WELLNESS PRACTICES’ CONTRIBUTION TO SOCIAL SUSTAINABILITY: A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

Despite being emphasized as one of the main pillars of global sustainable development, social sustainability has been vastly neglected in research, and its importance has been undervalued. This paper aims to highlight the important role that wellness practices play in enhancing social sustainability by uplifting individuals and progressing communities. In turn, social sustainability strengthens the circular economy, resulting in global sustainable development. The paper also raises questions about future sustainable communities, quality of life, and wellness programs, which open up new avenues for future research and implications

Law and discipline: A psychological trap?

Over the past few centuries people have been trained to be subjects to state power. Today, one cannot define his existence without referring to one‟s relation as to the state. One defines him/herself as a subject to the power of state x or a term now used “citizen of state x”. This is a trap that state power have deliberately trained its citizens to believe to be their reality. For the past two centuries models of discipline and order have been constructed in Egypt. This thesis explores different disciplinary institutions, with a special focus on prisons, used by the state to discipline and order the Egyptian society. This thesis presents two faces of the disciplinary continuum. Starting with the first face, the paper explores and argues that the first use of disciplinary institution was particularly important in the early 1800s to create economically productive members of society. What disciplinary institutions tend to do is to control the psyche of the individual and create a certain perception of who this individual is and what he can do. The paper argues that incarceration results in continuous and systemic destruction of the psyche. In this way, it produces ill-suited individuals for life after prison due to prison‟s reinforcement of institutionally dependent behavior. In short, disciplinary institutions create dependency. The other side of the state disciplinary continuum is counter disciplinary represented by individuals who resist this power imbalance. Although the change brought forth is temporary, such acts of resistance have indeed succeeded in restructuring the balance of power. This paper encompasses many of the documented experiences of prisoners as evidence of the Foucault‟s theory on discipline presented. To do so, the paper heavily depends on works of literature and art, namely an Egyptian television production titled Segn il-Nesa (Women‟s Prison), which helps to humanize the law and procedures that govern the prison sector in Egypt. The paper builds the argument through drawing connections between theory and contemporary-and-historic examples on modes of discipline and disciplinary institutions

Soybean Peroxidase Catalysis in Removal of Anilines and Azo-Dyes from Water

Azo-dyes are the largest group of colourants produced, and they are applied in many industries. In the environment they are recalcitrant, and under anaerobic conditions can break down to toxic or even carcinogenic aromatic amines. Aerobic treatment of azo-dye-contaminated waters has been shown to be ineffective. Thus, enzyme-catalyzed polymerization and precipitation of azo-dyes and their reduction products was studied and optimized in this dissertation. Additionally, zero-valent iron reduction of azo-dyes under anaerobic conditions followed by soybean peroxidase (SBP) enzymatic treatment was investigated. The use of additives to reduce enzyme requirement and enhance the removal of anilines was also studied. Azo-dyes and authentic anilines were treated at 1 mM, while the anilines recovered from zero-valent iron reduction were treated at 0.5 mM. All experiments were conducted in batch reactors, and the parameters: pH, hydrogen peroxide to substrate ratio, enzyme concentration and additive concentration were optimized. Enzymatic treatment was successful in removal of 95% of both aniline and o-anisidine. The use of additives, sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS), sodium dodecylbenzenesulfonate (SDBS), Triton X-100, and sodium dodecanoate (SDOD), reduced enzyme dose requirement, while the use of polyetheylene glycol (PEG, average molar mass of 3350 g/mole) had no effect on the required enzyme dose. In addition, the presence of SDS also enhanced treatment by improving precipitation and removing colour. Azo-dyes treated with SBP directly were successfully decolourized, with 85% colour removal of Acid Red 4 (AR4) and 95% for Crocein Orange G (COG). The pretreatment of AR4 with zero-valent iron, was able to achieve an even higher percent of decolourization 95%, while the second stage of treatment with SBP removed \u3e95% of the recovered o-anisidine and further decolourized the water

DOES CITIZENS’ INVOLVEMENT REFLECT SUSTAINABILITY IN SMART CITIES?

Though being highlighted for years as a core driver for smart cities to advance, a small body of research revealed the significant role of citizens in contributing to smart cities’ maturity and sustainability. This paper emphasizes the importance of citizens’ involvement in the decision-making process in smart cities through obtaining a high quality of life, ensuring rapid urban growth, attracting brains, talents, and skills in addition to raising productivity. All these serve as solid foundations for sustainability in smart cities and opens doors wide for future studies

Correlations And Dynamic Fluctuations In High Energy Collisions

Is thermalization necessary for hydrodynamic flow in nuclear collisions? The discovery of flow-like azimuthal correlations in pA and high-multiplicity pp collisions raises profound questions about the onset of collective flow and its relation to hydrodynamics. We seek independent experimental information on the degree of thermalization in order to identify those hydrodynamic collision systems in which flow is sensitive to equilibrium QCD properties. We aim to develop a protocol for identifying the degree of thermalization using a combination of momentum and multiplicity correlation. To study the effect ofthermalization on these correlations, we use Boltzmann equation in the relaxation time approximation with Langevin noise. We derive a new non-equilibrium transport equation for the two-body distribution function that is consistent with the conservation laws obeyed by microscopic scattering processes. We find that transverse momentum fluctuations in peripheral Pb-Pb collisions at LHC markedly deviate from equilibrium behavior. We propose new measurements that can provide more refined information

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE FOR AUTHENTICATION THROUGH MENTAL PROFILING TECHNIQUE

A new approach to user authentication using mental profiling saw light, which is a technique that involves measuring an individual\u27s cognitive abilities and psychological traits to create a unique profile, using Artificial Intelligence techniques. These profiles can then be used to identify users securely and efficiently, even in the presence of sophisticated attacks, by harnessing AI-driven systems for mental profile creation and user authentication. After reviewing the existing literature on authentication and mental profiling, it presents a new mental profiling test that is specifically designed for authentication purposes. The test was evaluated on a sample of 100 users, and results showed that it is able to accurately identify users with a high degree of confidence. Mental profiling opens doors to deeper insights into the cognitive and psychological factors that make each individual unique, paving the way for interventions that can enhance human performance and well-being with the usage of Artificial Intelligence tools

Duty-cycled Wake-up Schemes for Ultra-low Power Wireless Communications

In sensor network applications with low traffic intensity, idle channel listening is one of the main sources of energy waste.The use of a dedicated low-power wake-up receiver (WRx) which utilizes duty-cycled channel listening can significantlyreduce idle listening energy cost. In this thesis such a scheme is introduced and it is called DCW-MAC, an acronym forduty-cycled wake-up receiver based medium access control.We develop the concept in several steps, starting with an investigation into the properties of these schemes under idealizedconditions. This analysis show that DCW-MAC has the potential to significantly reduce energy costs, compared to twoestablished reference schemes based only on low-power wake up receivers or duty-cycled listening. Findings motivatefurther investigations and more detailed analysis of energy consumption. We do this in two separate steps, first concentratingon the energy required to transmit wake-up beacons and later include all energy costs in the analysis. The more completeanalysis makes it possible to optimize wake-up beacons and other DCW-MAC parameters, such as sleep and listen intervals,for minimal energy consumption. This shows how characteristics of the wake-up receiver influence how much, and if, energycan be saved and what the resulting average communication delays are. Being an analysis based on closed form expressions,rather than simulations, we can derive and verify good approximations of optimal energy consumption and resulting averagedelays, making it possible to quickly evaluate how a different wake-up receiver characteristic influences what is possible toachieve in different scenarios.In addition to the direct optimizations of the DCW-MAC scheme, we also provide a proof-of-concept in 65 nm CMOS,showing that the digital base-band needed to implement DCW-MAC has negligible energy consumption compared to manylow-power analog front-ends in literature. We also propose a a simple frame-work for comparing the relative merits ofanalog front-ends for wake-up receivers, where we use the experiences gained about DCW-MAC energy consumption toprovide a simple relation between wake-up receiver/analog front-end properties and energy consumption for wide ranges ofscenario parameters. Using this tool it is possible to compare analog front-ends used in duty-cycled wake-up schemes, evenif they are originally designed for different scenarios.In all, the thesis presents a new wake-up receiver scheme for low-power wireless sensor networks and provide a comprehensiveanalysis of many of its important properties

Vibration Behaviour of Pedestrian Bridges with Different Construction Systems

The design of pedestrian bridges is continuously being developed and the mechanical properties influence the dynamic properties in the SLS. Pedestrian induced vibrations have been a major concern regarding design criteria and construction. The opening of the Millennium bridge in London in 2000 made headlines regarding the matter and several researchers and papers have been assessing vibrations on pedestrian bridges due to pedestrian loading. Thus, the main goal of this thesis is to contribute to the global community researching the matter with the implementation of field tests and numerical solutions with the use of FE-modelling. The procedure in this thesis involved field tests on two bridges with different systems and materials. The field tests estimated natural frequencies, mode shapes and their respective damping ratios. Results from the field test modal analyses were used to validate a FE-model and the verified model employed to perform a parametric study that showed the development of frequencies and modes as the span changed. Following the modal analyses time-history response analyses computing the Vibration Dose Values (VDV) and Root Mean Square (RMS) were evaluated and compared with the ISO 10137. The accelerations recorded in the field tests were then compared to calculated accelerations in different national and international guidelines. The guideline compared in this thesis includes Statens Vegvesens Handbook N185, the Eurocodes, the UK-NA to Eurocode 1, ISO 10137, SÉTRA, and the JRC. The modes in both running and walking corresponded both in terms of mode shapes and natural frequencies. The frequency discrepancies were low for both activities resulting in acceptable results. Very good correspondence was also achieved between test and FE results. Furthermore, the calculated running accelerations were more in line with the limits of all guidelines. The walking acceleration did not satisfy all the guideline within the same margins. However, the damping ratios in the respective guidelines, implemented in the guideline calculations were not correspondent with the effective damping ratios from the field results, resulting in high accelerations

Admissibility in choosing between experiments with applications

Suppose that a statistician is faced with a decision problem involving an unknown parameter. Before making his decision he can observe, possibly at random, one of k possible experiments. For this problem, a decision procedure for the statistician is a pair ((gamma),(delta)) where (gamma) = ((gamma)(,1),...,(gamma)(,k)), (delta) = ((delta)(,1),...,(delta)(,k)); (gamma)(,i) is the probability of observing experiment i and (delta)(,i) is the decision function to be used in connection with experiment i. When (gamma) (ELEM) (GAMMA), the class of all probability distributions on 1,...,k, a characterization of the class of admissible pairs relative to (GAMMA) for this problem was given by Meeden and Ghosh (1983). This thesis deals with this problem in the case when, for some reason like cost or time limitations, the statistician is restricted in choosing among those experiments. That is, a characterization of the class of admissible pairs ((gamma),(delta)) relative to an arbitrary subclass of (GAMMA) is given;This characterization is then used to give some uniform admissibility results for some problems in infinite population sampling. Other applications in nonparametric problems are also discussed;Following Meeden and Ghosh (1981), an admissible estimator of a population U-statistic is constructed. This estimator turns out to be a constant times the corresponding sample U-statistic where the constant is some positive number less than one;References;Meeden, G. and Ghosh, M. 1981. Admissibility in finite problems, Ann. Statist. 9:846-852. Meeden, G. and Ghosh, M. 1983. Choosing between experiments: Applications to finite population sampling. Ann. Statist. 11:296-305