Search results for: intelligent green energy management system
Commenced in January 2007
Frequency: Monthly
Edition: International
Paper Count: 30982

Search results for: intelligent green energy management system

16042 Human Microbiome Hidden Association with Chronic and Autoimmune Diseases

Authors: Elmira Davasaz Tabrizi, Müşteba Sevil, Ercan Arican

Abstract:

In recent decades, there has been a sharp increase in the prevalence of several unrelated chronic diseases. The use of long-term antibiotics for chronic illnesses is increasing. The antibiotic resistance occurrence and its relationship with host microbiomes are still unclear. Properties of the identifying antibodies have been the focus of chronic disease research, such as prostatitis or autoimmune. The immune system is made up of a complicated but well-organized network of cell types that constantly monitor and maintain their surroundings. The regulated homeostatic interaction between immune system cells and their surrounding environment shapes the microbial flora. Researchers believe that the disappearance of special bacterial species from our ancestral microbiota might have altered the body flora that can cause a rise in disease during the human life span. This unpleasant pattern demonstrates the importance of focusing on discovering and revealing the root causes behind the disappearance or alteration of our microbiota. In this review, we gathered the results of some studies that reveal changes in the diversity and quantity of microorganisms that may affect chronic and autoimmune diseases. Additionally, a Ph.D. thesis that is still in process as Metagenomic studies in chronic prostatitis samples is mentioned.

Keywords: metagenomic, autoimmune, prostatitis, microbiome

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16041 Realization and Characterization of TiN Coating and Metal Working Application

Authors: Nadjette Belhamra, Abdelouahed Chala, Ibrahim Guasmi

Abstract:

Titanium nitride coatings have been extensively used in industry, such as in cutting tools. TiN coating were deposited by chemical vapour deposition (CVD) on carbide insert at a temperature between 850°C and 1100°C, which often exceeds the hardening treatment temperature of the metals. The objective of this work is to realize, to characterize of TiN coating and to apply it in the turning of steel 42CrMo4 under lubrification. Various experimental techniques were employed for the microstructural characterization of the coatings, e. g., X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM) model JOEL JSM-5900 LV, equipped with energy dispersive X-ray (EDX). The results show that TiN-coated demonstrate a good wear resistance.

Keywords: hard coating TiN, carbide inserts, machining, turning, wear

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16040 Efficacy of Plant Extracts on Insect Pests of Watermelon and Their Effects on Nutritional Contents of the Fruits

Authors: Fatai Olaitan Alao, Thimoty Abiodun Adebayo, Oladele Abiodun Olaniran

Abstract:

This experiment was conducted at Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso, Teaching and Research farm during the major and minor planting season , 2017 to determine the effects of Annona squamosa (Linn.) and Moringa oleifera (Lam) extracts on insect pests of watermelon and their effects on nutritional contents of watermelon fruits. Synthetic insecticide and untreated plots were included in the treatments for comparison. Selected plants were prepared with cold water and each plant extracts was applied at three different concentrations (5,10 and 20% v/v). Data were collected on population density of insect pests, number of aborted fruits, number of defoliated flowers , the yield was calculated in t/ha, nutritional and fatty acid contents were determine using gas chromatography. The results show that the two major insects were observed - Diabrotica undicimpunctata and Dacus cucurbitea. The tested plant extracts had about 65% control of the observed insect pests when compared with the control and the two plant extracts had the same insecticidal efficacy. However, the applied plant extracts at 20% v/v had higher insecticidal effects than the other tested concentrations. Significant higher yield was observed on the plant extracts treated plants compared with untreated plants which had the least yield() but none of the plant extracts performed effectively as Lambdachyalothrin in the control of insect pests and yield. Meanwhile, the tested plant extracts significantly improved the proximate and fatty acid contents of watermelon fruits while Lambdachyalothrin contributed negatively to the nutritional contents of watermelon fruits. Therefore, A. squpmosa and M. oleifera can be used in the management of insect pests and to improve the nutritional contents of the watermelon especially in the organic farming system.

Keywords: Annona squamosa, Dacus cucubitea, Diabrotical undicimpunctata, Moringa oleifera, watermelon

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16039 Restoring Statecraft in the U.S. Economy: A Proposal for an American Entrepreneurial State

Authors: Miron Wolnicki

Abstract:

In the past 75 years the world was either influenced by, competing with or learning from U.S. corporations. This is no longer true. As the economic power shifts from the West to the East, U.S. corporations are lagging behind Asian competitors. Moreover, U.S. statecraft fails to address this decline. In a world dominated by interventionist and neo-mercantilist states, having an ineffective non-activist government becomes a costly neoclassic delusion which weakens the world’s largest economy. American conservative economists continue talking about the superiority of the free market system in generating new technologies. The reality is different. The U.S. is sliding further into an overregulated, over-taxed, anti-business state. This paper argues that in order to maintain its economic strength and technological leadership, the U.S. must reform federal institutions to increase support for artificial intelligence and other cutting-edge technologies. The author outlines a number of institutional reforms, under one umbrella, which he calls the American Entrepreneurial State (AES). The AES will improve productivity and bring about coherent business strategies for the next 10-15 years. The design and inspiration for the AES come from the experience of successful statecraft examples in Asia and also other parts the global economy.

Keywords: post-neoliberal system, entrepreneurial state, government and economy, American entrepreneurial state

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16038 Inventive Synthesis and Characterization of a Cesium Molybdate Compound: CsBi(MoO4)2

Authors: Gülşah Çelik Gül, Figen Kurtuluş

Abstract:

Cesium molybdates with general formula CsMIII(MoO4)2, where MIII = Bi, Dy, Pr, Er, exhibit rich polymorphism, and crystallize in a layered structure. These properties cause intensive studies on cesium molybdates. CsBi(MoO4)2 was synthesized by microwave method by using cerium sulphate, bismuth oxide and molybdenum (VI) oxide in an appropriate molar ratio. Characterizations were done by x-ray diffraction (XRD), fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy/energy dispersive analyze (SEM/EDS), thermo gravimetric/differantial thermal analysis (TG/DTA).

Keywords: cesium bismuth dimolybdate, microwave synthesis, powder x-ray diffraction, rare earth dimolybdates

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16037 3D Structuring of Thin Film Solid State Batteries for High Power Demanding Applications

Authors: Alfonso Sepulveda, Brecht Put, Nouha Labyedh, Philippe M. Vereecken

Abstract:

High energy and power density are the main requirements of today’s high demanding applications in consumer electronics. Lithium ion batteries (LIB) have the highest energy density of all known systems and are thus the best choice for rechargeable micro-batteries. Liquid electrolyte LIBs present limitations in safety, size and design, thus thin film all-solid state batteries are predominantly considered to overcome these restrictions in small devices. Although planar all-solid state thin film LIBs are at present commercially available they have low capacity (<1mAh/cm2) which limits their application scenario. By using micro-or nanostructured surfaces (i.e. 3D batteries) and appropriate conformal coating technology (i.e. electrochemical deposition, ALD) the capacity can be increased while still keeping a high rate performance. The main challenges in the introduction of solid-state LIBs are low ionic conductance and limited cycle life time due to mechanical stress and shearing interfaces. Novel materials and innovative nanostructures have to be explored in order to overcome these limitations. Thin film 3D compatible materials need to provide with the necessary requirements for functional and viable thin-film stacks. Thin film electrodes offer shorter Li-diffusion paths and high gravimetric and volumetric energy densities which allow them to be used at ultra-fast charging rates while keeping their complete capacities. Thin film electrolytes with intrinsically high ion conductivity (~10-3 S.cm) do exist, but are not electrochemically stable. On the other hand, electronically insulating electrolytes with a large electrochemical window and good chemical stability are known, but typically have intrinsically low ionic conductivities (<10-6 S cm). In addition, there is the need for conformal deposition techniques which can offer pinhole-free coverage over large surface areas with large aspect ratio features for electrode, electrolyte and buffer layers. To tackle the scaling of electrodes and the conformal deposition requirements on future 3D batteries we study LiMn2O4 (LMO) and Li4Ti5O12 (LTO). These materials are among the most interesting electrode candidates for thin film batteries offering low cost, low toxicity, high voltage and high capacity. LMO and LTO are considered 3D compatible materials since they can be prepared through conformal deposition techniques. Here, we show the scaling effects on rate performance and cycle stability of thin film cathode layers of LMO created by RF-sputtering. Planar LMO thin films below 100 nm have been electrochemically characterized. The thinnest films show the highest volumetric capacity and the best cycling stability. The increased stability of the films below 50 nm allows cycling in both the 4 and 3V potential region, resulting in a high volumetric capacity of 1.2Ah/cm3. Also, the creation of LTO anode layers through a post-lithiation process of TiO2 is demonstrated here. Planar LTO thin films below 100 nm have been electrochemically characterized. A 70 nm film retains 85% of its original capacity after 100 (dis)charging cycles at 10C. These layers can be implemented into a high aspect ratio structures. IMEC develops high aspect Si pillars arrays which is the base for the advance of 3D thin film all-solid state batteries of future technologies.

Keywords: Li-ion rechargeable batteries, thin film, nanostructures, rate performance, 3D batteries, all-solid state

Procedia PDF Downloads 335
16036 Downtime Estimation of Building Structures Using Fuzzy Logic

Authors: M. De Iuliis, O. Kammouh, G. P. Cimellaro, S. Tesfamariam

Abstract:

Community Resilience has gained a significant attention due to the recent unexpected natural and man-made disasters. Resilience is the process of maintaining livable conditions in the event of interruptions in normally available services. Estimating the resilience of systems, ranging from individuals to communities, is a formidable task due to the complexity involved in the process. The most challenging parameter involved in the resilience assessment is the 'downtime'. Downtime is the time needed for a system to recover its services following a disaster event. Estimating the exact downtime of a system requires a lot of inputs and resources that are not always obtainable. The uncertainties in the downtime estimation are usually handled using probabilistic methods, which necessitates acquiring large historical data. The estimation process also involves ignorance, imprecision, vagueness, and subjective judgment. In this paper, a fuzzy-based approach to estimate the downtime of building structures following earthquake events is proposed. Fuzzy logic can integrate descriptive (linguistic) knowledge and numerical data into the fuzzy system. This ability allows the use of walk down surveys, which collect data in a linguistic or a numerical form. The use of fuzzy logic permits a fast and economical estimation of parameters that involve uncertainties. The first step of the method is to determine the building’s vulnerability. A rapid visual screening is designed to acquire information about the analyzed building (e.g. year of construction, structural system, site seismicity, etc.). Then, a fuzzy logic is implemented using a hierarchical scheme to determine the building damageability, which is the main ingredient to estimate the downtime. Generally, the downtime can be divided into three main components: downtime due to the actual damage (DT1); downtime caused by rational and irrational delays (DT2); and downtime due to utilities disruption (DT3). In this work, DT1 is computed by relating the building damageability results obtained from the visual screening to some already-defined components repair times available in the literature. DT2 and DT3 are estimated using the REDITM Guidelines. The Downtime of the building is finally obtained by combining the three components. The proposed method also allows identifying the downtime corresponding to each of the three recovery states: re-occupancy; functional recovery; and full recovery. Future work is aimed at improving the current methodology to pass from the downtime to the resilience of buildings. This will provide a simple tool that can be used by the authorities for decision making.

Keywords: resilience, restoration, downtime, community resilience, fuzzy logic, recovery, damage, built environment

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16035 The Impact of Mining Activities on the Surface Water Quality: A Case Study of the Kaap River in Barberton, Mpumalanga

Authors: M. F. Mamabolo

Abstract:

Mining activities are identified as the most significant source of heavy metal contamination in river basins, due to inadequate disposal of mining waste thus resulting in acid mine drainage. Waste materials generated from gold mining and processing have severe and widespread impacts on water resources. Therefore, a total of 30 water samples were collected from Fig Tree Creek, Kaapriver, Sheba mine stream & Sauid kaap river to investigate the impact of gold mines on the Kaap River system. Physicochemical parameters (pH, EC and TDS) were taken using a BANTE 900P portable water quality meter. The concentration of Fe, Cu, Co, and SO₄²⁻ in water samples were analysed using Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass spectrophotometry (ICP-MS) at 0.01 mg/L. The results were compared to the regulatory guideline of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the South Africa National Standards (SANS). It was found that Fe, Cu and Co were below the guideline values while SO₄²⁻ detected in Sheba mine stream exceeded the 250 mg/L limit for both seasons, attributed by mine wastewater. SO₄²⁻ was higher in wet season due to high evaporation rates and greater interaction between rocks and water. The pH of all the streams was within the limit (≥5 to ≤9.7), however EC of the Sheba mine stream, Suid Kaap River & where the tributary connects with the Fig Tree Creek exceeded 1700 uS/m, due to dissolved material. The TDS of Sheba mine stream exceeded 1000 mg/L, attributed by high SO₄²⁻ concentration. While the tributary connecting to the Fig Tree Creek exceed the value due to pollution from household waste, runoff from agriculture etc. In conclusion, the water from all sampled streams were safe for consumption due to low concentrations of physicochemical parameters. However, elevated concentration of SO₄²⁻ should be monitored and managed to avoid water quality deterioration in the Kaap River system.

Keywords: Kaap river system, mines, heavy metals, sulphate

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16034 MARISTEM: A COST Action Focused on Stem Cells of Aquatic Invertebrates

Authors: Arzu Karahan, Loriano Ballarin, Baruch Rinkevich

Abstract:

Marine invertebrates, the highly diverse phyla of multicellular organisms, represent phenomena that are either not found or highly restricted in the vertebrates. These include phenomena like budding, fission, a fusion of ramets, and high regeneration power, such as the ability to create whole new organisms from either tiny parental fragment, many of which are controlled by totipotent, pluripotent, and multipotent stem cells. Thus, there is very much that can be learned from these organisms on the practical and evolutionary levels, further resembling Darwin's words, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change”. The ‘stem cell’ notion highlights a cell that has the ability to continuously divide and differentiate into various progenitors and daughter cells. In vertebrates, adult stem cells are rare cells defined as lineage-restricted (multipotent at best) with tissue or organ-specific activities that are located in defined niches and further regulate the machinery of homeostasis, repair, and regeneration. They are usually categorized by their morphology, tissue of origin, plasticity, and potency. The above description not always holds when comparing the vertebrates with marine invertebrates’ stem cells that display wider ranges of plasticity and diversity at the taxonomic and the cellular levels. While marine/aquatic invertebrates stem cells (MISC) have recently raised more scientific interest, the know-how is still behind the attraction they deserve. MISC, not only are highly potent but, in many cases, are abundant (e.g., 1/3 of the entire animal cells), do not locate in permanent niches, participates in delayed-aging and whole-body regeneration phenomena, the knowledge of which can be clinically relevant. Moreover, they have massive hidden potential for the discovery of new bioactive molecules that can be used for human health (antitumor, antimicrobial) and biotechnology. The MARISTEM COST action (Stem Cells of Marine/Aquatic Invertebrates: From Basic Research to Innovative Applications) aims to connect the European fragmented MISC community. Under this scientific umbrella, the action conceptualizes the idea for adult stem cells that do not share many properties with the vertebrates’ stem cells, organizes meetings, summer schools, and workshops, stimulating young researchers, supplying technical and adviser support via short-term scientific studies, making new bridges between the MISC community and biomedical disciplines.

Keywords: aquatic/marine invertebrates, adult stem cell, regeneration, cell cultures, bioactive molecules

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16033 Board Nomination and Selection Process in Indonesian State-Owned Enterprises

Authors: Synthia A. Sari

Abstract:

The transparent nomination and selection process is the first step to obtaining qualified members of board. It is believed as the representative (agent) of the owners, members of the board must consist of competent and professional people. However, the development of transparent and ideal nomination and selection process in Indonesian State-owned enterprises (SOEs) has been based on relatively little research. Considering the relative importance attached by boards to conduct their roles in their principal’s interest in a variety of governance tasks in state-owned enterprises, the primary aim of this paper is to shed light on the extent of nomination and selection process impact performance of the board in implementing good corporate governance in Indonesian SOEs. The exploratory nature of this study led to the adoption of a qualitative research methodology which uses semi-structured interviews and publically available documents to collect a range of data pertaining board nomination and selection and the work of boards. Interviews were conducted with four informants from three Indonesian SOEs and Ministry of SOEs. Findings in this study demonstrate unclear job description and expectations board members as a result of unclear functions of the board in Indonesian SOEs make transparent and accountable nomination and selection process hard to conduct. This situation is vulnerable to the influences from political interest and that even the process itself can degenerate into situations of political interference. In the end, it leads to choosing the wrong person for membership of the board. This study makes a significant contribution to several fields; the human resource management, corporate governance, and Southeast studies by addressing the basic research gaps of board selection process issues in Indonesian SOEs. The gap is addressed by providing a more coherent framework for effective nomination and selection system which reflects more clearly the real experiences of those actually involved at board level.

Keywords: board selection and nomination process, Indonesian stated-owned enterprises, good corporate governance, political influence

Procedia PDF Downloads 265
16032 Time and Wavelength Division Multiplexing Passive Optical Network Comparative Analysis: Modulation Formats and Channel Spacings

Authors: A. Fayad, Q. Alqhazaly, T. Cinkler

Abstract:

In light of the substantial increase in end-user requirements and the incessant need of network operators to upgrade the capabilities of access networks, in this paper, the performance of the different modulation formats on eight-channels Time and Wavelength Division Multiplexing Passive Optical Network (TWDM-PON) transmission system has been examined and compared. Limitations and features of modulation formats have been determined to outline the most suitable design to enhance the data rate and transmission reach to obtain the best performance of the network. The considered modulation formats are On-Off Keying Non-Return-to-Zero (NRZ-OOK), Carrier Suppressed Return to Zero (CSRZ), Duo Binary (DB), Modified Duo Binary (MODB), Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK), and Differential Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (DQPSK). The performance has been analyzed by varying transmission distances and bit rates under different channel spacing. Furthermore, the system is evaluated in terms of minimum Bit Error Rate (BER) and Quality factor (Qf) without applying any dispersion compensation technique, or any optical amplifier. Optisystem software was used for simulation purposes.

Keywords: BER, DuoBinary, NRZ-OOK, TWDM-PON

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16031 Utilizing Entrepreneurship Education for National Development: Solving the Unemployment Problems in Nigeria

Authors: Kemi Olalekan Oduntan

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This paper is of the view that entrepreneurship education (if well utilized) can solve the problems of unemployment and the clamor for paid employment in Nigeria. Nigeria educational system is bookish too more academically oriented thereby neglecting the entrepreneurial and vocational values to a greater extent. This paper examines the utilization of entrepreneurship education as a way out of the myriad of unemployment in Nigeria, with the need to refocus Nigeria educational system towards skills acquisition that prepares Nigerians for self-reliance, hence being an employer of labor, while sustainable development and economic diversification are also stressed. The paper further argues that entrepreneurship education will equip the students and Nigeria working class youth with the skills to be jobs creators and become an employer of labor which it will solve Nigeria’s problems such as poverty, overdependence on foreign goods, low economic growth and poor infrastructural development among others. We concludes and recommends that a new pedagogy that prepares students and working class youth with knowledge and practical skills to be entrepreneurial be instituted, promoted and made compulsory in all our tertiary institutions as a way of reducing the menace unemployment in Nigeria.

Keywords: entrepreneurship education, unemployment, national development, self-employment

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16030 Analyzing Land use change and its impacts on the Urban Environment in a Fast Growing Metropolitan City of Pakistan

Authors: Muhammad Nasar-u-Minallah, Dagmar Haase, Salman Qureshi

Abstract:

In a rapidly growing developing country cities are becoming more urbanized leading to modifications in urban climate. Rapid urbanization, especially unplanned urban land expansion, together with climate change has a profound impact on the urban settlement and urban thermal environment. Cities, particularly Pakistan are facing remarkably environmental issues and uneven development, and thus it is important to strengthen the investigation of urban environmental pressure brought by land-use changes and urbanization. The present study investigated the long term modification of the urban environment by urbanization utilizing Spatio-temporal dynamics of land-use change, urban population data, urban heat islands, monthly maximum, and minimum temperature of thirty years, multi remote sensing imageries, and spectral indices such as Normalized Difference Built-up Index and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index. The results indicate rapid growth in an urban built-up area and a reduction in vegetation cover in the last three decades (1990-2020). A positive correlation between urban heat islands and Normalized Difference Built-up Index, whereas a negative correlation between urban heat islands and the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index clearly shows how urbanization is affecting the local environment. The increase in air and land surface temperature temperatures is dangerous to human comfort. Practical approaches, such as increasing the urban green spaces and proper planning of the cities, have been suggested to help prevent further modification of the urban thermal environment by urbanization. The findings of this work are thus important for multi-sectorial use in the cities of Pakistan. By taking into consideration these results, the urban planners, decision-makers, and local government can make different policies to mitigate the urban land use impacts on the urban thermal environment in Pakistan.

Keywords: land use, urban environment, local climate, Lahore

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16029 Beam Deflection with Unidirectionality Due to Zeroth Order and Evanescent Wave Coupling in a Photonic Crystal with a Defect Layer without Corrugations under Oblique Incidence

Authors: Evrim Colak, Andriy E. Serebryannikov, Thore Magath, Ekmel Ozbay

Abstract:

Single beam deflection and unidirectional transmission are examined for oblique incidence in a Photonic Crystal (PC) structure which employs defect layer instead of surface corrugations at the interfaces. In all of the studied cases, the defect layer is placed such that the symmetry is broken. Two types of deflection are observed depending on whether the zeroth order is coupled or not. These two scenarios can be distinguished from each other by considering the simulated field distribution in PC. In the first deflection type, Floquet-Bloch mode enables zeroth order coupling. The energy of the zeroth order is redistributed between the diffraction orders at the defect layer, providing deflection. In the second type, when zeroth order is not coupled, strong diffractions cause blazing and the evanescent waves deliver energy to higher order diffraction modes. Simulated isofrequency contours can be utilized to estimate the coupling behavior. The defect layer is placed at varying rows, preserving the asymmetry of PC while evancescent waves can still couple to higher order modes. Even for deeply buried defect layer, asymmetric transmission and beam deflection are still encountered when the zeroth order is not coupled. We assume ε=11.4 (refractive index close to that of GaAs and Si) for the PC rods. A possible operation wavelength can be within microwave and infrared range. Since the suggested material is low loss, the structure can be scaled down to operate higher frequencies. Thus, a sample operation wavelength is selected as 1.5μm. Although the structure employs no surface corrugations transmission value T≈0.97 can be achieved by means of diffraction order m=-1. Moreover, utilizing an extra line defect, T value can be increased upto 0.99, under oblique incidence even if the line defect layer is deeply embedded in the photonic crystal. The latter configuration can be used to obtain deflection in one frequency range and can also be utilized for the realization of another functionality like defect-mode wave guiding in another frequency range but still using the same structure.

Keywords: asymmetric transmission, beam deflection, blazing, bi-directional splitting, defect layer, dual beam splitting, Floquet-Bloch modes, isofrequency contours, line defect, oblique incidence, photonic crystal, unidirectionality

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16028 Assessing the Utility of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle-Borne Hyperspectral Image and Photogrammetry Derived 3D Data for Wetland Species Distribution Quick Mapping

Authors: Qiaosi Li, Frankie Kwan Kit Wong, Tung Fung

Abstract:

Lightweight unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) loading with novel sensors offers a low cost approach for data acquisition in complex environment. This study established a framework for applying UAV system in complex environment quick mapping and assessed the performance of UAV-based hyperspectral image and digital surface model (DSM) derived from photogrammetric point clouds for 13 species classification in wetland area Mai Po Inner Deep Bay Ramsar Site, Hong Kong. The study area was part of shallow bay with flat terrain and the major species including reedbed and four mangroves: Kandelia obovata, Aegiceras corniculatum, Acrostichum auerum and Acanthus ilicifolius. Other species involved in various graminaceous plants, tarbor, shrub and invasive species Mikania micrantha. In particular, invasive species climbed up to the mangrove canopy caused damage and morphology change which might increase species distinguishing difficulty. Hyperspectral images were acquired by Headwall Nano sensor with spectral range from 400nm to 1000nm and 0.06m spatial resolution image. A sequence of multi-view RGB images was captured with 0.02m spatial resolution and 75% overlap. Hyperspectral image was corrected for radiative and geometric distortion while high resolution RGB images were matched to generate maximum dense point clouds. Furtherly, a 5 cm grid digital surface model (DSM) was derived from dense point clouds. Multiple feature reduction methods were compared to identify the efficient method and to explore the significant spectral bands in distinguishing different species. Examined methods including stepwise discriminant analysis (DA), support vector machine (SVM) and minimum noise fraction (MNF) transformation. Subsequently, spectral subsets composed of the first 20 most importance bands extracted by SVM, DA and MNF, and multi-source subsets adding extra DSM to 20 spectrum bands were served as input in maximum likelihood classifier (MLC) and SVM classifier to compare the classification result. Classification results showed that feature reduction methods from best to worst are MNF transformation, DA and SVM. MNF transformation accuracy was even higher than all bands input result. Selected bands frequently laid along the green peak, red edge and near infrared. Additionally, DA found that chlorophyll absorption red band and yellow band were also important for species classification. In terms of 3D data, DSM enhanced the discriminant capacity among low plants, arbor and mangrove. Meanwhile, DSM largely reduced misclassification due to the shadow effect and morphological variation of inter-species. In respect to classifier, nonparametric SVM outperformed than MLC for high dimension and multi-source data in this study. SVM classifier tended to produce higher overall accuracy and reduce scattered patches although it costs more time than MLC. The best result was obtained by combining MNF components and DSM in SVM classifier. This study offered a precision species distribution survey solution for inaccessible wetland area with low cost of time and labour. In addition, findings relevant to the positive effect of DSM as well as spectral feature identification indicated that the utility of UAV-borne hyperspectral and photogrammetry deriving 3D data is promising in further research on wetland species such as bio-parameters modelling and biological invasion monitoring.

Keywords: digital surface model (DSM), feature reduction, hyperspectral, photogrammetric point cloud, species mapping, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)

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16027 Analysis of Photic Zone’s Summer Period-Dissolved Oxygen and Temperature as an Early Warning System of Fish Mass Mortality in Sampaloc Lake in San Pablo, Laguna

Authors: Al Romano, Jeryl C. Hije, Mechaela Marie O. Tabiolo

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The decline in water quality is a major factor in aquatic disease outbreaks and can lead to significant mortality among aquatic organisms. Understanding the relationship between dissolved oxygen (DO) and water temperature is crucial, as these variables directly impact the health, behavior, and survival of fish populations. This study investigated how DO levels, water temperature, and atmospheric temperature interact in Sampaloc Lake to assess the risk of fish mortality. By employing a combination of linear regression models and machine learning techniques, researchers developed predictive models to forecast DO concentrations at various depths. The results indicate that while DO levels generally decrease with depth, the predicted concentrations are sufficient to support the survival of common fish species in Sampaloc Lake during March, April, and May 2025.

Keywords: aquaculture, dissolved oxygen, water temperature, regression analysis, machine learning, fish mass mortality, early warning system

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16026 Virtual Team Performance: A Transactive Memory System Perspective

Authors: Belbaly Nassim

Abstract:

Virtual teams (VT) initiatives, in which teams are geographically dispersed and communicate via modern computer-driven technologies, have attracted increasing attention from researchers and professionals. The growing need to examine how to balance and optimize VT is particularly important given the exposure experienced by companies when their employees encounter globalization and decentralization pressures to monitor VT performance. Hence, organization is regularly limited due to misalignment between the behavioral capabilities of the team’s dispersed competences and knowledge capabilities and how trust issues interplay and influence these VT dimensions and the effects of such exchanges. In fact, the future success of business depends on the extent to which VTs are managing efficiently their dispersed expertise, skills and knowledge to stimulate VT creativity. Transactive memory system (TMS) may enhance VT creativity using its three dimensons: knowledge specialization, credibility and knowledge coordination. TMS can be understood as a composition of both a structural component residing of individual knowledge and a set of communication processes among individuals. The individual knowledge is shared while being retrieved, applied and the learning is coordinated. TMS is driven by the central concept that the system is built on the distinction between internal and external memory encoding. A VT learns something new and catalogs it in memory for future retrieval and use. TMS uses the role of information technology to explain VT behaviors by offering VT members the possibility to encode, store, and retrieve information. TMS considers the members of a team as a processing system in which the location of expertise both enhances knowledge coordination and builds trust among members over time. We build on TMS dimensions to hypothesize the effects of specialization, coordination, and credibility on VT creativity. In fact, VTs consist of dispersed expertise, skills and knowledge that can positively enhance coordination and collaboration. Ultimately, this team composition may lead to recognition of both who has expertise and where that expertise is located; over time, the team composition may also build trust among VT members over time developing the ability to coordinate their knowledge which can stimulate creativity. We also assess the reciprocal relationship between TMS dimensions and VT creativity. We wish to use TMS to provide researchers with a theoretically driven model that is empirically validated through survey evidence. We propose that TMS provides a new way to enhance and balance VT creativity. This study also provides researchers insight into the use of TMS to influence positively VT creativity. In addition to our research contributions, we provide several managerial insights into how TMS components can be used to increase performance within dispersed VTs.

Keywords: virtual team creativity, transactive memory systems, specialization, credibility, coordination

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16025 Vocal Training and Practice Methods: A Glimpse on the South Indian Carnatic Music

Authors: Raghavi Janaswamy, Saraswathi K. Vasudev

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Music is one of the supreme arts of expressions, next to the speech itself. Its evolution over centuries has paved the way with a variety of training protocols and performing methods. Indian classical music is one of the most elaborate and refined systems with immense emphasis on the voice culture related to range, breath control, quality of the tone, flexibility and diction. Several exercises namely saraliswaram, jantaswaram, dhatuswaram, upper stayi swaram, alamkaras and varnams lay the required foundation to gain the voice culture and deeper understanding on the voice development and further on to the intricacies of the raga system. This article narrates a few of the Carnatic music training methods with an emphasis on the advanced practice methods for articulating the vocal skills, continuity in the voice, ability to produce gamakams, command in the multiple speeds of rendering with reasonable volume. The creativity on these exercises and their impact on the voice production are discussed. The articulation of the outlined conscious practice methods and vocal exercises bestow the optimum use of the natural human vocal system to not only enhance the signing quality but also to gain health benefits.

Keywords: Carnatic music, Saraliswaram, Varnam, vocal training

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16024 Shear Enhanced Flotation Technology Applied to Treat Winery Wastewater

Authors: Bernard Bladergroen, David Vlotman, Bradley Cerff

Abstract:

The agricultural sector is one which requires and consumes large amounts of water globally. Commercial wine production, in particular, uses extensive volumes of fresh water and generates significant volumes of wastewater through various processes. The wastewater produced by wineries typically exhibits elevated levels of chemical oxygen demand (COD), total suspended solids (TSS), total dissolved solids (TDS), acidic pH and varying salinity and nutrient contents. This study investigates the performance of a shear-enhanced flotation separation (SEFS) pilot plant as a primary treatment stage during winery wastewater processing by modifying a conventional Dissolved Air Flotation (DAF) system. The SEFS pilot plant achieved a 99% reduction in both turbidity and TSS in comparison to the 97% achieved with the conventional DAF system. The COD was reduced by 66% and 51% for the SEFS and DAF systems, respectively. SEFS shows the advantages of hydrodynamic shear to enhance the coagulation and subsequent flocculation processes with a significant reduction of coagulant and flocculant (36% and 31%, respectively).

Keywords: shear enhanced flotation, suspended solids, primary wastewater treatment, zeta potential

Procedia PDF Downloads 59
16023 A Robust Optimization of Chassis Durability/Comfort Compromise Using Chebyshev Polynomial Chaos Expansion Method

Authors: Hanwei Gao, Louis Jezequel, Eric Cabrol, Bernard Vitry

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The chassis system is composed of complex elements that take up all the loads from the tire-ground contact area and thus it plays an important role in numerous specifications such as durability, comfort, crash, etc. During the development of new vehicle projects in Renault, durability validation is always the main focus while deployment of comfort comes later in the project. Therefore, sometimes design choices have to be reconsidered because of the natural incompatibility between these two specifications. Besides, robustness is also an important point of concern as it is related to manufacturing costs as well as the performance after the ageing of components like shock absorbers. In this paper an approach is proposed aiming to realize a multi-objective optimization between chassis endurance and comfort while taking the random factors into consideration. The adaptive-sparse polynomial chaos expansion method (PCE) with Chebyshev polynomial series has been applied to predict responses’ uncertainty intervals of a system according to its uncertain-but-bounded parameters. The approach can be divided into three steps. First an initial design of experiments is realized to build the response surfaces which represent statistically a black-box system. Secondly within several iterations an optimum set is proposed and validated which will form a Pareto front. At the same time the robustness of each response, served as additional objectives, is calculated from the pre-defined parameter intervals and the response surfaces obtained in the first step. Finally an inverse strategy is carried out to determine the parameters’ tolerance combination with a maximally acceptable degradation of the responses in terms of manufacturing costs. A quarter car model has been tested as an example by applying the road excitations from the actual road measurements for both endurance and comfort calculations. One indicator based on the Basquin’s law is defined to compare the global chassis durability of different parameter settings. Another indicator related to comfort is obtained from the vertical acceleration of the sprung mass. An optimum set with best robustness has been finally obtained and the reference tests prove a good robustness prediction of Chebyshev PCE method. This example demonstrates the effectiveness and reliability of the approach, in particular its ability to save computational costs for a complex system.

Keywords: chassis durability, Chebyshev polynomials, multi-objective optimization, polynomial chaos expansion, ride comfort, robust design

Procedia PDF Downloads 149
16022 Numerical Simulation of Von Karman Swirling Bioconvection Nanofluid Flow from a Deformable Rotating Disk

Authors: Ali Kadir, S. R. Mishra, M. Shamshuddin, O. Anwar Beg

Abstract:

Motivation- Rotating disk bio-reactors are fundamental to numerous medical/biochemical engineering processes including oxygen transfer, chromatography, purification and swirl-assisted pumping. The modern upsurge in biologically-enhanced engineering devices has embraced new phenomena including bioconvection of micro-organisms (photo-tactic, oxy-tactic, gyrotactic etc). The proven thermal performance superiority of nanofluids i.e. base fluids doped with engineered nanoparticles has also stimulated immense implementation in biomedical designs. Motivated by these emerging applications, we present a numerical thermofluid dynamic simulation of the transport phenomena in bioconvection nanofluid rotating disk bioreactor flow. Methodology- We study analytically and computationally the time-dependent three-dimensional viscous gyrotactic bioconvection in swirling nanofluid flow from a rotating disk configuration. The disk is also deformable i.e. able to extend (stretch) in the radial direction. Stefan blowing is included. The Buongiorno dilute nanofluid model is adopted wherein Brownian motion and thermophoresis are the dominant nanoscale effects. The primitive conservation equations for mass, radial, tangential and axial momentum, heat (energy), nanoparticle concentration and micro-organism density function are formulated in a cylindrical polar coordinate system with appropriate wall and free stream boundary conditions. A mass convective condition is also incorporated at the disk surface. Forced convection is considered i.e. buoyancy forces are neglected. This highly nonlinear, strongly coupled system of unsteady partial differential equations is normalized with the classical Von Karman and other transformations to render the boundary value problem (BVP) into an ordinary differential system which is solved with the efficient Adomian decomposition method (ADM). Validation with earlier Runge-Kutta shooting computations in the literature is also conducted. Extensive computations are presented (with the aid of MATLAB symbolic software) for radial and circumferential velocity components, temperature, nanoparticle concentration, micro-organism density number and gradients of these functions at the disk surface (radial local skin friction, local circumferential skin friction, Local Nusselt number, Local Sherwood number, motile microorganism mass transfer rate). Main Findings- Increasing radial stretching parameter decreases radial velocity and radial skin friction, reduces azimuthal velocity and skin friction, decreases local Nusselt number and motile micro-organism mass wall flux whereas it increases nano-particle local Sherwood number. Disk deceleration accelerates the radial flow, damps the azimuthal flow, decreases temperatures and thermal boundary layer thickness, depletes the nano-particle concentration magnitudes (and associated nano-particle species boundary layer thickness) and furthermore decreases the micro-organism density number and gyrotactic micro-organism species boundary layer thickness. Increasing Stefan blowing accelerates the radial flow and azimuthal (circumferential flow), elevates temperatures of the nanofluid, boosts nano-particle concentration (volume fraction) and gyrotactic micro-organism density number magnitudes whereas suction generates the reverse effects. Increasing suction effect reduces radial skin friction and azimuthal skin friction, local Nusselt number, and motile micro-organism wall mass flux whereas it enhances the nano-particle species local Sherwood number. Conclusions - Important transport characteristics are identified of relevance to real bioreactor nanotechnological systems not discussed in previous works. ADM is shown to achieve very rapid convergence and highly accurate solutions and shows excellent promise in simulating swirling multi-physical nano-bioconvection fluid dynamics problems. Furthermore, it provides an excellent complement to more general commercial computational fluid dynamics simulations.

Keywords: bio-nanofluids, rotating disk bioreactors, Von Karman swirling flow, numerical solutions

Procedia PDF Downloads 154
16021 Analytical Design of Fractional-Order PI Controller for Decoupling Control System

Authors: Truong Nguyen Luan Vu, Le Hieu Giang, Le Linh

Abstract:

The FOPI controller is proposed based on the main properties of the decoupling control scheme, as well as the fractional calculus. By using the simplified decoupling technique, the transfer function of decoupled apparent process is firstly separated into a set of n equivalent independent processes in terms of a ratio of the diagonal elements of original open-loop transfer function to those of dynamic relative gain array and the fraction – order PI controller is then developed for each control loops due to the Bode’s ideal transfer function that gives the desired fractional closed-loop response in the frequency domain. The simulation studies were carried out to evaluate the proposed design approach in a fair compared with the other existing methods in accordance with the structured singular value (SSV) theory that used to measure the robust stability of control systems under multiplicative output uncertainty. The simulation results indicate that the proposed method consistently performs well with fast and well-balanced closed-loop time responses.

Keywords: ideal transfer function of bode, fractional calculus, fractional order proportional integral (FOPI) controller, decoupling control system

Procedia PDF Downloads 326
16020 Data Mining Approach for Commercial Data Classification and Migration in Hybrid Storage Systems

Authors: Mais Haj Qasem, Maen M. Al Assaf, Ali Rodan

Abstract:

Parallel hybrid storage systems consist of a hierarchy of different storage devices that vary in terms of data reading speed performance. As we ascend in the hierarchy, data reading speed becomes faster. Thus, migrating the application’ important data that will be accessed in the near future to the uppermost level will reduce the application I/O waiting time; hence, reducing its execution elapsed time. In this research, we implement trace-driven two-levels parallel hybrid storage system prototype that consists of HDDs and SSDs. The prototype uses data mining techniques to classify application’ data in order to determine its near future data accesses in parallel with the its on-demand request. The important data (i.e. the data that the application will access in the near future) are continuously migrated to the uppermost level of the hierarchy. Our simulation results show that our data migration approach integrated with data mining techniques reduces the application execution elapsed time when using variety of traces in at least to 22%.

Keywords: hybrid storage system, data mining, recurrent neural network, support vector machine

Procedia PDF Downloads 304
16019 Influence of Degassing on the Curing Behaviour and Void Occurrence Properties of Epoxy / Anhydride Resin System

Authors: Latha Krishnan, Andrew Cobley

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Epoxy resin is most widely used as matrices for composites of aerospace, automotive and electronic applications due to its outstanding mechanical properties. These properties are chiefly predetermined by the chemical structure of the prepolymer and type of hardener but can also be varied by the processing conditions such as prepolymer and hardener mixing, degassing and curing conditions. In this research, the effect of degassing on the curing behaviour and the void occurrence is experimentally evaluated for epoxy /anhydride resin system. The epoxy prepolymer was mixed with an anhydride hardener and accelerator in an appropriate quantity. In order to investigate the effect of degassing on the curing behaviour and void content of the resin, the uncured resin samples were prepared using three different methods: 1) no degassing 2) degassing on prepolymer and 3) degassing on mixed solution of prepolymer and hardener with an accelerator. The uncured resins were tested in differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) to observe the changes in curing behaviour of the above three resin samples by analysing factors such as gel temperature, peak cure temperature and heat of reaction/heat flow in curing. Additionally, the completely cured samples were tested in DSC to identify the changes in the glass transition temperature (Tg) between the three samples. In order to evaluate the effect of degassing on the void content and morphology changes in the cured epoxy resin, the fractured surfaces of cured epoxy resin were examined under the scanning electron microscope (SEM). In addition, the amount of void, void geometry and void fraction were also investigated using an optical microscope and image J software (image analysis software). It was found that degassing at different stages of resin mixing had significant effects on properties such as glass transition temperature, the void content and void size of the epoxy/anhydride resin system. For example, degassing (vacuum applied on the mixed resin) has shown higher glass transition temperature (Tg) with lower void content.

Keywords: anhydride epoxy, curing behaviour, degassing, void occurrence

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16018 Impact of Extended Enterprise Resource Planning in the Context of Cloud Computing on Industries and Organizations

Authors: Gholamreza Momenzadeh, Forough Nematolahi

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The Extended Enterprise Resource Planning (ERPII) system usually requires massive amounts of storage space, powerful servers, and large upfront and ongoing investments to purchase and manage the software and the related hardware which are not affordable for organizations. In recent decades, organizations prefer to adapt their business structures with new technologies for remaining competitive in the world economy. Therefore, cloud computing (which is one of the tools of information technology (IT)) is a modern system that reveals the next-generation application architecture. Also, cloud computing has had some advantages that reduce costs in many ways such as: lower upfront costs for all computing infrastructure and lower cost of maintaining and supporting. On the other hand, traditional ERPII is not responding for huge amounts of data and relations between the organizations. In this study, based on a literature study, ERPII is investigated in the context of cloud computing where the organizations operate more efficiently. Also, ERPII conditions have a response to needs of organizations in large amounts of data and relations between the organizations.

Keywords: extended enterprise resource planning, cloud computing, business process, enterprise information integration

Procedia PDF Downloads 217
16017 Malignancy Assessment of Brain Tumors Using Convolutional Neural Network

Authors: Chung-Ming Lo, Kevin Li-Chun Hsieh

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The central nervous system in the World Health Organization defines grade 2, 3, 4 gliomas according to the aggressiveness. For brain tumors, using image examination would have a lower risk than biopsy. Besides, it is a challenge to extract relevant tissues from biopsy operation. Observing the whole tumor structure and composition can provide a more objective assessment. This study further proposed a computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) system based on a convolutional neural network to quantitatively evaluate a tumor's malignancy from brain magnetic resonance imaging. A total of 30 grade 2, 43 grade 3, and 57 grade 4 gliomas were collected in the experiment. Transferred parameters from AlexNet were fine-tuned to classify the target brain tumors and achieved an accuracy of 98% and an area under the receiver operating characteristics curve (Az) of 0.99. Without pre-trained features, only 61% of accuracy was obtained. The proposed convolutional neural network can accurately and efficiently classify grade 2, 3, and 4 gliomas. The promising accuracy can provide diagnostic suggestions to radiologists in the clinic.

Keywords: convolutional neural network, computer-aided diagnosis, glioblastoma, magnetic resonance imaging

Procedia PDF Downloads 142
16016 The Effect of Antibiotic Use on Blood Cultures: Implications for Future Policy

Authors: Avirup Chowdhury, Angus K. McFadyen, Linsey Batchelor

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Blood cultures (BCs) are an important aspect of management of the septic patient, identifying the underlying pathogen and its antibiotic sensitivities. However, while the current literature outlines indications for initial BCs to be taken, there is little guidance for repeat sampling in the following 5-day period and little information on how antibiotic use can affect the usefulness of this investigation. A retrospective cohort study was conducted using inpatients who had undergone 2 or more BCs within 5 days between April 2016 and April 2017 at a 400-bed hospital in the west of Scotland and received antibiotic therapy between the first and second BCs. The data for BC sampling was collected from the electronic microbiology database, and cross-referenced with data from the hospital electronic prescribing system. Overall, 283 BCs were included in the study, taken from 92 patients (mean 3.08 cultures per patient, range 2-10). All 92 patients had initial BCs, of which 83 were positive (90%). 65 had a further sample within 24 hours of commencement of antibiotics, with 35 positive (54%). 23 had samples within 24-48 hours, with 4 (17%) positive; 12 patients had sampling at 48-72 hours, 12 at 72-96 hours, and 10 at 96-120 hours, with none positive. McNemar’s Exact Test was used to calculate statistical significance for patients who received blood cultures in multiple time blocks (Initial, < 24h, 24-120h, > 120h). For initial vs. < 24h-post BCs (53 patients tested), the proportion of positives fell from 46/53 to 29/53 (one-tailed P=0.002, OR 3.43, 95% CI 1.48-7.96). For initial vs 24-120h (n=42), the proportions were 38/42 and 4/42 respectively (P < 0.001, OR 35.0, 95% CI 4.79-255.48). For initial vs > 120h (n=36), these were 33/36 and 2/36 (P < 0.001,OR ∞). These were also calculated for a positive in initial or < 24h vs. 24-120h (n=42), with proportions of 41/42 and 4/42 (P < 0.001, OR 38.0, 95% CI 5.22-276.78); and for initial or < 24h vs > 120h (n=36), with proportions of 35/36 and 2/36 respectively (P < 0.001, OR ∞). This data appears to show that taking an initial BC followed by a BC within 24 hours of antibiotic commencement would maximise blood culture yield while minimising the risk of false negative results. This could potentially remove the need for as many as 46% of BC samples without adversely affecting patient care. BC yield decreases sharply after 48 hours of antibiotic use, and may not provide any clinically useful information after this time. Further multi-centre studies would validate these findings, and provide a foundation for future health policy generation.

Keywords: antibiotics, blood culture, efficacy, inpatient

Procedia PDF Downloads 169
16015 Phytoremediation-A Plant Based Cleansing Method to Obtain Quality Medicinal Plants and Natural Products

Authors: Hannah S. Elizabeth, D. Gnanasekaran, M. R. Manju Gowda, Antony George

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Phytoremediation a new technology of remediating the contaminated soil, water and air using plants and serves as a green technology with environmental friendly approach. The main aim of this technique is cleansing and detoxifying of organic compounds, organo-phosphorous pesticides, heavy metals like arsenic, iron, cadmium, gold, radioactive elements which cause teratogenic and life threatening diseases to mankind and animal kingdom when consume the food crops, vegetables, fruits, cerals, and millets obtained from the contaminated soil. Also, directly they may damage the genetic materials thereby alters the biosynthetic pathways of secondary metabolites and other phytoconstituents which may have different pharmacological activities which lead to lost their efficacy and potency as well. It would reflect in mutagenicity, drug resistance and affect other antagonistic properties of normal metabolism. Is the technology for real clean-up of contaminated soils and the contaminants which are potentially toxic. It reduces the risks produced by a contaminated soil by decreasing contaminants using plants as a source. The advantages are cost-effectiveness and less ecosystem disruption. Plants may also help to stabilize contaminants by accumulating and precipitating toxic trace elements in the roots. Organic pollutants can potentially be chemically degraded and ultimately mineralized into harmless biological compounds. Hence, the use of plants to revitalize contaminated sites is gaining more attention and preferred for its cost-effective when compared to other chemical methods. The introduction of harmful substances into the environment has been shown to have many adverse effects on human health, agricultural productivity, and natural ecosystems. Because the costs of growing a crop are minimal compared to those of soil removal and replacement, the use of plants to remediate hazardous soils is seen as having great promise.

Keywords: cost effective, eco-friendly, phytoremediation, secondary metabolites

Procedia PDF Downloads 276
16014 Agro-Measures Influence Soil Physical Parameters in Alternative Farming

Authors: Laura Masilionyte, Danute Jablonskyte-Rasce, Kestutis Venslauskas, Zita Kriauciuniene

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Alternative farming systems are used to cultivate high-quality food products and sustain the viability and fertility of the soil. Plant nutrition in all ecosystems depends not only on fertilization intensity or soil richness in organic matter but also on soil physical parameters –bulk density, structure, pores with the optimum moisture and air ratio available to plants. The field experiments of alternative (sustainable and organic) farming systems were conducted at Joniskelis Experimental Station of the Lithuanian Research Centre for Agriculture and Forestry in 2006–2016. The soil of the experimental site was Endocalcari-Endohypogleyic Cambisol (CMg-n-w-can). In alternative farming systems, farmyard manure, straw and catch crops for green manure were used for fertilization both in the soil with low and moderate humus contents. It had a more significant effect in the 0–20 cm depth layer on soil moisture than on other physical soil properties. In the agricultural systems, where catch crops were grown, soil physical characteristics did not differ significantly before their biomass incorporation, except for the moisture content, which was lower in rainy periods and higher in drier periods than in the soil of farming systems without catch crops. Soil bulk density and porosity in the topsoil layer were more dependent on soil humus content than on agricultural measures used: in the soil with moderate humus content, compared with the soil with low humus content, bulk density was by 1.4% lower, and porosity by 1.8% higher. The research findings allow to make improvements in alternative farming systems by choosing appropriate combinations of organic fertilizers and catch crops that have a sustainable effect on soil and maintain the sustainability of soil productivity parameters. Rational fertilization systems, securing the stability of soil productivity parameters and crop rotation productivity will promote the development of organic agriculture.

Keywords: agro-measures, soil physical parameters, organic farming, sustainable farming

Procedia PDF Downloads 124
16013 Functions and Challenges of New County-Based Regional Plan in Taiwan

Authors: Yu-Hsin Tsai

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A new, mandated county regional plan system has been initiated since 2010 nationwide in Taiwan, with its role situated in-between the policy-led cross-county regional plan and the blueprint-led city plan. This new regional plan contain both urban and rural areas in one single plan, which provides a more complete planning territory, i.e., city region within the county’s jurisdiction, and to be executed and managed effectively by the county government. However, the full picture of its functions and characteristics seems still not totally clear, compared with other levels of plans; either are planning goals and issues that can be most appropriately dealt with at this spatial scale. In addition, the extent to which the inclusion of sustainability ideal and measures to cope with climate change are unclear. Based on the above issues, this study aims to clarify the roles of county regional plan, to analyze the extent to which the measures cope with sustainability, climate change, and forecasted declining population, and the success factors and issues faced in the planning process. The methodology applied includes literature review, plan quality evaluation, and interview with officials of the central and local governments and urban planners involved for all the 23 counties in Taiwan. The preliminary research results show, first, growth management related policies have been widely implemented and expected to have effective impact, including incorporating resources capacity to determine maximum population for the city region as a whole, developing overall vision of urban growth boundary for all the whole city region, prioritizing infill development, and use of architectural land within urbanized area over rural area to cope with urban growth. Secondly, planning-oriented zoning is adopted in urban areas, while demand-oriented planning permission is applied in the rural areas with designated plans. Then, public participation has been evolved to the next level to oversee all of government’s planning and review processes due to the decreasing trust in the government, and development of public forum on the internet etc. Next, fertile agricultural land is preserved to maintain food self-supplied goal for national security concern. More adoption-based methods than mitigation-based methods have been applied to cope with global climate change. Finally, better land use and transportation planning in terms of avoiding developing rail transit stations and corridor in rural area is promoted. Even though many promising, prompt measures have been adopted, however, challenges exist to surround: first, overall urban density, likely affecting success of UGB, or use of rural agricultural land, has not been incorporated, possibly due to implementation difficulties. Second, land-use related measures to mitigating climate change seem less clear and hence less employed. Smart decline has not drawn enough attention to cope with predicted population decrease in the next decade. Then, some reluctance from county’s government to implement county regional plan can be observed vaguely possibly since limits have be set on further development on agricultural land and sensitive areas. Finally, resolving issue on existing illegal factories on agricultural land remains the most challenging dilemma.

Keywords: city region plan, sustainability, global climate change, growth management

Procedia PDF Downloads 346