Search results for: liveable built environments

Authors: Samar Alharbi, Yota Dimitriadi

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The literature on educational technology in Saudi Arabia reveals female learners’ unwillingness to study fully online courses in higher education despite the fact that Saudi universities have offered a variety of online degree programmes to undergraduate students in many regions of the country. The root causes keeping female students from successfully learning in online environments are limited social interaction, lack of motivation and difficulty with the use of e-learning platforms. E-immediacy remains an important method of online teaching to enhance students’ interaction and support their online learning. This study explored Saudi female students’ perceptions, as well as the experiences of lecturers’ immediacy behaviours in online environments, who participate in fully online courses using Blackboard at a Saudi university. Data were collected through interviews with focus groups. The three focus groups included five to seven students each. The female participants were asked about lecturers’ e-immediacy behaviours and which e-immediacy behaviours were important for an effective learning environment. A thematic analysis of the data revealed three main themes: the encouragement of student interaction, the incorporation of social media and addressing the needs of students. These findings provide lecturers with insights into instructional designs and strategies that can be adopted in using e-immediacy in effective ways, thus improving female learners’ interactions as well as their online learning experiences.

Keywords: e-learning, female students, higher education, immediacy

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Authors: Olatunbosun Samuel Adekogbe

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This paper addresses the question of musical signification, revolving around nature and its natural divides; the paper tends to examine the roles of the dispositional apparatus of listeners to react to sounding environments through music as coordinated sound that focuses on the powerful strain between vibrational occurrences of sound and potentials of being structured. This paper sets out to examine music as a simple conventional design that does not allude to something beyond music and sound as a vehicle to communicate through production, perception, translation, and reaction with regard to melodic and semiotic functions of sounds. This paper adopts the application of questionnaire and evolutionary approach methods to probe musical adaptation, reproduction, and natural selection as the basis for explaining specific human behavioural responses to musical sense-making beyond the above-sketched dichotomies, with a major focus on the transition from acoustic-emotional sensibilities to musical meaning in the selected soundscapes. It was observed that music has emancipated itself from the level of mere acoustic processing of sounds to a functional description in terms of allowing music users to share experiences and interact with the soundscaping environment. The paper, therefore, concludes that the audience as music participants and listeners in the selected soundscapes have been conceived as adaptive devices in the paradigm shift, which can build up new semiotic linkages with the sounding environments in southwestern Nigeria.

Keywords: semiotics, sound, music, soundscape, environment

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Authors: Afshin Moazami, Andrea Schiffauerova

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The objective of this work is to investigate the development and the role of collaboration networks in the creation of knowledge and innovations in the US and Canada, with a special focus on Quebec. In order to create scientific networks, the data on journal articles were extracted from SCOPUS, and the networks were built based on the co-authorship of the journal papers. For innovation networks, the USPTO database was used, and the networks were built on the patent co-inventorship. Various indicators characterizing the evolution of the network structure and the positions of the researchers and inventors in the networks were calculated. The comparison between the United States, Canada, and Quebec was then carried out. The preliminary results show that the nature of scientific collaboration networks differs from the one seen in innovation networks. Scientists work in bigger teams and are mostly interconnected within one giant network component, whereas the innovation network is much more clustered and fragmented, the inventors work more repetitively with the same partners, often in smaller isolated groups. In both Canada and the US, an increasing tendency towards collaboration was observed, and it was found that networks are getting bigger and more centralized with time. Moreover, a declining share of knowledge transfers per scientist was detected, suggesting an increasing specialization of science. The US collaboration networks tend to be more centralized than the Canadian ones. Quebec shares a lot of features with the Canadian network, but some differences were observed, for example, Quebec inventors rely more on the knowledge transmission through intermediaries.

Keywords: Canada, collaboration, innovation network, scientific network, Quebec, United States

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Authors: Heikki Ruohomaa, Vesa Salminen

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Regions are facing huge competition to attract companies, businesses, inhabitants, students, etc. This way to improve living and business environment, which is rapidly changing due to digitalization. On the other hand, from the industry's point of view, the availability of a skilled labor force and an innovative environment are crucial factors. In this context, qualified staff has been seen to utilize the opportunities of digitalization and respond to the needs of future skills. World Manufacturing Forum has stated in the year 2019- report that in next five years, 40% of workers have to change their core competencies. Through digital transformation, new technologies like cloud, mobile, big data, 5G- infrastructure, platform- technology, data- analysis, and social networks with increasing intelligence and automation, enterprises can capitalize on new opportunities and optimize existing operations to achieve significant business improvement. Digitalization will be an important part of the everyday life of citizens and present in the working day of the average citizen and employee in the future. For that reason, the education system and education programs on all levels of education from diaper age to doctorate have been directed to fulfill this ecosystem strategy. Goal: The Fourth Industrial Revolution will bring unprecedented change to societies, education organizations and business environments. This article aims to identify how education, education content, the way education has proceeded, and overall whole the education business is changing. Most important is how we should respond to this inevitable co- evolution. Methodology: The study aims to verify how the learning process is boosted by new digital content, new learning software and tools, and customer-oriented learning environments. The change of education programs and individual education modules can be supported by applied research projects. You can use them in making proof- of- the concept of new technology, new ways to teach and train, and through the experiences gathered change education content, way to educate and finally education business as a whole. Major findings: Applied research projects can prove the concept- phases on real environment field labs to test technology opportunities and new tools for training purposes. Customer-oriented applied research projects are also excellent for students to make assignments and use new knowledge and content and teachers to test new tools and create new ways to educate. New content and problem-based learning are used in future education modules. This article introduces some case study experiences on customer-oriented digital transformation projects and how gathered knowledge on new digital content and a new way to educate has influenced education. The case study is related to experiences of research projects, customer-oriented field labs/learning environments and education programs of Häme University of Applied Sciences.

Keywords: education process, digitalization content, digital tools for education, learning environments, transdisciplinary co-operation

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Authors: Mukhtar Ibrahim Bello, Ibrahim U. Aikawa, Abubakar Sadiq Muhammad, Muhammad Baballe Ahmad

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These vital signs can be tracked by wearable sensors, which can also be used to assess patients' health. As a result, they can be very beneficial to patients and healthcare professionals in the diagnosis of diseases, particularly when it comes to taking a patient's body temperature in infectious disorders.

Keywords: fire out-break, robots, saving, dangerous environments, impacts

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Authors: Julian B. García, Virginie Q. R. Pinto, André P. Assis

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This paper presents numerical flow and slope stability simulations in three typical sections of earth dams built in tropical regions, two homogeneous with different slope inclinations, and the other one heterogeneous with impermeable core. The geotechnical material parameters used in this work were obtained from a lab testing of physical characterization, compaction, consolidation, variable load permeability and saturated triaxial type CD for compacted soil samples with standard proctor energy at optimum moisture content (23%), optimum moisture content + 2% and optimum moisture content +5%. The objective is to analyze the general behavior of earth dams built in rainy regions where optimum moisture is exceeded. The factor of safety is satisfactory for the three sections compacted in all moisture content during the stages of operation and end of construction. On The other hand, the rapid drawdown condition is the critical phase for homogeneus dams configuration, the factor of safety obtained were unsatisfactory. In general, the heterogeneous dam behavior is more efficient due to the fact that the slopes are made up of gravel, which favors the dissipation of pore pressures during the rapid drawdown. For the critical phase, the slopes should have lower inclinations of the upstream and downstream slopes to guarantee stability, although it increases the costs.

Keywords: earth dams, flow, moisture content, slope stability

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Authors: Valentina Bonetti

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Exergy analysis successfully helps optimizing processes in various sectors. In the built environment, a second-law approach can enhance potential interactions between constructions and their surrounding environment and minimise fossil fuel requirements. Despite the research done in this field in the last decades, practical applications are hard to encounter, and few integrated exergy simulators are available for building designers. Undoubtedly, an obstacle for the diffusion of exergy methods is the strong dependency of results on the definition of its 'reference state', a highly controversial issue. Since exergy is the combination of energy and entropy by means of a reference state (also called "reference environment", or "dead state"), the reference choice is crucial. Compared to other classical applications, buildings present two challenging elements: They operate very near to the reference state, which means that small variations have relevant impacts, and their behaviour is dynamical in nature. Not surprisingly then, the reference state definition for the built environment is still debated, especially in the case of dynamic assessments. Among the several characteristics that need to be defined, a crucial decision for a dynamic analysis is between a fixed reference environment (constant in time) and a variable state, which fluctuations follow the local climate. Even if the latter selection is prevailing in research, and recommended by recent and widely-diffused guidelines, the fixed reference has been analytically demonstrated as the only choice which defines exergy as a proper function of the state in a fluctuating environment. This study investigates the impact of that crucial choice: Fixed or variable reference. The basic element of the building energy chain, the envelope, is chosen as the object of investigation as common to any building analysis. Exergy fluctuations in the building envelope of a case study (a typical house located in a Mediterranean climate) are confronted for each time-step of a significant summer day, when the building behaviour is highly dynamical. Exergy efficiencies and fluxes are not familiar numbers, and thus, the more easy-to-imagine concept of exergy storage is used to summarize the results. Trends obtained with a fixed and a variable reference (outside air) are compared, and their meaning is discussed under the light of the underpinning dynamical energy analysis. As a conclusion, a fixed reference state is considered the best choice for dynamic exergy analysis. Even if the fixed reference is generally only contemplated as a simpler selection, and the variable state is often stated as more accurate without explicit justifications, the analytical considerations supporting the adoption of a fixed reference are confirmed by the usefulness and clarity of interpretation of its results. Further discussion is needed to address the conflict between the evidence supporting a fixed reference state and the wide adoption of a fluctuating one. A more robust theoretical framework, including selection criteria of the reference state for dynamical simulations, could push the development of integrated dynamic tools and thus spread exergy analysis for the built environment across the common practice.

Keywords: exergy, reference state, dynamic, building

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Authors: Danying Gu, Xiaoyan Li, Yuanlei He

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As a knowledge-intensive industry, nuclear industry highly values the importance of safety and quality. The life cycle of a NPP (Nuclear Power Plant) can last 100 years from the initial research and design to its decommissioning. How to implement the high-quality knowledge management and how to contribute to a more safe, advanced and economic NPP (Nuclear Power Plant) is the most important issue and responsibility for knowledge management. As the lead of nuclear industry, nuclear research and design institute has competitive advantages of its advanced technology, knowledge and information, DKM (Design Knowledge Management) of nuclear research and design institute is the core of the knowledge management in the whole nuclear industry. In this paper, the study and practice on DKM and knowledge transfer across the life cycle of a new-built NPP in China is introduced. For this digital intelligent NPP, the whole design process is based on a digital design platform which includes NPP engineering and design dynamic analyzer, visualization engineering verification platform, digital operation maintenance support platform and digital equipment design, manufacture integrated collaborative platform. In order to make all the design data and information transfer across design, construction, commissioning and operation, the overall architecture of new-built digital NPP should become a modern knowledge management system. So a digital information transfer model across the NPP life cycle is proposed in this paper. The challenges related to design knowledge transfer is also discussed, such as digital information handover, data center and data sorting, unified data coding system. On the other hand, effective delivery of design information during the construction and operation phase will contribute to the comprehensive understanding of design ideas and components and systems for the construction contractor and operation unit, largely increasing the safety, quality and economic benefits during the life cycle. The operation and maintenance records generated from the NPP operation process have great significance for maintaining the operating state of NPP, especially the comprehensiveness, validity and traceability of the records. So the requirements of an online monitoring and smart diagnosis system of NPP is also proposed, to help utility-owners to improve the safety and efficiency.

Keywords: design knowledge management, digital nuclear power plant, knowledge transfer, life cycle

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Authors: Stephanie Duval

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The concept of educational success, combined with the overall development of the child in kindergarten, is at the center of current interests, both in research and in the environments responsible for the education of young children. In order to promote it, researchers emphasize the importance of studying the executive functions [EF] of children in preschool education. More precisely, the EFs, which refers to working memory [WM], inhibition, mental flexibility and planning, would be the pivotal element of the child’s educational success. In order to support the EFs of the child, and even his educational success, the quality of the environments is beginning to be explored more and more. The question that arises now is how to promote EFs for young children in the educational environment, in order to support their educational success? The objective of this study is to investigate the link between the quality of interactions in 5-year-old kindergarten and child’s EFs. The sample consists of 118 children (70 girls, 48 boys) in 12 classes. The quality of the interactions is observed from the Classroom Assessment Scoring System [CLASS], and the EFs (i.e., working memory, inhibition, cognitive flexibility, and planning) are measured with administered tests. The hypothesis of this study was that the quality of teacher-child interactions in preschool education, as measured by the CLASS, was associated with the child’s EFs. The results revealed that the quality of emotional support offered by adults in kindergarten, included in the CLASS tool, was positively and significantly related to WM and inhibition skills. The results also suggest that WM is a key skill in the development of EFs, which may be associated with the educational success of the child. However, this hypothesis remains to be clarified, as is the link with educational success. In addition, results showed that factors associated to the family (ex. parents’ income) moderate the relationship between the domain ‘instructional support’ of the CLASS (ex. concept development) and child’s WM skills. These data suggest a moderating effect related to family characteristics in the link between ‘quality of classroom interactions’ and ‘EFs’. This project proposes, as a future avenue, to check the distinctive effect of different environments (familial and educational) on the child’s EFs. More specifically, future study could examine the influence of the educational environment on EF skills, as well as whether or not there is a moderating effect of the family environment (ex. parents' income) on the link between the quality of the interactions in the classroom and the EFs of the children, as anticipated by this research.

Keywords: executive functions [EFs], environmental factors, quality of interactions, preschool education

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Authors: Annunziata Albano

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Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) and Non-Partner Sexual Violence (NPSV) are still the most common forms of interpersonal violence against women today, and numerous studies have shown how they can affect women's physical and psychological well-being, frequently leading to depression, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and substance abuse. The primary goal of Italian Anti-Violence Centres (AVCs) is to provide an appropriate context for women to embark on a personalised path out of violence by providing various services such as listening groups, psychological and legal support, housing support in collaboration with shelters, work orientation, and specific support in the case of minor children. However, their physical environment is frequently overlooked, partly because these centres are typically established in pre-existing buildings and have a limited budget. Several studies on healthcare design and mental health, on the other hand, emphasise the potential of the built environment to facilitate healing by providing a restorative setting that aids in coping with stress and traumatic experiences, investigating the positive role of natural features and sensorial qualities such as light, colours, sound, and smell. This research aims to collect and summarise the key evidence-based principles derived from a multidisciplinary literature review about interior design elements that can help women recover after their traumatic experience. Furthermore, the study examines multiple case studies of Italian AVCs through the lens of previously determined principles, to understand how and whether these guidelines have been applied and which outcomes can provide relevant insights for design practice, with an emphasis on sensory qualities, usually overlooked in favour of other requirements. The outlined guidelines may serve as a framework for various typologies of services provided to women who are the victims of interpersonal violence, such as women's crisis centres and shelters.

Keywords: anti-violence centres, environmental psychology, interior design, interpersonal violence, restorative environments

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Authors: Ehsan Gholamalizadeh, Jae Dong Chung

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Solar chimney power plant is a feasible solar thermal system which produces electricity from the Sun. The objective of this study is to investigate buoyancy-driven flow and heat transfer through a built pilot solar chimney system called 'Kerman Project'. The system has a chimney with the height and diameter of 60 m and 3 m, respectively, and the average radius of its solar collector is about 20 m, and also its average collector height is about 2 m. A three-dimensional simulation was conducted to analyze the system, using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). In this model, radiative transfer equation was solved using the discrete ordinates (DO) radiation model taking into account a non-gray radiation behavior. In order to modelling solar irradiation from the sun’s rays, the solar ray tracing algorithm was coupled to the computation via a source term in the energy equation. The model was validated with comparing to the experimental data of the Manzanares prototype and also the performance of the built pilot system. Then, based on the numerical simulations, velocity and temperature distributions through the system, the temperature profile of the ground surface and the system performance were presented. The analysis accurately shows the flow and heat transfer characteristics through the pilot system and predicts its performance.

Keywords: buoyancy-driven flow, computational fluid dynamics, heat transfer, renewable energy, solar chimney power plant

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Authors: Jiin Jeong, Taekwang Kim, Kwang Ryel Ryu

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The target microgrid in this paper is isolated from the large central power system and is assumed to consist of wind generators, photovoltaic power generators, an energy storage system (ESS), a diesel power generator, the community load, and a dump load. The operation of such a microgrid can be hazardous because of the uncertain prediction of power supply and demand and especially due to the high fluctuation of the output from the wind generators. In this paper, we propose an iterative replanning method for determining the appropriate level of diesel generation and the charging/discharging cycles of the ESS for the upcoming one-hour horizon. To cope with the uncertainty of the estimation of supply and demand, the one-hour plan is built repeatedly in the regular interval of one minute by rolling the one-hour horizon. Since the plan should be built with a sufficiently large safe margin to avoid any possible black-out, some energy waste through the dump load is inevitable. In our approach, the level of safe margin is optimized through learning from the past experience. The simulation experiments show that our method combined with the margin optimization can reduce the dump load compared to the method without such optimization.

Keywords: microgrid, operation planning, power efficiency optimization, supply and demand prediction

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Authors: Si Chen, Le Zhang, Xian He

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The research explored the influences of public open space system on housing price through hedonic models, in order to support better open space plans and economic policies. We have three initial hypotheses: 1) public open space system has an overall positive influence on surrounding housing prices. 2) Different public open space types have different levels of influence on motivating surrounding housing prices. 3) Walking and driving accessibilities from property to public open spaces have different statistical relation with housing prices. Cook County, Illinois, was chosen to be a study area since data availability, sufficient open space types, and long-term open space preservation strategies. We considered the housing attributes, driving and walking accessibility scores from houses to nearby public open spaces, and driving accessibility scores to hospitals as influential features and used real housing sales price in 2010 as a dependent variable in the built hedonic model. Through ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analysis, General Moran’s I analysis and geographically weighted regression analysis, we observed the statistical relations between public open spaces and housing sale prices in the three built hedonic models and confirmed all three hypotheses.

Keywords: hedonic model, public open space, housing sale price, regression analysis, accessibility score

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Authors: Moustafa Osman Mohammed

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Integration sustainability outcomes give attention to construction ecology in the design review of urban environments to comply with Earth’s System that is composed of integral parts of the (i.e., physical, chemical and biological components). Naturally, exchange patterns of industrial ecology have consistent and periodic cycles to preserve energy flows and materials in Earth’s System. When engineering topology is affecting internal and external processes in system networks, it postulated the valence of the first-level spatial outcome (i.e., project compatibility success). These instrumentalities are dependent on relating the second-level outcome (i.e., participant security satisfaction). Construction ecology approach feedback energy from resources flows between biotic and abiotic in the entire Earth’s ecosystems. These spatial outcomes are providing an innovation, as entails a wide range of interactions to state, regulate and feedback “topology” to flow as “interdisciplinary equilibrium” of ecosystems. The interrelation dynamics of ecosystems are performing a process in a certain location within an appropriate time for characterizing their unique structure in “equilibrium patterns”, such as biosphere and collecting a composite structure of many distributed feedback flows. These interdisciplinary systems regulate their dynamics within complex structures. These dynamic mechanisms of the ecosystem regulate physical and chemical properties to enable a gradual and prolonged incremental pattern to develop a stable structure. The engineering topology of construction ecology for integration sustainability outcomes offers an interesting tool for ecologists and engineers in the simulation paradigm as an initial form of development structure within compatible computer software. This approach argues from ecology, resource savings, static load design, financial other pragmatic reasons, while an artistic/architectural perspective, these are not decisive. The paper described an attempt to unify analytic and analogical spatial modeling in developing urban environments as a relational setting, using optimization software and applied as an example of integrated industrial ecology where the construction process is based on a topology optimization approach.

Keywords: construction ecology, industrial ecology, urban topology, environmental planning

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Authors: Saeed Rauf

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Purpose: Drought stress is a major production constraint in sunflowers and causes yield losses under tropical and subtropical environments having high evapo-tranpirational losses. Given the consequences, three trials were designed to evaluate drought-resistant sunflower hybrids. Research Methods: Field trials were conducted under a split-plot arrangement with 17 hybrids and two contrasting regimes at Sargodha, Pakistan and 7 hybrids at Karj, Iran. Water stress condition was simulated by holding water in a stress regime. Hybrids were also screened against five levels of osmotic-ally induced stress, i.e. 0-15%, under a completely randomized design with 3 replications. Findings: Hybrids H1 (C.112.× RH.344) and H3 (C.112.× RSIN.82) showed the highest seed yield ha-1 and early flowering at Karj Iran. Commercial hybrid had the highest CTD (18.2°C) followed by C112 × RH.344 (17.29 °C). Hybrid C.250 × R.SIN.82 had the highest seed yield (m-2), followed by C.112 × RH.365 and C.124 × RSIN.82 under both stress and non-stress regimes at Sargodha, Pakistan. Seedling trial results showed that 6 hybrids only germinated in 5 and 7.5% PEG-induced osmotic stress, respectively. H1 (C.112 × RH.344) and H2 (C.112 × RH.347) had the highest germination% at 5% and 7.5% osmotic stress (OS). Seedling vigor index (SVI) was the highest in H1 (C.112 × RH.344) hybrids at 5% OS, H2 had the highest SVI under 7.5% OS, followed by H3 (C112 × RH344) and H4 (C116 × RH344). Originality/Value: In view of above results, it was concluded that hybrid combination H1 had the highest seed yield under stress conditions in both environments. High seed yield may be due to its better germination and vigor index under stress conditions.

Keywords: climate change, CTD, genetic variability, osmotic stress

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Authors: Hung-Chu Chen, Han Qi, Bauke de Vries

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Energy consumption in the urban environment has attracted numerous researches in recent decades. However, it is comparatively rare to find literary works which investigated 3D spatial analysis of urban energy demand modelling. In order to analyze the spatial correlation between urban morphology and energy demand comprehensively, this paper investigates their relation by using the spatial regression tool. In addition, the spatial regression tool which is applied in this paper is ordinary least squares regression (OLS) and geographically weighted regression (GWR) model. Normalized Difference Built-up Index (NDBI), Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), and building volume are explainers of urban morphology, which act as independent variables of Energy-land use (E-L) model. NDBI and NDVI are used as the index to describe five types of land use: urban area (U), open space (O), artificial green area (G), natural green area (V), and water body (W). Accordingly, annual electricity, gas demand and energy demand are dependent variables of the E-L model. Based on the analytical result of E-L model relation, it revealed that energy demand and urban morphology are closely connected and the possible causes and practical use are discussed. Besides, the spatial analysis methods of OLS and GWR are compared.

Keywords: energy demand model, geographically weighted regression, normalized difference built-up index, normalized difference vegetation index, spatial statistics

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Authors: Shavindrie Cooray

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It is vital that students are supported in having balanced conversations about topics that might be controversial. This process is crucial to the development of critical thinking skills. This can be difficult to attain in e-learning environments, with some research finding students report a perceived loss in the quality of knowledge exchange and performance. This research investigated if Systems Theory could be applied to structure the discussion, improve information sharing, and reduce conflicts when students are working in online environments. This research involved 160 participants across four categories of student groups at a college in the Northeastern US. Each group was provided with a shared problem, and each group was expected to make a proposal for a solution. Two groups worked face-to-face; the first face to face group engaged with the problem and each other with no intervention from a facilitator; a second face to face group worked on the problem using Systems tools to facilitate problem structuring, group discussion, and decision-making. There were two types of virtual teams. The first virtual group also used Systems tools to facilitate problem structuring and group discussion. However, all interactions were conducted in a synchronous virtual environment. The second type of virtual team also met in real time but worked with no intervention. Findings from the study demonstrated that the teams (both virtual and face-to-face) using Systems tools shared more information with each other than the other teams; additionally, these teams reported an increased level of disagreement amongst their members, but also expressed more confidence and satisfaction with the experience and resulting decision compared to the other groups.

Keywords: e-learning, virtual teams, systems approach, conflicts

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Authors: Ayşin Sev, Görkem Aslan

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Sustainable tall buildings that provide comfortable, healthy and efficient indoor environments are clearly desirable as the densification of living and working space for the world’s increasing population proceeds. For environmental concerns, these buildings must also be energy efficient. One component of these tasks is the provision of indoor air quality and thermal comfort, which can be enhanced with natural ventilation by the supply of fresh air. Working spaces can only be naturally ventilated with connections to the outdoors utilizing operable windows, double facades, ventilation stacks, balconies, patios, terraces and skygardens. Large amounts of fresh air can be provided to the indoor spaces without mechanical air-conditioning systems, which are widely employed in contemporary tall buildings. This paper tends to present the concept of natural ventilation for sustainable tall office buildings in order to achieve healthy and comfortable working spaces, as well as energy efficient environments. Initially the historical evolution of ventilation strategies for tall buildings is presented, beginning with natural ventilation and continuing with the introduction of mechanical air-conditioning systems. Then the emergence of natural ventilation due to the health and environmental concerns in tall buildings is handled, and the strategies for implementing this strategy are revealed. In the next section, a number of case studies that utilize this strategy are investigated. Finally, how tall office buildings can benefit from this strategy is discussed.

Keywords: tall office building, energy efficiency, double-skin façade, stack ventilation, air conditioning

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Authors: Mohammad Lemar Zalmai, Osman Hurol Turkakin, Cemil Akcay, Ekrem Manisali

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In public construction projects, determining the contract period in the award phase is one of the most important factors. The contract period establishes the baseline for creating the cash flow curve and progress payment planning in the post-award phase. If overestimated, project duration causes losses for both the owner and the contractor. Therefore, it is essential to base construction project duration on reliable forecasting. In Turkey, schedules are usually built using the bar chart (Gantt) schedule, especially for governmental construction agencies. The usage of these schedules is limited for bidding purposes. Although the bar-chart schedule is useful in some cases, it lacks logical connections between activities; it would be harder to obtain the activities that have more effects than others on the project's total duration, especially in large complex projects. In this study, a construction schedule is prepared with Critical Path Method (CPM) that addresses the above-mentioned discrepancies. CPM is a simple and effective method that displays project time and critical paths, showing results of forward and backward calculations with considering the logic relationships between activities; it is a powerful tool for planning and managing all kinds of construction projects and is a very convenient method for the construction industry. CPM provides a much more useful and precise approach than traditional bar-chart diagrams that form the basis of construction planning and control. CPM has two main application utilities in the construction field; the first one is obtaining project duration, which is called an as-planned schedule that includes as-planned activity durations with relationships between subsequent activities. Another utility is during the project execution; each activity is tracked, and their durations are recorded in order to obtain as-built schedule, which is named as a black box of the project. The latter is more useful for delay analysis, and conflict resolutions. These features of CPM have been popular around the world. However, it has not been yet extensively used in Turkey. In this study, a real construction project is investigated as a case study; CPM-based scheduling is used for establishing both of as-built and as-planned schedules. Problems that emerged during the construction phase are identified and categorized. Subsequently, solutions are suggested. Two scenarios were considered. In the first scenario, project progress was monitored based as CPM was used to track and manage progress; this was carried out based on real-time data. In the second scenario, project progress was supposedly tracked based on the assumption that the Gantt chart was used. The S-curves of the two scenarios are plotted and interpreted. Comparing the results, possible faults of the latter scenario are highlighted, and solutions are suggested. The importance of CPM implementation has been emphasized and it has been proposed to make it mandatory for preparation of construction schedule based on CPM for public construction projects contracts.

Keywords: as-built, case-study, critical path method, Turkish government sector projects

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Authors: Jingsong Ma

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In political translation, ideology plays an important role in conveying implications accurately. Ideological collisions can occur in political translation when there existdifferences of political environments embedded in the translingual political texts in both source and target languages. To reach an accurate translationrequires the translatorto understand the ideologies implied in (and often transcending) the texts. This paper explores the conditions, procedure, and purpose of processingideological collision and resolution of such issues in political translation. These points will be elucidated by case studies of translating English and Chinese political texts. First, there are specific political terminologies in certain political environments. These terminological peculiarities in one language are often determined by ideological elements rather than by syntactical and semantical understanding. The translation of these ideological-loaded terminologiesis a process and operation consisting of understanding the ideological context, including cultural, historical, and political situations. This will be explained with characteristic Chinese political terminologies and their renderings in English. Second, when the ideology in the source language fails to match with the ideology in the target language, the decisions to highlight or disregard these conflicts are shaped by power relations, political engagement, social context, etc. It thus is necessary to go beyond linguisticanalysis of the context by deciphering ideology in political documents to provide a faithful or equivalent rendering of certain messages. Finally, one of the practical issues is about equivalence in political translation by redefining the notion of faithfulness and retainment of ideological messages in the source language in translations of political texts. To avoid distortion, the translator should be liberated from grip the literal meaning, instead diving into functional meanings of the text.

Keywords: translation, ideology, politics, society

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Authors: Aadiv Shah, Hari Nair, Vedant Mittal, Alice Cheeran

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Present-day agricultural practices such as blanket spraying not only lead to excessive usage of pesticides but also harm the overall crop yield. This paper introduces an algorithm to optimize the traversal of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in constrained environments. The proposed system focuses on the agricultural application of targeted spraying for locust elimination. Given a satellite image of a farm, target zones that are prone to locust swarm formation are detected through the calculation of the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). This is followed by determining the optimal path for traversal of a UAV through these target zones using the proposed algorithm in order to perform pesticide spraying in the most efficient manner possible. Unlike the classic travelling salesman problem involving point-to-point optimization, the proposed algorithm determines an optimal path for multiple regions, independent of its geometry. Finally, the paper explores the idea of implementing reinforcement learning to model complex environmental behaviour and make the path planning mechanism for UAVs agnostic to external environment changes. This system not only presents a solution to the enormous losses incurred due to locust attacks but also an efficient way to automate agricultural practices across the globe in order to improve farmer ergonomics.

Keywords: locust, NDVI, optimization, path planning, reinforcement learning, UAV

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Authors: Julia Desiree Velastegui Caceres, Luis Alejandro Velastegui Caceres, Oswaldo Padilla, Eduardo Kirby, Francisco Guerrero, Theofilos Toulkeridis

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It is fundamental to conserve sites of natural and cultural heritage with any available technique or existing methodology of preservation in order to sustain them for the following generations. We propose a further skill to protect the actual view of such sites, in which with high technology instrumentation we are able to digitally preserve natural and cultural heritages applied in Ecuador. In this project the use of laser technology is presented for three-dimensional models, with high accuracy in a relatively short period of time. In Ecuador so far, there are not any records on the use and processing of data obtained by this new technological trend. The importance of the project is the description of the methodology of the laser scanner system using the Faro Laser Scanner Focus 3D 120, the method for 3D modeling of geospatial data and the development of virtual environments in the areas of Cultural and Natural Heritage. In order to inform users this trend in technology in which three-dimensional models are generated, the use of such tools has been developed to be able to be displayed in all kinds of digitally formats. The results of the obtained 3D models allows to demonstrate that this technology is extremely useful in these areas, but also indicating that each data campaign needs an individual slightly different proceeding starting with the data capture and processing to obtain finally the chosen virtual environments.

Keywords: laser scanner system, 3D model, cultural heritage, natural heritage

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Authors: Giovanni Matheus Rech, Gilberto Zan, Filipe P. Aguiar

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The current pandemic scenario raises questions that many times would have previously gone unnoticed. One of these issues is the quality of the air we breathe in the most diverse environments in which we are inserted in an everyday. It is plausible to suppose that, at times like this, there is apprehension regarding the possibility of contamination by pathological agents such as viruses and bacterias through the airways. However, the renewal of indoor air, combined with a properly sanitized air conditioning system, are important tools for the prevention of viral diseases, as is the case with COVID-19. The bus is an example of an environment where renovation is applied to improve the quality of indoor air, helping to reduce the possibility of spreading pathological agents. Together with other care, such as an alcohol gel dispenser, curtains to separate the passengers, cleaning the environment more frequently, and mandatory use of masks, help to reduce the transmission of pathologies, such as COVID-19. Knowing the reality of a large part of the population regarding the need for public transport, there are standards and devices dedicated to promoting air quality, ensuring greater comfort and safety for users. This paper seeks to present such standards and recommendations to improve the quality of indoor air, as well as the equipment responsible for the renewal of the air in the body of a bus. Experimental measurement of the flow rates of the renewal devices present in the bus body allows quantifying the average volume of external air admitted in each type of body. This way, it was possible to compare, in terms of airflow per person, the values of a bus in relation to a series of other environments, using recommendations for air renewal are described through the Brazilian standard ABNT NBR 16401.

Keywords: air quality, air renewal, buses, Covid-19

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Authors: Dimitris Kokkinos, Panagiotis Prinos

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In the last three decades, climate change has been studied extensively from scientific community, and its consequences are more than clear all around the world. Most countries have carried out a great effort to reduce global warming rates with the ratification and implementation of several international treaties. Moreover, many of them have already adopted national plans in order to adapt to climate change effects and mitigate human and economic losses. Coastal environments, with their inherent physical sensitivity, will face important challenges as a result of projected changes in climate conditions and hundreds of millions of people will be affected. Coastal zones are of high social and economic value and this research focuses on the Mediterranean basin, which is a densely populated and highly urbanized area. With 40% of its land used for human activity and the inevitability of the impacts of the climate change, it is obvious that some form of adaptation measures will be necessary. In this regard, the EU tools, policies and legislation concerning adaptation to climate change are presented. Additionally, the National Adaptation Strategies of State members of the Mediterranean basin are compared and analyzed concerning the coastal areas, along with an overview of projects and programs results focused on coastal issues at different spatial scales. The purpose of this research is to stress the differences between Mediterranean State members at methodologies implemented, to highlight the possible gaps in co-ordination and to emphasize on research initiatives that EU can build upon moving towards an integrated adaptation planning on a region-wide basis.

Keywords: coastal adaptation, Mediterranean Basin, climate change, coastal environments

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Authors: Ibtisam Mahmoud Mohammed Sultan

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The present research aimed to identify the level of both emotional and emotional competence among students in Tikrit University aimed to know the assumptions in statistical significance for both variables as gender variables (m-f) and specialty (scientific-humanistic), as research to learn what Relationship between emotional safety and efficiency alanfaalet Tikrit University students. The researcher built emotional security measure (54) as built measure emotional competence (46), as the researcher extract full alsaykomtrih characteristics of both scales. The research sample consisted of (600) students selected by the random way and applying the scales on a basic search sample and processed statistical data using a variety of methods, including statistical test (test T.) and Pearson correlation coefficient, the researcher found a set of results. The following: 1. that the Tikrit University students possess a high level of emotional security. 2. to safely enjoy passionate males more than females. 3. that there is no difference between students of scientific and humanitarian specialization in variable emotional security. 4. that the Tikrit University students enjoy a high level of emotional competence. 5. the female-male outperforming in emotional competence level. 6. the humanitarian specialization students Excel in emotional competence for those of specialty. 7. the existence of a positive correlation between variables. Through search results, the researcher has developed a set of conclusions, proposals, and recommendations.

Keywords: relation, emotional security, students, efficiency

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Authors: Amrutha Jayan

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The cities are attractors of the human population, offering opportunities for economic activities for different linguistic, cultural, and ethnic groups. The urban form and design of the city impact the life of these people. Social and cultural exclusions result in spatial segregation and gentrification. The spaces provided in cities must be inclusive for all these communities for them to feel part of the city and contribute to society. Intercultural urbanism is a theory and practice of city building, planning, and design of urban spaces and architectures that are cognizant of the social impact of the built environment. The postulate acknowledges cultural differences and opportunities for cultural exchange. Literature on intercultural urbanism, culture and space, spatial justice, and cultural inclusion are analyzed to identify parameters contributing to intercultural placemaking. A qualitative study on Mattancherry shows how the precinct has sustained throughout the years with different communities living together within a radius of 5 km, creating a diverse and vibrant environment. The research identifies the urban elements that contribute to intercultural interactions and maintain the synergy between these communities. The public spaces, porous edges, built-form, streets, and accessibility contribute to chance encounters and intercultural interactivity. The research seeks to find the factors that contribute to intercultural placemaking.

Keywords: intercultural urbanism, cultural inclusion, spatial justice, public space

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Authors: D. Sun, T. F. Lu, A. Zander, M. Trinkle

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This paper investigates the potential use of airborne ultrasonic phased arrays for imaging in outdoor environments as a means of overcoming the limitations experienced by kinect sensors, which may fail to work in the outdoor environments due to the oversaturation of the infrared photo diodes. Ultrasonic phased arrays have been well studied for static media, yet there appears to be no comparable examination in the literature of the impact of a flowing medium on the focusing behaviour of near field focused ultrasonic arrays. This paper presents a method for predicting the sound pressure fields produced by a single ultrasound element or an ultrasonic phased array influenced by airflows. The approach can be used to determine the actual focal point location of an array exposed in a known flow field. From the presented simulation results based upon this model, it can be concluded that uniform flows in the direction orthogonal to the acoustic propagation have a noticeable influence on the sound pressure field, which is reflected in the twisting of the steering angle of the array. Uniform flows in the same direction as the acoustic propagation have negligible influence on the array. For an array impacted by a turbulent flow, determining the location of the focused sound field becomes difficult due to the irregularity and continuously changing direction and the speed of the turbulent flow. In some circumstances, ultrasonic phased arrays impacted by turbulent flows may not be capable of producing a focused sound field.

Keywords: airborne, airflow, focused sound field, ultrasonic phased array

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Authors: Nicholas S. Norbert Jr., John E. Bischoff, Christopher J. Willy

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Knowledge Management (KM) is globally recognized as a crucial element in securing competitive advantage through building and maintaining organizational memory, codifying and protecting intellectual capital and business intelligence, and providing mechanisms for collaboration and innovation. KM frameworks and approaches have been developed and defined identifying critical success factors for conducting KM within numerous industries ranging from scientific to business, and for ranges of organization scales from small groups to large enterprises. However, engineering and technical teams operating within restricted environments are subject to unique barriers and KM challenges which cannot be directly treated using the approaches and tools prescribed for other industries. This research identifies barriers in conducting KM within Hardware Development Engineering (HDE) teams and statistically compares significance to barriers upholding the four KM pillars of organization, technology, leadership, and learning for HDE teams. HDE teams suffer from restrictions in knowledge sharing (KS) due to classification of information (national security risks), customer proprietary restrictions (non-disclosure agreement execution for designs), types of knowledge, complexity of knowledge to be shared, and knowledge seeker expertise. As KM evolved leveraging information technology (IT) and web-based tools and approaches from Web 1.0 to Enterprise 2.0, KM may also seek to leverage emergent tools and analytics including expert locators and hybrid recommender systems to enable KS across barriers of the technical teams. The research will test hypothesis statistically evaluating if KM barriers for HDE teams affect the general set of expected benefits of a KM System identified through previous research. If correlations may be identified, then generalizations of success factors and approaches may also be garnered for HDE teams. Expert elicitation will be conducted using a questionnaire hosted on the internet and delivered to a panel of experts including engineering managers, principal and lead engineers, senior systems engineers, and knowledge management experts. The feedback to the questionnaire will be processed using analysis of variance (ANOVA) to identify and rank statistically significant barriers of HDE teams within the four KM pillars. Subsequently, KM approaches will be recommended for upholding the KM pillars within restricted environments of HDE teams.

Keywords: engineering management, knowledge barriers, knowledge management, knowledge sharing

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Authors: Oluwatosin Adewale

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The sustainability of built heritage has become a relevant issue in recent years due to the social and economic values associated with these buildings. Heritage buildings provide a means for human perception of culture and represent a legacy of long-existing history; they define the local character of the social world and provide a vital connection to the past with their associated aesthetical and communal benefits. The identified values of heritage buildings have increased the importance of conservation and the lifecycle management of these buildings. The recent developments of digital design technology in engineering and the built environment have led to the adoption of Building Information Modelling (BIM) by the Architecture, Engineering, Construction, and Operations (AECO) industry. BIM provides a platform for the lifecycle management of a construction project through effective collaboration among stakeholders and the analysis of a digital information model. This growth in digital design technology has also made its way into the field of architectural heritage management in the form of Historic Building Information Modelling (HBIM). A reverse engineering process for digital documentation of heritage assets that draws upon similar information management processes as the BIM process. However, despite the several scientific and technical contributions made to the development of the HBIM process, it doesn't remain easy to integrate at the most practical level of heritage asset management. The main objective identified under the scope of the study is to review the limitations and challenges faced by heritage management professionals in adopting an HBIM-based asset management procedure for historic building projects. This paper uses an exploratory study in the form of semi-structured interviews to investigate the research problem. A purposive sample of heritage industry experts and professionals were selected to take part in a semi-structured interview to appraise some of the limitations and challenges they have faced with the integration of HBIM into their project workflows. The findings from this study will present the challenges and limitations faced in applying and integrating the HBIM concept for the management of historic buildings.

Keywords: building information modelling, built heritage, heritage asset management, historic building information modelling, lifecycle management

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Authors: Sameh A. S. Thabit Alariqi

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Our previous studies aimed to investigate the biodegradation of γ-sterilized polyolefins in composting and microbial culture environments at different doses and γ-dose rates. It was concluded from the previous studies that the pretreatment of γ-irradiation can accelerate the biodegradation of neat polymer matrix in biotic conditions significantly. A similar work was carried out to study the stabilization of γ-sterilized polyolefins using different mixtures of stabilizers which are approved for food-contact applications. Ethylene-propylene (EP) copolymer has been melt-mixed with hindered amine stabilizers (HAS), phenolic antioxidants and hydroperoxide decomposers. Results were discussed by comparing the stabilizing efficiency, combination and consumption of stabilizers and the synergistic and antagonistic effects was explained through the interaction between the stabilizers. In this attempt, we have aimed to study the influence of the synergistic and antagonistic mixtures of oligomeric stabilizers on the biodegradation of the γ-irradiated polyolefins in composting and microbial culture. Neat and stabilized films of EP copolymer irradiated under γ-radiation and incubated in compost and fungal culture environments. The changes in functional groups, surface morphology, mechanical properties and intrinsic viscosity in polymer chains were characterized by FT-IR spectroscopy, SEM, instron, and viscometric measurements respectively. Results were discussed by comparing the effect of different stabilizers, stabilizers mixtures on the biodegradation of the γ-irradiated polyolefins. It was found that the biodegradation significantly depends on the components of stabilization system, mobility, interaction, and consumption of stabilizers.

Keywords: biodegradation, γ-irradiation, polyolefins, stabilization

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