Semiotic Analysis of the Visual Signs of Protest on Online Jordanian Platforms: Code Choice and Language Mobility

The political discourse of protesting which comprises carrying signs for clarifying demands and expressing feelings constitutes a significant area of study in the signs of online platforms within the linguistic landscape field. Taking as a case in point the Jordanian protest on May 30, 2018, a few examples of the signs of protest are analyzed using some aspects of visual semiotics, particularly the code choice. The study is grounded on both quantitative and qualitative data culled from online sources. The analysis of the data finds a variety of linguistic codes used in attaining different readerships: the standard form of Arabic as the official language in the country and in other Arab countries; Jordanian Arabic investigated as the device of speaking out the voice of the local audience; English viewed as the language of addressing the global audience; and the multilingualism occurrence as a significant feature in the corpus for achieving further readerships. These codes are largely motivated by other significant semiotic resources, including multimodality, font size, color relevance, and materiality practices. The study further views the signs of protest as a new trend of mobility, often considered a challenging notion to the territoriality of fixed signs in most linguistic landscape studies

Preparing for professional practice: how well does professional training equip health and social care practitioners to engage in evidence-based practice?

This paper reports on the findings of a study that aimed to explore how relevant initial training is in relation to evidence-based practice, and explore the perceptions of recently qualified practitioners about their confidence to engage in evidence-based practice. A cross-sectional postal survey was used to ascertain the views of nurses, social workers, occupational therapists and physiotherapists who had been qualified no longer than two years prior to the survey, and had qualified at one of three London Universities. Fifty questionnaires were sent out to each professional group (a sample of 200 overall) and there was a 43% response rate achieved. The results show a clear discrepancy between what are generally positive attitudes towards evidence-based practice and the value of research evidence and the infrequency with which they actually do make use of research resources and engage in evidence-based practice. A number of constraints to engagement in accessing and utilising evidence were identified

EUROMICRO - Context-based personalization of Web services composition and provisioning

This work presents an approach that aims at personalizing Web services composition and provisioning using context. Composition addresses the situation of a user\u27s request that cannot be satisfied by any available service, and thus requires the combination of several Web services. Provisioning focuses on the deployment of Web services according to users\u27 preferences. A Web service is an accessible application that other applications and humans can discover and trigger. Context is the information that characterizes the interactions between humans, applications, and the surrounding environment. Web services are subject to personalization if there is a need of accommodating users\u27 preferences during service performance and outcome delivery. To be able to track personalization in terms of what happened, what is happening, and what might happen three types of context are devised, and they are referred to as user-, Web service-, and resource-context

Secrecy and performance models for query processing on outsourced graph data

Database outsourcing is a challenge concerning data secrecy. Even if an adversary, including the service provider, accesses the data, she should not be able to learn any information from the accessed data. In this paper, we address this problem for graph-structured data. First, we define a secrecy notion for graph-structured data based on the concepts of indistinguishability and searchable encryption. To address this problem, we propose an approach based on bucketization. Next to bucketization, it makes use of obfuscated indexes and encryption. We show that finding an optimal bucketization tailored to graph-structured data is NP-hard; therefore, we come up with a heuristic. We prove that the proposed bucketization approach fulfills our secrecy notion. In addition, we present a performance model for scale-free networks which consists of (1) a number-of-buckets model that estimates the number of buckets obtained after applying our bucketization approach and (2) a query-cost model. Finally, we demonstrate with a set of experiments the accuracy of our number-of-buckets model and the efficiency of our approach with respect to query processing

On incomplete exponential \;_{r}R_{s}(P,Q,z) matrix function

The recurrence matrix relations, differentiation formulas, and analytical and fractional integral properties of incomplete gamma matrix functions $\gamma(Q, x)$ and $\Gamma(Q, x)$ are all covered in this article. The generalized incomplete exponential matrix functions with their integral representations functions have been examined, along with some relevant characteristics of these functions such as integral representations functions . Additionally, the infinite summation relations and formulas for two sequences are shown, along with the generalized incomplete exponential matrix functions with the integral representation, addition formula for addition of two arguments, multiplication formula for multiplication of two arguments, and recurrence matrix relation

Heat and Moisture Relevant In Situ Measurements in a Railway Passenger Vehicle Driving through the Swiss Alpine Region

Transportation is a major sector of energy consumption in most, if not in all, European countries. Besides the energy used for traction, energy is also consumed for ventilation, heating, and cooling inside the vehicles to assure traveler comfort. This issue gains increasing importance as the demand for public transport increases in the future. There is a need for retrofit to improve the thermal resistance of the envelope of existing vehicles to reduce the heat loss to the environment during the cold period of the year, especially in the Alpine region. A major concern in adding insulation material to the envelope is the possibility of convective moisture transfer due to air circulation in the vehicle, which would cause condensation accumulation on the cold surfaces. The present investigation addresses this topic by measuring surface and air temperature, air moisture, air flow, and heat flow at several critical locations of a vehicle during its travel in the Swiss Alpine region over several months during the cold period of the year. Temperature measurements showed the potential of reducing the heat losses in some parts of the vehicle. The level and duration of the moisture exposure did not suggest a relevant formation of condensation in the cross-section of the vehicle wall. The observed increase in relative humidity when driving through tunnels is too short to cause relevant condensation in the vehicle shell. The measured low air flow justifies the assumption that no forced convection occurs in the envelope cavities

A novel semi-active TMD with folding variable stiffness spring

An innovative variable stiffness device is proposed and investigated based on numerical simulations. The device, called a folding variable stiffness spring (FVSS), can be widely used, especially in tuned mass dampers (TMDs) with adaptive stiffness. An important characteristic of FVSS is its capability to change the stiffness between lower and upper bounds through a small change of distance between its supports. This special feature results in lower time-lag errors and readjustment in shorter time intervals. The governing equations of the device are derived and simplified for a symmetrical FVSS with similar elements. This device is then used to control a single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) structure as well as a multi-degree-of-freedom (MDOF) structure via a semi-active TMD. Numerical simulations are conducted to compare several control cases for these structures. To make it more realistic, a real direct current motor with its own limitations is simulated in addition to an ideal control case with no limitations and both the results are compared. It is shown that the proposed device can be effectively used to suppress undesirable vibrations of a structure and considerably improves the performance of the controller compared to a passive device

The effect of interferon beta-1b treatment on MRI measures of cerebral atrophy in secondary progressive multiple sclerosis.

The recently completed European trial of interferon beta-1b (IFN beta -1b) in patients with secondary progressive multiple sclerosis (SP multiple sclerosis) has given an opportunity to assess the impact of treatment on cerebral atrophy using serial MRI. Unenhanced T-1-weighted brain imaging was acquired in a subgroup of 95 patients from five of the European centres; imaging was performed at 6-month intervals from month 0 to month 36. A blinded observer measured cerebral volume on four contiguous 5 mm cerebral hemisphere slices at each time point, using an algorithm with a high level of reproducibility and automation. There was a significant and progressive reduction in cerebral volume in both placebo and treated groups, with a mean reduction of 3.9 and 2.9%, respectively, by month 36 (P = 0.34 between groups). Exploratory subgroup analyses indicated that patients without gadolinium (Gd) enhancement at the baseline had a greater reduction of cerebral volume in the placebo group (mean reduction at month 36: placebo 5.1%, IFN beta -1b 1.8%, P < 0.05) whereas those with Gd-enhancing lesions showed a trend to greater reduction of cerebral volume if the patient was on IFN<beta>-1b (placebo 2.6%, IFN beta -1b, 3.7%; P > 0.05). These results are consistent with ongoing tissue loss in both arms of this study of secondary progressive multiple sclerosis. This finding is concordant with previous observations that disease progression, although delayed, is not halted by IFN beta. The different pattern seen in patients with and without baseline gadolinium enhancement suggests that part of the cerebral volume reduction observed in IFN beta -treated patients may be due to the anti-inflammatory/antioedematous effect of the drug. Longer periods of observation and larger groups of patients may be needed to detect the effects of treatment on cerebral atrophy in this population of patients with advanced disease