The role of functional characteristics of commercial streets ininfluencing sense of place in Mosul City Centre

In most cases, changes in the street's uses, types and the streets’ activities may consequently erase what is precious to the users. However, due to insensitive new development within the street has resulted in, the sense of place being disrupted thus, affecting the people’s feelings and perception of the streets. The objective of this paper is to identify the role of the commercial streets in terms of its functional characteristics in giving the sense of place to Mosul City Centre. The case study was conducted in one of the streets in Mosul City Centre, namely; Nineveh Street. A mixed method approach was used in this study which involved 330 respondents to survey questionnaire, 30 respondents for in-depth interviews, field observation, and photographic recordings. The result shows that functional features can be characterized into three main categories i.e. roles, namely social space, cultural space, commercial space, and channel of movements. Each of these categories has an considerable role especially, commercial space in giving the sense of place to Mosul City Centre

Real Time Malaysian Sign Language (MSL) Translator – Tuturjom

Malaysian Sign Language (MSL) is an essential language that is used as the primary means of communication between deaf people in Malaysia. Malaysians are currently very unfamiliar with MSL, and the present platforms for learning the language are inadequate, not to mention the lack of utility of the available mobile and web learning tools. Therefore, this project aims to provide a model for real time translation of MSL. In the below report I would be explaining various phases of creating this model and we will look through various finding and important algorithms. I also hope to provide a clear understanding of Hand gesture and pose recognition, Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks and their uses in our understanding of sign languages

The role of physical and functional characteristics of nineveh street, mosul city centre, Iraq, as the sense of place

The street is the most important element which determines the urban pattern of cities by creating its ‘sense of place’. It plays a multi-dimensional function in the city. Its essential role can be seen not only through its function as a channel of movement, commercial, social and cultural place, but also through its physical characteristics such as location, appearance, and views in making the street legible and accessible, and in providing a safe, comfortable and orientated environment. In the face of rapid urbanisation, many of these roles of streets have changed, which affect the users’ feelings and perception of the street, thus disrupting the sense of place of cities. The aim of this study was to establish the role of Nineveh Street in relation to the sense of place. The objectives of the research are to identify the role of two different characteristics of Nineveh Street; firstly physical and secondly functional characteristics in giving the sense of place. Nineveh Street was selected as a case study based on its physical and functional importance as well as its location in the core of Mosul City Centre in Iraq. A mixed methods approach was adopted in this research. The quantitative method was applied by using 330 questionnaire surveys, while the qualitative method was applied by using 30 semi-structured interviews, and direct observation. The data was quantitatively analysed using SPSS version 21 and qualitatively analysed using descriptive and self-interpretation analysis. The results showed that physically the location, appearance, and quality of views of Nineveh Street plays a significant role in making the street accessible, recognizable, visible and oriented respectively. Meanwhile, functionally the street plays an important role as a commercial space, a channel of movement, and some roles as a cultural and social space. The study concludes that these roles represent qualities that distinguish Nineveh Street and make it unique in terms of sense of place of Mosul City Centre. The major implication of the research is that in order to secure the sense of place of Mosul City Centre, the role of physical and functional characteristics of its streets should be considered in the design and redevelopment policy

Brucellosis as trigger for autoimmune hepatitis in susceptible individual

Background: Autoimmune hepatitis (AIH) is a rare chronic liver disease of unknown etiology, characterized by hypergammaglobulinemia, characteristic autoantibodies, and a favorable response to immunosuppressive treatment. Strong circumstantial evidences denoted that there is quite long list of environmental factors such as (food additives and drugs), viruses and toxins which play an important role in precipitating this disease. Brucellosis is endemic in Iraq. It may involve any organ in the body. Liver is frequently involved. Doxycycline used for treatment occasionally may lead to hepatotoxicity. Objective: the aim of the study is To show the relationship between brucellosis , AIH, and hepatotoxicity of doxycycline . Methods: the study was performed on 2 Iraqi patients with brucellosis, attending the teaching hospital for gastroenterology and liver disease in the period between November 2003 and July 2004. Brucella were studied by Rose Bengal test and confirmed by indirect immuno florescence assay (IIF). Results: anti-SLA/LP Abs was detected in 2 patients with brucellosis.  Conclusion: brucellosis or doxycycline is a trigger of AI

The Roles of Landscape Features in Re-Making Sense of Place in Mosul City Centre

Due to the unfit development of street characteristics, and negligence of maintenance, street loss what is precious and its sense, here the people’s feelings and perception of the streets have been negatively affected. This paper highlights landscape features as physical characteristics of streets including soft landscape (trees) and hard landscape (street furniture). This is to identify the roles of these two types of landscape features in securing sense of place. Nineveh Street in Mosul City Center, Iraq is selected as a case study. Mixed methods were selected for this research, quantitative technique by using 330 questionnaire survey, and qualitative technique by using 30 semi-structured interviews and direct observation. The study concludes that landscape features of streets contribute to create sense of safety and comfort that in turns give sense of place. The lack of the role of landscape features in providing safety and comfort has a negative effect on reducing the influence of sense of place in the street

An Interactive Application for Halal Products Identification based on Augmented Reality

Identification of halal products is a challenging issue especially for the Muslim community. Previously, a few researches were conducted to identify halal products using AR technology which enables the end users to scan product to ensure the quality. Further study needs to be conducted in order to investigate augmented reality experience in identifying halal products and beverages for the Muslim community. This paper presents an application to identify halal products based on Malaysian Islamic Development Department (JAKIM) database for Muslim consumers in Malaysia. The core aim of this research is to provide experience to the user regarding the usage of the proposed mobile application based on AR technology. Evaluation of the proposed application by conducted a survey to 22 users, reveals that user can detect a halal status of the products and give knowledge of awareness to have confident in order to choose the halal product

Barriers to Sexual Reproductive Health Services and Rights among Young People in Mtwara District, Tanzania: A Qualitative Study.

In Tanzania over 1/3 of the population is under 24 years. Nationwide 23% of teenagers have started childbearing. However, Mtwara Region has the highest percentage (25.5%) of teenagers who begin childbearing early. Mtwara District has a teenage pregnancy rate of 11% with young people utilizing sexual reproductive health services (SRHS) less frequently than adults.This study aimed at gaining insights on barriers to the utilization of SRHS in Mtwara district. A qualitative study was carried out using focus group discussions, facility assessment interviews and case studies. A total of nine focus group discussions (comprising 8 to 10 persons per group) were conducted among girls (10-18 years), community leaders and adults. Data was transcribed using pattern matching methods then merged into relevant themes for analysis and interpretation. The study revealed that a good number of health facilities do not have skilled service providers (SPs) on sexual reproductive health rights. Girls start sexual intercourse between 9 and 12 years. Services sought included; education, family planning and voluntary counseling and testing. However, the services were inaccessible due to lack of privacy, confidentiality, equipments and negative attitudes from SPs. Initiation ceremonies, early marriages and gender disparities were mentioned as social-cultural barriers to SRH rights. This study has demonstrated that factors such as lack of youth friendly services, gender disparity and unfavorable socio-cultural practices may create barriers to accessing adolescent SRHS and rights. Therefore, there is a need to integrate youth friendly services in health facilities and advocate for behavior change

TouristicAR: A Smart Glass Augmented Reality Application for UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Malaysia.

Modern day technologies including wearable devices such as smart glasses have changed the way people interact with their surroundings. Such developments have resulted in the increased popularity of Augmented Reality (AR) applications to project context-aware information on objects or users’ immediate surroundings. In order to enhance the overall tourism experience, a number of recent works have highlighted the opportunities for using outdoor AR or navigation-based AR systems. Due to the development of context-aware AR, tourists using such technology can acquire valuable knowledge and experience. Recent context-aware AR research lack empirical studies and works that integrate dimensions which are specific to cultural heritage tourism and smart glass specific context. This work presents the mapping of requirements identified during the affinity mapping and focuses group experiments into a smart glass-based AR application called “TouristicAR” to identifying the factors of user acceptance and specific tourist requirements. This works highlights the technical requirement, design conceptualisation, smart glass User Interface (UI) design and smart glass application development using a Rapid Application Development (RAD) methodology. The smart glass AR application is developed in the context of cultural heritage tourism and provides context-aware and visually appealing tourism contents to the visitors at the UNESCO World Heritage sites in Malaysia

A Framework to Visualize 3D Breast Tumor Using X-Ray Vision Technique in Mobile Augmented Reality

Breast cancer patients who require breast biopsy have increased over the past years and Stereotactic Biopsy uses series of images to carefully position the imaging equipment and target the area of concern. However, it has the constraint of accurate 3D Tumor visualization. An Augmented Reality (AR) Guidance Biopsy system of breast has become the method of choice for researchers, yet this AR tumor visualization has limitation to the extent of superimposing the 3D Imaging Data only. In this paper, a framework to visualize 3D breast tumor technique is being introduced to accurately visualize 3D tumor to see through the skin of US-9 Opaque breast phantom on a mobile display. This mobile AR visualization technique consists of 4 phases where it initially acquires the image from Computed Tomography (CT) or Magnetic Resonance Images (MRI) and processes the medical images into 3D slices, secondly, it will purify these 3D grayscale slices into 3D breast tumor model using 3D modeling reconstruction technique. Furthermore, in visualization processing, this virtual 3D breast tumor model is enhanced using X-Ray Visualization technique to only see through the skin of the phantom for better visualization. Finally, the composition of it is displayed on a smartphone device with an optimized accuracy of the 3D tumor visualization in a six degree of freedom (6DOF). The experiment was made to test the visualization accuracy on US-9 breast phantom which has 12 tumors in different sizes and categorized in 3 levels. Our frame shows the 3D tumor visualization accuracy, however, the accuracy comparison is pending. The two radiologists from Hospital Serdang performed successful visualization of a 3D tumor in an X-ray vision. The framework is perceived as an improved visualization experience because the AR X-ray visualization allowed direct understanding of the breast tumor beyond the visible surface towards accurate biopsy targets