Search results for: landscape character assessment

Authors: Minakshi Jain, I. P. Singh

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The mountain system makes the one fifth of the world’s landscape and is the home to the 600 million people. Though hills and mountains contain about 10 percent of the total population of the country, yet almost half of the country’s population living in or adjacent to the mountain areas depend directly or indirectly on the resources of the hills. Mountain environments are essential to the survival of the global ecosystems, as they sustain the economy of India through its perennial river system and precious forest wealth. Hill areas, with distinct climate, diverse vegetation and valuable flora & fauna are distinguished primarily by unique eco-system, rich both in bio-diversity and visual resources. These areas have special significance in terms of environment and economy. Still the irony is that these mountain ecosystems are fragile and highly susceptible to disturbance, with a low ability to rebound and heal after damage. Hills are home to endangered species, biological diversity and an essential part of the ecosystem. They are extremely sensitive to any human related development. Natural systems are the most ignored in the hills. The way the cities and towns have encroached them today has the serious repercussions on the climate. Amidst immense resources and constraints of nature, the town had a fantastic diversity of cultural and ethnic characteristics nurtured through ages along river basin and valley strung across the length and breadth of this Himalayan setting.

Keywords: eco-system, bio-diversity, urban sprawl, vernacular landscape

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Authors: Ivy Jumao-As, Randy Lupango, Clifford Villaflores, Marites Khanser

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Alongside inadequate implementation of ecotourism standards and other pressing issues on sustainable development is the lack of business plans and formal business structures of various ecotourism sites in the Central Visayas, Philippines, and other parts of the country. Addressing these issues plays a key role to boost ecotourism which is a sustainability tool to the country’s economic development. A three-phase research is designed to investigate the green business practices of selected ecotourism sites in the region in order to propose a business model for ecotourism destinations in the region and outside. This paper reports the initial phase of the study which described the sites’ profile as well as operators of the following selected destinations: Cebu City Protected Landscape and Olango Island Wildlife Bird Sanctuary in Cebu, Rajah Sikatuna Protected Landscape in Bohol. Interview, Self-Administered Questionnaire with key informants and Data Mining were employed in the data collection. Findings highlighted similarities and differences in terms of eco-tourism products, type and number of visitors, manpower composition, cultural and natural resources, complementary services and products, awards and accreditation, peak and off peak seasons, among others. Recommendations based from common issues initially identified in this study are also highlighted.

Keywords: ecotourism, ecotourism sites, green business, sustainability

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Authors: Diane M. Bender

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In architecture and design education, students learn and understand their discipline through lecture courses and within studios. A studio is where the instructor works closely with students to help them understand design by doing design work. The final jury is the culmination of the studio learning experience. It’s value and significance are rarely questioned. Students present their work before their peers, instructors, and invited reviewers, known as jurors. These jurors are recognized experts who add a breadth of feedback to students mostly in the form of a verbal critique of the work. Since the design review or jury has been a common element of studio education for centuries, jurors themselves have been instructed in this format. Therefore, they understand its value from both a student and a juror perspective. To better understand how these reviewers see the value of a studio review, a survey was distributed to reviewers at a multi-disciplinary design school within the United States. Five design disciplines were involved in this case study: architecture, graphic design, industrial design, interior design, and landscape architecture. Respondents (n=108) provided written comments about their perceived value of the studio review system. The average respondent was male (64%), between 40-49 years of age, and has attained a master’s degree. Qualitative analysis with thematic coding revealed several themes. Reviewers view the final jury as important because it provides a variety of perspectives from unbiased external practitioners and prepares students for similar presentation challenges they will experience in professional practice. They also see it as a way to validate the assessment and evaluation of students by faculty. In addition, they see a personal benefit for themselves and their firm – the ability to network with fellow jurors, professors, and students (i.e., future colleagues). Respondents also provided additional feedback about the jury system and studio education in general. Typical responses included a desire for earlier engagement with students; a better explanation from the instructor about the project parameters, rubrics/grading, and guidelines for juror involvement; a way to balance giving encouraging feedback versus overly critical comments; and providing training for jurors prior to reviews. While this study focused on the studio review, the findings are equally applicable to other disciplines. Suggestions will be provided on how to improve the preparation of guests in the learning process and how their interaction can positively influence student engagement.

Keywords: assessment, design, jury, studio

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Authors: Muhammad Awais Kiani, Abdul Basit Kiani, Maryam Kiani

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Synergizing Sales and Marketing for Electronics Engineering with Web Development, explores the dynamic relationship between sales, marketing, and web development within the electronics engineering industry. This study is important for the power of digital platforms to connect with customers. Which increases brand visibility and drives sales. It highlights the need for collaboration between sales and marketing teams, as well as the integration of web development strategies to create seamless user experiences and effective lead generation. Furthermore, It also emphasizes the role of data analytics and customer insights in optimizing sales and marketing efforts in the ever-evolving landscape of electronics engineering. Sales and marketing play a crucial role in driving business growth, and in today's digital landscape, web development has become an integral part of these strategies. Web development enables businesses to create visually appealing and user-friendly websites that effectively showcase their products or services. It allows for the integration of e-commerce functionalities, enabling seamless online transactions. Furthermore, web development helps businesses optimize their online presence through search engine optimization (SEO) techniques, social media integration, and content management systems. This abstract highlights the symbiotic relationship between sales marketing in the electronics industry and web development, emphasizing the importance of a strong online presence in achieving business success.

Keywords: electronics industry, web development, sales, marketing

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Authors: K. Ivandic, F. Dodigovic, D. Stuhec, S. Strelec

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A characteristic value of certain geotechnical parameter results from an engineering assessment. Its selection has to be based on technical principles and standards of engineering practice. It has been shown that the results of engineering assessment of different authors for the same problem and input data are significantly dispersed. A survey was conducted in which participants had to estimate the force that causes a 10 cm displacement at the top of a axially in-situ compressed pile. Fifty experts from all over the world took part in it. The lowest estimated force value was 42% and the highest was 133% of measured force resulting from a mentioned static pile load test. These extreme values result in significantly different technical solutions to the same engineering task. In case of selecting a characteristic value of a geotechnical parameter the importance of the influence of an engineering assessment can be reduced by using statistical methods. An informative annex of Eurocode 1 prescribes the method of selecting the characteristic values of material properties. This is followed by Eurocode 7 with certain specificities linked to selecting characteristic values of geotechnical parameters. The paper shows the procedure of selecting characteristic values of a geotechnical parameter by using a statistical method with different initial conditions. The aim of the paper is to quantify an engineering assessment in the example of determining a characteristic value of a specific geotechnical parameter. It is assumed that this assessment is a random variable and that its statistical features will be determined. For this purpose, a survey research was conducted among relevant experts from the field of geotechnical engineering. Conclusively, the results of the survey and the application of statistical method were compared.

Keywords: characteristic values, engineering judgement, Eurocode 7, statistical methods

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Authors: A. E. Emam, M. Abd Elghany

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The change in orbit evolution between collocated satellites (X, Y) inside +/-0.09 ° E/W and +/- 0.07 ° N/S cluster, after one of these satellites is placed in an inclined orbit (satellite X) and the effect of this change in the collocation safety inside the cluster window has been studied and evaluated. Several collocation scenarios had been studied in order to adjust the location of both satellites inside their cluster to maximize the separation between them and safe the mission.

Keywords: satellite, GEO, collocation, risk assessment

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Authors: Bisola Stella Sonde

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Digital innovation has emerged as a pivotal driver of business transformation in the contemporary landscape. This case study research explores the dynamic interplay between digital innovation and the profound metamorphosis of businesses across industries. It delves into the multifaceted dimensions of digital innovation, elucidating its impact on organizational structures, customer experiences, and operational paradigms. The study investigates real-world instances of businesses harnessing digital technologies to enhance their competitiveness, agility, and sustainability. It scrutinizes the strategic adoption of digital platforms, data analytics, artificial intelligence, and emerging technologies as catalysts for transformative change. The cases encompass a diverse spectrum of industries, spanning from traditional enterprises to disruptive startups, offering insights into the universal relevance of digital innovation. Moreover, the research scrutinizes the challenges and opportunities posed by the digital era, shedding light on the intricacies of managing cultural shifts, data privacy, and cybersecurity concerns in the pursuit of innovation. It unveils the strategies that organizations employ to adapt, thrive, and lead in the era of digital disruption. In summary, this case study research underscores the imperative of embracing digital innovation as a cornerstone of business transformation. It offers a comprehensive exploration of the contemporary digital landscape, offering valuable lessons for organizations striving to navigate the ever-evolving terrain of the digital age.

Keywords: business transformation, digital innovation, emerging technologies, organizational structures

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Authors: Hui-Chen Tsai, Chien-Jen Ho, Bo-Wei Power Liang, Ying Shen, Yi-Hsin Lai

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Former Taiwan Metal Mining Corporation and its associated 3 wasted flue gas tunnels, hereinafter referred to as 'TMMC', was contaminated with heavy metals, Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and Total Petroleum Hydrocarbons (TPHs) in soil. Since the contamination had been exposed and unmanaged in the environment for more than 40 years, the extent of the contamination area is estimated to be more than 25 acres. Additionally, TMMC is located in a remote, mountainous area where almost no residents are residing in the 1-km radius area. Thus, it was deemed necessary to conduct an ecological risk assessment in order to evaluate the details of future contaminated site management plan. According to the winter and summer, ecological investigation results, one type of endangered, multiple vulnerable and near threaten plant was discovered, as well as numerous other protected species, such as Crested Serpent Eagle, Crested Goshawk, Black Kite, Brown Shrike, Taiwan Blue Magpie were observed. Ecological soil screening level (Eco-SSLs) developed by USEPA was adopted as a reference to conduct screening assessment. Since all the protected species observed surrounding TMMC site were birds, screening ecological risk assessment was conducted on birds only. The assessment was assessed mainly based on the chemical evaluation, which the contamination in different environmental media was compared directly with the ecological impact levels (EIL) of each evaluation endpoints and the respective hazard quotient (HQ) and hazard index (HI) could be obtained. The preliminary ecological risk assessment results indicated HI is greater than 1. In other words, the biological stressors (birds) were exposed to the contamination, which was already exceeded the dosage that could cause unacceptable impacts to the ecological system. This result was mainly due to the high concentration of arsenic, metal and lead; thus it was suggested the above mention contaminants should be remediated as soon as possible or proper risk management measures should be taken.

Keywords: screening, ecological risk assessment, ecological impact levels, risk management

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Authors: Dai-Ling Li, Jung-Fa Cheng, Min-Lang Huang, Yun-Yao Chi

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The hedonic pricing model has been popularly applied to describe the economic value of environmental amenities in urban housing, but the results for cultural heritage variables remain relatively ambiguous. In this paper, integrated variables extending by GIS-based data and an existing typology of communities used to examine how cultural heritage and environmental amenities and disamenities affect housing prices across urban communities in Tainan, Taiwan. The developed models suggest that, although a sophisticated variable for central services is selected, the centrality of location is not fully controlled in the price models and thus picked up by correlated peripheral and central amenities such as cultural heritage, open space or parks. Analysis of these correlations permits us to qualify results and present a revised set of relatively reliable estimates. Positive effects on housing prices are identified for views, various types of recreational infrastructure and vicinity of nationally cultural sites and significant landscapes. Negative effects are found for several disamenities including wasteyards, refuse incinerators, petrol stations and industries. The results suggest that systematic hypothesis testing and reporting of correlations may contribute to consistent explanatory patterns in hedonic pricing estimates for cultural heritage and landscape amenities in urban.

Keywords: hedonic pricing model, cultural heritage, landscape amenities, housing

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Authors: Joy Shihyi Huang

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This paper discusses the concept of community in Anna Deavere Smith’s performance, one that challenges and explores existing notions of justice and the other. In contrast to unwavering assumptions of essentialism that have helped to propel a discourse on moral agency within the black community, Smith employs postmodern ideas in which the theatrical attributes of doubling and repetition are conceptualized as part of what Marvin Carlson coined as a ‘memory machine.’ Her dismissal of the need for linear time, such as that regulated by Aristotle’s The Poetics and its concomitant ethics, values, and emotions as a primary ontological and epistemological construct produced by the existing African American historiography, demonstrates an urgency to produce an alternative communal self to override metanarratives in which the African Americans’ lives are contained and sublated by specific historical confines. Drawing on Emmanuel Levinas’ theories in ethics, specifically his notion of ‘proximity’ and ‘the third,’ the paper argues that Smith enacts a new model of ethics by launching an acting method that eliminates the boundary of self and other. Defying psychological realism, Smith conceptualizes an approach to acting that surpasses the mere mimetic value of invoking a ‘likeness’ of an actor to a character, which as such, resembles the mere attribution of various racial or sexual attributes in identity politics. Such acting, she contends, reduces the other to a representation of, at best, an ultimate rendering of me/my experience. She instead appreciates ‘unlikeness,’ recognizes the unavoidable actor/character gap as a power that humbles the self, whose irreversible journey to the other carves out its own image.

Keywords: Anna Deavere Smith, Emmanuel Levinas, other, performance

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Authors: Xiaoxian Zhang

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Guidelines of ecological risk assessment (ERA) and food safety assessment (FSA) used nowadays, based on an S-shaped threshold dose-response curve (SDR), fail to consider hormesis, a reproducible biphasic dose-response model represented as a J-shaped or an inverted U-shaped curve, that occurs in the real-life environment across multitudinous compounds on cells, organisms, populations, and even the ecosystem. Specifically, in SDR-based ERA and FSA practice, predicted no effect concentration (PNEC) is calculated separately for individual substances from no observed effect concentration (NOEC, usually equivalent to 10% effect concentration (EC10) of a contaminant or food condiment) over an assessment coefficient that is bigger than 1. Experienced researchers doubted that hormesis in the real-life environment might lead to a waste of limited human and material resources in ERA and FSA practice, but related data are scarce. In this study, hormetic effects on bioluminescence of Aliivibrio fischeri (A. f) induced by sulfachloropyridazine (SCP) under 40 conditions to simulate the real-life scenario were investigated, and hormetic effects on growth of human MCF-7 cells caused by brown sugar and mascavado sugar were found likewise. After comparison of related parameters, it has for the first time been proved that there is a 50% probability for safe concentration (SC) of contaminants and food condiments to fall within the hormetic-stimulatory range (HSR) or left to HSR, revealing the unreliability of traditional parameters in standardized (eco)toxicological studies, and supporting qualitatively and quantitatively the over-strictness of ERA and FSA resulted from misuse of SDR. This study provides a novel perspective for ERA and FSA practitioners that hormesis should dominate and conditions where SDR works should only be singled out on a specific basis.

Keywords: dose-response relationship, food safety, ecological risk assessment, hormesis

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Authors: Zhenzhong Yang

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Herbal medicines are important supplements to chemical drugs and usually consist of a complex mixture of constituents. The current quality control strategy of herbal medicines is mainly based on chemical markers, which largely failed to owe to the markers, not reflecting the herbal medicines’ multiple mechanisms of action. Herein, a bioactive chemical markers based strategy was proposed and applied to the quality assessment and control of herbal medicines. This strategy mainly includes the comprehensive chemical characterization of herbal medicines, bioactive chemical markers identification, and related quantitative analysis methods development. As a proof-of-concept, this strategy was applied to a Panax notoginseng derived herbal medicine. The bioactive chemical markers based strategy offers a rational approach for quality assessment and control of herbal medicines.

Keywords: bioactive chemical markers, herbal medicines, quality assessment, quality control

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Authors: Khader Musbah Titi

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In this era, traditional education systems do not meet the new challenges created by emerging technologies. On the other hand, eLearning offers all the necessary tools to meet these challenges. Using the Internet has brought numerous benefits to most educational institutions; it has also stretched traditional problems of plagiarism, cheating, stealing, vandalism, and spying into the cyberspace. This research discusses these issues in an eLearning environment. It attempts to provide suggestions and possible solutions to some of these issues. The main aim of this research is to conduct a survey at Irbid National University (INU), one of the oldest and biggest universities in Jordan, to study information related to moral and ethical issues in e-learning environment that affect the construction of the students’ characters in the future. The study will focus on student’s behavior and actions through the Internet using Learning Management System (LMS). Another aim of this research is to analyze the opinions of the instructors and last year students at INU about ethical behavior and interaction through LMS. The results show that educational institutes that use LMS should focus on student character development along with field knowledge. According to disadvantages, the results of the study showed that most of students behave unethically in their online activities (cheating, plagiarism, copy/paste etc.) while studying online courses through LMS. The result showed that instructors play a major role in the character development of students. The result also showed that academic institute must have variant mechanisms and strict policy in LMS to control unethical actions of students.

Keywords: LMS, cyber ethics, e-learning, IT ethics, students’ behaviors

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Authors: Nada Al-Qallaf, Aisha Al-Barood, Djamel Lekmine, Srinivasan Vedhapuri

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Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) under the supervision of Kuwait National Focal Point (KNFP) is planning to remediate 26 million (M) m3 of oil-contaminated soil in oil fields of Kuwait as a direct and indirect fallout of the Gulf War during 1990-1991. This project is funded by the United Nations Compensation Commission (UNCC) under the Kuwait Environmental Remediation Program (KERP). Oil-contamination of the soil occurred due to the destruction of the oil wells and spilled crude oil across the land surface and created ‘oil lakes’ in low lying land. Aerial fall-out from oil spray and combustion products from oil fires combined with the sand and gravel on the ground surface to form a layer of hardened ‘Tarcrete’. The unique fresh groundwater lenses present in the Raudhatain and Sabriya subsurface areas had been impacted by the discharge and/or spills of dissolved petroleum constituents. These fresh groundwater aquifers were used for drinking water purposes until 1990, prior to invasion. This has significantly damages altered the landscape, ecology and habitat of the flora and fauna and in Kuwait Desert. Under KERP, KOC is fully responsible for the planning and execution of the remediation and restoration projects in KOC oil fields. After the initial recommendation of UNCC to construct engineered landfills for containment and disposal of heavily contaminated soils, two landfills were constructed, one in North Kuwait and another in South East Kuwait of capacity 1.7 million m3 and 0.5 million m3 respectively. KOC further developed the Total Remediation Strategy in conjunction with KNFP and has obtained UNCC approval. The TRS comprises of elements such as Risk Based Approach (RBA), Bioremediation of low Contaminated Soil levels, Remediation Treatment Technologies, Sludge Disposal via Beneficial Recycling or Re-use and Engineered landfills for Containment of untreatable materials. Risk Based Assessment as a key component to avoid any unnecessary remedial works, where it can be demonstrated that human health and the environment are sufficiently protected in the absence of active remediation. This study demonstrates on the risks of tarcrete materials spread over areas 20 Km2 on the fresh Ground water lenses/catchment located beneath the Sabriyah and Raudhatain oil fields in North Kuwait. KOC’s primary objective is to provide justification of using RBA, to support a case with the Kuwait regulators to leave the tarcrete material in place, rather than seek to undertake large-scale removal and remediation. The large-scale coverage of the tarcrete in the oil fields and perception that the residual contamination associated with this source is present in an environmentally sensitive area essentially in ground water resource. As part of this assessment, conceptual site model (CSM) and complete risk-based and fate and transport modelling was carried out which includes derivation of site-specific assessment criteria (SSAC) and quantification of risk to identified waters resource receptors posed by tarcrete impacted areas. The outcome of this assessment was determined that the residual tarcrete deposits across the site area shall not create risks to fresh groundwater resources and the remedial action to remove and remediate the surficial tarcrete deposits is not warranted.

Keywords: conceptual site model, fresh groundwater, oil-contaminated soil, tarcrete, risk based assessment

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Authors: Sandhya Rao Mehta

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As ChatGpt and other Artificial Intelligence (AI) forms are becoming part of our regular academic world, the consequences are being gradually discussed. The extent to which an essay written by a student is itself of any value if it has been downloaded by some form of AI is perhaps central to this discourse. A larger question is whether writing should be taught as an academic skill at all. In literature classrooms, this has major consequences as writing a traditional paper is still the single most preferred form of assessment. This study suggests that it is imperative to investigate alternative forms of assessment in literature, not only because the existing forms can be written by AI, but in a larger sense, students are increasingly skeptical of the purpose of such work. The extent to which an essay actually helps the students professionally is a question that academia has not yet answered. This paper suggests that using real-world tasks like creating podcasts, video tutorials, and websites is a far better way to evaluate students' critical thinking and application of ideas, as well as to develop digital skills which are important to their future careers. Using the example of a course in literature, this study will examine the possibilities and challenges of creating digital projects as a way of confronting the complexities of student evaluation in the future. The study is based on a specific university English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context.

Keywords: assessment, literature, digital humanities, chatgpt

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Authors: Roaa Al Sharif, Salsabil Abo Al-Azayem, Nimah Alsomali, Wjoud Alsaeed, Nawal Alshammari, Abdulaziz Alwatban, Yaseen Alrabae, Razan Orfali, Faisal Alqarni, Ahmad Alrasheedi

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from various countries have revealed that nurses possess only a basic understanding of the GCS. Regarding this matter, limited knowledge is available about the situation in Saudi Arabia. Overall, the available research suggests that there is room for improvement in the knowledge of the GCS among nurses in Saudi Arabia. Further training and education programs may be beneficial in enhancing nurses' understanding and application of the GCS in clinical practice. Objective: To determine the level of knowledge and competence in assessing the GCS among staff nurses and to identify factors that might influence their knowledge at King Fahd Medical City in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Methods: A descriptive, cross-sectional survey involving 199 KFMC staff nurses was conducted. Nurses were provided with a structured questionnaire, and data were collected and analyzed using SPSS version 16, employing descriptive statistics and Chi-square tests. Results: The majority, 81.4% of nurses, had an average level of knowledge in assessing the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS). The mean score for measuring the level of knowledge among staff nurses in GCS assessment was 8.8 ± 1.826. Overall, 13.6% of respondents demonstrated good knowledge of the GCS, scoring between 11 and 15 points, while only 5% of nurses exhibited poor knowledge of the GCS assessment. There was a significant correlation between knowledge and nurses' departments (χ2(2) = 19.184, p < 0.001). χ2(2) = 19.184," representing a Chi-square statistic with 2 degrees of freedom used to test the association between categorical variables in the data analysis. Conclusion: The findings indicate that knowledge of GCS assessment among staff nurses in a single center in Saudi Arabia is moderate. Therefore, there is a need for continuous education programs to enhance their competence in using this assessment.

Keywords: Glasgow Coma Scale, brain injury, nurses’ knowledge assessment, continuous education programs

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Authors: Ralph Barnes

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The internationalization and globalization of education are now a huge, multi-million dollar industry. The movement of international students across the globe has provided a rich vein of revenue for universities and institutions of higher learning to exploit and harvest. A concerted effort has been made by universities worldwide to court students from overseas, with some countries relying up to one-third of student fees, coming from international students. Australian universities and English Language Centres are coming under increased government scrutiny in respect to such areas as the academic progression of international students, management and understanding of student visa requirements and the design of higher education courses and effective assessment regimes. As such, universities and other higher education institutions are restructuring themselves more as service providers rather than as strictly education providers. In this paper, the high-touch, tailored academic model currently followed by some Australian educational institutions to support international students, is examined and challenged. Academic support services offered to international students need to be coordinated, sustained and reviewed regularly, in order to assess their effectiveness. Maintaining the delivery of high-quality educational programs and learning outcomes for this high income-generating student cohort is vital, in order to continue the successful academic and social engagement by international students across the Australian university and higher education landscape.

Keywords: ESL, engagement, tertiary, learning

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Authors: Hyeon-Kyo Lim, Hyunjung Kim, Kune-Woo Lee

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Decommissioning process of nuclear facilities can be said to consist of a sequence of problem solving activities, partly because there may exist working environments contaminated by radiological exposure, and partly because there may also exist industrial hazards such as fire, explosions, toxic materials, and electrical and physical hazards. As for an individual hazard factor, risk assessment techniques are getting known to industrial workers with advance of safety technology, but the way how to integrate those results is not. Furthermore, there are few workers who experienced decommissioning operations a lot in the past. Therefore, not a few countries in the world have been trying to develop appropriate counter techniques in order to guarantee safety and efficiency of the process. In spite of that, there still exists neither domestic nor international standard since nuclear facilities are too diverse and unique. In the consequence, it is quite inevitable to imagine and assess the whole risk in the situation anticipated one by one. This paper aimed to find out an appropriate technique to integrate individual risk assessment results from the viewpoint of experts. Thus, on one hand the whole risk assessment activity for decommissioning operations was modeled as a sequence of individual risk assessment steps, and on the other, a hierarchical risk structure was developed. Then, risk assessment procedure that can elicit individual hazard factors one by one were introduced with reference to the standard operation procedure (SOP) and hierarchical task analysis (HTA). With an assumption of quantification and normalization of individual risks, a technique to estimate relative weight factors was tried by using the conventional Analytic Hierarchical Process (AHP) and its result was reviewed with reference to judgment of experts. Besides, taking the ambiguity of human judgment into consideration, debates based upon fuzzy inference was added with a mathematical case study.

Keywords: decommissioning, risk assessment, analytic hierarchical process (AHP), fuzzy inference

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Authors: Sankhanil Das, Arunava Dasgupta, Keya Mitra

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This paper investigates the relationship between natural ecological systems and modern urban morphology. Over years, ecological conditions represented by natural resources such as natural landforms, systems of water, urban geography and land covers have been a significant driving factor of how settlements have formed, expanded and functioned. These have played a pivotal role in formation of the community character and the cultural identity of the urban spaces, and have steered cultural behavior within these settings. Such cultural behaviors have been instrumental in transforming mere spaces to places with meaning and symbolism. The natural process of city formation is principally founded upon the idea of balance and harmony, mostly in a subconscious manner. Reimaging such processes of natural evolution, this paper systematically builds a development model that generates a balance between environment and development, with specific focus on the Urban-Rural fringe areas in the Temple Town of Puri, in Eastern India. Puri represents a unique cross section of ecological landscape, cultural practices and religious symbolism with a very rich history and a vibrant heritage. While the city centre gets more and more crowded by tourists and pilgrims to accommodate related businesses, the original residents of Puri relocate to move towards the urban peripheral areas for better living conditions, gradually converting agricultural lands into non agricultural uses. This rapid spread into the rural hinterland is devoid of any connection with the rich cultural identity of Puri. These past four decades of ‘development’ has been at the cost of 810 Hectares of ecological Lake systems in the region. Invaluable ecological resources at urban rural edges are often viewed as hindrances to development and conceptualized as taking away from the image of the city. This paper attempts to understand the language of development over years on existing natural resources through topo-analysis and proposes a sustainable approach of development using different planning tools, with ecological resources as the pivotal factor of development.

Keywords: livability, sustainable development, urbanization, urban-rural edge

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Authors: Moschos Vogiatzis, K. Perakis

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Spatial-explicit and up-to-date land use/land cover information is fundamental for spatial planning, land management, sustainable development, and sound decision-making. In the last decade, many satellite-derived land cover products at different spatial, spectral, and temporal resolutions have been developed, such as the European Copernicus Land Cover product. However, more efficient and detailed information for land use/land cover is required at the regional or local scale. A typical Mediterranean basin with a complex landscape comprised of various forest types, crops, artificial surfaces, and wetlands was selected to test and develop our approach. In this study, we investigate the improvement of Copernicus Land Cover product (CLC2018) using Landsat 8 and Sentinel-2 pixel-based classification based on all available existing geospatial data (Forest Maps, LPIS, Natura2000 habitats, cadastral parcels, etc.). We examined and compared the performance of the Random Forest classifier for land use/land cover mapping. In total, 10 land use/land cover categories were recognized in Landsat 8 and 11 in Sentinel-2A. A comparison of the overall classification accuracies for 2018 shows that Landsat 8 classification accuracy was slightly higher than Sentinel-2A (82,99% vs. 80,30%). We concluded that the main land use/land cover types of CLC2018, even within a heterogeneous area, can be successfully mapped and updated according to CLC nomenclature. Future research should be oriented toward integrating spatiotemporal information from seasonal bands and spectral indexes in the classification process.

Keywords: classification, land use/land cover, mapping, random forest

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Authors: Mina Elhjouji

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The aim of this paper is to raise awareness of the untranslatability of the Qur’an and to suggest some solutions that can help the translator in the process of transferring the meaning from the source text to the target text as much as possible. After the introduction, the miraculous character of the Qur’an shall be illustrated. Then, the difficulty of translating religious texts will be shown in terms of different causes; thematic, cultural, and linguistic. Some examples shall illustrate each type of these difficulties. Finally, some strategies that can help translate the Quran’s meanings will be suggested.

Keywords: translation, religious text, untranslatability, The Qur’an miracle, communicative theory

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Authors: Faraj Ahmed E. Alhegagi, Anagia M. Khamkam Mohamed, Bassam F. Alhajaji

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Duplex stainless steels (DSS) are widely employed in industry for apparatus working with sea water in petroleum, refineries and in chemical plants. Fracture of DSS takes place by cleavage of the ferrite phase and the austenite phase ductile tear off. Pop-in is an important feature takes place during fracture of DSS. The procedure of Pop-ins assessment plays an important role in fracture toughness studies. In present work, Zeron100 DSS specimens were heat treated at different temperatures, cooled and pulled to failure to assess the pop-ins criterion in crack initiation prediction. The outcome results were compared to the British Standard (BS 7448) and the ASTEM standard (E1290) for Crack-Tip Opening Displacement (CTOD) fracture toughness measurement. Pop-in took place during specimens loading specially for those specimens heat treated at higher temperatures. The standard BS7448 was followed to check specimen validity for fractured toughness assessment by direct determination of KIC. In most cases, specimens were invalid for KIC measurement. The two procedures were equivalent only when single pop-ins were assessed. A considerable contrast in fracture toughness value between was observed where multiple pop-ins were assessed.

Keywords: fracture toughness, stainless steels, pop ins, crack assessment

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Authors: S. Hasan, I. Beshara

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Infrastructure maintenance is a great challenge facing sustainable development of infrastructure assets due to the high cost of passive implementation of a sustainable maintenance plan. An assessment model of sustainable maintenance for highway infrastructure projects in Egypt is developed in this paper. It helps in improving the implementation of sustainable maintenance criteria. Thus, this paper has applied the analytical hierarchy processes (AHP) to rank and explore the weight of 26 assessment indicators using three hierarchy levels containing the main sustainable categories and subcategories with related indicators. Overall combined weight of each indicator for sustainable maintenance evaluation has been calculated to sum up to a sustainable maintenance performance index (SMI). The results show that the factor "Preventive maintenance cost" has the highest relative contribution factor among others (13.5%), while two factors of environmental performance have the least weights (0.7%). The developed model aims to provide decision makers with information about current maintenance performance and support them in the decision-making process regarding future directions of maintenance activities. It can be used as an assessment performance tool during the operation and maintenance stage. The developed indicators can be considered during designing the maintenance plan. Practices for successful implementation of the model are also presented.

Keywords: analytical hierarchy process, assessment performance Model, KPIs for sustainable maintenance, sustainable maintenance index

Procedia PDF Downloads 138

Authors: Akerele Akintunde Hareef

Abstract:

GIS is an integrating tool for storing, retrieving, manipulating, and analyzing spatial data. It is a tool which defines an area with respect to features and other relevant thematic delineations. On the other hand, Environmental Impact Assessment in short is both positive and negative impact of an infrastructure on an environment. Impact of infrastructural projects on the environment is an aspect of development that barely get extensive portion of pre-project execution phase and when they do, the effects are most times not implemented to cushion the impact they have on human and the environment. In this research, infrastructural projects like road constructions, water reticulation projects, building constructions, bridge etc. have immense impact on the environment and the people that reside in location of construction. Hence, the need for this research tends to portray the relevance of Environmental Impact assessment in calculating the vulnerability of human and the environment to imbalance necessitated by this infrastructural development and how the use of GIS application can be optimally applied to annul or minimize the effect.

Keywords: environmental impact assessment (EIA), geographic information system (GIS), infrastructural projects, environment

Procedia PDF Downloads 552

Authors: Tuula Heinonen, Wilhelm Gaus

Abstract:

At present safety, assessment starts with animal tests although their predictivity is often poor. Even after extended human use experimental data are often judged as the core information for risk assessment. However, the best opportunity to generate true evidence is to match all available information. Cross matching methodology combines the different fields of knowledge and types of data (e.g. in-vitro and in-vivo experiments, clinical observations, clinical and epidemiological studies, and daily life observations) and gives adequate weight to individual findings. To achieve a consolidated outcome, the information from all available sources is analysed and compared with each other. If single pieces of information fit together a clear picture becomes visible. If pieces of information are inconsistent or contradictory careful consideration is necessary. 'Cross' can be understood as 'orthographic' in geometry or as 'independent' in mathematics. Results coming from different sources bring independent and; therefore, they result in new information. Independent information gives a larger contribution to evidence than results coming repeatedly from the same source. A successful example of cross matching is the assessment of Ginkgo biloba where we were able to come to the conclusive result: Ginkgo biloba leave extract is well tolerated and safe for humans.

Keywords: cross-matching, human use, safety assessment, Ginkgo biloba leave extract

Procedia PDF Downloads 287

Authors: S. K. Ashiquer Rahman

Abstract:

A cutting-edge online knowledge mediation system called "ePLANETe" provides a framework for building knowledge, tools and methods for all education, research and sustainable practices and elsewhere, as well as the deliberative assessment support of sustainability, biodiversity, and stakeholder involvement issues of the territorial development sector, e.g., agriculture.The purpose is to present, as sectorial and institutional perception, the 'ePLANETe' concept and functionalities as an experimental online platform for contributing the sustainability assessment, biodiversity, and stakeholder involvement. In the upshot, the concept of 'ePLANETe'isan investigation of the challenges of "online things, technology and application". The new digital technologies are exploited to facilitate collaborative technology and application to territorial development issues, e.g., agriculture. In order to investigate the dealing capacity (Qualitative and Quantitative) of sustainability, biodiversity, and stakeholder involvement of the agriculture sector through the stakeholder-based integrated assessment "Deliberation Support Tools (DST) and INTEGRAAL method" of collective resources. Specifically, this paper focuses on integrating system methodologies with deliberation tools for collective assessment and decision-making in implementing regional plans of agriculture. The aim of this report is to identify effective knowledge and tools and to enable deliberation methodologies regarding practices on the sustainability of agriculture and biodiversity issues, societal responsibilities, and regional planning that will create the scope for qualitative and quantitative assessments of sustainability as a new landmark of the agriculture sector.

Keywords: sustainability, biodiversity, stakeholder, dst, integraal

Procedia PDF Downloads 116

Authors: M.J. Seddighi, A. Moradchelleh, M. Keyvan

Abstract:

The ultimate goal in building a city is to provide pleasant, comfortable and nurturing environment as a context of public life. City environment establishes strong connection with people and their surrounding habitant, acting as relevance in social interactions between citizens itself. Urban environment and appropriate municipal facilities are the only way for proper communication between city and citizens and also citizens themselves. There is a need for complement elements between buildings and constructions to settling city life through which the move, comfort, reactions and anxiety will adjust and reflect the spirit to the city. In the surging development of society, urban’ spaces are encountered evolution, sometimes causing the symbols to fade and waste, and as a result, leading to destroy belongs among humans and their physical liquidate. Houses and living spaces exhibit materialistic reflection of life style. In other words, way of life makes the symbolic essence of living spaces. In addition, it is of sociocultural factor of lifestyle, consisting the concepts and culture, morality, worldview, and national character. Culture is responsible for some crucial meaningful needs which can be wide because they depend on various causes such as perception and interpretation of believes, philosophy of life, interaction with neighbors and protection against climate and enemies. The bilateral relationship between human and nature is the main factor that needs to be properly addressed. It is because of the fact that the approach which is taken against landscape and nature has a pertinent influence on creation and shaping the structure of a house. The first response of human in tackling the environment is to build a “shelter” and place as dwelling. This has been a crucial factor in all time periods. In the proposed study, dwelling in Khorasgan’ Stream, as an area located in one of the important historical city of Iran, has been studied. Khorasgan’ Stream is the basic constituent elements of the present architectural form of Isfahan. The influence of Islamic spiritual culture and neighborhood with the historical elements on the dwelling of the selected location, subsequently on other regions of the town are presented.

Keywords: historical architectural elements, dwelling' neighborhood, Khorasgan’ Stream of Isfahan, architecture

Procedia PDF Downloads 412

Authors: Sibongiseni Thabethe, Ian Korir

Abstract:

The effective management of spent fuel pool (SFP) safety has been raised as one of the emerging issues to further enhance nuclear installation safety after the Fukushima accident on March 11, 2011. Before then, SFP safety-related issues have been mainly focused on (a) controlling the configuration of the fuel assemblies in the pool with no loss of pool coolants and (b) ensuring adequate pool storage space to prevent fuel criticality owing to chain reactions of the fission products and the ability for neutron absorption to keep the fuel cool. A probabilistic safety (PSA) assessment was performed using the systems analysis program for hands-on integrated reliability evaluations (SAPHIRE) computer code. Event and fault tree analysis was done to develop a PSA model for the Koeberg SFP. We present preliminary PSA results of events that lead to boiling and cause fuel uncovering, resulting in possible fuel damage in the Koeberg SFP.

Keywords: computer code, fuel assemblies, probabilistic risk assessment, spent fuel pool

Procedia PDF Downloads 169

Authors: Wilfred Fritz

Abstract:

The accreditation process of engineering degree programmes is based on various reports evaluated by the relevant governing bodies of the institution of higher education. One of the aforementioned reports for the accreditation process is a self-assessment report which is to be completed by the applying institution. This paper seeks to emphasise the importance of analysis of internal quality management systems and self-examination processes in the engineering accreditation processes. A description of how the programme fulfils the criteria should be given. Relevant stakeholders all need to contribute in the writing and structuring of the self-assessment report. The last step is to gather evidence in the form of supporting documentation. In conclusion, the paper also identifies learning outcomes in a case study in seeking accreditation from an international relevant professional body.

Keywords: accreditation, governing bodies, self-assessment report, quality management

Procedia PDF Downloads 123

Authors: Xu Lan, Zainor Izat Zainal

Abstract:

Human intervention in Earth’s macro system has ushered in the age of the Anthropocene, prompting introspection among humans, the action agent. This epoch demands a reawakening of human conscience and inner motivation to mitigate the irreversible trend so as to shape the trajectory of the Anthropocene. Environmental virtue ethics claims that the fundamental cause of environmental crisis lies in humans themselves. Rather than focusing more on what humans should do, environmental virtue ethics seeks to specify environmental virtues to appeal to what kind of person a human should be. Renowned Pulitzer Prize-winning author Barbara Kingsolver illustrates her contentions about environmental ethics through the narrative of Codi and her sister Hallie’s environmental choices and actions in Animal Dreams (1990). This study adopts a textual analysis approach of the character traits exhibited by Codi and Hallie that are constitutive of making them environmentally virtuous, exploring how emotions and inner motivations drive actions. This paper is informed by Ronald Sandler’s (2007) virtues of sustainability, virtues of communion with nature, and virtues of environmental stewardship and activism. It aims to examine how Codi and Hallie’s character traits are built around these virtues. Furthermore, this study underscores the importance of internalizing principles and cultivating virtues for the environment and humans’ flourishing in the Anthropocene. As a tentative practice in applying environmental virtue ethics to examine environmental virtues for the Anthropocene, this study reveals Kingsolver’s endeavor of setting environmental virtue exemplars from fictional characters to inspire humans’ long-term and stable contribution to a better future.

Keywords: anthopocene, environmental ethics, environmental virtues, virtue ethics

Procedia PDF Downloads 34