Effect of building materials on indoor air quality in residential buildings in Egypt: A pre occupancy assessment

Materials selection and construction practices significantly affect Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ). While there are many individual studies on the effect of building materials on thermal comfort, day lighting, and other factors of IEQ, further investigations are needed to study their effect on the Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) in hot arid climates, such as Egypt. Construction materials contribute to the emission of air pollutants in indoor environments; consequently occupants are exposed to multiple pollutants simultaneously as an apparent interaction between the different types of construction materials and room temperature. Limited information is published on specific standards and guidelines for the IAQ considerations in Egypt. Human health and safety are two core values in sustainable development. Hence, the goal of this work is to investigate the impact of the built environment, namely, construction materials on IAQ. The study first identifies pollutant sources and their corresponding health impact due to short term and long-term exposure. The study also aims at quantifying the levels of a group of pollutants at a steady state controlled environment and to propose effective source control strategies for their reduction and possibly elimination. Field studies were conducted during January and February in Cairo to monitor Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs), formaldehyde (HCHO), ammonia (NH3), radon gas and particulate matter (PM2.5) and (PM10) activity. The indoor air is monitored in nine locations, four during the construction process and five after the completion of construction. Chemical analysis and direct reading devices are used for air sampling and monitoring, in addition to recording indoor and outdoor relative humidity, temperature and Carbon Dioxide (CO2) concentrations. The results of this work offer: recommendations to the types of materials that should be eliminated or improved to reach desirable IAQ conditions in hot arid climatic zones; and the development of an IAQ index as an assessment method that compares the measured parameters to existing recommended standards. The data gathering challenges are recorded and collected data is tabulated. The results of this study reveal a variation within the recommended benchmarks after the completion of construction and with the application of different finishing materials. The results also reveal that the concentration of some pollutants decreased within the first year of construction, others have remained above target limits. The results contribute to the decision making process among engineers regarding the selection of appropriate materials to reduce negative impacts through the implementation of appropriate source control strategies. Based on the conclusions and limitations of this study, recommendations for future work are documented

Towards real-time CFD simulation of in-flight icing

Despite the concerted efforts of manufacturers and certification agencies, incidents and accidents continue to happen to aircraft certificated to “Fly Into Known Icing”, falsely thought of as being “immune to in-flight icing”. The current successive process of CFD for ice shape prediction, then icing tunnel testing (experimental fluid dynamics- EFD), and finally flying in natural ice conditions (flight fluid dynamics-EFD), has many gaps that can only be filled by modern CFD. By developing compatible CFD tools able to simulate both the aerodynamics and icing in a concurrent engineering way, and by viewing the aircraft as a system and not as disjoint components, it will be shown how CFD, EFD and can be combined in a rigorous mathematical way to carry out a much faster, more complete and more thorough evaluation of the aircraft’s FIKI and result in a much safer aircraft. The Seminar will cover aspects of physical and mathematical modeling (impingement, accretion, de-icing, anti-icing, conjugate heat transfer, turbulence modeling), CFD (FEM, FVM, automatic mesh optimization) and the actual certification campaign of China’s first regional Jet, the ARJ21. The seminar will particularly focus on a reduced-order modeling (ROM) framework inching toward the calculation, via RANS, of the aerodynamics + water impingement + ice accretion + performance degradation, in real-time. The ROM methodology is based on Proper Orthogonal Decomposition, multi-dimensional interpolation and machine learning algorithms, along with an error driven iterative sampling method, to adaptively select an optimal set of snapshots. The methodology is applied for the first time to a “full aircraft” and to the “entire” icing certification envelope, providing invaluable additional data to the limited ones from icing tunnels or natural flight-testing. The level of accuracy achieved strongly supports the drive to incorporate more CFD information into in-flight icing certification and pilot training programs, leading to increased aviation safety

The impact of cardiac CT on the appropriate utilization of catheter coronary angiography

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of computed tomography coronary angiography (CTCA) on the appropriate utilization of catheter angiography (CA). This observational trial analyzed all patients undergoing CA in 2006 and 2007 in one hospital. In 2007, patients having a low to intermediate cardiovascular risk and suspicion of coronary artery disease (CAD) and those with suspicion of progression of known organic heart disease (OHD) underwent CTCA either prior to CA or as the sole imaging modality. Appropriate utilization of CA was defined as: (1) percentage of patients showing normal or non-significant findings at CA, (2) percentage of self-referred patients to CA, and (3) percentage of patients with known OHD undergoing CA without immediate operative or interventional consequences. Use of CTCA resulted in a significant drop in the percentage of CA examinations in patients with suspected CAD showing normal or non-significant findings (19% in 2006, 10% in 2007, P<0.001). The percentage of self-referred CA significantly dropped (29% in 2006, 10% in 2007, P<0.001). CT ruled-out CAD in 74/151 (49%) patients, obviating subsequent CA. During a follow-up of 15±4months, CA and percutaneous interventions was considered necessary in 2/74 patients. CT ruled-out progression of known OHD in 53/60 (90%) patients, while one patient underwent CA and percutaneous intervention during a follow-up period of 16±4months. No reduction of CA examinations without immediate consequences was found in patients with known OHD (13% in 2006, 27% in 2007). In patients with suspicion of CAD, CTCA improved the appropriate utilization of CA without jeopardizing patient safety, along with a decrease of self-referred patients for CA. CTCA did not influence the appropriate utilization of CA in patients with known OH

A STUDY OF NOVICE TEACHERS' CHALLENGES AT THEIR PRACTICAL TEACHING PHASE

Starting the teaching profession can be considered as challenging for novice teachers (Dickson et.al., 2014). Thus, this study aims to explore the linguistic difficulties that novice teachers encounter and the major defects that such teachers have in their lesson planning while demonstrating the lesson steps to their pupils. The sample of this study is nine of the fourth level students at the English department, college of education, Al-Mahra, Hadhramout university, for the academic year 2017-2018. The researcher uses qualitative research design. The data were collected using classroom observation and novice teachers' lesson plans. The study found that the majority of the Yemeni novice teachers have problems in pronunciations which if not amended will be transferred into the learners. Overuses of Arabic is also the second major problem that the novice teachers had. Moreover, time is not organized effectively during the lesson steps.   No enough activities are used in each lesson, and assessment is hardly done.  The study also revealed that the novice teachers have problems in preparing their lesson plans. Such problems start from the fogy teaching objectives and the warming up activities are minimized to just ask the class about the time and date of the day. Similarly, the activities are not enough to achieve the lesson objectives and finally the time of each lesson step is not set and assessment is not mentioned

Du mythe de « l’augustinisme politique » de Carl Schmitt

« Si la République est la Chose du Peuple, et s’il n’y a point peuple quand il n’y a pas association sous un droit consenti or, il n’y a pas droit où il n’y a pas justice, il suit indubitablement qu’où il n’y a pas justice, il n’y a pas République. » « Tous les concepts prégnants de la théorie moderne de l’État sont des concepts théologiques sécularisés. Et c’est vrai non seulement de leur développement historique, parce qu’ils ont été transférés de la théologie à la théorie de l’État – du fa..

Real-time regional jet comprehensive aeroicing analysis via reduced order modeling

This paper presents a reduced-order modeling framework based on proper orthogonal decomposition, multidimensional interpolation, and machine learning algorithms, along with an error-driven iterative sampling method, to adaptively select an optimal set of snapshots in the context of in-flight icing certification. The methodology is applied, to the best of our knowledge for the first time, to a complete aircraft and to the entire icing certification envelope, providing invaluable additional data to those from icing tunnels or natural flight testing. This systematic methodology is applied to the shape/mass of ice and to the aerodynamics penalties in terms of lift, drag, and pitching moments. The level of accuracy achieved strongly supports the drive to incorporate more computational fluid dynamics information into in-flight icing certification and pilot training programs, leading to increased aviation safety

AUDIT REPORT LAG: DO COMPANY CHARACTERISTICS AND CORPORATE GOVERNANCE FACTORS MATTER? EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FROM LEBANESE COMMERCIAL BANKS

The objective of this study is to investigate the determinants (company specific characteristics and corporate governance factors) of audit report lag (ARL) in a developing country, namely, Lebanon. This paper adds and contributes to the limited literature that investigated the determinants of ARL in the developing Middle East countries through focusing on the Lebanese context. The study is carried out depending on a sample of Lebanese commercial banks operating in Lebanon, covering the period from 2012 to 2017. The researchers used the multiple regression analysis to examine the impact of the explanatory variables on ARL. The results show a significant relationship between ARL and each of bank size, leverage, board independence, board diligence, audit committee (AC) independence, and AC diligence. The regression outcomes reveal that banks with longer ARL are smaller, have higher leverage, their boards and ACs are less diligence, their boards are more independent, and their ACs include less independent and non-executive members

THE IMPACT OF INTERACTIVE INTERNAL AUDIT FUNCTION QUALITY DETERMINANTS AND COORDINATION ON AUDIT REPORT LAG

The current study has three main objectives: (1) to investigate the joint impact of internal audit function (IAF) independence factors and competence on the coordination between IAF and external auditor (EA); (2) to examine the effect of coordination on audit report lag; (3) to investigate the joint impact of IAF independence factors and competence on audit report lag. To the best of the researchers’ knowledge there is no previous study shed the light on the interactive impact of IAF quality determinants on coordination and on audit delay. In addition, this study is the first that examines the mediating effect of coordination on the associations between the interactive IAF quality determinants and audit report lag. This paper is conducted based on a sample of Lebanese banks operating in Lebanon, focusing on the three-year period from 2016 to 2018. The researchers adopt the Partial Least Square (PLS) 3 for analyzing data and testing the posited hypotheses. The results show that the first and second interactions between IAF independence factors and competence have respectively moderate and weak positive effect on coordination. The outcomes also show that the first and second interactions have respectively weak and moderate negative effect on audit report lag. However, both coordination and bank size (control variable) have no effect on audit report lag. The results also reveal that there is no mediating effect of coordination on the associations between each of interaction (1) and (2) and audit report lag. This study has some limitations that can be used as base for further future research. For example, the current paper is conducted on a small sample size that may limit the power of this research to generalize its findings. The results of this study provide significant insights to the board of directors, audit committees (ACs), IAFs, managements, and EAs of the Lebanese banking sector, and the governmental and regulatory bodies of the banking sector