Improving Urban Regulations to Raise the City’s Green Area Rates to Achieve Quality of Life Standards

Open and green spaces are comfort elements and the necessary essential landscapes to improve the urbantissue and promote the urban environment of the city. This increases the level of welfare and contributes to the economic and aesthetic value of the city to achieve the quality of life standards. The Urban Regulations represent the cornerstone which help in reformation of a distinguished urban environment. The urban environment is planned through two important elements: buildings (residential –services) and spaces (public –streets –green). The Urban Regulations of the city are the mail element of planning buildings and system of public spaces, which determined the green spaces of the city, whether horizontal represented in (gardens and parks, green spaces, and green spaces in roads, routes and spaces) or vertical represented in (green spaces on building roofs, and vertical spaces on building façades). Therefore, it is necessary to evaluate the current Urban Regulations of construction in some Arab countries to plan a green urban as one of the regulations of the regulations of quality of life standards. This is the research objective

Urban Structure Transformation between the Role of Urban Planning Methods and Real Estate Market Force – Case Study: the New Millennial Cities in Egypt

Over the past forty years, many new cities have emerged in Egypt, including millennial cities. It noted that there are many urban changes in these cities since the beginning of their inception until now. Includes city area, patterns, characteristics, rates and percentages of land uses within the city, the decrease or increase of some elements ratios, disappearing of other uses, in addition to transfer of some uses from its usual place to another inside the city. Many reasons have led to these changes as: the change of housing policies especially that deals with systems of subsidization, emerging of new housing patterns and models, and the strong participation of private sector in development of cities and residential areas. The research aims to monitor the changes and urban transformations occurring within the major millennial cities within Greater Cairo region in Egypt since the beginning of its inception at late 1970th up to now, studying the different reasons that led to these changes, then deriving some indicators and set guide lines and put foundations and standards that Helps to develop urban planning of major new cities structure in Egypt

Bioactive glass-ceramic scaffolds from novel 'inorganic gel casting' and sinter-crystallization

Highly porous wollastonite-diopside glass-ceramics have been successfully obtained by a new gel-casting technique. The gelation of an aqueous slurry of glass powders was not achieved according to the polymerization of an organic monomer, but as the result of alkali activation. The alkali activation of a Ca-Mg silicate glass (with a composition close to 50 mol % wollastonite50 mol % diopside, with minor amounts of Na2O and P2O5) allowed for the obtainment of well-dispersed concentrated suspensions, undergoing progressive hardening by curing at low temperature (40 degrees C), owing to the formation of a C-S-H (calcium silicate hydrate) gel. An extensive direct foaming was achieved by vigorous mechanical stirring of partially gelified suspensions, comprising also a surfactant. The open-celled structure resulting from mechanical foaming could be frozen' by the subsequent sintering treatment, at 900-1000 degrees C, causing substantial crystallization. A total porosity exceeding 80%, comprising both well-interconnected macro-pores and micro-pores on cell walls, was accompanied by an excellent compressive strength, even above 5 MPa

Evaluating the Effects of Human Activity over the Last Decades on the Soil Organic Carbon Pool Using Satellite Imagery and GIS Techniques in the Nile Delta Area, Egypt

The study aims to clarify the relationship between soil organic carbon (SOC) and human activity under arid conditions, in the east area of the Nile Delta, Egypt. SOC is one of the critical factors in food production and plays an important role in the climate change because it affects the physio-chemical soil characteristics, plant growth, and contributes to sustainable development on global levels. For the purpose of our investigations, 120 soil samples (0–30 cm) were collected throughout different land uses and soil types of the study area. Multiple linear regressions (MLR) were used to investigate the spatiotemporal relationship of SOC, soil characteristics, and environmental factors. Remote sensing data acquired from Landsat 5 TM in July 1995 and operational land imager (OLI) in July 2018 were used to model SOC pool. The results revealed significant variations of soil organic carbon pool (SOCP) among different soil textures and land-uses. Soil with high clay content revealed an increase in the percentage of soil organic carbon, and had mean SOCP of 6.08 ± 1.91 Mg C ha−1, followed by clay loams and loamy soils. The higher values of SOCP were observed in the northern regions of the study area. The phenomenon is associated with the expansion of the human activity of initiating fish ponds that reflected higher values of SOC that were related to the organic additions used as nutrients for fish. Nevertheless, the SOC values decreased in southeast of the study area with the decrease of soil moisture contents and the increase in the heavy texture profiles. As a whole, our findings pointed out that the human factor has had a significant impact on the variation of soil organic carbon values in the Eastern Nile Delta from 1995 to 2018. As land use changes from agricultural activity to fish ponds, the SOCP significantly increased. The agriculture land-use revealed higher SOCP with 60.77 Mg C ha−1 in clay soils followed by fish ponds with 53.43 Mg C ha−1. The results also showed a decrease in SOCP values due to an increasing in land surface temperature (LST) thus highlighting that influence of temperature and ambient soil conditions linked to land-use changes have a marked impact on surface SOCP and C sequestration

Factor V G1691A (Leiden) is a major etiological factor in Egyptian Budd-Chiari syndrome patients

Objective: Budd-Chiari syndrome is a multifactorial disease in which several prothrombotic disorders may predispose patients to the development of thrombosis at this uncommon location (hepatic veins). The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence and characteristics of inherited thrombophilia in Egyptian Budd-Chiari syndrome patients.Materials and Methods: The study included 47 Budd-Chiari syndrome patients (20 children and 27 adults). Genotyping of Factor V G1691A (Leiden), prothrombin G20210A (PT), and methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase C677T were performed using real-time PCR and fluorescence melting curve detection analysis.Results: Factor V Leiden was observed in 29 patients (61.7%). It is the only factor that caused Budd-Chiari syndrome in 18 of the patients and in 5 of the patients with inferior vena cava involvement. Myeloproliferative disease was noted in 12 (25.5%) patients, antiphospholipid syndrome in 5 (10.6%), and Behcet’s disease in 3 (6.4%). Interestingly, 3 of the children with Budd-Chiari syndrome had lipid storage disease.Conclusion: Factor V Leiden was a major etiological factor in Egyptian Budd-Chiari syndrome patients, which may have been related to the high frequency of this mutation in the study region. Factor V Leiden was also a strong thrombophilic factor and the leading cause of inferior vena cava thrombosis in these patients. Lipid storage disease should be included as a risk factor for Budd-Chiari syndrome

The Pulse of Fileless Cryptojacking Attacks: Malicious PowerShell Scripts

Fileless malware predominantly relies on PowerShell scripts, leveraging the native capabilities of Windows systems to execute stealthy attacks that leave no traces on the victim's system. The effectiveness of the fileless method lies in its ability to remain operational on victim endpoints through memory execution, even if the attacks are detected, and the original malicious scripts are removed. Threat actors have increasingly utilized this technique, particularly since 2017, to conduct cryptojacking attacks. With the emergence of new Remote Code Execution (RCE) vulnerabilities in ubiquitous libraries, widespread cryptocurrency mining attacks have become prevalent, often employing fileless techniques. This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of PowerShell scripts of fileless cryptojacking, dissecting the common malicious patterns based on the MITRE ATT&CK framework.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figur

Bioactive Glass and Silicate-Based Ceramic Coatings on Metallic Implants: Open Challenge or Outdated Topic?

The overall success and long-term life of the medical implants are decisively based on the convenient osseointegration at the hosting tissue-implant interface. Therefore, various surface modifications and different coating approaches have been utilized to the implants to enhance the bone formation and speed up the interaction with the surrounding hosting tissues, thereby enabling the successful fixation of implants. In this review, we will briefly present the main metallic implants and discuss their biocompatibility and osseointegration ability depending on their chemical and mechanical properties. In addition, as the main goal of this review, we explore the main properties of bioactive glasses and silica-based ceramics that are used as coating materials for both orthopedic and dental implants. The current review provides an overview of these bioactive coatings, with a particular emphasis on deposition methods, coating adhesion to the substrates and apatite formation ability tested by immersion in Simulated Body Fluid (SBF). In vitro and in vivo performances in terms of biocompatibility, biodegradability and improved osseointegration are examined as well

Biodegradable and Bioactive Porous Polymer/Inorganic Nanocomposites Scaffolds for Biomedical Applications

With the aging of populations and prolonged life expectancy, there is an increasing demand for bone grafts or synthetic materials that can potentially replace, repair or regenerate lost, injured or diseased bone. Tissue engineering (TE) is one of the approaches being investigated to tackle this problem. In common TE strategies, a three-dimensional structure, termed “scaffold”, fabricated from a suitable artificial or natural material. In bone tissue engineering, a scaffolding material is used either to induce formation of bone from the surrounding tissue or to act as a carrier or template for implanted bone cells or other agents. To serve as a scaffold, the material must be biocompatible, osteoconductive, and osteointegrative, and have enough mechanical strength to provide structural support during the bone growth and remodeling. Several attempts have been successfully made to construct porous scaffolds with desired porosity and appropriate mechanical performance from inorganic materials such as bioactive ceramics and glasses, from biodegradable polymers and their composites. The focus of biomaterial design for tissue engineering applications has recently been directed towards bioactive components that facilitate biomaterial integration and native tissue regeneration at the implant site. During the last four decades, various materials known as ‘bioactive materials’ such as glasses, sintered hydroxyapatite, glass ceramics, composite materials, etc., have been synthesized and developed for medical applications. A significant characteristic of bioactive materials is their ability to bond with living bone through the formation of a hydroxyapatite (HA) interface layer. A recognized method to estimate the bone-bonding potential ability of material is simulated body fluid method (SBF), which involves immersing materials into SBF for bone-like apatite formation on its surface according to Kokubo et al. In other words, the behavior in vivo could be predicted by using SBF method in vitro. One remarkable success of bioactive ceramics as implant materials is the clinical use of sintered hydroxyapatite (HA) due to its bioactivity and osteoconductivity. However, the low fracture toughness of HA ceramic limits the scope of clinical applications. In recent years, more attentions have been focused on developing novel bioactive ceramics with improved properties. More recently, extensive interests have been shown in developing new bioactive inorganic materials containing CaO–SiO2 component for biomedical applications. Calcium silicate-based ceramics have received great attention as materials for bone tissue regeneration due to their excellent bioactivity. Compared to phosphate-based bioceramics, silicate bioceramics possess a wide range of chemical compositions and crystal structures, which contribute to their adjustable physicochemical properties, such as mechanical strength, bioactivity and degradation, providing them with suitable characteristics to be used as biomaterials. However, a major drawback of the CaSiO3 ceramics is their high dissolution rate, leading to a high pH value in the surrounding environment, which is detrimental to cells, which can be modified by incorporation of different elements such as Zn, Mg, Sr, Ti and Zr. In any case, the proposed approach can be extended to those more complex bioceramic compositions. In particular, due to the difficulties with sintering, silicate ceramics are generally obtained by complex techniques, such as the hydrothermal method, devitrification of glass, sol–gel processing, spark plasma-sintering, solution combustion processes etc. The sol–gel method is well suited for the preparation of complex ternary and quaternary silicate ceramics, as it allows for a precise control of the stoichiometry of the starting materials. However, it is of difficult industrialization, in the case of the fabrication of bulk components, because of the cost of the raw materials, the presence of large amounts of solvents and the associated drying problems. The current project is aiming at developing and fabricating of bioactive silicate-based ceramics from preceramic polymers (commercially available polymethylsiloxanes, silicones), and fillers (commercially available MgO, CaO, ZnO, TiO2, nano- and/or micro-particles), in the form of tablets, foams and 3D printed structures using additive manufacturing technology, to be used as bioactive scaffolds and biomaterials, thereby confirming that the proposed approach can be used to obtain components suitable for bone tissue regeneration. The incorporation of fillers, that generally can be passive or active, into the preceramic system is considered one of the most effective strategies to produce the silicate ceramics with different composition and structures as well as, to decrease the shrinkage and the formation of macro-defects in the produced ceramics. The approach of adding different oxide precursors (such as CaO and/or CaO, MgO and TiO2) as fillers enabled developing of different silicate bioactive ceramics (such as wollastonite (CaSiO3), hardystonite (Ca2ZnSi2O7), diopside (CaMgSi2O6) and sphene (CaTiSiO5)) as a result of the reactions between the preceramic polymers and these reactive fillers, occurring during the ceramization process and leading to the formation of specific crystalline phases with highly phase assemblage, that are known to be difficulty achievable by the conventional synthesis methods. A particular attention will be given to the production of open-celled porous components, to be employed as scaffolds for bone tissue engineering. These components will be prepared by various techniques, including unconventional direct foaming of silicone mixtures and additive manufacturing technology. Once the ceramic materials and scaffolds will be prepared, they will be fully characterized in terms of crystalline phase assemblage, physical and mechanical properties as well as microstructure analysis. The remarkable bioactivity of these scaffolds will be the main object of current investigations

On the Extension of Exponentiated Pareto Distribution

In this study, an extended exponentiated Pareto distribution is proposed. Some statistical properties are derived. We consider maximum likelihood, least squares, weighted least squares and Bayesian estimators. A simulation study is implemented for investigating the accuracy of different estimators. An application of the proposed distribution to a real data is presented