29 research outputs found
Narratives about Migratory Experiences and Homeland among the Albanians from the Republic of Macedonia
No full textSocial status and prestige in conditions of transnational migration. Ethnographic study among the Albanians from the Republic of Macedonia
No full textThe examination of social status in conditions of transnationalism is an
important and fruitful topic since many of the social relations in which
migrants find themselves involved in are paralleling or intersecting the
social hierarchies and identities of both the destination and origin
societies, ethnic communities and transnational social fields. It offers
researchers good opportunity to examine the links between distribution of
resources, expressions of power and dominance, representations of social
identity, imaginaries of society etc. Proceeding from these assumptions, the
article examines the dynamics of ways and mechanisms through which social
status and prestige are gained, maintained and demonstrated among the
Albanians from the Republic of Macedonia in conditions of transnational
migrations continuing for decades. Three different domains are considered:
the family regarding the inter-personal relationships; the community
membership focusing on criteria of gaining and maintenance of reputation and
prestige; and the Albanian community’s status claims and positioning in the
Macedonian society in the context of Albanian-Macedonian relationships. The
study is based on ethnographic research in several Albanian villages located
in the regions of Skopje, Tetovo and Struga
Traffic efficient control of a water irrigation system
No full textWater scarcity is a persistent global issue that requires effective solutions. One increasingly popular approach to address the distribution of freshwater in different regions is the utilization of Water Irrigation Systems (WIS). Due to their vital role in ensuring people's well-being, it is crucial to design a reliable infrastructure that can maintain water levels in channels as close as possible to predefined reference points.Extensive research papers have been dedicated to discussing various aspects of WIS control, modeling, and identification. Although simulations can yield valuable insights, it is essential to validate the results in real-life systems due to certain factors that cannot be precisely estimated, such as leakages along the channels. To address this need, a scaled-down version of a WIS at TU Delft has been developed, which effectively emulates the behavior of a real water irrigation system. Through continuous refinement and design enhancements, the simulator has proven to be a valuable tool.Working with the scaled-down WIS has presented significant challenges, but a dedicated controller has been developed, yielding satisfactory results. The approach to controlling the WIS is simple yet effective, employing a decentralized controller that is applied to both the nonlinear simulator and the real setup. Remarkably, this approach successfully meets the predefined reference points, even in the face of applied disturbances to the system.Mechanical Engineerin
Adding Redundancy To Splitting Protocols for a Better Performance
No full textPayment Channel Networks have been developed to deal with the scalability issue in blockchain technologies. Using them, two parties can make multiple payments between themselves relatively fast. However, usually the channels have too small capacities, unable to handle a big payment. Allowing to split a payment into smaller payments and forwarding them through different intermediaries is a way to solve this issue, but a party only knows the capacities of the channels it is connected to. Therefore, it is possible for a payment to be sent to an intermediary which would not have sufficient funds to forward it to another node, closer to the receiver. Making redundant transactions in order to further improve the payment success ratio is a way to handle this drawback. This paper provides 3 algorithms for adding redundancy to the already existing splitting protocol. The evaluation shows that all of them improve the success ratio, but at the price of parties exchanging more messages.CSE3000 Research ProjectComputer Science and Engineerin
THE GLOBALIZING WORLD AND THE REALITY OF GLOBAL RISKS AND CATASTROPHES
Get PDFThis article is devoted to the possible emergence of global risks in the form of catastrophes that change the development of the Earth's space. Thus, the author motivates the necessity of measuring in advance the risks faced by nature and humanity in order to overcome these real threats and their consequences. The author analyzes the concept of "global catastrophe" and measures it as a concept and analyzes the scientific thought on this issue. It assesses the significance of the risk on the entire global space of a global catastrophe of a local or international nature. Also important is the author's approach to the issues under study and his views on the resolution of a number of conflicts and problems of global development
Numerical modelling of an experimental energy pile
No full textGeothermal energy is a way of reducing the cost of energy. Deep geothermal energy systems extract heat from very deep soil layers where the temperatures are very high. Shallow geothermal energy systems are about 150 metres deep and they are used to store heat in the soil, to extract it later and use it for space heating. These shallow geothermal systems are generally embedded in a borehole, but they can also be cast into structures, which are called thermo-active foundations. An example of such a foundation is the energy pile, a foundation pile with a heat exchanger embedded in it, connected to a heat pump. There is no need to drill an extra hole in the ground, but the downside is that it is not well known how the bearing capacity of the pile is affected by the heating/cooling cycles. An energy pile experiment is planned to investigate the thermo-mechanical behaviours of the pile and the goal of this thesis is a numerical investigation of the pile. It serves as an estimate of the pile and soil behaviour prior to installation and the results will be used to confidently design the experiment. The model was built with DIANA FEA software, that is capable of coupling thermo-mechanical behaviour. Firstly an experiment in London clay was recreated in order to verify and validate the model and modelling approach. The experiment in Delft was modelled using site investigation that was done at the location where it will be built. Along with old Cone Penetration Test (CPT) data the subsurface was mapped and soil parameters used in the material model were chosen. The thermal cycle that was imposed on the pile was chosen on the basis of preliminary modelling done at different temperature increments. The temperatures were chosen such that the pile was affected to a significant degree of its capacity. It was cooled for three weeks to 0 °C and then heated to 24 °C for three weeks, this was repeated for 6 years. The research focussed on finding which thermo-mechanical effects can be expected and what the scale of those effects could be. The effect directly linked to an increase in temperature is thermal strain. Materials tend to expand and contract with the temperature at different rates and so do the pile and the soil. The gradient of the heat flow is also an important factor as the pile is subjected to the temperature before the soil is. The pile will expand first and this will be resisted by the soil, the strain that is resisted by the soil is called the restrained strain and that is responsible for the change in stress in the pile. A pile that is heated will have more stress than with just a mechanical load and a pile that is cooled will see a reduction in stress. The pile will expand vertically around a null-point somewhere along the pile, this is the point that does not move. In principle, an unrestrained pile will have a null-point in the centre of the pile, but because some soil layers resist the pile movement more than others the null-point is closer to the stronger layers. In the Delft experiment model the null-point was halfway down the pile at first, but as the amount of cycles progressed it moved down. This is due to a decrease in resistance from the weaker layers and an increase in resistance in the strong sand layer on which the pile is based. The amount of stress that is generated is also less in these later cycles as the resistance of the soil became less. With that reduced resistance an increase in settlement is also seen. This can lead to differential settlements of structures that are built on such a pile, possibly damaging them. The results of the modelling are used to give an advice on the experiment details, such as geometry, thermal cycle and pile layout. An advice to the layout of the sensors is included as well as a prediction of the results
2D representation of RNA pseudoknots () class IIa—the actual sequence is of () class IIb—the sequence is of an aphid
No full text<p><b>Copyright information:</b></p><p>Taken from "Ribosomal frameshifting in decoding antizyme mRNAs from yeast and protists to humans: close to 300 cases reveal remarkable diversity despite underlying conservation"</p><p></p><p>Nucleic Acids Research 2007;35(6):1842-1858.</p><p>Published online 1 Mar 2007</p><p>PMCID:PMC1874602.</p><p>© 2007 The Author(s)</p> The frameshift site is indicated with orange letters. Black arrowheads represent substitutions deduced from phylogenetic comparison to orthologous genes. Non-compensatory changes in the stems are shown in black letters; compensatory changes are shown in blue letters
The phylogenetic relationship of a select number of fungal antizyme frameshift sites
No full text<p><b>Copyright information:</b></p><p>Taken from "Ribosomal frameshifting in decoding antizyme mRNAs from yeast and protists to humans: close to 300 cases reveal remarkable diversity despite underlying conservation"</p><p></p><p>Nucleic Acids Research 2007;35(6):1842-1858.</p><p>Published online 1 Mar 2007</p><p>PMCID:PMC1874602.</p><p>© 2007 The Author(s)</p> The unrooted tree is based on the amino acid sequence (encoded by both ORF1 and ORF2) and was drawn using the ClustalX program neighbor-joining algorithm. Different colored lines indicate different frameshift sites. Bootstrap values are given for key nodes. Contaminant from plant library
2D representation of RNA pseudoknots—class I () of mouse antizyme 1 and () mouse antizyme 2 mRNAs
No full text<p><b>Copyright information:</b></p><p>Taken from "Ribosomal frameshifting in decoding antizyme mRNAs from yeast and protists to humans: close to 300 cases reveal remarkable diversity despite underlying conservation"</p><p></p><p>Nucleic Acids Research 2007;35(6):1842-1858.</p><p>Published online 1 Mar 2007</p><p>PMCID:PMC1874602.</p><p>© 2007 The Author(s)</p> The frameshift site is indicated with orange letters. Black arrowheads represent substitutions deduced from phylogenetic comparison to orthologous genes. Non-compensatory changes in the stems are shown in black letters; compensatory changes are shown in blue letters
Author response image 2.
No full textUpon fertilization, the highly specialised sperm and oocyte genomes are remodelled to confer totipotency. The mechanisms of the dramatic reprogramming events that occur have remained unknown, and presumed roles of histone modifying enzymes are just starting to be elucidated. Here, we explore the function of the oocyte-inherited pool of a histone H3K4 and K9 demethylase, LSD1/KDM1A during early mouse development. KDM1A deficiency results in developmental arrest by the two-cell stage, accompanied by dramatic and stepwise alterations in H3K9 and H3K4 methylation patterns. At the transcriptional level, the switch of the maternal-to- zygotic transition fails to be induced properly and LINE-1 retrotransposons are not properly silenced. We propose that KDM1A plays critical roles in establishing the correct epigenetic landscape of the zygote upon fertilization, in preserving genome integrity and in initiating new patterns of genome expression that drive early mouse developmen
