These years Qatar has emerged as an important regional destination of foreign direct investment (FDI), which demonstrates the recent success of several smaller economies in attracting FDI. This paper aims to investigate the causal relationships between inward FDI and economic growth in the particular case of Qatar featured as oil production country. Vector Autoregressive (VAR) Impulse Responses and Granger Causality Tests were adopted as major research methods. Annual data set was used covering from 1990 to 2010. The main results demonstrated the bi-directional causality and long-run relationships between FDI inflows and economic growth in Qatar. And to attract FDI inflows into Qatar, the government shall continue its efforts in const

Two different polyvinyl alcohol/polyvinyl chloride (PVA/PVC) hollow fiber composite nanofiltration membranes were prepared after PVC hollow fiber membranes were coated using dip-coating method with PVA aqueous solution, which was composed of PVA, fatty alcohol polyoxyethylene ether (AEO9), and water [PVA/AEO9/water (4:0.5:95.5) wt%]. Effect of two different PVC hollow fiber immersion times in coating solution were studied. Cross-section, internal and external surfaces of the PVC hollow fibers and PVA/PVC composite nanofiltration membranes structures were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), pure water permeation flux and solutes rejection. It was found that, the coating layer thickness on the outer surface of the 19 wt% P

In present work examined the oxidation desulfurization in batch system for model fuels with 2250 ppm sulfur content using air as the oxidant and ZnO/AC composite prepared by thermal co-precipitation method. Different factors were studied such as composite loading 1, 1.5 and 2.5 g, temperature 25 ^oC, 30 ^oC and 40 ^oC and reaction time 30, 45 and 60 minutes. The optimum condition is obtained by using Tauguchi experiential design for oxidation desulfurization of model fuel. the highest percent sulfur removal is about 33 at optimum conditions. The kinetic and effect of internal mass transfer were studied for oxidation desulfurization of model fuel, also an empirical kinetic model was calculated for model fuels

The rehabilitation of deteriorated pavements using Asphalt Concrete (AC) overlays consistently confronts the reflection cracking challenge, where inherent cracks and joints from an existing pavement layer are mirrored in the new overlay. To address this issue, the current study evaluates the effectiveness of Engineered Cementitious Composite (ECC) and geotextile fabric as mitigation strategies. ECC, characterized by its tensile ductility, fracture resistance, and high deformation capacity, was examined in interlayer thicknesses of 7, 12, and 17 mm. Additionally, the impact of geotextile fabric positioning at the base and at 1/3 depth of the AC specimen was explored. Utilizing the Overlay Testing Machine (OTM) for evaluations, the research d

Biodiesel as an attractive energy source; a low-cost and green synthesis technique was utilized for biodiesel preparation via waste cooking oil methanolysis using waste snail shell derived catalyst. The present work aimed to investigate the production of biodiesel fuel from waste materials. The catalyst was greenly synthesized from waste snail shells throughout a calcination process at different calcination time of 2–4 h and temperature of 750–950 ◦C. The catalyst samples were characterized using X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET), Energy Dispersive X-ray (EDX), and Fourier Transform Infrared (FT-IR). The reaction variables varying in the range of 10:1–30:1 M ratio of MeOH: oil, 3–11 wt% catalyst loading, 50–

Low-level microbial activity due to the production of organic acids is a recognized problem during the initial phase of food waste composting. Increasing such activity levels by adjusting the pH values during the initial composting phase is the primary objective to be investigated. In this study, sodium acetate (NaoAc) was introduced as an amendment to an in-vessel composting system. NaoAc was added when the pH of the compost mixture reached a low level (pH < 5), the addition increased pH to 5.8. This had a positive effect on the degradation of organic materials i.e. the formation of methane gas compared to the results without NaoAc addition.

The results also proved that anaerobic-aerobic in-vessel composting could reduce the

Artificial pancreas is simulated to handle Type I diabetic patients under intensive care by automatically controlling the insulin infusion rate. A Backstepping technique is used to apply the effect of PID controller to blood glucose level since there is no direct relation between insulin infusion (the manipulated variable) and glucose level in Bergman’s system model subjected to an oral glucose tolerance test by applying a meal translated into a disturbance. Backstepping technique is usually recommended to stabilize and control the states of Bergman's class of nonlinear systems. The results showed a very satisfactory behavior of glucose deviation to a sudden rise represented by the meal that increase the blood glucose

            An image retrieval system is a computer system for browsing, looking and recovering pictures from a huge database of advanced pictures. The objective of Content-Based Image Retrieval (CBIR) methods is essentially to extract, from large (image) databases, a specified number of images similar in visual and semantic content to a so-called query image. The researchers were developing a new mechanism to retrieval systems which is mainly based on two procedures. The first procedure relies on extract the statistical feature of both original, traditional image by using the histogram and statistical characteristics (mean, standard deviation). The second procedure relies on the T-

             It is the regression analysis is the foundation stone of knowledge of statistics , which mostly depends on the ordinary least square method , but as is well known that the way the above mentioned her several conditions to operate accurately and the results can be unreliable , add to that the lack of certain conditions make it impossible to complete the work and analysis method and among those conditions are the multi-co linearity problem , and we are in the process of detected that problem between the independent variables using farrar –glauber test , in addition to the requirement linearity data and the lack of the condition last has been resorting to the