The crowd psychology of the Hajj

This thesis is the first study of the crowd psychology of the annual Hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca (Makkah) in Saudi Arabia, to employ self-categorization theory (SCT). The thesis aims to document and understand the perspective of pilgrims from a social psychological point of view, since no one has done that before, as well as to understand the perceptions of the Hajj management. Specifically, the thesis focuses on crowd perceptions, feelings of safety and the reasons for these feelings, and relations between subgroups in the crowd and between pilgrims and management. A literature review in Chapter two highlights the history and culture of the Hajj and the issues in managing the Hajj. Academic perspectives on crowd psychology are discussed in chapter three. Chapters four and five present respectively a UK pilot study of pilgrims and a field pilot study of pilgrims and management. Chapter six (the main interview study with pilgrims) indicates that despite the inconveniences, participants felt safe, secure and wellbeing inside the Grand Mosque during Hajj. Chapter seven (the main interview study with Hajj management) explores the participants’ understanding of crowd behaviour, crowd psychology and its relation to safety, danger and their own role. In Chapter eight (the major study of the thesis), a survey of 1194 pilgrims at the Hajj found that identification with the crowd predicted enjoyment of the crowd. Also, for those high in identification with the crowd, crowd density increased perceptions of safety. Perceived support was found to mediate these positive effects of social identity on feeling safe. Chapter nine critically explores the findings of the thesis and discusses them in relation to relevant literature. It also reflects on the implications of the study for the theory of crowd psychology, and considers what lessons there might be for the management of the Hajj. This chapter concludes the thesis and outlines suggestions for further research

Fractional Noether's theorem in the Riesz-Caputo sense

We prove a Noether's theorem for fractional variational problems with Riesz-Caputo derivatives. Both Lagrangian and Hamiltonian formulations are obtained. Illustrative examples in the fractional context of the calculus of variations and optimal control are given.Comment: Accepted (25/Jan/2010) for publication in Applied Mathematics and Computatio

Adaptive gender-based thermal control system

A closed loop adaptive gender-based thermal control system (AG-TCS) is designed, modelled, analysed and tested. The system has the unique feature of adapting to the surrounding environment as a function of the number of humans present and the gender ratio. The operation of the system depends on a unique interface between a radio frequency identification (RFID) device and an imaging device, both of which are correlated and interfaced to a controller. Testing of the system resulted in smooth transition and shape conversion of the response curve, which proved its adaptability. Three mathematical equations describing the internal mechanisms of the AG-TCS are presented and have been proven to optimally reflect the original statistical data covering both genders

Management Environment and its Impact on the Efficiency of Purchasing and Operating the Technology

Technology topic gained very large importance in the second half of the previous century; in the majority of countries, and this importance is increasing dramatically due to the hopes that nations put on this technology and the promising benefits from using it in the advancement and development of different areas. This isn't only interest the developed countries, but also it was extended to include the non-developed countries, which is trying hard to get rid of the backwardness that suffers and seeks to achieve the development, advancement, and progress through the use of technology, after several aid programs failed to achieve what was expected from them. It showed clearly that gap is expanding between the developed countries and the non-developed, which prompted the latter to work hard in order to get rid of the dependency that developed countries impose on it, by attempting to focus on the technology purchase process, its advance operation, and use it in the different development programs, benefit from it, and disseminate it. But as far as Jordan concern, which considers one of the non-developed countries, the leadership in it gave a special importance to the science and technology over the last 50 years, when the first Jordanian University was established in Amman at the start of the second half of the last century, and now their numbers exceed thirty-one universities that work on graduating scientific professions. This makes Jordan differ from the other non-developed countries, add to that Jordan became one of the countries that export high-level scientific professions to the Gulf, USA, and European countries. However, at the present time, this society doesn't provide adequate technological support for the development process, and this study aims to address the following topics: First: study methodological framework. Second: the concept and importance of technology. Third: the general goal for purchasing and operating technology. Fourth: the strategies for purchasing and operating technology in Jordan. Fifth: the various environmental factors that influence the decision of purchasing and operating technology. Sixth: the contributors to decision rationalization of purchasing and operating technology. Seventh: the field study. Keyword: Management environment, purchasing, operating, technology, reflection, decisions, strategies, goals, concepts, methodological framework, contributors. DOI: 10.7176/IKM/9-6-07 Publication date:July 31st 201

Characterization of steel components printed using WAAM technology

This thesis presents the outcomes of research for structural engineering exploitation of 3D printed steel components produced by using Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM) technologies. An objective of the research was to be able to apply WAAM with a Gas Metal Arc Welding (GMAW) based process to manufacture relatively large-scale components. The primary aim of the work was to study the printing process and printing strategy to produce several components for material and structural characterization work. To achieve this, several printing experiments were performed using several weld steels (in the form of 1.2 mm diameter wire), and with three external WAAM-GMAW collaborators. The largest component printed weighs 36 kg and is for a monolithic beam-to-column joint, having thin-walled beam and column sections of I-shape and different sizes. The smaller printed components (e.g., thin-walled plates and stub columns) were used to characterise the mechanical properties of the steels, which are benchmarked against Section 3 requirements in Eurocode 3 (EN 1993-1-1 or EN 1993-1-12) for the design of structural steel works. To investigate the internal structure and establish levels of porosity in the printed components, the non-destructive testing method of X-ray Computed Tomography (X-CT) analysis was employed. From tensile coupon testing of the 3D printed steels the strains at rupture were assessed against the percentage of porosity formed during the 3D printing. A key finding was that for applications in buildings the presence of porosity has a small impact on the required material ductility and stiffness according to Eurocode 3. To satisfy the ductility requirement, the percentage of porosity should be controlled to be < 1%. Another important finding, from the X-CT evaluations, is that the printing process and its strategy both have a significant impact on the homogeneity and level of defects in the printed steels. The author therefore recommends that for quality printing it is important to consider the component’s load path and functionality during the design process leading to WAAM-GMAW manufacturing. Finally, testing of the beam-to-column joint for its moment-rotation characteristics showed that it can be classified by its stiffness to be ‘rigid’ (in accordance with Section 5.2 of EN 1993-1-8). This proved that the WAAM printed joint has the functionality of an equivalent conventional steel rigid joint for building structures. The new data collected from this research forms the basis for the future development of design guidelines for using WAAM manufacturing technologies in structural engineering. Outcomes presented in this thesis can also be informative for the preparation of guidelines for safety factors, and for future applications on the potential impact on quality of steel printing of the chosen WAAM-GMAW parameters. Overall, the new contribution to knowledge and understanding is encouraging for there to be opportunities to apply 3D printing of steel to support the requirement of minimizing the mass of materials in structures for a zero-carbon economy

Evaluation of the carotid artery using wavelet-based analysis of the pulse wave signal

The use of pulse wave analysis may assist cardiologists in diagnosing patients with vascular diseases. However, it is not common in clinical practice to interpret and analyze pulse wave data and utilize them to detect the abnormalities of the signal. This paper presents a novel approach to the clinical application of pulse waveform analysis using the wavelet technique by decomposing the normal and pathology signal into many levels. The discrete wavelet transform (DWT) decomposes the carotid arterial pulse wave (CAPW) signal, and the continuous wavelet transform (CWT) creates images of the decomposed signal. The wavelet analysis technique in this work aims to strengthen the medical benefits of the pulse wave. The obtained results show a clear difference between the signal and the images of the arterial pathologies in comparison with normal ones. The certain distinct that were achieved are promising but further improvement may be required in the future

Wavelet analysis of the ECG signals for three common heart diseases in Jordan

The electrocardiogram is a common diagnostic tool used to monitor heart activity and can provide information about the cardiovascular problems. An automatic detection of the ECG traces can be valuable aid in the diagnosis process. The wavelet transform has proven to be an important tool in the analysis of biomedical signals, and the ECG in particular. This paper proposes a method for the classification of various types of ECG signals using wavelet transform. The method is developed based on the ECG data collected at different local hospitals in Jordan. The data include normal ECG records from healthy people and abnormal ECG signals taken from patients with common heart diseases in Jordan such as right atrial hypertrophy, left atrial hypertrophy and hypocalcaemi

Assessment of Dual-Tree Complex Wavelet Transform to improve SNR in collaboration with Neuro-Fuzzy System for Heart Sound Identification

none6siThe research paper proposes a novel denoising method to improve the outcome of heartsound (HS)-based heart-condition identification by applying the dual-tree complex wavelet transform (DTCWT) together with the adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference System (ANFIS) classifier. The method consists of three steps: first, preprocessing to eliminate 50 Hz noise; second, applying four successive levels of DTCWT to denoise and reconstruct the time-domain HS signal; third, to evaluate ANFIS on a total of 2735 HS recordings from an international dataset (PhysioNet Challenge 2016). The results show that the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) with DTCWT was significantly improved (p < 0.001) as compared to original HS recordings. Quantitatively, there was an 11% to many decibel (dB)-fold increase in SNR after DTCWT, representing a significant improvement in denoising HS. In addition, the ANFIS, using six time-domain features, resulted in 55–86% precision, 51–98% recall, 53–86% f-score, and 54–86% MAcc compared to other attempts on the same dataset. Therefore, DTCWT is a successful technique in removing noise from biosignals such as HS recordings. The adaptive property of ANFIS exhibited capability in classifying HS recordings.Special Issue “Biomedical Signal Processing”, Section BioelectronicsopenBassam Al-Naami, Hossam Fraihat, Jamal Al-Nabulsi, Nasr Y. Gharaibeh, Paolo Visconti, Abdel-Razzak Al-HinnawiAl-Naami, Bassam; Fraihat, Hossam; Al-Nabulsi, Jamal; Gharaibeh, Nasr Y.; Visconti, Paolo; Al-Hinnawi, Abdel-Razza

Percutaneous central venous catheterization in children, is it efficient?

ObjectiveTo evaluate the frequent use of percutaneous central venous catheters (CVCs) in pediatric agegroup.MethodsRetrospectively we reviewed the records of all children that had percutaneous CVCs in the pediatric surgical ward and pediatric intensive care unit at King Hussein Medical Center between January2007 and December 2007 (one year). Patients were evaluated with respect to their age, gender, catheter type, indication for CVC insertion, site of CVC insertion. The duration of catheter use and eventual complications were also taken into consideration.ResultsA total of 120 percutaneous CVCs were inserted in 104 children. Patient age ranged from one day to14 years. The average catheter insertion time was 12.5 days. We noted 66 (18.8%) CVC- related complications. Complications related to percutaneous CVCs insertion were malposition of catheter (5.4%) and pneumothorax (0.9%). Occlusion of CVCs (4.3%), catheter related bloodstream infections (CRBI) (4.0%), dislodgment (3.7%) and catheter damage (0.6%) were complications associated with lenght of CVCs use.ConclusionWe conclude that percutaneous central venous catheterization is a safe and efficient procedure that can be done at bedside with minimal complications in pediatric age group.Keywords: Percutaneous, indications, complications, children.