Search results for: environment saving

Authors: Alireza Taghdiri, Sara Ghanbarzade Ghomi

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Existing buildings are permanently subjected to change, continuously renovated and repaired in their long service life. Old buildings are destroyed and their material and components are recycled or reused for constructing new ones. In this process, the importance of sustainability principles for building construction is obviously known and great significance must be attached to the consumption of resources, resulting effects on the environment and economic costs. Utilization strategies for extending buildings service life and delay in destroying have a positive effect on environment protection. In addition, simpler alterability or expandability of buildings’ structures and reducing energy and natural resources consumption have benefits for users, producers and the environment. To solve these problems, by applying theories of open building, structural components of some conventional building systems have been analyzed and then, a new geometry adaptive building system is developed which can transform and support different imposed loads. In order to achieve this goal, various research methods and tools such as professional and scientific literatures review, comparative analysis, case study and computer simulation were applied and data interpretation was implemented using descriptive statistics and logical arguments. Therefore, hypothesis and proposed strategies were evaluated and an adaptable and reusable 2-dimensional building system was presented which can respond appropriately to dwellers and end-users needs and provide reusability of structural components of building system in new construction or function. Investigations showed that this incremental building system can be successfully applied in achieving the architectural design objectives and by small modifications on components and joints, it is easy to obtain different and adaptable load-optimized component alternatives for flexible spaces.

Keywords: adaptability, durability, open building, service life, structural building system

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Authors: M. N. Khajavi, S. Nasiri, E. Farokhi, M. R. Bavir

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Alcohol fuels are renewable, have low pollution and have high octane number; therefore, they are important as fuel in internal combustion engines. Percentage detection of these alcoholic fuels with gasoline is a complicated, time consuming, and expensive process. Nowadays, these processes are done in equipped laboratories, based on international standards. The aim of this research is to determine percentage detection of different fuels based on vibration analysis of engine block signals. By doing, so considerable saving in time and cost can be achieved. Five different fuels consisted of pure gasoline (G) as base fuel and combination of this fuel with different percent of ethanol and methanol are prepared. For example, volumetric combination of pure gasoline with 10 percent ethanol is called E10. By this convention, we made M10 (10% methanol plus 90% pure gasoline), E30 (30% ethanol plus 70% pure gasoline), and M30 (30% Methanol plus 70% pure gasoline) were prepared. To simulate real working condition for this experiment, the vehicle was mounted on a chassis dynamometer and run under 1900 rpm and 30 KW load. To measure the engine block vibration, a three axis accelerometer was mounted between cylinder 2 and 3. After acquisition of vibration signal, eight time feature of these signals were used as inputs to an Adaptive Neuro Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS). The designed ANFIS was trained for classifying these five different fuels. The results show suitable classification ability of the designed ANFIS network with 96.3 percent of correct classification.

Keywords: internal combustion engine, vibration signal, fuel composition, classification, ANFIS

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Authors: Velly Anatasia

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The worldwide annual expenditure for cosmetics is estimated at U.S. $18 billion and many players in the field are competing aggressively to capture more and more markets. Players in the cosmetics industry strive to be the foremost by establish customer loyalty. Furthermore, customer loyalty is portrayed by brand loyalty. Therefore, brand loyalty is the key determine of winning the competition in tight market. This study examines the influence of brand loyalty on cosmetics buying behavior of female consumers in Jakarta as capital of Indonesia. The seven factors of brand loyalty are brand name, Product quality, price, design, promotion, servicesquality and store environment. The paper adopted descriptive analysis, factor loading and multiple regression approach to test the hypotheses. The data has been collected by using questionnaires which were distributed and self-administered to 125female respondents accustomed using cosmetics. The findings of this study indicated that promotion has shown strong correlation with brand loyalty. The research results showed that there is positive and significant relationship between factors of brand loyalty (brand name, product quality, price, design, promotion, services quality and store environment) with cosmetics brand loyalty.

Keywords: brand loyalty, brand name, product quality, service quality, promotion

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Authors: H. Parveen Begam, M. A. Maluk Mohamed

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Grid computing is an environment that allows sharing and coordinated use of diverse resources in dynamic, heterogeneous and distributed environment using Virtual Organization (VO). Security is a critical issue due to the open nature of the wireless channels in the grid computing which requires three fundamental services: authentication, authorization, and encryption. The privacy and anonymity are considered as an important factor while communicating over publicly spanned network like web. To ensure a high level of security we explored an extension of onion routing, which has been used with dynamic token exchange along with protection of privacy and anonymity of individual identity. To improve the performance of encrypting the layers, the elliptic curve cryptography is used. Compared to traditional cryptosystems like RSA (Rivest-Shamir-Adelman), ECC (Elliptic Curve Cryptosystem) offers equivalent security with smaller key sizes which result in faster computations, lower power consumption, as well as memory and bandwidth savings. This paper presents the estimation of the performance improvements of onion routing using ECC as well as the comparison graph between performance level of RSA and ECC.

Keywords: grid computing, privacy, anonymity, onion routing, ECC, RSA

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Authors: D. Pranav

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Pesticides are a class of Biocide, whose use in agriculture has led to a momentous increase in the yield of crops, fruits and vegetables all over the word and its effective use has also been the pillars of success for the Green Revolution. However, the incessant use of pesticides has now reached alarming levels. In 2007 alone, the world used an estimated 2.4 million tons of pesticides. Despite its tremendous benefits for agriculture, pesticide has been one of the major reasons for degradation of the natural environment and undesirable effects on human beings. It has not only caused damage to human health, but has also threatened the survival of few birds and animal species. In India, the sale and usage of banned pesticide, increased usage of pesticides and its inadequate labeling has caused Bio magnification, which is causing deleterious effects on child development, resulting in stunted mental and physical growth. This paper aims to bring to shed light on major loopholes in the current pesticide regulations such as the Insecticide Act of 1968. It further discusses loopholes in the yet to be tabled Pesticides Management Bill of 2008. It discusses and arrives at potential amendments to the laws and regulations concerning pesticides; that cannot only be applied to the Indian subcontinent but other developing countries as well.

Keywords: pesticides, India, human health, environment, regulations, reform

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Authors: S. Nickolas, Shobha K.

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The treatment of incomplete data is an important step in the data pre-processing. Missing values creates a noisy environment in all applications and it is an unavoidable problem in big data management and analysis. Numerous techniques likes discarding rows with missing values, mean imputation, expectation maximization, neural networks with evolutionary algorithms or optimized techniques and hot deck imputation have been introduced by researchers for handling missing data. Among these, imputation techniques plays a positive role in filling missing values when it is necessary to use all records in the data and not to discard records with missing values. In this paper we propose a novel artificial neural network based clustering algorithm, Adaptive Resonance Theory-2(ART2) for imputation of missing values in mixed attribute data sets. The process of ART2 can recognize learned models fast and be adapted to new objects rapidly. It carries out model-based clustering by using competitive learning and self-steady mechanism in dynamic environment without supervision. The proposed approach not only imputes the missing values but also provides information about handling the outliers.

Keywords: ART2, data imputation, clustering, missing data, neural network, pre-processing

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Authors: Monika Moggert

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The aim of the research evaluates the local centers' development of Berlin, the capital of Germany. There are included studies of their potential, considers the possibility of applying different cultural influences and the issue of the current demographic transformation of Europe. The solution utilizes the analysis of historical, cultural, political and sociological changes after 2nd World War; the exploration of historical as well as strategic maps and personal evaluation of the current condition of selected boroughs – Berlin Neuköln, Kreuzberg and Wedding, where more than 30% of the inhabitants have a migration background. The research provides an example of the likely development of centers in urban agglomerations. It examines the issue of local centers with an inhumane scale in contrast to small-scale centering sites, mostly located in areas largely with immigrant communities. The research results enable a better understanding of the influence of different cultures and lifestyles on the appearance of the city and its local centers. We can use it as an inspiration for the new design of the Berlin centers. The results will be used for further research on urban space development in the cultural environment of Europe and the Middle East as well.

Keywords: Berlin, cultural environment, life in the city, public and urban space, the urban city centers development, town and society

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Authors: M. Tahir Demirsel, Mustafa Atsan

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Many elements of the environment in which businesses operate today leave them faced with unexpected threats and opportunities. One of the major threats is business crisis. The crisis is a state of affairs in a business wherein the executives must take urgent and unprecedented action to try to save the business from failure. In order to survive in the business environment, organizations should be prepared for the potential crises. Technological developments, uncertainty in the market and the intense competition increase the probability of encountering a crisis for organizations. Therefore, by acting proactively to predict crisis, to detect signals of crisis and be prepared for a crisis by taking necessary precautions accordingly, is of great importance for businesses. In this context, the objective of this study is to reveal that how much organizations are proactive and can predict the future crises and investigate whether they are prepared for possible crises or not. The research was conducted on 222 business executives in one of the major industrial zones of Turkey, Konya Organized Industrial Zone (KOS). The findings are analyzed through descriptive statistics and multiple regression analysis. According to the results, it has been observed that organizations cannot predict the crisis signals and are not prepared for potential crises.

Keywords: crisis preparedness, crisis signals, industrial organizations, proactivity

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Authors: A. Abdulkadir, Y. M. Bello, A. A. Okhimamhe, H. Ibrahim, M. B. Matazu, L. S. Barau

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The increasing volume of solid waste generated, collected and disposed daily complicate adequate management of solid waste by the relevant agency like Niger State Environmental Protection Agency (NISEPA). In addition, the impacts of solid waste on the natural environment and human livelihood require identification of cost-effective ways for sustainable municipal waste management in Nigeria. These signal the need for identifying environment-friendly initiative and local solution to address municipal solid waste. A research field was secured at Pago, Minna, Niger State which is located in the guinea savanna belt of Nigeria, within longitude 60 3614311- 4511 and latitude 90 291 37.6111- .6211 N. Poultry droppings, decomposed household waste manure and NPK treatment were used. The experimental field was divided into three replications and four (4) treatments on each replication making a total of twelve (12) plots. The treatments were allotted using Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) and Data collected was analyzed using SPSS software and RCBD. The result depicts variation in plant height and number of leaves at 50% flowering; Poultry dropping records the highest height as a number of leaves for waste manure competes fairly well with NPK treatment. Similarly, the varying treatments significantly increase vegetable yield, as the control (Nontreatment) records the least yield for the three vegetable samples. Adoption of this organic manure for cultivation does not only enhance environment quality and attainment of food security but will contribute to local economic development, poverty alleviation, and social inclusion.

Keywords: environmental issues, food security, NISEPA, solid waste

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Authors: Ogar Ofut Tumenayu, Olga Shabalina

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This paper describes the application of two types of pedagogical agents’ technology with different functions in an adaptive educational game with the sole aim of improving learning and enhancing interactivities in Digital Educational Games (DEG). This idea could promote the elimination of some problems of DEG, like isolation in game-based learning, by introducing a tutor and tutee pedagogical agents. We present an analysis of a learning companion interacting in a peer tutoring environment as a step toward improving social interactions in the educational game environment. We show that tutor and tutee agents use different interventions and interactive approaches: the tutor agent is engaged in tracking the learner’s activities and inferring the learning state, while the tutee agent initiates interactions with the learner at the appropriate times and in appropriate manners. In order to provide motivation to prevent mistakes and clarity a game task, the tutor agent uses the help dialog tool to provide assistance, while the tutee agent provides collaboration assistance by using the hind tool. We presented our idea on a prototype game called “Pyramid Programming Game,” a 2D game that was developed using Libgdx. The game's Pyramid component symbolizes a programming task that is presented to the player in the form of a puzzle. During gameplay, the Agents can instruct, direct, inspire, and communicate emotions. They can also rapidly alter the instructional pattern in response to the learner's performance and knowledge. The pyramid must be effectively destroyed in order to win the game. The game also teaches and illustrates the advantages of utilizing educational agents such as TrA and TeA to assist and motivate students. Our findings support the idea that the functionality of a pedagogical agent should be dualized into an instructional and learner’s companion agent in order to enhance interactivity in a game-based environment.

Keywords: tutor agent, tutee agent, learner’s companion interaction, agent collaboration

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Authors: Hee Sun (Sunny) Choi, Gerhard Bruyns, Wang Zhang, Sky Cheng, Saijal Sharma

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This research addresses the need for a comprehensive framework that can guide the design and assessment of multi-level public spaces and public realms and their impact on the built environment. The study aims to understand and measure the neural mechanisms involved in this process. By doing so, it can lay the foundation for vertical and volumetric urbanism and ensure consistency and excellence in the field while also supporting scientific research methods for urban design with cognitive neuroscientists. To investigate these aspects, the paper focuses on the neighborhood scale in Hong Kong, specifically examining multi-level public spaces and quasi-public spaces within both commercial and residential complexes. The researchers use predictive Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a methodology to assess and comprehend the applicability of the urban design framework for vertical and volumetric urbanism. The findings aim to identify the factors that contribute to successful public spaces within a vertical living environment, thus introducing a new typology of public spaces.

Keywords: vertical urbanism, scientific research methods, spatial cognition, urban design guideline

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Authors: Saleh Dabil

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This study investigates the level of existence of organized retail crime in supermarkets of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The store managers, security managers and general employees were asked about the types of retail crimes occur in the stores. Three independent variables were related to the report of organized retail theft. The independent variables are: (1) the supermarket profile (volume, location, standard and type of the store), (2) the social physical environment of the store (maintenance, cleanness and overall organizational cooperation), (3) the security techniques and loss prevention electronics techniques used. The theoretical framework of this study based on the social disorganization theory. This study concluded that the organized retail theft, in specific, organized theft is moderately apparent in Riyadh stores. The general result showed that the environment of the stores has an effect on the prevalence of organized retail theft with relation to the gender of thieves, age groups, working shift, type of stolen items as well as the number of thieves in one case. Among other reasons, some factors of the organized theft are: economic pressure of customers based on the location of the store. The dealing of theft also was investigated to have a clear picture of stores dealing with organized retail theft. The result showed that mostly, thieves sent without any action and sometimes given written warning. Very few cases dealt with by police. There are other factors in the study can be looked up in the text. This study suggests solving the problem of organized theft; first is ‘the well distributing of the duties and responsibilities between the employees especially for security purposes’. Second is ‘installation of strong security system’ and ‘making well-designed store layout’. Third is ‘giving training for general employees’ and ‘to give periodically security skills training of employees’. There are other suggestions in the study can be looked up in the text.

Keywords: organized crime, retail, theft, loss prevention, store environment

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Authors: Sourabh Harihar, Henk Jan Verhagen

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The nurturing of a mangrove ecosystem requires a protected coastal environment with adequate drainage of the soil substratum. In a conceptual design undertaken for a mangrove rejuvenation project along the eastern coast of Mumbai (India), various engineering alternatives have been thought of as a protective coastal structure and drainage system. One such design uses bamboo-pile walls in creating shielded compartments in the form of various layouts, coupled with bamboo drains. The bamboo-based design is found to be environmentally and economically advantageous over other designs like sand-dikes which are multiple times more expensive. Moreover, employing a natural material such as bamboo helps the structure naturally blend with the developing mangrove habitat, allaying concerns about dismantling the structure post mangrove growth. A cost-minimising and eco-friendly bamboo structure, therefore, promises to pave the way for large rehabilitation projects in future. As mangrove ecosystems in many parts of the world increasingly face the threat of destruction due to urban development and climate change, protective nature-based designs that can be built in a short duration are the need of the hour.

Keywords: bamboo, environment, mangrove, rehabilitation

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Authors: Arnaldo G. de Oliveira, Jr, Matthieu Tubino

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The transesterification process of triglycerides with alcohols that occurs during the biodiesel synthesis causes continuous changes in several physical properties of the reaction mixture, such as refractive index, viscosity and density. Amongst them, density can be an useful parameter to monitor the reaction, in order to predict the composition of the reacting mixture and to verify the conversion of the oil into biodiesel. In this context, a system was constructed in order to continuously determine changes in the density of the reacting mixture containing soybean oil, methanol and sodium methoxide (30 % w/w solution in methanol), stirred at 620 rpm at room temperature (about 27 °C). A polyethylene pipe network connected to a peristaltic pump was used in order to collect the mixture and pump it through a coil fixed on the plate of an analytical balance. The collected mass values were used to trace a curve correlating the mass of the system to the reaction time. The density variation profile versus the time clearly shows three different steps: 1) the dispersion of methanol in oil causes a decrease in the system mass due to the lower alcohol density followed by stabilization; 2) the addition of the catalyst (sodium methoxide) causes a larger decrease in mass compared to the first step (dispersion of methanol in oil) because of the oil conversion into biodiesel; 3) the final stabilization, denoting the end of the reaction. This density variation profile provides information that was used to predict the composition of the mixture over the time and the reaction rate. The precise knowledge of the duration of the synthesis means saving time and resources on a scale production system. This kind of monitoring provides several interesting features such as continuous measurements without collecting aliquots.

Keywords: biodiesel, density measurements, online continuous monitoring, synthesis

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Authors: E. G. Zaki, M. A. Migahed, A. M. Al-Sabagh, E. A. Khamis

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Inhibition effect of four novel nonionic surfactants based on sulphonamide, of linear alkyl benzene sulphonic acid (LABS), was reacted with 1 mole triethylenetetramine, tetraethylenepentamine then Ethoxylation of amide X 65 type carbon steel in oil wells formation water under H2S environment was investigated by electrochemical measurements. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersion X-ray (EDX) were used to characterize the steel surface. The results showed that these surfactants act as a corrosion inhibitor in and their inhibition efficiencies depend on the ethylene oxide content in the system. The obtained results showed that the percentage inhibition efficiency (η%) was increased by increasing the inhibitor concentration until the critical micelle concentration (CMC) reached The quantum chemistry calculations were carried out to study the molecular geometry and electronic structure of obtained derivatives. The energy gap between the highest occupied molecular orbital and lowest unoccupied molecular orbital has been calculated using the theoretical computations to reflect the chemical reactivity and kinetic stability of compounds.

Keywords: corrosion, surfactants, steel surface, quantum

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Authors: Haozhe Xiang

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With the rise of the Internet of Things era, intelligent products are gradually integrating into people's lives. Pedestrian trajectory prediction has become a key issue, which is crucial for the motion path planning of intelligent agents such as autonomous vehicles, robots, and drones. In the current technological context, deep learning technology is becoming increasingly sophisticated and gradually replacing traditional models. The pedestrian trajectory prediction algorithm combining neural networks and attention mechanisms has significantly improved prediction accuracy. Based on in-depth research on deep learning and pedestrian trajectory prediction algorithms, this article focuses on physical environment modeling and learning of historical trajectory time dependence. At the same time, social interaction between pedestrians and scene interaction between pedestrians and the environment were handled. An improved pedestrian trajectory prediction algorithm is proposed by analyzing the existing model architecture. With the help of these improvements, acceptable predicted trajectories were successfully obtained. Experiments on public datasets have demonstrated the algorithm's effectiveness and achieved acceptable results.

Keywords: deep learning, graph convolutional network, attention mechanism, LSTM

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Authors: Junjie Wu, Hongjuan Hou, Eric Hu, Yongping Yang

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Solar aided power generation (SAPG) technology has been proven as an efficient way to make use of solar energy for power generation purpose. In an SAPG plant, a solar field consisting of parabolic solar collectors is normally used to supply the solar heat in order to displace the high pressure/temperature extraction steam. To understand the performance of such a SAPG plant, a new simulation model was developed by the authors recently, in which the boiler was treated, as a series of heat exchangers unlike other previous models. Through the simulations using the new model, it was found the outlet properties of reheated steam, e.g. temperature, would decrease due to the introduction of the solar heat. The changes make the (lower stage) turbines work under off-design condition. As a result, the whole plant’s performance may not be optimal. In this paper, the second solar filed was proposed to increase the inlet temperature of steam to be reheated, in order to bring the outlet temperature of reheated steam back to the designed condition. A 600MW SAPG plant was simulated as a case study using the new model to understand the impact of the second solar field on the plant performance. It was found in the study, the 2nd solar field would improve the plant’s performance in terms of cycle efficiency and solar-to-electricity efficiency by 1.91% and 6.01%. The solar-generated electricity produced by per aperture area under the design condition was 187.96W/m2, which was 26.14% higher than the previous design.

Keywords: solar-aided power generation system, off-design performance, coal-saving performance, boiler modelling, integration schemes

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Authors: Calvin Rong, Regina Agassian, Mindy Engle-Friedman

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Climate changes, including rising sea levels and increases in global temperature, can have major effects on resource availability, leading to increased competition for resources and rising food prices. The abstract nature and often delayed consequences of many ecological problems cause people focus on immediate, specific, and personal events and circumstances that compel immediate and emotional involvement. This finding may be explained by the challenges humans have in imagining themselves in the future, a shortcoming that interferes with decision-making involving far-off rewards, and leads people to indicate a lower concern toward the future than to present circumstances. The present study sought to assess whether priming people to think of themselves in the future might strengthen the connection to their future selves and stimulate environmentally-protective behavior. We hypothesize that priming participants to think about themselves in the future would increase concern for the future environment. 45 control participants were primed to think about themselves in the present, and 42 participants were primed to think about themselves in the futures. After priming, the participants rated their concern over access to clean water, food, and energy on a scale of 1 to 10. They also rated their predicted care levels for the environment at age points 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, and 90 on a scale of 1(not at all) to 10 (very much). Predicted care levels at age 90 for the experimental group was significantly higher than for the control group. Overall the experimental group rated their concern for resources higher than the control. In comparison to the control group (M=7.60, SD=2.104) participants in the experimental group had greater concern for clean water (M=8.56, SD=1.534). In comparison to the control group (M=7.49, SD=2.041) participants in the experimental group were more concerned about food resources (M=8.41, SD=1.830). In comparison to the control group (M=7.22, SD=1.999) participants in the experimental group were more concerned about energy resources (M=8.07, SD=1.967). This study assessed whether a priming strategy could be used to encourage pro-environmental practices that protect limited resources. Future-self priming helped participants see past short term issues and focus on concern for the future environment.

Keywords: climate change, future, priming, global warming

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Authors: Gurbir Singh Khaira, Anmoldeep Singh Kang

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Exposures to environmental pollution remain a major source of health risk throughout the world, though risks are generally higher in developing countries, where poverty, lack of investment in modern technology and weak environmental legislation combine to cause high pollution levels. This paper will tell us about the environment is threatened severely by so many problems, some of which are caused by the activities of Construction Projects. The research reveals major environmental impacts of building construction projects to include environmental pollution, resource depletion and habitat destruction causing Destruction of ecosystem, Desertification, Soil Erosion and increasing Material Wastage. Construction is considered as one of the main sources of environmental pollution in the world, the level of knowledge and awareness of project participants, especially project managers, with regards to environmental impacts of construction processes needs to be enhanced. It was found that ‘Transportation Resource’, ‘Noise Pollution’, and ‘Dust Generation with Construction Machinery’ are the greatest environmental impacts in INDIA respectively. The results of this study are useful for construction managers and other participants in construction sites to become aware of construction processes impacts on the environment.

Keywords: construction projects, environmental impacts, material waste age, awareness

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Authors: Fadi Chammas, Saad Alkhaldi, Tariq Alghamdi, Stefano Alexandirs

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The operating conditions and corrosive nature of the process fluid in the Haradh and Hawiyah areas are subjecting facility piping to undesirable corrosion phenomena. Therefore, production headers inside remote headers have been internally cladded with high alloy material to mitigate the corrosion damage mechanism. Corrosion mitigation in the jump-over lines, constructed between the existing flowlines and the newly constructed facilities to provide operational flexibility, is proposed. This corrosion mitigation system includes the application of fusion bond epoxy (FBE) coating on the internal surface of the pipe and depositing corrosion-resistant alloy (CRA) weld layers at pipe and fittings ends to protect the carbon steel material. In addition, high alloy CRA weld material is used to deposit the girth weld between the 90-degree elbows and mating internally coated segments. A rigorous testing and qualification protocol was established prior to actual adoption at the Haradh and Hawiyah Field Gas Compression Program, currently being executed by Saudi Aramco. The proposed mitigation system, aimed at applying the cladding at the ends of the internally FBE coated pipes/elbows, will resolve field joint coating challenges, eliminate the use of approximately (1700) breakout flanges, and prevent the potential hydrocarbon leaks.

Keywords: pipelines, corrosion, cost-saving, project completion

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Authors: U. V. Okpala, C. C. Okpala

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The effect of generator exhaust fumes on air, a case study of Onitsha was considered in this work. A sample of 400 respondents was randomly chosen in the study area based on the population. Questionnaire was designed and administered to inhabitants of the study area to enable the researchers ascertain information on the effect of generator exhaust fumes on air and possible remedies. The issue of the types of generators owned by residents, quantity of fuel products purchased per day and the number of years of generator ownership were discussed. The Pearson’s product moment analysis correlation and Chi-square test were applied in the hypothesis testing. The result shows that huge amount of effluents are discharged on the environment thereby polluting the air. This leads to radiative forcing, depletion of ozone layer and precipitation of acid rain. This has untold effect on the climate system. To ensure proper recovery, the study recommends that government makes available alternative energy sources in addition to the conventional power to save the environment; with this, waste becomes wealth towards a sustainable economy in Nigeria.

Keywords: Onitsha, generator, fuel products, exhaust fumes and remedies, energy systems

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Authors: Raja Ezman Raja Shariff

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Acute kidney injury (AKI) is commonly seen in inpatients, and places a great cost on the NHS and patients. Timely and appropriate management is both nephron sparing and potentially life-saving. Ultrasound scanning (USS) is a well-recognised method for stratifying patients. Subsequently, the NICE AKI guidance has defined groups in whom scanning is recommended within 6 hours of request (pyonephrosis), within 24 hours (obstruction/cause unknown), and in whom routine scanning isn't recommended (cause for AKI identified). The audit looks into whether Stockport NHS Trust USS practice was in line with such recommendations. The audit evaluated 92 patients with AKI who had USS, between 01/01/14 to 30/04/14. Data collection was divided into 2 parts. Firstly, radiology request cards and the online imaging software (PACS) were evaluated. Then, the electronic case notes (ADVANTIS) was evaluated further. Based on request cards, 10% of requests were for pyonephrosis. Only 33% were scanned within 6hours and a further 33% within 24hours. 75% were requested for possible obstructions and unknown cause collectively. Of those due to possible obstruction, 71% of patients were scanned within 24 hours. Of those with unknown cause, 50% were scanned within 24 hours. 15% of requests had a cause declared and so potentially did not require scanning. Evaluation of the patients’ notes suggested further interesting findings. Firstly, potentially 39% of patients had a known cause for AKI, therefore, did not need USS. Subsequently, the cohort of unknown cause and possible obstruction was collectively reduced to 45%. Alarmingly the patient cohort with possible pyonephrosis went up to 16%, suggesting an under-recognition of this life-threatening condition. We plan to highlight these findings within our institution and make changes to encourage more appropriate requesting and timely scanning. Time will tell if we manage to save or increase our costs in this cost-conscious NHS. Patient benefits, though, seem to be guaranteed.

Keywords: AKI, ARF, kidney, renal

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Authors: Najah Kalifah Almazmomi

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In the time of artificial intelligence (AI), there is a need to know the determinants of success in business management, which are taking on a new dimension. This research purports to scrutinize the Critical Success Factors (CSFs) that drive and ignite the fire of success to help uncover the subtle and profound dynamics that might be operative in organizations. By means of a systematic literature review and a number of empirical methods, the paper is aimed at determining and assessing the key aspects of CSFs, putting emphasis on their role and meaning in the context of AI technology adoption. Some central features such as leadership ways, innovation models, strategic thinking methodologies, organizational culture transformations, and human resource management approaches are compared and contrasted with the AI-driven revolution. Additionally, this research will explore the interactive effects of these factors and their joint impact on the success, survival, and flexibility of a business in the current environment, which is changing due to AI development. Through the use of different qualitative and quantitative methodologies, the research concludes that the findings are significant in understanding the relative roles of individual CSFs and in studying the interactions between them in such an AI-enabled business environment.

Keywords: critical success factors, business and management, artificial intelligence, leadership strategies

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Authors: Ghaemi Reza, Abdollahi Hamid, Dashti Elham

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Cloud computing poses a diversity of challenges in data mining operation arising out of the dynamic structure of data distribution as against the use of typical database scenarios in conventional architecture. Due to immense number of users seeking data on daily basis, there is a serious security concerns to cloud providers as well as data providers who put their data on the cloud computing environment. Big data analytics use compute intensive data mining algorithms (Hidden markov, MapReduce parallel programming, Mahot Project, Hadoop distributed file system, K-Means and KMediod, Apriori) that require efficient high performance processors to produce timely results. Data mining algorithms to solve or optimize the model parameters. The challenges that operation has to encounter is the successful transactions to be established with the existing virtual machine environment and the databases to be kept under the control. Several factors have led to the distributed data mining from normal or centralized mining. The approach is as a SaaS which uses multi-agent systems for implementing the different tasks of system. There are still some problems of data mining based on cloud computing, including design and selection of data mining algorithms.

Keywords: cloud computing, data mining, computing models, cloud services

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Authors: Silvia Baralla, Raffaella Zucaro, Romina Lorenzetti

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Water management needs to cope with economic, societal, and environmental changes. This could be guaranteed through 'shifting from government to governance'. In the last decades, it was applied in Europe through and within important legislative pillars (Water Framework Directive and Common Agricultural Policy) and their measures focused on resilience and adaptation to climate change, with particular attention to the creation of synergies among policies and all the actors involved at different levels. Within the climate change context, the agricultural sector can play, through sustainable water management, a leading role for climate-resilient growth and environmental integrity. A recent analysis on the water management governance of different countries identified some common gaps dealing with administrative, policy, information, capacity building, funding, objective, and accountability. The ability of a country to fill these gaps is an essential requirement to make some of the changes requested by Europe, in particular the improvement of the agro-ecosystem resilience to the effect of climatic change, supporting green and digital transitions, and sustainable water use. This research aims to contribute in sharing examples of water governances and related advantages useful to fill the highlighted gaps. Italy has developed a strong and exhaustive model of water governance in order to react with strategic and synergic actions since it is one of the European countries most threatened by climate change and its extreme events (drought, floods). In particular, the Italian water governance model was able to overcome several gaps, specifically as concerns the water use in agriculture, adopting strategies as a systemic/integrated approach, the stakeholder engagement, capacity building, the improvement of planning and monitoring ability, and an adaptive/resilient strategy for funding activities. They were carried out, putting in place regulatory, structural, and management actions. Regulatory actions include both the institution of technical committees grouping together water decision-makers and the elaboration of operative manuals and guidelines by means of a participative and cross-cutting approach. Structural actions deal with the funding of interventions within European and national funds according to the principles of coherence and complementarity. Finally, management actions regard the introduction of operational tools to support decision-makers in order to improve planning and monitoring ability. In particular, two cross-functional and interoperable web databases were introduced: SIGRIAN (National Information System for Water Resources Management in Agriculture) and DANIA (National Database of Investments for Irrigation and the Environment). Their interconnection allows to support sustainable investments, taking into account the compliance about irrigation volumes quantified in SIGRIAN, ensuring a high level of attention on water saving, and monitoring the efficiency of funding. Main positive results from the Italian water governance model deal with a synergic and coordinated work at the national, regional, and local level among institutions, the transparency on water use in agriculture, a deeper understanding from the stakeholder side of the importance of their roles and of their own potential benefits and the capacity to guarantee continuity to this model, through a sensitization process and the combined use of management operational tools.

Keywords: agricultural sustainability, governance model, water management, water policies

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Authors: Mahmood Salahi, Fatemeh Abbasi

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Increasing urbanization will be one of the defining features of the 21st century. This produces particular environmental challenges, but also creates opportunities for urban development that can contribute to broader goals of improving the quality of life for urban residents while achieving greater levels of global sustainability. Half of the world’s population already lives in urban areas, with a growing number of these people living in towns and cities in low and middle-income countries. As well as being a demographic phenomenon, urbanisation is intricately linked with economic, social and environmental transitions. The increasing proportion of the world’s population living in urban areas has been driven by the growing concentration of new investment and employment opportunities. In general, nations with the most rapid and sustained economic growth have urbanized most.2 Urban centres provide opportunities for a range of social and cultural activities, as well as being critical for innovations in science, technology and education. Indeed, urban areas are of critical importance for social and economic development: as the Cities Alliance recognizes, 'only sustained urban growth has the capacity to lift both rural and urban populations out of poverty'.

Keywords: environment, urban planning, management, urbanization

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Authors: Katarzyna Grądecka-Jakubowska, Rusinek Robert, Marek Gancarz

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The aim of the study was to analyze the process of roasting coffee beans in a convection–conduction roaster (CC) without a heat exchanger and a convection–conduction–radiation roaster (CCR) with a heat exchanger for determination of the colour of the coffee beans and coffee colour after mill. Arabica coffee from the following countries (regions) was used for the study: (1) Ethiopia Refisha, (2) Guatemala Santa Barbara, (3) Honduras El Puente, (4) Kenya Baragwi, (5) Brazil Beyond. The coffee beans were roasted using two types of roasters: convection–conduction roaster (CC) without a heat exchanger and a convection–conduction–radiation roaster (CCR) with a heat exchanger. The analysis of the color of coffee beans and ground coffee was carried out using the CIELab and RGB method using a Lovibond CAM-System 500 colorimeter (Great Britain). The device allows you to evaluate the color and record the image in a resolution of 752 × 582 pixels, saving each pixel as an RGB component. The time profile screen captured a sequence of images at fixed time intervals and displayed them on-line. The system, useful for assessing non-uniform or variable colors, allowed us to record the entire image or appropriate areas (surfaces) of the sample. Color is mathematically described by three components: L - lightness (luminance from 0 very to 100 very bright), (a) - color from green to magenta (from -120 to +120), (b) - color from blue to yellow (from -120 to +120). Coffee beans roasted in the Dietrich (CCR) roaster had a lighter colour, while those roasted in the Gothot (CC) roaster had a darker colour. In the case of ground coffee colour tests, coffee ground from beans roasted in the Dietrich (CCR) roaster also had a lighter colour, while coffee ground from beans roasted in the Gothot (CC) roaster had a darker colour.

Keywords: coffee beans, ground coffee, colour, CIELab, RGB

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Authors: Guolong Zhong, Venkatesh Chennam Vijay, Ilias Oraifige

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In the last 20 years, Knowledge Based Engineering (KBE) has shown its advantages in product development in different engineering areas such as automation, mechanical, civil and aerospace engineering in terms of digital design automation and cost reduction by automating repetitive design tasks through capturing, integrating, utilising and reusing the existing knowledge required in various aspects of the product design. However, in primary design stages, the descriptive information of a product is discrete and unorganized while knowledge is in various forms instead of pure data. Thus, it is crucial to have an integrated product model which can represent the entire product information and its associated knowledge at the beginning of the product design. One of the shortcomings of the existing product models is a lack of required knowledge representation in various aspects of product design and its mapping to an interoperable schema. To overcome the limitation of the existing product model and methodologies, two key factors are considered. First, the product model must have well-defined classes that can represent the entire product information and its associated knowledge. Second, the product model needs to be represented in an interoperable schema to ensure a steady data exchange between different product modelling platforms and CAD software. This paper introduced a method to provide a general product model as a generative representation of a product, which consists of the geometry information and non-geometry information, through a product modelling framework. The proposed method for capturing the knowledge from the designers through a knowledge file provides a simple and efficient way of collecting and transferring knowledge. Further, the knowledge schema provides a clear view and format on the data that needed to be gathered in order to achieve a unified knowledge exchange between different platforms. This study used a game-based platform to make product modelling environment accessible for non-engineers. Further the paper goes on to test use case based on the proposed game-based product modelling environment to validate the effectiveness among non-engineers.

Keywords: game-based learning, knowledge based engineering, product modelling, design automation

Procedia PDF Downloads 155

Authors: Olawale-Olakunle Olajumoke Elizabeth

Abstract:

There are many challenges which are been encountered in the area of tourism in Nigeria. This research work on Tourism Challenges and Prospects: The Nigerian Experience with a case study of Benin City, was carried out so as to identify the various challenges. Questionnaires were designed and administered in the various locations of Benin City, using the designed objectives and hypothesis. Use is made of both primary and secondary data collections, to gather information. The obtained data were subjected to statistical analysis where results were obtained for discussion. The results obtained showed that Tourism in the area is grossly affected by factors such as lack of preferred destination, lack of consistency in policy, erratic power-supply, bad road networks, insecurity in the city and perennial conflicts, no enabling environment for investors or tourists among others. It was revealed that touristic activities in the area are at low level due to economic hardship and this is rubbing the city of its contribution to the national economy. It is however recommended that the government should create an enabling environment for both investors and tourists, as this will fasten the development of tourism in the city.

Keywords: destination, network, tourists and investors, Nigeria, industry

Procedia PDF Downloads 390

Authors: Ludmilla Wikkeling-Scott, Amira Karim

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Background: In a rapidly developing environment, concerns for pollution and depletion of natural resources are challenges facing global communities. A major source of waste on university campuses is the use of plastic bottles, while cost of production and processing is high. Consumer demand stimulates popularity of plastic bottle production, but researchers agree this is not a sustainable solution. This pilot study assesses plastic water bottle used and attitude towards alternatives among Emirati college students. Methods: This study was conducted in December 2016, using an anonymous self-administered survey of 17 questions. The survey included personal characteristics, plastic water bottle used, attitude towards alternative replacement and sustainability. For statistical analysis, STATA 14C was used to determine significance of association. Results: A total of 500 Emirati students (94.6% female) completed the survey. Of the students, 82.6% preferred bottled water over tap water, and 44.6% reported disposable bottled water use in their household, 42.6% purchased disposable bottled water more than twice a week, and 44.2% purchased bottled water at least once, while on campus. Students were willing to consider switching to alternative water bottle use if it was more convenient (22.54%), cost less (55.13%) or improved the taste (22.54%), while only 7.85% students would not consider any alternatives. There was a significant difference in attitude towards alternatives to water bottle use by area of study (p < 0.005). Conclusion: The UAE strives to be at the forefront of sustainable development and protecting biodiversity. However, a major challenge is the increasing amount of waste, exacerbated by the increasing consumer demand for convenience as seen in this billion-dollar industry. Plastic bottles, for all purposes, pose a serious threat to the environment and sustainable campus initiatives can help reduce the ecological footprint, improve awareness of safe alternatives and benefits to the environment.

Keywords: ecological foot print, emirati students, plastic bottle consumption, sustainable campus

Procedia PDF Downloads 159