The Importance of Farm Trees in Rural Livelihoods in Eastern Galabat Locality, Sudan

The objectives of this study were to: (i) assess the share of farm trees in farmers' total income; (ii) determine and analyze the factors influence the farmers' decision on farm trees planting; and (iii) identify the attitudes and perceptions of farmers towards planting farm trees. A sample of 60 farmers was purposively selected from Galabat locality in 2015 and interviewed using a structured questionnaire. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and linear regression analysis. Farm tree products were found contribute 31% of farmer’s total annual income. Farmer’s land holding in feddan (P= 0.009), farmer's family size (P=0.000), farmer’s income (P=0.042) and extension services from Forests National Corporation (EXT from FNC) (P = 0.001)  were found to positively and significantly associated with farmers’ decisions to plant trees on farmlands. The study results also indicate that the farmers have awareness of the benefits associated with trees, and their attitudes towards trees planting are mostly positive. It is concluded that farmer’s decisions to plant farm trees are driven by their socioeconomic circumstances. Thus, it is recommended that the farmers' socioeconomic characteristics should not be overlooked when designing future tree planting programs in the region.Keywords: Trees outside forests, Farm trees, Determinants of tree planting, Environmental awarenes

SAR Image Denoising using MMSE Techniques

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) provides many advantages over optical remote sensing, principally the all-weather and all-day acquisition capability. For this reason, SAR images have been exploited for many applications such as forestry, agriculture, disaster monitoring, sea/ice monitoring. However, the main limitation in SAR images is the contamination with the multiplicative speckle noise. The speckle damages the radiometric quality of SAR images and contracts the performance of information extraction techniques. Many methods have been proposed in the literature to reduce speckle noise. These methods, however, must avoid degrading the useful information in the SAR images, such as textures, local mean of backscatter, and point targets. The minimum mean square error (MMSE) techniques have been largely applied in SAR image speckle denoising. The objective of this chapter is to review and give new insights into the MMSE denoising of SAR images. In particular, the performances of three MMSE-based techniques which are the commonly applied Lee sigma filter and the newly introduced iterative MMSE (IMMSE) filter, and the infinite number of looks prediction (INLP) filter are studied

The validity of the scientific method in modern physics

The scientific method is described clearly for the first time at Kitab al-Manazir (Book of Optics) of Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen 965 – 1040). But recently there is some debate regarding its validity of theories describing our universe like string theory and multiverse. It is well known that scientific method paved the way for true science and technology through more than thousand years ago. We argue here that, scientific method should remain to be the only way to get and verify natural sciences.

Analysis of agromorphological diversity of southern Tunisia faba bean (Vicia faba L.) germplasm

Forty two faba bean landraces (traditional farmers’ varieties) (Vicia faba L.) from southern Tunisia, belonging to 8 oasis agro-ecosystems were assessed using morphological descriptors. The studied descriptors focused on morpho-phenological and morpho-agronomical traits. The data obtained is extracted on the basis of 35 descriptors of 42 populations from 8 localities, at a rate of 30 replications (plants) per population, in totality of 1260 individuals. The data underwent an analysis of variance and a multivariate analysis. Significant differences among populations for the thirty five descriptors were observed. The multivariate analysis performed on averages of all parameters revealed eight main groups, and variation within the same oasis agro-ecosystems was extremely important. Particularly, the group of ‘Tozeur’ made up of five populations (P38, P39, P40, P41 and P42), and the group of ‘Medenine’ composed of seven populations (P19, P20, P21, P22, P23, P24 and P25) showed a special characters than the other populations especially for seedling characters. The geographical location did not seem to be the main factor structuring the variability of the studied landraces. There proved to be substantial phenotypic variability in the Tunisian faba bean germplasm.Keywords: Diversity analysis, germplasm, faba bean (Vicia faba L.), oasis agro-ecosystems, Southern Tunisi

MTEDS: Multivariant Time Series-Based Encoder-Decoder System for Anomaly Detection

Intrusion detection systems examine the computer or network for potential security vulnerabilities. Time series data is real-valued. The nature of the data influences the type of anomaly detection. As a result, network anomalies are operations that deviate from the norm. These anomalies can cause a wide range of device malfunctions, overloads, and network intrusions. As a result of this, the network\u27s normal operation and services will be disrupted. The paper proposes a new multi-variant time series-based encoder-decoder system for dealing with anomalies in time series data with multiple variables. As a result, to update network weights via backpropagation, a radical loss function is defined. Anomaly scores are used to evaluate performance. The anomaly score, according to the findings, is more stable and traceable, with fewer false positives and negatives. The proposed system\u27s efficiency is compared to three existing approaches: Multiscaling Convolutional Recurrent Encoder-Decoder, Autoregressive Moving Average, and Long Short Term Medium-Encoder-Decoder. The results show that the proposed technique has the highest precision of 1 for a noise level of 0.2. Thus, it demonstrates greater precision for noise factors of 0.25, 0.3, 0.35, and 0.4, and its effectiveness

Cloud data security and various cryptographic algorithms

Cloud computing has spread widely among different organizations due to its advantages, such as cost reduction, resource pooling, broad network access, and ease of administration. It increases the abilities of physical resources by optimizing shared use. Clients’ valuable items (data and applications) are moved outside of regulatory supervision in a shared environment where many clients are grouped together. However, this process poses security concerns, such as sensitive information theft and personally identifiable data leakage. Many researchers have contributed to reducing the problem of data security in cloud computing by developing a variety of technologies to secure cloud data, including encryption. In this study, a set of encryption algorithms (advance encryption standard (AES), data encryption standard (DES), Blowfish, Rivest-Shamir-Adleman (RSA) encryption, and international data encryption algorithm (IDEA) was compared in terms of security, data encipherment capacity, memory usage, and encipherment time to determine the optimal algorithm for securing cloud information from hackers. Results show that RSA and IDEA are less secure than AES, Blowfish, and DES). The AES algorithm encrypts a huge amount of data, takes the least encipherment time, and is faster than other algorithms, and the Blowfish algorithm requires the least amount of memory space

Randomized Controlled Trial to Compare the Safety and Efficacy of Tamsulosin, Solifenacin, and Combination of Both in Treatment of Double-J Stent-Related Lower Urinary Symptoms

Purpose. We evaluated the effectiveness and safety of tamsulosin, solifenacin, and combination of both in reducing double-J stent-related lower urinary symptoms. Materials and Methods. A total of 338 patients with double-J ureteral stenting were randomly divided, postoperatively, into 4 groups. In group I (), no treatment was given (control group), group II () received tamsulosin 0.4 mg daily, group III () received solifenacin 10 mg daily, and group IV () received a combination of both medications. Before insertion and 2 weeks after, all patients completed the International Prostate Symptom Score (IPSS), quality of life component of the IPSS (IPSS/Qol), Overactive Bladder Questionnaire (OAB-q), and Visual Analogue Pain Scale (VAPS) questionnaire. Results. The demographics and preoperative questionnaires scores of all groups were comparable. There were statistically significant differences in all scores in favour of groups II, III, and IV as compared to control group ( value < 0.005). Group IV showed statistically significant differences in total IPSS, QoL score, and OAB-q score as compared to groups II and III ( value < 0.001). Conclusions. Combined therapy of tamsulosin and solifenacin significantly alleviated lower urinary symptoms associated with double-J stents as compared to either medication alone

Pages: 1-6 Ibarhim Mona Yahia et al

ABSTRACT The reproductive biology of the sea cucumbers Holothuria scabra and Holothuria atra was studied from January to December 1998 at Abu Hashish area in the Sudanese Red Sea coast through the gonad index and macroscopic analysis of the gonads. H. scabra showed seasonal reproductive cycle with spawning time being at the end of summer: the higher gonadal idex in July-August and the minimum in September, while H. atra showed annual reproductive cycle with tendency of partial spawning in July. First maturity for H. scabra occurred at drained weight of 450-500 g and for H.atra first maturity occurred at drained weight of about 77.5g. Five scale for maturation was noticed for both species. The female gonads become heavier than the male ones producing higher gonadal index. The present study also shed lights on the characteristics of mature gonads and their correlation with other body parameters. The results obtained could be useful towards a sustainable utilization of sea cucumber resources and would probably enable practical management programs

Native Umbilical Defect for Laparoscopic Entry

Background: The presence of defects in native umbilical in adults and its use as laparoscopic first entry site is poorly documented. It would likely be a safer method than the Veress needle and direct trocar insertion. This work aimed to report the prevalence and size of native umbilical defects, and their relationship with gender, age and body mass index. Methods: In 160 consecutive laparoscopic operations, a trans-umbilical incision was made and a defect at its base was looked for. When found, the defect was measured and used as the first port entry site. Relationships of presence of native defects and their sizes in relation to gender, age and BMI were analyzed. Results: The prevalence of a native defect in this series was 90%. Its presence had no relation with gender, age or BMI. Its size, however, positively correlated with age and BMI. No complications were related to the defect’s use for first laparoscopic entry site. Conclusion: A native umbilical defect is present in 90% of adults. Whenever present, it is recommended for use as the first port entry site by an open technique. This method is simple and safe and avoids unnecessarily inducing another defect. Keywords: Laparoscopy, Open technique, Access, Native defect, Umbilical defec

Community seedbanks in protracted crisis situations: potential and challenges

This brief reviews recent initiatives to establish community seedbanks in Somaliland, South Sudan and Sudan, located in the Horn of Africa, which have paid special attention to the insecure and instable social, economic and political circumstances that affect seed and food security. Effectively functioning community seedbanks can contribute to seed security, even in a protracted crisis situation, but careful consideration should be given to community seedbank site selection, membership and decision-making, and infrastructure and equipment. Decisions about these three elements need to consider the social security situation, minimizing or avoiding the risk of people, storage facility, equipment and seeds becoming the trigger of insecurity and/or conflict