Morphological Variation between Life and Death Gastropod Populations in the Nile Delta: A Pollution-Induced Evolution

Wetland ecosystems of the Nile Delta face severe threats due to natural climatic changes and anthropogenic activities. Life and death assemblage comparisons can be implemented as a historical record to detect anthropogenic-induced environmental changes in the past few decades. A geometric morphometric approach was applied to quantify the pollution-induced morphological variation between life and death populations of the gastropod Melanoides tuberculata. The results indicated that life populations differ significantly from the death ones, where the first tend to be much smaller, more globular, and with a depressed aperture and whorl section. In addition, the phenetic diversity of the life populations was also decreased, and the allometric growth was shifted. These morphological changes in the life populations are well-known adaptations for reducing the cost of shell maintenance in polluted water. No distinct morphospace was found between life populations from different habitats, suggesting that habitats have no significant role in the current pollution-induced evolution.This work is funded by the Researchers Supporting Project number (RSP2023R455), King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Influence of Some Innovation Attributes on the Adoption of Growing Sunflower in Rahad Scheme

The vital economic importance of sunflower as one of the oil crops encouraged its introduction to the Sudan in the last twenty years. The production of sunflower crop began in Rahad scheme, as in other irrigated areas in the country, in 1992/93 growing season. Field survey was used to collect data from 100 sunflower growers (adopters) in Rahad Scheme (block 10) in 2002/2003 growing season selected from a total population of 1000-1100 farmers by using the simple random sample technique. An equal number of non-adopters was selected for comparison. The total number of interviewed farmers was 200. The collected data was statistically analyzed using the chi-square test. The results showed significant association (dependency) between adoption of growing sunflower (the innovation) and some of its attributes: Relative advantage on perceived production cost and income, compatibility with farmers need as cash crop and animal feed, complexity associated with use of technical package for sunflower. From the findings of this study, we can conclude that the adoption of this crop was dependent on some innovation attributes and the results were expected to reveal factors influencing adoption of the crop. The authors recommend that more attention should be given by agronomists to this crop in order to improve the yield of the crop and extension services should design special programs for the crop to promote its rate of adoption

MAT-741: IMPACT BEHAVIOUR OF SHAPE MEMORY ALLOY HYBRID FIBRE-REINFORCED ENGINEERED CEMENTITIOUS COMPOSITE

An experimental study was conducted to evaluate the impact behaviour of an innovative hybrid-fibre engineered cementitious composite (ECC) incorporating randomly dispersed short shape memory alloy fibres (SMA). A modified drop weight test was conducted on specimens from various ECC mixtures with and without SMA fibres. The impact behaviour was evaluated and compared based on the ability to dissipate energy and sustain impact load without damage. Results show that the addition of SMA to ECC mixtures significantly enhanced their performance under impact loading. The amount of dissipated energy by ECC increased by about 51% as a result of SMA fibre addition. This highlights the potential benefits of incorporating SMA in composite materials exposed to impact loads, paving the way for a wider implementation in the field of fortified structures

The Conditions of Amplification for Nano Quantum Diodes

It is well known that nanomaterials are described by quantum laws. In this work quantum treatment for two metal contacts or diodes on a nanoscale was done. A useful expression for the input and output current is found by using the notion of the current density in quantum mechanics. The conditions required by this contact to act as a rectifier and amplifier are discussed. It found that certain restrictions should be imposed on the potential and the wave number for the metal contact to act as an amplifier. This requires the potential barrier to be positive this requires the region of incident current to have work function less than the transmuted one

Aneurysmal Subarachnoid Hemorrhage

Aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) is a devastating neurological syndrome, which occurs at a rate of 3–25 per 100,000 population. Smoking and hypertension are the most important risk factors of subarachnoid hemorrhage. Rupture of cerebral aneurysm leads to rapid spread of blood into cerebrospinal fluid and subsequently leads to sudden increase of intracranial pressure and severe headache. Subarachnoid hemorrhage is associated with neurological (such as re‐bleeding and vasospasm) and systemic (such as myocardial injury and hyponatremia) complications that are causes of high mortality and morbidity. Although patients with poor‐grade subarachnoid hemorrhage are at higher risk of neurological and systemic complications, the early and aggressive management of this group of patient has decreased overall mortality by 17% in last 40 years. Early aneurysm repair, close monitoring in dedicated neurological intensive care unit, prevention, and aggressive management of medical and neurological complications are the most important strategies to improve outcome

A frequency reconfigurable folded antenna for cognitive radio communication

In this work, a spectrum-sensing monopole antenna was used to operate in different frequency bands for cognitive radio applications. The proposed antenna consists of a folded monopole antenna with a partial ground plane, and it can be used for various wireless technologies operated at various frequencies from 1.5 to 3.5 GHz. The suggested antenna was printed on a RO4003 substrate with 3.38 permittivity and an overall size of 60 × 60 × 0.813 mm3. To achieve reconfigurability of the antenna, PIN diodes (HPND-4005) were inserted at different lengths along the antenna to obtain the desired performance. The antenna was fabricated and experimentally tested to validate the simulation outcomes, and distinct consistency between the simulation and measurement outcomes was obtained. Computer simulation tool (CST) software was used to design and simulate the suggested antenna and then the model was fabricated to validate the simulation outcomes