Search results for: voice reconstruction

Authors: Paulo Da Silva Quadros

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This work aims to point out comparative parameters between the artistic production of two exponents of the contemporary popular culture scene: Caetano Veloso (Brazil) and David Bowie (England). Both Caetano Veloso and David Bowie were pioneers in establishing an aesthetic game between various artistic expressions at the service of the music-visual scene, that is, the conceptual interconnections between several forms of aesthetic processes, such as fine arts, theatre, cinema, poetry, and literature. There are also correlations in their expressive attitudes of art, especially regarding the dialogue between the fields of art and politics (concern with respect to human rights, human dignity, racial issues, tolerance, gender issues, and sexuality, among others); the constant tension and cunning game between market, free expression and critical sense; the sophisticated, playful mechanisms of metalanguage and aesthetic metacritique. Fact is that both of them almost came to cooperate with each other in the 1970s when Caetano was in exile in England, and when both had at the same time the same music producer, who tried to bring them closer, noticing similar aesthetic qualities in both artistic works, which was later glimpsed by some music critics. Among many of the most influential issues in Caetano's and Bowie's game of artistic-aesthetic expression are, for example, the ideas advocated by the sensation of strangeness (Albert Camus), art as transcendence (Friedrich Nietzsche), the deconstruction and reconstruction of auratic reconfiguration of artistic signs (Walter Benjamin and Andy Warhol). For deepen more theoretical issues, the following authors will be used as supportive interpretative references: Hans-Georg Gadamer, Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Schiller, Johan Huizinga. In addition to the aesthetic meanings of Ars Ludens characteristics of the two artists, the following supporting references will be also added: the question of technique (Martin Heidegger), the logic of sense (Gilles Deleuze), art as an event and the sense of the gesture of art ( Maria Teresa Cruz), the society of spectacle (Guy Debord), Verarbeitung and Durcharbeitung (Sigmund Freud), the poetics of interpretation and the sign of relation (Cremilda Medina). The purpose of such interpretative references is to seek to understand, from a cultural reading perspective (cultural semiology), some significant elements in the dynamics of aesthetic and media interconnections of both artists, which made them as some of the most influential interlocutors in contemporary music aesthetic thought, as a playful vivid experience of life and art.

Keywords: Caetano Veloso, David Bowie, music aesthetics, symbolic playfulness, cultural reading

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Authors: Melanie Kerschner

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Language is our main means of social interaction. News journalism, especially opinion discourse, holds a powerful position in this context. Editorials can be regarded as encounters of different, partially contradictory relationships between discourse participants constructed through the editorial voice. Their primary goal is to shape public opinion by commenting on events already addressed by other journalistic genres in the given newspaper. In doing so, the author tries to establish a consensus over the negotiated matter (i.e. the news event) with the reader. At the same time, he/she claims authority over the “correct” description and evaluation of an event. Yet, how can the relationship and the interaction between the discourse participants, i.e. the journalist, the reader and the news actors represented in the editorial, be best visualized and studied from a cross-cultural perspective? The present research project attempts to give insights into the role of (media) culture in British, Italian and German editorials. For this purpose the presenter will propose a basic framework: the so called “pyramid of discourse participants”, comprising the author, the reader, two types of news actors and the semantic macro-structure (as meta-level of analysis). Based on this framework, the following questions will be addressed: • Which strategies does the author employ to persuade the reader and to prompt him to give his opinion (in the comment section)? • In which ways (and with which linguistic tools) is editorial opinion expressed? • Does the author use adjectives, adverbials and modal verbs to evaluate news actors, their actions and the current state of affairs or does he/she prefer nominal labels? • Which influence do language choice and the related media culture have on the representation of news events in editorials? • In how far does the social context of a given media culture influence the amount of criticism and the way it is mediated so that it is still culturally-acceptable? The following culture-contrastive study shall examine 45 editorials (i.e. 15 per media culture) from six national quality papers that are similar in distribution, importance and the kind of envisaged readership to make valuable conclusions about culturally-motivated similarities and differences in the coverage and assessment of news events. The thematic orientation of the editorials will be the NSA scandal and the reactions of various countries, as this topic was and still is relevant to each of the three media cultures. Starting out from the “pyramid of discourse participants” as underlying framework, eight different criteria will be assigned to the individual discourse participants in the micro-analysis of the editorials. For the purpose of illustration, a single criterion, referring to the salience of authorial opinion, will be selected to demonstrate how the pyramid of discourse participants can be applied as a basis for empirical analysis. Extracts from the corpus shall furthermore enhance the understanding.

Keywords: Micro-analysis of editorials, culture-contrastive research, media culture, interaction between discourse participants, evaluation

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Authors: Elizabeth Parrott, Harry Pointon, Frederic Bezombes, Heather Panter

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Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV’s) are making a profound effect within policing, forensic and fire service procedures worldwide. These intelligent devices have already proven useful in photographing and recording large-scale outdoor and indoor sites using orthomosaic and three-dimensional (3D) modelling techniques, for the purpose of capturing and recording sites during and post-incident. UAV’s are becoming an established tool as they are extending the reach of the photographer and offering new perspectives without the expense and restrictions of deploying full-scale aircraft. 3D reconstruction quality is directly linked to the resolution of captured images; therefore, close proximity flights are required for more detailed models. As technology advances deployment of UAVs in confined spaces is becoming more common. With this in mind, this study investigates the effects of UAV operation within active crimes scenes with regard to the dispersal of particulate evidence. To date, there has been little consideration given to the potential effects of using UAV’s within active crime scenes aside from a legislation point of view. Although potentially the technology can reduce the likelihood of contamination by replacing some of the roles of investigating practitioners. There is the risk of evidence dispersal caused by the effect of the strong airflow beneath the UAV, from the downwash of the propellers. The initial results of this study are therefore presented to determine the height of least effect at which to fly, and the commercial propeller type to choose to generate the smallest amount of disturbance from the dataset tested. In this study, a range of commercially available 4-inch propellers were chosen as a starting point due to the common availability and their small size makes them well suited for operation within confined spaces. To perform the testing, a rig was configured to support a single motor and propeller powered with a standalone mains power supply and controlled via a microcontroller. This was to mimic a complete throttle cycle and control the device to ensure repeatability. By removing the variances of battery packs and complex UAV structures to allow for a more robust setup. Therefore, the only changing factors were the propeller and operating height. The results were calculated via computer vision analysis of the recorded dispersal of the sample particles placed below the arm-mounted propeller. The aim of this initial study is to give practitioners an insight into the technology to use when operating within confined spaces as well as recognizing some of the issues caused by UAV’s within active crime scenes.

Keywords: dispersal, evidence, propeller, UAV

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Authors: Eric Awich Ochen

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The end of the conflict in Northern Uganda in 2006 brought about an opportunity for the youth to return to their original home and contribute to the peace building and development process of their communities. Post-conflict is used here to refer to the post-armed conflict situation and activities of rebels of Joseph Kony in northern Uganda. While the rebels remain very much active in the Sudan and Central African Republic, in Uganda the last confrontations occurred around 2006 or earlier, and communities have returned to their homes and began the process of rebuilding their lives. It is argued that socio-economic reconstruction is at the heart of peacebuilding and sustenance of positive peace in the aftermath of conflict, as it has a bearing on post-conflict stability and good governance. We recognize that several post-conflict interventions within Northern Uganda have targeted women and children with a strong emphasis on family socio-economic empowerment and capacity building, including access to micro finance. The aim of this study was to examine the participation of the youth in post-conflict peace building and development in Northern Uganda by assessing the breadth and width of their engagement and the stages of programming cycle that they are involved in, interrogating the space for participation and how they are facilitating or constraining participation. It was further aimed at examining the various dimensions of participation at play in Northern Uganda and where this fits within the conceptual debates on peace building and development in the region. Supporting young people emerging out of protracted conflict to re-establish meaningful socio-economic engagements and livelihoods is fundamental to their participation in the affairs of the community. The study suggests that in the post-conflict development context of Northern Uganda, participation has rarely been disaggregated or differentiated by sectors or groups. Where some disaggregation occurs, then the main emphasis has always been on either women or children. It appears therefore that little meaningful space has thus been created for young people to engage and participate in peace building initiatives within the region. In other cases where some space is created for youth participation, this has been in pre-conceived programs or interventions conceived by the development organizations with the youth or young people only invited to participate at particular stages of the project implementation cycle. Still within the implementation of the intervention, the extent to which young people participate is bounded, with little power to influence the course of the interventions or make major decisions. It is thus visible that even here young people mainly validate and legitimize what are predetermined processes only act as pawns in the major chess games played by development actors (dominant peace building partners). This paper, therefore, concludes that the engagement of the youth in post-conflict peace building has been quite problematic and tokenistic and has not given the adequate youth space within which they could ably participate and express themselves in the ensuing interventions.

Keywords: youth, conflict, peace building, participation

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Authors: Bikash Ranjan Mishra, Lopamudra D. Satpathy

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In the wake of the phenomenal surge in international business in the last decades or more, both the developed and developing economies around the world are in massive competition to attract more and more FDI flows. While the developed countries have marched ahead in the race, the developing countries, especially those of Asian economies, have followed them at a rapid pace. While most of the previous studies have analysed the role of institutional quality in the promotion of FDI flows in developing countries, very few studies have taken an integrated approach of examining the comprehensive impact of institutional quality, globalization pattern and domestic financial development on FDI flows. In this context, the paper contributes to the literature in two important ways. Firstly, two composite indices of institutional quality and domestic financial development for the Asian countries are constructed in comparison to earlier studies that resort to a single variable for indicating the institutional quality and domestic financial development. Secondly, the impact of these variables on FDI flows through their interaction with geographical region is investigated. The study uses panel data covering the time period of 1996 to 2012 by selecting twenty Asian developing countries by emphasizing the quality of institutions from the geographical regions of eastern, south-eastern, southern and western Asia. Control of corruption, better rule of law, regulatory quality, effectiveness of the government, political stability and voice and accountability are used as indicators of institutional quality. Besides these, the study takes into account the domestic credits in the hands of public, private sectors and in stock markets as domestic financial indicators. First in the specification of model, a factor analysis is performed to reduce the vast determinants, which are highly correlated with each other, to a manageable size. Afterwards, a reduced version of the model is estimated with the extracted factors in the form of index as independent variables along with a set of control variables. It is found that the institutional quality index and index of globalization exert a significant effect on FDI inflows of the host countries; in contrast, the domestic financial index does not seem to play much worthy role. Finally, some robustness tests are performed to make sure that the results are not sensitive to temporal and spatial unobserved heterogeneity. On the basis of the above study, one general inference can be drawn from the policy prescription point of view that the government of these developing countries should strengthen their domestic institution, both financial and non-financial. In addition to these, welfare policies should also target for rapid globalization. If the financial and non-financial institutions of these developing countries become sound and grow more globalized in the economic, social and political domain, then they can appeal to more amounts of FDI inflows that will subsequently result in advancement of these economies.

Keywords: Asian developing economies, FDI, institutional quality, panel data

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Authors: Kazuki Kohama, Hiroko Ono

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The rainfall in Japan is gradually increasing every year according to Japan Meteorological Agency and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report. It means that the rainfall difference between rainy season and non-rainfall is increasing. In addition, the increasing trend of strong rain for a short time clearly appears. In recent years, natural disasters have caused enormous human injuries in various parts of Japan. Regarding water disaster, local heavy rain and floods of large rivers occur frequently, and it was decided on a policy to promote hard and soft sides as emergency disaster prevention measures with water disaster prevention awareness social reconstruction vision. Okinawa prefecture in subtropical region has torrential rain and water disaster several times a year such as river flood, in which is caused in specific rivers from all 97 rivers. Also, the shortage of capacity and narrow width are characteristic of river in Okinawa and easily cause river flood in heavy rain. This study focuses on Kohatu River that is one of the specific rivers. In fact, the water level greatly rises over the river levee almost once a year but non-damage of buildings around. On the other hand in some case, the water level reaches to ground floor height of house and has happed nine times until today. The purpose of this research is to figure out relationship between precipitation, surface outflow and total treatment water quantity of Kohatu River. For the purpose, we perform hydrological analysis although is complicated and needs specific details or data so that, the method is mainly using Geographic Information System software and outflow analysis system. At first, we extract watershed and then divided to 23 catchment areas to understand how much surface outflow flows to runoff point in each 10 minutes. On second, we create Unit Hydrograph indicating the area of surface outflow with flow area and time. This index shows the maximum amount of surface outflow at 2400 to 3000 seconds. Lastly, we compare an estimated value from Unit Hydrograph to a measured value. However, we found that measure value is usually lower than measured value because of evaporation and transpiration. In this study, hydrograph analysis was performed using GIS software and outflow analysis system. Based on these, we could clarify the flood time and amount of surface outflow.

Keywords: disaster prevention, water disaster, river flood, GIS software

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Authors: Ning Chang, Zelong Yuan, Yunpeng Wang, Jianchun Wang

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The utilization of Large Eddy Simulation (LES) has been extensive in turbulence research. LES concentrates on resolving the significant grid-scale motions while representing smaller scales through subfilter-scale (SFS) models. The deconvolution model, among the available SFS models, has proven successful in LES of engineering and geophysical flows. Nevertheless, the thorough investigation of how sub-filter scale dynamics and filter anisotropy affect SFS modeling accuracy remains lacking. The outcomes of LES are significantly influenced by filter selection and grid anisotropy, factors that have not been adequately addressed in earlier studies. This study examines two crucial aspects of LES: Firstly, the accuracy of direct deconvolution models (DDM) is evaluated concerning sub-filter scale (SFS) dynamics across varying filter-to-grid ratios (FGR) in isotropic turbulence. Various invertible filters are employed, including Gaussian, Helmholtz I and II, Butterworth, Chebyshev I and II, Cauchy, Pao, and rapidly decaying filters. The importance of FGR becomes evident as it plays a critical role in controlling errors for precise SFS stress prediction. When FGR is set to 1, the DDM models struggle to faithfully reconstruct SFS stress due to inadequate resolution of SFS dynamics. Notably, prediction accuracy improves when FGR is set to 2, leading to accurate reconstruction of SFS stress, except for cases involving Helmholtz I and II filters. Remarkably high precision, nearly 100%, is achieved at an FGR of 4 for all DDM models. Furthermore, the study extends to filter anisotropy and its impact on SFS dynamics and LES accuracy. By utilizing the dynamic Smagorinsky model (DSM), dynamic mixed model (DMM), and direct deconvolution model (DDM) with anisotropic filters, aspect ratios (AR) ranging from 1 to 16 are examined in LES filters. The results emphasize the DDM’s proficiency in accurately predicting SFS stresses under highly anisotropic filtering conditions. Notably high correlation coefficients exceeding 90% are observed in the a priori study for the DDM’s reconstructed SFS stresses, surpassing those of the DSM and DMM models. However, these correlations tend to decrease as filter anisotropy increases. In the a posteriori analysis, the DDM model consistently outperforms the DSM and DMM models across various turbulence statistics, including velocity spectra, probability density functions related to vorticity, SFS energy flux, velocity increments, strainrate tensors, and SFS stress. It is evident that as filter anisotropy intensifies, the results of DSM and DMM deteriorate, while the DDM consistently delivers satisfactory outcomes across all filter-anisotropy scenarios. These findings underscore the potential of the DDM framework as a valuable tool for advancing the development of sophisticated SFS models for LES in turbulence research.

Keywords: deconvolution model, large eddy simulation, subfilter scale modeling, turbulence

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Authors: Claire Tranter, Coral Dando

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Gathering information from others is a fundamental goal for those concerned with investigating crime, and protecting national and international security. Persuading an individual to move from an opposing to converging viewpoint, and an understanding on the cognitive style behind this change can serve to increase understanding of traditional face-to-face interactions, as well as synthetic environments (SEs) often used for communication across varying geographical locations. SEs are growing in usage, and with this increase comes an increase in crime being undertaken online. Communication technologies can allow people to mask their real identities, supporting anonymous communication which can raise significant challenges for investigators when monitoring and managing these conversations inside SEs. To date, the psychological literature concerning how to maximise information-gain in SEs for real-world interviewing purposes is sparse, and as such this aspect of social cognition is not well understood. Here, we introduce an overview of a novel programme of PhD research which seeks to enhance understanding of cross-cultural and cross-gender communication in SEs for maximising information gain. Utilising a dyadic jury paradigm, participants interacted with a confederate who attempted to persuade them to the opposing verdict across three distinct environments: face-to-face, instant messaging, and a novel virtual reality environment utilising avatars. Participants discussed a criminal scenario, acting as a two-person (male; female) jury. Persuasion was manipulated by the confederate claiming an opposing viewpoint (guilty v. not guilty) to the naïve participants from the outset. Pre and post discussion data, and observational digital recordings (voice and video) of participant’ discussion performance was collected. Information regarding cognitive style was also collected to ascertain participants need for cognitive closure and biases towards jumping to conclusions. Findings revealed that individuals communicating via an avatar in a virtual reality environment reacted in a similar way, and thus equally persuasive, when compared to individuals communicating face-to-face. Anonymous instant messaging however created a resistance to persuasion in participants, with males showing a significant decline in persuasive outcomes compared to face to face. The findings reveal new insights particularly regarding the interplay of persuasion on gender and modality, with anonymous instant messaging enhancing resistance to persuasion attempts. This study illuminates how varying SE can support new theoretical and applied understandings of how judgments are formed and modified in response to advocacy.

Keywords: applied cognition, persuasion, social media, virtual reality

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Authors: W. Linthicum-Blackhorse, P. Martens

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This present study seeks to discover attitudinal commonalities and differences within a musician population relative to the communication of emotion via music. We hypothesized that instrument type, as well as age and gender, would bear significantly on musicians’ opinions. A survey was administered to 178 participants; 152 were current music majors (mean age 20.3 years, 62 female) and 26 were adult participants in a community choir (mean age 54.0 years, 12 female). The adult participants were all vocalists, while student participants represented the full range of orchestral instruments. The students were grouped by degree program, (performance, music education, or other) and instrument type (voice, brass, woodwinds, strings, percussion). The survey asked 'How important are each of the following areas to you for portraying emotion in music?' Participants were asked to rate each of 15 items on a scale of 1 (not at all important) to 10 (very important). Participants were also instructed to leave blank any item that they did not understand. The 15 items were: dynamic contrast, overall volume, phrasing, facial expression, staging (placement), pitch accuracy, tempo changes, bodily movement, your mood, your attitude, vibrato, rubato, stage/room lighting, clothing type, and clothing color. Contrary to our hypothesis, there was no overall effect of gender or age, and neither did any single response item show a significant difference due to these subject parameters. Among the student participants, however, one-way ANOVA revealed a significant effect of degree program on the rated importance of four items: dynamic contrast, tempo changes, vibrato, and rubato. Significant effects of instrument type were found in the responses to eight items: facial expression, staging, body movement, vibrato, rubato, lighting, clothing type, and clothing color. Post hoc comparisons (Tukey) show that some variation follows from obvious differences between instrument types (e.g. string players are more concerned with vibrato than everyone but woodwind players; vocalists are significantly more concerned with facial expression than everyone but string players), but other differences could point to communal mindsets toward vicarious cues within instrument type. These mindsets could be global (e.g. brass players deeming body movement significantly less important than string players, being less often featured as soloists and appearing less often at the front of the stage) or local (e.g. string players being significantly more concerned than all other groups about both clothing color and type, perhaps due to the strongly-expressed opinions of specific teachers). Future work will attempt to identify the source of these self-appraisals, whether enculturated via explicit pedagogy, or whether absorbed from individuals' observations and performance experience.

Keywords: performance, vicarious cues, communication, emotion

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Authors: Kenny Chi Man Chui

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Background: In Chinese culture, the traditional equivalent term for English dementia is chi dai zheng, which, whether translated as ‘insanity’ or ‘idiocy’ carries a sharply negative connotation. In fact, even though the traditional name for dementia has evolved, from chi dai zheng to shi zhi zheng, nao tui hua zheng or ren zhi zhang ai zheng, educating the population about more respectful terms for the condition and promoting a positive understanding about people with dementia in society have proven to be time-intensive endeavors. By extension, the use of such terms promotes the perception that people with dementia undergo a ‘total loss of self’ or experience a ‘living death’ or ‘social death’. Both in Asia and elsewhere, the appropriate nomenclature for dementia remains controversial, and different medical and healthcare professionals in Hong Kong have taken various stances on how to refer to the condition there. Indeed, how this negative perception affects the interaction between people with dementia and the surrounding others? Methodology: Qualitative research with the concept of postmodernism, interpretivism, and Foucauldian theory was adopted as frameworks in applying participatory observations, in-depth interviews, and other qualitative methods. First, ten people with dementia—one man and nine women—living in two residential care homes in Hong Kong were interviewed, as were ten members of the care staff, all of whom were women. Next, to coach the staff in understanding the feelings and self-perceptions of people with dementia, two reflective training sessions were provided. Afterward, to assess the impact of the training sessions on the staff, two focus groups were held. Findings: The findings revealed that residents with dementia did not perceive themselves as being ‘demented’ and were confused by not getting responses from the others. From the understanding of care staff, they perceived the residents as being ‘demented’, desolate troublemakers. They described people with dementia as ‘naughty children’ who should be controlled and be punished while treated them as ‘psychiatric patients’ who could be ignored and be mute. “Psychosocial restraint” happened regarding the discrepancy of perception between people with dementia and the care staff. People with dementia did not think that their confusion of memory was related to dementia or, frankly speaking, they did not know what dementia was. When others treated them as ‘demented patients, the residents with mild to moderate dementia fiercely rejected that designation and reported a host of negative feelings, hence the fluctuations of mood and emotion noted by the care staff. Conclusion: As the findings revealed, the people with dementia were also discontent with the care arrangements in the care homes, felt abandoned by others and worried about bothering others. Their shifting emotional states and moods were treated as the Behavioral and Psychological symptoms of Dementia (BPSD), which nothing can do reported by the care staff in the residential care homes. People with dementia become social withdrawal or isolated in daily living, which should be alert and be changed by the social work professionals about the occurrence of “psychosocial restraint” in dementia care.

Keywords: psychosocial restraint, qualitative research, social work with dementitude, voice of people with dementia

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Authors: Rainner Roweder

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Theme: The present paper aims to analyze the specificity of the judicial evidence linked to the subjects of dignity and personality rights, otherwise known as moral rights, in the determination of the truth and formation of the judicial reasoning in cases concerning these areas. This research is about the way courts in Brazilian domestic law search for truth and handles evidence in cases involving moral rights that are abundant and important in Brazil. The main object of the paper is to analyze the effectiveness of the evidence in the formation of judicial conviction in matters related to morally controverted rights, based on the Brazilian, and as a comparison, the Latin American legal systems. In short, the rights of dignity and personality are moral. However, the evidential legal system expects a rational demonstration of moral rights that generate judicial conviction or persuasion. Moral, in turn, tends to be difficult or impossible to demonstrate in court, generating the problem considered in this paper, that is, the study of the moral demonstration problem as proof in court. In this sense, the more linked to moral, the more difficult to be demonstrated in court that right is, expanding the field of judicial discretion, generating legal uncertainty. More specifically, the new personality rights, such as gender, and their possibility of alteration, further amplify the problem being essentially an intimate manner, which does not exist in the objective, rational evidential system, as normally occurs in other categories, such as contracts. Therefore, evidencing this legal category in court, with the level of security required by the law, is a herculean task. It becomes virtually impossible to use the same evidentiary system when judging the rights researched here; therefore, it generates the need for a new design of the evidential task regarding the rights of the personality, a central effort of the present paper. Methodology: Concerning the methodology, the Method used in the Investigation phase was Inductive, with the use of the comparative law method; in the data treatment phase, the Inductive Method was also used. Doctrine, Legislative, and jurisprudential comparison was the technique research used. Results: In addition to the peculiar characteristics of personality rights that are not found in other rights, part of them are essentially linked to morale and are not objectively verifiable by design, and it is necessary to use specific argumentative theories for their secure confirmation, such as interdisciplinary support. The traditional pragmatic theory of proof, for having an obvious objective character, when applied in the rights linked to the morale, aggravates decisionism and generates legal insecurity, being necessary its reconstruction for morally charged cases, with the possible use of the “predictive theory” ( and predictive facts) through algorithms in data collection and treatment.

Keywords: moral rights, proof, pragmatic proof theory, insufficiency, Brazil

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Authors: Munenari Inoguchi, Keiko Tamura

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In Japan, we were suffered by earthquake, typhoon, and flood disaster in 2019. Especially, 38 of 47 prefectures were affected by typhoon #1919 occurred in October 2019. By this disaster, 99 people were dead, three people were missing, and 484 people were injured as human damage. Furthermore, 3,081 buildings were totally collapsed, 24,998 buildings were half-collapsed. Once disaster occurs, local responders have to inspect damage level of each building by themselves in order to certificate building damage for survivors for starting their life reconstruction process. At that disaster, the total number to be inspected was so high. Based on this situation, Cabinet Office of Japan approved the way to detect building damage level efficiently, that is collectively detection. However, they proposed a just guideline, and local responders had to establish the concrete and infallible method by themselves. Against this issue, we decided to establish the effective and efficient methodology to detect building damage level collectively with flood depth. Besides, we thought that the flood depth was relied on the land height, and we decided to utilize GIS (Geographic Information System) for analyzing the elevation spatially. We focused on the analyzing tool of spatial interpolation, which is utilized to survey the ground water level usually. In establishing the methodology, we considered 4 key-points: 1) how to satisfy the condition defined in the guideline approved by Cabinet Office for detecting building damage level, 2) how to satisfy survivors for the result of building damage level, 3) how to keep equitability and fairness because the detection of building damage level was executed by public institution, 4) how to reduce cost of time and human-resource because they do not have enough time and human-resource for disaster response. Then, we proposed a methodology for detecting building damage level collectively with flood depth utilizing GIS with five steps. First is to obtain the boundary of flooded area. Second is to collect the actual flood depth as sampling over flooded area. Third is to execute spatial analysis of interpolation with sampled flood depth to detect two-dimensional flood depth extent. Fourth is to divide to blocks by four categories of flood depth (non-flooded, over the floor to 100 cm, 100 cm to 180 cm and over 180 cm) following lines of roads for getting satisfaction from survivors. Fifth is to put flood depth level to each building. In Koriyama city of Fukushima prefecture, we proposed the methodology of collectively detection for building damage level as described above, and local responders decided to adopt our methodology at typhoon #1919 in 2019. Then, we and local responders detect building damage level collectively to over 1,000 buildings. We have received good feedback that the methodology was so simple, and it reduced cost of time and human-resources.

Keywords: building damage inspection, flood, geographic information system, spatial interpolation

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Authors: Irsa Wolfram, Boruch Lorenz

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Innovative solutions with additive manufacturing applying material extrusion for functional parts necessitate innovative filaments with persistent quality. Uniform homogeneity and a consistent dispersion of particles embedded in filaments generally require multiple cycles of extrusion or well-prepared primal matter by injection molding, kneader machines, or mixing equipment. These technologies commit to dedicated equipment that is rarely at the disposal in production laboratories unfamiliar with research in polymer materials. This stands in contrast to laboratories that investigate complex material topics and technology science to leverage the potential of 3-D printing. Consequently, scientific studies in labs are often constrained to compositions and concentrations of fillersofferedfrom the market. Therefore, we introduce a prototypal laboratory methodology scalable to tailoredprimal matter for extruding ceramic composite filaments with fused filament fabrication (FFF) technology. - A desktop single-screw extruder serves as a core device for the experiments. Custom-made filaments encapsulate the ceramic fillers and serve with polylactide (PLA), which is a thermoplastic polyester, as primal matter and is processed in the melting area of the extruder, preserving the defined concentration of the fillers. Validated results demonstrate that this approach enables continuously produced and uniform composite filaments with consistent homogeneity. Itis 3-D printable with controllable dimensions, which is a prerequisite for any scalable application. Additionally, digital microscopy confirms the steady dispersion of the ceramic particles in the composite filament. - This permits a 2D reconstruction of the planar distribution of the embedded ceramic particles in the PLA matrices. The innovation of the introduced method lies in the smart simplicity of preparing the composite primal matter. It circumvents the inconvenience of numerous extrusion operations and expensive laboratory equipment. Nevertheless, it deliversconsistent filaments of controlled, predictable, and reproducible filler concentration, which is the prerequisite for any industrial application. The introduced prototypal laboratory methodology seems capable for other polymer matrices and suitable to further utilitarian particle types beyond and above ceramic fillers. This inaugurates a roadmap for supplementary laboratory development of peculiar composite filaments, providing value for industries and societies. This low-threshold entry of sophisticated preparation of composite filaments - enabling businesses to create their own dedicated filaments - will support the mutual efforts for establishing 3D printing to new functional devices.

Keywords: additive manufacturing, ceramic composites, complex filament, industrial application

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Authors: Nastaran Khoshsabk

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The evolution of communication through the Internet has influenced shaping and reshaping the self-presentation of social media users. Online communities both connect people and give voice to the voiceless allowing them to present themselves nationally and globally. People all around the world are experiencing censorship in different aspects of their life. Censorship can be externally imposed because of the political situations, or it can be self-imposed. Social media users choose the content they want to share and decide about the online audiences with whom they want to share this content. Most social media networks, such as Facebook, enable their users to be selective about the shared content and its availability to other people. However, sometimes instead of targeting a specific audience, users self-censor themselves or decide not to share various forms of information. These decisions are of particular importance in countries such as Iran where Internet is not the arena of free self-presentation and people are encouraged to stay away from political participation in the country and acting against the Islamic values. Facebook and some other social media tools are blocked in countries such as Iran. This project investigates the importance of social media in the life of Iranians to explore how they present themselves and construct their digital selves. The notion of cultural identity is applied in this research to explore the educational and informative role of social media in the identity formation and cultural representation of Facebook users. This study explores the self-censorship of Iranian adult Facebook users through their online self-representation and communication on the Internet. The data in this qualitative multiple case study have been collected through individual synchronous online interviews with the researcher’s Facebook friends and through the analysis of the participants’ Facebook profiles and activities over a period of six months. The data is analysed with an emphasis on the identity formation of participants through the recognition of the underlying themes. The exploration of online interviews is on the basis of participants’ personal accounts of self-censorship and cultural understanding through using social media. The driven codes and themes have been categorised considering censorship and place of culture on representation of self. Participants were asked to explain their views about censorship and conservatism through using social media. They reported their thoughts about deciding which content to share on Facebook and which to self-censor and their reasons behind these decisions. The codes and themes have been categorised considering censorship and its role in representation of idealised self. The ‘actual self’ showed to be hidden by an individual for different reasons such as its influence on their social status, academic achievements and job opportunities. It is hoped that this research will have implications for education contexts in countries that are experiencing social media filtering by offering an increased understanding of the importance of online communities; which can provide an educational environment to talk and learn about social taboos and constructing adults’ identity in virtual environment and through cultural self-presentation.

Keywords: cultural identity, identity formation, online communities, self-censorship

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Authors: Rakelane A. Mendes, Sandro T. M. Goncalves, Raphaella L. R. Silva

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The concepts of energy harvesting and wireless energy transfer have been widely discussed in recent times. There are some ways to create autonomous systems for collecting ambient energy, such as solar, vibratory, thermal, electromagnetic, radiofrequency (RF), among others. In the case of the RF it is possible to collect up to 100 μW / cm². To collect and/or transfer energy in RF systems, a device called rectenna is used, which is defined by the junction of an antenna and a rectifier circuit. The rectenna presented in this work is resonant at the frequencies of 1.8 GHz and 2.45 GHz. Frequencies at 1.8 GHz band are e part of the GSM / LTE band. The GSM (Global System for Mobile Communication) is a frequency band of mobile telephony, it is also called second generation mobile networks (2G), it came to standardize mobile telephony in the world and was originally developed for voice traffic. LTE (Long Term Evolution) or fourth generation (4G) has emerged to meet the demand for wireless access to services such as Internet access, online games, VoIP and video conferencing. The 2.45 GHz frequency is part of the ISM (Instrumentation, Scientific and Medical) frequency band, this band is internationally reserved for industrial, scientific and medical development with no need for licensing, and its only restrictions are related to maximum power transfer and bandwidth, which must be kept within certain limits (in Brazil the bandwidth is 2.4 - 2.4835 GHz). The rectenna presented in this work was designed to present efficiency above 50% for an input power of -15 dBm. It is known that for wireless energy capture systems the signal power is very low and varies greatly, for this reason this ultra-low input power was chosen. The Rectenna was built using the low cost FR4 (Flame Resistant) substrate, the antenna selected is a microfita antenna, consisting of a Meandered dipole, and this one was optimized using the software CST Studio. This antenna has high efficiency, high gain and high directivity. Gain is the quality of an antenna in capturing more or less efficiently the signals transmitted by another antenna and/or station. Directivity is the quality that an antenna has to better capture energy in a certain direction. The rectifier circuit used has series topology and was optimized using Keysight's ADS software. The rectifier circuit is the most complex part of the rectenna, since it includes the diode, which is a non-linear component. The chosen diode is the Schottky diode SMS 7630, this presents low barrier voltage (between 135-240 mV) and a wider band compared to other types of diodes, and these attributes make it perfect for this type of application. In the rectifier circuit are also used inductor and capacitor, these are part of the input and output filters of the rectifier circuit. The inductor has the function of decreasing the dispersion effect on the efficiency of the rectifier circuit. The capacitor has the function of eliminating the AC component of the rectifier circuit and making the signal undulating.

Keywords: dipole antenna, double-band, high efficiency, rectenna

Procedia PDF Downloads 95

Authors: Anuj Pathare, Aleksandra Birn-Jeffery

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Background: The Anterior Cruciate Ligament(ACL) helps stabilize the knee joint minimizing tibial anterior translation. Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) injury is common in racquet sports and often occurs due to sudden acceleration, deceleration or changes of direction. This mechanism in badminton most commonly occurs during landing after an overhead stroke. Knee biomechanics during dynamic movements such as walking, running and stair negotiation, do not return to normal for more than a year after an ACL reconstruction. This change in the biomechanics may lead to re-injury whilst performing non-steady movements during sports, where these injuries are most prevalent. Aims: To compare if the knee kinetics and kinematics in ACL injury recovered athletes return to the same level as those from an uninjured cohort during standard movements used for clinical assessment and badminton shots. Objectives: The objectives of the study were to determine: Knee valgus during the single leg squat, vertical drop jump, net shot and drop shot; Degree of internal or external rotation during the single leg squat, vertical drop jump, net shot and drop shot; Maximum knee flexion during the single leg squat, vertical drop jump and net shot. Methods: This case-control study included 14 participants with three ACL injury recovered athletes and 11 uninjured participants. The participants performed various functional tasks including vertical drop jump, single leg squat; the forehand net shot and the forehand drop shot. The data was analysed using the two-way ANOVA test, and the reliability of the data was evaluated using the Intra Class Coefficient. Results: The data showed a significant decrease in the range of knee rotation in ACL injured participants as compared to the uninjured cohort (F₇,₅₅₆=2.37; p=0.021). There was also a decrease in the maximum knee flexion angles and an increase in knee valgus angles in ACL injured participants although they were not statistically significant. Conclusion: There was a significant decrease in the knee rotation angles in the ACL injured participants which could be a potential cause for re-injury in these athletes in the future. Although the results for decrease in maximum knee flexion angles and increase in knee valgus angles were not significant, this may be due to a limited sample of ACL injured participants; there is potential for it to be identified as a variable of interest in the rehabilitation of ACL injuries. These changes in the knee biomechanics could be vital in the rehabilitation of ACL injured athletes in the future, and an inclusion of sports based tasks, e.g., Net shot along with standard protocol movements for ACL assessment would provide a better measure of the rehabilitation of the athlete.

Keywords: ACL, biomechanics, knee injury, racquet sport

Procedia PDF Downloads 148

Authors: Marius Zemp

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Evidentials indicate how the speaker obtained the information conveyed in a statement. Detailed diachronic-functional accounts of evidential contrasts found in the Greater Himalayan Region (GHR) reveal that contrasting evidentials are not only defined against each other but also that most of them once had different aspecto-temporal (TA) values which must have aligned when their contrast was conventionalized. Based on these accounts, the present paper sheds light on hitherto unidentified mechanisms of grammatical change. The main insights of the present study were facilitated by ‘functional reconstruction’, which (i) revolves around morphemes which appear to be used in divergent ways within a language and/or across different related languages, (ii) persistently devises hypotheses as to how these functional divergences may have developed, and (iii) retains those hypotheses which most plausibly and economically account for the data. Based on the dense and detailed grammatical literature on the Tibetic language family, the author of this study is able to reconstruct the initial steps by which its evidentiality systems developed: By the time Proto-Tibetan started to be spread across much of Central Asia in the 7th century CE, verbal concatenations with and without a connective -s had become common. As typical for resultative constructions around the globe, Proto-Tibetan *V-s-’dug ‘was there, having undergone V’ (employing the simple past of ’dug ‘stay, be there’) allowed both for a perfect reading (‘the state resulting from V holds at the moment of speech’) and an inferential reading (‘(I infer from its result that) V has taken place’). In Western Tibetic, *V-s-’dug grammaticalized in its perfect meaning as it became contrasted with perfect *V-s-yod ‘is there, having undergone V’ (employing the existential copula yod); that is, *V-s-’dug came to mean that the speaker directly witnessed the profiled result of V, whereas *V-s-yod came to mean that the speaker does not depend on direct evidence of the result, as s/he simply knows that it holds. In Eastern Tibetic, on the other hand, V-s-’dug grammaticalized in its inferential past meaning as it became contrasted with past *V-thal ‘went past V-ing’ (employing the simple past of thal ‘go past’); that is, *V-s-’dug came to mean that the profiled past event was inferred from its result, while *V-thal came to mean that it was directly witnessed. Hence, depending on whether it became contrasted with a perfect or a past construction, resultative V-s-’dug grammaticalized either its direct evidential perfect or its inferential past function. This means that in both cases, evidential readings of constructions with distinct but overlapping TA-values became contrasted, and in order for their contrasting meanings to grammaticalize, the constructions had to agree on their tertium comparationis, which was their shared TA-value. By showing that other types of evidential contrasts in the GHR are also TA-aligned, while no single markers (or privative contrasts) are found to have grammaticalized evidential functions, the present study suggests that, at least in this region of the world, evidential meanings grammaticalize only in equipollent contrasts, which always end up TA-aligned.

Keywords: evidential contrasts, functional-diachronic accounts, grammatical change, himalayan languages, tense/aspect-alignment

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Authors: Anthony R. Townsend, Robyn L. Fasser

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This research project provides an interpretative phenomenological analysis of a proposed conceptual model of parenting ability that has been designed to offer recommendations to guide intervention in child custody evaluations in South Africa. A recent review of the literature on child custody evaluations reveals that while there have been significant and valuable shifts in the capacity of the legal system aided by mental health professionals in understanding children and family dynamics, there remains a conceptual gap regarding the nature of parenting ability. With a view to addressing this paucity of a theoretical basis for considering parenting ability, this research project reviews a dimensional model for the assessment of parenting ability by conceiving parenting ability as a combination of good parenting and parental fitness. This model serves as a conceptual framework to guide child-custody evaluation and refine intervention in such cases to better meet the best interests of the child in a manner that bridges the professional gap between parties, legal entities, and mental health professionals. Using a model of good parenting as a point of theoretical departure, this model incorporates both intra-psychic and interpersonal attributes and behaviours of parents to form an impression of parenting ability and identify areas for potential enhancement. This research, therefore, hopes to achieve the following: (1) to provide nuanced descriptions of parents’ parenting ability; (2) to describe parents’ parenting potential; (3) to provide a parenting assessment tool for investigators in forensic family matters that will enable more useful recommendations and interventions; (4) to develop a language of consensus for investigators, attorneys, judges and parents, in forensic family matters, as to what comprises parenting ability and how this can be assessed; and (5) that all of the aforementioned will serve to advance the best interests of the children involved in such litigious matters. The evaluative promise and post-assessment prospects of this model are illustrated through three interlinking data sets: (1) the results of interviews with South African psychologists about the model, (2) retrospective analysis of care and contact evaluation reports using the model to determine if different conclusions or more specific recommendations are generated with its use and (3) the results of an interview with a psychologist who piloted this model by using it in care and contact evaluation.

Keywords: alienation, attachment, best interests of the child, care and contact evaluation, children’s act (38 of 2005), child custody evaluation, civil forensics, gatekeeping, good parenting, good-enough parenting, health professions council of South Africa, family law, forensic mental healthcare practitioners, parental fitness, parenting ability, parent management training, parenting plan, problem-determined system, psychotherapy, support of other child-parent relationship, voice of the child

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Authors: Arin Salamah Qudsi

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Female piety and the roles that female mystics played in Muslim landscapes of the period between the ninth and thirteenth centuries are topics that attracted many scholarly endeavors. However, personal aspects of both male and female Sufis were not thoroughly investigated. It would be of a great significance to examine the different roles of Sufi women as spouses, household supporters, and, mothers based on Sufi and non Sufi sources. Sisters and mothers, rather than wives and daughters, are viewed in anthropological studies of different cultures as women who could enjoy a high social status and thus play influential roles. Sufi hagiographies, which are our main sources, have long been regarded in a negative light, and their value for our understanding of the early history of Sufism is held in doubt. More recently, however, a new scholarly voice has begun to reclaim the historical value of hagiographies. We need to approach the narrative structures and styles of the anecdotal segments, which are the building blocks of the hagiographical body of writing. The image of a particular Sufi figure as portrayed by his near-contemporaries can provide a more useful means to sketch the components of his unique piety than his real life. However, in certain cases, whenever singular and unique appearances of particular stories occur, certain historical and individual conclusions could be sought. As for women in Sufi hagiographies, we know about sisters who acted as a solid support for their renowned Sufi brothers. Some of those sisters preferred not to be married until a late age in order to "serve" their brothers, while others supported their brothers while pursuing their own spiritual careers. Data of this type should be carefully considered and its historical context should be thoroughly investigated. The reference here is to women, mostly married women, who offered to maintain their brothers or male relatives despite social norms or generic prohibitions, which undoubtedly gave them strong authority over them. As for mothers, we should differentiate between mothers who were Sufis themselves, and those who were the mothers of Sufi figures. It seems most likely that in both types, mothers were not always unquestionably the effective lightening trigger. Mothers of certain Sufi figures denied their sons free mobility, taking advantage of the highly esteemed principle of gratifying the wishes of one's mother and the seminal ideal of ḥaqq al-wālida (lit. mother's right). Drawing on the anecdotes provided by a few sources leads to the suggestion that many Sufis actually strove to reduce their mothers' authority in order to establish their independent careers. In light of women's authority over their brothers and sons in Sufi spheres, maternal uncles could enjoy a crucial position of influence over their nephews. The roles of Sufi mothers and of Sufi maternal uncles in the lives of early Sufi figures are topics that have not yet been dealt with in modern scholarship on classical Sufism.

Keywords: female Sufis, hagiographies, maternal uncles, mother's right

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Authors: Zhenyu Zhang, Hsi-Hsien Wei

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Highway networks play a vital role in post-disaster recovery for disaster-damaged areas. Damaged bridges in such networks can disrupt the recovery activities by impeding the transportation of people, cargo, and reconstruction resources. Therefore, rapid restoration of damaged bridges is of paramount importance to long-term disaster recovery. In the post-disaster recovery phase, the key to restoration scheduling for a highway network is prioritization of bridge-repair tasks. Resilience is widely used as a measure of the ability to recover with which a network can return to its pre-disaster level of functionality. In practice, highways will be temporarily blocked during the downtime of bridge restoration, leading to the decrease of highway-network functionality. The failure to take downtime effects into account can lead to overestimation of network resilience. Additionally, post-disaster recovery of highway networks is generally divided into emergency bridge repair (EBR) in the response phase and long-term bridge repair (LBR) in the recovery phase, and both of EBR and LBR are different in terms of restoration objectives, restoration duration, budget, etc. Distinguish these two phases are important to precisely quantify highway network resilience and generate suitable restoration schedules for highway networks in the recovery phase. To address the above issues, this study proposes a novel resilience quantification method for the optimization of long-term bridge repair schedules (LBRS) taking into account the impact of EBR activities and restoration downtime on a highway network’s functionality. A time-dependent integer program with recursive functions is formulated for optimally scheduling LBR activities. Moreover, since uncertainty always exists in the LBRS problem, this paper extends the optimization model from the deterministic case to the stochastic case. A hybrid genetic algorithm that integrates a heuristic approach into a traditional genetic algorithm to accelerate the evolution process is developed. The proposed methods are tested using data from the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, based on a regional highway network in Sichuan, China, consisting of 168 highway bridges on 36 highways connecting 25 cities/towns. The results show that, in this case, neglecting the bridge restoration downtime can lead to approximately 15% overestimation of highway network resilience. Moreover, accounting for the impact of EBR on network functionality can help to generate a more specific and reasonable LBRS. The theoretical and practical values are as follows. First, the proposed network recovery curve contributes to comprehensive quantification of highway network resilience by accounting for the impact of both restoration downtime and EBR activities on the recovery curves. Moreover, this study can improve the highway network resilience from the organizational dimension by providing bridge managers with optimal LBR strategies.

Keywords: disaster management, highway network, long-term bridge repair schedule, resilience, restoration downtime

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Authors: Ning Chang, Zelong Yuan, Yunpeng Wang, Jianchun Wang

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Large eddy simulation (LES) has been extensively used in the investigation of turbulence. LES calculates the grid-resolved large-scale motions and leaves small scales modeled by sublfilterscale (SFS) models. Among the existing SFS models, the deconvolution model has been used successfully in the LES of the engineering flows and geophysical flows. Despite the wide application of deconvolution models, the effects of subfilter scale dynamics and filter anisotropy on the accuracy of SFS modeling have not been investigated in depth. The results of LES are highly sensitive to the selection of filters and the anisotropy of the grid, which has been overlooked in previous research. In the current study, two critical aspects of LES are investigated. Firstly, we analyze the influence of sub-filter scale (SFS) dynamics on the accuracy of direct deconvolution models (DDM) at varying filter-to-grid ratios (FGR) in isotropic turbulence. An array of invertible filters are employed, encompassing Gaussian, Helmholtz I and II, Butterworth, Chebyshev I and II, Cauchy, Pao, and rapidly decaying filters. The significance of FGR becomes evident, as it acts as a pivotal factor in error control for precise SFS stress prediction. When FGR is set to 1, the DDM models cannot accurately reconstruct the SFS stress due to the insufficient resolution of SFS dynamics. Notably, prediction capabilities are enhanced at an FGR of 2, resulting in accurate SFS stress reconstruction, except for cases involving Helmholtz I and II filters. A remarkable precision close to 100% is achieved at an FGR of 4 for all DDM models. Additionally, the further exploration extends to the filter anisotropy to address its impact on the SFS dynamics and LES accuracy. By employing dynamic Smagorinsky model (DSM), dynamic mixed model (DMM), and direct deconvolution model (DDM) with the anisotropic filter, aspect ratios (AR) ranging from 1 to 16 in LES filters are evaluated. The findings highlight the DDM's proficiency in accurately predicting SFS stresses under highly anisotropic filtering conditions. High correlation coefficients exceeding 90% are observed in the a priori study for the DDM's reconstructed SFS stresses, surpassing those of the DSM and DMM models. However, these correlations tend to decrease as lter anisotropy increases. In the a posteriori studies, the DDM model consistently outperforms the DSM and DMM models across various turbulence statistics, encompassing velocity spectra, probability density functions related to vorticity, SFS energy flux, velocity increments, strain-rate tensors, and SFS stress. It is observed that as filter anisotropy intensify, the results of DSM and DMM become worse, while the DDM continues to deliver satisfactory results across all filter-anisotropy scenarios. The findings emphasize the DDM framework's potential as a valuable tool for advancing the development of sophisticated SFS models for LES of turbulence.

Keywords: deconvolution model, large eddy simulation, subfilter scale modeling, turbulence

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Authors: Noury Bakrim

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Translatability is one of Walter Benjamin’s most influential notions, it is somehow representing the philosophy of language and history of what we might call and what we indeed coined as ‘the other German Speaking Modernity’ which could be shaped as a parallel thought form to the Marxian-Hegelian philosophy of history, the one represented by the school of Frankfurt. On the other hand, we should consider the influence of the plural German speaking identity and the Nietzschian and Goethean heritage, this last being focused on a positive will of power: the humanised human being. Having in perspective the benjaminian notion of translatability (Übersetzbarkeit), to be defined as an internal permanent hermeneutical possibility as well as a phenomenological potential of a translation relation, we are in fact touching this very double limit of both historical and linguistic reason. By life component, we mean the changing conditions of genetic and neurolinguistic post-partum functions, to be grasped as an individuation beyond the historical determinism and teleology of an event. It is, so to speak, the retrospective/introspective canettian auto-fiction, the benjaminian crystallization of the language experience in the now-time of writing/transmission. Furthermore, it raises various questioning points when it comes to translatability, they are basically related to psycholinguistic separate poles, the fatherly ladino Spanish and the motherly Vienna German, but relating more in particular to the permanent ontological quest of a world loss/belonging. Another level of this quest would be the status of Veza Canetti-Taubner Calderón, german speaking Author, Canetti’s ‘literary wife’, writer’s love, his inverted logos, protective and yet controversial ‘official private life partner’, the permanence of the jewish experience in the exiled german language. It sheds light on a traumatic relation of an inadequate/possible language facing the reconstruction of an oral life, the unconscious split of the signifier and above all on the frustrating status of writing in Canetti’s work : Using a suffering/suffered written German to save his remembered acquisition of his tongue/mother tongue by saving the vanishing spoken multilingual experience. While Canetti’s only novel ‘Die Blendung’ designates that fictional referential dynamics focusing on the nazi worldless horizon: the figure of Kien is an onomastic signifier, the anti-Canetti figure, the misunderstood legacy of Kant, the system without thought. Our postulate would be the double translatability of his auto-fiction inventing the bios oral signifier basing on the new praxemes created by Canetti’s german as observed in the English, French translations of his memory corpus. We aim at conceptualizing life component and translatability as two major features of a german speaking modernity.

Keywords: translatability, language biography, presentification, bioeme, life Order

Procedia PDF Downloads 407

Authors: Noa Nelson, Orit Appel, Rachel Ben-ari

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Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) is voluntary employee behavior that contributes to the organization beyond formal job requirements. It can take different forms, such as helping teammates (OCB toward individuals; hence, OCB-I), or staying after hours to attend a task force (OCB toward the organization; hence, OCB-O). Generally, OCB contributes substantially to organizational climate, goals, productivity, and resilience, so organizations need to understand what encourages it. This is particularly challenging in security organizations. Security work is characterized by high levels of stress and burnout, which is detrimental to OCB, and security organizational design emphasizes formal rules and clear hierarchies, leaving employees with less freedom for voluntary behavior. The current research explored the role of Perceived Procedural Justice (PPJ) in enhancing OCB in a security organization. PPJ refers to how fair decision-making processes are perceived to be. It involves the sense that decision makers are objective, attentive to everyone's interests, respectful in their communications and participatory - allowing individuals a voice in decision processes. Justice perceptions affect motivation, and it was specifically suggested that PPJ creates an attachment to one's organization and personal interest in its success. Accordingly, PPJ had been associated with OCB, but hardly any research tested their association with security organizations. The current research was conducted among prison guards in the Israel Prison Service, to test a correlational and a causal association between PPJ and OCB. It differentiated between perceptions of direct commander procedural justice (CPJ), and perceptions of organization procedural justice (OPJ), hypothesizing that CPJ would relate to OCB-I, while OPJ would relate to OCB-O. In the first study, 336 prison guards (305 male) from 10 different prisons responded to questionnaires measuring their own CPJ, OPJ, OCB-I, and OCB-O. Hierarchical linear regression analyses indicated the significance of commander procedural justice (CPJ): It associated with OCB-I and also associated with OPJ, which, in turn, associated with OCB-O. The second study tested CPJ's causal effects on prison guards' OCB-I and OCB-O; 311 prison guards (275 male) from 14 different prisons read scenarios that described either high or low CPJ, and then evaluated the likelihood of that commander's prison guards performing OCB-I and OCB-O. In this study, CPJ enhanced OCB-O directly. It also contributed to OCB-I, indirectly: CPJ enhanced the motivation for collaboration with the commander, which respondents also evaluated after reading scenarios. Collaboration, in turn, associated with OCB-I. The studies demonstrate that procedural justice, especially commander's PJ, promotes OCB in security work environments. This is important because extraordinary teamwork and motivation are needed to deal with emergency situations and with delicate security challenges. Following the studies, the Israel Prison Service implemented personal procedural justice training for commanders and unit level programs for procedurally just decision processes. From a theoretical perspective, the studies extend the knowledge on PPJ and OCB to security work environments and contribute evidence on PPJ's causal effects. They also call for further research, to understand the mechanisms through which different types of PPJ affect different types of OCB.

Keywords: organizational citizenship behavior, perceived procedural justice, prison guards, security organizations

Procedia PDF Downloads 198

Authors: Quentin Lobbe, David Chavalarias, Alexandre Delanoe

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The ICT revolution has given birth to an unprecedented world of digital traces and has impacted a wide number of knowledge-driven domains such as science, education or policy making. Nowadays, we are daily fueled by unlimited flows of articles, blogs, messages, tweets, etc. The internet itself can thus be considered as an unsteady hyper-textual environment where websites emerge and expand every day. But there are structures inside knowledge. A given text can always be studied in relation to others or in light of a specific socio-cultural context. By way of their textual traces, human beings are calling each other out: hypertext citations, retweets, vocabulary similarity, etc. We are in fact the architects of a giant web of elements of knowledge whose structures and shapes convey their own information. The global shapes of these digital traces represent a source of collective knowledge and the question of their visualization remains an opened challenge. How can we explore, browse and interact with such shapes? In order to navigate across these growing constellations of words and texts, interdisciplinary innovations are emerging at the crossroad between fields of social and computational sciences. In particular, complex systems approaches make it now possible to reconstruct the hidden structures of textual knowledge by means of multi-scale objects of research such as semantic maps and phylomemies. The phylomemy reconstruction is a generic method related to the co-word analysis framework. Phylomemies aim to reveal the temporal dynamics of large corpora of textual contents by performing inter-temporal matching on extracted knowledge domains in order to identify their conceptual lineages. This study aims to address the question of visualizing the global shapes of online political discussions related to the French presidential and legislative elections of 2017. We aim to build phylomemies on top of a dedicated collection of thousands of French political tweets enriched with archived contemporary news web articles. Our goal is to reconstruct the temporal evolution of online debates fueled by each political community during the elections. To that end, we want to introduce an iterative data exploration methodology implemented and tested within the free software Gargantext. There we combine synchronic and diachronic axis of visualization to reveal the dynamics of our corpora of tweets and web pages as well as their inner syntagmatic and paradigmatic relationships. In doing so, we aim to provide researchers with innovative methodological means to explore online semantic landscapes in a collaborative and reflective way.

Keywords: online political debate, French election, hyper-text, phylomemy

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Authors: Vinod Balakrishnan, Chrisalice Ela Joseph

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The Burmese Exodus of 1942, which left more than 4 lakh as refugees and thousands dead, is one of the worst forced migrations in recorded history. Adding to the woes of the refugees is the lack of credible documentation of their lived experiences, trauma, and stories and their erasure from recorded history. Media reports, national records, and mainstream narratives that have registered the exodus provide sanitized versions which have reduced the refugees to a nameless, faceless mass of travelers and obliterated their lived experiences, trauma, and sufferings. This attitudinal problem compels the need to stem the insensitivity that accompanies institutional memory by making a case for a more humanistically evolved policy that puts in place protocols for the way the humanities would voice the concern for the refugee. A definite step in this direction and a far more relevant project in our times is the need to build a comprehensive refugee archive that can be a repository of the refugee experiences and perspectives. The paper draws on Hannah Arendt’s position on the Jewish refugee crisis, Agamben’s work on statelessness and citizenship, Foucault’s notion of governmentality and biopolitics, Edward Said’s concepts on Exile, Fanon’s work on the dispossessed, Derrida’s work on ‘the foreigner and hospitality’ in order to conceptualize the refugee condition which will form the theoretical framework for the paper. It also refers to the existing scholarship in the field of refugee studies such as Roger Zetter’s work on the ‘refugee label’, Philip Marfleet’s work on ‘refugees and history’, Lisa Malkki’s research on the anthropological discourse of the refugee and refugee studies. The paper is also informed by the work that has been done by the international organizations to address the refugee crisis. The emphasis is on building a strong argument for the establishment of the refugee archive that finds but a passing and a none too convincing reference in refugee studies in order to enable a multi-dimensional understanding of the refugee crisis. Some of the old questions cannot be dismissed as outdated as the continuing travails of the refugees in different parts of the world only remind us that they are still, largely, unanswered. The questions are -What is the nature of a Refugee Archive? How is it different from the existing historical and political archives? What are the implications of the refugee archive? What is its contribution to refugee studies? The paper draws on Diana Taylor’s concept of the archive and the repertoire to theorize the refugee archive as a repository that has the documentary function of the ‘archive’ and the ‘agency’ function of the repertoire. It then reads Ayya’s Accounts- a memoir by Anand Pandian -in the light of Hannah Arendt’s concepts of the ‘refugee as vanguard’ and ‘story telling as political action’- to illustrate how the memoir contributes to the refugee archive that provides the refugee a place and agency in history. The paper argues for a refugee archive that has implications for the formulation of inclusive refugee policies.

Keywords: Ayya’s Accounts, Burmese Exodus, policy protocol, refugee archive

Procedia PDF Downloads 111

Authors: M. J. Eichner, Y. S. Sarhan

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Overall study purpose has been the evaluation of ‘Vertical Villages’ as a new sustainable building typology, reducing significantly negative impacts of rapid urbanization processes in third world capital cities. Commonly in fast-growing cities, housing and job supply, educational and recreational opportunities, as well as public transportation infrastructure, are not accommodating rapid population growth, exposing people to high noise and emission polluted living environments with low-quality neighborhoods and a lack of recreational areas. Like many others, Egypt’s capital city Cairo, according to the UN facing annual population growth rates of up to 428.000 people, is struggling to address the general deterioration of urban living conditions. New settlements typologies and urban reconstruction approach hardly follow sustainable urbanization principles or socio-ecologic urbanization models with severe effects not only for inhabitants but also for the local environment and global climate. The authors prove that ‘Vertical Village’ buildings can offer a sustainable solution for increasing urban density with at the same time improving the living quality and urban environment significantly. Inserting them within high-density urban fabrics the ecologic and socio-cultural conditions of low-quality neighborhoods can be transformed towards districts, considering all needs of sustainable and social urban life. This study analyzes existing building typologies in Cairo’s «low quality - high density» districts Ard el Lewa, Dokki and Mohandesen according to benchmarks for sustainable residential buildings, identifying major problems and deficits. In 3 case study design projects, the sustainable transformation potential through ‘Vertical Village’ buildings are laid out and comparative studies show the improvement of the urban microclimate, safety, social diversity, sense of community, aesthetics, privacy, efficiency, healthiness and accessibility. The main result of the paper is that the disadvantages of density and overpopulation in developing countries can be converted with ‘Vertical Village’ buildings into advantages, achieving attractive and environmentally friendly living environments with multiple synergies. The paper is documenting based on scientific criteria that mixed-use vertical building structures, designed according to sustainable principles of low rise housing, can serve as an alternative to convert «low quality - high density» districts in megacities, opening a pathway for governments to achieve sustainable urban transformation goals. Neglected informal urban districts, home to millions of the poorer population groups, can be converted into healthier living and working environments.

Keywords: sustainable, architecture, urbanization, urban transformation, vertical village

Procedia PDF Downloads 87

Authors: Hyuk-Jin Lee

Abstract:

Even though 23 years have passed in the 21st century, nation-state and nationality-centered cultural identities are still the sentiments and ideologies that dominate the world. Nevertheless, as seen in many cases in Europe, a new perspective is needed to recognize mutual exchanges and influences and to view them as natural cultural exchanges between countries. The situation in East Asia is completely different from Europe. This is presumed to be from the long tradition of having an ethnocentric state concept for at least hundreds of years, quite different from Europe, where the concept of a nation-state was established relatively recently. In other words, unlike Europe, where active exchanges took place, the problem stems from the unique characteristics of East Asia, which has a strong tradition of finding its identity in 'difference'. Thus, it would not be hard to find cultural studies or news of the three East Asian countries emphasizing differences among one another. This applies to all cultural areas, including traditional architecture. For example, in the Korean traditional architecture field, buildings with effects from neighboring countries tend to be ignored, even if they are traditional Korean architecture. In addition to this, in the case of Korea, there seems to be one more cultural harmful aftereffect caused by the 36 years of Japanese colonial rule in the early 20th century; the obsessive filtering concept of 'it must be different from Japan'. In other words, the implicit ideological coercion that the definition of 'Korean cultural heritage' should not be influenced by exchanges with Japan may be found throughout Korean studies. The architectural and cultural aspects of the vast period of time, from the Three Kingdoms era to the beginning of Joseon, which was a period in which cultural influence exchanges with neighboring countries were relatively strong compared to the late Joseon Dynasty, also reflect the 'distorted filtering' caused by finding a repulsive identity against the Japanese colonial period. It is important to look the cultural heritage and traditions as they are inductively, not deductively. If not, we may often ignore or limit our own precious cultural heritage. Conversely, If Baekje, the ancient Korean Kingdom, helped Japan in construction and craftsmen played a big role in building the ancient temple, it would be a healthier perspective to view it as a cultural exchange rather than proudly seeing it as a cultural owner's perspective because this point of view is a proper reconstruction of our ancient and medieval Asian culture (strictly speaking, the color common to East Asia at the time). In particular, this study will examine this topic by giving specific examples from each field of Korean cultural studies. In the search for cultural identity, it would be more helpful for healthy relations between countries and collaborative research in the sensitive part of the interpretation of historical facts as well as cultural circles to minimize excessive meanings on originality and difference.

Keywords: cultural heritage identity, cultural ideology, East Asia, Korea

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Authors: Adae Amoako, Daniel Montero, Peter Murray, George Pujalte

Abstract:

We present a case of a 42-year-old, right-handed Caucasian male who presented to a medical orthopedics clinic with left wrist pain. The patient indicated that the pain started two months prior to the visit. He could only remember helping a friend move furniture prior to the onset of pain. Examination of the left wrist showed limited extension compared to the right. There was clicking with flexion and extension of the wrist on the dorsal aspect. Mild tenderness was noticed over the distal radioulnar joint. There was ulnar and radial deviation on provocation. Initial 4-view x-rays of the left wrist showed mild radiocarpal and scapho-trapezium-trapezoid (ST-T) osteoarthritis, with subchondral cysts seen in the lunate and scaphoid, with no obvious fractures. The patient was initially put in a wrist brace and diclofenac topical gel was prescribed for pain control, as a patient could not take non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) due to gastritis. Despite diclofenac topical gel use and bracing, symptoms remained, and a steroid injection with 1 mL of lidocaine with 10 mg of triamcinolone acetonide was performed under fluoroscopy. He obtained some relief but after 3 months, the injection had to be repeated. On 2-month follow up after the initial evaluation, symptoms persisted. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was obtained which showed an abnormal T1 hypodense signal involving the proximal pole of the scaphoid and articular collapse proximally of the scaphoid, with marked irregularity of the overlying cartilage, suggesting a remote injury, findings consistent with avascular necrosis of the proximal pole of the scaphoid. A month after that, the patient had the left proximal pole of the scaphoid debrided and an intercompartmental supraretinacular artery vascularized. Pedicle bone graft reconstruction of the proximal pole of the left scaphoid was done. A non-vascularized autograft from the left radius was also applied. He was put in a thumb spica cast with the interphalangeal joint free for 6 weeks. On 6-week follow-up after surgery, the patient was healing well and could make a composite fist with his left hand. The diagnosis of Preiser’s disease is primarily based on radiological findings. Due to the fact that necrosis happens over a period of time, most AVNs are diagnosed at the late stages of the disease. There appear to be no specific guidelines on the management AVN of the scaphoid. In the past, immobilization and arthroscopic debridement had been used. Radial osteotomy has also been tried. Vascularized bone grafts have also been used to treat Preiser’s disease. In our patient, we used three of these treatment modalities, starting with conservative management with topical NSAIDS and immobilization, then debridement with vascularized bone grafts.

Keywords: wrist pain, avascular necrosis of the scaphoid, Preiser’s disease, vascularized bone grafts

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Authors: Roni Granot

Abstract:

Musical intervals are the building blocks of melody and harmony. Intervals differ in terms of their size, direction, or quality as consonants or dissonants. In Western music, perceptual dissonance is mostly associated with the sensation of beats or periodicity, whereas cognitive dissonance is associated with rules of harmony and voice leading. These two perceptions can be studied separately in musical cultures which include melodic with little or no harmonic structures. In the Arab musical system, there is a number of different quarter- tone intervals creating various combinations of consonant and dissonant intervals. While traditional Arab music includes only melody, today’s Arab pop music includes harmonization of songs, often using typical Western harmonic sequences. Therefore, the Arab population in Israel presents an interesting case which enables us to examine the distinction between perceptual and cognitive dissonance. In the current study, we compared the responses of 34 Jewish Western listeners and 56 Arab listeners to two types of stimuli and their relationships: Harmonic sequences and isolated harmonic intervals (dyads). Harmonic sequences were presented in synthesized piano tones and represented five levels of Harmonic prototypicality (Tonic ending; Tonic ending with half flattened third; Deceptive cadence; Half cadence; and Dissonant unrelated ending) and were rated on 5-point scales of closure and surprise. Here we report only findings related to the harmonic sequences. One-way repeated measures ANOVA with one within subjects factor with five levels (Type of sequence) and one between- subjects factor (Musical background) indicates a main effect of Type of sequence for surprise ratings F (4, 85) = 51 p<.001, and for closure ratings F (4, 78) 9.54 p < .001, no main effect of Background on either surprise or closure ratings, and a marginally significant Type X Background interaction for surprise F (4, 352) = 6.05 p = .069 and closure ratings F (4, 324) 3.89 p < .01). Planned comparisons show that the interaction of Type of sequence X Background center around surprise and closure ratings of the regular versus the half- flattened third tonic and the deceptive versus the half cadence. The half- flattened third tonic is rated as less surprising and as demanding less continuation than the regular tonic by the Arab listeners as compared to the Western listeners. In addition, the half cadence is rated as more surprising but demanding less continuation than the deceptive cadence in the Arab listeners as compared to the Western listeners. Together, our results suggest that despite the vast exposure of Arab listeners to Western harmony, sensitivity to harmonic rules seems to be partial with preference to oriental sonorities such as half flattened third. In addition, the percept of directionality which demands sensitivity to the level on which closure is obtained and which is strongly entrenched in Western harmony, may not be fully integrated into the Arab listeners’ mental harmonic scheme. Results will be discussed in terms of broad differences between Western and Eastern aesthetic ideals.

Keywords: harmony, cross cultural, Arab music, closure

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Authors: Lee Boudreau, Ash Kumar Khaitu, Laura A. S. MacDonald

Abstract:

In April 2015, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck Nepal, killing, injuring, and displacing thousands of people. The earthquake also damaged water and sanitation service networks, leading to a high risk of diarrheal disease and the associated negative health impacts. In response to the disaster, the Environment and Public Health Organization (ENPHO), a Kathmandu-based non-governmental organization, worked with the Centre for Affordable Water and Sanitation Technology (CAWST), a Canadian education, training and consulting organization, to develop two training programs to educate volunteers on water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) needs. The first training program was intended for acute response, with the second focusing on longer term recovery. A key focus was to equip the volunteers with the knowledge and skills to formulate useful WASH advice in the unanticipated circumstances they would encounter when working in affected areas. Within the first two weeks of the disaster, a two-day acute response training was developed, which focused on enabling volunteers to educate those affected by the disaster about local WASH issues, their link to health, and their increased importance immediately following emergency situations. Between March and October 2015, a total of 19 training events took place, with over 470 volunteers trained. The trained volunteers distributed hygiene kits and liquid chlorine for household water treatment. They also facilitated health messaging and WASH awareness activities in affected communities. A three-day recovery phase training was also developed and has been delivered to volunteers in Nepal since October 2015. This training focused on WASH issues during the recovery and reconstruction phases. The interventions and recommendations in the recovery phase training focus on long-term WASH solutions, and so form a link between emergency relief strategies and long-term development goals. ENPHO has trained 226 volunteers during the recovery phase, with training ongoing as of April 2016. In the aftermath of the earthquake, ENPHO found that its existing pool of volunteers were more than willing to help those in their communities who were more in need. By training these and new volunteers, ENPHO was able to reach many more communities in the immediate aftermath of the disaster; together they reached 11 of the 14 earthquake-affected districts. The collaboration between ENPHO and CAWST in developing the training materials was a highly collaborative and iterative process, which enabled the training materials to be developed within a short response time. By training volunteers on basic WASH topics during both the immediate response and the recovery phase, ENPHO and CAWST have been able to link immediate emergency relief to long-term developmental goals. While the recovery phase training continues in Nepal, CAWST is planning to decontextualize the training used in both phases so that it can be applied to other emergency situations in the future. The training materials will become part of the open content materials available on CAWST’s WASH Resources website.

Keywords: water and sanitation, emergency response, education and training, building resilience

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