Engineering Advanced Training Environment for Crisis Management: The Pandora Project

The paper describes the technical framework of a near real-life training environment for learning activities suitable for training in crisis scenarios. The underlying architecture features a design that makes provision for a learning environment capable of training collaborative, as well as independent, decision making skills among crisis managers in potential crisis situations. Modelling the training scenarios takes into consideration both the pragmatic nature of responding to crisis, as well as the human behavioural factors involved in dealing with situations of chaos and uncertainty. This work is part of ongoing research on the Pandora1 project, which aims to provide a near-real training environment at affordable cost

PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF MODIFIED SURFACE IRRIGATION SYSTEM BASED ON A DEVELOPED EXPERT SYSTEM

It is very difficult to find an expert at the desired time and place to give guidance about irrigation scheduling or good management of water and irrigation system. In this study, this problem was tried to be solved by designing and evaluating an expert system for a modified surface irrigation system. A rule-based program named as MSISES (Modified Surface Irrigation System by Expert System) was coded and complied using C#.net programing language. The expert system was designed to support users with information about irrigation scheduling (irrigation operating time and irrigation interval) and the gated pipes as one of the surface irrigation modification tools (gates opening ratio). Two different experiments were held to evaluate the performance of the developed expert system. The first one is to evaluate the irrigation scheduling part by cultivating a field crop (Sweet maize) to make a comparison between the crop yield and water productivity after applying the program’s scheduling and the farmer’s scheduling. The second one is to make a comparison between the fully opened gates situation and when the resulted gates opening ratio is applied. The results indicated that an increase at crop yield and crop water productivity by 9.49% and 32.37% respectively for sweet maize using the developed expert system, and also, there was a slight variation between gates discharges after using the expert system except the last four gates discharge were different because of the superimposed pressure near the closed end

Chromosomal abnormalities in infertile men with azoospermia and severe oligozoospermia in Qatar and their association with sperm retrieval intracytoplasmic sperm injection outcomes

Objective: To study the types and incidence of chromosomal abnormalities in infertile men with azoospermia and severe oligozoospermia in Qatar, and to compare the hormonal changes, testicular sperm retrieval rate, and intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) outcome between patients with chromosomal abnormalities and patients with idiopathic infertility. Patients and methods: This study involved the retrospective chart review of 625 infertile male patients attending an academic tertiary medical centre in Qatar. Retrieved information included data on medical history, family history, clinical examination, semen analysis, initial hormonal profiles, and genetic studies, ICSI, and sperm retrieval results. Results: The incidence of chromosomal abnormalities was 9.59% (10.6% amongst Qatari patients, 9.04% amongst non-Qataris). About 63.6% of the sample had azoospermia, of whom 10.8% had chromosomal abnormalities. Roughly 36.4% of the sample had oligozoospermia, of whom 7.5% had chromosomal abnormalities. There were no differences between patients with chromosomal abnormalities and those with idiopathic infertility for demographic and infertility features; but for the hormonal profiles, patients with idiopathic infertility had significantly lower luteinising hormone and follicle-stimulating hormone values. For ICSI outcomes, patients with chromosomal abnormalities had a significantly lower total sperm retrieval rate (47.4% vs 65.8%), surgical sperm retrieval rate (41.2% vs 58.1%), and lower clinical pregnancy rate (16.7% vs 26.6%) when compared to the idiopathic infertility group. Conclusion: The incidence of chromosomal abnormalities in Qatar as a cause of severe male infertility is within a similar range as their prevalence internationally. - 2017 Arab Association of UrologyScopu

AN EXPERT SYSTEM FOR SELECTING THE TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS OF DRIP IRRIGATION CONTROL UNIT

The good design of irrigation system is one of the main steps of extent the life of the irrigation system, as well as increase the cultivated crop productivity by choosing the proper components of irrigation system control head unit ( such as pump, motor, filters, main line pipe, fertilization device, and the different control unit attachements). Different types of control unit components are used according to the system conditions for irrigation of agricultural areas. It is very difficult to find an expert at desired time and desired place for choosing correct control unit which are varied in different types and models. In this study, this problem was to be tried to solve by designing of an expert system for choosing proper components of control unit in irrigation network. A rule-based program named TSDI-ES (Technical Specification of Drip Irrigation-Expert System) was coded and compiled using Microsoft visual basic 2013 language. Generally, the expert system database obtained from commonly used all components of control unit in irrigation network in Egypt. selection of all components of control head unit in irrigation network were determined by taking into consideration the following parameters: water resource, irrigation methods, irrigation area, crop pattern, climate, soil properties, and well characteristics. Results of the investigation indicated that it is possible to use the TSDI-ES rule-based program for choosing all proper components of control head unit in drip irrigation network such as pump, filtration unit, fertilizers devices, and flow, pressure measuerement and control devices

SOLAR POWERED IRRIGATION SYSTEM FOR TURF AREA

Solar water pumping system may be a competitive application for remote and luxurious areas where power costs a lot. One may argue that solar photovoltaic water pumping systems not only comprises an environmentally friendly solution, but also contributes substantially to the satisfaction of remote communities’ water consumption needs. Therefore, the study aimed to manage pump for sprinkler irrigation system operated by solar power in small area of turf. The required hydraulic experiment and measurements were conducted using Direct-coupled photovoltaic pumping system to operating sprinkler irrigation network at the experimental farm of soil and water Research Department, Nuclear Research Center, located at Inshas, Sharkia Governorate, Atomic Energy Authority, Egypt. The essential idea to operate the sprinkler irrigation system and fulfill the water needs of turf area was to use a locally assembled pump-set to match the photovoltaic generator unsteady output. Results indicated that, solar radiation increased during summer (April and July), so the electric power, pump discharge, pressure head, Hydraulic horsepower (hp) and Photovoltaic conversion efficiency are affected as solar radiation changed.    Four mathematical equations has been derived to illustrate the relationship between solar radiation and electric power, pump discharge  pressure head , water hp and Photovoltaic conversion efficiency (PVCE) during the day hours

Exploiting Inter- and Intra-Memory Asymmetries for Data Mapping in Hybrid Tiered-Memories

Modern computing systems are embracing hybrid memory comprising of DRAM and non-volatile memory (NVM) to combine the best properties of both memory technologies, achieving low latency, high reliability, and high density. A prominent characteristic of DRAM-NVM hybrid memory is that it has NVM access latency much higher than DRAM access latency. We call this inter-memory asymmetry. We observe that parasitic components on a long bitline are a major source of high latency in both DRAM and NVM, and a significant factor contributing to high-voltage operations in NVM, which impact their reliability. We propose an architectural change, where each long bitline in DRAM and NVM is split into two segments by an isolation transistor. One segment can be accessed with lower latency and operating voltage than the other. By introducing tiers, we enable non-uniform accesses within each memory type (which we call intra-memory asymmetry), leading to performance and reliability trade-offs in DRAM-NVM hybrid memory. We extend existing NVM-DRAM OS in three ways. First, we exploit both inter- and intra-memory asymmetries to allocate and migrate memory pages between the tiers in DRAM and NVM. Second, we improve the OS's page allocation decisions by predicting the access intensity of a newly-referenced memory page in a program and placing it to a matching tier during its initial allocation. This minimizes page migrations during program execution, lowering the performance overhead. Third, we propose a solution to migrate pages between the tiers of the same memory without transferring data over the memory channel, minimizing channel occupancy and improving performance. Our overall approach, which we call MNEME, to enable and exploit asymmetries in DRAM-NVM hybrid tiered memory improves both performance and reliability for both single-core and multi-programmed workloads.Comment: 15 pages, 29 figures, accepted at ACM SIGPLAN International Symposium on Memory Managemen

Metabolite Profiling of Colvillea racemosa via UPLC-ESI-QTOF-MS Analysis in Correlation to the In Vitro Antioxidant and Cytotoxic Potential against A549 Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Cell Line

In this study, flower and leaf extracts of Colvillea racemosa were considered a source of bioactive compounds. In this context, the objective of the study focused on investigating the anticancer potential as well as the phytochemical composition of both extracts. The extracts were analyzed by UPLC-ESI-QTOF-MS, and the bioactivity was tested using in vitro antioxidant assays (FRAP, DPPH, and ABTS) in addition to cytotoxic assays on non-small cell lung cancer cell line (A549). Our results clearly indicated the potent radical scavenging capacity of both extracts. Importantly, the flower extract exhibited a greater antioxidant capacity than the leaf extract. In terms of cytotoxic activity, leaf and flower extracts significantly inhibited cell viability with IC50 values of 17.0 and 17.2 μg/mL, respectively. The phytochemical characterization enabled the putative annotation of 42 metabolites, such as saccharides, phenolic acids, flavonoids, amino acids, and fatty acids. Among them, the flavonoid C-glycosides stand out due to their high relative abundance and previous reports on their anticancer bioactivity. For a better understanding of the bioactive mechanisms, four flavonoids (vitexin, kaempferol-3-O-rutinoside, luteolin, and isoorientin) were selected for molecular docking on hallmark protein targets in lung cancer as represented by γ-PI3K, EGFR, and CDK2 through in-silico studies. In these models, kaempferol-3-O-rutinoside and vitexin had the highest binding scores on γ-PI3K and CDK2, followed by isoorientin, so they could be highly responsible for the bioactive properties of C. racemosa extracts.Contract RYC2021-032119-I, founded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and NextGenerationEU/PRTRSpanish Ministry of Science and Innovation for the postdoctoral contract Juan de la Cierva-Formación (FJC2020-044298-I

Development of Beauveria bassiana-Based Bio-Fungicide Against Fusarium Wilt Pathogens for Capsicum Annuum, a Promising Approach Toward Vital Biocontrol Industry in Gaza Strip

Wilting or damping off disease is caused by a pathogenic fungi ( Fusarium oxysporum), which considered as as one of the most serious diseases, which lead to a serious threat in the production of one of the most dependent crops in Gaza strip, Capsicum annuum. Two fungi were isolated, Beauveria bassiana which used as biological control agent and F. oxysporum which causes wilt disease. They were cultured and tested in vitro and applied under field conditions. This study approved that the entomopathogenic fungi especially, b. bassiana is safe and significant approach for the biological control of wilt disease caused by F. oxysporum. Evaluation of B. bassiana spores activity, as a biological control agent was carried out using liquid-semi solid fermentation techniques and the entomopathogenic of B. bassiana against growing F. oxysporum was proven. Our results showed a highly significantly effects of B. bassiana against F. oxysporum