Search results for: neighbourhood built environment

Authors: Samantha Jade Sadural, Kathleen Gay Figueroa, Noel Nicanor Sison II, Francis Miguel Quilab, Samuel Edric Solis, Kiel Gonzales, Alain Andrew Boquiren, Janelle Tan, Mario Carreon

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Of the 185 languages in the Philippines, 28 are endangered, 11 are dying off, and 4 are extinct. Language documentation, as a prerequisite to language education, can be one of the ways languages can be preserved. Project Marayum is envisioned to be a collaboratively built, mobile phone-based, online dictionary platform for Philippine languages. Although there are many online language dictionaries available on the Internet, Project Marayum aims to give a sense of ownership to the language community's dictionary as it is built and maintained by the community for the community. From a seed dictionary, members of a language community can suggest changes, add new entries, and provide language examples. Going beyond word definitions, the platform can be used to gather sample sentences and even audio samples of word usage. These changes are reviewed by language experts of the community, sourced from the local state universities or local government units. Approved changes are then added to the dictionary and can be viewed instantly through the Marayum website. A companion mobile phone application allows users to browse the dictionary in remote areas where Internet connectivity is nonexistent. The dictionary will automatically be updated once the user regains Internet access. Project Marayum is still a work in progress. At the time of this abstract's writing, the Project has just entered its second year. Prototypes are currently being tested with the Asi language of Romblon island as its initial language testbed. In October 2020, Project Marayum will have both a webpage and mobile application with Asi, Ilocano, and Cebuano language dictionaries available for use online or for download. In addition, the Marayum platform would be then easily expandable for use of the more endangered language communities. Project Marayum is funded by the Philippines Department of Science and Technology.

Keywords: collaborative language dictionary, community-centered lexicography, content management system, software engineering

Procedia PDF Downloads 154

Authors: Mohamed Youssef

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The proliferation of energy consumption in the built environment has made energy efficiency and savings strategies a priority objective for energy policies in most countries. Qatar is a clear example, where it has initiated several programs and institutions to mitigate the overuse of electricity consumption and control the energy load of the building by following global standards and spreading awareness campaigns. A Case study on the Office of Research and Graduate Studies at Qatar University has been investigated in this paper. The paper studied the rating load of existing buildings before and after retrofitting by using Carrier’s Hourly Analysis Program (HAP). The performance of the building has increased especially after using the LED light system instead of fluorescent light with a low payback period. GINAN paint and green roof have shown a considerable contribution to the reduction of electrical load in the building. In comparison, the double HR window had the least effect on the reduction of electricity consumption.

Keywords: energy conservation in Qatar, HAP, LED light, GINAN paint, green roof, double HR window

Procedia PDF Downloads 166

Authors: Javier Ascanio Villabona, Brayan Eduardo Tarazona Romero, Camilo Leonardo Sandoval Rodriguez, Arly Dario Rincon, Omar Lengerke Perez

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Efficient energy consumption in the housing sector in relation to refrigeration is a concern in the construction and rehabilitation of houses in tropical areas. Thermal comfort is aggravated by heat gain on the roof surface by heat gains. Thus, in the group of passive cooling techniques, one of the practices and technologies in solar control that provide improvements in comfortable conditions are thermal insulation or geometric changes of the roofs. On the other hand, methods with reflection and radiation are the methods used to decrease heat gain by facilitating the removal of excess heat inside a building to maintain a comfortable environment. Since the potential of these techniques varies in different climatic zones, their application in different zones should be examined. This research is based on the experimental study of a prototype of a roof radiator as a method of passive cooling in homes, which was developed through an experimental research methodology making measurements in a prototype built by means of the paradigm of appropriate technology, with the aim of establishing an initial behavior of the internal temperature resulting from the climate of the external environment. As a starting point, a selection matrix was made to identify the typologies of passive cooling systems to model the system and its subsequent implementation, establishing its constructive characteristics. Step followed by the measurement of the climatic variables (outside the prototype) and microclimatic variables (inside the prototype) to obtain a database to be analyzed. As a final result, the decrease in temperature that occurs inside the chamber with respect to the outside temperature was evidenced. likewise, a linearity in its behavior in relation to the variations of the climatic variables.

Keywords: appropriate technology, enveloping, energy efficiency, passive cooling

Procedia PDF Downloads 88

Authors: Xizhen Zhou, Yanjie Ji

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The charging behavior of drivers provides a reference for the planning and management of charging facilities. Based on the real trajectory data of electric vehicles, this study explored the influence of the surrounding environments of the parking spot on charging decisions. The built environment, the condition of vehicles, and the nearest charging station were all considered. And the mixed binary logit model was used to capture the impact of unobserved heterogeneity. The results show that the number of fast chargers in the charging station, parking price, dwell time, and shopping services all significantly impact the charging decision, while the leisure services, scenic spots, and mileage since the last charging are opposite. Besides, factors related to unobserved heterogeneity include the number of fast chargers, parking and charging prices, residential areas, etc. The interaction effects of random parameters further illustrate the complexity of charging choice behavior. The results provide insights for planning and managing charging facilities.

Keywords: charging decision, trajectory, electric vehicle, infrastructure, mixed logit

Procedia PDF Downloads 65

Authors: Wilayat Ali, Li Sheng, Waleed Ahmed

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The ability of the robot to make simultaneously map of the environment and localize itself with respect to that environment is the most important element of mobile robots. To solve SLAM many algorithms could be utilized to build up the SLAM process and SLAM is a developing area in Robotics research. Robot Operating System (ROS) is one of the frameworks which provide multiple algorithm nodes to work with and provide a transmission layer to robots. Manyof these algorithms extensively in use are Hector SLAM, Gmapping and Cartographer SLAM. This paper describes a ROS-based Simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) library Google Cartographer mapping, which is open-source algorithm. The algorithm was applied to create a map using laser and pose data from 2d Lidar that was placed on a mobile robot. The model robot uses the gazebo package and simulated in Rviz. Our research work's primary goal is to obtain mapping through Cartographer SLAM algorithm in a static indoor environment. From our research, it is shown that for indoor environments cartographer is an applicable algorithm to generate 2d maps with LIDAR placed on mobile robot because it uses both odometry and poses estimation. The algorithm has been evaluated and maps are constructed against the SLAM algorithms presented by Turtlebot2 in the static indoor environment.

Keywords: SLAM, ROS, navigation, localization and mapping, gazebo, Rviz, Turtlebot2, slam algorithms, 2d indoor environment, cartographer

Procedia PDF Downloads 142

Authors: Suppara Charoenpoom

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This study focuses on 1) a good-quality management procedures of buildings and environment in schools 2) designing the management procedures and 3) creating an operation manual for the procedures. This study is the combination of qualitative and quantitative research method. Populations in the research were 83 deans and directors of primary and secondary schools from the 10th educational district in Samut Songkram. Sample group was selected from the voluntary deans and directors. There were 14 participants in sample group. Research tools in this study were divided into 2 categories. The first one was data-collecting tools, which were in-depth interview and questionnaires. The second one was the designing tools to help creating management procedures: quality business, quality work procedure and key quality indicator of each activity in schools. All data were analyzed by mean and standard deviation. The result from this study has found out 1 effective process of building and environment management for basic education schools which is called Quality Business Process (QBP) and 7 Quality Work Procedures (QWP). In terms of academic feasibility checkup by experts, the research had shown that new design of building and environment management was approved unanimously. It means that new process of building and environment management in schools works very well and can be adapted. After examining the possibility of management process being used in schools by calculating the mean value among sample group (14 school deans and directors), the mean value was between 0.64-1.00. It means that the new design of building and environment management can be operated effectively in schools. For the satisfaction part, deans and school directors gave the satisfaction score in the highest level (Mean = 4.7372, S.D. = 0.4385).

Keywords: buildings, environment, procedures, quality management

Procedia PDF Downloads 229

Authors: Arindam Chaudhuri

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Classification of data has been actively used for most effective and efficient means of conveying knowledge and information to users. The prima face has always been upon techniques for extracting useful knowledge from data such that returns are maximized. With emergence of huge datasets the existing classification techniques often fail to produce desirable results. The challenge lies in analyzing and understanding characteristics of massive data sets by retrieving useful geometric and statistical patterns. We propose a supervised parallel fuzzy rough support vector machine (PFRSVM) for data classification in cloud environment. The classification is performed by PFRSVM using hyperbolic tangent kernel. The fuzzy rough set model takes care of sensitiveness of noisy samples and handles impreciseness in training samples bringing robustness to results. The membership function is function of center and radius of each class in feature space and is represented with kernel. It plays an important role towards sampling the decision surface. The success of PFRSVM is governed by choosing appropriate parameter values. The training samples are either linear or nonlinear separable. The different input points make unique contributions to decision surface. The algorithm is parallelized with a view to reduce training times. The system is built on support vector machine library using Hadoop implementation of MapReduce. The algorithm is tested on large data sets to check its feasibility and convergence. The performance of classifier is also assessed in terms of number of support vectors. The challenges encountered towards implementing big data classification in machine learning frameworks are also discussed. The experiments are done on the cloud environment available at University of Technology and Management, India. The results are illustrated for Gaussian RBF and Bayesian kernels. The effect of variability in prediction and generalization of PFRSVM is examined with respect to values of parameter C. It effectively resolves outliers’ effects, imbalance and overlapping class problems, normalizes to unseen data and relaxes dependency between features and labels. The average classification accuracy for PFRSVM is better than other classifiers for both Gaussian RBF and Bayesian kernels. The experimental results on both synthetic and real data sets clearly demonstrate the superiority of the proposed technique.

Keywords: FRSVM, Hadoop, MapReduce, PFRSVM

Procedia PDF Downloads 485

Authors: Nordin Mamat, Abdul Rahim Razalli, Loy Chee Luen, Abdul Talib Hashim

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This study was designed to investigate preschool environment in multi-ethnic preschool in Malaysia. The objectives are to identify the quality of work environment in multi-ethnic preschools; to investigate the practices of teachers’ role and responsibility; and to identify the quality of human resources. The study involved 2004 respondents who are the staff of multi-ethnic preschool from the government agency who provide preschool service. This study was conducted using a mixed method in which questionnaires and interviews were used to obtain data from respondents. The findings were analysed using mean and used Likert scale to determine the three-stage level such as the high, moderate and low. Findings indicated that the work environment at a moderate level, but the facilities provided insufficient to carry out educational activities with children. The result based on ranking of duties and responsibilities of teachers in multi-ethnic preschool shows the teachers practice daily record of children's development is very little, that only 65 persons are recording the child's development. The poor ratio of teachers and child in multi-ethnic preschool is between 25 to 35 children per class which means the children need a lot of attention. Meanwhile, the work environment is moderate with a mean score of 3.65 and overall mean score for level of staff career development 3.66 also moderate. The findings indicate the facilities provided in their workplace and staff career development requires improvements. Overall, the level of work environment is moderate, and it needs an improvement in term of facilities.

Keywords: environment, human resources, multi-ethnic preschool, quality teacher

Procedia PDF Downloads 317

Authors: Katherine Denise Queri

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Around the world, there are many corporations and other business organizations who promote the welfare of the society. They are found inside the communities where they naturally perform work. Their aim is to maximize their respective returns on investment while measuring the impact of their activities on the environment. The Senate in the Philippines formed a bill that seeks to foster sustainable economic and environment development and environment protection, among other things, by institutionalizing the corporate responsibility of corporations, whether domestic and foreign, partnership and other establishment performing business in the country. Under the Senate Bill 1239 or an act institutionalizing corporate social responsibility, providing incentives therefor, and for other purposes, all business organizations are mandated to consider the interest of society by taking responsibility for the impact of their activities on customers, employees, shareholders communities and environment. In return, businesses shall comply with the mandate of this proposed measure shall be entitled to full deductions of the expenses incurred in connection thereto.

Keywords: ateneo, corporate social responsibility (CSR), industrial relations, marketing, up

Procedia PDF Downloads 368

Authors: Meihua Fang, Yipan Guo, Tao Fei, Pengyu Tian

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Space plasma caused spacecraft surface charging is the major space environment hazard. Particle in cell (PIC) method can be used to simulate the interaction between space plasma and spacecraft. It was proved that surface charging level of spacecraft in Jupiter’s orbits was high for its’ electron-heavy plasma environment. In this paper, Jovian plasma environment is modeled and surface charging analysis is carried out by PIC based software Spacecraft Plasma Interaction System (SPIS). The results show that the spacecraft charging potentials exceed 1000V at 2Rj, 15Rj and 25Rj polar orbits in the dark side at worst case plasma model. Furthermore, the simulation results indicate that the large Jovian magnetic field increases the surface charging level for secondary electron gyration.

Keywords: Jupiter, PIC, space plasma, surface charging

Procedia PDF Downloads 145

Authors: Sanja Peter

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Transformation of urban environments can be compared to evolutionary processes. Systematic digital mapping of historical data can enable capturing some of these processes and their outcomes. For example, it may help reveal the structure of a city’s historical DNA. Gathering historical data for automatic processing may be giving a basis for cultural algorithms. Gothenburg City museum is trying to make city’s heritage information accessible through GIS-platforms and is now partnering with academic institutions to find appropriate methods to make accessible the knowledge on the city’s historical fabric. Hopefully, this will be carried out through a project called Digital Twin Cities. One part of this large project, concerning matters of Cultural Heritage, will be in collaboration with Chalmers University of Technology. The aim is to create a layered map showing historical developments of the city and extracting quantitative data about its built heritage, above and below the earth. It will allow interpreting the information from historic maps through, for example, names of the streets/places, geography, structural changes in urban fabric and information gathered by archaeologists’ excavations. Through the study of these geographical, historical and local metamorphoses, urban environment will reveal its metaphorical DNA or its MEM (Dawkins).

Keywords: Gothenburg, mapping, cultural heritage, city history

Procedia PDF Downloads 137

Authors: Bernhard Bauer, Thomas Meixner, Amir Dini, Detlef Heck

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The inner city building stock is characterized by different types of buildings of different decades and centuries and different types of historical constructions. Depending on the natural growth of a city, those types are often located in downtown areas and the surrounding suburbs. Since the population is becoming older and the variation of the different social requirements spread with the so-called 'Silver Society', city quarters have to be seen alternatively. If an area is very attractive for young students to live there because of the busy nightlife, it might not be suitable for the older society. To identify 'Location Types A, B, C' for different user groups, qualitative interviews with 24 citizens of the city of Graz (Austria) have been carried out, in order to identify the most important values for making a location or city quarter 'A', 'B', or 'C'. Furthermore these acknowledgements have been put into a softwaretool for predicting locations that are the most suitable for certain user groups. On the other hands side, investors or owners of buildings can use the tool for determining the most suitable user group for the location of their building or construction project in order to adapt the project or building stock to the requirements of the users.

Keywords: building stock, location parameters, inner city population, built environment

Procedia PDF Downloads 309

Authors: Khalifa Abdunaser, Salem Eljawashi

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Study area is threatened by numerous petroleum activities. The most important risk is associated with dramatic dangers of misuse and oil and gas pollutions, such as significant volumes of produced water, which refers to waste water generated during the production of oil and natural gas and disposed on the surface surrounded oil and gas fields. This work concerns the impact of oil exploration and production activities on the physical and environment fate of the area, focusing on the investigation and observation of crude oil migration as toxic fluid. Its penetration in groundwater resulted from the produced water impacted by oilfield operations disposed to the earth surface in Al Wahat area. Describing the areal distribution of the dominant groundwater quality constituents has been conducted to identify the major hydro-geochemical processes that affect the quality of water and to evaluate the relations between rock types and groundwater flow to the quality and geochemistry of water in Post-Eocene aquifer. The chemical and physical characteristics of produced water, where it is produced, and its potential impacts on the environment and on oil and gas operations have been discussed. Field work survey was conducted to identify and locate a large number of monitoring wells previously drilled throughout the study area. Groundwater samples were systematically collected in order to detect the fate of spills resulting from the various activities at the oil fields in the study area. Spatial distribution maps of the water quality parameters were built using Kriging methods of interpolation in ArcMap software. Thematic maps were generated using GIS and remote sensing techniques, which were applied to include all these data layers as an active database for the area for the purpose of identifying hot spots and prioritizing locations based on their environmental conditions as well as for monitoring plans.

Keywords: Sirt Basin, produced water, Al Wahat area, Ground water

Procedia PDF Downloads 138

Authors: Abdullah Erden, Filiz Erden

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In the present information society era, a change is seen in every field together with changing technology. Along with this change, importance given to information and human who is the producer of information increased. Work life and working conditions included in these changes have also been affected. The most important factors that disturb employees in offices are lighting, ventilation, noise and office furniture. Upon arrangement of these according to ergonomic principles, performance and efficiency of employees will increase. Fatigue and stress resulting from office environment are harmful for employees. Attention and efficiency of employee who feels bad will decrease. It should be noted that office employees are human and affected from environment. It should be allowed them to work in comfortable, healthy and peaceful environment. As a result, efficiency will increase and target will be reached. In this study, it has been focused on basic concepts such as office management and efficiency, effects of ergonomics on office efficiency has been examined. Also, a place is given to the factors affecting operational efficiency and effects of physical environment on employees.

Keywords: ergonomics, efficiency, office design, office

Procedia PDF Downloads 462

Authors: Alexander S. Burnasov, Anatoly V. Stepanov, Maria Y. Ilyushkina

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In the conditions of transition to the digital economy, the digital environment of the city becomes one of the key factors of its tourism attractiveness. Modern digital environment makes travelling more accessible, improves the quality of travel services and the attractiveness of many tourist destinations. The digitalization of the industry allows to use resources more efficiently, to simplify business processes, to minimize risks, and to improve travel safety. The city promotion as a tourist destination in the foreign market becomes decisive in the digital environment. Information technologies are extremely important for the functioning of not only any tourist enterprise but also the city as a whole. In addition to solving traditional problems, it is also possible to implement some innovations from the tourism industry, such as the availability of city services in international systems of booking tickets and booking rooms in hotels, the possibility of early booking of theater and museum tickets, the possibility of non-cash payment by cards of international payment systems, Internet access in the urban environment for travelers. The availability of the city's digital services makes it possible to reduce ordering costs, contributes to the optimal selection of tourist products that meet the requirements of the tourist, provides increased transparency of transactions. The users can compare prices, features, services, and reviews of the travel service. The ability to share impressions with friends thousands of miles away directly affects the image of the city. It is possible to promote the image of the city in the digital environment not only through world-scale events (such as World Cup 2018, international summits, etc.) but also through the creation and management of services in the digital environment aimed at supporting tourism services, which will help to improve the positioning of the city in the global tourism market.

Keywords: competitiveness, digital environment, travelling, Yekaterinburg

Procedia PDF Downloads 132

Authors: Muhamad N. Borhan, Nur S. Darus, Siti Z. Ishak, Rozmi Ismail, Siti F. M. Razali

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Children are at the greater risk to be involved in road traffic collisions due to the complex interaction of various elements in our transportation system. It encompasses interactions between the elements of children and driver behavior along with physical and social environment factors. The present study examined the effect between the collisions severity and physical environment factors on child pedestrian collisions. The severity of collisions is categorized into four injury outcomes: fatal, serious injury, slight injury, and damage. The sample size comprised of 2487 cases of child pedestrian-vehicle collisions in which children aged 7 to 12 years old was involved in Malaysia for the years 2006-2015. A multinomial logistic regression was applied to establish the effect between severity levels and physical environment factors. The results showed that eight contributing factors influence the probability of an injury road surface material, traffic system, road marking, control type, lighting condition, type of location, land use and road surface condition. Understanding the effect of physical environment factors may contribute to the improvement of physical environment design and decrease the collision involvement.

Keywords: child pedestrian, collisions, primary school, road injuries

Procedia PDF Downloads 158

Authors: Autjira Songjan, Vimolsri Sansuk

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The research aim to study the possible negative environmental impact by adventure tourism in Krabi, Thailand, which is a popular destination for adventure tourism. The research is carried out through quantitative and qualitative methods. Questionnaires are distributed to 400 adventure tourists: 160 Thai and 240 international tourists. Questions involved experiences and opinions towards the environment and certain practices which influence a protection or degradation of environment from tour guides, tour operators and tourists. Furthermore, in-depth interviews were carried out with 21 adventure tour operators operating 5 main adventure tours. The finding shows the various types of adventure activities in Krabi involve different kinds of nature, therefore the characteristics of the different adventure activities are likely to affect the physical environment in different level. Kayaking tours are managed inside the mangrove forests, and may lead to negative impact on the ecosystem of mangroves, through loud noise, pulling out the mangrove population.

Keywords: adventure activities, Krabi province in Thailand, physical environment, adventure tourism

Procedia PDF Downloads 263

Authors: Andrew Gennett

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Designing for fungal development means embracing the symbiotic relationship between the living system and built environment. The potential of mycelium post-colonization is explored for the fabrication of advanced pure mycelium products, going beyond the conventional methods of aggregating materials. Fruiting induction imparts desired material properties such as enhanced environmental resistance. Production approach allows for simultaneous generation of multiple products while scaling up raw materials supply suitable for architectural applications. The following work explores the integration of fungal environmental perception with computational design of built fruiting chambers. Polyporales, are classified by their porous reproductive tissues supported by a wood-like context tissue covered by a hard waterproofing coat of hydrobpobins. Persisting for years in the wild, these species represent material properties that would be highly desired in moving beyond flat sheets of arial mycelium as with leather or bacon applications. Understanding the inherent environmental perception of fungi has become the basis for working with and inducing desired hyphal differentiation. Working within the native signal interpretation of a mycelium mass during fruiting induction provides the means to apply textures and color to the final finishing coat. A delicate interplay between meeting human-centered goals while designing around natural processes of living systems represents a blend of art and science. Architecturally, physical simulations inform model design for simple modular fruiting chambers that change as fungal growth progresses, while biological life science principles describe the internal computations occurring within the fungal hyphae. First, a form filling phase of growth is controlled by growth chamber environment. Second, an initiation phase of growth forms the final exterior finishing texture. Hyphal densification induces cellular cascades, in turn producing the classical hardened cuticle, UV protective molecule production, as well, as waterproofing finish. Upon fruiting process completion, the fully colonized spent substrate holds considerable value and is not considered waste. Instead, it becomes a valuable resource in the next cycle of production scale-up. However, the acquisition of new substrate resources poses a critical question, particularly as these resources become increasingly scarce. Pursuing a regenerative design paradigm from the environmental perspective, the usage of “agricultural waste” for architectural materials would prove a continuation of the destructive practices established by the previous industrial regime. For these residues from fields and forests serve a vital ecological role protecting the soil surface in combating erosion while reducing evaporation and fostering a biologically diverse food web. Instead, urban centers have been identified as abundant sources of new substrate material. Diverting the waste from secondary locations such as food processing centers, papers mills, and recycling facilities not only reduces landfill burden but leverages the latent value of these waste steams as precious resources for mycelium cultivation. In conclusion, working with living systems through innovative built environments for fungal development, provides the needed gain of function and resilience of mycelium products. The next generation of sustainable fungal products will go beyond the current binding process, with a focus upon reducing landfill burden from urban centers. In final considerations, biophilic material builds to an ecologically regenerative recycling production cycle.

Keywords: regenerative agriculture, mycelium fabrication, growth chamber design, sustainable resource acquisition, fungal morphogenesis, soil fertility

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Authors: Nurdiyana Zainal Abidin, Raja Nafida Raja Shahminan, Fawazul Khair Ibrahim

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Timber vernacular houses in Malaysia are unique heritage buildings which can be identified through their designs, structure, architectural elements and ornamentations. Woodcarvings are common forms of ornamentations and decorations in Traditional Malay Houses and they can be found throughout Malaysia including in Negeri Sembilan. As a multi-cultural, multi-racial, and multi-religion state which uniquely practices the matrilineal social system, Negeri Sembilan has a strong connection to its’ history and heritage and in particular the distinctive vernacular architecture. The purpose of this paper is to underline the factors that influence the woodcarvings in Traditional Malay Houses in Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia. The houses studied were from the archives of measured drawings in Center of Built Environment in the Malay World (KALAM), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM). The findings indicated several factors influencing the woodcarver’s works and also the applications of the woodcarvings such as religious factors, cultural factors and political factors. These factors among several other shows that woodcarvings were predetermined before being carved and that they were not just merely placed without reason but are functioning pieces of aesthetic ornamentation.

Keywords: influences, traditional Malay houses, woodcarvings, multi-cultural

Procedia PDF Downloads 503

Authors: Adedotun Ayodele Dipeolu, Olusegun Ayotunde Oriola

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Rapid urban growth has led to the loss of contact with nature for most urban residents. While Green Infrastructure (GI) is promoted as a strategy to manage ecosystems’ functionality, the extent to which residents are aware of GI types which serve as alternatives to conventional landscapes to be conserved remains unclear. This paper examines the awareness level of GI types among residents of Lagos Metropolis, Nigeria and the association of their demographic characteristics with the level of awareness. Multi-stage sampling technique was used to select 1560 residents who completed semi-structured questionnaires. Descriptive statistics were used to explore data distributions while t-test assessed the differences in the awareness level of the male and female participants. From the 23 different types of GI facilities identified in the study area, residents reported a high level of awareness on just five of them. These include green gardens, green parks, grasses, street trees, and sports fields but a low level of awareness of the remaining 18 GI types. Awareness of GI types is presently low in the study area. Increased awareness will encourage care and protection of green infrastructure by residents which will consequently enhance availability and conservation of more biodiversity in Lagos, Nigeria, and other nations.

Keywords: awareness, biodiversity conservation, environmental sustainability, green infrastructure, urban centres

Procedia PDF Downloads 205

Authors: Salim H. Al Salmani, Kevin Tansey, Mohammed S. Ozigis

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The study of the growth of built-up areas and settlement expansion is a major exercise that city managers seek to undertake to establish previous and current developmental trends. This is to ensure that there is an equal match of settlement expansion needs to the appropriate levels of services and infrastructure required. This research aims at demonstrating the potential of satellite image processing technique, harnessing the utility of single feature probability-object based image analysis technique in assessing the urban growth dynamics of the Muscat Governorate in Oman for the period 1990, 2002 and 2013. This need is fueled by the continuous expansion of the Muscat Governorate beyond predicted levels of infrastructural provision. Landsat Images of the years 1990, 2002 and 2013 were downloaded and preprocessed to forestall appropriate radiometric and geometric standards. A novel approach of probability filtering of the target feature segment was implemented to derive the spatial extent of the final Built-Up Area of the Muscat governorate for the three years period. This however proved to be a useful technique as high accuracy assessment results of 55%, 70%, and 71% were recorded for the Urban Landcover of 1990, 2002 and 2013 respectively. Furthermore, the Normalized Differential Built – Up Index for the various images were derived and used to consolidate the results of the SFP-OBIA through a linear regression model and visual comparison. The result obtained showed various hotspots where urbanization have sporadically taken place. Specifically, settlement in the districts (Wilayat) of AL-Amarat, Muscat, and Qurayyat experienced tremendous change between 1990 and 2002, while the districts (Wilayat) of AL-Seeb, Bawshar, and Muttrah experienced more sporadic changes between 2002 and 2013.

Keywords: urban growth, single feature probability, object based image analysis, landcover change

Procedia PDF Downloads 270

Authors: A. G. Cunha, M. Inácio, M. C. Freitas, C. Antunes, T. Silva, C. Andrade, V. Lopes

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Saltmarshes are essential ecosystems both from an ecological and biological point of view. Furthermore, they constitute an important social niche, providing valuable economic and protection functions. Thus, understanding their rates and patterns of sedimentation is critical for functional management and rehabilitation, especially in an SLR scenario. The Sado estuary is located 40 km south of Lisbon. It is a bar built estuary, separated from the sea by a large sand spit: the Tróia barrier. Caldeira de Tróia is located on the free edge of this barrier, and encompasses a salt marsh with ca. 21,000 m². Sediment cores were collected in the high and low marshes and in the mudflat area of the North bank of Caldeira de Tróia. From the low marsh core, fifteen samples were chosen for ²¹⁰Pb and ¹³⁷Cs determination at University of Geneva. The cores from the high marsh and the mudflat are still being analyzed. A sedimentation rate of 2.96 mm/year was derived from ²¹⁰Pb using the Constant Flux Constant Sedimentation model. The ¹³⁷Cs profile shows a peak in activity (1963) between 15.50 and 18.50 cm, giving a 3.1 mm/year sedimentation rate for the past 53 years. The adopted sea level rise scenario was based on a model built with the initial rate of SLR of 2.1 mm/year in 2000 and an acceleration of 0.08 mm/year². Based on the harmonic analysis of Setubal-Tróia tide gauge of 2005 data, the tide model was estimated and used to build the tidal tables to the period 2000-2016. With these tables, the average mean water levels were determined for the same time span. A digital terrain model was created from LIDAR scanning with 2m horizontal resolution (APA-DGT, 2011) and validated with altimetric data obtained with a DGPS-RTK. The response model calculates a new elevation for each pixel of the DTM for 2050 and 2100 based on the sedimentation rates specific of each environment. At this stage, theoretical values were chosen for the high marsh and the mudflat (respectively, equal and double the low marsh rate – 2.92 mm/year). These values will be rectified once sedimentation rates are determined for the other environments. For both projections, the total surface of the marsh decreases: 2% in 2050 and 61% in 2100. Additionally, the high marsh coverage diminishes significantly, indicating a regression in terms of maturity.

Keywords: ¹³⁷Cs, ²¹⁰Pb, saltmarsh, sea level rise, response model

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Authors: Tayfun Cay, Fazil Nacar

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Energy investments have increased in North Mediterranean Ceyhan and Yumurtalık districts of Turkey in the last years because of the treaties which are signed between Turkey and other countries for petroleum and natural gas transmission. Authority of land use has passed to district and metropolitan municipalities from town municipalities because of changes in coast legislation and local management legislation. Also Ministry of Environment and Urban Planning and Ministry of Industry and Commerce have had a right to comment on planning unofficially. Public investments increase in area and related planning and expropriation services continue. On the other hand, a lot of private sectors invest in organised industrial sites and industrial areas and it causes a rapid change in ownership status. Also Ceyhan-yumurtalık region is the tourism centre of North Mediterranean. Tourism investments continue in this district. Especially construction sector gain speed and a lot of country sites and apartments are built. In these studies, changes in planning activities in management of different administrative organisations and changes in ownership status and changes in private properties will be presented.

Keywords: coast management, land management, land use, property, public interest

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Authors: Ok-Kyun Im, Kyoung Hee Kim

Abstract:

We live in an era that faces global challenges of climate changes and resource depletion. With the rapid urbanization and growing energy consumption in the built environment, building facades become ever more important in architectural practice and environmental stewardship. Furthermore, building facade undergoes complex dynamics of social, cultural, environmental and technological changes. Kinetic facades have drawn attention of architects, designers, and engineers in the field of adaptable, responsive and interactive architecture since 1980’s. Materials and building technologies have gradually evolved to address the technical implications of kinetic facades. The kinetic façade is becoming an independent system of the building, transforming the design methodology to sustainable building solutions. Accordingly, there is a need for a new design methodology to guide the design of a kinetic façade and evaluate its sustainable performance. The research objectives are two-fold: First, to establish a new design methodology for kinetic facades and second, to develop a micro-oculi façade system and assess its performance using the established design method. The design approach to the micro-oculi facade is comprised of 1) façade geometry optimization and 2) dynamic building energy simulation. The façade geometry optimization utilizes multi-objective optimization process, aiming to balance the quantitative and qualitative performances to address the sustainability of the built environment. The dynamic building energy simulation was carried out using EnergyPlus and Radiance simulation engines with scripted interfaces. The micro-oculi office was compared with an office tower with a glass façade in accordance with ASHRAE 90.1 2013 to understand its energy efficiency. The micro-oculi facade is constructed with an array of circular frames attached to a pair of micro-shades called a micro-oculus. The micro-oculi are encapsulated between two glass panes to protect kinetic mechanisms with longevity. The micro-oculus incorporates rotating gears that transmit the power to adjacent micro-oculi to minimize the number of mechanical parts. The micro-oculus rotates around its center axis with a step size of 15deg depending on the sun’s position while maximizing daylighting potentials and view-outs. A 2 ft by 2ft prototyping was undertaken to identify operational challenges and material implications of the micro-oculi facade. In this research, a systematic design methodology was proposed, that integrates multi-objectives of kinetic façade design criteria and whole building energy performance simulation within a holistic design process. This design methodology is expected to encourage multidisciplinary collaborations between designers and engineers to collaborate issues of the energy efficiency, daylighting performance and user experience during design phases. The preliminary energy simulation indicated that compared to a glass façade, the micro-oculi façade showed energy savings due to its improved thermal properties, daylighting attributes, and dynamic solar performance across the day and seasons. It is expected that the micro oculi façade provides a cost-effective, environmentally-friendly, sustainable, and aesthetically pleasing alternative to glass facades. Recommendations for future studies include lab testing to validate the simulated data of energy and optical properties of the micro-oculi façade. A 1:1 performance mock-up of the micro-oculi façade can suggest in-depth understanding of long-term operability and new development opportunities applicable for urban façade applications.

Keywords: energy efficiency, kinetic facades, sustainable architecture, urban facades

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Authors: Xiyue Wang, Shaoning Yan

Abstract:

Cities in China today is faced with an increasingly serious river ecological crisis accompanying with the development of urbanization: waterlogging on account of the fragmented urban natural hydrological system; the limited ecological function of the hydrological system caused by a destruction of water system and waterfront ecological environment. Additionally, the eco-hydrological processes of rivers are affected by various environmental factors, which are more complex in the context of urban environment. Therefore, efficient hydrological monitoring and analysis tools, accurate and visual hydrological and hydraulic models are becoming more important basis for decision-makers and an important way for landscape architects to solve urban hydrological problems, formulating sustainable and forward-looking schemes. The study mainly introduces the river and flood analysis model based on the platform of Autodesk Civil 3D. Taking the Luanhe River in Qian'an City of Hebei Province as an example, the 3D models of the landform, river, embankment, shoal, pond, underground stream and other land features were initially built, with which the water transfer simulation analysis, river floodplain analysis, and river ecology analysis were carried out, ultimately the real-time visualized simulation and analysis of rivers in various hypothetical scenarios were realized. Through the establishment of digital hydrological and hydraulic model, the hydraulic data can be accurately and intuitively simulated, which provides basis for rational water system and benign urban ecological system design. Though, the hydrological and hydraulic model based on Autodesk Civil3D own its boundedness: the interaction between the model and other data and software is unfavorable; the huge amount of 3D data and the lack of basic data restrict the accuracy and application range. The hydrological and hydraulic model based on Autodesk Civil3D platform provides more possibility to access convenient and intelligent tool for urban planning and monitoring, a solid basis for further urban research and design.

Keywords: visualization, hydrological and hydraulic model, Autodesk Civil 3D, urban river

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Authors: Rajendar Kandan, Mohammad Zakaria Alli, Hong Ong

Abstract:

Cloud computing is a business model which provides an easier management of computing resources. Cloud users can request virtual machine and install additional softwares and configure them if needed. However, user can also request virtual appliance which provides a better solution to deploy application in much faster time, as it is ready-built image of operating system with necessary softwares installed and configured. Large numbers of virtual appliances are available in different image format. User can download available appliances from public marketplace and start using it. However, information published about the virtual appliance differs from each providers leading to the difficulty in choosing required virtual appliance as it is composed of specific OS with standard software version. However, even if user choses the appliance from respective providers, user doesn’t have any flexibility to choose their own set of softwares with required OS and application. In this paper, we propose a referenced architecture for dynamically customizing virtual appliance and provision them in an easier manner. We also add our experience in integrating our proposed architecture with public marketplace and Mi-Cloud, a cloud management software.

Keywords: cloud computing, marketplace, virtualization, virtual appliance

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Authors: Wan Jiun Tin

Abstract:

Neighborhood regeneration has gained its popularity despite market-led urban redevelopment is still the main strategy in most of the countries in Asia. Area-based approach of neighborhood regeneration with the focus on people, place and system which covers the main sustainable aspects shall be studied as part of the solution. Project implementation in small scale without fully depending on the financial support from the government and main stakeholders is the advantage of neighborhood regeneration. This enables the improving and upgrading of living conditions to be ongoing even during the economy downturn. In addition to that, there will be no specific selection on the development areas as the entire nation share the similar opportunity to upgrade and to improve their neighborhood. This is important to narrow the income disparities in urban. The objective of this paper is to review and to summarize the urban regeneration in developed countries with the focus on Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong. The aim is to determine the direction of sustainable urban regeneration in Malaysia for post-Vision 2020 through the introduction of neighborhood regeneration. This paper is conducted via literature review and observations in those selected countries. In conclusion, neighborhood regeneration shall be one of the approach of sustainable urban regeneration in Malaysia. A few criteria have been identified and to be recommended for the adaptation in Malaysia.

Keywords: area-based regeneration, public participation, sustainable urban regeneration, urban redevelopment

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Authors: Ian C. Padgett

Abstract:

Future of society is built on the foundations built by the parents of today and how they raise their children. Strong foundations are made by accepting environments, good morals, and sound educations. Child abuse is a harm that immediately corrupts a child and everything that could do for society. Every child is a segment of modern society and future society, every child corrupted is a segment of society corrupted. Physical abuse is a clear abuse that leaves bruises and can traumatize a child for life, it can leave scars but effect a child’s mind for life. Another form of abuse, however, still impacts a child for life but with no scars to be seen. Child mental abuse directly targets children’s minds to control, manipulate, and belittle them. It becomes close to impossible to escape as there is no clear law defining mental abuse, the parent manipulates the child to stay quiet, and finally the child must come to terms that there parent is harming them. Society does not react to mental and physical abuse in the same manner. In a society that works to protect it future and it children, mental abuse is given a strange lack of attention. In order to protect children, all forms of abuse must be treated and given attention to. Mental abuse comes in many forms and can be extremely hard to spot, unlike physical abuse, but can still lead to the trauma other abuse can cause. While no abuse is worse than others, mental abuse should not be treated like it is nonexistent.

Keywords: Abuse Awareness, Child Mental Abuse, Effects of Abuse, Societal Issues

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Authors: Qi Kan, Xiaoyu Ying

Abstract:

With a rapid urbanization in China, the high-density new urban-center districts have already changed the microclimate in the city. Because of the using characters of building the commercial pedestrian streets which have emerged massively making a large number of pedestrians appear in there, pedestrian comfort in the commercial streets of the new urban-center districts requires more attention. The different street spatial layout will change the wind environment in the street and then influence the pedestrian comfort. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models are used to study the correlation between the street aspect ratio and wind environment, under the simulation with relevant weather conditions. The results show that the wind speed in the city streets is inversely proportional to the street aspect ratio. The conclusion will provide an evaluation basis for urban planners and architects at the beginning stage of the design to effectively avoid the potential poor physical environment.

Keywords: street spatial layout, wind environment, street aspect ratio, pedestrian comfort

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Authors: Mohammad Arif, Soumen Chatterjee, Krishnendu Gupta

Abstract:

The peri-urban interface is an area of transition where the urban and rural areas meet and interact. So the peri-urban areas, which is characterized by strong urban influence, easy access to markets, services and other inputs, are ready supplies of labour but distant from the land paucity and pollution related to urban growth. Hence, the present study is primarily aimed at quantifying the spatio-temporal pattern of land use/land cover change during the last three decades (i.e., 1987 to 2016) in the peri-urban area of Burdwan city. In the recent past, the morphology of the study region has rapid change due to high growth of population and establishment of industries. The change has predominantly taken place along the State and National Highway 2 (NH-2) and around the Burdwan Municipality for meeting both residential and commercial purposes. To ascertain the degree of change in land use and land cover, over the specified time, satellite imageries and topographical sheets are employed. The data is processed through appropriate software packages to arrive at a deduction that most of the land use changes have occurred by obliterating agricultural land & water bodies and substituting them by built area and industrial spaces. Geospatial analysis of study area showed that this area has experienced a steep increase (30%) of built-up areas and excessive decrease (15%) in croplands between 1987 and 2016. Increase in built-up areas is attributed to the increase of out-migration during this period from the core city. This study also examined social, economic and institutional factors that lead to this rapid land use change in peri-urban areas of the Burdwan city by carrying out a field survey of 250 households in peri-urban areas. The research concludes with an urgency for regulating land subdivisions in peri-urban areas to prevent haphazard land use development. It is expected that the findings of the study would go a long way in facilitating better policy making.

Keywords: growth, land use land cover, morphology, peri-urban, policy making

Procedia PDF Downloads 167