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The Impact of Supermarket Layouts on Female Shopping Behavior: A Spatial Configuration Analysis
Full text linkAs supermarkets continue to evolve into hybrid spaces for both consumption and social interaction, understanding how spatial design shapes shopper experience has become increasingly essential. This study investigates the impact of supermarket layout—specifically free-flow configuration—on female shopping behavior within the New Cairo context. Recognizing women as primary decision-makers in household purchasing, the research adopts a gender-informed lens to uncover behavioral patterns, navigation preferences, and layout perceptions. Employing a mixed-methods approach, the study integrates macro-scale online surveys (N = 173 female shoppers) with micro-scale data, including behavioral observation and path tracking of 65 female shoppers, post-shopper interviews, and spatial configuration analysis using Visibility Graph Analysis (VGA). Statistical techniques are employed, including ANOVA, cross-tabulation, correlation, and regression, to examine associations between spatial attributes and shopper behavior. A comparison of potential movement versus actual movement highlights how spatial configuration influences shopper flow. Multiple regression analysis identified through vision and visual clustering coefficient as key predictors of shopper movement, collectively explaining 49.6% of the variance (R2 = 0.495). Based on these findings, a predictive model was developed to estimate shopper presence throughout the retail space. The results
advance both theoretical understanding of space syntax in retail contexts and provide evidence- based methodologies for retail layout optimization, confirming that spaces with enhanced
visibility and integration attract significantly higher shopper traffic. The study concludes with design recommendations to enhance layout legibility, optimize product visibility, and support inclusive retail environments tailored to female shoppers
Design of Novel Formwork System and Development of Numerical Model for Comparison between Formwork Systems
Full text linkThe formwork industry has witnessed major breakthroughs in the last decades. However, they required huge amount of materials leading to negative environmental impacts. Also, the commercially available systems have big number of accessories and requires the extensive use of units to cover the areas to be poured. There was an attempt to target all these disadvantages by introducing the Funicular Arched Steel Truss (FAST) system. However, this system had its own drawbacks, and this is why the researcher introduced an extendable version named the “Extendable Funicular Arched Steel Truss (EAST) system.”
To reach the final version of the EAST design, the researcher carried out structural analysis and tested the system in the lab to understand its structural behavior. The EAST system has proved its feasibility to be an alternative to the commercially available systems as it can support up to 7 tons, has extendibility features due to its structural soundness, allows for movement beneath the system and has low cost.
Further, a numerical model was developed to allow for designing and carrying out quantity take off to calculate cost and weight of five types of formwork systems: traditional system, MULTIFLEX, frames, FAST and EAST systems. The numerical model was validated and verified using villa floor plan and proved its reliability. Two-way ANOVA was carried out and proved that the cost and weight of the formwork system is significantly impacted by the formwork type and the area of the floor plan used upon the fixation of the floor plan shape
Stories Take a Life of their Own: Exploring the MeToo Movement in Egypt
Full text linkThis thesis explores the unfolding of Egypt’s MeToo movement through the stories that emerged in the wake of the 2020 Ahmed Bassam Zaki case. Rather than framing this moment as a rupture or a crisis, it seeks to situate it within a longer genealogy of feminist resistance, digital activism, and everyday acts of speaking out and silencing. At the heart of this work is the question: what does it mean for a story to take a life of its own? Stories here are not fixed entities but rather living actants—capable of forming solidarities, generating intensities, and unsettling hegemonic narratives. Drawing on feminist ethnography, digital archives, interviews, and discourse analysis, the thesis foregrounds the politics of storytelling: whose stories are heard, which voices are amplified, and what happens when testimony becomes spectacle. It considers not only what is spoken, but what is withheld; not only what is archived, but what is erased or kept at the margins. From anonymous Instagram pages to grassroots feminist blogs, from courtroom rehearsals to photography and comics, these stories surface and slip, reappearing across different platforms, forms, and bodies. Central to this inquiry is an engagement with the idea of eventfulness—how certain moments become “the story” while others fall through the cracks. In attending to the affective, embodied, and temporal dimensions of storytelling, this research resists the urge to provide closure. Instead, it follows the story-in-motion, asking what it can teach us about violence, memory, movements, and the fragile, powerful work of narration itself
On the Reasonableness of Religious Belief according to W. James\u27 The Will to Believe with reference to Alvin Plantinga\u27s “The Nature of Necessity”
Full text linkAnalytically, I follow William James\u27s approach in his paper The Will to Believe to demonstrate that holding a religious belief is reasonable and it is not incompatible with being a philosophy scholar. I do this through explaining the way James addressed the main obstacle that Clifford puts against belief (in general) which is ‘the lack of sufficient evidence’. Clifford claims that belief cannot be accepted without evidence on it.
James breaks apart this obstacle through many steps. First, analyzing the nature of belief itself, showing that belief cannot be attained based on intellectual grounds alone (which needs sufficient evidence), but a belief is a sum of many elements, such as man’s desires, fears, hopes, passions, as well as the social impact (he calls all these elements ‘passional nature’).
Then, James explains a second important issue that affects the process of belief-formation, which is our approach to true belief. He discusses different approaches to truth, defending the pragmatic approach which relates true belief to deeds.
He, then, moves to a crucial point: the reason religious beliefs are considered unreasonable lies in the fact that people are not always able to support them with objective evidence. However, James emphasizes that the nature of religious belief is different from that of scientific belief. It is reasonable for scientific belief to rely on objective evidence (since scientific belief relies more on the intellectual part), because the evidence already exists—it is fully present, while religious beliefs are still in the realm of the possible, thus, how can one refer to reality to verify them?
Here, Plantinga explains this further through possible worlds, explaining that reality, the actual world, can be replaced by another possibility to become the new reality, as long as this shift occurs to possible not necessary propositions. This means that what is not ‘actual’ today may be ‘actual’ tomorrow. This explains our inability to find objective evidence for religious beliefs, because they are within the realm of possibility, not yet actual.
The issue, then, is not that religious beliefs are unreasonable, but rather that the order is different. Belief comes first, then evidence comes after belief becomes actual. However, religious belief requires a willing choice because man holds a belief that has no evidence in reality yet, and that is why James accurately named his paper ‘The Will’ to Believe
Siwa Hot Springs as Reservoirs of Novel Antibacterials: Fosmid Library Construction and Screening
No full textAntimicrobial resistance is a growing global health threat, further exacerbated by the emergence of multidrug-resistant bacterial strains. To address this pressing issue, there is an urgent need for the discovery of novel antimicrobial agents. A promising strategy is to explore previously untapped microbial communities for bioactive compounds. While much of the focus has been on well-studied environments, the hot springs of Siwa oasis in Egypt’s Western Desert—a popular tourist destination renowned for its therapeutic properties—remain largely unexplored in this context. Metagenomics offers a powerful tool for harnessing the vast microbial potential of such environments, facilitating the discovery of new biocatalysts and antimicrobial compounds. One effective functional metagenomic technique is fosmid library construction, which allows for the functional screening of microbial enzymes and the identification of bioactive compounds with antimicrobial activity. Environmental DNA was extracted from two hot springs, Cleopatra and Fatnas, located in Siwa Oasis, Egypt, to construct a metagenomic fosmid library. Water samples from both springs were first filtered through a serial filtration system. DNA was then extracted and used to build a fosmid library with the EpiFOS Fosmid Library Production Kit (Epicenter, Illumina, USA). In total, 6,151 clones were generated from the pooled environmental DNA samples of both springs. To identify potential antimicrobial compounds, the fosmid library was subjected to functional screening using an agar-based assay (the spot on lawn assay). This screening tested the clones against a range of bacterial strains, including both standard and clinically resistant Gram-positive (Staphylococcus aureus and Staphylococcus epidermidis) and Gram-negative (Acinetobacter baumannii and Klebsiella aerogenes) species. Two clones were identified that exhibited significant zones of inhibition against Acinetobacter baumannii and a Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) strain. This study enabled the identification of antimicrobial compounds capable of targeting challenging bacteria, with the potential for development into pharmaceutical treatments to address emerging infectious threats
MicroRNA-203a-3p as a Modulator of Doxorubicin Resistance in Hepatocellular Carcinoma: Molecular and Metabolic Insights
No full textHepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) continues to be a significant global health concern, ranking third in mortality rates among all cancer types. Despite therapeutic advancements, doxorubicin (DOX) remains a cornerstone chemotherapeutic agent in the treatment of HCC. However, its efficacy is often limited by the development of drug resistance. Increased cellular capacity to repair DNA damage is a key molecular mechanism underlying DOX resistance. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a family of small, non-protein-coding RNA molecules that regulate gene expression post-transcriptionally. They have emerged as critical regulators of tumorigenesis and are considered promising biomarkers and therapeutic targets. Among them, miR-203a-3p has been implicated in modulating chemoresistance in various cancer types, though its role in HCC remains unclear. In this study, we employed a comprehensive approach to investigate the functional role of miR-203a-3p in response to DOX treatment in HCC. To elucidate the underlying mechanisms, we combined cytotoxicity assays, gene expression analysis, apoptosis assays, and metabolic profiling, using HepG2 and Huh7 cells, which differ in p53 status. Our findings offer new insights into the role of miR-203a-3p in the context of HCC chemoresistance, with potential implications for therapeutic interventions. Understanding the molecular and metabolic underpinnings of miR-203a3p function may inform the development of more effective miRNA-based combination therapies to overcome chemoresistance and improve treatment outcomes
Under the Guardianship: Experiences of Mothers in Egypt’s El Nayaba El Hesbaya
Full text linkThis thesis explores the intersectional lived experience of El Nayaba El Hesbaya in Egypt. El Nayaba El Hesbaya, operating under Law 119/1952, is the administrative and judicial body responsible for overseeing the financial and legal affairs of minors whose father or mother had passed. Hundreds of thousands of mothers in Egypt have (had) children under the guardianship of El Nayaba El Hesbaya. This research delves into the experience of mothers whose children are or were under the guardianship of El Nayaba El Hesbaya, examining how it shape(s/d) their everyday life as women, mothers, widows or ex-wives, citizens, and legal subjects. Centering the experience of the mother with the institution and the social milieux upheld by and upholding of it as my research focus enables me to understand how it unfolds in real time and space and how this structure shapes the daily lives of the families who experience it and is, concomitantly, constantly negotiated by them. Vitally, this research traces the legal and social bases from which El Nayaba El Hesbaya derives authority, critically historicizing and contextualizing the institution and the mothers’ experiences with it. This extensive critique divulges on the legalized systematic instrumentalization of what I conceive as carefare— a critical intervention that allows for the apprehension, interrogation, and dissention of/against violence that is perpetrated and perpetuated as acts of ‘care’— for the manufacture and propagation of consent for violating these mothers, entrenchment of the slow violence of the sexual contract, and (re)production of governable reductive subjectivities
Stakeholder Views of Real Estate Registration in Egypt and the Reform of 2022
Full text linkReal estate registration in Egypt has historically remained low despite the enactment of a deeds registration law in the 1940s and a title registration law in the 1960s. The 2022 reform (Law No. 9 of 2022) warranted an assessment of its effectiveness through a Public Policy and Administration lens. This thesis has two main objectives: first, to examine stakeholders’ views of the reform; and second, to explore stakeholder perspectives on formal registration and the factors driving registration avoidance by employing a qualitative design, using in-depth interviews with four stakeholder groups encompassing both system users and service providers. The findings revealed multiple themes covering the two research objectives describing – from the stakeholders’ perspectives – pre-reform barriers to registration such as absence of land registration, an overview of the reform and key amendments such as the introduction of the Verification of Occupation, benefits and drawbacks of the reform such as streamlining procedural steps, barriers faced during reform implementation such as poor staff training, priorities for future reform such as accelerating cadastral survey reports issuance, the benefits of formal registration such as swift resolution of ownership disputes, and factors leading to registration avoidance such as extra-governmental fees imposed by related entities. The Government of Egypt appears to have engaged stakeholders to identify and address many systemic barriers that have long plagued the system. Many obstacles that precluded real estate owners from registering, and impediments that were only surmountable at extra cost, time, and effort were resolved, along with the modernization and digitalization of the registration process. Nonetheless, new barriers have emerged such as bottlenecks producing cadastral survey reports, while some entrenched barriers remain unresolved such as fees imposed by non-governmental entities; the Lawyers Syndicate for example. The policy recommendations address both emerging implementation barriers such as devising a cohesive communication strategy employing a pull/push approach, and unresolved ones such as extra-governmental fees by the Lawyers Syndicate
A Computational Study of the Chemomechanics of Paracetamol Polymorphs: Towards Improving Drug Tabletability
No full textThe mechanical properties of pharmaceutical crystals are of great importance in tablet manufacturing. Also, knowing the mechanical properties of different polymorphs of the same crystal can reduce the overall production cost. In this study, computational work was done via performing density functional theory calculations on 3 paracetamol crystal polymorphs Form I, II, and III. Understanding the chemical bonding helps in predicting the key elastic properties for different crystallographic directions. In Form II, lattice vector C is dominated with the intermolecular hydrogen bond OH…O giving it the stiffest Young Modulus and the least Poisson’s ratio. Then comes the A-Axis which contains the intermediate strength intermolecular hydrogen bond NH…O, and lastly, the B-Axis which is dominated by weak van der Waals leading to the least stiffness and the largest Poisson’s ratio. Overall, this gives a ranking as follow: C (OH…O) \u3e A (NH…O) \u3e B (van der Waals) in Form II and B (OH…O) \u3e A (NH…O) \u3e C (van der Waals) for Form III. In Form I none of the principal crystallographic directions (A, B, and C) is controlled by a single type of intermolecular bonding and hence no similar chemomechanical trends can be elucidated.
This work also resolves the contradiction in literature regarding which form among I and II is more compressible. Under hydrostatic compressions, we found out that Form I is more compressible than Form II along two crystallographic directions (A and B). However, the C-Axis of Form I starts to expand with continued applied pressure leading to an overall bulk modulus for Form I that is comparable to Form II. Thus, in an average sense Form II is as compressible as form I, meanwhile in an anisotropic sense, Form I is more compressible in certain key directions. Moreover when Form III is included in this comparison the overall ranking in bulk becomes : Form III \u3c Form II ~ Form I. We believe that for grains of Form II and I under tableting pressing conditions, the predictions of which Form will exhibit net easier compressibility depends on the nature of the net applied stress (hydrostatic vs. axial) and also on the texture and porosity of the grains. We suggest future finite element modeling efforts to address this problem.
Lastly, we compared evaluating the elastic properties of the three forms using two different computational approaches: the brute-force calculations of stress-strain curves and 2nd order elastic constants. The elastic constants approach agrees well with the findings in brute-force approach in terms of the magnitudes of the elastic properties and the chemomechanical trends discussed above. This gives credibility to the 2nd order elastic constants which also has the added advantage of its ability to explore the elastic properties of all crystallographic directions with simple analytical formulas. Furthermore, the elastic constants approach revealed that Form III is mechanically unstable in crystallographic directions different than the principal ones (other than A, B, C). This instability would be difficult to probe using brute-force stress-strain calculations since this computation is expensive and hence cannot be conducted in random directions.
The detailed analyses and data presented in this work for an important drug such as Paracetamol are aimed to be a future reference for developing a computational framework that aims to enhance drug tabletability and generally, pharmaceutical manufacturing
A BIM-Based Flexible Flow Shop Framework for Scheduling Linear Infrastructure Projects
No full textRepetitive, multi-stage linear projects, such as pipelines or highways, are primarily impacted by spatial and resource constraints during their execution. Cost overruns, delays, and inefficient resource allocation make construction management for such projects complex. Traditional scheduling techniques, such as Critical Path Method (CPM) and Line of Balance (LOB), are less efficient for scheduling dynamic, complex, and multi-objective projects. There are more advanced scheduling methods that can be applied as a decision-making process to determine the optimal timing of activities and achieve other objectives. One of those techniques is the Flexible Flow Shop model (FFS), which can be effectively applied to linear infrastructure projects due to its multi-stage and parallel machine structure. Such linear projects can be modeled as an FFS scheduling problem, in which jobs (pipeline segments or highway stations) pass through sequential stages (excavation, installation, backfilling) with flexible, non-identical machines (crews or equipment).
This research study introduces a novel framework that integrates Building Information Modeling (BIM) with the Flexible Flow Shop (FFS) scheduling model to develop, implement, and validate an advanced framework for scheduling linear infrastructure projects. The proposed framework applies the FFS advanced scheduling technique to enhance the scheduling efficiency of linear infrastructure projects and improve their visualization and execution effectiveness. The Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm (NSGA-II) is applied as a multi-objective optimization technique to minimize total costs, including both direct and indirect costs, total duration (or makespan), as well as total idle time of machines or crews. The proposed optimization model is developed in the powerful and widely used Python programming language to generate a Pareto front comprising non-dominated solutions, which enables stakeholders to select the best trade-offs between time and total cost based on their preferences.
Building Information Modeling (BIM) is utilized to connect the 3D infrastructure model and the schedule optimization model. BIM is used as a modeling and visualization tool to improve the interoperability and accuracy of projects. It is also applied to automate repetitive tasks and extract data and quantities. Additionally, a 4D simulation (3D + time) is created to visualize the schedule, enabling planners and decision-makers to monitor and control progress over time.
To verify the scheduling optimization model, a random generation model is developed to generate simple FFS problems. Those simple problems are solved by the FFS optimization model, allowing for a comparison between exact solutions obtained through exhaustive enumeration and the outputs of the developed optimization model. Such a comparison shows that optimization solutions match or approximate the exact results, indicating the accuracy of the developed model and the quality of its generated results. To validate the FFS model, it is applied to literature case studies, and the results of the developed optimization model outperformed literature results in generating a Pareto front of better solutions in terms of total cost, duration, and idle time. Specifically, the FFS model can achieve a reduction of up to 14.5% in the total makespan, reductions in idle time ranging from 10% to 18%, and cost savings of up to 8%.
The BIM-FFS framework is applied to a real-world linear infrastructure project to ensure the functionality of the BIM integration modules, including Autodesk Civil 3D, Dynamo for data extraction to Excel, and Synchro Pro for integrating the 3D model with the FFS-optimized schedule. The data compatibility and workflow show that the framework is accurate and practical. The results of the framework implementation include an optimized schedule, cost savings, reduced total duration, improved resource utilization efficiency, and enhanced visualization through the enhanced Gantt Chart and 4D simulation. Based on the project implementation and results, expert questionnaire responses indicate that more than 80% strongly agree on the framework\u27s capability in reducing total cost, duration, and idle time of infrastructure linear projects, and more than 88% of responses strongly support its adaptation to such projects.
The developed BIM-based FFS scheduling framework is generic, since it can be applied to various categories of linear infrastructure projects with different construction methods. It is scalable, as it can process problems with varying numbers of jobs (units), stages (activities), and machines (crews). It is also flexible due to the flexibility associated with the execution sequence and the assignment of jobs to machines. Therefore, the implementation of the developed framework will be advantageous for linear infrastructure projects, improving informed decision-making processes