Deconstructing the dualities between design and use through a case of sustainability

Ponència presentada a: Session 2: Post-ocupación / Post-occupancy: buildings and citie

User experiences and the invention of sustainability: the case of passages and courtyards

Ponència presentada a: Session 8: Dimensiones psicosociales de la arquitectura y el urbanismo / Psycological dimensions of architecture and plannin

Exploring temporary urban interventions through user activities: a case study of Abdali Boulevard, Amman, Jordan

Introduction: Urban studies have examined the potential of urban interventions to upgrade spaces. This is the focus of relational approaches that emphasize interactions between interventions and users. One approach, actor–network theory, views these interactions as temporary stabilized relational effects. Despite its usefulness in uncovering diverse interactions in urban spaces, the utilization of actor–network theory in unpacking these relations has been limited.Methods: This study utilized an actor–network theory-inspired ethnography in a temporary urban intervention in Abdali Boulevard, in Jordan, to bridge this gap. It relied on desk research, interviews, and site observations to explore the different intervention–user interactions.Results: The findings revealed various interactions and relational patterns occurring between interventions and their users through their presence and absence in space and time, where users attended to, engaged with, overlooked, bypassed, disturbed the intervention, or floated between different modes of interaction.Discussion: Unpacking these diverse interactions and relations provides a nuanced perspective on the effects of urban interventions on spaces. This would be useful for designers in developing new ways of designing through offering interventions that engage the public

Enhanced Antenna Design for Rectenna Application in the 2.45 GHz ISM Band

In this paper a two layers microstrip antenna design at 2.45 GHz ISM band with Harmonic rejection filter embedded on the ground plane is presented. The two roger substrates with relative permittivity of 2.2 are separated by an air gap which enhances the antenna gain. The design is simulated using Computer Simulation Technology (CST) Studio Suite 2015. Different aperture couplings slots such as rectangular and triangular aperture coupling slots are studied and compared. It is found that the antenna with triangular aperture coupling slot enhances the antenna performance by suppressing 2nd and 3rd harmonics at 5 GHz and 8 GHz, respectively, increasing the antenna gain and providing a better circular polarization behavior. The simulated antenna design achieves a gain of 9 dB, return loss of -23.6dB, axial ratio of 1.27dB and axial-ratio bandwidth of 40.8% (2 ~ 3 GHz). The proposed antenna shows an enhancement in the antenna performance which makes it a suitable candidate for rectifying antenna or rectenna application as it can increase the total conversion efficiency resulting in a high output DC voltage used to power low power electronic and electrical devices such as wireless sensor

Enhancing Rice Leaf Disease Classification: A Customized Convolutional Neural Network Approach

In modern agriculture, correctly identifying rice leaf diseases is crucial for maintaining crop health and promoting sustainable food production. This study presents a detailed methodology to enhance the accuracy of rice leaf disease classification. We achieve this by employing a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) model specifically designed for rice leaf images. The proposed method achieved an accuracy of 0.914 during the final epoch, demonstrating highly competitive performance compared to other models, with low loss and minimal overfitting. A comparison was conducted with Transfer Learning Inception-v3 and Transfer Learning EfficientNet-B2 models, and the proposed method showed superior accuracy and performance. With the increasing demand for precision agriculture, models like the proposed one show great potential in accurately detecting and managing diseases, ultimately leading to improved crop yields and ecological sustainability

Factors influencing intention to use Islamic credit cards in Selangor

Islamic credit card (ICC) has been widely used for personal consumption. The use of ICC is gaining prominence as an alternative to conventional credit card as the concept and operations are permissible by the shariah. The paper aims to determine factors influencing intention to use ICC based on three variables namely benefits, fair charges and religious motivation. A quantitative methodology was conducted via a survey of 102 respondents in the state of Selangor. The results indicated that benefits and religious motivations have significant influence on the intention to use Islamic credit cards. Hence, practitioners should incorporate the two factors in their marketing efforts to promote ICC. The academician can benefit by conducting further research on this eminence body of knowledge

أنموذج شبكة عصبية صنعية لتقدير التّبخر اليومي في محطة سد الباسل

أنموذج شبكة عصبية صنعية لتقدير التّبخر اليومي في محطة سد الباسل غطفان عبد الكريم عمار شريف بدر حايك ميس مياسة تُشكِّل عملية التّبخر إحدى المكونات الأساسيّة للدورة الهيدرولوجيّة، والتّقدير الدقيق للتّبخر له أهميّة كبيرة في إدارة أنظمة الموارد المائيّة ودراسات الموازنة المائيّة. يهدف هذا البحث إلى دراسة كفاءة استخدام الشّبكات العصبيّة الصنعيّة (Artificial Neural Networks) في تقدير التّبخر اليومي في محطة سد الباسل الواقعة في محافظة طرطوس باعتماد بيانات مناخيّة يوميّة. حيث بُني الأنموذج الرياضي باعتماد أربعة بارامترات جوية كمدخلات للشّبكة العصبيّة الصنعيّة، وهي درجة حرارة الهواء الوسطية، الرطوبة النسبيّة الوسطية، الإشعاع الشمسي، سرعة الرياح الوسطية، في حين استُخدمت قيم التّبخر اليومي المقيسة من حوض التّبخر الأمريكي صنف A كمخرجات مأمولة للشّبكة المقترحة لغرض التحقق من صحة أدائها. تمّ بناء شبكة عصبيّة صنعيّة متعددة الطبقات باستخدام خوارزميّة الانتشار العكسي للخطأ، وحُدِّد عدد الطبقات الخفية وعدد العصبونات ودوال التفعيل المستخدمة في كل طبقة منها. توّصلت الدراسة إلى أن الشّبكة العصبيّة الصنعيّة ANN ذات الهيكلية (4-28-1) قادرة على التنبّؤ بالتّبخر اليومي بدقة عالية في منطقة الدراسة حيث بلغت قيمة معامل الارتباط (0.844)، وقيمة جذر متوسط مربع الخطأ (1.15 mm/day) وذلك في مرحلة الاختبار. ممّا يبيّن فعالية تقانة الشّبكات العصبيّة الصنعيّة ذات الانتشار العكسي للخطأ في تقدير التّبخر اليومي. Evaporation process is one of the basic components of the hydrological cycle, and the exact estimation of evaporation has great importance in water resources systems management and water balance studies. This research aims to study the efficiency of using artificial neural networks (ANNs) in estimation of daily evaporation from AL-BASEL reservoir located in Tartous by using daily meteorological data. The mathematical model was built based on four meteorological parameters as the network inputs (i.e. the mean air temperature, mean  relative humidity, solar radiation, mean wind speed), and the data of daily evaporation, which measured from the American pan class A used as the network output for checking its performance accuracy. A multilayer artificial neural network has been built by using error Back-propagation algorithm, and the number of hidden layers was selected and the number of neurons and activation functions which used in each layer of them. The study found that the artificial neural network ANN  of structure (4-28-1) able to predict the daily evaporation with high accuracy in the study area as the value of the correlation coefficient is (0.844), and the value of the root mean square error  is (1.15 mm/day) of testing data set. This clearly indicates the possibility of using ANN technique of error back-propagation for estimating the daily evaporation

The ProtekDuo® Cannula for Acute Mechanical Circulatory Support

The ProtekDuo® is a dual lumen cannula that can be used in numerous configurations to treat cardiogenic shock and hypotension. Its default function is as a temporary percutaneous right ventricular assist device (RVAD) system, however, other configurations both alone and with other mechanical circulatory support (MCS) devices have evolved. In addition to its use as a component of a ventricular assist device (VAD), it can be used as a cannula for extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) and may serve as double lumen drainage cannula on cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB). The role of the cannula in ECMO has been described in multiple configurations including traditional veno-pulmonary (V-P) or “oxygenated RVAD” (oxyRVAD), veno-venopulmonary (V-VP), or venopulmonary-arterial (VP-A). This book chapter summarizes various configurations and technical aspects of the ProtekDuo(R) cannula in the management of hypotension and cardiogenic shock

N/A and signature analysis for malwares detection and removal

Objectives: This study aimed to design an application that effectively scans, detects, and removes malware based on their signatures and behaviours. Methods/Statistical analysis: The rapid growth in the number and types of malware poses high security risks despite the numerous antivirus softwares with Signature-Based Detection (SBD) method. The SBD method depends on the signatures or malware names that are available in the algorithm database. Findings: Malware is a type of malicious software that poses security threats to the targeted system, resulting in information loss, resource abuse, or system damage. The antivirus software is one of the most commonly used security tools to detect and remove malware. However, the malware defences should focus on the malware signatures since there is no universal way of recognising all malware. Therefore, this study suggested N/A detection technique as the dynamic method (behaviour-based detection method) that depends on the Windows Registry (system database). Both static and dynamic detection methods were assessed in this study. Based on the experimental outcomes, SBD method detected and removed most of malware (only known viruses). Application/Improvements: Meanwhile, the N/A detection method detected and removed all injected malware (known and unknown Trojan horse) within a relatively low running time