New insights into Bedouin culture : a study of three Bedouin descent groups in Northeast Egypt

The ethnographic study on which this thesis is based was carried on from September 2002 through August 2003 among three Bedouin descent groups in northeast Egypt and Sinai. Through a cognitive anthropological approach, reflexivity and hermeneutics, and the adoption of participant observation techniques, this thesis is a study of the culture of the Egyptian Bedouin. It aims at providing a better understanding and appreciation of the Bedouin and their culture. It confronts many negative stereotypes and misrepresentations about Bedouin culture and lifestyle. Also concerned with a critical epistemology, this thesis could be considered a statement advocating the cultural rights of the Bedouin. In general, this thesis celebrates the Bedouin organisation and utilisation of their distinctive culture.In the process of the study, various Bedouin cultural models and schemas are examined and analysed. Examples and comparisons with other cultures are provided wherever possible. The Bedouin construct their own cultural models as a means of negotiating their natural and socio-political environments. They make continuous adjustments in response to the demands of the surrounding natural environment and the socio-political conditions. The Bedouin show a remarkable ability to change and adapt. They can invoke multiple identities and change their model of behaviour according to various contexts. Adaptability becomes very important in the economic sphere. Despite many similarities between different Bedouin groups, each Bedouin group has its own 'local' or 'specific' cultural models, which make Bedouin culture highly diversified.The study reveals that the stereotypical images of Bedouin as drug smugglers and being 'ignorant' about matters of religion are erroneous. The Aiaida Sufi Bedouin, in particular, demonstrate moral values and Islamic beliefs based on piety and love. Their teachings and wisdom propagate understanding, respect and tolerance of 'others'; such values are highly required for bringing different cultures together. The findings of this study are related to many issues currently discussed worldwide such as modernity and change, Islam and the West, human rights and gender relations. They aim at enriching the ongoing debates on these issues by presenting them from a Bedouin perspective

Large Eddy Simulation of acoustic pulse propagation and turbulent flow interaction in expansion mufflers

A novel hybrid pressure-based compressible solver is developed and validated for low Mach number acoustic flow simulation. The solver is applied to the propagation of an acoustic pulse in a simple expansion muffler, a configuration frequently employed in HVAC and automotive exhaust systems. A set of benchmark results for experimental analysis of the simple expansion muffler both with and without flow are obtained to compare attenuation in forced pulsation for various mean-flow velocities. The experimental results are then used for validation of the proposed pressure-based compressible solver. Compressible, Unsteady Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (URANS) simulation of a muffler with a mean through flow is conducted and results are presented to demonstrate inherent limitations associated with this approach. Consequently, a mixed synthetic inflow boundary condition is developed and validated for compressible Large Eddy Simulation (LES) of channel flow. The mixed synthetic boundary is then employed for LES of a simple expansion muffler to analyse the flow-acoustic and acoustic-pulse interactions inside the expansion muffler. The improvement in the prediction of vortex shedding inside the chamber is highlighted in comparison to the URANS method. Further, the effect of forced pulsation on flow-acoustic is observed in regard to the shift in Strouhal number inside the simple expansion muffler

Isolation of Trichophyton mentogrophytes var mentogrophytes from naturally infected laboratory albino rats: experimental infection and treatment in rabbits

The present study demonstrated for the first time the occurrence of dermatophytosis in naturally infected rats and from asymptomatic and from breeding boxes of white rats kept in animal housing of college of Veterinary Medicine, University of Dohuk, Iraq. The prevalence rate of infection was (28%), clinically infected rats characterized by appearance of scaly ovoid type lesions with crusty edge and patch of hair loss mostly seen on the back, neck and face of the infected rats, itching was reported in some rats. Only one species of the trichophyton, T. mentogrophytes var mentogrophytes was isolated with growth rate (85.71%) of samples collected from clinically infected rats, and (28.57%) from asymptomatic and from breeding cages, the growth was observed within the 21 days at 25ºC on Sabouraud's Dextrose Agar. Lacto phenol cotton blue staining slides of T. mentogrophytes var mentogrophytes revealed both microconidia and macroconidia. Microconidia found in numerous numbers often in dense cluster which were hyaline, smooth walled and predominantly spherical to sub spherical in shape, varying numbers of chlamydoconidia. Spiral hyphae and smooth, thin walled clavate shaped multicelled macroconidia were also present. The study also dealt with experimental infection in rabbits with T. mentogrophytes var mentogrophytes and treated by two drugs, natural herbal preparation of acidic pomegranate (Punica granatum) fruit and synthetic nystatine ointment. The complete recovery of lesions was recorded after 14 days and 21 days of topical application of a pomegranate and nystatine ointment for 5 successive days respectively

Elastography in Chronic Liver Diseases

Elastography is useful for diagnosing and grading hepatic fibrosis in patients with chronic liver diseases (CLD). In addition, it may be used as a noninvasive tool for surveillance and prognostication of patients with complications related to CLD. Elastography uses real-time ultrasound to assess for tissue elasticity and is a fast, simple, reproducible, and reliable method for noninvasive liver fibrosis evaluation. Management of chronic liver disease is dependent on the grade of liver fibrosis to ascertain the urgency and choice of treatment and advice on further screening for cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. This chapter will highlight the role of elastography in the evaluation of chronic liver disease including hepatitis B and C and HIV-related liver disease and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD)

Comparative Study of Multiple Regression Model with Curvefit Model for The Prediction of Solar Radiation in Mubi Town Adamawa State, Nigeria

The sun emits solar radiation, which is critical for researchers working on renewable energy technology that provides ecologically favorable power systems. This research created a new model to forecast DHSR for the Mubi metropolitan area in Adamawa State, Nigeria. Data for this study were obtained from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) over a 22-year period (2000 – 2021). When DHSR was employed as an output, the requested values were air temperature (Tai) and relative humidity (Rhi). The MATHLAB curve fitting program was used to create the new DHSR mathematical model. The model was validated using five statistical methods in this study: MSE (mean square error); SSE (sum of square errors); RMSE, Chi-square error (X2), and the absolute fraction of variance (R2) are 0.0005, 0.0064, 0.0231, 0.0011kWh/m2/day, and 0.9998, respectively

2D adaptive FEM simulation of failures in high-speed impacts

The simulation of high-speed impacts needs the use of advanced constitutive equations required for the accurate prediction of the different thermomechanical fields and their mutual interactions (temperature, large strains, hardening, damage, friction …). Since these fields localize inside intense shear bands (ISB), ductile micro-cracks initiate inside these ISB leading to the initiation of macroscopic crack and its fast propagation until the final fracture occurs. Accordingly, these advanced constitutive equations should take into account not only the strong thermomechanical coupling but also the ductile damage and its strong effect (coupling) on the other thermomechanical fields. In this work a complete set of advanced and fully coupled thermo-elasto-viscoplastic-damage constitutive equations accounting for mixed nonlinear isotropic and kinematic hardening fully coupled with the ductile isotropic damage and the thermal softening for time dependent finite plasticity is presented. Related numerical aspects in the framework of a fully adaptive 2D finite element strategy are developed and briefly discussed. This adaptive procedure is applied to the simulation of simple high velocity impact of thick sheets with dynamic ductile fracture occurrence. Attention is paid to the localization of the main thermomechanical fields inside the ISB as well as to the macroscopic cracks initiation and growth under high velocity impact

A magnetic resonance imaging surface coil transceiver employing a metasurface for 1.5T applications

A capacitive impedance metasurface combined with a transceiver coil to improve the radio frequency magnetic field for 1.5T magnetic resonance imaging applications is presented. The novel transceiver provides localized enhancement in magnetic flux density when compared to a transceiver coil alone by incorporating an electrically small metasurface using an interdigital capacitance approach. Full field simulations employing the metasurface show a significant improvement in magnetic flux density inside a homogeneous dielectric phantom, which is also shown to perform well for a range of depths into the phantom. The concept was experimentally demonstrated through vector network analyzer measurements and images have been taken using a 1.5T MRI scanner. The results show there is a 216% improvement in transmission efficiency, a 133% improvement in receiver signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR), and a 415% improvement in transceiver SNR for a particular transmission power when compared against a surface coil positioned at the same distance from the phantom, where these improvements are the maximum observed during experiments

Object tracking using motion flow projection for pan-tilt configuration

We propose a new object tracking model for two degrees of freedom mechanism. Our model uses a reverse projection from a camera plane to a world plane. Here, the model takes advantage of optic flow technique by re-projecting the flow vectors from the image space into world space. A pan-tilt (PT) mounting system is used to verify the performance of our model and maintain the tracked object within a region of interest (ROI). This system contains two servo motors to enable a webcam rotating along PT axes. The PT rotation angles are estimated based on a rigid transformation of the the optic flow vectors in which an idealized translation matrix followed by two rotational matrices around PT axes are used. Our model was tested and evaluated using different objects with different motions. The results reveal that our model can keep the target object within a certain region in the camera view