Search results for: Raid Karoumi

Authors: Ana Neves, John Leander, Ignacio Gonzalez, Raid Karoumi

Abstract:

Systematic monitoring and inspection are needed to assess the present state of a structure and predict its future condition. If an irregularity is noticed, repair actions may take place and the adequate intervention will most probably reduce the future costs with maintenance, minimize downtime and increase safety by avoiding the failure of the structure as a whole or of one of its structural parts. For this to be possible decisions must be made at the right time, which implies using systems that can detect abnormalities in their early stage. In this sense, Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) is seen as an effective tool for improving the safety and reliability of infrastructures. This paper explores the decision-making problem in SHM regarding the maintenance of civil engineering structures. The aim is to assess the present condition of a bridge based exclusively on measurements using the suggested method in this paper, such that action is taken coherently with the information made available by the monitoring system. Artificial Neural Networks are trained and their ability to predict structural behavior is evaluated in the light of a case study where acceleration measurements are acquired from a bridge located in Stockholm, Sweden. This relatively old bridge is presently still in operation despite experiencing obvious problems already reported in previous inspections. The prediction errors provide a measure of the accuracy of the algorithm and are subjected to further investigation, which comprises concepts like clustering analysis and statistical hypothesis testing. These enable to interpret the obtained prediction errors, draw conclusions about the state of the structure and thus support decision making regarding its maintenance.

Keywords: artificial neural networks, clustering analysis, model-free damage detection, statistical hypothesis testing, structural health monitoring

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Authors: Raid R. O. Al-Nima, S. S. Dlay, W. L. Woo

Abstract:

A relationship between face and signature biometrics is established in this paper. A new approach is developed to predict faces from signatures by using artificial intelligence. A multilayer perceptron (MLP) neural network is used to generate face details from features extracted from signatures, here face is the physical biometric and signatures is the behavioural biometric. The new method establishes a relationship between the two biometrics and regenerates a visible face image from the signature features. Furthermore, the performance efficiencies of our new technique are demonstrated in terms of minimum error rates compared to published work.

Keywords: behavioural biometric, face biometric, neural network, physical biometric, signature biometric

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Authors: Sharmila Parmanand

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This paper examines dominant media representations of prostitution in the Philippines and interrogates sex workers’ interactions with the media establishment. This analysis of how sex workers are constituted in media, often as both innocent victims and immoral actors, contributes to an understanding of public discourse on sex work in the Philippines, where decriminalisation has recently been proposed and sex workers are currently classified as potential victims under anti-trafficking laws but also as criminals under the penal code. The first part is an analysis of media coverage of two prominent themes on prostitution: first, raid and rescue operations conducted by law enforcement; and second, prostitution on military bases and tourism hotspots. As a result of pressure from activists and international donors, these two themes often define the policy conversations on sex work in the Philippines. The discourses in written and televised news reports and documentaries from established local and international media sources that address these themes are explored through content analysis. Conclusions are drawn based on specific terms commonly used to refer to sex workers, how sex workers are seen as performing their cultural roles as mothers and wives, how sex work is depicted, associations made between sex work and public health, representations of clients and managers and ‘rescuers’ such as the police, anti-trafficking organisations, and faith-based groups, and which actors are presumed to be issue experts. Images of how prostitution is used as a metaphor for relations between the Philippines and foreign nations are also deconstructed, along with common tropes about developing world female subjects. In general, sex workers are simultaneously portrayed as bad mothers who endanger their family’s morality but also as long-suffering victims who endure exploitation for the sake of their children. They are also depicted as unclean, drug-addicted threats to public health. Their managers and clients are portrayed as cold, abusive, and sometimes violent, and their rescuers as moral and altruistic agents who are essential for sex workers’ rehabilitation and restoration as virtuous citizens. The second part explores sex workers’ own perceptions of their interactions with media, through interviews with members of the Philippine Sex Workers Collective, a loose organisation of sex workers around the Philippines. They reveal that they are often excluded by media practitioners and that they do not feel that they have space for meaningful self-revelation about their work when they do engage with journalists, who seem to have an overt agenda of depicting them as either victims or women of loose morals. In their assessment, media narratives do not necessarily reflect their lived experiences, and in some cases, coverage of rescues and raid operations endangers their privacy and instrumentalises their suffering. Media representations of sex workers may produce subject positions such as ‘victims’ or ‘criminals’ and legitimize specific interventions while foreclosing other ways of thinking. Further, in light of media’s power to reflect and shape public consciousness, it is a valuable academic and political project to examine whether sex workers are able to assert agency in determining how they are represented.

Keywords: discourse analysis, news media, sex work, trafficking

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Authors: Svetlana Yefimenko

Abstract:

Situated within the fields of Russian literature, Russian history, and classics, this paper investigates the early writing of Leo Tolstoy in terms of his reception and appropriation of Homeric epic for the purposes of reconstructing early 19th-century Russian history. The epic mode, specifically its Homeric variation, was deployed in Tolstoy’s writing on his military experience in the Crimean War to legitimize a version of historical events which positioned Russian soldiers as the inheritors of ancient Greek heroism. With reference to Tolstoy’s oft-neglected Sevastopol’ Sketches, and the short stories The Raid, The Wood-Felling, and Two Hussars, this paper examines how such narratives pass from communicative memory into collective memory both in the Homeric epics and in Tolstoy’s reworking of them, particularly on the literary effects produced when the distance between communicative and collective memory collapses. Within a song culture, epic song functions as memory, and this paper shows how, by modeling his early work on epic, Tolstoy produced texts which act as memory itself, thereby becoming the authoritative version of Russia’s past in the Crimea, often contradicting historical facts.

Keywords: classical reception, collective memory, Russian history, Russian literature

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Authors: Raid Hommady, Waseem Al-Talalwah, Shorok Al Dorazi, Roger Soames

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The iliolumbar artery is a regular branch of posterior division of the internal iliac artery. The present study investigate 82 specimens to identify the origin of iliolumbar artery. The present study targets the sciatic nerve root supply from iliolumbar artery based on its origin and course. In present study, the ililumbar artery arose from the posterior division of internal iliac artery in 52.2%. In few cases, it arose from dorsomedial aspect of the internal iliac artery in 28.8%. In few cases, the iliolumbar artery arose from the dorsal aspects of the internal iliac artery as well as from the common and external iliac artery 1.7%. Also, the iliolumbar artery arose from the sciatic artery as well as from superior and inferior gluteal arteries in 5.1%. Conversely, it found to be congenital absent in 8.5%. Therefore, the posterior trunk of the internal iliac artery is the most common origin of the iliolumbar artery. With the origin variability of the iliolumbar artery, there is a vascular supply variability of the lumbosacral trunk and sacral root of sciatic nerve. The iliolumbar artery provides vascular supply for lumbosacral trunk 57.3% in whereas the sacral root in 5.1%. As a result, surgeons should pay attention to these variations to decrease iatrogenic fault.

Keywords: iliolumbar, sciatic artery, internal iliac, external iliac, posterior division

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Authors: Eman Mayah, Raid Hanna

Abstract:

This study presents the use of daylight in the case study of the Reid building at the Glasgow School of Art in the city of Glasgow, UK. In Nordic countries, daylight is one of the main considerations within building design, especially in the face of long, lightless winters. A shortage of daylight, contributing to dark and gloomy conditions, necessitates that designs incorporate strong daylight performance. As such, the building in question is designed to capture natural light for varying needs, where studios are located on the North and South façades. The study’s approach presents an analysis of different façade scenarios, where daylight from the North is observed, analyzed and compared with the daylight from the South façade for various design studios in the building. The findings then are correlated with the results of daylight levels from the daylight simulation program (Autodesk Ecotect Analysis) for the investigated studios. The study finds there to be a dramatic difference in daylight nature and levels between the North and South façades, where orientation, obstructions and designed façade fenestrations have major effects on the findings. The study concludes that some of the studios positioned on the North façade do not have a desirable quality of diffused northern light, due to the outside building’s obstructions, area and volume of the studio and the shadow effect of the designed mezzanine floor in the studios.

Keywords: daylight levels, educational building, Façade fenestration, overcast weather

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Authors: Bhaskar M. Murai, Neeraj Banchor, Ishveen Chabbra, Madhusudhan Nadgir, S. Vidhya

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Sol-gel technology combined with electronics and biochemistry helps to overcome the problems caused by mosquitoes by developing a portable, low-cost device which enables controlled release of trapped compound inside it. It is a wet-chemical technique which is used primarily for fabrication of silicate gel which is usually allowed to dry as per requirement. The outcome is solid rock hard material which is porous and has lots of applications in different fields. Taking porosity as a key factor, allethrin a naturally occurring synthetic compound with molecular mass 302.40 was entrapped inside the sol-gel matrix as a dopant. Allethrin is commonly used as an insecticide and is a key ingredient in commercially available mosquitoes repellent in Asian and subtropical countries. It has low toxicity for humans and birds, and are used in many household insecticides such as RAID as well as mosquito coils. They are however highly toxic to fish and bees. Insects subject to its exposure become paralyzed (nervous system effect) before dying. They are also used as an ultra-low volume spray for outdoor mosquito control. Therefore, there is a need for controlled release of allethrin in the environment. For controlled release of allethrin from sol-gel matrix, its (allethrin) we utilized temperature based controlled evaporation through porous sol-gel. Different types of fabric like cotton, Terri-cotton, polyester, surgical cap, knee-cap etc are studied and the best with maximum absorption capacity is selected to hold the sol-gel matrix with maximum quantity. For sol-gel coating 2 x 2cm cloth pieces are dipped in sol-gel solution for 10 minutes and by calculating the weight difference we concluded that Terri cotton is best suitable for our project. An electronic circuit with heating plate is developed in to test the controlled release of compound. An oscillatory circuit is used to produce the required heat.

Keywords: sol-gel, allethrin, TEOS, biochemistry

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Authors: Arkadiusz Zurek

Abstract:

The potential of using drones is visible in many areas of logistics, especially in terms of their use for monitoring and control of many processes. The technologies implemented in the last decade concern new possibilities for companies that until now have not even considered them, such as warehouse inventories. Unmanned aerial vehicles are no longer seen as a revolutionary tool for Industry 4.0, but rather as tools in the daily work of factories and logistics operators. The research problem is to develop a method for measuring the weight of goods in a selected link of the clothing supply chain by drones. However, the purpose of this article is to analyze the causes of errors in traditional measurements, and then to identify adverse events related to the use of drones for the inventory of a heap of textiles intended for production purposes. On this basis, it will be possible to develop guidelines to eliminate the causes of these events in the measurement process using drones. In a real environment, work was carried out to determine the volume and weight of textiles, including, among others, weighing a textile sample to determine the average density of the assortment, establishing a local geodetic network, terrestrial laser scanning and photogrammetric raid using an unmanned aerial vehicle. As a result of the analysis of measurement data obtained in the facility, the volume and weight of the assortment and the accuracy of their determination were determined. In this article, this work presents how such heaps are currently being tested, what adverse events occur, indicate and describes the current use of photogrammetric techniques of this type of measurements so far performed by external drones for the inventory of wind farms or construction of the station and compare them with the measurement system of the aforementioned textile heap inside a large-format facility.

Keywords: drones, unmanned aerial system, UAS, indoor system, security, process automation, cost optimization, photogrammetry, risk elimination, industry 4.0

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