Developing Pavement Performance Functions for Palestinian Roadway Network

Osama Abaza*, Lana Shahein**

almabaza@hotmail.com

* Civil Engineering Department, An-Najah National University. **Engineer. Nablus, Palestine

Received : 20-03-2006 , Accepted : 04-04-2007

Language: English

Abstract

The measurement and prediction of pavement performance condition is an essential component of any pavement management system. In this paper, performance evaluation method for Palestinian roadways was developed. Estimation of the flexible pavement performance life for maintenance and rehabilitation was presented. Data for model development was collected based on the pavement evaluation methods issued by the World Bank for developing countries. The performance model developed in this paper was based on evaluation of various deterministic and probabilistic models using surveyed data for arterials and village access roads in Palestine. The pavement performance models were developed based on calibration of surveyed pavement condition rating index using logistic growth model, and applying regression analysis. The results of the analysis showed that the logistic growth model performed well in fitting the calibrated data for the different roadways considered in this study and the Markov model fitted well for the overlaid arterials. The reconstructed arterial roadway system had longer average performance life than the overlaid arterials. Village access roadway system showed the same behavior.

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The Hamilton-Jacobi Treatment of Complex Fields as Constrained Systems

The Hamilton-Jacobi Treatment of Complex Fields as Constrained Systems

Tamer Eleyan

tamer_eleyan@hotmail.com

Department of Mathematics, Al-Quds Open University, Gaza, Palestine

Received : 12-06-2006 , Accepted : 04-04-2007

Language: English

Abstract

The complex scalar field is treated as a constrained system using the Hamilton-Jacobi approach. The reduced phase space Hamiltonian density is obtained without introducing Lagrange multipliers and without any additional gauge fixing condition. The quantization of this system is also discussed.

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Effect of Scarification, Gibberellic acid and Stratification on Seed Germination of Three Pistacia Species

Effect of Scarification, Gibberellic acid and Stratification on Seed Germination of Three Pistacia Species

Hassan Abu-Qaoud

hassan@najah.edu

Department of Plant Production & Protection, Faculty of Agriculture, An-Najah National University, Nablus, Palestine.

Received : 28-01-2007 , Accepted : 11-09-2005

Language: English

Abstract

Germinability of P. atlantica Desf., P. palaestina (Bioss) Post. and P. lentiscus L. seeds as influenced by various treatments was investigated. This included four treatments: Acid scarification for 15 minutes, soaking of acid scarified seeds in 1000 ppm GA3 for 24 hours, stratification of seeds at 5Co for 30 days and control (untreated seeds). Significantly, the highest germination (60%) was obtained for P. palaestina acid scarified plus cold stratified seeds over the control of the three Pistacia species (15, 10, 0%), this percentage (60) was on the same level of significance with the other Pistacia species. Scarifies seeds of P. lentiscus resulted in 13.3% germination, scarified plus GA3 soak of P. lentiscus and P. atlantica Desf. (34, 39.9%), and scarified plus cold stratified P. lentiscus (32%) seeds. Early seed germination was obtained with seeds of P. lentiscus after one week of incubation with scarified plus GA3 (6%) and scarified seeds of P. palaestina (5%), other treated seeds of the three species started germination after two weeks. P. palaestina seeds continued with the highest germination percentage thereafter. Significantly, the longest mean time to complete germination (MTG) was obtained from the control of the three Pistacia species (27.94, 24.50, 30. 04), Scarified P. atlantica (25.84), and scarified plus GA3 soak of P. atlantica (26.25) as compared with the other treatments for the three Pistacia species which were all in the same level of significance.

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Zero Insertive Group Rings

Zero Insertive Group Rings

Amani Sbeih

amany_dms@yahoo.com

Received : 04-06-2007 , Accepted : 12-05-2008

Language: Arabic

Abstract

The aim of this research is to find the necessary and sufficient conditions on a ring A and a group G for which the group ring A[G] to be a zero insertive ring (zi-ring), a zero commutative ring (zc-ring), and a duo- ring. In this paper, we found that the necessary conditions for A[G] to be zi-ring are that G must be Hamiltonian group and A is zi-ring whenever G is a periodic group. Also similar results for A[G] to be zc-ring and duo-ring are given.

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Simplex Linear Codes Over the Ring F2 + vF2

Simplex Linear Codes Over the Ring F2 + vF2

Mohammed AL-Ashker, Ibtisam Isleem

mashker@mail.iugaza.edu

Mathematics Department. Faculty of Science. Islamic University. Gaza, Palestine

Received : 21-02-2007 , Accepted : 28-02-2008

Language: English

Abstract

In this paper, we construct simplex linear codes over the ring of types , where and . We also determine some of their properties. These codes are extension and generalization of simplex codes over the rings .

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The Effect of Using Citrus Wood Charcoal in Broiler Rations on the Performance of Broilers

The Effect of Using Citrus Wood Charcoal in Broiler Rations on the Performance of Broilers

Baha Eddin Abu Bakr

ba.bakr@hotmail.com

Department of Animal Production. Faculty of Agriculture. An-Najah National University. Nablus. Palestine

Received : 25-03-2007 , Accepted : 27-11-2007

Language: English

Abstract

This study was conducted to investigate the effect of feeding citrus wood charcoal on the performance, feed intake and feed conversion efficiency of broiler chicks. A total of 120 broilers of Habbard strain at 22 days of age were used in the experiment and were divided into four groups of 30 birds in each. Each group was divided into five replicates with six chicks per replicate. Birds in the experimental groups were fed citrus wood charcoal at rates of 0, 2,4 and 8% of the ration DM in replacement of yellow corn. The results showed that inclusion of citrus wood charcoal at rate of 2% had an effect on body weight gain, feed intake and feed conversion efficiency. The results indicated that the effect of citrus charcoal is an age dependent as it had no effect at ages of more than 29 days. However, inclusion of citrus wood charcoal increased birds abdomen fat.

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Hydrostatic Stress Effect on the Optical Performance and the Stress Sensitivity of Optical Nonlinear Waveguide

Hydrostatic Stress Effect on the Optical Performance and the Stress Sensitivity of Optical Nonlinear Waveguide

Hala El-Khozondar

hkhozondar@mail.iugaza.edu

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Faculty of Engineering. Islamic University. Gaza. Palestine.

Received : 19-02-2007 , Accepted : 27-11-2007

Language: English

Abstract

Sensitivity of optical parameters is a significant topic in developing optoelectronic devices. The stress sensitivity of nonlinear optical waveguides is closely related to hydrostatic stress. The hydrostatic stress can cause anisotropic and inhomogeneous distribution of the refractive index. In this paper analytical and numerical calculations are performed to study the effect of hydrostatic stress on the sensitivity of nonlinear optical waveguide sensors. The optical performance of the waveguide sensors under various hydrostatic stress states is also investigated. Transverse magnetic modes (TM) are considered in addition to transverse electric modes (TE) to study anisotropy. It is found that the value of the hydrostatic stress can change the value of the cutoff thickness. These changes may induce multimode. Moreover, the hydrostatic stresses influence the values of the stress sensitivity of the waveguide sensors and present anisotropic behavior to the system.

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