Search results for: Ahmad Ismail

Authors: Norhayati Mat Wajid, Abdul Murad Zainal Abidin, Hasila Jarimi, Kamaruzaman Sopian, Adnan Ibrahim, Ahmad Fazlizan, Afif Safwan

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Solar-adsorption air-conditioning system (SADCS) is an alternative to the conventional vapor compression system (VCS). SADCS have advantages over VCS system, such as 1) a green cooling technology which utilizes solar energy to drive the adsorption/desorption cycle, 2) can be operated using green refrigerant HFC free pure water, 3) mechanically simpler, and 4) lower operating noise level since it has no moving parts other than the magnetic valves. Several advancements have been achieved in these fields in the last decade, but further research is still needed to escalate this technology to a practical level. Hence, this paper presents a literature survey and a review that add insights into the current state-of-the-art of SADCS technologies with emphasis on the practical researches that were conducted at the laboratory scale and commercial level. In this paper, the performance evaluation of vermiculite as adsorbent material for SADCS in tropical climate discussed in comparison to other adsorbent material such as silica gel.

Keywords: adsorption cooling, solar-assisted cooling, HVAC, tropical climate, solar thermal

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Authors: Nor Diana Ahmad, Eric Atwell, Brandon Bennett

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Text processing techniques for English have been developed for several decades. But for the Malay language, text processing methods are still far behind. Moreover, there are limited resources, tools for computational linguistic analysis available for the Malay language. Therefore, this research presents the use of natural language processing (NLP) in processing Malay translated Qur’an text. As the result, a new language resource for Malay translated Qur’an was created. This resource will help other researchers to build the necessary processing tools for the Malay language. This research also develops a simple question-answer prototype to demonstrate the use of the Malay Qur’an resource for text processing. This prototype has been developed using Python. The prototype pre-processes the Malay Qur’an and an input query using a stemming algorithm and then searches for occurrences of the query word stem. The result produced shows improved matching likelihood between user query and its answer. A POS-tagging algorithm has also been produced. The stemming and tagging algorithms can be used as tools for research related to other Malay texts and can be used to support applications such as information retrieval, question answering systems, ontology-based search and other text analysis tasks.

Keywords: language resource, Malay translated Qur'an, natural language processing (NLP), text processing

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Authors: Seyed-Ahmad Shahidi, Salemeh Kazemzadeh, Mehdi Sharifi Soltani, Azade Ghorbani-HasanSaraei

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The kinetics of colour changes of American Pokeweed extract, due to concentration by various heating methods was studied. Three different heating/evaporation processes were employed for production of American Pokeweed extract concentrate. The American Pokeweed extract was concentrated to a final 40 °Brix from an initial °Brix of 4 by microwave heating, rotary vacuum evaporator and evaporating at atmospheric pressure. The final American Pokeweed extract concentration of 40 °Brix was achieved in 188, 216 and 320 min by using microwave, rotary vacuum and atmospheric heating processes, respectively. The colour change during concentration processes was investigated. Total colour differences, Hunter L, a and b parameters were used to estimate the extent of colour loss. All Hunter colour parameters decreased with time. The zero-order, first-order and a combined kinetics model were applied to the changes in colour parameters. All models were found to describe the L, a and b-data adequately. Results indicated that variation in TCD followed both first-order and combined kinetics models. This model implied that the colour formation and pigment destruction occurred during concentration processes of American Pokeweed extract.

Keywords: American pokeweed, colour, concentration, kinetics

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Authors: Mohammad Ansari, Ahmed Ismail, Satinder Mann

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Overcrowding in Emergency departments (ED) of United Kingdom has become a common problem. Urgent Care centres were developed nearly a decade ago to reduce pressure on EDs. Unfortunately, the development of Urgent Care centres has failed to produce the projected effects. It was thought that nearly 40% patients attending ED would go to Urgent Care centres and these would be staffed by Primary care Physicians. Data reveals that no more than 20% patients were seen by Primary Care Physicians even when the Urgent Care Centre was based in the ED. This study was carried out at the ED of George Eliot Hospital, Nuneaton, UK where the Urgent Care centre was based in the ED and employed Primary Care Physicians with special interest in trauma for nearly one year. This was then followed by a Primary Care Physician and Advanced Nurse Practitioner. We compared the number of patients seen during these periods and the cost-effectiveness of the service.We randomly selected a week of patients seen by Primary Care Physicians with special interest in Trauma and by Primary Care Physicians and the Advanced Nurse Practitioner. We compared the number and type of patients seen during these two periods. Nearly 38% patients were seen by Primary care Physician with special interest in Trauma, whilst only 14.3% patients were seen by the Primary care Physician and Advanced Nurse Practitioner. The Primary Care Physicians with special interest in trauma were paid less. Our study confirmed that unless Primary Care Physicians are able to treat minor trauma and interpret x-rays, the urgent care service is not going to be cost effective. Numerous previous studies have shown that 15 to 20% patients attending ED can be treated by Primary Care Physicians who do not require any investigations for their management. It is advantageous to have Urgent Care Centres within the ED because if the patient deteriorates they can be transferred to ED. We recommend that the Urgent care Centres should be a part of ED. Our study shows that Urgent care Centres in the ED can be helpful and cost effective if staffed by either senior Emergency Physicians or Primary Care Physicians with special interest and experience in the management of minor trauma.

Keywords: urgent care centres, primary care physician, advanced nurse practitioner, trauma

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Authors: Fadwa Alhalaiqa, Ahmad Al-Nawafleh, Abdul-Monim Batiha, Rami Masadeh, Aida Abd Alrazek

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Healthy lifestyle recommendations (e.g. physical inactivity, unhealthy diet, increased cholesterol levels, obesity, and poor stress management) play an important role in controlling BP. This study aimed to assess lifestyle modification factors among patient diagnosed with hypertension. Methods and materials: A cross section-survey design was used. Data was collected by four questionnaires one was the beliefs about medication (BMQ) and rest were developed to collect data about demographics and clinical characteristics and lifestyle modification factors. Results: Total 312 questionnaires had been completed. The participants had a mean age of 57.6 years (SD =11.8). The results revealed that our participants did not follow healthy lifestyle recommendations; for example the means BS level, BMI, and cholesterol levels were 155 mg/dl (SD= 71.9), 29 kg/2m (SD= 5.4) and 197 mg/dl (SD= 86.6) respectively. A significant correlation was shown between age and BP (P= 0.000). Increase in DBP correlates with a significant increase in cholesterol level (P= .002) and BMI (P= .006). Conclusion: Hypertensive patients did not adhere to healthy lifestyle modification factors. Therefore, an urgent action by addressing behavioral risk factors has a positive impact on preventing and controlling hypertension.

Keywords: adherence, healthy lifestyle, hypertension, patients

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Authors: Ismail Elkhrachy

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Determination of land use changing is an important component of regional planning for applications ranging from urban fringe change detection to monitoring change detection of land use. This data are very useful for natural resources management.On the other hand, the technologies and methods of change detection also have evolved dramatically during past 20 years. So it has been well recognized that the change detection had become the best methods for researching dynamic change of land use by multi-temporal remotely-sensed data. The objective of this paper is to assess, evaluate and monitor land use change surrounding the area of Najran city, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) using Landsat images (June 23, 2009) and ETM+ image(June. 21, 2014). The post-classification change detection technique was applied. At last,two-time subset images of Najran city are compared on a pixel-by-pixel basis using the post-classification comparison method and the from-to change matrix is produced, the land use change information obtained.Three classes were obtained, urban, bare land and agricultural land from unsupervised classification method by using Erdas Imagine and ArcGIS software. Accuracy assessment of classification has been performed before calculating change detection for study area. The obtained accuracy is between 61% to 87% percent for all the classes. Change detection analysis shows that rapid growth in urban area has been increased by 73.2%, the agricultural area has been decreased by 10.5 % and barren area reduced by 7% between 2009 and 2014. The quantitative study indicated that the area of urban class has unchanged by 58.2 km〗^2, gained 70.3 〖km〗^2 and lost 16 〖km〗^2. For bare land class 586.4〖km〗^2 has unchanged, 53.2〖km〗^2 has gained and 101.5〖km〗^2 has lost. While agriculture area class, 20.2〖km〗^2 has unchanged, 31.2〖km〗^2 has gained and 37.2〖km〗^2 has lost.

Keywords: land use, remote sensing, change detection, satellite images, image classification

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Authors: Purnima Rawat, Divya Vohora, Sarika Gupta, Farhan J. Ahmad, Sushama Talegaonkar

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Nanoparticles (NPs) that target bone tissue were developed using PLGA–mPEG (poly(lactic-co-glycolic-acid)–polyethylene glycol) diblock copolymers by using pamidronate as a bone-targeting moieties. These NPs are expected to enable the transport of hydrophilic drugs. The NP was prepared by in situ polymerization method, and their in- vitro characteristics were evaluated using dynamic light scattering, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and in phosphate-buffered solution. The bone targeting potential of the NP was also evaluated on in-vitro pre-osteoblast MCT3E1 cell line using ALP activity, degree of mineralization and RT-PCR assay. The average particle size of the NP was 101.6 ± 3.7nm, zeta potential values were negative (-25±0.34mV) of the formulations and the entrapment efficiency was 93± 3.1 % obtained. The moiety of the PLGA–mPEG–pamidronate NPs exhibited the best apatite mineral binding ability in-vitro MCT3E1 pre-osteoblast cell line. Our results suggested that the developed nanoparticles may use as a delivery system for Pamidronate in bone repair and regeneration, warranting further evaluation of the treatment of bone disease.

Keywords: nanoparticle, pamidronate, in-situ polymerization, osteoblast

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Authors: Nur H. Ahmad, Silvia S. Inge, Vanessa A. Julliete, A. Veraditias, Laila F. Febinda

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Abdominal obesity is a risk factor for metabolic syndrome and mostly found in adolescents. Waist circumference is related to abdominal obesity which has a significant effect on the increase of blood pressure. Inulin is one of prebiotic, that has health benefits by offering the potential for lipid management, that can be useful to decrease the risk factor of metabolic syndrome. The aim of the research is to evaluate the effect of 10 gram inulin-substituted ice cream in waist circumference and blood pressure of abdominal obesity adolescents. Inulin had the ability to produce Short Chain Fatty Acid which can improve blood pressure and waist circumference. Systolic blood pressure was significantly decreased in the treatment group (p=0.028) with the mean of reduction 7.35 ± 11.59 mmHg. However, diastolic blood pressure and waist circumference showed no significant effect. Waist circumference, systolic blood pressure and diastolic blood pressure was decreased in control group. These results suggest that inulin-substituted ice cream used as therapeutics and prevention for the early onset of metabolic syndrome.

Keywords: blood pressure, inulin, metabolic syndrome, waist circumference

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Authors: M. Arabghahestani, A. Darwish Ahmad, N. K. Akafuah

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In this work, small-scale experiments of fire whirl were conducted to study the spinning fire phenomenon and to gain comprehensive understandings of fire tornadoes and the factors that affect their behavior. High speed imaging was used to track the flames at both temporal and spatial scales. This allowed us to better understand the role of the near-ground height in creating a boundary layer flow profile that, in turn contributes to formation of vortices around the fire, and consequent fire whirls. Based on the results obtained from these observations, we were able to spot the differences in the fuel burning rate of the fire itself as a function of a newly defined specific non-dimensional near-ground height. Based on our observations, there is a cutoff non-dimensional height, beyond which a normal fire can be turned into a fire whirl. Additionally, the results showed that the fire burning rate decreases by moving the fire to a height higher than the ground level. These effects were justified by the interactions between vortices formed by, the back pressure and the boundary layer velocity profile, and the vortices generated by the fire itself.

Keywords: boundary layer profile, fire whirls, near-ground height, vortex interactions

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Authors: Azade Ghorbani-HasanSaraei, Seyed-Ahmad Shahidi, Sakineh Alizadeh, Adeleh Maghsoudlou

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Improvement of color, as a quality attribute of Plum Concentrate, has been made possible by the increase in knowledge of kinetic of color change. Three different heating/evaporation processes were employed for the production of pPlum juice concentrate. The Plum juice was concentrated to a final 55 °Bx from an initial °Bx of 15 by microwave heating, rotary vacuum evaporator and evaporating at atmospheric pressure. The final Plum juice concentration of 55 °Bx was achieved in 17, 24 and 57 min by using the microwave, rotary vacuum and atmospheric heating processes, respectively. The colour change during concentration processes was investigated. Total colour differences, Hunter L, a and b parameters were used to estimate the extent of colour loss. All Hunter colour parameters decreased with time. The zero-order, first-order and a combined kinetics model were applied to the changes in colour parameters. Results indicated that variation in TCD followed both first-order and combined kinetics models, and parameters L, a and b followed only combined model. This model implied that the colour formation and pigment destruction occurred during concentration processes of plum juice.

Keywords: colour, kinetics, concentration, plum juice

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Authors: Mohammad Ansari, Satinder Mann, Ahmed Ismail

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Primary care patients in Emergency Departments (ED) have been the topic of discussion since 1998 in the United Kingdom. Numerous studies have analysed attendances in EDs retrospectively and suggest that at least one third to fifty percent patients attending ED with problems which could be managed appropriately in General Practice or minor injuries units. The pattern of ED Usage seems to be International. In Australia and many departments in the United States include walk in facilities staffed by physicians on family practice residency programme. It clearly appears in the United Kingdom that EDs have to accept that such patients with primary care problems will attend the ED and facilities will have to be provided to see and treat such patients. Urgent care centres were introduced in the United Kingdom nearly a decade ago to reduce the pressure on EDs. Most of these were situated near pre-existing EDs. Unfortunately these centres failed to have the desired effect of reducing the number of patients visiting EDs, it has been noticed that when more patients were seen in Urgent Care centres there were increased attendances in ED as well. A new model of Urgent Care centre was started in the ED of George Eliot Hospital, Nuneaton, UK. We looked at the working of the centre by looking at the number of patients seen daily against the number of total attendances in the ED. We studied the number and type of patients seen by the Urgent Care Doctor. All the medical records of the patients were seen and the time patients spent in the Urgent Care centre was recorded. The total number of patients seen during this study were 1532. 219 (14.3% ) were seen within our Urgent Care centre. None of the patients waited over four hours to be seen. It has been recognised that primary care patients in the ED are a major part of attendances of the department and unless these patients are seen in Urgent Care centres, overcrowding and long waits cannot been avoided. It has been shown that employing primary care Physicians in Urgent Care centres reduces overall cost because they do not carry out as many investigations as Junior Doctors. In our study over 14% patients were seen by Urgent Care Physicians and none of the patients waited for more than four hours and we feel that care provided to the patients by Urgent Care centre was highly effective and satisfying for the patient.

Keywords: urgent care centres, primary care physicians, overcrowding, cost

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Authors: He Yuhai, Ahmad Ziad Bin Sulaiman

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Tongkat Ali, or Eurycoma longifolia, is a traditional Malay and Orang Asli herb used as aphrodisiac, general tonic, anti-Malaria, and anti-Pyretic. It has been recognized as a cashcrop by Malaysia due to its high value for the pharmaceutical use. In Tongkat Ali, eurycomanone, a quassinoid is usually chosen as a marker phytochemical as it is the most abundant phytochemical. In this research, ultrasound and enzyme were used to enhance the extraction of Eurycomanone from Tongkat Ali. Ultrasonic assisted extraction (USE) enhances extraction by facilitating the swelling and hydration of the plant material, enlarging the plant pores, breaking the plant cell, reducing the plant particle size and creating cavitation bubbles that enhance mass transfer in both the washing and diffusion phase of extraction. Enzyme hydrolyses the cell wall of the plant, loosening the structure of the cell wall, releasing more phytochemicals from the plant cell, enhancing the productivity of the extraction. Possible effects of ultrasound on the activity of the enzyme during the hydrolysis of the cell wall is under the investigation by this research. The extracts was analysed by high performance liquid chromatography for the yields of Eurycomanone. In this whole process, the conventional water extraction was used as a control of comparing the performance of the ultrasound and enzyme assisted extraction.

Keywords: ultrasound, enzymatic, extraction, Eurycoma longifolia

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Authors: Ennus Tajuddin Tamboli, Madhukar Garg, Mohd. Mujeeb, Sayeed Ahmad

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An efficient protocol for simultaneous production of forskolin and rosmarinic acid in in vitro callus derived from the leaves of Coleus forskohlii Briq. has been developed. MS media was used for the establishment of cultures and NAA + 6-BA (1.0 ppm) was found best for callus growth. The callus was further subjected to treatment with various elicitor/precursors viz. chitosan, thidiazuron and methyl jasmonate to observe their effect on production of biomass and accumulation of secondary metabolites. The content of forskolin and rosmarinic acid were estimated by HPTLC, in comparison to natural explant which showed 2 fold and 10 fold rise in forskolin and rosmarinic acid content, respectively. Methy1 jasmonate 50 µM was found best for production of forskolin, whereas thidiazuron showed best results in the yield of rosmarinic acid, separately in static culture. However, combined treatment in suspension culture showed moderated effect for increase in secondary metabolites but the biomass increased significantly as compared to static culture.

Keywords: plant tissue culture, secondary metabolites, coleus, forskolin, rosmarinic acid, HPTLC

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Authors: Ahmad Ardillah Rahman

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The decentralisation policy in education has been a trend in some countries in the last two decades. In Indonesia, the implementation of the policy has been introduced since 2003 with the occurrence of School-Based Management policy. The reform has affected the way principals and teachers should involve in school practices in which more autonomies and flexibilities are given to teachers in conducting their teaching practices. Almost 13 years since the policy was firstly introduced, the government and teachers in Indonesia still face some obstacles in maximising the potential benefits of the implementation of the decentralised education system. This study, thus, critically analyses the challenges of decentralised education policy for teachers in Indonesian education context. The purposes of this study are threefold. Firstly, it will explore the history of policy transformation from a centralised to a decentralised education policy. Secondly, it points out the advantages of the decentralised policy implementation. The last, it provides a comprehensive description of challenges faced by Indonesian teachers with the new roles in designing and implementing a curriculum. By using data from existing surveys and research, this study concludes that to successfully implement the transformation in the educational reform of Indonesia, continual and gradual teachers’ training, professional career pathway, and local monitoring for teachers should be developed and strengthened.

Keywords: curriculum design, decentralisation, school-based management, teachers’ autonomy

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Authors: Fisayo G. Ojo, Shamala K. Subramaniam, Zuriati Ahmad Zukarnain

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As technology is advancing and wireless applications are becoming dependable sources, while the physical layer of the applications are been embedded into tiny layer, so the more the problem on energy efficiency and consumption. This paper reviews works done in recent years in wireless applications and distributed computing, we discovered that applications are becoming dependable, and resource allocation sharing with other applications in distributed computing. Applications embedded in distributed system are suffering from power stability and efficiency. In the reviews, we also prove that discrete event simulation has been left behind untouched and not been adapted into distributed system as a simulation technique in scheduling of each event that took place in the development of distributed computing applications. We shed more lights on some researcher proposed techniques and results in our reviews to prove the unsatisfactory results, and to show that more work still have to be done on issues of energy efficiency in wireless applications, and congestion in distributed computing.

Keywords: discrete event simulation (DES), distributed computing, energy efficiency (EE), internet of things (IOT), quality of service (QOS), user equipment (UE), wireless mesh network (WMN), wireless sensor network (wsn), worldwide interoperability for microwave access x (WiMAX)

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Authors: K. Nasir, S. Ahmad, A. Khan, H. Benkreira

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The topic of the research is to develop sustainable fire-resistant materials for vibration and acoustic damping of structure and airborne noises from sustainable recycled materials and biodegradable binders. The paper reports, methods and techniques of enhancing fire resistive, vibration and acoustic properties of building insulation materials made from natural resources like wood and recycled materials like rubber and textile waste. The structures are designed to optimize the number, size and stratification of closed (heat insulating) and open (noise insulating) pores. The samples produced are tested for their heat and noise insulating properties, including vibration damping and their structural properties (airflow resistivity, porosity, tortuosity and elastic modulus). The structural properties are then used in theoretical models to check the acoustic insulation measurements. Initial data indicate that one layer of such material can yield as much as 18 times more damping, increasing the loss factor by 18%.

Keywords: fire resistant, vibration damping, acoustic material, vibro-acoustic, thermal insulation, sustainable material, low cost materials, recycled materials, construction material

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Authors: Aarti Singh, Anees Ahmad

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Carotenoids comprise a group of isoprenoid pigments. Carotenes, xanthophylls and their derivatives have been found to play an important role in all living beings through foods, neutraceuticals and pharmaceuticals. α-carotene, β-carotene and β-cryptoxanthin play a vital role in humans to provide vitamin A source for the growth, development and proper functioning of immune system and vision. They are very crucial for plants and humans as they protect from photooxidative damage and are excellent antioxidants quenching singlet molecular oxygen and peroxyl radicals. Diet including more intake of carotenoids results in reduced threat of various chronic diseases such as cancer (lung, breast, prostrate, colorectal and ovarian cancers) and coronary heart diseases. The blue light filtering efficiency of the carotenoids in liposomes have been reported to be maximum in lutein followed by zeaxanthin, β-carotene and lycopene. Lycopene plays a vital role for the protection from CVD. Lycopene in serum is directly related to reduced risk of osteoporosis in postmenopausal women. Carotenoids have major role in the treatment of skin disorders. There is need to identify and isolate novel carotenoids from diverse natural sources for human health benefits.

Keywords: antioxidants, carotenoids, neutraceuticals, osteoporosis, pharmaceuticals

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Authors: Seraj Makkawi, Abdulaziz A. Alqarni, Himyan Alghaythee, Suzan Y. Alharbi, Anmar Fatani, Reem Adas, Ahmad R. Abuzinadah

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Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, is a neurodegenerative disease that involves both the upper and lower motor neurons. Familial ALS, including superoxide dismutase 1 (SOD1) mutation, accounts for 5-10% of all cases of ALS. Typically, the symptoms of ALS are purely motor, though coexistent sensory symptoms have been reported in rare cases. In this report, we describe the case of a 47- year-old man who presented with progressive bilateral lower limb weakness and numbness for the last four years. A nerve conduction study (NCS) showed evidence of coexistent axonal sensorimotor polyneuropathy in addition to the typical findings of ALS in needle electromyography. Genetic testing confirmed the diagnosis of familial ALS secondary to the SOD1 genetic mutation. This report highlights that the presence of sensory symptoms should not exclude the possibility of ALS in an appropriate clinical setting.

Keywords: Saudi Arabia, polyneuropathy, SOD1 gene mutation, familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

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Authors: Z. B. Ibrahim, N. Ismail, K. I. Othman

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Fuzzy Differential Equations (FDEs) play an important role in modelling many real life phenomena. The FDEs are used to model the behaviour of the problems that are subjected to uncertainty, vague or imprecise information that constantly arise in mathematical models in various branches of science and engineering. These uncertainties have to be taken into account in order to obtain a more realistic model and many of these models are often difficult and sometimes impossible to obtain the analytic solutions. Thus, many authors have attempted to extend or modified the existing numerical methods developed for solving Ordinary Differential Equations (ODEs) into fuzzy version in order to suit for solving the FDEs. Therefore, in this paper, we proposed the development of a fuzzy version of three-point block method based on Block Backward Differentiation Formulas (FBBDF) for the numerical solution of first order FDEs. The three-point block FBBDF method are implemented in uniform step size produces three new approximations simultaneously at each integration step using the same back values. Newton iteration of the FBBDF is formulated and the implementation is based on the predictor and corrector formulas in the PECE mode. For greater efficiency of the block method, the coefficients of the FBBDF are stored at the start of the program. The proposed FBBDF is validated through numerical results on some standard problems found in the literature and comparisons are made with the existing fuzzy version of the Modified Simpson and Euler methods in terms of the accuracy of the approximated solutions. The numerical results show that the FBBDF method performs better in terms of accuracy when compared to the Euler method when solving the FDEs.

Keywords: block, backward differentiation formulas, first order, fuzzy differential equations

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Authors: Mohammed Nishat, Ahmad Ghazali

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This study empirically inspects the corporate governance and firm performance, and attempts to analyze the corporate governance and control related variables which are hypothesized to have effect on firm’s performance. Current study attempts to assess the mechanism and efficiency of corporate governance to achieve high level performance for the listed firms on the Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) for the period 2005 to 2008. To evaluate the firm performance level this study investigate the firm performance using three measures; Return on assets (ROA), Return on Equity (ROE) and Tobin’s Q. To check the link between firm performances with the corporate governance three categories of corporate governance variables are tested which includes governance, ownership and control related variables. Fixed effect regression model is used to examine the relation among governance and corporate performance for 267 KSE listed Pakistani firms. The result shows that governance related variables like block shareholding by individuals have positive impact on firm performance. When chief executive officer is also the board chairperson then it is observed that performance of firm is adversely affected. Also negative relationship is found between share held by insiders and performance of firm. Leverage has negative influence on the firm performance and size of firm is positively related with performance of the firm.

Keywords: corporate governance, agency cost, KSE, ROA, Tobin’s Q

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Authors: Ahmed Ismail, Mustafa Baysal

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Although the energy source in the world is mainly based on fossil fuels today, there is a need for alternative energy generation systems, which are more economic and environmentally friendly, due to continuously increasing demand of electric energy and lacking power resources and networks. Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) such as fuel cells, wind and solar power have recently become widespread as alternative generation. In order to solve several problems that might be encountered when integrating DERs to power system, the microgrid concept has been proposed. A microgrid can operate both grid connected and island mode to benefit both utility and customers. For most distributed energy resources (DER) which are connected in parallel in LV-grid like micro-turbines, wind plants, fuel cells and PV cells electrical power is generated as a direct current (DC) and converted to an alternative currents (AC) by inverters. So the inverters are assumed to be primary components in a microgrid. There are many control techniques of parallel inverters to manage active and reactive sharing of the loads. Some of them are based on droop method. In literature, the studies are usually focused on improving the transient performance of inverters. In this study, the performance of two different controllers based on droop control method is compared for the inverters operated in parallel without any communication feedback. For this aim, a microgrid in which inverters are controlled by conventional droop controller and modified droop controller is designed. Modified controller is obtained by adding PID into conventional droop control. Active and reactive power sharing performance, voltage and frequency responses of those control methods are measured in several operational cases. Study cases have been simulated by MATLAB-SIMULINK.

Keywords: active and reactive power sharing, distributed generation, droop control, microgrid

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Authors: Hajir Abdllha, Alaa Mohamed, Khansa Almoniem, Naga Adam, Wdeea Alhaadi, Ahmed Elshikh, Ahmed Ali, Ismail Makuar, Anas Elnazeer, Nagat Elrofaei, Samir Abdoelftah, Monier Hemidan

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The present study was designed to investigate antimicrobial, and antioxidant activities of five species from Acacia (Acacia albidia, Acacia mellifera, Acacia nubica, Acacia seyal var. seyal and Acacia tortilis). Phytochemical study was piloted to detect the bioactive compounds, which have been responsible from the biological activities. The ethanol, chloroform and acetone plant extracts were seasoned against standard bacteria strains of gram +ve bacteria Staphylococcus aureus (ATCC 25923), Gram -ve bacteria Pseudomonas aeruginosa (ATCC 27853) and standard fungi Candida albicans (ATCC 90028), using cup-plate method. The antioxidant activities were conducted via DPPH radical scavenging and metal chelating assays. Prospective activity against the five species was observed in acetone extract. Ethanol extract showed highest activities against Staphylococcus aureus, and Candida albicans. Potential antioxidant activity was presented by ethanol. Cholorophorm and acetone extracts via DPPH, the radical scavenging activities were found to be 91±0.03, 88±0.01 and 85±0.04 respectively. The results of phytochemical screening showed that all extracts of studied plant contain flavonoids, saponins, terpenoids, steroids, alkaloids, phenols and tannins. This study gives rise to antioxidant, antimicrobial properties of studied plant, and showed interesting correlation with the phytochemical constituents and biological activities.

Keywords: antimicrobial, antioxidant, Acacia albidia, Acacia mellifera, Acacia nubica, Acacia seyal var. seyal, Acacia tortilis

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Authors: Ahmad Mohsin, Irfan Raza Naqvi, Syda Fatima Usamn

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Applications with higher fault tolerance index are considered more reliable and trustworthy to drive quality. In recent years application development has been shifted from traditional desktop and web to native and hybrid application(s) for the web and mobile platforms. With the emergence of Internet of things IOTs, cloud and big data trends, the need for measuring Fault Tolerance for these complex nature applications has increased to evaluate their performance. There is a phenomenal gap between fault tolerance metrics development and measurement. Classic quality metric models focused on metrics for traditional systems ignoring the essence of today’s applications software, hardware & deployment characteristics. In this paper, we have proposed simple metrics to measure fault tolerance considering general requirements for Web and Mobile Applications. We have aligned factors – subfactors, using GQM for metrics development considering the nature of mobile we apps. Systematic Mathematical formulation is done to measure metrics quantitatively. Three web mobile applications are selected to measure Fault Tolerance factors using formulated metrics. Applications are then analysed on the basis of results from observations in a controlled environment on different mobile devices. Quantitative results are presented depicting Fault tolerance in respective applications.

Keywords: web and mobile applications, reliability, fault tolerance metric, quality metrics, GQM based metrics

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Authors: Jamil Jafari, Sharafat Karimi

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The Arabic Language has a complicated system of prosody invented by the great grammarian Khalil Ibn Ahmad Farahidi. He could extract 15 meters out of his innovative five circles, which were used in Arabic poetry of the 7th and 8th centuries. Then after a while, his student Akhfash added or compensated another meter to his tutor's meters, so overall, we now have 16 different meters in Arabic poetry. These meters have been formed by various combinations of 8 different feet and each foot is combined of rudimentary units called Sabab and Wated which are combinations of movement (/) and silent (ʘ) letters. On the other hand in English, we are dealing with another system of metrical prosody. In this language, feet are consisted of stressed and unstressed syllables and are of six types: iamb, trochee, dactyl, anapest, spondee, and pyrrhic. Using the descriptive-analytic method, in this research we aim at making a comparison between Arabic and English systems of metrical prosody to investigate their similarities and differences. The results show that both of them are quantitative and both of them rely on syllables in afoot. But unlike Arabic, English is utilizing another rhyme system and the number of feet in a line differs from Arabic; also, its feet are combined of stressed and unstressed syllables, while those of Arabic is a combination of movement and silent letters.

Keywords: Arabic prosody, English prosody, foot, meter, poetry

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Authors: Nisreen Naji Al-Khawaldeh, Lara Ahmad Mansour El-Awar

Abstract:

The present study investigated the strategies MA translation students used for translating technical terms, the most common obstacles they encountered in translating such terms, and the motives behind using such terms as they are in their original form despite their translatability into Arabic. To achieve these objectives, a translation test was administered to 100 MA students specialising in translation at both Hashemite University and The University of Jordan. It consisted of two parts: (a) 50 English technical terms to be translated (b) two questions to be answered concerning the challenges or problems encountered while translating the previous technical terms and the motives that drive them to use most of the English technical terms as they are despite their translatability into Arabic. The analysis of the results revealed that MA translation students faced problems in translating technical terms, namely the inability to find the equivalent form for the given technical terms, the use of literal translation, and the wider use of loan-words type. Besides, the students used different strategies to translate the technical terms, namely borrowing (i.e., loan- words), paraphrasing, synonymy, naturalization, equivalence, and literal translation. Moreover, it was also revealed that most technical terms were used as they are in the source language despite their translatability into Arabic because these technical terms are easier to use in English rather than in Arabic. Also, when these terms were introduced to the Arab world, they were introduced in English, not in Arabic. So, the brain links these objects to their English terms.

Keywords: arabic, english, technical terms, translation strategies, translation problems

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Authors: Aarti Singh, Anees Ahmad

Abstract:

Carotenoids comprise a group of isoprenoid pigments. Carotenes, xanthophylls and their derivatives have been found to play an important role in all living beings through foods, neutraceuticals and pharmaceuticals. α-carotene, β-carotene and β-cryptoxanthin play a vital role in humans to provide vitamin A source for the growth, development and proper functioning of immune system and vision. They are very crucial for plants and humans as they protect from photooxidative damage and are excellent antioxidants quenching singlet molecular oxygen and peroxyl radicals. Diet including more intake of carotenoids results in reduced threat of various chronic diseases such as cancer (lung, breast, prostate, colorectal and ovarian cancers) and coronary heart diseases. The blue light filtering efficiency of the carotenoids in liposomes have been reported to be maximum in lutein followed by zeaxanthin, β-carotene and lycopene. Lycopene play a vital role for the protection from CVD. Lycopene in serum is directly related to reduced risk of osteoporosis in postmenopausal women. Carotenoids have the major role in the treatment of skin disorders. There is a need to identify and isolate novel carotenoids from diverse natural sources for human health benefits.

Keywords: antioxidants, carotenoids, neutraceuticals, osteoporosis, pharmaceuticals

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Authors: Saghir Ahmad, Abid Hussain Ch, Misbah Malik, Ayesha Batool

Abstract:

Terrorism is the marvel in which dreadful circumstance is made by a gathering of individuals who view themselves as abused by society. Terrorism is the unlawful utilization of power or viciousness by a man or a sorted out gathering by the general population or property with the aim of intimidation or compulsion of social orders or governments frequently for ideological or political reasons. Terrorism is as old as people. The main aim of the study was to find out the causes of terrorism through the perceptions of the universities students of teacher training institutions. This study was quantitative in nature. Survey method was used to collect data. A sample of two hundred and sixty seven students was selected from public universities. A five point Likert scale was used to collect data. Mean, Standard deviation, independent sample t-test, and One Way ANOVA were applied to analyze the data. The major findings of the study indicated that students perceived the main causes of terrorism are poverty, foreign interference, wrong concept of Islamization, and social injustice. It is also concluded that mostly, students think that drone attacks are promoting the terrorist activities. The education is key to eliminate the terrorism. There is need to educate the people and specially youngsters to bring the peace in the world.

Keywords: dreadful circumstance, governments, power, students, terrorism

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Authors: Nor Khaizan Anuar, Nur Karimah Aziz, Tin Wui Wong, Ahmad Sazali Hamzah, Wan Rozita Wan Engah

Abstract:

The physicochemical attributes and wound healing activity of pectin hydrogel in rat models, following partial thickness thermal injury were investigated. The pectin hydrogel was prepared by solvent evaporation method with the aid of glutaraldehyde as crosslinking agent and glycerol as plasticizer. The physicochemical properties were mainly evaluated using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, while the wound healing activity was examined by the macroscopic images, wound size reduction and histological evaluation using haematoxylin and eosin (H&E) stain for 14 days. The DSC and FTIR analysis suggested that pectin hydrogel exhibited higher extent of polymer-polymer interaction at O-H functional group in comparison to the unprocessed pectin. This was indicated by the increase of endothermic enthalpy values from 139.35 ± 13.06 J/g of unprocessed pectin to 156.23 ± 2.86 J/g of pectin hydrogel, as well as the decrease of FTIR wavenumber corresponding to O-H at 3432.07 ± 0.49 cm-1 of unprocessed pectin to 3412.62 ± 13.06 cm-1 of pectin hydrogel. Rats treated with pectin hydrogel had significantly smaller wound size (Student’s t-test, p<0.05) when compared to the untreated group starting from day 7 until day 14. H&E staining indicated that wounds received pectin hydrogel had more fibroblasts, blood vessels and collagen bundles on day 14 in comparison to the untreated rats.

Keywords: pectin, physicochemical, rats, wound

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Authors: Hajir, B. Abdllha, , Alaa, I. Mohamed, Khansa, A. Almoniem, Naga, I. Adam, Wdeea, Alhaadi, Ahmed, A. Elshikh, Ahmed, J. Ali, Ismail, G. Makuar, Anas, M. Elnazeer, Nagat, A. Elrofaei, Samir, F. Abdoelftah, Monier, N. Hemidan

Abstract:

The present study was designed to investigate antimicrobial, and antioxidant activities of five species from Acacia (Acacia albidia, Acacia mellifera, Acacia nubica, Acacia seyal var.seyal and Acacia tortilis). Phytochemical study was piloted to detect the bioactive compounds, which have been responsible from the biological activities. The ethanol, chloroform and acetone plant extracts were seasoned against standard bacteria strains of gram +ve bacteria Staphylococcus aureus (ATCC 25923) ,Gram -ve bacteria Pseudomonas aeruginosa (ATCC 27853) and standard fungi Candida albicans (ATCC 90028), using cup-plate method. The antioxidant activities were conducted via DPPH radical scavenging and metal chelating assays. Prospective activity against the five species was observed in acetone extract. Ethanol extract showed highest activities against Staphylococcus aureus, and Candida albicans. Potential antioxidant activity was presented by ethanol. Cholorophorm and acetone extracts via DPPH, the radical scavenging activities were found to be 91±0.03, 88±0.01 and 85±0.04 respectively. The results of phytochemical screening showed that all extracts of studied plant contain flavonoids, saponins, terpenoids, steroids, alkaloids, phenols and tannins. This study give rise to antioxidant, antimicrobial properties of studied plant, and showed interesting correlation with the phytochemical constituents and biological activities.

Keywords: antimicrobial, Antioxidant, Acacia albidia, Acacia mellifera, acacia nubica, acacia seyal var.seyal, Acacia tortilis

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Authors: Roghayeh Karami, Ahmad Gharaei

Abstract:

Backgrounds and objectives: This study was undertaken at four different sites (north polluted, south polluted, south healthy and north healthy) in Tehran, in order to examine whether there was a relationship between publicly available air quality data and the public’s perception of air quality and to suggest some guidelines for reducing air pollution. Materials and Methods: A total of 200 people were accidentally filled out the research questionnaires at mentioned sites and air quality data were obtained simultaneously from the Air Quality Control Department. Data was analyzed in Excel and SPSS software. Results: Clean air and secure job were of great importance to people comparing to other pleasant aspect of life. Also air pollution and fear of dangerous diseases were the most important of people concerns. The Indies bored /news paper services on air quality were little used by the public as a means of obtaining information on air pollution. Using public transportation and avoid unessential journeys are the most important ways for reducing air pollution. Conclusion: The results reveal that the public’s perception of air quality is not a reliable indicator of the actual levels of air pollution. Current earths to down actions are not effective and enough in reducing air pollution, therefore it seems participatory management and public participation is suitable guideline.

Keywords: air pollution, quality of life, opinion poll, public participation

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