DESIGNING FLEXIBLE OPEN SPACES WITH ENERGY EFFICIENT SOLUTIONS FOR A RESILIENT BEIRUT - CASE STUDY OF RMEIL MEDAWAR DISTRICT

A news supplement produced by UNDP “Peace Building in Lebanon”, distributed along with An-Nahar newspaper had published in its December 2020 issue an article entitled “Urban Vacant Parcels as Opportunities to Reclaim Public Spaces in Times of Crises and Austerity” highlighting on the following: While Lebanon experiences a multiple crises and people are struggling more every day, solidarities are urgently needed and spaces where people can meet and connect would play a key role in this matter. Adding that Beirut, the capital, is considered a dense and rapidly urbanizing city, where shared spaces are scant, poorly designed, and ill managed. The current situation and stresses have contributed to the degradation of the urban environment and transformed neighborhoods in drastic ways at the expense of public life. However, the neighborhoods comprise a lot of vacant properties (built and inbuilt) includes public staircases, pedestrian alleys and building entrances neglected gardens and parks that holds a valuable opportunity for rethinking the public spaces. The aim of the study is developing design guidelines to obtain flexible open spaces and achieve urban resilience in densely populated areas using green technology. The main objective of the study is to enhance cities’ resilient factors through applying urban interventions into the public realm elements that contribute to achieving flexible open spaces, to identify the applicable green technologies that are most suitable for creating energy- producing open spaces in highly dense areas, and to achieve a balance between the aesthetic aspects of spaces and the needs and perceptions of residents using the participatory design approach. This paper is based on literature review, analytical quantitative study. In addition to a comparative analysis of international case studies done that helps in deducing the convenient tools that can be relied upon in the case of Beirut. The purpose of this paper is to emphasize that urban interventions based on modern technologies that are considered supporters to the urban lifestyle, i.e., green technology that involve: environmentally friendly, self-replenishing and non-polluting sources can work on stimulating the spatial practices and the public life through facilitating sustainable development for physically damaged congested – historic Beirut’s neighborhoods

Magnetic Order in YBa2_2Cu3_3O6+x_{6+x} Superconductors

Polarized and unpolarized neutron diffraction has been used to search for magnetic order in YBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_{6+x}$ superconductors. Most of the measurements were made on a high quality crystal of YBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_{6.6}$. It is shown that this crystal has highly ordered ortho-II chain order, and a sharp superconducting transition. Inelastic scattering measurements display a very clean spin-gap and pseudogap with any intensity at 10 meV being 50 times smaller than the resonance intensity. The crystal shows a complicated magnetic order that appears to have three components. A magnetic phase is found at high temperatures that seems to stem from an impurity with a moment that is in the $a$-$b$ plane, but disordered on the crystal lattice. A second ordering occurs near the pseudogap temperature that has a shorter correlation length than the high temperature phase and a moment direction that is at least partly along the c-axis of the crystal. Its moment direction, temperature dependence, and Bragg intensities suggest that it may stem from orbital ordering of the $d$-density wave (DDW) type. An additional intensity increase occurs below the superconducting transition. The magnetic intensity in these phases does not change noticeably in a 7 Tesla magnetic field aligned approximately along the c-axis. Searches for magnetic order in YBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_{7}$ show no signal while a small magnetic intensity is found in YBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_{6.45}$ that is consistent with c-axis directed magnetic order. The results are contrasted with other recent neutron measurements.Comment: 11 pages with 10 figure

Construction of an Automotive Technology Competency Analysis Profile for Training Undergraduate Students: A Case Study of Automotive Body Electrical Technology Systems

The purposes of this study was to construct an automotive technology competency analysis profile for training undergraduate students of Mechanical Technology Education program at King Mongkut‘s University of Technology Thonburi and to identify the tasks list of automotive body electrical technology systems. The qualitative and quantitative data was collected through observations, in-depth interviews, document analysis, and DACUM (Developing a Curriculum) job analysis process with 17 training instructors from 12 well-known car automobile companies in Thailand. The triangulation method was referred to validate an automotive technology competency analysis profile. The results of this study indicated that were 7 job duties, 86 tasks and 7 core competencies framework. Moreover, the importance of 56 core competencies as rated by respondents and the mean rating was calculated for each competencies item. The quality of the resulting had to apply the systematic curriculum and instructional development to effective implementation guidelines. They can be applied to change the training program of prospective mechanical technology education to enhance future students‘ competency

Differentiation with stratification: a principle of theoretical physics in the tradition of the memory art

The Art of Memory started with Aristotle's questions on memory. During its long evolution, it had important contributions from alchemist, was transformed by Ramon Llull and apparently ended with Giordano Bruno, who was considered the best known representative of this art. This tradition did not disappear, but lives in the formulations of our modern scientific theories. From its initial form as a method of keeping information via associations, it became a principle of classification and structuring of knowledge. This principle, which we here name {\it differentiation with stratification}, is a structural design behind classical mechanics. Integrating two different traditions of science in one structure, this physical theory became the modern paradigm of science. In this paper, we show that this principle can also be formulated as a set of questions. This is done via an analysis of theories, based on the epistemology of observational realism. A combination of Rudolph Carnap's concept of theory as a system of observational and theoretical languages, with a criterion for separating observational languages, based on analytical psychology, shapes this epistemology. The `nuclear' role of the observational laws and the differentiations from these nucleus, reproducing the general cases of phenomena, reveals the memory art's heritage in the theories. Here in this paper we argue that this design is also present in special relativity and in quantum mechanics.Comment: 6 pages, no figures; "Quantum theory from Problems to Advances", June 9-12, 2014, Linnaeus University, Vaxjo, Swede