AUS Repository (American University of Sharjah)
Not a member yet
2669 research outputs found
Sort by
The Translation of Euphemism in Political Discourse
No full textA Master of Arts thesis in Translation and Interpreting MATI (English/Arabic/English) by Mohannad Mohammad Althawabeyeh entitled, "The Translation of Euphemism in Political Discourse," submitted in May 2017. Thesis advisor is Dr. Sattar Izwaini. Soft and hard copy available.Euphemism is a word or a stretch of words by which the writer/speaker intends to generate an expression or utterance that if said bluntly would make the receiver feel unpleasant and embarrassed. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how political euphemism is dealt with in translation. It first provides an overview of political euphemism and explores how euphemism is used and how it is translated from English into Arabic. Through discussing and analyzing this noteworthy rhetorical device, this thesis examines the translation of political euphemism both in theoretical and practical terms. This is to help the translator recognize political euphemisms and convey them in a proper manner to the target language community. The thesis reviews some concepts and translation strategies and methods, such as the Gricean maxims, Nida's formal vs. dynamic translation, House's covert vs. overt translation, Newmark's communicative vs. semantic translation, skopos, Baker's pragmatics. The various approaches would help the translator appreciate the actual meaning of euphemistic expressions and render this appropriately in the target language. This thesis adopts a qualitative, descriptive and analytical model through analyzing the translation of eleven political euphemisms collected from different sources, including three speeches delivered by two US presidents and one Secretary of State, together with other online material, newspapers and magazine articles. Finally, translators tend to use literal translation to convey political euphemism, which works well as far as overall purpose is concerned. However, to provide a more explicit rendition of euphemism, translators should avail themselves of a variety of methods and strategies as outlined in this thesis.College of Arts and SciencesDepartment of Arabic and Translation StudiesMaster of Arts in English/Arabic/English Translation and Interpreting (MATI
Big Data in the MENA Region: The Next Path Towards Socio-economic and Cultural Development
No full textAs elsewhere, big data is perceived as central to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) nations’ socio-economic and cultural development. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region, by virtue of its advanced information technology infrastructure, relevant knowledge economy policies and flexible free government and market orientations, stands at the forefront of MENA’s big data integration. This article discusses selected sectors in the GCC region that leverage the power of big data including the media business industries and the oil and gas industry. The authors argue that in addition to bolstering big data applications in the aforementioned sectors, MENA countries also need to ensure that those applications embrace other sectors like education, government services and cultural development. Yet, to be able to achieve those goals, the region needs to address numerous challenges pertaining to knowledge infrastructure, human capital, technology mindset and regulation
Produced water treatment using olive leaves
No full textOlive leaves powder (OLP) was employed as a low cost adsorbent for the removal of hexane extractable crude oil from simulated produced water. The effect of contact time, adsorbent dosage, pH, salinity as well as temperature on the efficiency of oil removal was investigated. The optimum parameters for oil removal were determined to be pH = 7.0, adsorbent dose = 3.0 g/L, contact time = 80.0 min and salinity of 1,000 ppm in terms of NaCl at 25.0°C. The adsorption of crude oil by OLP was found to follow the Langmuir adsorption isotherm, with adsorption capacity of 143mg/g. The adsorption kinetics best described by pseudo-second-order with rate constant of 1.6 x 10–3 (g/mg.h). Heavy metal content of produced water and the ability of olive leaves to remove these heavy metals were also studies. The fraction of crude oil removed as well as the nature of olive leaves surface were characterized by thermal analysis, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry and infrared spectroscopy. The results render OLP as an excellent adsorbent for the removal of hexane extractable fraction of crude oil from produced water with an efficiency exceeding 80% in 80 min
Gesture Recognition in Traffic Systems
No full textA poster submitted in ENG 207 taught by Dr. David Prescott for the Fall 2016 semester.Traffic congestion in Dubai is on a par with most major cities in the world, costing the economy Dh771,147.388 per kilometer in fuel and time lost, Gulf News can reveal. [1] Due to extensive traffic jams, a gesture recognition system should be implemented at traffic lights. Furthermore, this system is one where the police officer can control the traffic lights using simple hand gestures. Also, this new technology will help officer navigate heavy traffic at rush hour or during the times of accidents in order to avoid traffic jams
The environmental impact of obesity: longitudinal evidence from the United States
No full textThis paper examines the relationship between obesity and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions while accounting for the environmental impact of growth in transportation output and in crop and animal farming
Translating Metonymy in the Holy Qur'an: Surat an-Nisa as a Case Study
No full textA Master of Arts thesis in Translation and Interpreting MATI (English/Arabic/English) by Alaa Gamal Abdelhakim Muhammad entitled, "Translating Metonymy in the Holy Qur'an: Surat an-Nisa as a Case Study," submitted in February 2017. Thesis advisor is Dr. Usman Ghani. Soft and hard copy available.This thesis, as its title suggests, is mainly concerned with exploring the linguistically beautiful and rhetorically instrumental role played by metonymy throughout the Holy Qur'an, with special emphasis on Surat an-Nisa, the fourth surah (chapter) of the Holy Qur'an. This particular surah has been chosen due to its strikingly impressive metonymic examples and rich dialogues about women, orphans, inheritance, marriage laws, and even tayammum (using the earth for the performance of ablution when water resources are not obtainable), etc. This thesis also attempts to emphasize the distinctive character of metonymy as a fully independent figure of speech and explore how different strategies are utilized in the selected translations to overcome linguistic obstacles when translating metonymic expressions from Arabic into English. Four examples from the Holy Qur'an in general, and nine examples from Surat an-Nisa in particular, will be selected based on their exceptionally clear metonymic usages. Their general meanings will be introduced using some leading Books of Tafseer (Exegesis/Commentaries), including those of al-Qurtubi, Ibn Kathir, and Tantawy, among other Arabic and Islamic resources. Furthermore, two well-known English translations authored by notable translators from different ideological, educational, and cultural backgrounds will be compared and evaluated in terms of equivalence, translation strategies used, and contexts. These two translations are The Koran Interpreted by the British orientalist Arthur John Arberry (1955) and The Noble Qur'an by Muhammad Taqi-ud-Din al-Hilali and Muhammad Muhsin Khan (1997). The key focus will be on investigating how metonymic expressions are communicated to English readers and reflected linguistically in the translation. Results of the thesis outline how the Holy Qur'an employed the figurative power of metonymic language to convey specific messages and address certain topics by using expressions that give both common literal meanings and nonliteral allegorical meanings.College of Arts and SciencesDepartment of Arabic and Translation StudiesMaster of Arts in English/Arabic/English Translation and Interpreting (MATI
An auditing framework for knowledge-enabled supply chain management: Implications for sustainability
No full textKnowledge management (KM) plays a key role in the success of several enterprise systems, such as supply chain management (SCM). This paper discusses knowledge-enabled supply chain management (K-SCM) as it enhances the organizations’ expertise in SCM. We propose a framework that integrates KM processes with SCM components. We developed an audit methodology that can be performed to assess the organization’s readiness in K-SCM. The developed framework consists of KM dimensions and Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) components. The proposed audit methodology is subsequently illustrated through a case of a manufacturing company based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The paper concludes with implications for managerial practice and future research, with a special focus on sustainable SCM
Effect of Cooling Rate on the Mechanical Properties of Glass Fiber Polypropylene Composites
No full textA Master of Science thesis in Mechanical Engineering by Mohammed S. Kabbani entitled, "Effect of Cooling Rate on the Mechanical Properties of Glass Fiber Polypropylene Composites," submitted in January 2017. Thesis advisor is Dr. Hany El Kadi. Soft and hard copy available.Composite materials have been widely used in the recent years in almost all of the industries specially the high technology industries. Properties of the thermoplastic-based composites are affected by their processing conditions. Therefore, understanding of the behavior of these materials under different processing conditions is of most importance. Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) have recently been successfully used in the study of composite materials. This study aims to predict the mechanical properties of unidirectional glassfiber polypropylene composite materials processed under different cooling rates as a function of the fiber orientation angle using ANN. Composite specimens with five different fiber orientation angles were manufactured under different cooling rates using a compression molding press. These specimens were tested under static tensile stress to extract some of the mechanical properties such as the ultimate strength and strain and the modulus of elasticity. The stress-strain data of all but one of the conditions (cooling rate and fiber orientation) were used to train the ANN and predict the stress-strain behavior for the remaining condition. The influence of ANN parameters such as type of ANN, number of hidden layers, number of neurons per hidden layer, and number of iteration of the network training on the prediction accuracy has been investigated. The best predictions were obtained by using a multilayer perceptron (MLPs) with two hidden layers and 50 neurons in each, both hidden layers were trained using RProp learning rule for 1000 epochs. For all of the cases investigated, the modulus of elasticity was predicted with a minimum accuracy of 97% while the ultimate strain was predicted, in most cases, with a minimum accuracy of 90%. These predictions indicate that ANN can be successfully used to predict the mechanical properties of unidirectional composites manufactured under different cooling rates.College of EngineeringDepartment of Mechanical EngineeringMaster of Science in Mechanical Engineering (MSME
Critical resolved shear stress for slip and twin nucleation in single crystalline FeNiCoCrMn high entropy alloy
No full textHigh entropy alloys is an emerging class of materials with superior mechanical properties down to cryogenic temperatures. At 77K, and unlike traditional metallic alloys, an increase in strength, strain hardening rate, and ductility has been reported. This enhancement in properties has been attributed to the activation of twinning as an additional deformation mechanism at low deformation temperatures. The tendency for the formation of twinning and the hardening response dependence on crystal orientation has not been fully explored. This study is dedicated to explore the deformation evolution across several crystal orientations for the equiatomic FeNiCoCrMn high entropy alloy at room temperature (RT) and 77K. The works aims to establish the critical resolved shear stresses (CRSS) for slip and twinning and study the orientation and temperature dependence in these magnitudes. The experimental results have revealed a strong temperature dependence in the CRSS for slip, increasing from 56 MPa at RT to 155 MPa at 77K, with negligible orientation dependence. At 77K, not all crystal orientations developed twinning even at high levels of deformation. The lack of twinning has been attributed to differences in the hardening response resulting in low stress levels below the twinning CRSS of 153 MPa, as established in this work. No twinning was observed in any of the crystal orientations deformed at room temperature, regardless of the level of hardening and the achieved stresses. Overall, the results discussed in this work enhances our understanding of the local deformation response in single crystalline FeNiCoCrMn high entropy alloy, particularly the nucleation of slip, nucleation of twinning, and the effect of crystal orientation and loading temperature on these deformation mechanisms
The role of collaborative knowledge building in the co-creation of artifacts: influencing factors and propositions
No full textPurpose – This article assesses the role of collaborative knowledge building in the co-creation of artifacts in the knowledge management field.
Design/methodology/approach – Fifty-eight articles published in six knowledge management-related journals were analyzed. The framework for analysis included thirteen codes. Articles were analyzed using qualitative and quantitative methods.
Findings – Findings showed that several factors influenced the co-creation of artifacts in collaborative knowledge building. At the micro level, individual motivation, capabilities and reflexivity seemed to play a central role in co-creation processes. At the meso level, teamwork and shared understanding were identified as two key major factors. At the macro level, structural, behavioral and cognitive factors were identified; they included organizational rules and workplace setting, organizational culture, and learning and memory. Managerial agency, characteristics of artifacts, and knowledge brokers and boundary spanners also seemed to have an influence at the inter-organizational levels of analysis.
Research limitations – This study has limitations related to scope of contribution, covered time span (17 years), and restrictions in journal subscriptions.
Practical implications – The study will help managers understand the intricacies of collaborative knowledge building practices to increase organizational overall effectiveness and performance.
Originality/value – This article is a first attempt to systematically assess the role of collaborative knowledge building in the co-creation of artifacts, and therefore it represents a primary reference in the knowledge management field. It proposes some initial propositions that can guide future empirical studies