Search results for: event structure

Authors: Isabela Moreira Queiroz

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Slope stability analyses are largely carried out by deterministic methods and evaluated through a single security factor. Although it is known that the geotechnical parameters can present great dispersal, such analyses are considered fixed and known. The probabilistic methods, in turn, incorporate the variability of input key parameters (random variables), resulting in a range of values of safety factors, thus enabling the determination of the probability of failure, which is an essential parameter in the calculation of the risk (probability multiplied by the consequence of the event). Among the probabilistic methods, there are three frequently used methods in geotechnical society: FOSM (First-Order, Second-Moment), Rosenblueth (Point Estimates) and Monte Carlo. This paper presents a comparison between the results from deterministic and probabilistic analyses (FOSM method, Monte Carlo and Rosenblueth) applied to a hypothetical slope. The end was held to evaluate the behavior of the slope and consequent risk analysis, which is used to calculate the risk and analyze their mitigation and control solutions. It can be observed that the results obtained by the three probabilistic methods were quite close. It should be noticed that the calculation of the risk makes it possible to list the priority to the implementation of mitigation measures. Therefore, it is recommended to do a good assessment of the geological-geotechnical model incorporating the uncertainty in viability, design, construction, operation and closure by means of risk management. 

Keywords: probabilistic methods, risk assessment, risk management, slope stability

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Authors: Anas Ali

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The British administration at Malabar, the southern coastal commercial outpost in the Indian Subcontinent, faced with a series of perpetual revolts from the Mappila Muslim peasants during the last decades of the 19th and early decades of the 20th century. The control of Malabar region was a concern for the British administrators as the region was a prime centre of spice trade and plantation products. The Madras government set up a special police battalion called the Malabar Special Police in 1884 and summoned different army battalions to Malabar to crush the revolts. The setting up of army camps in the rural Malabar led to the diffusion of modern sports as the army men played different games in the garrisons and with the local people. For the imperial army men deployed in Malabar, sports acted as a viable medium to strengthen solidarity with other European settlers. They actively participated in the ‘Canterbury Week’, an annual sporting event organized by the European planters and organized tournaments among themselves. This paper would argue that, sports enabled the imperial army men, European planters and British administrators to build camaraderie that enabled them to manifest their imperial solidarity during the time of these constant revolts. Based on newspaper reports and colonial memoirs, this paper would look at how modern sports enabled the imperial army men to be ‘good in health’ and create a feeling of ‘being at home’ during this period.

Keywords: imperial army, Malabar, modern sports, mutiny

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Authors: Hayat Omar

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Languages provide speakers with a wide range of linguistic units to organize and deliver information. There are several ways to verbally express the mental representations of events. According to the linguistic tools they have acquired, speakers select the one that brings out the most communicative effect to convey their message. Our study focuses on two markers, -mm and dämmo, in Amharic (Ethiopian Semitic language). Our aim is to examine, from a developmental perspective, how they are used by speakers. We seek to distinguish the communicative and pragmatic functions indicated by means of these markers. To do so, we created a corpus of sixty narrative productions of children from 5-6, 7-8 to 10-12 years old and adult Amharic speakers. The experimental material we used to collect our data is a series of pictures without text 'Frog, Where are you?'. Although -mm and dämmo are each used in specific contexts, they are sometimes analyzed as being interchangeable. The suffix -mm is complex and multifunctional. It marks the end of the negative verbal structure, it is found in the relative structure of the imperfect, it creates new words such as adverbials or pronouns, it also serves to coordinate words, sentences and to mark the link between macro-propositions within a larger textual unit. -mm was analyzed as marker of insistence, topic shift marker, element of concatenation, contrastive focus marker, 'bisyndetic' coordinator. On the other hand, dämmo has limited function and did not attract the attention of many authors. The only approach we could find analyzes it in terms of 'monosyndetic' coordinator. The paralleling of these two elements made it possible to understand their distinctive functions and refine their description. When it comes to marking a referent, the choice of -mm or dämmo is not neutral, depending on whether the tagged argument is newly introduced, maintained, promoted or reintroduced. The presence of these morphemes explains the inter-phrastic link. The information is seized by anaphora or presupposition: -mm goes upstream while dämmo arrows downstream, the latter requires new information. The speaker uses -mm or dämmo according to what he assumes to be known to his interlocutors. The results show that -mm and dämmo, although all the speakers use them both, do not always have the same scope according to the speaker and vary according to the age. dämmo is mainly used to mark a contrastive topic to signal the concomitance of events. It is more commonly used in young children’s narratives (F(3,56) = 3,82, p < .01). Some values of -mm (additive) are acquired very early while others are rather late and increase with age (F(3,56) = 3,2, p < .03). The difficulty is due not only because of its synthetic structure but primarily because it is multi-purpose and requires a memory work. It highlights the constituent on which it operates to clarify how the message should be interpreted.

Keywords: acquisition, cohesion, connection, contrastive topic, contrastive focus, discourse marker, pragmatics

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Authors: Seyyed Abbas Mojtabavi, Mojtaba Fatzaneh Moghadam, Masoud Mahdavi

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Steel Metal Shear Wall is one of the most common and widely used energy dissipation systems in structures, which is used today as a damping system due to the increase in the construction of metal structures. In the present study, the shear wall of the steel plate with dimensions of 5×3 m and thickness of 0.024 m was modeled with 2 floors of total height from the base level with finite element method in Abaqus software. The loading is done as a concentrated load at the upper point of the shear wall on the second floor based on step type buckle. The mesh in the model is applied in two directions of length and width of the shear wall, equal to 0.02 and 0.033, respectively, and the mesh in the models is of sweep type. Finally, it was found that the steel plate shear wall with cavity (CSPSW) compared to the SPSW model, S (Mises), Smax (In-Plane Principal), Smax (In-Plane Principal-ABS), Smax (Min Principal) increased by 53%, 70%, 68% and 43%, respectively. The presence of cavities has led to an increase in the estimated stresses, but their presence has caused critical stresses and critical deformations created to be removed from the inner surface of the shear wall and transferred to the desired sections (regular cavities) which can be suggested as a solution in seismic design and improvement of the structure to transfer possible damage during the earthquake and storm to the desired and pre-designed location in the structure.

Keywords: steel plate shear wall, abacus software, finite element method, , boundary element, seismic structural improvement, von misses stress

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Authors: Rahmat Hajimineh, Ebrahim Rezaei Rad

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The war between Russia and Ukraine is considered a very important event in international relations, especially after the end of the Cold War, a war that has had wide dimensions since its beginning. Dimensions that, in addition to political issues, have especially affected the world economy and especially the two countries. The most important issue in the field of the economy that was affected by the war between Russia and Ukraine was the issue of energy. Russia is one of the largest producers and suppliers of natural gas for European countries, and 40% of European gas is supplied by Russia. For this reason, it is natural that European countries have problems in this regard. On the other hand, Ukraine is considered the gateway to Europe for Russia regarding the export of natural gas. The war in Ukraine has had severe effects on gas and energy in Europe. From this point of view, European countries are looking to diversify their energy path by switching to renewable energies, and they are also looking at other energy-producing countries like Qatar to meet their energy needs. In this article, we are trying to investigate the impact of the war between Russia and Ukraine on Qatar's policies in the field of fossil and renewable energy. The descriptive-analytical method and the theoretical framework of energy security have been used to review this article. Based on this, the article examines the situation of fossil and renewable energies in Qatar and, on the other hand, the effects of the war in Ukraine on both energies in Qatar. The findings of this article also indicate that Qatar has made changes in its energy policies after the war in Ukraine, which seems to be possible due to its high potential, especially in the field of renewable and fossil energy. There is an export of surplus production of this country to other countries, especially European countries.

Keywords: Ukraine War, fossil fuels, renewable energy, energy security, Qatar

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Authors: Fatemeh Karampour

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In the hot climate countries, especially those countries with great desert area, such as Iran, a considerable part of the energy is consumed due to cooling and air conditioning system in a hot season. So it is important to find a renewable energy supply for cooling systems. Although, there are few consistent researches in this field of renewable energy in compare with other fields. This research is presenting a study on performance of a night cooling radiator and working fluid storage for night time operation and day time resting periods. In these experiments, we didn’t expose any heating load but focused only on the possibility of system combination and its potential cooling effect. A very simple radiator has been designed in south of Iran, Shiraz, in order to perform this study. The radiator has been insulated with polystyrene foam and bubbled plastic sheets have been used as top cover. Using a single bubbled plastic sheet, the radiator temperature reached 0°C which is 20°C lower than minimum ambient temperature. Putting a small storage tank in the line increased the radiator’s minimum temperature at night; however, provided some cool fluid source for hot days of Shiraz that easily reaches 40°C. The results have shown very good cooling potential without heating load and acceptable temperature increasing during hot day with a small, short term storage tank. Future studies can make the system more effective and applicable.

Keywords: night cooling, experimental set up, cooling radiator, chill storage

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Authors: Kartik Thakore, Anna-Roza Tamas, Adam Cole

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The world health organization (WHO) reports that by 2030 more than 23.7 million deaths annually will be caused by Cardiovascular Diseases (CVDs); with a 2008 economic impact of $3.76 T. Metabolic syndrome is a disorder of multiple metabolic risk factors strongly indicated in the development of cardiovascular diseases. Guided lifestyle intervention driven by live coaching has been shown to have a positive impact on metabolic risk factors. Individuals’ path to improved (decreased) metabolic risk factors are driven by personal motivation and personalized messages delivered by coaches and augmented by technology. Using interactions captured between 400 individuals and 3 coaches over a program period of 500 days, a preliminary model was designed. A novel real time event tracking system was created to track and classify clients based on their genetic profile, baseline questionnaires and usage of a mobile application with live coaching sessions. Classification of clients and coaches was done using a support vector machines application build on Apache Spark, Stanford Natural Language Processing Library (SNLPL) and decision-modeling.

Keywords: guided lifestyle intervention, metabolic risk factors, personal coaching, support vector machines application, Apache Spark, natural language processing

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Authors: Noureddine Radouai

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Corruption is an endemic phenomenon in many countries around the globe. Morocco, as an authoritarian regime, relies on corruption for monarchy survival. I analyze the Makhzen structure and methods that it follows to exchange corruption for political loyalty. The abuse of power in Morocco is sponsored by the monarch itself as it is its way to remain its importance in the regime.

Keywords: corruption, Clientelism, authoritarian regime, Morocco

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Authors: Sepideh Samadzadehyazdi, Mohammad Javad Khalili, Sarvenaz Samadzadehyazdi, Mohammad Javad Mahdavinejad

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The term ‘Windphil Architecture’ refers to the building that facilitates natural ventilation by architectural elements. Natural ventilation uses the natural forces of wind pressure and stacks effect to direct the movement of air through buildings. Natural ventilation is increasingly being used in contemporary buildings to minimize the consumption of non-renewable energy and it is an effective way to improve indoor air quality. The main objective of this paper is to identify the strategies of using natural ventilation in Iranian modern buildings. In this regard, the research method is ‘descriptive-analytical’ that is based on comparative techniques. To simulate wind flow in the interior spaces of case studies, FLUENT software has been used. Research achievements show that it is possible to use natural ventilation to create a thermally comfortable indoor environment. The natural ventilation strategies could be classified into two groups of environmental characteristics such as public space structure, and architectural characteristics including building form and orientation, openings, central courtyards, wind catchers, roof, wall wings, semi-open spaces and the heat capacity of materials. Having investigated modern buildings of Iran, innovative elements like wind catchers and wall wings are less used than the traditional architecture. Instead, passive ventilation strategies have been more considered in the building design as for the roof structure and openings.

Keywords: natural ventilation strategies, wind catchers, wind flow, Iranian modern buildings

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Authors: R. Khenata, T. Djied, R. Ahmed, H. Baltache, S. Bin-Omran, A. Bouhemadou

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We predict structural, phase transition as well as opto-electronic properties of the filled-tetrahedral (Nowotny-Juza) NaZnAs compound in this study. Calculations are carried out by employing the full potential (FP) linearized augmented plane wave (LAPW) plus local orbitals (lo) scheme developed within the structure of density functional theory (DFT). Exchange-correlation energy/potential (EXC/VXC) functional is treated using Perdew-Burke and Ernzerhof (PBE) parameterization for generalized gradient approximation (GGA). In addition to Trans-Blaha (TB) modified Becke-Johnson (mBJ) potential is incorporated to get better precision for optoelectronic properties. Geometry optimization is carried out to obtain the reliable results of the total energy as well as other structural parameters for each phase of NaZnAs compound. Order of the structural transitions as a function of pressure is found as: Cu2Sb type → β → α phase in our study. Our calculated electronic energy band structures for all structural phases at the level of PBE-GGA as well as mBJ potential point out; NaZnAs compound is a direct (Γ–Γ) band gap semiconductor material. However, as compared to PBE-GGA, mBJ potential approximation reproduces higher values of fundamental band gap. Regarding the optical properties, calculations of real and imaginary parts of the dielectric function, refractive index, reflectivity coefficient, absorption coefficient and energy loss-function spectra are performed over a photon energy ranging from 0.0 to 30.0 eV by polarizing incident radiation in parallel to both [100] and [001] crystalline directions.

Keywords: NaZnAs, FP-LAPW+lo, structural properties, phase transition, electronic band-structure, optical properties

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Authors: K. G. Sorokozherdyev, E. A. Efimov

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The socio-economic development of regions and countries is an important research issue. Today, in the face of many negative events in the global and regional economies, it is especially important to identify those areas that can serve as sources of economic growth and the basis for the well-being of the population. This study aims to identify the most important sectors of the economy of the Arkhangelsk region that can contribute to the socio-economic development of the region as a whole. For research, the Arkhangelsk region was taken as one of the typical Russian regions that do not have significant reserves of hydrocarbons nor there are located any large industrial complexes. In this regard, the question of possible origins of economic growth seems especially relevant. The basis of this study constitutes the distributed lag regression model (ADL model) developed by the authors, which is based on quarterly data on the socio-economic development of the Arkhangelsk region for the period 2004-2016. As a result, we obtained three equations reflecting the dynamics of three indicators of the socio-economic development of the region -the average wage, the regional GRP, and the birth rate. The influencing factors are the shares in GRP of such sectors as agriculture, mining, manufacturing, construction, wholesale and retail trade, hotels and restaurants, as well as the financial sector. The study showed that the greatest influence on the socio-economic development of the region is exerted by such industries as wholesale and retail trade, construction, and industrial sectors. The study can be the basis for forecasting and modeling the socio-economic development of the Arkhangelsk region in the short and medium term. It also can be helpful while analyzing the effectiveness of measures aimed at stimulating those or other industries of the region. The model can be used in developing a regional development strategy.

Keywords: regional economic development, regional sectoral structure, ADL model, Arkhangelsk region

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Authors: Vatsal M. Patel, Navin B. Patel

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The present studies deal with the developing a series bearing a diphenyl ethers nucleus using structure-based drug design concept. A newer series of diphenyl ether based azetidinone namely N-(3-chloro-2-oxo-4-(3-phenoxyphenyl)azetidin-1-yl)-2-(substituted amino)acetamide (2a-j) have been synthesized by condensation of m-phenoxybenzaldehyde with 2-(substituted-phenylamino)acetohydrazide followed by the cyclisation of resulting Schiff base (1a-j) by conventional method as well as microwave heating approach as a part of an environmentally benign synthetic protocol. All the synthesized compounds were characterized by spectral analysis and were screened for in vitro antimicrobial, antitubercular and antiprotozoal activity. The compound 2f was found to be most active M. tuberculosis (6.25 µM) MIC value in the primary screening as well as this same derivative has been found potency against L. mexicana and T. cruzi with MIC value 2.09 and 6.69 µM comparable to the reference drug Miltefosina and Nifurtimox. To provide understandable evidence to predict binding mode and approximate binding energy of a compound to a target in the terms of ligand-protein interaction, all synthesized compounds were docked against an enoyl-[acyl-carrier-protein] reductase of M. tuberculosis (PDB ID: 4u0j). The computational studies revealed that azetidinone derivatives have a high affinity for the active site of enzyme which provides a strong platform for new structure-based design efforts. The Lipinski’s parameters showed good drug-like properties and can be developed as an oral drug candidate.

Keywords: antimycobacterial, antiprotozoal, azetidinone, diphenylether, docking, microwave

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Authors: Z. Okay, M. Kalkan Erdoğan, M. Şahin, M. Saçak

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Polyacrylonitrile (PAN) is one of the most common and cheap fiber-forming polymers because of its high strength and high abrasion resistance properties. The result of alkaline hydrolysis of PAN fiber could be formed the products with conjugated sequences of –C=N–, acrylamide, sodium acrylate, and amidine. In this study, PAN fiber was hydrolyzed in a solution of sodium hydroxide, and this hydrolyzed PAN (HPAN) fiber was used to prepare conductive composite fiber by silver particles. The electrically conductive PAN fiber has the usage potential to produce variety of materials such as antistatic materials, life jackets and static charge reducing products. We monitored the change in the weight loss values of the PAN fiber with hydrolysis time. It was observed that a 60 % of weight loss was obtained in the fiber weight after 7h hydrolysis under the investigated conditions, but the fiber lost its fibrous structure. The hydrolysis time of 5h was found to be suitable in terms of preserving its fibrous structure. The change in the conductivity values of the composite with the preparation conditions such as hydrolysis time, silver ion concentration was studied. PAN fibers with different degrees of hydrolysis were treated with aqueous solutions containing different concentrations of silver ions by continuous stirring at 20 oC for 30 min, and the composite having the maximum conductivity of 2 S/cm could be prepared. The antibacterial property of the conductive HPAN fibers participated silver was also investigated. While the hydrolysis of the PAN fiber was characterized with FTIR and SEM techniques, the silver reduction process of the HPAN fiber was investigated with SEM and TGA-DTA techniques. The SEM micrographs showed that the surface of HPAN fiber was rougher and much more corroded than that of the PAN fiber. Composite, Conducting polymer, Fiber, Polyacrylonitrile.

Keywords: composite, conducting polymer, fiber, polyacrylonitrile

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Authors: L. Mercier, D. Beladjine, K. Beddiar

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The digital transition of building in France brings many changes which some have been able to face very quickly, while others are struggling to find their place and the interest that BIM can bring in their profession. BIM today is already adopted or initiated by construction professionals. However, this change, which can be drastic for some, prevents them from integrating it definitively. This is the case with architects. The profession is shared on the practice of BIM in its exercise. The risk of not adopting this new working method now and of not wanting to switch to its new digital tools leads us to question the future of the profession in view of the gap that is likely to be created within project management. In order to deal with the subject efficiently, our work was based on a documentary watch on BIM and then on the profession of architect, which allowed us to establish links on these two subjects. The observation of the economic model towards which the agencies tend and the trend of the sought after profiles made it possible to develop the opportunities and the brakes likely to impact the future of the profession of architect. The centralization of research directs work towards the conclusion that the model implemented by companies does not allow to integrate BIM within their structure. A solution hypothesis was then issued, focusing on the development of agencies through the diversity of profiles, skills to be integrated internally with the aim of diversifying their skills, and their business practices. In order to address this hypothesis of a multidisciplinary agency model, we conducted a survey of architectural firms. It is built on the model of Anglo-Saxon countries, which do not have the same functioning in comparison to the French model. The results obtained showed a risk of gradual disappearance on the market from small agencies in favor of those who will have and could take this BIM working method. This is why the architectural profession must, first of all, look at what is happening within its training before absolutely wanting to diversify the profiles to integrate into its structure. This directs the study on the training of architects. The schools of French architects are generally behind schedule if we allow the comparison to the schools of engineers. The latter is currently experiencing a slight improvement with the emergence of masters and BIM options during the university course. If the training of architects develops towards learning BIM and the agencies have the desire to integrate different but complementary profiles, then they will develop their skills internally and therefore open their profession to new functions. The place of BIM Management on projects will allow the architect to remain in control of the project because of their overall vision of the project. In addition, the integration of BIM and more generally of the life cycle analysis of the structure will make it possible to guarantee eco-design or eco-construction by approaching the constraints of sustainable development omnipresent on the planet.

Keywords: building information modelling, BIM, BIM management, BIM manager, BIM architect

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Authors: Levent Dumenci, Laura A. Siminoff

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Health literacy has been shown to predict a variety of health outcomes. Reliable identification of persons with limited cancer health literacy (LCHL) has been proved questionable with existing instruments using an arbitrary cut point along a continuum. The CHLT-6, however, uses a latent mixture modeling approach to identify persons with LCHL. The purpose of this study was to estimate two-week and six-month stability of identifying persons with LCHL using the CHLT-6 with a discrete latent variable approach as the underlying measurement structure. Using a test-retest design, the CHLT-6 was administered to cancer patients with two-week (N=98) and six-month (N=51) intervals. The two-week and six-month latent test-retest agreements were 89% and 88%, respectively. The chance-corrected latent agreements estimated from Dumenci’s latent kappa were 0.62 (95% CI: 0.41 – 0.82) and .47 (95% CI: 0.14 – 0.80) for the two-week and six-month intervals, respectively. High levels of latent test-retest agreement between limited and adequate categories of cancer health literacy construct, coupled with moderate to good levels of change-corrected latent agreements indicated that the CHLT-6 classification of limited versus adequate cancer health literacy is relatively stable over time. In conclusion, the measurement structure underlying the instrument allows for estimating classification errors circumventing limitations due to arbitrary approaches adopted by all other instruments. The CHLT-6 can be used to identify persons with LCHL in oncology clinics and intervention studies to accurately estimate treatment effectiveness.

Keywords: limited cancer health literacy, the CHLT-6, discrete latent variable modeling, latent agreement

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Authors: Anders Troedsson

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For us humans, risk and insecurity are intimately linked to vulnerabilities - where there is vulnerability, there is potentially risk and insecurity. Reducing vulnerability through compensatory measures means decreasing the likelihood of a certain external event be qualified as a risk/threat/assault, and thus also means increasing the individual’s sense of security. The paper suggests that a meaningful way to approach the study of risk/ insecurity is to organize thinking about the vulnerabilities that external phenomena evoke in humans as perceived by them. Such phenomena are, through a set of given vulnerabilities, potentially translated into perceptions of "insecurity." An ontological discussion about salient timespace characteristics of external phenomena as perceived by humans, including such which potentially can be qualified as risk/threat/assault, leads to the positing of two dimensions which are central for describing what in the paper is called the essence of risk/threat/assault. As is argued, such modeling helps analysis steer free of the subjective factor which is intimately connected to human perception and which mediates between phenomena “out there” potentially identified as risk/threat/assault, and their translation into an experience of security or insecurity. A proposed set of universally given vulnerabilities are scrutinized with the help of the two dimensions, resulting in a modeling effort featuring four realms of vulnerabilities which together represent a dynamic whole. This model in turn informs modeling on human security.

Keywords: human vulnerabilities, human security, immediate-inert, material-immaterial, timespace

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Authors: Horesh Reinman Netta

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Objectives: To examine the relationship between stressful life events and recurrent major depressive disorders Methods: Three groups of 50 subjects were assessed. One group had a recurrent major depressive disorder with melancholic features; the second group met the criteria for borderline personality disorder, and the third consisted of healthy controls. The Structured Clinical Interview for AXIS I DSM-IV Disorders sand the Structured Clinical Interview for AXIS II DSM-IV Disorders were used for diagnosis. The Israel Psychiatric Epidemiology Research Interview (IPERI) Life Event Scale and the Coddington Life Events Schedule (CLES) were used to measure life events which were confirmed with a confirmatory semi-structured interview. The Beck Depression Inventory and the Satisfaction from Life scales were also administered. Results : The total number of loss-related events in childhood and in the year preceding the first episode was significantly higher in the affective disorder group than in the two control groups. Total number of LE, uncontrolled and independent events were also more common in the depressed patients in the year preceding the first episode. No category of SLE was differentiated among any of the three groups during any period of time following the first depressive episode. Conclusions: SLE play an important role in the onset of affective disorders. There appear to be specific kinds of SLE occurring in childhood and in the year preceding a first episode that have particular significance. SLE may have a lesser role in the maintenance of this illness.

Keywords: modd dosorders, recurrent depression, stress, life events

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Authors: Arth Bohra, Marwa Mahmoud

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In this paper, we utilize computer vision to develop a tool for youth coaches to formulate set-piece tactics for their players. We used the Soccernet database to extract the ResNet features and camera calibration data for over 3000 corner kick across 500 professional matches in the top 6 European leagues (English Premier League, UEFA Champions League, Ligue 1, La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga). Leveraging the provided homography matrix, we construct a feature vector representing the formation of players on these corner kicks. Additionally, labeling the videos manually, we obtained the pass-trajectory of each of the 3000+ corner kicks by segmenting the field into four zones. Next, after determining the localization of the players and ball, we used event data to give the corner kicks a rating on a 1-4 scale. By employing a Convolutional Neural Network, our model managed to predict the success of a corner kick given the formations of players. This suggests that with the right formations, teams can optimize the way they approach corner kicks. By understanding this, we can help coaches formulate set-piece tactics for their own teams in order to maximize the success of their play. The proposed model can be easily extended; our method could be applied to even more game situations, from free kicks to counterattacks. This research project also gives insight into the myriad of possibilities that artificial intelligence possesses in transforming the domain of sports.

Keywords: soccer, corner kicks, AI, computer vision

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Authors: Anna Keuchenius

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Broadly speaking, scientific development is studied in either a qualitative manner with a focus on the behavior and interpretations of academics, such as the sociology of science and science studies or in a quantitative manner with a focus on the analysis of publications, such as scientometrics and bibliometrics. Both come with a different set of methodologies and few cross-references. This paper contributes to the bridging of this divide, by on the on hand approaching the process of scientific progress from a qualitative sociological angle and using on the other hand quantitative and computational techniques. As a case study, we analyze the diffusion of Granovetter's hypothesis from his 1973 paper 'On The Strength of Weak Ties.' A network is constructed of all scientists that have referenced this particular paper, with directed edges to all other researchers that are concurrently referenced with Granovetter's 1973 paper. Studying the structure and growth of this network over time, it is found that Granovetter's hypothesis is used by distinct communities of scientists, each with their own key-narrative into which the hypothesis is fit. The diffusion within the communities shares similarities with the diffusion of an innovation in which innovators, early adopters, and an early-late majority can clearly be distinguished. Furthermore, the network structure shows that each community is clustered around one or few hub scientists that are disproportionately often referenced and seem largely responsible for carrying the hypothesis into their scientific subfield. The larger implication of this case study is that the diffusion of scientific hypotheses and ideas are not the spreading of well-defined objects over a network. Rather, the diffusion is a process in which the object itself dynamically changes in concurrence with its spread. Therefore it is argued that the methodology presented in this paper has potential beyond the scientific domain, in the study of diffusion of other not well-defined objects, such as opinions, behavior, and ideas.

Keywords: diffusion of innovations, network analysis, scientific development, sociology of science

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Authors: Evan Hajani, Ataur Rahman, Khaled Haddad

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Climate change will affect the hydrological cycle in many different ways such as increase in evaporation and rainfalls. There have been growing interests among researchers to identify the nature of trends in historical rainfall data in many different parts of the world. This paper examines the trends in annual maximum rainfall data from 30 stations in New South Wales, Australia by using two non-parametric tests, Mann-Kendall (MK) and Spearman’s Rho (SR). Rainfall data were analyzed for fifteen different durations ranging from 6 min to 3 days. It is found that the sub-hourly durations (6, 12, 18, 24, 30, and 48 minutes) show statistically significant positive (upward) trends whereas longer duration (sub-daily and daily) events generally show a statistically significant negative (downward) trend. It is also found that the MK test and SR test provide notably different results for some rainfall event durations considered in this study. Since shorter duration sub-hourly rainfall events show positive trends at many stations, the design rainfall data based on stationary frequency analysis for these durations need to be adjusted to account for the impact of climate change. These shorter durations are more relevant to many urban development projects based on smaller catchments having a much shorter response time.

Keywords: climate change, Mann-Kendall test, Spearman’s Rho test, trends, design rainfall

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Authors: Zafer Sakka, Husain Al-Khaiat

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Due to social and economic considerations, owners all over the world desire to keep and use existing structures, including aging ones. However, these structures, especially those that are dear, need accurate condition assessment, and proper safety evaluation. More than half of the budget spent on construction activities in developed countries is related to the repair and maintenance of these reinforced concrete (R/C) structures. Also, periodical evaluation and assessment of relatively old concrete structures are vital and imperative. If the evaluation and assessment of structural components of a particular aging R/C structure reveal that repairs are essential for these components, these repairs should not be delayed. Delaying the repairs has the potential of losing serviceability of the whole structure and/or causing total failure and collapse of the structure. In addition, if repairs are delayed, the cost of maintenance will skyrocket as well. It can also be concluded from the above that the assessment of existing needs to receive more consideration and thought from the structural engineering societies and professionals. Ten major existing structures in Kuwait city that were constructed in the 1970s were assessed for structural reliability and integrity. Numerous concrete samples were extracted from the structural systems of the investigated buildings. This paper presents the results of the compressive strength tests that were conducted on the extracted cores. The results are compared for the buildings’ columns and beams elements and compared with the design strengths. The collected data were statistically analyzed. The average compressive strengths of the concrete cores that were extracted from the ten buildings had a large variation. The lowest average compressive strength for one of the buildings was 158 kg/cm². This building was deemed unsafe and economically unfeasible to be repaired; accordingly, it was demolished. The other buildings had an average compressive strengths fall in the range 215-317 kg/cm². Poor construction practices were the main cause for the strengths. Although most of the drawings and information for these buildings were lost during the invasion of Kuwait in 1990, however, information gathered indicated that the design strengths of the beams and columns for most of these buildings were in the range of 280-400 kg/cm². Following the study, measures were taken to rehabilitate the buildings for safety. The mean compressive strength for all cores taken from beams and columns of the ten buildings was 256.7 kg/cm². The values range was 139 to 394 kg/cm². For columns, the mean was 250.4 kg/cm², and the values ranged from 137 to 394 kg/cm². However, the mean compressive strength for the beams was higher than that of columns. It was 285.9 kg/cm², and the range was 181 to 383 kg/cm². In addition to the concrete cores that were extracted from the ten buildings, the 28-day compressive strengths of more than 24,660 concrete cubes were collected from a major ready-mixed concrete supplier in Kuwait. The data represented four different grades of ready-mix concrete (250, 300, 350, and 400 kg/cm²) manufactured between the year 2003 and 2018. The average concrete compressive strength for the different concrete grades (250, 300, 350 and 400 kg/cm²) was found to be 318, 382, 453 and 504 kg/cm², respectively, and the coefficients of variations were found to be 0.138, 0.140, 0.157 and 0.131, respectively.

Keywords: concrete compressive strength, concrete structures, existing building, statistical analysis.

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Authors: M. Abou-Amouna, A. Radwan, L. Al-kuwari, A. Hammuda, K. Al-Khalifa

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There is growing concern over increasing incidences of road accidents and consequent loss of human life in Qatar. In light to the future planned event in Qatar, World Cup 2022; Qatar should put into consideration the future deaths caused by road accidents, and past trends should be considered to give a reasonable picture of what may happen in the future. Qatar roads should be arranged and paved in a way that accommodate high capacity of the population in that time, since then there will be a huge number of visitors from the world. Qatar should also consider the risk issues of road accidents raised in that period, and plan to maintain high level to safety strategies. According to the increase in the number of road accidents in Qatar from 1995 until 2012, an analysis of elements affecting and causing road accidents will be effectively studied. This paper aims to identify and criticize the factors that have high effect on causing road accidents in the state of Qatar, and predict the total number of road accidents in Qatar 2022. Alternative methods are discussed and the most applicable ones according to the previous researches are selected for further studies. The methods that satisfy the existing case in Qatar were the multiple linear regression model (MLR) and artificial neutral network (ANN). Those methods are analyzed and their findings are compared. We conclude that by using MLR the number of accidents in 2022 will become 355,226 accidents, and by using ANN 216,264 accidents. We conclude that MLR gave better results than ANN because the artificial neutral network doesn’t fit data with large range varieties.

Keywords: road safety, prediction, accident, model, Qatar

Procedia PDF Downloads 241

Authors: Anas Alsuhaibani

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Observing debate and discussion over social media has been found to be a promising tool to investigate different types of opinion. On 23 June 2016, Brexit voters in the UK decided to depart from the EU, with 51.9% voting to leave. On Twitter, there had been a massive debate in this context, and the hashtag Brexit was allocated as number six of the most tweeted hashtags across the globe in 2016. The study aimed to investigate the sentiment and themes expressed in a sample of tweets during a political event (Brexit) in 2016. A sentiment and thematic analysis was conducted on 1304 randomly selected tweets tagged with the hashtag Brexit in Twitter for the period from 10 June 2016 to 7 July 2016. The data were coded manually into two code frames, sentiment and thematic, and the reliability of coding was assessed for both codes. The sentiment analysis of the selected sample found that 45.63% of tweets conveyed negative emotions while there were only 10.43% conveyed positive emotions. It also surprisingly resulted that 29.37% were factual tweets, where the tweeter expressed no sentiment and the tweet conveyed a fact. For the thematic analysis, the economic theme dominated by 23.41%, and almost half of its discussion was related to business within the UK and the UK and global stock markets. The study reported that the current UK government and relation to campaign themes were the most negative themes. Both sentiment and thematic analyses found that tweets with more than one opinion or theme were rare, 8.29% and 6.13%, respectively.

Keywords: Brexit, political opinion mining, social media, twitter

Procedia PDF Downloads 194

Authors: Rouhallah Bagheri, Morteza Mahmoudi, Hadi Moheb-Alizadeh

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This paper aims at developing a multi-objective model for supplier selection and order allocation problem in stochastic environment, where purchasing cost, percentage of delivered items with delay and percentage of rejected items provided by each supplier are supposed to be stochastic parameters following any arbitrary probability distribution. In this regard, dependent chance programming is used which maximizes probability of the event that total purchasing cost, total delivered items with delay and total rejected items are less than or equal to pre-determined values given by decision maker. The abovementioned stochastic multi-objective programming problem is then transformed into a stochastic single objective programming problem using minimum deviation method. In the next step, the further problem is solved applying a genetic algorithm, which performs a simulation process in order to calculate the stochastic objective function as its fitness function. Finally, the impact of stochastic parameters on the given solution is examined via a sensitivity analysis exploiting coefficient of variation. The results show that whatever stochastic parameters have greater coefficients of variation, the value of the objective function in the stochastic single objective programming problem is deteriorated.

Keywords: supplier selection, order allocation, dependent chance programming, genetic algorithm

Procedia PDF Downloads 299

Authors: S. Ghosh, L. Ramos, A. N. Kouamé, A.-L. Teillout, H. Remita

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Catalytic materials have attracted continuous attention due to their promising applications in a variety of energy and environmental applications including clean energy, energy conversion and storage, purification and separation, degradation of pollutants and electrochemical reactions etc. With the advanced synthetic technologies, polymer nanostructures and nanocomposites can be directly synthesized through soft template mediated approach using swollen hexagonal mesophases and modulate the size, morphology, and structure of polymer nanostructures. As an alternative to conventional catalytic materials, one-dimensional PDPB polymer nanostructures shows high photocatalytic activity under visible light for the degradation of pollutants. These photocatalysts are very stable with cycling. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and AFM-IR characterizations reveal that the morphology and structure of the polymer nanostructures do not change after photocatalysis. These stable and cheap polymer nanofibers and metal polymer nanocomposites are easy to process and can be reused without appreciable loss of activity. The polymer nanocomposites formed via one pot chemical redox reaction with 3.4 nm Pd nanoparticles on poly(diphenylbutadiyne) (PDPB) nanofibers (30 nm). The reduction of Pd (II) ions is accompanied by oxidative polymerization leading to composites materials. Hybrid Pd/PDPB nanocomposites used as electrode materials for the electrocatalytic oxidation of ethanol without using support of proton exchange Nafion membrane. Hence, these conducting polymer nanofibers and nanocomposites offer the perspective of developing a new generation of efficient photocatalysts for environmental protection and in electrocatalysis for fuel cell applications.

Keywords: conducting polymer, swollen hexagonal mesophases, solar photocatalysis, electrocatalysis, water depollution

Procedia PDF Downloads 369

Authors: A. Robak, M. Pieńko, E. Błazik-Borowa, J. Bęc, I. Szer

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The analyzes and classifications presented in the article were based on the research carried out in year 2016 and 2017 on a group of nearly one hundred scaffoldings assembled and used on construction sites in different parts of Poland. During scaffolding selection process efforts were made to maintain diversification in terms of parameters such as scaffolding size, investment size, type of investment, location and nature of conducted works. This resulted in the research being carried out on scaffoldings used for church renovation in a small town or attached to the facades of classic apartment blocks, as well as on scaffoldings used during construction of skyscrapers or facilities of the largest power plants. This variety allows to formulate general conclusions about the technical condition of used frame scaffoldings. Exploitation damages of the frame scaffolding elements were divided into three groups. The first group includes damages to the main structural components, which reduce the strength of the scaffolding elements and hence the whole structure. The qualitative analysis of these damages was made on the basis of numerical models that take into account the geometry of the damage and on the basis of computational nonlinear static analyzes. The second group focuses on exploitation damages such as the lack of a pin on the guardrail bolt which may cause an imminent threat to people using scaffolding. These are local damages that do not affect the bearing capacity and stability of the whole structure but are very important for safe use. The last group consider damages that reduce only aesthetic values and do not have direct impact on bearing capacity and safety of use. Apart from qualitative analyzes the article will present quantitative analyzes showing how frequently given type of damage occurs.

Keywords: scaffolding, damage, safety, numerical analysis

Procedia PDF Downloads 243

Authors: Vathsala Kaluarachchi, Oshani Wimalarathna, Charith Vandebona, Gayani Chandrarathna, Lakmal Rupasinghe, Windhya Rankothge

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It is the fundamental function of a monitoring system to allow users to collect and process data. A worldwide threat, the corona outbreak has wreaked havoc in Sri Lanka, and the situation has gotten out of hand. Since the epidemic, the Sri Lankan government has been unable to establish a systematic system for monitoring corona patients and providing emergency care in the event of an outbreak. Most patients have been held at home because of the high number of patients reported in the nation, but they do not yet have access to a functioning medical system. It has resulted in an increase in the number of patients who have been left untreated because of a lack of medical care. The absence of competent medical monitoring is the biggest cause of mortality for many people nowadays, according to our survey. As a result, a smartphone app for analyzing the patient's state and determining whether they should be hospitalized will be developed. Using the data supplied, we are aiming to send an alarm letter or SMS to the hospital once the system recognizes them. Since we know what those patients need and when they need it, we will put up a desktop program at the hospital to monitor their progress. Deep learning, image processing and application development, natural language processing, and blockchain management are some of the components of the research solution. The purpose of this research paper is to introduce a mechanism to connect hospitals and patients even when they are physically apart. Further data security and user-friendliness are enhanced through blockchain and NLP.

Keywords: blockchain, deep learning, NLP, monitoring system

Procedia PDF Downloads 125

Authors: Masoud Mahdavi, Mojtaba Farzaneh Moghadam

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The seismic forces caused by the waves created in the depths of the earth during the earthquake hit the structure and cause the building to vibrate. Creating large seismic forces will cause low-strength sections in the structure to suffer extensive surface damage. The use of new steel shear walls in steel structures has caused the strength of the building and its main members (columns) to increase due to the reduction and depreciation of seismic forces during earthquakes. In the present study, an attempt was made to evaluate a type of steel shear wall that has regular holes in the inner sheet by modeling the finite element model with Abacus software. The shear wall of the steel plate, measuring 6000 × 3000 mm (one floor) and 3 mm thickness, was modeled with four different pores with a cross-sectional area. The shear wall was dynamically subjected to a time history of 5 seconds by three accelerators, El Centro, Imperial Valley and Kobe. The results showed that increasing the distance between the geometric center of the hole and the geometric center of the inner plate in the steel shear wall (increasing the R_CS index) caused the total maximum acceleration to be transferred from the perimeter of the hole to horizontal and vertical beams. The results also show that there is no direct relationship between R_CS index and total acceleration in steel shear wall and R_CS index is separate from the peak ground acceleration value of earthquake.

Keywords: hollow steel plate shear wall, time history analysis, finite element method, abaqus software

Procedia PDF Downloads 93

Authors: Bongsik Park, Jae Hyun Park, Jae-Yeol Cho

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Mixed structure, which is a kind of hybrid system, is incorporating steel beam and prestressed concrete beam. Hybrid bridge adopting mixed structure have some merits. Main span length can be made longer by using steel as main span material. In case of cable-stayed bridge having asymmetric span length, negative reaction at side span can be restrained without extra restraining devices by using weight difference between main span material and side span material. However angle of refraction might happen because of rigidity difference between materials and stress concentration also might happen because of abnormal loading transmission at joint in the hybrid bridge. Therefore the joint might be a weak point of the structural system and it needs to pay attention to design of the joint. However, design codes and standards about the joint in the hybrid-bridge have not been established so the joint designs in most of construction cases have been very conservative or followed previous design without extra verification. In this study parametric study using finite element analysis for optimal design of hybrid bridge joint is conducted. Before parametric study, finite element analysis was conducted based on previous experimental data and it is verified that analysis result approximated experimental data. Based on the finite element analysis results, parametric study was conducted. The parameters were selected as those have influences on joint behavior. Based on the parametric study results, optimal design of hybrid bridge joint has been determined.

Keywords: parametric study, optimal design, hybrid bridge, finite element analysis

Procedia PDF Downloads 410

Authors: F. Z. Abir, M. Mesnaoui, Y. Abouliatim, L. Nibou, Y. El Hafiane, A. Smith

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The cement industry has been taking significant steps for years to reduce its carbon footprint by opting for an eco-friendly alternative such as Calcium Sulfoaluminate Cements (CSA). These binders, compared to Ordinary Portland Cements (OPC), have two advantages: reduction of the CO2 emissions and energy-saving because the sintering temperature of CSA cements is between 1250 and 1350 °C, which means 100 to 200 °C less than OPC. The aim of this work is to study the impurities effect, such as iron oxide, on the formation of the ye'elimite phase, which represents the main phase of Calcium Sulfoaluminate Cements and the consequence on its hydration. Several elaborations and characterization techniques were used to study the structure and microstructure of ye'elimite, such as X-ray diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), thermal analysis, specific surface area measurement, and electrical conductivity of diluted solutions. This study details the protocol for the solid-state synthesis of ye'elimite containing increasing amounts of iron (general formula: Ca4Al(6-2x)Fe2xSO16 with x = 0.00 to 1.13). Ye'elimite is formed by solid-state reactions between Al2O3, CaO and CaSO4 and the maximum ye'elimite content is reached at a sintering temperature of 1300 °C. The presence of iron promotes the formation of cubic ye'elimite at the expense of the orthorhombic phase. The total incorporation of iron in ye'elimite structure is possible when x < 0.12. Beyond this content, the ferritic phase (CaO)2(Al2O3,Fe2O3) appears as a minor phase and develops two different morphologies during cooling: dendritic crystals and melt morphology. The formation of the ferrous liquid phase affects the evolution of grain size of the ye’elimite and calcium aluminates.

Keywords: calcium sulfoaluminate cement, ferritic phase, sintering, solid-state synthesis, ye’elimite

Procedia PDF Downloads 175