Search results for: environmental design

Authors: Francesca Nicolosi, Teresa Cosola

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Climate changes in Mediterranean areas, such as the increase of average seasonal temperatures, the urban heat island phenomenon, the intensification of solar radiation and the extreme weather threats, cause disruption events, so that climate adaptation has become a pressing issue. Due to the strategic role that the built heritage holds in terms of environmental impact and energy waste and its potentiality, it is necessary to assess the vulnerability and the adaptive capacity of the existing building to climate change, in order to define different mitigation scenarios. The aim of this research work is to define an optimized and integrated methodology for the assessment of resilience levels and adaptation scenarios for existing buildings in Mediterranean urban areas. Moreover, the study of resilience indicators allows us to define building environmental and energy performance in order to identify the design and technological solutions for the improvement of the building and its urban area potentialities. The methodology identifies step-by-step different phases, starting from the detailed study of characteristic elements of urban system: climatic, natural, human, typological and functional components are analyzed in their critical factors and their potential. Through the individuation of the main perturbing factors and the vulnerability degree of the system to the risks linked to climate change, it is possible to define mitigation and adaptation scenarios. They can be different, according to the typological, functional and constructive features of the analyzed system, divided into categories of intervention, and characterized by different analysis levels (from the single building to the urban area). The use of software simulations allows obtaining information on the overall behavior of the building and the urban system, to generate predictive models in the medium and long-term environmental and energy retrofit and to make a comparative study of the mitigation scenarios identified. The studied methodology is validated on a case study.

Keywords: climate impact mitigation, energy efficiency, existing building heritage, resilience

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Authors: A.Halim Sahelan, Mohd Halid Abu, Jamaluddin Hashim, Zulisman Maksom, Mohd Afif Md Nasir

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This study aims to assess the students' needs for the tour planning e-guide. The study is developing on the contribution and importance of the Educational Tour Planning Guide (ETP) is a multimedia courseware as one of the effective methods in teaching and learning of environmental science among the students in primary schools of the Ministry of Education, Malaysia. It is to provide the student with knowledge and experience about tourism, environmental science activities and process. E-guide to ETP also hopes to strengthen the student understanding toward the subject learns in the tourism environmental science. In order to assess the student's needs on the e-Guide to Educational Tour Planning in Environmental Science, the study has produced a similar e-Guide to ETP in the form as a courseware to be tested during the study. The study has involved several steps in order to be completed. It is such as the formulation of the problem, the review of the literature, the formulation of the study methodology, the production of the e-Guide to ETP, field survey and finally the analyses and discussion made on the data gathered during the study. The survey has involved 100 respondents among the students in standard six primary schools in Kluang Johor. Through the findings, the study indicates that the currently tested product is acceptable among the students in learning environmental science as a guide to plan for the tour. The findings also show a slight difference between the respondents who are using the e-Guide to ETP, and those who are not on the basis of the e-Guide to ETP results. Due the important for the study, the researcher hopes to be having a fair discussion and excellence, recommendation for the development of the product of the current study. This report is written also important to provide a written reference for the future related study.

Keywords: the tour planning e-guide, the Educational Tour Planning Guide, environmental science, multimedia course ware

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Authors: Afshan Golriz

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This paper addresses the nuances in the relationship between the rural community of Volcan, Costa Rica, and the presence of multinational pineapple giant Pineapple Development Corporation (PINDECO). The paper analyzes the continuous negotiation between the need for environmental protection in the face of pineapple monoculture and the socioeconomic dependencies of the community on the company. Drawing on eight years of ethnographic work in Volcan de Buenos Aires and relying on intergenerational interviews that document oral histories, this article provides a socio-historical account of the economic and environmental impact of the presence of PINDECO in the southern zone of the country. The paper draws on interviews and in-depth participant observation, conducted by the author in intermittent periods over eight years. The research sheds light on the tensions between the village and PINDECO, as simultaneous acceptance of and opposition to the company persist by different stakeholders in the region. In doing so, this paper examines the strikingly powerful affinity toward the company and the community's regard for PINDECO as the town patriarch despite social and environmental injustices. In demonstrating these tensions, the author problematizes the practice of conducting foreign environmental research in developing countries, and more importantly, proposing changes to environmental conservation and socioeconomic structures without understanding community reliance on the presence of corporations such as PINDECO and the threats that changes to existing structures could pose to community members' livelihoods. In complicating these common western academic practices, the author takes an anti-colonial approach to environmental research, refusing the assumption that the affinity toward the company by the community of Volcan is rooted in ignorance, lack of education, or lack of interest in environmental conservation. The author instead highlights local knowledge and agency, demonstrating the many ways in which the community itself is producing knowledge and taking action. Through this paper, common assumptions regarding the agency of such communities are contested, and the grassroots environmental initiatives of Volcan, Costa Rica are brought to life.

Keywords: environmental conservation, grassroots movements, local knowledge, agricultural multinational

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Authors: David Calderon Villegas, Thomas Kaltizky

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Run-of-river (RoR) hydropower projects represent a viable, clean, and cost-effective alternative to dam-based plants and provide decentralized power production. However, RoR schemes cost-effectiveness depends on the proper selection of site and design flow, which is a challenging task because it requires multivariate analysis. In this respect, this study presents the development of an investment decision support tool for assessing the optimal size of an RoR scheme considering the technical, environmental, and cost constraints. The net present value (NPV) from a project perspective is used as an objective function for supporting the investment decision. The tool has been tested by applying it to an actual RoR project recently proposed in Colombia. The obtained results show that the optimum point in financial terms does not match the flow that maximizes energy generation from exploiting the river's available flow. For the case study, the flow that maximizes energy corresponds to a value of 5.1 m3/s. In comparison, an amount of 2.1 m3/s maximizes the investors NPV. Finally, a sensitivity analysis is performed to determine the NPV as a function of the debt rate changes and the electricity prices and the CapEx. Even for the worst-case scenario, the optimal size represents a positive business case with an NPV of 2.2 USD million and an IRR 1.5 times higher than the discount rate.

Keywords: small hydropower, renewable energy, RoR schemes, optimal sizing, objective function

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Authors: Marzieh Imani

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Antoni Gaudi and Santiago Calatrava have reputation for designing bio-inspired creative and technical buildings. Even though they have followed different independent approaches towards design, the source of bio-inspiration seems to be common. Taking a closer look at their projects reveals that Calatrava has been influenced by Gaudi in terms of interpreting nature and applying natural principles into the design process. This research firstly discusses the dialogue between Biomimicry and architecture. This review also explores human/nature discourse during the history by focusing on how nature revealed itself to the fine arts. This is explained by introducing naturalism and romantic style in architecture as the outcome of designers’ inclination towards nature. Reviewing the literature, theoretical background and practical illustration of nature have been included. The most dominant practical aspects of imitating nature are form and function. Nature has been reflected in architectural science resulted in shaping different architectural styles such as organic, green, sustainable, bionic, and biomorphic. By defining a set of common aspects of Gaudi and Calatrava‘s design approach and by considering biomimetic design categories (organism, ecosystem, and behaviour as the main division and form, function, process, material, and construction as subdivisions), Gaudi’s and Calatrava’s project have been analysed. This analysis explores if their design approaches are equivalent or different. Based on this analysis, Gaudi’s architecture can be recognised as biomorphic while Calatrava’s projects are literally biomimetic. Referring to these architects, this review suggests a new set of principles by which a bio-inspired project can be determined either biomorphic or biomimetic.

Keywords: biomimicry, Calatrava, Gaudi, nature

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Authors: Lianxue Shi

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Riverfront street has the dual characteristics of street space and waterfront space, which is not only a vital place for residents to travel and communicate but also a high-frequency space for people's leisure and entertainment. However, under the development of cities and towns pursuing efficiency, riverfront streets appear to have a variety of problems, such as a lack of multifunctionality, insufficient facilities, and loss of characteristics, which fail to meet the needs of various groups of people, and their inclusiveness is facing a great challenge. It is, therefore, evident that the optimization of riverfront street space from an inclusivity perspective is important to the establishment of a human-centered, high-quality urban space. Therefore, this article starts by exploring the interactive relationship between inclusive design and street space. Based on the analysis of the characteristics of the riverfront street space and people's needs, it proposes the four inclusive design orientations of natural inclusion, group inclusion, spatial inclusion, and social inclusion. It then constructs a design framework for the inclusive optimization of riverfront street space, aiming to create streets that are “safe and accessible, diverse and shared, distinctive and friendly, green and sustainable”. Riverfront streets in Wansheng District, Chongqing, are selected as a practice case, and specific strategies are put forward in four aspects: the creation of an accessible slow-traffic system, the provision of diversified functional services, the reshaping of emotional bonds and the integration of ecological spaces.

Keywords: inclusiveness design, riverfront street, spatial optimization, street spaces

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Authors: M. Adamski, J. Cwiklak

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The contemporary battlefield creates a demand for more costly and highly advanced munitions. Training personnel responsible for operations, as well as an immediate execution of combat tasks, which engage real assets, is unrealistic and economically not feasible. Owing to a wide array of exploited simulators and various types of imitators, it is possible to reduce the costs. One of the effective elements of training, which can be applied in the training of all service branches, are imitators of aerial targets. This research serves as an introduction to the commencement of design analysis over a real aerial target imitator. Within the project, the basic aerodynamic calculations were made, which enabled to determine its geometry, design layout, performance, as well as the mass balance of individual components. The conducted calculations of the parameters of flight characteristics come closer to the real performance of such unmanned aerial vehicles.

Keywords: aerial target, aerodynamics, imitator, performance

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Authors: Mengxiao Li, Johnson Zhang

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Currently, topology optimization technique is widely used to define the layout design of structures that are presented as truss-like topologies. However, due to the difficulty in combining optimization technique with more realistic material models where their nonlinear properties should be considered, the achieved optimized topologies are commonly unable to apply straight towards the practical design problems. This study presented an optimization procedure of composite structures where different elastic stiffness, yield criteria, and hardening models are assumed for the candidate materials. From the results, it can be concluded that a more explicit modeling has the significant influence on the resulting topologies. Also, the isotropic or kinematic hardening is important for elastoplastic structural optimization design. The capability of the proposed optimization procedure is shown through several cases.

Keywords: topology optimization, material composition, nonlinear modeling, hardening rules

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Authors: Ann Mariya Jose, Ashfina T.

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Construction and demolition waste is one of the rising concerns globally due to the amount of waste generated annually, the area taken up by landfills, and the adverse environmental impacts that follow. One of the primary causes of the rise in construction and demolition waste is a lack of facilities and knowledge for incorporating recycled materials into new construction. Bricks are a conventional material that has been used for construction for centuries, and Autoclave Aerated Concrete (AAC) blocks are a new emergent material in the market. This study evaluates the impact brick walls, and AAC block walls have on the environment using the tool One Click LCA, considering three End of Life (EoL) scenarios: the materials are landfilled, recycled, and reused in a new building. The final objective of the study is to evaluate the environmental impact caused by these two different walls on the environmental factors such as Global Warming Potential (GWP), Acidification Potential (AP), Eutrophication Potential (EP), Ozone Depletion Potential (ODP), and Photochemical Ozone Creation Potential (POCP). The findings revealed that the GWP caused by landfilling is 16 times higher in bricks and 22 times higher in AAC blocks when compared to the reuse of materials. The study recommends the effective use of AAC blocks in construction and reuse of the same to reduce the overall emissions to the environment.

Keywords: construction and demolition waste, environmental impact, life cycle impact assessment, material recycling

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Authors: Trianasari, Gede Adi Yuniarta

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The tourism industry has been widely recognized as one of the world’s largest industries and is expected to have continuous growth. While it has positive impacts especially on the job markets and economic aspect, this industry also brings serious environmental impacts that may not be neglected. As such, the tourism industry is faced with increasing demands and challenges to deal with the environmental issues. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a way to show the firms’ concern on the societal and environmental aspects. In line with the increasing pressure on such responsibilities, a growing number of firms have involved in CSR activities. In Bali, the majority of both chained and locally owned hotels have shown their efforts on CSR practices. However, little is known about what and how they perform or implement such program especially within the environmental aspect. The importance of understanding what they focus on lays in the identification of areas that have received sufficient treatment and those that require more attention. Furthermore, also, it is especially essential considering that Bali is one of the worldly known destinations that have been facing numerous crucial issues on environment that may threaten the sustainability of the island and its people. This paper reports on the results of a study exploring the practices of CSR in hotels in Bali. Data were collected from 49 hotel managers and human resource managers in Bali across four major tourist areas, using semi structured interview method. The analysis was conducted qualitatively. The results showed that all hotels under study have implemented CSR activities in which environment was found to be the second key aspect, following the activities directly related to community aspect. Moreover, there were five major types of environmental action identified: beach cleaning, replantation, marine conservation, turtle conservation, mangrove, and garbage management. These findings suggest that hotels in Bali under study have shown their concern on the environment, however, less attention was given on attempt to reduce the environmental impacts of their operations. Mapping the types of environmental related CSR activities enhances the knowledge of and gives lights into the CSR literature especially from the perspective of Eastern practice.

Keywords: CSR, exploratory study, sustainable tourism, tourist object

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Authors: Rashmi Shahu

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Flexibility is becoming a more widely accepted aspect of project management. Although contingency theory in project management states that the unknowns are controllable, complexity theory believes that the best way to handle the unknowns would be to have a flexible approach rather than rigidity. Designing a flexible system is a method of managing uncertainty. The present research work aims to evaluate flexibility in the initial design phase of projects taking examples of construction projects. Flexibility in the initial design phase is modeled in order to know the advantage in future. The comparison between the extra cost of flexibility in the initial design phase and the discount that can be achieved in future due to this premium will help the developers in making strategic decisions. This research uses a methodology for valuing flexibility by developing a mathematical formula for predicting future saving of cost. Two case studies were considered in this research to validate the mathematical formula. This research explains three case studies of an educational institution 28 years old for explaining the concept and giving benefits of flexible design for modification/renovation work of building.

Keywords: flexibility, future saving, flexibility cost, construction projects

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Authors: Mehri Bagherkazemi, Naser Hafezi Moghaddas

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This study investigates the environmental impact of the disposal site located in Shahrood city, focusing on the geological characteristics of the region. Shahrood's disposal site primarily consists of limestone bedrock, overlaid by substantial alluvial deposits. The area's highly permeable soil is anticipated to have a significant influence on groundwater pollution. Spanning 52 hectares, the Shahrood disposal site is situated in the eastern sector of the city. Historically, waste disposal took place on the surface, but recent practices involve on-site trenching. This research involved the collection of soil and water samples near the disposal site, with subsequent analysis of 11 soil samples and 3 water samples. The soil's particle size distribution was determined, and comprehensive analyses were conducted for 35 elements in the soil and 42 elements in water. The study combines the results of these tests with field investigations to evaluate the landfill's impact on the surrounding soil and groundwater contamination.

Keywords: environmental geology, environmental impact assessment, disposal site, heavy metals contamination

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Authors: Swati Rajput

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Environmental psychology explains that the person is a social agent that seeks to extract meaning from their built and natural environment to behave in a particular manner. It also shows the attachment or detachment of people to their environment. Assessing environmental psychology of people is imperative for planners and policy makers for urban planning. The paper investigates the environmental psychology of people living in nine districts of Delhi by calculating and assessing their Environmental Emotional Quotient (EEQ). Emotional Quotient deals with the ability to sense, understand, attach and respond according to the power of emotions. An Environmental Emotional Quotient has been formulated based upon the inventory administered to them. The respondents were asked questions related to their view and emotions about the green spaces, water resource conservation, air and environmental quality. An effort has been made to assess the feeling of belongingness among the residents. Their views were assessed on green spaces, reuse, and recycling of resources and their participation level. They were also been assessed upon health awareness level by considering both preventive and curative segments of health care. It was found that only 12 percent of the people is emotionally attached to their surroundings in the city. The emotional attachment reduces as we move away from the house to housing complex to neighbouring areas and rest of the city. In fact, the emotional quotient goes lower to lowest from house to other ends of the city. It falls abruptly after the radius of 1 km from the residence. The result also shows that nearly 54% respondents accept that there is environment pollution in their area. Around 47.8% respondents in the survey consider that diseases occur because of green cover depiction in their area. Major diseases are to airborne diseases like asthma and bronchitis. Seasonal disease prevalent, which specially occurred from last 3-4 years are malaria, dengue and chikengunya. Survey also shows that only 31 % of respondents visit government hospitals while 69% respondents visit private hospitals or small clinics for healthcare services. The paper suggests the need for environmental sensitive policies and need for green insurance in mega cities like Delhi.

Keywords: environmental psychology, environmental emotional quotient, preventive health care and curative health care, sustainable living

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Authors: Wei-Chieh Yeh, Yung-Tang Shen

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The concept of community building started in 1994 in Taiwan. After years of development, it fostered the notion of active local resident participation in community issues as co-operators, instead of minions. Participatory design gives participants more control in the decision-making process, helps to reduce the friction caused by arguments and assists in bringing different parties to consensus. This results in an increase in the efficiency of projects run in the community. Therefore, the participation of local residents is key to the success of community building. This study applied participatory design to develop plans for the reuse of deserted spaces in the community from the first stage of brainstorming for design ideas, making creative models to be employed later, through to the final stage of construction. After conducting a series of participatory designed activities, it aimed to integrate the different opinions of residents, develop a sense of belonging and reach a consensus. Besides this, it also aimed at building the residents’ awareness of their responsibilities for the environment and related issues of sustainable development. By reviewing relevant literature and understanding the history of related studies, the study formulated a theory. It took the “2012-2014 Changhua County Community Planner Counseling Program” as a case study to investigate the implementation process of participatory design. Research data are collected by document analysis, participants’ observation and in-depth interviews. After examining the three elements of “Design Participation”, “Construction Participation”, and” Follow–up Maintenance Participation” in the case, the study emerged with a promising conclusion: Maintenance works were carried out better compared to common public works. Besides this, maintenance costs were lower. Moreover, the works that residents were involved in were more creative. Most importantly, the community characteristics could be easy be recognized.

Keywords: participatory design, deserted space, community building, reuse

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Authors: Hendrik Bernard Van Der Walt, Frik Van Niekerk

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Heterogeneous thorium-based fuels have been proposed as an alternative for conventional reactor fuels and many studies have shown promising results. Fuel cycle characteristics still have to be explored in detail. This study investigates the use of a novel thorium-based fuel design aimed at increasing fuel cycle length of a typical PWR with an explicit focus on thorium- uranium content, neutron spectrum, flux considerations and neutron economy.As nuclear reactions are highly dependent on reactor flux and material matrix, analytical and numerical calculations have been completed to predict the behaviour of the proposed nuclear fuel. The proposed design utilizes various ratios of thorium oxide and uranium oxide pellets within fuel pins, divided into heterogeneous sections of specified length. This design renders multiple regions with unique characteristics. The goal of this study is to determine and optimally utilize these characteristics. Proliferation considerations result in the need for denaturing of heterogeneous regions, which renders more unique characteristics, these aspects were examined in this study. Finally, the use of fertile thorium to emulate a burnable poison for managing excess BOL reactivity has been investigated, as well as an option for flux shaping in a typical PWR.

Keywords: nuclear fuel, nuclear characteristics, nuclear fuel cycle, thorium-based fuel, heterogeneous design

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Authors: Mohammad Atiqur Rahman

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The study aimed at inventorying the threatened biodiversity of Bangladesh and assessing the rate of loss of biodiversity caused due to environmental degradation for conservation management. The impact assessment of environmental depletion and rate of biodiversity loss determination have been made by a long term field investigation, examination of preserved herbarium specimens and survey of relevant floristic literature following the IUCN’s threatened criteria of assessing Red List Plants under the Flora Bangladesh Project. Biodiversity of Bangladesh, as evaluated, has been affected to a large extent during the last four and half decades due to spontaneous environmental degradation caused by frequent occurrence of cyclonic storms and tidal bores since 1970 and flooding, draught, unilateral diversion of trans-boundary waters by operating Farakka Barrage since 1975, indiscriminate destruction and over exploitation of natural resources, unplanned development and industrialization, overpopulation etc. Depletion of world’s largest mangrove biodiversity in Sundarbans, coastal and island biodiversity in southern part, agro-biodiversity and agro-fisheries all over the country, Haor and wetland biodiversity of plain lands, terrestrial and forest biodiversity in central and eastern hilly part of Bangladesh, as assessed, have greatly been occurred at a higher rate due to environmental degradation which in turn affect directly or indirectly the economy, food security and environmental health of the country. Complete inventory of 30 plant families resulted in the recognition of 45.18% species of Bangladesh as threatened environmentally and 13.23% species as possibly extinct from the flora since these have neither been reported or could be traced in the field for more than 100 years. The rate of extinction is determined to be 2.65% per 20 years. Hence the study indicates that the loss of biodiversity and environmental degradation in Bangladesh occurring at an alarming rate. The study focuses on the issues of environment, the extent of loss of different plant biodiversities in Bangladesh, prioritizing and implementing national conservation strategies for sustainable management of the environment.

Keywords: Bangladesh, biodiversity, conservation, environmental management

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Authors: Favour Makuochukwu Orji, Yingkui Zhao

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A myriad of environmental issues face the Nigerian industrial region, resulting from; oil and gas production, mining, manufacturing and domestic wastes. Amidst these, much effort has been directed by stakeholders in the Nigerian oil producing regions, because of the impacts of the region on the wider Nigerian economy. Research to date has suggested that collaborative environmental management could be an effective approach in managing environmental issues; but little attention has been given to the roles and practices of stakeholders in effecting a collaborative environmental management framework for the Nigerian oil-producing region. This paper produces a framework to expand and deepen knowledge relating to stakeholders aspects of collaborative roles in managing environmental issues in the Nigeria oil-producing region. The knowledge is derived from analysis of stakeholders’ practices – studied through multiple case studies using document analysis. Selected documents of key stakeholders – Nigerian government agencies, multi-national oil companies and host communities, were analyzed. Open and selective coding was employed manually during document analysis of data collected from the offices and websites of the stakeholders. The findings showed that the stakeholders have a range of roles, practices, interests, drivers and barriers regarding their collaborative roles in managing environmental issues. While they have interests for efficient resource use, compliance to standards, sharing of responsibilities, generating of new solutions, and shared objectives; there is evidence of major barriers which includes resource allocation, disjointed policy and regulation, ineffective monitoring, diverse socio- economic interests, lack of stakeholders’ commitment and limited knowledge sharing. However, host communities hold deep concerns over the collaborative roles of stakeholders for economic interests, particularly, where government agencies and multi-national oil companies are involved. With these barriers and concerns, a genuine stakeholders’ collaboration is found to be limited, and as a result, optimal environmental management practices and policies have not been successfully implemented in the Nigeria oil-producing region. A framework is produced that describes practices that characterize collaborative environmental management might be employed to satisfy the stakeholders’ interests. The framework recommends critical factors, based on the findings, which may guide a collaborative environmental management in the oil producing regions. The recommendations are designed to re-define the practices of stakeholders in managing environmental issues in the oil producing regions, not as something wholly new, but as an approach essential for implementing a sustainable environmental policy. This research outcome may clarify areas for future research as well as to contribute to industry guidance in the area of collaborative environmental management.

Keywords: collaborative environmental management framework, case studies, document analysis, multinational oil companies, Nigerian oil producing regions, Nigerian government agencies, stakeholders analysis

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Authors: Hao Qin

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This paper proposes a guiding tool for companies to write social responsibility report by developing an applicable writing system based on analysis of its functional requirements, writing indicators and roles. The system’s operation and results concerned will be demonstrated as well.

Keywords: social responsibility, report writing, system, design and realization

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Authors: Estela Macedo Alves

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This paper is an overview on public policy analysis focused on the study of Brazilian public policy making process. The methodology is based on the review of some theories on the subject, linking them to Brazilian reality. The study presents basic policy analysis concepts, such as policy, polity and politics. It is emphasized John Kingdon's Multiple Stream Model, because of its clarifying aspects concerning public policies formulation process in democratic countries. In this path it was possible to establish interpretations on environmental public policies in Brazil and understand its methods, instead of presenting only a case study. At the end, it is possible to connect theory with Brazilian reality, identifying negative and positive points of its political processes and structure.

Keywords: Brazilian policies, environmental public policy, multiple stream model, public policy analysis

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Authors: Zwalnan Selfa Johnson, Caleb Nanchen Nimyel, Gideon Duvuna Ayuba

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Air conditioning accounts for a significant share of the overall energy consumed in residential buildings. Solar thermal gains in buildings account for a significant component of the air conditioning load in buildings. This study compares the solar thermal gain and air conditioning load of a proposed building design with a typical conventional building in the climatic conditions of Jos, Nigeria, using a combined experimental and computational method using TRNSYS software. According to the findings of this study, the proposed design building's annual average solar thermal gains are lower compared to the reference building's average solar heat gains. The study case building's decreased solar heat gain is mostly attributable to the lower temperature of the building zones because of the greater building volume and lower fenestration ratio (ratio external opening area to the area of the external walls). This result shows that the proposed building design adjusts to the local climate better than the standard conventional construction in Jos to maintain a suitable temperature within the building. This finding means that the air-conditioning electrical energy consumption per volume of the proposed building design will be lower than that of a conventional building design.

Keywords: solar heat gain, building zone, cooling energy, air conditioning, zone temperature

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Authors: Carlos Ferreira, Paulo Freitas, Valentim Freitas

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Creative industries’ workers are becoming more prominent as countries move towards intellectual-based economies. Consequently, the nature and essence of the workplace needs to be reconfigured so that creativity and productivity can be better promoted at these spaces. Using a multidisciplinary approach and a user-centered methodology, combining product design, electronic engineering, software and human-computer interaction, we have designed and developed a new seat that uses embedded sensors and actuators to increase the overall well-being of its users, their productivity and their creativity. Our contribution focuses on the parameters that most affect the user’s work on these kinds of spaces, which are, according to our study, noise and temperature. We describe the design process for a new interactive seat targeted at improving workspace productivity.

Keywords: human-computer interaction, usability, user interface, creativity, ergonomics

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Authors: Abdul Rahim Razalli, Nordin Mamat, Lee Kean Low

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The objective of the study is to examine the acquisition of Bahasa Melayu hand coded and Malaysian Sign Language of hearing impaired children and the factors that influencing the acquisition of Malay language at early intervention. A qualitative research design was chosen to answer two research questions. Two sets of instruments have been used to obtain information of proficiency and factors that influence it. Five children with hearing problems, four teachers and three parents were selected as the respondents through purposive sampling technique. The findings show that pupils with hearing problems who mastered Bahasa Melayu hand coded have better acquisition of Bahasa Melayu as compared to those who acquired Malaysian Sign Language. The study also found that the parents, pupils, teachers and environmental factors have an impact on the acquisition of Bahasa Melayu hand coded. The implications of this study show that early intervention of Bahasa Melayu hand coded and the parents, pupils, teachers and environmental factors do help in the language proficiency of children with hearing problems. A more comprehensive study should be undertaken at a higher level to see the impact on an early intervention program for Malay language acquisition of hearing impaired children.

Keywords: Bahasa Melayu hand coded, Malaysian sign Language, hearing impaired children, early intervention

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Authors: Shimaa Mahmoud Ali Ahmed, Boshra Tawfek El-Shreef

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Sustainable development has become an important concern worldwide, and climate change has become a global threat. Some of these affect how we approach environmental issues — and how we should approach them. Environmental aspects have an important impact on the built environment, that’s why knowledge about Green Building and Green Construction become a vital dimension of urban sustainable development to face the challenges of climate change. There are several levels of green buildings, from energy-efficient lighting to 100% eco-friendly construction; the concept of green buildings in Egypt is still a rare occurrence, with the concept being relatively new to the market. There are several projects on the ground that currently employing sustainable and green solutions to some extent, some of them achieve a limit of success and others fail to employ the new solutions. The market and the cost as well, are great factors. From the last century, green architecture and environmental sustainability become a famous trend that all the researchers like to follow. Nowadays, the trend towards green has shifted to housing and real estate projects. While the environmental aspects are the key to achieve green buildings, the economic benefits, and the market forces are considered as big challenges. The paper assumes that some appropriate environmental treatments could be added to the applied prototype of the governmental social housing projects in Egypt to achieve better environmental solutions. The aim of the research is to get housing projects in Egypt closer to the track of sustainable and green buildings, through making a local future proposal to be integrated into the current policies. The proposed model is based upon adding some appropriate, cheap environmental modifications to the prototype of the Ministry of Housing, Infrastructure, and New Urban Communities. The research is based on an analytical, comparative analytical, and inductive approach to study and analyze the housing projects in Egypt and the possibilities of integrating green techniques into it.

Keywords: green buildings, urban sustainability, housing projects, sustainable development goals, Egypt 2030

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Authors: Semanur Savruk, Onur Akbatı

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Integration of various communication protocols into an automation system causes a rise in setup and maintenance cost and make to control network devices in difficulty. The gateway becomes necessary for reducing complexity in network topology. In this study, Modbus RTU/Modbus TCP industrial ethernet gateway design and implementation are presented with ARM embedded system and FreeRTOS real-time operating system. The Modbus gateway can perform communication with Modbus RTU and Modbus TCP devices over itself. Moreover, the gateway can be adjustable with the user-interface application or messaging interface. Conducted experiments and the results are presented in the paper. Eventually, the proposed system is a complete, low-cost, real-time, and user-friendly design for monitoring and setting devices and useful for meeting remote control purposes.

Keywords: gateway, industrial communication, modbus, network

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Authors: Farhan Beg

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This paper presents a method for the efficient implementation of a unidirectional or bidirectional DC/DC converter. The DC/DC converter is used essentially for energy exchange between the low voltage service battery and a high voltage battery commonly found in Electric Vehicle applications. In these applications, apart from cost, efficiency of design is an important characteristic. A useful way to reduce the size of electronic equipment in the electric vehicles is proposed in this paper. The technique simplifies the mechanical complexity and maximizes the energy usage using the latest converter control techniques. Moreover a bidirectional battery charger for hybrid electric vehicles is also implemented in this paper. Several simulations on the test system have been carried out in Matlab/Simulink environment. The results exemplify the robustness of the proposed design methodology in case of a 1.5 KW DC-DC converter.

Keywords: DC-DC converters, electric vehicles, power electronics, direct current control

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Authors: Ľubomír Šooš, Peter Križan, Juraj Beniak, Miloš Matúš

Abstract:

The success of introducing a new product on the market is the new principle of production, or progressive design, improved efficiency or high quality of manufactured products. Proportionally with the growth of interest in press-biofuels - pellets or briquettes, is also growing interest in the new design better, more efficiently machines produce pellets, briquettes or granules completely new shapes. Our department has for years dedicated to the development of new highly productive designs pressing machines and new optimized press-biofuels. In this field, we have more than 40 national and international patents. The aim of paper is description of the introduction of a new principle pelleting mill and the description of his process of research, development, manufacturing and testing to deployment into production.

Keywords: compacting process, pellets mill, design, new conception, press-biofuels, patent, waste

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Authors: Nesreddine Djafar Henni, Nassim Djedoui, Rachid Chebili

Abstract:

Recent decades have witnessed significant efforts being made to optimize different types of structures and components. The concept of cost optimization in reinforced concrete structures, which aims at minimizing financial resources while ensuring maximum building safety, comprises multiple materials, and the objective function for their optimal design is derived from the construction cost of the steel as well as concrete that significantly contribute to the overall weight of reinforced concrete (RC) structures. To achieve this objective, this work has been devoted to optimizing the structural design of 3D RC frame buildings which integrates, for the first time, the Algerian regulations. Three different test examples were investigated to assess the efficiency of our work in optimizing RC frame buildings. The hybrid GWOPSO algorithm is used, and 30000 generations are made. The cost of the building is reduced by iteration each time. Concrete and reinforcement bars are used in the building cost. As a result, the cost of a reinforced concrete structure is reduced by 30% compared with the initial design. This result means that the 3D cost-design optimization of the framed structure is successfully achieved.

Keywords: optimization, automation, API, Malab, RC structures

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Authors: Haidong Li, Weishou Shen, Guoping Lv, Tao Wang

Abstract:

Aiming to overcome the limitation of the application of traditional remote sensing (RS) technique in the mine eco-environmental monitoring, in this paper, we first classified the eco-environmental damages caused by mining activities and then introduced the principle, classification and characteristics of the Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) technique. The potentiality of LiDAR technique in the mine eco-environmental monitoring was analyzed, particularly in extracting vertical structure parameters of vegetation, through comparing the feasibility and applicability of traditional RS method and LiDAR technique in monitoring different types of indicators. The application situation of LiDAR technique in extracting typical mine indicators, such as land destruction in mining areas, damage of ecological integrity and natural soil erosion. The result showed that the LiDAR technique has the ability to monitor most of the mine eco-environmental indicators, and exhibited higher accuracy comparing with traditional RS technique, specifically speaking, the applicability of LiDAR technique on each indicator depends on the accuracy requirement of mine eco-environmental monitoring. In the item of large mine, LiDAR three-dimensional point cloud data not only could be used as the complementary data source of optical RS, Airborne/Satellite LiDAR could also fulfill the demand of extracting vertical structure parameters of vegetation in large areas.

Keywords: LiDAR, mine, ecological damage, monitoring, traditional remote sensing technique

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Authors: Jingjing Lan, Jun Yu, Muthukumaraswamy Annamalai Arasu

Abstract:

This paper presents a digital non-linear pulse-width modulation (PWM) controller in a high-voltage (HV) buck-boost DC-DC converter for the piezoelectric transducer of the down-hole acoustic telemetry system. The proposed design controls the generation of output signal with voltage higher than the supply voltage and is targeted to work under high temperature. To minimize the power consumption and silicon area, a simple and efficient design scheme is employed to develop the PWM controller. The proposed PWM controller consists of serial to parallel (S2P) converter, data assign block, a mode and duty cycle controller (MDC), linearly PWM (LPWM) and noise shaper, pulse generator and clock generator. To improve the reliability of circuit operation at higher temperature, this design is fabricated with the 1.0-μm silicon-on-insulator (SOI) CMOS process. The implementation results validated that the proposed design has the advantages of smaller size, lower power consumption and robust thermal stability.

Keywords: DC-DC power conversion, digital control, high temperatures, pulse-width modulation

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Authors: Hasan Husnu Korkmaz, Serra Zerrin Korkmaz

Abstract:

The reinforced concrete (RC) framed structures composed of beams, columns, shear walls and the slabs. The other members are assumed to be nonstructural. Especially the brick infill walls which are used to separate the rooms or spaces are just handled as dead loads. On the other hand, if these infills are constructed within the frame bays, they also have higher shear and compression capacities. It is a well-known fact that, brick infills increase the lateral rigidity of the structure and thought to be a reserve capacity in the design. But, brick infills can create unfavorable failure or damage modes in the earthquake action such as soft story or short columns. The increase in the lateral rigidity also causes an over estimation of natural period of the structure and the corresponding earthquake loads in the design are less than the actual ones. In order to obtain accurate and realistic design results, the infills must be modelled in the structural design and their capacities must be included. Unfortunately, in Turkish Earthquake Code, there is no design methodology for the engineers. In this paper, finite element modelling of infilled reinforced concrete structures are studied. The proposed or used method is compared with the experimental results of a previous study. The effect of infills on the structural response is expressed within the paper.

Keywords: seismic loading, brick infills, finite element analysis, reinforced concrete, earthquake code

Procedia PDF Downloads 314