Socio-Cultural Appropriateness of the Use of Historic Persian Gardens for Modern Urban Edible Gardens

Historic gardens have the ability to provide several ecosystem services in cities, including provisioning services (i.e., food production). The historic gardens in Iran (known as “Persian Gardens”) have never been considered as places that could be used for food production. As a result, the purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the Iranian historic gardens’ spatial and structural layout is suitable for modern urban food gardening. We conducted field studies in six recognized Persian gardens in four provinces of Iran via qualitative analysis according to socio-cultural guidelines drawn from a literature review. The results suggested that combining the elements of formal landscape design, non-edible decorative plants, and traditional artwork would increase the Persian gardens’ attractiveness. Regarding encouraging users to become involved in urban gardening, we found that separating productive units containing edible plants from public units using a central meeting spot populated by aesthetic plants and items may attract ordinary visitors who are interested in gardening without disturbing anyone’s activities. Furthermore, the Persian gardens’ multifunctionality, aesthetic value, and health-promoting qualities constitute a considerable historic achievement in garden design, making the gardens a suitable model for edible urban gardening. The results of this study can enhance our understanding of the Persian gardens’ spatial and structural design and provide practical implications for sustainable urban planning and landscape architecture.

Emergent dimensions underlying human understanding of the reachable world

Near-scale, reach-relevant environments, like work desks, restaurant place settings or lab benches, are the interface of our hand-based interactions with the world. How are our conceptual representations of these environments organized? For navigable-scale scenes, global properties such as openness, depth or naturalness have been identified, but the analogous organizing principles for reach-scale environments are not known. To uncover such principles, we obtained 1.25 million odd-one-out behavioral judgments on image triplets assembled from 990 reachspace images. Images were selected to comprehensively sample the variation both between and within reachspace categories. Using data-driven modeling, we generated a 30-dimensional embedding which predicts human similarity judgments among the images. First, examination of the embedding dimensions revealed key properties that distinguish among reachspaces, relating to their structural layout, affordances, visual appearances and functional roles. Second, clustering analyses performed over the embedding revealed four distinct interpretable classes of reachspaces, with separate clusters for spaces related to food, electronics, analog activities, and storage or display. Finally, we found that the similarity structure among reachspace images was better predicted by the function of the spaces than their locations, suggesting that reachspaces are largely conceptualized in terms of the actions they are designed to support. Altogether, these results reveal the behaviorally-relevant principles that that structure our internal representations of reach-relevant environments.

Design Optimization of Shape and Layup Sequence of Polymer Composite Load Bearing Elements of Light Aircraft

The paper presents the methodology for designing the load bearing elements of tail section of a light aircraft through the sequential application of methods of parametric and topological optimization. First, we analyzed the loads acting on the aircraft at its maneuvering in the vertical and horizontal planes. Then, for these loads, by the parametric optimization method, we selected the locations of ribs of the tail section of the aircraft, which were subsequently used to develop individual forms of ribs based on the topology optimization method. Next, we carried out parametric optimization of layup angles of polymer composite material, intended for the production of ribs. Finally, we developed a structural layout for the load bearing elements of the fuselage, which meets the criteria of minimum weight when restrictions are imposed on the level of stresses in some layers of the composite material.

Construction of an underground pipeline in permafrost conditions, taking into account the minimization of thermal effect on the soil and increasing energy efficiency during operation

Совершенствование технологий строительства подземных трубопроводов в условиях многолетнемерзлых грунтов, предусматривающее минимизацию теплового воздействия трубопровода на грунт во время эксплуатации, является актуальной научно-технической задачей. Авторами разработан способ прокладки подземного трубопровода, снижающий до минимума его тепловое воздействие на вмещающий мерзлый грунт и позволяющий в процессе дальнейшей эксплуатации поддерживать температуру перекачиваемой нефти без дополнительного подогрева. Конструктивной схемой предусмотрена укладка трубопровода в изолированную траншею с использованием торфа в качестве грунта-изоляции. В рамках исследования разработана модель прокладки трубопровода (в программном комплексе SolidWorks), произведены расчеты его напряженно-деформированного состояния (в программном комплексе ANSYS) и теплового воздействия на мерзлый грунт (в программном комплексе FROST 3D Universal). Установлено, что напряжения и перемещения, возникающие во время эксплуатации трубопровода, уложенного по предложенной конструктивной схеме, находятся в диапазоне допустимых значений, а его тепловое воздействие вызывает незначительное протаивание грунта и минимальные изменения температуры перекачки нефти. The improvement of technologies of underground pipeline construction in conditions of permafrost soils, providing for the minimization of the thermal effect of the pipeline on the soil during operation is an urgent scientific and technical task. The authors have developed a method for laying an underground pipeline that minimizes its thermal effect on the enclosing frozen soil and allows maintaining the temperature of the pumped oil during further operation without additional heating. The structural layout provides for laying the pipeline in an isolated trench using peat as insulation soil. As part of the study, a pipeline-laying model was developed (using the SolidWorks software package), calculations of its stress-strain state (in the ANSYS software package) and thermal effect on frozen soil (in the FROST 3D Universal software package) were performed. It has been determined that the stresses and displacements arising during the operation of the pipeline laid in accordance with the proposed structural layout are in the range of allowable values, and its thermal effect causes insignificant soil thawing and minimal changes in the oil pumping temperature.

Recommendations for management of burn patients in context of COVID-19 pandemic

It has been reported from china that burn centers have the highest risk of COVID-19 infection. The virus is highly contagious and damaging and mortality rate as high as 61.5% has been reported. Burn patients have low level of immunity, lack skin barrier and are prone to infections. Due to these facts, they have less ability to fight against the corona virus, so surgical practices for management of burn patients should be modified to prevent the spread of infection and decrease mortality. Keeping these facts in mind, we adopted certain changes in the protocols for management of burn patients at Rawalian burn center, Rawalpindi Pakistan. We are presenting new recommendations which were followed at the burn center during COVID-19 pandemic. These are the first ever recommendations from any burn center of Pakistan since the start of recent pandemic. With help of literature search we identified risk factors for infection during the course of treatment of burn patients. These recommendations include alterations in structural layout, administration procedures, burn patient care like the introduction of telemedicine, online appointment system and use of online messaging applications i.e., WhatsApp, staff training and strategies like online learning system to provide new knowledge regarding COVID-19 continuously. Issues of staff like over work, availability of personal protective equipment (PPEs), and their health-related anxiety and fear should be addressed properly for the prevention of burn out syndrome in them.

ADVERSARIAL OPEN DOMAIN ADAPTION FRAMEWORK (AODA): SKETCH-TO-PHOTO SYNTHESIS

This paper aims to demonstrate the efficiency of the Adversarial Open Domain Adaption framework for sketch-to-photo synthesis. The unsupervised open domain adaption for generating realistic photos from a hand-drawn sketch is challenging as there is no such sketch of that class for training data. The absence of learning supervision and the huge domain gap between both the freehand drawing and picture domains make it hard. We present an approach that learns both sketch-to-photo and photo-to-sketch generation to synthesise the missing freehand drawings from pictures. Due to the domain gap between synthetic sketches and genuine ones, the generator trained on false drawings may produce unsatisfactory results when dealing with drawings of lacking classes. To address this problem, we offer a simple but effective open-domain sampling and optimization method that “tricks” the generator into considering false drawings as genuine. Our approach generalises the learnt sketch-to-photo and photo-to-sketch mappings from in-domain input to open-domain categories. On the Scribble and SketchyCOCO datasets, we compared our technique to the most current competing methods. For many types of open-domain drawings, our model outperforms impressive results in synthesising accurate colour, substance, and retaining the structural layout.

Retrospective Modeling of a Large Paleo-Landslide Related to Deglaciation in the Sierra de Urbión, Cordillera Ibérica, Spain

Through a study of glacial geomorphology and retrospective modeling of the stability of the slopes, it has been possible to reconstruct and know the mechanism of the formation of a large landslide induced by the retreat of the glacier corresponding to the Picos de Urbión (Coordillera Ibérica, Spain) during the last glacial cycle. It is a rotational landslide of 150 Mm3 that involved a layer of lutites and clays of the Cameros Basin that outcropped on one of the slopes of the valley, and whose initial geometry was modified by the over-excavation of the glacier tongue, which reached 140 m in height. The breakage occurred when the support of the ice tongue was partially removed. The structural layout and high water table also contributed to the landslide. It is the first time that landslides associated with the deglaciations of the last glacial cycle have been retrospectively modeled, which may be of interest when applied to geomorphological sciences.

Mathematical model of turbofan engine weight estimation taking into account the engine configuration and size

The paper presents a new correlation-regression model of estimating the turbofan engine weight considering the effect of the engines design schemes and dimensions. The purpose of this study was to improve the efficiency of the conceptual design process for aircraft gas turbine engines. Information on 183 modern turbofan engines was gathered using the available sources: publications, official websites, reference books etc. The statistic information included the values of the total engine air flow, the total turbine inlet gas temperature, the overall pressure ratio and the bypass ratio, as well as information on the structural layout of each engine. The engines and the related statistics were classified according to their structural layout and size. Size classification was based on the value of the compressor outlet air flow through the gas generator given by the parameters behind the compressor. Depending on the value of this criterion, the engines were divided into three groups: small-sized, medium-sized gas turbine engines, and large gas turbine engines. In terms of the structural layout, all engines were divided into three groups: turbofan engines without a mixing chamber, engines with a mixing chamber and afterburning turbofan engines. Statistical factors of the improved weight model were found for the respective groups of engines, considering their design and size. The coefficients of the developed model were determined by minimizing the standard deviations. Regression analysis was carried out to assess the quality of the developed model. The relative average error of approximation of the developed model was 8%, the correlation coefficient was 0,99, and the standard deviation was 10,2%. The model was found to be relevant and reliable according to Fisher's test. The obtained model can be used to assess the engine weight at the stage of conceptual design and for its optimization as part of an aircraft.