The Level of Psychological Anxiety of the Coronavirus Pandemic among Omani, Bahraini and Residents Families and their Relationship to some Demographic Variables

هدفت الدراسة الحالية إلى تحديد مستوى القلق النفسي تجاه فيروس كورونا (COVID-19) لدى الأسر العُمانية والأسر البحرينية والمقيمين، وتحديد فروق مستوى القلق تجاه فيروس كورونا تعزى للجنس والمؤهل العلمي والعمر وطبيعة العمل. وتكونت عينة الدراسة من 2107 مستجيبًا تم اختيارهم بالطريقة العشوائية. وتم استخدام استبانة للقلق من إعداد الباحثات. وقد أظهرت النتائج أن مستوى القلق جاء متوسطًا، كما أظهرت النتائج عدم وجود فروق في مستوى القلق بين الأسر العمانية والبحرينية، بينما كان مستوى القلق مرتفعًا لدى المقيمين مقارنة بالمواطنين في كلا الدولتين. وأظهرت النتائج أن الإناث هن الأكثر قلقًا من الذكور. وحسب العمر فقد كان الذين أعمارهم أكثر من 40 سنة أقل قلقًا من غيرهم. وقد اتضح أن أصحاب المؤهل العلمي المتدنِ (الثانوي وأقل) أكثر قلقًا من ذوي المؤهلات التعليمية العليا. وحسب طبيعة العمل فقد اتضح أن العاطلين عن العمل أكثر قلقًا من العاملين والمتقاعدين. وقدمت الدراسة مجموعة من التوصيات.This study aimed to identify the level of psychological anxiety about the Corona Virus (COVID-19) among Omani, Bahraini and Residents families, and to identify if there are differences in the level of anxiety due to gender, qualification, age, and job title. The study sample consisted of 2107 respondents, which were selected randomly. An anxiety questionnaire that was developed by the researchers was used as the main research tool. The results showed that the level of anxiety was moderate. The study also showed no differences in the level of anxiety between Omani and Bahraini families, while the level of anxiety was high among residents compared to citizens in both countries. The results indicated that females a have higher level of anxiety than males do. In addition, respondents who were above 40 years have lower anxiety than others. As for qualification, the study showed that respondents who have a secondary level qualification (or less) are feeling anxious more than those with higher qualifications. Finally, the unemployed respondents were found to be more anxious than those who have jobs and the retirees. This study suggested a number of recommendations

A3 thinking approach to support knowledge-driven design

Problem solving is a crucial skill in product development. Any lack of effective decision making at an early design stage will affect productivity and increase costs and the lead time for the other stages of the product development life cycle. This could be improved by the use of a simple and informative approach which allows the designers and engineers to make decisions in product design by providing useful knowledge. This paper presents a novel A3 thinking approach to problem solving in product design, and provides a new A3 template which is structured from a combination of customised elements (e.g. the 8 Disciplines approach) and reflection practice. This approach was validated using a case study in the Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) design issue for an automotive electrical sub-assembly product. The main advantage of the developed approach is to create and capture the useful knowledge in a simple manner. Moreover, the approach provides a reflection section allowing the designers to turn their experience of design problem solving into proper learning and to represent their understanding of the design solution. These will be systematically structured (e.g. as a design checklist) to be circulated and shared as a reference for future design projects. Thus, the recurrence of similar design problems will be prevented and will aid the designers in adopting the expected EMC test results

Heterochromatin Polymorphisms and Chromosomes Damage in Heavy Smoking Men

Objective: The goal of the study is to appraise the heterochromatin polymorphism and chromosomal abnormalities associated with chromosome in smoking men. Methods: During a 9-months period (January 2014 to September 2014) a total of 60 heavy smoking men (more than 20 cigarettes daily) together with 60 normal controls were subjected to the present investigation. A study of the variants heterochromatin of chromosomes1, 9 and 16 was performed on lymphocyte culture followed by C-banding from a total of 60 heavy smokers and 60 nonsmoker persons. Constitutive evaluation was based on qualitative method, blood culture, chromosomes harvesting and C-band technique were carry out according to the standard methods. Results: Study indicates smoking men had significantly increased frequency of larger C- band variants on chromosome 1 and 9 as compared with nonsmoking men (p˂0.05).  The frequency of inversions revealed significant differences for variants heterochromatin of chromosome 1, 9 and to less extent 16 between smokers and nonsmokers control group and significant association (p<0.05). Conclusion: These results confirm the positive correlation between the amount of heterochromatin on chromosomes 1 and 9 and susceptibility of the smoking men to early development of cancer. Keywords: Polymorphisms, Chromosomes, Heterochromatin, Smoking

Optimization of fuzzy photovoltaic maximum power point tracking controller using chimp algorithm

In this paper, a photovoltaic (PV) fuzzy maximum power point tracking (MPPT) method optimized by the chimp algorithm is presented. The fuzzy logic controller (FLC) of seven triangular membership functions (MFs) is used. The optimization fitness function is composed of transient and steady-state indices under different irradiation and temperature operating conditions. By using MATLAB package, the performance of optimized method is examined and compared with asymmetrical FLC and well-known perturb and observe (P&O) tracking methods at different operating conditions in terms of: transient rising time (tr) and energy yield during 30 s. Moreover, the tracking methods are also compared in terms of the fitness function value. From the comparison of simulation results, a more energy can be harvested by using the proposed optimized tracking method compared to the other methods. Consequently, at the various operating conditions, the proposed method can be used as a more reliable tracking method for PV systems

Effect of Deposition Time on the Optical Characteristics of Chemically Deposited Nanostructure PbS Thin Films

AbstractPbS thin films are good materials for antireflection coatings and for solar thermal applications in flat-plat collectors, house heating for solar chick brooding, etc. Nanocrystalline PbS thin films were deposited on glass substrates with various deposition times using chemical bath deposition technique. The study was carried out for thicknesses in the range (500-660nm). The crystalline size of these films was studied by atomic force microscope AFM. A dense surface composed of multilayered grains of films was obtained with the crystal size around 37.67nm. The optical properties of these films have been studied and show that PbS thin films have allowed direct transition and the values of energy gap varied between (1.88-1.55eV) with increasing film thickness, The large optical band gap in the films is attributed to the quantum coefficient effect. Influences of thermal treatments under various annealing temperatures on the optical properties for some deposition films were studied

Performance parameters evaluation of surface plasmon resonance based fiber optic sensor with different bilayer metals: Theoretical study.

Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) based fiber optic sensor with three types of bilayer configurations (silver/gold, copper/gold, and aluminum/gold) is theoretically analyzed. Performance parameters like sensitivity, signal to noise ratio, figure of merit, and resolution are evaluated for each configuration. Signal to noise ratio (SNR), and figure of merit (FOM) are enhanced very well for the selected bilayer configurations as the outer gold layer thickness increased, the sensitivity enhanced also but with small frictions while the resolution has decreased slightly

Antibacterial Activity of River Water Bacteriophage against Multidrug-resistant Gram-negative Bacteria, An In vitro Study

Microbes show a high antimicrobial resistance due to a high rate of mutations predisposed by many factors, especially the abuse of antibiotics. Therefore, there is a great need for an alternative therapeutic agent for infectious diseases caused by microbes resistant to antibiotics. Bacteriophages are viruses parasitizing microbes, that got a big scientist’s attention due to their ability as an alternative therapy for severe bacterial infections. This study is devoted to identifying bacteriophage from river water on tested pathogenic isolates isolated from clinical cases of UTI in vitro and finding out the effect of phage on these bacterial isolates as an initial step of further in vivo phage therapeutic study on the same tested isolates. The results showed a significant bactericidal effect of the isolated bacteriophages against the pathogenic bacterial isolates.</jats:p

The Effects of Stress on Surgeons and Surgical Performance: An Analytical Study

This study aimed at exploring the effects of stress on surgeons and surgical performance, as the researchers adopted the methodology of descriptive analytical statistics by conducting a semi structured interviews on fourteen surgeons in Jordan. The aim of this study also was to investigate surgeons’ perceptions of surgical stress, highlight key stressors and their impact on performance, and identify coping strategies. Stress poses a serious risk for training surgeons since their performance and well‐being in reflected in patients' health. This study focuses on measuring the stress on surgeons and at the same time evaluates prospectively the results of practices that uses alternative techniques to combat the effects of stress. The study concluded that these interviews provided valuable insights into stressors, stress responses, and coping strategies used by surgeons and allowed us to categorize sources of stress. Although surgeons characteristically enjoy the stimulating features of their work, high levels of stress can affect performance adversely

Hydroisomerisation and hydrocracking of n-heptane: modelling and optimisation using a hybrid Artificial Neural Network–Genetic Algorithm (ANN–GA)

In this paper, the focus is on upgrading the value of naphtha compounds represented by n-heptane (n-C7H16) with zero octane number using a commercial zeolite catalyst consisting of a mixture of 75% HY and 25% HZSM-5 loaded with different amounts, 0.25 to 1 wt.%, of platinum metal. Hydrocracking and hydroisomerisation processes are experimentally and theoretically studied in the temperature range of 300–400 °C and under various contact times. A feedforward artificial neural network (FFANN) based on two hidden layers was used for the purpose of process modelling. A total of 80% of the experimental results was used to train the artificial neural network, with the remaining results being used for evaluation and testing of the network. Tan-sigmoid and log-sigmoid transfer functions were used in the first and second hidden layers, respectively. The optimum number of neurons in hidden layers was determined depending on minimising the mean absolute error (MAE). The best ANN model, represented by the multilayer FFANN, had a 4–24–24–12 topology. The ANN model accurately simulates the process in which the correlation coefficient (R2) was found to be 0.9918, 0.9492, and 0.9426 for training, validation, and testing, respectively, and an average of 0.9767 for all data. In addition, the operating conditions of the process were optimised using the genetic algorithm (GA) towards increasing the octane number of the products. MATLAB® Version 2020a was utilised to complete all required computations and predictions. Optimal operating conditions were found through the theoretical study: 0.85 wt.% Pt-metal loaded, 359.36 °C, 6.562 H2/n-heptane feed ratio, and 3.409 h−1 weight-hourly space velocity (WHSV), through which the maximum octane number (RON) of 106.84 was obtained. Finally, those operating conditions largely matched what was calculated from the results of the experimental study, where the highest percentage of the resulting isomers was found with about 78.7 mol% on the surface of the catalyst loaded with 0.75 wt.% Pt-metal at 350 °C using a feed ratio of 6.5 H2/n-C7 and WHSV of 2.98 h−1