This study investigates and compares the conceptualization of death euphemism in English and Arabic as embodied in various euphemistic metaphors using the Conceptual Metaphor Theory initiated by Johnson (1980, 2003). It has been found, based on 442 euphemistic expressions in both languages (192 from Arabic, and 250 from English) that both languages use 10 strikingly similar complex conceptual metaphors to mitigate the effect of death, emanating from blending primary metaphors with cultural assumptions. The two languages share the common human experience of avoiding mentioning death by means of using identical euphemistic conceptual metaphors; however, both languages differ as regards the emphasis, details and range of the complex metaphor. Evidence based on data analysis supports the view about the universality of euphemistic conceptual metaphors.

Cairene Arabic (CA) elects epenthesis as a strategy for adapting loanwords. This paper tackles the reasons why this occurs as well as the different aspects of vowel epenthesis within the framework of Optimality Theory (OT) (McCarthy and Prince, 1993;Prince and Smolensky, 1993) and the relevant literature. This research specifically focuses on loanwords introduced into CA from English. It is shown that OT neatly accounts for vowel epenthesis in loanwords in CA, proving that the attested optimal forms are the result of the conflict between faithfulness and markedness. It is also proven that loanwords are modified according to the productive phonological processes of CA i.e. LI constraints. The special case of s+obstruent blocking effect is discussed universally and with special reference to CA.

High precision control is desirable for future weapon systems. In this paper, several control design methodologies are applied to a weapon system to assess the applicability of each control design method and to characterize the achievable performance of the gun-turret system in precision control. The design objective of the gun-turret control system is to achieve a rapid and precise tracking response with respect to the turret motor command from the fire control system under the influences of disturbances, nonlinearities, and modeling uncertainties. A fuzzy scheme is proposed for control of multi-body, multi-input and multioutput nonlinear systems with joints represented by a gun turret-barrel model which consists of two subsystems: two motors driving two loads (turret and barrel) coupled by nonlinear dynamics. Fuzzy control schemes are employed for compensation and nonlinear feedback control laws are used for control of nonlinear dynamics. Fuzzy logic control (FLC) provides an effective means of capturing the approximate, inexact nature of the real world, and to address unexpected parameter variations and anomalies. Viewed in this perspective, the essential part of the FLC is a set of linguistic control rules related by the dual concepts of fuzzy implication and the compositional rule of inference. In essence, the FLC provides an algorithm which can convert the linguistic control strategy based on expert knowledge into an automatic control strategy. Accordingly, the design must be robust, adaptive, and, hopefully, intelligent in order to accommodate these uncertainties. Simulation results verify the desired system tracking performance.

According to the grammars of Arabic dialects illi only occurs following a definite head noun. However, based on fresh data from Brustad (2000), the relative marker ////' is also found to occur following an indefinite head noun in Egyptian, Moroccan, Syrian, and Kuwaiti Arabic. Brustad (2000) accounts for this new occurrence via the semantics of individuation; her solution seems to be relatively problematic and sometimes ad-hoc. Basically, I claim that a solution based on the hierarchy of individuation does not work. I further propose there are two phonologically identical but syntactically different Mi's: the first one generates for definiteness, and the other is only created by overgeneralized analogy.

In 2012, a plan to develop Stereotactic treatments using a Cyberknife was unveiled at the Hermitage Medical Clinic, Dublin. Due to planning restrictions the new facility had to be contained in the existing hospital's blue print with the only available location being an unused CT simulation room. The room design would be different from conventional radiotherapy bunkers due to the fact the Cyberknife can fire an unfiltered beam in any direction bar the roof (restriction of 22° above the horizontal). Therefore all walls must be primary barriers with the roof designed to protect against the large leakage radiation resulting from the high MU's used during the treatments. Space consideration indicated that concrete alone could not be used to restrict the radiation beam to acceptable limits. To this end a combination of steel, lead, normal and heavy concrete were used to meet the dose constraints established by the Irish licensing authorities.