Monitoring of AC Motors Parameters Using Industrial Internet of Things

In this thesis, the industrial internet of things has been introduced, as a very newborn research field. The suggested prototype has been assembled at the university laboratory to simulate the system conditions. Two three-phase induction motors have been utilized to perform this study, to monitor and gather data, regarding vibration and temperature. As a very newborn field, the data collected from the two motors can be analyzed to achieve a couple of goals, in energy consumption, to reduce the financial burden of the remedy works. A fast Fourier transformer has been applied to measure the motor\u27s vibrations, and the current and the temperature of the proposed system have been monitored. The industrial internet of things is similar to the internet of things, in comparison to identifying the proper parameters in the system, depending on the principles used on the internet of things have been applied, to verify the performance of said systems

Exploring the toxicity of styrene bio-production & the tolerance of other related organic solvents in E. coli by expressing different efflux pump systems

The toxicity of styrene is the most important obstacle facing its production biologically in E. coli using the tools of synthetic biology. One potential solution to counter this toxicity involves manipulating a membrane transporter in E. coli to export the chemical outside the cell membrane. In this project, SrpABC and AcrABTolC were used as candidate solvent pumps to investigate styrene resistance in E. coli. The solvent resistant pump, SrpABC, is a membrane protein that transports several organic solvents such as styrene and toluene out of the cell in Pseudomonas putida S12. Another important efflux system originally found in E. coli is the AcrABTolC system which expels a wide range of substrates from antibiotics to chemical solvents. SrpABC genes were expressed in E. coli MG1655 (DE3), which was modified as part of this project by the incorporation of the λDE3 lysogen into a parental E. coli MG1655. Confirmation has been obtained regarding the overexpression of recombinant SrpABC in that strain by conducting RT–PCR analysis and an improvement of the detection of SrpA protein expression by western blotting has also been done. Subsequently, the other efflux system, AcrABTolC, has been overexpressed in E. coli BW25113 and confirmed by SDS PAGE and western blot techniques. Tests of tolerance towards styrene and other organic solvents were conducted in the exponential phase of liquid cultures. The results showed that overexpressed SrpABC in E. coli confers more tolerance towards styrene than the AcrAB pump in E. coli C43 (DE3) ΔacrAB. Besides, the cells were tolerant towards cyclohexane, cyclohexene, 1, 3-cyclohexadiene and ethylcyclohexane at concentrations 25, 10, 10 and 100 mM, respectively. The effect of the SrpABC was tested on the bio-production of styrene proceeded in the same strain. Genes encoding PAL2 and FDC1 were cloned into pACYCDuet-1 and pETDuet-1 plasmids which were compatible with the efflux pump systems. The strain bearing the SrpABC pump (E. coli MG1655 (DE3)-pETDuet_pal-fdc_pACYCDuet_SrpABC) produced 8.05 mM styrene using glucose (12 g /L) and L-phenylalanine (2 g / L) in a bioreactor, 30 % higher than the strain without the pump (E. coli MG1655 (DE3)-pETDuet_pal-fdc); 6.2 mM. It was concluded that the SrpABC pump could improve styrene production

Determining the Abusive Clause in Insurance Contracts under the Kuwaiti Law: A Comparative Study

The Law aims at organizing the community through clarifying rights and obligations of legal positions. Therefore, legislator has interfered – in several issues – to protect the weaker party in the contractual relation. An example of such protection is legislative intervention against abusive conditions by making it subject to amendment or nullification. As a result of the independence of one party in writing down the contract conditions, the legislator has stipulated, frankly, that every abusive condition can be nullified unless it has not infringed the insured risk. However, legislative ideologies have diverged in determining abusive conditions/clauses. Some legal systems have established a committee with oversight over abusive conditions, while others have adopted a list of abusive conditions whereas other systems have preferred to define abusive conditions. The Kuwaiti legislator has not followed any of the previous trends. As a result, the role of jurisprudence and judiciary has become more significant in defining abusive conditions. As a result of our exclusion of the definition of abusive condition as a condition which is incompatible with the governing legal rule because it is considered null and void or by qualifying it as contrary to rationality since it might be reasonable but – in the same time – it can be considered abusive through its utilization. In conclusion, this review has concluded that an abusive condition is the one which prejudices balance in the contract as it is imposed by one party against the other as a result of the strength of his/her positio

Preemption in Shares

The Court of Appeals was presented with a dispute concerning the recovery of shares sold. The shareholder of a simplified joint-stock company had invoked the right of preemption, which is established by the Civil Code. The Court decided (on 1/10/2017, Appeals Nos. 1704, 1783/2017, Commercial, Civil, Governmental, Unpublished) that the shareholder could return the sold shares in accordance with his right of preemption. It considered that Company Law did not regulate the restitution of shares in the joint-stock company and that it was, therefore, necessary to refer to the provisions of the Civil Code. We think the decision of the Court of Appeals is subject to criticism. Firstly, even though the legislator does not regulate the restitution of the shares of the holding company, he refers to the regime applicable to the company from which the holding company takes its form. In this case, the holding company took the form of a joint-stock company, whose legislator had organized the shareholder\u27s right to recover the shares offered for sale. Secondly, the Court did not follow the order of the official sources of the legal rule governing companies, namely company law, commercial law and commercial customs. Thirdly, the subject matter of the right of preemption is a real and undivided right, which is not the case for the share, since it is a personal right

Immobilized probe and glass surface chemistry as variables in microarray fabrication

BACKGROUND: Global gene expression studies with microarrays can offer biological insights never before possible. However, the technology possesses many sources of technical variability that are an obstacle to obtaining high quality data sets. Since spotted microarrays offer design/content flexibility and potential cost savings over commercial systems, we have developed prehybridization quality control strategies for spotted cDNA and oligonucleotide arrays. These approaches utilize a third fluorescent dye (fluorescein) to monitor key fabrication variables, such as print/spot morphology, DNA retention, and background arising from probe redistributed during blocking. Here, our labeled cDNA array platform is used to study, 1) compression of array data using known input ratios of Arabidopsis in vitro transcripts and arrayed serial dilutions of homologous probes; 2) how curing time of in-house poly-L-lysine coated slides impacts probe retention capacity; and 3) the retention characteristics of 13 commercially available surfaces. RESULTS: When array element fluorescein intensity drops below 5,000 RFU/pixel, gene expression measurements become increasingly compressed, thereby validating this value as a prehybridization quality control threshold. We observe that the DNA retention capacity of in-house poly-L-lysine slides decreases rapidly over time (~50% reduction between 3 and 12 weeks post-coating; p < 0.0002) and that there are considerable differences in retention characteristics among commercially available poly-L-lysine and amino silane-coated slides. CONCLUSIONS: High DNA retention rates are necessary for accurate gene expression measurements. Therefore, an understanding of the characteristics and optimization of protocols to an array surface are prerequisites to fabrication of high quality arrays

Microstructural and Compositional Characterization of Roman Bronze Coins from Khirbat Edh-Dharih in Jordan

This study aimed at investigating the chemical and mineralogical compositions of five Roman coins (four copper-based and one silver-based alloys) corrosion products, and explore the topographic and morphological microscopic features of the patinas formed on the surface of the copper-based coins. For this purpose, an interdisciplinary approach to micro-destructive methods—microscopic (OM and SEM), mineralogical (XRD), elemental (XRF and SEM-EDX), and molecular (ATR-FTIR)—was conducted. The results showed that cuprite is the principle patina initially formed on the surface of the copper-based alloys by the redundant interaction with the surrounding environmental burial conditions, which is most likely an oxygenated and moisturized soil. This interaction was also observed in the formation of a secondary patina composed of malachite and azurite, which lately was invaded by the corrosive cycle process (bronze disease) represented by the formation of nantokite, atacamite and paratacamite that affected the cuprite primary patina of the copper-based coins during burial. The silver-based coin also suffered an aggressive attack by oxygen, sulfur and chloride ions during burial and formed oxide, sulfide, and chloride of silver, in addition to the corrosion products of cuprite, atacamite, and carbonate of copper, which is one of the alloying elements of this coin. The findings of this study also show that the copper-based coins were made of quaternary Cu-Sn-Zn-Pb alloy, and the silver-based coin was made of ternary Ag-Cu-Sn alloy. Therefore, the study points out that these coins were suffering from the corrosion phenomenon by the reaction with oxide, sulfide, carbonate, hydroxyl, and chloride ions, which are most likely found in the burial soil and incorporated within the alloy corrosion products. Contamination with Si, Fe, Al, and Ca elements present in the soil was also seen. We recommend protecting these alloys to prevent further degradation that may occur during storage and exposure to the atmosphere after excavation

Twenty Thousand-Year-Old Huts at a Hunter-Gatherer Settlement in Eastern Jordan

Ten thousand years before Neolithic farmers settled in permanent villages, hunter-gatherer groups of the Epipalaeolithic period (c. 22–11,600 cal BP) inhabited much of southwest Asia. The latest Epipalaeolithic phase (Natufian) is well-known for the appearance of stone-built houses, complex site organization, a sedentary lifestyle and social complexity—precursors for a Neolithic way of life. In contrast, pre-Natufian sites are much less well known and generally considered as campsites for small groups of seasonally-mobile hunter-gatherers. Work at the Early and Middle Epipalaeolithic aggregation site of Kharaneh IV in eastern Jordan highlights that some of these earlier sites were large aggregation base camps not unlike those of the Natufian and contributes to ongoing debates on their duration of occupation. Here we discuss the excavation of two 20,000-year-old hut structures at Kharaneh IV that pre-date the renowned stone houses of the Natufian. Exceptionally dense and extensive occupational deposits exhibit repeated habitation over prolonged periods, and contain structural remains associated with exotic and potentially symbolic caches of objects (shell, red ochre, and burnt horn cores) that indicate substantial settlement of the site pre-dating the Natufian and outside of the Natufian homeland as currently understood

The environmental setting of Epipalaeolithic aggregation site Kharaneh IV

The archaeological site of Kharaneh IV in Jordan's Azraq Basin, and its relatively near neighbour Jilat 6 show evidence of sustained occupation of substantial size through the Early to Middle Epipalaeolithic (c. 24,000 - 15,000 cal BP). Here we review the geomorphological evidence for the environmental setting in which Kharaneh IV was established. The on-site stratigraphy is clearly differentiated from surrounding sediments, marked visually as well as by higher magnetic susceptibility values. Dating and analysis of off-site sediments show that a significant wetland existed at the site prior to and during early site occupation (~ 23,000 - 19,000 BP). This may explain why such a substantial site existed at this location. This wetland dating to the Last Glacial Maximum also provides important information on the palaeoenvironments and potential palaeoclimatic scenarios for today's eastern Jordanian desert, from where such evidence is scarce

Occupying wide open spaces? Late Pleistocene hunter–gatherer activities in the Eastern Levant

With a specific focus on eastern Jordan, the Epipalaeolithic Foragers in Azraq Project explores changing hunter-gatherer strategies, behaviours and adaptations to this vast area throughout the Late Pleistocene. In particular, we examine how lifeways here (may have) differed from surrounding areas and what circumstances drew human and animal populations to the region. Integrating multiple material cultural and environmental datasets, we explore some of the strategies of these eastern Jordanian groups that resulted in changes in settlement, subsistence and interaction and, in some areas, the occupation of substantial aggregation sites. Five years of excavation at the aggregation site of Kharaneh IV suggest some very intriguing technological and social on-site activities, as well as adaptations to a dynamic landscape unlike that of today. Here we discuss particular aspects of the Kharaneh IV material record within the context of ongoing palaeoenvironmental reconstructions and place these findings in the wider spatial and temporal narratives of the Azraq Basin

A Unique Human-Fox Burial from a Pre-Natufian Cemetery in the Levant (Jordan)

New human burials from northern Jordan provide important insights into the appearance of cemeteries and the nature of human-animal relationships within mortuary contexts during the Epipalaeolithic period (c. 23,000–11,600 cal BP) in the Levant, reinforcing a socio-ideological relationship that goes beyond predator-prey. Previous work suggests that archaeological features indicative of social complexity occur suddenly during the latest Epipalaeolithic phase, the Natufian (c. 14,500–11,600 cal BP). These features include sedentism, cemeteries, architecture, food production, including animal domestication, and burials with elaborate mortuary treatments. Our findings from the pre-Natufian (Middle Epipalaeolithic) cemetery of ‘Uyun al-Hammam demonstrate that joint human-animal mortuary practices appear earlier in the Epipalaeolithic. We describe the earliest human-fox burial in the Near East, where the remains of dogs have been found associated with human burials at a number of Natufian sites. This is the first time that a fox has been documented in association with human interments pre-dating the Natufian and with a particular suite of grave goods. Analysis of the human and animal bones and their associated artefacts provides critical data on the nature and timing of these newly-developing relationships between people and animals prior to the appearance of domesticated dogs in the Natufian