Fuzzy anti-windup scheme for practical control of point-to-point (Ptp) positioning systems

The Positioning Systems Generally Need A Controller To Achieve High Accuracy, Fast Response And Robustness. In Addition, Ease Of Controller Design And Simplicity Of Controller Structure Are Very Important For Practical Application. For Satisfying These Requirements, Nominal Characteristic Trajectory Following (NCTF) Controller Has Been Proposed As A Practical PTP Positioning Control. However, The Effect Of Actuator Saturation Cannot Be Completely Compensated Due To Integrator Windup Because Of Plant Parameter Variations. This Paper Presents A Method To Improve The NCTF Controller For Overcoming The Problem Of Integrator Windup By Adopting A Fuzzy Anti-Windup Scheme. The Improved NCTF Controller Is Evaluated Through Simulation Using Dynamic Model Of A Rotary Positioning System. The Results Show That The Improved NCTF Controller Is Adequate To Compensate The Effect Of Integrator Windup

The role of isoform switching and neoantigen formation in the response to radiation

This thesis investigates the role of isoform switching in response to ionising radiation (IR) and the modulation of this process by SRSF1, a proto-oncogenic splicing factor. Utilising deep RNA-sequencing of B-cell lines from ten healthy individuals, the study reveals extensive IR-induced isoform switching across the transcriptome, leading to potentially shorter transcripts that influence DNA damage response, apoptosis, and cell cycle arrest. Intriguingly, nearly half of the genes exhibiting isoform-level changes showed no differential expression at the gene level, highlighting the importance of isoform-specific analysis in understanding cellular responses to IR. The RNA-binding protein SRSF1 is identified as a mediator of IR-induced isoform switching. Loss of SRSF1 expression, which is a common response to IR across various cell types, enhances radiosensitivity in cell lines and in cancer patients. Moreover, the thesis explores the combined effect of SRSF1 knockdown and IR on triple-negative breast cancer cells, revealing an altered antigenic landscape with 86 putative neoantigens, and therefore offering insights into novel targeted immunotherapies. The findings propose SRSF1 as a prognostic marker for radiotherapy efficacy in the short-term, and present a foundation for future therapeutic approaches targeting SRSF1 in cancer treatment

The Importance of Good Governance on Achieving Sustainable Development Case Study: Yemen

Governance has become one of the most important concepts in developing countries. Consequently, many countries are trying to pursue good governance and adoption according to the established concept of governance in order to achieve the desired sustainable economic growth and development. Yemeni economy has been in deep recession due to Saudi alliance war since March 2015. Once the war stops, restructuring economy required a new development approach with firm and well define good governance principles aiming to achieve Sustainable Development goals. Yemen as one of the least developing country, not all of its efforts to move ahead economically have been successful. There is more than one reason for its failure to achieve sustainable economic development, but one is absence of good governance. International organizations, donors, and researchers have prescribed good governance as a solution to persistent development problems. This paper is an attempt to enrich this subject, at least in part, by examining the value of adopting good governance on achieving sustainable development. Based on research findings and learning from other countries experience, development progress and challenges, general framework to implement good governance has been recommended to be consider in the future national development agenda to tolerate achieving sustainable development. Building human capacity is one of the key requirements needed to make a qualitative shift towards sustainable development. The current situation of sustainable development and governance in Yemen as a case study has been reviewed in an explanatory methodologies using regional statistics and global database such as UN organizations, World Bank, HDI, SDGs and Governance indicators to examine the progress made over the last decade. Paper recommended practical steps and actions to be taken to help the official government to reform the current institutional arrangements at the regional as well as national levels, such as adopt governance principles, long term planning, and establishing “High Councils for good governance” to ensure integrated policy formulation, adequate cooperation and coordination among different government entities, and between the government and non-state stakeholders. These recommendations and result have been presented to the Yemeni official government and economic institutions aiming to be integrated in the reform strategies, in particular in the Yemen National Development Strategy (2030). Based on research findings and learning from other countries experience, development progress and challenges, general framework to implement good governance has been recommended to be consider in the future national development agenda to achieve sustainable development.   Keywords: Sustainable Development, Good Governance, Economic Reform, Yemen, SDG

Multi-omics reveal nuanced pathways in placental development

The placenta remains poorly studied despite being implicated in many pregnancy and chronic disorders. Trophoblast invasion and nutrient transport are critical placental processes where defects can lead to preeclampsia and other diseases. We set out to characterize protein pathways underlying those processes, using mouse as a model. We profiled the placenta proteome and phosphoproteome at embryonic day (e)7.5, when trophoblast invasion peaks, and at e9.5, when nutrient transport is occurring, and integrated this data with RNA-seq. Comparing the unmodified proteome and the transcriptome revealed that most upregulated proteins are not the result of transcript changes. However, genes upregulated at both levels reflected expected functions, such as enrichment of migration processes at e7.5 and of metabolic processes at e9.5. Proteins that were only upregulated at the protein level contained potentially novel genes involved in migration and patterning, and indicated that the placenta at e9.5 is under stress. The phosphoproteome revealed novel phosphosites on placental transcription factors (TFs) that were conserved in human and differentially phosphorylated in our dataset, indicating an important role for the sites in modulating TF function. When we combined the phosphoproteome with the other datasets, we found further clues that e9.5 placenta is a stressful environment, and we identified a posttranscriptionally and posttranslationally regulated network at this timepoint. This analysis provides a systems-level view of gene expression patterns at two critical timepoints of placental development, and opens the door for experimental validation of potentially novel proteins, phosphosites, and pathways that may be critical for normal placental function

Predictors of Statistics Anxiety Among Graduate Students in Saudi Arabia

Problem The problem addressed in this study is the anxiety experienced by graduate students toward statistics courses, which often causes students to delay taking statistics courses until the end of their program. Students believe that statistics courses are not essential and are the greatest obstacles to obtaining their degree. Previous theoretical models have focused on predicting student performance in statistics. However, this study aims to identify specific factors that could decrease student statistics anxiety and enhance positive attitudes and self-efficacy toward statistics. The study developed a conceptual model to predict statistics anxiety among graduate students in educational and social science majors in Saudi Arabia, which should improve the quality of statistics education in higher education. Method A cross-sectional non-experimental survey design was employed to collect data during the Spring of 2022 from 356 graduate students in Saudi Arabia. Participants completed a self-report survey measuring their (a) demographic information, (b) statistics anxiety (SAS), (c) attitudes toward statistics (SATS), and (d) current statistics selfefficacy (CSSE). The dependent variable was statistics anxiety, while the independent variables were previous statistics experience, attitudes toward statistics, and statistics self-efficacy. Data analyses included descriptive statistics and structural equation modeling (SEM) to evaluate the relationship among the study variables, while a multigroup analysis was used to examine gender differences in the study model. Results The study indicated that the participants reported a moderate level of statistics anxiety and positive attitudes toward statistics, and a low to moderate level of statistics self-efficacy. Results also found that attitudes toward statistics were negatively associated with statistics anxiety, but previous statistics experience positively predicted attitudes toward statistics and current statistics self-efficacy. Mediation analysis revealed that attitudes toward statistics significantly mediated the relationship between previous statistics experience and statistics anxiety. A multi-group analysis showed that the research model was equally applicable to males and females and no significant gender differences were observed at the individual path level. Conclusions The present study investigated the relationship among previous statistics experience, attitudes toward statistics, statistics self-efficacy, and statistics anxiety among graduate students in Saudi Arabia. The findings suggest that positive previous statistics experience and attitudes toward statistics can account for reducing students’ statistics anxiety. Results have important implications for educators and counselors who work with students experiencing statistics anxiety, such as promising positive attitudes toward statistics and enhancing students’ experience with mathematics and statistics

THE ICONOGRAPHY OF DEPICTING NAKED ENEMIES IN ANCIENT EGYPT AND MESOPOTAMIA: A COMPARATIVE STUDY

دلالات تصوير الأسرى العراة في مصر القديمة وبلاد العراق القديم [دراسة مقارنة] [AR] تهدف هذه الدراسة إلى مناقشة دلالات تصوير الأعداء العراة في كل من مصر القديمة والعراق القديم. وتقتصر على تمثيل الأعداء العراة من الرجال فقط دون الأطفال أو النساء. ويكمن السبب في اختيار هذا الموضوع إلى إلقاء المزيد من الضوء على أوجه الشبه والاختلاف بين تمثيل الأسرى العراة، وكذلك المقارنة بين مفهوم تجريدهم من ملابسهم في مناظر كلتا الحضارتين. وقد ناقشت الدراسة أهم هذه التمثيلات واستعرضتها للإجابة على كثير من الأسئلة التي تدور حول هذا الموضوع ، ومنها: ما الحضارة التي ظهر هذا النمط في مناظرها أكثر من الأخرى هل هي مصر القديمة أم العراق القديم؟ وهل العري مرتبط بمفهوم عقوبة الأسرى أو العصاة بشكل عام؟ وإلى أي مدى يرتبط العري بمفهوم العار أو الخزي والمهانة بشكل عام وبخاصة للعدو المهزوم؟ وما مدى ارتباط العري بفكرة الموت؟ وهل اقتصر تمثيل الأسرى وقد جردوا من ملابسهم في مناظر مصر القديمة والعراق القديم على الأعداء الأحياء فقط، أم على الأموات منهم، أم كلاهما الأعداء الأحياء والأموات؟ وقد استنتجت هذه الدراسة أن مناظر الأسرى العراة من الأعداء قد مثلت في العراق القديم أكثر منها في مصر القديمة، كما أن العري قد ارتبط بمفهوم العقاب لتعميق إحساس الخزي والعار وامتهان الأعداء. ولم يقتصر تمثيل الأسرى العراة الأموات دون الأحياء، بل مُثّل كلاهما عراة ، وإن زادت أمثلة مناظر الأسرى الموتى العراة أو المحكوم عليهم بالموت، حيث اقترن تمثيل الأسرى العراة الموتى مع الإعدام بطرق عديدة غاية في القسوة، كالسلخ والوضع على الخازوق، وبخاصة في مناظر العراق القديم في العصر الآشوري الحديث. [En] This study focuses on the iconography of depicting naked enemies in the ancient Egyptian and Iraqi civilizations. It is limited to the representation of naked, male enemies only, not women or children. The reason for choosing this topic is to shed more light on the similarities and differences in depicting scenes of naked captives and the concept of stripping prisoners of their clothes in both civilizations. This study also discusses and reviews the most important representations to answer many questions. For instance, which civilization portrays this motif more than ancient Egypt or Mesopotamia? Is nudity associated with the punishment of enemies, captives, prisoners, or the disobedient in general? To what extent is nudity generally related to the concept of shame concerning the defeated one or the enemy? To what extent is nudity related to the notion of death? Is stripping prisoners of their clothes in scenes from ancient Egypt and Iraq restricted to living enemies, the dead among them, or both? The study concludes that scenes of naked enemies in Mesopotamia occur more frequently than in ancient Egypt and that nudity is linked to the concept of punishment to deepen the sense of shame, disgrace, and humiliation of enemies. Moreover, the representation of nakedness includes dead and living enemies in both civilizations. However, depictions of dead, naked captives are also combined with cruel methods of execution, such as skinning and impalement, especially in Neo-Assyrian scenes

Flood Modelling Tool

The risk of pluvial flooding is going to increase as climate change causes an increase in intense precipitation along with urbanisation leading to an increase in impermeable surfaces. In the last decade, cities such as Malmö and Copenhagen have already experienced severe pluvial flooding that has caused extensive damage. Adapting to climate change by creating flood resilient urban areas is therefore important and blue-green infrastructure (BGI) may be one measure to accomplish this.A hydrological model called TFM-DYN has been used to investigate whether BGI can aid the mitigation of pluvial flooding. TFM-DYN can also assist in selecting the best locations of BGIs. The problem of modeling urban floods using distributed high resolution hydrological models while considering the hydrological process in the upstream area is difficult due to the limited current computation capacity. However, coupling a distributed hydrological model (TFM-DYN) with an other semi distributed models (HYPE) is crucial to enable simulate, predict and map floods with high-resolution for an urban area while considering its catchment area. With the using of the new suggested coupled hydrological model, it is possible to connect and use the output results from HYPE model as an input to a distributed model (TFM-DYN). The interaction between HYPE and TFM-DYN will consider the hydrologic process occurred outside the model boundary of the interested urban area. The coupling of the two models will help initiating the model with real water depth data that may lead to more realistic simulation. The procedure of input data manipulation using the two model interactions is explained in details.The model is tested on a selected urban area to dynamically simulate the changes in the water depth with time using high resolution gridded data. The new coupled model can be of a great tool for wide range of user and stakeholders as an example to municipalities, water experts, insurance companies and to all other interested water organizations who have access to regional catchment models and in need for a high-resolution, flood simulation and mapping model

EMI reduction on high-speed PCB using electromagnetic bandgap structure

The need for high-speed printed circuit board design whilst maintaining signal integrity and EMC standards have increased over the years in the modern integrated circuitry field. The use of electromagnetic bandgap structures (EBGs) have been demonstrated to provide excellent reduction of electromagnetic interference (EMI). In this study, a three by three planar of spiral, with and without patch were designed, simulated and fabricated on a low-cost FR4 substrate with permittivity of 4.3 and thickness of 1.6 mm. The designs of spiral EBGs with and without patch have the dimensions of 36 mm x 36 mm covering 9 unit cells. The performance of the designed EBGs were simulated and measured experimentally, and it was found to be in acceptable agreement. It was found that the spiral EBG without patch experienced a bandgap that covers from 4.5 to 6.3 GHz by using a dispersion diagram. Conversely, the bandgap for the spiral EBG with patch structure was found to be from 4.5 to 7.8 GHz with wider bandwidth. Owing to the desirable results demonstrated by the spiral EBG design with patch, it was then integrated into the high-speed circuit design to suppress the EMI emitted by the board. In this work, two low and three high-speed PCB designs were fabricated to track the desired EMI levels above 4.5 GHz. The third design of the high-speed PCB emitted the highest radiation emission (4.54 GHz) was selected for integration. The spiral EBG with patch structure successfully suppressed the EMI that occur at 4.54 GHz. Its effectiveness further suggests that the proposed EBG spiral with patch structure design is appropriate for EMI suppression that may occur from 4.5 to 7.8 GHz

The Diffusion of Management Accounting Practices in Developing Countries: Evidence from Libya

The transition in Libya from a planned economy to a market economy, which commenced in the late 1980s, has resulted in fundamental changes such as the restructuring of state-owed enterprises, a noticeable growth in foreign direct investment, and an emerging private sector. These changes put immediate pressure on accounting practice to change to meet the demands of the new business environment. Based on the findings of a questionnaire-based survey, supplemented by interview data, this study explores the state of „traditional‟ and „advanced‟ management accounting practices (MAPs) of a mix of 81 large and medium size Libyan manufacturing companies from different industrial sectors. In addition, drawing off the existing literature on new institutional sociology and innovation diffusion theories, a model is developed and forms the basis for investigating and evaluating the factors that influence the development and change of MAPs in Libyan companies. This investigation is underlined with thorough statistical inference resulting from applying factor analysis and simple and multiple regression to the survey data as appropriate. The data collected from 10 interviews are quantified and analysed to provide more insight into MAPs in the responding companies. Although the responding companies have reported using most of the MAPs surveyed, the adoption rates of theses practices are noticeably lower than the adoption rates of MAPs usually found in the management accounting literature. The findings also seem to confirm those of recent studies in other countries about the popularity of „traditional‟ practices over the much acclaimed „advanced‟ ones. However, respondents not only claim to derive higher benefits from „traditional‟ MAPs than from „advanced‟ MAPs, but they also express their intention to place greater emphasis on the former in the future. Thus, this study questions the exaggeration in the criticism of traditional MAPs that characterised the obsolescence campaign initially led by Kaplan (1986) and Johnson and Kaplan (1987) and the acclaimed superiority of the so-called „advanced‟ MAPs. While it is surprising to find that none of the environmental factors examined in this study (e.g. uncertainty and market competition) seems to have an important impact on MAPs diffusion, factors related to attributes of innovation (e.g. the availability of resources, the availability of training, top management support and company size) do however have a significant positive impact on the diffusion of MAPs in these Libyan manufacturing companies. Institutional factors, especially those related to the fashion perspective (e.g. use of consultants) and the fad perspective (e.g. being in a joint venture with a foreign partner) appear to also be essential in facilitating diffusion. This research concludes that the demand side perspective, which dominates the literature on innovation diffusion, is not adequate on its own and, therefore, the supply side and the institutional environment are also important factors in explaining the diffusion of MAPs. Finally the main limitations of this study are outlined and opportunities for future research are discussed, particularly in relation to this study‟s findings about the need to reconsider the usefulness of traditional MAPs and also the need for a multiple perspective approach for studying the diffusion of MAPs

Connecting RPA Development and Business : A Tool for Process Definition, Agile RPA Development and Maintenance

The world of automation is changing rapidly, especially in the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) field, as companies implement software robots to alleviate the repeatable manual work. This thesis has two purposes. The first purpose is to find out if it is possible to improve Robotic Process Automation projects’ kick-off, communication, documentation, and maintenance with a PDD-SDD Tool. And the second purpose is to demonstrate how the PDD-SDD Tool was designed and developed. The initial hypothesis for the project: A specialized Tool for automating documentation and project kick-off could streamline RPA projects and mitigate communication-related misunderstandings. The methods used in the thesis assisted with understanding the needs of the RPA professionals that are working with the whole RPA project life-cycle. For creating the starting point, the hypothesis was constructed by analyzing the current issues in RPA projects in the industry. Based on the hypothesis an Initial Design of the Tool was created and interview questions were produced. Next, three rounds of structured interviews were held for data gathering and demonstrating the developed prototypes. Lastly, a final presentation of the Tool was given to the same study group and improvement proposals were gathered. The findings of this thesis align with the initial hypothesis based on the data gathered from the interviewees during the interviews, the Tool aids the professionals with process definition by providing guiding questions during the definition process. Automated documentation based on the developers’ code alleviated with documentation burden, which leads to up-to-date documentation, which also leads to better communication. The automatically generated code base for the developers created from the process definition and the up-to-date documentation enhanced maintenance work dramatically. The value of this thesis lies with the actualization of a custom Tool developed specifically for MOST Digital’s RPA projects’ life-cycle. Also, the methodologies used in this thesis for data extraction could be further used to collect new features for the developed Tool or to develop a new tool altogether. This project was initiated in Fall 2019 and finished in Summer of 2021, and resulted with a fully functional StandAlone version of the designed PDD-SDD Tool