On the BLUE of the Population Mean for Location and Scale Parameters of Distributions Based on Moving Extreme Ranked Set Sampling

The best linear unbiased estimator (BLUE) for the population mean under moving extreme ranked set sampling (MERSS) is derived for general location and scale parameters of distributions which generalizes Al-Odat and Al-Saleh (2001). It is compared with the sample mean of simple random sampling (SRS). The efficient sample size under the MERSS for which the BLUE estimator dominates the usual sample mean under SRS for estimating the population mean is also computed for several distributions

Determination Of Bod Kinetic Parameters For Different Wastewater By Using Different Mathematical Model

One of the most important parameter of the wastewater quality is biochemical oxygen demand (BOD). This test is widely applied to define organic water pollution and to control the performance of wastewater treatment plants and to identify the suitable places that can be used the wastewater after treatment. In order to estimate the total organic matter (BODu), understanding the organic strength of the wastewater and to predict the impacts of wastewater discharging after treating, determination of ultimate BOD (BODu) and reaction rate constants (K) are crucial. In this study, the best BOD kinetics parameters (BODu, K) for 5 different sources of wastewater (influent, effluent and aeration for Al-Ramtha wastewater, Amman slaughterhouse and Alomary dairy factory wastewater) in Jordan are investigated comparatively. The BOD kinetics parameters are estimated by using least squares, Thomas, daily difference, iteration, generalized method of moments, and two stage square methods. The study revealed that the BOD kinetic parameters (L0 and K) of the raw wastewater are the highest for slaughterhouse samples in 2017 and 2018, in which the ultimate BOD values are 922, 1042 mg/L and the BOD rate constants are 0.553, 0.149 d-1 respectively in two years. The finding suggests that the result of characteristics for Al-Ramtha treatment plant is classified as a strongest wastewater in Jordan. The range of average values of ultimate BOD (L0) and constant rate (K) are from 392 to 819 mg/L and 0.126 to 0.417 d-1 respectively. In addition, based on the relative error (RE), GMM and two stage square methods are the best method for estimating BOD kinetic parameters, where the ratio of errors varies from 0.13 to 0.31 for two years

Integration Of Logistic Regression And Multi-Layer Perceptron For Single And Dual Axis Solar Tracking Systems

Intelligent solar tracking systems to track the trajectory of the sun across the sky has been actively studied and proposed nowadays. However, different solar tracking variables have been employed to build those intelligent solar tracking systems without considering the dominant and optimum ones. In addition, several low performance intelligent solar tracking systems have been designed and implemented due to the inappropriate combination of solar tracking variables and intelligent classifiers to drive the solar trackers. Thus, this research aims to (i) investigate and evaluate the most effective and dominant variables on solar tracking systems, (ii) investigate the appropriate combination of solar variables and intelligent classifier for solar tracking systems, (iii) propose new solar tracking systems by integrating supervised and unsupervised intelligent classifiers. The results revealed that month, day, and time are the most effective variables for single and dual axis solar tracking systems. By using these variables, this study has successfully integrated between multi-layer perceptron (MLP) or cascade multi-layer perceptron (CMLP) and trained logistic regression (LR) models. The proposed MLP-LR system is able to increase the prediction rate of MLP network to 99.13% for single axis tracking systems (i.e. which is 2.35% of improvement). The system is also able to decrease the mean square error (MSE) rate to 0.010 × 10−2 as compared to value of MSE for the conventional MLP. In addition, the proposed CMLP-LR system is able to increase the prediction rate of CMLP network to 99.19% for dual axis tracking system (i.e. 1.23% of improvement), while the MSE rate is decreased to 6.250 × 10−5 as compared to value of MSE for the conventional CMLP. The new developed models achieved less number of overall connections (i.e. which are 77.58% and 86.16% of improvement for MLP and CMLP respectively), less number of neurons (i.e. 63.51% of improvement for both MLP and CMLP), and less time complexity (i.e. which are 70.40% and 99% of improvement for MLP and CMLP respectively). The finding suggests that the proposed intelligent solar tracking systems has a great potential to be applied for real-world applications (i.e. solar heating systems, solar lightening systems, factories, and solar powered ventilation)

Possible Index for Marine Pollution from Scleractinean Corals in Northern Gulf of Aqaba, Jordan

The coral nubbins of Stylophora sp., Pocillopora sp., Acropora sp., Fungia sp., and Porites sp. were taken from shallow depths of about 5 m by SCUBS diving. Another set of coral samples were collected in front of the Marine Science Station for incubation experiments to study the resistance of corals to different concentrations of heavy metals ranged between 0.1 to 50 ppm. The skeleton and tissue layers of all coral samples were isolated for samples, digested (using a mixture of Nitric and Hydrochloric acids) and were analyzed to determine the concentrations of Cd, Cu, Pb, Cr, Zn, and Ni using Flame Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy (FAAS). However, the lowest concentrations were found along the marine park including the Marine Science Station, with lower contamination of ambient waters as heavy metals concentration in corals reflects the health of marine environment. The highest concentrations of all heavy metals (Cd, Cu, Pb, Zn, Cr, and Ni) in the coral skeletons were accumulated in Pocillopora species whereas the lowest concentrations were recorded in Porites species and the rest coral species could be arranged in the following ranking order (from high to low concentrations): Pocillopora sp.> Acropora sp.> Stylophora sp.> Fungia sp.> Porites sp. The incubation experiment showed that the toxicity of the individual metals increased in all coral species with increasing metal doze and time of exposure until total death was reached. The coral species resistance to death for all heavy metals (except for Nickel) can be arranged in the following ranking order (from low to high): Stylophora sp.< Acropora sp.< Pocillopora sp.< Fungia sp.< Porites sp. The coral species Porities was the most resistant species. Copper was found as the most toxic metal to all coral species compared with the toxicity of Pb, Cd or Zn. The toxicity of the studied heavy metals (except Ni) to all corals species can be arranged in the following order (from high to low): Cu>Pb>Cd>Zn. It is generally concluded that the pollutions levels of heavy metals along the Jordanian coast of the Gulf of Aqaba are still relatively low and the coral reef communities are healthy. Corals are suitable to be used as proxy tools to record environmental pollution (bio-indicators) from the Gulf of Aqaba and the Red Sea. Keywords: Heavy metals, Corals, Gulf of Aqaba, Red Sea.

Possible Index for Marine Pollution from of Scleractinean Corals in Northern Gulf of Aqaba, Jordan

The coral nubbins of Stylophora sp., Pocillopora sp., Acropora sp., Fungia sp., and Porites sp. were taken from shallow depths of about 5 m by SCUBS diving. Another set of coral samples were collected in front of the Marine Science Station for incubation experiments to study the resistance of corals to different concentrations of heavy metals ranged between 0.1 to 50 ppm. The skeleton and tissue layers of all coral samples were isolated for samples, digested (using a mixture of Nitric and Hydrochloric acids) and were analyzed to determine the concentrations of Cd, Cu, Pb, Cr, Zn, and Ni using Flame Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy (FAAS). However, the lowest concentrations were found along the marine park including the Marine Science Station, with lower contamination of ambient waters as heavy metals concentration in corals reflects the health of marine environment. The highest concentrations of all heavy metals (Cd, Cu, Pb, Zn, Cr, and Ni) in the coral skeletons were accumulated in Pocillopora species whereas the lowest concentrations were recorded in Porites species and the rest coral species could be arranged in the following ranking order (from high to low concentrations): Pocillopora sp.> Acropora sp.> Stylophora sp.> Fungia sp.> Porites sp. The incubation experiment showed that the toxicity of the individual metals increased in all coral species with increasing metal doze and time of exposure until total death was reached. The coral species resistance to death for all heavy metals (except for Nickel) can be arranged in the following ranking order (from low to high): Stylophora sp.< Acropora sp.< Pocillopora sp.< Fungia sp.< Porites sp. The coral species Porities was the most resistant species. Copper was found as the most toxic metal to all coral species compared with the toxicity of Pb, Cd or Zn. The toxicity of the studied heavy metals (except Ni) to all corals species can be arranged in the following order (from high to low): Cu>Pb>Cd>Zn. It is generally concluded that the pollutions levels of heavy metals along the Jordanian coast of the Gulf of Aqaba are still relatively low and the coral reef communities are healthy. Corals are suitable to be used as proxy tools to record environmental pollution (bio-indicators) from the Gulf of Aqaba and the Red Sea. Keywords: Heavy metals, Corals, Gulf of Aqaba, Red Sea

Psychological Stability and its Relationship to Academic Performance Among Secondary School Students

This research sought to determine the relationship between psychological stability and academic performance among secondary school students in Irbid Governorate, Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. The descriptive analytical approach was used to achieve the goal of the study and a questionnaire was used as an instrument for data collection. High school pupils in the Irbid Governorate made up the studys population. By delivering an electronic questionnaire to the target population, the studys sample of (291) students were randomly selected. The results revealed that the level of psychological stability was medium with a mean score of (3.3849). The findings also indicated that psychological stability in its dimensions has a statistically significant impact on academic performance and that there is a strong positive direct association between psychological stability in its dimensions and academic performance

Possible Index for Marine Pollution from of Scleractinean Corals in Northern Gulf of Aqaba, Jordan

The coral nubbins of Stylophora sp., Pocillopora sp., Acropora sp., Fungia sp., and Porites sp. were taken from shallow depths of about 5 m by SCUBS diving. Another set of coral samples were collected in front of the Marine Science Station for incubation experiments to study the resistance of corals to different concentrations of heavy metals ranged between 0.1 to 50 ppm. The skeleton and tissue layers of all coral samples were isolated for samples, digested (using a mixture of Nitric and Hydrochloric acids) and were analyzed to determine the concentrations of Cd, Cu, Pb, Cr, Zn, and Ni using Flame Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy (FAAS). However, the lowest concentrations were found along the marine park including the Marine Science Station, with lower contamination of ambient waters as heavy metals concentration in corals reflects the health of marine environment. The highest concentrations of all heavy metals (Cd, Cu, Pb, Zn, Cr, and Ni) in the coral skeletons were accumulated in Pocillopora species whereas the lowest concentrations were recorded in Porites species and the rest coral species could be arranged in the following ranking order (from high to low concentrations): Pocillopora sp.> Acropora sp.> Stylophora sp.> Fungia sp.> Porites sp. The incubation experiment showed that the toxicity of the individual metals increased in all coral species with increasing metal doze and time of exposure until total death was reached. The coral species resistance to death for all heavy metals (except for Nickel) can be arranged in the following ranking order (from low to high): Stylophora sp.< Acropora sp.< Pocillopora sp.< Fungia sp.< Porites sp. The coral species Porities was the most resistant species. Copper was found as the most toxic metal to all coral species compared with the toxicity of Pb, Cd or Zn. The toxicity of the studied heavy metals (except Ni) to all corals species can be arranged in the following order (from high to low): Cu>Pb>Cd>Zn. It is generally concluded that the pollutions levels of heavy metals along the Jordanian coast of the Gulf of Aqaba are still relatively low and the coral reef communities are healthy. Corals are suitable to be used as proxy tools to record environmental pollution (bio-indicators) from the Gulf of Aqaba and the Red Sea. Keywords: Heavy metals, Corals, Gulf of Aqaba, Red Sea

The Prevalence of Aflatoxinogenic Aspergillus parasiticus in Jordan

Aflatoxins are potent carcinogens and produced by almost all Aspergillus parasiticus isolates and about 35% of Aspergillus flavus isolates. Chemical methods are used for detection of aflatoxins in food and feed. These methods cannot detect aflatoxinogenic fungi in samples, which contain undetectable amounts of aflatoxins. The objective of this research work was to ascertain the importance of molecular and microbiological methods in detection of aflatoxinogenic fungus A. parasiticus in food and feed samples in Jordan. Specific media for the detection of aflatoxins showed the prevalence of A. parasiticus (6–22%) in contaminated food and feed samples. HPLC method confirmed the presence of aflatoxins B1, B2, G1, and G2 in food sample contaminated with A. parasiticus. Primer set OmtBII-F and OmtBII-R amplified DNA fragment of 611 base pairs from genomic DNA of aflatoxinogenic A. parasiticus isolated from food and feed samples but could not amplify DNA fragment of nonaflatoxinogenic A. flavus. The results of this study showed the prevalence of aflatoxinogenic A. parasiticus in food and feed samples in Jordan and give further evidence of suitability of microbiological and molecular methods in detection of aflatoxins, which are reliable low-cost approach to determine food and feed biosafety

Stable Angina Medical Therapy Management Guidelines: A Critical Review of Guidelines from the European Society of Cardiology and National Institute for Health and Care Excellence

Most patients with stable angina can be managed with lifestyle changes, especially smoking cessation and regular exercise, along with taking antianginal drugs. Randomised controlled trials show that antianginal drugs are equally effective and none of them reduced mortality or the risk of MI, yet guidelines prefer the use of beta-blockers and calcium channel blockers as a first-line treatment. The European Society of Cardiology guidelines for the management of stable coronary artery disease provide classes of recommendation with levels of evidence that are well defined. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines for the management of stable angina provide guidelines based on cost and effectiveness using the terms first-line and second-line therapy. Both guidelines recommend using low-dose aspirin and statins as disease-modifying agents. The aim of this article is to critically appraise the guidelines’ pharmacological recommendations for managing patients with stable angina