farm. The analysis of the findings revealed a significant relationship between these variables. These relationships can be generalized to provide an estimation for the quantity of rainwater and fog Harvesting in other locations. The quantity of harvested rainwater was primarily influenced by wind speed and direction, the quantity of harvested fog was mainly affected by relative humidity and temperature. The current study aims to analyze and deliberate on the collected amounts of water obtained through rainwater and fog Harvesting from solar panels. The viability of implementing the method of rainwater and fog Harvesting from solar panels will be examined in terms of economic and environmental factors.CONCLUSIONS: The quantity of rainwater gathered in this research with just two solar panels shows great potential for widespread use as a supplementary water supply. This method of rainwater and fog Harvesting can be effectively applied to solar power plants which are widely spread in Jordan for use in solar panel cleaning, agriculture, groundwater recharge, and reducing stormwater discharge to assess and manage the risk of environmental damage. Rainwater and fog Harvesting systems offer a higher level of efficiency and cost-effectiveness compared to other methods, especially when seamlessly integrated into the infrastructure of solar power plants. The benefits of solar panels by producing clean energy are not negotiable but combining energy production with water Harvesting in solar power plants would offer even more advantages in enhancing the global environmental situation.

Among various products available in agriculture, saffron plays a major role in contributing to Iran's gross domestic product and per capita income growth. Due to shortage of workforce and short duration of Harvesting, areas under cultivation of saffron in Iran will be declining in coming years. Thus, proper planning for optimum use of workforce is one of the most important techniques to access efficient Harvesting. In this regard, an integer programming model is proposed to solve the problem in this paper. Number of working shift and working hours in each shift are among decision variables in the proposed model, which satisfy the objective function, i. e. minimizing the total cost of workforce, with constrains including number of working hours in each shift, speed of workforce, number of fields that should be harvested in each day and relationship between working hours of each worker and the cost allocated. To evaluate the proposed model, we employ the data collected from fields located in different areas of Qaen, South Khorasan province, Iran. By comparing the output of the proposed model to the real situation, the ability of the model is confirmed. Finally, concluding remarks and suggestions for future research are provided.

One of the important bottle-necks in production of microalgae based biodiesel is the lack of an efficient method for Harvesting of microalgae from the culture medium. In this study, the electroflocculation method was developed for Harvesting of microalgae Dunaliella cells from culture medium. The effect of several parameters such as the current density, electrical conductivity of culture medium, time, electrode gap, and electrode type on Harvesting efficiency and energy consumption were also determined. The maximum Harvesting efficiency of this method was 97.44% at EC=1.35 S m-1 and current density of 90 A m-2 during 3 minutes electroflocculation process in a 300 ml beaker. The maximum efficiency was achieved by aluminum electrodes with 1 cm distance between electrodes and the maximum energy consumption for this practice was 0.621 kW h m-3. It was concluded that electroflocculation is an efficient and cost effective method for microalgae Harvesting.