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A carbon electrode utilizing an ion pairing agent for the potentiometric determination of nonyltrimethylammonium bromide (NTAB) was developed. The sensitivity of the developed sensor was established through the formation of ion pair between NTAB and the proposed ion pairing agent on the surface of the sensor paste which was characterized by morphological tools. The developed sensor revealed a monovalent Nernstian slope of 58.4 ± 0.8 mV/decade within the acceptable working concentration range of NTAB from 1.0 x 10.sup.-6 to 0.01 M with the detection limit of 1.0 [mu]M., Author(s): Eman Yossri Frag [sup.1] , Sally A. Elashery [sup.1] , Ahmed. M. A. Ali [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.7776.1, 0000 0004 0639 9286, Chemistry Department, Faculty of Science, Cairo [...]

Until recently, the behavior of connected piled raft foundation was not fully understood in the seismically active region due to the complex dynamic soil–pile–foundation structure interaction. This concern arises when the soil deposit-supported foundations are stratified or heterogynous and subjected to high ground motion intensity. In the current study, a series of numerical analyses using ABAQUS software have been conducted on a pile group of (3 × 3) arranged into a square pattern to investigate the seismic response of piled foundations embedded in dry sandy soil (homogenous and layered), and how the amplification of propagated waves affects the bending moment along piles. For mesh generation, an artificial boundary condition using the tied-nodes approach was adopted to simulate the free-field motion of soil under earthquake excitation. The structure used a single degree of freedom with a lumped mass. Moreover, Mohr–Coulomb and linear elastic models have been chosen for soil and pile–raft, respectively. The results demonstrate that the foundation rocking increases in stratified soil compared to homogenous soil, irrespective of the seismic intensity. The maximum bending moment was observed at the pile head in homogenous soil and shallow depths in layered soil because of the kinematic interaction at the soil interface. The results also indicated that the amplification factor (acceleration at a certain depth to the acceleration at bedrock) was found to be 203 and 189% in homogenous soil for PGA values of 0.1 and 0.33 g, respectively. Almost there were no effects of seismic intensity in layered soil on the amplified waves transmitted into the soil surface.

Mohamed Attia Ali Ahmed, Ahmed Shawkat Abdelhaleem Ophthalmology Department, Faculty of Medicine, Minia University, Minia, EgyptCorrespondence: Mohamed Attia Ali Ahmed, Email mohamedattia@mu.edu.eg; mohamedattia27@gmail.comPurpose: Comparison of early microvascular changes detected by optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) in patients with mild non-proliferative diabetic retinopathy (NPDR) with healthy volunteers.Patients and Methods: Forty-four eyes of 44 type-2 diabetic patients with mild non-proliferative diabetic retinopathy and 30 eyes of 30 age-matched healthy controls were imaged using OCTA to quantify microvascular changes and the FAZ quantitative parameters (area, perimeter, and circularity index); the values of patients and controls were then compared.Results: Macular vessel density, perfusion index, and circularity index values were reduced and positively correlated with visual acuity in patients (15.4 ± 2.6, 38.0 ± 6.7, 0.6 ± 0.06 and p = 0.003, 0.001, and 0.003, respectively). However, FAZ area and perimeter were found to be larger in patients than controls (0.30 ± 0.08, 2.5 ± 0.3 and p < 0.001).Conclusion: OCTA quantified vessel density and perfusion density were found to be correlated with visual acuity and FAZ parameters in patients with early NPDR; this could help in detecting early disease progression and modifying treatment decisions.Keywords: diabetic retinopathy, foveal avascular zone, optical coherence tomography angiography, vessel density, perfusion density

Integrating the metaverse technology with the transportation system has several security and privacy issues. This study assesses the 12 security solutions to select the best one to overcome security and privacy issues (such as data theft, unauthorized access, and theft of personal data) when integrating the transportation system with metaverse technology. A suggested methodology is conducted by experts and decision-makers using linguistic terms and spherical fuzzy numbers to express their opinions on evaluating the criteria and alternatives. Selecting the best security solution (alternative) is critical because it includes several conflict security criteria, such as data theft, authentication, security attacks, and others. This paper introduces a methodology for multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) in a spherical fuzzy (SF) environment. The MCDM method dealt with various conflicting criteria, and SF dealt with uncertainty and vague information while evaluating the criteria and alternatives. The suggested methodology consists of two main phases. The first phase introduces the analytic hierarchy process (SF-AHP) method to compute the criteria weights. The second phase introduces the Weighted Aggregates Sum Product Assessment (SF-WASPAS) method to rank and select the best alternative. The results show the end-to-end authentication protocol is the best alternative (security solution). This study conducted a sensitivity analysis of the stability of the rank by changing the criteria's weights. The sensitivity analysis results show that the end-to-end authentication protocol is the best alternative (security solution) in different cases. We compare the suggested methodology with six other MCDM methods: SF-TOPSIS, SF-VIKOR, SF-MABAC, SF-CODAS, SF-MARCOS, and SF-COPRAS to show the effectiveness of the proposed method. The results show that the presented methodology is robust compared to other MCDM methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) released from different fertilizers to soil solution is a factor that affects soil fertility and plant growth. To evaluate the impacts of amending soil with organic, chemical and bio-fertilizers solely or in combinations for uprising N, P available contents in soil and increasing the growth of black cumin (Nigella sativa L) plants. The consequences of these additives on soil chemical properties were a matter of concern herein. To attain this aim, incubation and a pot experiment was conducting at 50% level of adding rabbit manure and ureaform together or both separately, control without fertilization and bio-fertilizer single in a randomized block design which considering six equations (Zero-order, first-order equation, second-order equation, Pseudo-second-order, power function, and parabolic diffusion model) were used to describe variations among released N and P with incubation time. The results demonstrated that using chemical, organic, and bio-fertilizer resulted in considerable decrease in soil pH and increases in organic matter (SOM) and nutrients availability (N and P) by time progress for all treatments. Compared to other equations, the pseudo-second models provided a better description of the kinetics of changes in released N and P contents with time, with R² ranging from 0.99 to 1.00. The results show that the application of 50% Rabbit manure + 50% Ureaform + Bio-fertilizer (RUBF) significantly enhanced parameters of black cumin plants such as shoot dry weight, plant height, and stem diameter, chlorophyll a, b, and carotenoids ratio, dry weight capsules, number of capsules, and seed weight/plant. Our study is useful when using rabbit manure, ureaform and bio-fertilizers. That can be improving soil chemical properties, supplying available nutrients, the release kinetics and the factors related to the release of nutrients from these fertilizers are essential in planning strategies of nutrient management, additionally, boosted the growth, plants quality, yield and photosynthetic pigments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]