Search results for: Iron production

Authors: V. Sobotková, B. Šarapatka, M. Dumbrovský, J. Uhrová, M. Bednář

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The paper deals with the influence of implemented conservation measures on the quality of surface water resources. Recently, a new process of complex land consolidation in the Czech Republic has provided a unique opportunity to improve the quality of the environment and sustainability of crop production by means of better soil and water conservation. The most important degradation factor in our study area in the Hubenov drinking water reservoir catchment basin was water erosion together with loss of organic matter. Hubenov Reservoir water resources were monitored for twenty years (1990–2010) to collect water quality data for nitrate nitrogen (N-NO3-), total P, and undissolved substances. Results obtained from measurements taken before and after land consolidation indicated a decrease in the linear trend of N-NO3- and total P concentrations, this was achieved through implementation of conservation measures limiting soil degradation in the Hubenov reservoir catchment area.

Keywords: complex land consolidation, degradation, land use, soil and water conservation, surface water resources

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Authors: Hafiz Muhammad Umer Aslam, Mohammad Rafiq Khan

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This techno-economic study reports the feasibility of generating thermoelectric power from municipal solid waste (MSW) of Kasur City by incineration process. The data was gathered from different establishments of Kasur, through appropriate permission from their heads, and processed to design different alternative projects for installation of a thermal power plant in the city of Kasur. A technique of discounted cash flow was used to evaluate alternative projects so that their Benefit to Cost Ratio, Net Present Value, Internal Rate of Return and Payback Period can be determined. The study revealed that Kasur City currently consumes 18MWh electricity and generates 179 tons/day MSW. The generated waste has the ability to produce 2.1MWh electricity at the cost of USD 0.0581/unit with an expenditure of USD 3,907,692 as initial fixed investment of forming about 1/7th of consumption of Kasur. The cost from this source, when compared to current rate of electricity in Pakistan (USD 0.1346), is roughly half.

Keywords: Kasur City, resource recovery, thermoelectric power, waste management

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Authors: Azza Taha Zaki

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The death of tragedy is probably the most distinctive literary controversy of the twentieth century. There is common critical consent that tragedy in the classical sense of the word is no longer possible. Thinkers, philosophers, and critics such as Nietzsche, Durrenmatt, and George Steiner have all agreed that the decline of the genre in the modern age is due to the total lack of a unified world image and the absence of a shared vision in a fragmented and ideologically diversified world. The production of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead in 1967 marked the rise of the genre of tragi-comedy as a more appropriate reflection of the spirit of the age. At the hands of such great dramatists as Tom Stoppard (1937- ), the revived genre was not used as an extra comic element to give some comic relief to an otherwise tragic text, but it was given a postmodernist touch to serve the interpretation of the dilemma of man in the postmodernist world. This paper will study features of postmodernist tragi-comedy in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead as one of the most important plays in modern British theatre and investigate Stoppard’s vision of man and life as influenced by postmodernist thought and philosophy.

Keywords: British, drama, postmodernist, Stoppard, tragi-comedy

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Authors: Babak Forouraghi

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A genetic circuit is a collection of interacting genes and proteins that enable individual cells to implement and perform vital biological functions such as cell division, growth, death, and signaling. In cell engineering, synthetic gene circuits are engineered networks of genes specifically designed to implement functionalities that are not evolved by nature. These engineered networks enable scientists to tackle complex problems such as engineering cells to produce therapeutics within the patient's body, altering T cells to target cancer-related antigens for treatment, improving antibody production using engineered cells, tissue engineering, and production of genetically modified plants and livestock. Construction of computational models to realize genetic circuits is an especially challenging task since it requires the discovery of flow of genetic information in complex biological systems. Building synthetic biological models is also a time-consuming process with relatively low prediction accuracy for highly complex genetic circuits. The primary goal of this study was to investigate the utility of a pre-trained bidirectional encoder transformer that can accurately predict gene expressions in genetic circuit designs. The main reason behind using transformers is their innate ability (attention mechanism) to take account of the semantic context present in long DNA chains that are heavily dependent on spatial representation of their constituent genes. Previous approaches to gene circuit design, such as CNN and RNN architectures, are unable to capture semantic dependencies in long contexts as required in most real-world applications of synthetic biology. For instance, RNN models (LSTM, GRU), although able to learn long-term dependencies, greatly suffer from vanishing gradient and low-efficiency problem when they sequentially process past states and compresses contextual information into a bottleneck with long input sequences. In other words, these architectures are not equipped with the necessary attention mechanisms to follow a long chain of genes with thousands of tokens. To address the above-mentioned limitations of previous approaches, a transformer model was built in this work as a variation to the existing DNA Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (DNABERT) model. It is shown that the proposed transformer is capable of capturing contextual information from long input sequences with attention mechanism. In a previous work on genetic circuit design, the traditional approaches to classification and regression, such as Random Forrest, Support Vector Machine, and Artificial Neural Networks, were able to achieve reasonably high R2 accuracy levels of 0.95 to 0.97. However, the transformer model utilized in this work with its attention-based mechanism, was able to achieve a perfect accuracy level of 100%. Further, it is demonstrated that the efficiency of the transformer-based gene expression classifier is not dependent on presence of large amounts of training examples, which may be difficult to compile in many real-world gene circuit designs.

Keywords: transformers, generative ai, gene expression design, classification

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Authors: Jae Hee Choi, Seung Il Ahn, Sae Kyul Kim, Byung Wook Yang, Bong Sun Park, Hwan Sup Kim, Young Tae Hahm

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The root of Panax ginseng C. A. MEYER, commonly known as Korean ginseng, has several physiologic effects as a cure-all or a panacea. Among the ginseng, ginseng berry can be obtained from 3 or 4-year-old ginseng plant. Ginseng berry contains the high amount of ginsenoside Re, compared with other ginsenosides. Ginseng berry wine was manufactured with berry extract. The concentration of ginsenoside in ginseng berry extract obtained from Anseong Ginseng Nonghyup was 3.6 mg/g. Ethanol content of ginseng berry wine was 15.00±1.00%. Total polyphenol content was 1.62±0.12 mg/ml. In analysis of organic acids, acetic acid was high in ginseng berry extract whereas malic acid in ginseng berry wine was high.Ginseng berry rice wine was manufactured with berry extract with traditional nuruk (yeast). When the ginseng berry rice wine was manufactured, ginseng berry extract was diluted into 5% of total volume of wine. pH values and total acidity were 3.30±0.03 and 1.28±0.0 %, respectively. Residual sugar content was 8.8 ± 0.0 °Brix and ethanol content was 14.00 %. Any residual pesticides were not detected over acceptable range. Overall, the ginseng berry extract were valuable food stuffs for the manufacture of new ginseng product.

Keywords: ginseng berry, ginseng berry wine, ginsenoside, panax ginseng

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Authors: Kimberly Samaha

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In order to attract new types of investors into the emerging Bio-Economy, a new set of metrics and measurement system is needed to better quantify the environmental, social and economic impacts of circular zero-waste design. The Bio-Hub Ecosystem model was developed to address a critical area of concern within the global energy market regarding the use of biomass as a feedstock for power plants. Lack of an economically-viable business model for bioenergy facilities has resulted in the continuation of idled and decommissioned plants. In particular, the forestry-based plants which have been an invaluable outlet for woody biomass surplus, forest health improvement, timber production enhancement, and especially reduction of wildfire risk. This study looked at repurposing existing biomass-energy plants into Circular Zero-Waste Bio-Hub Ecosystems. A Bio-Hub model that first targets a ‘whole-tree’ approach and then looks at the circular economics of co-hosting diverse industries (wood processing, aquaculture, agriculture) in the vicinity of the Biomass Power Plants facilities. It proposes not only models for integration of forestry, aquaculture, and agriculture in cradle-to-cradle linkages of what have typically been linear systems, but the proposal also allows for the early measurement of the circularity and impact of resource use and investment risk mitigation, for these systems. Typically, life cycle analyses measure environmental impacts of different industrial production stages and are not integrated with indicators of material use circularity. This concept paper proposes the further development of a new set of metrics that would illustrate not only the typical life-cycle analysis (LCA), which shows the reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, but also the zero-waste circularity measures of mass balance of the full value chain of the raw material and energy content/caloric value. These new measures quantify key impacts in making hyper-efficient use of natural resources and eliminating waste to landfills. The project utilized traditional LCA using the GREET model where the standalone biomass energy plant case was contrasted with the integration of a jet-fuel biorefinery. The methodology was then expanded to include combinations of co-hosts that optimize the life cycle of woody biomass from tree to energy, CO₂, heat and wood ash both from an energy/caloric value and for mass balance to include reuse of waste streams which are typically landfilled. The major findings of both a formal LCA study resulted in the masterplan for the first Bio-Hub to be built in West Enfield, Maine. Bioenergy facilities are currently at a critical juncture where they have an opportunity to be repurposed into efficient, profitable and socially responsible investments, or be idled and scrapped. If proven as a model, the expedited roll-out of these innovative scenarios can set a new standard for circular zero-waste projects that advance the critical transition from the current ‘take-make-dispose’ paradigm inherent in the energy, forestry and food industries to a more sustainable bio-economy paradigm where waste streams become valuable inputs, supporting local and rural communities in simple, sustainable ways.

Keywords: bio-economy, biomass energy, financing, metrics

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Authors: René Davids

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Some Western countries are abandoning coal and finding cleaner alternatives, such as solar, wind, hydroelectric, biomass, and geothermal, for the production of energy. As a consequence, industries have closed, and the toxic contaminated slag heaps formed essentially of discarded rock that did not contain coal are being colonized by spontaneously generated plant communities. In becoming green hiking territory, goat farms, viewing platforms, vineyards, great staging posts for species experiencing, and skiing slopes, many of the formerly abandoned hills of refuse have become delightful amenities to the surrounding communities. Together with the transformation of many industrial facilities into cultural venues, these changes to the slag hills have allowed the old coal districts to develop a new identity, but in the process, they have also literally buried the past. This essay reviews a few case studies to analyze the different ways slag heaps have contributed to the cultural landscape in the ex-coal county while arguing that it is important when deciding on their future, that we find ways to make the environmental damage that the extraction industry caused visibly and honor the lives of the people that worked under often appalling conditions in them.

Keywords: slag-heaps, mines, extraction, remediation, pollution

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Authors: Meysam Abedinpour

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Water limitation is the main challenge for crop production in a semi-arid environment. Deficit irrigation is a strategy that allows a crop to sustain some degree of water deficit in order to reduce costs and potentially increase income. For this goal, a field experimental carried out at Asrieh fields of Gorgan city in the north of Iran, during summer season 2011. The treatments imposed were different irrigation water regimes (i.e. W1:70, W2:80, W3:90, and W4:100) percent of field capacity (FC). The results showed that there was Significant difference between the yield and (WUE) under different levels of irrigation, excepting of soil moisture content at field capacity (W4) and 90% of field capacity (W3) on yield and water use efficiency (WUE). The seasonal irrigation water applied were (i.e. 375, 338, 300, and 263 mm ha-1) under different irrigation water treatments (100, 90, 80, 80 and 70%) of FC, respectively. Grain yield productions under treatments were 4180, 3955, 3640, and 3355 (kg ha-1) respectively. Furthermore, the results showed that water use efficiency (WUE) at different treatments were 7.67, 7.79, 7.74, and 7.75 Kg mm ha-1 for (100, 90, 80, and 70) per cent of field capacity, therefore the 90 % of FC treatment (W3) is recommended for Soybean irrigation for water saving. Furthermore, the result showed that the treatment of 90 % of filed capacity (W3) seemed to be better adapted to product a high crop yield with acceptable yield coupling with water use efficiency in Golestan province.

Keywords: deficit irrigation, water use efficiency, yield, soybean

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Authors: Ibrahim Cil, Onur Kurtcu, H. Ibrahim Demir, Furkan Yener, Yusuf. S. Turkan, Muharrem Unver, Ramazan Evren

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Fuzzy AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) method is decision-making way at the end of integrating the current AHP method with fuzzy structure. In this study, the processes of production planning, inventory management and purchasing department of a system were analysed and were requested to decide the performance criteria of each area. At this point, the current work processes were analysed by various decision-makers and comparing each criteria by giving points according to 1-9 scale were completed. The criteria were listed in order to their weights by using Fuzzy AHP approach and top three performance criteria of each department were determined. After that, the performance criteria of supply chain consisting of three departments were asked to determine. The processes of each department were compared by decision-makers at the point of building the supply chain performance system and getting the performance criteria. According to the results, the criteria of performance system of supply chain by using Fuzzy AHP were determined for which will be used in the supply chain performance system in the future.

Keywords: AHP, fuzzy, performance evaluation, supply chain

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Authors: F. Iberraken, R. Medjoudj, D. Aissani

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The development of the smart grids concept is built around two separate definitions, namely: The European one oriented towards sustainable development and the American one oriented towards reliability and security of supply. In this paper, we have investigated reliability merits enabling decision-makers to provide a high quality of service. It is based on system behavior using interruptions and failures modeling and forecasting from one hand and on the contribution of information and communication technologies (ICT) to mitigate catastrophic ones such as blackouts from the other hand. It was found that this concept has been adopted by developing and emerging countries in short and medium terms followed by sustainability concept at long term planning. This work has highlighted the reliability merits such as: Benefits, opportunities, costs and risks considered as consistent units of measuring power customer satisfaction. From the decision making point of view, we have used the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to achieve customer satisfaction, based on the reliability merits and the contribution of such energy resources. Certainly nowadays, fossil and nuclear ones are dominating energy production but great advances are already made to jump into cleaner ones. It was demonstrated that theses resources are not only environmentally but also economically and socially sustainable. The paper is organized as follows: Section one is devoted to the introduction, where an implicit review of smart grids development is given for the two main concepts (for USA and Europeans countries). The AHP method and the BOCR developments of reliability merits against power customer satisfaction are developed in section two. The benefits where expressed by the high level of availability, maintenance actions applicability and power quality. Opportunities were highlighted by the implementation of ICT in data transfer and processing, the mastering of peak demand control, the decentralization of the production and the power system management in default conditions. Costs were evaluated using cost-benefit analysis, including the investment expenditures in network security, becoming a target to hackers and terrorists, and the profits of operating as decentralized systems, with a reduced energy not supplied, thanks to the availability of storage units issued from renewable resources and to the current power lines (CPL) enabling the power dispatcher to manage optimally the load shedding. For risks, we have razed the adhesion of citizens to contribute financially to the system and to the utility restructuring. What is the degree of their agreement compared to the guarantees proposed by the managers about the information integrity? From technical point of view, have they sufficient information and knowledge to meet a smart home and a smart system? In section three, an application of AHP method is made to achieve power customer satisfaction based on the main energy resources as alternatives, using knowledge issued from a country that has a great advance in energy mutation. Results and discussions are given in section four. It was given us to conclude that the option to a given resource depends on the attitude of the decision maker (prudent, optimistic or pessimistic), and that status quo is neither sustainable nor satisfactory.

Keywords: reliability, AHP, renewable energy resources, smart grids

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Authors: Anek Apipatkul, Paphakorn Pitayachaval

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Preventive maintenance is a standardized procedure to control and prevent risky problems affecting production in order to increase work efficiency. Machine monitoring also routinely works to collect data for a scheduling maintenance period. This paper is to present the application of machine monitoring by using the internet of things (IOTs) and a lean technique in order to manage with complex maintenance tasks of an automated plastic granule packing machine. To organize the preventive maintenance, there are several processes that the machine monitoring was applied, starting with defining a clear scope of the machine, establishing standards in maintenance work, applying a just-in-time (JIT) technique for timely delivery in the maintenance work, solving problems on the floor, and also improving the inspection process. The result has shown that wasted time was reduced, and machines have been operated as scheduled. Furthermore, the efficiency of the scheduled maintenance period was increased by 95%.

Keywords: internet of things, preventive maintenance, machine monitoring, lean technique

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Authors: Muhammad Hadi Ibrahim

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The benefits of alternative/renewable fuels in general and a study of the environmental impacts of biofuels in particular have been reviewed in this paper. It is a known fact that, energy generation using fossil fuel produces many important pollutants including; nitrogen oxides, hydrocarbons, soot, dust, smoke and other particulate harmful matter. It’s believed that if carbon dioxide levels continue to increase drastically, the planet will become warmer and will most likely result in a variety of negative impacts including; sea-level rise, extreme and unpredictable weather events and an increased frequency of draughts in inland agricultural zones. Biofuels such as alcohols, biogas, etc. appear to be more viable alternatives, especially for use as fuels in diesel engines. The substitution of fossil fuel through increased utilization of biofuels produced in a sustainable manner, can contribute immensely towards a cleaner environment, reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and mitigation of climate change. Stakeholders in the energy sector can be sensitized by the findings of the research study and to consider the possible adverse effects in developing technologies for the production and combustion of biofuels.

Keywords: emission, energy, renewable/alternative fuel, environment, pollution

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Authors: Abdul Rahim Al Umairi, Hamed Al Kindi

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The cement production process significantly contributes to greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for 25% of total industrial emissions. This study systematically examined new, underutilized materials—sewage sludge ash (SSA), marble waste (MW), and calcined clay (CC)—to evaluate their effects when partially replacing white Portland cement (WPC) in cement paste formulations. Various replacement proportions (10%, 20%, and 30%) were tested, along with different treatment temperatures (600°C, 630°C, 730°C, and 850°C) for SSA and CC. To gain a deeper understanding of the resulting materials, analyses such as XRF, XRD, and SEM were conducted. The highest compressive strength recorded for the 28-day cured cement paste was 91 MPa when 20% SSA (treated at 600°C) was used, compared to just 53 MPa for the control sample. Conversely, CC exhibited minimal enhancement in compressive strength, while MW had detrimental effects. Additionally, replacing WPC with SSA and CC at 9% and 21% resulted in slight improvements in compressive strength. This research highlights the potential of utilizing underexploited materials like SSA to improve the mechanical and chemical properties of cement paste, indicating that further investigation is necessary to enhance environmental sustainability.

Keywords: sewage sludge ash, calcined clay, marble waste, cement

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Authors: Mazaher Yarmohamadi-Vasel, Ali Reza Modarresi-Alama, Sahar Shabzendedara

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Purpose/Objectives: The first purpose was synthesize Poly(N-(sulfophenyl)aniline) nanoflowers (PSANFLs) and Poly(N-(sulfophenyl)aniline) nanofibers/titanium dioxide nanoparticles ((PSANFs/TiO2NPs) by a solid-state mechano-chemical reaction and template-free method and use them in hybrid solar cell. Also, our second aim was to increase the solubility and the processability of conjugated nanomaterials in water through polar functionalized materials. poly[N-(4-sulfophenyl)aniline] is easily soluble in water because of the presence of polar groups of sulfonic acid in the polymer chain. Materials/Methods: Iron (III) chloride hexahydrate (FeCl3∙6H2O) were bought from Merck Millipore Company. Titanium oxide nanoparticles (TiO2, <20 nm, anatase) and Sodium diphenylamine-4-sulfonate (99%) were bought from Sigma-Aldrich Company. Titanium dioxide nanoparticles paste (PST-20T) was prepared from Sharifsolar Co. Conductive glasses coated with indium tin oxide (ITO) were bought from Xinyan Technology Co (China). For the first time we used the solid-state mechano-chemical reaction and template-free method to synthesize Poly(N-(sulfophenyl)aniline) nanoflowers. Moreover, for the first time we used the same technique to synthesize nanocomposite of Poly(N-(sulfophenyl)aniline) nanofibers and titanium dioxide nanoparticles (PSANFs/TiO2NPs) also for the first time this nanocomposite was synthesized. Examining the results of electrochemical calculations energy gap obtained by CV curves and UV–vis spectra demonstrate that PSANFs/TiO2NPs nanocomposite is a p-n type material that can be used in photovoltaic cells. Doctor blade method was used to creat films for three kinds of hybrid solar cells in terms of different patterns like ITO│TiO2NPs│Semiconductor sample│Al. In the following, hybrid photovoltaic cells in bilayer and bulk heterojunction structures were fabricated as ITO│TiO2NPs│PSANFLs│Al and ITO│TiO2NPs│PSANFs /TiO2NPs│Al, respectively. Fourier-transform infrared spectra, field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), ultraviolet-visible spectra, cyclic voltammetry (CV) and electrical conductivity were the analysis that used to characterize the synthesized samples. Results and Conclusions: FE-SEM images clearly demonstrate that the morphology of the synthesized samples are nanostructured (nanoflowers and nanofibers). Electrochemical calculations of band gap from CV curves demonstrated that the forbidden band gap of the PSANFLs and PSANFs/TiO2NPs nanocomposite are 2.95 and 2.23 eV, respectively. I–V characteristics of hybrid solar cells and their power conversion efficiency (PCE) under 100 mWcm−2 irradiation (AM 1.5 global conditions) were measured that The PCE of the samples were 0.30 and 0.62%, respectively. At the end, all the results of solar cell analysis were discussed. To sum up, PSANFLs and PSANFLs/TiO2NPs were successfully synthesized by an affordable and straightforward mechanochemical reaction in solid-state under the green condition. The solubility and processability of the synthesized compounds have been improved compared to the previous work. We successfully fabricated hybrid photovoltaic cells of synthesized semiconductor nanostructured polymers and TiO2NPs as different architectures. We believe that the synthesized compounds can open inventive pathways for the development of other Poly(N-(sulfophenyl)aniline based hybrid materials (nanocomposites) proper for preparing new generation solar cells.

Keywords: mechanochemical synthesis, PSANFLs, PSANFs/TiO2NPs, solar cell

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Authors: Xiaojing Gao, James Njuguna

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This paper emphasizes the importance of integrating project management and systems engineering for innovative system design and production development. The research highlights the need for a flexible approach that unifies these disciplines, as their isolation often leads to communication challenges and complexity within multidisciplinary teams. The paper aims to elucidate the intricate relationship between project management and systems engineering, recommending the consolidation of engineering disciplines into a single lifecycle for improved support of the design and development process. The research identifies a synergy between these disciplines, focusing on streamlining information communication during product design and development. The insights gained from this process can lead to product design optimization. Additionally, the paper introduces a proposed Project Management-Based Systems Engineering (PMBSE) framework, emphasizing effective communication, efficient processes, and advanced tools to enhance product development outcomes within the product lifecycle.

Keywords: system engineering, product design and development, project management, cross-disciplinary

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Authors: Oyenike M. Olanrewaju, Faith O. Echobu, Aderemi G. Adesoji, Emmy Danny Ajik, Joseph Nda Ndabula, Stephen Lucas

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Nutrients are required for any soil with which plants thrive to improve efficient growth and productivity. Amongst these nutrients required for proper plant productivity are nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium (NPK). Due to factors like leaching, nutrients uptake by plants, soil erosion and evaporation, these elements tend to be in low quantity and the need to replenish them arises. But these replenishment of soil nutrients cannot be done without a timely soil test to enable farmers to know the amount of each element in short quantity and evaluate the amount required to be added. Though wet soil analysis is good but it comes with a lot of challenges ranging from soil test gargets availability to the technical knowledge of how to conduct such soil test by the common farmer. Internet of things test kit was developed to fill in the gaps created by wet soil analysis, as it can test for N, P, K, soil temperature and soil moisture in a given soil at the time of test. In this implementation, sample test was carried out within 0.2 hectares of land divided into smaller plots. The kits perform adequately well as the range of values obtained across the segments were within a very close range.

Keywords: Internet of Things, soil nutrients, test kit, soil temperature

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Authors: Prakriti Diwan, S. Saraf

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The present study involves preparation and evaluation of microparticles of diclofenac sodium. The microparticles were prepared by the emulsion solvent evaporation techniques using ethylcellulose polymer. Four different batches of microspheres were prepared by varying the concentration of polymer from 50% to 80% w/w. The microspheres were characterized for drug content, percentage yield and encapsulation efficiency, particle size analysis and surface morphology. Microsphere prepared with high drug content produces higher percentage yield and encapsulation efficiency values. It was observed the increase in concentration of the polymer, increases the mean particle size of the microspheres. The effect of polymer concentration on the in vitro release of diclofenac from the microspheres was also studied. The production microparticles yield showed 98.74%, mean particle size 956.32µm and loading efficiency 97.15%. The results were found that microparticles prepared had slower release than microparticles (p>0.05). Therefore, it may be concluded that drug loaded microparticles are suitable delivery systems for diclofenac sodium.

Keywords: diclofenac sodium, emulsion solvent evaporation, ethylcellulose, microparticles

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Authors: Md Shafiqul Bari, Md Shafiqul Islam Sikdar

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This paper summarizes the current knowledge on Agroforestry practices in the Barind tract of Bangladesh. The part of greater Rajshahi, Dinajpur, Rangpur and Bogra district of Bangladesh is geographically identified as the Barind tract. The hard red soil of these areas is very significant in comparison to that of the other parts of the country. A typical dry climate with comparatively high temperature prevails in the Barind area. Scanty rainfall and excessive extraction of groundwater have created an alarming situation among the Barind people and others about irrigation to the rice field. In addition, the situation may cause an adverse impact on the people whose livelihood largely depends on agriculture. The groundwater table has been declined by at least 10 to 15 meters in some areas of the Barind tract during the last 20 years. Due to absent of forestland in the Barind tract, the soil organic carbon content can decrease more rapidly because of the higher rate of decomposition. The Barind soils are largely carbon depleted but can be brought back to carbon-carrying capacity by bringing under suitable Agroforestry systems. Agroforestry has tremendous potential for carbon sequestration not only in above C biomass but also root C biomass in deeper soil depths. Agroforestry systems habitually conserve soil organic carbon and maintain a great natural nutrient pool. Cultivation of trees with arable crops under Agroforestry systems help in improving soil organic carbon content and sequestration carbon, particularly in the highly degraded Barind lands. Agroforestry systems are a way of securing the growth of cash crops that may constitute an alternative source of income in moments of crisis. Besides being a source of fuel wood, a greater presence of trees in cropping system contributes to decreasing temperatures and to increasing rainfall, thus contrasting the negative environmental impact of climate changes. In order to fulfill the objectives of this study, two experiments were conducted. The first experiment was survey on the impact of existing agroforestry system on the livelihood security in the Barind tract of Bangladesh and the second one was the role of agroforestry system on the improvement of soil properties in a multilayered coconut orchard. Agroforestry systems have been generated a lot of employment opportunities in the Barind area. More crops mean involvement of more people in various activities like involvements in dairying, sericulture, apiculture and additional associated agro-based interventions. Successful adoption of Agroforestry practices in the Barind area has shown that the Agroforestry practitioners of this area were very sound positioned economically, and had added social status too. However, from the findings of the present study, it may be concluded that the majority rural farmers of the Barind tract of Bangladesh had a very good knowledge and medium extension contact related to agroforestry production system. It was also observed that 85 per cent farmers followed agroforestry production system and received benefits to a higher extent. Again, from the research study on orchard based mutistoried agroforestry cropping system, it was evident that there was an important effect of agroforestry cropping systems on the improvement of soil chemical properties. As a result, the agroforestry systems may be helpful to attain the development objectives and preserve the biosphere core.

Keywords: agroforestry systems, Barind tract, carbon sequestration, climate changes

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Authors: Abhilash Balan Paleri

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Hand woven fabric embellishes an exceptional identity in the social milieu of Kerala; still, the artisans and handloom sector is undergoing crisis due to various reasons. The hand woven school uniform initiative of Govt. of Kerala launched in 2016 aims at enhancing the sector, ensuring sustainability at artisan and end-user levels. The Kerala Government already distributed 23 lakhs meters of cloth (for shirting, suiting, and skirting) woven by 4085 artisans in their traditional looms covering 4.5 lakhs of students in the public education sector which covers cover 3,701 schools in the state. The 2019-20 year production is expected to be 42 Lakhs meters of hand woven clothing catering 8.6 lakhs of students in the primary sector. This particular investigation unveils the upshots of the initiative, and the observations are derived through systematic enquiry with artisans, authorities, and end-users. The findings show a remarkable positive impact in the livelihood of artisans and the entire handloom sector.

Keywords: handloom school uniform initiative of Kerala, hand woven fabric, sustainability, handloom weavers

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Authors: Yizhen Zhao, Adam S. Z. Belloum, Goncalo Maia Da Costa, Zhiming Zhao

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Machine learning has evolved from an area of academic research to a real-word applied field. This change comes with challenges, gaps and differences exist between common practices in academic environments and the ones in production environments. Following continuous integration, development and delivery practices in software engineering, similar trends have happened in machine learning (ML) systems, called MLOps. In this paper we propose a framework that helps to streamline and introduce best practices that facilitate the ML lifecycle in an industrial setting. This framework can be used as a template that can be customized to implement various machine learning experiment. The proposed framework is modular and can be recomposed to be adapted to various use cases (e.g. data versioning, remote training on cloud). The framework inherits practices from DevOps and introduces other practices that are unique to the machine learning system (e.g.data versioning). Our MLOps practices automate the entire machine learning lifecycle, bridge the gap between development and operation.

Keywords: cloud computing, continuous development, data versioning, DevOps, industrial setting, MLOps

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Authors: Mohammad Goli, Akram Sharifi, Mohammad Yousefi Jozdani, Seyed Ali Mortazavi

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An industrial spray dryer was used, and the effects of atomizer speed on the physicochemical properties of milk powder, the textural and sensory characteristics of white cheese made from this milk powder, were evaluated. For this purpose, whole milk was converted into powder by using three different speeds (10,000, 11,000, and 12,000 rpm). Results showed that with increasing atomizer speed in the spray dryer, the average size of casein micelle is significantly decreased (p < 0.05), whereas no significant effect is observed on the chemical properties of milk powder. White cheese characteristics indicated that with increasing atomizer speed, texture parameters, such as hardness, mastication, and gumminess, were significantly reduced (p < 0.05). Sensory evaluation also revealed that cheese samples prepared with dried milk produced at 12,000 rpm were highly accepted by panelists. Overall, the findings suggested that 12,000 rpm is the optimal atomizer speed for milk powder production.

Keywords: spray drying, powder technology, atomizer speed, particle size, white cheese physical properties

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Authors: Manatchanok Tantiphiphatthana, Lin Peng, Rujira Jitrwung, Kunio Yoshikawa

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Hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) is a technique for obtaining clean biofuel from biomass in the presence of heat and pressure in an aqueous medium which leads to a decomposition of this biomass to the formation of various products. A role of operating conditions is essential for the bio-oil and other products’ yield and also quality of the products. The effects of these parameters were investigated in regards to the composition and yield of the products. Chlorellaceae microalgae were tested under different HTL conditions to clarify suitable conditions for extracting bio-oil together with value-added co-products. Firstly, different microalgae loading rates (5-30%) were tested and found that this parameter has not much significant to product yield. Therefore, 10% microalgae loading rate was selected as a proper economical solution for conditioned schedule at 250oC and 30 min-reaction time. Next, a range of temperature (210-290oC) was applied to verify the effects of each parameter by keeping the reaction time constant at 30 min. The results showed no linkage with the increase of the reaction temperature and some reactions occurred that lead to different product yields. Moreover, some nutrients found in the aqueous product are possible to be utilized for nutrient recovery.

Keywords: bio-oil, hydrothermal liquefaction, microalgae, aqueous co-product

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Authors: Manisha Bal, B. C. Meikap

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Highly toxic and corrosive gas H₂S is recognized as one of the hazardous air pollutants which has significant effect on the human health. Abatement of H₂S gas from the air is very necessary. H₂S gas is mainly released from the industries like paper and leather industry as well as during the production of crude oil, during wastewater treatment, etc. But the emission of H₂S gas in high concentration may cause immediate death while at lower concentrations can cause various respiratory problems. In the present study, self priming venturi scrubber is used to remove the H₂S gas from the air. Response surface methodology with central composite design has been chosen to observe the effect of process parameters on the removal efficiency of H₂S. Experiments were conducted by varying the throat gas velocity, liquid level in outer cylinder, and inlet H₂S concentration. ANOVA test confirmed the significant effect of parameters on the removal efficiency. A quadratic equation has been obtained which predicts the removal efficiency very well. The suitability of the developed model has been judged by the higher R² square value which obtained from the regression analysis. From the investigation, it was found that the throat gas velocity has most significant effect and inlet concentration of H₂S has less effect on H₂S removal efficiency.

Keywords: desulfurization, pollution control, response surface methodology, venturi scrubber

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Authors: Felix Darko-Amoah, Daniel Acquah

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In contemporary ecosystems for developing countries like Ghana, the need to explore innovative solutions for sustainable livelihoods of farmers is more important than ever. With Ghana’s population growing steadily and the demand for food, fiber and shelter increasing, it is imperative that the construction industry and agriculture come together to address the challenges faced by farmers in the country. In order to enhance the livelihoods of cocoa farmers in Ghana, this paper provides an innovative strategy that aims to integrate the areas of civil engineering and cash crop agriculture. This study focuses on cocoa cultivation in poorer nations, where farmers confront a variety of difficulties include restricted access to financing, subpar infrastructure, and insufficient support services. We seek to improve farmers' access to financing, improve infrastructure, and provide support services that are essential to their success by combining the fields of building engineering and cocoa production. The findings of the study are beneficial to cocoa producers, community extension agents, and construction engineers. In order to accomplish our objectives, we conducted 307 of field investigations in particular cocoa growing communities in the Western Region of Ghana. Several studies have shown that there is a lack of adequate infrastructure and financing, leading to low yields, subpar beans, and low farmer profitability in developing nations like Ghana. Our goal is to give farmers access to better infrastructure, better financing, and support services that are crucial to their success through the fusion of construction engineering and cocoa production. Based on data gathered from the field investigations, the results show that the employment of appropriate technology and methods for developing structures, roads, and other infrastructure in rural regions is one of the essential components of this strategy. For instance, we find that using affordable, environmentally friendly materials like bamboo, rammed earth, and mud bricks can assist to cut expenditures while also protecting the environment. By applying simple relational techniques to the data gathered, the results also show that construction engineers are crucial in planning and building infrastructure that is appropriate for the local environment and circumstances and resilient to natural disasters like floods. Thus, the convergence of construction engineering and cash crop cultivation is another crucial component of the agriculture-construction interplay. For instance, farmers can receive financial assistance to buy essential inputs, such as seeds, fertilizer, and tools, as well as training in proper farming methods. Moreover, extension services can be offered to assist farmers in marketing their crops and enhancing their livelihoods and revenue. In conclusion, our analysis of responses from the 307 participants depicts that the combination of construction engineering and cash crop agriculture offers an innovative approach to improving farmers' livelihoods in cocoa farming communities in Ghana. In conclusion, by inculcating the findings of this study into core decision-making, policymakers can help farmers build sustainable and profitable livelihoods by addressing challenges such as limited access to financing, poor infrastructure, and inadequate support services.

Keywords: cocoa agriculture, construction engineering, farm buildings and equipment, improved livelihoods of farmers

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Authors: Jamal Hussain Al-Smail

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Hydrogen fuel cells (HFCs) are environmentally friendly, energy converter devices that convert the chemical energy of the reactants (oxygen and hydrogen) to electricity through electrochemical reactions. The level of the electricity production of HFCs mainly increases depending on the oxygen distribution in the HFC’s cathode gas diffusion layer (GDL). With a constant porosity of the GDL, the electrochemical reaction can have a great variation that reduces the cell’s productivity and stability. Our findings bring a methodology in finding porosity designs of the diffusion layer to improve the oxygen distribution such that it results in a stable oxygen-hydrogen reaction. We first introduce a mathematical model involving the mass and momentum transport equations, in which a porosity function of the GDL is incorporated as a control for the fluid flow. We then derive numerical methods for solving the mathematical model. In conclusion, we present our numerical results to show how to design the GDL porosity to result in a uniform oxygen distribution.

Keywords: fuel cells, material porosity design, mathematical modeling, porous media

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Authors: Sudeshna Sengupta

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Women’s work lives weave a complex fabric of myriad work relations and complex structures. Lives, when seen from the lens of work, is a saga of conjugated oppression by intertwined structures that are vertically and horizontally interwoven in a very complex manner. Women interact with multiple institutions through their work. The interactions and interplay of institutions shape their organization of work. They intersperse productive work with reproductive work, unpaid economic activities with unpaid care work, and all kinds of activities with leisure and self-care. The proposed paper intends to understand how women working as home-based workers in the National Capital Region (NCR) of India are organizing their everyday work, and how the organization of work is influenced by the interplay of structures. Situating itself in a multidisciplinary theoretical framework, this paper brings out how the gendering of work is playing out in the political, economic and social domain and shaping the work-life within the family, and in the paid workspace. The paper will use a primary data source, which is qualitative in nature. It will comprise 15 qualitative interviews of women home-based workers from the National Capital Region. The research uses a life history approach. The sampling was purposive using snowballing as a method. The dataset is part of the primary data (qualitative) collected for the ongoing Ph.D. work in Gender Studies at Ambedkar University Delhi. The home-based workers interviewed were in “non-factory” wage relations based on piece rates with flexible working hours. Their workplaces were their own homes with no spatial divide between living spaces and workspaces. Home-based workers were recognized as a group in the domain of labor economics in the 1980s. When menial work was cheaper than machine work, the capital owners preferred to outsource work as home-based work to women. These production spaces are fragmented and the identity of gender is created within labor processes to favor material accumulation. Both the employers and employees acknowledged the material gain of the capital owner when work was subcontracted to women at home. Simultaneously the market reinforced women’s reproductive role by conforming to patriarchal ideology. The contractors played an important role in implementing localized control on workers and also in finding workers for fragmented, gendered production processes. Their presence helped the employers in bringing together multiple forms of oppression that ranged from creating a structure to flout laws by creating shadow employers. It created an intertwined social and economic structure as well as a workspace where the line between productive and reproductive work gets blurred. The state invisibilized itself either by keeping the sector out of the domain of laws or by not implementing its own laws regulating working conditions or social security. It allowed the local hierarchy to function and define localized working conditions. The productive reproductive continuum reveals a labor control that influenced both the productive and reproductive work of women.

Keywords: informal sector, paid work, women workers, labor processes

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Authors: M. Yildirim, A. S. Kipcak, F. T. Senberber, M. O. Asensio, E. M. Derun, S. Piskin

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Potassium borates, which are widely used in welding and metal refining industry, as a lubricating oil additive, cement additive, fiberglass additive and insulation compound, are one of the important groups of borate minerals. In this study the production of a potassium borate mineral via hydrothermal method is aimed. The potassium source of potassium nitrate (KNO3) was used along with a sodium source of sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and boron source of boric acid (H3BO3). The constant parameters of reaction temperature and reaction time were determined as 80°C and 1 h, respectively. The molar ratios of 1:1:3 (as KNO3:NaOH:H3BO3), 1:1:4, 1:1:5, 1:1:6 and 1:1:7 were used. Following the synthesis the identifications of the produced products were conducted by X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR). The results of the experiments and analysis showed in the ratio of 1:1:6, the Santite mineral with powder diffraction file number (pdf no.) of 01-072-1688, which is known as potassium pentaborate (KB5O8•4H2O) was synthesized as best.

Keywords: hydrothermal synthesis, potassium borate, potassium nitrate, santite

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Authors: Mario Gómez, José Carlos Rodríguez

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This paper analyzes the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis to test the causality relationship between economic activity, trade openness and carbon dioxide emissions in Mexico (1971-2011). The results achieved in this research show that there are three long-run relationships between production, trade openness, energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions. The EKC hypothesis was not verified in this research. Indeed, it was found evidence of a short-term unidirectional causality from GDP and GDP squared to carbon dioxide emissions, from GDP, GDP squared and TO to EC, and bidirectional causality between TO and GDP. Finally, it was found evidence of long-term unidirectional causality from all variables to carbon emissions. These results suggest that a reduction in energy consumption, economic activity, or an increase in trade openness would reduce pollution.

Keywords: causality, cointegration, energy consumption, economic growth, environmental Kuznets curve

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Authors: Ka-lok Kan, Oluwatoyin Ajibade, Issa Chaer

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Climate change’s extreme weather patterns significantly affect the durability and maintenance costs of existing asphalt Road Pavement Systems (RPS). Moreover, the current RPS imposes a considerable environmental burden, as its production involves the large-scale extraction of bitumen and the dredging of Virgin Sand and Gravel (VSG). Recent studies suggest that more sustainable alternatives, such as incorporating carbonated aggregates to reduce the use of virgin materials content in asphalt, can enhance asphalt performance while offering an effective cost management strategy. However, the impact of extreme weather conditions on the durability and maintenance requirements of these green solutions remains unexplored. This paper reports on the results of comprehensive durability tests conducted on a novel asphalt pavement to assess the effects of anticipated extreme winter and summer weather conditions. Preliminary findings indicate that the new asphalt pavement system made from carbonated aggregates demonstrates greater stability and fatigue resistance in comparison to traditional asphalt mixes.

Keywords: climate change, carbonated aggregates, green solution, asphalt

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Authors: A. N. Gornostaeva, P. I. Bobyleva, E. R. Andreeva, L. B. Buravkova

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Multipotent mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) possess immunomodulatory properties. The effect of MSCs on the crucial cellular immunity compartment – T-cells is of a special interest. It is known that MSC tissue niche and expected milieu of their interaction with T- cells are characterized by low oxygen concentration, whereas the in vitro experiments usually are carried out at a much higher ambient oxygen (20%). We firstly evaluated immunomodulatory effects of MSCs on T-cells at tissue-related oxygen (5%) after interaction implied cell-to-cell contacts and paracrine factors only. It turned out that MSCs under reduced oxygen can effectively suppress the activation and proliferation of PHA-stimulated T-cells and can provoke decrease in the production of proinflammatory and increase in anti-inflammatory cytokines. In hypoxia some effects were amplified (inhibition of proliferation, anti-inflammatory cytokine profile shift). This impact was more evident after direct cell-to-cell interaction; lack of intercellular contacts could revoke the potentiating effect of hypoxia.

Keywords: MSCs, T-cells, activation, low oxygen, cell-to-cell interaction, immunosuppression

Procedia PDF Downloads 383