130 research outputs found
Viajando através do interculturalismo: do pós-colonial ao presente global
No full textConferência proferida por Rustom Bharucha no IX Congresso da ABRACE em Uberlândia. Nessa conferência, o autor combina memórias, anedotas e momentos-chaves da iluminação e da crise na narrativa intercultural.
ABSTRACT
Conference given by Rustom Bharucha at the 9th ABRACE Congress in Uberlândia. In this conference, the author combines memories, anecdotes and key moments of enlightenment and crisis in intercultural narrative.
Keywords: Interculturalism; performance; postcolonia
Parametric Cost Estimation of Road Projects Using Artificial Neural Networks
No full textEarly stage cost estimate plays a significant role in any initial road projects decisions; despite the project scope has not yet been finalized. Major problems faced are lack of preliminary information, database of road works costs and appropriate cost estimation methods. Therefore, it is important to find a way to estimate the roads cost in a short time with acceptable accuracy. The main objective of this research is to develop artificial neural networks model to estimate the cost at early stage of road projects in Gaza strip using parametric techniques and reduce the percentage error of estimation. To achieve this there is a need to identify the factors that affect the cost of road projects that can be available at early stage. Three types of networks were used to build the models: linear regression (LR) as a traditional method for estimating, and the two most common kinds of feed forward patterns, which are multilayer perceptron (MLP) and general feedforward (GFF). Topologies and architectures of ANN were adopted after several trials. The total accuracy performances of the best model of each type are 90.3%, 93.72% 94.5% for LR, MLP and GFF model respectively. A visual basic interface was developed to operate GFF model and facilitate data entry. The GFF was the best model that had mean absolute percentage error 4.98%, 4.57% and 6.09 for training, cross validation and test sets respectively. Sensitivity analysis was done for GFF model, which showed that the pavement area parameter had the greatest effect on the budget output but project scope had a low impact. This research was achieved the ability to estimate the cost of road projects at early stage and reducing the error rate to reach 5.5%. ANN is well suited to model complex problems where the relationship between the model variables is unknown so take advantage of the ANN capabilities in the construction management
Factors That Hamper the Implementation of Constructability in the Gaza Strip
No full textThe subject of this research is about the barriers of constructability implementation in the Gaza strip. Therefore, this research aims at identifying the current implementation of constructability in the Gaza strip, clarifying the essential factors that hamper the implementation of constructability in the Gaza strip and clarifying solutions, whenever possible, that would help the participants to apply the constructability principles, in addition to develop guidelines for the practitioners of the construction industry. The present investigation consists of literature review in subjects related to constructability to determine the hampering factors. Interviews with experts and from the researcher experience a questionnaire was designed incorporating all possible hampering factors in theGazastrip. The questionnaire is divided into two parts: The first part is related to the importance and affect of the barrier factors in construction industry in general. This part was completed by one of the main players of a project (Contractor, Consultant, Owner or their representatives). The second part is related to the degree of existence of these barrier factors in the project under study. This part is completed by the researcher, from the project documents and through interviews with one or more of those who engaged in the project under study. This research includes 28 case studies (projects), the result of data analysis of the respondents' answers and the case studies showed the followings: All hampering factors were given a high rating by respondents in terms of the importance and affect of the barrier factors in construction industry. About 54 % of the respondents have never heard of the constructability and its concepts before. The political factors and project management factors have scored the highest rate amongst the nine main factors that hamper the implementation of constructability in theGazastrip. Nature of the project factors and knowledge & experience factors has scored the lowest rate amongst the nine main factors that hamper the implementation of constructability in theGazastrip. Recurrent closure of crossings and absence of preassembling before project's execution have scored the highest rate amongst the 56 sub-factors that hamper the implementation of constructability in the Gaza strip. Project remoteness & lack of utilities and type of contract have scored the least rate amongst the 56 sub-factors that hamper the implementation of constructability in theGazastrip. Finally, the researcher has designed a framework that acts as a guideline for the construction industry's practioners to overcome barriers of constructability, in accordance with the appearance of the barrier factors in the project life cycle, in order to achieve the desired project objectives
اطار عام لعملية سلسلة توريد مواد البناء في صناعة الانشاءات المحلية
No full textMaterials require special attention while creating a project plan, since it forms a large portion of the total cost of a construction project. Materials are essential for the daily progress of a construction project. The absence of materials when needed is one of the main causes of loss of productivity in a jobsite. Current materials management practices in the construction industry are performed on fragmented basis with unstructured communication and no clearly established responsibilities between the parties involved. The highly fragmentation is a result of the separation of design and construction, lack of coordination and integration between various functional disciplines, poor communication, etc. All of theses are the important factors causing performance-related problems such as delay in material ordering and receiving, low productivity, cost and time overrun, conflict and disputes. The aim of this research is to develop a framework for the best practice of material supply chain process through the project phases that suits the local construction industry in order to help contractors to have the right materials in the right quantities (at the right place) at the right moment at minimal cost. This will assist contractors to improve their productivity, minimize losses and increase competitiveness. To realize the research aim, a survey questionnaire was used to achieve the following objectives: exploring the current practices of material supply chain process, identifying the important activities that form the material supply chain process, studying the contractor/ supplier relationship, studying the impact of the Israeli closure of the Gaza Strip on the material supply chain process, providing solution to the risks and uncertainties inherent in the construction industry, identifying the most occurred problems facing the contractors through the project phases and finally identifying the key factors that may contribute in integrating the phases of the material supply chain process. Eighty one questionnaires were distributed to the contractors of first, second and third class. Fifty questionnaires were received back and analyzed. The important result of this study is developing Material Supply Chain Process Framework. The framework consists of six phases which are: bidding phase, sourcing phase, procurement phase, construction phase, post construction phase and evaluation phase. Each phase involves a set of activities that should be viewed as integrated activities rather than a series of separated ones. The study reveals that contractor/supplier relationship is based on project by project basis. Most of the contractors do not form long term agreement or partnership with the suppliers. Competitive pricing is the most important criteria adopted for selection of the suppliers and it is primarily based on the lowest price. The study shows that different level of minimum buffer stocks and buffer time were advocated by the respondents to mitigate the uncertainties inherent in the construction setting and the problem of Israeli closure to the borders of the Gaza Strip. The problems that may hamper the smooth application of the material supply chain process through project phases were identified and possible solutions for these problems were provided. Poor communication among the parties involved is the common problem occurred in each phase of the material supply chain process. Finally, the study reveals that understanding the client needs and objectives by the contractors, subcontractors and suppliers and committing to these needs and objectives, establishing a protocol for dealing effectively with disputes and problems that may arise between the project participant during the course of project implementation and establishing a system among the project participants for communication and share project information in timely and accurate manner are the most key factors that contribute in integrating the project phases and the project participants
Mysticism and ethics in Islam
No full textIncludes bibliographical references.Standardized name for editor Bilal Orfali from the Library of Congress is: Urfahʹlī, Bilāl http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/no2010019407The relationship between Sufism or Islamic mysticism and ethics is largely untilled land. Mysticism and Ethics in Islam attempts to survey this fertile area of investigation by attempting to come to a clearer idea of what is meant by the terms “ethics” and “mysticism,” both in relation to each other and to Islam. The articles in this volume do not have an eye so much on defining what mysticism and ethics in Islamic civilization are per se, as much as on coming to terms with the parameters and boundaries within which they have historically been conceptualized. As such, the book falls into four clearly demarcated time periods and foci: early, classical, late pre-modern, and modern and contemporary. Taken as a whole, this collection of contributions by leading specialists in their fields offer rich insights into some of the most important articulations of Sufi ethics to have animated the tradition, from past to present, in such geographically diverse regions and countries as Egypt, India, West Africa, Iran, Turkey, Russia, Central Asia, and China.Editors' introduction -- I. EARLY PERIOD -- Aḥlām al-mutaṣṣawwifah wa-atharuhā ʻalá ʻilm al-taʻbīr al-Islāmī, fī al-qarnayn al-rābiʻ wa-al-khāmis lil-hijrah / Lina Jammal -- To grieve or not to grieve? The ambivalence of Ḥuzn in early Islam / Riccardo Paredi -- The treasurers of God : Abū Saʻīd Al-Kharrāz and the ethics of wealth in early Sufism / John Zaleski -- On patience (Ṣabr) in Sufi virtue ethics / Atif Khalil -- Min naqd al-taṣawwuf ilá iṣlāḥ al-akhlāq : al-kashf ʻan aʻmāl Shams al-Dīn ʻAbd al-Malik al-Dulaymī (t. 593 H/ 1197M) / Khaled Abdo -- Does Al-Ghazālī have a theory of virtue? / Sophia Vasalou -- II. CLASSICAL PERIOD -- Theo-Fānī : ʻAyn Al-Quḍāt and the fire of love / Mohammed Rustom -- Marātib Al-Taqwā : Saʻīd Al-Dīn Farghānī on the ontology of ethics / William Chittick -- Transcending character and the quest for union : the place of union (al-jamʿ) in commentaries on Anṣārī's Waystations / Cyrus Zargar -- Seeing is believing : Sufi vision and the formation of the ethical subject / Richard McGregor -- Disciplining the soul, freeing the mind : spiritual practice (al-riyāḍa) in Fakhr Al-Dīn Al-Rāzī's Sharḥ Al-Ishārāt Wa-l-Tanbīhāt / Nora Jacobsen Ben Hammed -- al-Nasaq al-maʻrifī li-iʻādat intāj al-mafāhīm al-akhlāqīyah ʻinda al-Ṣūfīyah > namūdhajan / Chafika Ouail -- ʻAḍud Al-Dīn Ījī's ethics : a translation of Al-Akhlāq Al-ʻAḍudiyya and some notes on its commentaries / Feryal Salem -- III. LATE PRE-MODERN PERIOD -- ʻAbd Al-Wahhāb Al-Shaʻrānī's Laṭāʼif Al-Minan and the virtue of sincere immodesty / Matthew Ingalls -- Finding new life among the dead : the ethical mysticism of The Book of Pure Gold / Paul Heck -- Sufism and ethics in the works of Shāh Walī Allāh / Marcia Hermansen -- "Dogs have left you in the dust!" Mockery in Panjabi Sufi poetry / Syed Rizwan Zamir -- Churning nectar on the path of Muhammad : of ethical imaginaries in Kashmiri Sufi poetry / Peter Dziedzic -- The Chinese classics in the light of Ibn Al-ʻArabī's Metaphysics -- IV. MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY PERIODS -- Sufism and ethics in Central Asia : Ṣūfī Allāhyār's Thabāt Al-ʻĀjizīn and its legacy / Alexandre Papas -- Sufism, ethics, and the Muslim modernist project / Ahmed El Shamsy -- Sufism and modern Muslim ethics in 14th/20th century Russian Islamic thought / Leila Almazova -- A Nietzschean mystic : Muhammad Iqbal on the ethics of selfhood / Muhammad Faruque -- The transcendent ethics of Tarbiya : Ibrahim Niasse's Maqāmāt Al-Dīn al-Thalāth / Oludamini Ogunnaike -- Becoming what one is : liberative knowledge and human perfection in the writing of Seyyed Hossein Nasr -- Author biographies
محاكاة العمليات الانشائية لمشاريع الابنية متعددة الطوابق في قطاع غزة
No full textMulti-story building projects are classified as repetitive activities projects “RAP” that have a vital position in construction industry in Gaza Strip at present time. Many previous approaches for planning and scheduling the RAP are limited to deterministic nature and cannot ensure continuous resource utilization. This thesis presents an integration between simulation and optimization as a key solution for planning and scheduling the RAP in terms of time and cost with the optimum number of resources. A general simulation model that is suitable for the multi-story building projects (MSB-projects) as example for the RAP was developed using Arena software. The model was designed using statistical approach for determining the activities’ durations by finding the suitable distribution functions for resources’ production rates. The first step in model formulation was building the conceptual model, which is considered as the theoretical model for the MSB-projects and the application of the simulation model. Then the typical simulation model was developed for MSB-projects that includes the basic activities and their logical relationships. The designed model was verified and validated. The verification process was executed to ensure that the simulation model operates as intended. The validation process was executed by applying the simulation model to a real case study and compare the results versus the actual one and the results were found good. The developed model empowers the users to optimize any of the applied case parameters (cost or time) using OptQuest for Arena. The optimization process achieved decreasing in the total cost of about 7.5% from the actual cost through finding the optimum number of resources. For more facilitation, Visual Basic interfaces were developed to facilitate to the interaction of the user with Arena software where no previously knowledge with Arena is needed. These interfaces provide the user with many alternatives options for data entry at the model
Dihedral Group, 4-Torsion on an Elliptic Curve, and a Peculiar Eigenform Modulo 4
No full textWe work out a non-trivial example of lifting a so-called weak eigenform to a true, characteristic 0 eigenform. The weak eigenform is closely related to Ramanujan's tau function, whereas the characteristic 0 eigenform is attached to an elliptic curve defined over Q. We produce the lift by showing that the coefficients of the initial, weak eigenform (almost all) occur as traces of Frobenii in the Galois representation on the 4-torsion of the elliptic curve. The example is remarkable as the initial form is known not to be liftable to any characteristic 0 eigenform of level 1. We use this example to illustrate certain questions that have arisen lately in the theory of modular forms modulo prime powers. We give a brief survey of those questions.The authors would like to thank Shaunak Deo and Gabor Wiese for interesting discussions relating to this paper, as well as to other questions concerning modular forms modulo prime powers. We thank Ariel Pacetti for comments on the first draft of the paper. We also thank the anonymous referees for comments and suggestions that helped improve the exposition. The second author was supported by a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the National Center for Theoretical Sciences, Taipei, Taiwan. The first author would like to thank Noriko Yui for good contact, collaboration, and interesting exchange over many years
The sum-capacity of discrete-noise multiple-access channels with single-user decoding and identical codebooks
No full textWe consider an additive multiple-access channel model where all users are constrained to use identical codebooks, and where single-user decoding is performed at the receiver. We study the sum-capacity of the channel for an arbitrarily large, but finite, number of users. For a noiseless n-user channel, we construct a signaling scheme that achieves rates per user that are arbitrarily large, proving that the sum-capacity is infinite, whether the users are average and-or peak power limited or not. We show that this result still holds whenever an arbitrary discrete-noise component is added, provided there exists a positive lower bound on the separation between noise samples. Whenever the noise is of bounded support, the non power-constrained sum-capacity is also proven to be infinite. The results are valid for an asynchronous multiple-access channel with single-user decoding, as the appropriate channel model is identical to the one studied in this work. © 2012 IEEE.
SOBRE TERROR E PERFORMANCE: VISLUMBRES DO ‘ALÉM DE’
No full textIn this essay, Lúcia Fabrini de Almeida makes a critic presentation about the new book by Rustom Bharuscha, Terror and Performance, published from Tulika Books, at Nova Delhi. After a general presentation of the intentions of the publication, the author goes through referential stretches of the book intertwining them with potent reflections based in her ideas and establishing important dialogues with texts of Laura Rita Segato. Neste ensaio, Lúcia Fabrini de Almeida faz uma apresentação crítica do novo livro de Rustom Bharucha, Terror and Performance, publicado pela Tulika Books, em Nova Delhi. Após uma apresentação geral das intenções da publicação, a autora percorre trechos referenciais do livro entrelaçando-os com reflexões potentes apoiadas em suas próprias ideias e estabelecendo significativo diálogo com textos de Laura Rita Segato.
Large-N baryons: collective coordinates of the topological soliton in the SU(3) chiral model
No full textThe collective coordinate method of Gervais and Sakita is used to quantise the large-N topological soliton in the SU(3) chiral model. The leading-order hamiltonian is that of a symmetrical top. The Wess-Zumino term plays a role in determining the flavour and spin quantum numbers of the baryon multiplets
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