The survey of pedestrainization feasibility in urban spaces and its relationship with the citizens’ vivacity. Case study: The city of Birjand’s Hakim Nazari street

The current article aims at the survey of the feasibility of transforming Hakim Nazari Street to a walk way along with the social vivacity and it is seeking to find an answer to the question proposed in the current research project which states that “whether Hakim Nazari St. has the potential to be changed into a side walk causing a higher deal of social spirit?” and it is also in search of proving the study hypothesis  implying that “it seems that Hakiim Nazari St. is capable of being transformed into a side walk with social vivacity through taking all its potentials and capabilities into practical use”. Firstly, we deal with the survey of the specialized contexts and try to extract the scales and standards of building sidewalks feasibilities and likelihoods and its relation with the citizens’ vivacity through making use of a descriptive-analytical method and in the form of documentary-library researches and after that the extracted items have been investigated and evaluated through field studies and questionnaire and interviewing with the space users. The questionnaire has been designed structurally in two parts of pedestrian-oriented indicators and indices and the citizens’ vivacity and joyfulness and the questionnaires have been distributedin 6 days (all week days) and various hours (morning, noon, night) to 320 people from both male and female genders with an age range of 15 to 65 years and from different social classes and groups (residents, businessman and woman, space users) based on a systematic randomized method on the street and finally the questionnaires have been collected and the data extracted thence have been   analyzed. The current study indicates that Hakim Nazari Street based on thesidewalk indices and because of scoring 2.23 from the total of 3 points has the potential to be changed into a sidewalk and the study hyyupothesis has been  confirmed following the researches and investigations carried out.Keywords: building sidewalks, vivacity, urban spaces, Hakim Nazari Stree

A Bio-Social Review to Mitigate the Punishment of Unwanted Acts

Commitment of crime and exhibition of antisocial behavior have been considered as negative acts from early times of human civilization. Recent scientific advances have identified contributions of biological and sociological (environmental factors) factors in forming a maladaptive behavior. Generally, it is accepted by many scholars that punishing a wrongdoer, who has committed a crime owing to genetic predispositions and environmental elements, is not effective and forms of treatments should be replaced to avoid repeating a crime. Moreover, by identifying genetic deficiencies in an individual, an antisocial behavior could be potentially predicted and prevented before it comes to pass. On a whole, genetic and environmental factors, sometimes solely and some other times collaboratively, lead a person to act against society norms. In summary, this body of literature offers examples that explain factors which contribute to committing crimes and approaches which inhibit antisocial behavior. With regard to these aims, we suggest that punishment of criminals who are predisposed genetically in the same manner as other delinquencies is not justifiable and a reduction of punishment should be applied to such individuals. Moreover, by eliminating each of negative elements which contribute to antisocial behavior or crime, we can be more certain that the offender will not repeat antisocial acts after being released

A realistic, multimodal virtual agent for the healthcare domain

We introduce an interactive embodied conversational agent for deployment in the healthcare sector. The agent is operated by a software architecture that integrates speech recognition, dialog management, and speech synthesis, and is embodied by a virtual human face developed using photogrammetry techniques. These features together allow for real-time, face-to-face interactions with human users. Although the developed software architecture is domain-independent and highly customizable, the virtual agent will initially be applied to healtcare domain. Here we give an overview of the different components of the architecture

Performance optimization of a dual-rotor ducted wind turbine by using response surface method

The presented study evaluates and optimizes the performance of dual-rotor wind turbines installed inside a developed duct. The effect of different operating conditions on the extracted power was compared between dual-rotor wind turbines (DRWT) and single rotor wind turbines (SRWT). These operating conditions include the type of dual-rotor wind turbines installed in the throat section of the duct, the distance between the two rotors of a turbine, and the flow velocity through the duct throat that were evaluated by the multivariate statistical method response surface methodology. The central composite design of the response surface method was utilized to fit the designed model based on the least-squares method. Also, the multiple regression method was applied for the empirical data to match variable operating conditions with the developed model by analysis of variance (ANOVA). Afterward, some experiments were carried on to validate this method. The results showed a maximum power ratio of about 55% at the optimized conditions for dual rotor wind turbines. Determined P-values for designed parameters of models were less than 0.05, which makes its effect on the model significant. Furthermore, the power ratio obtained from empirical data was compatible with the considered model

Association of RS4784227-casc16 (Loc643714 locus) and RS4782447-ACSF3 polymorphisms and their association with breast cancer risk among iranian population

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Models and Methods for Intelligent Highway Routing of Human-Driven and Connected-and-Automated Vehicles

Connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) have seen a rapid surge in interest over the past few years. A lot of focus is being placed on improving the efficiency and robustness of transportation systems by leveraging the sensors and capabilities of CAVs. However, the integration of CAVs into existing traffic infrastructure would give rise to certain issues that must be addressed before the CAVs can be seen ubiquitously on public roads. Since the highway networks are considered permanent investments that are expensive to build and maintain, the priority is to improve the efficiency of the current traffic system. This chapter explores the integration of two of the most common traffic management strategies, namely, ramp metering (RM) and route guidance (RG), into existing highway networks with human-driven vehicles (HDVs). The introduction of CAVs to public roads will engender issues pertaining to safe interactions between CAVs and HDVs. The later part of the chapter addresses the specific problems of improving highway on-ramp merging efficiency by optimally coordinating CAVs. The chapter concludes by presenting a scenario that requires an explicit consideration of interactions between HDVs and CAVs

Automatic calibration of the SANISAND parameters for a granular material using multi-objective optimization strategies

peer reviewedThe parameter calibration of a constitutive model is a requisite to counter the uncertainty in the parameters and to approximate the simulation results effectively. Yielding a robust set of parameters for various test conditions is complicated as innumerable parameter combinations have to be investigated. In previous works, this calibration has been performed manually by trial and error without checking the robustness of the chosen parameters. Therefore, the present study introduces an automated calibration procedure using multi-objective optimization techniques. This assists in searching the parameter domain space extensively for better combinations that simulate the experiment results precisely. Though this approach is quite popular in various other engineering aspects, proposing the concept of calibrating the soil parameters and validating their efficiency has been always a challenge and interesting in this framework. In this research, SANISAND model parameters have been calibrated for crushed glass material under different triaxial conditions considering the barotropy, and pycnotropy effects. The results demonstrated that the optimized SANISAND parameters approximated the experiment results far better than manually calibrated results. This calibration approach facilitates in conserving the robust parameters besides dealing with time constraints and motivates the idea of adapting this automation platform to any constitutive model for significant approximations

Numerical investigation of geogrid back-anchored sheet pile walls

peer reviewedIn the last decades, geosynthetic reinforcement has been widely used in geotech-nical applications. Recently, geogrid has also been used to back-anchor sheet pile walls. However, this system has not received sufficient attention neither in research nor in construction. Due to the complex interactions between soil, geogrid and sheet pile wall, the applicability of common design guidelines for conventionally back-anchored walls to this particular system has to be proven. To develop a fundamental understanding about the influence of various components of the system on its behaviour, numerical investigations have been conducted within this study. In this paper the influence of geogrid inclination, design of geogrid-sheet pile connection including prestressing and geogrid position on the earth pressure distribution and wall deformation is discussed. The numerical results revealed that the position of geogrid and design of geogrid-sheet pile connection significantly affect the earth pressure distribution. The wall deformations are mainly influenced by the geogrid position

Target-directed motor imagery of the lower limb enhances event-related desynchronization

Event-related desynchronization/synchronization (ERD/S) is an electroencephalogram (EEG) feature widely used as control signals for Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs). Never- theless, the underlying neural mechanisms and functions of ERD/S are largely unknown, thus investigating them is crucial to improve the reliability of ERD/S-based BCIs. This study aimed to identify Motor Imagery (MI) conditions that enhance ERD/S. We investigated fol- lowing three questions: 1) whether target-directed MI affects ERD/S, 2) whether MI with sound imagery affects ERD/S, and 3) whether ERD/S has a body part dependency of MI. Nine participants took part in the experiments of four MI conditions; they were asked to imagine right foot dorsiflexion (F), right foot dorsiflexion and the sound of a bass drum when the sole touched the floor (FS), right leg extension (L), and right leg extension directed toward a soccer ball (LT). Statistical comparison revealed that there were significant differ- ences between conditions L and LT in beta-band ERD and conditions F and L in beta-band ERS. These results suggest that mental rehearsal of target-directed lower limb movement without real sensory stimuli can enhance beta-band ERD; furthermore, MI of foot dorsiflex- ion induces significantly larger beta-band ERS than that of leg extension. These findings could be exploited for the training of BCIs such as powered prosthetics for disabled person and neurorehabilitation system for stroke patients