Sustainable Urban Design of Urban Spaces in Residential Areas and Their Impact on Human Behavior

Public spaces in residential areas can be considered as a key controller of people\u27s behavior. As these spaces motivate people to socially interact this by the way tailor their personality and mental processes. Besides, this interaction affects the quality of life of individuals and the way they interact with the environment. Accordingly, it is essential for architects to pay more concern to the design of open areas with more consideration to human aspects rather than just physical aspects only. Moreover, the goals and principles of sustainability, especially social sustainability has to be considered. This attributed to the strong relationship and mutual interaction between human needs, design dimensions of residential open areas and principles of social sustainability. However, in some countries, including Egypt, there is a wide shortage in the proper design of open areas within residential communities as the buildings seem to be scary solid blocks. Accordingly, the individuals misally use the islands in the public streets and squares considering them as open areas. This study aims to solve this issue and avoid this misuse. One of the proposed solutions is to study residential open areas aiming at achieving human needs besides providing appropriate urban design elements. This can be performed by investigating the relationship between human needs and urban design elements in residential areas, as well as linking them to the basic principles of social sustainability because it is the link between urbanization and humanity. Moreover, the study presents a proposition to the effectual aspects that can both achieve a successful design of public spaces and fruit human welfare. These aspects include geographical, physical, psychological, and managerial concerns. Each aspect was divided into several requirements. Then, the proposed relation between human needs, principles of design and sustainability to residential open areas is correlated through the satisfaction of these requirements. In order to examine the efficiency of the excluded principles the people\u27s park were taken as a case study

Sustainable Urban Design of Urban Spaces in Residential Areas and Their Impact on Human Behavior

Public spaces in residential areas can be considered as a key controller of people\u27s behavior. As these spaces motivate people to socially interact this by the way tailor their personality and mental processes. Besides, this interaction affects the quality of life of individuals and the way they interact with the environment. Accordingly, it is essential for architects to pay more concern to the design of open areas with more consideration to human aspects rather than just physical aspects only. Moreover, the goals and principles of sustainability, especially social sustainability has to be considered. This attributed to the strong relationship and mutual interaction between human needs, design dimensions of residential open areas and principles of social sustainability. However, in some countries, including Egypt, there is a wide shortage in the proper design of open areas within residential communities as the buildings seem to be scary solid blocks. Accordingly, the individuals misally use the islands in the public streets and squares considering them as open areas. This study aims to solve this issue and avoid this misuse. One of the proposed solutions is to study residential open areas aiming at achieving human needs besides providing appropriate urban design elements. This can be performed by investigating the relationship between human needs and urban design elements in residential areas, as well as linking them to the basic principles of social sustainability because it is the link between urbanization and humanity. Moreover, the study presents a proposition to the effectual aspects that can both achieve a successful design of public spaces and fruit human welfare. These aspects include geographical, physical, psychological, and managerial concerns. Each aspect was divided into several requirements. Then, the proposed relation between human needs, principles of design and sustainability to residential open areas is correlated through the satisfaction of these requirements. In order to examine the efficiency of the excluded principles the people\u27s park were taken as a case study

What strategies can Egyptian non-governmental organizations apply to ensure financial sustainability?

Financial challenges have serious implications on the sustainability of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). This study addresses the instabilities experienced by Egyptian NGOs. The research explores the internal and external challenges hindering the sustainability of these associations and the weaknesses within the organizations as well. Additionally, the study investigates the chances of NGOs for financial survival, given the waning of funding and the legal, regulatory framework under which they operate. The case studies presented includes two Egyptian associations that were able to strive and flourish, despite funding limitations. The analysis conducted highlights their similarities and differences in terms of types of services, method of operation, and the fundraising strategies that enabled them to remain sustainable amidst these challenges. Building a niche without monetary grants and working with donors on partnership basis have been NGO1’s main tool. NGO2, on the other hand, applied strong marketing techniques and developed a sustainable business model. Special outreach and networking capabilities, efficient operations, awardees selections and the diversification of its portfolio of sponsors and volunteers contributed to the sustainability of both organizations

A pilot study on automated quantitative grading of facial functions

Quantitative grading of facial paralysis (FP) and the associated loss of facial function are essential to evaluate the severity and to track deterioration or improvement of the condition following treatment. To date, several computer-assisted grading systems have been proposed but none have gained widespread clinical acceptance. There is still a need for an accurate quantitative assessment tool that is automatic, inexpensive, easy to use, and has low inter-observer variability. The aim of the authors is to develop such a comprehensive Automated Facial Grading (AFG) system. One of this system’s modules: the resting symmetry module has already been presented. The present study describes the implementation of the second module for grading voluntary movements. The system utilizes the Kinect v2 sensor to detect and capture facial landmarks in real time. The functions of three regions, the eyebrows, eyes and mouth, are evaluated by quantitatively grading four voluntary movements. Preliminary results on normal subjects and patients are promising. The AFG system is a novel system that is suitable for clinical use because it is fast, objective, easy to use, and inexpensive. With further enhancement, it can be extended to become a virtual facial rehabilitation tool

Characteristics of Iconic High-rise Buildings

Iconography is a degree given to a building and an objective of its architectural design. The iconic high-rise buildings are important in various fields. Distinctiveness in skyscrapers is not achieved by chance or by exciting stories told about the building. Exaggeration in one of design elements does not achieve the uniqueness and architectural creativity. Iconicity is a product of gathering specific main cores. The iconic tall buildings have distinct characteristics that set them different from other buildings. This paper proposes to combine the distinctive characteristics of the iconic high-rise buildings from different references to form a unified and clear methodology used when designing to achieve the iconicity. The developed methodology can be relied upon in the critical analysis of those skyscrapers to determine the degree of iconicity, and to know the reasons for the failure of some tall buildings in achieving the iconicity with a simple and systematic methodology

Characteristics of Iconic High-rise Buildings

Iconography is a degree given to a building and an objective of its architectural design. The iconic high-rise buildings are important in various fields. Distinctiveness in skyscrapers is not achieved by chance or by exciting stories told about the building. Exaggeration in one of design elements does not achieve the uniqueness and architectural creativity. Iconicity is a product of gathering specific main cores. The iconic tall buildings have distinct characteristics that set them different from other buildings. This paper proposes to combine the distinctive characteristics of the iconic high-rise buildings from different references to form a unified and clear methodology used when designing to achieve the iconicity. The developed methodology can be relied upon in the critical analysis of those skyscrapers to determine the degree of iconicity, and to know the reasons for the failure of some tall buildings in achieving the iconicity with a simple and systematic methodology

Predictors of Long-term Disability in Multiple Sclerosis: Real World Data from a Cohort of Egyptian Patients

Background: Specification of prognostic factors in multiple sclerosis (MS) is crucial for clinicians to guide therapeutic protocols. This study aimed to identify demographic, clinical, and radiological factors associated with disability on a long-term basis in relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS) and secondary progressive MS (SPMS).Methods: This was a retrospective study conducted on patients with RRMS and SPMS with a disease duration of at least 10 years. Demographic, clinical, and radiological parameters were collected from the medical records.Results: During the study period, 217 patients were recruited with a mean disease duration of 14.9 ± 4.6 (range: 10-35) years. Regression analysis revealed that age (B = 0.071, CI: 0.00-0.132, P = 0.025), male sex (B = –0.825, CI: –1.444 to –0.206, P = 0.009), duration between first 2 attacks (B = -0.007, CI: -0.015-0.000, P = 0.037), and involvement of pyramidal (B = 0.754, CI: 0.051-1.457, P = 0.036) or cerebellar domains (B = 1.355, CI: 0.542-2.168, P = 0.001) at disease onset were the only parameters that had an independent effect on EDSS.Conclusion: Predictors of long-term disability in our cohort were closely similar, but not typically identical to predictors reported in the literature. Age, male sex, short duration between first 2 relapses pyramidal and cerebellar affection were the strongest predictors of disability in patients with RRMS and SPMS

First Record of Anisakis simplex

The prevalence of infection and the identification of anisakid larvae in European hake Merluccius merluccius lessepsianus from Hurghada City, Red Sea Governorate, Egypt, were investigated. Fish samples were collected during the period of February and November 2014. Twenty-two (36.66%) out of sixty examined fish specimens were found to be naturally infected with Anisakis type I larvae mostly found as encapsulated larvae in visceral organs. There was a positive relationship between host length/weight and prevalence of infection. Based on morphological, morphometric, and molecular analyses, these nematodes were identified as third-stage larvae of Anisakis simplex. The present study was considered as the first report of anisakid larvae from European hake in the Egyptian water

GestaltMatcher Database - A global reference for facial phenotypic variability in rare human diseases

The most important factor that complicates the work of dysmorphologists is the significant phenotypic variability of the human face. Next-Generation Phenotyping (NGP) tools that assist clinicians with recognizing characteristic syndromic patterns are particularly challenged when confronted with patients from populations different from their training data. To that end, we systematically analyzed the impact of genetic ancestry on facial dysmorphism. For that purpose, we established the GestaltMatcher Database (GMDB) as a reference dataset for medical images of patients with rare genetic disorders from around the world. We collected 10,980 frontal facial images - more than a quarter previously unpublished - from 8,346 patients, representing 581 rare disorders. Although the predominant ancestry is still European (67%), data from underrepresented populations have been increased considerably via global collaborations (19% Asian and 7% African). This includes previously unpublished reports for more than 40% of the African patients. The NGP analysis on this diverse dataset revealed characteristic performance differences depending on the composition of training and test sets corresponding to genetic relatedness. For clinical use of NGP, incorporating non-European patients resulted in a profound enhancement of GestaltMatcher performance. The top-5 accuracy rate increased by +11.29%. Importantly, this improvement in delineating the correct disorder from a facial portrait was achieved without decreasing the performance on European patients. By design, GMDB complies with the FAIR principles by rendering the curated medical data findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable. This means GMDB can also serve as data for training and benchmarking. In summary, our study on facial dysmorphism on a global sample revealed a considerable cross ancestral phenotypic variability confounding NGP that should be counteracted by international efforts for increasing data diversity. GMDB will serve as a vital reference database for clinicians and a transparent training set for advancing NGP technology.</p