The Actual Cost of Food Systems on Roadway Infrastructure

This project was designed to provide more insight into the infrastructure challenges of agricultural enterprises in Iowa and to also facilitate the understanding needed to implement broader energy-related policy and planning. This work will also provide farmers and farmer networks with the necessary resources to justify increased local and state investments in the local and regional food systems

Cross-cultural adaptation and validation of Behçet's disease quality of life questionnaire

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Currently, there is one Behçet's disease (BD) specific self reporting questionnaire developed and published in the literature, The Leeds BD-quality of life (QoL). We conducted a cross-cultural adaptation and validation of the Arabic version of the Leeds BD-QoL</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A cross-sectional study was conducted among 41 consecutive patients attending rheumatology clinics at the American University of Beirut Medical Center between June and December 2007. The BD-QoL questionnaire, the Katz Index of Activities of Daily Living (ADL) and the Lawton Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADL) questionnaires were co-administered during the same visit, and severity scores were calculated. Cross-cultural adaptation of BD-QoL was performed using forward and backward translations of the original questionnaire. Internal consistency and test-retest reliability of the final version were determined. Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) was used to assess the dimensionality of the scale items. External construct validity was examined by correlating Arabic BD-QoL with the severity score, ADL and IADL.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The 30 items of the adapted Arabic BD-QoL showed a high internal consistency (KR-20 coefficient 0.89) and test-retest reliability (Spearman's test 0.91). The convergence of all 30 items suggests that the 30-item adapted Arabic BD-QoL scale is unidimensional. BD-QoL did not correlate with any of the patients' demographics. Still, it was positively correlated with patient severity score (r 0.4, p 0.02), and IADL (but not ADL).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This cross-cultural adaptation has produced an Arabic BD-QoL questionnaire that is now available for use in clinical settings and in research studies, among Arabic speaking patients.</p

The actual cost of food systems on roadway infrastructure

The variations among transportation costs for local, regional and conventional food production and distribution systems were investigated for three Iowa counties.</p

The Actual Cost of Food Systems on Roadway Infrastructure

This project was designed to provide more insight into the infrastructure challenges of agricultural enterprises in Iowa and to also facilitate the understanding needed to implement broader energy-related policy and planning. This work will also provide farmers and farmer networks with the necessary resources to justify increased local and state investments in the local and regional food systems.</p

Multipath Activity Based Routing Protocol for Mobile ‎Cognitive Radio Ad Hoc Networks

Cognitive radio networks improve spectrum utilization by ‎sharing licensed spectrum with cognitive radio devices. In ‎cognitive radio ad hoc networks the routing protocol is one ‎of the most challenging tasks due to the changes in ‎frequency spectrum and the interrupted connectivity ‎caused by the primary user activity. In this paper, a multi‎path activity based routing protocol for cognitive radio ‎network (MACNRP) is proposed. The protocol utilizes ‎channel availability and creates multiple node-disjoint ‎routes between the source and destination nodes. The ‎proposed protocol is compared with D2CARP and FTCRP ‎protocols. The performance evaluation is conducted ‎through mathematical analysis and using OPNET ‎simulation. The performance of the proposed protocol ‎achieves an increase in network throughput; besides it ‎decreases the probability of route failure due to node ‎mobility and primary user activity. We have found that the ‎MACNRP scheme results in 50% to 75% reduction in ‎blocking probability and 33% to 78% improvement in ‎network throughput, with a reasonable additional routing ‎overhead and average packet delay. Due to the successful ‎reduction of collision between primary users and ‎cognitive users, the MACNRP scheme results in decreasing ‎the path failure rate by 50% to 87%.

Extending model checking to data-aware temporal properties of web services

A “data-aware” web service property is a constraint on the pattern of message exchanges of a workflow where the order of messages and their data content are interdependent. The logic CTL-FO+ expresses these properties by allowing temporal operators and first-order quantification over message content to be freely mixed. A “naïve” translation of CTL-FO+ into CTL leads to a serious exponential blow-up of the problem that prevents existing validation tools to be used. In this paper, we provide an alternate translation of CTL-FO+ into CTL where the construction of the workflow model depends on the property to validate. We show experimentally how this translation is significantly more efficient and makes model checking of data-aware temporal properties on real-world web service workflows tractable using off-the-shelf tools

Major Factors Controlling the Elemental Composition of Al-Kharrar Lagoon Bottom Sediments, Rabigh, Saudi Arabia

Bottom sediments of Al-Kharrar Lagoon, Rabigh area, Saudi Arabia were analyzed for mineralogical (26 samples) and major oxides, minor, and trace elements (46 samples). The prime objective is to document the controlling factors of the mineralogical and chemical composition of the lagoon bottom sediments. Hierarchical cluster (HCA) and the principal component (PCA) analyses are used to disclose the degree of similarities among elements to distinguish them into statistically significant groups. Results clarified the interplay of terrestrial sediment influx through the temporarily active Wadi Rabigh, hydrological regime and the autochthonous biogenic sedimentation, and to a lesser extent rare anthropogenic influence that impacted the lagoon sediments. The spatial distribution of minerals shows a southward increase in the siliciclastic-related minerals (quartz, clay minerals, k-feldspars, and plagioclase along with traces of amphiboles), whereas carbonate minerals (high Mg-calcite and aragonite) dominate the northern sector of the lagoon in areas far from the influence of detrital influx. The concentrations levels of oxides, minor, and trace elements display spatial variability. Three main distinctive elemental groups were delineated appraising the analysis of the elemental interrelationships and associated statistical analysis. The first group includes the positively correlated SiO2, TiO2, Al2O3, Fe2O3, MnO, MgO, K2O, Na2O, V, Cr, Ni, Zn, Rb, and Ba, which are concentrated in the southern sector of the lagoon. The second group is the carbonate-related elements (CaO and Sr) that dominate the northern sector. The distribution patterns of P2O5 and Cu varied highly across the lagoon. Enrichment factors revealed moderate levels of Cu in some sites supporting the anthropogenic source. The results showed the hospitable bottom ecological status of the lagoon despite local anthropogenic stressors such as an influx of flood water that contain a mixture of lithogenic and dissolved Cu from local farming