Search results for: local raw materials

Authors: Rafenomananjara Tsinjo Nirina, Tomoo Sekito, Andrianaivoravelona Jaconnet Oliva

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Manufacturing a composite material from post-consumer bottles is an interesting outlet since Madagascar is still facing the challenges of managing plastic waste on the one hand and appropriate waste treatment facilities are not yet developed on the other hand. New waste management options are needed to divert End-Of-Life (EOL) soft plastic wastes from landfills and incineration. Waste polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles might be considered as a valuable resource and recovered into polymer concrete. The methodology is easy to implement and appropriate to the local context in Madagascar. This approach will contribute to the production of ecological building materials that might be profitable for the environment and the construction sector. This work aims to study the feasibility of using the post-consumer PET bottles as an alternative binding agent instead of the conventional Portland cement and water. Then, the mechanical and physical properties of the materials were evaluated.

Keywords: PET recycling, polymer concrete, ecological building materials, pollution mitigation

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Authors: Muhadam Labolo, Afdal R. Anwar, Sucia Miranti Sipisang

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Electronic Local Finance Management Information System (ELFMIS) is integrated application that was used as a tool for local governments to improve the effectiveness of the implementation of the various areas of financial management regulations. Appropriate With Exceptions Opinion (WDP) of Indonesia Audit Agency (BPK) for local governments Mempawah is a financial management problem that must be improved to avoid mistakes in decision-making. The use of Electronic Local Finance Management Information System (ELFMIS) by Mempawah authority has not yet performed maximally. These problems became the basis for research in measuring the effectiveness LFMIS in Mempawah regency. This research uses an indicator variable for measuring information systems effectiveness proposed by Bodnar. This research made use descriptive with inductive approach. Data collection techniques were mixed from qualitative and quantitative techniques, used questionnaires, interviews and documentation. The obstacles in Local Finance Board (LFB) for the application of ELFMIS such as connection, the quality and quantity of human resources, realization of financial resources, absence of maintenance and another facilities of ELFMIS and verification for financial information.

Keywords: effectiveness, E-LFMIS, finance, local government, system

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Authors: Asah Nelson Asoh, Wanie Clarkson Mvo

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Given the diverse nature of cultural diversity in Cameroon from the forested south to the sudano-sahelian north regions, Cameroon is aptly described as 'Africa in Miniature', which simply means all of Africa in a single country-Cameroon. Cameroon possesses all that can be attractive to the eyes in Africa. Yet, there is a microscopic involvement of the local inhabitants in participatory governance of cultural patrimony for tourism and community-based socio-economic development, which greatly jeopardizes conservation endeavors because the community fails to trust governing authorities. This study delves into the ways through which local inhabitants could be indulged in participatory governance of cultural patrimony for tourism and community-based socio-economic development. The study adopts a qualitative research design and semi-structured interviews with experts in the collection of primary data blended with secondary materials from published sources, including textbooks, scientific journal articles, dissertations, reports, and internet websites. The collected data was presented and analysed using descriptive statistical techniques, photographic illustrations, and through intuition. The study fosters the ways through which local inhabitants could be indulged in participatory governance of cultural patrimony for tourism and community-based socio-economic development. This is to ensure community support for the conservation of tourism cultural patrimony in Cameroon in particular and the world at large.

Keywords: participatory governance, cultural patrimony, tourism, socio-economic development, Cameroon

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Authors: Fanqiang Kong, Chending Bian

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Sparse unmixing is a promising approach in a semisupervised fashion by assuming that the observed pixels of a hyperspectral image can be expressed in the form of linear combination of only a few pure spectral signatures (end members) in an available spectral library. However, the sparse unmixing problem still remains a great challenge at finding the optimal subset of endmembers for the observed data from a large standard spectral library, without considering the spatial information. Under such circumstances, a sparse unmixing algorithm termed as non-local simultaneous sparse unmixing (NLSSU) is presented. In NLSSU, the non-local simultaneous sparse representation method for endmember selection of sparse unmixing, is used to finding the optimal subset of endmembers for the similar image patch set in the hyperspectral image. And then, the non-local means method, as a regularizer for abundance estimation of sparse unmixing, is used to exploit the abundance image non-local self-similarity. Experimental results on both simulated and real data demonstrate that NLSSU outperforms the other algorithms, with a better spectral unmixing accuracy.

Keywords: hyperspectral unmixing, simultaneous sparse representation, sparse regression, non-local means

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Authors: Bashara Want

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One of the key factors limiting the performance of magnetic memory is that the coercivity has a distribution with finite width, and the reversal starts at the weakest link in the distribution. So one must first know the distribution of coercivities in order to learn how to reduce the width of distribution and increase the coercivity field to obtain a system with narrow width. First Order Reversal Curve (FORC) method characterizes a system with hysteresis via the distribution of local coercivities and, in addition, the local interaction field. The method is more versatile than usual conventional major hysteresis loops that give only the statistical behaviour of the magnetic system. The FORC method will be presented and discussed at the conference.

Keywords: magnetic materials, hysteresis, first-order reversal curve method, nanostructures

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Authors: Nassima Sotehi

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This article presents experimental and numerical results concerning the thermal properties of the porous materials used as heat insulator in the buildings sector. Initially, the thermal conductivity of three types of studied walls (classic concrete, concrete with cork aggregate and polystyrene concrete) was measured in experiments by the method of the boxes. Then a numerical modeling of the heat and mass transfers which occur within porous materials was applied to these walls. This work shows the influence of the presence of water in building materials on their thermophysical properties, as well as influence of the nature of materials and dosage of fibers introduced within these materials on the thermal and mass transfers.

Keywords: modeling, porous media, thermal materials, thermal properties

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Authors: Farida Prihatini

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As a largest Muslim country in the world with around 215 Muslim inhabitants, Indonesia interestingly is not an Islamic country. Yet, Indonesia is not a secular country as well. The country has committed to be a unity in diversity country where people from various socio-political background may be coexistent live in this archipelago country. However, many provinces and Muslim groups are disposed of special regulation for Muslim people, namely local ordinances with sharia nuances, applied specifically in provinces, cities or regions where Muslim inhabitants are the majority. For the last two decades, particularly since Indonesia reform movement of 1998, a lot of local ordinances (Peraturan Daerah) with Sharia nuance have been enacted and applied in several provinces, cities and regions in Indonesia. The local ordinances are mostly deal with restriction of alcohol, prohibition of prostitution, Al Qur'an literacy, obligation to wear Muslim attire and zakat or alms management. Some of local ordinances have been warmly welcomed by society, while other ordinances have created tension. Those who oppose the ordinances believe that such things regulated by the ordinances are in violation of human rights and democracy, part of privacy rights of the people and must not be regulated by the State or local government. This paper describes the dynamic of local Ordinances with sharia nuances in Indonesia, in this research is limited to three ordinances: on the restriction of alcohol, prohibition of prostitution and obligation to wear Muslim attire. The researcher employs a normative method by studying secondary data and local ordinances in selected areas in Indonesia. The findings of the paper are that local ordinances with sharia nuances are indeed part of the needs of society, yet, in their implementation must take the pluralism of Indonesia and the state basic foundation, which is Pancasila (five pillars) into account.

Keywords: local, ordinances, sharia, rights

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Authors: Wen-Bao Qiao, Jean-Charles Créput

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To accelerate the solution for large scale traveling salesman problems (TSP), a parallel 2-opt local search algorithm with simple implementation based on Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) is presented and tested in this paper. The parallel scheme is based on technique of data decomposition by dynamically assigning multiple K processors on the integral tour to treat K edges’ 2-opt local optimization simultaneously on independent sub-tours, where K can be user-defined or have a function relationship with input size N. We implement this algorithm with doubly linked list on GPU. The implementation only requires O(N) memory. We compare this parallel 2-opt local optimization against sequential exhaustive 2-opt search along integral tour on TSP instances from TSPLIB with more than 10000 cities.

Keywords: parallel 2-opt, double links, large scale TSP, GPU

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Authors: Mawloud Mosbah, Bachir Boucheham

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Color Histogram is considered as the oldest method used by CBIR systems for indexing images. In turn, the global histograms do not include the spatial information; this is why the other techniques coming later have attempted to encounter this limitation by involving the segmentation task as a preprocessing step. The weak segmentation is employed by the local histograms while other methods as CCV (Color Coherent Vector) are based on strong segmentation. The indexation based on local histograms consists of splitting the image into N overlapping blocks or sub-regions, and then the histogram of each block is computed. The dissimilarity between two images is reduced, as consequence, to compute the distance between the N local histograms of the both images resulting then in N*N values; generally, the lowest value is taken into account to rank images, that means that the lowest value is that which helps to designate which sub-region utilized to index images of the collection being asked. In this paper, we make under light the local histogram indexation method in the hope to compare the results obtained against those given by the global histogram. We address also another noteworthy issue when Relying on local histograms namely which value, among N*N values, to trust on when comparing images, in other words, which sub-region among the N*N sub-regions on which we base to index images. Based on the results achieved here, it seems that relying on the local histograms, which needs to pose an extra overhead on the system by involving another preprocessing step naming segmentation, does not necessary mean that it produces better results. In addition to that, we have proposed here some ideas to select the local histogram on which we rely on to encode the image rather than relying on the local histogram having lowest distance with the query histograms.

Keywords: CBIR, color global histogram, color local histogram, weak segmentation, Euclidean distance

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Authors: Amin Kamal Akhnoukh, Lois Zaki Kamel, Magued Mourad Barsoum

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The objective of this research is to mitigate and prevent the alkali silica reactivity (ASR) in highway construction projects. ASR is a deleterious reaction initiated when the silica content of the aggregate reacts with alkali hydroxides in cement in the presence of relatively high moisture content. The ASR results in the formation of an expansive white colored gel-like material which forms the destructive tensile stresses inside hardened concrete. In this research, different types of local aggregates available in the State of Arkansas were mixed and mortar bars were poured according to the ASTM specifications. Mortar bars expansion was measured versus time and aggregates with potential ASR problems were detected. Different types of supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) were used in remixing mortar bars with highly reactive aggregates. Length changes for remixed bars proved that different types of SCMs can be successfully used in reducing the expansive effect of ASR. SCMs percentage by weight is highly dependent on the SCM type. The result of this study will help avoiding future losses due to ASR cracking in construction project and reduce the maintenance, repair, and replacement budgets required for highways network.

Keywords: alkali silica reaction, aggregates, misture, cracks, Mortar Bar Test, supplementary cementitious materials

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Authors: Renz Paolo B. Ramos, Jake S. Espina

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The Local Government Academy of the Philippines explains that Local legislation is both a power and a process by which it enacts ordinances and resolutions that have the force and effect of law while engaging with a range of stakeholders for their implementation. Legislative effectiveness is crucial for the development of any given area. This study's objective is to evaluate the legislative performance of the 10th Sangguniang of Kawayan, a legislative body in a fifth-class municipality in the Province of Biliran, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic (2019-2021) with a focus on legislation, accountability, and participation, institution-building, and intergovernmental relations. The aim of the study was that a mixed-methods strategy was used to gather data. The Local Legislative Performance Appraisal Form (LLPAF) was completed, while Focus Interviews for Local Government Unit (LGU) personnel, a survey questionnaire for constituents, and ethnographic diary-writing were conducted. Convenience Sampling was utilized for LGU workers, whereas Simple Random Sampling was used to identify the number of constituents participating. Interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis, while frequency data analysis was employed to describe and evaluate the nature and connection of the data to the underlying population. From this data, the researchers draw opportunities and challenges met by the local legislature during the height of the pandemic.

Keywords: local legislation, local governance, legislative effectiveness, legislative analysis

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Authors: Marjone Van Der Bank, C. M. Van Der Bank

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This paper presents an overview of the foundation and evolution of environmental related problems in local governments with specific reference on air pollution in South Africa. Local government has a direct mandate in terms of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 (hereafter, the Constitution). This mandate to protect, fulfil, respect and promote the Bill of Rights by local governments in respect of the powers and functions creates confusion around the role of where a local government fits in, in addressing the problem of climate change in South Africa. A reflection of the evolving legislations, developments, and processes regarding climate change that shaped local government dispensation in South Africa is addressed by the notion of developmental local governments. This paper seeks to examine the advances for mitigation and adaptation regulation of air pollution and application in South Africa. This study involves a qualitative approach that will involve South African national legislation as well as an interpretation of international strategies. A literature review study was conducted to undertake the various aspects of law in order to support the argument undertaken of mitigation and adaptation strategies. The paper presents a detailed discussion of the current legislation and the position as it currently stands, as well as the relevant protections as outlined in the National Environmental Management Act and the National Environmental Management: Air Quality Act. It then proceeds to outline the responsibilities of local governments in South Africa to mitigate and adapt to air pollution strategies.

Keywords: adaptation, climate change, disaster, local governments and mitigation

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Authors: Ina Dajci

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Biologic Materials presents groundbreaking transdisciplinary research aimed at fostering new collaborative models across the Built Environment, Forestry, and Agriculture sectors. This initiative seeks to establish innovative paradigms for local and global material flows by developing a biocompatible, regenerative material economy. The project focuses on creating materials derived from biowaste and silvicultural practices, ensuring the preservation of endangered indigenous and vernacular techniques through the integration of emerging biosciences. By utilizing biomaterials sourced from agricultural waste and forest byproducts, the initiative incorporates fabrication methods recognized by UNESCO as ‘intangible cultural heritage of humanity,’ which are currently at risk. The structural, mechanical, and environmental properties of these materials are enhanced through advanced CAD-CAM fabrication, along with energy-efficient biochemical and bacterial processes that promote healthy indigo coloration. Furthermore, the integration of AI technologies in species selection facilitates a novel partnership model, enabling designers to collaborate effectively with forest managers and silviculture practitioners. This collaborative approach not only optimizes the use of plant-based materials but also enhances biodiversity and climate resilience in regional ecosystems. Overall, this project embodies a holistic strategy for addressing environmental challenges while revitalizing traditional practices and fostering sustainable innovation.

Keywords: material, architecture, culture, heritage, ecology, environment

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Authors: Bishnu Prasad Devkota

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Peoples` perception is reflected in their attitudes and presumably their behavior towards wildlife conservation. The success of wildlife conservation initiatives in the mountains of Nepal is heavily dependent on local people. Therefore, Nepal has emphasized the involvement of local people in wildlife conservation, especially in the mountainous region. Local peoples` perception towards snow leopard conservation in six mountainous protected area of Nepal was carried out conducting 300 household surveys and 90 face to face key informant interviews. The average livestock holding was 27.74 animals per household with depredation rate of 10.6 % per household per annum. Livestock was the source of 32.74% of the total mean annual income of each household. In average, the economic loss per household per annum due to livestock depredation was US $ 490. There was significant difference in people´s perception towards snow leopard conservation in protected areas of mountainous region of Nepal. These differences were due to economic, educational and cultural factors. 54.4% local people showed preference for snow leopard conservation. The perception of local people toward snow leopard was significantly difference by the economic status of local people. Involvement of local people in conservation activities had positive impact towards wildlife conservation in the mountain region of Nepal. Timely introducing incentive programs can be a supportive way for sustaining the conservation of snow leopards in the Nepalese Himalayas.

Keywords: economic loss, livestock depredation, local people, perception, snow leopard

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Authors: Pennapa Palapin

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This research sought to study the traditional local wisdom and study the promotion and dissemination of traditional local wisdom in order to find the forms of promotion and dissemination of traditional local wisdom to create occupations among the elderly at Nonmueng Community, Muang Sub-District, Baan Dung District, UdonThani Province. The criterion used to select the research sample group was, being a person having a role involved in the promotion and dissemination of traditional local wisdom to create occupations among the elderly at Nonmueng Community, Muang Sub-District, Baan Dung District, UdonThani Province; being an experienced person whom the residents of Nonmueng Community find trustworthy; and having lived in Nonmueng Community for a long time so as to be able to see the development and change that occurs. A total of 16 people were selected. Data was gathered as a qualitative study, through semi-structured in-depth interviews. The collected data was then summarised and discussed according to the research objectives. Finally, the data was presented in a narrative format. Results found that the identifying traditional local wisdom of the community (which grew from the residents’ experience and beneficial usage in daily life, passed down from generation to generation) was the weaving of cloth and basketry. As for the manner of promotion and dissemination of traditional local wisdom, the skills were passed down through teaching by example to family members, relatives and others in the community. This was done by the elders or elderly members of the community. For the promotion and dissemination of traditional local wisdom to create occupations among the elderly, the traditional local wisdom should be supported in every way through participation of the community members. For example, establish a museum of traditional local wisdom for the collection of traditional local wisdom in various fields, both in the past and at present. This would be a source of pride for the community, in order to make traditional local wisdom widely known and to create income for the community’s elderly. Additional ways include exhibitions of products made by traditional local wisdom, finding both domestic and international markets, as well as building both domestic and international networks aiming to find opportunities to market products made by traditional local wisdom.

Keywords: traditional local wisdom, occupation, elderly, community

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Authors: Gopinath Ganapathy, Chellammal Surianarayanan

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Services are growing rapidly and generally they are aggregated into a composite service to accomplish complex business processes. There may be several services that offer the same required function of a particular task in a composite service. Hence a choice has to be made for selecting suitable services from alternative functionally similar services. Quality of Service (QoS)plays as a discriminating factor in selecting which component services should be selected to satisfy the quality requirements of a user during service composition. There are two categories of approaches for QoS based service selection, namely global and local approaches. Global approaches are known to be Non-Polynomial (NP) hard in time and offer poor scalability in large scale composition. As an alternative to global methods, local selection methods which reduce the search space by breaking up the large/complex problem of selecting services for the workflow into independent sub problems of selecting services for individual tasks are coming up. In this paper, distributed architecture for selecting services based on QoS using local selection is presented with an overview of local selection methodology. The architecture describes the core components, namely, selection manager and QoS manager needed to implement the local approach and their functions. Selection manager consists of two components namely constraint decomposer which decomposes the given global or workflow level constraints in local or task level constraints and service selector which selects appropriate service for each task with maximum utility, satisfying the corresponding local constraints. QoS manager manages the QoS information at two levels namely, service class level and individual service level. The architecture serves as an implementation model for local selection.

Keywords: architecture of service selection, local method for service selection, QoS based service selection, approaches for QoS based service selection

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Authors: Adebayo John Julius, Emmanuel Imoagene

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Mitigating global warming through reducing emission from deforestation and degradation (REDD) has been given increasing attentions in government-to-government negotiations while discussions among decision-makers have been going on, it is important to learn about the perception of local people in relation to REDD because the implementation will affect their lives. A survey was conducted using questionnaires to examine the livelihood and forest dependency of the local people in the vicinity of Onigambari and Ido area. Respondents’ income from forest activities and forest resources are collected. Participation in tourism related activities among the household members was also investigated to measure the potential of this “eco-friendly” income generation activity in the local communities. There was a general indication of reducing slash-and-burn activities with distance from the park and involvement in tourism-related job. Most of the local people were willing to accept compensation as alternative for slash-and-burn activities. The compensation preferred is in various form of development and different level of forest and environmental activities

Keywords: livelihood, emission, deforestation, degradation, local people, southwest Nigeria

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Authors: Amorn Kritsanaphan

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This paper illustrates the decentralization of cultural heritage management in local Thailand, a place similar to other middle- income developing countries characterized by rapid tourism-industrialization, weakness formal state institutions and procedures, and intensity use of the cultural heritage resources. The author conducted field research in local Thailand, principally using qualitative primary data gathering. These were combined with records reviews and content analysis of documents. The author also attended local public meetings, and social activities, and interacted casually with local residents and governments. Cultural heritage management has been supposed to improve through multi-stakeholder participation and decentralization. However, processes and outcomes are far from being straightforward and depend on a variety of contingencies and contexts involved. Multi-stakeholder and participatory approach in decentralization of the cultural heritage management in Thailand have pushed to the forefront and sharpened a number of existing problems. However, under the decentralization, the most significant contribution has been in creating real political space where various local stakeholders have become active, respond and address their concerns in various ways vis-à-vis cultural heritage problems. Improving cultural heritage sustainability and viability of local livelihoods through decentralization and participatory approach is by no means certain. However, the shift instead creates spaces potent with possibilities for a meaningful and constructive engagement between and among local state and non-state actors that can lead to synergies and positive outcomes.

Keywords: decentralization, participatory approach, cultural heritage management, multi-stakeholder approach

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Authors: Marshet Girmay

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Local community involvement is widely considered vital for the sustainability of heritage management. Yet, it is often the case that heritage-related projects lag behind in community involvement. In the Semien Mountains the creation, first, and expansion, later, of the National Park has led to several conflicts with the local communities that for centuries have inhabited the area. Local communities have only been passive actors in the plans to expand the Park set up by UNESCO and by local decision makers. This paper investigates the causes that led the Gich community, one of the communities affected by the Park’s expansion, to refuse the resettlement plan offered by the authorities. Qualitative research methods were employed, including document analysis, community conference and interview of informants. The paper shows that although the local community of Gich was highly attached to the Park’s heritage assets, their level of involvement in the heritage management was very low due to shortcomings in the design and implementation of official policies. Therefore, their attitude towards the Park’s managers has been until the present one of mistrust and opposition. The paper recommends to policy-makers a series of measures more sensitive towards local communities, such as that the development agencies act as true communication facilitators and regional authorities nurture sincere relationships with the locals.

Keywords: Gich, heritage management, local communities, Semen Mountains, sustainability, UNESCO, world heritage site

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Authors: Tugrul Tulunay, Iyas Devran Celik

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When the materials used in structural steel industry are evaluated, box beam profiles are considerably preferred. As a result of the cross-sectional properties that these profiles possess, the connection of these profiles to each other and to profiles having different types of cross sections is becoming viable by means of additional measures. An important point to note in such combinations is continuous transfer of internal forces from element to element. At the beginning to ensure this continuity, header plate is needed to use. The connection of the plates to the elements works mainly through welds. In this study, it is aimed to determine the ideal welding thickness in box beam under bending effect and the joints exposed to local buckles that will form in the column. The connection with box column and box beam designed in this context was made by means of corner and circular filler welds. Corner welds of different thickness and analysis by types with different lengths depending on plate dimensions in numerical models were made with the help of ANSYS Workbench program and examined behaviours.

Keywords: welding thickness, box beam-column joints, design of steel structures, calculation and construction principles 2016, welded joints under local buckling

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Authors: Nopadol Burananuth

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This research was aimed to investigate (1) the relationship among local social movements, non-governmental Organization activities and state measures deployment; and (2) the effects of local social movements, non-governmental Organization activities, and state measures deployment on conflict of local people towards the Thai-Malaysian gas pipeline project. These people included 1,000 residents of the four districts in Songkhla province. The methods of data analysis consist of multiple regression analysis. The results of the analysis showed that: (1) local social movements depended on information, and mass communication; deployment of state measures depended on compromise, coordination, and mass communication; and (2) the conflict of local people depended on mobilization, negotiation, and campaigning for participation of people in the project. Thus, it is recommended that to successfully implement any government policy, consideration must be paid to the conflict of local people, mobilization, negotiation, and campaigning for people’s participation in the project.

Keywords: conflict, NGO activities, social movements, state measures

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Authors: G. B. Lim, C. H. Jeon, K. H. Jung

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General light metal alloys are often developed in the material of transportation equipment such as automobiles and aircraft. Among the light metal alloys, magnesium is the lightest structural material with superior specific strength and many attractive physical and mechanical properties. However, magnesium alloys were difficult to obtain the mechanical properties at warm temperature. The aims of present work were to establish an analytical relation between mechanical properties and plastic flow induced by local indentation. An experimental investigation of the local strain distribution was carried out using a specially designed local indentation equipment in conjunction with ARAMIS based on digital image correlation method.

Keywords: indentation, magnesium, mechanical property, lightweight material, ARAMIS

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Authors: Chandralal Shrestha

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In the developing countries like Nepal, the community based forest management approach has often been glorified as one of the best forest management alternatives to maximize the forest benefits. Though the approach has succeeded to construct a local level institution and conserve the forest biodiversity, how the local communities perceived about the forest benefits, the question always remains silent among the researchers and policy makers. The paper aims to explore the understanding of forest benefits from the perspective of local communities who used the forests in terms of institutional stability, equity and livelihood opportunity, and ecological stability. The paper revealed that the local communities have mixed understanding over the forest benefits. The institutional and ecological activities carried out by the local communities indicated that they have better understanding over the forest benefits. However, inequality while sharing the forest benefits, low pricing strategy and its negative consequences in valuation of forest products and limited livelihood opportunities indicated the poor understanding.

Keywords: community based forest management, forest benefits, lowland, Nepal

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Authors: Peter Modregger, Özgül Öztürk

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Glass fabric reinforced thermoplastic (GFRT) are composite materials, which combine low weight and resilient mechanical properties rendering them especially suitable for automobile construction. However, defects in the glass fabric as well as in the polymer matrix can occur during manufacturing, which may compromise component lifetime or even safety. One type of these defects is local fiber shifts, which can be difficult to detect. Recently, we have experimentally demonstrated the reliable detection of local fiber shifts by X-ray scattering based on the edge-illumination (EI) principle. EI constitutes a novel X-ray imaging technique that utilizes two slit masks, one in front of the sample and one in front of the detector, in order to simultaneously provide absorption, phase, and scattering contrast. The principle of contrast formation is as follows. The incident X-ray beam is split into smaller beamlets by the sample mask, resulting in small beamlets. These are distorted by the interaction with the sample, and the distortions are scaled up by the detector masks, rendering them visible to a pixelated detector. In the experiment, the sample mask is laterally scanned, resulting in Gaussian-like intensity distributions in each pixel. The area under the curves represents absorption, the peak offset refraction, and the width of the curve represents the scattering occurring in the sample. Here, scattering is caused by the numerous glass fiber/polymer matrix interfaces. In our recent publication, we have shown that the standard deviation of the absorption and scattering values over a selected field of view can be used to distinguish between intact samples and samples with local fiber shift defects. The quantification of defect detection performance was done by using p-values (p=0.002 for absorption and p=0.009 for scattering) and contrast-to-noise ratios (CNR=3.0 for absorption and CNR=2.1 for scattering) between the two groups of samples. This was further improved for the scattering contrast to p=0.0004 and CNR=4.2 by utilizing a harmonic decomposition analysis of the images. Thus, we concluded that local fiber shifts can be reliably detected by the X-ray scattering contrasts provided by EI. However, a potential application in, for example, production monitoring requires fast data acquisition times. For the results above, the scanning of the sample masks was performed over 50 individual steps, which resulted in long total scan times. In this paper, we will demonstrate that reliable detection of local fiber shift defects is also possible by using single images, which implies a speed up of total scan time by a factor of 50. Additional performance improvements will also be discussed, which opens the possibility for real-time acquisition. This contributes a vital step for the translation of EI to industrial applications for a wide variety of materials consisting of numerous interfaces on the micrometer scale.

Keywords: defects in composites, X-ray scattering, local fiber shifts, X-ray edge Illumination

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Authors: Hala Hilaly, Nermin Morsy, Jala Morsy Ibrahim

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Brand authenticity has a significant impact on brand trust and can help grow within the markets. Consumers have become more concerned with the 'authenticity' due to the doubt of credibility of the value of mass production. This is why people prefer authentic products, which making authenticity a cornerstone of contemporary marketing and a major factor for brand success. Therefore, it is important to embrace a culture that encourages and promotes authentic values. Hence, the purpose of the research is to investigate the impact of using local products as an authentic brand on promoting Egyptian tourist destination and explore the effect of Globalized authenticity on the local product in Egypt. Results confirmed that local products provide an excellent opportunity to worldwide advertising with positive impact on promoting Egypt as tourist destination. However, number of problems are facing local products in Egypt such as imported 'Made in China' products as well as other obstacles.

Keywords: authentic brand, contemporary marketing, destination marketing, local products

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Authors: Veronique Jubera, Guillaume Salek, Manuel Gaudon, Alain Garcia, Alain Demourgues

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Luminescence of transition metal and rare earth elements cover ultraviolet to far infrared wavelengths. Applications of phosphors are numerous. One can cite lighting, sensing, laser, energy, medical or military applications. But regarding each domain, specific criteria are required and they can be achieved with a strong control of the chemical composition. Emission of doped materials can be tailored with modifications of the local environment of the cations. For instance, the increase of the crystal field effect shifts the divalent manganese radiative transitions from the green to the red color. External factor as heat-treatment can induce changes of the doping element location or modify the unit cell crystalline symmetry. By controlling carefully the synthesis route, it is possible to initiate emission shift and to establish the thermal history of a compound. We propose to demonstrate through the luminescence of divalent manganese and trivalent rare earth doped oxide, that it is possible to follow the thermal history of a material. After optimization of the synthesis route, structural and optical properties are discussed. Finally, thermal calibration graphs are successfully established on these doped compounds. This makes these materials promising probe for thermal sensing.

Keywords: emission, thermal sensing, transition metal, rare eath element

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Authors: M. Hisham, S. Cabemaiwai, S. Prasad, T. Dauvakatini, R. Ananthanarayanan

Abstract:

A solenoid valve is an important part of many fluid systems. Its purpose is to regulate fluid flow in a machine. Due to the crucial role of the solenoid valve and its design intricacy, it is quite expensive to obtain in Fiji and is not manufactured locally. A concern raised by the local health industry is that the housing of the solenoid valve gets damaged when machines are continuously being used and this part of the valve is very costly to replace due to the lack of availability in Fiji and many other South Pacific region countries. This study explores the agile manufacturing of a solenoid coil housing using the Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) process. An emergy study was carried out to analyze the feasibility and sustainability of producing the part locally after estimating a Unit Emergy Value (or emergy transformity) of 1.27E+05 sej/j for the electricity in Fiji. The total emergy of the process was calculated to be 3.05E+12 sej, of which a majority was sourced from imported services and materials. Renewable emergy sources contributed to just 16.04% of the total emergy. Therefore, the part is suitable to be manufactured in Fiji with a reasonable quality and a cost of $FJ 2.85. However, the loading on the local environment is found to be significant and therefore, alternative raw materials for the filament like recycled PET should be explored or alternative manufacturing processes may be analyzed before committing to fabricating the part using FDM in its analyzed state.

Keywords: emergy analysis, fused deposition modeling, solenoid valve housing, sustainable production

Procedia PDF Downloads 30

Authors: Shreemoyee Sarkar, Vikhyat Chadha

Abstract:

In this paper, the local fractal properties and chaotic properties of financial time series are investigated by calculating two exponents, the Local Hurst Exponent: LHE and Lyapunov Exponent in a moving time window of a financial series.y. For the purpose of this paper, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DIJA) and S&P 500, two of the major indices of United States have been considered. The behaviour of the above-mentioned exponents prior to some major crashes (1998 and 2008 crashes in S&P 500 and 2002 and 2008 crashes in DIJA) is discussed. Also, the optimal length of the window for obtaining the best possible results is decided. Based on the outcomes of the above, an attempt is made to predict the crashes and accuracy of such an algorithm is decided.

Keywords: local hurst exponent, lyapunov exponent, market crash prediction, time series chaos, time series local fractal properties

Procedia PDF Downloads 152

Authors: Krobba Benharzallah, Kenai Said, Bouhicha Mohamed, Lakhdari Mohammed Fatah, Merah Ahmed

Abstract:

In recent years, great interest has been directed towards the use of local materials and natural resources in building and public works. This is to satisfy the enormous need for these materials and contribute to sustainable development. Among these resources, dune sand and limestone crushed sand, which can be an interesting alternative to the replacement of siliceous alluvial sands for the formulation of a repair mortar. The results found show that the particle size correction of dune sand by limestone sand and the addition of a superplasticizer are very beneficial in terms of adhesion and mechanical strength.

Keywords: repair mortar, dune sand, crushed limestone sand, adhesion, mechanical strength

Procedia PDF Downloads 162

Authors: Vahid Ayan, Joshua R Omer, Alireza Khavandi, Mukesh C Limbachiya

Abstract:

In Iran, utilization of reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) aggregate has become a common practice in pavement rehabilitation during the last ten years. Such developments in highway engineering have necessitated several studies to clarify the technical and environmental feasibility of other alternative materials in road rehabilitation and maintenance. The use of recycled concrete aggregates (RCA) in asphalt pavements is one of the major goals of municipality of Tehran. Nevertheless little research has been done to examine the potential benefits of local RCA. The objective of this study is laboratory investigation of incorporating RCA into RAP for use in unbound subbase application. Laboratory investigation showed that 50%RCA+50%RAP is both technically and economically appropriate for subbase use.

Keywords: Roads & highways, Sustainability, Recycling & reuse of materials

Procedia PDF Downloads 492