Permeability and Water Flow in Soils and Sediments

SECTION I Permeability and its measurements. (1) Permeability is defined as the property of a soil which allows the seepage of fluids through its interconnected void spaces. (2) The flow of water through soils is assumed to follow Darcy's law: Q/t = kA H/L where, k = the coefficient of permeability Q = the quantity of water flowing through the soil in time t L = the height of the soil sample A = the area of the cross-section through which the water flows H = the constant head of water (hydraulic head) operating over the height of the soil. (3) Laboratory measurements. The two most common laboratory methods for determining the coefficient of permeability of soils are the following: i) Constant head permeameter. In the constant head test the level of the water is kept constant by addition of water, ii) Variable head permeameter. In this test the level of the water does not remain constant because no water is added to the cylinder containing the sediment. (4) Field measurements. Soil permeability in the field can be measured when the water table is present and when its absent. 4.1 Water table present. Several methods are presently available for the determination of the coefficient of permeability in the field when the water table is present. In my thesis I discussed some of these methods, which are as follows: 4.1.1 Auger hole methods. 4.1.2 Well and pumping method. The determination of the coefficient of permeability is made when water flows through a surface area of 2nrH and when it flows through 2nd. 4.3.1 Multi-layer method. 4.2 Water table absent. Several methods are also available for the determination of the coefficient of permeability in the field when the water table is absent. Some of these methods are as follows: 4.2.1 Particle size method. 4.2.2 Shallow water pumping test. 4.2.4 Pond-Infiltration test. This test, which is an infiltration test over a large area, has been recommended and put into practice to avoid the problem of soil compression which is inherent in core samples. SECTION II Sediment properties influencing permeability. Permeability depends on the characteristics of the soil which are as follows: 1 Particle size. An increase in grain size results an increase in permeability. Two methods for determining the particle size parameters are outlined (I) Graphical analysis. (II) Algebraic analysis. 2 Particle shape. The coefficient of permeability decreases with increasing uniformity of the pore spaces. The effect of particle shape on porosity is discussed using Fraser's experiment. 3 Packing. Permeability is dependent on the packing arrangement, because the tighter the packing density of particles in the soil or sediment the lower its effective porosity and hence the lower its permeability. 4 Void ratio. The void ratio of soils and sediments has an important effect on permeability. When the volume of voids decreases, the permeability also decreases. 5 Composition. Soil composition is of limited importance in the permeability of some soil types such as silts, sands and gravels, but it is of major importance in clays. 6 Fabric. Fabric is one of the most important sediment properties influencing permeability, especially in finegrained soils. Soil samples which are in a flocculated state will have a higher permeability, while the ones in a more dispersed state will have a lower permeability. 7 Degree of saturation. The higher the degree of saturation, the higher the permeability. The relationship between degree of saturation, void ratio and water content have been algebraically solved and illustrated. 8 Biological effects. I have quoted some examples of these effects, such as the effects of intertidal burrowing invertebrates and micro-organisms. SECTION III Soil physics. 1 Water potential. Water is held in the soil against gravitational forces draining water out, or against evaporation of water from the surface of the soil. The energy with which water is held in a soil at any water content is called the water potential. Water flows from where the potential energy is high to where it is low. It moves constantly in the direction of decreasing potential energy. Water potential consists of pressure potential, solute potential and matric potential. The sum of the gravitational potential and the water potential gives the total water potential. 2 Steady state flow in horizontal and vertical direction. In steady state flow, flow characteristics do not change with time, although they may change with location. The rate of flow will depend on the rate of decrease of potential energy in a horizontal and vertical direction. (Abstract shortened by ProQuest.)

Matching leadership qualities of male and female leadership from the Quranic perspective

The topic of female leadership has yet to be sufficiently and impartially investigated, especially from the Islamic perspective. It seems that Muslim societies do not favour appointing women as leaders of their nations, yet Muslims are in need of authentic patterns of female leadership to be imitated in the 21st century. The current study bridges the gap between original Qur’ānic teachings and dominant culture by highlighting the Qur’ānic conceptualisation of female leadership. And investigates the myth that only men are the best leaders. It identifies a set of global women who had led their societies formally or informally, as mentioned in the Qur’ān, namely Queen Āsyā, Queen Balqīs and Maryam the daughter of Imran. And matches it with the Qur’ānic male leadership derived from some parables of Prophet Muḥammad (PBUH), Dhūl-Qarniyyn, Țālūt, and Prophet Suliyymān. The research documents leader’s personality, leader-follower relation, task structure and crisis management as four principal axes to the study, relying on the dominant theories of leadership. The inference reveals conformity between both male and female patterns of leadership, except for minor differences related to physical strength, and conducting wars

The Effects of Islam’s Sociocognitive Transformation on Female Rights and Roles

أهداف البحث: يهدف هذا البحث إلى سبر أغوار التحول الجذري في مكانة المرأة مع ظهور الإسلام، وذلك عبر إلقاء الضوء على الأساليب المُستخدمة في إحداث التحولات الثورية في العقلية السائدة لعرب الجاهلية حول مفهوم المرأة في القرن السابع قبل ظهور الإسلام. وللبحث عدة أهداف، منها، أولاً: عرض الظواهر النفسية التي رسمت ملامح الشخصية المسلمة وفقًا للمعايير الجديدة التي أرساها القرآن الكريم. ثانيًا: توضيح الحقوق والواجبات المكفولة للمرأة بغرض تحريرها. ثالثًا: التعريف بالوضع المميز الذي تمتعت به المرأة في ظل النظرة القرآنية المُجدِّدة، وما نتج عنها من  مشاركة نسوية فاعلة في التعليم.  منهج الدراسة: تتبنى هذه الدراسة المنهج التحليلي الاستقرائي من أجل توضيح عملية التنقيح التي قام بها القرآن للقضاء على مفهوم العصبية، ليحل محله مفهوم الأخوة الإسلامية من خلال عملية الانتقاء. ومن ثم طبقت الباحثة المنهج التاريخي الوصفي لتتبع التحولات الاجتماعية والسياسية. النتائج: أثبتت الدراسة صحة النظرية القائلة بأن الأيديولوجية الفكرية الجديدة للإسلام القائمة على المساواة الواسعة بين الجنسين قد أدت إلى ثورة معرفية واجتماعية بشكل استثنائي كما أن الكثير من النساء المسلمات قد برزن في العلوم، وتقلدت بعضهن أدوارًا سياسية واجتماعية حيوية خلال العصر الذهبي الذي أعقب ظهور الإسلام. أصالة البحث: تميّزت هذه الدراسة في إيضاح الدور الذي قام به منهج القرآن الكريم في بيان مفهوم العصبية ليشمل المفهوم الواسع للأخوة الإسلامية القائمة على روابط عقدية من خلال تطبيق عمليتي التنقيح والانتقاء.Purpose: This study aims at investigating the thoroughgoing transfiguration of the status of women in the early Islamic epoch, and to highlight the methods used to produce revolutionary changes in the way of thinking in 7th-century pre-Islamic Arabian society about the perception of females. The research objectives involve; firstly, demonstrating the psychological phenomena that reshaped Muslim personality on the basis of the new Qur’ānic standards; secondly, identifying the rights and duties granted to women in order to liberate them; thirdly, showing the privileged status women enjoyed due to the innovative Qur’ānic vision and their subsequent active involvement in education. Methodology: This research depends on the analytical-inductive approach to explain the filtration process used by Qur’ān to abolish the concept of al-‘aṣabīyah, and apply the new concept of Muslim brotherhood through the process of selection.  Then the descriptive historical approach is applied to track the societal and political conversions. Findings: The study proved the theory that the new intellectual ideology of Islam based on wide-ranging equality between sexes, has led to an extraordinary socio-cognitive revolution. Additionally, many Muslim women emerged as scholars, and some played pivotal political and social roles during the Golden Age following the advent of Islam. Originality: The study is unique in illustrating the role of the Qur’ānic method in eliminating the concept of al-‘aṣabīyah in order to replace it with the broad concept of Muslim brotherhood which is based on shared creedal bonds by utilizing the processes of filtration and selection

The determinants of local employees intention to use islamic home financing / Zakwan Ahmad and Mohammad Hilal Nawawi

This research paper title is “Determinant of local employees’ Intention to Use Islamic Home Financing. The researcher intended to identify the factors that influence the respondents’ intention to use Islamic home financing either current or future use. Therefore the researcher has proposed four independent variables that might influence the respondents intention namely social influence, knowledge, marketing and shari’ah compliance. Further detailed of the variables is discussed in Chapter 2. On Chapter 1 of the report, the researcher includes information regarding the background of the study, the objective of the study and etc. The population for this research in the area of Seberang Perai Tengah and the researcher decided to take 150 of the employees as the research sample, further detailed on the research methodology was discuss in Chapter 3. In order to achieve the research objective, the researcher had conduct five analysis which are frequency analysis, descriptive analysis, reliability analysis, hypothesis testing (correlation analysis) and multiple regression. The entire analysis finding is present in Chapter 4. The last chapter which is Chapter 5 discuss regarding conclusion and recommendations from the researche

A Lightweight Island Model for the Genetic Algorithm over GPGPU

This paper presents a parallel approach of the genetic algorithm (GA) over the Graphical Processing Unit (GPU) to solve the Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP). Since the earlier studies did not focus on implementing the island model in a persistent way, this paper introduces an approach, named Lightweight Island Model (LIM), that aims to implement the concept of persistent threads in the island model of the genetic algorithm. For that, we present the implementation details to convert the traditional island model, which is separated into multiple kernels, into a computing paradigm based on a persistent kernel. Many synchronization techniques, including cooperative groups and implicit synchronization, are discussed to reduce the CPU-GPU interaction that existed in the traditional island model. A new parallelization strategy is presented for distributing the work among live threads during the selection and crossover steps. The GPU configurations that lead to the best possible performance are also determined. The introduced approach will be compared, in terms of speedup and solution quality, with the traditional island model (TIM) as well as with related works that concentrated on suggesting a lighter version of the master-slave model, including switching among kernels (SAK) and scheduled light kernel (SLK) approaches. The results show that the new approach can increase the speed-up to 27x over serial CPU, 4.5x over the traditional island model, and up to 1.5–2x over SAK and SLK approaches

Intra-rater repeatability of gait parameters in healthy adults during self-paced treadmill-based virtual reality walking

Self-paced treadmill walking is becoming increasingly popular for the gait assessment and re-education, in both research and clinical settings. Its day-to-day repeatability is yet to be established. This study scrutinised the test-retest repeatability of key gait parameters, obtained from the Gait Real-time Analysis Interactive Lab (GRAIL) system. Twenty-three male able-bodied adults (age: 34.56 ± 5.12 years) completed two separate gait assessments on the GRAIL system, separated by 5 ± 3 days. Key gait kinematic, kinetic, and spatial-temporal parameters were analysed. The Intraclass-Correlation Coefficients (ICC), Standard Error Measurement (SEM), Minimum Detectable Change (MDC), and the 95% limits of agreements were calculated to evaluate the repeatability of these gait parameters. Day-to-day agreements were excellent (ICCs > 0.87) for spatial-temporal parameters with low MDC and SEM values, <0.153 and <0.055, respectively. The repeatability was higher for joint kinetic than kinematic parameters, as reflected in small values of SEM (<0.13 Nm/kg and <3.4°) and MDC (<0.335 Nm/kg and <9.44°). The obtained values of all parameters fell within the 95% limits of agreement. Our findings demonstrate the repeatability of the GRAIL system available in our laboratory. The SEM and MDC values can be used to assist researchers and clinicians to distinguish ‘real’ changes in gait performance over time

Ethnobotany, Pharmacology and Chemistry of Salvadora persica L. A Review

Salvadora persica L., commonly known as the miswak tree, occurs in shrub savannah from northwestern India to Africa. This review discusses the current knowledge of traditional uses, chemistry, and biological effects of this species. The ethno botanical literature reveal it as a versatile medicinal plant used to treat different human and livestock ailments. Several different classes of compounds were previously isolated from various parts of S. persica of which the main groups are Tri-Methyamin, Salvadrin, Chloride, Fluoride,Silica, Sulfur, Mustard, Vitamin C and a small amount of Saponine Tanin. Various types of preparations, extracts and individual compounds derived from this species have been found to possess a broad spectrum of pharmacological effects as well as on different biochemical processes and physiological functions including hypoglycemic, hypocholesterolemic, and sedative, and effects in addition to be against gingival irritation. Moreover, the extracts and preparations from the plant, which are hopefully safe, exhibited various additional biological effects e.g. antimicrobial, antioxidant, antifever, anti-ulcerogenic, anti-caries, antiperiopathic activities. The results of data analysis on the chemical, pharmacological and toxicological characteristics of S. persica support the view that this species has beneficial therapeutic properties and indicate its potential as an effective adaptogenic herbal remedy

The alternate GNB3 splice variant, Gβ3s, exhibits an altered signalling response to EGF stimulation, which leads to enhanced cell migration

It has recently been reported that the duplication of the GNB3 gene has been shown to be directly linked to an obesity phenotype, both in humans and also in a humanised mouse model. Moreover, the common human GNB3 c.825C&gt;T polymorphism (rs5443) causes this ubiquitously expressed gene to be aberrantly spliced approximately 50% of the time leading to the production of both a normal Gβ3 protein and a truncated, possibly less stable subunit, known as Gβ3s. The presence of the GNB3 825T allele has previously been shown to be associated with predisposition to hypertension, obesity, various cancers, Alzheimers, age related cognitive function, erectile dysfunction as well as a marker for pharmacogenetic drug action. Great controversy, however, currently exists as to whether these phenotypes associated with the 825T allele are a) mainly due to the presence of the smaller, possibly more active, Gβ3s subunit or b) merely down to the haploinsufficiency of the normal GNB3 transcript, due to its frequent aberrant splicing. In order to try and address these two conflicting hypothesis, we report on the identification and characterisation of signalling alterations unique to the presence of Gβ3s protein subunit. Moreover we also show the physiological consequences associated with altered signalling, directly induced by the Gβ3s subunit. For this, we used both an EBV transformed lymphoblast cell line homozygote for GNB3 825T/825T (TT) and a stable Gβ3s expressing recombinant COS-7 clone. In both of these cell lines that express the Gβ3s subunit, we found enhanced cytosolic calcium influx upon stimulation with EGF, TGFα and VEGF ligands, as compared to “normal” GNB3 controls with the 825C/825C (CC) genotype. This aberrant calcium influx also led to an increase in ERK, but not AKT1, phosphorylation. Despite the lack of AKT1 activation, we paradoxically observed a significant increase in phosphorylation of its downstream substrates, namely mTOR and p70S6k (KS6B2). Moreover we observed a decrease in phospho FoxO3a only in Gβ3s expressing cells, but not in the “normal” GNB3 (CC) control cell line. The presence of the Gβ3s subunit also appeared to alter the distinct localisation patterns of both Foxo3a and AKT1, while also increasing the colocalisation of mTOR and p70S6K. Subsequent growth factor stimulation studies revealed that EGF treatment, of Gβ3s expressing cells, appeared to cause a significant decrease in cAMP levels, which, in turn resulted in both enhanced caveolin-1a phosphorylation, and an increase in actin stress fibre formation. The identification of these distinct Gβ3s specific signalling alterations were indicative of a more aggressive migratory phenotype. This led us to further investigate and confirm that the presence of the Gβ3s subunit also appears to cause significantly enhanced migration and robust scratch wound healing kinetics, as compared to cells harbouring only the normal copy of the gene. These data therefore present convincing evidence that the Gβ3s subunit is stable, functional and its presence can significantly alter signalling pathways, in different cell types

BENCHMARKING METODE RANCANG BANGUN WATERFALL DAN PEMODELAN BERBASIS OBJEK

This research is a research Benchmarking Waterfall Design Method and Object-Based Modeling. Software development has many models, software methodologies have evolved from time to time, including the Waterfall approach and the UML (Unified Modeling Language) approach. Waterfall is a software development model that is carried out sequentially and very systematically. Meanwhile, UML is a visual modeling method that serves as a means of designing object-oriented systems. The difference between the two models is that Waterfall is a structured method, while UML is a system analysis method, a representation of the programming method. This study aims to perform a comparison or benchmarking of each of these software models, which can assist in determining the most suitable model for the current software development process. The method used in this research is descriptive quantitative method, which analyzes data by describing or describing the data that has been collected as it is. From the results of this study, it can be concluded that the UML method is most suitable for software development, because UML in terms of development, is a method that has undergone evolution from previous methods, so this method can follow the use of users in designing projects on a medium to large scale. That are relevant to the current development