Search results for: alloying elements

Authors: Anas M. Fares

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Reinforced concrete shear walls are the most frequently used forms of lateral resisting structural elements. These walls may take many forms due to their functions and locations in the building. In Palestine, the most lateral resisting forces construction forms is the cantilever shear walls system. It is thus of prime importance to study the rigidity of these walls. The virtual work theorem is used to derive the total lateral deflection of cantilever shear walls due to flexural and shear deformation. The case of neglecting the shear deformation in the walls is also studied, and it is found that the wall height to length aspect ratio (H/B) plays a major role in calculating the lateral deflection and the rigidity of such walls. When the H/B is more than or equal to 3.7, the shear deformation may be neglected from the calculation of the lateral deflection. Moreover, the walls with the same material properties, same lateral load value, and same aspect ratio, shall have the same of both the lateral deflection and the rigidity. Finally, an equation to calculate the total rigidity and total deflection of such walls is derived by using the virtual work theorem for a cantilever beam.

Keywords: cantilever shear walls, flexural deformation, lateral deflection, lateral loads, reinforced concrete shear walls, rigidity, shear deformation, virtual work theorem

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Authors: G. Levacic, A. Zupan

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Application of new technological solutions and installation of new elements into the network requires special attention when investigating its interaction with the existing power system. Special attention needs to be devoted to the occurrence of harmonic resonance. Sources of increasing harmonic penetration could be wind power plants, Flexible Alternating Current Transmission System (FACTS) devices, underground and submarine cable installations etc. Calculation in frequency domain with various software, for example, the software for power systems transients EMTP-RV presents one of the most common ways to obtain the harmonic impedance of the system. Along calculations in frequency domain, such software allows performing of different type of calculations as well as steady-state domain. This paper describes a power system modeling with software EMTP-RV based on data from SCADA/EMS system. The power flow results on 220 kV and 400 kV voltage levels retrieved from EMTP-RV are verified by comparing with power flow results from power transmissions system planning software PSS/E. The determination of the harmonic impedance for the case of remote power plant connection with cable up to 2500 Hz is presented as an example of calculations in frequency domain.

Keywords: power system modeling, frequency domain, steady state, EMTP-RV, PSS/E

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Authors: Hugo M. Gonzales, Ke Ni Chai, Deanne Mary King

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International students are underrepresented in Australian health literature, and this population is especially vulnerable to the well-documented negative impacts associated with racial microaggressions in their adjustment to settling in the new society, as well as to the many challenges they already face as international students. This study investigated the prevalence of racial microaggressions among international students and their impact on stress and psychological well-being. This research was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has been documented to contribute to anti-Asian racism. Participants included 54 international students, of which 72% were Asian. The Racial and Ethnic Microaggressions Scale (REMS), Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), and the Perceived General Wellbeing Indicator (PGWBI) were used to measure the participants’ responses. All participants reported experiencing racial microaggression in the last six months, and significant correlations and regression models were found between REMS, certain elements of the PSS scale, and time in Australia. Despite the small sample size, this research corroborated outcomes from recent studies and provided insight into the prevalence and impact of racial microaggressions among such populations, highlighting the need for further exploration.

Keywords: racial microaggressions, international students, racism, REMS, microaggressions in Australia, stress, psychological wellbeing

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Authors: Muneeb Banday, Anukriti Dixit

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Change in organizations is viewed as a conversion process of the organizational functioning. One of the crucial elements of this conversion process is the employee resistance to organizational change. The existing literature on change resistance has generally treated resistance as a barrier or an opportunity for successful implementation of change. However, there is little empirical research exploring how resistance to change is managed. This may be partially due to difficulty in getting information on resistance to change. The top management does not divulge such information to avoid negative evaluation whereas employees face huge risk in sharing information related to resistance. The focus of the study is to understand how the organization under study dealt with the employee resistance to change. The conversion process is a story of how the organization went from one stage to another. We used narrative approach to change. Data was collected data through company visits and interviews. The interviews were transcribed, coded, and themes were identified. We focused on the strands that left huge scope for alternative interpretations than the dominant narrative of change prevalent in the organization. The study reveals that the top management strategically uses the legitimacy of leadership, roles of key employees, and rationality of change to manage resistance.

Keywords: employee resistance, legitimacy of leadership, narrative analysis, organisational change

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Authors: Luan Trong Nguyen, M. Azizur Rahman, Yusuke Tamenori, Toshihiro Yoshimura, Nozomu Iwasaki, Hiroshi Hasegawa

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This study investigated the distribution of magnesium (Mg), phosphorus (P), sulfur (S) and strontium (Sr) using micro X-ray fluorescence (µ-XRF) along the annual growth rings in the skeleton of Japanese red coral Paracorallium japonicum. The Mg, P and S distribution in µ-XRF mapping images correspond to the dark and light bands along the annual growth rings observed in microscopic images of the coral skeleton. The µ-XRF mapping data showed a positive correlation (r = 0.6) between P and S distribution in the coral skeleton. A contrasting distribution pattern of S and Mg along the axial skeleton of P. japonicum indicates a weak negative correlation (r = -0.2) between these two trace elements. The distribution pattern of S, P and Mg reveals linkage between their distributions and the formation of dark/light bands along the annual growth rings in the axial skeleton of P. japonicum. Sulfur and P were distributed in the organic matrix rich dark bands, while Mg was distributed in the light bands of the annual growth rings.

Keywords: µ-XRF, trace element, precious coral, Paracorallium japonicum

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Authors: Truong Nguyen Luan Vu, Le Hieu Giang, Le Linh

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The FOPI controller is proposed based on the main properties of the decoupling control scheme, as well as the fractional calculus. By using the simplified decoupling technique, the transfer function of decoupled apparent process is firstly separated into a set of n equivalent independent processes in terms of a ratio of the diagonal elements of original open-loop transfer function to those of dynamic relative gain array and the fraction – order PI controller is then developed for each control loops due to the Bode’s ideal transfer function that gives the desired fractional closed-loop response in the frequency domain. The simulation studies were carried out to evaluate the proposed design approach in a fair compared with the other existing methods in accordance with the structured singular value (SSV) theory that used to measure the robust stability of control systems under multiplicative output uncertainty. The simulation results indicate that the proposed method consistently performs well with fast and well-balanced closed-loop time responses.

Keywords: ideal transfer function of bode, fractional calculus, fractional order proportional integral (FOPI) controller, decoupling control system

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Authors: Peter Mayeso Jiyajiya

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This paper discusses how the teaching of English as a foreign language in Malawi can enhance intercultural communication competence in a multicultural society. It argues that incorporation of intercultural communication in the teaching of English as a foreign language would improve cultural awareness in communication in the multicultural Malawi. The teaching of English in Malawi is geared towards producing students who would communicate in the global world. This entails the use of proper pedagogical approaches and instructional materials that prepare the students toward intercultural awareness. In view of this, the language teachers were interviewed in order to determine their instructional approaches to intercultural communication. Instructional materials were further evaluated to assess how interculturality is incorporated. The study found out that teachers face perceptual and technical challenges that hinder them from exercising creativity to incorporate interculturality in their lessons. This is also compounded by lack of clear direction in the teaching materials on cultural elements. The paper, therefore, suggests a holistic approach to the teaching of English language in Malawian school in which the diversity of culture in classrooms must be considered an opportunity for addressing students’ cultural needs that may be lacking in the instructional materials.

Keywords: cultural awareness, grammar, foreign language, intercultural communication, language teaching

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Authors: Shadab Shishegar, Sophie Duchesne, Genevieve Pelletier

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Sustainability as one of the key elements of Smart cities, can be realized by employing Real Time Control Strategies for city’s infrastructures. Nowadays Stormwater management systems play an important role in mitigating the impacts of urbanization on natural hydrological cycle. These systems can be managed in such a way that they meet the smart cities standards. In fact, there is a huge potential for sustainable management of urban stormwater and also its adaptability to global challenges like climate change. Hence, a dynamically managed system that can adapt itself to instability of the environmental conditions is desirable. A Global Predictive Real Time Control approach is proposed in this paper to optimize the performance of stormwater management basins in terms of flooding prevention. To do so, a mathematical optimization model is developed then solved using Genetic Algorithm (GA). Results show an improved performance at system-level for the stormwater basins in comparison to static strategy.

Keywords: environmental sustainability, optimization, real time control, storm water management

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Authors: Noni Agustina, Nuryansyah Adijaya

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Writing research report plays an important role in a process of conducting research, especially a research report which is written in English. A researcher should consider many language elements; grammar, word-appropriateness, punctuation, etc in a research report. However, many researchers face some problems in research report, especially for non-native writers. This study is aimed to find out the characteristics of internationally published research journal articles based on functional grammar viewpoint especially transitivity system. Six published research journal articles which consist of English Language Teaching, linguistics, and medical fields were takes as the data. Each of field comprises native and non-native English speaking research journal articles. Qualitative content analysis was employed as the method of the study The results show that all six published research journal articles both native and non-native use material and relational process. The participants are dominated by goal, phenomenon, attribute, value, verbiage, and existent. They reflect the objectivity in research journal articles. Moreover, circumstance of place and quality occur more frequently. Transitivity system that consists of process types, participants, and circumstances have roles in describing the characteristics of research journal articles.

Keywords: transitivity system, SFL, ideational meaning, research journal article

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Authors: Wentao He, Jingxi Liu, De Xie

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It is necessary to manage the fatigue crack growth (FCG) once those cracks are detected during in-service inspections. In this paper, a simulation program (FCG-System) is developed utilizing the commercial software ABAQUS with its object-oriented programming interface to simulate the fatigue crack path and to compute the corresponding fatigue life. In order to apply FCG-System in large-scale marine structures, the substructure modeling technique is integrated in the system under the consideration of structural details and load shedding during crack growth. Based on the nodal forces and nodal displacements obtained from finite element analysis, a formula for shell elements to compute stress intensity factors is proposed in the view of virtual crack closure technique. The cracks initiating from the intersection of flange and the end of the web-stiffener are investigated for fatigue crack paths and growth lives under water pressure loading and axial force loading, separately. It is found that the FCG-System developed by authors could be an efficient tool to perform fatigue crack growth analysis on marine structures.

Keywords: crack path, fatigue crack, fatigue live, FCG-system, virtual crack closure technique

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Authors: Emil Aliyev

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The main focus of this conference paper is on the aspects of the environmental sustainability of onshore hydrocarbon pipelines. The latter is notorious for being a source of major environmental contamination and a consumer of vast amounts of natural resources such as water, land, steel, etc. Therefore, the environmentally sustainable operation of pipelines is a concern that requires attention and research. The geographical scope of the paper is confined to onshore hydrocarbon pipelines operated in the Middle East region. The research contains elements of originality as it draws on the author’s field experience and practical implementation of environmental and sustainability solutions in a major Middle East-based pipeline organization. The authors describe some of the most common significant environmental aspects of pipeline operations and provide examples of various approaches and technologies that can be successfully utilized to make pipelines more environmentally sustainable. The author concludes that the operation of onshore hydrocarbon pipelines can be made environmentally sustainable. This can be achieved by adopting a systematic framework, focusing limited resources on significant aspects, integrating a circular economy into day-to-day activities, and having strong management support.

Keywords: pipelines, onshore hydrocarbon pipelines, environmental sustainability, significant environmental aspects

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Authors: Asad Naeem, Mohamed Nour Eldin, Jinkoo Kim

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In this study, the seismic performance and life cycle cost (LCC) are evaluated of the structure retrofitted with the damped cable system (DCS). The DCS is a seismic retrofit system composed of a high-strength steel cable and pressurized viscous dampers. The analysis model of the system is first derived using various link elements in SAP2000, and fragility curves of the structure retrofitted with the DCS and viscous dampers are obtained using incremental dynamic analyses. The analysis results show that the residual displacements of the structure equipped with the DCS are smaller than those of the structure with retrofitted with only conventional viscous dampers, due to the enhanced stiffness/strength and self-centering capability of the damped cable system. The fragility analysis shows that the structure retrofitted with the DCS has the least probability of reaching the specific limit states compared to the bare structure and the structure with viscous damper. It is also observed that the initial cost of the DCS method required for the seismic retrofit is smaller than that of the structure with viscous dampers and that the LCC of the structure equipped with the DCS is smaller than that of the structure with viscous dampers.

Keywords: damped cable system, fragility curve, life cycle cost, seismic retrofit, self-centering

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Authors: Christiana Fwenji Zumyil, Toma Maina Antip

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Environmental Science subject is currently not an independent subject taught in secondary schools in Nigeria like Biology, Agricultural Science, Chemistry, Geography and other subjects that students take final exams (West Africa Examination Council, WAEC, National Examination Council, NEC, National Board for Technical Education, NABTED)., on it but its elements/topics/contents are integrated into the curriculum of the subjects mentioned, and because of that, it becomes difficult to know what should be taught and how it should be taught. Currently, it is still difficult to implement student-centered strategies in the classroom. Through this study, we sought to diagnose the difficulties, advantages and perceptions that Environmental Teachers experience when conceiving and implementing Science-Technology-Society (STS) strategies in SS2 classes at the Secondary Education level. Four semi-structured interviews were conducted with Secondary School Environmental Teachers. Despite the difficulties found, the advantages, the motivation and the involvement of the students that this teaching perspective enables to lead the teacher to continue developing and implementing STS strategies in the classroom.

Keywords: environment, science, technology, society, science-technology-society, science education, secondary teaching

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Authors: Miriam Filipová, Peter Balco

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At present, in Slovak and Czech Republic, the education within the field of Project Management is carried out either within the higher education or via commercial entities, whilst the most used contents are the commonly used methodologies of project management. Obtaining a diploma after completing a university degree or a training certificate does not automatically mean the success of the project or the success of the project manager. The importance of leadership and soft skills in project management is either not included at all within the training of project managers, or it is only partially reflected. From the methodology perspective, the most important things during the preparation and management of the projects are preparation of the project plan, resource planning, and project realization in accordance with the chosen methodology. However, the key element on which the success of the project depends on are the people – whether they are team members on the supplier's side, the stakeholders, or the end users. This research focuses on the real needs of working project managers, on the development of their strengths, expertise, skills, and knowledge regarding leadership and soft skills. At the same time, it looks into identifying the elements that they consider to be key to the success of the projects they have managed and successfully delivered. The result of this research is the input for creating recommendations for a comprehensive education of project managers in the field of leadership and soft skills.

Keywords: project management, leadership, soft skills, education, academic degree, certificates, skills, talents, knowledge

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Authors: Sulihantoro, Muhamad Irga Fahreza

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Age of onset of the crisis makes more advanced understanding of the values of Islam that has been etched in architectural design. The majority Muslim mosque architecture designing buildings when they designed the architecture of Islam has always stuck in a cultural symbol, the shape of the facade, carving calligraphy, and all things that are closely related to the culture of the Middle East. As well as the interpretation of symbols, by designing a dome in every mosque, calligraphy carvings inside the mosque, and the other elements in the building which is interpreted by middle eastern culture. So here we have a problem understanding the meaning of Islam with kaf fah (overall), which appears distorted understanding to distinguish between cultural values and theological in design. This paper will try to evaluate the design of a contemporary mosque in Indonesia, with a case study in Masjid Kauman Yogyakarta Indonesia. building characteristics focused on the function of the building, history, aesthetics, comfort, and safety. The results of this study should be found on the evaluation of the integrated design of contemporary mosques are based on a study of the Quran and Hadith.

Keywords: characteristics, Islamic concept, culture, Kauman Mosque

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Authors: Mahsa Khani Oushani

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Text and image are two important elements in the field of Iranian art, the text component and the image component have always been manifested together. The image narrates the text and the text is the factor in the formation of the image and they are closely related to each other. The connection between text and image is an interactive and two-way connection in the tradition of Iranian manuscript arrangement. The interaction between the narrative description and the image scene is the result of a direct and close connection between the text and the image, which in addition to the decorative aspect, also has a descriptive aspect. In this article the connection between the text element and the image element and its adaptation to the theory of Roland Barthes, the structuralism theorist, in this regard will be discussed. This study tends to investigate the question of how the connection between text and image in illustrated manuscripts of the Jalayrid period is defined according to Barthes’ theory. And what kind of proportion has the artist created in the composition between text and image. Based on the results of reviewing the data of this study, it can be inferred that in the Jalayrid period, the image has a reference connection and although it is of major importance on the page, it also maintains a close connection with the text and is placed in a special proportion. It is not necessarily balanced and symmetrical and sometimes uses imbalance for composition. This research has been done by descriptive-analytical method, which has been done by library collection method.

Keywords: structure, text, image, Jalayrid, painter

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Authors: Seraphina Bakta

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On many occasions, the link between human rights and culture in Africa is tainted with speculations that African traditions and culture impede human rights. Seemingly also, literature from Africa highly supports the approach of cultural relativism instead of the universalism approach to human rights. This approach has been regarded by many as an unwillingness to accept human rights as universal. While it has to be appreciated that in different communities, there are positive and negative elements of culture, including in Africa, the positive aspect is hardly seen in African culture. This paper, employed documentary review and interviews to collect data. Various documents were reviewed including international and domestic legal materials and literature. Data from documentary review were verified through interviews in Morogoro and Shinyanga regions in Tanzania. Qualitative approach was used to analyse such data where a thematic content analysis was used. The study found that there are positive aspects of African tradition and culture including those promoting child work (as opposed to child labour); some aspects on child protection which should be embraced. However, still some aspects such as child marriage and inconsistent with child rights. It is pivotal that therefore that measures are be adopted to address them.

Keywords: child rights, customs, tradition, Africa

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Authors: Farideh Azimi, Sam Vahedi Tafreshi

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This research tries to study the residential buildings in Ahvaz, the common materials used, and the impact of passive methods of energy storage (as one of the most effective ways to reduce energy consumption in residential complexes) in order to achieve patterns for construction of residential buildings in Ahvaz conditions to reduce energy consumption. In this research, after studying Ahvaz conditions, the components of an existing building were simulated in Energy Plus software, and the climatic data of Ahvaz station was introduced to software. Then to achieve the most optimal conditions of energy consumption in Ahvaz conditions, each of the residential building elements was optimized. The results of simulation showed that using inactive materials and design including double glass, outside wall insulation, inverted roof, etc. in the buildings can reduce energy consumption in the hot and dry climate of Ahvaz. Among the parameters investigated, the inverted roof was the most effective energy saving pattern. According to the results of simulation of the entire building with the most optimal parameters, energy consumption can be saved by a mean of 12.51% in buildings of Ahvaz, and the obtained pattern can also be used in similar climates.

Keywords: residential buildings, thermal comfort, energy storage, Energy Plus software, Ahvaz

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Authors: Mohammad Ali Hasanzadeh, Thierry Vanelslander, Eddy Van De Voorde

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Nowadays maritime transport is a key element in international trade and global supply chain. Economies of scale in transporting goods are one of the most attractive elements of using ships. Without maritime transport, almost no globalization of economics can be imagined. Within maritime transport, ports are the interface between lands and see. Even though using ships help cargo owners to have a competitive margin but an accident in port during loading or unloading or even moving cargoes within the terminal can diminish such margin. Statistics shows that due to the high-speed notion of activities within ports, collision accidents are the most common type of accidents. To mitigate such accidents, the appropriate risk exposures have to be defined and calculate, later on risk probabilities can be determined for each type of accident, i.e. fatal, severe, moderate and minor ones. Having such risk probabilities help managers to define the effectiveness of each collision risk control option. This research defined travelled distance as main collision risk exposure in container terminals, taking all the related items into consideration, it was calculated for Shahid Rajae container terminals. Following this finding, collision risk probabilities were computed.

Keywords: collision accident, container terminal, maritime transport, risk exposure

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Authors: Hasna Soli

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The main objective of this work is the extraction of sulfur from gypsum here is industrial waste. Indeed the sulfuric acid production, passing through the following process; melting sulfur, filtration of the liquid sulfur, sulfur combustion to produce SO₂, conversion of SO₂ to SO₃ and SO₃ absorption in water to produce H₂SO₄ product as waste CaSO₄ the anhydrous calcium sulfate. The main objectives of this work are improving the industrial practices and to find other ways to manage these solid wastes. It should also assess the consequences of treatment in terms of training and become byproducts. Firstly there will be a characterization of this type of waste by an X-ray diffraction; to obtain phase solid compositions and chemical analysis; gravimetrically and atomic absorption spectrometry or by ICP. The samples are mineralized in suitable acidic or basic solutions. The elements analyzed are CaO, Sulfide (SO₃), Al₂O₃, Fe₂O₃, MgO, SiO₂. Then an analysis by EDS energy dispersive spectrometry using an Oxford EDX probe and differential thermal and gravimetric analyzes. Gypsum’s valuation will be performed. Indeed, the CaSO₄ will be reused to produce sulfuric acid, which will be reintroduced into the production line. The second approach explored in this work is the thermal utilization of solid waste to remove sulfur as a dilute sulfuric acid solution.

Keywords: environment, gypsum, sulfur, waste

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Authors: Marwan Jarrah

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This research paper provides two pieces of phonological and syntactic evidence from Arabic for biolinguistics perspective of language processing. The first piece of evidence concerns the instances where a singular noun is converted to a plural noun in Arabic. Based on the findings of several research papers, this study shows that a singular word does not lose any of its moras when it is pluralized either regularly or irregularly. This mora conservation principle complies with the general physical law of the conservation of mass which states that mass is neither created nor destroyed but changed from one form into another. The second piece of evidence concerns the observation that when the object in some Arabic dialects including Jordanian Arabic and Najdi Arabic is a topic and positioned in situ (i.e. after the verb), the verb agrees with it, something that generates an agreeing inflection marker of the verb that agrees in Number, Person, and Gender with the in-situ topicalized object. This interaction between the verb and the object in such cases is invoked because of the extra feature the object bears, i.e. TOPIC feature. We suggest that such an interaction complies with the general natural law that elements become active when they, e.g., get an additional electron, when the mass number is not equal to the atomic number.

Keywords: biolinguistics, Arabic, physics, interaction

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Authors: Büşra Elibol, İsmail Sait Soyer, Hamid Farrokh Ghatte

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The continuity of the structural and non-structural elements within the envelope of the buildings is one of the fundamental factors in buildings during seismic actions. This investigation aims to make a comparison between Van and İzmir earthquakes in terms of damage assessment of the various facades. A strong earthquake (magnitude 7.2) struck the city of Van in the east of Turkey on 23 October 2011, and similarly, another strong earthquake struck the city of İzmir (magnitude 6.9) in Turkey on 30 October 2020. This paper presents the damage assessment of the current facade systems from multi-story buildings in Van and İzmir, Turkey. This investigation covers the buildings greater than three stories in height, excluding most unreinforced masonry facades. Regarding a building that can have more than one facade system, any of the facade systems are considered individually. Observation of different kinds of damages in the facade is discussed and represented in terms of its performance level throughout the seismic actions. Furthermore, presenting the standard design guidelines (i.e., Turkish seismic design code) is required not only for designers but also for installers of facade systems.

Keywords: damage, earthquake, facade, structural element, seismic action

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Authors: Mmapula Petunia Tsweleng

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This qualitative study presents an exploration and findings thereof the quality of primary caregiving relationships between adolescents orphaned through Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) and their grandmothers. This exploration was based on in-depth narratives of 6 stakeholders who provided community-based psychosocial support services to children and families affected by AIDS. The narratives show that grandmothers provided high-quality parental care and support to the orphans. Furthermore, stakeholders categorised grandmother caregiving as genuine. Findings also show that the orphans thrived emotionally, socially, and cognitively and performed well academically. However, it was also identified that grandmothers’ caregiving had elements of overprotectiveness as well as susceptibility to manipulation -which appeared to be a threat to the positive development of the orphans. Relevant interventions, with a special focus on strengthening grandmother caregiving, are needed. Special attention should be on equipping grandmothers with a better understanding of adolescent behaviours and abilities to provide appropriate monitoring and supervision.

Keywords: adolescent orphans, AIDS, caregiving relationships, grandmothers

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Authors: M. Sneha Reddy, M. Arun Kumar, V. Kameswara Rao

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Chromites are binary transition metal oxides with a general formula of ACr₂O₄, where A = Mn²⁺, Fe²⁺, Co²⁺, Ni²⁺, and Cu²⁺. Chromites have a normal-type spinel structure with interesting applications in the areas of applied physics, material sciences, and geophysics. They have attracted great consideration because of their unique physicochemical properties and tremendous technological applications in nanodevices, sensor elements, and high-temperature ceramics with useful optical properties. Copper chromite is one of the most efficient spinel oxides, having pronounced commercial application as a catalyst in various chemical reactions like oxidation, hydrogenation, alkylation, dehydrogenation, decomposition of organic compounds, and hydrogen production. Apart from its usage in chemical industries, CuCr₂O₄ finds its major application as a burn rate modifier in solid propellant processing for space launch vehicles globally. Herein we synthesized the nanoparticles of copper chromite using the co-precipitation method. The synthesized nanoparticles were characterized by XRD, TEM, SEM, BET, and TG-DTA. The synthesized nanoparticles of copper chromites were used as a catalyst for the thermal decomposition of various high-energy materials.

Keywords: copper chromite, coprecipitation method, high energy materials, catalytic thermal decomposition

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Authors: Somayeh Khanjani, Hamideh Abolghasemi, Hadi Shirzad, Samaneh Nabavi

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At world market can be currently encountered a wide range of gemological objects that are incorrectly declared, treated, or it concerns completely different materials that try to copy precious objects more or less successfully. Counterfeiting of precious commodities is a problem faced by governments in most countries. Police have seized many counterfeit coins that looked like the real coins and because the feeling to the touch and the weight were very similar to those of real coins. Most people were fooled and believed that the counterfeit coins were real ones. These counterfeit coins may have been made by big criminal organizations. To elucidate the manufacturing process, not only the quantitative analysis of the coins but also the comparison of their morphological characteristics was necessary. Several modern techniques have been applied to prevent counterfeiting of coins. The objective of this study was to demonstrate the potential of X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) technique and the other analytical techniques for example SEM/EDX/WDX, FT-IR/ATR and Raman Spectroscopy. Using four elements (Cu, Ag, Au and Zn) and obtaining XRF for several samples, they could be discriminated. XRF technique and SEM/EDX/WDX are used for study of chemical composition. XRF analyzers provide a fast, accurate, nondestructive method to test the purity and chemistry of all precious metals. XRF is a very promising technique for rapid and non destructive counterfeit coins identification in forensic science.

Keywords: counterfeit coins, X-ray fluorescence, forensic, FT-IR

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Authors: Si Mon Kueh, Tom J. Kazmierski

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There are about 1% of the world population suffering from the hidden disability known as epilepsy and major developing countries are not fully equipped to counter this problem. In order to reduce the inconvenience and danger of epilepsy, different methods have been researched by using a artificial neural network (ANN) classification to distinguish epileptic waveforms from normal brain waveforms. This paper outlines the aim of achieving massive ANN parallelization through a dedicated hardware using bit-serial processing. The design of this bit-serial Neural Processing Element (NPE) is presented which implements the functionality of a complete neuron using variable accuracy. The proposed design has been tested taking into consideration non-idealities of a hardware ANN. The NPE consists of a bit-serial multiplier which uses only 16 logic elements on an Altera Cyclone IV FPGA and a bit-serial ALU as well as a look-up table. Arrays of NPEs can be driven by a single controller which executes the neural processing algorithm. In conclusion, the proposed compact NPE design allows the construction of complex hardware ANNs that can be implemented in a portable equipment that suits the needs of a single epileptic patient in his or her daily activities to predict the occurrences of impending tonic conic seizures.

Keywords: Artificial Neural Networks (ANN), bit-serial neural processor, FPGA, Neural Processing Element (NPE)

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Authors: Manish Pal, Rumi Sutradhar

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Pavement surface unevenness plays a pivotal role on roughness index of road which affects on riding comfort ability. Comfort ability refers to the degree of protection offered to vehicle occupants from uneven elements in the road surface. So, it is preferable to have a lower roughness index value for a better riding quality of road users. Roughness is generally defined as an expression of irregularities in the pavement surface which can be measured using different equipment like MERLIN, Bump integrator, Profilometer etc. Among them Bump Integrator is quite simple and less time consuming in case of long road sections. A case study is conducted on low volume roads in West District in Tripura to determine roughness index (RI) using Bump Integrator at the standard speed of 32 km/h. But it becomes too tough to maintain the requisite standard speed throughout the road section. The speed of Bump Integrator (BI) has to lower or higher in some distinctive situations. So, it becomes necessary to convert these roughness index values of other speeds to the standard speed of 32 km/h. This paper highlights on that roughness index conversional model. Using SPSS (Statistical Package of Social Sciences) software a generalized equation is derived among the RI value at standard speed of 32 km/h and RI value at other speed conditions.

Keywords: bump integrator, pavement distresses, roughness index, SPSS

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Authors: Endrick Barnacin, Jean-Luc Henry, Jimmy Nagau, Jack Molinie

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Being able to identify biological particles such as spores, viruses, or pollens is important for health care professionals, as it allows for appropriate therapeutic management of patients. Optical microscopy is a technology widely used for the analysis of these types of microorganisms, because, compared to other types of microscopy, it is not expensive. The analysis of an optical microscope slide is a tedious and time-consuming task when done manually. However, using machine learning and computer vision, this process can be automated. The first step of an automated microscope slide image analysis process is segmentation. During this step, the biological particles are localized and extracted. Very often, the use of an automatic thresholding method is sufficient to locate and extract the particles. However, in some cases, the particles are not extracted individually because they are stuck to other biological elements. In this paper, we propose a stuck particles separation method based on the use of the Sobel operator and thresholding. We illustrate it by applying it to the separation of 813 images of adjacent pollen grains. The method correctly separated 95.4% of these images.

Keywords: image segmentation, stuck particles separation, Sobel operator, thresholding

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Authors: Nihad Alem

Abstract:

Nowadays, distance learning (DL) is widely perceived as a reformed type of education that takes advantage of technology to give more appealing opportunities especially for learners whose life conditions impede their attendance to regular classrooms however, creating interactional environment for students to expand their learning community and alleviate the feeling of loneliness and isolation should receive more attention when designing a distance learning course. This research aims to explore whether the audio/video peer learning can offer pedagogical add-ons to the Algerian distance learners and what are the pros and cons of its application as an educational experience in a synchronous environment mediated by Skype. Data were collected using video recordings of six sessions, reflective logs, and in-depth semi-structured interviews and will be analyzed by qualitatively identifying and measuring the three constitutional elements of the educational experience of peer learning namely the social presence, the cognitive presence, and the facilitation presence using a modified community of inquiry coding template. The findings from this study will provide recommendations for effective peer learning educational experience using the facilitation presence concept.

Keywords: audio/visual peer learning, community of inquiry, distance learning, facilitation presence

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Authors: Jorge A. Ruiz-Vanoye, Ocotlán Díaz-Parra, Alejandro Fuentes-Penna, José J. Hernández-Flores, Edith Olaco Garcia

Abstract:

The Project Scheduling Problem (PSP) is a generic name given to a whole class of problems in which the best form, time, resources and costs for project scheduling are necessary. The PSP is an application area related to the project management. This paper aims at being a guide to understand PSP by presenting a survey of the general parameters of PSP: the Resources (those elements that realize the activities of a project), and the Activities (set of operations or own tasks of a person or organization); the mathematical models of the main variants of PSP and the algorithms used to solve the variants of the PSP. The project scheduling is an important task in project management. This paper contains mathematical models, resources, activities, and algorithms of project scheduling problems. The project scheduling problem has attracted researchers of the automotive industry, steel manufacturer, medical research, pharmaceutical research, telecommunication, industry, aviation industry, development of the software, manufacturing management, innovation and technology management, construction industry, government project management, financial services, machine scheduling, transportation management, and others. The project managers need to finish a project with the minimum cost and the maximum quality.

Keywords: PSP, Combinatorial Optimization Problems, Project Management; Manufacturing Management, Technology Management.

Procedia PDF Downloads 416