Search results for: Mohamed Abdalla Khalil Mahmoud
Commenced in January 2007
Frequency: Monthly
Edition: International
Paper Count: 2018

Search results for: Mohamed Abdalla Khalil Mahmoud

938 Total Phenols, Total Flavonoids Contents and Free Radical Scavenging Activity of Seeds Extracts of Lawsonia alba (henna) from Algeria

Authors: Rekia. Cherbi, Mokhtar. Saidi, Mohamed. Yousfi, Zhor. Rahmani

Abstract:

Lawsonia alba (Henna) is widely used in folkloric medicinal for a treatment of various skin diseases such as Eczema (atopic dermatitis), boils and sores. The aim of the present study is to determine the antioxidant activity, total phenolics, flavonoids, and condensed tannins content of extracts from the seeds of Lawsonia. alba grown in Algeria and selected from three different regions (Adrar, Biskra, and Ouargla). Total phenolics content ranged from 68,42 ± 0,54 to 88,31 ± 0,78mg gallic acid equivalents (GAE)/g dry weight, the flavonoids content varied from 1,13 ± 0,0035 to 1,367 ± 0,002mg quercetin equivalents (Q)/ g dry weight and condensed tannins (14,47 ± 0,138 to 25,50 ± 0,076 mg catechin equivalents (CE)/g dry weight). The antioxidant activities of the extracts were evaluated by DPPH assay. The results showed that all extracts from the seeds of Lawsonia. alba seem to be good trappers of radicals, the IC50 values of the extracts ranged between 0,00826 and 0,01 g/l.

Keywords: antioxidant activity, Lawsonia. alba, phenolic compounds, seeds

Procedia PDF Downloads 335
937 Language and Study Skill Needs: A Case Study of ESP Learners at the Language Centre of Sultan Qaboos University, Oman

Authors: Ahmed Mohamed Al-Abdali

Abstract:

Providing English for Specific Purposes (ESP) courses that are more closely geared to the learners’ needs and requirements in their fields of study undoubtedly enhance learners’ interest and success in a highly academic environment. While needs analysis is crucial to the success of ESP courses, it has not received sufficient attention from researchers in the Arab world. Oman is no exception from the Arab countries as this fact is realised in the ESP practices in the Omani higher educational context. This presentation, however, discusses the perceptions of the Language Centre (LC) students at Sultan Qaboos University (SQU), Oman, in relation to the requirements of their science colleges. The discussion of the presentation will be based on a mixed-method-approach study, which included semi-structured interviews, questionnaires and document analyses. These mixed methods have allowed for closer investigation of the participants' views, backgrounds and experiences. It is hoped that the findings of this study will be used to recommend changes to the ESP curriculum in the LC of SQU so that it better meets the needs of its students and requirements of the science colleges.

Keywords: curriculum, ESP, ELT, needs analysis, college requirements

Procedia PDF Downloads 306
936 Influence of Urban Fabric on Child’s Upbringing: A Comparative Analysis between Modern and Traditional City

Authors: Mohamed A. Tantawy, Nourelhoda A. Hussein, Moataz A. Mahrous

Abstract:

New planning and city design theories are continuously debated and optimized for seeking efficiency and adequacy in economic and life quality aspects. Here, we examine the children-city relationship, to reflect on how modern and traditional cities affect the social climate. We adopt children as a proper caliber for urbanism, as for their very young age, they are independent and attached to family. Their fragility offers a chance to gauge how various urban settings directly affect their feeling of safety, containment, and their perception of belonging for home territory. The importance of street play for the child development process is discussed thoroughly. The authority they have on their play (when and what to play) pushes us to our conclusion. A mediocre built environment characterized by spontaneity and human-scale semi-private urban spaces, is irreplaceable by a perfectly designed far away playgrounds. Street play has a huge role in empowering children for a gradual engagement with grown-ups’ urban flow.

Keywords: child's psychology, social activity, street play, urban fabric

Procedia PDF Downloads 297
935 The Islamic Advertising Standardisation Revisited of Food Products

Authors: Nurzahidah Haji Jaapar, Anis Husna Abdul Halim, Mohd Faiz Mohamed Yusof, Mohd Dani Muhamad, Sharifah Fadylawaty Syed Abdullah

Abstract:

The growing size of Muslim is recognised with significant increasing of purchasing power in the market. The realm of trade and business has embedded religious values as the new market segments are emerging in offering food products to meet needs and demands of Muslim consumer. The emergence of new market in food industry, advertising is charged with all sort of negative effects includes promoting controversial unsafety and harmful products, wasteful spending and exploiting women and kids. Therefore, this research attempts to examine between previous examinations of advertising standardisation in ancient era and current practices in the market. This paper is based on content analysis of the literature. The results show that there are a bridge gap between the implementation of practices as the advent in industrial 4.0 in using digital advertising by food industry. Thus, this paper is able to recognize the differences between two era and significant in determining the best practices in advertising by following Islamic principles.

Keywords: Islamic advertising, unethical advertising, ethical advertising, Islamic principles

Procedia PDF Downloads 137
934 The Influence of the Form of Grain on the Mechanical Behaviour of Sand

Authors: Mohamed Boualem Salah

Abstract:

The size and shape of soil particles reflect the formation history of the grains. In turn, the macro scale behavior of the soil mass results from particle level interactions which are affected by particle shape. Sphericity, roundness and smoothness characterize different scales associated to particle shape. New experimental data and data from previously published studies are gathered into two databases to explore the effects of particle shape on packing as well as small and large-strain properties of sandy soils. Data analysis shows that increased particle irregularity (angularity and/or eccentricity) leads to: an increase in emax and emin, a decrease in stiffness yet with increased sensitivity to the state of stress, an increase in compressibility under zero-lateral strain loading, and an increase in critical state friction angle φcs and intercept Γ with a weak effect on slope λ. Therefore, particle shape emerges as a significant soil index property that needs to be properly characterized and documented, particularly in clean sands and gravels. The systematic assessment of particle shape will lead to a better understanding of sand behavior.

Keywords: angularity, eccentricity, shape particle, behavior of soil

Procedia PDF Downloads 400
933 Air Flow Characteristics and Pressure Distributions for Staggered Wing Shaped Tubes Bundle

Authors: Sayed A. Elsayed, Emad Z. Ibrahim, Osama M. Mesalhy, Mohamed A. Abdelatief

Abstract:

An experimental and numerical study has been conducted to clarify fluid flow characteristics and pressure drop distributions of a cross-flow heat exchanger employing staggered wing-shaped tubes at different angels of attack. The water-side Rew and the air-side Rea were at 5 x 102 and at from 1.8 x 103 to 9.7 x 103, respectively. Three cases of the tubes arrangements with various angles of attack, row angles of attack and 90° cone angles were employed at the considered Rea range. Correlation of pressure drop coefficient Pdc in terms of Rea, design parameters for the studied cases were presented. The flow pattern around the staggered wing-shaped tubes bundle were predicted by using commercial CFD FLUENT 6.3.26 software package. Results indicated that the values of Pdc were increased by increasing the angle of attack from 0° to 45°, while the opposite was true for angles of attack from 135° to 180°. Comparisons between the experimental and numerical results of the present study and those, previously, obtained for similar available studies showed good agreements.

Keywords: wing-shaped tubes, cross-flow cooling, staggered arrangement, CFD

Procedia PDF Downloads 360
932 Effects of Vitamin E and Vitamin on Growth, Survival and Some Haematological and Immunological Parameters of Caspian Brown Trout, Salmo trutta caspius Juveniles

Authors: Hossein Khara, Mahmoud Sayyadborani, Mohammad Sayyadborani

Abstract:

In the present study, we examined the effects of different dietary levels of ascorbic acid (vitamin C) and α-tocopherol (vitamin E) and their combinations on growth, survival and some haematological and immunological parameters of Caspian brown trout, Salmo trutta caspius juveniles. 15 experimental treatments and one control group with three replicates were considered for experiment. The experimental treatments were fish fed by experimental diets containing different levels of Vit C and E as follow: T1: Vit E (20 mg.kg diet -1) + Vit C (100 mg.kg diet -1), T2: Vit E (30 mg.kg diet -1) + Vit C (100 mg.kg diet -1), T3: Vit E (40 mg.kg diet -1) + Vit C (100 mg.kg diet -1), T4: Vit E (20 mg.kg diet -1) + Vit C (200 mg.kg diet -1), T5: Vit E (30 mg.kg diet -1) + Vit C (200 mg.kg diet -1), T6: Vit E (40 mg.kg diet -1) + Vit C (200 mg.kg diet -1), T7: Vit E (20 mg.kg diet -1) + Vit C (300 mg.kg diet -1), T8: Vit E (30 mg.kg diet -1) + Vit C (300 mg.kg diet -1), T9: Vit E (40 mg.kg diet -1) + Vit C (300 mg.kg diet -1), T10: Vit C (100 mg.kg diet -1), T11: Vit C (200 mg.kg diet -1), T12: Vit C (300 mg.kg diet -1), T13: Vit E (20 mg.kg diet -1), T14: Vit E (30 mg.kg diet -1) T15: Vit E (40 mg.kg diet -1). Also a non-vitamin supplemented was considered as control group. Growth parameters were measured monthly and serum parameters assayed at the end of the experiment. According to our results, Vit C and E improved survival and growth parameters including specific growth rate (SGR), weight gain percent (WG%) and biomass. The highest values of these parameters obtained in T8, T9 and T8 respectively. The lowest FCR obtained in T8. The haematological parameters including red blood cells (RBCs), white blood cells (WBCs), haematocrit (Hct) and haemoglobin (Hb) were higher in vitamin treated groups than control group with highest values in T8. In T13, WBC values were higher compared to other experimental groups. The immunological parameters including lysozyme activity, Immunoglobulin (IgM) and total immunoglobulin (TIg) were significantly higher in vitamin supplemented groups than in control group. In this regard the highest values of these parameters were found in T12. The lowest values of TIg and lysozyme activity were observed in control group and fish fed by only vitamin E i.e. T13, T14 and T15. In conclusion, our results show that Vit C and E in combination or only can improve growth, survival, haematological and immunological indices of Caspian brown trout.

Keywords: vitamins E, vitamins C, growth, survival, haematological parameters, immunological parameters

Procedia PDF Downloads 330
931 Effect of Boundary Retaining Walls Properties on the Raft Foundations Behaviour

Authors: Mohamed Hussein

Abstract:

This paper studies the effect of boundary retaining walls properties on the behavior of the raft foundation. Commercial software program Sap2000 was used in this study. The soil was presented as continuous media (follows the Winkler assumption). Shell elements were employed to model the raft plate. A parametric study has been carried out to examine the effect of boundary retaining walls properties on the behavior of raft plate. These parameters namely, height of the boundary retaining walls, thickness of the boundary retaining walls, flexural rigidity of raft plate, bearing capacity of supporting soil and the earth pressure of boundary soil. The main results which were obtained from this study are positive, negative bending moment, shear stress and deflection in raft plate, where these parameters are considered the main parameters used in design of raft foundation. It was concluded that the boundary retaining walls have a significant effect on the straining actions in raft plate.

Keywords: Sap2000, boundary retaining walls, raft foundations, Winkler model, flexural rigidity

Procedia PDF Downloads 164
930 Images Selection and Best Descriptor Combination for Multi-Shot Person Re-Identification

Authors: Yousra Hadj Hassen, Walid Ayedi, Tarek Ouni, Mohamed Jallouli

Abstract:

To re-identify a person is to check if he/she has been already seen over a cameras network. Recently, re-identifying people over large public cameras networks has become a crucial task of great importance to ensure public security. The vision community has deeply investigated this area of research. Most existing researches rely only on the spatial appearance information from either one or multiple person images. Actually, the real person re-id framework is a multi-shot scenario. However, to efficiently model a person’s appearance and to choose the best samples to remain a challenging problem. In this work, an extensive comparison of descriptors of state of the art associated with the proposed frame selection method is studied. Specifically, we evaluate the samples selection approach using multiple proposed descriptors. We show the effectiveness and advantages of the proposed method by extensive comparisons with related state-of-the-art approaches using two standard datasets PRID2011 and iLIDS-VID.

Keywords: camera network, descriptor, model, multi-shot, person re-identification, selection

Procedia PDF Downloads 263
929 Objective Evaluation on Medical Image Compression Using Wavelet Transformation

Authors: Amhimmid Mohammed Saffour, Mustafa Mohamed Abdullah

Abstract:

The use of computers for handling image data in the healthcare is growing. However, the amount of data produced by modern image generating techniques is vast. This data might be a problem from a storage point of view or when the data is sent over a network. This paper using wavelet transform technique for medical images compression. MATLAB program, are designed to evaluate medical images storage and transmission time problem at Sebha Medical Center Libya. In this paper, three different Computed Tomography images which are abdomen, brain and chest have been selected and compressed using wavelet transform. Objective evaluation has been performed to measure the quality of the compressed images. For this evaluation, the results show that the Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) which indicates the quality of the compressed image is ranging from (25.89db to 34.35db for abdomen images, 23.26db to 33.3db for brain images and 25.5db to 36.11db for chest images. These values shows that the compression ratio is nearly to 30:1 is acceptable.

Keywords: medical image, Matlab, image compression, wavelet's, objective evaluation

Procedia PDF Downloads 273
928 Effect of Packaging Treatment and Storage Condition on Stability of Low Fat Chicken Burger

Authors: Mohamed Ahmed Kenawi Abdallah

Abstract:

Chemical composition, cooking loss, shrinkage value, texture coefficient indices, Feder value, microbial examination, and sensory evaluation were done in order to examine the effect of adding 15% germinated quinoa seeds flour as extender to chicken wings meat to produce low fat chicken burger, packaged in two different packing materials and stored frozen for nine months. The data indicated reduction in the moisture content, crude either extract, and increase in the ash content, pH value, and total acidity for the samples extended by quinoa flour compared with the control one. The data showed that the extended samples with quinoa flour had the lowest values of TBA, cooking loss, and shrinkage value compared with the control ones. The data also revealed that, the sample contained quinoa flour had total bacterial count and psychrophilic bacterial count lower than the control sample. In addition, it has higher evaluation values for overall acceptability than the control one.

Keywords: chicken wings, low fat chicken burger, quinoa flour, vacuum packaging.

Procedia PDF Downloads 90
927 A Refinement Strategy Coupling Event-B and Planning Domain Definition Language (PDDL) for Planning Problems

Authors: Sabrine Ammar, Mohamed Tahar Bhiri

Abstract:

Automatic planning has a de facto standard language called Planning Domain Definition Language (PDDL) for describing planning problems. It aims to formalize the planning problems described by the concept of state space. PDDL-related dynamic analysis tools, namely planners and validators, are insufficient for verifying and validating PDDL descriptions. Indeed, these tools made it possible to detect errors a posteriori by means of test activity. In this paper, we recommend a formal approach coupling the two languages Event-B and PDDL, for automatic planning. Event-B is used for formal modeling by stepwise refinement with mathematical proofs of planning problems. Thus, this paper proposes a refinement strategy allowing to obtain reliable PDDL descriptions from an ultimate Event-B model correct by construction. The ultimate Event-B model, correct by construction which is supposed to be translatable into PDDL, is automatically translated into PDDL using our MDE Event-B2PDDL tool.

Keywords: code generation, event-b, PDDL, refinement strategy, translation rules

Procedia PDF Downloads 176
926 A Workable Mechanism to Support Students Who Are at Risk

Authors: Mohamed Chabi

Abstract:

The project of helping students at risk started at the Math department in the new foundation program at Qatar University in the fall 2012 semester. The purpose was to find ways to help students who were struggling with their math courses Elementary algebra or Precalculus course due to many factors. Department had formed the Committee “students at Risk” at the start of 12-13 to assist struggling students in our math courses to get their studies on track. A mechanism was developed to support students who are at risk using a developed E-Monitoring system. E-Monitoring system was developed to manage automatically all transactions relevant to the students’ attendance, Students ‘‘warning Students’’ grading, etc. E-Monitoring System produce various statistics such as, Overall course statistics, Performance, Students at Risk… to help department to develop a higher quality of education in the Foundation Program at Math department. The mechanism was studies and evaluated. Whatever the cause, the sooner we identify students who are not performing well academically, the sooner we can provide, or direct them to the resources that are available to them. In this paper, we outline the mechanism and its effect on students’ performance. The collected data from various exams shows that students had benefited from the mechanism.

Keywords: students at risk, e-monitoring system, warning students, performance

Procedia PDF Downloads 476
925 Photocatalytic Degradation of Acid Dye Over Ag, Loaded ZnO Under UV/Solar Light

Authors: Farida Kaouah, Wassila Hachi, Lamia Brahmi, Chahida Ousselah, Salim Boumaza, Mohamed Trari

Abstract:

The feasibility of using solar irradiation instead of UV light in photocatalysis is a promising approach for water treatment. In this study, photocatalytic degradation of a widely used textile dye, Acid Blue 25 (AB25), with noble metal loaded ZnO photocatalyst (Ag/ZnO), was investigated in aqueous suspension under solar light. The results showed that the deposition of Ag as a noble metal onto the ZnO surface, improved the photodegradation of AB25. . The effect of different parameters such as catalyst dose, initial dye concentration, and contact time was optimized and the optimal degradation of AB25 (97%) was achieved for initial AB25 concentration of 24 mg L−1 an catalyst dose of 1 g L−1 at natural pH (5.42) after 180 min. The kinetic studies were achieved and revealed that the photocatalytic degradation process obeyed to Langmuir–Hinshelwood model and followed a pseudo-first order rate expression. This work envisages the great potential that sunlight photocatalysis has in the degradation of dyes from wastewater

Keywords: acid dye, photocatalytic degradation, sunlight, zinc oxide, noble metal, Langmuir–Hinshelwood model

Procedia PDF Downloads 97
924 Performance of CO₂/N₂ Foam in Enhanced Oil Recovery

Authors: Mohamed Hassan, Rahul Gajbhiye

Abstract:

The high mobility and gravity override of CO₂ gas can be minimized by generating the CO₂ foam with the aid of surfactant. However, CO₂ is unable to generate the foam/stable foam above its supercritical point (1100 psi, 31°C). These difficulties with CO₂ foam is overcome by adding N₂ in small fraction to enhance the foam generation of CO₂ at supercritical conditions. This study shows how the addition of small quantity of N₂ helps in generating the CO₂ foam and performance of the CO₂/N₂ mixture foam in enhanced oil recovery. To investigate the performance of CO₂/N₂ foam, core-flooding experiments were conducted at elevated pressure and temperature condition (higher than supercritical CO₂ - 50°C and 1500 psi) in sandstone cores. Fluorosurfactant (FS-51) was used as a foaming agent, and n-decane was used as model oil in all the experiments. The selection of foam quality and N₂ fraction was optimized based on foam generation and stability tests. Every gas or foam flooding was preceded by seawater injection to simulate the behavior in the reservoir. The results from the core-flood experiments showed that the CO₂ and CO₂/N₂ foam flooding recovered an additional 34-40% of Original Initial Oil in Place (OIIP) indicating that foam flooding succeeded in producing more oil than pure CO₂ gas injection processes. Additionally, the performance CO₂/N₂ foam injection was better than CO₂ foam injection.

Keywords: CO₂/N₂ foam, enhanced oil recovery (EOR), supercritical CO₂, sweep efficiency

Procedia PDF Downloads 264
923 Electrochemical Corrosion Behavior of New Developed Titanium Alloys in Ringer’s Solution

Authors: Yasser M. Abd-elrhman, Mohamed A. Gepreel, Kiochi Nakamura, Ahmed Abd El-Moneim, Sengo Kobayashi, Mervat M. Ibrahim

Abstract:

Titanium alloys are known as highly bio compatible metallic materials due to their high strength, low elastic modulus, and high corrosion resistance in biological media. Besides other important material features, the corrosion parameters and corrosion products are responsible for limiting the biological and chemical bio compatibility of metallic materials that produce undesirable reactions in implant-adjacent and/or more distant tissues. Electrochemical corrosion behaviors of novel beta titanium alloys, Ti-4.7Mo-4.5Fe, Ti-3Mo-0.5Fe, and Ti-2Mo-0.5Fe were characterized in naturally aerated Ringer’s solution at room temperature compared with common used biomedical titanium alloy, Ti-6Al-4V. The corrosion resistance of titanium alloys were investigated through open circuit potential (OCP), potentiodynamic polarization measurements and optical microscope (OM). A high corrosion resistance was obtained for all alloys due to the stable passive film formed on their surfaces. The new present alloys are promising metallic biomaterials for the future, owing to their very low elastic modulus and good corrosion resistance capabilities.

Keywords: titanium alloys, corrosion resistance, Ringer’s solution, electrochemical corrosion

Procedia PDF Downloads 632
922 Integration GIS–SCADA Power Systems to Enclosure Air Dispersion Model

Authors: Ibrahim Shaker, Amr El Hossany, Moustafa Osman, Mohamed El Raey

Abstract:

This paper will explore integration model between GIS–SCADA system and enclosure quantification model to approach the impact of failure-safe event. There are real demands to identify spatial objects and improve control system performance. Nevertheless, the employed methodology is predicting electro-mechanic operations and corresponding time to environmental incident variations. Open processing, as object systems technology, is presented for integration enclosure database with minimal memory size and computation time via connectivity drivers such as ODBC:JDBC during main stages of GIS–SCADA connection. The function of Geographic Information System is manipulating power distribution in contrast to developing issues. In other ward, GIS-SCADA systems integration will require numerical objects of process to enable system model calibration and estimation demands, determine of past events for analysis and prediction of emergency situations for response training.

Keywords: air dispersion model, environmental management, SCADA systems, GIS system, integration power system

Procedia PDF Downloads 350
921 Strengthening of Reinforced Concrete Beams Using Steel Plates

Authors: Ghusen al-Kafri, Mohammed Ali Abdallah Elsageer, Ahmed Mohamed Hadya Alsdaai, Abdeimanam Salhien Salih Khalifa

Abstract:

In this paper, external reinforcement to enhance a reinforced concrete structure performance has been done using externally bonded steel plate. This technique has been reported effective in enhancing the strength of reinforced concrete beam, a study to determine the effectiveness of steel plate as an external reinforcement was carried out. A total of two groups of beams and one group content five beams, each 750 mm long, 150 mm wide, and 150 mm deep were cast, strengthened and tested till failure under two point loads. One beam was act as a control beam without strengthening and other four beams were strengthened with steel plate at a different arrangement. Other group beams were strengthened with steel plate in shear zone and also strengthened at bottom as first group. The behaviours of the strengthened beams were studied through their load-deflection characteristic upon bending, cracking and mode of failure. The results confirmed that all steel plate arrangements enhanced the strength of the reinforced concrete beam, the positioning of the steel plate affect the moment carrying capacity of the beam.

Keywords: beams, bending, beflection, steel plates

Procedia PDF Downloads 396
920 Neuroprotective Effect of Tangeretin against Potassium Dichromate-Induced Acute Brain Injury via Modulating AKT/Nrf2 Signaling Pathway in Rats

Authors: Ahmed A. Sedik, Doaa Mahmoud Shuaib

Abstract:

Brain injury is a cause of disability and death worldwide. Potassium dichromate (PD) is an environmental contaminant widely recognized as teratogenic, carcinogenic, and mutagenic towards animals and humans. The aim of the present study was to investigate the possible neuroprotective effects of tangeretin (TNG) on PD-induced brain injury in rats. Forty male adult Wistar rats were randomly and blindly allocated into four groups (8 rats /group). The first group received saline intranasally (i.n.). The second group received a single dose of PD (2 mg/kg, i.n.). The third group received TNG (50 mg/kg; orally) for 14 days, followed by i.n. of PD on the last day of the experiment. Four groups received TNG (100 mg/kg; orally) for 14 days, followed by i.n. of PD on the last day of the experiment. 18- hours after the final treatment, behavioral parameters, neuro-biochemical indices, FTIR analysis, and histopathological studies were evaluated. Results of the present study revealed that rats intoxicated with PD promoted oxidative stress and inflammation via an increase in MDA and a decrease in Nrf2 signaling pathway and GSH levels with an increase in brain contents of TNF-α, IL-10, and NF-kβ and reduced AKT levels in brain homogenates. Treatment with TNG (100 mg/kg; orally) ameliorated behavioral, cholinergic activities and oxidative stress, decreased the elevated levels of pro-inflammatory mediators; TNF-α, IL-10, and NF-κβ elevated AKT pathway with corrected FTIR spectra with a decrease in brain content of chromium residues detected by atomic absorption spectrometry. Also, TNG administration restored the morphological changes as degenerated neurons and necrosis associated with PD intoxication. Additionally, TNG decreased Caspase-3 expression in the brain of PD rats. TNG plays a crucial role in AKT/Nrf2 pathway that is responsible for their antioxidant, anti-inflammatory effects, and apoptotic pathway against PD-induced brain injury in rats.

Keywords: tangeretin, potassium dichromate, brain injury, AKT/Nrf2 signaling pathway, FTIR, atomic absorption spectrometry

Procedia PDF Downloads 86
919 Influence of Moringa Leaves Extract on the Response of Hb Molecule to Dose Rates’ Changes: II. Relaxation Time and Its Thermodynamic Driven State Functions

Authors: Mohamed M. M. Elnasharty, Azhar M. Elwan

Abstract:

Irradiation deposits energy through ionisation changing the bio-system’s net dipole, allowing the use of dielectric parameters and thermodynamic state functions related to these parameters as biophysical detectors to electrical inhomogeneity within the biosystem. This part is concerned with the effect of Moringa leaves extract, natural supplement, on the response of the biosystem to two different dose rates of irradiation. Having Hb molecule as a representative to the biosystem to be least invasive to the biosystem, dielectric measurements were used to extract the relaxation time of certain process found in the Hb spectrum within the indicated frequency window and the interrelated thermodynamic state functions were calculated from the deduced relaxation time. The results showed that relaxation time was decreased for both dose rates indicating a strong influence of Moringa on the response of biosystem and consequently Hb molecule. This influence was presented in the relaxation time and other parameters as well.

Keywords: activation energy, DC conductivity, dielectric relaxation, enthalpy change, Moringa leaves extract, relaxation time

Procedia PDF Downloads 132
918 Epidemiological Investigation of Abortion in Ewes in Algeria

Authors: Laatra Zemmouri, Said Boukhechem, Samia Haffaf, Mohamed Lafri

Abstract:

A study was conducted in order to determine the prevalence and risk factors associated with abortion in ewes in the region of M’sila, located in central-eastern Algeria. A questionnaire was carried out to obtain information about the occurrence of abortion, sheep housing conditions, vaccination, feeding and management practices, and whether the farmers kept other livestock. This cross-sectional study was conducted for 36 months (between 2016 and 2019). A total of 71 sheep flocks were visited. Among 8168 ewes, we recorded 734 (8.99%) abortions and 3861 lambings. The risk factor analysis using multivariable logistic regression showed an association between abortion and vaccination against brucellosis (CI 95%= 2,76-1,35; p<0,001). Abortion decreased when dogs are owned (CI 95%= 0,36-0,84; p= 0.006), however, abortion increased with the presence of cats in farms (CI 95%= 1,24-2,8; p=0.003). There was a significant association between abortion and keeping goats (CI 95%= 1,18-2,40; p= 0.004), bovins (CI 95%= 0,3-0,68; p<0,001) and poultry CI 95%= 0,39-0,77; p= 0.001) in farms. Through this study, it is noticed that a strong association between the occurrence of abortion and estrus synchronization, stillbirth occurrence, and feed supplementation (p<0.05). Identification of the causes of abortion is an important task to reduce foetal losses and to improve livestock productivity.

Keywords: abortion, ewes, questionnaire, risk factors

Procedia PDF Downloads 208
917 The Necessity of Screening for Internalizing Mental Health Problems in Primary School Educational Settings

Authors: Atefeh Ahmadi, Mohamed Sharif Mustaffa

Abstract:

Mental health problems that children introspect them are hardly identified. The internalizing nature of Anxiety Disorders as the most prevalent psychological diseases, make them been under recognized by parents and teachers and so become under attended by school counsellors and subsequently under referred to clinicians. The aim of this study is to investigate the level of Anxiety Disorders to clarify if it is necessary to run screening programs in rural educational settings. Spence children anxiety scale-malay-child for the first time in Malaysia distributed among 640 Malay rural primary school students aged from 9-11 years old. Cut-off score was considered one standard deviation more than the mean of all students’ scores. The results of descriptive analyses revealed the mean for scores of SCAS was 32.84 and 15.6% of students had high level of anxiety. In addition, the level and prevalence of six types of anxiety disorders based on SCAS were described. In regards to the study outcomes, screening for anxiety disorders in academic settings could prevent and reduce their side effects by early identification.

Keywords: anxiety disorders, primary schools, SCAS, screening

Procedia PDF Downloads 284
916 An Easy-Applicable Method for In situ Silver Nanoparticles Preparation into Wool Fibers

Authors: Salwa Mowafi, Mohamed Rehan, Hany Kafafy

Abstract:

In this study, three different systems including room temperature, conventional water bath heating and microwave irradiation technique will be employed in the fabrication of silver nanoparticle-wool fibers. The silver nanoparticles will be synthesized in-situ incorporated into wool fibers under redox active bio-template of wool protein which facilitates the reduction of Ag+ to nanoparticulate Ag0. Silver NPs incorporated wool fiber will be characterized by scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray, FTIR, TGA, silver content and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The mechanism of binding Ag NPs in-situ incorporated wool fibers matrix will be discussed. The effect of silver nanoparticles on the coloration, antimicrobial, UV-protection and catalytic properties of the wool fibers will be evaluated. The overall results of this study indicate that the Ag NPs in-situ incorporated wool fibers will be applied as colorants for wool fibers with improving in its multi-functionality properties. So, this study provides a simple approach for innovative protein fibers design by applying the optical properties of Plasmonic noble metal nanoparticles.

Keywords: microwave irradiation technique, multi-functionality properties, silver nanoparticles, wool fibers

Procedia PDF Downloads 196
915 Arabic Lexicon Learning to Analyze Sentiment in Microblogs

Authors: Mahmoud B. Rokaya

Abstract:

The study of opinion mining and sentiment analysis includes analysis of opinions, sentiments, evaluations, attitudes, and emotions. The rapid growth of social media, social networks, reviews, forum discussions, microblogs, and Twitter, leads to a parallel growth in the field of sentiment analysis. The field of sentiment analysis tries to develop effective tools to make it possible to capture the trends of people. There are two approaches in the field, lexicon-based and corpus-based methods. A lexicon-based method uses a sentiment lexicon which includes sentiment words and phrases with assigned numeric scores. These scores reveal if sentiment phrases are positive or negative, their intensity, and/or their emotional orientations. Creation of manual lexicons is hard. This brings the need for adaptive automated methods for generating a lexicon. The proposed method generates dynamic lexicons based on the corpus and then classifies text using these lexicons. In the proposed method, different approaches are combined to generate lexicons from text. The proposed method classifies the tweets into 5 classes instead of +ve or –ve classes. The sentiment classification problem is written as an optimization problem, finding optimum sentiment lexicons are the goal of the optimization process. The solution was produced based on mathematical programming approaches to find the best lexicon to classify texts. A genetic algorithm was written to find the optimal lexicon. Then, extraction of a meta-level feature was done based on the optimal lexicon. The experiments were conducted on several datasets. Results, in terms of accuracy, recall and F measure, outperformed the state-of-the-art methods proposed in the literature in some of the datasets. A better understanding of the Arabic language and culture of Arab Twitter users and sentiment orientation of words in different contexts can be achieved based on the sentiment lexicons proposed by the algorithm.

Keywords: social media, Twitter sentiment, sentiment analysis, lexicon, genetic algorithm, evolutionary computation

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914 Infrared Spectroscopy in Tandem with Machine Learning for Simultaneous Rapid Identification of Bacteria Isolated Directly from Patients' Urine Samples and Determination of Their Susceptibility to Antibiotics

Authors: Mahmoud Huleihel, George Abu-Aqil, Manal Suleiman, Klaris Riesenberg, Itshak Lapidot, Ahmad Salman

Abstract:

Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are considered to be the most common bacterial infections worldwide, which are caused mainly by Escherichia (E.) coli (about 80%). Klebsiella pneumoniae (about 10%) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (about 6%). Although antibiotics are considered as the most effective treatment for bacterial infectious diseases, unfortunately, most of the bacteria already have developed resistance to the majority of the commonly available antibiotics. Therefore, it is crucial to identify the infecting bacteria and to determine its susceptibility to antibiotics for prescribing effective treatment. Classical methods are time consuming, require ~48 hours for determining bacterial susceptibility. Thus, it is highly urgent to develop a new method that can significantly reduce the time required for determining both infecting bacterium at the species level and diagnose its susceptibility to antibiotics. Fourier-Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy is well known as a sensitive and rapid method, which can detect minor molecular changes in bacterial genome associated with the development of resistance to antibiotics. The main goal of this study is to examine the potential of FTIR spectroscopy, in tandem with machine learning algorithms, to identify the infected bacteria at the species level and to determine E. coli susceptibility to different antibiotics directly from patients' urine in about 30minutes. For this goal, 1600 different E. coli isolates were isolated for different patients' urine sample, measured by FTIR, and analyzed using different machine learning algorithm like Random Forest, XGBoost, and CNN. We achieved 98% success in isolate level identification and 89% accuracy in susceptibility determination.

Keywords: urinary tract infections (UTIs), E. coli, Klebsiella pneumonia, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, bacterial, susceptibility to antibiotics, infrared microscopy, machine learning

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913 A Novel Combined Finger Counting and Finite State Machine Technique for ASL Translation Using Kinect

Authors: Rania Ahmed Kadry Abdel Gawad Birry, Mohamed El-Habrouk

Abstract:

This paper presents a brief survey of the techniques used for sign language recognition along with the types of sensors used to perform the task. It presents a modified method for identification of an isolated sign language gesture using Microsoft Kinect with the OpenNI framework. It presents the way of extracting robust features from the depth image provided by Microsoft Kinect and the OpenNI interface and to use them in creating a robust and accurate gesture recognition system, for the purpose of ASL translation. The Prime Sense’s Natural Interaction Technology for End-user - NITE™ - was also used in the C++ implementation of the system. The algorithm presents a simple finger counting algorithm for static signs as well as directional Finite State Machine (FSM) description of the hand motion in order to help in translating a sign language gesture. This includes both letters and numbers performed by a user, which in-turn may be used as an input for voice pronunciation systems.

Keywords: American sign language, finger counting, hand tracking, Microsoft Kinect

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912 Surface Roughness Modeling in Dry Face Milling of Annealed and Hardened AISI 52100 Steel

Authors: Mohieddine Benghersallah, Mohamed Zakaria Zahaf, Ali Medjber, Idriss Tibakh

Abstract:

The objective of this study is to analyse the effects of cutting parameters on surface roughness in dry face milling using statistical techniques. We studied the effect of the microstructure of AISI 52100 steel on machinability before and after hardening. The machining tests were carried out on a high rigidity vertical milling machine with a 25 mm diameter face milling cutter equipped with micro-grain bicarbide inserts with PVD (Ti, AlN) coating in GC1030 grade. A Taguchi L9 experiment plan is adopted. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to determine the effects of cutting parameters (Vc, fz, ap) on the roughness (Ra) of the machined surface. Regression analysis to assess the machinability of steel presented mathematical models of roughness and the combination of parameters to minimize it. The recorded results show that feed per tooth has the most significant effect on the surface condition for both steel treatment conditions. The best roughnesses were obtained for the hardened AISI 52100 steel.

Keywords: machinability, heat treatment, microstructure, surface roughness, Taguchi method

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911 Pharmaceutical Evaluation of Five Different Generic Brands of Prednisolone

Authors: Asma A. Ben Ahmed, Hajer M. Alborawy, Alaa A. Mashina, Pradeep K. Velautham, Abdulmonem Gobassa, Emhemmed Elgallal, Mohamed N. El Attug

Abstract:

Generic medicines are those where patent protection has expired, and which may be produced by manufacturers other than the innovator company. Use of generic medicines has been increasing in recent years, primarily as a cost saving measure in healthcare provision. Generic medicines are typically 20 – 90 % cheaper than originator equivalents. Physicians often continue to prescribe brand-name drugs to their patients even when less expensive pharmacologically equivalent generic drugs are available. Because generics are less expensive than their brand-name counterparts, the cost-savings to the patient is not the only factor that physicians consider when choosing between generic and brand-name drugs. Unfortunately Physicians in general and Libyan Physicians in particular tend to prescribe brand-name drugs, even without evidence of their therapeutic superiority, because neither they nor their insured patients bear these drugs’ increased cost with respect to generic substitutes. This study is to compare the quality of five different prednisolone tablets of the same strength from different companies under different trade names: Julphar, October pharma, Akums, Actavis, Pfizer compared them with pure prednisolone reference (BPCRS).

Keywords: quality control, pharmaceutical analysis, generic medicines, prednisolone

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910 Synthesis and Electrochemical Characterization of a Copolymer (PANI/PEDOT:PSS) for Application in Supercapacitors

Authors: Naima Boudieb, Mohamed Loucif Seaid, Imad Rati, Imane Benammane

Abstract:

The aim of this study is to synthesis of a copolymer PANI/PEDOT:PSS by electrochemical means to apply in supercapacitors. Polyaniline (PANI) is a conductive polymer; it was synthesized by electrochemical polymerization. It exhibits very stable properties in different environments, whereas PEDOT:PSS is a conductive polymer based on poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) and poly(styrene sulfonate)(PSS). It is commonly used with polyaniline to improve its electrical conductivity. Several physicochemical and electrochemical techniques were used for the characterization of PANI/PEDOT:PSS: cyclic voltammetry (VC), electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), open circuit potential, SEM, X-ray diffraction, etc. The results showed that the PANI/PEDOT:PSS composite is a promising material for supercapacitors due to its high electrical conductivity and high porosity. Electrochemical and physicochemical characterization tests have shown that the composite has high electrical and structural performances, making it a material of choice for high-performance energy storage applications.

Keywords: energy storage, supercapacitors, SIE, VC, PANI, poly(3, 4-ethylenedioxythiophene, PEDOT, polystyrene sulfonate

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909 Wind Velocity Mitigation for Conceptual Design: A Spatial Decision (Support Framework)

Authors: Mohamed Khallaf, Hossein M Rizeei

Abstract:

Simulating wind pattern behavior over proposed urban features is critical in the early stage of the conceptual design of both architectural and urban disciplines. However, it is typically not possible for designers to explore the impact of wind flow profiles across new urban developments due to a lack of real data and inaccurate estimation of building parameters. Modeling the details of existing and proposed urban features and testing them against wind flows is the missing part of the conceptual design puzzle where architectural and urban discipline can focus. This research aims to develop a spatial decision-support design method utilizing LiDAR, GIS, and performance-based wind simulation technology to mitigate wind-related hazards on a design by simulating alternative design scenarios at the pedestrian level prior to its implementation in Sydney, Australia. The result of the experiment demonstrates the capability of the proposed framework to improve pedestrian comfort in relation to wind profile.

Keywords: spatial decision-support design, performance-based wind simulation, LiDAR, GIS

Procedia PDF Downloads 106