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The Impacts of the Informal Sector on the Economics of the Municipal Waste Management System in Lagos State: An Overview of its Income Generation Potentials for the Vulnerable Urban Poor in Developing Countries
No full textThe dustbin economy is prevalent in most major cities of the developing countries especially in Lagos State Nigeria, where the urban poor partake in informal economic activities of waste materials to earn a living. This study arises out of the need to explore linkages between the informal sector activities in waste management and its economic potentials of providing avenues of income and employment opportunities for the vulnerable urban poor in the developing countries. Although the traditional function of the municipal waste management is to collect, treat and dispose of waste in an environmentally efficient manner, MSW has been rediscovered from a resource management perspective. This makes it economically imperative for the participation of the informal sector in the municipal waste management to maximize its resource potentials for economic benefits and environmental protection. This study undertakes a primary field survey of the informal sector scavenging activities at two landfill sites in Lagos State “Olushosun and solouous” and found that Scavengers are specialized in different types of waste items which they recover and recycle for sale. The result also reveals that informal sector provides opportunities of informal employment and avenues of income or supplemental income for scavengers in the dustbin economy to support and sustain their family
Parallel Implementations for Eliminating Finite State Machine Mutants
No full textA Master of Science thesis in Computer Engineering by Emad Mohammad Badawi entitled, "Parallel Implementations for Eliminating Finite State Machine Mutants," submitted in May 2017. Thesis advisor is Dr. Khaled El-Fakih and thesis co-advisor Dr. Gerassimos Barlas. Soft and hard copy available.In this thesis, the mutants’ elimination problem considered in finite state machine (FSM) based mutation testing, fault diagnosis, and in the assessment of the effectiveness of test suites is targeted. Given a test suite of some test cases usually derived from a specification FSM and a set of mutants (or fault domain), derived from the specification with respect to some assumed types of faults, mutants’ elimination deals with deleting/killing each mutant of the fault domain that has an output behavior different than that of the specification FSM in respect to some test case of the test suite. However, this process is time consuming, especially when the number of considered mutants is huge. Accordingly, three parallel implementations for the considered problem based on the Open Multi-Processing (OpenMP), Message Passing interface (MPI) and the Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA) parallel technologies are presented. Comprehensive experiments are conducted to assess the speedup and execution time of the proposed implementations. On average, over all conducted experiments with both randomly generated and real application FSMs, the speedup of OpenMp, MPI, and GPU against sequential implementation equals 6.4, 22.9, and 569.7 times, respectively. The relative speedup of MPI and CUDA with respect to OpenMp equals 3.5 and 121.5 times, respectively; and the relative speedup of CUDA with respect to MPI equals 96.12 times. In addition, the results obtained using real machines are compared with random machines with the same attributes. CUDA implementation is shown to be scalable in terms of considered number of mutants and FSM size. For instance, limited by the used hardware architecture, CUDA easily handled experiments with 500 Million mutants and operated on machines with 9.5 Million transitions. Experiments are also conducted to determine the experimental setup attributes such as test suite length, number of test cases, and attributes related to the parallel implementations such as threads number in OpenMP, processes number in MPI and number of inputs of a test case that will be applied to the mutants in each GPU invocation.College of EngineeringDepartment of Computer Science and EngineeringMaster of Science in Computer Engineering (MSCoE
Modeling and Guidance of an Underactuated Autonomous Underwater Vehicle
No full textA Master of Science thesis in Mechanical Engineering by Ali H M Wadi entitled, "Modeling and Guidance of an Underactuated Autonomous Underwater Vehicle," submitted in December 2017. Thesis advisor is Dr. Jin-Hyuk Lee and thesis co-advisor is Dr. Shayok Mukhopadhyay. Soft and hard copy available.Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) have become an indispensable tool that is employed by an array of fields. From the inspection of underwater cables and pipelines, to the monitoring of fish pens and coral reefs, to the detection and disposal of mines, and to the executing search and rescue operations, AUV research and development has received a lot of attention. This thesis is concerned with the mathematical modeling of an underactuated AUV to execute its missions. The modeling task entails identification of the numerous parameters of the vehicle. A finite element analysis software was used to estimate the parameters describing drag and hydrodynamic mass phenomena. While the proposed underactuated configuration promotes the deployment of more energy-efficient vehicles, this configuration imposes complications on the guidance and motion control tasks as the vehicle becomes constrained in the way it can reach certain positions or perform certain motions (anholonomy). To tackle this trajectory tracking guidance problem, a model-based controller that overcomes the underactuated nature of the vehicle was designed. This controller was further enhanced by the novel development and application of a Universal Adaptive Stabilizer-based adaptation law that aims to minimize controller effort, reject noise, and provide robust trajectory tracking. The adaptation is governed by a statistical management system to ensure proper operation in a noisy underwater environment. Moreover, the navigation problem is touched upon by implementing a sensor fusion algorithm to estimate the vehicle state in its noisy environment. The algorithm investigates an Extended Kalman Filter as well as an Unscented Kalman Filter to fuse the available information from sensors with the modeled dynamics of the vehicle and provide better estimates of the vehicle state. Additionally, the hardware and software was integrated in a Robot Operating System setting, and a Gazebo-based simulation environment that enables the visual depiction and testing of algorithms on the considered AUV was developed. The parameter identification methodology compared well to published analytical and empirical forms, the proposed adaptation law outperformed traditional techniques like Adaptive Proportional Controllers, and the gain management system demonstrated excellent potential at maintaining stable operation of the vehicle in very noisy environments.College of EngineeringDepartment of Mechanical EngineeringMaster of Science in Mechanical Engineering (MSME
Simultaneous Interpreting of Cultural References
No full textA Master of Arts thesis in Translation and Interpreting MATI (English/Arabic/English) by Jenan J. N. Ali entitled, “Simultaneous Interpreting of Cultural References”, submitted in November 2017. Thesis advisor is Dr. May Zaki. Soft and hard copy available.Cultural misunderstandings can lead to serious problems especially when dealing with the political discourse of iconic leaders, such as Former President Muammar Gaddafi of Libya. Inaccurate rendition for any political speech might influence the lives of millions of people around the world. This thesis examines the strategies adopted in interpreting cultural references. The data collected for the study comes from the interpreting attempts adopted by two professional interpreters, Gaddafi's personal interpreter and a Libyan T.V. channel interpreter, of the famous historical speech delivered by the Former Libyan leader president Muammar Gaddafi on September 23, 2009 at the United Nations in New York. Both interpretations were analyzed in order to identify culture-bound elements. These elements were divided into three main categories: sarcasm, metaphors, and religious references. The examination of the interpreting strategies shows that the adoption of some approaches results in unidiomatic and awkward renditions. The results show that six strategies were applied when rendering culture references namely: error correction, summarizing, transcoding, simplification, reformulation, and omission. Three main strategies were applied by the interpreters of the total strategies of interpreting, namely: reformulation (46.6%), omission (33.3%), and transcoding (53.3%). The most dominant techniques used by the interpreters are reformulation (46.6%) and transcoding (53.3%).College of Arts and SciencesDepartment of Arabic and Translation StudiesMaster of Arts in English/Arabic/English Translation and Interpreting (MATI
Japanese Millennials and Intersex Awareness
No full textThis paper investigates the awareness, attitudes, and opinions of Japanese millennials about intersex people. This research attempts to fill a gap in extant literature concerning the intersex in Asia via an exploratory analysis. The LGBTQ(I) discourse of Japan mimics that of the west; often the "I" is totally disregarded. Here, a snapshot of Japanese millennial awareness is offered using survey results collected from a convenience sample of Japanese college students. Findings suggest that the understanding of what the term “intersex” means is limited. An interesting argument addressing the differential treatment of one’s sex versus one’s sexuality via queering is offered, alongside proposals for further exploration using qualitative means should be done in the future. In addition, a comparison to Western awareness and understanding would be an appropriate next step
Strengthening of reinforced concrete beams in flexure with side bonded CFRP laminates
No full textCarbon fiber reinforcement polymer CFRP laminates are widely used nowadays in civil engineering applications to externally strengthen structural concrete elements against deficiencies in flexure and shear. These deficiencies could be due to increase in loading, earthquake damage or even design and/or construction defects. The current state of the art technique used in flexural strengthening of reinforced concrete RC beams is by externally bonding CFRP sheets or plates to the beam’s soffit. However, from a practical perspective, certain beam soffits could be obstructed and hence inaccessible on site. This study aims to evaluate the performance of RC beams externally strengthened in flexure with side-bonded CFRP sheets. A pilot experimental study on five beams was conducted to examine the effectiveness of the proposed strengthening technique with side-bonded reinforcement. It has been concluded that the performance of the proposed strengthening system is comparable to that with bottom-bonded CFRP reinforcement
Al Ain Civic Center: Masterplan
No full textAn Urban Planning Research Workshop II (UPL 682) project by Areej Alkandari and Joud Razzaz entitled, "AlAin Civic Center: Masterplan", submitted in January 2017. Project supervisor is Prof. Rafael Pizarro
Palm tree leaves usage for biosorption and recovery of heavy metals from wastewater
No full textBiosorption can be a sustainable water treatment option. However, selection of biosorbent can be challenging and local availability plays an important role. This research investigates the effectiveness of palm tree leaves for biosorption of Cr(VI), Cu(II) and Zn(II), from synthetic wastewater. Batch tests were conducted to assess the effectiveness of metal removal; to identify optimal operating conditions and assess the competition among the metals. Column tests were conducted to assess the applicability of the biosorption process in a dynamic environment. Desorption tests were conducted to assess the recovery of the metals. Batch experimental results indicated high (67.5%–99.5%) removal of individual metals and all the metals together for different initial concentrations (2–10 mg/L) and pH levels (3–9). Isotherm models were applied successfully. The results from column experiments indicated high (≥90%) capability of metal removal for long period (200–2,800 pore volumes processed). Desorption results indicated a high (≥50%) recovery of the metals
Translating Emirati Poetry
No full textA Master of Arts thesis in Translation and Interpreting MATI (English/Arabic/English) by Shaikha Reed Abdulla Al Qassimi entitled, "Translating Emirati Poetry," submitted in May 2017. Thesis advisor is Dr. Said Faiq. Soft and hard copy available.For Arabs, poetry is the first and most important genre of Arabic literature, and in the Gulf region, Nabati poetry is the most frequently used form with a register of spoken Gulf dialect. Translating Nabati poetry can help expose the target text reader to writings rich in cultural characteristics. However, going through commercial translation to translate Nabati poetry presents serious problems on the levels of culture and language. This thesis explores the viability of commercial translation in the translation of Nabati poetry. Six poems by Sheikh Sultan bin Salem Al Qassimi (2002) were chosen for translation into English through the One Hour Translation online agency by a native speaker of English translator. The translations were analyzed and compared to academic translations by Holes and Abu Athera (2011). In the case of the six poems discussed here, the commercial translation leads to mistranslations caused by most likely by misunderstanding the cultural and linguistic context.College of Arts and SciencesDepartment of Arabic and Translation StudiesMaster of Arts in English/Arabic/English Translation and Interpreting (MATI
Bond Stress-Slip Models and Behavior of Aluminum Alloys-Concrete Interface
No full textA Master of Science thesis in Civil Engineering by Ahmed Mirghani entitled, "Bond Stress-Slip Models and Behavior of Aluminum Alloys-Concrete Interface," submitted in January 2017. Thesis advisor is Dr. Jamal Abdalla and thesis co-advisor is Dr. Rami Hawileh. Soft and hard copy available.In the last few decades, different techniques have been used for strengthening reinforced concrete (RC) structures to increase their strength and stiffness. One of these techniques involves the use of steel and fiber reinforced polymers (FRP) as externally bonded reinforcing (EBR) materials. The use of FRP and steel as EBR materials has many advantages and disadvantages. Recently developed aluminum alloys (AA) have many desirable characteristics that may overcome some of these disadvantages making them an attractive candidate as EBR materials. This research aims to examine and evaluate the use of AA as a new EBR material. Achieving a strong bond between AA and concrete is crucial to the success of AA as an EBR material. Several parameters affect the bond strength and behavior. Such parameters include concrete compressive strength, effective bond length, stiffness and surface of the EBR material, concrete surface, thickness and width of the EBR material and adhesive type. In this study the bond strength, effective bond length and bond-slip models for AA-concrete interface were determined. A comprehensive experimental investigation including 96 specimens was conducted to evaluate the bond strength and behavior using adhesive as bonding material. Concrete strength, bond length and plate type were used as variables while other parameters were kept constant. It was observed that the bond stress, loading capacity, and failure modes vary with AA surface roughness and bonded length. The load capacity and maximum bond stress increased by 254.7% and 253.7%, respectively for randomly grinded AA surface compared with those of normal AA surface indicating that AA plates with scratched surface could be used in practical applications. Moreover, AA scratched plates exhibits higher ultimate loads compared with CFRP plates. The load capacity for AA scratched plates increases by 5.6% for the short bonded length up to 22.5% for the long bonded length when compared to the CFRP plates. In addition, the bond-slip models of the AA plates were developed, with reasonable level of accuracy. Moreover, finite element (FE) models were developed for a number of tested specimens. The results of the FE modeling showed a great agreement with the corresponding experimental results.College of EngineeringDepartment of Civil EngineeringMaster of Science in Civil Engineering (MSCE