Bayesian methods for analysing pesticide contamination with uncertain covariates

Two chemical properties of pesticides are thought to control their environmental fate. These are the adsorption coefficient k(_oc) and soil half-life t(^soil_1/2). This study aims to demonstrate the use of Bayesian methods in exploring whether or not it is possible to discriminate between pesticides that leach from those that do not leach on the basis of their chemical properties, when the monitored values of these properties are uncertain, in the sense that there are a range of values reported for both k(_oc) and t(^soil_1/2) - The study was limited to 43 pesticides extracted from the UK Environment Agency (EA) where complete information was available regarding these pesticides. In addition, analysis of data from a separate study, known as "Gustafson's data”, with a single value reported for k(_oc) and t(^soil_1/2) was used as prior information for the EA data. Bayesian methods to analyse the EA data are proposed in this thesis. These methods use logistic regression with random covariates and prior information derives from (i) available United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) data base values of k(_oc) and t(^soil_1/2) for the covariates and (ii) Gustafson's data for the regression parameters. They are analysed by means of Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) simulation techniques via the freely available WinBUGS software and R package. These methods have succeeded in providing a complete or a good separation between leaching and non-leaching pesticide

Antibiotic resistance pattern of HA-MRSA strains isolated from leukemia patients in Baghdad, Iraq

Digitalitzat per Artypla

Correlation between Breast Self-Examination Practices and Demographic Characteristics, Risk Factors and Clinical Stage of Breast Cancer among Iraqi Patients

BACKGROUND: Breast Cancer (BC) is the most common cancer and the leading cause of cancer death among women globally. The disease can be cured with limited resources if detected early. Breast self-examination (BSE) is considered a cost-effective feasible approach for early detection of that cancer in developing countries. AIM: To determine the correlation between BSE performance and demographic characteristics, risk factors and clinical stage of BC among Iraqi patients. METHODS: This retrospective study included a total of 409 female patients diagnosed with BC at the Referral Training Center for Early Detection of Breast Cancer and the National Cancer Research Center in Baghdad. The studied variables included the age of the patient, occupation, marital and educational status, parity, history of lactation, contraceptive pill intake, family history of cancer and the clinical stage of the disease. RESULTS: Our findings revealed that the most important predictors for practicing BSE was family history of BC or any other cancers (OR = 3.87, P = 0.018) followed by being a governmental employee (OR = 1.87, P = 0.024), history of contraceptive use (OR = 1.80, P = 0.011) and the high level of education (OR = 1.73, P = 0.004). On the other hand, there was no significant correlation between the practice of BSE and the BC stage at the time of presentation. CONCLUSION: There is a relatively poor practice of BSE among Iraqi patients diagnosed with BC. It is mandatory to foster the national cancer control strategies that focus on raising the level of awareness among the community through public education as a major approach to the early detection of cancer in Iraq

Ecopolis Strategy in the Sustainable Urban Regeneration of Historic City Centers

تمثل مراكز المدن التاريخية الجزء الأقدم من المدينة والتي تعكس أهميتها وتاريخها من خلال الهوية الثقافية الملموسة ذات الملامح الثابتة. تعرضت تلك المراكز إلى الكثير من العوامل التي أثرت على بنيتها ولاسيما البنية الفيزياوية، الأمر الذي تطلب ظهور سياسة لإحياء تلك المناطق الحيوية من المدينة بإسلوب مستدام. إهتمت سياسة الإحياء الحضري المستدام بالأبعاد المتعددة للبيئة الحضرية في المركز التاريخي والمتمثلة بـ (البعد البيئي-الفيزياوي والبعد الإقتصادي، والبعد الإجتماعي والبعد الثقافي والبعد الحوكمي-المؤسساتي)، مع التركيز على البعد البيئي- الفيزياوي وعده البعد الأهم في إحياء المراكز التاريخية. إهتمت العديد من إستراتيجيات الاستدامة الحضرية  بإحياء المركز التاريخي تحت مظلة الإحياء الحضري المستدام غير إنها لم تركز على البينة الفيزياوية كأساس لإحياء بنية المركز التاريخي ككل. في تسعينيات القرن المنصرم ظهرت إستراتيجية الايكوبولس والتي عنت بالبعد البيئي-الفيزياوي للبنية الحضرية والتي يمكن إعتمادها في المركز التاريخي لزيادة الجذب المكاني وبالتالي تحسين نوعية الحياة في مراكز المدن التاريخية. يهدف البحث إلى إستخلاص آليات ومؤشرات إستراتيجية الإيكوبولس في البعد البيئي-الفيزياوي من خلال العناصر الثلاث والمتمثلة بـ: الشكل الحضري والفعالية الحضرية والعناصر المتدفقة أو المنتشرة في بنية  المركز التاريخي، والتي تعمل  على خلق بيئة جاذبة مكانياً تحقق رفاهية الساكنين ومن ثم تطبيق المؤشرات في بيئة منتخبة (مركز الكرخ التاريخي).Historical city centers represent the oldest part of the city that reflect its importance and history through a concrete cultural identity with fixed features. These centers maintain their authenticity by maintaining their continuity. However, historical city centers have been exposed to many factors that have affected their structure, especially the physical structure, which required the emergence of a policy to regenerate these vital areas of the city in a sustainable manner. The Sustainable Urban Regeneration Policy has focused on the multiple dimensions of the urban environment of the historical center represented by - the physical dimension, the economic dimension, the social dimension, the cultural dimension and the institutional dimension-, focusing on the physical dimension considering it the most important in the regeneration of historical city centers. Many urban sustainability strategies have focused on regenerating the historical center under the umbrella of sustainable urban regeneration. However, they have not focused on physical aspect as a basis for regenerating the structure of the historical center as a whole. In the 1990s, the Ecopolis strategy has emerged, concentrating on the environmental -physical dimension of the urban structure, that promotes the spatial attraction, thereby improving the quality of life in historic city centers. The objective of the research is to extract the mechanisms and indicators of the Ecopolis strategy in the environmental-physical dimension through three aspects; the urban form, urban efficiency and the flow of elements in the historical center structure, which create a spatial environment that achieves the well-being of the inhabitants. As well as the application of the indicators on an elected environment (Al-Karkh Historical Center)

Biofuels Production Via Catalytic Hydrocracking Of Ddgs Corn Oil And Hydrothermal Decarboxylation Of Oleic Acid Over Transition Metal Carbides Supported On Al-Sba-15

The purpose of this research is to minimize the gap between the production of biofuels and the production of petroleum-based fuels by developing catalysts that can utilize renewable non-food based feedstocks (waste vegetable oils, algal oil, brown grease, etc.) and have great performance under low operation conditions. In particular, green diesel has become an attractive biofuel due to its superior properties that are quite similar to petroleum diesel. Therefore, no modifications are required to existing infrastructures. Three distinct experimental phases have been identified in order to achieve the objective of this work as follow: First, the hydrocracking of distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS) corn oil over bimetallic carbide catalysts was explored for green diesel production. A catalyst composed of nickel−tungsten (Ni−W) carbide supported on Al-SBA-15 was designed based on the ability of nickel to adsorb and activate hydrogen and the potential of tungsten for hydrogenation reactions. Four different Ni−W ratios (1:9, 1:1, 2:1, and 9:1) were prepared by the impregnation method to study the effect of metal ratio on the catalyst structure, activity, and selectivity. Catalyst activity was evaluated in a fixed bed reactor at 400 °C and 650 psi (4.48 MPa) with a hydrogen flow rate of 30 mL min-1 and DDGS corn oil flow rate of 0.08 mL min-1. The catalysts showed significant differences in activity and selectivity, with the catalyst having a Ni−W ratio of 9:1 achieving 100% conversion of corn oil and 100% selectivity to diesel for 2 days. Results indicate that by minimizing metal alloy formation and enhancement of the metal dispersion leads to higher activity, selectivity, and durability of the catalysts. A dendrimer-encapsulated nanoparticle (DENP) method was employed to minimize alloy formation and increase the metal dispersion on the support. The catalysts prepared by the DENP method showed activity greater than that of the catalyst prepared by the impregnation method for the hydrocracking of DDGS corn oil. Second, Nickel-based carbide catalysts combined with four different metals (Mo, Nb, W, and Zr) and supported on Al-SBA-15 were investigated for the hydrocracking of DDGS corn oil to produce biofuels under mild reaction conditions. The effects of the fractional sums of the electronegativities of the transition metals on the catalyst activities, selectivities, and stabilities were investigated. The closer the fractional sum of the transition metal electronegativities was to the electronegativity range of the noble catalysts (2.0-2.2), the better was the catalyst performance. The highest diesel selectivity was obtained from NiWC/Al-SBA-15, with a fractional sum of electronegativity of 2.06. The effects of doping a promoter (Ce) on the catalyst electronegativity and activity were studied. Adding Ce generally improved the catalyst performance, by adjusting the combined electronegativities nearer to 2.0-2.2. However, other parameters affected by Ce addition, such as textural properties, or the performance of individual metals could also impact catalyst performance. The NiNbC/Al-SBA-15 catalyst promoted with 5% Ce maintained stable activity for 168 h at 400 ◦ C and 4.48 MPa H2 . Third, several Ni-based transition metal carbide catalysts supported on Al-SBA-15 were studied for the hydrothermal decarboxylation of oleic acid and soybean oil to produce diesel range hydrocarbons with no added H2. The effect of pre-reduction, sub-critical and super-critical water conditions on the catalyst activity and selectivity was investigated. Both the conversion of oleic acid and selectivity of decarboxylation products under super-critical conditions for each catalyst were about 2-times greater than at sub-critical conditions. In addition, the potential of these catalysts for utilizing aqueous phase reforming (APR) of glycerol for in situ H2 production to meet process demands was demonstrated. The performance of the catalysts increases with the addition of glycerol, especially for the NiWC/Al-SBA-15 catalyst. With the addition of glycerol, the NiWC/Al-SBA-15 catalyst showed greater conversion of oleic acid and selectivity to heptadecane; however, most of the oleic acid was hydrogenated to produce stearic acid. The highest conversion of oleic acid and selectivity for heptadecane was 97.3% and 5.2%, respectively. Furthermore, the NiWC/Al-SBA-15 catalyst exhibited good potential for hydrolyzing triglycerides (soybean oil) to produce fatty acids and glycerol, and then generating H2 in situ from the APR of the glycerol produced. A complete conversion of soybean oil and hydrogenation of produced oleic acid were obtained over the NiWC/Al-SBA-15 at super-critical conditions

TOTAL ANTIOXIDANT CAPACITY AND ANTIHYPERLIPIDEMIC ACTIVITY OF ALKALOID EXTRACT FROM AERIAL PART OF ANETHUM GRAVEOLENS L. PLANT

Compounds of pharmacological interest (alkaloids) were extracted and the results revealed that the extract consist of three alkaloid compounds (A, B & C). Compound (A) has been isolated from Anethum graveolens L. aerial parts by column chromatography using C6H6 : Ethanol (9:1) solvent as eluent. It was found that simultaneous administration of alkaloid compound A (500 mg/kg/day) and cholesterol for 4 weeks, significantly (P<0.01) prevented the rise in serum TC, TG, LDL-cholesterol, VLDL-cholesterol, atherogenic index and significantly (P<0.01) increased TAC and HDL-cholesterol as compared to cholesterol fed control rabbits. Thus, the results indicate antioxidant and hypolipidemic effect of alkaloid compound A of Anethum graveolens L. aerial parts

Adapted LZW Protocol for ‎ ECG Data Compression

خوارزمية الـ(LZW) هي واحدة من طرق ضغط البيانات المستخدمة في عدة تطبيقات كضغط بيانات تخطيط القلب الكهربائي( ECG) لتقليل حجمها مما يسهل عملية نقلها عبر الشبكة. بما ان بيانات الـ(ECG) الخاصة بالمرضى تنقل عبر الشبكة طول الوقت لذلك ظهرت الحاجة الى تقليل حجمها من اجل ضمان وصولها بالسرعة الممكنة  لقاعدة البيانات. في هذه البحث نحن نهتم بطريقة الـ (LZW) التي هي واحدة من اهم واشهر طرق ضغط البيانات وقد اقترحنا بروتوكول لتحسين الطريقة التي تعتمدها خوارزمية الـ(LZW) في خزن المؤشرات الخاصة بالبيانات المضغوطة. البروتوكول المقترح يمكن ان يقلل حجم المؤشر لخوارزمية الـ(LZW). تم اعتماد خمس عينات اخذت من بنك المعلومات الخاص بـ(Physionet) لغرض اختبار البروتوكول المقترح. وقد اظهرت نتائج الاختبارت العملية ان البروتوكول المقترح يعطي نسبة ضغط افضل لبيانات الـ(ECG) مقارنة بطريقة الـ(LZW) الاصلية.Lempel–Ziv–Welch (LZW) is a data compression method, which is adopted by many applications likes Electrocardiography (ECG) data to reduce the size of transferred data. Because of the ECG data moves over the network all the time, which means there is a need to reduce its size to improve the network performance. In this paper, we concerned with the LZW method, which is one of the important and famous data compression method. We propose a protocol to improve the way in which the LZW saving an index for the compressed data. The proposed protocol could reduce the size of the index in LZW method. Five samples data groups provided by Physionet are used for evaluation. The experimental result shows that the proposed protocol can give best compression ratio compared with the original method

Undrained shear strength of ultra-soft soils admixed with lime

This thesis describes the results of a study on the undrained shear strength (Cu) of ultra-soft clay soils in admixtures of calcium hydroxide (slaked-lime). The pozzolanic gains in strength over time, over periods as long as one year were recorded. The undrained shear strengths were measured primarily using penetration tests: a Tinius Olsen desk-top compression machine was modified to conduct these constant-rate of strain tests, using circular disc penetrometers. Measured bearing resistances were interpreted in terms of undrained shear strengths: data from the literature, as well as some finite element analyses, were employed to establish the necessary depth-dependent correlations. The strength testing programme was supplemented by triaxial compression and vane shear tests. The parametric study of the factors affecting the strength of lime-admixed clay slurries included soil type, water content, lime content, curing time, and curing temperature. The results show how the rate of strength gain is affected by soil mineralogy. The greatest strength gains can only occur if sufficient clay fractions are present to utilize any unbound additive and conversely sufficient additive is present. For clays, samples prepared at the same water content/ liquid limit ratio (W=w /wLL) produced approximately the same undrained shear strength after one year of curing. Tests were also conducted on remoulded samples: as expected, these admixed soils have high sensitivity. However, remoulding is not achieved without the expenditure of considerable work. Moreover, the remoulded strengths remain some orders of magnitude higher than their untreated counterparts. Diffusion of additive from the admixture into surrounding water was observed; this was manifest in softening of the near-surface material and over a period of one year extended to depths of the order of 10 cm depending on lime content. Curing temperature has a significant effect on the rate of strength development. Lower curing temperatures retard strength development while higher temperatures have the opposite effect. The Arrhenius model for the rates of chemical reactions describes this temperature dependent phenomenon very satisfactorily. Finite element studies, including small-strain Lagrangian and coupled Eulerian-Lagrangian large-displacement formulations (incorporated within ABAQUS) were conducted to investigate whether penetrometer data interpretation required consideration of the finite size of the test chamber. These numerical results tended to confirm the experimental finding that penetrometer disk diameters up to 30 mm were sufficiently small to be unaffected by constraints imposed by the test chambers. In addition, oedometer testing was carried out on both intact and remoulded samples. The former revealed the existence of reasonably well-defined “yield stresses”, which were found to correlate well with the corresponding undrained shear strengths. The compression and swell indices were found to be largely dependent on soil type and correspondingly unaffected by lime content