Optical Properties of Amorphous Magnesium-Bismuth Alloys

The amorphous magnesium-bismuth alloys were prepared by the co-evaporation technique . The compositions of these alloys were determined from the rate of deposition of the two constituents using the quartz crystal oscillators. A new method to calculate the densities of the alloys from the rates of deposition is outlined. The electrical measurements of the d.c. resistivity shows that the Mg-Bi alloys close to the stoichiometric composition Mg3Bi2 has a very high resistivity. From the optical measurements, the stoichiometric Mg3Bi2 compound is found to have an optical band gap 0.264 + 0.006 ev. The dramatic changes in the optical band gap due to annealing make the proposed model densities of states of doubtful relevance

Steganography in Arabic Text Using Full Diacritics Text

The need for secure communications has significantly increased with the explosive growth of the internet and mobile communications. The usage of text documents has doubled several times over the past years especially with mobile devices. In this paper we propose a new Steganogaphy algorithm for Arabic text. The algorithm employs some Arabic language characteristics, which represent as small vowel letters. Arabic Diacritics is an optional property for any text and usually is not popularly used. Many algorithms tried to employ this property to hide data in Arabic text. In our method, we use this property to hide data and reduce the probability of suspicions hiding. Our approach uses a performance metric involves the file size before and after adding Diacritics and ability to hide data with being suspicious

Characterizations of Soil Collapsibility: Effect of Salts Dilution

Collapsibility of soils is the large change in volume of soil upon saturation or wetting.  This change may or may not be the result of the application of additional load.  Soil at a construction site may not always be suitable for supporting structures such as buildings, bridges, highways, and dams.  For example, if soil is placed in a certain none desire density, a large settlement will occur either due to loading or wetting of soil deposits.  Hence, a collapse will occur which will create a large subsidence or a sinkhole.In this study, soil samples of CL-ML soil were modified by adding different amounts of brine.  The main goal of which was to examine the effect of brine presence on the collapse potential of the soil.  Soil index properties, compaction characteristics, and a collapse potential were evaluated according to ASTM standards.  The test includes Atterberg's limit, Harvard miniature compaction, and double oedometer tests.It has been shown that brine additive has pronounced effect on the Atterberg’s limits; it is clearly shown that as the amount of brine increases both liquid limit and plastic limit decrease.  Compaction curve characteristics of soil were altered by the presence of brine, the maximum dry density, obtained using Harvard miniature device, increased as brine percentage increased, however, the optimum moisture content showed substantial decrease with increasing the amount of brine.

Steganography in Text by Merge ZWC and Space Character

Secure communication is essential for data confidentiality and integrity especially with the massive growth of the internet and mobile communication. Steganography is an art for data hiding by embedding the data to different objects such as text, images, audio and video objects. In this paper we propose a new algorithm for data hiding using Text Steganography in Arabic language. Our algorithm uses the Zero Width Character from Unicode (U+200B) and space character to pass bits before and after space. Main advantage of our algorithm file format will not be change and this will decrease the ability of Stegoanalysis to observe hidden data. Moreover ZWC algorithm can be applied to any language (ASCII, Unicode)

Characterizations of Soil Collapsibility: Effect of Salts Dilution

Collapsibility of soils is the large change in volume of soil upon saturation or wetting.  This change may or may not be the result of the application of additional load.  Soil at a construction site may not always be suitable for supporting structures such as buildings, bridges, highways, and dams.  For example, if soil is placed in a certain none desire density, a large settlement will occur either due to loading or wetting of soil deposits.  Hence, a collapse will occur which will create a large subsidence or a sinkhole.In this study, soil samples of CL-ML soil were modified by adding different amounts of brine.  The main goal of which was to examine the effect of brine presence on the collapse potential of the soil.  Soil index properties, compaction characteristics, and a collapse potential were evaluated according to ASTM standards.  The test includes Atterberg's limit, Harvard miniature compaction, and double oedometer tests.It has been shown that brine additive has pronounced effect on the Atterberg’s limits; it is clearly shown that as the amount of brine increases both liquid limit and plastic limit decrease.  Compaction curve characteristics of soil were altered by the presence of brine, the maximum dry density, obtained using Harvard miniature device, increased as brine percentage increased, however, the optimum moisture content showed substantial decrease with increasing the amount of brine.

Low complexity interference aware distributed resource allocation for multi-cell OFDMA cooperative relay networks

In this paper we focus on the subcarrier allocation for the uplink OFDMA based cooperative relay networks. Multiple cells were considered, each composed of a single base station (destination), multiple amplify and forward (AF) relay stations and multiple subscriber stations (sources). The effects of inter-cell interference (ICI) have been considered to optimize the subcarrier allocation with low complexity. The optimization problem aims to maximize the sum rate of all sources and at the same time maintain the fairness among them. Full channel state information (CSI) is assumed to be available at the base station. In the proposed algorithm the subcarrier allocation is performed in three steps; firstly the subcarriers are allocated to the Relay Stations (RSs) by which the received ICI on each RS is minimized. Then, the pre-allocated subcarriers are allocated to subscribers to achieve their individual rate requirements. Finally the remaining subcarriers are allocated to subscribers with the best channel condition to maximize the total sum of their data rates. The results show that the proposed algorithm significantly reduces the complexity with almost the same achievable rate of the optimal allocation in a single cell case. In case of multi-cell, the proposed algorithm outperforms the conventional algorithm in terms of total network achievable data rate and overall network complexity. ©2010 IEEE

DETERMINANTS OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMIC FACULTY SALARIES: A QUARTER OF A CENTURY LATER

Factors influencing the salaries of university agricultural economists were examined and compared to previous work. Results suggest the impact of publication output has remained relatively constant for the past 25 years, while other factors like grantsmanship have changed significantly. Additional analyses suggest significant impacts of appointment apportionment and Ph.D. programs.Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

The impacts of cloud computing adoption at Higher Education institutions: a SWOT analysis

The integration of advanced technologies within education has frequently enhanced teaching. In higher education it is not a surprise that using the latest developments in cloud computing improves learning practices and thus ensures they are more interactive, available, and convenient. The ease of integration, collaboration, and sharing of information and knowledge made possibleby cloud computing will be further enhanced if this technical advancement is used wisely and in a foolproof manner. In this paper, a SWOT analysis of the impact of cloud computing on higher education methodologies is presented. A SWOT analysis is here demonstrated to be a helpful guide in decision-making for all higher education institutions when considering the migration of their present learning systems to cloud based systems