An E-Learning Investigation into Learning Style Adaptivity

Abstrac

EXPLORING A NEW HOUSING DESIGN PARADIGM FOR POST PANDEMIC MULTI-STORY BUILDINGS IN LEBANON

When the fast-spreading COVID-19 was announced as a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO), people around the world rushed to go home. This worldwide widespread altogether affected our individual and proficient lives and features a coordinate bearing upon the exceptionally establishments of design hypothesis. As a result, the pandemic has contributed to concerns about how architects and designers should view and install antivirus-related ideas or redesign current spaces, as well as at what point our physical and built environment could be impacted by the pandemic. In forecasting the post-pandemic style and visualizing the appropriate antivirus scheme, the answers to these questions may help. This paper aims to develop a new paradigm of housing design. And especially, a new functional layout for residential unit in a multi-story building in Lebanon. In this order, a literature study and a survey has been conducted. One of the main goal of the literature study is to highlight on previous pandemic and residential experiences. In the other hand, the survey serves on analysing nowadays residential unit users. These two ways will lead for the future of residential units in multi-story buildings

A Spallation Model for the Titanium-rich Supernova Remnant Cassiopeia A

Titanium-rich subluminous supernovae are rare and challenge current SN nucleosynthesis models. We present a model in which ejecta from a standard Supernova is impacted by a second explosion of the neutron star (a Quark-nova), resulting in spallation reactions that lead to 56Ni destruction and 44Ti creation under the right conditions. Basic calculations of the spallation products shows that a delay between the two explosions of ~ 5 days reproduces the observed abundance of 44Ti in Cas A and explains its low luminosity as a result of the destruction of 56Ni. Our results could have important implications for lightcurves of subluminous as well as superluminous supernovae.Comment: Accepted/to be published in Physical Review Letters. [ for more info on the Quark Nova, see: http://quarknova.ucalgary.ca/

Enhancement of chemotherapy using oncolytic virotherapy: Mathematical and optimal control analysis

Oncolytic virotherapy (OV) has been emerging as a promising novel cancer treatment that may be further combined with the existing therapeutic modalities to enhance their effects. To investigate how OV could enhance chemotherapy, we propose an ODE based model describing the interactions between tumour cells, the immune response, and a treatment combination with chemotherapy and oncolytic viruses. Stability analysis of the model with constant chemotherapy treatment rates shows that without any form of treatment, a tumour would grow to its maximum size. It also demonstrates that chemotherapy alone is capable of clearing tumour cells provided that the drug efficacy is greater than the intrinsic tumour growth rate. Furthermore, OV alone may not be able to clear tumour cells from body tissue but would rather enhance chemotherapy if viruses with high viral potency are used. To assess the combined effect of OV and chemotherapy we use the forward sensitivity index to perform a sensitivity analysis, with respect to chemotherapy key parameters, of the virus basic reproductive number and the tumour endemic equilibrium. The results from this sensitivity analysis indicate the existence of a critical dose of chemotherapy above which no further significant reduction in the tumour population can be observed. Numerical simulations show that a successful combinational therapy of the chemotherapeutic drugs and viruses depends mostly on the virus burst size, infection rate, and the amount of drugs supplied. Optimal control analysis was performed, by means of Pontryagin's principle, to further refine predictions of the model with constant treatment rates by accounting for the treatment costs and sides effects.Comment: This is a preprint of a paper whose final and definite form is with 'Mathematical Biosciences and Engineering', ISSN 1551-0018 (print), ISSN 1547-1063 (online), available at [http://www.aimsciences.org/journal/1551-0018]. Submitted 27-March-2018; revised 04-July-2018; accepted for publication 10-July-201

h\to \gamma \gamma In Inert Higgs Doublet Model

Motivated by the recent result reported from LHC on the di-photon search for a Standard Model (SM) Higgs-like boson. We discuss the implications of this possible signal in the framework of the Inert Higgs Doublet Model (IHDM), taking into account previous limits from Higgs searches at LEP, the Tevatron and the LHC as well as constraints from unitarity, vacuum stability and electroweak precision tests. We show that the charged Higgs contributions can interfere constructively or destructively with the W gauge bosons loops leading to enhancement or suppression of the di-photon rate with respect to SM rate. We show also that the invisible decay of the Higgs, if open, could affect the total width of the SM Higgs boson and therefore suppress the di-photon rate.Comment: 15 pages, added reference

Quark deconfinement in neutron star cores: The effects of spin-down

We study the role of spin-down in driving quark deconfinement in the high density core of isolated neutron stars. Assuming spin-down to be solely due to magnetic braking, we obtain typical timescales to quark deconfinement for neutron stars that are born with Keplerian frequencies. Employing different equations of state (EOS), we determine the minimum and maximum neutron star masses that will allow for deconfinement via spin-down only. We find that the time to reach deconfinement is strongly dependent on the magnetic field and that this time is least for EOS that support the largest minimum mass at zero spin, unless rotational effects on stellar structure are large. For a fiducial critical density of $5\rho_0$ for the transition to the quark phase ($\rho_0=2.5\times10^{14}$g/cm$^3$ is the saturation density of nuclear matter), we find that neutron stars lighter than $1.5M_{\odot}$ cannot reach a deconfined phase. Depending on the EOS, neutron stars of more than $1.5M_{\odot}$ can enter a quark phase only if they are spinning faster than about 3 milliseconds as observed now, whereas larger spin periods imply that they are either already quark stars or will never become one.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, submitted to ApJ

Cyclosporine A and steroid therapy in childhood steroid-resistant nephrotic syndrome

Gargah Tahar, Lakhoua M RachidDepartment of Pediatric Nephrology, Charles Nicolle Hospital, Tunis, TunisiaBackground: In children, idiopathic nephrotic syndrome (INS) is primarily treated using corticosteroids. When remission is not achieved, the coadministration of potent immunosuppressant therapy becomes imperative. Cyclosporine A (CsA) is reportedly associated with a higher incidence of remission in comparison with other immunosuppressive agents.Methods: The present study investigated the response of combination therapy using CsA and prednisolone in 30 Tunisian children with idiopathic steroid-resistant nephrotic syndrome (ISRNS). Renal histopathology was compatible with focal segmental glomerular sclerosis (FSGS) in 15 children, minimal change disease (MCD) in nine children, and diffuses mesangiale proliferation (DMP) in six children.Results: The therapy protocol produced a complete remission of proteinuria in 15 patients (50%) and a partial remission in nine patients (30%). Six patients (20%) showed no response to therapy. Progression to end stage renal disease occurred in five CsA-resistant children and in four CsA-responsive patients. CsA-related nephrotoxicity was detected by renal biopsy in one patient.Conclusions: CsA remains the primary cytotoxic treatment for childhood steroid-resistant nephrotic syndrome. Its use in combination with corticosteroids provides optimum efficiency without high risk of nephrotoxicity.Keywords: children, corticosteroids, cyclosporine A, nephrotic syndrom

Effect of tillage practices on the soil carbon dioxide flux during fall and spring seasons in a Mediterranean Vertisol

In this study, we assessed the effect of conventional tillage (CT), reduced (RT) and no tillage (NT) practices on the soil CO2 flux of a Mediterranean Vertisol in semi-arid Morocco. The measurements focused on the short term (0 to 96 h) soil CO2 fluxes measured directly after tillage during the fall and spring period. Soil temperature, moisture and soil strength were measured congruently to study their effect on the soil CO2 flux magnitude. Immediately after fall tillage, the CT showed the highest CO2 flux (4.9 g m-2 h-1); RT exhibited an intermediate value (2.1 g m-2 h-1) whereas the lowest flux (0.7 g m-2 h-1) was reported under NT. After spring tillage, similar but smaller impacts of the tillage practices on soil CO2 flux were reported with fluxes ranging from 1.8 g CO2 m-2 h-1 (CT) to less than 0.1 g CO2 m-2 h-1 (NT). Soil strength was significantly correlated with soil CO2 emission; whereas surface soil temperature and moisture were low correlated to the soil CO2 flux. The intensity of rainfall events before fall and spring tillage practices could explain the seasonal CO2 flux trends. The findings promote conservation tillage and more specifically no tillage practices to reduce CO2 losses within these Mediterranean agroecosystems. (Résumé d'auteur

Process Identification through Test on Cryogenic System

UNICOS (UNified Industrial Control System) is the CERN object-based control standard for the cryogenics of the LHC and its experiments. It includes a variety of embedded functions, dedicated to the specific cryogenic processes. To enlarge the capabilities of the standard it is proposed to integrate the parametrical identification step in the control system of large scale cryogenic plants. Different methods of parametrical identification have been tested and the results were combined to obtain a better model. The main objective of the work is to find a compromise between an easy-to-use solution and a good level of process identification model. The study focuses on identification protocol for large delayed system, the measurement consistency and correlation between different inputs and outputs. Furthermore the paper describes in details, the results and the tests carried out on parametrical identification investigations with large scale systems