Vol. 30 Issue 2/3
Khadija Zainal and Mohammed Al-Rumaidh
The study provides an analysis of the strengths; weaknesses; opportunities and threats (SWOT) of the scientific researches carried out in the field of marine environment and fisheries in the Kingdom of Bahrain from 1960s until 2011. Internationally recognized databases such as SCOPUS, E-village, Science Direct, Google were used and 82 articles were collected. A recent bibliography of fisheries issued by the Bahrain Centre for Studies and Research included 328 research titles but only 40 were published in refereed scientific journals and therefore were added. Overall, a total of 122 articles which were published in peer reviewed journals covered a diverse topics and included Fisheries and Fisheries’ Management (18 articles, 14.8%); Ecology of selected habitats (29 articles or 23.8%); Biology of fishes, oysters, crabs, sea urchins, mollusk and shrimps (20 articles or 16.4%); Mari-culture technology, management and fish feed (9 articles or 7.4%); Pollution monitoring in biota, sediment and water including bacteriological studies (45 articles, 36.9%) and Recreation as a management resource (1 article or 0.8%). Pollution received the highest proportion of research interests followed by Ecology and Fisheries. Despite the amount of efforts that were made, gaps in our knowledge of the marine environment and marine organisms of Bahrain remain wide. There is a need for more research in this field of studies. If more data gathered in a collaborated manner on a regular basis, it would be an invaluable management resource for both fisheries and the wellbeing of the marine environment in Bahrain.
Wisam Mohammed, and Sabah Saleh Al-Jenaid
Planning for a sustainable development of land use requires a set of factors that represent technical, bio-geophysical and socioeconomic aspects. Maintaining balance between society’s demands and environmental conservation requirements is the core issue of sustainable planning of land use. Many tools have been developed to aid in the implementation of such balance, including linear programming, computer simulation and other analysis support tools. Most of these tools are suitable for the economic analysis of sustainable planning in many fields, but in the field of land use allocation, the spatial approach is considered as the key player in academic research and executive proceedings. In this paper, a methodology is developed to solve the problem of land use allocation considering both bio-geophysical and socioeconomic aspects in a pilot area – El Daba’a Region in the north western coast of Egypt. This methodology attempts to develop a set of criteria for each land use by the stakeholder participation. It was used to map the suitability of each land use activity using a multi-criteria approach. The priorities of land use activities were defined by the stakeholder participation and then used to create a multi-objective land use allocation map. The developed map is considered as a base map for sustainable land use processes.
Lamis Yahya Alammarine
This paper investigates the optimization of the production of β-Galactosidase using a yeast universal medium containing lactose by Kluyveromyces marxianus in shake flask cultures at 35C, 125 rpm and PH=5. Fermentation technology in the shake flask culture was used to investigate the effect the supplements, including (Trace elements, Isopropyl β-D-1-thiogalactopyranoside (IPTG) and thiamin vitamin), had on β-Galactosidase enzyme production by Kluyveromyces marxianus. The supplements were separately added to the universal medium of yeast containing lactose. Results of the statistical analysis showed that among the different examined media: supplementing the medium with both (1% trace elements and 1% thiamin vitamin) has a significant effect on ß-Gal production at the 5% significance level respectively.
Kadhum, H Al-Arajy, Khalid, K Al-Bayatti and Seba Hussain Al-Nuaemy
Stool samples from forty children patients with diarrhea and other forty samples from children without diarrhea (control) (aged 1 month - 2 years) of both sexes were collected during the summer season of 2010. Tap water samples were also collected from houses of Al-Shula region of Baghdad. These samples were screened for the enteropathogenic bacteria. The percentage of bacterial isolates from children with diarrhea was 45% for E. coli, 21% for Klebsiella pneumoniae, 15% for Citrobacter freundii and 11% for Pseudomonas aeruginosa and with less frequency Pseudomonas fluorescens, Serratia plymuthica and Serratia ficaria, were also found. Whereas, Klebsiella terrigena and Enterobacter aerugena were more frequently isolated from control children than from diarrheic children. A similar prevalence of isolates was obtained from tap water samples. These results clearly indicate that contamination and/or poor purification procedures of water supplied to the general public might probably be one of the main causes for diarrhea in Baghdad city. Moreover, bacterial counts form tap water were highest during mid-summer indicating a need for better control of water quality during that time.
Syed Sohail Ahmed and Adeel Akram
The Next Generation wireless networks generally called 4G Networks will most likely be actualized by the Integration of present day available heterogeneous wireless networks. Integration of these networks will largely depend on the process of vertical handoff. Vertical handoff occurs when an active communication session is transferred between different radio access technologies. An efficient assessment system is essential for appropriate network selection.Unlike horizontal handoff, vertical handoff only takes place in cell edges. There are many other factors that should be considered for a proper vertical handoff i.e., triggering factor, critical factor and influencing factors. For that an efficient assessment system is essential for appropriate network selections. The vertical handover problem has been becoming increasingly interesting due to its practical value. The convergence of heterogeneous wireless access technologies characterizes the 4G wireless networks. In such systems the seamless and efficient handoff between different access technologies is essential and remains a challenging problem. This paper presents a Movement based algorithm (MBA) for determining handoff in heterogeneous wireless networks. Our algorithm addresses to cellular as well as broadband mix systems for randomly generated users. Our algorithm determines pathloss, throughput and signal-tonoise- ratio (SNR) between randomly generated users, Access points (APs) and Base stations (BS). The proposed method is well suited for networks systems, it eliminates the rigorous mathematical expressions and its design is simple and straightforward.The main goal of our algorithm is to enhance or improve the system performance in terms of higher throughput for the required networks (BWN and WiMax). Simulation work has been carried out in the MATLAB environment. Simulation results significantly outperform the existing algorithms. We haven’t used any MATLAB toolbox. In fact we developed our own simulation platform in MATLAB. Simulation results confirm that our algorithm improves higher throughput by 14.8 % compared to other existing approaches.
Ali Al-Aidaroos
The prototype design and function of a low maintenance larval rearing system for Brachyuran larvae are described in this paper. The rearing system consisted of an array of 1000 ml beaker-shaped polypropylene unit series. The model conceived and constructed in the present study finally concluded upon 1000 ml rearing vessels than 50 ml or 500 litre modules. Water change in this new system is not only far less stressful to the larvae but also less time consuming. The novel brachyuran early larval rearing system designed in this study may be useful to overcome the mortality of larvae due to stress and as it is simple and low maintenance, it could be easily applied in any aquaculture/fisheries units.
Muthunayagam Rufus Kitto and Chithambaran Sambhu
Anthropogenic debris has become a source of considerable interest and concern due to their biological effects both in and out of the water. Coastal debris is one of the realistic visual negative impacts of human activities on marine habitat and environment. In order to assess the nature, extent and source of litter, point survey was conducted along the Obhur coastline of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Most of the litter appeared to be from local land-based sources, although there were some regional influences as well. More than 75% of the litter was plastic origin and the rest were from wood, metal, glass, and paper materials. The type of litter components (empty cans of food, beverages, cosmetics, hand bags, cloths, rubber mattresses and toys) indicate that these were left by beach goers. Remnants of fishing crafts and gear were comparatively less. The survey result was compared with the coastal litter reported in other regions of the world. Abundance of litter m-1was indicated at 1.72- 12.54 items for Obhur beach study area. Litter quantity on the coast is inversely proportional to its geographical distance to a population and directly proportional to visitor frequency. Public education and awareness on waste disposal was found essential to protect the coastal environment.
Ummugulsüm Erdogan, Muzaffer Ipek, Cevat Aydin and Lütfi Pirlak
This study was to present basic principles of physical properties of dried mulberry fruits in order to facilitate the design of some machines for its processing. Several physical properties of dry mulberries were evaluated as functions of moisture content. The average length, width, thickness, geometric mean diameter, sphericity, unit mass and volume of fruit were determined to be 17.60, 9.45, 9.40, 11.58 mm, 66.24%, 0.813 g and 1.25 cm3, respectively. In the moisture range from 3.64% to 41.36% for rewetted fruit, the bulk density increased from 431.92kgm-3to 542.98 kgm-3, the true density increased from 1073.85 kgm-3 to1271.78 kgm-3 and the projected area increased from 0.934cm2 to 1.325 cm2; however, porosity decreased from 59.77% to 57.30%. In the moisture range from 3.64% to 41.36%., the static coefficient of friction varied from 0.16 to 0.50 for dried mulberries over different material surfaces.
Seema Ashraf, Syed Muhammad Ghufran Saeed, Syed Asad Sayeed, Habiba Kanwar, Mubarak Ahmed and Rashida Ali
Current study is based on the fortification of lentil in dough as a substitute of fat in soft dough cookies. Fat replacement in “Low Calorie Foods” is major challenge for food processors. The chemical composition of lentil-wheat composite flour was analyzed with NIR. The composite flour of lentil was used in accordance with the quantity of fat used in cookies’ formulation i.e. 10, 20, 30, 35, 40, 45 and 50%. The changes in rheological behavior of the dough, due to elevated level of lentil, were studied by the Farinograph and Alveograph. Present studies significantly correlate with the overall quality score with Alveograph characteristics (P, L and W). Cookies made with composite flour were acceptable up to 50% and were showing an appealing sensory score, without any significant adverse effect on taste, aroma or the texture. Functional properties of composite flour, such as foaming capacity, foaming stability and swelling power suggest the use of lentil as a fat substitute may be beneficial.