An Evaluation of Public Concerns About Water Management in the Palestinian Territory Pre,During, and Post the National Uprising

We have evaluated the extent of public concerns about water management in the Palestinian Territory (PT) through a survey of the main Palestinian newspaper over the last thirteen years divided in three periods: pre (1984–1987), during (1988–1991), and post national uprising period (1992–1996). The public concern in the PT about various water management aspects was clear and influenced by the prevailing political conditions indicating (1) poor concerns in the first and second period where full Israeli military control of the PT and harsh practices prevailed with relatively more emphasis on regional water issues and (2) extensive-strong concerns in the third period when the peace process started and a partial lift of some of the Israeli water practices took place, along with an increased freedom in expressing public concerns which was granted with more emphasis on local issues and problems. Lack and limitation of water available to Palestinians, alternative solutions, and water quality and pollution control constituted the overwhelming majority of the topics of concern to the public for the three periods studied. Palestinian concerns were always greater than regional ones for the three periods and all of the topics considered. Public concern in the PT about all other water management aspects was poor and negligible especially in the first two periods. A massive increase in public concern has been observed in the third period in which the public expressed their concern over most water management aspects, indicating a possible change in public attitude toward water and water management and reflecting the change of the political status by the start of the peace process and the signing of the peace agreements.     

Severe facial clefting, limbic dermoid, hypoplasia of the corpus callosum, and multiple skin appendages: severe frontofacionasal "dysplasia" or newly recognised syndrome?

We report on a child with severe midline facial cleft, bilateral cleft lip and palate, telecanthus, S-shaped palpebral fissures, limbic dermoid, midface hypoplasia, hypoplastic corpus callosum, and multiple skin appendages. This case may be an example of severe frontofacionasal "dysplasia" or a newly recognised syndrome.     

Improvement of enzymatic xylooligosaccharides production by the co-utilization of xylans from different origins

This study aimed to improve XOs production by enzymatic hydrolysis of xylans from various lignocellulosic waste biomasses namely corn cob, cotton and sunflower stalks, rice hull, wheat straw by using two commercial xylanase preparations, Shearzyme 500L and Veron 191. Shearzyme 500L showed better xylan hydrolysis capacity with high amount of xylose liberation. Xylobiose was the main hydrolysis product in each case. Even though the enzymatic hydrolyses using Shearzyme 500L resulted higher reducing sugar production compared to those of Veron 191, the hydrolysis of complex xylan structures was improved and the production of undesirable xylose was lowered by the co-utilization of xylanase preparations. By the co-utilization of xylanase preparations, the reducing sugar production from wheat straw, corn cob and sunflower stalk originated xylans was increased by 36%, 33% and 13%, respectively, compared to the expected reducing sugar yields. The highest reducing sugar production was obtained from complex corn cob xylan. The depolymerization of cotton and sunflower stalk xylan was poorest even though they have simple structures. Poor utilization of these xylans might be related to their high residual lignin content which might hinder the accessibility of xylan by the xylanases. However, the utilization of sunflower and cotton stalk xylan was improved when they were hydrolyzed within a xylan mixture containing equal amounts of each of five different xylans. In short, XOs production efficiency from agricultural waste materials was improved by the co-utilization of suitable xylanase and/or xylan mixtures considering the heterogeneous structures of xylan and different substrate specificities of xylanases.     

Phenol Removal through Chemical Oxidation using Fenton Reagent

In this study, phenol, aromatic, and non‐biodegradable organic matter were investigated and found to be removed from the model solution through chemical oxidation using Fenton reagent. The effects of the initial phenol concentration, hydrogen peroxide, and ferrous sulfate concentrations on the removal efficiency were investigated. Performance of the chemical oxidation process was monitored with phenol and COD (Chemical Oxygen Demand) analyses. In the experimental studies, phenol removal of over 98 % and COD removal of nearly 70 % were achieved. The optimum conditions for Fenton reaction both for initial phenol concentrations of 200 and 500 mg/L were found at a ratio [Fe²⁺]/[H₂O₂] (mol/mol) equal to 0.11. According to the results, chemical oxidation using Fenton reagent was found to be too effective, especially for phenol removal. However, this method has limited removal efficiency for COD.     

Investigation of solidification cracking susceptibility during laser beam welding using an in-situ observation technique

In recent years, laser beam welding has found wide applications in many industrial fields. Solidification cracks are one of the most frequently encountered welding defects that hinder obtaining a safe weld joint. Decades of research have shown that one of the main causes of such cracks are the strain and the strain rate. Obtaining meaningful measurements of these strains has always been a major challenge for scientists, because of the specific environment of the measurement range and the many obstacles, as well as the high temperature and the plasma plume. In this study, a special experimental setup with a high-speed camera was employed to measure the strain during the welding process. The hot cracking susceptibility was investigated for 1.4301 stainless steel, and the critical strain required for solidification crack formation was locally and globally determined.     

Reliability analysis of the complex mode indicator function and Hilbert Transform techniques for operational modal analysis

This study presents application of the CMIF and the Hilbert Transform techniques onto simulated response data obtained using a numerical model of a typical school building from Turkey. White noise is added to the data in order to achieve a noise to signal ratio of 5%. 100 Monte Carlo analysis sequences are carried out and the modal parameters (the frequencies, the mode shapes and the damping ratios) are identified at each Monte Carlo run for both techniques. The results are compared with the identifications obtained from the simulated data using stochastic subspace based system identification technique. The overall results of the study show that the mode shapes are clearly identified the best by using the CMIF technique. The damping ratios are estimated better by using the stochastic subspace based system identification technique whereas the frequencies are best determined by the CMIF. The results also show that both the CMIF and the Hilbert Transform techniques are sensitive to the type of window used as well as the averaging and the decimation process. It is apparent that the CMIF technique is as robust as the frequently used stochastic subspace based system identification technique and can be confidently used for modal parameter estimation of stiff low to mid rise reinforced concrete structures.     

Automation of the stabilization diagrams for subspace based system identification

For the continuous real-time monitoring of structures, the realization of a fully automatic real time system identification without any human intervention is the most crucial step. In this study, a new technique for the automation of the stability diagrams is developed that uses the modal phase collinearity (MPC) in order to quantify the spatial consistency of the identification results. In the new technique, the stabilization diagram is modeled as a histogram composed of overlapping bins. New strategies for the multiple occurrence of poles in the neighboring bins and double poles within a bin are developed. A new cluster validity index is proposed which can solve the problem caused by the scale of measurements and which can be directly calculated from non-normalized data. The threshold limits are defined for the proposed index. The results of the study show that the automation of the pole selection process from the stabilization diagrams is successfully realized. It is also shown that for local modes, the MPC value will be substantially smaller as compared to the global modes and can be used as a quick, efficient and powerful measure of global versus local response behavior.     

Ectropy of diversity measures for populations in Euclidean space

Measures to evaluate the diversity of a set of points (population) in Euclidean space play an important role in a variety of areas of science and engineering. Well-known measures are often used without a clear insight into their quality and many of them do not appropriately penalize populations with a few distant groups of collocated or closely located points. To the best of our knowledge, there is a lack of rigorous criteria to compare diversity measures and help select an appropriate one. In this work we define a mathematical notion of ectropy for classifying diversity measures in terms of the extent to which they tend to penalize point collocation, we investigate the advantages and disadvantages of several known measures and we propose some novel ones that exhibit a good ectropic behavior. In particular, we introduce a quasi-entropy measure based on a geometric covering problem, three measures based on discrepancy from uniform distribution and one based on Euclidean minimum spanning trees. All considered measures are tested and compared on a large set of random and structured populations. Special attention is also devoted to the complexity of computing the measures. Most of the novel measures compare favorably with the classical ones in terms of ectropy. The measure based on Euclidean minimum spanning trees turns out to be the most promising one in terms of the tradeoff between the ectropic behavior and the computational complexity.     

Removal of Nitrate from Aqueous Solutions by Electrodialysis

In this work the removal of the nitrate from water was carried out by electrodialysis. In the experiments the effect of the applied voltage, pH value, initial nitrate concentration and duration of treatment on the removal rate of nitrate have been investigated. The results obtained from experiments have indicated that nitrate can be removed effectively applying electrodialysis.