Experimental results on the performances of ten solar stills with different glass inclination angles are presented. The inclination angles selected are 10–55 in steps of 5°. Results demonstrate that the angles between 30° and 35° may be associated with the least still performance while those between 20° and 25° provide the optimum performance as far as the clean water productivity and cost effectiveness are concerned. Empirical modeling of the still operation produced good agreement with the experimental data.

BACKGROUND: Screening programs for the most prevalent conditions occurring in a country is an evidence-based prevention strategy. The burden of autosomal recessive disease variations in Saudi Arabia is high because of the highly consanguineous population. The optimal solution for estimating the carrier frequency of the most prevalent diseases is carrier screening. OBJECTIVES: Identify the most influential recessive alleles associated with disease in the Saudi population. DESIGN: We used clinical whole-exome sequencing data from an in-house familial database to evaluate the most prevalent genetic variations associated with disease in a Saudi population. SETTINGS: King Abdullah International Medical Research Center (KAIMRC) and King Abdulaziz Medical City. METHODS: Whole exome sequencing data obtained from clinical studies of family members, a cohort of 1314 affected and unaffected individuals, were filtered using the in-house pipeline to extract the most prevalent variant in the dataset. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Most prevalent genetic variations associated with disease in the Saudi population. SAMPLE SIZE: 1314 affected and unaffected individuals. RESULTS: We identified 37 autosomal recessive variants and two heterozygous X-linked variants in 35 genes associated with the most prevalent disorders, which included hematologic (32%), endocrine (21%), metabolic (11%) and immunological (10%) diseases. CONCLUSION: This study provides an update of the most frequently occurring alleles, which support future carrier screening programs. LIMITATIONS: Single center that might represent the different regions but may be biased. In addition, most of the families included in the database are part of the proband's genetic identification for specific phenotypes. CONFLICT OF INTEREST: None.

The knowledge of the quantity of total solar radiation on horizontal and inclined surfaces is very important in the calculations of heating and cooling loads in architecture and in the design of certain solar energy applications such as photovoltaic and solar collectors. This paper estimates the total solar radiation on inclined surfaces in Baghdad (Lat. 330 21' N      440 14' long and 34m above MSL).  A good model was used to estimate hourly total solar radiation on the inclined surface with different elevations (150, 300, 450, 600, 750, 900) from a horizontal surface. The mean hourly, daily and monthly variation of total solar radiation on horizontal and inclined surfaces were drawn and discussed. The optimum tilt angle over a period of a year was drawn and discussed. Linear regression equations correlating the mean hourly solar radiation on an inclined surface with mean hourly solar radiation on  a horizontal surface was deduced with high correlation coefficient (0.98 – 0.99).