Electrical performance study of a large area multicrystalline silicon solar cell using a current shunt and a micropotentiometer

In this paper, a new technique using a Current Shunt and a Micropotentiometer has been used to study the electrical performance of a large area multicrystalline silicon solar cell at outdoor conditions. The electrical performance is mainly described by measuring both cell short circuit current and open circuit voltage. The measurements of this cell by using multimeters suffer from some problems because the cell has high current intensity with low output voltage. So, the solar cell short circuit current values are obtained by measuring the voltage developed across a known resistance Current Shunt. Samples of the obtained current values are accurately calibrated by using a Micropotentiometer (μpot) thermal element (TE) to validate this new measuring technique. Moreover, the solar cell open circuit voltage has been measured. Besides, the cell output power has been calculated and can be correlated with the measured incident radiation

Acanthamoeba keratitis in Sudan: outcome of ketoconazole treatment in six patients

In an exploration of the acanthamoebic aetiology of chronic keratitis cases (not responding to antibiotics, antiviral or antifungal therapy), 138 Sudanese patients were seen over a 2-year period at two teaching eye hospitals in Khartoum State. Six (4.3%) of these patients were found to be suffering from Acanthamoeba keratitis. The present study focuses on the good outcome of oral ketoconazole in four patients at 18 months follow up period. The drug oral route, convenient frequency of doses, minimal side effects and availability at reasonable price favour ketoconazole therapy. Sudan Journal of Medical Sciences Vol. 1(1) 2006: 34-3

Fundamental Aspects of Ceria Supported Au Catalysts Probed by In Situ/Operando Spectroscopy and TAP Reactor Studies

The discovery of the activity of dispersed gold nanoparticles three decades ago paved the way for a new era in catalysis. The unusual behavior of these catalysts sparked many questions about their working mechanism. In particular, Au/CeO2 proved to be an efficient catalyst in several reactions such as CO oxidation, water gas shift, and CO2 reduction. Here, by employing findings from operando X-ray absorption spectroscopy at the near and extended Au and Ce LIII energy edges, we focus on the fundamental aspects of highly active Au/CeO2 catalysts, mainly in the CO oxidation for understanding their complex structure-reactivity relationship. These results were combined with findings from in situ diffuse reflectance FTIR and Raman spectroscopy, highlighting the changes of adlayer and ceria defects. For a comprehensive understanding, the spectroscopic findings will be supplemented by results of the dynamics of O2 activation obtained from Temporal Analysis of Products (TAP). Merging these results illuminates the complex relationship among the oxidation state, size of the Au nanoparticles, the redox properties of CeO2 support, and the dynamics of O2 activation

Kappa-deformed random-matrix theory based on Kaniadakis statistics

We present a possible extension of the random-matrix theory, which is widely used to describe spectral fluctuations of chaotic systems. By considering the Kaniadakis non-Gaussian statistics, characterized by the index {\kappa} (Boltzmann-Gibbs entropy is recovered in the limit {\kappa}\rightarrow0), we propose the non-Gaussian deformations ({\kappa} \neq 0) of the conventional orthogonal and unitary ensembles of random matrices. The joint eigenvalue distributions for the {\kappa}-deformed ensembles are derived by applying the principle maximum entropy to Kaniadakis entropy. The resulting distribution functions are base invarient as they depend on the matrix elements in a trace form. Using these expressions, we introduce a new generalized form of the Wigner surmise valid for nearly-chaotic mixed systems, where a basis-independent description is still expected to hold. We motivate the necessity of such generalization by the need to describe the transition of the spacing distribution from chaos to order, at least in the initial stage. We show several examples about the use of the generalized Wigner surmise to the analysis of the results of a number of previous experiments and numerical experiments. Our results suggest the entropic index {\kappa} as a measure for deviation from the state of chaos. We also introduce a {\kappa}-deformed Porter-Thomas distribution of transition intensities, which fits the experimental data for mixed systems better than the commonly-used gamma-distribution.Comment: 18 pages, 8 figure

Synthesis, structural and morphological characterizations of nano-Ru-based perovskites/RGO composites

Highly-dispersed Ru-based perovskites supported on reduced graphene oxide (A-RG) nanocomposites are prepared using different A-metal salts (Sr(NO₃)₂, Ba(NO₃)₂ and Ca(NO₃)₂). The procedure is based on a redox reaction between the metal precursors and graphene oxide (GO) using two different routes of reaction initiation: through thermal heating or by microwave-assisted heating. The resulting nanocomposites do not require further calcination, making this method less energy-demanding. In addition, no additional chemical reagents are required for either the GO reduction or the metal precursor oxidation, leading to an overall simple and direct synthesis method. The structure and morphology of the as-prepared A-RG (non-calcined) nanocomposites are characterized using various structural analyses including XRD, XPS, SEM/EDX and HR-TEM. Changing metal A in the perovskite as well as the “activation method” resulted in significant structural and morphological changes of the formed composites. SrRuO₃ and BaRuO₃ in combination with RuO₂ are obtained using a conventional combustion method, while SrRuO₃ (~1 nm size) in combination with Ru nanoparticles are successfully prepared using microwave irradiation. For the first time, a microwave-assisted synthesis method (without calcination) was used to form crystalline nano-CaRuO₃

DEVELOPMENT AND EVALUATION OF IN SITU GELS CONTAINING ACETAZOLAMIDE MICROSPONGES FOR OPHTHALMIC DELIVERY

Microsponge drug delivery system is an advanced delivery system that could act as a locally targeted delayed drug release. In this work, we developed microsponges loaded with the anti glaucoma drug, acetazolamide, to enhance therapeutic efficacy and reduce the side effects of oral acetazolamide

Deep Convolutional Neural Networks for Accurate Diagnosis of COVID-19 Patients Using Chest X-Ray Image Databases from Italy, Canada, and the USA

Introduction: Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), famously known as COVID-19, has quickly become a global pandemic. Chest X-ray (CXR) imaging has proven reliable, fast, and cost-effective for identifying COVID-19 infections, which proceeds to display atypical unilateral patchy infiltration in the lungs like typical pneumonia. We employed the deep convolutional neural network (DCNN) ResNet-34 to detect and classify CXR images from patients with COVID-19 and Viral Pneumonia and Normal Controls. Methods: We created a single database containing 781 source CXR images from four different international sub-databases: the Società Italiana di Radiologia Medica e Interventistica (SIRM), the GitHub Database, the Radiology Society of North America (RSNA), and the Kaggle Chest X-ray Database for COVID-19 (n = 240), Viral Pneumonia (n = 274), and Normal Controls (n = 267). Images were resized, normalized, without any augmentation, and arranged in m batches of 16 images before supervised training, testing, and cross-validation of the DCNN classifier. Results: The ResNet-34 had a diagnostic accuracy as of the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves of the true-positive rate versus the false-positive rate with the area under the curve (AUC) of 1.00, 0.99, and 0.99, for COVID-19 and Viral Pneumonia patient and Normal control CXR images; respectively. This accuracy implied identical high sensitivity and specificity values of 100, 99, and 99% for the three groups, respectively. ResNet-34 achieved a success rate of 100%, 99.6%, and 98.9% for classifying CXR images of the three groups, with an overall accuracy of 99.5% for the testing subset for diagnosis/prognosis. Conclusions: Based on this high classification precision, we believe the output activation map of the final layer of the ResNet-34 is a powerful tool for the accurate diagnosis of COVID-19 infection from CXR images

الأداء التشريعي والرقابي لمجلس النواب الأردني ومجلس الأمة الكويتي: دراسة ميدانية مقارنة

هدف المقال بشكل رئيس إلى مقارنة الممارسة النيابية لمجلس النواب الأردني والبرلمان الكويتي لوظيفتيهما التشريعية والرقابية، وبيان الأداء التشريعي والرقابي لكل من المجلسين. وتم استخدام المنهج الوصفي التحليلي والمنهج المقارن في معالجة موضوع الدراسة، والإجابة عن تساؤلاتها للوصول إلى أهدافها. وتكوّن مجتمع الدراسة من أعضاء مجلس النواب الأردني ومجلس الأمة الكويتي والعاملين في المجلسين، وتم اختيار عينة الدراسة بالطريقة العشوائية البسيطة، وبلغ حجمها (123) مبحوثاً في مجلس النواب الأردني و(76) مبحوثاً في مجلس الأمة الكويتي، وبلغ حجم عينة الدراسة الكلي (199) مبحوثاً في كلا المجلسين. وخلصت الدراسة إلى وجود درجة مرتفعة من الموافقة لدى أفراد عينتي الدراسة الأردنيين والكويتيين نحو الأداء التشريعي والرقابي، واستخدام وسائل الرقابة البرلمانية والتشريعية من قبل مجلس النواب الأردني ومجلس الأمة الكويتي، وأوصت الدراسة بتعزيز الثقة بين السلطات المختلفة، وعلى وجه الخصوص بين السلطتين التشريعية والتنفيذية في الأردن والكويت The article mainly aimed to compare the parliamentary practice of the Jordanian Parliament and the Kuwaiti Parliament for their legislative and oversight functions, and to demonstrate the legislative and oversight performance of each of the two chambers. The analytical descriptive approach and the comparative approach were used to address the subject of the study. And answered questions research to reach her goals. The study population consisted of members of the Jordanian Parliament and the Kuwaiti National Assembly and workers in both chambers. The sample of the study was selected in a simple random way, and its size was (123) respondents in the Jordanian Parliament and (76) respondents in the Kuwaiti National Assembly, and the total study sample size was (199) in both chambers. The study concluded that there was a high degree of approval among the Jordanian and Kuwaiti study sample members towards the legislative and oversight performance, and the use of parliamentary and legislative oversight by the Jordanian Parliament and the Kuwaiti National Assembly. The study recommended strengthening trust between the various authorities, and in particular between the legislative and executive authorities in Jordan and Kuwait

Assessment of energy credits for the enhancement of the Egyptian Green Pyramid Rating System

Energy is one of the most important categories in the Green Building Rating Systems all over the world. Green Building is a building that meets the energy requirements of the present with low energy consumption and investment costs without infringing on the rights of forthcoming generations to find their own needs. Despite having more than a qualified rating system, it is clear that each system has different priorities and needs on the other. Accordingly, this paper proposes a methodology using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) for assessment of the energy credits through studying and comparing four of the common global rating systems, the British Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM), the American Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), the Australian Green Stars (GS), and the PEARL assessment system of the United Arab Emirates, in order to contribute to the enhancement of the Egyptian Green Pyramid Rating System (GPRS). The results show the mandatory and optional energy credits that should be considered with their proposed weights according to the present and future needs of green Egypt. The results are compared to data gathered through desk studies and results extracted from recent questionnaires