Sam Shepard is considered as one of the modern American playwrights who combined the individual and the social in his plays to draw an image of a postmodern American society, and American family in particular by focusing on uniquely American aspects of culture. He is concerned with the individual in America rather than the institution. Shepard investigates, in almost all of his plays, the functions and dysfunctions of his characters, as well as the connections of individuals within the context of the family system and other social structures. The majority of his plays center on the struggle and conflict that occurs between father and son, husband and wife, and brother and brother as they strive for supremacy or for survival in a fractured society. This theme can be found at the heart of all of his works. In addition, his protagonists have a propensity to be cut off from the rest of their society and to experience a sense of disintegration as a result of living in a society that is being ravaged by war and the rise of capitalism. His protagonists typically awaken to the realization that this sense of destruction has shaped their lives and become the primary obstacle that prevents them from leading a normal life. This paper discusses Sam Shepard’s play States of Shock as an anti-war work in which the playwright portrays American individuals who are traumatized, physically and psychologically, by war that left them fragmented in their own society.
This study presents a practical method for solving fractional order delay variational problems. The fractional derivative is given in the Caputo sense. The suggested approach is based on the Laplace transform and the shifted Legendre polynomials by approximating the candidate function by the shifted Legendre series with unknown coefficients yet to be determined. The proposed method converts the fractional order delay variational problem into a set of (n + 1) algebraic equations, where the solution to the resultant equation provides us the unknown coefficients of the terminated series that have been utilized to approximate the solution to the considered variational problem. Illustrative examples are given to show that the recommended appro
... Show MoreThe modern steer-by-wire (SBW) systems represent a revolutionary departure from traditional automotive designs, replacing mechanical linkages with electronic control mechanisms. However, the integration of such cutting-edge technologies is not without its challenges, and one critical aspect that demands thorough consideration is the presence of nonlinear dynamics and communication network time delays. Therefore, to handle the tracking error caused by the challenge of time delays and to overcome the parameter uncertainties and external perturbations, a robust fast finite-time composite controller (FFTCC) is proposed for improving the performance and safety of the SBW systems in the present article. By lumping the uncertainties, parameter var
... Show MoreIn this paper, an adaptive active disturbance rejection control is newly designed for precise angular steering position tracking of the uncertain and nonlinear SBW system with time delay communications. The proposed adaptive active disturbance rejection control comprises the following two elements: (1) An adaptive extended state observer and (2) an adaptive state error feedback controller. The adaptive extended state observer with adaptive gains is employed for estimating the unmeasured velocity, acceleration, and compound disturbance which consists of system parameter uncertainties, nonlinearities, exterior disturbances, and time delay in which the observer gains are dynamically adjusted based on the estimation error to enhance est
... Show MoreThe purpose of this study is to develop and assess the effectiveness of exercises using heavy and hanging ropes for handball players, focusing on enhancing specific physical abilities and shooting accuracy. The research addresses the gap in training methodologies by comparing the effects of heavy rope exercises versus hanging rope exercises. An experimental design was used in two equal groups, besides pre-testing and post-testing. The study involved 16 players from the School of Handball for the season 2022–2023. The sample included 14 players, who were then randomly divided into two experimental groups of 7 each. The first group performed heavy rope exercises, while hanging rope exercises were included in the plan of the second group. Th
... Show MoreDesign of experiments (DOE) was made by Minitab software for the study of three factors used in the precipitation process of the Sodium Aluminate solution prepared from digestion of α-Al2O3 to determine the optimum conditions to a produce Boehmite which is used in production of ɤ-Al2O3 during drying and calcination processes, the factors are; the temperature of the sodium aluminate solution, concentration of HCl acid added for the precipitation and the pH of the solution at which the precipitation was ended. The design of the experiments leads to 18 experiments.
The results show that the optimum conditions for the precipitation of the sodium aluminate solution which
... Show MoreIn this work , an effective procedure of Box-Behnken based-ANN (Artificial Neural Network) and GA (Genetic Algorithm) has been utilized for finding the optimum conditions of wt.% of doping elements (Ce,Y, and Ge) doped-aluminizing-chromizing of Incoloy 800H . ANN and Box-Behnken design method have been implanted for minimizing hot corrosion rate kp (10-12g2.cm-4.s-1) in Incoloy 800H at 900oC . ANN was used for estimating the predicted values of hot corrosion rate kp (10-12g2.cm-4.s-1) . The optimal wt.% of doping elements combination to obtain minimum hot corrosion rate was calculated using genetic alg
... Show MoreAbstractIn the field of construction materials the glass reinforced mortar and Styrene Butadiene mortar are modern composite materials. This study experimentally investigated the effect of addition of randomly dispersed glass fibers and layered glass fibers on density and compressive strength of mortar with and without the presence of Styrene Butadiene Rubber (SBR). Mixtures of 1:2 cement/sand ratio and 0.5 water/cement ratio were prepared for making mortar. The glass fibers were added by two manners, layers and random with weight percentages of (0.54, 0.76, 1.1 and 1.42). The specimens were divided into two series: glass-fiber reinforced mortar without SBR and glass-fiber reinforced mortar with 7% SBR of mixture water. All s
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In this work, (CdO)1-x (CoO)x thin films were prepared on glass slides by laser-induced plasma using Nd:YAG laser with (λ=1064 nm) and duration (9 ns) at different laser energies (200-500 mJ) with ratio (x=0.5), The influence of laser energy on structural and optical properties has been studied. XRD patterns show the films have a structure of polycrystalline wurtzite. As for AFM tests results for the topography of the surface of the film, where the results showed that the grain size and the average roughness increase with increasing laser energy. The optical properties of all films were also studied and the results showed that the absorption coefficient for within the wavelength range (280-1100 nm), The value of the optical power gap fo
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