Numerical modelling of tidal flows in the Arabian gulf

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.The main purpose of this thesis is the prediction of tidal movements in the Gulf, which are essential factors for shipping, fishing, and coast protection. The search for suitable predictions of tide propagation and flow problems has undergone a great advance with the arrival of the digital computer. The development of numerical methods permits the formulation of different efficient hydrodynamic models to compute every tide phenomenon with precision and to handle a great amount of information. A two dimensional hydrodynamic model for tidal flow in the Arabian Gulf is developed. The basic hydrodynamic equations are solved with an explicit finite difference method using a staggered grid to reproduce the various tidal constituents in the Arabian Gulf Tidal forcing term at the open boundary (Strait of Harmouz) is approximated in a novel way. A detailed discussion is presented on the treatment of open and closed boundaries. Simulations have been made over several representative tidal cycles using this finite difference model, and the results compare favourably with existing data in different locations in the Arabian Gulf. Contour diagrams for amplitudes and phases are presented for the four dominant constituents M2 (principal lunar), S2 (principal solar), K, (lunar solar diurinal) and O, (principal lunar diurnal) in the Arabian Gulf. Due to the explicit nature of the finite difference scheme, this hydrodynamic model can be efficiently implemented on parallel as well as serial computers

Coverage model for character-based neural machine translation

En col·laboració amb la Universitat de Barcelona (UB) i la Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV)In recent years, Neural Machine Translation (NMT) has achieved state-of-the art performance in translating from a language; source language, to another; target language. However, many of the proposed methods use word embedding techniques to represent a sentence in the source or target language. Character embedding techniques for this task has been suggested to represent the words in a sentence better. Moreover, recent NMT models use attention mechanism where the most relevant words in a source sentence are used to generate a target word. The problem with this approach is that while some words are translated multiple times, some other words are not translated. To address this problem, coverage model has been integrated into NMT to keep track of already-translated words and focus on the untranslated ones. In this research, we present a new architecture in which we use character embedding for representing the source and target words, and also use coverage model to make certain that all words are translated. We compared our model with the previous models and our model shows comparable improvements. Our model achieves an improvement of 2.87 BLEU (BiLingual Evaluation Understudy) score over the baseline; attention model, for German-English translation, and 0.34 BLEU score improvement for Catalan-Spanish translation

Electoral Choices, Ethnic Accommodations, and the Consolidation of Coalitions: Critiquing the Runoff Clause of the Afghan Constitution

Article sixty-one of the Afghan Constitution requires a candidate to win an absolute majority of votes to become the president. This constitutional rule comprises a runoff clause, which prescribes a second round of elections between the two front-runners should no candidate win over 50% of the votes in the first round. While this article agrees with the majority view of Afghan scholars and politicians who see the runoff clause as instrumental to developing trans-ethnic coalitions and governments, it distinguishes between the formation of alliances and their consolidation. Ultimately, this article posits that the runoff clause actually impedes the long-term success of these coalitions. The analysis reveals that the formation of cross-ethnic coalitions under the runoff clause does not necessarily eliminate the likelihood of ethnic tensions during or after elections. Having revealed some inherent flaws of the runoff clause, this article introduces some alternatives to, and adaptations of, the runoff system, which have been adopted in the constitutions, and electoral laws of other multiethnic states. It examines these alternatives in light of counterfactual simulations using the last three presidential elections. Through these observations, this article contributes to the ongoing legal and political discourse on reforming the Constitution and the electoral laws that began with the National Unity Government Agreement

Cretaceous ostracoda of the super family Cytheracea from Iraq, their biostratigraphy and correlation with adjacent regions

The cretaceous ostracods of Iraq are poorly known, so the aim of the project was to study their taxonomy and to discover their value in correlation between wells in Iraq and between Iraq and neighbouring countries. The Cenomanian-Santonian ostracods of the superfamily Cytheracea were studied in detail from five wells in central and southern Iraq (East Baghdad Well-3, South Rumaila Well-104, Safawi Well-1, Ghalaisan Well-1, and Kifl Well-2). 5 families, 6 subfamilies, 28 genera, 4 subgenera and 74 species were discovered. Two new genera, Iraqicythereis and Archeocosta (the latter published by Al-Bashir and Keen in 1984 during the preparation of this thesis) and one subgenus Peloriops (Hemipeloriops) are proposed; of the 74 species described 58 are new. Four ostracod biozones and three subzones are proposed for the areas studied on the basis of the Cytheracea ostracods; these are arranged from the base to the top as follows: Veeniacythereis streblolophata - Veeniacythereis maghrebensis - Total Range Zone (A-1); Dumontina? mdaouerensis - Partial Range Zone (A-2); Veeniacythereis ibnalhaithami - Partial Range Zone (A-3); Peloriops (Peloriops) alrazii - Partial Range Zone (A-4). The Veeniacythereis streblolophata - Veeniacythereis maghrebensis - Total Range Zone is subdivided into three subzones: A - Glenocythere bahrreinensis - Total Range Subzone (A-1a), B - Soudanella? alkhansai - Assemblage Subzone (A-1b), and C Cythereis alfarazdaki - Assemblage Subzone (A-1c). The ages of the zones and subzones have been determined from a study of the diagnostic ostracod species and stratigraphic position. A Cenomanian age is assigned to A-1 zone; the A-1a and A-1b subzones are of Lower Cenomanian age; a Lower Turonian age is suggested for the A-2 zone; Upper Turonian-Coniacian for the A-3 zone; and a Santonian age for the A-4 zone. The ostracod zones and subzones have been recognised in each of the wells studied. The age of the formations studied has been determined on the basis of the ostracod fauna and stratigraphic position. The upper part of the Mauddud Formation, and the Ahmadi Formation are assigned to the Lower Cenomanian; the Rumaila Formation is placed in the Upper Cenomanian; the Mishrif Formation is placed in the Upper Cenomanian to Lower Turonian; the Kifl Formation is placed in the Lower Turonian; the Khasib Formation is placed in the Upper Turonian-Lower Coniacian; the Tanuma Formation is placed in the Upper Coniacian, although it may include strata of Santonian age in some localities; and the Sadi Formation is assigned to the Santonian. The Ahmadi/Rumaila contact in Ghalaisan Well-1 is placed at the top of the Soudanella? alkhansal subzone. The lower part of the Rumaila Formation in East Baghdad Well-3 is contemporaneous with the Ahmadi Formation on the basis of the occurrence of the Glenocythere bahreinensis Subzone, and is considered to be of Lower Cenomanian age. In Kifl Well-2 the Maotsi Formation is probably of Upper Cenomanian age and the Mahilban and Fahad Formations may be of Lower Cenomanian age. The base of the Khasib Formation is marked by the appearance of many new ostracod species and genera such as Acanthocythereis, Brachycythere, Buntonia, Paracytheridea, Protobuntonia and Phymacythereis. This indicates a major faunal break between the Mishrif/Kifl Formation below and the Khasib Formation above. This faunal break is marked by an unconformity referred to as the Aruma-Wasi unconformity which is recognised throughout the Arabian Gulf. The ostracod biozones of Iraq have been correlated with corresponding zones in other Middle Eastern and North African countries. Problems of variation in the size of some ostracods have been studied. There is a considerable range in size of Peloriops (Peloriops) ulosa, Rehacythereis arabica, Brachycythere basrahaensis sp. nov., Archeocosta alkhazwinii, Veeniacythereis maghrebensis, and Veeniacythereis ibnalhaithami sp. nov. The size range appears to be continuous, and the smaller specimens are considered to be adult. This size variation appears to exclude precocious sexual dimorphism as well as the possibility of larger and smaller forms belonging to two closely related species. It is difficult to determine whether the size variation is due to environmental or genetic causes. Intra-specific variation in ornamentation of the following species has sbeen studied: Iraqicythereis Kadisiya gen. et sp. nov., Veeniacythereis ibnalhaithami sp. nov., Cythereis? ibnyunusi sp. nov., Peloriops (Peloriops) sphaerommata, Peloriops (Hemipeloriops) djabirbnhaiyani sp. nov., and Metacytheropteron berbericus. This variation may be continuous or discontinuous. In the first case it is difficult to recognise distinct morphotypes, but in the second case it is possible to separate them into distinct morphotypes. The morphotypes appear to represent a case of stable polymorphism. The variation is believed to be genetically controlled. The environments of deposition have been determined by using the characteristic ostracod species and other fauna (e.g. foraminifera), and type of sediment. The Ahmadi Formation was deposited in an open, shallow, neritic environment with restrictions in some areas. The Rumaila Formation is distinguished by its low species diversity and poor fauna, but this is considered to be due to preservation rather than environmental conditions. Generally the Rumaila Formation represents deeper water conditions than those of the Ahmadi Formation, becoming shallower with restrictions from the sea in some areas. The Mishrif Formation indicates open shallow water neritic conditions followed by a shallowing phase associated with oscillations of sea level, or with an influx of fresh water. The Kifl Formation represents shallow water conditions partly connected with the open sea, accompanied with the development of lagoonal areas. The Khasib and the Tanuma Formations indicate open shallow marine conditions (infra-neritic), but in some areas (in East Baghdad Well-3 and Kifl Well-2) coastal conditions are suggested, perhaps with restricted access to the open sea because of the presence of a poor ostracod fauna dominated by Ovocytheridea

The Void

Translation of a story by novelist, playwright and short story writer, Ali Mohammad Lone, born in 1927 in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India. He worked as Assistant Producer in Radio Kashmir, and as Deputy Secretary of Cultural Academy of Jammu and Kashmir. He began his literary career by writing in Urdu but soon turned to his mother tongue Kashmiri. Lone has authored many novels, plays and short stories. Asi Ti Chi Insaan (We Too Are Humans) is his famous novel in Kashmiri. His play Suyya, which has been translated in a number of Indian languages, bagged the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Award in 1972. Lone has also translated Maxim Gorky’s famous novel Mother into Kashmiri. He has been honoured with Soviet Land Nehru Award. Though influenced by left-oriented Progressive Writers’ Movement in India, Lone skilfully uses modernist elements in his work. He died in an accident on 22 December 1987 while returning home in Indira Nagar, Srinagar

New Distance Measures for Arabic Handwritten Text Recognition

recent years, optical character recognition has attracted scientists and researchers. Latin, Chinese, Korean and Thai characters have been researched more thoroughly than Arabic characters. The research has concentrated firstly on printed and typeset characters until acceptable recognition accuracy has been achieved. Nowadays, most of the researches have gone towards handwritten character recognition. Arabic text is cursive as characters in a sub-word are connected to each other. This makes the recognition process more complex and a segmentation procedure is required to separate the connected characters from each other before they can be recognized. Features extracted have to be chosen carefully since it has a very important role in the segmentation and recognition process. The recognition accuracy mostly depends on the classifier applied and the segmentation procedure. In this research work, a framework for recognizing the Arabic handwriting is presented. Two approaches have been proposed. The first approach has been designed to recognize the word as a whole to fit applications such as sorting postal mails and bank checks where the number of words or digits that need to be recognized is limited. The words may include country and city names written on postal mails, or some reserved words or amounts used on bank checks. The second approach represents the general case where any type of documents or handwritten text can be recognized by this approach. In both approaches, a preprocessing stage including image enhancement and normalization. The most significant features are extracted by implementing the Principal Components Analysis. A new segmentation-based approach is designed and implemented for the second approach to segment the text into characters, while no or simple segmentation procedure is performed in the first approach. The recognition step is performed by applying the nearest neighbor algorithm. Four different distance measures are used with the nearest neighbor, the first norm, second norm (Euclidean), and two new norms proposed called ENorm, EEuclidean. The two new norms proposed (ENorm, EEuclidean) are derived from the first and second norm respectively. The recognition accuracy is enhanced by using the two new norms proposed. The approaches have been tested as well, and a number of experiments have been discussed more thoroughly. The first approach is experimented by four datasets, which are sub-words containing two characters, sub-words containing three characters, Latin letters and Hindi digits which are used with Arabic language nowadays. The recognition accuracy is the attribute used for measurement, and an 8-fold cross validation technique is used to test this attribute. The average recognition accuracy is 94.8% for the digits, 78% for the three-character sub-words, 77% for the two-character sub-words and 67% for Latin letters. The second approach has achieved recognition accuracy of 73% without detecting dots and 77% with dot detection

Abu Syed Abd al-Hay bin Dahhak, the author of Zeen al-Akhbar

Abdul Hai Gardizi is the author of Zain al-Akhbar or Tarikh Gardizi, one of the most famous historians of Afghanistan. He is considered among the last historians of the first Ghaznavid period and his work, Zain al-Akhbar, is one of the important sources of the country\u27s history. In this article, we have tried to briefly introduce Gardizi and the book Zain al-Akhbar and to evaluate Gardizi\u27s historiographical method in writing Zain al-Akhbar as much as possible. The useful information it provides about the events of the first Ghaznavid period are very important and valuable in the history of Afghanistan. Gardizi has also dealt with social and ethnological topics and issues and has presented valuable and useful reports in this field, which distinguishes him from other historians. Gardizi was less religiously prejudiced than his contemporary historians and to some extent provided valuable information about the religions and rituals of Hindus, Jews, Christians and followers of other religions

The Deleterious Effects of Workplace Bullying on Employee's Job Strains in Pakistan

This study attempts to expand the broader literature on aggression by examining how workplace bullying as a stressor creates job strains. We hypothesize that individuals who experience workplace bullying are more likely to exhibit disastrous consequences in the form of higher Job Stress, Job Burnout, Turnover Intensions and Psychological strain. Utilizing a field sample of 280 employees working in the service sector of Pakistan we tested our proposed model using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) Analysis. The results of SEM model rendered support for the full measurement model and hypothesized structural model indicating that workplace bullying significantly and positively predicted job stress, job burnout, turnover intensions and psychological strain. Our results contribute to the latest stream on workplace bullying and promote research and practice in the area of bullying. The findings of the study also highlight deleterious consequences for victims of abusive and maltreatment behaviors at the workplace in a newer cultural context such as Pakistan. Keywords: Workplace Bullying, Job Stress, Job Burnout, Turnover Intensions, Psychological Strain