Search results for: Enas Fathi Taher AlHares

Authors: Karrar Raoof Kareem Kamoona, Enas Fathi Taher AlHares, Zeynep Isik

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The various disciplines in the construction industry and the co-existence of the people in the various disciplines are what builds well-developed, closely-knit interpersonal skills at various hierarchical levels thus leading to a varied way of leadership. The varied decision making aspects during the lifecycle of a project include: autocratic, participatory and last but not least, free-rein. We can classify some of the decision makers in the construction industry in a hierarchical manner as follows: project executive, project manager, superintendent, office engineer and finally the field engineer. This survey looked at how decisions are made during the construction period by the key stakeholders in the project. From the paper it is evident that the three decision making aspects can be used at different times or at times together in order to bring out the best leadership decision. A blend of different leadership styles should be used to enhance the success rate during the project lifecycle.

Keywords: leadership style, construction, decision-making, built environment

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Authors: Mohamed Taher Eldesoky, Enas Elsayed Abutaleb

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Background: The changes in foot posture possibly generate changes in the pelvic alignment, although, there is lack of evidence about the effects of bilateral and unilateral flatfoot on possible changes in pelvic alignment. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of flatfoot on the sagittal and frontal planes of pelvic postures. Materials and Methods: 56 subjects, aged 18–40 years, were assigned into three groups. 20 healthy subjects, 19 subjects with bilateral flexible second-degree flat foot, and 17 subjects with unilateral flexible second-degree flat foot. 3D assessment of the pelvis using the formetric-II device was used to evaluate pelvic alignment in the frontal and sagittal planes by measuring pelvic inclination and pelvic tilt angles. Results: ANOVA test with LSD test were used for statistical analysis. Both Unilateral and bilateral second degree flatfoot produced significant (P < 0.05) pelvic anteversion in comparison to the healthy subjects (P < 0.05), but the bilateral flatfoot subjects seemed to have more anteversion than the unilateral subjects. Unilateral flatfoot caused a significant (P<0.05) lateral pelvic tilt in the direction of the affected side in comparison to the healthy and bilateral flatfoot subjects. Conclusion: The bilateral and unilateral second degree flatfoot changed pelvic alignment. Both of them led to increases of pelvic anteversion while the unilateral one caused lateral pelvic tilt toward the affected side. Thus, foot posture should be considered when assessing patients with pelvic misalignment and disorders.

Keywords: bilateral flatfoot, unilateral flatfoot, pelvic alignment, foot posture

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Authors: Enas El Sayed Abutaleb, Mohamed Taher Eldesoky, Shahenda Abd El Rasol

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Background: Muscle energy techniques (MET) have been widely used by manual therapists over the past years, but still limited research validated its use and there was limited evidence to substantiate the theories used to explain its effects. Objective: To investigate the effect of muscle energy technique (MET) on anterior pelvic tilt in patients with lumbar spondylosis. Design: Randomized controlled trial. Subjects: Thirty patients with anterior pelvic tilt from both sexes were involved, aged between 35 to 50 years old and they were divided into MET and control groups with 15 patients in each. Methods: All patients received 3 sessions/week for 4 weeks where the study group received MET, Ultrasound and Infrared, and the control group received U.S and I.R only. Pelvic angle was measured by palpation meter, pain severity by the visual analogue scale and functional disabilities by the Oswestry disability index. Results: Both groups showed significant improvement in all measured variables. The MET group was significantly better than the control group in pelvic angle, pain severity, and functional disability as p-value were (0.001, 0.0001, 0.0001) respectively. Conclusion and implication: The study group fulfilled greater improvement in all measured variables than the control group which implies that application of MET in combination with U.S and I.R were more effective in improving pelvic tilting angle, pain severity and functional disabilities than using electrotherapy only.

Keywords: anterior pelvic tilt, lumbar spondylosis, muscle energy technique exercise, pelvic tilting angle

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Authors: H. Zormati, J. Chebil, J. Bel Hadj Taher

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The goal of this paper is to present an addressing scheme that allows for assigning a unique IPv6 address to each node in the Internet of Things (IoT) network. This scheme guarantees uniqueness by extracting the clock skew of each communication device and converting it into an IPv6 address. Simulation analysis confirms that the presented scheme provides reductions in terms of energy consumption, communication overhead and response time as compared to four studied addressing schemes Strong DAD, LEADS, SIPA and CLOSA.

Keywords: addressing, IoT, IPv6, network, nodes

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Authors: Ali M. Elgerbi, Obied A. Alwan, Al-Taher O. Alzwei, Abdurrahim A. Elouzi

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The binding of AFM1 to bacteria in phosphate buffer solution depended on many factors such as: availability of energy, incubation period, species and strain of bacteria. Increase in concentration of sugar showed higher removal of AFM1 and faster than in phosphate buffer alone. With 1.0% glucose lactic acid bacteria and bifidobacteria showed toxin removal ranging from 7.7 to 39.7% whereas with 10.0% glucose the percentage removal was 21.8 to 45.4% at 96 hours of incubation.

Keywords: aflatoxin M1, lactic acid bacteria, bifidobacteria , binding, phosphate buffer

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Authors: Halimi Mohamed Taher, Kordoghli Bassem, Ben Hassen Mohamed, Sakli Faouzi

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Textile and clothing manufacturing industry is based largely on subcontracting system. Choosing the right subcontractor became a strategic decision that can affect the financial position of the company and even his market position. Subcontracting firms in Tunisia are lead to define an appropriate selection process which takes into account several quantitative and qualitative criteria. In this study, a methodology is proposed that includes a Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) in order to incorporate the ambiguities and uncertainties in qualitative decision. Best subcontractors for two Tunisian firms are determined based on model results.

Keywords: AHP, subcontractor, multicriteria, selection

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Authors: Fathi M. O. Hamed, Salma F. Elkofhaifee

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The aim of this work is to detect geometrical shape objects in an image. In this paper, the object is considered to be as a circle shape. The identification requires find three characteristics, which are number, size, and location of the object. To achieve the goal of this work, this paper presents an algorithm that combines from some of statistical approaches and image analysis techniques. This algorithm has been implemented to arrive at the major objectives in this paper. The algorithm has been evaluated by using simulated data, and yields good results, and then it has been applied to real data.

Keywords: image processing, median filter, projection, scale-space, segmentation, threshold

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Authors: Mohamed E. Harb, Enas Moustafa, Shaker Ebrahim, Moataz Soliman

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In this paper pressure detectors were synthesized and characterized using hybrid perovskite/PVDF composites as an active layer. Methylammonium lead iodide (MAPbI₃) was synthesized from methylammonium iodide (MAI) (CH₃NH₃I) and lead iodide (PbI₂). Composites of perovskite/PVDF using different weight ratio were prepared as the active material. PVDF with weights percentages of 6%, 8%, and 10% was used. All prepared materials were investigated by x-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transforms infrared spectrum (FTIR) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). A Versastat 4 Potentiostat Galvanostat instrument was used to perform the current-voltage characteristics of the fabricated sensors. The pressure sensors exhibited a voltage increase with applying different forces. Also, the current-voltage characteristics (CV) showed different effects with applying forces. So, the results showed a good pressure sensing performance.

Keywords: perovskite semiconductor, hybrid perovskite, PVDF, Pressure sensing

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Authors: Olfat E. El-Azabawy, Enas M. Attia, Nadia Shawky, Amira M. Hypa

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In this work, an attempt is made to study the effects of orange peel extract (OPE) as an environment-friendly corrosion inhibitor for carbon steel (CS) within a formation water solution (FW). The study was performed in different concentrations (0.5-2.5% (v/v)) of peel extracts at ambient temperatures (25oC) and (2.5% (v/v)) at temperature range (25- 55 oC) by weight loss measurements, open circuit potential, potentiodynamic polarization and electrochemical impedance. The inhibition efficiency was calculated from all measurements and confirmed by energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS). Inhibition was found to increase with increasing inhibitors concentration and decrease with increasing temperature. It was seen that IE% is about 92.84% in the presence of 2.5% (v/v) of orange peel inhibitor by using weight loss method. The adsorption process was of physical type and obey Langmuir adsorption isotherm. Also, adsorption, as well as the inhibition process, followed first-order kinetics at all concentrations.

Keywords: eco-friendly corrosion inhibitor, OPE, oilfield water, electrochemical impedance

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Authors: Fathi Alwafie

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In this paper we present the simulation of the propagation characteristics of the picocellular propagation channel environment. The first aim has been to find a correct description of the environment for received wave. The result of the first investigations is that the environment of the indoor wave significantly changes as we change the electric parameters of material constructions. A modified 3D ray tracing image method tool has been utilized for the coverage prediction. A detailed analysis of the dependence of the indoor wave on the wide-band characteristics of the channel: Root Mean Square (RMS) delay spread characteristics and mean excess delay, is also investigated.

Keywords: propagation, ray tracing, network, mobile computing

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Authors: Manal E. A Elhalwagy, Nadia Amin Abdulmajeed, Hanan S. Alnahdi, Enas N. Danial

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Baron is herbicide includes (48% glyphosate) widely used in Egypt. The present study assesses the cytotoxic and genotoxic effect of baron on rats liver. Two groups of rats were treated orally with 1/10 LD 50, (275.49 mg kg -1) and 1/40 LD 50, (68.86 mg kg-1) glyphosate for 28 days compared with control group. Serum and liver tissues were taken at 14 and 28 days of treatment. An inhibition in Alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) activities were recorded at both treatment periods and reduction in total serum protein (TP) and albumin (ALB). However, non-significant changes in serum acetylcholinesterase (AChE). Elevation in oxidative stress biomarker malondyaldehyde (MDA) and the decline in detoxification biomarker total reduced glutathione (GSH), Glutathione S-transferase (GST) and superoxide dismutase (SOD) in liver tissues led to increase in percentage of DNA damage. Destruction in liver tissue architecture was observed . Although, Baron was classified in the safe category pesticides repeated exposure to small doses has great danger effect.

Keywords: glyphosate, liver toxicity, oxidative stress, DNA damage, commet assay

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Authors: Enas R. Shouman

Abstract:

Economic development with population growth is leading to a continuous increase in energy demand. At the same time, growing global concern for the environment is driving to decrease the use of conventional energy sources and to increase the use of renewable energy sources. The objective of this study is to present the market trends of solar energy photovoltaic technology over the world and to represent economics methods for PV financial analyzes on the basis of expectations for the expansion of PV in many applications. In the course of this study, detailed information about the current PV market was gathered and analyzed to find factors influencing the penetration of PV energy. The paper methodology depended on five relevant economic financial analysis methods that are often used for investment decisions maker. These methods are payback analysis, net benefit analysis, saving-to-investment ratio, adjusted internal rate of return, and life-cycle cost. The results of this study may be considered as a marketing guide that helps diffusion of using PV Energy. The study showed that PV cost is economically reliable. The consumers will pay higher purchase prices for PV system installation but will get lower electricity bill.

Keywords: photovoltaic, financial methods, solar energy, economics, PV panel

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Authors: Fathi Abubrig, Mohamed Delfag, Suad Abuzariba

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The influence of the crystal field interactions on the mixed spin-3/2 and spin-5/2 ferromagnetic Ising system is considered by using the mean field theory based on Bogoliubov inequality for the Gibbs free energy. The ground-state phase diagram is constructed, the phase diagrams of the second-order critical temperatures are obtained, and the thermal variation of the sublattice magnetizations is investigated in detail. We find some interesting phenomena for the sublattice magnetizations at particular values of the crystal field interactions.

Keywords: crystal field, Ising system, ferromagnetic, magnetization, phase diagrams

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Authors: Albandary Alamer, Noura Alaskar, Sana Bukhamseen, Jawaher Alkhamis, Enas Alghamdi, Almaha Almulhim, Hina Gull, Rachid Zagrouba, Madeeha Saqib

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A good and healthy seed will always produce a nice fruit, whereas an infected seed will produce an infected fruit. The same concept applies to the children, and the healthier the environment in which the kids grow, the more likely they become valuable members of society. Kiddo project introduces us to a mobile application that focuses on enhancing the sense of responsibility from a young age and makes raising kids fun and easy. The application aims to enhance the communication between parents and their children and to enrich the good habits of the kid. Kiddo Application enables kids to share their accomplishments with their peers in an interactive environment full of enjoyment, followed by parental monitoring to handle what their kids are posting and friends following. Kiddo provides the kids' and parents’ society with a safe platform free of cyberbullying and inappropriate content with parents' fun engagement.

Keywords: kids social media, educational app, child-raising, parental control, cyberbullying, parent-child relationship, good habits

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Authors: Huy Hieu Pham, Houssam Salmane, Louahdi Khoudour, Alain Crouzil, Pablo Zegers, Sergio Velastin

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We present a deep learning-based multitask framework for joint 3D human pose estimation and action recognition from color video sequences. Our approach proceeds along two stages. In the first, we run a real-time 2D pose detector to determine the precise pixel location of important key points of the body. A two-stream neural network is then designed and trained to map detected 2D keypoints into 3D poses. In the second, we deploy the Efficient Neural Architecture Search (ENAS) algorithm to find an optimal network architecture that is used for modeling the Spatio-temporal evolution of the estimated 3D poses via an image-based intermediate representation and performing action recognition. Experiments on Human3.6M, Microsoft Research Redmond (MSR) Action3D, and Stony Brook University (SBU) Kinect Interaction datasets verify the effectiveness of the proposed method on the targeted tasks. Moreover, we show that our method requires a low computational budget for training and inference.

Keywords: human action recognition, pose estimation, D-CNN, deep learning

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Authors: Arash Mirabdolah Lavasani, Taher Maarefdoost

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Effect of blockage ratio on heat transfer from non-circular tube is studied experimentally. For doing this experiment a suction type low speed wind tunnel with test section dimension of 14×14×40 and velocity in rage of 7-20 m/s was designed. The blockage ratios varied between 1.5 to 7 and Reynolds number based on equivalent diameter varies in range of 7.5×103 to 17.5×103. The results show that by increasing blockage ratio from 1.5 to 7, drag coefficient of the cam shaped tube decreased about 55 percent. By increasing Reynolds number, Nusselt number of the cam shaped tube increases about 40 to 48 percent in all ranges of blockage ratios.

Keywords: wind tunnel, non-circular tube, blockage ratio, experimental heat transfer, cross-flow

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Authors: Bahram Fathi, Mahdi Khodaparast Mashhadi, Masuod Homayounifar

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According to 1404 forecasting documentation, among the most fundamental ways of Iran’s success in competition with other regional countries are innovations, efficiency enhancements and domestic productivity. Therefore, in this study, the energy consumption efficiency of Iran and the neighbor countries has been measured in the period between 2007-2012 considering the simultaneous economic activities, CO2 emission, and consumption of energy through data envelopment analysis of undesirable output. The results of the study indicated that the energy efficiency changes in both Iran and the average neighbor countries has been on a descending trend and Iran’s energy efficiency status is not desirable compared to the other countries in the region.

Keywords: energy efficiency, environmental, undesirable output, data envelopment analysis

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Authors: Halimi Mohamed Taher, Kordoghli Bassem, Ben Hassen Mohamed, Sakli Faouzi

Abstract:

Textile industry has been an important part of many developing countries economies such as Tunisia. This industry is confronted with a challenging and increasing competitive environment. Good quality management in production process is the key factor for retaining existence especially in raw material exploitation. The present work aims to develop an intelligent system for fabric inspection. In the first step, we have studied the method used for fabric control which takes into account the default length and localization in woven. In the second step, we have used a method based on the fuzzy logic to minimize the Demerit point indicator with appropriate total rollers length, so that the quality problem becomes multi-objective. In order to optimize the total fabric quality, we have applied the genetic algorithm (GA).

Keywords: fabric control, Fuzzy logic, genetic algorithm, quality management

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Authors: Fathi Kallel, Saida Khachira, Mohamed Ben Slima, Ahmed Ben Hamida

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Speckle noise is a main characteristic of cardiac ultrasound images, it corresponding to grainy appearance that degrades the image quality. For this reason, the ultrasound images are difficult to use automatically in clinical use, then treatments are required for this type of images. Then a filtering procedure of these images is necessary to eliminate the speckle noise and to improve the quality of ultrasound images which will be then segmented to extract the necessary forms that exist. In this paper, we present the importance of the pre-treatment step for segmentation. This work is applied to cardiac ultrasound images. In a first step, a comparative study of speckle filtering method will be presented and then we use a segmentation algorithm to locate and extract cardiac structures.

Keywords: medical image processing, ultrasound images, Speckle noise, image enhancement, speckle filtering, segmentation, snakes

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Authors: Mohammed T. Taher, Usman Ghani, Ahmed S. Khan

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This paper compares the findings of two studies conducted to determine the effectiveness of simulation-based, hands-on and feedback mechanism on students learning by answering the following questions: 1). Does the use of simulation improve students’ learning outcomes? 2). How do students perceive the instructional design features embedded in the simulation program such as exploration and scaffolding support in learning new concepts? 3.) What is the effect of feedback mechanisms on students’ learning in the use of simulation-based labs? The paper also discusses the other aspects of findings which reveal that simulation by itself is not very effective in promoting student learning. Simulation becomes effective when it is followed by hands-on activity and feedback mechanisms. Furthermore, the paper presents recommendations for improving student learning through the use of simulation-based, hands-on, and feedback-based teaching methodologies.

Keywords: simulation-based teaching, hands-on learning, feedback-based learning, scaffolding

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Authors: Ahmed Fathi Mohamed, Nasir Shafiq, Muhd Fadhil Nuruddin, Ali Elheber Ahmed

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Steel fiber adds to Self-Compacting Concrete (SCC) to enhance it is properties and achieves the requirement. This research work focus on the using of different percentage of steel fiber in SCC mixture contains fly ash and microwave incinerator rice husk ash (MIRHA) as supplementary material. Fibers affect several characteristics of SCC in the fresh and the hardened state. To optimize fiber-reinforced self-compacting concrete (FSCC), The possible fiber content of a given mix composition is an essential input parameter. The aim of the research is to study the properties of fiber reinforced self–compacting (FRSCC) and to develop the expert system/computer program of mix proportion for calculating the steel fiber content and pozzolanic replacement that can be applied to investigate the compressive strength of FSCC mix.

Keywords: self-compacting concrete, silica fume, steel fiber, fresh taste

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Authors: Farzane Sadatnia, Bahram Fathi

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Today, all public and private organizations have found that the management of the world for key information related to the activities of a staff and its main essence and philosophy, though they constitute the management information systems are very helpful in this respect the right to apply systems can save a lot in terms of economic organizations including reducing the time decision - making, improve the quality of decision making, and cost savings to bring information systems is a backup system that can never be instead of logic and human reasoning, which can be used in the series is spreading, providing resources, and provide the necessary facilities, provide better services for users, balanced budget allocation, determine strengths and weaknesses and previous plans to review the current decisions and especially the decision . Hence; in this study attempts to the effect of an information system on a review of the organization.

Keywords: information system, planning, organization, coordination, control

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Authors: Azam Mohammadbagheri, Bahram Fathi

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DEA has become a very popular method of performance measure, but it still suffers from some shortcomings. One of these shortcomings is the issue of having multiple optimal solutions to weights for efficient DMUs. The cross efficiency evaluation as an extension of DEA is proposed to avoid this problem. Lam (2010) is also proposed a mixed-integer linear programming formulation based on linear discriminate analysis and super efficiency method (MILP model) to avoid having multiple optimal solutions to weights. In this study, we modified MILP model to determine more suitable weight sets and also evaluate the energy efficiency of MENA countries as an application of the proposed model.

Keywords: data envelopment analysis, discriminate analysis, cross efficiency, MILP model

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Authors: Ghada Diaa, Enas A. Khattab

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Ultra High Strength Concrete (UHSC) is a new advanced concrete that is being transferred from laboratory researches to practicable applications. In addition to its excellent durability properties, UHSC has high compressive and tensile strengths, and high modulus of elasticity. Despite of this low degree of hydration, ultra high strength values can be achieved by controlling the mixture proportions. In this research, an experimental program was carried out to investigate the shear behavior of ultra high strength concrete beams. A total of nine beams were tested to determine the effect of different parameters on the shear behavior of UHSC beams. The parameters include concrete strength, steel fiber volume, shear span to depth ratio, and web reinforcement ratio. The results demonstrated that nominal shear stress at cracking load and at ultimate load increased with the increase of concrete strength or the decrease in shear span-depth ratio. Using steel fibers or shear reinforcement increases the ultimate shear strength and makes the shear behavior more ductile. In this study, a simplified analytical model to calculate the shear strength of UHSC beams is introduced. Shear strength estimated according to the proposed method in this research is in good agreement with the experimental results.

Keywords: ultra high strength, shear strength, diagonal, cracking, steel fibers

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Authors: Bahram Fathi, Mahdi Khodaparast Mashhadi, Masuod Homayounifar

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Global awareness on energy security and climate change has created much interest in assessing energy efficiency performance. A number of previous studies have contributed to evaluate energy efficiency performance using different analytical techniques among which data envelopment analysis (DEA) has recently received increasing attention. Most of DEA-related energy efficiency studies do not consider undesirable outputs such as CO2 emissions in their modeling framework, which may lead to biased energy efficiency values. Within a joint production frame work of desirable and undesirable outputs, in this paper we construct energy efficiency performance index for measuring energy efficiency performance by using environmental DEA model with CO2 emissions. We finally apply the index proposed to assess the energy efficiency performance in OPEC over time.

Keywords: energy efficiency, environmental, OPEC, data envelopment analysis

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Authors: Rahele Hasani, Iraj Mehregan, Kambiz Larijani, Taher Nejadsattari, Romain Scalone

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Essential oils of Heracleum persicum (Apiaceae) have been widely used from many years ago, but the difference of its properties among different populations have not been identified up to now. Hydrodistilation Clevenger type was used to obtaining the fruit essential oils of four populations of H. persicum from different localities in Iran, then they were characterized by GC-FID and GC-MS analyses. Some ecological factors were also measured. The oils of four populations were compared to determine the similarities and differences and the relationships between these factors and ecological factors. Based on the result, 18-32 different components were identified in four populations, while the percentage of the main components was higher in population with lower number of components. According to the statistical analyses of chemical components and ecological factors, it can be concluded that some ecological factors such as altitude, less humidity, high difference between day and night temperature and salty soil would lead to lower number of components in essential oil, whereas they consist the higher percentage.

Keywords: Chemotaxonomy, Persian hogweed, Ecological factors, Apiaceae.

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Authors: M. Fathi, Z. Farhaninejad, M. Shahedi, M. Sadeghi

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Drying is one of the oldest preservation methods for food and agriculture products. Appropriate control of operation can be obtained by modeling. Limitation of continues models for complex boundary condition and non-regular geometries leading to appearance of discrete novel methods such as cellular automata, which provides a platform for obtaining fast predictions by rule-based mathematics. In this research a one D dimensional CA was used for simulating thin layer drying of banana. Banana slices were dried with a convectional air dryer and experimental data were recorded for validating of final model. The model was programmed by MATLAB, run for 70000 iterations and von-Neumann neighborhood. The validation results showed a good accordance between experimental and predicted data (R=0.99). Cellular automata are capable to reproduce the expected pattern of drying and have a powerful potential for solving physical problems with reasonable accuracy and low calculating resources.

Keywords: banana, cellular automata, drying, modeling

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Authors: Ibrahim Khalil Ibrahim, Enas Mohamed Shahine, Abeer Shawky El Hadedy, Emmanuel Kamal Aziz Saba, Ghada Salah Attia Hussein

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Osteoarthritis (OA) is a multifactorial disease characterized by a progressive degradation of articular cartilage and is the leading cause of disability in elderly persons. IL-18 contributes to the destruction of cartilage and bone in the disease process of arthritis. The aim of the study was to investigate the role of IL-18 in primary knee OA patients. Serum level of IL-18 was assessed by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay in 30 primary knee OA patients and compared to 20 age and gender-matched healthy volunteers as a control group. Radiographic severity of OA was assessed by Kellgren and Lawrence (KL) global scale. Pain, stiffness and functional assessment were done using Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC). OA patients had significantly higher serum IL-18 level than in control group (420.93 ± 345.4 versus 151.03 ± 144.16 pg/ml, P=0.001). Serum level of IL-18 was positively correlated with KL global scale (P=0.001). There were no statistically significant correlations between serum level of IL-18 and pain, stiffness, function subscales and total WOMAC index scores among the studied patients. In conclusions, IL-18 has a role in the pathogenesis of OA and it is positively correlated with the radiographic damage of OA.

Keywords: Interlukin-18, knee osteoarthritis, primary osteoarthritis, WOMAC scale

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Authors: Fathi Mohamed Abdrabbo, Khaled Elsayed Gaaver, Musab Musa Eldooma

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This paper presents an attempt made to investigate the behavior of a single vertical steel hollow pile embedded in sand subjected to compressive inclined load at various inclination angles α through FEM package MIDAS GTS/NX 2019. The effect of the inclination angle and slenderness ratio on the performance of the pile was investigated. Inclined load caring capacity and pile stiffness, as well as lateral deformation profiles along with the pile, were presented. The global, vertical, and horizontal load displacements, as well as the deformation profiles along with the pile and the pile stiffness, are significantly affected by α. Whereas P-Y curves of the pile are independent of α., also the slenderness ratios are markedly affecting the behavior of the pile. In addition, there was a noticeable effect of the horizontal component on the vertical behavior of the pile, whereas there was no influence of the presence of vertical load on the horizontal behavior of the pile.

Keywords: deep foundations, piles, inclined load, pile deformations

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Authors: Mohamed A. Morsy, Azza A. K. El-Sheikh, Abdulla Y. Al-Taher

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The aim of the present study is to investigate the effect of resveratrol (RES) on methotrexate (MTX)-induced testicular damage. RES (10 mg/kg/day) was given for 8 days orally and MTX (20 mg/kg i.p.) was given at day 4 of experiment, with or without RES in rats. MTX decreased serum testosterone, induced histopathological testicular damage, increased testicular tumor necrosis factor-α level and expression of nuclear factor-κB and cyclooxygenase-2. In MTX/RES group, significant reversal of these parameters was noticed, compared to MTX group. Testicular expression of multidrug resistance protein (Mrp) 3 was three- and five-folds higher in RES- and MTX/RES-treated groups, respectively. In vitro, using prostate cancer cells, each of MTX and RES alone induced cytotoxicity with IC50 0.18 ± 0.08 and 20.5 ± 3.6 µM, respectively. RES also significantly enhanced cytotoxicity of MTX. In conclusion, RES appears to have dual beneficial effect, as it promotes MTX tumor cytotoxicity, while protecting the testes, probably via up-regulation of testicular Mrp3 as a novel mechanism.

Keywords: resveratrol, methotrexate, multidrug resistance protein 3, tumor necrosis factor-α, nuclear factor-κB, cyclooxygenase-2

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