Search results for: Global South

Authors: Dalia Perkumiene

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The process of globalization has several unforeseen negative effects on the quality of the environment, including increased pollution, climate change, and the depletion and destruction of natural resources. The impact of these processes makes it difficult to guarantee citizens' rights to a clean environment, and complex legal solutions are needed to implement this right. In order to implement human rights in a clean and safe environment, international legal documents and court rulings are analyzed. It is important to find a balance between the legal context: the right to a clean environment and environmental challenges such as climate change and global warming. Research Methods: The following methods were used in this study: analytical, analysis, and synthesis of scientific literature and legal documents, comparative analysis of legal acts, and generalization. Major Findings: It is difficult to implement the right to a clean, safe and sustainable environment. The successful implementation of this right depends on the application of various complex ideas and rational, not only legal solutions. Legislative measures aim to maximize the implementation of citizens' rights in the face of climate change and other environmental challenges. This area remains problematic, especially in international law. Concluding Statement: The right to a clean environment should allow a person to live in a harmonious system, where environmental factors do not pose a risk to human health and well-being.

Keywords: clean and safe and clean environmen, environmen, persons’ rights, right to a clean and safe and clean environment

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Authors: Sérgio J. Teixeira, João J. Ferreira

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Tourism frequently gets identified as one of the sectors with the greatest potential for expansion on a global scale and hence conveying the importance of attempting to better understand the regional factors of competitiveness prevailing in this sector. This study’s objective essentially strives to provide a mapping of the scientific publications and the intellectual knowledge therein contained while conveying past research trends and identifying potential future lines of research in the fields of regional competitiveness and tourism innovation. This correspondingly deploys a systematic review of the literature in keeping with the bibliometric approach based upon VOSviewer software, with a particular focus on drafting maps for visualising the underlying intellectual structure. This type of analysis encapsulates the number of articles published and their annual number of citations for the period between 1900 and 2016 as registered by the Web of Science database. The results demonstrate how the intellectual structure on regional competitiveness divides essentially into three major categories: regional competitiveness, tourism innovation, and tourism clusters. Thus, the main contribution of this study arises out of identifying the main research trends in this field and the respective shortcomings and specific needs for future scientific research in the field of regional competitiveness and innovation in tourism.

Keywords: regional competitiveness, tourism cluster, bibliometric studies, tourism innovation, systematic review

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Authors: Lars Rödel, Jonas Krebs, Gregor Müller

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The growing price pressure due to the increasing number of global suppliers, the growing individualization of products and ever-shorter delivery times are upcoming challenges in the industry. In this context, Mass Personalization stands for the individualized production of customer products in batch size 1 at the price of standardized products. The possibilities of digitalization and automation of technical order processing open up the opportunity for companies to significantly reduce their cost of complexity and lead times and thus enhance their competitiveness. Many companies already use a range of CAx tools and configuration solutions today. Often, the expert knowledge of employees is hidden in "knowledge silos" and is rarely networked across processes. DesignChain describes the automated digital process from the recording of individual customer requirements, through design and technical preparation, to production. Configurators offer the possibility of mapping variant-rich products within the Design Chain. This transformation of customer requirements into product features makes it possible to generate even complex CAD models, such as those for large-scale plants, on a rule-based basis. With the aid of an automated CAx chain, production-relevant documents are thus transferred digitally to production. This process, which can be fully automated, allows variants to always be generated on the basis of current version statuses.

Keywords: automation, design, CAD, CAx

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Authors: Ceren Sevimli, Sedat İnan

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The Silurian Dadaş Formation within the Diyarbakir Basin in SE Türkiye, like other Silurian shales in North Africa and Middle East, represents a significant prospect for conventional and unconventional hydrocarbon exploration. The Diyarbakır Basin remains relatively underexplored, presenting untapped potential that warrants further investigation. This study focuses on the thermal maturity and hydrocarbon generation histories of the Silurian Dadaş shales, utilizing basin modeling approach. The Dadaş shales are organic-rich and contain mainly Type II kerogen, especially the basal layer contains up to 10 wt. %TOC and thus it is named as “hot shale”. The research integrates geological, geochemical, and basin modeling data to elucidate the unconventional hydrocarbon potential of this formation, which is crucial given the global demand for energy and the need for new resources. The data obtained from previous studies were used to calibrate basin model that has been established by using PetroMod software (Schlumberger). The calibrated model results suggest that Dadaş shales are in oil generation window and that the major episode for thermal maturation and hydrocarbon generation took place prior rot Alpine orogeny (uplift and erosion) The modeling results elucidate the burial history, maturity history, and hydrocarbon production history of the Silurian-aged Dadaş shales, as well as its hydrocarbon content in the area.

Keywords: dadaş formation, diyarbakır basin, silurian hot shale, unconventional hydrocarbon

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Authors: Vincent Schlageter, Maroua Mestiri, Florian Denzinger, Hugo Raetzo, Michel Demierre

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Precise landslide monitoring with differential global navigation satellite system (GNSS) is well known, but technical or economic reasons limit its application by geotechnical companies. This study demonstrates the reliability and the usefulness of Geomon (Infrasurvey Sàrl, Switzerland), a stand-alone and cost-effective rover network. The system permits deploying up to 15 rovers, plus one reference station for differential GNSS. A dedicated radio communication links all the modules to a base station, where an embedded computer automatically provides all the relative positions (L1 phase, open-source RTKLib software) and populates an Internet server. Each measure also contains information from an internal inclinometer, battery level, and position quality indices. Contrary to standard GNSS survey systems, which suffer from a limited number of beacons that must be placed in areas with good GSM signal, Geomon offers greater flexibility and permits a real overview of the whole landslide with good spatial resolution. Each module is powered with solar panels, ensuring autonomous long-term recordings. In this study, we have tested the system on several sites in the Swiss mountains, setting up to 7 rovers per site, for an 18 month-long survey. The aim was to assess the robustness and the accuracy of the system in different environmental conditions. In one case, we ran forced blind tests (vertical movements of a given amplitude) and compared various session parameters (duration from 10 to 90 minutes). Then the other cases were a survey of real landslides sites using fixed optimized parameters. Sub centimetric-accuracy with few outliers was obtained using the best parameters (session duration of 60 minutes, baseline 1 km or less), with the noise level on the horizontal component half that of the vertical one. The performance (percent of aborting solutions, outliers) was reduced with sessions shorter than 30 minutes. The environment also had a strong influence on the percent of aborting solutions (ambiguity search problem), due to multiple reflections or satellites obstructed by trees and mountains. The length of the baseline (distance reference-rover, single baseline processing) reduced the accuracy above 1 km but had no significant effect below this limit. In critical weather conditions, the system’s robustness was limited: snow, avalanche, and frost-covered some rovers, including the antenna and vertically oriented solar panels, leading to data interruption; and strong wind damaged a reference station. The possibility of changing the sessions’ parameters remotely was very useful. In conclusion, the rover network tested provided the foreseen sub-centimetric-accuracy while providing a dense spatial resolution landslide survey. The ease of implementation and the fully automatic long-term survey were timesaving. Performance strongly depends on surrounding conditions, but short pre-measures should allow moving a rover to a better final placement. The system offers a promising hazard mitigation technique. Improvements could include data post-processing for alerts and automatic modification of the duration and numbers of sessions based on battery level and rover displacement velocity.

Keywords: GNSS, GSM, landslide, long-term, network, solar, spatial resolution, sub-centimeter.

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Authors: Berhanu Terfa, Nengcheng C.

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The study deals with the analysis of urban expansion and land transformation of Hawass City using remote sensing data and landscape metrics during last three decades (1987–2017). Remote sensing data from Various multi-temporal satellite images viz., TM (1987), TM (1995), ETM+ (2005) and OLI (2017) were used to examine the urban expansion, growth types, and spatial isolation within the urban landscape to develop an understanding the trends of built-up growth in Hawassa City, Ethiopia. Landscape metrics and built-up density were employed to analyze the pattern, process and overall growth status. The area under investigation was divided into concentric circles with a consecutive circle of 1 km incremental radius from the central pixel (Central Business District) for analysis. The result exhibited that the built-up area had increased by 541.32% between 1987 and 2017and an extension growth types (more than 67 %) was observed. The major growth took place in north-west direction followed by north direction in haphazard manner during 1987–1995 period, whereas predominant built-up development was observed in south and southwest direction during 1995–2017 period. Land scape metrics result revealed that the of urban patches density, total edge and edge density increased, while mean nearest neighbors’ distance decreased showing the tendency of sprawl.

Keywords: landscape metrics, spatial patterns, remote sensing, multi-temporal, urban sprawl

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Authors: Siveshnee Devar

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Background: The rate of absenteeism and prevalence of NCDs in South Africa is extremely high. This is consistent with other educational institutions and workplaces around the globe. In most cases the absence of health and the presence of one or more non communicable diseases coupled with the lack of physical exercise is a major factor in absenteeism. Absenteeism at the workplace comes at a huge cost to the employer and the country as a whole. Aim: Findings from this study was to develop a suitable nutritional wellness program for the workplace. Methodology: A needs analysis in the form of 24-hour recall, food frequency, health and socio demographic questionnaires was undertaken to determine the need for a wellness program for the institution. Anthropometric indices such as BMI, waist circumference and blood pressure were also undertaken to determine the state of health of the staff. Results: This study has found that obesity, central obesity, hypertension as well as deficiencies in nutrients and minerals were prevalent in this group. Fruit and vegetable consumption was also below the WHO recommendation. This study showed a link between diet, physical activity and diseases of lifestyle. There were positive correlations between age and systolic blood pressure, waist circumference and systolic blood pressure, waist circumference and diastolic blood pressure and waist-to-height ratio and BMI. Conclusion: The results indicated the need for immediate intervention in the form of a wellness program. Nutrition education is important for both the workplace and out. Education and knowledge are important factors for lifestyle changes. The proposed intervention is aimed at improving presenteeism and decreasing the incidence of non- communicable diseases. Presenteeism and good health are important factors for quality education at all educational institutions.

Keywords: absenteeism, non-communicable diseases, nutrition, wellness

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Authors: C. Fernanda da S. Sampaio, M. Gabriela Sadith Perez Paredes, V. Antonio de O. Martins

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Today the transport sector is undergoing a revolution, with the rise of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), industry and society itself will undergo a major transformation. However, the technological development of these applications is a challenge that requires new techniques and great machine learning and artificial intelligence. The study proposes to develop a vehicular perception system called Veibra, which consists of two front cameras for day/night viewing and an embedded device capable of working with Yolov2 image processing algorithms with low computational cost. The strategic version for the market is to assist the driver on the road with the detection of day/night objects, such as road signs, pedestrians, and animals that will be viewed through the screen of the phone or tablet through an application. The system has the ability to perform real-time driver detection and recognition to identify muscle movements and pupils to determine if the driver is tired or inattentive, analyzing the student's characteristic change and following the subtle movements of the whole face and issuing alerts through beta waves to ensure the concentration and attention of the driver. The system will also be able to perform tracking and monitoring through GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) technology and the cameras installed in the vehicle.

Keywords: advanced driver assistance systems, tracking, traffic signal detection, vehicle perception system

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Authors: Nesengani Elelwani Clinton

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This paper presents reflective learning as an opportunity commonly available and used for food waste learning in a food processing company in the transition to sustainable and just food systems. In addressing how employees learn about food waste during food processing, the opportunities available for food waste learning were investigated. Reflective learning appeared to be the most used approach to learning about food waste. In the case of food waste learning, reflective learning was a response after employees wasted a substantial amount of food, where process controllers and team leaders would highlight the issue to employees who wasted food and explain how food waste could be reduced. This showed that learning about food waste is not proactive, and there continues to be a lack of structured learning around food waste. Several challenges were highlighted around reflective learning about food waste. Some of the challenges included understanding the language, lack of interest from employees, set times to reach production targets, and working pressures. These challenges were reported to be hindering factors in understanding food waste learning, which is not structured. A need was identified for proactive learning through structured methods. This is because it was discovered that in the plant, where food processing activities happen, the signage and posters that are there are directly related to other sustainability issues such as food safety and health. This indicated that there are low levels of awareness about food waste. Therefore, this paper argues that food waste learning should be proactive. The proactive learning approach should include structured learning materials around food waste during food processing. In the structuring of the learning materials, individual trainers should be multilingual. This will make it possible for those who do not understand English to understand in their own language. And lastly, there should be signage and posters in the food processing plant around food waste. This will bring more awareness around food waste, and employees' behaviour can be influenced by the posters and signage in the food processing plant. Thus, will enable a transition to a just and sustainable food system.

Keywords: sustainable and just food systems, food waste, food waste learning, reflective learning approach

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Authors: Ann Mariya Jose, Ashfina T.

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Construction and demolition waste is one of the rising concerns globally due to the amount of waste generated annually, the area taken up by landfills, and the adverse environmental impacts that follow. One of the primary causes of the rise in construction and demolition waste is a lack of facilities and knowledge for incorporating recycled materials into new construction. Bricks are a conventional material that has been used for construction for centuries, and Autoclave Aerated Concrete (AAC) blocks are a new emergent material in the market. This study evaluates the impact brick walls, and AAC block walls have on the environment using the tool One Click LCA, considering three End of Life (EoL) scenarios: the materials are landfilled, recycled, and reused in a new building. The final objective of the study is to evaluate the environmental impact caused by these two different walls on the environmental factors such as Global Warming Potential (GWP), Acidification Potential (AP), Eutrophication Potential (EP), Ozone Depletion Potential (ODP), and Photochemical Ozone Creation Potential (POCP). The findings revealed that the GWP caused by landfilling is 16 times higher in bricks and 22 times higher in AAC blocks when compared to the reuse of materials. The study recommends the effective use of AAC blocks in construction and reuse of the same to reduce the overall emissions to the environment.

Keywords: construction and demolition waste, environmental impact, life cycle impact assessment, material recycling

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Authors: Rasha Aljaryian, Lalit Kumar

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Climate is undergoing continuous change and this trend will affect the cultivation areas ofmost crops, including wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), in the future. The current suitable cultivation areas may become unsuitable climatically. Countries that depend on wheat cultivation and export may suffer an economic loss because of production decline. On the other hand, some regions of the world could gain economically by increasing cultivation areas. This study models the potential future climatic suitability of wheat by using CLIMEX software. Two different global climate models (GCMs) were used, CSIRO-Mk3.0 (CS) and MIROC-H (MR), with two emission scenarios (A2, A1B). The results of this research indicate that the suitable climatic areas for wheat in the southern hemisphere, such as Australia, are expected to contract by the end of this century. However, some unsuitable or marginal areas will become climatically suitable under future climate scenarios. In North America and Europe further expansion inland could occur. Also, the results illustrate that heat and dry stresses as abiotic climatic factors will play an important role in wheat distribution in the future. Providing sufficient information about future wheat distribution will be useful for agricultural ministries and organizations to manage the shift in production areas in the future. They can minimize the expected harmful economic consequences by preparing strategic plans and identifying new areas for wheat cultivation.

Keywords: Climate change, Climate modelling, CLIMEX, Triticum aestivum, Wheat

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Authors: Wesam Rababa, Jamal Al-Qawasmi

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The global climate is negatively impacted by CO2 emissions, which are mostly produced by buildings. Several green building rating systems (GBRS) have been proposed to impose low-carbon criteria in order to address this problem. The Green Globes certification is one such system that evaluates a building's sustainability level by assessing different categories of environmental impact and emerging concepts aimed at reducing environmental harm. Therefore, assessment tools at the national level are crucial in the developing world, where specific local conditions require a more precise evaluation. This study analyzed eight sustainable building assessment systems from different regions of the world, comparing a comprehensive list of CO2-related indicators with a various assessment system for conducting coverage analysis. The results show that GBRS includes both direct and indirect indicators in this regard. It reveals deep variation between examined practices, and a lack of consensus not only on the type and the optimal number of indicators used in a system, but also on the depth and breadth of coverage of various sustainable building SB attributes. Generally, the results show that most of the examined systems reflect a low comprehensive coverage, the highest of which is found in materials category. On the other hand, the most of the examined systems reveal a very low representative coverage.

Keywords: Assessment tools, CO2-related indicators, Comparative study, Green Building Rating Systems

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Authors: Ebrahim Solgi, Zahra Hamedani, Behrouz Mohammad Kari, Ruwan Fernando, Henry Skates

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The use of thermal energy storage (TES) as part of a passive design strategy can reduce a building’s energy demand. TES materials do this by increasing the lag between energy consumption and energy supply by absorbing, storing and releasing energy in a controlled manner. The increase of lightweight construction in the building industry has made it harder to utilize thermal mass. Consequently, Phase Change Materials (PCMs) are a promising alternative as they can be manufactured in thin layers and used with lightweight construction to store latent heat. This research investigates utilizing PCMs, with the first step being measuring their performance under experimental conditions. To do this requires three components. The first is a calorimeter for measuring indoor thermal conditions, the second is a pyranometer for recording the solar conditions: global, diffuse and direct radiation and the third is a data-logger for recording temperature and humidity for the studied period. This paper reports on the design and implementation of an experimental setup used to measure the thermal characteristics of PCMs as part of a wall construction. The experimental model has been simulated with the software EnergyPlus to create a reliable simulation model that warrants further investigation.

Keywords: phase change materials, EnergyPlus, experimental evaluation, night ventilation

Procedia PDF Downloads 249

Authors: Abdulkabir Abdullahi

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Nigeria has not yet welcomed phonics into its primary schools. In government-owned primary schools teachers are functionally ignorant of the stories of the reading wars amongst international scholars. There are few or no Nigerian-authored phonics textbooks, and there has been no government-owned phonics curriculum either. There are few or no academic journal articles on phonics in the country and there is, in fact, a certain danger of confusion between phonics and phonetics among Nigerian publishers, authors, writers and academics as if Nigerian teachers of English and the educational policy makers of the country were unaware of reading failures/problems amongst Nigerian children, or had never heard of phonics or read of the stories of the reading wars or the annual phonics test in the United Kingdom, the United States of America and other parts of the world. It is on this note that this article reviews and examines, in the style of a qualitative inquiry, the body of arguments on phonics, and explores the effectiveness of phonics teaching, particularly, in a second-language learning contexts. While the merit of the paper is, perhaps, situated in its supreme effort to draw global attention to reading failures/problems in Nigeria and the ways the situation may affect English language learning, international academic relations and the educational future of the country, it leaves any quantitative verification of its claims to interested quantitative researchers in the world.

Keywords: graphemes, phonics, reading, reading wars, reading theories, phonemic awareness

Procedia PDF Downloads 227

Authors: Olivia Anak Rayeg, Clotilda Binti Petrus, Arnel Reanturco Ascotia, Ang Chung Huap, Caroline Marajan, Rudy Tawie Joseph Sipi

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Concrete is essential for global infrastructure, yet enhancing its rheology and strength in an environmentally sustainable manner remains a significant challenge. Conventional chemical admixtures often pose environmental and health risks. This study explores the use of a phospholipid biosurfactant, derived from Rhizopus oryzae, as an environmentally friendly admixture in concrete. Various concentrations of the biosurfactant were integrated into fresh concrete, partially replacing the water content. The inclusion of the biosurfactant markedly enhanced the workability of the concrete, as demonstrated by Vertical Slump, Slump Flow, and T50 tests. After a 28-day curing period, the concrete's mechanical properties were assessed through compressive strength and bonding tests. Results revealed that substituting up to 10% of the water with the biosurfactant not only improved workability but also significantly increased both compressive and flexural strength. These findings highlight the potential of phospholipid biosurfactant as a biodegradable and non-toxic alternative to traditional admixtures, enhancing both structural integrity and sustainability in concrete. This approach reduces environmental impact and production costs, marking a significant advancement in sustainable construction technology.

Keywords: concrete rheology, green admixture, fungal biosurfactant, phospholipids, rhizopus oryzae

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Authors: A. Alyami, S. Christmas, K. Neeltje, G. Pollakis, B. Paxton, Z. Al-Bayati

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The Human leukocyte antigen-G (HLA-G) molecule plays an important role in immunomodulation. To date, 16 untranslated regions (UTR) HLA-G haplotypes have been previously defined by sequenced SNPs in the coding region. From these, UTR-1, UTR-2, UTR-3, UTR-4, UTR-5, UTR-6 and UTR-7 are the most frequent 3’UTR haplotypes at the global level. UTR-1 is associated with higher levels of soluble HLA-G and HLA-G expression, whereas UTR-5 and UTR-7 are linked with low levels of soluble HLA-G and HLA-G expression. Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) infection results in the progressive loss of immune function in infected individuals. The virus escape mechanism typically includes T lymphocytes and NK cell recognition and lyses by classical HLA-A and B down-regulation, which has been associated with non-classical HLA-G molecule up-regulation, respectively. We evaluated the haplotypes of the HLA-G 3′ untranslated region frequencies observed in three HIV-1 groups from the Netherlands and their susceptibility to develop infection. The three groups are made up of mainly men who have sex with men (MSM), injection drug users (IDU) and a high-risk-seronegative (HRSN) group. DNA samples were amplified with published primers prior sequencing. According to our results, the low expresser frequencies show higher in HRSN compared to other groups. This is indicating that 3’UTR polymorphisms may be identified as potential prognostic biomarkers to determine susceptibility to HIV.

Keywords: Human leukocyte antigen-G (HLA-G) , men who have sex with men (MSM), injection drug users (IDU), high-risk-seronegative (HRSN) group, high-untranslated region (UTR)

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Authors: Giang Tran Thi Huong, Hieu Dong Van, Tung Dao Duy, Saadanov Iskender, Isakeev Mairambek, Tsutomu Omatsu, Yukie Katayama, Tetsuya Mizutani, Yuki Ozeki, Yohei Takeda, Haruko Ogawa, Kunitoshi Imai

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Newcastle disease virus (NDV) is a contagious viral disease of the poultry industry and other birds throughout the world. At present, very little is known about molecular epidemiological data regarding the causes of ND outbreak in commercial poultry farms in Kyrgyzstan. In the current study, the NDV isolated from the one out of three samples from the unvaccinated flock was confirmed as NDV. Phylogenetic analysis indicated that this NDV strain is clustered in the Class II subgenotype VIId, and closely related to the Chinese NDV isolate. Phylogenetic analyses revealed that the isolated NDV strain has an origin different from the 4 NDV strains previously identified in Kyrgyzstan. According to the mean death time (MDT: 61.1 h) and a multibasic amino acid (aa) sequence at the F0 proteolytic cleavage site (¹¹²R-R-Q-K-R-F¹¹⁷), the NDV isolate was determined as mesogenic strain. Several mutations in the neutralizing epitopes (notably, ³⁴⁷E→K) and the global head were observed in the hemagglutinin-neuraminidase (HN) protein of the current isolate. The present study represents the molecular characterization of the coding gene region of NDV in Kyrgyzstan. Additionally, further study will be investigated on the antigenic characterization using monoclonal antibody.

Keywords: Kyrgyzstan, Newcastle disease, genotype, genome characterization

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Authors: Mayowa A. Sofowora, Seraphin D. Eyono Obono

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The use of information and communication technologies such as computers, mobile phones and the internet is becoming prevalent in today’s world; and it is facilitating access to a vast amount of data, services, and applications for the improvement of people’s lives. However, this prevalence of ICTs is hampered by the problem of low income levels in developing countries to the point where people cannot timeously replace or repair their ICT devices when damaged or lost; and this problem serves as a motivation for this study whose aim is to examine the perceptions of teachers on the reliability of cellphones when used for teaching and learning purposes. The research objectives unfolding this aim are of two types: objectives on the selection and design of theories and models, and objectives on the empirical testing of these theories and models. The first type of objectives is achieved using content analysis in an extensive literature survey, and the second type of objectives is achieved through a survey of high school teachers from the ILembe and Umgungudlovu districts in the KwaZuluNatal province of South Africa. Data collected from this questionnaire based survey is analysed in SPSS using descriptive statistics and Pearson correlations after checking the reliability and validity of the questionnaire. The main hypothesis driving this study is that there is a relationship between the demographics and the attribution identity of teachers on one hand, and their perceptions on the reliability of cellphones on the other hand, as suggested by existing literature; except that attribution identities are considered in this study under three angles: intention, knowledge and ability, and action. The results of this study confirm that the perceptions of teachers on the reliability of cellphones for teaching and learning are affected by the school location of these teachers, and by their perceptions on learners’ cellphones usage intentions and actual use.

Keywords: attribution, cellphones, e-learning, reliability

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Authors: Aftab Hameed Memon, Shadab Noor, Muhammad Akram Akhund

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Lean construction is a philosophy adopted in the construction industry to increase the value of a project by reducing waste and improving construction productivity. Lean emphasizes on maximizing the value of a project with less expenditure. Globally, lean philosophy has received wider popularity in construction sector. Lean construction has supported the practitioners with several tools and techniques to implement at various stages of a construction project. Following the global trends, this study has investigated the lean practice in Pakistan. The level of implementation of different lean tools and techniques altogether with potential benefits experienced by its implementation in construction projects of Pakistan is analyzed. To achieve the targets, the opinion was sought by the practitioners involved in handling construction projects representing four stakeholders that are a client, consultant, contractors and material suppliers through a structured questionnaire. A total of 34 completed questionnaires were collected and then statistically analyzed. The findings of the analysis have highlighted that pull approach, work standardization, just in time, increase visualization tools, integrated project delivery method and fail-safe for quality are common lean techniques implemented in the local construction industry. While reduction in waste, client’s satisfaction, improved communication, visual control and proper task management are major benefits of the lean construction application.

Keywords: lean construction, lean tools and techniques, lean benefits, waste reduction, Pakistan

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Authors: Yingxiao Ye, Christopher Doehring, Angelos Georghiou, Hugh Robinson, Phebe Vayanos

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Human development is a threat to biodiversity, and conservation organizations (COs) are purchasing land to protect areas for biodiversity preservation. However, COs have limited budgets and thus face hard prioritization decisions that are confounded by uncertainty in future human land use. This research proposes a data-driven sequential planning model to help COs choose land parcels that minimize the uncertain human impact on biodiversity. The proposed model is robust to uncertain development, and the sequential decision-making process is adaptive, allowing land purchase decisions to adapt to human land use as it unfolds. The cellular automata model is leveraged to simulate land use development based on climate data, land characteristics, and development threat index from NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center. This simulation is used to model uncertainty in the problem. This research leverages state-of-the-art techniques in the robust optimization literature to propose a computationally tractable reformulation of the model, which can be solved routinely by off-the-shelf solvers like Gurobi or CPLEX. Numerical results based on real data from the Jaguar in Central and South America show that the proposed method reduces conservation loss by 19.46% on average compared to standard approaches such as MARXAN used in practice for biodiversity conservation. Our method may better help guide the decision process in land acquisition and thereby allow conservation organizations to maximize the impact of limited resources.

Keywords: data-driven robust optimization, biodiversity conservation, uncertainty simulation, adaptive sequential planning

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Authors: Zita Fomukong Andam

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With a general objective of evaluating the importance and Performance attributes of Volunteer Tourism in Ethiopia and also specifically intending to rank out the importance to evaluate the competitive performance of Ethiopia to host volunteer tourists, laying them in a four quadrant grid and conduct the IPA Iso-Priority Line comparison of Volunteer Tourism in Ethiopia. From hosts and guests point of view, a deeper research discourse was conducted with a randomly selected 384 guests and 165 hosts in Ethiopia. Findings of the discourse through an exploratory research design on both the hosts and the guests confirm that attributes of volunteer tourism generally and marginally fall in the South East quadrant of the matrix where their importance is relatively higher than their performance counterpart, also referred as ‘Concentrate Here’ quadrant. The fact that there are more items in this particular place in both the host and guest study, where they are highly important, but their relative performance is low, strikes a message that the country has more to do. Another focus point of this study is mapping the scores of attributes regarding the guest and host importance and performance against the Iso-Priority Line. Results of Iso-Priority Line Analysis of the IPA of Volunteer Tourism in Ethiopia from the Host’s Perspective showed that there are no attributes where their importance is exactly the same as their performance. With this being found, the fact that this research design inhabits many characters of exploratory nature, it is not confirmed research output. This paper reserves from prescribing anything to the applied world before further confirmatory research is conducted on the issue and rather calls the scientific community to augment this study through comprehensive, exhaustive, extensive and extended works of inquiry in order to get a refined set of recommended items to the applied world.

Keywords: volunteer tourism, competitive performance importance-performance analysis, Ethiopian tourism

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Authors: Muhammad Ali Khan

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Although most Muslims are aware that Riba is a great sin in Islamic Shariah, they still do not find themselves inclined toward Islamic banking for their financial needs/activities/requirements. The main purpose of this research work is to analyse the general trend of people's views and miss conceptions among them regarding Islamic Banking and therefore suggest promoting Islamic banking. Scholars believe that Islamic finance is more stable than conventional banking because of the nature of its banking practices, which are based on real assets or partnerships. This is why Islamic banking is growing fastly worldwide, particularly in the wake of global financial crisis. Even though the scope of Islamic banking is expanding on a daily basis yet, it is not gaining the popularity it deserves. Islam declares war against Allah and his last messenger Hazrat Muhammad (PBUM) as it is a great sin and strictly forbids all interest-based transactions. Holy Quran revealed, O you who believe, do not eat up the amounts acquired through Riba (interest), doubled and multiplied. Fear Allah, so that you may be successful. Therefore a, true Muslim who believe in Judgement day always make all efforts in their life to avoid gambling and other speculative activities like Riba for themselves and their loved ones. If a Muslim does not fight against Riba to protect himself and his family, then his faith is meaningless. Allah issues warnings at numerous places in the holy Quran regarding Riba and its sin. Thus, Islamic banking is an alternative banking system where banking transactions are based on Islamic principles. The major component of Islamic Banking is Profit and loss sharing (PLS), as well as ensuring economic justice and equity.

Keywords: Islamic banking, Riba, interest, financial crises

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Authors: Nokubonga G. Zulu, Bongephiwe M. Thethwayo, Mapilane S. Madiba, Peter A. Olubambi

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In South Africa, PGMs’ metallurgy industry is now leaned on the Upper Group 2 (UG2) reef for the beneficiation of 4PGEs (Platinum, Palladium, Rhodium, and Ruthenium). The current effective beneficiation method is direct froth flotation which uses the hydrophobicity of liberated valuables minerals to carefully float them while hydrophilic gangue minerals report to the residue. PGMs are known to be associated with base metal sulphides which are hydrophobic; however, approximately 25% of PGMs from UG2 are associated with hydrophilic silicates, which results in high PGMs grade in the flotation residue. Further, the smallest size in which UG2 PGMs occur is approximately 9 microns which demands high grinding for liberation, imposing energy and cost implications. The use of Bacillus mucilaginosus to liberate PGMs using Bio-leaching of PGMs bearing Silicates is a promising cost-effective, energy-saving, and green solution to liberate PGMs locked in silicates. This is due to the ability of Bacillus mucilaginosus to generate extracellular polysaccharides (EPS) that are responsible for the leaching of silicate minerals. The bioleaching is done at a laboratory beaker using a cultivated Bacillus mucilaginosus as a lixiviant. The bioleaching residue is expected to have a reduced particle size due to silicate consumption, which reduces the need and cost associated with a secondary milling circuit. Moreover, the grade of the bioleaching product is increased since the silicates (gangue minerals) are consumed by Bacillus mucilaginosus; this serves as a pre-concentration step. This paper discusses an alternative liberation and pre-concentrating technique of PGMs that are associated with silicates using Bacillus mucilaginosus leaching to dissolve silicates.

Keywords: Bacillus mucilaginosus, bio-leaching of PGMs bearing silicates, liberation of PGMs, pre-concentration of PGMs

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Authors: Maider Gómez Palmero, Ana Carrasco Pérez, Paula de la Sen de la Cruz, Francisco Javier Royo Herrer, Sonia Ascaso Malo

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The production of bio-based products for different purposes is one of the strategies that has grown the most at European and even global levels, seeking to contribute to mitigating the impacts associated with climate change and to achieve the ambitious objectives set in this regard. However, the substitution of fossil-based products for bio-based products requires a challenging and deep transformation and adaptation of the secondary and primary sectors and, more specifically, in the latter, the agro-industries. The first step to developing a bio-based value chain focuses on the availability of a resource with the right characteristics for the substitution sought. This, in turn, requires a significant reshaping of the forestry/agricultural sector but also of the agro-industry, which has a relevant potential to be deployed as a supplier and develop a robust logistical supply chain and to market a biobased raw material at a competitive price. However, this transformation may involve a profound restructuring of its traditional business model to incorporate biorefinery concepts. In this sense, agro-industries that generate by-products in their processes that are currently not valorized, such as potato processing rejects or the starch found in washing water, constitute a potential raw material that can be used for different bio-applications. This article aims to explore this potential to evaluate the most suitable bio applications to target and identify opportunities and challenges.

Keywords: starch valorisation, biorefinery, bio-based raw materials, bio-applications

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Authors: Despina Vamvuka, Despina Pentari

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Forestry wastes are readily available in large quantities around the world. Based on European Green Deal for the deployment of renewable and decarbonized energy by 2050, as well as global energy crisis, energy recovery from such wastes reducing greenhouse gas emissions is very attractive. Gasification has superior environmental performance to combustion, producing a clean fuel gas utilized in internal combustion engines, gas turbines, solid oxide fuel cells, or for synthesis of liquid bio-fuels and value-added chemicals. In this work, pine needles, which are abundantly found in Mediterranean countries, were gasified by either steam or carbon dioxide via a two-step process to improve reactivity and eliminate tar, employing a fixed bed unit and a thermal analysis system. Solid, liquid and gaseous products from the whole process were characterized and their energy potential was determined. Thermal behaviour, reactivity, conversion and energy recovery were examined. The gasification process took place above 650°C. At 950°C conversion and energy recovery were 77% dry and 2 under a flow of steam and 85% dry and 2.9 under a flow of carbon dioxide, respectively. Organic matter was almost completely converted to syngas, the yield of which varied between 89% and 99%. The higher heating values of biochar, bio-oil and pyrolysis gas were 27.8 MJ/kg, 33.5 MJ/kg and 13.6 MJ/m3. Upon steam or carbon dioxide gasification, the higher heating value of syngas produced was 11.5 MJ/m3 and 12.7 MJ/m3, respectively.

Keywords: gasification, biomass, steam, carbon dioxide

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Authors: Ravi Kumar

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Agricultural wastes are the non-product outcomes of agricultural processing whose monetary value is less as compared to its collection cost, transportation, and processing. When such agricultural waste is not properly disposed of, it may damage the natural environment and cause detrimental pollution in the atmosphere. Agricultural development and intensive farming methods usually result in wastes that remarkably affect the rural environments in particular and the global environment in general. Agricultural waste has toxicity latent to human beings, animals, and plants through various indirect and direct outlets. The present paper explores the various activities that result in agricultural waste and the routes that can utilize the agricultural waste in a manageable manner to reduce its adverse impact on the environment. Presently, the agricultural waste management system for ecological agriculture and sustainable development has emerged as a crucial issue for policymakers. There is an urgent need to consider agricultural wastes as prospective resources rather than undesirable in order to avoid the transmission and contamination of water, land, and air resources. Waste management includes the disposal and treatment of waste with a view to eliminate threats of waste by modifying the waste to condense the microbial load. The study concludes that proper waste utilization and management will facilitate the purification and development of the ecosystem and provide feasible biofuel resources. This proper utilization and management of these wastes for agricultural production may reduce their accumulation and further reduce environmental pollution by improving environmental health.

Keywords: agricultural waste, utilization, management, environment, health

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Authors: Cinthia C. Costa, Heloisa L. Burnquist, Joaquim J. M. Guilhoto

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This study identified the impact of special agricultural safeguards (SSG) for the global market of meat and for the Brazilian economy. The tariff lines subject to SSG were selected and the period of analysis was 1995 (when the rules about the SSGs were established) to 2015 (more recent period for which there are notifications). The value of additional tariff was calculated for each of the most important tariff lines. The import volume and the price elasticities for imports were used to estimate the impacts of each additional tariff estimated on imports. Finally, the effect of Brazilian exports of meat without SSG taxes was calculated as well as its impact in the country’s economy by using an input-output matrix. The most important markets that applied SSGs were the U.S. for beef and European Union for poultry. However, the additional tariffs could be estimated in only two of the sixteen years that the U.S. applied SSGs on beef imports, suggesting that its use has been enforced when the average annual price has been higher than the trigger price level. The results indicated that the value of the bovine and poultry meat that could not be exported by Brazil due to SSGs to both markets (EU and the U.S.) was equivalent to BRL 804 million. The impact of this loss in trade was about: BRL 3.7 billion of the economy’s production value (at 2015 prices) and almost BRL 2 billion of the Brazilian Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Keywords: beef, poultry meat, SSG tariff, input-output matrix, Brazil

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Authors: H. K. Ramaraju

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World is in deep trouble and deeper denial. Worse, the denial is now entirely on the side of action. It is well accepted that climate change is a reality. Scientists say we need to cap temperature increases at 2°C to avoid catastrophe, which means capping emissions at 450 ppm .We know global average temperatures have already increased by 0.8°C and there is enough green house gas in the atmosphere to lead to another 0.8°C increase. There is still a window of opportunity, a tiny one, to tackle the crisis. But where is the action? In the 1990’s, when the world did even not understand, let alone accept, the crises, it was more willing to move to tackle climate change. Today we are in reverse in gear. The rich world has realized it is easy to talk big, but tough to take steps to actually reduce emissions. The agreement was that these countries would reduce so that the developing World could increase. Instead, between 1990 and 2006, their carbon dioxide emissions increased by a whopping 14.5 percent, even green countries of Europe are unable to match words with action. Stop deforestation and take a 20 percent advantage in our carbon balance sheet, with out doing anything at home called REDD (reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation) and push for carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies. There are warning signs elsewhere and they need to be read correctly and acted up on , if not the cases like flood –act of nature or manmade disaster. The full length paper orient in proper understanding of the issues and identifying the most appropriate course of action.

Keywords: catastrophe, deforestation, emissions, waste water

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Authors: Tarek Dandashi

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WSNs may provide a fast and reliable solution for the early detection of environment events like forest fires. This is crucial for alerting and calling for fire brigade intervention. Sensor nodes communicate sensor data to a host station, which enables a global analysis and the generation of a reliable decision on a potential fire and its location. A WSN with TinyOS and nesC for the capturing and transmission of a variety of sensor information with controlled source, data rates, duration, and the records/displaying activity traces is presented. We propose a similarity distance (SD) between the distribution of currently sensed data and that of a reference. At any given time, a fire causes diverging opinions in the reported data, which alters the usual data distribution. Basically, SD consists of a metric on the Cumulative Distribution Function (CDF). SD is designed to be invariant versus day-to-day changes of temperature, changes due to the surrounding environment, and normal changes in weather, which preserve the data locality. Evaluation shows that SD sensitivity is quadratic versus an increase in sensor node temperature for a group of sensors of different sizes and neighborhood. Simulation of fire spreading when ignition is placed at random locations with some wind speed shows that SD takes a few minutes to reliably detect fires and locate them. We also discuss the case of false negative and false positive and their impact on the decision reliability.

Keywords: forest fire, WSN, wireless sensor network, algortihm

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Authors: Thinh Huu Nguyen, Shahab Sharfaei, Jindřich Soukup

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In the pursuit of reducing production costs, offshoring has been a major trend throughout global value chains for many decades. However, with the rise of advanced technologies, new opportunities to automate their production are changing the motivation of multinational firms to go offshore. Instead, many firms are working to relocate their offshored activities from developing economies back to their home countries. This phenomenon, known as reshoring, has recently garnered much attention as it becomes clear that automation in advanced countries might have major implications not only on their own economies but also through international trade on the economy of low-income countries, including their labor market outcomes and their comparative advantages. Thus, while using robots to substitute human labor may lower the relative costs of producing at home, it has the potential to decrease employment and demand for exports from developing economies through reshoring. In this paper, we investigate the recent literature to provide a further understanding of the relationships between robotization and the reshoring of production. Moreover, we analyze the impact of robot adoption on international trade in both developed and emerging markets. Finally, we identify the research gaps and provide avenues for future research in international economics. This study is a part of the project funded by the Internal Grant Agency (IGA) of the Faculty of Business Administration, Prague University of Economics and Business.

Keywords: automation, robotization, reshoring, international trade

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