Search results for: construction hazard

Authors: Kaowen Grace Chang

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Urban green spaces play an important role in promoting wellbeing through the sense of relaxation for urban residents. Among many designing factors, what the principal ones that could effectively influence people’s sense of relaxation? And, what are the relationship between the sense of relaxation and those factors? Regarding those questions, there is still little evidence for sufficient support. Therefore, the purpose of this study, based on individual responses to environmental information, is to investigate the landscape factors that relate to well-being through the sense of relaxation in mixed-use urban environments. We conducted the experimental design and model construction utilizing choice-based conjoint analysis to test the factors of plant arrangement pattern, plant trimming condition, the distance to visible automobile, the number of landmark objects, and the depth of view. Through the operation of balanced fractional orthogonal design, the goal is to know the relationship between the sense of relaxation and different designs. In a result, the three factors of plant trimming condition, the distance to visible automobile, and the depth of view shed are significantly effective to the sense of relaxation. The stronger magnitude of maintenance and trimming, the further distance to visible automobiles, and deeper view shed that allow the users to see further scenes could significantly promote green space users’ sense of relaxation in urban green spaces.

Keywords: urban green space, landscape planning and design, sense of relaxation, choice model

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Authors: Prasanthi Malapati, R. Reshma, Vijay Soni, Perumal Yogeeswari, Dharmarajan Sriram

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In the present study, we attempted to develop Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) inhibitors by exploring the pharmaceutically underexploited enzyme targets which are majorly involved in cell wall biosynthesis of mycobacteria. For this purpose, glutamate racemase (coded by MurI gene) was selected. This enzyme racemize L-glutamate to D-glutamate required for the construction of peptidoglycan in the bacterial cell wall synthesis process. Furthermore this enzyme is neither expressed nor its product, D-glutamate is normally found in mammals, and hence designing inhibitors against this enzyme will not affect the host system as well act as potential antitubercular drugs. A library of BITS in house compounds were screened against Mtb MurI enzyme. Based on docking score, interactions and synthetic feasibility one hit lead was identified. Further optimization of lead was attempted and its derivatives were synthesized. Forty eight derivatives of 2-phenylbenzo[d]oxazole and 2-phenylbenzo[d]thiazole were synthesized and evaluated for Mtb MurI inhibition study, in vitro activities against Mtb, cytotoxicity against RAW 264.7 cell line. Chemical derivatization of the lead resulted in compounds NR-1213 AND NR-1124 as the potent M. tuberculosis glutamate racemase inhibitors with IC50 of 4-5µM which are remarkable and were found to be non-cytotoxic. Molecular dynamics, dormant models and cardiotoxicity studies of the most active molecules are in process.

Keywords: cell wall biosynthesis, dormancy, glutamate racemase, tuberculosis

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Authors: James Brown, Stella Kortekaas, Ian Finnie, George Zhang, Christine Devine, Neil Healy

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The use of GIS as an analysis tool for engineering decision making is now best practice in the offshore industry. GIS enables multidisciplinary data integration, analysis and visualisation which allows the presentation of large and intricate datasets in a simple map-interface accessible to all project stakeholders. Presenting integrated geoscience and geotechnical data in GIS enables decision makers to be well-informed. This paper is a successful case study of how GIS spatial analysis techniques were applied to help select the most favourable pipeline route. Routing a pipeline through any natural environment has numerous obstacles, whether they be topographical, geological, engineering or financial. Where the pipeline is subjected to external hydrostatic water pressure and is carrying pressurised hydrocarbons, the requirement to safely route the pipeline through hazardous terrain becomes absolutely paramount. This study illustrates how the application of modern, GIS-based pipeline routing techniques enabled the identification of a single most-favourable pipeline route crossing of a challenging seabed terrain. Conventional approaches to pipeline route determination focus on manual avoidance of primary constraints whilst endeavouring to minimise route length. Such an approach is qualitative, subjective and is liable to bias towards the discipline and expertise that is involved in the routing process. For very short routes traversing benign seabed topography in shallow water this approach may be sufficient, but for deepwater geohazardous sites, the need for an automated, multi-criteria, and quantitative approach is essential. This study combined multiple routing constraints using modern least-cost-routing algorithms deployed in GIS, hitherto unachievable with conventional approaches. The least-cost-routing procedure begins with the assignment of geocost across the study area. Geocost is defined as a numerical penalty score representing hazard posed by each routing constraint (e.g. slope angle, rugosity, vulnerability to debris flows) to the pipeline. All geocosted routing constraints are combined to generate a composite geocost map that is used to compute the least geocost route between two defined terminals. The analyses were applied to select the most favourable pipeline route for a potential gas development in deep water. The study area is geologically complex with a series of incised, potentially active, canyons carved into a steep escarpment, with evidence of extensive debris flows. A similar debris flow in the future could cause significant damage to a poorly-placed pipeline. Protruding inter-canyon spurs offer lower-gradient options for ascending an escarpment but the vulnerability of periodic failure of these spurs is not well understood. Close collaboration between geoscientists, pipeline engineers, geotechnical engineers and of course the gas export pipeline operator guided the analyses and assignment of geocosts. Shorter route length, less severe slope angles, and geohazard avoidance were the primary drivers in identifying the most favourable route.

Keywords: geocost, geohazard, pipeline route determination, pipeline route optimisation, spatial analysis

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Authors: Abdoulaye Diop, Nahid Emad, Thierry Winter, Mohamed Hilia

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Data assets protection is a crucial issue in the cybersecurity field. Companies use logical access control tools to vault their information assets and protect them against external threats, but they lack solutions to counter insider threats. Nowadays, insider threats are the most significant concern of security analysts. They are mainly individuals with legitimate access to companies information systems, which use their rights with malicious intents. In several fields, behavior anomaly detection is the method used by cyber specialists to counter the threats of user malicious activities effectively. In this paper, we present the step toward the construction of a user and entity behavior analysis framework by proposing a behavior anomaly detection model. This model combines machine learning classification techniques and graph-based methods, relying on linear algebra and parallel computing techniques. We show the utility of an ensemble learning approach in this context. We present some detection methods tests results on an representative access control dataset. The use of some explored classifiers gives results up to 99% of accuracy.

Keywords: cybersecurity, data protection, access control, insider threat, user behavior analysis, ensemble learning, high performance computing

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Authors: Hamed Sadeghi, Pouya A. Panahi, Hamed Nasiri, Mohammad Sadeghi

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Collapsible soils like loess comprise an important category of problematic soils for construction purposes and sustainable development. As a result, research on both geological and geotechnical aspects of this type of soil have been in progress for decades. However, considerable natural variability in physical properties of in-situ loess strata even in a single block sample challenges the fundamental laboratory investigations. The reason behind this is that it is somehow impossible to remove the effect of a specific factor like void ratio from fair comparisons to come with a reliable conclusion. In order to cope with this limitation, two types of artificially made dispersive and calcareous loess are introduced which can be easily reproduced in any soil mechanics laboratory provided that all its compositions are known and controlled. The collapse potential is explored for a variety of soil water salinity and lime content and comparisons are made against the natural soil behavior. Trends are reported for the influence of pore water salinity on collapse potential under different osmotic flow conditions. The most important advantage of artificial loess is the ease of controlling cementing agent content like calcite or dispersive potential for studying their influence on mechanical soil behavior.

Keywords: artificial loess, unsaturated soils, collapse potential, dispersive clays, laboratory tests

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Authors: Han Yan, Jieren Luo, Qiuhui Yan, Xiaoqing Li

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The thermal conductivity of porous materials is closely related to the thermal and moisture environment and the overall energy consumption of the building. The study of thermal conductivity of porous materials has great significance for the realization of low energy consumption building and economic construction building. Based on the study of effective thermal conductivity of porous materials at home and abroad, the thermal conductivity under a variety of different density of polystyrene board (EPS), plastic extruded board (XPS) and polyurethane (PU) and phenolic resin (PF) in wet state through theoretical analysis and experimental research has been studied. Initially, the moisture absorption and desorption properties of specimens had been discussed under different density, which led a result indicates the moisture absorption of four porous materials all have three stages, fast, stable and gentle. For the moisture desorption, there are two types. One is the existence of the rapid phase of the stage, such as XPS board, PU board. The other one does not have the fast desorption, instead, it is more stabilized, such as XPS board, PF board. Furthermore, the relationship between water content and thermal conductivity of porous materials had been studied and fitted, which figured out that in the wake of the increasing water content, the thermal conductivity of porous material is continually improving. At the same time, this result also shows, in different density, when the same kind of materials decreases, the saturated moisture content increases. Finally, the moisture absorption and desorption properties of the four kinds of materials are compared comprehensively, and it turned out that the heat preservation performance of PU board is the best, followed by EPS board, XPS board, PF board.

Keywords: porous materials, thermal conductivity, moisture content, transient hot-wire method

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Authors: Didem Aslantaş

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In this study, the reforms carried out by the Justice and Development Party, which came to power in 2002, and how the foreign policy understanding it transformed reflected on the relations with Syria will be analyzed from the social constructivist theory. Contrary to the increasing security concerns of the states after the September 11 attacks, the main problem of the research is how the relations between Syria and Turkey developed and how they progressed in non-security dimensions. In order to find an answer to this question, the basic assumptions of the constructivist theory will be used. Since there is a limited number of studies in the literature, a comparative analysis of the Adana Consensus and the Cooperation Agreement between the Republic of Turkey and the Syrian Arab Republic, and the Joint Cooperation Agreement Against Terrorism and Terrorist Organizations will be included. In order to answer the main problem of the research and to support the arguments, document and archive scanning methods from qualitative research methods will be used. In the first part of the study, what the social constructivist theory is and its basic assumptions are explained, while in the second part, Turkey-Syria relations between 2002-2011 are included. In the third and last part, the relations between the two countries will be tried to be read through social constructivism by referring to the foreign policy features of the Ak Party period.

Keywords: Social Constructivist Theory, foreign policy analysis, Justice and Development Party, Syria

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Authors: Mitchell Gallagher

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This investigation explores the relationship between Chinese government ministers' tweets and publicized anti-US propaganda political cartoons by Chinese state media. Defining "anti-US" tweets as expressions with negative impressions about the United States, its policies, or cultural values, the study considers their context-dependent nature. Analyzing social media's growing role, this research probes the Chinese government's attitudes toward the United States. While China traditionally adhered to a non-interference stance, instances of verbal and visual retorts occurred, driven by efforts to enhance soft power and counter unfavorable portrayals. To navigate global challenges, China embraced proactive image construction, utilizing political cartoons as a messaging tool. As Sino-American political relations continue deteriorating, it has become increasingly commonplace for Chinese officials to circulate anti-US messages and negative impressions of the United States via tweets. The present study is committed to inspecting the nature and frequency of political cartoons casting the United States in an unfavorable light, with the aim of gaining a comprehensive understanding the degree to which the Chinese government and state-affiliated media are aligned in their corresponding messaging.

Keywords: China, political cartoons, propaganda, twitter, social media

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Authors: Ahmed Tafraoui, Gilles Escadeillas, Thierry Vidal

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The southern Algeria is known for its huge sand dunes that cover part of its territory (Sahara). This sand has features that allow a glimpse of a recovery in the construction field in the form of Ultra High Performance Concrete (UHPC). This type of concrete using a large amount of silica fume, ultra fine addition that gives very high performance but is also relatively rare and expensive. Replacing it with another addition to equivalent properties, such as metakaolin, can also be considered. The objective of this study is to both enhance the sand dunes of Erg south west western Algeria but also reduce manufacturing costs of Ultra High Performance Concrete to incorporating metakaolin to instead of silica fume. Performances to determine mechanical performance are instantaneous, compression and bending. Initially, we characterized the Algerian sand dune. Then, we have to find a formulation of UHPC, adequate in terms of implementation and to replace silica fume by metakaolin. Finally, we studied the actual value of the sand dune. Concrete obtained have very high mechanical performance, up to a compressive strength of 250 MPa, a tensile strength of 45 MPa by bending with the method of heat treatment. This study shows that the enhancement of dune sand studied is quite possible in UHPC, and in particular UHPC bundles and the replacement of silica fume by metakaolin do not alter the properties of these concretes.

Keywords: Ultra High Performance Concrete, sand dune, formulations, silica fume, metakaolin, strength

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Authors: Arkadiusz Urzędowski, Dorota Wójcicka-Migasiuk, Andrzej Sachajdak, Magdalena Paśnikowska-Łukaszuk

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Due to the impact of climate changes and inevitability to reduce greenhouse gases, the need to use low-carbon and sustainable construction has increased. In this work, it is investigated how texture of the surface building materials and radiative heat transfer phenomenon in flat multilayer can be correlated. Attempts to test the surface emissivity are taken however, the trustworthiness of measurement results remains a concern since sensor size and thickness are common problems. This paper presents an experimental method to studies surface emissivity with use self constructed thermal sensors and thermal imaging technique. The surface of building materials was modified by mechanical and chemical treatment affecting the reduction of the emissivity. For testing the shaping surface of materials and mapping its three-dimensional structure, scanning profilometry were used in a laboratory. By comparing the results of laboratory tests and performed analysis of 3D computer fluid dynamics software, it can be shown that a change in the surface coverage of materials affects the heat transport by radiation between layers. Motivated by recent advancements in variational inference, this publication evaluates the potential use a dedicated data processing approach, and properly constructed temperature sensors, the influence of the surface emissivity on the phenomenon of radiation and heat transport in the entire partition can be determined.

Keywords: heat transfer, surface roughness, surface emissivity, radiation

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Authors: Yoftahe Nigussie Worku

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This study focused on designing a Fire tube boiler to generate saturated steam with a 2000kg/h capacity at a 12bar design pressure. The primary project goal is to achieve efficient steam production while minimizing costs. This involves selecting suitable materials for component parts, employing cost-effective construction methods, and optimizing various parameters. The analysis phase employs iterative processes and relevant formulas to determine key design parameters. This includes optimizing the diameter of tubes for overall heat transfer coefficient, considering a two-pass configuration due to tube and shell size, and using heavy oil fuel no.6 with specific heating values. The designed boiler consumes 140.37kg/hr of fuel, producing 1610kw of heat at an efficiency of 85.25%. The fluid flow is configured as cross flow, leveraging its inherent advantages. The tube arrangement involves welding the tubes inside the shell, which is connected to the tube sheet using a combination of gaskets and welding. The design of the shell adheres to the European Standard code for pressure vessels, accounting for weight and supplementary accessories and providing detailed drawings for components like lifting lugs, openings, ends, manholes, and supports.

Keywords: efficiency, coefficient, saturated steam, fire tube

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Authors: Tshilenge Kabongo, John Kabuba

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The distillery wastewater has become major issues in sanitation sectors. One of the solutions to overcome this sewage is to install the Wastewater Treatment Plant. Economic analysis is fundamentally required for its viability. Integrated anaerobic digestion and advanced oxidation (AD-AOP) in the treatment of distillery wastewater (DWW), anaerobic digestion achieved sufficient biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) and chemical oxygen demand (COD) removals of 95% and 75%, respectively, and methane production of 0.292 L/g COD removed at an organic loading rate of 15 kg COD/m3/d. However, a considerable amount of biorecalcitrant compounds still existed in the anaerobically treated effluent, contributing to a residual COD of 4.5 g/L and an intense dark brown color. To remove the biorecalcitrant color and COD, ozonation, which is an AOP, was introduced as a post-treatment method to AD. Ozonation is a highly competitive treatment technique that can be easily applied to remove the biorecalcitrant compounds, including color, and turbidity. In the ozonation process carried out for an hour, more than 80% of the color was removed at an ozone dose of 45 mg O3/L/min (corresponding to 1.8 g O3/g COD). Thus, integrating AD with the AOP can be effective for organic load and color reductions during the treatment of DWW. The deliverable established the best configuration of the AD-AOP system, where DWW is first subjected to AD followed by AOP post-treatment. However, for establishing the feasibility of the industrial application of the integrated system, it is necessary to carry out the economic analysis. This may help the starting point of the wastewater treatment plant construction and its operation and maintenance costs.

Keywords: distillery wastewater, economic analysis, integrated anaerobic digestion, ozonolysis, treatment

Procedia PDF Downloads 133

Authors: Eva Stefanovska, Estefania Cuenca, Aleksandra Momirov, Monika Fidanchevska, Liberato Ferrara, Emilija Fidanchevski

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Silica is used in construction materials as a part of natural raw materials or as an additive in powder form (micro and nano dimensions). SiO₂ particles in cement act as centers of nucleation, as a filler or as pozzolan material. In this regard, silica improves the microstructure of cementitious composites, increases the mechanical properties, and finally also results into improved durability of the final products. Improved properties of cementitious composites may lead to better structural efficiency, which, together with increased durability, results into increased sustainability signature of structures made with this kind of materials. The aim of the present work was to investigate the influence of silica on the properties of cement. Fly ash (as received and mechanically activated) and synthetized silica (sol-gel method using TEOS as precursor) was used in the investigation as source of silica. Four types of cement mixtures were investigated (reference cement paste, cement paste with addition of 15wt.% as-received fly ash, cement paste with 15 wt.% mechanically activated fly ash and cement paste with 14wt.% mechanically activated fly ash and 1 wt.% silica). The influence of silica on setting time and mechanical properties (2, 7 and 28 days) was followed. As a matter of fact it will be shown that cement paste with composition 85 wt. % cement, 14 wt.% mechanically activated fly ash and 1 wt. % SiO₂ obtained by the sol-gel method was the best performing one, with increased compressive and flexure strength by 9 and 10 % respectively, as compared to the reference mixture. Acknowledgements: 'COST Action CA15202, www.sarcos.eng.cam.ac.uk'

Keywords: cement, fly ash, mechanical properties, silica, sol-gel

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Authors: Magda Posani, Maria Do Rosario Veiga, Vasco Peixoto De Freitas

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The presented research considers the hygrothermal data acquired in the municipal library of Porto. The library is housed in an XVIII century convent and, among all the rooms in the construction, one, in particular, was chosen for the monitoring campaign because of the presence of a great number of historic books. Temperature and relative humidity, as well as CO₂ concentration, were measured for six consecutive months, in the period December 24th - June 24th. The indoor environment of the building is controlled with a heating and cooling system that is turned on only during the opening hours of the library. The ventilation rate is low because the windows are kept closed, and there is no forced ventilation. The micro-climate is analyzed in terms of users’ comfort and degradation risks for historic books and valuable building surfaces. Through a comparison between indoor and outdoor measured hygrothermal data, indoor relative humidity appears very stable. The influence of the hygroscopicity of books on the stabilization of indoor relative humidity is therefore investigated in detail. The paper finally discusses the benefits given by the presence of historic books in libraries with intermittent heating and cooling. The possibility of obtaining a comfortable and stable indoor climate with low use of HVAC systems in these conditions, while avoiding degradation risks for books and historic building components, is further debated.

Keywords: books, historic buildings, hygroscopicity, relative humidity

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Authors: Carmen Viñas Arrebola, Antonio Rodriguez Sanchez, Sheila Varela Lujan, Mariano Gonzalez Cortina, Cesar Porras Amores

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The research group TEMA from the School of Building (UPM) is working in the line of energy efficiency and comfort in building. The need to reduce energy consumption in the building construction implies designing new constructive systems. These systems help to reduce both consumption and energy losses in order to achieve adequate thermal comfort for people in any type of building. In existing buildings the best option is the rehabilitation focused on thermal insulation. The aim of this paper is to design, monitor and analyze the first results of thermal behavior of the ETICS system in façades. This retrofitting solution consists of adding thermal insulation on the outside of the building, helping to create a continuous envelope on the façades. The analysis is done by comparing a rehabilitated part of the building with ETICS system and another part which has not been rehabilitated, and it is taken as reference. Both of them have the same characteristics. Temperature measurements were taken with type K thermocouples according to the previous design of the monitoring and in the same period of time. The pilot building of the study is situated in Benimamet Street, in San Cristobal de Los Ángeles, in the south of Madrid. It was built in the late 50s. The 51st entrance hall, which is restored, and the 47th entrance hall, in original conditions, have been studied.

Keywords: comfort in building, energy efficiency in building, ETICS, thermal properties

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Authors: Xiaoping Zhang, Fengying Yan

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The implementation of the 'Urban Design Management Measures' requires that the master urban design should aim at creating a livable urban space. However, to our best knowledge, the existing researches and practices of master urban design not only focus less on the livable space but also face a number of problems such as paying more attention to the image of the city, ignoring the people-oriented and lacking dynamic continuity. In order to make the master urban design can better guide the construction of city. Firstly, the paper proposes the livable city hierarchy system to meet the needs of different groups of people and then constructs the framework of livable goal-oriented master urban design based on the theory of livable content and the ideological origin of people-oriented. Secondly, the paper takes the master urban design practice of Zibo as a sample and puts forward the design strategy of strengthening the pattern, improve the quality of space, shape the feature, and establish a series of action plans based on the strategy of urban space development. Finally, the paper explores the method system of livable goal-oriented master urban design from the aspects of safety pattern, morphology pattern, neighborhood scale, open space, street space, public interface, style feature, public participation and action plans.

Keywords: livable, master urban design, public participation, zibo city

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Authors: Vojko Kilar, Boris Azinović, David Koren

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Recently, an increasing trend of passive and low-energy buildings transferring form non earthquake-prone to earthquake-prone regions has thrown out the question about the seismic safety of such buildings. The paper describes the most commonly used thermal insulating materials and the special details, which could be critical from the point of view of earthquake resistance. The most critical appeared to be the cases of buildings founded on the RC foundation slab lying on a thermal insulation (TI) layer made of extruded polystyrene (XPS). It was pointed out that in such cases the seismic response of such buildings might differ to response of their fixed based counterparts. The main parameters that need special designers’ attention are: the building’s lateral top displacement, the ductility demand of the superstructure, the foundation friction coefficient demand, the maximum compressive stress in the TI layer and the percentage of the uplifted foundation. The analyses have shown that the potentially negative influences of inserting the TI under the foundation slab could be expected only for slender high-rise buildings subjected to severe earthquakes. Oppositely it was demonstrated for the foundation friction coefficient demand which could exceed the capacity value yet in the case of low-rise buildings subjected to moderate earthquakes. Some suggestions to prevent the horizontal shifts are also given.

Keywords: earthquake response, extruded polystyrene (XPS), low-energy buildings, foundations on thermal insulation layer

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Authors: M. Eckert, M. Oliveira, A. Bettencourt Ribeiro

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The intensive use of natural aggregate, near the towns, associated to the increase of the global population, leads to its depletion and increases the transport distances. The uncontrolled deposition of construction and demolition waste in landfills and city outskirts, causes pollution and take up space for noblest purposes. The main problem of recycled aggregate lies in its high water absorption, what is due to the porosity of the materials which constitute this type of aggregate. When the aggregates are dry, water flows from the inside to the engaging cement paste matrix, and when they are saturated an inverse process occurs. This water flow breaks the aggregate-cement paste bonds and the greater water concentration, in the inter-facial transition zone, degrades the concrete properties in its fresh and hardened state. Based on the water absorption over time, it was optimized an staged mixing method, to regulate the said flow and manufacture recycled aggregate concrete with levels of work-ability, strength and shrinkage equivalent to those of conventional concrete.The physical, mechanical and geometrical properties of the aggregates where related to the properties of concrete in its fresh and hardened state. Three types of commercial recycled aggregates and two types of natural aggregates where evaluated. Six compositions with different percentages of recycled coarse aggregate where tested.

Keywords: recycled aggregate, water absorption, interfacial transition zone, compressive-strength, shrinkage

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Authors: Priya Pawar, Rithika Susan Thomas, Emmanuel Blonkowski

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Due to the solar geometry of Singapore, which lay within the geographical classification of equatorial tropics, there is a great deal of thermal energy transfer to the inside of the buildings. With changing face of economic development of cities like Singapore, more and more buildings are designed to be lightweight using transparent construction materials such as glass. Increased demand for energy efficiency and reduced cooling load demands make it important for building designer and operators to adopt new and non-invasive technologies to achieve building energy efficiency targets. A real time performance evaluation study was undertaken at School of Art Design and Media (SADM), Singapore, to determine the efficiency potential of a new generation solar insulation film. The building has a window to wall ratio (WWR) of 100% and is fitted with high performance (low emissivity) double glazed units. The empirical data collected was then used to calibrate a computerized simulation model to understand the annual energy consumption based on existing conditions (baseline performance). It was found that the correlations of various parameters such as solar irradiance, solar heat flux, and outdoor air-temperatures quantification are significantly important to determine the cooling load during a particular period of testing.

Keywords: solar insulation film, building energy efficiency, tropics, cooling load

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Authors: Raja Al-Khalili

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Traveling abroad for British citizens in the eighteenth century was usually performed for two reasons. The first major form was for administering the expanding realm of the British Empire and its need for officials in governing the natives and facilitating the work of business companies. The other form of travel was for pleasure and involved a manifestation of wealth. This form of travel was a prelude for the modern industry of tourism and usually involved a tour of Europe and the Mediterranean. In both forms of travel the British encountered a myriad of cultures. Travel had fostered a sense of pride and confirmed an ethnocentric view of British superiority, but it also brought a critical self-examination of belonging to a colonial empire that thrives on the weaknesses of other nations. Women writers in particular have sought in the travels a kind of self-exploration of the nature of social patriarchy in a diversity of cultures. Both Lady Elizabeth Craven in A Journey through the Crimea to Constantinople (1789) and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in Embassy Letters (1716-1718) have observed the culture of the Ottomans and then pursued to reflect on the social role of women in England.

Keywords: travel writing, Elizabeth Craven, Lady Mary Wortley, patriarchy

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Authors: Avadhoot Bhosale, Robin Davis P., Pradip Sarkar

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The seismic performance of buildings with irregular distribution of mass, stiffness and strength along the height may be significantly different from that of regular buildings with masonry infill. Masonry infilled reinforced concrete (RC) frames are very common structural forms used for multi-storey building construction. These structures are found to perform better in past earthquakes owing to additional strength, stiffness and energy dissipation in the infill walls. The seismic performance of a building depends on the variation of material, structural and geometrical properties. The sensitivity of these properties affects the seismic response of the building. The main objective of the sensitivity analysis is to found out the most sensitive parameter that affects the response of the building. This paper presents a sensitivity analysis by considering 5% and 95% probability value of random variable in the infills characteristics, trying to obtain a reasonable range of results representing a wide number of possible situations that can be met in practice by using pushover analysis. The results show that the strength-related variation values of concrete and masonry, with the exception of tensile strength of the concrete, have shown a significant effect on the structural performance and that this effect increases with the progress of damage condition for the concrete. The seismic risk assessments of the selected frames are expressed in terms of reliability index.

Keywords: fragility curve, sensitivity analysis, reliability index, RC frames

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Authors: Hosein I. Hosein, Ragab Azzam, Ahmed M. S. Menshawy, Sherin Rouby, Khaled Hendy, Ayman Mahrous, Hany Hussien

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Brucellosis is a highly contagious bacterial zoonotic disease of a worldwide spread and has different names; Infectious or enzootic abortion and Bang's disease in animals; and Mediterranean or Malta fever, Undulant Fever and Rock fever in humans. It is caused by the different species of genus Brucella which is a Gram-negative, aerobic, non-spore forming, facultative intracellular bacterium. Brucella affects a wide range of mammals including bovines, small ruminants, pigs, equines, rodents, marine mammals as well as human resulting in serious economic losses in animal populations. In human, Brucella causes a severe illness representing a great public health problem. The disease was reported in Egypt for the first time in 1939; since then the disease remained endemic at high levels among cattle, buffalo, sheep and goat and is still representing a public health hazard. The annual economic losses due to brucellosis were estimated to be about 60 million Egyptian pounds yearly, but actual estimates are still missing despite almost 30 years of implementation of the Egyptian control programme. Despite being the gold standard, bacterial isolation has been reported to show poor sensitivity for samples with low-level of Brucella and is impractical for regular screening of large populations. Thus, serological tests still remain the corner stone for routine diagnosis of brucellosis, especially in developing countries. In the present study, a total of 1533 cows (256 from Beni-Suef Governorate, 445 from Al-Fayoum Governorate and 832 from Damietta Governorate), were employed for estimation of relative sensitivity, relative specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value of buffered acidified plate antigen test (BPAT), rose bengal test (RBT) and complement fixation test (CFT). The overall seroprevalence of brucellosis revealed (19.63%). Relative sensitivity, relative specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value of BPAT,RBT and CFT were estimated as, (96.27 %, 96.76 %, 87.65 % and 99.10 %), (93.42 %, 96.27 %, 90.16 % and 98.35%) and (89.30 %, 98.60 %, 94.35 %and 97.24 %) respectively. BPAT showed the highest sensitivity among the three employed serological tests. RBT was less specific than BPAT. CFT showed the least sensitivity 89.30 % among the three employed serological tests but showed the highest specificity. Different tissues specimens of 22 seropositive cows (spleen, retropharyngeal udder, and supra-mammary lymph nodes) were subjected for bacteriological studies for isolation and identification of Brucella organisms. Brucella melitensis biovar 3 could be recovered from 12 (54.55%) cows. Bacteriological examinations failed to classify 10 cases (45.45%) and were culture negative. Bruce-ladder PCR was carried out for molecular identification of the 12 Brucella isolates at the species level. Three fragments of 587 bp, 1071 bp and 1682 bp sizes were amplified indicating Brucella melitensis. The results indicated the importance of using several procedures to overcome the problem of escaping of some infected animals from diagnosis.Bruce-ladder PCR is an important tool for diagnosis and epidemiologic studies, providing relevant information for identification of Brucella spp.

Keywords: brucellosis, relative sensitivity, relative specificity, Bruce-ladder, Egypt

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Authors: R. E. Fat-Helbary, A. A. Abdel-latief, M. S. Arfa, Alaa Mostafa

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The Egyptian Government proposed a general plan, aiming at constructing new settlements for Nubian in south Aswan in different places around Nasser Lake, one of these settlements in Kurkur area. The Nubian habitations in Wadi Kurkur are located around 30 km southwest of Aswan City. This area are affecting by near distance earthquakes from Kalabsha faults system. The shallow seismic refraction technique was conducted at the study area, to evaluate the soil and rock material quality and geotechnical parameters, in addition to the detection of the subsurface ground model under the study area. The P and S-wave velocities were calculated. The surface layer has P-wave, velocity ranges from 900 m/sec to 1625 m/sec and S-wave velocity ranges from 650 m/sec to 1400 m/sec. On the other hand the bedrock has P-wave velocity ranges from 1300 m/sec to 1980 m/sec and S-wave velocity ranges from 1050 m/sec to1725 m/sec. Measuring Vp and Vs velocities together with bulk density are calculated and used to extract the mechanical properties and geotechnical parameters of the foundation material at the study area. Output of this study is very important for solving the problems, which associated with the construction of various civil engineering purposes, for land use planning and for earthquakes resistant structure design.

Keywords: shallow seismic refraction technique, Kurkur area, p and s-wave velocities, geotechnical parameters, bulk density, Kalabsha faults

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Authors: Kinga Wieczorek, Elzbieta Kukier, Remigiusz Pomykala, Beata Lachtara, Renata Szewczyk, Krzysztof Kwiatek, Jacek Osek

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The MICRORISK project (Research cooperation in assessment of microbiological hazard and risk in the food chain) was funded by the European Commission under the FP7 PEOPLE 2012 IRSES call within the International Research Staff Exchange Scheme of Marie Curie Action and realized during years from 2014 to 2015. The main aim of the project was to establish a cooperation between the European Union (EU) and the third State in the area important from the public health point of view. The following organizations have been engaged in the activity: National Veterinary Research Institute (NVRI) in Pulawy, Poland (coordinator), French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety (ANSES) in Maisons Alfort, France, National Scientific Center Institute of Experimental and Clinical Veterinary Medicine (NSC IECVM), Kharkov and State Scientific and Research Institute of Laboratory Diagnostics and Veterinary and Sanitary Expertise (SSRILDVSE) Kijev Ukraine. The results of the project showed that Ukraine used microbiological criteria in accordance with Commission Regulation (EC) No 2073/2005 of 15 November 2005 on microbiological criteria for foodstuffs. Compliance concerns both the criteria applicable at the stage of food safety (retail trade), as well as evaluation criteria and process hygiene in food production. In this case, the Ukrainian legislation also provides application of the criteria that do not have counterparts in the food law of the European Union, and are based on the provisions of Ukrainian law. Partial coherence of the Ukrainian and EU legal requirements in terms of microbiological criteria for food and feed concerns microbiological parameters such as total plate count, coliforms, coagulase-positive Staphylococcus spp., including S. aureus. Analysis of laboratory methods used for microbiological hazards control in food production chain has shown that most methods used in the EU are well-known by Ukrainian partners, and many of them are routinely applied as the only standards in the laboratory practice or simultaneously used with Ukrainian methods. The area without any legislation, where the EU regulation and analytical methods should be implemented is the area of Shiga toxin producing E. coli, including E. coli O157 and staphylococcal enterotoxin detection. During the project, the analysis of the existing Ukrainian and EU data concerning the prevalence of the most important food-borne pathogens on different stages of food production chain was performed. Particularly, prevalence of Salmonella spp., Campylobacter spp., L. monocytogenes as well as clostridia was examined. The analysis showed that poultry meat still appears to be the most important food-borne source of Campylobacter and Salmonella in the UE. On the other hand, L. monocytogenes were seldom detected above the legal safety limit (100 cfu/g) among the EU countries. Moreover, the analysis revealed the lack of comprehensive data regarding the prevalence of the most important food-borne pathogens in Ukraine. The results of the MICRORISK project are networking activities among researches originations participating in the tasks will help with a better recognition of each other regarding very important, from the public health point of view areas such as microbiological hazards in the food production chain and finally will help to improve food quality and safety for consumers.

Keywords: cooperation, European Union, food chain safety, food law, microbiological risk, Microrisk, Poland, Ukraine

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Authors: Mahmoud F. Awad-Allah, Mohammed Rabeih, Eman Abdel Baseer

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Soft to very soft soil deposits are widely speared in some areas of Egypt such as East Port Said, Damietta, Kafr El-Sheik, Alexandria, etc. The construction projects in these areas have faced the challenge of the presence of extended deep layers of soft and very soft clays which reach to depths of 40 to 60 m from the ground level. Stone columns are commonly used to support structures overlying soft ground soils and surcharged by embankment type loading. Therefore, this paper introduces a wide comparison numerical study between the ordinary stone columns (OSC) versus the geosynthetic encased stone columns (ESC) installed in soft clay soil deposit using finite element method (FEM). Parametric study of an embankment on soft soils reinforced with stone columns is performed using commercial computer program based on the finite element technique (PLAXIS 2D). The investigation will present the influence of the following parameters: diameter of stone columns, stiffness of geosynthetic encasement, embedded depth of stone column from ground level, and the length encasement of the stone column on the consolidation time, vertical settlement, and lateral displacement of soft clay soil formations.

Keywords: finite element method, geosynthetic, lateral displacement, settlement, soft clay

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Authors: Malik Muhammad Akhtar, Tanzeel Khan

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Various natural and anthropogenic factors are affecting recharge processes in urban areas due to intense urban expansion; land-use/landcover change (LULC) and climate considerably influence the ecosystem functions. In Quetta, a terrible transformation of LULC has occurred due to an increase in human population and rapid urbanization over the past years; according to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, the increase of population from 252,577 in 1972 to 2,275,699 in 2017 shows an abrupt rise which in turn has affected the aquifer recharge capability, vegetation, and precipitation at Quetta. This study focuses on the influence of population growth and LULC on groundwater table level by employing multi-temporal, multispectral satellite data during the selected years, i.e. 2014, 2017, and 2020. The results of land classification showed that barren land had shown a considerable decrease, whereas the urban area has increased over time from 152.4sq/km in 2014 to 195.5sq/km in 2017 to 283.3sq/km in 2020, whereas surface-water area coverage has increased since 2014 because of construction of few dams around the valley. Rapid urbanization stresses limited hydrology resources, and this needs to be addressed to conserve/sustain the resources through educating the local community, awareness regarding water use and climate change, and supporting artificial recharge of the aquifers.

Keywords: climate changes, urbanization, GIS, land use, Quetta, watershed

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Authors: Moulana Mohammed

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Topic models are widely used in building clusters of documents for more than a decade, yet problems occurring in choosing optimal number of topics. The main problem is the lack of a stable metric of the quality of topics obtained during the construction of topic models. The authors analyzed from previous works, most of the models used in determining the number of topics are non-parametric and quality of topics determined by using perplexity and coherence measures and concluded that they are not applicable in solving this problem. In this paper, we used the parametric method, which is an extension of the traditional topic model with visual access tendency for visualization of the number of topics (clusters) to complement clustering and to choose optimal number of topics based on results of cluster validity indices. Developed hybrid topic models are demonstrated with different Twitter datasets on various topics in obtaining the optimal number of topics and in measuring the quality of clusters. The experimental results showed that the Visual Non-negative Matrix Factorization (VNMF) topic model performs well in determining the optimal number of topics with interactive visualization and in performance measure of the quality of clusters with validity indices.

Keywords: interactive visualization, visual mon-negative matrix factorization model, optimal number of topics, cluster validity indices, Twitter data clustering

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Authors: Juliana Sagretti, Susy Sabato

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Despite the poverty in the world, a third of all food produced in the world is wasted. FAO, the United Nations Organization of Agriculture and Food, points out the need to combine actions and new technologies to combat hunger and waste in contrast to the high production of food in the world. The energy of ionizing radiation in food brought many positive results, such as increased validity and insect infestation control. The food banks are organizations that act at various points of food chain to collect and distribute food to the needy. So, the aim of this study was to initiate a partnership between irradiation and the food bank through the development of a questionnaire to evaluate and disseminate the knowledge and acceptance of individuals in the food bank in Brazil. In addition, this study aimed to standardize a basis questionnaire for future research assessment of irradiated foods. For the construction of the questionnaire as a measuring instrument, a comprehensive and rigorous literature review was made. Its covered qualitative research, questionnaires, sensory evaluation and food irradiated. Three stages of pre - tests were necessary and related fields of experts were consulted. As a result, the questionnaire has three parts, personal issues, assertive issues and questions of multiple choices and finally an informative question. The questionnaire was applied in Ceagesp food bank in the biggest center of food in Brazil (data not shown).

Keywords: food bank, food irradiation, food waste, sustainability

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Authors: Ahmed Hammad, Yehia Abdel-Nasser, Mohamed Shamma

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The main configuration of ship construction consists of standard and fabricated stiffening members which are commonly used in shipbuilding such as fabricated T-sections. During the welding process, the non-uniform heating and rapid cooling lead to the inevitable presence of out-of-plane distortion and welding induced residual stresses. Because of these imperfections, the fabricated structural members may not attain their design load to be carried. The removal of these imperfections will require extra man-hours. In the present work, controlling these imperfections has been investigated at both design and fabrication stages. A typical fabricated T-girder is selected to investigate the problem of these imperfections using double-side welding. A numerical simulation based on finite element (FE) modeling has been used to investigate the effect of different parameters of the selected fabricated T-girder such as geometrical properties and welding sequences on the magnitude of welding imperfections. FE results were compared with the results of experimental model of a double-side fillet weld. The present work concludes that: Firstly, in the design stage, the optimum geometry of the fabricated T- girder is determined based on minimum steel weight and out- of- plane distortion. Secondly, in the fabrication stage, the best welding sequence is determined on the basis of minimum welding out- of- plane distortion.

Keywords: fabricated T-girder, FEM, out-of-plane distortion, section modulus, welding residual stresses

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Authors: Xie Weifan, Wang Zhongde

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Everyday landscape in the countryside has long played an important role as a cultural representation of the countryside and a link between the countryside and social relations. In the transformation of modernization, the daily landscape in the countryside needs to change with the transformation of daily life in countryside therefore, interpreting the daily landscape in the countryside and understanding the basic characteristics and value perception of the daily landscape from the villagers' perspective can help to understand the daily landscape in the countryside and its conservation and development. Taking Lizi Village in Qianjiang District, Chongqing Municipality, China, as a case study, we collected important daily landscapes in villagers' perceptions through in-depth interviews, categorized them into personal living space, public affairs space, and public activity space, and analyzed the characteristics of the spatial distribution of daily landscapes. The perceptual characteristics of the villagers' perceptions are analyzed and divided into four major types, namely, physical environment perception, atmosphere and culture perception, emotional feelings, and behavioral preferences, and their perceptual characteristics are analyzed respectively to understand the important characteristics of the villagers' perceptions of the daily landscapes. Finally, it is proposed that the protection and development of daily landscape in villages need to improve the mechanism of discovering and evaluating daily landscape, encourage residents to participate in the construction of daily landscape, protect the high-value daily landscape, and promote the innovative development of daily landscape.

Keywords: rural landscape, everyday landscape, landscape perception, conservation and development

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