61,379 research outputs found
Master planned communities and the re-formation of cities for health and wellbeing
No full textMaster planned estates are a common feature of modern cities. This paper explores residents’ social practices to reveal connections between spatial and social features, daily routines and health and wellbeing.
AbstractMaster planned communities (MPCs) are designed to give residents a ‘complete living experience’ including access to educational facilities, shopping centres and parks. Although MPCs aspire to be suburban utopias much research focuses on identifying negative outcomes to reinforce notions that dreams of utopian futures are rarely realised. However, as a dynamic form of city re-formation, MPCs create an opportunity to ‘get it right’ by putting into practice lessons learnt from the past and principles of best practice planning. Selandra Rise is an MPC in Melbourne, Australia that has been designed to maximise the health and wellbeing of residents. Key elements incorporate access to nature, open space for physical activity, diverse housing, access to education, public transport, a local town centre and a focus on generating employment.
This paper presents the details of a study designed to measure the role of built, natural, social and economic environments in the health and wellbeing of residents, taking account of the key design features listed. Using a social practice approach rather than taking an individual behavioural stance, the research focuses on households as a unit of study to reveal the connection between spatial and social features, daily routines and health and wellbeing. The paper presents the methods, outlines findings to date, and reflects on potential policy implications for creating neighbourhoods and cities to improve social and physical health.
Presented at the International Making Cities Livable Conference –20-24 May, 2012, Portland, Oregon US
Master Project Mozambique
No full textNovos Horizontes started seven years ago in Mozambique and is part of Communities of Fusion. The Communities of Fusion, in this report, includes: Novos Horizontes, Eggs for Africa, Rapale International School, Ebenezer College and Arcapula. All these organizations are located in one area (farm) and work together. The main activity of Novos Horizontes is a vertical integrated poultry operation. The core of the business is to get the local community involved in the complete production process by providing them chicks and feed on credit, so they can grow the chickens until they are ready for slaughter. Novos Horizontes is currently planning to expand their activities. This expansion will stress the already critical state of the water availability even more. This Master Project Mozambique is aimed at finding a solution for the water problem of Novos Horizontes. The main objective of the project is stated below: ‘Contribute to a structural improvement of the water system for the companies and organizations that are part of Communities of Fusion’Water ManagementCivil Engineering and Geoscience
THE OBSESSION OF CONTROL IN THE CHARACTER “EVE BLACKWELL” IN SIDNEY SHELDON’S MASTER OF THE GAME
No full textDalam suatu kelompok masyarakat, terdapat berbagai jenis kepribadian. Meskipun mereka hidup secara berdampingan dalam lingkungan yang sama, kemungkinan akan terjadinya konflik sangatlah terbuka lebar. Dalam skripsi ini, penulis membahas jenis kepribadian narsisistik, konflik – konflik yang dihadapi. dengan orang – orang disekitarnya maupun dengan dirinya sendiri, serta berakhirnya obsesi untuk pengendalian dari tokoh bernama Eve Blackwell dalam novel berjudul Master of the Game karya Sidney Sheldon. Keinginan si tokoh untuk memenangkan perhatian sang nenek dari saudari kembarnya berkembang menjadi keinginan akan kepuasan lahir dan batin dengan mengendalikan orang – orang disekitarnya termasuk dalam hubungan seks. Tujuan penulisan skripsi ini adalah untuk memaparkan usaha – usaha Eve Blackwell, dalam novel Master of the Game karya Sidney Sheldon, untuk mengendalikan orang – orang disekitarnya, konflik – konflik yang dihadapinya dan juga akhir dari obsesi akan kendalinya.
Untuk menganalisis tokoh ini, penulis menggunakan metode pendekatan struktural dan psikologis dengan menggabungkan teori narsisisme dari Joanna M. Ashmun dan teori obsesi dari S. Rachman. Penulis mengumpulkan data – data yang dibutuhkan dengan menggunakan metode penelitian pustaka.
Setelah melakukan analisis yang ditunjang oleh data - data, kita dapat mengetahui bahwa orang berkepribadian narsisistik seperti tokoh Eve Blackwell , yang kekuatan utamanya ada pada parasnya yang cantik, dapat menghalalkan segala cara untuk mewujudkan keinginannya. Namun dalam usaha – usahanya tersebut muncul berbagai bentuk perlawanan yang akan berujung pada konflik, baik internal maupun eksternal. Di bagian akhir analisis, kita juga dapat mengetahui bahwa dominasi orang berkepribadian narsisistik dapat dihentikan oleh kemunculan orang yang tepat seperti Keith Webster, yang berprofesi sebagai dokter operasi plastik, di waktu yang tepat
Port Master Plan for the Port of Beira, Mozambique
No full textThe port of Beira is an essential driver for economic growth in Mozambique. Its location, with strong connections to the hinterland, creates a promising future for the further development of the port. The port authority requires a new port master plan in order to optimise throughput over available ground and (wet) infrastructure, and to extend its capacity in the coming decades. This report presents in structured way the development of a new port master plan for the Port of Beira. In Beira, waiting times are known to be very long and the port authorities have the desire to improve the port performance on this matter. Therefore a Harboursim model of the present situation of the Port of Beira is built, which is used to simulate the maritime traffic. For Beira Port, processes are added to the Harboursim model code to make a good representation of the reality. Furthermore, the Harboursim model is improved, by fixing errors in the model code. The adaptions made in the code are generally applicable for all future Harboursim models. This study is a case study for the ‘Adaptive Port Planning’ (APP) framework, which is an addition to the master plan development. Using the framework, differences in the robustness of the master plan alternatives are determined. Furthermore, the robustness of the chosen alternative is increased, because actions for dealing with the vulnerabilities and opportunities associated with each alternative are determined.Ports and waterwaysHydraulic EngineeringCivil Engineering and Geoscience
Haptic Feedback in Master-Slave Robotic Laparoscopic Surgery
No full textCommercially available laparoscopic surgical robots are not currently equipped with force feedback. This may lead to unnecessary tissue damage when gripping tissue in a laparascopic procedure, as shown in a prior literature study. The goal of this MSc thesis project is the implementation of haptic feedback in a prototype of a master-slave surgical system and a new laparoscopic gripping instrument that is currently under development. Both the master-slave system and the gripping instrument are collaborations between the TU Delft and the Leidse Instrumentmakers School. The master-slave setup is meant as a testing and demonstrating platform for robotic laparoscopic instrument prototypes. It uses the same instrument interface as the da Vinci surgical system (Intuitive Surgical Inc.). The Shaft-Actuated-Tip-Articulation-4-Flexors (SATA-4F) laparoscopic gripper prototype is meant as an alternative to the gripping instruments the da Vinci uses. The SATA-4F instrument is outfitted with force sensors and the master-slave system is equipped with sensors and actuators.Different low-end force sensors are compared in terms of linearity, precision, hysteresis, drift and signal-to-noise ratio. A sensor is selected based on the results. Four concepts for implementing the sensors into the SATA-4F instrument are proposed and assessed. The selected concept is implemented. Three concepts for the master handle are also proposed and assessed. After the first prototype failed, a second one is produced. The second prototype has proven to function properly. System Identification techniques are used to analyze the system components. No models with a target score of 95% are found using the System Identification Toolbox. Three different control strategies are compared and one of them is selected. The Force-Reflection controller is programmed and the system is tested and evaluated. A simple force-pulling task was designed, where subjects held synthetic tissue with the master-slave robot. A small DC motor mounted on a force measuring platform pulled at the tissue. The participants were tasked with holding the tissue in place, while minimizing grasping forces. Letting novices perform this task results in significantly lower mean maximum gripping forces when force feedback is switched on. However, the participants let go of the tissue more often as well. There were no visible significant learning effects. Reaction forces measured by a platform have no effect on the mean maximum gripping forces. There is also no visible relation between the failed trials and the reaction forces of these trials.While writing this thesis and working on the project, other students have been working on the project as well. New designs have been made for both the mechanical parts of the master and the slave device. The SATA-4F instrument itself will also be redesigned. The goals presented in this thesis have largely been achieved. However, the master and slave devices need more work. While the mechanical parts of the master and the slave are being redesigned, the control loop and sampling frequency is too low. The 3D motion of both the master and the slave have been disabled because of this. While MATLAB and the LabJack have been extremely useful for designing and testing, it seems that MATLAB and a LabJack are not suitable for the control of a surgical robot. The setup can now be used for testing and demonstrating prototype laparoscopic instruments. With the new master and slave components and significant other improvements, the setup can be used to compare different haptic feedback controllers as well. It can also be used to do more research in the field of robot-assisted surgery with respect to haptic feedback. If two robotic laparoscopic instruments with all degrees of freedom would be available, typical experiments such as knot-tying or suturing could be performed with and without force feedback to fully investigate the usefulness of the feedback. Of course, force feedback can be implemented in more, if not all degrees of freedom; aside from gripper forces, reaction forces and torques on the instrument itself can also be measured and fed back to a surgeon. This would allow for even more research in the field of robotic surgery with respect to feedback.<br/
Dependently Typed Languages in Statix
No full textStatic type systems can greatly enhance the quality of programs, but implementing a type checker for them is challenging and error-prone. The Statix meta-language (part of the Spoofax language workbench) aims to make this task easier by automatically deriving a type checker from a declarative specification of the type system. However, so far Statix has not been used to implement a type system with dependent types, an expressive class of type systems which require evaluation of terms during type checking. In this thesis, we present a specification of a simple dependently typed language in Statix, and discuss how to extend it with several common features such as inductive data types, universes, and inference of implicit arguments. While we encountered some challenges in the implementation, our conclusion is that Statix is already usable as a tool for implementing dependent types.Source code - https://github.com/JonathanBrouwer/master-thesisComputer Scienc
El Castillo del Morro
No full textMaster Project report on an improvement of the coastal protection around a maritime fortress "El Castillo del Moro" in Havana, CubaHydraulic EngineeringCivil Engineering and Geoscience
Master plan coastal havens, "Nikas", Kuwait
No full textCurrently there are 20,000 to 40,000 yachts in Kuwait. The majority of these yachts is stored on land because the number of berths in Kuwait is not sufficient to accommodate them all. Besides yachts, there are approximately 1,000 fishing vessels in Kuwait. The facilities for fishermen are not of sufficient quality. To overcome these problems, the Kuwaiti government initiated the development of a master plan for 9 coastal havens on Kuwait coast. Kuwait is located at the northeastern part of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordering Saudi-Arabia and Iraq and lies on the northwestern shore of the Arabian Gulf. The emirate covers approximately 20,000 km2 and has a population 3.5 million inhabitants. The coastal havens need to facilitate fishing vessels, yachts, public transport vessels, vessels from the national authorities and incidentally vessels that take refuge in one of these coastal havens. Besides the possible locations of the havens, the demand and need for these facilities is an important aspect. The yachting demand potential gives an indication of the expected development in demand of the yachting industry up to the year 2030. There already is a need for berths in Kuwait at the moment. The master plan accounts for 6750 berths in the year 2030, an increase of 4750 berths in 25 years, and a small increase in the number of fishing vessels in Kuwait. The master plan contains recommendations for the proposed development directions and functions that have to be allocated for all coastal haven locations. The complexity of the concept of a coastal haven lays within the fact that it has to facilitate yachts, fishing vessels and somewhat larger vessels at the same time. The facility must be multipurpose to some extent, but other aspects must be kept separate in order to provide all users in their needs and meet their expectations. The design requirements and criteria are applied to one coastal haven location and are translated into three layout alternatives for one coastal haven location. The layouts are evaluated with two hydraulic models. These models simulate the wave propagation from an offshore data point into the wave conditions within the coastal haven basins. The modeled wave conditions are those that occur only once during the life of the coastal haven. The layout has to be such that it can protect the vessels from these conditions. During the modeling it is concluded that the layout needs to be such that the basins are relatively closed off. The acceptable wave height within the coastal haven is very limited, because damage to the yachts and speedboats used for fishing is not acceptable in a coastal haven.Hydraulic EngineeringCivil Engineering and Geoscience
The Problem of the Author Related to the Main Character in the Bulgakov’s Novel “The Master and Margarita”
No full textThe article is devoted to the problems of school analysis of one of the most important knots of the novel “Master and Margarita”. The author pays attention on the mutually exclusive interpretations of the novel in the contemporary critique. One of the ideas offered by the scientist is to abandon the approach of unequivocal novel interpretation which is intolerable at the literature lessons. The author also tells about his own experience of analysis of a part of novel image system carried out with specialized classes
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