Introduction: transnational feminist approaches to film and media from the Middle East and North Africa

This introduction outlines the special issue’s call for a transnational feminist approach to film and media from the Middle East and North Africa. The authors provide an overview of approaches to gender in Middle Eastern and North African film, as well as surveying new methodological directions in the field. They argue that a transnational feminist approach brings together divergent fields and has numerous generative possibilities for the contemporary political context. Finally, the authors briefly outline each contribution to the special issue

Resuscitation of Rural Buildings Containing Valuable Historical-Cultural Monuments from the Perspective of the Tourism Industry: A Case Study in Kahak Village of Qom

The tourism industry is greatly developed in the world and many countries could improve their condition in this way and reduce the problems such as unemployment, low levels of per capita income and the lack of exchange earnings. Many countries know this dynamic industry as the main source of income, employment, private sector growth and development of infrastructures. Rural tourism is a type of tourism that its advocates are increasing day by day and it seems that villages are going to be one of the most important tourist destinations in future. Due to the climate variety, material variety and native construction technology, and human harmony with nature, rural buildings of country have provided unique samples in long term at specific locations and this lack of uniformity and exclusive properties which are attractive for tourists and the curiosity sense of tourists specially the seeker tourists is another motivation for recognition and understanding the life style and culture of different villagers of world. Therefore, Iran’s ancient history has been resuscitated by revival of valuable rural buildings and provides the area for researchers and explorers. One of the rural buildings with valuable architecture buildings and such properties is Kahak village of Qom that its resuscitation will lead to survival of building and tourist and investment attraction which prevent the migration of villagers to nearby cities such as Tehran, Qom and Saveh. Rehabilitation and expansion of building according to the existing monument in the building (Mulla Sarda’s Home) during the construction and operation lead to job creation and economic prosperity and investment flow and improvement in the region. Therefore, taking appropriate action to improve and maintain the available physical reserves and cultural assets in the village is necessary. The main objective of this research according to the range of the problems in this buildings is to achieve the objectives of rural tourism development. This paper seeks to answer the question that how the protection of valuable rural monuments and buildings for sustainable restoration and development could help to attract tourist proportionate to the potential capabilities of the buildings

Enhancement in hydrophilicity of different polymer phase-inversion ultrafiltration membranes by introducing PEG/Al2O3 nanoparticles

The influence of the modification by additives in the characteristics of several ultrafiltration polymeric membranes was studied. Three asymmetric membranes with similar pore size (molecular weight cutoff (MWCO) of around 30 kDa) but different materials and pore microstructures – polysulfone, polyethersulfone and polyetherimide – were used. Effects of two different hydrophilic additives on membrane structure and the resulting performance were compared to determine the material with the best antifouling properties. Polyethyleneglycol (PEG) and alumina (Al2O3) were employed as additives in the phaseinversion method, N,N-Dimethylacetamide and deionized water were used as solvent and coagulant, respectively. Membranes were characterized in terms of hydraulic permeability, membrane resistance, MWCO profile and hydrophilicity (by membrane porosity and contact angle). The cross-sectional and membrane surface were also examined by microscopic techniques. Membrane antifouling properties were analysed by the experimental study of fouling/rinsing cycles using feed solutions of PEG of 35 kDa. Permeation and morphological studies showed that the addition of PEG/Al2O3 results in formation of a hydrophilic finger-like structure with macrovoids, whereas the addition of Al2O3 results in the formation of a hydrophilic structure with a dense top layer with Al2O3 nanoparticles and a porous sponge-like sublayer. Furthermore, polyethersulfone/PEG/Al2O3 membranes displayed superior antifouling properties and desirable ultrafiltration performance.The authors of this work thank the financial support of CDTI (Centre for Industrial Technological Development) depending on the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. The authors also thank the Center for Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering (Universitat Politecnica de Valencia) for contact angle measurements and BASF (Germany) and General Electric (United States) for supplying the polymers used.García Ivars, J.; Alcaina Miranda, MI.; Iborra Clar, MI.; Mendoza Roca, JA.; Pastor Alcañiz, L. (2014). Enhancement in hydrophilicity of different polymer phase-inversion ultrafiltration membranes by introducing PEG/Al2O3 nanoparticles. Separation and Purification Technology. 128:45-57. doi:10.1016/j.seppur.2014.03.012S455712

Adoption of M-Commerce

The development of ICT in recent years, and speed of this development is extremely rapid. ICT also spreads widely and influences deeply not only economic activities of business, households and governments but also various areas of people’s daily life. The adoption rate of mobile Internet was estimated by analogy to adoption pattern. This study examines patterns of mobile commerce adoption and usage in early adopters. One hundred and ninety mobile users were surveyed about their pattern of usage, demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, perception about the technology, and their motivation to use mobile phone services. A model which is based on modified theory of planned behavior (TPB), Technology acceptance model (TAM), and TRA is used to hypotheses a model of MCommerce. We found that TPB and TAM most useful in explaining MCommerce acceptance on early adopter

Point Pair Feature-based 6D pose estimation using depth maps

Vision-based six degrees-of-freedom (6D) pose estimation of rigid objects is a fundamental task for the development of autonomous systems, playing an important role in robotic grasping, object inspection and manipulation. Model-based methods that rely on Point Pair Features (PPFs) currently outperform learning-based methods in terms of recall on the popular BOP benchmark. In this thesis we thoroughly review model-based methods aiming at identifying limitations and understanding future research directions. We achieve this by implementing the original method of Point Pair Features, by analysing the issues that affect its performance on the Linemod dataset of BOP, and finally by modifying some modules based on the identified limitations. Our improvements allowed us to improve recall from 14% to 36%. Our conclusion is that PPF-based methods are highly reliant on the quality of normal information, thus sensitive to sensor noise. Future research should focus on making the methods less reliant on normal information, for example defining new features by using triplets of points instead of point pairs

History’s Irruption in the Look-to-Camera

Review of Camera Historica: The Century in Cinema by Antoine de Baecque. Translated by Ninon Vinsonneau and Jonathan Magidoff. New York: Columbia University Press, 2012. 424 pages. $105.00 hardcover,$35.00 paperback

Beyond technology - micro irrigation systems and the changing livelihoods of a community

Science and Technology studies zeigen, dass die Art und Weise, in der eine Technologie genutzt wird, nicht vestanden werden kann, ohne ihre Einbettung in soziopolitische Kontexte mit zu untersuchen. Der Annahme folgend, dass Technologien die sozialen, politischen und kulturellen Dynamiken ihrer Umgebung sowohl beeinflussen, als auch durch diese beeinflusst werden, werde ich in der vorliegenden Arbeit folgende Frage zu beantworten versuchen: Wie haben sich die Lebensgrundlagen der Gemeinschaft durch die Einführung der Mikrobewässerungstechnologie transformiert? Um diese Frage zu beantwortet, habe ich mich entschieden, das Dorf Lamlan in der Iranischen Provinz Gorgan als Fallstudie zu betrachten, um die Neuordnung zu untersuchen, die der Einführung von Mikrobewässerungstechnologie gefolgt ist. Innerhalb einer Technologie existiert eine große Zahl heterogener Akteure, die sich zu einem Netzwerk aggregieren, welches wiederum die Funktion der Technologie, sowie die sie umgebende Welt formen. Wenn eine Technologie zum Vorschein kommt, beginnt dieses neue Netzwerk sich zu stabilisieren und muss aktiv Arbeit leisten, um das Funktionieren der Technologie zu gewährleisten. Durch den Fokus auf Mikrobewässerungssysteme als nicht bloß ein Werkzeug um Wasser zu liefern, sondern auch als Netzwerk, welches mit den soialen, kulturellen und politischen Elementen der Lamlang-Gemeinschaft interagiert, wird die vorliegende Arbeit dessen Komplexitäten untersuchen und nachzeichnen, wie diese Technologie die sozio-kulturellen Konfigurationen der gesamten Gorgan-Region formt. Den theoretischen Hintergrund dieses Projekts bildet die Akteur-Netzwerk Theorie (ANT), welche Technologie und Gesellschaft als integriertes System begreift. Ich werde eine ethnographische Darstellung fünf verschiedener landwirtschaftlicher Flächen, in denen Mikrobewässerungssysteme eingesetzt werden, vorlegen. Zusätzlich bedient sich die Studie semi-strukturierter Interviews mit ausgewählten Landwirt*innen und deren Familien, die ihren Wohnsitz auf den Ackerländern haben. Die statistischen und organisatorischen Daten wurden durch tiefgehende Literaturrecherche und Durchsicht verschiedener Dokumente, beispielsweise jenen des Statistikzenzentrums der Iranischen Rohrleitungs-Industrie, erhoben.Science and Technology studies scholars argue the ways in which a technology is used cannot be understood without exploring how it is embedded in social and political contexts. In line with the notion that technologies both influence and are influenced by the social, political and cultural dynamics of their surroundings, in my project I attempt to answer the following question: How do the livelihoods of the community transform through the introduction of the technology of Micro Irrigation? To answer this question, I decided to look at the village of Lamlang, located in the Iranian province of Gorgan, as a case study in order to investigate the rearrangement that took place following the introduction of the Micro Irrigation technology. Within a technology there exist a large number of heterogeneous actors that aggregate to form a network, which in turn shapes the function of the technology as well as the world around it. When a technology emerges, this newly formed network begins to stabilize and must work actively in order to ensure the technology functions well. By focusing on the Micro Irrigation System not only as a tool for delivering water, but also as a network interacting with social, cultural and political elements of the Lamlang community, this project will investigate the complexities of such a network and demonstrate how this technology, shapes the sociocultural configurations of the entire Gorgan region. Actor-Network Theory (ANT), which embraces technology and society as integrated elements, is the theoretical backbone of this project. I provide an ethnographic account of the aforementioned case, focusing on five different agricultural lands in Lamlang, where the Micro Irrigation Systems are under practice. The study also employs semi-structured interviews with selected farmers and their families residing on the agriculture lands. The statistical and expert organizational data was gathered through indepth literature research and a review of various organizations’ latest documents, such as the ones available on the Statistical Centre of Iran Database of Pipe and Fitting Industry of Iran