2,676 research outputs found
Decoherence Effects on Superpositions of Chiral States in a Chiral Molecule
No full textThe superposition of chiral states of chiral molecules, as delocalized quantum states of a many-particle system, can be used for the experimental investigations of decoherence theory. In this regard, a great challenge is the precise quantification of the robustness of these superpositions against environmental effects. The methods so far proposed need the detailed specification of the internal states of the molecule, usually requiring heavy numerical calculations. Here, by using the linearized quantum Boltzmann equation and by borrowing ideas employed for analyzing other quantum systems, we present a general and simple approach, of large applicability, which can be used to compute the dominant contribution to the decoherence rate for the superpositions of chiral states of chiral molecules, due to environmental scattering
Machineries of Oil
No full textThe emergence of the international oil corporation as a political actor in the twentieth century, seen in BP's infrastructure and information arrangements in Iran. In the early twentieth century, international oil corporations emerged as a new kind of political actor. The development of the world oil industry, argues Katayoun Shafiee, was one of the era's largest political projects of techno-economic development. In this book, Shafiee maps the machinery of oil operations in the Anglo-Iranian oil industry between 1901 and 1954, tracking the organizational work involved in moving oil through a variety of technical, legal, scientific, and administrative networks. She shows that, in a series of disagreements, the British-controlled Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC, which later became BP) relied on various forms of information management to transform political disputes into techno-economic calculation, guaranteeing the company complete control over profits, labor, and production regimes. She argues that the building of alliances and connections that constituted Anglo-Iranian oil's infrastructure reconfigured local politics of oil regions and examines how these arrangements in turn shaped the emergence of both nation-state and transnational oil corporation. Drawing on her extensive archival and field research in Iran, Shafiee investigates the surprising ways in which nature, technology, and politics came together in battles over mineral rights; standardizing petroleum expertise; formulas for calculating profits, production rates, and labor; the “Persianization” of employees; nationalism and oil nationalization; and the long-distance machinery of an international corporation. Her account shows that the politics of oil cannot be understood in isolation from its technical dimensions
Alcohol and cognitive impairment: considerations with the older client
No full textALCOHOL. AND. COGNITIVE. IMPAIRMENT. Considerations. with. the. older.
client. Adrienne. Withall. and. Samaneh. Shafiee. The global population is ageing
. By the year 2030, the total number of older people worldwide is expected to
exceed 1 billion, accounting forone in every eight ... medication interactions and
the high risk of Alcoholand cognitive impairment: considerations with the older
client ..
A comparative study of romantic naturalism in Shafiee Kadkani and Badi Saqour
No full textThe research aims to criticize the differences and similarities
observed in the works of Shafiee Kadkani and Badi Saqouron. The
methodology of this paper is a content analysis that is carried out
through comparison of two selected Persian and Arabic collections. As
a result, the morning and spring in nature are similar in both works and
they are taken to refer to hope. As a conclusion, the comparison of the
works of well-known and foreign poets creates a new perspective on
the culture and art of other countries and also one's own country in
addition to recognizing the new worksEl objetivo de la investigación es criticar las diferencias y
similitudes observadas en los trabajos de Shafiee Kadkani y Badi
Saqouron. La metodología de este documento es un análisis de
contenido que se lleva a cabo mediante la comparación de dos
colecciones persas y árabes seleccionadas. Como resultado, la mañana
y la primavera en la naturaleza son similares en ambas obras y se
toman para referirse a la esperanza. Como conclusión, la comparación
de las obras de poetas conocidos y extranjeros crea una nueva
perspectiva sobre la cultura y el arte de otros países y también del
propio país, además de reconocer las nuevas obras
An FMEA-Based Risk Assessment Approach for Wind Turbine Systems: A Comparative Study of Onshore and Offshore
No full textFailure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) has been extensively used by wind turbine assembly manufacturers for analyzing, evaluating and prioritizing potential/known failure modes. However, several limitations are associated with its practical implementation in wind farms. First, the Risk-Priority-Number (RPN) of a wind turbine system is not informative enough for wind farm managers from the perspective of criticality; second, there are variety of wind turbines with different structures and hence, it is not correct to compare the RPN values of different wind turbines with each other for prioritization purposes; and lastly, some important economical aspects such as power production losses, and the costs of logistics and transportation are not taken into account in the RPN value. In order to overcome these drawbacks, we develop a mathematical tool for risk and failure mode analysis of wind turbine systems (both onshore and offshore) by integrating the aspects of traditional FMEA and some economic considerations. Then, a quantitative comparative study is carried out using the traditional and the proposed FMEA methodologies on two same type of onshore and offshore wind turbine systems. The results show that the both systems face many of the same risks, however there are some main differences worth considering
Adaptive nonsingular terminal sliding mode controller for micro/nanopositioning systems driven by linear piezoelectric ceramic motors
No full textIn the field of nanotechnology, there is a growing demand to provide precision control and manipulation of devices with the ability to interact with complex and unstructured environments at micro/nano-scale. As a result, ultrahigh-precision positioning stages have been turned into a key requirement of nanotechnology. In this paper, linear piezoelectric ceramic motors (LPCMs) are adopted to drive micro/nanopositioning stages since they have the ability to achieve high precision in addition to being versatile to be implemented over a wide range of applications. In the establishment of a control scheme for such manipulation systems, the presence of friction, parameter uncertainties, and external disturbances prevent the systems from providing the desired positioning accuracy. The work in this paper focuses on the development of a control framework that addresses these issues as it uses the nonsingular terminal sliding mode technique for the precise position tracking problem of an LPCM-driven positioning stage with friction, uncertain parameters, and external disturbances. The developed control algorithm exhibits the following two attractive features. First, upper bounds of system uncertainties/perturbations are adaptively estimated in the proposed controller; thus, prior knowledge about uncertainty/disturbance bounds is not necessary. Second, the discontinuous signum function is transferred to the time derivative of the control input and the continuous control signal is obtained after integration; consequently, the chattering phenomenon, which presents a major handicap to the implementation of conventional sliding mode control in real applications, is alleviated without deteriorating the robustness of the system. The stability of the controlled system is analyzed, and the convergence of the position tracking error to zero is analytically proven. The proposed control strategy is experimentally validated and compared to the existing control approaches
Ruhe By Ruhiger Ort / Nor Shazana Shafiee
No full textRuhe is one of the scented candle products that are available in the market under Ruhiger Ort Enterprise. The meaning of 'Ruhe' comes from a Germanic word that reflects this product image which is quiet and peaceful. The tag line of this product is 'Relax, Cozy, Fresh' this product offers this kind of soothing feeling to their customer. Ruhe's unique selling proposition the product is purely made from 100% natural soy wax as its product base. The real reason behind this product selection is the scented candle is used as one of the luxury home decor items. With Ruhe, they offer a premium product with a low price to all their beloved customers so that everyone with any background can enjoy this soothing feeling. What is special about this product is, the container is environmentally friendly as its users can recycle it after the candle is used up. Instead of using glass like other products, they use tin material as their container. They decided to choose this material because tin is more durable, and the worst-case scenario is it will be deformed. Even though the container becomes deformed, their customer could still fix it and return it into an original shape. Talking about this product background, the owner decided to start producing Ruhe scented candles because he realizes that as humans, sometimes it just want to take some time off and relax after a great long day. Most of us would feel mentally and physically exhausted when we go home. It is so important for us to take a break from this everyday routine and have our own space. This has become the real solid reason why he established and develop this product line of a scented candle. He wants to share the positive energy and good vibes with all our beloved customers with this product. When redesigning this product, to make it look premium, we have chosen a clean and minimalist design to portray this product image. The combination of white and a few main colors is yellow for vanilla, purple for lavender, green for gardenia and the last one is red for rose. Typography as the main design attraction used a calligraphy style. What makes this product more unique is the tin container, the original marble texture remains but the difference is it is in a low opacity to keep our clean white look as the main identity. Overall, this minimalist concept does compliment and does portray this product as classy and premium even though the price is not that high compared to other brands. Most of the scented candles sell here are from the international companies that are available in Malaysia. The competition for small local businesses like Ruhiger Ort Enterprise is quite challenging and up until now, the market is still great. Other than women and teenagers, interesting and unique features like what Ruhe offers do attract another group of people which is home decor lovers that include a wide range of age and the other gander which is men. In a conclusion, it is believed that the new looks, can attract more people to try this product as it does fit in many aesthetics like what most of us value nowadays. The simple packaging yet interesting and eye cache does attract a lot of attention. It is a hope that this project can make good progress in the future and it maybe came to life soon
Fabrication and characterisation of solid titanium nitride and molybdenum nitride microelectrodes
No full textMetal nitrides have gained interest due to their high melting point, mechanical resistance, thermal and electrical conductivity. To the best of our knowledge, titanium nitride (TiN) and molybdenum nitride (MoN) electrodes have always been prepared as thin films. However, thin film electrodes tend to delaminate or crack during preparation or usage which exposes the underlying substrate and increases their surface area. In addition, the vapour deposition techniques employed to prepare thin films can introduce contaminants to the samples. In this work we prepared solid metal nitride samples, characterised them with a range of physical methods and investigated their electrochemical properties.Our work demonstrates the feasibility of obtaining TiN and MoN from Ti and Mo foils and microwires via nitridation in a NH3 atmosphere. The process was confirmed using energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The XRD spectra also showed that hexagonal MoN and cubic Mo2N were obtained. This work also demonstrates the viability of fabricating solid TiN and MoN microelectrodes, microdisks and microbands, from the nitrided Ti and Mo samples. Hence a major objective of the project was to assess whether TiN and MoN could be used as alternatives to conventional microelectrode materials such as Pt, Au, and C. To the extent of our knowledge, MoN and TiN wires have never been used to construct microelectrodes.The electrochemical behaviour of the solid TiN and MoN microelectrodes is assessed using different redox mediators to cover a range of redox potentials. The cyclic voltammograms recorded with the untreated TiN microband electrodes showed that the redox processes at positive potentials were not electrochemically reversible. Yet, the electrochemical response was improved after etching the TiN surface with hydrofluoric acid vapour. In contrast, MoN microelectrodes exhibited sigmoidal shape cyclic voltammograms with a plateau region for all redox mediators even without surface treatment. The TiN and MoN microelectrodes exhibited good activity towards the oxygen reduction reaction recorded in pH 1, 7, 10, and 14. The TiN and MoN microelectrodes were also employed to assess their properties towards the reduction of peroxodisulfate, a very strong oxidising agent with a very complex reduction process. This study also employed bare Au, bare Pt, nanostructured Pt, and bismuth-adsorbed Pt microdisk electrodes to search for the electrode that produces a stable and preferably a diffusion-controlled current for the reduction of peroxodisulfate. Cyclic voltammograms with a plateau region were obtained with the nanostructured Pt, bismuth-modified Pt, HF-etched TiN, and MoN microelectrodes but not with the bare Au and bare Pt microelectrodes. However, only MoN microdisks demonstrated a stable steady-state current for the reduction of peroxodisulfate. To our knowledge, no group has observed cyclic voltammograms with a plateau region when employing bare electrodes for the reduction of peroxodisulfate. A linear relationship between the current and concentration was obtained with the MoN microdisk electrodes for concentrations above 0.1 mM. Similarly, the MoN microdisk electrode produced a diffusion-controlled current for scan rates between 5 and 50 V s-1.Overall, the MoN microelectrodes produced more reliable amperometric results than the TiN microelectrode. Thus, the MoN microelectrodes could be exploited as an alternative to the conventional Pt, Au, and C microelectrodes
HEvOD: Hurricane Evacuation Order Database
No full textThe Hurricane Evacuation Order Database (HEvOD) is a detailed collection of official evacuation orders issued in response to the hurricanes that impacted the United States between 2014-2022. It is compiled from a wide range of sources including official websites and social media accounts of state and local governments and government agencies, as well as news outlets. Key details pertaining to each evacuation order include the order type (mandatory, voluntary, State of Emergency), the announcement date/time of the order, the effective date/time of the order, and the evacuation areas targeted by the order
Modelling the initial shear stiffness of an unsaturated soil as a function of the coupled effects of the void ratio and the degree of saturation
No full textExisting models for predicting the small strain behaviour of unsaturated soil are not capable of predicting the initial shear stiffness during suction reduction under normally consolidated conditions. This problem has been addressed in the present study by combining an existing elastoplastic model and recent experimental data to provide a new model for the initial shear stiffness. The model, which is similar to that typically adopted for saturated soils, uses the average skeleton stress and an additional function of the degree of saturation. This new model not only captures the behaviour of the new experimental results, but it also describes a unique relationship between saturated and unsaturated soils
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