This study is to evaluate plasma levels of several cytokines in preeclamptic pregnancies compared to those of healthy pregnancies. Ninety pregnant women with preeclampsia (37 mild & 53 severe) and thirty healthy pregnant women were enrolled in the study. Blood samples were taken and plasma levels of IL-8, IL-10, and IFN-? were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Preeclamptic women and their severe cases but not mild cases had significantly (P<0.05) increased levels of plasma IL-8, and IFN-? as compared with healthy pregnancies. By contrast, plasma levels of IL-10 was significantly (P<0.05) increased in healthy pregnant women as compared to all groups of preeclampsia. Preeclampsia is associated with an imbalance betwe

Trickle irrigation is a system for supplying filtered water and fertilizer directly into the soil and water and it is allowed to dissipate under low pressure in an exact predetermined pattern. An equation to estimate the wetted area of unsaturated soil with water uptake by roots is simulated numerically using the HYDRUS-2D/3D software. In this paper, two soil types, which were different in saturated hydraulic conductivity were used with two types of crops tomato and corn, different values of emitter discharge and initial volumetric soil moisture content were assumed. It was assumed that the water uptake by roots was presented as a continuous sink function and it was introduced into Richard's equation in the unsaturated z

Abstract

One of the most suitable materials to be used in latent heat thermal energy storage system (LHTES) are Phase change materials, but a problem of slow melting and solidification processes made many researchers focusing on how to improve their thermal properties. This experimental work concerned with the enhancing of thermal conductivity of phase change material. The enhancing method was by the addition of copper Lessing rings in phase change material (paraffin wax). The effect of diameter for the used rings was studied by using two different diameters (0.5 cm and 1cm). Also, three volumetric percentages of rings addition (3%, 6% and 10%) were tested for each diameter. The discharging process was done with

A new approach for baud time (or baud rate) estimation of a random binary signal is presented. This approach utilizes the spectrum of the signal after nonlinear processing in a way that the estimation error can be reduced by simply increasing the number of the processed samples instead of increasing the sampling rate. The spectrum of the new signal is shown to give an accurate estimate about the baud time when there is no apriory information or any restricting preassumptions. The performance of the estimator for random binary square waves perturbed by white Gaussian noise and ISI is evaluated and compared with that of the conventional estimator of the zero crossing detector.

A new technique for embedding image data into another BMP image data is presented. The image data to be embedded is referred to as signature image, while the image into which the signature image is embedded is referred as host image. The host and the signature images are first partitioned into 8x8 blocks, discrete cosine transformed “DCT”, only significant coefficients are retained, the retained coefficients then inserted in the transformed block in a forward and backward zigzag scan direction. The result then inversely transformed and presented as a BMP image file. The peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) is exploited to evaluate the objective visual quality of the host image compared with the original image.

The main aim of this paper is to study how the different estimators of the two unknown parameters (shape and scale parameter) of a generalized exponential distribution behave for different sample sizes and for different parameter values. In particular, 

. Maximum Likelihood, Percentile and Ordinary Least Square estimators had been implemented for different sample sizes (small, medium, and large) and assumed several contrasts initial values for the two parameters. Two indicators of performance Mean Square Error and Mean Percentile Error were used and the comparisons were carried out between different methods of estimation  by using monte carlo simulation technique .. It was obse

Computations of the relative permeability curves were made through their representation by two functions for wetting and nonwetting phases. Each function contains one parameter that controls the shape of the relative permeability curves. The values of these parameters are chosen to minimize an objective function, that is represented as a weighted sum of the squared differences between experimentally measured data and the corresponding data calculated by a mathematical model simulating the experiment. These data comprise the pressure drop across core samples and the recovery response of the displacing phase. Two mathematical models are constructed in this study to simulate incompressible, one-dimensional, two-phase flow. The first model d

   A comparison of double informative and non- informative priors assumed for the parameter of Rayleigh distribution is considered. Three different sets of double priors are included, for a single unknown parameter of Rayleigh distribution. We have assumed three double priors: the square root inverted gamma (SRIG) - the natural conjugate family of priors distribution, the square root inverted gamma – the non-informative distribution, and the natural conjugate family of priors - the non-informative distribution as double priors .The data is generating form three cases from Rayleigh distribution for different samples sizes (small, medium, and large). And Bayes estimators for the parameter is derived under a squared erro