Abstract: Water erosion is the major cause of the erosion that shapes the earth's surface. Modeling water erosion requires the use of software and GIS programs, commercial or closed source. The very high prices for commercial GIS licenses, motivates users and researchers to find open source software as relevant and applicable as the proprietary GIS. The objective of this study is the modeling of water erosion and the hydrogeological and morphophysical characterization of the Oued M'Goun watershed (southern flank of the Central High Atlas) developed by free programs of GIS. The very pertinent results are obtained by executing tasks and algorithms in a simple and easy way. Thus, the various geoscientific and geostatistical analyzes of a digital elevation model (SRTM 30 m resolution) and their combination with the treatments and interpretation of satellite imagery information allowed us to characterize the region studied and to map the area most vulnerable to water erosion.
Abstract: The present investigation was conducted to detect the type and concentrations of bacterial and fungal bioaerosols in one room (bedroom) of each selected residential building located in different regions of Qom during February 2015 (n=9) to July 2016 (n=11). Moreover, we evaluated the efficiency of negative air ions (NAIs) in bioaerosol reduction in indoor air in residential buildings. In the first step, the mean concentrations of bacterial and fungal in nine sampling sites evaluated in winter were 744 and 579 colony forming units (CFU)/m3, while these values were 1628.6 and 231 CFU/m3 in the 11 sampling sites evaluated in summer, respectively. The most predominant genera between bacterial and fungal in all sampling sites were detected as Micrococcus spp. and Staphylococcus spp. and also, Aspergillus spp. and Penicillium spp., respectively. The 95% and 45% of sampling sites have bacterial and fungal concentrations over the recommended levels, respectively. In the removal step, we achieved a reduction with a range of 38% to 93% for bacterial genera and 25% to 100% for fungal genera by using NAIs. The results suggested that NAI is a highly effective, simple and efficient technique in reducing the bacterial and fungal concentration in the indoor air of residential buildings.
Abstract: Despite the evident benefits of building information modeling (BIM) to the construction industry, it faces significant implementation challenges in the State of Kuwait. This study investigates the awareness of construction stakeholders of BIM implementation challenges, and identifies various solutions to overcome these challenges. Specifically, the main objectives of this study are to: (1) characterize the barriers that deter utilization of BIM, (2) examine the awareness of engineers, architects, and construction stakeholders of these barriers, and (3) identify practical solutions to facilitate BIM utilization. A questionnaire survey was designed to collect data on the aforementioned objectives from local companies and senior BIM experts. It was found that engineers are highly aware of BIM implementation barriers. In addition, it was concluded from the questionnaire that the biggest barrier is the lack of BIM training. Based on expert feedback, the study concluded with a number of recommendations on how to overcome the barriers of BIM utilization. This should prove useful to the construction industry stakeholders and can lead to significant changes to design and construction practices.
Abstract: Selection of competent contractors for construction projects is usually accomplished through competitive bidding or negotiated contracting in which the contract bid price is the basic criterion for selection. The evaluation of contractor’s safety performance is still not a typical criterion in the selection process, despite the existence of various safety prequalification procedures. There is a critical need for practical and automated systems that enable owners and decision makers to evaluate contractor safety performance, among other important contractor selection criteria. These systems should ultimately favor safety-conscious contractors to be selected by the virtue of their past good safety records and current safety programs. This paper presents an exploratory sequential mixed-methods approach to develop a framework for an automated decision support system that evaluates contractor safety performance based on a multitude of indicators and metrics that have been identified through a comprehensive review of construction safety research, and a survey distributed to domain experts. The framework is developed in three phases: (1) determining the indicators that depict contractor current and past safety performance; (2) soliciting input from construction safety experts regarding the identified indicators, their metrics, and relative significance; and (3) designing a decision support system using relational database models to integrate the identified indicators and metrics into a system that assesses and rates the safety performance of contractors. The proposed automated system is expected to hold several advantages including: (1) reducing the likelihood of selecting contractors with poor safety records; (2) enhancing the odds of completing the project safely; and (3) encouraging contractors to exert more efforts to improve their safety performance and practices in order to increase their bid winning opportunities which can lead to significant safety improvements in the construction industry. This should prove useful to decision makers and researchers, alike, and should help improve the safety record of the construction industry.
Abstract: Tsunami and inundation modelling due to far field tsunami propagation in a limited area is a very challenging numerical task because it involves many aspects such as the formation of various types of waves and the irregularities of coastal boundaries. To compute the effect of far field tsunami and extent of inland inundation due to far field tsunami along the coastal belts of west coast of Malaysia and Southern Thailand, a formulated boundary condition and a moving boundary condition are simultaneously used. In this study, a boundary fitted curvilinear grid system is used in order to incorporate the coastal and island boundaries accurately as the boundaries of the model domain are curvilinear in nature and the bending is high. The tsunami response of the event 26 December 2004 along the west open boundary of the model domain is computed to simulate the effect of far field tsunami. Based on the data of the tsunami source at the west open boundary of the model domain, a boundary condition is formulated and applied to simulate the tsunami response along the coastal and island boundaries. During the simulation process, a moving boundary condition is initiated instead of fixed vertical seaside wall. The extent of inland inundation and tsunami propagation pattern are computed. Some comparisons are carried out to test the validation of the simultaneous use of the two boundary conditions. All simulations show excellent agreement with the data of observation.
Abstract: Recently, traffic monitoring has attracted the attention
of computer vision researchers. Many algorithms have been
developed to detect and track moving vehicles. In fact, vehicle
tracking in daytime and in nighttime cannot be approached with the
same techniques, due to the extreme different illumination conditions.
Consequently, traffic-monitoring systems are in need of having a
component to differentiate between daytime and nighttime scenes. In
this paper, a HSV-based day/night detector is proposed for traffic
monitoring scenes. The detector employs the hue-histogram and the
value-histogram on the top half of the image frame. Experimental
results show that the extraction of the brightness features along with
the color features within the top region of the image is effective for
classifying traffic scenes. In addition, the detector achieves high
precision and recall rates along with it is feasible for real time
applications.
Abstract: This paper presents the result of an experimental
investigation regarding the use of Fe2O3 nanoparticles added to
kerosene as a working fluid, under magnetic field for Copper
Oscillating Heat pipe with inclination angle of 0°(horizontal), 15°,
30°,45°, 60°,75° and 90° (vertical). The following were examined;
measure the temperature distribution and heat transfer rate on
Oscillating Heat Pipe (OHP), with magnetic field under different
angles. Results showed that the addition of Fe2O3 nanoparticles under
magnetic field improved thermal performance of OHP especially in
75°.
Abstract: Solid lipid nanoparticles (SLNs) have gained great attention for the topical treatment of skin associated fungal infection as they facilitate the skin penetration of loaded drugs. Our work deals with the preparation of nystatin loaded solid lipid nanoparticles (NystSLNs) using the hot homogenization and ultrasonication method. The prepared NystSLNs were characterized in terms of entrapment efficiency, particle size, zeta potential, transmission electron microscopy, differential scanning calorimetry, rheological behavior and in vitro drug release. A stability study for 6 months was performed. A microbiological study was conducted in male rats infected with Candida albicans, by counting the colonies and examining the histopathological changes induced on the skin of infected rats. The results showed that SLNs dispersions are spherical in shape with particle size ranging from 83.26±11.33 to 955.04±1.09 nm. The entrapment efficiencies are ranging from 19.73±1.21 to 72.46±0.66% with zeta potential ranging from -18.9 to -38.8 mV and shear-thinning rheological Behavior. The stability studies done for 6 months showed that nystatin (Nyst) is a good candidate for topical SLN formulations. A least number of colony forming unit/ ml (cfu/ml) was recorded for the selected NystSLN compared to the drug solution and the commercial Nystatin® cream present in the market. It can be fulfilled from this work that SLNs provide a good skin targeting effect and may represent promising carrier for topical delivery of Nyst offering the sustained release and maintaining the localized effect, resulting in an effective treatment of cutaneous fungal infection.
Abstract: A study was conducted in greenhouse environment to
determine the response of five tissue-cultured date palm cultivars, Al-
Ahamad, Nabusaif, Barhee, Khalas, and Kasab to irrigation water
salinity of 1.6, 5, 10, or 20 dS/ m. The salinity level of 1.6dS/m, was
used as a control. The effects of high salinity on plant survival were
manifested at 360 days after planting (DAP) onwards. Three
cultivars, Khalas, Kasab and Barhee were able to tolerate 10 dS/m
salinity level at 24 months after the start of study. Khalas tolerated
the highest salinity level of 20 dS/ m and 'Nabusaif' was found to be the
least tolerant cv. The average heights of palms and the number of
fronds were decreased with increasing salinity levels as time
progressed.
Abstract: Materials added to the matrix help improving operating properties of a composite. This experimental study has targeted to investigate this aim where Silicon Oxide particles were added to glass fibre and epoxy resin at an amount of 15% to the main material to obtain a sort of new composite material. Erosive wear behavior of epoxy-resin dipped composite materials reinforced with glass fibre and Silicon Oxide under three different impingement angles (30°, 60° and 90°), three different impact velocities (23, 34 and 53 m/s), two different angular Aluminum abrasive particle sizes (approximately 200 and 400 μm) and the fibre orientation of 45° (45/-45) were investigated. In the test results, erosion rates were obtained as functions of impingement angles, impact velocities, particle sizes and fibre orientation. Moreover, materials with addition of Silicon Oxide filler material exhibited lower wear as compared to neat materials with no added filler material. In addition, SEM views showing worn out surfaces of the test specimens were scrutinized.
Abstract: For best collaboration, Asynchronous tools and particularly the discussion forums are the most used thanks to their flexibility in terms of time. To convey only the messages that belong to a theme of interest of the tutor in order to help him during his tutoring work, use of a tool for classification of these messages is indispensable. For this we have proposed a semantics classification tool of messages of a discussion forum that is based on LSA (Latent Semantic Analysis), which includes a thesaurus to organize the vocabulary. Benefits offered by formal ontology can overcome the insufficiencies that a thesaurus generates during its use and encourage us then to use it in our semantic classifier. In this work we propose the use of some functionalities that a OWL ontology proposes. We then explain how functionalities like “ObjectProperty", "SubClassOf" and “Datatype" property make our classification more intelligent by way of integrating new terms. New terms found are generated based on the first terms introduced by tutor and semantic relations described by OWL formalism.
Abstract: Today, Genetic Algorithm has been used to solve
wide range of optimization problems. Some researches conduct on
applying Genetic Algorithm to text classification, summarization
and information retrieval system in text mining process. This
researches show a better performance due to the nature of Genetic
Algorithm. In this paper a new algorithm for using Genetic
Algorithm in concept weighting and topic identification, based on
concept standard deviation will be explored.
Abstract: Let the vertices of a graph such that every two
adjacent vertices have different color is a very common problem in
the graph theory. This is known as proper coloring of graphs. The
possible number of different proper colorings on a graph with a given
number of colors can be represented by a function called the
chromatic polynomial. Two graphs G and H are said to be
chromatically equivalent, if they share the same chromatic
polynomial. A Graph G is chromatically unique, if G is isomorphic to
H for any graph H such that G is chromatically equivalent to H. The
study of chromatically equivalent and chromatically unique problems
is called chromaticity. This paper shows that a wheel W12 is
chromatically unique.
Abstract: In the present investigation, H13 tool steel has been
deposited on copper alloy substrate using both CO2 and diode laser.
A detailed parametric analysis has been carried out in order to find
out optimum processing zone for coating defect free H13 tool steel
on copper alloy substrate. Followed by parametric optimization, the
microstructure and microhardness of the deposited clads have been
evaluated. SEM micrographs revealed dendritic microstructure in
both clads. However, the microhardness of CO2 laser deposited clad
was much higher compared to diode laser deposited clad.
Abstract: The success of an e-learning system is highly
dependent on the quality of its educational content and how effective,
complete, and simple the design tool can be for teachers. Educational
modeling languages (EMLs) are proposed as design languages
intended to teachers for modeling diverse teaching-learning
experiences, independently of the pedagogical approach and in
different contexts. However, most existing EMLs are criticized for
being too abstract and too complex to be understood and manipulated
by teachers. In this paper, we present a visual EML that simplifies the
process of designing learning scenarios for teachers with no
programming background. Based on the conceptual framework of the
activity theory, our resulting visual EML focuses on using Domainspecific
modeling techniques to provide a pedagogical level of
abstraction in the design process.
Abstract: The pedagogy project has been proven as an active
learning method, which is used to develop learner-s skills and
knowledge.The use of technology in the learning world, has filed
several gaps in the implementation of teaching methods, and online
evaluation of learners. However, the project methodology presents
challenges in the assessment of learners online.
Indeed, interoperability between E-learning platforms (LMS) is
one of the major challenges of project-based learning assessment.
Firstly, we have reviewed the characteristics of online assessment
in the context of project-based teaching. We addressed the
constraints encountered during the peer evaluation process.
Our approach is to propose a meta-model, which will describe a
language dedicated to the conception of peer assessment scenario in
project-based learning. Then we illustrate our proposal by an
instantiation of the meta-model through a business process in a
scenario of collaborative assessment on line.
Abstract: We investigated oxidative DNA damage caused by
radio frequency radiation using 8-oxo-7, 8-dihydro-2'-
deoxyguanosine (8-oxodG) generated in mice tissues after exposure
to 900 MHz mobile phone radio frequency in three independent
experiments. The RF was generated by a Global System for Mobile
Communication (GSM) signal generator. The radio frequency field
was adjusted to 25 V/m. The whole body specific absorption rate
(SAR) was 1.0 W/kg. Animals were exposed to this field for 30 min
daily for 30 days. 24 h post-exposure, blood serum, brain and spleen
were removed and DNA was isolated. Enzyme-linked
immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was used to measure 8-oxodG
concentration. All animals survived the whole experimental period.
The body weight of animals did not change significantly at the end of
the experiment. No statistically significant differences observed in
the levels of oxidative stress. Our results are not in favor of the
hypothesis that 900 MHz RF induces oxidative damage.
Abstract: The weight constrained shortest path problem
(WCSPP) is one of most several known basic problems in
combinatorial optimization. Because of its importance in many areas
of applications such as computer science, engineering and operations
research, many researchers have extensively studied the WCSPP.
This paper mainly concentrates on the reduction of total search space
for finding WCSP using some existing Genetic Algorithm (GA). For
this purpose, some controlled schemes of genetic operators are
adopted on list chromosome representation. This approach gives a
near optimum solution with smaller elapsed generation than classical
GA technique. From further analysis on the matter, a new
generalized schema theorem is also developed from the philosophy
of Holland-s theorem.