A proposal for an ecological park towards a sustainable humane habitat in Abu Qir, Alexandria, Egypt

This paper represents a preliminary stage of a multiphase research-project, carried out at the Arab Academy for Science and Technology (AAST) by the Environmental Design Research Group (EDRG) looking at alternative proposals for urban development strategies at Abu Qir Area in Alexandria, Egypt. Abu Qir is located east of Alexandria has a very important productive bay on the Mediterranean Sea and its eastern and south east coast is the only mirror of Egypt on the Dead Sea. Besides being one of the most important spots on Alexandria bay, Abu Qir is considered one of the highest polluted areas in Alexandria, although the area itself has a very high potential on the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. This paper explores the design and development of an ecological park as a part of the urban development at Abu Qir bay. The paper investigates the proposals of conceptual design strategies for an Ecological Park at Abu-Qir. Lessons learnt from examples that have successfully introduced and developed the ideas of Ecological parks in the international built environment are reviewed. Parks are key elements in the urban ecosystem, serving dual roles as core zones of urban nature and as multi-use recreational open space. Moreover, as part of an open space system, they play important functional roles as part of landscape-scale habitat and hydrological networks. Today, there is an urging need for the development of urban parks. As urban populations have rapidly increased through civilization and industrialization, cities have been enlarged, nature has been impaired, and human relations have been damaged. For these reasons, people have lost the opportunity to come into contact with nature. Environmental problems such as air and water pollution have resulted, in conjunction with a gradual decrease in natural surroundings. Ecological destruction has caused the landscape to be devastated. For this reason, ecological parks, places serving to reintroduce beautiful birds and insects into the devastated landscape, are needed. There is a need for ecological parks as places where sound ecological values can be instilled and established through the observation and study of nature. Higher priority is given to the ecological environment than in other parks. The design proposal of the ecological park is a place that is ecologically restored and preserved for the purposes of scientific observation and study, and also to provide an easily accessible place for visitors to observe plants, animals and insects living in their natural environment. The proposed park also plays an important role as an educational open classroom for the community and aims at raising global awareness issues in Abu-Qir, thus ensuring that children grow up with an awareness of the global problems facing the world today, and how they can contribute, as active members of the society, in reducing the consequences of pollution and global warming we have created with our own hands. The paper analyses the Abu Qir village potentials and constraints and put forward an urban development strategy based on this analysis. The paper then presents the strategy that has been established to thoroughly preserve, protect and maintain areas of rich natural resources at Abu Qir, and method have been developed to allow enjoyment of them with minimum artificial influence. Eco-tours have been developed for observation of ecosystems. A variety of opportunities to experience nature has been made available by minimization of human interference and by the introduction of an "Environment Commentator" as will be discussed in this paper

Postcolonial Recycling of the Oriental Gothic: Habiby's Saraya, The Ghoul's Daughter and Mukherjee's Jasmine

This article examines Emile Habiby's Saraya, The Ghoul's Daughter (1991) and Bharati Mukherjee's Jasmine (1989) as two postcolonial novels seeking to rewrite the history of Palestinian and Indian diaspora according to their respective myths of Oriental vampires. Habiby's recycling of the Palestinian folktale of the ghoul and Mukherjee's recuperation of the Hindu myth of Lord Shiva aim to spotlight the classical vampiric topoi of otherness, unspeakableness, foreignness, and border existences in colonial and post-colonial contexts. Postcolonial Gothic writing is thus shown to foreground gender, nationality, and ethnicity as sites of both power conflict and cultural exchange. Adopting a counter-Orientalist approach, the study sheds light on the different strategies these two postcolonial texts employ to deconstruct the demonic and ghostly constructions of Arabs and Indians

Lightweight Mutual Authentication Protocol for Low Cost RFID Tags

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology one of the most promising technologies in the field of ubiquitous computing. Indeed, RFID technology may well replace barcode technology. Although it offers many advantages over other identification systems, there are also associated security risks that are not easy to be addressed. When designing a real lightweight authentication protocol for low cost RFID tags, a number of challenges arise due to the extremely limited computational, storage and communication abilities of Low-cost RFID tags. This paper proposes a real mutual authentication protocol for low cost RFID tags. The proposed protocol prevents passive attacks as active attacks are discounted when designing a protocol to meet the requirements of low cost RFID tags. However the implementation of the protocol meets the limited abilities of low cost RFID tags.Comment: 11 Pages, IJNS

Effect of drug physicochemical properties on the release from liposomal systems in vitro and in vivo

Liposomes were discovered about 40 years ago by A. Bangham and since then they became very versatile tools in biology, biochemistry and medicine. Liposomes are the smallest artificial vesicles of spherical shape that can be produced from natural untoxic phospholipids and cholesterol. Liposome vesicles can be used as drug carriers and become loaded with a great variety of molecules, such as small drug molecules, proteins, nucleotides and even plasmids. Due to the variability of liposomal compositions they can be used for a large number of applications. In this thesis the β-adrenoceptor antagonists propranolol, metoprolol, atenolol and pindolol, glucose, 18F-Fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) and Er-DTPA were used for encapsulation in liposomes, characterization and in vitro release studies. Multilamellar vesicles (MLV), large unilamellar vesicles (LUV) and smaller unilamellar vesicles (SUV) were prepared using one of the following lipids: 1,2-Dimyristoyl-sn-Glycero-3-Phosphocholine (DMPC), 1,2-Distearoyl-sn-Glycero-3-Phosphocholine (DSPC), Phospholipone 90H (Ph90H) or a mixture of DSPC and DMPC (1:1). The freeze thawing method was used for preparation of liposomes because it has three advantages (1) avoiding the use of chloroform, which is used in other methods and causes toxicity (2) it is a simple method and (3) it gives high entrapping efficiency. The percentage of entrapping efficiencies (EE) was different depending on the type and phase transition temperature (Tc) of the lipid used. The average particle size and particle size distribution of the prepared liposomes were determined using both dynamic light scattering (DLS) and laser diffraction analyzer (LDA). The average particle size of the prepared liposomes differs according to both liposomal type and lipid type. Dispersion and dialysis techniques were used for the study of the in vitro release of β-adrenoceptor antagonists. The in vitro release rate of β-adrenoceptor antagonists was increased from MLV to LUV to SUV. Regarding the lipid type, β-adrenoceptor antagonists exhibited different in vitro release pattern from one lipid to another. Two different concentrations (50 and 100mg/ml) of Ph90H were used for studying the effect of lipid concentration on the in vitro release of β-adrenoceptor antagonists. It was found that liposomes made from 50 mg/ml Ph90H exhibited higher release rates than liposomes made at 100 mg/ml Ph90H. Also glucose was encapsulated in MLV, LUV and SUV using 1,2-Dimyristoyl-sn-Glycero-3-Phosphocholine (DMPC), 1,2-Distearoyl-sn-Glycero-3-Phosphocholine (DSPC), Phospholipone 90H (Ph90H), soybean lipid (Syb) or a mixture of DSPC and DMPC (1:1). The average particle size and size distribution were determined using laser diffraction analysis. It was found that both EE and average particle size differ depending on both lipid and liposomal types. The in vitro release of glucose from different types of liposomes was performed using a dispersion method. It was found that the in vitro release of glucose from different liposomes is dependent on the lipid type. 18F-FDG was encapsulated in MLV 1,2-Dimyristoyl-sn-Glycero-3-Phosphocholine (DMPC), 1,2-Distearoyl-sn-Glycero-3-Phosphocholine (DSPC), Phospholipone 90H (Ph90H), soybean lipid (Syb) or a mixture of DSPC and DMPC (1:1). FDG-containing LUV and SUV were prepared using Ph90H lipid. The in vitro release of FDG from the different types of lipids was accomplished using a dispersion method. Results similar to that of glucose release were obtained. In vivo imaging of FDG in both uncapsulated FDG and FDG-containing MLV was performed in the brain and the whole body of rats using PET scanner. It was found that the release of FDG from FDG-containing MLV was sustained. In vitro-In vivo correlation was studied using the in vitro release data of FDG from liposomes and in vivo absorption data of FDG from injected liposomes using microPET. Erbium, which is a lanthanide metal, was used as a chelate with DTPA for encapsulation in SUV liposomes for the indirect radiation therapy of cancer. The liposomes were prepared using three different concentrations of soybean lipid (30, 50 and 70 mg/ml). The stability of Er-DTPA SUV liposomes was carried out by storage of the prepared liposomes at three different temperatures (4, 25 and 37 °C). It was found that the release of Er-DTPA complex is temperature dependent, the higher the temperature, the higher the release. There was an inverse relationship between the release of the Er-DTPA complex and the concentration of lipid.Liposomen wurden vor ca. 40 Jahren von A. Bangham entdeckt und Seitdem werden sie als vielseitige Werkzeuge in der Biologie, Biochemie und Medizin verwendet. Liposomen sind die kleinsten künstlichen Hohlräume von Kugelformen, die sich aus natürlichen Phospholipiden und Cholesterin herstellen lassen. Liposomale Vesikel können als Arzneistoff-Carrier, die mit einer großen Vielzahl von Molekülen, wie zum niedermolekularen Wirkstoffen, Proteinen, Nukleotiden oder Plasmiden beladen sind, eingesetzt werden. Liposomen sind extrem vielseitig und können aufgrund der Variabilität ihrer Zusammensetzung für eine Vielzahl von Anwendungen verwendet werden. In dieser Arbeit werden die β-Adrenozeptor-Antagonisten Propranolol, Metoprolol, Atenolol und Pindolol, ferner Glucose, 18F-Fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG)- und Er-DTPA in Liposomen eingebracht. Verschiedene Arten von Liposomen z. B. MLV, LUV und SUV wurden durch eine der folgenden Lipide hergestellt: 1,2-Dimyristoyl-sn-glycero-3-Phosphocholine (DMPC), 1,2-Distearoyl-sn-glycero-3-Phosphocholine (DSPC), Phospholipon 90H (Ph90H) oder eine Mischung aus DSPC und DMPC (1:1). Die Einfrier-Auftau-Methode wurde für die Herstellung von Liposomen als Multi-Lamellare-Vesikl (MLV) verwendet, weil sie drei Vorteile hat: (1) Vermeidung der Verwendung von Chloroform, das in anderen Methoden verwendet wird und toxisch ist; (2) Es ist eine einfache Methode und (3) Es ergibt sich allgemin eine hohe Einschluss- Effizienz (EE). Die durchschnittliche Teilchengröße und Teilchengrößenverteilung der vorbereiteten Liposomen wurden mit, der dynamischen Lichtstreuung (DLS) und dem Laser-Beugungs Analyzator (LDA) gemessen. Die durchschnittliche Partikelgröße der vorbereiteten Liposomen unterscheidet sich in Abhängigkeit von der Art der Liposomen und dem Lipid-Typ. Dispersions- und Dialyse-Techniken wurden für die In-vitro-Freisetzung von β-Adrenozeptor-Antagonisten verwndet. Die In-vitro-Freisetzungs geschwindigkeit von β-Adrenozeptor-Antagonisten wurde von MLV zu LUV zu SUV größer. Ebenfalls konte eindeutlicher Einfluß des Lipid-Typs auf die Freisetzungsgeschwindigkeit von β-Adrenozeptor-Antagonisten festgestellt werden. Zwei verschiedene Konzentrationen (50 und 100mg/ml) von Ph90H wurden für die Untersuchung des Einflußes der Lipid-Konzentration auf die In-vitro-Freisetzung von β-Adrenozeptor-Antagonisten verwendet. Es wurde festgestellt, dass Liposomen, die aus 50 mg / ml Ph90H hergestellt wurden, rascher den inkorporierten Wirkstoff freisetzten, als die, die mit 100 mg / ml Ph90H hergestellt wurden. Glucose wurde ebenfalls MLV, LUV und SUV mit 1,2-Dimyristoyl-sn-glycero-3-Phosphocholine (DMPC), 1,2-Distearoyl-sn-glycero-3-Phosphocholine (DSPC), Phospholipone 90H (Ph90H), Soja-Lipid-(SYB) und einer Mischung aus DSPC und DMPC (1:1) eingekapselt und die entstandenen Produkte bezüglich durchschnittlicher Teilchengröße und Teilchengrößenverteilung charakterisiert. Es wurde festgestellt, dass EE und mittlere Partikelgröße sich in Abhängigkeit von Lipid-und Liposomen-Typ unterscheiden. Die In-vitro-Freisetzung von Glucose aus verschiedenen Arten von Liposomen wurde mit Hilfe der Dispersions-Methode gemessen. 18F-FDG wurde in MLV-Liposomen mit 1,2-Dimyristoyl-sn-glycero-3-Phosphocholine (DMPC), 1,2-Distearoyl-sn-glycero-3-Phosphocholine (DSPC), Phospholipone 90H (Ph90H), Soja-Lipid-(SYB) oder der Mischung aus DSPC und DMPC (1:1) eingekapselt. FDG-haltige LUV und SUV wurden durch die Verwendung von Ph90H Lipiden vorbereitet. Die In-vitro-Freisetzung von FDG aus den verschiedenen Liposomen wurde mit der Dispersions-Methode ausgeführt. Ergebnisse, ähnlich wie die der Freisetzung von Glukose, wurden erhalten. Die In-vivo Freisetzung von FDG aus SUV und MLV wurde vergleich zu einer FDG Lösung in Ratten mittelsPositronen-Emissions-Tomographie (PET) untersucht. Dabei wurde die Anflutung von FDG im Gehirn als Maß der In-vivo Freisetzungsgeschwindigkeit verwendet. Es konnte eine Beziehung zwischen der In-vitro und der In-vivo Freisetzungsgeschwindigkeit festgestellt werden (In-vitro/In-vivo Korrelation). Erbium, welches ein Lanthanid-Metall ist, sollte als Chelat mit DTPA für die Verkapselung in SUV-Liposomen für die indirekte Strahlungs-Therapie von Krebs hergestellt werden. Die Liposomen wurden unter Verwendung drei unterschiedlicher Konzentrationen von Sojabohnen Lipiden (30, 50 und 70 mg / ml) vorbereitet. Die Stabilität der Er-DTPA SUV-Liposomen wurde durch Lagerung der vorbereiteten Liposomen bei drei verschiedenen Temperaturen (4, 25 und 37 ° C) gemessen. Es wurde festgestellt, dass die Freisetzung von dem Er-DTPA Komplex temperaturabhängig ist, je höher die Temperatur, desto höher ist die Freigabe. Es wurde eine inverse Beziehung zwischen der Freigabe des Er-DTPA Komplexes und der Konzentration von Lipiden festgestellt

Soundings of the ionospheric HF radio link between Antarctica and Spain

Aquest treball ha estat realitzat sota el context del projecte Antàrtic del Grup d’Investigació en Electromagnetisme i Comunicacions de La Salle (Universitat Ramon Llull). L’objectiu d’aquest projecte és l’estudi del canal ionosfèric com a canal de comunicacions digitals i el disseny de modulacions avançades adaptades. Aquest treball de tesi es centra en el sondeig del canal HF al llarg de tres campanyes consecutives des de 2009 fins 2012 entre la Base Antártica Española (BAE) i l’Observatorio de l’Ebre (OE). En primer lloc, a partir del sondeig en banda estreta s’han obtingut la disponibilitat i la freqüència de màxima disponibilitat (FLA) entre la BAE i OE en el període 2009-2012. En segon lloc, el sondeig en banda ampla ens ha permès estimar la relació senyal-soroll en banda ampla, la dispersió temporal (composite multipath spread), la dispersió freqüencial (composite Doppler spread and Doppler frequency shift) i el temps de propagació. En tercer lloc, s’ha investigat la variació intra-diària i inter-diària d’alguns paràmetres (Densitat total d’electrons, freqüències crítiques i la MUF3000) que han estat mesurades en sondeig vertical en quatre estacions situades al llarg del camí entre la BAE i OE. Finalment, s’ha estudiat la correlació entre la FLA de l’enllaç oblic i la MUF300 de les estacions intermèdies properes als punts de reflexió.Este trabajo ha sido realizado en el contexto del proyecto Antártico del Grupo de Investigación en Electromagnetismo y Comunicaciones de La Salle (Universidad Ramon Llull). El objetivo de este proyecto es el estudio del canal ionosférico como canal de comunicaciones digitales además del diseño de modulaciones avanzadas adaptadas. Este trabajo se centra en el sondeo del canal HF a lo largo de tres campañas consecutivas desde 2009 hasta 2012 entre la Base Antártica Española (BAE) y el Observatorio del Ebro (OE). Primero, a partir del sondeo en banda estrecha se han obtenido la disponibilidad y la frecuencia de máxima disponibilidad (FLA) entre la BAE y OE en el periodo 2009-2012. En segundo lugar, el sondeo en banda ancha nos ha permitido estimar la relación señal-ruido en banda ancha, la dispersión temporal (composite multipath spread), la dispersión frecuencial (composite Doppler spread and Doppler frequency shift) y el tiempo de propagación. En tercer lugar, se ha investigado la variación intra-diaria y la inter-diaria de varios parámetros (Densidad total de electrones, frecuencias críticas y la MUF3000) que han sido medidas en sondeo vertical en cuatro estaciones situadas a lo largo del camino entre la BAE y OE.Finalmente, se ha estudiado la correlación entre la FLA del enlace oblicuo y la MUF300 de las estaciones intermedias cercanas a los puntos de reflexión.This work has been done in the context of the Antarctic Project of the Research Group in Electromagnetism and Communications of La Salle (Ramon Llull University). The aim of this project is to study the ionospheric channel as a digital communications channel as well as to design specific advanced modulations specially adapted to it. This work is devoted to the HF channel sounding throughout three consecutive surveys from 2009 to 2012 between the Spanish Antarctic Station (SAS) and the Ebro Observatory (OE). First, the availability and the Frequency of Largest Availability (FLA) of the SAS-OE link have been obtained from the narrowband sounding technique from 2009 to 2012. Second, wideband sounding of the SAS-OE link has been done to estimate the wideband Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR), the time dispersion (composite multipath spread), frequency dispersion (composite Doppler spread and Doppler frequency shift), and the propagation time. Third, there has been an investigation about the day-to-day and inter-day variations of various parameters (e.g., Total Electron Density, critical frequencies, and Maximum Usable Frequency for ground distance MUF(3000)) that have been measured at four Vertical Incidence Sounding (VIS) stations located over the SAS-OE link path throughout three consecutive surveys (from 2009 to 2012). Finally, the correlation between the FLA of the SAS-OE ionospheric link and the MUF(3000) obtained from VIS stations located close to the reflection points of the same link has been studied