Considering Green Corridors in Road Networks: An Integrated Gray-Green approach for Urban Development in Cairo, Egypt.

Green corridors are one of the main features for sustainability, they refer to ecological qualities and are basic elements for resilient cities. Many global cities are oriented towards green construction to protect their environments from rapid urbanization and its destructive impact on nature. However, in other cities, this is extremely challenging. In Cairo, contemporary developments are directed towards constructing the ‘Gray’ road networks, whereas the ‘Green’ is nearly disappearing. This study introduces an integrated ‘Gray-Green’ approach for urban development in Cairo, where green corridors are considered to achieve a livable sustainable urban environment. First, the study discusses characteristics, benefits and challenges for green corridor construction. Then, it presents three different visions and approaches for three international projects adopting green corridor concepts within their urban development. The study then depends on a comparative analysis between the three mentioned projects and the fourth case in Cairo. This analysis explores themes, objectives, challenges and actions for each project in order to conclude a proposed action plan for Cairo. This plan is considered an adaptive process for fostering environmental, social and economic sustainability in Cairo

Styles of Learning According to Felder & Soloman Model and its Relation with Synthetic Thinking of Graduate Students in the Departments of Chemistry

This research aims to identify: 1-favorite learning Styles of the study group according to Felder & Soloman Model; 2- investigate, according to Felder & Soloman Model, if there are any statistically significant differences of favorite learning style due to gender variable; 3- find out the synthetic thinking of the participants; 4-to find out if there are any statistically significant differences among participants in terms of their synthetic thinking according to gender variable; 5- investigate if there are any statistically significant differences in terms of learning styles of synthetic thinking and in Felder & Soloman model according to gender variable; 6-investigate the differences in relation to learning styles in synthetic thinking and in Felder & Soloman model according to (gender and college) variables. The participants were selected purposefully and they were composed of 275 MA students (86 males from colleges of education and sciences and 189 females from colleges of education and sciences) in the colleges of education and department of chemistry in all colleges of sciences. The researchers have made a measure for styles of learning according to Felder & Soloman model consisted of 36 items distributed on five dipole styles and test of synthetic thinking consists of 12 essay questions distributed in 6 skills. The psychometric characteristics were affirmed by face validity and validity by internal consistency. The SPSS program was used The results have revealed that 1-The research sample subjects used (serial, optical, sensual, meditation, active, intuitional, spelling, and finally total style).as the styles (optical, sensual, serial) comes at first degree and the other (intuitional, spelling and title) were not indication and came in hypothetical. 2-Not all the styles are influenced by gender and college variables and interaction between college variables for chemistry departments. 3-Weak synthetic thinking in MA students in colleges of education and colleges of science for chemistry departments. 4-Synthetical thinking is influenced by gender variables in favor of males because their average 5,1628 is bigger than females average 3.1746. Also synthetic thinking is not influenced by college variables and the interaction between gender and college. 5-There is positive extreme indication relation between styles of learning according to Felder & Soloman model on synthetic thinking in institutional and (optical) indicated for males’ favor, (meditation) for education, serial in favor of sciences

Antioxidant Defense System Alternations in Four Crab Species as a Bio-Indicator of Environmental Contamination

The ecological health status of aquatic environment is a determinant for the survival and growth of organisms within such niche. An investigative study was carried out on four crab species – Cardiosoma armatum, Goniopsis pelli, Callinectes amnicola, Portunus validusinhabiting contaminated sites in Lagos Lagoon- exploring their anti-oxidant defense mechanism in the light of heavy metal concentration in the crab tissues. Amongst the measured heavy metals, cadmium level proved to be significantly highest (P<0.05) with range concentration of 0.42±0.12mg/kg (G. pelli)- 0.79±0.06 mg/kg (C. armatum). Contrastingly, lead was marginally low with concentration below 0.01 mg/kg in all the crab species. Organismal responses to environmental pollution showed a high level of biomarkers. C. armatum was observed to have elevated level of superoxide dismutase (123.04±0.01min/mg/pro), catalase (7.74±0.05min/mg/pro), glutathion transferase (18.21±0.02 Hmol/mg pro), reduced glutathione (2.92±0.04Hmol/mg pro) and glutathione peroxidase (61.85±0.06 Hmol/mg pro) above other species with C. amnicola recording the lowest concentration of the biomarkers. With the low level of heavy metals and corresponding high concentration of these biomarkers, the pollution indices within the study habitat are quite modest

The Impact of the Sacred Sites in the Particularity of the City Holy city of Najaf as a Case Study

Abstract The sacred sites considered as explicit spiritual and architectural symbols, enhance the memory of what society holds of history, culture and the nature of his relationship with the sacred, which contribute to enhancing the privacy of the city through what is achieved from the meanings interact with human directly affect the city properties of architectural and urban features on different material and spiritual level. Basically, the research began by searching about the sacred concept in various fields down to discuss studies and proposals that dealwith the holy sites and the content of the types and characteristics and spiritual values, so the research set his field in :( the importance of the holy sites and their effect on the city).obviously, each city hasmany factors affecting on its diverse spiritual and material values which are shows clearly inthe Particularity of the City, so the research went to study the city's particularity and put the research problem as represented by: (there is a lack of a clear vision in the impact of the holy sites on the particularity of the city), and then move on to see the analyzing ofsome distinguished citieswhich have a lot of sacred sites.Where the search addressed the research problem to the main hypothesis represented as: (influence of the holy sites on the particularity of the city shows through physical dimension). For the purpose of verifying the validity of the assumptions a group of holy sites in the holy city of Najaf that carry spiritual properties were selected and it has been tested by a questionnaire that was distributed to the intentional samples. The research found that the holy sites and have a role in the particularity of the city through all the urban composition and functional properties of values, and revealed a disparate impact of holy sites in local towns than in cities of the world in a way that reinforcing the particularity of each of them. Key words: sacred, sacred sites, the particularity of the cit

Figurations of displacement in and beyond Jordan: empirical findings and reflections on protracted displacement and translocal connections of Syrian refugees

This working paper is based on the empirical research on translocal figurations of displacement of Syrians in Jordan. It contains methodological discussions, central findings and reflections on these findings. Drawing on the conceptual framework of the TRAFIG project, this paper explores the central research question of TRAFIG, namely "how are protractedness, dependency, and vulnerability related to the factors of local and translocal connectivity and mobility, and in turn, how can connectivity and mobility be utilized to enhance the self-reliance and strengthen the resilience of displaced people?" The paper presents findings from Jordan, where Syrian refugees have sought refuge in host communities. Syrian refugees' stay in Jordan has become increasingly protracted, with the durable solutions of return in safety and dignity, local integration and resettlement remaining out of reach for most. In this paper, we argue that Syrians are de facto integrated in Jordanian host communities due to shared language, religion and socio-cultural ties as a pragmatic strategy for dealing with uncertainty and protracted displacement. We found that family- and kin networks have proven vital in facilitating and protecting mobility out of Syria and within Jordan, even as these networks are strained due to physical and geographic distance, reliant upon aid and financial support and socio-economic stress in the local labour market. We see that Syrians experience uncertain futures in which their mobility aspirations are unrealised, economic prospects are reliant upon and highly competitive with others, and connectivity with the host community is strained and can be improved

Synthesis, X-ray structure, Hirshfeld surface analysis and antimicrobial assessment of tetranuclear s-triazine hydrazine Schiff base ligand

Funding: The Deputyship for Research and Innovation, “Ministry of Education”, King Saud University (IFKSUOR3-188-3), Saudi Arabia.The unexpected tetranuclear [Cu4(DPPT)2Cl6] complex was obtained by self-assembly of CuCl2.2H2O and (E)-2,4-di(piperidin-1-yl)-6-(2-(1-(pyridin-2-yl)ethylidene)hydrazinyl)-1,3,5-triazine, ( HDPPT ) in ethanol. In this tetranuclear [Cu4(DPPT)2Cl6] complex, the organic ligand acts as mononegative chelate bridging two crystallographically independent Cu(II) sites. The DPPT− anion acts as a bidentate ligand with respect to Cu(1), while it is a tridentate for Cu(2). The Cu(1)N2Cl3 and Cu(2)N3Cl spheres have square pyramidal and square planar coordination geometries with some distortion, respectively. Two of the chloride ions coordinating the Cu(1) are bridging between two crystallographically related Cu(1) sites connecting two [Cu2(DPPT)Cl3] units together, leading to the tetranuclear formula [Cu4(DPPT)2Cl6]. The packing of the [Cu4(DPPT)2Cl6] complex is dominated by C-H…Cl contacts, leading to one-dimensional hydrogen-bond polymeric structure. According to Hirshfeld surface analysis of molecular packing, the non-covalent interactions H…H, Cl…H, Cl…C, C…H, and N…H are the most significant. Their percentages are 52.8, 19.0, 3.2, 7.7, and 9.7%, respectively. Antimicrobial assessment showed good antifungal activity of the Cu(II) complex against A. fumigatus and C. albicans compared to Ketoconazole as positive control. Moreover, the [Cu4(DPPT)2Cl6] complex has higher activity against Gram-positive bacteria than Gentamycin as positive control. The opposite was observed when testing the tetranuclear [Cu4(DPPT)2Cl6] complex against the Gram-negative bacteria.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

DNNGP, a deep neural network-based method for genomic prediction using multi-omics data in plants

Genomic prediction is an effective way to accelerate the rate of agronomic trait improvement in plants. Traditional methods typically use linear regression models with clear assumptions; such methods are unable to capture the complex relationships between genotypes and phenotypes. Non-linear models (e.g., deep neural networks) have been proposed as a superior alternative to linear models because they can capture complex non-additive effects. Here we introduce a deep learning (DL) method, deep neural network genomic prediction (DNNGP), for integration of multi-omics data in plants. We trained DNNGP on four datasets and compared its performance with methods built with five classic models: genomic best linear unbiased prediction (GBLUP); two methods based on a machine learning (ML) framework, light gradient boosting machine (LightGBM) and support vector regression (SVR); and two methods based on a DL framework, deep learning genomic selection (DeepGS) and deep learning genome-wide association study (DLGWAS). DNNGP is novel in five ways. First, it can be applied to a variety of omics data to predict phenotypes. Second, the multilayered hierarchical structure of DNNGP dynamically learns features from raw data, avoiding overfitting and improving the convergence rate using a batch normalization layer and early stopping and rectified linear activation (rectified linear unit) functions. Third, when small datasets were used, DNNGP produced results that are competitive with results from the other five methods, showing greater prediction accuracy than the other methods when large-scale breeding data were used. Fourth, the computation time required by DNNGP was comparable with that of commonly used methods, up to 10 times faster than DeepGS. Fifth, hyperparameters can easily be batch tuned on a local machine. Compared with GBLUP, LightGBM, SVR, DeepGS and DLGWAS, DNNGP is superior to these existing widely used genomic selection (GS) methods. Moreover, DNNGP can generate robust assessments from diverse datasets, including omics data, and quickly incorporate complex and large datasets into usable models, making it a promising and practical approach for straightforward integration into existing GS platforms

The early Neolithic of Iraqi Kurdistan: current research at Bestansur, Shahrizor Plain

Human communities made the transition from hunter-foraging to more sedentary agriculture at multiple locations across southwest Asia through the Early Neolithic (ca. 10,000-7000 BC). Societies explored strategies involving increasing management and development of plants, animals, materials, technologies and ideologies specific to each region whilst sharing some common attributes. Current research in the eastern Fertile Crescent is contributing new insights into the Early Neolithic transition and the critical role that this region played. The Central Zagros Archaeological Project (CZAP) is investigating this transition in Iraqi Kurdistan, including at the earliest Neolithic settlement so far excavated in the region. In this article, we focus on results from ongoing excavations at the Early Neolithic site of Bestansur on the Shahrizor Plain (Sulaimaniyah province), in order to address key themes in the Neolithic transition