The Portrait as an Alive Character in The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

The paper studies Oscar Wilde 's  only novel The Picture of Dorian Gray,  first  published in 1890.    The novel is about a young man named Dorian Gray who falls in love with his own painted   portrait by the  artist Basil  Hallward  . The plot revolves around his corruption and eventual assassination at the hands of his portrait   which, in due course,  metamorphoses into an alive   being   to revenge for the distortion of its  aesthetic  value and beauty.     The  paper aims  to  prove  that Wilde  has  intended  for  the   portrait of his hero to take a leading role  in the  narrative discourse  . The title of the novel  itself , reveals that its main focus is the portrait of   Dorian Gray rather than the protagonist   himself  . The study shows that the chain of events  and relationships  are unfolded  mainly through  a direct  reference to  Dorian 's portrait . It is also a central part of the ongoing arguments between the painter Basil Hallward and his hedonistic counterpart Lord Henry Wotton about  art , life  and beauty in the novel  : It endorses our understanding of the true  nature of their  contrasting  opinions on the marvel painted by Hallward . Wilde  employs the craft of the painted   portrait  of the hero  to  express    his  ideologies    concerning  the Aesthetic Movement which  appeared in the 19th century period  and emphasized  the cult of beauty  in art and  literature. The   evaluation of this  modern  concept  of art  is  always seen in a parallel connection  with  the  painted portrait of  the hero , Dorian Gray  . Ultimately , Wild’s portrait of  himself, which   undoubtedly is  that of  Dorian’s  ,     precipitates   in providing  a deep understanding of his  personality and  his artistic  vision   in his experimental masterpiece The portrait of Dorian Gray . Indeed, it   is through Dorian’s image and not Dorian's character that the author resolves his conflicts with his prejudiced and   sceptic Victorian   readers. Key Keywords: Artist – hero conflict, aestheticism, beauty ,art,  painting , metamorphoses , self- distortion, hedonism ,  Gothic elements  ,revenge  .

Development of an environmental health risk and socio-economic perception framework to critically assess the management of TWW reuse practice and options in Kuwait

This thesis introduces a new methodological approach to provide a framework for environmental health and socioeconomic perception that critically assesses the management of treated wastewater (TWW) reuse practice and options. The methodology combines Multi-Criteria decision Making (MCDM) and Rapid Impact Assessment Matrix (RIAM). The approach uses expert opinion to assess TWW reuse options and converts the qualitative subjective evaluation of experts into quantitative objective and numeric output. The methodology includes the use of a Driver Force, Pressure, State, Impact and Response (DPSIR) framework to analyse the current situation in a specific case study (Kuwait). The research identified the best available TWW reuse options for Kuwait and determined the essential environmental health and socioeconomic criteria affected by the practice of selected TWW reuse options. The latter include recreational and agricultural irrigation, firefighting and industrial and ruses, oil depressurization and groundwater recharge. Options where the public had direct contact with TWW, such as showering, cooking and drinking were rejected. Environmental health criteria were found to be the most significant criteria associated with TWW reuse practice and options, but given current heavy subsidies of wastewater treatment, distribution and transportation, the economic burden was also significant. Further research in this area is recommended to enable a reduction of pressures on freshwater resources through TWW reuse practice and this should be included within a wider context of integrated water management (IWM)

Wavelets operational methods for fractional differential equations and systems of fractional differential equations

In this thesis, new and effective operational methods based on polynomials and wavelets for the solutions of FDEs and systems of FDEs are developed. In particular we study one of the important polynomial that belongs to the Appell family of polynomials, namely, Genocchi polynomial. This polynomial has certain great advantages based on which an effective and simple operational matrix of derivative was first derived and applied together with collocation method to solve some singular second order differential equations of Emden-Fowler type, a class of generalized Pantograph equations and Delay differential systems. A new operational matrix of fractional order derivative and integration based on this polynomial was also developed and used together with collocation method to solve FDEs, systems of FDEs and fractional order delay differential equations. Error bound for some of the considered problems is also shown and proved. Further, a wavelet bases based on Genocchi polynomials is also constructed, its operational matrix of fractional order derivative is derived and used for the solutions of FDEs and systems of FDEs. A novel approach for obtaining operational matrices of fractional derivative based on Legendre and Chebyshev wavelets is developed, where, the wavelets are first transformed into corresponding shifted polynomials and the transformation matrices are formed and used together with the polynomials operational matrices of fractional derivatives to obtain the wavelets operational matrix. These new operational matrices are used together with spectral Tau and collocation methods to solve FDEs and systems of FDEs

Contact mechanics for soft robotic fingers: modeling and experimentation

Human fingers possess mechanical characteristics, which enable them to manipulate objects. In robotics, the study of soft fingertip materials for manipulation has been going on for a while; however, almost all previous researches have been carried on hemispherical shapes whereas this study concentrates on the use of hemicylindrical shapes. These shapes were found to be more resistant to elastic deformations for the same materials. The purpose of this work is to generate a modified nonlinear contact-mechanics theory for modeling soft fingertips, which is proposed as a power-law equation. The contact area of a hemicylindrical soft fingertip is proportional to the normal force raised to the power of γcy, which ranges from 0 to 1/2. Subsuming the Timoshenko and Goodier (S. P. Timoshenko and J. N. Goodier, Theory of Elasticity, 3rd ed. (McGraw-Hill, New York, 1970) pp. 414-420) linear contact theory for cylinders confirms the proposed power equation. We applied a weighted least-squares curve fitting to analyze the experimental data for different types of silicone (RTV 23, RTV 1701, and RTV 240). Our experimental results supported the proposed theoretical prediction. Results for human fingers and hemispherical soft fingers were also compare

The Mechanism Analysis of Underactuated Robotic Finger for Optimum Grasping Using Gradient Descent Method

This study was devoted in investigating the optimum geometric parameters for underactuated linkage three phalanges robotic finger. New kinematic and kinetic equations of grasping were derived in this research taking into account the angle for the ternary solid links of the four-bar linkages. To obtain the target of optimization, a gradient descent method was used which consists of three stages to find the optimal geometric parameters with high accuracy. Five criteria were selected to find the optimal solution by using multi objectives function algorithm, these are percentage of the grasping stability, the grasp forces, squeezing force, Mimic function for grasping task, and transmission angle for grasping operation. Gradient descent method starts by detecting the optimal geometric parameters for each criterion and choosing the best geometric parameters from the five criteria functions. At the optimum solution, the underactuated robotic finger prototype was built from hard Polylactic acid (PLA) plastic using rapid prototyping and was tested performance by grasping objects. Finally, the results have been shown that the robotic finger adapts to the wanted configurations

Effect of Pin Shape and Rotational Speed on the Mechanical Behaviour and Microstructures of Friction Stir Spot Welding of Aa6061 Aluminum Alloy

          Abstract       Friction stir spot welding (FSSW) is a modern solid-state joining process able to weld similar and dissimilar overlap joints in different classes of materials and is widely being considered for automotive industry. In this work, the mechanical behavior ) i.e. tensile shear tests, Microhardness(, and microstructure of friction stir spot welded joints were studied for AA6061-T6 aluminum alloy sheets with thickness of 1.6 mm. Series of FSSW experiments were conducted using vertical CNC milling machine type "C-tek". FSSW is carried out at different pin profiles (cylindrical, taper, and triangular) and tool rotational typically speeds, i.e. 800, 1000, 1200 and 1400 rpm. Based on the welding experiments conducted in this study, the results show that sheets welded by triangular pin tool have highest tensile shear load, of 3.2 kN, followed by welds with cylindrical pin, while welds made using taper pin has the tensile shear load 2.1 kN at optimum speed of 1200 rpm. Also the pin shape and rotational speed had an obvious effect on microstructural parameters i.e. hook height and bond width

Coverage and Capacity Planning of LTE Network for-Taizz City

This paper is based on the newly advanced cellular technology called Long Term Evolution (LTE). It is intended to give a good understanding of Radio Network planning of LTE and perform a case study onTaizz City, one of the highest populated cities in Yemen with a selected area of about 118.09km2. The LTE Radio network planning involves coverage estimation, capacity evaluation. In this paper the coverage estimation is done with regards to the real environment dataat its nominal stage to obtain better estimations. Propagation modeling is done using COST HATA W/I model with inclusion of additional parameters obtained from the real environment/terrain what improves the coverage estimation.This in turn, results in a wide coverage, introducing high quality services and excellent mobility support. The simulation is performed using Atoll program to evaluate the traffic demand for all services and to calculate the average throughput of each service

Optimal Design of Three-Phalanx Prosthesis Underactuated Fingers Using Genetic Algorithm

This research is interested to investigate the optimum design procedure for a finger driving mechanism to have a proper configuration of the finger for its utilization in hand prosthesis. To get this goal, a Genetic Algorithm (G.A) was used. Three criteria were selected to find the optimal solution. The most important of them was the percentage of the grasping stability. This criterion was evaluated as must type by using Kepner-tregos method. When the optimal solution was found, this one was modified to facilitate the fabrication of a prototype. The modifications consist of mostly rounding the parameters and uniforming the rollers dimensions. Those changes did not affect too much the forces characteristics. The prosthetic hand prototype was built of hard ABS (Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene) plastic using rapid prototyping. Testing results indicate that the proposed Genetic Algorithm gives reasonable -quality results in short computation time

Performance evaluation of five ELISA kits for detecting anti-SARS-COV-2 IgG antibodies

Objectives: To evaluate and compare the performances of five commercial ELISA assays (EDI, AnshLabs, Dia.Pro, NovaTec, and Lionex) for detecting anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgG. / Methods: Seventy negative control samples (collected before the COVID-19 pandemic) and samples from 101 RT-PCR-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 patients (collected at different time points from symptom onset: ≤7, 8–14 and >14 days) were used to compare the sensitivity, specificity, agreement, and positive and negative predictive values of each assay with RT-PCR. A concordance assessment between the five assays was also conducted. Cross-reactivity with other HCoV, non-HCoV respiratory viruses, non-respiratory viruses, and nuclear antigens was investigated. / Results: Lionex showed the highest specificity (98.6%; 95% CI 92.3–99.8), followed by EDI and Dia.Pro (97.1%; 95% CI 90.2–99.2), NovaTec (85.7%; 95% CI 75.7–92.1), then AnshLabs (75.7%; 95% CI 64.5–84.2). All ELISA kits cross-reacted with one anti-MERS IgG-positive sample, except Lionex. The sensitivity was low during the early stages of the disease but improved over time. After 14 days from symptom onset, Lionex and NovaTec showed the highest sensitivity at 87.9% (95% CI 72.7–95.2) and 86.4% (95% CI 78.5–91.7), respectively. The agreement with RT-PCR results based on Cohen's kappa was as follows: Lionex (0.89) > NovaTec (0.70) > Dia.Pro (0.69) > AnshLabs (0.63) > EDI (0.55). / Conclusion: The Lionex and NovaLisa IgG ELISA kits, demonstrated the best overall performance

Free Vibration Analysis of Composite Cylindrical Shell Reinforced with Silicon Nano-Particles: Analytical and FEM Approach

Previous research presented the effect of nanomaterials on the mechanical properties of composite materials with various volume fraction effects; in addition, their research presented the effect of nanomaterials on the same mechanical characteristics for a composite plate structure, such as vibration and thermal buckling behavior. Therefore, since the use of shell structures is for large applications, it is necessary to investigate the modification of the vibration characteristics of its design with the effect of nanomaterials and study the influence of other reinforced nanoparticle types on its features. Therefore, in this work, silicon nanoparticles were selected to investigate their effect on the vibration behavior of a shell structure. As a result, this work included studying the vibration behavior by testing the shell structure with a vibration test machine. In addition, after manufacturing the composite material shell with various silicon volume fractions, the mechanical properties were evaluated. In addition, the finite element technique with the Ansys program was used to assess and compare the vibration behavior of the shell structure using the numerical technique. The comparison of the results gave an acceptable percentage error not exceeding 10.93%. Finally, the results evaluated showed that the modification with silicon nanomaterials gave very good results since the nanomaterials improved about 65% of the shell's mechanical properties and vibration characteristics