Shumblan (SH) is one of the most undesirable aquatic plants widespread in the irrigation channels and water bodies. This work focuses on boosting the biogas potential of shumblan by co-digesting it with other types of wastes without employing any chemical or thermal pretreatments as done in previous studies. A maximum biogas recovery of 378 ml/g VS was reached using shumblan with cow manure as inoculum in a ratio of 1:1. The methane content of the biogas was 55%. Based on volatile solid (VS) and C/N ratios, biogas productions of 518, 434, and 580 ml/g VS were obtained when the shumblan was co-digested with food wastes (SH:F), paper wastes (SH:P), and green wastes (SH:G) respectively. No significant changes of methane contents were observ

Objective: To study the effect of epidural spinal injection over one year in case of spinal stenosis. Methodology: This prospective study included 566 patients with spinal stenosis seen at Al-Kindy Teaching and Al-Sader, Hospitals who were treated by local epidural steroid injection. They were followed up for at least five subsequent visits after seven days, one month, three months, six months, and one year to assess efficacy. Result: Mean age of patients was 49.5 years, with a predominance of females (65%). L4/L5 was the most involved level in the spinal stenosis (70%). Grade II stenosis accounted for (45.4%) of cases. The pairwise comparison revealed that there was significant decrease in proportions of patients with pain in day

An integrated GIS-VBA (Geographical Information System – Visual Basic for Application), model is developed for selecting an optimum water harvesting dam location among an available locations in a watershed. The proposed model allows quick and precise estimation of an adopted weighted objective function for each selected location. In addition to that for each location, a different dam height is used as a nominee for optimum selection. The VBA model includes an optimization model with a weighted objective function that includes beneficiary items (positive) , such as the available storage , the dam height allowed by the site as an indicator for the potential of hydroelectric power generation , the rainfall rate as a source of water . In a

Non uniform channelization is a crucial task in cognitive radio receivers for obtaining separate channels from the digitized wideband input signal at different intervals of time. The two main requirements in the channelizer are reconfigurability and low complexity. In this paper, a reconfigurable architecture based on a combination of Improved Coefficient Decimation Method (ICDM) and Coefficient Interpolation Method (CIM) is proposed. The proposed Hybrid Coefficient Decimation-Interpolation Method (HCDIM) based filter bank (FB) is able to realize the same number of channels realized using (ICDM) but with a maximum decimation factor divided by the interpolation factor (L), which leads to less deterioration in stop band at

The energy requirements of corn silage harvesters and the application of precision agricultural techniques are essential for efficient and productive agricultural practices. The article aims to review previous studies on the energy requirements needed for different corn silage harvesting machines, and on the other hand, to present methods for measuring corn silage productivity directly in the field and monitoring it based on microcontrollers and artificial intelligence techniques. The process of making corn silage is done by cutting green fodder plants into small pieces, so special harvesters are used for this, called corn silage harvesters. The purpose of harvesting corn silage is to efficiently collect and store as many digestible nutrien

The influence of an aortic aneurysm on blood flow waveforms is well established, but how to exploit this link for diagnostic purposes still remains challenging. This work uses a combination of experimental and computational modelling to study how aneurysms of various size affect the waveforms. Experimental studies are carried out on fusiform-type aneurysm models, and a comparison of results with those from a one-dimensional fluid–structure interaction model shows close agreement. Further mathematical analysis of these results allows the definition of several indicators that characterize the impact of an aneurysm on waveforms. These indicators are then further studied in a computational model of a systemic blood flow network. This demonstr

In this paper, an algorithm is suggested to train a single layer feedforward neural network to function as a heteroassociative memory. This algorithm enhances the ability of the memory to recall the stored patterns when partially described noisy inputs patterns are presented. The algorithm relies on adapting the standard delta rule by introducing new terms, first order term and second order term to it. Results show that the heteroassociative neural network trained with this algorithm perfectly recalls the desired stored pattern when 1.6% and 3.2% special partially described noisy inputs patterns are presented.

Recent growth in transport and wireless communication technologies has aided the evolution of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). The ITS is based on different types of transportation modes like road, rail, ocean and aviation. Vehicular ad hoc network (VANET) is a technology that considers moving vehicles as nodes in a network to create a wireless communication network. VANET has emerged as a resourceful approach to enhance the road safety. Road safety has become a critical issue in recent years. Emergency incidents such as accidents, heavy traffic and road damages are the main causes of the inefficiency of the traffic flow. These occurrences do not only create the congestion on the road but also increase the fuel consumption and p