Humanizing Architecture: A Polymorphic Space

The built environments in which our communities thrive constitute an integral part of human experience and evolution. Yet, many places are detached from the way we experience them due to mass-production, which often produces standardized environments, and due to the tendency of modern architecture to delineate spaces as static objects rather than dynamic interactions. Thus, there is an emerging need to humanize architecture through an interdisciplinary approach that engages nature’s behavioral patterns. The project proposes a transformable polyhedral structure that interacts with human emotion through a three-dimensional morphing space that contracts and expands. This spatial interaction is achieved through a comprehensive process of employing the principles of interactive design and by applying mechanical construction techniques of transformable polyhedrons inspired by Buckminster Fuller’s Jitterbug

Smart cities in Arabian cultures: Dubai as a case study

This Dissertation “Smart cities in Arabian cultures: Dubai as a case study”, introduces an overview of a particular field of Civil Engineering, the urban studies. It aims to present some results about the literature review, focused on some of the main problems that are facing the cities, and how they are dealing with them by a new concept for smartness, including infrastructures, economic, social and environmental issues. It starts by considering that some of the current challenges on the global scale, trying to find solutions regarding urban societies, are based on the concept of “smart city”. Therefore, is clear that new ideas regarding the cities improvements, which are on the top of global agenda, could be found at the concept of “smart city”. This is a topic reason among the researchers, in a continuous development, in particular regarding societies, countries or regions where it is emerging, such as in the Arabian world. The case study is focused on Dubai, a city in the United Arab Emirates, which is an example where in a short period of time, after the oil discovery in the 1970s, one small and badly known urban settlement became a pioneer reference in terms of smart cities requirements. Thus, this Dissertation presents a background information about smart cities, their assets and key pillars, their smart infrastructures and features in cultural, social and environmental terms. The main goals are based on a theoretical approach, developed in order to get more details and requirements about smart cities, regarding the features of the Arabian culture. It argues around the case of Dubai, as a pioneer smart city in the Arab world. Among of the main conclusions, there is the idea that the urban transformation process in contemporary societies to secure the smartness, should apply to the use of ICT / information and communication technologies. This use will increase the efficiency concerns to the natural resources, and provide a high quality of life for citizens. The example of Dubai has shown that the decision-makers have built each sector and part of the city in a solid performance, in order to achieve the smart sustainability concept. This city is nowadays a reference on this matter, not only in the Middle East but also considering the global scale.Esta Dissertação “Cidades inteligentes em culturas Árabes: Dubai como estudo de caso”, introduz uma abordagem sobre um campo particular da Engenharia Civil, os estudos urbanos. Tem como objetivo apresentar alguns resultados sobre a revisão da literatura, focados em alguns dos principais problemas que as cidades enfrentam, e como é que elas poderão lidar com eles através do conceito de inteligência, incluindo ao nível das infraestruturas, economia, social e ambiental. Tem inicio considerando que alguns dos atuais desafios à escala global, tentando encontrar soluções considerando as sociedades urbanas, são baseados no conceito de ‘cidade inteligente’. Este é um assunto central entre os investigadores científicos, em continuo desenvolvimento, em particular tendo em consideração as sociedades, os países ou as regiões onde está a emergir, tais como o mundo Árabe. O estudo de caso é centrado no Dubai, uma cidade dos Emirados Árabes Unidos, que é um exemplo onde num curto período de tempo, depois da descoberta do petróleo na década de 1970, um pequeno e desconhecido povoado se tornou numa referência pioneira em termos de requisitos das cidades inteligentes. Assim, esta Dissertação apresenta um enquadramento da informação sobre as cidades inteligentes, os seus espólios e pilares chave, as suas infraestruturas inteligentes e caraterísticas em termos culturais, sociais e ambientais. Os principais objetivos são baseados numa abordagem teórica, desenvolvida de modo a sistematizar detalhes e requisitos sobre as cidades inteligentes, tendo em consideração as características da cultura Árabe. Argumenta acerca do estudo de caso do Dubai, como cidade inteligente pioneira no mundo Árabe. Entre as principais conclusões, surge a ideia de que os processos de transformação urbana nas sociedades contemporâneas, de modo a assegurar a inteligência do funcionamento dos lugares, pessoas e modos de vida, deve apelar ao uso de TIC / tecnologias de informação e comunicação. Este uso irá aumentar a eficiência acerca dos recursos naturais e promover uma elevada qualidade de vida dos cidadãos. O exemplo do Dubai mostrou que os decisores políticos, têm construído cada setor e parte da cidade, com um desempenho sólido, de modo a alcançar o conceito de inteligência sustentável. Esta cidade é atualmente uma referência nesta matéria, não apenas no Médio Oriente mas também à escala global

Testing the long-run implications of the expectation hypothesis using cointegration techniques with structural change

This paper investigates whether or not multivariate cointegrated process with structural change can describe the Brazilian term structure of interest rate data from 1995 to 2006. In this work the break point and the number of cointegrated vector are assumed to be known. The estimated model has four regimes. Only three of them are statistically different. The first starts at the beginning of the sample and goes until September of 1997. The second starts at October of 1997 until December of 1998. The third starts at January of 1999 and goes until the end of the sample. It is used monthly data. Models that allows for some similarities across the regimes are also estimated and tested. The models are estimated using the Generalized Reduced-Rank Regressions developed by Hansen (2003). All imposed restrictions can be tested using likelihood ratio test with standard asymptotic qui-squared distribution. The results of the paper show evidence in favor of the long run implications of the expectation hypothesis for Brazil.Term structure, cointegration, structural change

Testing English as a foreign language: a case study of classroom tests in Qatar

The thesis is concerned with testing English as a foreign language in general and concentrates on testing in Qatar in particular. Chapter I provides a brief overview of education in Qatar to form a solid basis for the study. Chapter II presents an overview of the historical stages of development of testing and relates the Qatari situation to that framework. Chapter III is devoted to the different kinds of test and their advantages and disadvantages and relates this framework to the Qatari situation by describing the kinds of test currently in use in Qatar. Chapter IV focuses on the issues of reliability and validity. These two qualities are dealt with as a basis for judging and improving achievement tests. Chapter V will focus even more closely on the kinds of tests used in Qatari schools. These tests are written either by the Inspectorate or by classroom teachers to reflect the nature of the course. This chapter describes a case study which is based on "the Crescent English Course". It also provides a full description of the materials being used as well as the examination frequency and the allocated marks. Chapter VI is a summary chapter which deals with recommendations to improve the current status of classroom tests

Tall Buildings Legislations in Doha, Qatar

AbstractGulf Cooperation Council countries are racing in competition to construct tall buildings as sources of national pride and cultural identity facilitated by economic prosperity. This paper discusses rapid construction of tall buildings in Doha, Qatar due to the rapid urbanization since the middle of the 20th century. The paper addresses the importance of developing urban planning legislations for designing eco-tall buildings. The paper concludes with recommendations of how to develop eco-skyscrapers and the reasons of not having green tall buildings in Qatar and what legislations and recommendations should be specified by the government to achieve efficient building design

Frequent asymmetric migrations suppress natural selection in spatially structured populations

Natural microbial populations often have complex spatial structures. This can impact their evolution, in particular the ability of mutants to take over. While mutant fixation probabilities are known to be unaffected by sufficiently symmetric structures, evolutionary graph theory has shown that some graphs can amplify or suppress natural selection, in a way that depends on microscopic update rules. We propose a model of spatially structured populations on graphs directly inspired by batch culture experiments, alternating within-deme growth on nodes and migration-dilution steps, and yielding successive bottlenecks. This setting bridges models from evolutionary graph theory with Wright-Fisher models. Using a branching process approach, we show that spatial structure with frequent migrations can only yield suppression of natural selection. More precisely, in this regime, circulation graphs, where the total incoming migration flow equals the total outgoing one in each deme, do not impact fixation probability, while all other graphs strictly suppress selection. Suppression becomes stronger as the asymmetry between incoming and outgoing migrations grows. Amplification of natural selection can nevertheless exist in a restricted regime of rare migrations and very small fitness advantages, where we recover the predictions of evolutionary graph theory for the star graph.Comment: 11 pages of main text, 27 pages of Supplementary materia

Investigation and management of subfertility

Subfertility affects one in seven couples and is defined as the inability to conceive after 1 year of regular unprotected intercourse. This article describes the initial clinical evaluation and investigation to guide diagnosis and management. The primary assessment of subfertility is to establish the presence of ovulation, normal uterine cavity and patent fallopian tubes in women, and normal semen parameters in men. Ovulation is supported by a history of regular menstrual cycles (21–35 days) and confirmed by a serum progesterone >30 nmol/L during the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle. Common causes of anovulation include polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), hypothalamic amenorrhoea (HA) and premature ovarian insufficiency (POI). Tubal patency is assessed by hysterosalpingography, hystero-contrast sonography, or more invasively by laparoscopy and dye test. The presence of clinical or biochemical hyperandrogenism, serum gonadotrophins (luteinising hormone/follicle stimulating hormone) / oestradiol, pelvic ultrasound to assess ovarian morphology / antral follicle count, can help establish the cause of anovulation. Ovulation can be restored in women with PCOS using letrozole (an aromatase inhibitor), clomifene citrate (an oestrogen antagonist) or exogenous gonadotrophin administration. If available, pulsatile gonadotrophin releasing hormone therapy is the preferred option for restoring ovulation in HA. Spermatogenesis can be induced in men with hypogonadotrophic hypogonadism with exogenous gonadotrophins. Unexplained subfertility can be treated with in vitro fertilisation after 2 years of trying to conceive. Involuntary childlessness is associated with significant psychological morbidity; hence, expert assessment and prompt treatment are necessary to support such couples

Asymptotic Errors for Teacher-Student Convex Generalized Linear Models (or : How to Prove Kabashima's Replica Formula)

There has been a recent surge of interest in the study of asymptotic reconstruction performance in various cases of generalized linear estimation problems in the teacher-student setting, especially for the case of i.i.d standard normal matrices. Here, we go beyond these matrices, and prove an analytical formula for the reconstruction performance of convex generalized linear models with rotationally-invariant data matrices with arbitrary bounded spectrum, rigorously confirming a conjecture originally derived using the replica method from statistical physics. The formula includes many problems such as compressed sensing or sparse logistic classification. The proof is achieved by leveraging on message passing algorithms and the statistical properties of their iterates, allowing to characterize the asymptotic empirical distribution of the estimator. Our proof is crucially based on the construction of converging sequences of an oracle multi-layer vector approximate message passing algorithm, where the convergence analysis is done by checking the stability of an equivalent dynamical system. We illustrate our claim with numerical examples on mainstream learning methods such as sparse logistic regression and linear support vector classifiers, showing excellent agreement between moderate size simulation and the asymptotic prediction.Comment: 19 pages,25 appendix,4 figure