Youssef Kassem

Near East University · Department of Mechanical Engineering

This review article explores the impact of climate change on water resources in Somalia, with a particular focus on the role of adaptation. The article discusses the effects of climate change on Somalia's water resources, including floods, drought, sea-level rise, drying up rivers, and poor water quality. It further examines the effects of climate...

Background: The utilization of herbal medicine (HM) as a component of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is increasing worldwide. Little is known about justifications for its use and the factors associated with it. This study gains insights into the use of herbal medicines in Northern Cyprus, concentrating on targets for its use, the role...

The main aim of the present study was to select a better model for predicting the groundwater salinity in the Gaza Strip, Palestine for the first time. The purpose of this work was to identify the important parameters that affect the prediction of groundwater salinity in the selected region using various empirical models. In this study, groundwater...

In this paper, multi-layer perceptron neural network (MLPNN) and Radial basis function neural network (RBFNN) have been used to predict the cold filter plugging point (CFPP) of different types of biodiesel. Moreover, the accuracy of the proposed models is compared with the Quadratic model (QM), and Multiple Linear Regression (MLR). For this aim, es...

In this paper, Multilayer Feed-Forward Neural Network (MFFNN) and Cascade Feed-forward Neural Network (CFNN) have been used to predict the electricity production (EP) from a 4.5 kW PV system located in Nahr El-Bared, Lebanon. Moreover, the accuracy of the proposed models is compared with the response surface methodology (RSM). For this aim, the hou...

The main goal of this paper is to predict the mean monthly electricity generation (EG) produced by Two-axis solar systems using the Adaptive-Neuro Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) and Response Surface Methodology. The Two-axis solar systems are located in 25 coastal Mediterranean cities. Accordingly, in this study, the geographical coordinates (latit...

In this paper, Multi-layer perceptron neural network (MLPNN) and Radial basis function neural network (RBFNN) have been used to predict the monthly runoff in Bared River, Lebanon. Moreover, the accuracy of the proposed models is compared with the ARIMA model and Multiple Linear Regression (MLR). For this aim, maximum temperature, minimum temperatur...

In regions prone to droughts, such as Syria, water shortages and urbanization increase the need for water to meet domestic, industrial, commercial, and agricultural demands. According to research, the leaching of toxic substances from the treatment of sewage water stations is likely to influence the quality of groundwater. In some locations, the ov...

This study aims to gain a deeper understanding of climate change and wastewater usage in Cyprus. Focusing on water resources, the study was done in Cyprus. The significance of selecting Cyprus as our case study arises from the fact that it is not only one of the Mediterranean Sea countries worldwide with water resource concerns but also faces a ser...

This research aims to investigate the effects of climate change on roads, buildings, and bridges infrastructures and provide solutions adopted in developed and developing countries to reduce or mitigate the impact of climate change on infrastructures. The methodology applied in this research consists of three parts, first in-depth research was carr...

Biodiesel is an alternative energy source produced from renewable materials. In this study, five machine learning models were developed to predict the dynamic viscosity (DV) of biodiesel at 313 K. Furthermore, the performance of the developed models was compared with quadratic model and multiple linear regression. For this purpose, the biodiesel da...

The cetane number (CN) of the biodiesel is very essential, which lets to reduce the quality of the biodiesel. In this study, three machine learning models were developed to predict the CN value. Furthermore, the performance of the developed models was compared with the quadratic model and multiple linear regression. For this purpose, the biodiesel...

Precipitation (PP) prediction is an interesting topic in the meteorology or hydrology field since it is directly related to agriculture, the management of water resources in hydrologic basins, and water scarcity. Selecting the right model to predict precipitation has always been a challenge because it could help researchers to use the proper model...

Renewable energy in terms of solar and wind energy can be an essential part of Lebanon's strategies to add new capacity, increase energy security, address environmental concerns, and resolve the electricity crisis. In this regard, there is an urgent need to develop road maps in order to reduce the effect of global warming and enhance sustainable te...

These days, one of the major threats in the world is climate change. It is already proven by a large number of strong evidence that human activities are responsible for these sudden changes. It is expected that in the future mankind will witness more severe consequences of climate change on the amount of precipitation and temperature levels in diff...

Carbon emissions from non-renewable energy consumption account for 38 percent to 50 percent of conservatory smoke production in the world, and wastewater treatment plants happen to be one of the most significant drivers of orangery vapor discharges universally. So, to meet the target of achieving a significant reduction of carbon pollution in 2030,...

Water scarcity, water quality difficulties, floods, and droughts are among the present challenges that climate change may exacerbate. Availability and easy access to safe and clean drinking water are fundamental human rights that have become a global challenge. Desalination of seawater is becoming a fast-growing alternative for water scarcity, due...

In this paper, Multi-Layer Perceptron Neural Network (MLPNN), Quadratic model (QM), and Multiple Linear Regression (MLR) have been developed and utilized to predict power production (PP) produced from a 5.4 kW off-grid PV system located in Al Mahmra, Lebanon. For this aim, the hourly data of wind speed (WS), global solar radiation (GSR), average te...

Providing fresh water is a serious problem in many counties due to serious water shortages in many countries. At the same time, population growth increases the need for the freshwater amount for basic necessities. Thus, utilizing renewable energy as a power source for seawater and brackish desalination could be a sustainable alternative solution to...

: Maintaining water supply is linked to our daily routine and is a vital issue for every individual in Somalia and around the world. Sustainable water supply systems should provide an adequate quantity and quality of water for a given demand without compromising future capacity to expand that volume and superiority. Water frameworks in the realm of...

This study evaluates the accuracy of feed-forward neural network (FFNN), cascade feed-forward neural network (CFNN), generalized regression neural network (GRNN), layer recurrent (LR), and radial basis function neural network (RBFNN) for estimating the electrical power of Savonius vertical axis wind turbine. To this aim, the electrical power (EP) o...

In recent years, the majority of the Middle Eastern nations have been suffering from water scarcity, and Iran is not an expectation in this matter. The mean annual precipitation of the country is in the vicinity of 250 mm, which is considerably lower than the global rainfall average (almost 67% lower) and with a total internal renewable water resou...

The installation of a photovoltaic system is becoming increasingly attractive to consumers in residential areas due to higher electricity tariff rates and less dependence on local power generators in Iraq. Consequently, the paper's main objective is to determine the applicability of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems in the capital city (Baghdad) of I...

Girne region is in the northern part of Northern Cyprus which is environmentally fragile and susceptible to natural disasters. Flash floods are a major problem in the region due to the heavy and torrential rainfalls in its urban environment. Therefore, this study aims to assess the flash flood risk for the Girne region, using the Geographic Informa...

The main objective of the present study is to evaluate the technical performance of a 6.4kW grid-connected rooftop PV system in the capital city of Iraq. Four simulation tools, namely, PV*SOL. PVGIS, PVWatts, and RETScreen are employed to assess the potential of solar energy in the selected city. The performance of these simulations is compared by...

Flash flooding risk impacts can be reduced through the implementation of mitigation strategies plan (MSP) for flood management. This study aims to develop a flash-floods risk mitigation plan, which appears to be beneficial for municipalities, provincial administrators, and authorities to reduce the impact of the flash flood in the Kyrenia region, N...

Predicting the photovoltaic (PV) output power is essential for the power grid's secure, stable, and economical operation. Additionally, there are large numbers of meteorological variables that potentially affect the solar output of PV panels. Hence, identifying the most relevant parameters that influenced the PV output power is necessary for achiev...

The largest coastal aquifer in northwestern Cyprus is the Morphou aquifer. The objective of the current study was to evaluate the quality of the groundwater and its suitability for drinking purposes in the Morphou (Güzelyurt) region, Cyprus. To realize this aim, 118 groundwater samples were collected during wet and dry seasons over a period of 11 y...

Despite increasing cocoa farms in Liberia, farmers still producing cocoa below expected. Our assessment the influences causing the adoption of cocoa farm rehabilitation techniques in Bong, Lofa, and Nimba countries. Data was collected through interviews using a structured questionnaire and analyzed using descriptive statistics, correlation coeffici...

Growth of populations and climate change are the most factors that affect agricultural production, particularly in developing countries. Several variables affect agriculture production, expressed by cereal production, prediction; therefore, identification of the most significant parameters for accurate prediction is an important research area. In t...

Water supply sustainability is related to our daily life and a very important issue and related for every people around the north part of Iraq. The NPI's water resources are in jeopardy. Climate change is evident in the region, and it is predicted to reduce output. The Tigris River and its tributaries, the Greater and Little Zab Rivers, as well as...

This paper investigated the potential and economic validity of wind and solar energy at 17 selected locations in the Red Sea state, Sudan, for the first time. To this aim, the NASA database was utilized. The results demonstrated that vertical axis wind turbines would be a good solution for electricity generation for building in the selected locatio...

Building on expansive soil is risky due to its high compressibility, low shear strength, and differential settlement. This study evaluates the potential of the use of sodium hydroxide (NaOH) as an additive to improve the stability of clay. For this research, the compaction properties namely Dry Density, Optimum Moisture Content, Atterberg Limits, a...

The ability and accuracy of machine learning techniques have been investigated for static modeling of the Savonius wind turbine. The objective of this paper is to predict the mechanical power (MP) of the new-style Savonius rotor as a function of aspect ratio, overlap ratio, number of the blade, wind speed, and rotational speed. In this paper, the M...

The tilt angle is a crucial factor for the optimization of solar Photovoltaic panels and solar thermal col-lectors performance. Therefore in this present investigation, a mathematical model is built using MATLAB Program, in order to determine the optimum tilting angle and the solar irradiation falling on a surface facing south in the United Arab Em...

The ability and accuracy of machine learning techniques have been investigated for static modeling of the new-style wind turbine. The main aim of this study is to predict the electrical power (MP) of the new-style Savonius rotor as a function of aspect ratio, overlap ratio, number of the blade, wind speed, and rotational speed. In this paper, the E...

Selvili-Tepe location has average wind speed of 5.2 m/s and solar horizontal irradiation of 5.46 kWh/m2/day. Therefore, this paper investigated the economic validity of 5 MW grid-connected wind and solar energy with various models and sun-tracking system, respectively at Selvili-Tepe location in Northern Cyprus. For the economic validity of install...

The ability and accuracy of machine learning techniques have been investigated for predicting the power of PV output. The objective of this paper is to predict the PV power output of a 0.5 kW off grid-connected PV system located in Nahr al-Bared, Lebanon. In this paper, the PV output of the proposed system was evaluated through Multilayer Feed-Forw...

This book is a compilation of selected papers from the Fifth International Conference on Natural Resources and Sustainable Environmental Management held in Near East University, November 2021. It provides intellectual guidance and scientific evidence on the challenges of global warming and climate change based on a humanistic and critical thinking...

Kyrenia region is in the northern part of Northern Cyprus that is environmentally fragile and susceptible to natural disasters. Thus, the study of frequency analysis is essential to find the most suitable model that could detect the region’s risk in certain natural phenomena such as rainfall, flood, and so on. The objective of this research is to d...

Beledweyne is a city in Somalia's central region. It is located in the Beledweyne District and serves as the capital of the Hiran region. The town is located near the Ethiopian border on the Shebelle River, about 210 miles (338 kilometers) north of Mogadishu. The Shebelle River divides it between eastern and western portions. Heavy rains pounded Be...

Environments with a climatic characteristic of semi-aridity exhibit high rainfall variability, increasing significantly as the climate changes. In this study, rainfall concentration and Spatio-temporal trends in annual and seasonal (November to March) rainfall in Botswana were analyzed. The satellite data (1958-2019) is obtained from the Southern A...

The growth of populations and economy in Northern Cyprus has led to continuing utilization of fossil fuels as the primary source of electricity, which will raise environmental pollution. Thus, utilizing renewable energy, particularly solar energy, might be a solution to minimize this issue. This paper presents the potential of grid-connected solar...

The main objective of the paper is to investigate the feasibility of small-scale grid-connected PV systems with various PV technologies (mono-crystalline silicon and poly-crystalline silicon) and sun-tracking modes including fixed tilt and 2-axis systems for rooftop households in Amman, Jordan. A case study is applied to Al Jama’a and Abu Nusir, Am...

The grid-connected system can be an attractive solution to reduce electricity consumption, dependence on utility power, and increase electricity generation from renewable energy resources like wind energy for residential electricity users. Based on 33-year wind data (1983-2020), this study investigates the potential of wind energy at different loca...

With the increasing consumption of fossil fuel, reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions has become a serious issue that has attracted worldwide attention. Therefore, Lebanon is currently interested in utilizing renewable energy technologies to reduce energy dependence on oil reserves and GHG emissions. The present study is focused on solar and wind...

Generating energy from renewable sources, particularly solar energy, offers significant benefits and achieves a more clean and sustainable development. In the present paper, the potential of developing a 4.2kW grid-connected rooftop two-axis tracking PV system in 25 selected coastal Mediterranean cities located in different Arabic countries is eval...

Lebanon suffers from daily electricity shortages. The country has paid much attention to renewable energy sources, particularly solar, to gradually replace conventional energy. Installing a photovoltaic (PV) system becomes increasingly attractive for residential consumers due to the rising electricity tariff rates while it reduces the dependency on...

Assessment of groundwater quality at a specific location is an important step to provide adequate information about water management and sustainable development. Several variables affect groundwater salinity, expressed by chloride concentration, prediction; therefore, identification of the most significant parameters for accurate prediction is an i...

Population growth and increasing demand for energy have been causing severe environmental problems all over the world. This research is done to find a suitable management way to improve the environmental condition, develop sustainable and economical solutions. This study focused on using Rooftop Photovoltaic Systems for the first time in Duhok gove...

Agricultural water scarcity in the primarily rainfed agricultural system of Jigawa State in Nigeria is more related to the variability of rainfall. Rainfed subsistence farming systems in this state generally obtain low crop yields and production as a result of highly erratic rainfall seasons. Thus, predicting rainfall in the region is of great sign...

Estimating and analyzing the frequency of rainfall is essential to help in defining the poli-cies regarding water resource management and a source of data for flood hazard mitigation. Additionally, design rainfall is widely utilized in hydraulic structures and urban infrastructure planning. Therefore, finding the suitable probability distribution t...

Precise information of rainfall probability distribution is truly significant for many hydrological studies such as extreme flood analysis, drought investigations, reservoir volume studies, and time-series modeling. The objective of the present study is to identify the suitable probability functions for estimating the rainfall distribution in Güzel...

Forecasting the rainfall is one of the most important issues in the hydrological cycle. It is very challenging because is still unable to get an ideal model given its uncertain and unexpected vari-ation. Therefore, the study reviewed previous scientific studied from 2000 to 2020 associated with predicting the rainfall in Northern Cyprus and worldwi...

Solid Works is a complete 3D CAD design solution, providing the product design team with all the mechanical designs, verifications, motion simulations, data management and communication tools that they need. This article presents an example of the design and analysis of the Savonius rotor blade to generate 10kW power output in the field of Mechanic...

The computer‐aided design software has been developed as a support aid for improving the creativity and the ability of students to understand the concept of the practice courses. Therefore, the study reviewed previous scientific studies associated with computer-aided learning (CAL) to identify the importance of CAL in supporting engineering educati...

Libya is currently interested in utilizing renewable energy technologies to reduce the energy dependence on oil reserves and Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions. The objective of this study is to investigate the feasibility of a 10MW grid-connected PV power plant in Libya. NASA data are used to analyze the global horizontal irradiation, direct normal ir...

The physicochemical properties of biodiesel fuels and their blends prepared from four residential waste vegetable frying oils (sunflower (FSME), canola (FCME), mixture of sunflower and rapeseed (FSRME) and corn (FSCME)) were evaluated and measured to determine the best blend. The results indicate that the stability of 10 biodiesel blends was above...

The current study is focused on the economic and financial assessments of solar and wind power potential for nine selected regions in Libya for the first time. As the existing meteorological data, including wind speed and global solar radiation, are extremely limited due to the civil war in the country, it was therefore decided to use the NASA (Nat...

The quality and quantity of freshwater resources are continually decreasing in the world. The objective of this paper is to review the literature on the water resource with a focus on the surface water, quality of surface water in terms of physical and chemical properties in different locations in Lebanon. Moreover, one of the most important source...

An estimated 69.5 million people in Northern Nigeria rely on pit latrine to defecate due to the lack of proper excreta disposal system in the region. However, many studies extensible indicates the environment and environmental resources contamination with pit latrines. It is the intent of this study to explore the numerous design features of pit la...

Density, viscosity and cetane number are important physical properties of biodiesel as they participate in one way or another in the fuel metering, calibration and nozzle process during combustion. High and good accuracy of the physical properties of biodiesel will therefore lead to improved combustion and therefore better efficiency. The aim of th...

Solar power is the fastest-growing energy source in the world. New technologies can help to generate more power from solar energy. The present paper aims to encourage people and the government to develop solar energy-based power projects to achieve sustainable energy infrastructures, especially in developing countries. In addition, this paper prese...

solid wastage yielding in a landfill badly influenced the encompassing condition and people habitat nearer to landfill destinations. Landfill is the most established and the most widely recognized type of evacuation and transfer of waste, comprising the last discarding technique for solid waste in the city. It is outstanding that the effect of MSW...

The electrical power of new configuration Savonius turbine is estimated using multilayer perceptron neural network (MLPNN)‬ and radial basis function neural network (RBFNN) based on the experimental data which have been collected for 108 vertical axis wind turbine. In this work, the experiments were conducted at air velocities ranging from 3 to 12...

In this paper, the properties of two biodiesel obtained from waste cooking sunflower (WCSME) and waste cooking canola (WCCME) oils and their blends in the temperature range 20–300 °C is measured experimentally. This work focused on the application of Artificial Neural Network (ANN) as predictive tools for prediction the kinematic viscosity and dens...

Waste frying, corn and canola cooking oil biodiesels were produced through the transesterification ‎process and their properties were measured. Three different mixtures of biodiesel with the same blending ratio, namely, WCME1 (frying-corn biodiesel), WCME2 (frying-canola-corn biodiesel) and WCME3 (canola-corn biodiesel), were prepared. The effect ‎...