Chilled Water Storage Feasibility with District Cooling Chiller in Tropical Environment

The difficulties of efficiently operating a chiller cooling system are manifest in the high-energy consumption under partial-cooling loads. The performance of a chiller cooling system declines when operating away from the optimal design conditions, which is typically 75% of chiller capacity. One pathway has been found to overcome this problem using multiple smaller chillers within the same chiller plant, accompanied by a smart control system that is designed and constructed based on the cooling demand profile. Thermal energy storage integration with chiller cooling system is proposed to shave the cooling peak demand. This can be achieved by storing chilled water during the lower electricity-tariff period by the thermal energy storage system, which will then be discharged during the higher tariff-rate, thus, aiming for sustainable operating cost. The present paper studies the feasibility of sensible thermal energy storage to be integrated with two chillers, of 30-ton capacity each, under hot-and-humid climates. A computational model validated with experimental results is developed for three chiller cooling system case scenarios. The smart control scenario, as well as the thermal energy storage scenario results, showed great potential for energy and electricity cost saving. In addition, the carbon dioxide emissions reduction is calculated based on the amount of energy saving

Temporal and Spatial Variability of the Ras Al-Hadd Jet/Front in the Northwest Arabian Sea

Thirteen years of 1.1 km resolution daily satellites remote sensing sea surface temperature datasets (2002 - 2014), sea surface winds, sea surface height, Argo floats, daily three-hour interval wind datasets, and hourly records of oceanography physical parameters from mooring current meters were processed and analyzed to investigate the dynamics, temporal and spatial variability of the Ras Al-Hadd Jet off the northwest Arabian Sea. Cayula and Cornillon single image edge detection algorithm was used to detect these thermal fronts. The Ras Al-Hadd thermal front was found to have two seasonal peaks. The first peak occurred during the intensified southwest monsoon period (July/August), while the second peak was clearly observed during the transitional period or the Post-Southwest monsoon (September-October). Interannual and intraseasonal variability showed the occurrence of the Ras Al-Hadd thermal fronts in the northwest Arabian Sea. The southwest monsoon winds, the Somalia Current, the East Arabian Current, and the warmer high salinity waters from the Sea of Oman are the main factors influencing the creation of the Ras Al-Hadd Jet. Based on direct observations, current velocity in the Cape Ras Al-Hadd Jet exceeded 120 cms-1, and the wind speed was over 12 ms-1 during the southwest monsoon seasons. The mean width and the mean length of the Jet were approximately 40 km and 260 km, respectively. Neither the winter monsoon, nor the Pre-Southwest monsoon seasons showed signs of the Ras Al-Hadd Jet or fronts in the northwest Arabian Sea

Prevalence of Diabetic Retinopathy Among Individuals with Diabetes in Gulf Cooperation Council countries: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Objectives: To determine the proportion of diabetic retinopathy (DR) among individuals with diabetes mellitus in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Methods: This study was executed in compliance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses 2020 guidelines. Online databases including Scopus, Web of Sciences, PubMed, Index Medicus for the eastern Mediterranean region, Medline, and ProQuest, were utilized to retrieve studies on the prevalence of DR in GCC countries that were conducted from 2003 to 2019. Results: Twenty articles were included in the meta-analysis, involving 61 855 patients. The prevalence of DR was 20.5% (95% CI: 20.212–20.850). The highest prevalence rate was observed in Saudi Arabia (69.8%; 95% CI: 64.989–74.216) and the lowest in the UAE (6.0%; 95% CI: 2.780–11.084). There was a significant heterogeneity between the reviewed studies (p < 0.001). Conclusions: The prevalence of DR was high in the GCC countries. Our findings provide crucial information for the public healthcare systems in these countries to actively educate the public and screen at-risk populations for undiagnosed cases of diabetes, detect early stages of retinopathy, and provide required care to minimize the number of untreated cases

Differences in “Study Skills” Among a Sample of SQU Students in Light of Some Variables

The importance of “study skills” has been increasingly emphasized by several researchers particularly at the university level where the student is independent and bears the responsibility of his/her own learning. Relevant research findings have indicated that positive changes in academic achievement are attributable to the various study skills possessed by the learners as relevant to the learning process. This study aims to investigate differences in “study skills” among a sample of SQU students in light of some variables. The measurement tool for the present research is a study skills measure that has been prepared and validated through factorial validity, and its reliability established through the Alpha Chronbach’s equation. Results show that there are no significant differences attributable to gender or the specialty area in the dimensions of the study skills investigated (study competencies, concentration during study, academic persistence, and readiness for exams). Further, the results also show no significant differences between the students of low and high GPA in the dimension of academic persistence. However, the results reveal significant differences between the students of low and high GPA in the dimensions of study competencies, concentration during study, and readiness for exams. These significant differences were in favor of the students of high GPA

Emotional Intelligence Skills and Life Orientation in College of Education Students at Sultan Qaboos University, Sultanate of Oman

The results of many scientific studies indicate the importance of emotional intelligence in different aspects of life (professional and educational life). Therefore, educational institutions paid attention to it and this interest is represented in the development of its programs to include the emotional and social aspects. The aim of the research is to identify the relationship between emotional intelligence skills and the trend toward life, and to indicate whether the trend towards life can be predicted through emotional intelligence skills, and which of these skills are more significant in influencing the direction of life. The measurement tools were (Emotional Intelligence Skills Scale - A measure of the direction towards life). The research sample consisted of (210) students from the College of Education at Sultan Qaboos University in the academic year 2016-2017. The results of the study indicated that there is a statistically significant relationship between emotional intelligence skills and life orientation. The value of (P) was 15.343. which is a statistical function at the level of (0.01), indicating the effectiveness of predicting the impact of emotional intelligence skills, which is the subject of research on the trend towards life. The results also show that the skill (understanding others’ emotions interacting with others) was the most influential factor in the direction of life

Indications of Validity and Reliability of TIMSS Standards List with the Fourth Grade Cambridge Mathematics Curriculum from Mathematics Teachers and Supervisors Point of View in the Sultanate of Oman

هدفت الدراسة لتوفير قائمة موثوقة تتمتع بدلالات صدق وثبات مرتفعة، لموائمة معايير الدراسة الدولية للعلوم والرياضيات TIMSS مع منهاج الرياضيات كامبريدج للصف الرابع في سلطنة عمان، وتكوّنت القائمة من 39 معيارا، توزعت على خمسة محاور(الأعداد الكاملة، العبارات الجبرية، القياس، الكسور والأعداد الكسرية، الهندسة). طبقت القائمة على عينة تكونت من 616 (584 معلمًا، 32 مشرفًا). توصّلت الدراسة إلى أن المعايير كانت فعّالة لقياس محاور القائمة، وكذلك توصّلت إلى عدة دلالات للصدق تمثلت في الصدق الظاهري وصدق البناء، وتوصلت أيضًا إلى دلالات مناسبة ومرتفعة لثبات القائمة. وأوصت الدراسة باستخدام القائمة لمراجعة منهاج الرياضيات كامبريدج للصف الرابع في سلطنة عمان للحكم على مواءمته لمعايير الدراسة الدولية للعلوم والرياضيات TIMSS

Incidence, Risk Factors, and Outcomes of Preterm and Early Term Births: A Population-Based Register Study

Preterm birth (PTB) and early term birth (ETB) are associated with high risks of perinatal mortality and morbidity. While extreme to very PTBs have been extensively studied, studies on infants born at later stages of pregnancy, particularly late PTBs and ETBs, are lacking. In this study, we aimed to assess the incidence, risk factors, and feto-maternal outcomes of PTB and ETB births in Qatar. We examined 15,865 singleton live births using 12-month retrospective registry data from the PEARL-Peristat Study. PTB and ETB incidence rates were 8.8% and 33.7%, respectively. PTB and ETB in-hospital mortality rates were 16.9% and 0.2%, respectively. Advanced maternal age, pre-gestational diabetes mellitus (PGDM), assisted pregnancies, and preterm history independently predicted both PTB and ETB, whereas chromosomal and congenital abnormalities were found to be independent predictors of PTB but not ETB. All groups of PTB and ETB were significantly associated with low birth weight (LBW), large for gestational age (LGA) births, caesarean delivery, and neonatal intensive care unit (NICU)/or death of neonate in labor room (LR)/operation theatre (OT). On the other hand, all or some groups of PTB were significantly associated with small for gestational age (SGA) births, Apgar <7 at 1 and 5 minutes and in-hospital mortality. The findings of this study may serve as a basis for taking better clinical decisions with accurate assessment of risk factors, complications, and predictions of PTB and ETB.The study was approved by the Hamad Medical Corporation Institutional Review Board, with a waiver of consent. It was funded by Qatar National Research Fund (Grant no NPRP 6-238-3-059) and was sponsored by the Medical Research Centre, Hamad Medical Corporation. The authors want to thank their respective institutions for their continued support. The publication of this article is funded by the Qatar National Library, Doha, Qatar

Intelligent ultra-light deep learning model for multi-class brain tumor detection

The diagnosis and surgical resection using Magnetic Resonance (MR) images in brain tumors is a challenging task to minimize the neurological defects after surgery owing to the non-linear nature of the size, shape, and textural variation. Radiologists, clinical experts, and brain surgeons examine brain MRI scans using the available methods, which are tedious, error-prone, time-consuming, and still exhibit positional accuracy up to 2−3 mm, which is very high in the case of brain cells. In this context, we propose an automated Ultra-Light Brain Tumor Detection (UL-BTD) system based on a novel Ultra-Light Deep Learning Architecture (UL-DLA) for deep features, integrated with highly distinctive textural features, extracted by Gray Level Co-occurrence Matrix (GLCM). It forms a Hybrid Feature Space (HFS), which is used for tumor detection using Support Vector Machine (SVM), culminating in high prediction accuracy and optimum false negatives with limited network size to fit within the average GPU resources of a modern PC system. The objective of this study is to categorize multi-class publicly available MRI brain tumor datasets with a minimum time thus real-time tumor detection can be carried out without compromising accuracy. Our proposed framework includes a sensitivity analysis of image size, One-versus-All and One-versus-One coding schemes with stringent efforts to assess the complexity and reliability performance of the proposed system with K-fold cross-validation as a part of the evaluation protocol. The best generalization achieved using SVM has an average detection rate of 99.23% (99.18%, 98.86%, and 99.67%), and F-measure of 0.99 (0.99, 0.98, and 0.99) for (glioma, meningioma, and pituitary tumors), respectively. Our results have been found to improve the state-of-the-art (97.30%) by 2%, indicating that the system exhibits capability for translation in modern hospitals during real-time surgical brain applications. The method needs 11.69 ms with an accuracy of 99.23% compared to 15 ms achieved by the state-of-the-art to earlier to detect tumors on a test image without any dedicated hardware providing a route for a desktop application in brain surgery

Prevalence, predictors, and outcomes of major congenital anomalies : a population-based register study

Congenital anomalies (CAs) are a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in early life. We aimed to assess the incidence, risk factors, and outcomes of major CAs in the State of Qatar. A population-based retrospective data analysis of registry data retrieved from the Perinatal Neonatal Outcomes Research Study in the Arabian Gulf (PEARL-Peristat Study) between April 2017 and March 2018. The sample included 25,204 newborn records, which were audited between April 2017 and March 2018, of which 25,073 live births were identified and included in the study. Maternal risk factors and neonatal outcomes were assessed for association with specific CAs, including chromosomal/genetic, central nervous system (CNS), cardiovascular system (CVS), facial, renal, multiple congenital anomalies (MCAs) using univariate and multivariate analyses. The incidence of any CA among live births was 1.3% (n = 332). The most common CAs were CVS (n = 117; 35%), MCAs (n = 69, 21%), chromosomal/genetic (51; 15%), renal (n = 39; 12%), CNS (n = 20; 6%), facial (14, 4%), and other (GIT, Resp, Urogenital, Skeletal) (n = 22, 7%) anomalies. Multivariable regression analysis showed that multiple pregnancies, parity ≥ 1, maternal BMI, and demographic factors (mother’s age and ethnicity, and infant’s gender) were associated with various specific CAs. In-hospital mortality rate due to CAs was estimated to be 15.4%. CAs were significantly associated with high rates of caesarean deliveries (aOR 1.51; 95% CI 1.04–2.19), Apgar < 7 at 1 min (aOR 5.44; 95% CI 3.10–9.55), Apgar < 7 at 5 min (aOR 17.26; 95% CI 6.31–47.18), in-hospital mortality (aOR 76.16; 37.96–152.8), admission to neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) or perinatal death of neonate in labor room (LR)/operation theatre (OT) (aOR 34.03; 95% CI 20.51–56.46), prematurity (aOR 4.17; 95% CI 2.75–6.32), and low birth weight (aOR 5.88; 95% CI 3.92–8.82) before and after adjustment for the significant risk factors. This is the first study to assess the incidence, maternal risk factors, and neonatal outcomes associated with CAs in the state of Qatar. Therefore, a specialized congenital anomaly data registry is needed to identify risk factors and outcomes. In addition, counselling of mothers and their families may help to identify specific needs for pregnant women and their babies.Open Access funding provided by the Qatar National Library. The PEARL-Peristat study was funded by Qatar National Research Fund (Grant no NPRP 6-238-3-059) and was sponsored by the Medical Research Centre, Hamad Medical Corporation.Scopu