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Background Road Safety has become a worldwide concern due to the alarming repercussions road accidents may bear. This study examined the relationship between different geometric design elements and the accident rates on Rashid Bin Saeed Street, Arabian Gulf Street, and Sultan Bin Zayed Street in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Methods The geometric design was collected from the satellite images of google earth in compliance with the standard geometric design manual of Abu Dhabi roads. The recorded geometric data consisted of the number of lanes, lane widths, median length, and width. The traffic volume data was provided by the Integrated Transport Center of Abu Dhabi, which was then converted into Annual Average Daily Traffic (AADT) for analytical purposes. For the studied roads, AADT ranges ranged between 26,509 and 121,890 vehicles per day. The crash data related to the period of 2012–2019 was collected from the online open-access data provided by the United Arab Emirates Ministry of Interior. The data provided had considered variables related to driver gender, age and speed, travel direction, and time of the day amongst other factors. A comprehensive statistical analysis was conducted to study the impact of geometric design elements on road safety through a stable distribution. Stable distributions are generally characterized by four parameters and expressed as X∼S(α,β,σ,μ). The statistical model included several graphical representations such as accident frequency at two levels of severity, casualty and non-casualty accidents for different road segments, traffic volumes, day of the week, age of the injured person, and the geometric design parameters on the three roads. Variance-based methods of sensitivity analysis are also used that are a class of probabilistic approaches that quantify the input and output uncertainties as probability distributions and decompose the output variance into parts attributable to input variables and combinations of variables. The sensitivity of the output to an input variable is therefore measured by the amount of variance in the output caused by that input. Findings The results showed that the accident profiles differ with varying segments on each road, revealing some segments to be of higher accident rates than others. Also, a higher accident frequency was shown with young adult drivers, and a high majority of accidents had occurred on weekends. Regarding the road's geometric design, which is the focus of this study, a sensitivity analysis was made to determine the most influential geometric design element on accident frequency. Interpretation The number of lanes had the highest sensitivity index followed by the median width, and then came the lane width. Thus, modifying the number of lanes on a highway is anticipated to have the highest impact on accident frequency and road safety than any other geometric parameter.

The universal filtered multi-carrier (UFMC) technique has been proposed as a prominent waveform candidate for fifth generation (5G) communication techniques. However, UFMC systems exhibit a high peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR), which causes serious degradation in the performance of the system. Therefore, this paper puts forward an effective hybrid PAPR reduction method to reduce the high PAPR of the UFMC system. The proposed hybrid scheme consists of a combination of precoding and non-linear companding techniques (NLCTs). A comparative analysis of the performance of different precoding methods, NLCTs, and hybrid methods are investigated in terms of the cumulative distribution function of the PAPR and the bit error rate (BER). The simulation results show that the proposed hybrid UFMC system has better PAPR reduction performance compared to conventional NLC and precoded UFMC systems. Moreover, the BER analysis of the UFMC system verifies that the proposed hybrid technique shows better BER performance compared to conventional companding techniques.

Kuwait's desert was heavily damaged by 798 detonated oil wells by Iraqi troops, covering 114 square kilometres. Crude oil flowed from the broken oil wells, generating lakes that contaminated more than 40 square kilometres of land.To prevent the spread of oil, wet and dry oil reservoirs were created in low-lying areas of the desert, and polluted soil piles were created during the recovery process. Contaminated land desert changed soil properties, destroying plants (e.g. biota) and animals, and penetrating deeper into the soil layers, posing a threat to valuable groundwater supplies. These oil lakes are generally made up of dry oil materials, although some features contain semi-liquid oil/sludgy material and are referred to as wet oil lakes. The UN Compensation Commission (UNCC), Kuwait National Focal Point (KNFP), and Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) collaborated on a project to repair approximately 26 million cubic metres of significantly oil-contaminated soils. Demonstration remediation technologies are being pursued as feasible options for developing appropriate action plans for reclaiming heavily contaminated land. The goal of this field demonstration research is to see if proven remediation technologies are viable, applicable, and effective in treating oil-contaminated soil. This project will be undertaken at a number of locations in the KOC's operational oil fields in South-East Kuwait (SEK) to correct three issues (i.e. wet, dry oil lakes and oil contaminated piles). A successful demonstration of remediation technology will serve as a critical metric for building soil remediation strategy plans for full-scale implementation in SEK and other eligible regions.

In wireless heterogenous networks, mobile terminals are covered by different wireless networks with varying quality of services to ensure the delivery of different classes of services. In this paper, Particle swarm optimization (PSO) was applied to the distance to ideal alternative (DIA) technique in the framework of network selection in a heterogenous wireless network. The PSO was applied to overcome the subjectivity and bias in the weights’ assignment process used in multiple attribute decision making (MADM). The PSO was utilized to optimize the weights of the DIA method through the maximization of the absolute value of the summation of the ranking differences among candidate networks. In this regard, two different optimization functions were introduced and used to generate the optimum weights. The performance of the PSO-based handover for the DIA method was investigated in terms of ranking difference, ranking abnormalities, and network selection. The results show that the proposed PSO-based weights’ assignment technique increased the ranking difference and reduced the ranking abnormalities without degrading the network selection when compared to the conventional DIA technique. The results of this paper are expected to widen the application of the DIA method and other MADM techniques to the handover process in wireless networks and other decision-based challenges in other fields.

The hepatitis C virus (HCV) is estimated to affect 71 million people worldwide. In 2016, the World Health Organization adopted the first global health sector strategy to eliminate viral hepatitis as a public health threat by 2030. In December 2018, the European Association for the Study of the Liver, International Liver Foundation convened an expert panel to address the elimination of HCV in Kuwait. Several steps have already been taken to eliminate HCV in Kuwait, including free HCV treatment for Kuwait's citizens, high blood safety standards, and the implementation of screening and awareness programs. The expert panel made several recommendations aimed at accelerating the elimination of HCV in Kuwait: The development of a national strategy and action plan to guide all HCV elimination activities; the formation of a coordination mechanism to support collaboration between hepatitis working committees; the prioritization of micro-elimination at primary, secondary or tertiary facilities, in prisons and rehabilitation centers; and ensuring the involvement of multiple stakeholders - including relevant civil society groups - in all activities. Enhanced screening and linkage to care should be prioritized in Kuwait, with the expansion of the prescriber base to primary healthcare providers and nurse practitioners to be considered. Raising awareness and educating people about HCV infection also remain essential to achieve the goal of HCV elimination. Lastly, a national HCV registry should be developed to help monitor the implementation of viral hepatitis plans and progress towards achieving national and international targets.

Mobile terminals can typically connect to multiple wireless networks which offer varying levels of suitability for different classes of service. Due to the changing dynamics of network attributes and mobile users’ traffic needs, vertical handovers across heterogeneous networks become highly desirable. Multiple attribute decision making (MADM) techniques offer an efficient approach for ranking competing networks and selecting the best one according to specific quality of service parameters. In this paper, a genetic algorithm (GA) is applied to optimize network attributes’ weighting by emphasizing ranking differences among candidate networks, thereby aiding correct decision making by reducing unnecessary handovers and ranking abnormalities. The performance of the proposed GA-based vertical handover is investigated with typical MADM techniques including Simple Additive Weighting (SAW) and Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS). The results show that the proposed GA-based weight determination approach reduces the abnormality observed in the conventional SAW and TOPSIS techniques substantially. The results of this paper will help ensuring the application of MADM methods to more dynamic and challenging decision making problems encountered in wireless network.

Microbes can be found in hypersaline environments forming diverse populations with complex ecological interactions. Microbes in such environments were found to be involved in the formation of minerals including dolomite, a mineral of economic importance and whose origin has been long-debated. Various reports on in vitro experiments using pure cultures provided evidence for the microbial role in dolomite formation. However, culturing experiments have been limited in scope and do not fully address the possible interactions of the naturally occurring microbial communities; consequently, the ability of microbes as a community to form dolomite has been investigated in this study. Our experiments focused on examining the microbial composition by culturing aerobic heterotrophs from the top hypersaline sediments of Al-Khiran sabkha in Kuwait, a modern dolomite-forming environment. The objectives of this study were to assess the ability of two microbial consortia to form dolomite using enrichment culture experiments, mineralogy, and metagenomics. Proto-dolomite was formed by a microbial community dominated by Halomonas strains whereby degradation of the extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) was observed and the pH changed from 7.00 to 8.58. Conversely, proto-dolomite was not observed within a microbial community dominated by Clostridiisalibacter in which EPS continuously accumulated and the pH slightly changed from 7.00 to 7.29.

Linguistic landscape (LL) is a representation of language(s) visibility in public space. This study aims to draw a comprehensive profile of LL as adopted by private firms on billboards alongside the main streets of Kuwait, shedding light on the status of Kuwaiti vernacular, Standard Arabic (SA), and English in the country. The study utilises a quantitative approach through which billboards on the main streets of Kuwait were photographed, categorised based on the language of the script, then quantified to assess the popularity of the language. Billboards representing the main displayed language varieties were presented to a heterogeneous sample of respondents to assess their views across the two dimensions of status and solidarity through a digital questionnaire. The study also utilised a qualitative approach through informal interviews to gain the language specialists’ perspective on the issue. The results indicate that Kuwaiti vernacular has a growing positive attitude because of its perceived charisma and promotion of solidarity. When SA is mixed with English, or when English is transliterated into SA orthography, it tends to appeal to the public eye. Kuwaiti sociolinguists reflected a strong rejection of the trendy Kuwaiti vernacular over SA. Yet, English has not been viewed as a threat to SA.

Praising is considered to have a positive effect on learners’ motivations. Yet, what to praise and how to praise is an issue of controversy. The present study looks at the effect of praising ESL learners’ writing efforts in English as opposed to evaluating their writing abilities in order to test Dweck (2007) theory of praising intelligence or effort. The investigation is based on a set of language parameters used in conventional evaluation of ESL writing pieces.Forty adult English L2 learners at the women’s College of Basic Education, English Department, who were enrolled in writing classes comprised the study’s experimental and control groups. The study’s findings indicate that praising the effort increases the learners’ motivation and creates a relaxed teaching and learning environment.The present study highlights the importance of incorporating the praise of a student’s effort within the grading. Since grading plays a motivating factor on how well the learners’ work progresses, it follows that it should strategically place importance on the teacher’s feedback as well as clear instructions for improvement.

Research in the area of L2 phonological awareness continues to grow rapidly considering the importance of achieving proficient spoken English and ensuring being understood during communication, but most importantly on guaranteeing learners (worldwide) better professional opportunities. In Kuwait, conversing in English at a level at which the users can understand and be understood has become crucially important, regardless of the field in which the population studies or works. Within such intriguing context of phonological awareness in second language acquisition, the current study investigated the association of English phonemes production and perception by speakers of Kuwaiti Arabic and the main triggers of incorrect production. The present study looked specifically into the phonological errors made by Kuwaiti speakers of English when L1 has a parallel phoneme of only one of the two contrasting L2 phonemes in its L1 phoneme and/or orthography systems. The study was conducted on 244 Kuwaiti male and female participants between the ages of 18 and 30. The sample answered a 44 words questionnaire consisting of three English phonemes, namely, /p/, /v/ and /t∫/ and their counterparts /b/, /f/ and /∫/. The participants were asked to choose the correct sound they hear in word-initial and word-final positions. Findings of the study suggest that many Kuwaiti learners of English found it difficult to identify the English phonemes as a result of a deeper level of complications triggered by the occurrence of contrasting phonemes in both L1 and L2, hypercorrection, and interference of orthography. It is, hence, believed that perception is not the sole reason that causes Arabic learners of English to produce English sounds incorrectly.

Background: Despite the introduction of direct-acting antiviral agents for chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, peginterferon alfa/ribavirin remains relevant in many resource-constrained settings. The non-randomized GUARD-C cohort investigated baseline predictors of safety-related dose reductions or discontinuations (sr-RD) and their impact on sustained virologic response (SVR) in patients receiving peginterferon alfa/ribavirin in routine practice. Methods: A total of 3181 HCV-mono-infected treatment-naive patients were assigned to 24 or 48 weeks of peginterferon alfa/ribavirin by their physician. Patients were categorized by time-to-first sr-RD (Week 4/12). Detailed analyses of the impact of sr-RD on SVR24 (HCV RNA

Periodic and orthogonal ultrawideband (UWB) impulse waveforms and bandpass digital modulation schemes, i.e, M-ary phase-shift keying (PSK) and M-ary frequency shift keying (FSK), are employed for achieving high-data rate and reliable communications. The mathematical models of the new UWB-impulse modulation schemes using M-ary PSK and M-ary FSK are presented. Performance analysis in terms of symbol error probability (SEP) is carried out too.

Hatchery-produced silver pomfret ( Pampus argenteus ) in the Mariculture and Fisheries Department's fish culture facilities suffered infection due to Streptococcosis during the summer months of 2007. The fish larvae showed anorexia, thinning, gradual darkening and morbidity. The rearing tank water and the supply water were found to harbor Streptococcus agalactiae . The blood and body fluid smears revealed the presence of Gram positive Cocco-bacilli with characteristic aggregated distribution. The bacterium was recovered from the brain of moribund fish. Cumulative mortalities increased with a raise in the seawater temperature from 25 to 29 °C reaching over 50% by 24 dph. Light and transmission electron microscopy also showed the presence of the bacterium in the granular layer of the brain. The bacterium measured 2.6 × 1.8 μm (l × w). The TEM sections of the fish brain showed typical capsular bacterium and heavily melanized skin epithelium. The API-strep (Biomeurex, Germany) and the biochemical properties of the isolate also confirmed the identity. The isolate was further tested positive through PCR for its identity revealing a species specific amplicon of 220 bp. Samples of brain of moribund larvae at 15, 20, 25, 30 and 35 dph showed positive amplicon for the presence of S. agalactiae .

Sub-adults of silver pomfret ( Pampus argenteus ), produced and reared in the mariculture experimentation facilities of Mariculture and Fisheries Department of Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR), suffered 55–70% mortalities due to scuticociliatosis by Uronema sp . The parasitic infestation was noticed during April–May 2005. Affected fish showed varying levels of tissue damage including severe epidermal and dermal necrotic lesions. The disease occurred with the raise in water temperature from 20 to 22 °C during April. Loss of scales, appearance of bleached spots that coalesced to form brownish patches, haemorrhagic and severe dermal necrotic lesions were the major clinico-pathological manifestations. The parasite was found abundantly in the blood, peritoneal fluid and the cerebrospinal fluid, the skin and the gill wet mounts. Extensive fouling, necrotic degeneration of the gill epithelium and deep dermal necrosis resulted in mortality of the infected fish. The parasite was noticed in the lumen of the collecting ducts of the kidney and the alimentary canal. The parasite was also seen distributed extensively in the entire brain causing widespread nerve necrosis. Earliest separation of the clinically normal fish from the affected fish resulted in significantly higher survival. The investigations are of significant importance in view of the mariculture potentials of the fish especially after the success of captive spawning and larval rearing achieved by the KISR.

Advanced electromagnetic induction sensors have been developed under the SERDP and ESTCP Munitions Response program to find and identify buried unexploded ordnance. These sensors consist of multiple transmit and receive coil configurations that collect sufficient data for inverting the time decaying, dipole polarizations of a buried metallic object. These polarizations can be used to identify the object as UXO or metallic debris. These sensor platforms have been deployed in both dynamic survey modes to locate and identify and stationary “cued” modes to just identify at target locations. ESTCP has sponsored a number of Live Site Demonstrations and these systems have been found to be very effective in finding UXO. An approach has been developed for advanced EMI survey data that applies a model based detection filter to locate metallic targets and a dipole inversion to identify the targets as UXO or clutter based on the inverted polarizations. Analysis of the Live Site data has found a significant fraction of the target locations have multiple target signals present. To address this, an N-dipole inversion is being applied to all target locations. This inversion inverts for a specified (N) number of targets. Fit results are returned for N = 1, 2, and 3 possible targets at each location. The problem arises that quite often all of the multi-target fits represent the data equally well. We will present these results and some strategies taken to insure that all possible targets of interest are selected from the multiple fit results. Work is also in progress to try and evaluate when the local target density is too high for valid analysis.

A patient with hypocalcemia and hypomagnesemia, and renal wasting of both cations, is presented. This patient had a dramatic calcium response to treatment with spironolactone. The possible diagnoses and mechanisms of response are discussed. It is concluded that the patient had a calcium-sensing receptor mutation, and that treatment with spironolactone induced an effect on renal handling of calcium in this condition. It is suggested that this treatment be tried in other similar patients.

Studies were carried out to determine the effect of using the rotifer, Brachionus plicatilis (Muller) (S-type), subjected to different treatments on the growth and survival of blue-fin sea bream, Sparidentex hasta (Valenciennes), larvae. This was to illustrate the role of mixed algae added to the oil enrichments for the treatment of the rotifers to improve the sea bream larval survival. The highest sea bream larval survival (P 0.05) in the larval growth was observed between different treatments. However, larval survival was significantly high (P

Three British rust fungi reported to form aecia on daisy ( Bellis perennis ) are compared. A recently discovered species, possibly introduced from Australia, is identified as Puccinia distincta. It is a short-cycled - opsis form lacking uredinia, with aecia and telia confined to Bellis and its aeciospores capable of reinfecting the same host. This rust is compared with a macrocyclic heteroecious eu -form, P. obscura , which produces pycnia and aecia on Bellis and uredinia and telia on Luzula. Puccinia distincta is probably derived from and correlated with P. obscura because both species have the same aecial host, and because their teliospores are closely similar in morphology and dimensions. Comparison is extended to P. lagenophorae , a common rust with aecia and telia on Senecio spp., which has been reported to form aecia on Bellis following inoculation with aeciospores from Senecio. The repeated failure of our own reciprocal inoculation experiments using aeciospores from the two different hosts and differences in teliospore morphology between P. distincta and P. lagenophorae lead us to conclude that the current rust epidemic on daisies is caused by P. distincta which is distinct from P. lagenophorae.

We report the recent widespread occurrence in Britain of Puccinia distincta, a rust fungus on wild and cultivated daisies (Bellis perennis). The rust is short-cycled, with only aecia and telia on Bellis, and may be of Australian origin. It is very similar to, and possibly derived from, the macrocyclic P. obscura, a rust indigenous to Britain which produces pycnia and aecia on Bellis and uredinia and telia on Luzula. However, it differs from another Australian introduction, the groundsel rust (P. lagenophorae). The disease caused by P. distincta is so severe that it seriously impairs growing of ornamental daisies.

The great recent advancements in wireless networking have drawn attention to the privacy and security problems that accompanied them. Wireless Honeypots have been introduced as tools whose value lies in the unauthorized attempts to use them. They have been successfully deployed in areas where they were able to trap hackers into virtual networks, and collect useful information about their attempted attacks. In this paper, we discuss attacks against wireless networks and classify the different existing Wireless Honeypots methods that have been proposed for defense against these attacks. We assess each wireless honeypots method by comparing their strengths and weaknesses in terms of the methods of deception used with them, authentication protocols implemented, logging facilities, and several other attributes.

In this paper, we present the performance analysis of an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) system which is subject to nonlinear distortion and channel estimation error in a Rayleigh fading channel. The nonlinear distortion is produced by a high power amplifier (HPA) located at the transmitter. The traditional approach for obtaining the bit error rate (BER) of such OFDM systems is often a difficult task due to the integration over the joint probability density function (PDF) of the channel impulse response and its estimate. The channel estimation error model presented in this paper facilitates the derivation of a closed form BER expression that is otherwise difficult to obtain by taking the traditional approach. For the purpose of simulation, the model under study is extended to a Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) system which is implemented based on the IEEE 802.11n standard. Finally, the simulation results obtained from the extended model for various sets of parameters are compared with the theoretical results.

In this paper, we propose a scheme to improve the performance of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems when operating in time varying channels. When the channel is time varying, the orthogonality among the subcarriers of a transmitted OFDM symbol is destroyed, causing intercarrier interference, and degrading the system performance. The proposed scheme aims to effectively reduce the effect of intercarrier interference. The advantages of the proposed scheme are shown via analysis and simulation.

We consider a single-input and multiple-output wireless system, over a frequency-flat and slowly-varying Rayleigh fading channel, with L antennas at the receiver. Under the assumptions of both perfect and imperfect knowledge of the channel at the receiver, we study the performance of a class of detectors that we term ?-regularized zero-forcing (denoted by ?-ZF) receivers. When ? = 0, the ?-ZF receiver degenerates to the conventional ZF receiver, whereas it coincides with the linear minimum mean-square error (LMMSE) receiver when ? is equal to the inverse of the average received signal-to-noise ratio. The main contributions of this paper are the derivation of closed-form expressions for: a) the average bit error probability (BEP) of an arbitrary rectangular QAM constellation when Gray mapping is used to label the constellation points, and b) the MSE, averaged over the channel fading distribution, between the input of the channel and the output of the ?-ZF receiver. Our results show that ? plays a crucial role in determining the diversity performance of the receiver (i.e., a poor choice of ? has the potential to destroy the achievable diversity order). Finally, the impact of pilot-based MMSE channel estimation on the receiver BEP and MSE performance is also analyzed.

This paper provides the analysis of the joint effects of oscillator phase noise and channel estimation errors on the performance of OFDM in Rayleigh Fading channels. The contribution of the above impairments to the signal distortion is mathematically described, and a proof of the distribution of the Intercarrier Interference (ICI) is also provided. Analytic and simulation results for the bit error rate (BER) of the system, with and without channel estimation errors, are then presented.