Petrology, Geochemistry, Petrogenesis and Reactivation of Volcanic Tuffs at Dair El-Kahif Area, NE-Jordan

The volcanism in the western Arabian plate extends from the Red Sea through the Harrat Ash-shaam system to western Syria. The aforementioned volcanic activity produced large quantities of alkali olivine basalts and tuffaceous materials. The stratovolcano (7km) NE of Dair El-Kahif, NE Jordan has been investigated. The results show that dominant mineral phases are olivine, augite, plagioclase, magnetite and ilmenite. Chemical analysis of the whole rock tuff samples confirms alkali olivine magma origin. Low concentrations of Li and Rb in tuff samples are used as an argument against the contamination of the basaltic magma during its journey to the surface. The MgO and Mg-values (Mg/Mg+Fe²+) in samples from volcanic tuff exhibit different degrees of fractionation, which are indicated by the varying concentrations of incompatible trace elements (Ba, Rb, Sr). The thermometric evaluation of tuff determined by using pyroxene thermometers revealed a temperature range between 1022-1083°C and a pressure of 5-10 kbars. The low Mg-ratio (Mg/Mg+Fe²+) is due to fractional crystallization of olivine and pyroxene in tuff samples. The variations of incompatible elements imply derivation from a peridotite source in the upper mantle with low degree of melting (<20%). The volcanic activity took place in phases corresponding to rifting associated with the sinistral movement along the Dead Sea Transform and the later reactivation processes

Developing a Land Suitability Index for Agricultural Uses in Dry Lands From Geologic Point of View Using GIS - a Case Study From Jordan

DOI:10.17014/ijog.2.2.63-76In the context of the study, a Multi-criteria evaluation (MCE) in GIS was used in developing suitability index to optimize suitable lands for agricultural uses and seasonal farming in dry lands from geologic point of view. This study was performed in the areas between Mafraq and Zarqa Cities in Jordan which are classified as arid lands. The study aims at protecting groundwater from pollution, reducing soil salting, reducing irrigation water loss caused by evaporation, and increasing crop productivity. The geo-environmental parameters of the named area including geology, groundwater depths, soil depths and textures, climatic conditions, topographic settings, and groundwater vulnerability conditions were mapped and converted into layers with special rates, given weights, and then modeled using the multi criteria evaluation (MCE) option, using Decision Making Modeling in IDRISI (GIS software) to reach at the best choice of lands for agricultural activities, and also to determine which of these lands are suitable for summer farming and which are suitable for winter farming

Developing a Geoinformatic-engineering Stability Modeling Method, Using Field Data and GIS Environment: a Case Study From Al Qarara Area in Wadi Musa, Jordan

DOI:10.17014/ijog.2.1.1-21By applying detailed geological field surveys, the spatial factors affecting geo-engineering stability were used to develop a geo-engineering stability modeling method to identify areas under potential threat of landsliding. The factors affecting geo-engineering stability in Al Qarara area in Petra-Jordan were studied and given assumed rates of importance, where optimization process was run by lag iterations; the produced spatial layers of the different factors were gathered and modeled using GIS; a final stability map was produced using an optimized equation. The produced map was validated qualitatively and quantitatively, where a comparison was made between the reality in the field and several maps of different equation. The modeling method which was developed in the context of this study proved to be suitable to produce micro-zonation maps of areas having landslide risk. Further applications on the method in other areas suffering landslides will further improve it

The Arithmetic Optimization Algorithm

Abstract This work proposes a new meta-heuristic method called Arithmetic Optimization Algorithm (AOA) that utilizes the distribution behavior of the main arithmetic operators in mathematics including (Multiplication ( ), Division (), Subtraction (), and Addition ()). AOA is mathematically modeled and implemented to perform the optimization processes in a wide range of search spaces. The performance of AOA is checked on twenty-nine benchmark functions and several real-world engineering design problems to showcase its applicability. The analysis of performance, convergence behaviors, and the computational complexity of the proposed AOA have been evaluated by different scenarios. Experimental results show that the AOA provides very promising results in solving challenging optimization problems compared with eleven other well-known optimization algorithms. Source codes of AOA are publicly available at and

To the question about human typological aspects theoretical and applied significance on the basis of literary and own data

The most important human typological aspects are assessed under physiological and pathological conditions, in theoretical and applied disciplines, in the Earth various areas. Age typological aspect actuality is described by the fact that students represent separate age category, diseases age peculiarities for instance developmental dyscalculia in children; ethno-gender-age - in the work about Iranian boys with autism (R. Nasiri et al., 2017). Health control locus was studied in Poland at heart failure, at thyroid diseases; internalizing symptoms and disorders - with ethno-age aspect in Australian adolescents. Externalizing and internalizing problems in boys and girls pre-adolescents were different in both genders but there was a correlation between temperament type and psychopathology in Netherlands. Iranian scientists devoted their works to internalizing (M. A. Fallahnejad et al., 2017) and externalizing (S. Azimifar et al., 2018) behavior in primary school children. There is association between temperament type with extra- and intaversion and health problems in Iranian male and female students; temperament also can influence on coping with interparental conflicts; there are temperament specific classifications in Persian medicine: brain temperament (H. Salmannegad et al., 2016), of warmth and humidity (Gh. R. Mohammadi Farsani et al., 2017). Genes of left-handedness are absent in Dutch population. British biologists assessed links between cerebral lateralization and developmental language disorder in children (A. C. Wilson et al., 2018). Scientists are still not sure about apraxy dominance either in lefties or dextrals. Norwegian scientists found the dependence between autism and lefthandedness and ambidextrism (A. L. Rysstad et al., 2018)

A “Soft” Approach to Analysing Mobile Financial Services Sociotechnical Systems

Advances in mobile computing have presented a huge opportunity to provide Mobile Financial Services (MFS) to half of the world’s population who currently do not have access to financial services. However, cybersecurity concerns in the mobile computing ecosystem have slowed down the adoption of MFS. The adoption of MFS is further hampered by the lack of a clear understanding of the interaction between the complex infrastructures and human factors that exist in the ecosystem for Mobile Financial Services Socio-Technical Systems (MFSSTS). This paper presents the work in progress of investigating the problem of MFSSTS. It discusses the preliminary results and understanding obtained from using Human Factor approaches to build and analyse the model for MFSSTS

Combined quay crane assignment and quay crane scheduling with crane inter-vessel movement and non-interference constraints

Integrated models of the quay crane assignment problem (QCAP) and the quay crane scheduling problem (QCSP) exist. However, they have shortcomings in that some do not allow movement of quay cranes between vessels, others do not take into account precedence relationships between tasks, and yet others do not avoid interference between quay cranes. Here, an integrated and comprehensive optimization model that combines the two distinct QCAP and QCSP problems which deals with the issues raised is put forward. The model is of the mixed-integer programming type with the objective being to minimize the difference between tardiness cost and earliness income based on finishing time and requested departure time for a vessel. Because of the extent of the model and the potential for even small problems to lead to large instances, exact methods can be prohibitive in computational time. For this reason an adapted genetic algorithm (GA) is implemented to cope with this computational burden. Experimental results obtained with branch-and-cut as implemented in CPLEX and GA for small to large-scale problem instances are presented. The paper also includes a review of the relevant literature

An evolutionary approach to a combined mixed integer programming model of seaside operations as arise in container ports

This paper puts forward an integrated optimisation model that combines three distinct problems, namely berth allocation, quay crane assignment, and quay crane scheduling that arise in container ports. Each one of these problems is difficult to solve in its own right. However, solving them individually leads almost surely to sub-optimal solutions. Hence, it is desirable to solve them in a combined form. The model is of the mixed-integer programming type with the objective being to minimize the tardiness of vessels and reduce the cost of berthing. Experimental results show that relatively small instances of the proposed model can be solved exactly using CPLEX. Large scale instances, however, can only be solved in reasonable times using heuristics. Here, an implementation of the genetic algorithm is considered. The effectiveness of this implementation is tested against CPLEX on small to medium size instances of the combined model. Larger size instances were also solved with the genetic algorithm, showing that this approach is capable of finding the optimal or near optimal solutions in realistic times

Eco-efficiency measurement and material balance principle:an application in power plants Malmquist Luenberger Index

Incorporating Material Balance Principle (MBP) in industrial and agricultural performance measurement systems with pollutant factors has been on the rise in recent years. Many conventional methods of performance measurement have proven incompatible with the material flow conditions. This study will address the issue of eco-efficiency measurement adjusted for pollution, taking into account materials flow conditions and the MBP requirements, in order to provide ‘real’ measures of performance that can serve as guides when making policies. We develop a new approach by integrating slacks-based measure to enhance the Malmquist Luenberger Index by a material balance condition that reflects the conservation of matter. This model is compared with a similar model, which incorporates MBP using the trade-off approach to measure productivity and eco-efficiency trends of power plants. Results reveal similar findings for both models substantiating robustness and applicability of the proposed model in this paper