Sustainable water management in Iraq (Kurdistan) as a challenge for governmental responsibility

During the last few decades, a critical scarcity of water has occurred in the Middle East due to climate change and the mismanagement of water resources. The situation is complicated by the absence of an effective legislative framework at the local level as well as by the incapability and disrepute of the local water authorities. Most Iraqi citizens depend on the surface waters of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which have their sources in upstream neighbouring countries. Water crises concerning the shared waters urgently require a solution at the international level. Unfortunately, Iraq has faced several wars in a row (1980-2003), which has prevented the country from establishing its institutions. The rapid increase in the population of the transboundary countries on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and the high demands on agriculture, are accelerating water exploitation. In this paper, the present state of water management in Iraq from the viewpoint of the legislative framework, water balance, and transboundary issues will be discussed, with special attention to Kurdistan. Many legislative documents have been established or amended by the Iraqi and Kurdistan parliaments since 2003. In 2015, the Kurdistan Government Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources, in cooperation with the EU, issued a guide for environmental legislation related to all environmental components such as air, water, and soil. The recommendations on actions needed in the water management in Kurdistan will be presented; they are inspired by the Water Framework Directive (WFD) (2000/60/EC) implemented in EU member states.Web of Science1011art. no. 165

On Thinking (and Measurement)

We do indeed “live and work in a time when the issues facing education, many of which have been with us for a considerable period, are being approached primarilythrough measurement – classroom assessment, research methods, standardized testing, international comparisons”. It is also true that “we do not often stop to consider what counts – and alternatively, what doesn’t count – in a climate where measuring up to a standard is the name of the game. At a deeper level, we rarely raise questions about measurement itself.” Heidegger argued that what is “most thought provoking [in this ‘thought provoking age’] is that we are still not thinking,” in What is called thinking? (Was Heisst Denken? 1954, p.4). This somewhat startling assertion deserves careful attention especially in relation to the quote above (“we do not often stop to consider what counts – and alternatively, what doesn’t count – in a climate where measuring up to a standard is the name of the game”). Heidegger’s assertion is pertinent for a number of reasons: he associated this “not thinking” with a “critical moment in history”(p.57), with a “call”, and with a “miscalculation”. I will argue that it is important (again?) to reflect on a number of questions: what is thinking, especially in relation to measurement? Was Heidegger correct in arguing that we have “miscalculated” in so far as we have sought “the safety of the mere drive for calculation” (The End of Philosophy, p. 106)? And how does the desire for a higher form of “representational thinking” (in Heidegger’s words; EOP, p. 110) in these contexts serve and promote a number of aims in higher education, such as (“student-centred”) learning and even “flourishing”? I will attempt to provide answers to a number of these questions by reflecting on the broad but fundamentally important question of measurement and its limits

Sedimentation Problems In The Blue Nile Reservoirs And Gezira Scheme

       The development in Sudan is basically dependent on the Blue Nile water. The high sediment load brought by the river during its flood has major influences on the design and operation of the reservoirs built across the river and the schemes irrigated from it. Sediment deposited in reservoirs reduces the useful life of the reservoirs as well as diminishes the benefits from the dam (irrigation and power genera(ion). Large operational costs are incurred every year in dredging the sediment from reservoirs and canal sediment clearance. The sediment monitoring programme launched in 1988 in Gezira Scheme and the Blue Nile, has revealed very important results and answered many vital questions regarding sedimentation in Gezira Scheme. On average 8.5 million tons of sediment enters Gezira scheme every year. More than 97% of this sediment is very fine; therefore, standard methods of sediment exclusion at the intakes will not offer a solution. More than 70% of the sediment can be excluded if the canals gates are closed during the period 20th July to 31st August. This paper reviews the sedimentation problem in the Blue Nile and Gezira Scheme and its management options based on the outcomes of the monitoring programme

Sediment Balance in the Blue Nile in Sudan

The Blue Nile is one of the two main tributaries of the Nile River. It originates in the Ethiopian Plateau. The Blue Nile water plays an important role in the economic development of Sudan in terms of irrigated agricultural development and hydropower generation. The average annual flow of the Blue Nile is 50 billion cubic meters, 80% of it occurs during the flood season (July – October). During the flood season the river brings down large amounts of sediment estimated as 146 million tons per year. The sediment material originates mainly from heavy erosion in the upper catchment area in Ethiopia. The Blue Nile system within Sudan includes two reservoirs, Roseires and Sennar, and two tributaries, viz. Dinder and Rahad. Sennar and Roseires reservoirs have already lost 65% and 34% of their initial storage capacities due to sedimentation, respectively. The Blue Nile sediment in Sudan is monitored at a number of stations scattered along its length. The sediment concentrations vary during the flood season and from year to year. The sediment load is also variable along the river length due to deposition in the river channel, trapping in the reservoirs, diversion to irrigated schemes and inputs from tributaries. In this paper the sediment trap efficiency of each reservoir is calculated using bathymetric survey data. The current trap efficiency of Roseires and Sennar reservoirs is found to be 17% and 5%, respectively. The average annual sediment diverted to Gezira Scheme is 8.5x106 tons. The spatial sediment distribution along the Blue Nile is given at key river nodes. Upstream and downstream each reservoir and at Gezira canals’ off-takes and at its confluence with the White Nile. The annual average sediment contribution of the Blue Nile to the Main Nile is found to be 143x106 tons. The paper also reviews the main characteristics of the Blue Nile sediment that affect its transport and deposition. &nbsp

Strangeness production at finite temperature and baryon density in an effective relativistic mean field model

We study the strangeness production in hot and dense nuclear medium, by requiring the conservation of the baryon density, electric charge fraction and zero net strangeness. The hadronic equation of state is investigated by means of an effective relativistic mean field model, with the inclusion of the full octet of baryons and kaon mesons. Kaons are considered taking into account of an effective chemical potential depending on the self-consistent interaction between baryons. The obtained results are compared with a minimal coupling scheme, calculated for different values of the anti-kaon optical potential and with non-interacting kaon particles. In this context, we also consider the possible onset of the kaon condensation for a wide range of temperatures and baryon densities.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figure

A GPU Implementation for Two-Dimensional Shallow Water Modeling

In this paper, we present a GPU implementation of a two-dimensional shallow water model. Water simulations are useful for modeling floods, river/reservoir behavior, and dam break scenarios. Our GPU implementation shows vast performance improvements over the original Fortran implementation. By taking advantage of the GPU, researchers and engineers will be able to study water systems more efficiently and in greater detail.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figur

Quantifying the security risk of discovering and exploiting software vulnerabilities

2016 Summer.Includes bibliographical references.Most of the attacks on computer systems and networks are enabled by vulnerabilities in a software. Assessing the security risk associated with those vulnerabilities is important. Risk mod- els such as the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS), Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) and Common Weakness Scoring System (CWSS) have been used to qualitatively assess the security risk presented by a vulnerability. CVSS metrics are the de facto standard and its metrics need to be independently evaluated. In this dissertation, we propose using a quantitative approach that uses an actual data, mathematical and statistical modeling, data analysis, and measurement. We have introduced a novel vulnerability discovery model, Folded model, that estimates the risk of vulnerability discovery based on the number of residual vulnerabilities in a given software. In addition to estimating the risk of vulnerabilities discovery of a whole system, this dissertation has furthermore introduced a novel metrics termed time to vulnerability discovery to assess the risk of an individual vulnerability discovery. We also have proposed a novel vulnerability exploitability risk measure termed Structural Severity. It is based on software properties, namely attack entry points, vulnerability location, the presence of the dangerous system calls, and reachability analysis. In addition to measurement, this dissertation has also proposed predicting vulnerability exploitability risk using internal software metrics. We have also proposed two approaches for evaluating CVSS Base metrics. Using the availability of exploits, we first have evaluated the performance of the CVSS Exploitability factor and have compared its performance to Microsoft (MS) rating system. The results showed that exploitability metrics of CVSS and MS have a high false positive rate. This finding has motivated us to conduct further investigation. To that end, we have introduced vulnerability reward programs (VRPs) as a novel ground truth to evaluate the CVSS Base scores. The results show that the notable lack of exploits for high severity vulnerabilities may be the result of prioritized fixing of vulnerabilities