165 research outputs found
Correction: Guidelines for the prevention, detection and management of the renal complications of COVID-19 in Africa
Get PDFThe authors of the article ‘Guidelines for the prevention, detection and management of the renal complications of COVID-19 in Africa’ [1] wish to acknowledge the contribution of Professor Hussein El Fishawy. Our guidelines drew on various sources, including the Egyptian Ministry of Health guidelines, portions of which were adapted and reproduced with permission from the Egyptian Ministry of Health. Two of the authors of those guidelines, Professors Elsayed and Zaki, are also coauthors of our paper. Professor El Fishawy was the third author of the Egyptian guidelines and we would like to acknowledge his contribution to our review through this source, especially with respect to the treatment algorithms for patients with kidney transplants and those with acute kidney injury. Reference1. Elsayed HM, Wadee S, Zaki MS, Were AJO, Ashuntantang GE, Bamgboye EL, et al. Guidelines for the prevention, detection and management of the renal complications of COVID-19 in Africa. Afr J Nephrol. 2020; 23(1):109-126
Représentations littéraires du sacré dans le roman maghrébin de langue française
No full textThis interdisciplinary study explores how Driss Chraïbi’s L’Homme du Livre (1995), Assia Djebar’s Loin de Médine (1991), and Anissa Boumediène’s La fin d’un monde (1991) present accounts of particular historical moments in early Islam. This study explores the role of the imagination as well as freedom of invention when reconstructing historical events. It engages the novels through a study of the interplay between the literary text and the sources and traditions that impact and shape the text narrative. Gaining direct access to the original sources in Arabic serves to analyze how religious and early historical materials are considered in and reflected by the fictional texts. Because the sources tend to differ in both content and approach, this study examines their preoccupations in order to determine the criteria of selection applied by each novelist.Ph.D.Includes bibliographical referencesIncludes vitaby Hanan Elsaye
The Way(S) of Horus in the Saite Period: Tell El-Kedwa and its Key Location Guarding Egypt's Northeastern Frontier
No full textThe “Way(s) of Horus” represented an active route and part of Egypt’s eastern frontier; it is known during the Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms, and continued to be maintained and controlled by Saite kings (Dynasty 26: 664-525 B.C.). Tell el-Kedwa formed part of a series of Saite fortresses guarding Egypt’s East frontier, and lies on the eastern edge of an ancient lagoon, guarding a northern access point to Egypt. In 2007, investigations at Kedwa uncovered a succession of two massive Saite forts, and constitute an important factor in clarifying Tell el-Kedwa’s role as a key control point for access to Egypt during the Late Period. Excavations have continued in 2008 along the south wall of the successive fortresses, and these results will be published in due course. However, the initial excavation results from 2007 have confirmed the role of this fortress as a significant Egyptian garrison defending Egypt’s eastern gateway.DOI:10.2458/azu_jaei_v07i1_hussei
Tell Heboua I and II. Archaeological study of two sites on the eastern border of Egypt during Saite period
No full textLes sites de Tell Heboua I et II se trouvent à l’extrémité orientale du Delta égyptien, au nord-ouest de la péninsule du Sinaï. Cette étude est l’aboutissement de fouilles menées sur les deux sites. À Tell Heboua I, les vestiges d'un complexe religieux construit principalement en briques crues date de la période saïte (XXVIe dynastie : 672-525 av. J.-C.) ; le site de Tell Heboua II comprend une vaste forteresse et une zone d'habitation ce la même période. Les deux sites comportaient également plusieurs aires funéraires. Le présent travail inclut une étude analytique et comparative des différents matériaux employés, ainsi que du mobilier archéologique et céramique. La plupart de ces constructions trouvent des parallèles en Égypte à la même période, notamment dans le Delta, en raison du développement du pays sous les règnes des pharaons saïtes, qui se sont engagés dans un important programme architectural à travers presque toute la région deltaïque. Ces travaux constituent un apport majeur pour l’histoire de l’entrée orientale de l’Égypte à une période où celle-ci prend une importance particulière en raison des relations que le pays entretient avec ses voisins.The sites of Tell Hebua I and II are located at the eastern end of the Egyptian Delta, north-west of the Sinai Peninsula. This study is the achievement of excavations conducted on the two sites. On Tell Hebua I, the remains of a religious complex, built mainly in mud-brick date from the Saite period (26th Dynasty : 672-525 B.C.) ; the site of Tell Hebua II includes a wide fortress and a residential area. The two sites have also revealed some scattered cemeteries. This thesis includes an analytical and comparative study of different building materials found during the excavations, as well as ceramics and various objects. Most of these structures have contemporaneous parallels especially in the Delta, because of the country development under the reigns of the Saite pharaohs, who made a commitment in a program of important construction through almost the entire deltaic region. The highlighting of new architectural elements on Tell Hebua I and II, dating from the Saite period, is a major contribution to the history of the eastern border of Egypt at a time when it had a particular importance due to the country's relations with its neighbours
Intrathecal Drug Delivery Systems Survey: Trends in Utilization in Pain Practice [Corrigendum]
No full textAbd-Sayed A, Fiala K, Weisbein J, et al. J Pain Res. 2022;15:1305–1314.
The authors have advised there is an error in the author list on page 1305. The author name “Alaa Abd-Sayed” should read “Alaa Abd-Elsayed”.
The authors apologize for this error
Master Thesis Entitled The Footnote of Bin Hamdoun on The Explanation Of Bahraq for The İbn Malik Lamiat
No full textتحمل هذه الدراسة عنوان "حاشية ابن حمدون على شرح بحرق على لامية ابن مالك، وهي موزعة على قسمين: الأول منهما تحدثت فيه عن ناظم اللامية: محمد بن عبد الله ابن مالك (ت. 672هـ)، وشارحها: محمد بن عمر الشهير بيحرق (ت 930هـ)، ومحشيها القاضي محمد الطالب بن حمدون ت (1273هـ)، ثم قمت بالتعريف باللامية والشرح الصغير، والحواشي عليه. ثم ختمت هذا القسم بالحديث عن حاشية ابن حمدون، فبينت اختلافات نسخها، وأهم مصادرها، وتعقبات المحشي على الناظم والشارح وعلى غيرهما من العلماء، وإضافات المحشي كالأجوبة عن الإيرادات والإشكالات وتحرير المسائل المستعصية والتنبيه على أوهام المخالفين والتقريرات الفقهية، والترجيحات، وختمته ببيان أهم النتائج التي توصلت إليها خلال الدراسة. أما القسم الثاني فخصصته لتحقيق الحاشية، وقدمت له بوصف النسخ المخطوطة، ثم منهج التحقيق وعملي فيه كتخريج الآيات والأحاديث، وعزو الأبيات مع بيان بحرها، والتعريف بالأعلام الواردة في الحاشية، والرموز والاختصارات.. ثم أتبعت ذلك بنص الحاشية مضبوطاً، ومفقرا، ومعنونا، ومنها ما فيه من أبيات، ومصحوبا بحواش فيها شرح الغريب وبيان المشكل منه، وعزو النقول إلى مصدرها، وفي أعلاه متن الشرح الصغير بخط أصغر من خط الحاشية.Bu araştırma "Hâşiyatü İbni Hamdün alâ Şarhi Bahrak alâ Lâmiyyeti İbni Mâlik başlığını taşımaktadır. İki kısma ayrılır: Birinci kısımda el-Lamiyye'yi derleyen kişiden bahsettim: Muhammed bin Abdullah İbni Malik ve onu şerh eden Bahrak ismiyle meşhur Muhammed bin Ömer ve ona haşiye yazan Kadı Muhammed bin Hamdun. Sonra Lamia'yı, küçük şerhi ve dipnotlarını tanıttım. Daha sonra İbn Hamdun'un haşiyesinden bahsederek, nüsha farklılıklarını, en önemli kaynaklarını, haşiyeyi derleyen ve şerh eden bu iki alim dışıdaki alimlerin tahkikatlarını, haşiyeye eklenen nakilleri, problemleri ve çözümü zor meseleleri, muhaliflerin yanılgılarını, fıkhi açıklamaları ve tercihleri açıkladım. Çalışma sırasında ulaştığım en önemli bulguları beyan ederek bölümü sonlandırdım.
İkinci bölüme gelince, onu haşiye incelemesine ayırdım ve yazma nüshaların bir tanıtımını sundum. sonra tahkik yöntemi, ayet ve hadis tahrici çalışması gibi, beyitleri ölçüleriyle inceleyerek haşiyede geçen işaretlerin, sembollerin ve kısaltmaların açıklamalarını yaptım. daha sonra haşiye metnini harekeli, paragraflı, başlıklı ve içindeki beyitlerle uyumlu şekilde, yabancı kelimeleri ve onunla ilgili problemleri dipnotlar eşliğinde açıklayıp, alıntıları kaynağına atfederek, üst kısımda haşiye hattından daha küçük bir hat ile metnin şerhini sundum.This study bears the title “Footnote of Bin Hamdoun on the explanation of Bahraq for the ibn Malik Lamiat.” (d. 672 AH), and its commentator: Muhammad bin Omar, the known also as Bahruq (d. 930 AH), and its commentator: Judge Muhammad al-Talib bin Hamdun (d. 1273 AH), then I introduced Lamyism and the small explanation, and footnotes to it. Then I concluded this section with talking about Ibn Hamdun’s footnote, so I showed the differences of its versions, its most important sources, the traced footnote for the author and the commentator and other scholars, and the additions to the footnote such as answers to questions and problems, editing intractable issues, alerting the delusions of violators, jurisprudential reports, and weightings, and concluded it with a statement of the most important results that i found during the study.
As for the second section, I devoted it to the investigation of the footnote, and I presented it with a description of the manuscript copies, then the investigation methodology and my work in it, I described the characteristics of the manuscript copies and explained the verses and hadiths mentioned in the gloss, as well as the couplets that the writer relied upon. I also provided descriptions of the symbols, marks, and abbreviations found in the gloss. Throughout the verses, I evaluated the conformity of Arabic diacritical marks and their placement. Additionally, I clarified the meanings of foreign words and explained the interpretations of ambiguous parts, and attributing it to it's sources. Moreover, I observed that the text of "Eş şerh ü sağir" was written in a smaller size above the gloss text, and I noted that the opinions in the gloss were based on references
Degradation modeling of ink fading and diffusion of printed images
No full textColor printing plays an important role in the modern society. It is known that the color of printed images degrades gradually due to the fading and diffusion of the inks. Color degradation leads to a distortion or loss of the original information in printed images. Therefore, it is desirable to understand how the color of printed images changes over time. In this dissertation, we present degradation models to predict the characteristics of the ink fading and diffusion of printed images.
We begin by modeling the ink degradation from a physics-based perspective. Color images are printed by projecting small ink dots on medium, usually paper. This technique is called halftone printing. Halftone printing of color images results in a variety of ink mixtures and subsequently their potential catalytic fading. For the most commonly used Cyan-Magenta-Yellow-Black (CMYK) ink set, sixteen possible ink mixtures are generated during printing. A state transition diagram is then proposed for the ink fading in this multi-ink printing scenario. The ink area coverage is used as the performance indicator. Assuming constant fading and diffusion rates, we develop an ink fading model based on the differential equations according to the state transition diagram and an autoregressive ink diffusion model by discretizing the two-dimensional diffusion equation. The two models are then integrated into a single degradation model.
Further examination of the developed degradation models reveals that the fading or diffusion rate is equivalent to the hazard rate in reliability engineering. It is known that the hazard rate of the exponential failure time distribution is constant. Hence, the developed degradation model with constant fading and diffusion rates is equivalent to the multistate Markov process model with exponential transition time distribution. By using non-exponential transition time distributions, the fading and diffusion rates become time-varying and a more general semi-Markov process degradation model is developed accordingly.
Moreover, stochastic process models are investigated to provide stochastic area coverage prediction for the ink degradation. We first model the ink fading using the Hull-White/Vasicek (HWV) stochastic process. The HWV ink fading model considers that the variance of the ink area coverage shrinks as it approaches zero. Besides, spatial convolution is used to model ink diffusion. The two models are integrated into a spatio-temporal stochastic degradation model for the ink fading and diffusion of printed images. The cases of recurrent and non-recurrent time-varying fading and diffusion rates are investigated.
Inks on the paper degrade, so does the paper. The degradation of paper condition may in turn affect the degradation of the inks. Therefore, the investigation of the degradation modeling of ink fading and ink diffusion with ink-paper interactions is needed. Two aspects of the ink-paper interactions are considered, i.e., the effect of paper aging such as depolymerization and yellowing, and the fiber orientation of the paper.
The degradation process of printed images usually takes a very long time. An accelerated degradation model and the optimal design of accelerated degradation test planning is developed for accurate degradation prediction of printed images. The effects of three constant environmental stresses: temperature, humidity, and illumination (intensity), are investigated, and experimental data are used to validate the proposed model. The results show strong agreements between the proposed ink fading and ink diffusion prediction model and the actual experimental data.Ph.D.Includes bibliographical reference
Reliability estimation of balanced systems with multi-dimensional distributed units
No full textBalanced systems with multi-dimensional distributed units are emerging in a diverse range of industries. This includes Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) with multi-level of rotary wings, Spherical Unmanned Vehicles (SUV), Spherical Phased Array Antenna (SPAA), etc. In this dissertation, we present the reliability estimation for such systems. In particular, we consider two configurations: 1) balanced systems with units distributed circularly on multi-level and 2) balanced systems with units distributed spherically.
First, balanced systems with units distributed circularly on multi-level are generalized as (k₁, k₂)-out-of-(n, m) pairs: G balanced systems. We consider two scenarios: 1) all units perform the same function and 2) adjacent pairs perform complementary functions. For both scenarios, unbalanced system is considered as failed. When units fail and cause the system imbalance, we explore two approaches to rebalance the system: 1) forcing down units on other locations and 2) resuming units that are previously forced down (if any). When units in a system perform the same function, operational states are defined as balanced states with at least k₁ operating pairs and each operating pair has at least k₂ units on each side. The system reliability is obtained by enumerating all of the operational states and summing the probabilities of those states. For (k₁, k₂)-out-of-(n, m) pairs: G balanced systems with adjacent pairs performing complementary functions, in addition to maintaining system balance, the adjacent operating pairs are required to perform complementary functions. Thus, if a pair fails, one of the adjacent pairs is forced down. Similarly, the system reliability is obtained by enumerating all of the operational states. It becomes computational expensive when the number of units in each pair and/or the number of pairs are large. In that case, efficient algorithms are developed to obtain the reliability for such systems.
The balanced system with units distributed spherically is generalized as a spherical k-n-i: G balanced system. We consider two balancing requirements: 1) rotational balance is maintained so that the system is not rotating w.r.t. roll, yaw and pitch axes and 2) symmetrical balance is essential in improving the systems’ stability. We present mathematical approaches to determine the balance status of a system. Similarly, the unbalanced system is rebalanced by 1) forcing down units on other locations and 2) resuming previously forced-down units. The system reliability is obtained by the enumeration of operational states and calculation of operational states’ probabilities. We develop an efficient algorithm for reliability estimation when the number of units in the system is large.
Degradation models are developed for the (k₁, k₂)-out-of-(n, m) pairs: G balanced systems to further investigate the system reliability when degradation data are available. The degradation processes of units in the system are either stationary (inverse Gaussian process) or non-stationary (improved inverse Gaussian process). We propose a degradation balance mechanism in which the ‘most’ degraded units are forced down temporarily during the degradation process so that the system is less possible to fail due to imbalance. A closed-form lower bound reliability is presented when the balance mechanism is not applied. When it is applied, reliability is obtained by Monte Carlo simulation.
From the reliability study of the both configurations, it is observed that the reliability of a balanced system with multi-dimensional distributed units depends not only on the system’s total number of units and the least number of operating units, but also on the system configurations and balance requirements. Systems with more units do not necessarily provide a higher reliability since they are more likely to fail due to imbalance. Thus, optimal system design is key to maximize the system reliability which is investigated through numerical examples in this dissertation.Ph.D.Includes bibliographical reference
Quantifying secondary particle dose contributions in proton therapy
No full textIn order to create radiotherapy treatment plans for cancer patients, dose calculations need to be done as quickly as possible to get accurate results. However, current dose calculation algorithms take too much time to be deployed effectively. The current in house algorithm of the Medical Physics and Technology Section at the TU Delft, attempts to solve this problem by utilising a deterministic algorithm that has a significant time advantage over Monte Carlo algorithms. However, this comes with the cost of inaccuracy, one of which is that it assumesall dose is deposited locally along the beam path. This is inaccurate as secondary particles created from non-elastic nuclear interactions can deposit their dose far from the beam path due to retaining significant kinetic energy. This thesis attempts to reduce this inaccuracy by mapping and quantifying the secondary particles to assess their contribution in non-local dose deposition. And analysing the relevant particle’s energy and angle distributions to gain insight into the development of the particle's characteristics with depth. Thereafter the relevantparticle’s are then utilised as a source to emulate their production in a primary proton beam at different depths to obtain the relevant 3D dose distributions. The analysis concluded that secondary protons are the most relevant secondary particle as they contribute to 88% of the secondary dose and have a significant range to deposit their dose non locally. By utilising the secondary protons as a source, it was found that the relative error between the integrated depth dose (IDD) of the scored protons and the IDD obtained directly from Monte Carlo simulations is equal to 5.1% in the z-direction and 3.4% in the x and y-direction. The absolute difference was found to be 1.54 × 10−5 Gy which is equal to 0.096% of the total dose and 2.75% of the dose contributed by all secondary particles. The results show that the methodology can produce accurate 3D dose matrices for secondary protons at different depths, which can then be used to improve the accuracy of the in house algorithm by adding the precalculated 3D dose matrices to the algorithmApplied Physic
The Impact of Low-Power Design Methodology on Digital Libraries
No full textIn recent years, exciting new low-power design methods have been introduced, such as: multiple supply voltages, body bias techniques and power shut-off. In order to use these low power design methods, strict requirements for both libraries and tools are needed. An additional challenge is the introduction of more accurate characterization models for newer technologies (current source models like ECSM and CCS). This has made the task of library checking a serious issue that needs to be automated. The main part of this thesis presents a checker tool that is used to verify the consistency of the different library formats (views) in standard cell libraries. The layout consistency checker in our tool checks the consistency of the layout of pins between GDSII and LEF library views; we devised a new algorithm,Grid Formation and Centre Inclusion, for this checker. The tool also verifies the pin consistency and availability of cells across other library formats, such as: Verilog and Liberty. The tool was tested using different technology libraries (such as 90nm and 40nm), provided by different vendors (such as GLOBALFOUNDRIES); multiple interfacing errors were caught using our library checker tool. A second part at the end of the thesis shows experiments with some of the low-power design techniques used during the design of a digital block, using -for implementation- standard cells from one of the libraries that have been checked with the library checker tool. Benefits of using these techniques are evaluated and trade-offs are discussed. Power-Shut Off (PSO) design technique proved to be the most effective in reducing power consumption, with power savings that reached 20%.Circuits and SystemsElectrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Scienc
- …
