Consolidation of water management and efficiency parameters for development of green building rating system

Water generation and distribution involve activities that leads to energy consumptions in various ways. This leads to GHG emission which make it important for various sustainable development assessment. Hence it is important to develop some consolidated parameters to cover water in building life cycle assessment (LCA). Development of rating system involves the utilisation of some parameters and points allocation. These parameters and points allocation varies between countries and their rating systems. This study aim at reviewing water management and efficiency category and the extent of parameters and points allocation across some rating systems. The purpose of the review is to develop a consolidated parameters that will universally cover building life cycle assessment. Eleven rating scheme’s categories, parameters and points allocation were reviewed. Specifically, water generation, distribution and usage was further elaborated for this study. The parameters were reviewed from the context of their, adaptability, preference, prevalence, relevance and measurability of parameter to suit the universal concept of sustainable building assessment. The review shows that the variations of the parameters and points distribution are based on social, economic and environmental need of the country. The highest parameters and points allocation signifies the need of efficient water generation, distribution and usage and lack of enough fresh water for daily activities. The lowest consideration is due to advancement in sustainable water generation, distribution and usage. The study consolidated the parameters in to nine parameters covering the strategies for reducing unnecessary water usage and other sourcing consequences. They also cover the approximate accounting of GHG emission from water consumption and its reduction. The study can be used by researcher, organisations and countries developing rating schemes. As the study harmonised parameters covered the entire sustainable building and greenhouse gas assessment in term of water generation, distribution and usage

The Effects of a Guided Program on Improving Fourth Grade English Reading Comprehension Skills in the UAE.

The purpose of this study was to identify the effects of implementing a guided reading program for promoting reading comprehension skills of grade four pupils in the UAE. This program was based on intensive practice of the targeted skills followed by a gradual release of teacher’s role to have more pupils’ independence while reading. The participants of this study were sixty pupils in grade four who were divided into a control group and a treatment group. Data were collected and analyzed using the results of both the pretest and posttest. The treatment was implementing a guided reading program which lasted for three weeks to improve pupils’ reading comprehension skills. The difference in the results of the two groups was statistically significant. Mean scores of the experimental group rose significantly from 40.16 in the pretest to 62.66 in the posttest. The results prove that the guided program is an effective instructional strategy which can enhance pupils’ reading comprehension skills. The results of the participant in the control group rose slightly from 41.00 in the pretest to 47.16 in the posttest. Regarding reading comprehension sub skills such as reading for gist, specific information and details mean scores of results of the experimental group increase sharply in comparison with same results of the control group which increased slightly. Mean scores of results of reading comprehension sub skills of the experimental group increased from 8.16 to 12.33 regarding reading for gist, from 16.16 to 25 concerning reading for specific information and from 15.83 to 25 regarding reading for details. The researcher recommended the implantation of the guided program to improve pupils’ reading comprehension skills. Teachers can implement the guided program to improve pupils’ reading comprehension skills

A catalogue of aphid parasitoids (Hymenoptera: Braconidae: Aphidiinae) from India

A catalogue of aphidiine parasitoids (Hymenoptera: Braconidae: Aphidiinae) associated with various aphids species occurring in India was compiled. The present catalogue with 125 species under 22 genera has been further reinforced with not only all the latest taxonomic changes but also host names, host plants, distribution in India etc

Define Ureteric Stones Composition by Infrared Spectroscopy and Study Associated Factors in South of Iraq

Infrared spectroscopic method (physical method) of stone analysis was used to study forty ureteric calculi that were extracted by different techniques or past spontaneously from patients with age range 2-63 years, 27male and 13 female, and overall sex ratio 2:1 . We found the most common stones were pure calcium oxalate monohydrate 42.5% followed by pure uric acid stones 12.5% and ammonium acid urate 10% , pure stone constitute about 80% and mixed stones constitute about 20% with calcium oxalate monohydrate and uric acid (mixed stone) about 7.5% . The risk of having specific type of stone was analyzed by selected predictor variables :- mixed type stone was significantly associated with past history of urolithiasis, gout with urate type of stone and young female with recurrent UTI with phosphate type of stone . The success rate of stone retrieval by ureteroscopy and ESWL was found to be inversely related to:- UTI, past history of urolithiasis, mixed type of stone, stone size > 1.2 cm, phosphate variety of stones . Stone distribution by age and sex was different according to the crystalline component of each type

Prediction of the Chemical Composition of Urinary Calculi Using CT

Purpose: Our objective for this study was to determine the precision of spiral CT in identifying the chemical composition of different types of urinary calculi with measurement of absolute HU values of region of interest (ROI)using unenhanced spiral CT. Materials and methods :A total of ( 50 ) urinary stones, obtained from patients who underwent open surgery ,were scanned with a multidetector row scanner using ( 2 ) mm collimation at energy level of ( 120 ) kV at (200 ) mA .Two post-scanning protocols were used for the HU value assignment ,tissue and bone windows. In both protocols ,three transverse planes were defined in each stone , one near the top, one in the middle ,and one near the bottom. Three regions of interest (ROI ) were obtained in each plane .The absolute HU value was determined by three methods :the mean of nine ROI ,the mean of the central three ROI ,and the central ROI in the middle plane .Determination of the stones composition was performed using the absolute HU value measured at ( 120 ) kV .All stones were analyzed by infrared spectroscopy to determine their chemical composition. Results : the calculi classified into groups according to their chemical composition .A total of 50 calculi ,include ( 34 ) pure stones[ (14 )uric acid (UA), ( 15 ) calcium oxalate monohydrate (COM), (5) Struvite] ,and (16) mixed stones [(7) COM +hydroxyl apatite (HA), (4) COM +uric acid, (5) mixed Struvite + COM + hydroxyapatite] were included in the statistical analysis. Using the absolute HU values at ( 120 ) k V , we could distinguish ,with statistical significance ,all pure types from each other ,from the least to the most dense , the pure stone types were UA , struvite ,COM . Mixed UA + COM calculi were more dense and significantly different from pure UA but insignificantly different from Struvite , Struvite and COM can differentiated from each other but there were insignificant differences between them and mixed stones (COM+UA and struvite+COM+HA ) . Mixed COM + HA stones were the most dense stones and can differentiated from other types. Conclusion :This study suggest that the measurement of absolute HU values at a single energy level utilizing CT scanning with small collimation size can uncover significant differences among all pure stones and insignificant for mixed stones

The quagmire of philosophical standpoints (paradigms) in management research

In conducting management research, the researcher’s stance of ontology and epistemology in the contribution of knowledge is paramount. The acknowledgement of such stance is imperative as it may have inherent effects from how a research is conducted to how findings are reported and evaluated. This exploratory study attempts to provide a brief discussion of the philosophical standpoints (paradigms) characterized in management research. The discussion covered the two extremes; from the early modernism (positivism school of thought) to the other extreme of social constructionism. Other schools of varying standpoints of ontology and epistemology occur between these extremes. For individual schools of thought (paradigms), the ontological status of social reality, the ontological status of human behavior and the epistemological status, has been discussed

LANGUAGE ATTITUDES OF IRAQI NATIVE SPEAKERS OF ARABIC: A SOCIOLINGUISTIC INVESTIGATION

This study investigates language attitudes of Iraqi native speakers of Arabic towards two Arabic varieties in Iraq, Standard Arabic (SA) and Iraqi Arabic (IA). The sample of the study comprises 196 participants divided into 107 college students and 89 non-students with no post-secondary degree. The instrument used in the study is a language survey of 44 questions falling into five groups, language preference and use in social interaction, language preference in media, language preference and use in the academic domain, language ideology, and Open-ended questions. The findings showed that the differences in language attitudes between students and non-students were significant, i.e. students showed more favorable attitudes towards SA than IA, whereas non-students overwhelmingly preferred IA. No significant gender-based differences were found among participants

Web-Based Directory of ITU-UUM Partners Using Social Network Site

Directory services help people to manage their information in accurate and a secure way. It provides a foundation for modern enterprise information. Directories control names, addresses, and routes for e-mails, phones and other data. ITU-UUM center is the heart for all rural ICT development initiatives across Asia Pacific region. The center faces a problem with managing and using its partners' information, because they use a manual system to save them. This study has focused on the development of web-based directory system of ITU-UUM partners using social network technology, to help ITU-UUM staff and their partners to manage, search, and contact each others in smooth and easy way. As a result of testing the developed Web-based Directory by the staff of ITU-UUM, the results showed that the users found the application very usehl and helpful

Evaluation of Machine Learning Models for Breast Cancer Diagnosis Via Histogram of Oriented Gradients Method and Histopathology Images

Breast cancer is the main death rate from malignant growth worldwide and the most frequently diagnosed type of cancer in females. Machine learning systems have been developed to assist in the accurate detection of cancer. There are numerous methods for cancer detection. But histopathological images are thought to be more precise. In this study, we used the HOG features extractor to extract statistical features from histopathology images of invasive ductal carcinoma. We chose the following images at random from the histopathology images: 100, 200, 400, 1000, and 2000. These statistical features were then used to train several algorithms, including the decision tree, quadratic discriminant analysis, extra randomized trees, gradient boosting, gaussian process classifier, naive bayes, nearest centroid, multilayer perceptron, and support vector machine, to identify whether or not the images depict cancerous or noncancerous growth. The algorithms' performance was evaluated depending on the specificity, accuracy, sensitivity, precision, F1_score, and AUC. The algorithms used worked best when the number of images was set to 100. As the number of images went up, their effectiveness went down