2,118 research outputs found

    The Transportation Needs of Seniors

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    Over 208,000 residents of Hennepin County, Minnesota are over the age of 55, a number that is sure to rise. This paper examines the transportation needs of the elderly in Hennepin County through a mail out-mail back survey of their existing travel behavior and their unmet needs. The survey had both demographic and attitude questions as well as a travel diary for recording actual trips and desired but untaken trips. We found that 87% of the sampled population feel they are independent travelers. Around 51% of the surveyed population indicated that they are transit users, 25% of them revealed their concerns about difficulties they are facing when using public transit. About 16% of transit users were concerned about waiting time for transit, while only 8% were concerned about the travel time. Only 15% of the surveyed population use paratransit. A large number of comments were received, which add qualitative flavor to the analysis that was conducted. Seniors recognize even if they are currently independent, that will not always be the case, and acknowledge they should plan.Transportation needs, Elderly, Seniors, Disadvantaged Populations, Transportation Disadvantaged, Equity, Distribution, Minnesota

    Institutionalizing Urban Agriculture Can Provide More Than Hope for Poor San Franciscans: An analysis of the Urban Agriculture Incentive Zone Act (UAIZ)

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    Cities have turned to urban agriculture (UA) as a means of revitalizing neighborhoods and addressing unmet food needs of urbanites. Farming the city has gained momentum and has become an important force in urban social landscapes and economics. UA has also sparked debates about the appropriate development of highly valuable private spaces. In 2014, the City of San Francisco created a tax incentive to encourage owners to use undeveloped private properties in UA. This tax incentive represents the political prioritization of UA as legitimate land use in San Francisco with the possible purposes of either meeting a pressing residential need or implementing a feel-good policy to meet public demand. This research raises a significant question: What is the role of the Urban Agriculture Incentive Zone (UAIZ) Act in utilizing private properties to provide access to food for low-income populations in the built-up landscape of San Francisco? This question leads to many other questions on the subject: What is the policy problem that UAIZ is attempting to solve? This paper thus conducts a Geographic Systems Analysis (GIS) analysis of UA on private lands and discusses how this relates to the distribution of low-income population. The literature indicates that UA can help revitalize disinvested neighborhoods and provide supplemental nutrition and food access to low-income residents suffering from food insecurity. Additionally, by providing the “Choice” NOT to develop vacant lands, incentivizing UA reframes the relationship between the public and private spheres in the urban landscape. This research ultimately produces a vacant land inventory that illustrates the power of maps and data analysis to help achieve more effective implementation and a better use of resources. Findings reveal the opportunities and challenges that UAIZ brings into the future of UA, which are not fully explored as the UAIZ is in its very beginning phase of implementation. In this paper, I refer to the City of San Francisco as a public agency and City officials and Staff with the City

    Bike sharing schemes can have a positive impact on nearby house prices.

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    Homes and neighborhoods are generally more attractive when they are located close to transport links. Is this also the case for bike sharing schemes? In new research which uses Montreal’s Bixi scheme as a case study, Ahmed El-Geneidy, Dea van Lierop, & Rania Wasfi examine the influence of bike sharing stations on the attractiveness of nearby housing. They find that a home which has 12 stations within 800 meters can be expected to sell for nearly 3 percent more compared to those which have no nearby bike sharing stations. They also find that bike sharing stations give municipalities the opportunity to profit from higher property taxes

    The representation of homosexuality between text translation and movie adaptation in Midaq Alley and The Yacoubian Building

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    Mahfouz and Al-Aswany are recognized as major figures not only in Egypt but also worldwide, making them and the sensitive nature of their work doubly fraught: they are not only in the world’s literary spotlight, but under the watchful gaze of local observers. Midaq Alley (1947) and The Yacoubian Building (2005) reflect through many motifs, including homosexuality, the political as well as social repressions that inhibit the modern Egyptian society. These two novels underwent translation and adaptation because of not only Mahfouz\u27s and Al-Aswany\u27s skillful craft, but also the presentation of characters—that the readers or audience can identify with—living and experiencing the unspoken taboo of (homo)sexuality. Since homosexuality is more than a motif, the translation of homosexuality from one language to another, from one culture to another, and from one medium to another, is of extreme importance. In the translations of Midaq Alley and The Yacoubian Building, although Humphrey Davies and Trevor Le Gassick use different approaches, that is, foreignization and domestication, respectively, both translators succeed in their missions. Although translation and movie adaptation share similar features, there are still major differences between translation and adaptation. This thesis attempts to define movie adaptation, compare it with translation, and then demonstrate how homosexuality in Midaq Alley and The Yacoubian Building is adapted into motion picture in Egypt and beyond the borders of Egypt—the later represented in the Mexican movie adaptation of Midaq Alley: El Callejón de los Milagros

    Exploring Media Narratives and National Identity through Corpus Linguistics: A Case Study of Moroccan Media Coverage of Alhawz Earthquake

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    Television, newspapers, magazines, and other print and electronic media contribute to developing and preserving national and cultural identity by providing a platform for diverse voices, enabling different communities to share their narratives, traditions, and values. Media nurtures a sense of belonging and fosters a more unified and inclusive society by promoting cultural events and showcasing unity, harmony, and group spirit among citizens during times of crisis. Media narratives can shape the nation's perception, including national identity and political, social, and international relations narratives. However, the current paper focuses mainly on crisis narratives, another type of media narrative that can affect the perception of a nation. Those narratives focus mainly on events threatening a nation's stability, security, or well-being. Crisis narratives include natural disasters, economic slumps, and public health emergencies. Therefore, the current study attempts to analyse the Moroccan media narratives on the Alhawz earthquake, utilising a comprehensive analysis of 17 articles published between 10th September and 26th September 2023. The analysis is conducted within the framework of Critical Discourse Analysis and corpus linguistics to reveal how media narratives foster a sense of unity and nationalistic sentiments among citizens during the Alhawz earthquake. The findings indicated that Moroccan media narratives on the earthquake could shape how the public perceives the nation's ability to handle a crisis, the effectiveness of its leadership, and the resilience of its people, who were able to show a sense of unity and national pride during that natural disaster

    Control of grid side converter in wind power based PMSG with PLL method

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    Wind power is one of the most promising renewable energy sources. Due to a constantly increasing penetration rate in power grids in order to comply with interconnection requirements. This article targets the impact of a permanent magnet synchronous generator (PMSG) which is the subject of most attention due to low cost and maintenance requirements, driven by a wind turbine with the necessary power electronic converters that allow wind turbines to operate at variable speed, and connected to the grid for power generation more efficiently by the phase-locked loop (PLL) method in order to synchronize it. Thus, the proposed control technicals are based on vector control (VC) to achieve maximum power point tracking (MPPT), keep the DC link voltage constant, and control the speed and current at the generator side and grid side in PMSG which provides controllability of the reactive power supplied to the network. Therefore, the response of the PLL is analyzed and the simulation results of the dynamic model of the system is developed in Matlab / Simulink. The study results exhibit the excellent performance with high robustness, by improving the system efficiency to 98.72%

    Agents for Integrating Distributed Data for Function Computations

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    Many practical problems occur when we wish to manipulate the data in a way that requires information not included explicitly in this data, and where we have to deal with functions of such a nature. In a networked environment, the data may reside in components on a number of geographically distributed sites. These databases cannot be moved to other network sites due to security, size, and privacy consideration. In this paper, we present two self-decomposing algorithms for constructing a function from given discrete data, and finding the extrema of any function whose arguments are stored across a number of distributed databases

    Higher nitric oxide levels are associated with disease activity in Egyptian rheumatoid arthritis patients

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    AbstractBackgroundOxidative stress generated within inflammatory joints can produce autoimmune phenomena and joint destruction. Radical species with oxidative activity, including reactive nitrogen species, represent mediators of inflammation and cartilage damage.ObjectivesTo assess serum nitric oxide as a marker of oxidative stress in Egyptian patients with rheumatoid arthritis and its relation to disease activity.MethodsEighty patients with rheumatoid arthritis were divided into 2 groups, according to the DAS-28 score: Group I: 42 patients with disease activity, and Group II: 38 patients with no disease activity. Forty age- and sex-matched individuals were included as control group (Group III). Routine laboratory investigations were done, and nitric oxide was measured using Elisa. Hand plain radiographies were done for radiological status scoring using the Sharp method.ResultsA comparison between nitric oxide in all three groups showed a highly significant difference (p < 0.001), significantly higher levels were obtained among rheumatoid arthritis patients in comparison to controls, and higher levels were obtained in patients with active disease (mean±SD 82.38±20.46) in comparison to patients without active disease (35.53±7.15). Nitric oxide in Group I showed a significant positive correlation with morning stiffness (r=0.45), arthritis (r=0.43), platelet count (r=0.46), erythrocyte sedimentation rate (r=0.83), C-reactive protein (r=0.76) and Disease Activity Score (r=0.85). Nitric oxide showed a significant positive correlation (r=0.43) with hand radiographies (Sharp score) in Group I.ConclusionThere are increased levels of nitric oxide in the serum of patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Nitric oxide correlates significantly with disease activity, inflammatory markers and radiological joint status

    Rate of Salmonellae and Bacillus cereus in some Retailed cut-up Chicken and Poultry Meat Products

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    Food poisoning illness outbreaks brought about by pathogenic bacteria and/ or their toxins are yet worry of both shopper and food industry. Accordingly, one hundred and seventy-five samples were collected randomly, samples included frozen chicken breast, frozen chicken thigh, chicken luncheon, chicken burger and chicken frankfurter (35 of each), collected from different supermarkets in Cairo and New Valley governorate for incidence of Salmonella species and Bacillus cereus. Salmonella typhimurium was detected in percentage of 5.7%, and 2.9% in chicken breast and chicken thigh respectively, while Salmonella enteritidis was isolated from chicken breast and chicken thigh with the same percentage (2.9%), but Salmonellae as a whole failed to be detected in chicken burger, luncheon &amp; frankfurter. On the other hand, Bacillus cereus was isolated in a percentage of 8.6&nbsp;%, 8.6%, 17.1%, 14.3% and 11.4%, from chicken breast, thigh, burger, luncheon and frankfurter, respectively. Thus, it is important to control contamination of chicken meat in abattoirs with Salmonellae and Bacillus cereus to reduce the incidence of food borne infection to humans
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