Search results for: historical and industrial buildings

Authors: Berhane Gebreslassie

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Conventional commericial buildings are among the highest unwisely consumes enormous amount of energy and as consequence produce significant amount Carbon Dioxide (CO2). Traditional/conventional buildings have been built for years without consideration being given to their impact on the global warming issues as well as their CO2 contributions. Since 1973, simulation of Green Building (GB) for Energy Efficiency started and many countries in particular the US showed a positive response to minimize the usage of energy in respect to reducing the CO2 emission. As a consequence many software companies developed their own unique building energy efficiency simulation software, interfacing interoperability with Building Information Modeling (BIM). The last decade has witnessed very rapid growing number of researches on GB energy efficiency system. However, the study also indicates that the results of current GB simulation are not yet satisfactory to meet the objectives of GB. In addition most of these previous studies are unlikely excluded the studies of ultimate building energy efficiencies simulation. The aim of this project is to meet the objectives of GB by design, modeling and simulation of building ultimate energy efficiencies system. This research project presents multi-level, L-shape office building in which every particular part of the building materials has been tested for energy efficiency. An overall of 78.62% energy is saved, approaching to NetZero energy saving. Furthermore, the building is implements with distributed energy resources like renewable energies and integrating with Smart Building Automation System (SBAS) for controlling and monitoring energy usage.

Keywords: ultimate energy saving, optimum energy saving, green building, sustainable materials and renewable energy

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Authors: Simone Medio

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If we observe many modern cities from above, we are typically confronted with a sea of asphalt-clad flat rooftops. In contrast to the modernist expectation of a populated flat roof, flat rooftops in modern multi-story buildings are rarely used. On the contrary, they typify a desolate and abandoned landscape encouraging mechanical system allocation. Flat roof technology continues to be seen as a state-of-fact in most multi-storey building designs and its greening its prevalent environmental justification. This paper aims to seek a change in the approach to flat roofing. It makes a case for the opportunity at hand for architectonically resolute, sheltered, livable spaces that make a better use of the environment at rooftop level. The researcher is looking for the triggers that allow for that change to happen in the design process of case study buildings. The paper begins by exploring Han Slawick covered roof terrace in Amsterdam as a simple and essential example of transforming the flat roof in a usable, inhabitable space. It investigates the design challenges and the logistic, financial and legislative hurdles faced by the architect, and the outcomes in terms of building performance and occupant use and satisfaction. The researcher uses a grounded research methodology with direct interview process to the architect in charge of the building and the building user. Energy simulation tools and calculation of running costs are also used as further means of validating change.

Keywords: environmental design, flat rooftop persistence, roof re-habitation, tectonics

Procedia PDF Downloads 273

Authors: Anass Rahouti, Guillaume Salze, Ruggiero Lovreglio, Sélim Datoussaïd

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In healthcare facilities, training the staff for firefighting and evacuation in real buildings is very challenging due to the presence of a vulnerable population in such an environment. In a standard environment, traditional approaches, such as fire drills, are often used to train the occupants and provide them with information about fire safety procedures. However, those traditional approaches may be inappropriate for a vulnerable population and can be inefficient from an educational viewpoint as it is impossible to expose the occupants to scenarios similar to a real emergency. Immersive serious games could be used as an alternative to traditional approaches to overcome their limitations. Serious games are already being used in different safety domains such as fires, earthquakes and terror attacks for several building types (e.g., office buildings, train stations, tunnels, etc.). In this study, we developed an immersive serious game to improve the fire safety skills of staff in healthcare facilities. An accurate representation of the healthcare environment was built in Unity3D by including visual and audio stimuli inspired from those employed in commercial action games. The serious game is organised in three levels. In each of them, the trainee is presented with a specific fire emergency and s/he can perform protective actions (e.g., firefighting, helping non-ambulant occupants, etc.) or s/he can ignore the opportunity for action and continue the evacuation. In this paper, we describe all the steps required to develop such a prototype, as well as the key questions that need to be answered, to develop a serious game for firefighting and evacuation in healthcare facilities.

Keywords: fire safety, healthcare, serious game, training

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Authors: Grazia Disciglio, Annalisa Tarantino, Emanuele Tarantino

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The production system of Foggia province (Apulia, Southern Italy) is characterized by the presence of numerous agro-food industries whose activities include the processing of vegetables products that release large quantities of wastewater. The reuse in agriculture of these wastewaters offers the opportunity to reduce the costs of their disposal and minimizing their environmental impact. In addition, in this area, which suffers from water shortage, the use of agro-industrial wastewater is essential in the very intensive irrigation cropping systems. The present investigation was carried out in years 2009 and 2010 to monitor the physico-chemical and microbiological characteristics of the industrial wastewater (IWW) from the secondary treatment plant of the 'Industrial Area of Foggia'. The treatment plant released on average about 567,000 m3y-1 of IWW, which distribution was not uniform over the year. The monthly values were about 250,000 m3 from November to June and about 90,000 m3 from July to October. The obtained results revealed that IWW was characterized by low values of Total Suspended Solids (TSS), Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD), Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), Electrical Conductivity (EC) and Sodium Absorption Rate (SAR). An occasional presence of heavy metal and high concentration of total phosphorus, total nitrogen, ammoniacal nitrogen and microbial organisms (Escherichia coli and Salmonella) were observed. Due to the presence of this pathogenic microorganisms and sometimes of heavy metals, which may raise sanitary and environmental problems in order to the possible irrigation reuse of this IWW, a tertiary treatment of wastewater based on filtration and disinfection in line are recommended. Researches on the reuse of treated IWW on crops (olive, artichoke, industrial tomatoes, fennel, lettuce etc.) did not show significant differences among the irrigated plots for most of the soil and yield characteristics.

Keywords: agroindustrial wastewater, irrigation, microbiological characteristic, physico-chemical characteristics

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Authors: V. C. Shruti, P. F. Rodríguez-Espinosa, D. C. Escobedo-Urías, Estefanía Martinez Tavera, M. P. Jonathan

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Atoyac River, a major south-central river flowing through the states of Puebla and Tlaxcala in Mexico is significantly impacted by the natural volcanic inputs in addition with wastewater discharges from urban, agriculture and industrial zones. In the present study, core samples were collected from R. Atoyac and analyzed for sediment granularity, major (Al, Fe, Ca, Mg, K, P and S) and trace elemental concentrations (Ba, Cr, Cd, Mn, Pb, Sr, V, Zn, Zr). The textural studies reveal that the sediments are mostly sand sized particles exceeding 99% and with very few to no presence of mud fractions. It is observed that most of the metals like (avg: all values in μg g^-1) Ca (35,528), Mg (10,789), K (7453), S (1394), Ba (203), Cr (30), Cd (4), Pb (11), Sr (435), Zn (76) and Zr (88) are enriched throughout the sediments mainly sourced from volcanic inputs, source rock composition of Atoyac River basin and industrial influences from the Puebla city region. Contamination indices, such as anthropogenic factor (AF), enrichment factor (EF) and geoaccumulation index (I_geo), were used to investigate the level of contamination and toxicity as well as quantitatively assess the influences of human activities on metal concentrations. The AF values (>1) for Ba, Ca, Mg, Na, K, P and S suggested volcanic inputs from the study region, where as Cd and Zn are attributed to the impacts of industrial inputs in this zone. The EF and I_geo values revealed an extreme enrichment of S and Cd. The ecological risks were evaluated using potential ecological risk index (RI) and the results indicate that the metals Cd and V pose a major hazard for the biological community.

Keywords: Atoyac River, contamination indices, metal concentrations, Mexico, textural studies

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Authors: Elissandro Voigt Beier, Cristiano Poleto

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The main objective of the research is to assess the loss through the quantification of material culture (archaeological fragments) in rural areas, sites explored economically by machining on seasonal crops, and also permanent, in a hydrographic subsystem Camaquã River in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. The study area consists of different micro basins and differs in area, ranging between 1,000 m² and 10,000 m², respectively the largest and the smallest, all with a large number of occurrences and outcrop locations of archaeological material and high density in intense farm environment. In the first stage of the research aimed to identify the dispersion of points of archaeological material through field survey through plot points by the Global Positioning System (GPS), within each river basin, was made use of concise bibliography on the topic in the region, helping theoretically in understanding the old landscaping with preferences of occupation for reasons of ancient historical people through the settlements relating to the practice observed in the field. The mapping was followed by the cartographic development in the region through the development of cartographic products of the land elevation, consequently were created cartographic products were to contribute to the understanding of the distribution of the absolute materials; the definition and scope of the material dispersed; and as a result of human activities the development of revolving letter by mechanization of in situ material, it was also necessary for the preparation of materials found density maps, linking natural environments conducive to ancient historical occupation with the current human occupation. The third stage of the project it is for the systematic collection of archaeological material without alteration or interference in the subsurface of the indigenous settlements, thus, the material was prepared and treated in the laboratory to remove soil excesses, cleaning through previous communication methodology, measurement and quantification. Approximately 15,000 were identified archaeological fragments belonging to different periods of ancient history of the region, all collected outside of its environmental and historical context and it also has quite changed and modified. The material was identified and cataloged considering features such as object weight, size, type of material (lithic, ceramic, bone, Historical porcelain and their true association with the ancient history) and it was disregarded its principles as individual lithology of the object and functionality same. As observed preliminary results, we can point out the change of materials by heavy mechanization and consequent soil disturbance processes, and these processes generate loading of archaeological materials. Therefore, as a next step will be sought, an estimate of potential losses through a mathematical model. It is expected by this process, to reach a reliable model of high accuracy which can be applied to an archeological site of lower density without encountering a significant error.

Keywords: degradation of heritage, quantification in archaeology, watershed, use and occupation of land

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Authors: Mohsen Azarmjoo, Mehdi Mehdizadeh Koupaei, Maryam Mehdizadeh Koupaei, Asghar Mahdlouei Azar

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The increasing prevalence of wireless networks in our daily lives has made them indispensable. The aim of this research is to investigate the management of information transfer in wireless networks and the integration of renewable solar energy resources in a residential building. The focus is on the transmission of electricity and information through wireless networks, as well as the utilization of sensors and wireless fire alarm systems. The research employs a descriptive approach to examine the transmission of electricity and information on a wireless network with electric and optical telephone lines. It also investigates the transmission of signals from sensors and wireless fire alarm systems via radio waves. The methodology includes a detailed analysis of security, comfort conditions, and costs related to the utilization of wireless networks and renewable solar energy resources. The study reveals that it is feasible to transmit electricity on a network cable using two pairs of network cables without the need for separate power cabling. Additionally, the integration of renewable solar energy systems in residential buildings can reduce dependence on traditional energy carriers. The use of sensors and wireless remote information processing can enhance the safety and efficiency of energy usage in buildings and the surrounding spaces.

Keywords: renewable energy, intelligentization, wireless sensors, fire alarm system

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Authors: Ruslan Safarov, Zhanat Shomanova, Yuri Nossenko, Zhandos Mussayev, Ayana Baltabek

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Geochemical maps of distribution of polluting elements V, Cr, Mn, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, Mo, Cd, Pb on the territory of the Pavlodar city (Kazakhstan), which is an industrial hub were designed. The samples of soil were taken from 100 locations. Elemental analysis has been performed using XRF. The obtained data was used for training of the computational model with gradient boosting algorithm. The optimal parameters of model as well as the loss function were selected. The computational model was used for prediction of polluting elements concentration for 1000 evenly distributed points. Based on predicted data geochemical maps were created. Additionally, the total pollution index Zc was calculated for every from 1000 point. The spatial distribution of the Zc index was visualized using GIS (QGIS). It was calculated that the maximum coverage area of the territory of the Pavlodar city belongs to the moderately hazardous category (89.7%). The visualization of the obtained data allowed us to conclude that the main source of contamination goes from the industrial zones where the strategic metallurgical and refining plants are placed.

Keywords: Pavlodar, geochemical map, gradient boosting, CatBoost, QGIS, spatial distribution, heavy metals

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Authors: Ashiqul Amin Khan, Mohsin Ul Amin Khan

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The aim of this research is to find the relationship between good governance and shareholder wealth maximisation. The concept of good governance has become more objective in nature over time through various regulations, professionalisation, and practices. This has led to a number of methods for scoring and ranking corporate governance practices. Since shareholder wealth maximisation remains the key corporate goal for managers and governors alike, the effect of good governance in increasing the value of corporations is commented to be an important aspect. In measuring the value relevance of good governance, statistical measures of various yields of listed companies in the UK have been used in this research. Yields reflect required returns on investments from different investment tenets. Historical yields, calculated using historical fundamental data of such companies, reflect expected yields to a great extent. These yields, in turn, reflect the expected risk premium and growth associated with the stocks of the companies. Using fundamental data, the yields have been adjusted to reflect the risk premium required by the investors along various value paradigms. Good governance should naturally lead to lower required risk premium since good corporate governance provided assurance to the investors in terms of sustainability of future performance and desired financial conduct. This, in turn, increases the wealth of stockholders. The findings of this research confirm such nature of the relationship between good governance and value of the company in the long run.

Keywords: corporate governance, good governance practices, short-termism, shareholder value relevance, wealth maximisation, yield

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Authors: Adem Öğüt, M. Tahir Demirsel

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Rapid changes and developments today, besides the opportunities and facilities they offer to the organization, may also be a source of danger and difficulties due to the uncertainty. In order to take advantage of opportunities and to take the necessary measures against possible uncertainties, organizations must always follow the changes and developments that occur in the business environment and develop flexible structures and strategies for the alternative cases. Perceived environmental uncertainty is an outcome of managers’ perceptions of the combined complexity, instability and unpredictability in the organizational environment. An environment that is perceived to be complex, changing rapidly, and difficult to predict creates high levels of uncertainty about the appropriate organizational responses to external circumstances. In an uncertain and complex environment, organizations experiencing cutthroat competition may be successful by developing their corporate entrepreneurial ability. Corporate entrepreneurship is a process that includes many elements such as innovation, creating new business, renewal, risk-taking and being predictive. Successful corporate entrepreneurship is a critical factor which has a significant contribution to gain a sustainable competitive advantage, to renew the organization and to adapt the environment. In this context, the objective of this study is to investigate the effect of perceived environmental uncertainty of managers on corporate entrepreneurship performance. The research was conducted on 222 business executives in one of the major industrial zones of Turkey, Konya Organized Industrial Zone (KOS). According to the results, it has been observed that there is a positive statistically significant relationship between perceived environmental uncertainty and corporate entrepreneurial activities.

Keywords: corporate entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship, industrial zone, perceived environmental uncertainty, uncertainty

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Authors: Pooja Booluck

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This project seeks to translate a chapter in Le Silence des Chagos by Shenaz Patel a Mauritian author whose work has never been translated before. The chapter discusses the attempt of the protagonist to return to her home country Diego Garcia after her deportation. The English translation will offer an historical account to the target audience of the deportation of Chagossians to Mauritius during the 1970s. The target audience comprises of English-speaking translation scholars translation students and African literature scholars. In light of making the cultural elements of Mauritian culture accessible the translation will maintain the cultural items such as food and oral discourses in Creole so as to preserve the authenticity of the source culture. In order to better comprehend the cultural elements mentioned the target reader will be provided with detailed footnotes explaining the cultural and historical references. This translation will also address the importance of folkloric songs in Mauritius and its intergenerational function in Mauritian communities which will also remain in Creole. While such an approach will help to preserve the meaning of the source text the borrowing technique and the foreignizing method will be employed which will in turn help the reader in becoming more familiar with the Mauritian community. Translating a text from French to English while maintaining certain words or discourses in a minority language such as Creole bears certain challenges: How does the translator ensure the comprehensibility of the reader? Are there any translation losses? What are the choices of the translator?

Keywords: Chagos archipelagos in Exile, English translation, Le Silence des Chagos, Mauritian culture and history

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Authors: A. A. Hassani, M. Nasri Nasrabadi

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According to population growth and increasing water needs of industrial and agricultural sections and lack of existing water sources, also increases of wastewater and new wastewater treatment plant construction’s high costs, it is inevitable to reuse wastewater with the approach of increasing wastewater treatment capacity and output sewage quality. In this regard, the first sewage reuse plan in industrial uses was designed with the approach of qualitative and quantitative improvement due to the increased organic load of the output sewage of Qom Shokohieh city’s’ in wastewater treatment plant. This research investigated qualitative factors COD, BOD, TSS, TDS, and input and output heavy metal of MBR-RO system and ability of increase wastewater acceptance capacity by existing in wastewater treatment plant. For this purpose, experimental results of seven-month navigation system have been used from 07/01/2013 to 02/01/2014. Existing data analysis showed that MBR system is able to remove 93.2% COD, 94.4% BOD, 13.8% TDS, 98% heavy metals and RO system is able to remove 98.9% TDS. This study showed that MBR-RO integration system is able to increase the capacity of refinery by 30%.

Keywords: industrial wastewater, wastewater reuse, MBR, RO

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Authors: Ndibarafinia Tobin

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Building defect and failure are common phenomena in the Nigerian construction industry. The activities of the inexperienced labor force in the Nigerian construction industry have tarnished the image of practicing construction professionals in recent past. Defects and collapse can cause unnecessary expenditure, delays, loss of lives, property and left many people injured. They are also generating controversies among parties involved. Also, if this situation is left unanswered and untreated, it will lead to more serious problems in the future upcoming construction projects in Nigeria. Quite a number of factors are responsible for collapse of high-rise, reinforced concrete buildings in Nigeria. Government, professional bodies and stakeholders are asking countless questions as to who should be responsible and how solutions could be proffered. Therefore this study is aimed to identify the contributing factors to high-rise buildings defects and failures in Nigeria, which frequently occur in construction project in order to minimize time and cost and also the roles of professionals and other participants play in the industry in terms of the use of building materials, placement and curing of concrete, modification in the use of a building, collapse of building induced by fire and other causes. The data is collected from questionnaire from various players in construction industry in Nigeria. This study is succeeds in identifying the causes of building failure and also suggesting possible measures to be taken by government and other regulatory bodies in the building industry to avert this and also improve the effectiveness of managing appraisal process of failures and defects in the future.

Keywords: building defects, building failures, Nigerian construction industry, professionals

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Authors: Pietro D'Ambrosio, Roberta D'Ambrosio

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The upgrading of the architectural and urban heritage of the urban historic centers almost always involves the planning for the reuse and refunctionalization of the structures. Such interventions have complexities linked to the need to take into account the urban and social context in which the structure and its intrinsic characteristics such as historical and artistic value are inserted. To these, of course, we have to add the need to make a preliminary estimate of recovery costs and more generally to assess the economic and financial sustainability of the whole project of re-socialization. Particular difficulties are encountered during the pre-assessment of costs since it is often impossible to perform analytical surveys and structural tests for both structural conditions and obvious cost and time constraints. The methodology proposed in this work, based on a multidisciplinary and data-driven approach, is aimed at obtaining, at very low cost, reasonably priced economic evaluations of the interventions to be carried out. In addition, the specific features of the approach used, derived from the predictive analysis techniques typically applied in complex IT domains (big data analytics), allow to obtain as a result indirectly the evaluation process of a shared database that can be used on a generalized basis to estimate such other projects. This makes the methodology particularly indicated in those cases where it is expected to intervene massively across entire areas of historical city centers. The methodology has been partially tested during a study aimed at assessing the feasibility of a project for the reuse of the monumental complex of San Massimo, located in the historic center of Salerno, and is being further investigated.

Keywords: evaluation, methodology, restoration, reuse

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Authors: Ademuyiwa Agbonyin, Stamatis Zoras, Mohammad Zandi

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This paper investigates the extent to which building energy modelling can be informed based on preliminary information provided by infrared thermography using a thermal imaging camera in a walkthrough audit. The case-study building is the Sheffield Cathedral, built in the early 1400s. Based on an informative qualitative report generated from the thermal images taken at the site, the regions showing significant heat loss are input into a computer model of the cathedral within the integrated environmental solution (IES) virtual environment software which performs an energy simulation to determine quantitative heat losses through the building envelope. Building data such as material thermal properties and building plans are provided by the architects, Thomas Ford and Partners Ltd. The results of the modelling revealed the portions of the building with the highest heat loss and these aligned with those suggested by the thermal camera. Retrofit options for the building are also considered, however, may not see implementation due to a desire to conserve the architectural heritage of the building. Results show that thermal imaging in a walk-through audit serves as a useful guide for the energy modelling process. Hand calculations were also performed to serve as a 'control' to estimate losses, providing a second set of data points of comparison.

Keywords: historic buildings, energy retrofit, thermal comfort, software modelling, energy modelling

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Authors: Saeed Karimi, Ali Behbahaninia

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In this study, the design and optimization of combined cooling, heating, and power system (CCHP) for a sustainable building are dealt with. Sustainable buildings are environmentally responsible and help us to save energy also reducing waste, pollution and environmental degradation. CCHP systems are widely used to save energy sources. In these systems, electricity, cooling, and heating are generating using just one primary energy source. The selection of the size of components based on the maximum demand of users will lead to an increase in the total cost of energy and equipment for the building complex. For this purpose, a system was designed in which the prime mover (gas turbine), heat recovery boiler, and absorption chiller are lower than the needed maximum. The difference in months with peak consumption is supplied with the help of electrical absorption chiller and auxiliary boiler (and the national electricity network). In this study, the optimum capacities of each of the equipment are determined based on Thermo economic method, in a way that the annual capital cost and energy consumption will be the lowest. The design was done for a gas turbine prime mover, and finally, the optimum designs were investigated using exergy analysis and were compared with a traditional energy supply system.

Keywords: sustainable building, CCHP, energy optimization, gas turbine, exergy, thermo-economic

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Authors: Hasna Soli

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The main objective of this work is the extraction of sulfur from gypsum here is industrial waste. Indeed the sulfuric acid production, passing through the following process; melting sulfur, filtration of the liquid sulfur, sulfur combustion to produce SO₂, conversion of SO₂ to SO₃ and SO₃ absorption in water to produce H₂SO₄ product as waste CaSO₄ the anhydrous calcium sulfate. The main objectives of this work are improving the industrial practices and to find other ways to manage these solid wastes. It should also assess the consequences of treatment in terms of training and become byproducts. Firstly there will be a characterization of this type of waste by an X-ray diffraction; to obtain phase solid compositions and chemical analysis; gravimetrically and atomic absorption spectrometry or by ICP. The samples are mineralized in suitable acidic or basic solutions. The elements analyzed are CaO, Sulfide (SO₃), Al₂O₃, Fe₂O₃, MgO, SiO₂. Then an analysis by EDS energy dispersive spectrometry using an Oxford EDX probe and differential thermal and gravimetric analyzes. Gypsum’s valuation will be performed. Indeed, the CaSO₄ will be reused to produce sulfuric acid, which will be reintroduced into the production line. The second approach explored in this work is the thermal utilization of solid waste to remove sulfur as a dilute sulfuric acid solution.

Keywords: environment, gypsum, sulfur, waste

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Authors: Hisham Mortada

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Transition in the urban configuration of Arab cities has never been as radical and visible as it has been since the turn of the last century. The emergence of new cities near historical settlements of Arabia has spawned a series of developments in and around the old city precincts. New developments are based on advanced technology and conform to globally prevalent standards of city planning, superseding the vernacular arrangements based on traditional norms that guided so-called ‘city planning’. Evidence to this fact are the extant Arab buildings present at the urban core of modern cities, which inform us about intricate spatial organization. Organization that subscribed to multiple norms such as, satisfying gender segregation and socialization, economic sustainability, and ensuring security and environmental coherence etc., within settlement compounds. Several participating factors achieved harmony in such an inclusive city—an organization that was challenged and apparently replaced by the new planning order in the face of growing needs of globalized, economy-centric and high-tech models of development. Communities found it difficult to acclimatize with the new western planning models that were implemented at a very large scale throughout the Kingdom, which later experienced spatial re-structuring to suit users’ needs. A closer look the ancient city of Yanbu, now flanked with such new developments, allows us to differentiate and track the beginnings of this unprecedented transition in settlement formations. This paper aims to elaborate the Arabian context offered to both the ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ planning approaches, in order to understand challenges and solutions offered by both at different times. In the process it will also establish the inconsistencies and conflicts that arose with the shift in planning paradigm, from traditional-'cultural norms’, to modern-'physical planning', in the Arabian context. Thus, by distinguishing the two divergent planning philosophies, their impact of the Arabian morphology, relevance to lifestyle and suitability to the biophysical environment, it concludes with a perspective on sustainability particularly for in case of Yanbu.

Keywords: Yanbu, traditional architecture, Hijaz, coral building, Saudi Arabia

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Authors: Serkan Kocapinar, Gülay Altay

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This study investigates the efficiency of two different industrial intumescent coatings which have different types of certifications, in the fire protection performance in steel beams in the case of ISO 834 fire for 2 hours. A better understanding of industrial intumescent coatings, which assure structural integrity and prevent a collapse of steel structures, is needed to minimize the fire risks in steel structures. A comparison and understanding of different fire protective intumescent coatings, which are Product A and Product B, are used as a thermal barrier between the steel components and the fire. Product A is tested according to EN 13381-8 and BS 476-20,22 and is certificated by ISO Standards. Product B is tested according to EN 13381-8 and ASTM UL-94 and is certificated by the Turkish Standards Institute (TSE). Generally, fire tests to evaluate the fire performance of steel components are done numerically with commercial software instead of experiments due to the high cost of an ISO 834 fire test in a furnace. Hence, there is a gap in the literature about the comparisons of different certificated intumescent coatings for fire protection in the case of ISO 834 fire in a furnace experiment for 2 hours. The experiment was carried out by using two 1-meter UPN 200 steel sections. Each one was coated by different industrial intumescent coatings. A furnace was used by the Turkish Standards Institute (TSE) for the experiment. The temperature of the protected steels and the inside of the furnace was measured with the help of 24 thermocouples which were applied before the intumescent coatings during the two hours for the performance of intumescent coatings by getting a temperature-time curve of steel components. FIN EC software was used to determine the critical temperatures of protected steels, and Abaqus was used for thermal analysis to get theoretical results to compare with the experimental results.

Keywords: fire safety, structural steel, ABAQUS, thermal analysis, FIN EC, intumescent coatings

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Authors: Tarek M. Alguhane, Ayman H. Khalil, M. N. Fayed, Ayman M. Ismail

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A 15-storey RC building, studied in this paper, is representative of modern building type constructed in Madina City in Saudi Arabia before 10 years ago. These buildings are almost consisting of reinforced concrete skeleton, i. e. columns, beams and flat slab as well as shear walls in the stairs and elevator areas arranged in the way to have a resistance system for lateral loads (wind–earthquake loads). In this study, the dynamic properties of the 15-storey RC building were identified using ambient motions recorded at several spatially-distributed locations within each building. After updating the mathematical models for this building with the experimental results, three dimensional pushover analysis (nonlinear static analysis) was carried out using SAP2000 software incorporating inelastic material properties for concrete, infill and steel. The effect of modeling the building with and without infill walls on the performance point as well as capacity and demand spectra due to EQ design spectrum function in Madina area has been investigated. The response modification factor (R) for the 15 storey RC building is evaluated from capacity and demand spectra (ATC-40). The purpose of this analysis is to evaluate the expected performance of structural systems by estimating, strength and deformation demands in design, and comparing these demands to available capacities at the performance levels of interest. The results are summarized and discussed.

Keywords: seismic assessment, pushover analysis, ambient vibration, modal update

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Authors: Michalis Michael, Mauro Overend

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Buildings, in which we spend 87-90% of our time, act as a shelter protecting us from environmental conditions and weather phenomena. The building's overall performance is significantly dependent on the envelope’s glazing part, which is particularly critical as it is the most vulnerable part to heat gain and heat loss. However, conventional glazing technologies have relatively low-performance thermo-optical characteristics. In this regard, during winter, the heat losses due to the glazing part of a building envelope are significantly increased as well as the heat gains during the summer period. In this study, the contribution of an innovative glazing technology, namely Closed Cavity Façade (CCF) in improving energy efficiency and IEQ in office buildings is examined, aiming to optimize various design configurations of CCF. Using Energy Plus and IDA ICE packages, the performance of several CCF configurations and geometries for various climate types were investigated, aiming to identify the optimum solution. The model used for the simulations and optimization process was MATELab, a recently constructed outdoor test facility at the University of Cambridge (UK). The model was previously experimentally calibrated. The study revealed that the use of CCF technology instead of conventional double or triple glazing leads to important benefits. Particularly, the replacement of the traditional glazing units, used as the baseline, with the optimal configuration of CCF led to a decrease in energy consumption in the range of 18-37% (depending on the location). This mainly occurs due to integrating shading devices in the cavity and applying proper glass coatings and control strategies, which lead to improvement of thermal transmittance and g-value of the glazing. Since the solar gain through the façade is the main contributor to energy consumption during cooling periods, it was observed that a higher energy improvement is achieved in cooling-dominated locations. Furthermore, it was shown that a suitable selection of the constituents of a closed cavity façade, such as the colour and type of shading devices and the type of coatings, leads to an additional improvement of its thermal performance, avoiding overheating phenomena and consequently ensuring temperatures in the glass cavity below the critical value, and reducing the radiant discomfort providing extra benefits in terms of Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ).

Keywords: building energy efficiency, closed cavity façade, optimization, occupants comfort

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Authors: Chandranath Chatterjee, Amina Khatun, Bhabagrahi Sahoo

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With the changing climate, precipitation events are intensified in the tropical river basins. Since these river basins are significantly influenced by the monsoonal rainfall pattern, critical impacts are observed on the agricultural practices in the downstream river reaches. This study analyses the crop damage and associated flood risk in terms of net benefit in the paddy-dominated tropical Indian delta of the Mahanadi River. The Mahanadi River basin lies in eastern part of the Indian sub-continent and is greatly affected by the southwest monsoon rainfall extending from the month of June to September. This river delta is highly flood-prone and has suffered from recurring high floods, especially after the 2000s. In this study, the lumped conceptual model, Nedbør Afstrømnings Model (NAM) from the suite of MIKE models, is used for rainfall-runoff modeling. The NAM model is laterally integrated with the MIKE11-Hydrodynamic (HD) model to route the runoffs up to the head of the delta region. To obtain the precipitation-derived future projected discharges at the head of the delta, nine Global Climate Models (GCMs), namely, BCC-CSM1.1(m), GFDL-CM3, GFDL-ESM2G, HadGEM2-AO, IPSL-CM5A-LR, IPSL-CM5A-MR, MIROC5, MIROC-ESM-CHEM and NorESM1-M, available in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project-Phase 5 (CMIP5) archive are considered. These nine GCMs are previously found to best-capture the Indian Summer Monsoon rainfall. Based on the performance of the nine GCMs in reproducing the historical discharge pattern, three GCMs (HadGEM2-AO, IPSL-CM5A-MR and MIROC-ESM-CHEM) are selected. A higher Taylor Skill Score is considered as the GCM selection criteria. Thereafter, the 10-year return period design flood is estimated using L-moments based flood frequency analysis for the historical and three future projected periods (2010-2039, 2040-2069 and 2070-2099) under Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) 4.5 and 8.5. A non-dimensional hydrograph analysis is performed to obtain the hydrographs for the historical/projected 10-year return period design floods. These hydrographs are forced into the calibrated and validated coupled 1D-2D hydrodynamic model, MIKE FLOOD, to simulate the flood inundation in the delta region. Historical and projected flood risk is defined based on the information about the flood inundation simulated by the MIKE FLOOD model and the inundation depth-damage-duration relationship of a normal rice variety cultivated in the river delta. In general, flood risk is expected to increase in all the future projected time periods as compared to the historical episode. Further, in comparison to the 2010s (2010-2039), an increased flood risk in the 2040s (2040-2069) is shown by all the three selected GCMs. However, the flood risk then declines in the 2070s as we move towards the end of the century (2070-2099). The methodology adopted herein for flood risk assessment is one of its kind and may be implemented in any world-river basin. The results obtained from this study can help in future flood preparedness by implementing suitable flood adaptation strategies.

Keywords: flood frequency analysis, flood risk, global climate models (GCMs), paddy cultivation

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Authors: Joao Almeida, Ana Azevedo, Myriam Kanoun-Boule, Maria Ines Santos, Antonio Tadeu

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The effects of the increasing expansion of cities and climate changes have encouraged European countries and regions to adopt nature-based solutions with ability to mitigate environmental issues and improve life in cities. Among these strategies, green roofs and urban gardens have been considered ingenious solutions, since they have the desirable potential to improve air quality, prevent floods, reduce the heat island effect and restore biodiversity in cities. However, an additional consumption of fresh water and mineral nutrients is necessary to sustain larger green urban areas. This communication discusses the main technical features of a new system to manage urine recovery at the building level and its application in green roofs. The depletion of critical nutrients like phosphorus constitutes an emergency. In turn, their elimination through urine is one of the principal causes for their loss. Thus, urine recovery in buildings may offer numerous advantages, constituting a valuable fertilizer abundantly available in cities and reducing the load on wastewater treatment plants. Although several urine-diverting toilets have been developed for this purpose and some experiments using urine directly in agriculture have already been carried out in Europe, several challenges have emerged with this practice concerning collection, sanitization, storage and application of urine in buildings. To our best knowledge, current buildings are not designed to receive these systems and integrated solutions with ability to self-manage the whole process of urine recovery, including separation, maturation and storage phases, are not known. Additionally, if from a hygiene point of view human urine may be considered a relatively safe fertilizer, the risk of disease transmission needs to be carefully analysed. A reduction in microorganisms can be achieved by storing the urine in closed tanks. However, several factors may affect this process, which may result in a higher survival rate for some pathogens. In this work, urine effluent was collected under real conditions, stored in closed containers and kept in climatic chambers under variable conditions simulating cold, temperate and tropical climates. These samples were subjected to a first physicochemical and microbiological control, which was repeated over time. The results obtained so far suggest that maturation conditions were reached for all the three temperatures and that a storage period of less than three months is required to achieve a strong depletion of microorganisms. The authors are grateful for the Project WashOne (POCI-01-0247-FEDER-017461) funded by the Operational Program for Competitiveness and Internationalization (POCI) of Portugal 2020, with the support of the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER).

Keywords: sustainable green roofs and urban gardens, urban nutrient cycle, urine-based fertilizers, urine recovery in buildings

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Authors: Eman S. Soliman, Sana Hawamdeh, Najmus S. Mahfooz

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Purpose: The purpose of this paper was to examine various components of applied emotional intelligence as demonstrated in the leadership style of Khadijah Bint Khuwaylid in pre and post-Islamic society. Methodology: The research used a qualitative research method, specifically historical and ethnographic techniques. Data collection included both primary and secondary sources. Data from sources were analyzed to document the use of emotional intelligent leadership behaviors throughout Khadijah Bint Khuwaylid leadership experience from 596 A.D. to 621 A.D. Findings: Demonstration of four cornerstones of emotional intelligence which are self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management. Apply them on khadejah Bint Khuwaylid leadership style reveal that she possess main behavioral competences in the form of emotionally self-aware, self-.confidence, adaptability, empathy and influence. Conclusions: Khadijah Bint Khuwaylid serves as a historical model of effective leadership that included the use of emotional intelligence in her leadership behavior. The inclusion of the effective portion of the brain created a successful leadership style that can be learned by present day and future leadership. The recommendations for future leaders are to include the use of emotionally self-aware and self-confidence, adaptability, empathy and influence as components of leadership. This will then demonstrate in a leadership a basic knowledge and understanding of feelings, the keenness to be emotionally open with others, the ability to prototype beliefs and values, and the use of emotions in future communications, vision and progress.

Keywords: emotional intelligence, leadership, Khadijah Bint Khuwaylid, women

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Authors: Harun Sepet, Necmettin Tarakcioglu

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The present study investigated the impact strength and fracture mechanism of nano-CaCO3 and nanoclay reinforced HDPE nanocomposites by using Charpy impact test. The nano-CaCO3 and nanoclay reinforced HDPE granules were prepared by the melt blending method using a compounder system, which consists of industrial banbury mixer, single screw extruder and granule cutting in industrial-scale. The nano-CaCO3 and nanoclay reinforced HDPE granules were molded using an injection-molding machine as plates, and then impact samples were cut by using punching die from the nanocomposite plates. As a result of impact experiments, nano-CaCO3 and nanoclay reinforced HDPE nanocomposites were determined to have lower impact energy level than neat HDPE. Also, the impact strength of HDPE further decreased by addition nanoclay compared to nano-CaCO3. The occurred fracture areas with the impact were detected by SEM examination. It is understood that fracture surface morphology changes when nano-CaCO3 and nanoclay ratio increases. The fracture surface changes were examined to determine the fracture mechanism of nano-CaCO3 and nanoclay reinforced HDPE nanocomposites.

Keywords: charpy, HDPE, industrial scale nano-CaCO3, nanoclay, nanocomposite

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Authors: Saima Shaikh, Andre Brown, Wallace Enegbuma

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Earthquakes strike both developed and developing countries, causing tremendous damage and the loss of lives of millions of people, mainly due to the collapsing of buildings, particularly in poorer countries. Despite the socio-economic and technological restrictions, the poorer countries have adopted proven and established housing-strengthening techniques from affluent countries. Rural communities are aware of the earthquake-strengthening mechanisms for improving housing resilience, but owing to socio-economic and technological constraints, the seismic guidelines are rarely implemented, resulting in informal construction practice. Unregistered skilled laborers make substantial contributions to the informal construction sector, particularly in rural areas where knowledge is scarce. Laborers employ their local expertise in house construction; however, owing to a lack of seismic expertise in safe building procedures, the authorities' regulated seismic norms are not applied. From the perspective of seismic knowledge transformation in safe buildings practices, the study focuses on the feasibility of seismic guidelines implementation. The study firstly employs a literature review of massive-scale reconstruction after the 2005 earthquake in rural Pakistan. The 2005-earthquake damaged over 400,000 homes, killed 70,000 people and displaced 2.8 million people. The research subsequently corroborated the pragmatic approach using questionnaire field survey among the rural people in 2005-earthquake affected areas. Using the literature and the questionnaire survey, the research analyzing people's perspectives on technical acceptability, financial restrictions, and socioeconomic viability and examines the effectiveness of seismic knowledge transfer in safe buildings practices. The findings support the creation of a knowledge transfer framework in disaster mitigation and recovery planning, assisting rural communities and builders in minimising losses and improving response and recovery, as well as improving housing resilience and lowering vulnerabilities. Finally, certain conclusions are obtained in order to continue the resilience research. The research can be further applied in rural areas of developing countries having similar construction practices.

Keywords: earthquakes, knowledge transfer, resilience, informal construction practices

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Authors: Silvia A. Magalhaes, Vasco P. De Freitas, Jose L. Alexandre

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Most of the European literature concerning energy efficiency and thermal comfort of dwellings assumes permanent heating and focuses on energy-saving measures. European National regulations are designed for those permanent comfort conditions. On the other hand, very few studies focus on the effect of the improvement measures in comfort reduction, for free-floating conditions or intermittent heating, in fuel poverty vulnerable countries. In Portugal, only 21% of the household energy consumptions (and 10% of the cost) are spent in space heating, while, on average European bills, this value rises to 67%. The mild climate, but mainly fuel poverty and cultural background, justifies these low heating practices. This study proposes a “passive discomfort” index definition, considering free-floating temperatures or with intermittent heating profiles (more realistic conditions), putting the focus on comfort rather than energy consumption (which is low for these countries). The aim is to compare both energy (regarding the legal framework of national regulation) and comfort (considering realistic conditions of use) to identify some correlation. It was developed an experimental campaign of indoor thermal conditions in a 19th building located in Porto with several apartments. One dwelling was chosen as a case study to carry out a sensitivity analysis. The results are discussed comparing both theoretical energy consumption (energy rates from national regulation) and discomfort (new index defined), for different insulation thicknesses, orientations, and intermittent heating profiles. The results show that the different passive options (walls insulation and glazing options) have a small impact on winter discomfort, which is always high for low heating profiles. Moreover, it was shown that the insulation thickness on walls has no influence, and the minimum insulation thickness considered is enough to achieve the same impact on discomfort reduction. Plus, for these low heating profiles, other conditions are critical, as the orientation. Finally, there isn’t an unequivocal relation between the energy label and the discomfort index. These and other results are surprising when compared with the most usual approaches, which assume permanent heating.

Keywords: dwellings in historical buildings, low-heating countries, mild climates, thermal comfort

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Authors: Eleni Karantzola, Athanasios Karasimos, Vasiliki Makri, Ioanna Skouvara

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Historical linguistics unveils the historical depth of languages and traces variation and change by analyzing linguistic variables over time. This field of linguistics usually deals with a closed data set that can only be expanded by the (re)discovery of previously unknown manuscripts or editions. In some cases, it is possible to use (almost) the entire closed corpus of a language for research, as is the case with the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae digital library for Ancient Greek, which contains most of the extant ancient Greek literature. However, concerning ‘dynamic’ periods when the production and circulation of texts in printed as well as manuscript form have not been fully mapped, representative samples and corpora of texts are needed. Such material and tools are utterly lacking for Early Modern Greek (16th-18th c.). In this study, the principles of the creation of EMoGReC, a pilot representative corpus of Early Modern Greek (16th-18th c.) are presented. Its design follows the fundamental principles of historical corpora. The selection of texts aims to create a representative and balanced corpus that gives insight into diachronic, diatopic and diaphasic variation. The pilot sample includes data derived from fully machine-readable vernacular texts, which belong to 4-5 different textual genres and come from different geographical areas. We develop a hierarchical linguistic annotation scheme, further customized to fit the characteristics of our text corpus. Regarding variables and their variants, we use as a point of departure the bundle of twenty-four features (or categories of features) for prose demotic texts of the 16th c. Tags are introduced bearing the variants [+old/archaic] or [+novel/vernacular]. On the other hand, further phenomena that are underway (cf. The Cambridge Grammar of Medieval and Early Modern Greek) are selected for tagging. The annotated texts are enriched with metalinguistic and sociolinguistic metadata to provide a testbed for the development of the first comprehensive set of tools for the Greek language of that period. Based on a relational management system with interconnection of data, annotations, and their metadata, the EMoGReC database aspires to join a state-of-the-art technological ecosystem for the research of observed language variation and change using advanced computational approaches.

Keywords: early modern Greek, variation and change, representative corpus, diachronic variables.

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Authors: Mercedes Del Rio Merino, Jaime Santacruz Astorqui, Paola Villoria Saez, Carmen Viñas Arrebola

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The lack of treatment of the waste from construction and demolition waste (CDW) is a problem that must be solved immediately. It is estimated that in the world not to use CDW generates an increase in the use of new materials close to 20% of the total value of the materials used. The problem is even greater in case these wastes are considered hazardous because the final deposition of them may also generate significant contamination. Therefore, the possibility of including CDW in the manufacturing of building materials, represents an interesting alternative to ensure their use and to reduce their possible risk. In this context and in the last years, many researches are being carried out in order to analyze the viability of using CDW as a substitute for the traditional raw material of high environmental impact. Even though it is true, much remains to be done, because these works generally characterize materials but not specific applications that allow the agents of the construction to have the guarantees required by the projects. Therefore, it is necessary the involvement of all the actors included in the life cycle of these new construction materials, and also to promote its use for, for example, definition of standards, tax advantages or market intervention is necessary. This paper presents the main findings reached in "Waste to resources (W2R)" project since it began in October 2014. The main goal of the project is to develop new materials, elements and construction systems, manufactured from CDW, to be used in improving the energy efficiency of buildings. Other objectives of the project are: to quantify the CDW generated in the energy rehabilitation works, specifically wastes from the building envelope; and to study the traceability of CDW generated and promote CDW reuse and recycle in order to get close to the life cycle of buildings, generating zero waste and reducing the ecological footprint of the construction sector. This paper determines the most important aspects to consider during the design of new constructive solutions, which improve the energy efficiency of buildings and what materials made with CDW would be the most suitable for that. Also, a survey to select best practices for reducing "close to zero waste" in refurbishment was done. Finally, several pilot rehabilitation works conform the parameters analyzed in the project were selected, in order to apply the results and thus compare the theoretical with reality. Acknowledgements: This research was supported by the Spanish State Secretariat for Research, Development and Innovation of the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under "Waste 2 Resources" Project (BIA2013-43061-R).

Keywords: building waste, construction and demolition waste, recycling, resources

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Authors: Thanasuwit Thabhiranrak

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This research aims to study factors that affected the operations of the cassava industrial enterprises in northeast of Thailand. Hypothesis was tested by regress analysis and also the analysis in order to determine the relationship between variables with Pearson correlation and show a class action in cassava process including the owner of business executives and supervisors. The research samples were 400 people in northeast region of Thailand. The research results revealed that success of entrepreneurs related to transformation leadership and knowledge management in a positive way at statistical significance level of 0.01 and respondents also emphasized on the importance of transformational leadership factors. The individual and the use of intelligence affect the success of entrepreneurs in cassava industry at statistical significance level of 0.05. The qualitative data were also collected by interviewing with operational level staff, supervisors, executives, and enterprise owners in the northeast of Thailand. The result was found that knowledge management was important in their business operations. Personnel in the organizations should learn from working experience, develop their skills, and increase knowledge from education.

Keywords: transformational leadership, knowledge management (KM), cassava, northeast of Thailand, industrial

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