A proposal for an ecological park towards a sustainable humane habitat in Abu Qir, Alexandria, Egypt

This paper represents a preliminary stage of a multiphase research-project, carried out at the Arab Academy for Science and Technology (AAST) by the Environmental Design Research Group (EDRG) looking at alternative proposals for urban development strategies at Abu Qir Area in Alexandria, Egypt. Abu Qir is located east of Alexandria has a very important productive bay on the Mediterranean Sea and its eastern and south east coast is the only mirror of Egypt on the Dead Sea. Besides being one of the most important spots on Alexandria bay, Abu Qir is considered one of the highest polluted areas in Alexandria, although the area itself has a very high potential on the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. This paper explores the design and development of an ecological park as a part of the urban development at Abu Qir bay. The paper investigates the proposals of conceptual design strategies for an Ecological Park at Abu-Qir. Lessons learnt from examples that have successfully introduced and developed the ideas of Ecological parks in the international built environment are reviewed. Parks are key elements in the urban ecosystem, serving dual roles as core zones of urban nature and as multi-use recreational open space. Moreover, as part of an open space system, they play important functional roles as part of landscape-scale habitat and hydrological networks. Today, there is an urging need for the development of urban parks. As urban populations have rapidly increased through civilization and industrialization, cities have been enlarged, nature has been impaired, and human relations have been damaged. For these reasons, people have lost the opportunity to come into contact with nature. Environmental problems such as air and water pollution have resulted, in conjunction with a gradual decrease in natural surroundings. Ecological destruction has caused the landscape to be devastated. For this reason, ecological parks, places serving to reintroduce beautiful birds and insects into the devastated landscape, are needed. There is a need for ecological parks as places where sound ecological values can be instilled and established through the observation and study of nature. Higher priority is given to the ecological environment than in other parks. The design proposal of the ecological park is a place that is ecologically restored and preserved for the purposes of scientific observation and study, and also to provide an easily accessible place for visitors to observe plants, animals and insects living in their natural environment. The proposed park also plays an important role as an educational open classroom for the community and aims at raising global awareness issues in Abu-Qir, thus ensuring that children grow up with an awareness of the global problems facing the world today, and how they can contribute, as active members of the society, in reducing the consequences of pollution and global warming we have created with our own hands. The paper analyses the Abu Qir village potentials and constraints and put forward an urban development strategy based on this analysis. The paper then presents the strategy that has been established to thoroughly preserve, protect and maintain areas of rich natural resources at Abu Qir, and method have been developed to allow enjoyment of them with minimum artificial influence. Eco-tours have been developed for observation of ecosystems. A variety of opportunities to experience nature has been made available by minimization of human interference and by the introduction of an "Environment Commentator" as will be discussed in this paper

Postcolonial Recycling of the Oriental Gothic: Habiby's Saraya, The Ghoul's Daughter and Mukherjee's Jasmine

This article examines Emile Habiby's Saraya, The Ghoul's Daughter (1991) and Bharati Mukherjee's Jasmine (1989) as two postcolonial novels seeking to rewrite the history of Palestinian and Indian diaspora according to their respective myths of Oriental vampires. Habiby's recycling of the Palestinian folktale of the ghoul and Mukherjee's recuperation of the Hindu myth of Lord Shiva aim to spotlight the classical vampiric topoi of otherness, unspeakableness, foreignness, and border existences in colonial and post-colonial contexts. Postcolonial Gothic writing is thus shown to foreground gender, nationality, and ethnicity as sites of both power conflict and cultural exchange. Adopting a counter-Orientalist approach, the study sheds light on the different strategies these two postcolonial texts employ to deconstruct the demonic and ghostly constructions of Arabs and Indians

Lightweight Mutual Authentication Protocol for Low Cost RFID Tags

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology one of the most promising technologies in the field of ubiquitous computing. Indeed, RFID technology may well replace barcode technology. Although it offers many advantages over other identification systems, there are also associated security risks that are not easy to be addressed. When designing a real lightweight authentication protocol for low cost RFID tags, a number of challenges arise due to the extremely limited computational, storage and communication abilities of Low-cost RFID tags. This paper proposes a real mutual authentication protocol for low cost RFID tags. The proposed protocol prevents passive attacks as active attacks are discounted when designing a protocol to meet the requirements of low cost RFID tags. However the implementation of the protocol meets the limited abilities of low cost RFID tags.Comment: 11 Pages, IJNS

Soundings of the ionospheric HF radio link between Antarctica and Spain

Aquest treball ha estat realitzat sota el context del projecte Antàrtic del Grup d’Investigació en Electromagnetisme i Comunicacions de La Salle (Universitat Ramon Llull). L’objectiu d’aquest projecte és l’estudi del canal ionosfèric com a canal de comunicacions digitals i el disseny de modulacions avançades adaptades. Aquest treball de tesi es centra en el sondeig del canal HF al llarg de tres campanyes consecutives des de 2009 fins 2012 entre la Base Antártica Española (BAE) i l’Observatorio de l’Ebre (OE). En primer lloc, a partir del sondeig en banda estreta s’han obtingut la disponibilitat i la freqüència de màxima disponibilitat (FLA) entre la BAE i OE en el període 2009-2012. En segon lloc, el sondeig en banda ampla ens ha permès estimar la relació senyal-soroll en banda ampla, la dispersió temporal (composite multipath spread), la dispersió freqüencial (composite Doppler spread and Doppler frequency shift) i el temps de propagació. En tercer lloc, s’ha investigat la variació intra-diària i inter-diària d’alguns paràmetres (Densitat total d’electrons, freqüències crítiques i la MUF3000) que han estat mesurades en sondeig vertical en quatre estacions situades al llarg del camí entre la BAE i OE. Finalment, s’ha estudiat la correlació entre la FLA de l’enllaç oblic i la MUF300 de les estacions intermèdies properes als punts de reflexió.Este trabajo ha sido realizado en el contexto del proyecto Antártico del Grupo de Investigación en Electromagnetismo y Comunicaciones de La Salle (Universidad Ramon Llull). El objetivo de este proyecto es el estudio del canal ionosférico como canal de comunicaciones digitales además del diseño de modulaciones avanzadas adaptadas. Este trabajo se centra en el sondeo del canal HF a lo largo de tres campañas consecutivas desde 2009 hasta 2012 entre la Base Antártica Española (BAE) y el Observatorio del Ebro (OE). Primero, a partir del sondeo en banda estrecha se han obtenido la disponibilidad y la frecuencia de máxima disponibilidad (FLA) entre la BAE y OE en el periodo 2009-2012. En segundo lugar, el sondeo en banda ancha nos ha permitido estimar la relación señal-ruido en banda ancha, la dispersión temporal (composite multipath spread), la dispersión frecuencial (composite Doppler spread and Doppler frequency shift) y el tiempo de propagación. En tercer lugar, se ha investigado la variación intra-diaria y la inter-diaria de varios parámetros (Densidad total de electrones, frecuencias críticas y la MUF3000) que han sido medidas en sondeo vertical en cuatro estaciones situadas a lo largo del camino entre la BAE y OE.Finalmente, se ha estudiado la correlación entre la FLA del enlace oblicuo y la MUF300 de las estaciones intermedias cercanas a los puntos de reflexión.This work has been done in the context of the Antarctic Project of the Research Group in Electromagnetism and Communications of La Salle (Ramon Llull University). The aim of this project is to study the ionospheric channel as a digital communications channel as well as to design specific advanced modulations specially adapted to it. This work is devoted to the HF channel sounding throughout three consecutive surveys from 2009 to 2012 between the Spanish Antarctic Station (SAS) and the Ebro Observatory (OE). First, the availability and the Frequency of Largest Availability (FLA) of the SAS-OE link have been obtained from the narrowband sounding technique from 2009 to 2012. Second, wideband sounding of the SAS-OE link has been done to estimate the wideband Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR), the time dispersion (composite multipath spread), frequency dispersion (composite Doppler spread and Doppler frequency shift), and the propagation time. Third, there has been an investigation about the day-to-day and inter-day variations of various parameters (e.g., Total Electron Density, critical frequencies, and Maximum Usable Frequency for ground distance MUF(3000)) that have been measured at four Vertical Incidence Sounding (VIS) stations located over the SAS-OE link path throughout three consecutive surveys (from 2009 to 2012). Finally, the correlation between the FLA of the SAS-OE ionospheric link and the MUF(3000) obtained from VIS stations located close to the reflection points of the same link has been studied

Characterization of the Full-Length BAG3 Protein and Stress Induced Formation of BAG3-Z

Bcl2-associated athanogene-3 (BAG3) is a pro-autophagy co-chaperone that we havepreviously shown localizes to the cardiac sarcomere and is critical for proteostasis and maintenance of normal sarcomeric function. Indeed, BAG3 loss in heart failure (HF) results in accumulation of ubiquitinated sarcomeric proteins, and depressed maximum force generating capacity (Fmax). However, how BAG3 is regulated in the cell is not well understood, with uncertainty about its structure and proteoforms. During our analysis of human heart tissue, BAG3 appears as a “doublet”, with one band at 74 kDa (BAG3-Z) and a second at a higher 85 kDa (BAG3-FL). Previous studies hypothesized the full-length BAG3 protein is 74 kDa, and the 85 kDa proteoform was due to phosphorylation. Our results confirmed that BAG3-FL is the full-length protein with a molecular weight of 85 kDa. It also revealed that BAG3-Z is a cleavage product of BAG3-FL at the N- and C- termini, which has not been reported before. We have shown that BAG3-Z formation is stress induced and caspase dependent, likely by caspases 1, 8, and 9. The N-terminus cleavage includes ~1/3 of the WW domain, suggesting a possible loss-of-function especially regarding autophagosome formation and regulation of the lysosomal degradation pathway. Furthermore, BAG3-Z preferentially localized to the myofilament compared to the cytoplasm, where it could be competing and inhibiting the activities of BAG3-FL. Identification of the specific cleavage sites in BAG3-FL, BAG3-Z\u27s interactome, and its effects on the cardiomyocyte protein quality control and stress response is necessary for the development of BAG3-based therapeutics for HF