Technology 2004, Vol. 2

Proceedings from symposia of the Technology 2004 Conference, November 8-10, 1994, Washington, DC. Volume 2 features papers on computers and software, virtual reality simulation, environmental technology, video and imaging, medical technology and life sciences, robotics and artificial intelligence, and electronics

Molecular phylogeny of horseshoe crab using mitochondrial Cox1 gene as a benchmark sequence

An effort to assess the utility of 650 bp Cytochrome C oxidase subunit I (DNA barcode) gene in delineating the members horseshoe crabs (Family: xiphosura) with closely related sister taxa was made. A total of 33 sequences were extracted from National Center for Biotechnological Information (NCBI) which include horseshoe crabs, beetles, common crabs and scorpion sequences. Constructed phylogram showed beetles are closely related with horseshoe crabs than common crabs. Scorpion spp were distantly related to xiphosurans. Phylogram and observed genetic distance (GD) date were also revealed that Limulus polyphemus was closely related with Tachypleus tridentatus than with T.gigas. Carcinoscorpius rotundicauda was distantly related with L.polyphemus. The observed mean Genetic Distance (GD) value was higher in 3rd codon position in all the selected group of organisms. Among the horseshoe crabs high GC content was observed in L.polyphemus (38.32%) and lowest was observed in T.tridentatus (32.35%). We conclude that COI sequencing (barcoding) could be used in identifying and delineating evolutionary relatedness with closely related specie

Crab and cockle shells as heterogeneous catalysts in the production of biodiesel

In the present study, the waste crab and cockle shells were utilized as source of calcium oxide to transesterify palm olein into methyl esters (biodiesel). Characterization results revealed that the main component of the shells are calcium carbonate which transformed into calcium oxide upon activated above 700 °C for 2 h. Parametric studies have been investigated and optimal conditions were found to be catalyst amount, 5 wt.% and methanol/oil mass ratio, 0.5:1. The waste catalysts perform equally well as laboratory CaO, thus creating another low-cost catalyst source for producing biodiesel. Reusability results confirmed that the prepared catalyst is able to be reemployed up to five times. Statistical analysis has been performed using a Central Composite Design to evaluate the contribution and performance of the parameters on biodiesel purity

Protest and the Politics of Signification in Post-Revolutionary Egypt

This dissertation examines the issue of mobilisation in the context of authoritarian contraction through the lenses of hegemony theory. It explores the shifting coali-tions of contenders in Egypt since the 2013 military coup and their contending conceptions of political legitimacy. Its conceptual perspective is defined by the realisation that processes of social mobilisation are contingent on the dynamics of interaction between political contenders. This interaction takes place on the streets between demonstrators and police forces, and it takes place on a discursive level where contenders articulate competing narratives about contentious events in an attempt to establish hegemony for their reading of social reality. I argue that the trajectory of mobilisation and opportunities for cross-movement alliance building, as well as the scale of repression wielded by authorities against their contenders heavily depend on the outcome of this latter, discursive struggle. Ac-cordingly, in this dissertation project I investigate the unfolding waves of mobili-sation in post-coup Egypt in a nested research design that combines quantitative protest event analysis with in-depth qualitative analysis of the contested discours-es about events on the ground. By tracking the contentious dynamics in Egypt with the proposed analytical focus from the 2013 Tamarod-uprising, over the An-ti-Coup campaign against the deposition of President Mursi, to the restoration of an authoritarian order under the aegis of General Al-Sisi and, finally, to the 2016 Tiran and Sanafir island protests, I highlight the impact of shifts in the discursive architecture of contentious politics on the conditions of possibility and the oppor-tunity structures for both, resistance and repression. The aim of investigating pro-cesses of political contestation both in the discursive and the performative arena is to illustrate how the narratives established around contentious events crucially account for variances in the reaction of movements to regime action, of regimes to mobilisation, and of the broader public to the means by which these principal contenders interact with each other to achieve their goals—for instance, by esca-lating collective action and radicalising repertoires, or by restricting civil liberties and deploying state violence against protesters. Ultimately, this thesis thus at-tempts to map Egypt’s contentious politics in the first years of Al-Sisi’s reign. By systematically linking the performative and the discursive in an analytical frame-work informed by discourse theory and relational approaches of social movement studies, I propose an integrated approach to the study of contentious politics—one that 30 years after the cultural turn in the study of contention is still lacking.Diese Dissertation befasst sich aus hegemonie-theoretischer Perspektive mit poli-tischen Mobilisierungsprozessen im Kontext der autoritären Regression in Ägyp-ten. Ihr Schwerpunkt liegt auf den seit dem Militärputsch 2013 mehrfach wech-selnden politischen Allianzen und ihren umkämpften Auffassungen von politi-scher Legitimität. Die Arbeit fußt auf der Prämisse, dass Prozesse politischer Mo-bilisierung, sowohl seitens sozialer Bewegungen als auch staatlicher Akteure, nicht durch uni¬direktionale Kausalzusammenhänge erklärbar sind, sondern von den Mikrodynamiken sozialer Interaktion zwischen politischen Wettstreitern ab-hängen. Diese Interaktion findet einerseits auf einer performativen Ebene statt, etwa zwischen Polizisten und Demonstrierenden bei Straßenprotesten. Parallel dazu zeichnen sich politische Konflikte aber auch auf einer diskursiven Ebene ab, wo politische Rivalen um die Deutungshoheit über eben jene Protestereignisse ringen. Ausgehend von einer hegemonietheoretischen Betrachtung dieses diskur-siven Wettstreits zeigt die vorliegende Arbeit, wie sich beide Ebenen gegenseitig bedingen. Im Kern wird dabei argumentiert, dass Entwicklungsverlauf und Er-folgsaussichten sozialer Mobilisierung in Ägypten seit der militärischen Macht-übernahme sowie die Gelegenheiten für die Allianzbildung verschiedener wider-ständigen Akteure gleichermaßen von der faktischen Beschaffenheit und der dis-kursiven Darstellung von Protest- und Repressionsereignissen abhingen. Die Analyse mehrerer Protest- und Repressionswellen in Ägypten zwischen 2013 und 2016 stützt sich auf ein integriertes Forschungsdesign, welches quantitative Mess-verfahren zur Erfassung von Protestereignissen mithilfe von Eventdatenbanken mit einer qualitativen Diskursanalyse zu jenen Ereignissen kombiniert. Die resul-tierende Mehrebenen-Analyse der Protest-Repressionsdynamiken in Ägypten – von den Tamarod-Protesten 2013, über die Anti-Coup-Kampagne gegen den Mi-litärputsch, bis zu den Demonstrationen gegen die Aufgabe der zwei Inseln Tiran und Sanafir im Roten Meer im Jahr 2016 – belegt den Einfluss von Veränderun-gen in der diskursiven Architektur auf die Gelegenheitsstrukturen sozialer Bewegungen und politischer Regime und auf deren Bereitschaft, sich auf Protest- und Repressionskampagnen einzulassen. Nicht zuletzt verfolgt diese Analyse somit das Ziel, zu zeigen, dass die Art und Weise, wie über politischen Protest, Repression oder Gewalt gesprochen wird, letztlich ausschlaggebend dafür ist, mit welchen Mitteln soziale Bewegungen Regime herausfordern, wie selbige darauf reagieren und inwiefern beide Seiten hierfür potenzielle Unterstützer mobilisieren können

Using MapReduce Streaming for Distributed Life Simulation on the Cloud

Distributed software simulations are indispensable in the study of large-scale life models but often require the use of technically complex lower-level distributed computing frameworks, such as MPI. We propose to overcome the complexity challenge by applying the emerging MapReduce (MR) model to distributed life simulations and by running such simulations on the cloud. Technically, we design optimized MR streaming algorithms for discrete and continuous versions of Conway’s life according to a general MR streaming pattern. We chose life because it is simple enough as a testbed for MR’s applicability to a-life simulations and general enough to make our results applicable to various lattice-based a-life models. We implement and empirically evaluate our algorithms’ performance on Amazon’s Elastic MR cloud. Our experiments demonstrate that a single MR optimization technique called strip partitioning can reduce the execution time of continuous life simulations by 64%. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to propose and evaluate MR streaming algorithms for lattice-based simulations. Our algorithms can serve as prototypes in the development of novel MR simulation algorithms for large-scale lattice-based a-life models.https://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/scs_books/1014/thumbnail.jp

Proceedings of the Third International Mobile Satellite Conference (IMSC 1993)

Satellite-based mobile communications systems provide voice and data communications to users over a vast geographic area. The users may communicate via mobile or hand-held terminals, which may also provide access to terrestrial cellular communications services. While the first and second International Mobile Satellite Conferences (IMSC) mostly concentrated on technical advances, this Third IMSC also focuses on the increasing worldwide commercial activities in Mobile Satellite Services. Because of the large service areas provided by such systems, it is important to consider political and regulatory issues in addition to technical and user requirements issues. Topics covered include: the direct broadcast of audio programming from satellites; spacecraft technology; regulatory and policy considerations; advanced system concepts and analysis; propagation; and user requirements and applications