Freezing Technology: Challenges and Prospects for Sustainable Development in Urban Infrastructure

Ground freezing has been broadly applied to construction and maintenance works of infrastructures because of its environmental friendliness. Since freezing technology represented by ground freezing can improve the strength of soil as well as its water-tightness, it becomes an essential technology for construction and maintenance of urban infrastructures where the use of space in underground has already been highly integrated. In this paper, overview of the freezing technology is introduced with some important characteristics of freezing soil for practical application. In addition, freezing technology is used for interesting works which could not be completed without freezing, and the state of the arts in freezing technology is presented. A pipe-in-pipe, now the authors are developing, is an example to utilize the potential of frozen sand, and the effect of freezing is explained with experimental results

Young Saudi Women Novelists: Protesting Clericalism, Religious Fanaticism and Patriarchal Gender Order

From the early 1990s Saudi Arabia witnessed a significant surge in women’s writing, especially of novels. This was not a temporary phenomenon but continued into the new millennium, at which time a new generation of young woman novelists emerged who developed a deeper critique of the Saudi state and society than their predecessors in the 1990s. Three well-known and challenging novels are examined: Raja ʾ al-Saniʿ’s Banat al-Riyadh [Girls of Riyadh] (2005), Warda Abd al-Malik’s Al-awba [Return] (2008), and Samar al-Muqrin’s Nisaʾ al-munkar [Women of Vice] (2008). It is argued that a fundamental aspect of these works is their critique of religion, or at least of clerics and their discourse which, in the case of Saudi Arabia, is a profound act. It identifies two approaches by the authors: the individualization of religion and especially the re-articulation of the image of God as a friendly and humanistic God, in contrast to the official discourse; and the development of a strong anti-clerical discourse

Effect of Elemental Shape and Modeling of Mixed Hybrid FEM on Numerical Solution

AbstractMixed Hybrid Finite element method, MHF, is known to be an efficient and powerful analyzing technique with satisfactory accuracy when differentiated variables should be evaluated, such as flow velocity based on velocity potential theory or stress calculated from displacement. On the other hand, it is known that the calculation accuracy and efficiency are affected by elemental shape and modeling. The aim of this study is to confirm the efficiency and accuracy of MHF by comparing it with FEM, and to discuss optimum elemental shapes and modeling. MHF, unlike FEM, evaluates the velocity potential and the flux on the element boundaries not at the element nodes; consequently, the material or mass balance of each element due to flow-in and flow-out through the boundaries can be strictly estimated. The flow velocity within an element, however, should be interpolated by those values on the boundaries, and a distinctive shape function, known as the Raviart-Thomas shape function, becomes necessary. The authors established the MHF formulation for arbitrary shaped elements with 3 and 4 boundaries, and numerically investigated its efficiency and accuracy with various shapes of elements. Through this study, it was confirmed that MHF can evaluate accurate flow velocity with a fewer number of elements than those of FEM. In addition, the effect of shape and modeling of elements on the numerical results were discussed to obtain better accuracy even if the total number of the elements is kept constant

Bringing broader impacts to the community via university K-12 partnerships: growth in and seed quality of Betula neoalaskana Sargent

Thesis (M.S.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2020Betula neoalaskana Sargent is the most abundant birch species in Alaska. All parts of the tree can be used in creating timber and non-timber products, and birch stands provide high-value ecosystem services for ecotourism and outdoor recreational purposes. For these reasons, the OneTree Alaska program of the University of Alaska Fairbanks uses Interior Alaska white birch as the centerpiece of its work. This M.S. thesis is a contribution to OneTree Alaska's goal of raising the public's understanding of the effects of Interior Alaska's lengthening growing season on the growth and reproduction of the local birch resource. Specifically, the thesis relates to the growth and reproduction of the offspring of the original "one trees" harvested on Nenana Ridge in October 2009. The saplings have been growing in the Generation OneTree Research Plot in the T-field, north of the Smith Lake on the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus, since June 2011 and represent half-sibling families reared from the seed of 8 maternal trees. As seedlings, they were reared for growing seasons of variable length, both by students at the Watershed Charter School of the Fairbanks North Star Borough and by OneTree personnel in a University of Alaska Fairbanks growth chamber. Prior to this study, end of year measurements had been taken of the young trees in the T-field for all but one year and established that the length of the first growing season persistently affected the number of stems and the diameter at breast height (DBH) of the main stems. New findings in this thesis show that the elevation difference among trees impacts the number of infructescences and germination rates but not the number of male catkins. At least for the 2018 seed crop, seeds from trees planted at higher elevations in the T-field showed higher germination rates than those planted at lower elevations, while they produce fewer infructescences at up slope. Other findings demonstrate that sibling family does not have an effect on either vegetative or reproductive growth. Instead, the length of the first growing season provides for a diversity of canopy shapes across sibling families. The most significant finding is the effect of elevation on female reproductive growth: It suggests a number of next steps, tools, and analysis to better understand environmental variables that work alongside elevation in determining growth and reproductive success. Soil moisture and pH (H2O), Carbon/Nitrogen ratio, Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) to determine micronutrient composition, sensors to capture wind speed/direction and solar radiation, photosynthetic traits, and chlorophyll concentration measurements could all be valuable in further elucidating the hypotheses being advanced by this research regarding the interactions between changing environment and reproduction.Heiwa Nakajima FoundationChapter 1: Introduction -- 1.1. Betula neoalaskana Sargent: boreal forest and birch in Alaska -- 1.2. OneTree Alaska -- 1.2.1. Broader Impacts Activity -- 1.2.2. STEM to STEAM -- 1.2.3. Concept and History -- 1.3. Justification. Chapter 2. T-field Vegetative and Reproductive growth -- 2.1. Introduction -- 2.1.1. Problem statements -- 2.1.2. Hypothesis -- 2.2. Material, Methods and Timeline of T-field -- 2.2.1. Original experiment from 2009 to 2011 -- 2.2.2. LiDAR data and GIS Analysis for T-field in 2018 -- 2.2.3. Growing condition: precipitation and temperature data -- 2.2.4. Stem numbers, Height, and DBH measurement in 2018 by a class -- 2.2.5. Reproduction assessment -- 2.2.6. Statistic analysis -- 2.3. Results -- 2.3.1. Vegetative data of T-field in 2018 -- 2.3.2. Reproductive growth data of T-field in 2018 -- 2.4. Discussion -- 2.4.1. The effect of the first growing seasons -- 2.4.2. The effect of elevation and the distance from the edge of the sub-canopy -- 2.4.3. Resemblance from the former studies on birch and critiques. Chapter 3. Germination Experiment -- 3.1 Introduction -- 3.1.1. Problem statement -- 3.1.2. Hypothesis -- 3.2 Material, Methods, and Timeline -- 3.2.1. Seed sampling from T-field in 2018 -- 3.2.2. Cupcake method -- 3.2.3. Growing conditions in the greenhouse -- 3.2.4. Statistic analysis -- 3.3. Qualification of the cupcake method -- 3.3.1. Result of the statistic analysis -- 3.3.2. Price of the cupcake method -- 3.3.3. Recommendation -- 3.4. Germination results -- 3.4.1. The increment of germination over 21 days -- 3.4.2. The numbers of germination on 21st day -- 3.5. Discussion -- 3.5.1. Reproductive ecology in life strategy and seed vigor -- 3.5.2. Resemblance from the former studies and questions for the future. Chapter 4. General Discussion and Conclusion -- 4.1. General discussion -- 4.2. General conclusion -- 4.3. Further research suggestions -- 4.4. Germination experiment protocol for citizen scientists -- 4.4.1. Introductory remarks -- 4.4.2. Find Birch -- 4.4.3. Find and get birch seeds -- 4.4.4. Prepare tray and soil -- 4.4.5. Sow seeds -- 4.4.6. Take care of seeds -- 4.4.7. Find germination -- 4.5. Afterthoughts -- Literature cited