Rectangular waveguide radiator miniaturization using electromagnetic infinity-shaped metamaterial resonator

A miniaturized open-ended rectangular waveguide antenna radiating below the cut-off frequency of the waveguide is proposed. Waveguide miniaturization is achieved by periodically loading the antenna with electromagnetic metamaterial (MTM) consisting of infinity shaped resonators. The metamaterial gives the waveguide the ability to support propagation of the backward wave below the cut-off frequency. The proposed open waveguide radiator was designed, optimized and simulated using High Frequency Structure Simulator HFSSTM commercial software. Comparing previous work of miniaturization of waveguides, a higher miniaturization ratio with a bandwidth about 327 MHz and good matching was obtained. Keywords:Waveguide miniaturization, left-handed media, metamaterials

The impact of exchange rate volatility on trade integration among North and South Mediterranean countries

The volatility of exchange rates leads to a reduction of international trade volumes, especially in emerging economies including the South Mediterranean countries. This study discusses the impact of exchange rates on bilateral South- North trade flows, which comes timely after the increased volatility between the Euro and Arab national currencies during the last few years and after the global financial crisis of 2008 that led to a sharp reduction at that time. We investigate the impact of exchange rate volatility on trade using monthly time series for the last ten years from 2000 up to 2011. By means of a Vector Auto Regression model with eXogenous variables (VARX) we estimate the reactions of bilateral exports and imports in response to exchange rate fluctuations between South and North Mediterranean economies. A sample of three South Arab countries is selected including Egypt, Jordan, and Morocco. Causality tests are conducted to examine the hypotheses. Our results show that the exports of goods from Egypt to the European Union decreases in comparison with the baseline by about 3% in case of an appreciation of 10% of the Egyptian pound vis-à-vis the euro, while the imports of Egypt from the EU increase by almost 10%. Also for Morocco, the imports from the EU react much stronger than the exports to the EU to a similar size appreciation of the Moroccan dirham. Jordan is less import-dependent, though reacts strongly in terms of exports if its dollar-pegged currency appreciates vis-à-vis the euro. Finally, we can conclude that the actual exchange rate changes are quite high

The impact of exchange rate volatility on trade integration among North and South Mediterranean countries

The volatility of exchange rates leads to a reduction of international trade volumes, especially in emerging economies including the South Mediterranean countries. This study discusses the impact of exchange rates on bilateral South- North trade flows, which comes timely after the increased volatility between the Euro and Arab national currencies during the last few years and after the global financial crisis of 2008 that led to a sharp reduction at that time. We investigate the impact of exchange rate volatility on trade using monthly time series for the last ten years from 2000 up to 2011. By means of a Vector Auto Regression model with eXogenous variables (VARX) we estimate the reactions of bilateral exports and imports in response to exchange rate fluctuations between South and North Mediterranean economies. A sample of three South Arab countries is selected including Egypt, Jordan, and Morocco. Causality tests are conducted to examine the hypotheses. Our results show that the exports of goods from Egypt to the European Union decreases in comparison with the baseline by about 3% in case of an appreciation of 10% of the Egyptian pound vis-à-vis the euro, while the imports of Egypt from the EU increase by almost 10%. Also for Morocco, the imports from the EU react much stronger than the exports to the EU to a similar size appreciation of the Moroccan dirham. Jordan is less import-dependent, though reacts strongly in terms of exports if its dollar-pegged currency appreciates vis-à-vis the euro. Finally, we can conclude that the actual exchange rate changes are quite high

The Role of Balanced Performance Card in Improving Strategic Performance- Applied Study

يهدف البحث الى بيان أسلوب جديد من أساليب الرقابة وتقويم الأداء وهو ما يعرف ببطاقة الأداء المتوازن بمحاورها الاربعة: (المحور المالي، محور الزبائن ، محور العمليات الداخلية ، ومحور التعلم والنمو) وتأثيره على الادارة الاستراتيجية من خلال الجمع بين مقاييس الأداء المالي ومقاييس الأداء غير المالي ، كما يهدف البحث الى اظهار اهم استعمالات بطاقة الأداء المتوازن التي لا ترتكز على جانب محدد بل تقيس الأداء بأربعة محاور . ولغرض تحقيق اهداف البحث اعتمد الباحثون على الاستمارة الجديدة المقترحة والتي تتضمن المحاور الأربعة السابقة، اذ تتم الإجابة على كل محور من قبل الجهة المختصة داخل الوحدة الاقتصادية، بخلاف الاستمارة القديمة التي كانت الإجابة على مؤشراتها المحدودة تقع على عاتق إدارة الجودة فقط مما قد يؤدي بالنتيجة الى الوقوع في التحيز الشخصي. وكانت عينة الدراسة عبارة عن وحدة خدمية فعالة في القطاع الصحي المحلي وهي مدينة الصدر الطبية في النجف الاشرف لما لها من دور مهم في تقديم الخدمات الطبية في المحافظة، وقد توصل البحث الى جملة من النتائج التحليلية والنظرية منها تصدر محور العمليات الداخلية بقية المحاور من حيث الاهتمام من قبل إدارة المستشفى في حين كان محور الزبائن بالمرتبة الرابعة، وبالنتيجة فان هناك اهتماما وتركيزا على هذه المحاور الأربعة الرئيسة وهو ما يدل على النظرة الشمولية لنشاطات القطاع الصحي العراقي في هذا المجال.   The aim of the research is to demonstrate a new method of monitoring and evaluating performance, which is known as Balanced Scorecard with four axes: (financial axis, customer focus, internal operations axis, learning and growth axis) and its impact on strategic Management by combining financial performance measures with performance measures The research aims to show the most important uses of the Balanced Scorecard, which is not based on a specific aspect but rather measures performance in four axes. In order to achieve the objectives of the research, the researchers adopted the proposed new form, which includes the four previous axes. The answer is given to each axis by the competent authority within the economic unit, unlike the old form whose response was limited to quality management. In personal bias. The sample of the study is an effective service unit in the local health sector, Al Sadr Medical City in Najaf because of its important role in providing medical services in the province. The research has reached a number of analytical and theoretical results. By the management of the hospital while the focus of customers ranked fourth, and as a result, there is interest and focus on these four main axes, which indicates the holistic view of the activities of the Iraqi health sector in this area

Black Brane Viscosity and the Gregory-Laflamme Instability

We study long wavelength perturbations of neutral black p-branes in asymptotically flat space and show that, as anticipated in the blackfold approach, solutions of the relativistic hydrodynamic equations for an effective p+1-dimensional fluid yield solutions to the vacuum Einstein equations in a derivative expansion. Going beyond the perfect fluid approximation, we compute the effective shear and bulk viscosities of the black brane. The values we obtain saturate generic bounds. Sound waves in the effective fluid are unstable, and have been previously related to the Gregory-Laflamme instability of black p-branes. By including the damping effect of the viscosity in the unstable sound waves, we obtain a remarkably good and simple approximation to the dispersion relation of the Gregory-Laflamme modes, whose accuracy increases with the number of transverse dimensions. We propose an exact limiting form as the number of dimensions tends to infinity.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figures. v2: minor corrections and refs adde

Gold nanostars as a photoagent under the antimicrobial action of infrared (808 nm) laser radiation

Gold nanostars with an average core diameter of 122,2 nm and a spike length of 114,6 nm were synthesized and characterized at a concentration of 5,36×1010 pcs/ml with an absorption maximum of 840 nm. Gold nanostars were coated with thiolated polyethylene glycol, its amount was about 8×104 molecules per 1 particle and about 4,4×1015 molecules/ml in the colloid. The zeta potential of gold nanostars coated with PEG-SH was −2.3 mV. The combined eff ect of gold nanostars and low-intensity infrared (808 nm) laser radiation on the bacteria Staphylococcus aureus 209 P and Escherichia coli 113-13 has been studied. Incubation of suspensions of microorganisms in the presence of nanoparticles without access to light did not lead to a signifi cant reduction in the number of bacteria. Irradiation for 30 min of bacterial suspensions containing nanoparticles caused the death of 39% of the S. aureus population and 80% of the E. coli population. During the thermometry of the studied suspensions, it was found that the temperature increase is dose-dependent. The increase in temperature of the control samples that did not contain photothermal agents did not exceed 1 °C in both cases throughout the entire time of the experiment. For suspensions of bacteria (equally S. aureus and E. coli) incubated with gold nanostars during irradiation, an increase in temperature indicators, on average, by 4 °C was revealed. The more pronounced antibacterial activity of the combination of gold nanostars and infrared (808 nm) laser radiation against E. coli can also be explained by the greater sensitivity of gram-negative microorganisms to photothermal exposure

An efficient sound and data steganography based secure authentication system

The prodigious advancements in contemporary technologies have also brought in the situation of unprecedented cyber-attacks. Further, the pin-based security system is an inadequate mechanism for handling such a scenario. The reason is that hackers use multiple strategies for evading security systems and thereby gaining access to private data. This research proposes to deploy diverse approaches for authenticating and securing a connection amongst two devices/gadgets via sound, thereby disregarding the pins’ manual verification. Further, the results demonstrate that the proposed approaches outperform conventional pin-based authentication orQR authentication approaches. Firstly, a random signal is encrypted, and then it is transformed into a wave file, after which it gets transmitted in a short burst via the device’s speakers. Subsequently, the other device/gadget captures these audio bursts through its microphone and decrypts the audio signal for getting the essential data for pairing. Besides, this model requires two devices/gadgets with speakers and a microphone, and no extra hardware such as a camera, for reading the QR code is required. The first module is tested with real-time data and generates high scores for the widely accepted accuracy metrics, including precision, Recall, F1 score, entropy, and mutual information (MI). Additionally, this work also proposes a module helps in a secured transmission of sensitive data by encrypting it over images and other files. This steganographic module includes two-stage encryption with two different encryption algorithms to transmit data by embedding inside a file. Several encryption algorithms and their combinations are taken for this system to compare the resultant file size. Both these systems engender high accuracies and provide secure connectivity, leading to a sustainable communication ecosystem.peer-reviewe

Immunohistochemical evaluation of human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 and estrogen and progesterone receptors in breast carcinoma in Jordan

INTRODUCTION: Although breast carcinoma (BC) is the most common malignancy affecting Jordanian females and the affected population in Jordan is younger than that in the West, no information is available on its biological characteristics. Our aims in this study are to evaluate the expression of estrogen receptor (ER) and progesterone receptor (PR) and Her-2/neu overexpression in BC in Jordan, and to compare the expression of these with other prognostic parameters for BC such as histological type, histological grade, tumor size, patients' age, and number of lymph node metastases. METHOD: This is a retrospective study conducted in the Department of Pathology at Jordan University of Science and Technology. A confirmed 91 cases of BC diagnosed in the period 1995 to 1998 were reviewed and graded. We used immunohistochemistry to evaluate the expression of ER, PR, and Her-2. Immunohistochemical findings were correlated with age, tumor size, grade and axillary lymph node status. RESULTS: Her-2 was overexpressed in 24% of the cases. The mean age of Her-2 positive cases was 42 years as opposed to 53 years among Her-2 negative cases (p = 0.0001). Her-2 expression was inversely related to ER and PR expression. Her-2 positive tumors tended to be larger than Her-2 negative tumors with 35% overexpression among T3 tumors as opposed to 22% among T2 tumors (p = 0.13). Her-2 positive cases tended to have higher rates of axillary metastases, but this did not reach statistical significance. ER and PR positive cases were seen in older patients with smaller tumor sizes. CONCLUSION: Her-2 overexpression was seen in 24% of BC affecting Jordanian females. Her-2 overexpression was associated with young age at presentation, larger tumor size, and was inversely related to ER and PR expression. One-fifth of the carcinomas were Her-2 positive and ER negative. This group appears to represent an aggressive form of BC presenting at a young age with large primary tumors and a high rate of four or more axillary lymph node metastases