Could Alfa fibers substitute glass fibers in composite materials?

In the present work polyester resin composites with Alfa fibers in the form of pulp were prepared and their properties were compared with those of polyester resin reinforced with glass fibers, the latter composites being widely used for structural applications. The composites were prepared using two manufacturing processes, namely hand lay-up and vacuum molding, to assess the influence of the process on the composites properties. Firstly, the tensile properties for the two composites were evaluated. The composites thermal properties were studied by differential scanning calorimetry and thermogravimetric analysis. Finally, the morphology of a glass fiber composite (GFC) and Alfa pulp composite (APC) was analyzed by scanning electron microscopy, to characterize the composites surface and cross-sections.The authors would like to thank CTC (Centre technique de la Chimie) for their valuable help during mechanical testing. The company Solutions Composites, especially Mr.Adel Hammami is gratefully acknowledged for financial and material support. The authors also wish to thank the members of the Department of Polymer Engineering University of Minho, Guimarães, Portugal for their valuable cooperation. This research work is carried out as part of a mobidocPhD, a program financed by the European Union within Pasri Projet. M.C Paiva acknowledges the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) and the European program FEDER/COMPETE for the financial support through project PEst-C/CTM/ LA0025/2013 (LA 25-2015-2017)

Philip F. Kennedy (éd.), On Fiction and Adab in Medieval Arabic Literature

L’ouvrage recensé ici reprend les communications faites dans le cadre du « Workshop  in  Medieval Arabic Literature » qui s’est tenu les 21 et 22 avril 2000 à l’université de New York (Department of Middle Eastern Studies). Il est dédié à la mémoire de Rina Drory. Le thème de cet atelier était « Defining Fiction and Adab in Medieval Arabic Literature ». Ces communications sont au nombre de dix. Elles sont toutes suivies d’une bibliographie, certaines d’annexes. En voici les titres et les noms..

Design and evaluation of buffered triple modular redundancy in interleaved-multi-threading processors

Fault management in digital chips is a crucial aspect of functional safety. Significant work has been done on gate and microarchitecture level triple modular redundancy, and on functional redundancy in multi-core and simultaneous-multi-threading processors, whereas little has been done to quantify the fault tolerance potential of interleaved-multi-threading. In this study, we apply the temporal-spatial triple modular redundancy concept to interleaved-multi-threading processors through a design solution that we call Buffered triple modular redundancy, using the soft-core Klessydra-T03 as the basis for our experiments. We then illustrate the quantitative findings of a large fault-injection simulation campaign on the fault-tolerant core and discuss the vulnerability comparison with previous representative fault-tolerant designs. The results show that the obtained resilience is comparable to a full triple modular redundancy at the cost of execution cycle count overhead instead of hardware overhead, yet with higher achievable clock frequency

Caractérisation de l'écoulement dans un convergent à paroi courbée

Un travail numérique est conduit pour l'analyse de l'écoulement dans un convergent monté sur un dispositif expérimental destiné à la production de la parole. L'effet de la forme de la paroi est étudié quant à son influence sur le taux d'uniformité dynamique et sur les pertes de charge. L'analyse révèle l'existence d'un antagonisme entre l'aplatissement de la paroi en sortie de convergent et sa courbure dans la zone amont au col géométrique

Klessydra-T: Designing Vector Coprocessors for Multi-Threaded Edge-Computing Cores

Computation intensive kernels, such as convolutions, matrix multiplication and Fourier transform, are fundamental to edge-computing AI, signal processing and cryptographic applications. Interleaved-Multi-Threading (IMT) processor cores are interesting to pursue energy efficiency and low hardware cost for edge-computing, yet they need hardware acceleration schemes to run heavy computational workloads. Following a vector approach to accelerate computations, this study explores possible alternatives to implement vector coprocessing units in RISC-V cores, showing the synergy between IMT and data-level parallelism in the target workloads.Comment: Final revision accepted for publication on IEEE Micro Journa

Mental illness stigma as a moderator in the relationship between religiosity and help-seeking attitudes among Muslims from 16 Arab countries

Background: Determining the potential barriers responsible for delaying access to care, and elucidating pathways to early intervention should be a priority, especially in Arab countries where mental health resources are limited. To the best of our knowledge, no previous studies have examined the relationship between religiosity, stigma and help-seeking in an Arab Muslim cultural background. Hence, we propose in the present study to test the moderating role of stigma toward mental illness in the relationship between religiosity and help-seeking attitudes among Muslim community people living in different Arab countries. Method: The current survey is part of a large-scale multinational collaborative project (StIgma of Mental Problems in Arab CounTries [The IMPACT Project]). We carried-out a web-based cross-sectional, and multi-country study between June and November 2021. The final sample comprised 9782 Arab Muslim participants (mean age 29.67 ± 10.80 years, 77.1% females). Results: Bivariate analyses showed that less stigmatizing attitudes toward mental illness and higher religiosity levels were significantly associated with more favorable help-seeking attitudes. Moderation analyses revealed that the interaction religiosity by mental illness stigma was significantly associated with help-seeking attitudes (Beta =.005; p \u3c.001); at low and moderate levels of stigma, higher religiosity was significantly associated with more favorable help-seeking attitudes. Conclusion: Our findings preliminarily suggest that mental illness stigma is a modifiable individual factor that seems to strengthen the direct positive effect of religiosity on help-seeking attitudes. This provides potential insights on possible anti-stigma interventions that might help overcome reluctance to counseling in highly religious Arab Muslim communities

Cross-cultural comparison of mental illness stigma and help-seeking attitudes: a multinational population-based study from 16 Arab countries and 10,036 individuals

BackgroundThere is evidence that culture deeply affects beliefs about mental illnesses\u27 causes, treatment, and help-seeking. We aimed to explore and compare knowledge, attitudes toward mental illness and help-seeking, causal attributions, and help-seeking recommendations for mental illnesses across various Arab countries and investigate factors related to attitudes toward help-seeking.MethodsWe carried out a multinational cross-sectional study using online self-administered surveys in the Arabic language from June to November 2021 across 16 Arab countries among participants from the general public.ResultsMore than one in four individuals exhibited stigmatizing attitudes towards mental illness (26.5%), had poor knowledge (31.7%), and hold negative attitudes toward help-seeking (28.0%). ANOVA tests revealed a significant difference between countries regarding attitudes (F = 194.8, p \u3c .001), knowledge (F = 88.7, p \u3c .001), and help-seeking attitudes (F = 32.4, p \u3c .001). Three multivariate regression analysis models were performed for overall sample, as well as Palestinian and Sudanese samples that displayed the lowest and highest ATSPPH-SF scores, respectively. In the overall sample, being female, older, having higher knowledge and more positive attitudes toward mental illness, and endorsing biomedical and psychosocial causations were associated with more favorable help-seeking attitudes; whereas having a family psychiatric history and endorsing religious/supernatural causations were associated with more negative help-seeking attitudes. The same results have been found in the Palestinian sample, while only stigma dimensions helped predict help-seeking attitudes in Sudanese participants.ConclusionInterventions aiming at improving help-seeking attitudes and behaviors and promoting early access to care need to be culturally tailored, and congruent with public beliefs about mental illnesses and their causations

Travel burden and clinical presentation of retinoblastoma: analysis of 1024 patients from 43 African countries and 518 patients from 40 European countries

BACKGROUND: The travel distance from home to a treatment centre, which may impact the stage at diagnosis, has not been investigated for retinoblastoma, the most common childhood eye cancer. We aimed to investigate the travel burden and its impact on clinical presentation in a large sample of patients with retinoblastoma from Africa and Europe. METHODS: A cross-sectional analysis including 518 treatment-naïve patients with retinoblastoma residing in 40 European countries and 1024 treatment-naïve patients with retinoblastoma residing in 43 African countries. RESULTS: Capture rate was 42.2% of expected patients from Africa and 108.8% from Europe. African patients were older (95% CI -12.4 to -5.4, p<0.001), had fewer cases of familial retinoblastoma (95% CI 2.0 to 5.3, p<0.001) and presented with more advanced disease (95% CI 6.0 to 9.8, p<0.001); 43.4% and 15.4% of Africans had extraocular retinoblastoma and distant metastasis at the time of diagnosis, respectively, compared to 2.9% and 1.0% of the Europeans. To reach a retinoblastoma centre, European patients travelled 421.8 km compared to Africans who travelled 185.7 km (p<0.001). On regression analysis, lower-national income level, African residence and older age (p<0.001), but not travel distance (p=0.19), were risk factors for advanced disease. CONCLUSIONS: Fewer than half the expected number of patients with retinoblastoma presented to African referral centres in 2017, suggesting poor awareness or other barriers to access. Despite the relatively shorter distance travelled by African patients, they presented with later-stage disease. Health education about retinoblastoma is needed for carers and health workers in Africa in order to increase capture rate and promote early referral