Case study greater Cairo Region Egypt

The rapid growth of big cities has been noticed since 1950s when the majority of world population turned to live in urban areas rather than villages, seeking better job opportunities and higher quality of services and lifestyle circumstances. This demographic transition from rural to urban is expected to have a continuous increase. Governments, especially in less developed countries, are going to face more challenges in different sectors, raising the essence of understanding the spatial pattern of the growth for an effective urban planning. The study aimed to detect, analyse and model the urban growth in Greater Cairo Region (GCR) as one of the fast growing mega cities in the world using remote sensing data. Knowing the current and estimated urbanization situation in GCR will help decision makers in Egypt to adjust their plans and develop new ones. These plans should focus on resources reallocation to overcome the problems arising in the future and to achieve a sustainable development of urban areas, especially after the high percentage of illegal settlements which took place in the last decades. The study focused on a period of 30 years; from 1984 to 2014, and the major transitions to urban were modelled to predict the future scenarios in 2025. Three satellite images of different time stamps (1984, 2003 and 2014) were classified using Support Vector Machines (SVM) classifier, then the land cover changes were detected by applying a high level mapping technique. Later the results were analyzed for higher accurate estimations of the urban growth in the future in 2025 using Land Change Modeler (LCM) embedded in IDRISI software. Moreover, the spatial and temporal urban growth patterns were analyzed using statistical metrics developed in FRAGSTATS software. The study resulted in an overall classification accuracy of 96%, 97.3% and 96.3% for 1984, 2003 and 2014’s map, respectively. Between 1984 and 2003, 19 179 hectares of vegetation and 21 417 hectares of desert changed to urban, while from 2003 to 2014, the transitions to urban from both land cover classes were found to be 16 486 and 31 045 hectares, respectively. The model results indicated that 14% of the vegetation and 4% of the desert in 2014 will turn into urban in 2025, representing 16 512 and 24 687 hectares, respectively

On research by design

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.Early issues of arq in the mid-1990s were preoccupied with the possibilities for researching architecture through design: how design research might be constituted and communicated, and – practically for architecture schools at that time – how design might be counted as research in the newly-introduced metrics used to judge research quality in UK Universities. Debates around design research in arq in the 1990s reflected uncertainties about its position in both practice and academic culture at that time. Since then, design research has gained traction, becoming increasingly accepted and acquiring greater capital in architectural academe. Key texts in architectural design research are increasingly leaving behind the question ‘is design considered research or not?’ to search instead for how to secure the status of design as a rigorous mode of academic inquiry. There is increasing confidence in the architectural field about the potential and power of design as a research method. Yet the notion of design research in architecture remains broad, with a diversity of approaches echoed in a diversity of distinct but overlapping terminologies. Taking its cue from arq's early focus on design research, this paper sketches-out its contemporary methodological landscape in architecture, surveying key sources in design research scholarship

Translational invariance in bag model

In this thesis, we investigate the effect of restoring the translational invariance to an approximation to the MIT bag model on the calculation of deep in elastic structure functions. In chapter one, we review the model, its major problems and we outline Dirac's method of quantisation. This method is used in chapter two to quantise a two-dimensional complex scalar bag and formal expressions for the form factor and the structure functions are obtained. In chapter three, we try to study the expression for the structure function away from the Bjorken limit . The corrections to the L(_o) - approximation to the structure function i s calculated in chapter four and it is shown to be large. Finally , in chapter five, we introduce a bag-like model for kinematic corrections to structure functions and obtain agreement with data between 2 and 6 (GeV/C)(^2

A Critical Review of the Literature and Practice of Competency Modelling

Competency models are commonly practiced today in many organizations as they lead to significant human resource development that provides organizations with a competitive edge. Because of their immense importance, measurement and modelling of competencies has become an important research field. However, despite the extensive research, there are large research gaps regarding the empirical knowledge and applicability of competency models. This article presents a critical review of competency modelling literature and practice from the major perspectives (including applied, academic, and professional) in an attempt to shed additional light on the advantages and practices of competency modelling, as well as outlining current challenges in such a vibrant domain. The intention, in this article, was to build a coherent argument with an objective of illustrating the effective use, as well as deficiencies in this domain based on aggregated experiences of many authors across many years and settings. The author explicitly acknowledges that the approach for this critical review has many limitations, since it is experience-based rather than empirically based. Yet, it is believed that this article may provide a framework that can lead to a solid investigation of competency modelling with more rigor than they have been afforded to date.     Keywords: Competency Modelling, Behavioural Paradigm, Job Analysis, Performance, NViv

Practiceopolis: Stories from the Architectural Profession

With the increasing specialisation in the process of contemporary building production, the value and the role of architects have come into question in construction discourse. From literature about architects losing leadership position in the industry to others arguing that architects must follow the more specialised members of the building team, this book is illustrating the architects’ point of view in this debate, showing one important dimension of the story of building construction. The book is a story about the contemporary architectural profession, in which it acts as the protagonist in the form of an imaginary city called Practiceopolis. Practiceopolis is a fictive city-state, located within a union of states representing different members in the construction domain that together form ‘Constructopolis—the Confederation of the Building Industry’. The novel narrates quasi-realistic stories that exaggerate the architectural ‘everyday’ and the tacit, in order to make it prominent and tangible. They depict and dramatise the value conflicts between the different cultures of practising architecture and between the architectural profession and other members of the building industry as political conflicts occurring around the future of Practiceopolis. The book uses this metaphorical world to examine different ideologies at work among architects and other members of the construction industry and provoke questions about the largely tacit assumptions which inform them. The novel ends in the tradition of dystopian worlds common in a certain strand of graphic novels with near-future speculation that extrapolates present contemporary conditions to warn against a substantial change to the architectural profession

Studies on the Alimentary Tract of the Female of the Biting Midge Culicoides nubeculosus Meigen (Diptera: Heleidae = Ceratopogonidae)

Abstract Not Provided

Improvement of Mechanical Properties and Electrical Conductivity of 7075 Al Alloy using ECAP Process

The equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) method is used in this work to treat the Al-Zn-Mg-Cu alloy. As the most promising severe plastic deformation (SPD) technique, equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) has received extensive research in recent years. Hardness test, compression test, electrical conductivity, and surface studies were used to look into how an ultra-fine grained (UFG) industrial aluminum alloy that was made by equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) for one pass strengthened its mechanical characteristics and electrical conductivity. the product has been annealed for three hours at 4150C, Experimental research is done to determine how aluminum alloy 7075\u27s electrical conductivity and material characteristics are impacted by the rate of severe plastic deformation (SPD) during equal channel angular pressing (ECAP). According to the results, the ECAP will increase compressive strength from 145 to 295.5 N/mm2 at the same strain in 0.016 seconds after one pass, Hardness increases progressively until 295.5 N/mm2 is reached as its highest value, then it gradually decreases. The percentage increase in hardness was 50.9% at a strain rate of 0.016s-1. ECAP method is frequently used to raise the yield strength of the aluminium alloy 7075 by 204 % while simultaneously reducing the rate of strain at a compressive strength of 145 N/mm2 from 0.016 to 0.008s-1. With just one pass, IACS of the alloy as received and after Escaping both showed an improvement in electrical conductivity from 30.8% to 43.5%. , ECAP increases electrical conductivity by 29.2% with a strain rate of 0.016s-1

The Impact of Mineral Dust Aerosol Particles on Cloud Formation

This investigation examines the role of selected mineral dust samples in heterogeneous ice nucleation. The experiments were done by seeding artificial clouds in the large aerosol chamber AIDA at temperatures between 273 and 190 K. Five different dust samples were collected for this purpose: Two airborne mineral dust samples (denoted Cairo dust 1:CD1 and Cairo dust 2: CD2) were collected during dust storm events at a location about 50 km North of Cairo city. The source regions of these dust samples were identified by altitude-resolved back-trajectory calculations using the FLEXTRA trajectory model and comparing with aerosol index data from the EP/TOMS, MODIS/Terra, and MODIS/Aqua satellite images. The third dust sample (denoted Egyptian Sahara mineral dust: SD) was collected from a hole of 1.5 m depth in the desert 70 km northeast of Cairo city. The fourth dust sample (denoted Asian dust sample: AD) was collected from the ground in the easterly part of the Takla Makan desert in northwest China. The fifth dust sample (denoted Arizona test dust sample: ATD) consists of crushed Arizona desert sand and was purchased from Powder technology Inc. (Minnesota, USA). It is used as a reference material for comparison. All dust samples were analysed on their elemental composition by X-ray fluorescence and on their water soluble ion contents by ion chromatography. The reported data reveals that the fraction of gypsum is the largest in CD1 and CD2, followed by SD. Furthermore, it could be shown that the airborne dust samples (CD1 & CD2) had accumulated soluble coatings during their transportation by interaction with air pollutants. In addition to the surface-chemical analysis, the mineral dust seed particles were collected during the experiments and analysed on their surface morphology by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). It was found that spherical particles are slightly more efficient ice nuclei than non-spherical particles. The size distribution of the ice particles was measured by an optical particle counter (OPC, PCS-2000). The output of this instrument was successfully corrected for the evaporation of ice crystals or water droplets in the sampling line. The corrected count median diameters show a good agreement with the values determined from the optical particle counter Welas and FTIR measurements. The measured ice water content is in good agreement between the OPC-based and FTIR-retrieved. Generally, the observed ice water contents compare well with the results from upper tropospheric measurements that were obtained during the INCA campaign (Gayet et al., 2006), although both sets of measurements are totally different. In the temperature range between 273 and 240 K where mixed clouds form, all dust particles formed liquid water clouds for temperature between 273 and 255 K; very few ice crystals were formed either by condensation or immersion freezing. Between 255 and 240 K, SD and AD formed liquid water droplets, whereas ATD particles are already efficient ice nuclei by deposition freezing. The airborne Sahara dust samples CD1 and CD2 are also very efficient ice nuclei even in comparison with ATD in the temperature range from 255 to 240 K. Coating ATD particles with sulphuric acid had no significant influence on their ice nucleating ability. In the temperature range between 240 and 200 K where cirrus clouds form, ATD, SD, and AD show a reduction of the critical ice saturation ratio with decreasing temperature from 1.25 for ATD and 1.35 for SD and AD at 240 K to about 1.1 and less at the lower temperature of the cirrus cloud regime. This is in agreement with critical saturation ratios reported by Bailey and Hallett 2002 and the parameterisation line of cirrus cloud formation by Heymsfield and Miloshevich 1995. Coating ATD with sulphuric acid reduces its ice nucleation efficiency to values predicted for the freezing of haze particles after Koop et al., 2000. Coated SD, on the other hand, shows also reduced nucleation efficiencies, but the effect becomes less important at the lower temperatures. Finally, the measurements show that the nucleation rates for deposition freezing in the cirrus cloud regime increase as function of the saturation ratio, but decrease towards lower temperatures. The data reported by Archuleta et al. 2005 is in good agreement with our measurement. The results from this work can be used to improve the description of cirrus cloud formation in microphysical cloud models, but there still remain uncertainties about the ice formation in the mixed cloud regime

Improvement of Mechanical Properties and Electrical Conductivity of 7075 Al Alloy using ECAP Process

The equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) method is used in this work to treat the Al-Zn-Mg-Cu alloy. As the most promising severe plastic deformation (SPD) technique, equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) has received extensive research in recent years. Hardness test, compression test, electrical conductivity, and surface studies were used to look into how an ultra-fine grained (UFG) industrial aluminum alloy that was made by equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) for one pass strengthened its mechanical characteristics and electrical conductivity. the product has been annealed for three hours at 4150C, Experimental research is done to determine how aluminum alloy 7075\u27s electrical conductivity and material characteristics are impacted by the rate of severe plastic deformation (SPD) during equal channel angular pressing (ECAP). According to the results, the ECAP will increase compressive strength from 145 to 295.5 N/mm2 at the same strain in 0.016 seconds after one pass, Hardness increases progressively until 295.5 N/mm2 is reached as its highest value, then it gradually decreases. The percentage increase in hardness was 50.9% at a strain rate of 0.016s-1. ECAP method is frequently used to raise the yield strength of the aluminium alloy 7075 by 204 % while simultaneously reducing the rate of strain at a compressive strength of 145 N/mm2 from 0.016 to 0.008s-1. With just one pass, IACS of the alloy as received and after Escaping both showed an improvement in electrical conductivity from 30.8% to 43.5%. , ECAP increases electrical conductivity by 29.2% with a strain rate of 0.016s-1