Fracture Resistance Of Weakened Root Structure Reinforced With Two Types Of Composite Resin And Endodontic Sealer.

Tujuan kajian ini adalah untuk membandingkan ketahanan akar-akar gigi yang lemah terhadap fraktur dan diobturat dengan bahan pengap endodontik HA nano yang baru atau bahan pengap endodontik epoksi resin dan diperkuat oleh resin komposit polimeran auto atau polimeran cahaya. The aim of this study was to compare the fracture resistance of weakened roots obturated with a new nano HA endodontic sealer or an epoxy resin endodontic sealer and reinforced by either auto-cured or light-cured composite resin

An investigation of the biological effects of electromagnetic fields and risk assessment of magnetic resonance imaging systems

Thesis (Nucl. E.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Nuclear Engineering, 1994.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 22-24).by Mahmood A. Cheema.Nucl.E

National Finance Commission Awards in Pakistan: A Historical Perspective

This study explores the evolution of fiscal resource distribution in Pakistan. Pakistan is a federation comprising four provinces, federallyadministered areas, and the Islamabad Capital Territory. Being a central type of government, most of the revenues are collected by the centre and then redistributed vertically between the federal and the provincial governments, and horizontally among the provinces. Provinces then also redistribute revenues among lower tiers of the government, through a revenue-sharing formula. A thorough look at the history indicates that this process has been complex and has a far-reaching impact. A less systematic approach has been adopted to decentralise the financial matters. Over time, the divisible pool has expanded due to heavy reliance on indirect taxes as well as improvement in the collection. Population is the sole distribution criteria, adopted in all NFC awards from the divisible pool. This has raised friction among the provinces, necessitating inclusion of other potential variables evolved from international best practices. In addition to that, absence of technical experts and permanency of the NFC is another impediment. The NFC is supposed to provide the framework for amicable distribution of resources between the federal and the provincial governments for the joint goal of development and prosperity.NFC; Pakistan; Fiscal Federalism; Rule and Discretion; Political Economy; Population; Subventions; Doing the Business of Government

DEVELOPMENT OF A SOFT PNEUMATIC ACTUATOR FOR MODULAR ROBOTIC MECHANISMS

Soft robotics is a widely and rapidly growing field of research today. Soft pneumatic actuators, as a fundamental element in soft robotics, have gained huge popularity and are being employed for the development of soft robots. During the last decade, a variety of hyper-elastic robotic systems have been realized. As the name suggests, such robots are made up of soft materials, and do not have any underlying rigid mechanical structure. These robots are actuated employing various methods like pneumatic, electroactive, jamming etc. Generally, in order to achieve a desired mechanical response to produce required actuation or manipulation, two or more materials having different stiffness are utilized to develop a soft robot. However, this method introduces complications in the fabrication process as well as in further design flexibility and modifications. The current work presents a design scheme of a soft robotic actuator adapting an easier fabrication approach, which is economical and environment friendly as well. The purpose is the realization of a soft pneumatic actuator having functional ability to produce effective actuation, and which is further employable to develop modular and scalable mechanisms. That infers to scrutinize the profile and orientation of the internal actuation cavity and the outer shape of viii the actuator. Utilization of a single material for this actuator has been considered to make this design scheme convenient. A commercial silicone rubber was selected which served for an economical process both in terms of the cost as well as its accommodating fabrication process through molding. In order to obtain the material behavior, \u2018Ansys Workbench 17.1 R \u2019 has been used. Cubic outline for the actuator aided towards the realization of a body shape which can easily be engaged for the development of modular mechanisms employing multiple units. This outer body shape further facilitates to achieve the stability and portability of the actuator. The soft actuator has been named \u2018Soft Cubic Module\u2019 based on its external cubic shape. For the internal actuation cavity design, various shapes, such as spherical, elliptical and cylindrical, were examined considering their different sizes and orientations within the cubic module. These internal cavities were simulated in order to achieve single degree of freedom actuation. That means, only one face of the cube is principally required to produce effective deformation. \u2018Creo Perametric 3.0 M 130\u2019 has been used to design the model and to evaluate the performance of actuation cavities in terms of effective deformation and the resulting von-mises stress. Out of the simulated profiles, cylindrical cavity with desired outcomes has been further considered to design the soft actuator. \u2018Ansys Workbench 17.1 R \u2019 environment was further used to assess the performance of cylindrical actuation cavity. Evaluation in two different simulation environments helped to validate the initially achieved results. The developed soft cubic actuator was then employed to develop different mechanisms in a single unit configuration as well as multi-unit robotic system developments. This design scheme is considered as the first tool to investigate its capacity to perform certain given tasks in various configurations. Alongside its application as a single unit gripper and a two unit bio-mimetic crawling mechanism, this soft actuator has been employed to realize a four degree ix of freedom robotic mechanism. The formation of this primitive soft robotic four axis mechanism is being further considered to develop an equivalent mechanism similar to the well known Stewart platform, with advantages of compactness, simpler kinematics design, easier control, and lesser cost. Overall, the accomplished results indicate that the design scheme of Soft Cubic Module is helpful in realizing a simple and cost-effective soft pneumatic actuator which is modular and scalable. Another favourable point of this scheme is the use of a single material with convenient fabrication and handling

Semantic derivation of enterprise information architecture from riva-based business process architecture

Contemporary Enterprise Information Architecture (EIA) design practice in the industry still suffers from issues that hamper the investment in the EIA design. First and foremost of these issues is the shortcoming of EIA design research to bridge the gap between business and systems (or information) architectures. Secondly, contemporary developed business process architecture methods, and in particular object-based ones have not been fully exploited for EIA design and thus widening the gap between business processes and systems. In practice, knowledge-driven approaches have been thoroughly influencing EIA design. Thirdly, the lack of using knowledge representation methods adversely affected the automation (or semi-automation) of the EIA design process. Software Engineering (SE) technologies and Knowledge Representation using ontologies continue to prove instrumental in the design of domain knowledge. Finally, current EIA development methods have often resulted in complex designs that hampered both adopting and exploiting EIA in medium to large scale organisations.This research is aimed at investigating the derivation of the EIA from a given semantic representation of object-based Business Process Architecture (BPA), and in particular Riva-based BPA using the design science research-based methodology. The key design artefact of this research is the development of the BPAOntoEIA framework that semantically derives EIA from a semantic representation of Riva-based BPA of an enterprise. In this framework, EIA elements were derived from the semantic Riva BPA elements and associated business process models, with forward and backward traceability from/to the derived EIA to/from the original BPA. The BPAOntoEIA framework has been evaluated using the semantic Cancer Care and Registration BPA in Jordan. This framework has been validated using an authentic concern-based evaluation framework employing both static and dynamic validation approaches.The BPAOntoEIA framework contributes to bridging the gap between the business and systems world by providing a business/IT alignment through the EIA derivation process, and using the semantic knowledge of business processes within the resultant EIA. A major novel contribution is the introduction of new evaluation metrics for EIA design, which are quantitative, and are not only indicative of the quality of the semantic EIA derivation from the associated BPA but also the extent of utilisingbusiness process knowledge and traceability amongst EIA elements.Amongst other novel contributions is the semantic EIA derivation process that comprises a suite of the Semantic Web Rules Language (SWRL) rules applied on the semantic BPA elements. The derivation scheme utilises the generic EIA (gEIAOnt) ontology that was developed in this research and represents a semantic meta-model of EIA elements of a generic enterprise. The resultant EIA provides a highly coherent semantic information model that is in-line with the theory of EIA design, semantically enriched, and fully utilises the semantic knowledge of business processes.Benefits of this research to industry include the semantic EIA derivation process and a resultant information model that utilises the semantic information of business processes in the enterprise. Therefore, this enables the enterprise strategic management to plan for a single, secure and accessible information resource that is business process driven, and enabled in an agile environment. The semantic enrichment of the EIA is a starting point for a simplistic design of a domain-independent semantic enterprise architecture for the development of systems of systems in loosely coupled enterprises