Recycling in the asphalt industry is one of the most concerned areas and Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement (RAP) is amongst the most recycled materials in the world. Within the scope of this study, the utilizations of rejuvenators to improve the properties of RAP has been investigated. The assessment of waste vegetable oil (WVO), waste engine oil (WEO) and a commercial rejuvenating agent (CRA) has been studied. Marshall Mix Design tests were conducted to determine the highest assessable RAP content in the mixtures regarding each rejuvenator. Rejuvenation process yielded an increment around 50-60% more of possible RAP content in the mixture. Indirect Tensile Strength (ITS) test was also performed to study the strength and stiffness characteristics of the mixture. Investigations showed that rejuvenated RAP mixtures are less brittle and more durable than non-rejuvenated RAP mixtures.

The present investigation was carried out at the experimental farm of Giza Agriculture Research Station, ARC, during 2018 and 2019 summer seasons. Seeds of the ten genotypes of cowpea (as stretched crop) and seven genotypes of guar (as standing crop) were separately sown in a randomized complete block design (RCBD) with three replications to determine the magnitude of variability and the degree of association between the different traits that is important to provide the base for effective selection for yield improvement. Analysis of variance revealed significant differences among both cowpea and guar genotypes for all studied traits. Genotypes P1, P2 and P3 of cowpea and G1, G2 and G3 of guar recorded the highest values of fresh and seed yield over the two seasons, indicating that these genotypes are promising and could be recommended to use among breeding programs. The highest estimates of heritability coupled with high genetic advance % values were observed for plant height, fresh yield/plant, number of pods per plant and pod length traits in cowpea, however, fresh yield, number of seeds per pod and pod length traits in guar, indicating that selection for these traits have more chance for cowpea and guar yield development among the tested genotypes. Correlation coefficient results suggest that selection for higher plant height, number of tillers/plant, crude protein, ash% and root length would tend to increase fresh yield in both crops. However crude fiber (CF%) in guar only. The fresh yield/plant, number of pods/plant, pod length and 100-seed weight were the effective traits toward in both crops seed yield. However, number of seeds/pod was effective in guar only. Path analysis revealed that number of tillers /plant, root length and crude protein (CP %) traits recorded directly and indirectly maximum influence on cowpea fresh yield, meanwhile, ash% trait gave same effects on guar fresh yield. Number of pods per plant recorded the highest direct and indirect contribution to cowpea seed yield; however, fresh yield gave the highest negative effect directly and indirectly on guar seed yield. Hence, these traits could be used in breeding program for the improvement of fresh and seed yield for high yielding cowpea and guar genotypes.

In this paper, we establish the importance of the generalized log Burr XII (GLBXII) distribution (Bhatti et al [1]). We contribute some new statistical facts such as generalized TL moments, conditional moments, density functions of the record values and characterizations. We evaluate the behavior of the maximum likelihood estimation of the GLBXII parameters via a simulation study. We analyze three real data sets from different areas to reveal the potentiality of the GLBXII distribution. We apply a modified chi-square goodness of fit test based on the Nikulin Rao Robson (N.R.R.) statistic in the presence of right-censored data. We validate the GLBXII distribution in survival and reliability analysis via the N.R.R. statistic in the presence of right censoring. To authenticate the potentiality of the GLBXII model in quality control, we estimate the generalized process capability index (Cpyk) for the GLBXII distribution via a simulation study and applications to real data sets. We also prove empirically that the GLBXII model is suitable for environmental sciences, economics, survival, reliability, and quality control applications.

Parsley is a biennial plant from the Apiaceae family that is used in the food, pharmaceutical, perfume and cosmetic industries. This plant has various mineral such as Fe and vitamins including A, B and C and grown in most parts of the world. Nano-fertilizers are a good alternative to sulfated fertilizers due to their higher solubility and gradual release of particles than conventional fertilizers. In order to investigate the effect of foliar application zinc on growth and yield of parsley, an experiment based on randomized complete blocks with 6 treatments and three replications was performed in the experimental field of Imam Khomeini Higher Agricultural Education Center. Treatments included foliar application of Nano zinc chelate fertilizer (0.5, 1 and 1.5 g/L) and zinc sulfate (1 and 1.5 g/L). The foliar application was performed in 4 to 6 leaf stage and repeated every 14 days till before harvesting. Number of leaves, plant height, leaf area, leaf length and width, fresh and dry weight of leaves and stems were measured. The results showed that the highest amount of the mentioned traits were obtained in the foliar application of 1.5 g/L Nano zinc chelate fertilizer and the lowest values were obtained at the control treatment. It is noteworthy that there is no significant difference between 1 and 1.5 g/L Nano zinc chelate fertilizer in terms fresh and dry weight of leaves and stems and both treatments are statistically in the same group. Therefore, foliar application of 1 g/L Nano zinc chelate fertilizer is economically recommended.

This paper presents a computational solution to the problem of determining the structure and spatial distribution of molecules. The problem is solved by fitting the X-ray spectra of the sample obtained in laboratory with one obtained from a synthetic construct. If both spectra are identical, the structure and distribution of the sample should be equal to the construct. To do the fitting, the spectra of several different constructs composed of millions of particles each should be computed using a particle-pair or particle-particle (pp) distance algorithm. However, the calculation of such pp-distance is a computationally demanding task. Using this problem as a test bench for current field-programmable gate array (FPGA) technology, we evaluate how the parallel computation capability of FPGAs can be exploited to reduce the computation time. We present two different solutions to the problem using two state-of-the-art FPGA technologies. In the first one the main C program uses OmpSs for task invocation and kernels are built with OpenCL using reduced data sizes to save transmission time. The second approach uses task and data parallelism to operate on data locally and update data globally in a decoupled task. Benchmarks have been evaluated over an Intel D5005 Programmable Acceleration Card, computing a model of 2 million particles in 81.57 seconds (24.5 billion atom pairs per second (bapps)) and over an Alveo U200 board that computes the same 2 million particles in 34.68 seconds (57.67 bapps).\nIn this study we analyze the results in the classic terms of speed-up and efficiency and give hints for future improvements focused on reducing the global job time.

Neutralism is an absence of any interaction between members of a mixed population. i.e, The species may be living side by side but are unaware of each other and also cause no harm or nor beneficial to each other. A real life example is rabbits, deer, frogs live together in a grass land with no interaction between them. This paper is devoted to an ecological study on three species neutralism. Here all the three species S1, S2 and S3 posses limited resources and with growth rates. The model equations constitute a set of three first order non-linear simultaneous differential equations. Criteria for the asymptotic stability of all the eight critical points are established. The system would be stable if all the characteristic roots are negative.