status of solid waste management in Gaza city and the dustmen' views: an environmental study

This study investigates the dustmen's opinion about collecting and moving of solid waste into the dump, the problems of waste management, and how to improve work in Gaza city and Al-Shati' Refugee Camp. So, a questionnaire of 87 open ended and non open ended items was designed and distributed among 230 dustmen in the summer of 2007. Results revealed that most of the residents put their waste in simple plastic bags which are always found torn out due to kids, rodents, dogs, and rubbish diggers. Therefore, dustmen prefer special plastic bags. In addition, results revealed that the municipality collects the waste found in front of houses for nearly 70% of Gaza population twice a day to once every two days, and that there are two methods of collecting and moving waste into the dump: collecting from house to house, and collecting from garbage containers. Sometimes the two methods go together; however, the first is preferable. Furthermore, the study pointed out some problems that hinder the work of management because of workers, municipality, residents and waste containers. Moreover, results showed that workers refused privatizing the system of collecting the waste. Finally, the study recommends collecting waste from house to house as well as changing the existing methods into a new proposed one

Prevalence of carotid atherosclerosis in patients with coronary artery disease

Many studies have identified the relationship between carotid atherosclerosis and coronary artery diseases. The rationale for testing carotid artery stenosis in patients with coronary artery disease, have several benefits for early detection of asymtomatic carotid stenosis. The aim of this study is to evaluate the prevalence of carotid artery patients with coronary artery disease. The study included 102 patients proved to be ischemic heart disease angiography, underwent carotid duplex. These patients classified into two groups according to carotid duplex result, group A [negative duplex] and group B [positive carotid duplex]. All patients were subjected to the following:-Full history taking, thorough clinical examination, laboratory investi-gation, 12 leads surface ECG, echocardiography, coronary angiography and carotid duplex. Age was significantly higher in group B than in group A. No statistically significant difference between both groups as regard EF% and history of myocardial infarction. There was close association between carotid atherosclerosis and multivessel coronary artery disease. Carotid atherosclerosis and degree of stenosis in. left carotid artery was significantly higher than in right one. From this study we concluded that there was a close relationship between coronary and carotid atherosclerosis both sharing more or Less, the same risk factors [smoking, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, hyperlipidemia and left ventricular hypertrophy], the degree of carotid atherosclerosis can be used as non invasive procedure for assessment of patients prepared for coronary angiogram