A square experimental arena with vegetation on one interior side was deployed in a Sharjah, United Arab Emirates desert. Individual darkling beetles (Coleoptera, Tenebrionidae) Akis subtricostata Redtenbacher, 1850 and Trachyderma philistina Reiche and Saulcy, 1857 were placed inside the arena at temperatures ranging between 27 - 49°C. Whether they chose the vegetated side of the arena or not was recorded, as well as how long it took for them to reach the vegetated side, if they chose it. Both species preferred the vegetated side at all temperatures, and the chance of them choosing the vegetated side increased significantly with increasing temperature (logistic regression, p = 0.0096 and p = 0.0003 for T. philistina and A. subtricostata, respectively). T.philistina and A. subtricostata always chose the vegetated side at temperatures above 31°and 44°C, respectively. Individual beetles that chose the vegetated side moved quickly and directly to it at temperatures above 30°C. Below 30°C, however, beetles tended to move slower and take more pauses within the arena. Time to reach the vegetated side declined significantly with increasing temperature (least-squares regression, p < 0.00005 for both species). A few individuals of both species died at the highest temperatures (48 - 49°C).
The global rise in temperature and the desert climatic conditions prevalent in Middle Eastern countries have exacerbated rutting distress in heavily trafficked highways. Conventional asphalt binders with a high-temperature performance grade (PG 70) have proven inadequate under such extreme conditions, necessitating the development of modified binders with enhanced high-temperature performance. While polymer modification using styrene-butadiene-styrene (SBS), an elastomeric polymer, and ethylene-vinyl acetate (EVA), a plastomeric polymer, has been widely studied, limited research provides a direct comparison of their effectiveness at both the binder and mixture levels under extremely high-temperature conditions. This study addresses this gap
... Show MoreThe research aims to determine optimal urban planning and design indicators of the urban clusters form in hot arid zones through studying of three urban areas in Baghdad, analyzing their urban indicators which include floor area ratio (FAR), urban clusters height, building density or land coverage, green areas, paved areas, shading ratio and how they affect urban temperature. The research reached the conclusion that air outdoor temperature on urban areas affected primarily by shadows casted on the ground, the effect of shaded area equals (5) times the effect of paved areas and (3.7) times the effect of green areas, this means that increasing urban clusters height in hot arid zones could minimize air outdoor temperature, building
... Show MoreA nanocrystalline CdS thin film with 100 nm thickness has been prepared by thermal evaporation technique on glass substrate with substrate temperature of about 423 K. The films annealed under vacuum at different annealing temperature 473, 523 and 573 K. The X-ray diffraction studies show that CdS thin films have a hexagonal polycrystalline structure with preferred orientation at (002) direction. Our investigation showed the grain size of thin films increased from 9.1 to 18.9 nm with increasing the annealing temperature. The optical measurements showed that CdS thin films have direct energy band gap, which decreases with increasing the annealing temperature within the range 3.2- 2.85 eV. The absorbance edge is blue shifted. The absorption
... Show MoreThis paper develops a nonlinear transient three-dimensional heat transfer finite element model and a rate independent three-dimensional deformation model, developed for the CO2 laser welding simulations in Al-6061-T6 alloy. Simulations are performed using an indirect coupled thermal-structural method for the process of welding. Temperature-dependent thermal properties of Al-6061-T6, effect of latent heat of fusion, and the convective and radiative boundary conditions are included in the model. The heat input to the model is assumed to be a Gaussian heat source. The finite element code ANSYS12, along with a few FORTRAN subroutines, are employed to obtain the numerical results. The benefit of the proposed methodology is that it
... Show MoreWhen a vehicle is left parked in the sun for an extended period, the gathered heat causes damage to several interiors within the cabin and causes discomfort for people and animals left inside the car. In the present work, the effect of the orientation of a parked white minibus on temperature distribution and cooling load calculation is studied experimentally in an open environment. Two different cases were studied facing south and facing east. For several hours, the temperature inside the car cabin had been monitored and measured at five separate locations. The cooling load calculations are carried out based on the experimental measurements. The results show that the overheating of parked cars always happens as a result
... Show MoreThis study was conducted on Lake Hamrin situated in Diyala governorate, focal Iraq, between latitudes 44º 53ʹ 26.16 '- 45º 07 ʹ 28.03ʺ and 34º 04ʹ 24.75ʺ ــ 34º 19ʹ 12.74ʺ . As in this study, the surface area of Hamrin Lake was calculated from satellite images during the period from October 2019 to September 2020, with an average satellite image for each month, furthermore,by utilizing the Normalized Differences Water Index (NDWI), the largest surface area was 264,617 km2 for October and the lowest surface area 140.202 km2 for September. The surface temperature of the lake water was also calculated from satellite images of the Landsat 8 satellite, based on ban
... Show MoreThe effect of some environment faetor (different temperature and relative humidity) on the biology of the old world- screw worm, were studied under laboratory condition, the result showed that non of the eggs hatched at 15°c and under dried eondition which relative humidity between 20-40%, also result showed that the mature larvae needs one days to become pupa since it leaves the larval died at the temperature ranged between 25-40°C at different humidity rates. While it needs 3 days under lower temperature and different humidity to become pu^, on the other hand the results showed that either low temperature and dried condition or high temperature at different humidity rates cause non of pupa became adult. While low temperature (15-20) °c
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