Air quality in Mecca and surrounding holy places in Saudi Arabia during Hajj: initial survey.

The Arabian Peninsula experiences severe air pollution, the extent and sources of which are poorly documented. Each year in Saudi Arabia this situation is intensified during Hajj, the Holy Pilgrimage of Islam that draws millions of pilgrims to Mecca. An initial study of air quality in Mecca and surrounding holy sites during the 2012 Hajj (October 24-27) revealed strongly elevated levels of the combustion tracer carbon monoxide (CO, up to 57 ppmv) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) along the pilgrimage route-especially in the tunnels of Mecca-that are a concern for human health. The most abundant VOC was the gasoline evaporation tracer i-pentane, which exceeded 1200 ppbv in the tunnels. Even though VOC concentrations were generally lower during a follow-up non-Hajj sampling period (April 2013), many were still comparable to other large cities suffering from poor air quality. Major VOC sources during the 2012 Hajj study included vehicular exhaust, gasoline evaporation, liquefied petroleum gas, and air conditioners. Of the measured compounds, reactive alkenes and CO showed the strongest potential to form ground-level ozone. Because the number of pilgrims is expected to increase in the future, we present emission reduction strategies to target both combustive and evaporative fossil fuel sources

Liquid identities: Mecca Cola versus Coca-Cola

The Mecca Cola drink combines in its brand name two contrasting iconic images: one signifies 'authenticity', whereas the other signifies a 'commodity'. The conspicuous juxtaposition of 'Mecca' and 'Cola' and their hyphenization evokes the question: what is becoming of 'authenticity' in a thoroughly commodified world society? This article proposes that a distinction ought to be drawn between the effects of commodification on two distinct levels: the structural and symbolic. Whereas commodification homogenizes structurally, it heterogenizes symbolically. This article maintains that while symbolically Mecca Cola is antagonistic to Coca-Cola, structurally it is a case of an appropriation of the former by the latter. Mecca Cola thus attests to a structural 'Cola-ization' accompanied by a symbolic 'Mecca-ization' of current world cultures

Surfacing Values Created by Incentive Policies in Support of Sustainable Urban Development: A Theoretical Evaluation Framework

The development of sustainable cities involves improving the performance of the built environment and its effects on its context as one of the multiple intervention points. Indeed, outlining and implementing building artefacts does not constitute a simple act of generating a physical place, but represents a process that cannot ignore the positive and/or negative impacts that these transformations can have on the environment and societies in which it is embedded. Since in a profit-driven logic, a private investor's interest in environmental and social values may be limited in favour of economic value, a positive push towards urban sustainability can be found in government-promoted fiscal building incentives. Indeed, these tools offer direct actions for more favourable urban conditions, supporting private entities in meeting the intervention costs. This paper aims to define a theoretical evaluation framework through which the "sustainable" value creation potential of building incentives can be assessed. Through this framework, the research analysed the main Italian building incentives, observing how they support the creation of economic, environmental, and social values for the benefit of society, the environment, and urban areas. This paper discusses the usefulness of the framework in supporting public actors in the potential revision, definition, and communication of such incentive policies

Analysis of surface parametrizations for modern photometric stereo modeling

Tridimensional shape recovery based on Photometric Stereo (PS) recently received a strong improvement due to new mathematical models based on partial differential irradiance equation ratios. This modern approach to PS faces more realistic physical effects among which light attenuation and radial light propagation from a point light source. Since the approximation of the surface is performed with single step method, accurate reconstruction is prevented by sensitiveness to noise. In this paper we analyse a well-known parametrization of the tridimensional surface extending it on any auxiliary convex projection functions. Experiments on synthetic data show preliminary results where more accurate reconstruction can be achieved using more suitable parametrization specially in case of noisy input images

Exploring the Significance of Mecca Sacred Mosque Global Location

In traditional Islamic cities, the great mosque lies in the middle as the main landmark of the city. It is stated in the Qur\u27an that the Ka\u27ba (Mecca sacred mosque) was the first house that was built in Mecca city for humanity to worship Allah. Therefore, Mecca is the holiest city of Islam, and the goal of the annual Muslim hajj (pilgrimage). The objective of the present study is to explore the significance of sacred mosque of Mecca global location on dry land by using accurate measurements and Satellite programs.The results of the study illustrate that the sacred mosque of Mecca equally distances away from the following locations:1) The farthest borders edges of Africa and Europe as well, 2) The nearest borders of the new world continents along with a part of Asia which meeting the Northern borders of North America at the Bering Sea, 3) The farthest borders of the new world continents that represent the outer edges of the dry land, 4) Finally, the Ka\u27ba is equally distant from the geographical centers of the new world continents

A nation under our feet : Black Panther, Afrofuturism and the potential of thinking through political structures

In this article, the focus is on Black Panther: a nation under our feet, a comic book series written by American public intellectual Ta-Nehisi Coates. The point of departure is Coates's idea of 'the Mecca', a term he uses in his earlier non-fiction. It refers to a space in which black culture is created in the shadow of collective traumas and memories. We argue that in a nation under our feet the fictional African country of Wakanda functions as a metaphorical Mecca. This version of Wakanda is contextualised in terms of the aesthetics of Afrofuturism and theories on the influence of ideology in comic books. The central focus of the article is how this representation of Wakanda questions the idea of a unified black people and how Wakanda, like the real world Meccas described by Coates, display internal ideological and political struggles among its people. We argue that the various characters in a nation under our feet represent different and conflicting ideological positions. These positions are metaphors for real world political views and in playing out the consequences of these ideologies, Coates explores African and global political structures without didactically providing conclusive answers to complex issues

Ontological Matchmaking in Recommender Systems

The electronic marketplace offers great potential for the recommendation of supplies. In the so called recommender systems, it is crucial to apply matchmaking strategies that faithfully satisfy the predicates specified in the demand, and take into account as much as possible the user preferences. We focus on real-life ontology-driven matchmaking scenarios and identify a number of challenges, being inspired by such scenarios. A key challenge is that of presenting the results to the users in an understandable and clear-cut fashion in order to facilitate the analysis of the results. Indeed, such scenarios evoke the opportunity to rank and group the results according to specific criteria. A further challenge consists of presenting the results to the user in an asynchronous fashion, i.e. the 'push' mode, along with the 'pull' mode, in which the user explicitly issues a query, and displays the results. Moreover, an important issue to consider in real-life cases is the possibility of submitting a query to multiple providers, and collecting the various results. We have designed and implemented an ontology-based matchmaking system that suitably addresses the above challenges. We have conducted a comprehensive experimental study, in order to investigate the usability of the system, the performance and the effectiveness of the matchmaking strategies with real ontological datasets.Comment: 28 pages, 8 figure

Distribution Mecca of the Southeast: Rutherford County

ue to the crossroads of three interstates, Rutherford County has become a warehousing and distribution hub.supply chain management