Search results for: low cost housing projects

Authors: Jie Liu, Jinqu Cheng, Qiyuan Peng, Yong Yin

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Urban rail transit (URT) plays a significant role in dealing with traffic congestion and environmental problems in cities. However, equipment failure and obstruction of links often lead to URT links’ capacities loss in daily operation. It affects the reliability and transport service quality of URT network seriously. In order to measure the influence of links’ capacities loss on reliability and transport service quality of URT network, passengers are divided into three categories in case of links’ capacities loss. Passengers in category 1 are less affected by the loss of links’ capacities. Their travel is reliable since their travel quality is not significantly reduced. Passengers in category 2 are affected by the loss of links’ capacities heavily. Their travel is not reliable since their travel quality is reduced seriously. However, passengers in category 2 still can travel on URT. Passengers in category 3 can not travel on URT because their travel paths’ passenger flow exceeds capacities. Their travel is not reliable. Thus, the proportion of passengers in category 1 whose travel is reliable is defined as reliability indicator of URT network. The transport service quality of URT network is related to passengers’ travel time, passengers’ transfer times and whether seats are available to passengers. The generalized travel cost is a comprehensive reflection of travel time, transfer times and travel comfort. Therefore, passengers’ average generalized travel cost is used as transport service quality indicator of URT network. The impact of links’ capacities loss on transport service quality of URT network is measured with passengers’ relative average generalized travel cost with and without links’ capacities loss. The proportion of the passengers affected by links and betweenness of links are used to determine the important links in URT network. The stochastic user equilibrium distribution model based on the improved logit model is used to determine passengers’ categories and calculate passengers’ generalized travel cost in case of links’ capacities loss, which is solved with method of successive weighted averages algorithm. The reliability and transport service quality indicators of URT network are calculated with the solution result. Taking Wuhan Metro as a case, the reliability and transport service quality of Wuhan metro network is measured with indicators and method proposed in this paper. The result shows that using the proportion of the passengers affected by links can identify important links effectively which have great influence on reliability and transport service quality of URT network; The important links are mostly connected to transfer stations and the passenger flow of important links is high; With the increase of number of failure links and the proportion of capacity loss, the reliability of the network keeps decreasing, the proportion of passengers in category 3 keeps increasing and the proportion of passengers in category 2 increases at first and then decreases; When the number of failure links and the proportion of capacity loss increased to a certain level, the decline of transport service quality is weakened.

Keywords: urban rail transit network, reliability, transport service quality, links’ capacities loss, important links

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Authors: Surasak Siripornadulsil, Nutt Poomai, Wilailak Siripornadulsil

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Due to a high ethanol demand, the approach for effective ethanol production is important and has been developed rapidly worldwide. Several agricultural wastes are highly abundant in celluloses and the effective cellulose enzymes do exist widely among microorganisms. Accordingly, the cellulose degradation using microbial cellulose to produce a low-cost substrate for ethanol production has attracted more attention. In this study, the cellulose producing bacterial strain has been isolated from rich straw and identified by 16S rDNA sequence analysis as Acinetobacter sp. KKU44. This strain is able to grow and exhibit the cellulose activity. The optimal temperature for its growth and cellulose production is 37 °C. The optimal temperature of bacterial cellulose activity is 60 °C. The cellulose enzyme from Acinetobacter sp. KKU44 is heat-tolerant enzyme. The bacterial culture of 36 h. showed highest cellulose activity at 120 U/mL when grown in LB medium containing 2% (w/v). The capability of Acinetobacter sp. KKU44 to grow in cellulosic agricultural wastes as a sole carbon source and exhibiting the high cellulose activity at high temperature suggested that this strain could be potentially developed further as a cellulose degrading strain for a production of low-cost substrate used in ethanol production.

Keywords: cellulose enzyme, bagasse, rice straw, rice husk, acinetobacter sp. KKU44

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Authors: Pallav Singh, Rajesh Yabaji, Rajesh Dhir, Chanakya Hridaya

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Supply Chain Costs for the Indian Industries have been on an exponential trend due to steep inflation on fundamental cost factors – Fuel, Labour, Rents. In this changing context organizations have been focusing on adopting multiple approaches to keep logistics costs under control to protect the profit margins. The lever of ‘Business to Business (B2B) collaboration’ can be used by organizations to garner higher value. Given the context of Indian Logistics Industry the penetration of B2B Collaboration initiatives have been limited. This paper outlines a structured framework for adoption of B2B collaboration through discussion of a successful initiative between ITC’s Leaf Tobacco Business and a leading Indian Media House. Multiple barriers to such a collaborative process exist which need to be addressed through comprehensive structured approaches. This paper outlines a generic framework approach to B2B collaboration for the Indian Logistics Space, outlining the guidelines for arriving at potential opportunities, identification of collaborators, effective tie-up process, design of operations and sustenance factors. The generic methods outlined can be used in any other industry and also builds a foundation for further research on many topics.

Keywords: business to business collaboration, reverse haul logistics, transportation cost optimization, exports logistics

Procedia PDF Downloads 328

Authors: M. Jafari Toosy, A. Zamani

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This article, considering the result of pandemics at the international level and all activities and projects performed virtually and the need for resource management and virtual teams in this period identifies the components of virtual management after searching the available resources. Exploration of virtual management in the pandemic era is explored in 10 international articles. The results of research with this method and according to the tasks and topics related to management knowledge and definition of virtual teams can be divided into topics such as planning, decision making, control, organization, leadership, attention to growth and capability, resources and facilities, Communication, creativity, innovation and security. In order to explain the nature of virtual management, a definition of virtual management was provided.

Keywords: management, virtual, virtual team management, pandemic, team

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Authors: Anna Crivellari, Valerio Cozzani

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Even though most of the electricity produced in the entire world still comes from fossil fuels, new policies are being implemented in order to promote a more sustainable use of energy sources. Offshore renewable resources have become increasingly attractive thanks to the huge entity of power potentially obtained. However, the intermittent nature of renewables often limits the capacity of the systems and creates mismatches between supply and demand. Hydrogen is foreseen to be a promising vector to store and transport large amounts of excess renewable power by using existing oil and gas infrastructure. In this work, an offshore hybrid energy system integrating wind energy conversion with hydrogen production was conceptually defined and applied to offshore gas platforms. A techno-economic analysis was performed by considering two different locations for the installation of the innovative power system, i.e., the North Sea and the Adriatic Sea. The water depth, the distance of the platform from the onshore gas grid, the hydrogen selling price and the green financial incentive were some of the main factors taken into account in the comparison. The results indicated that the use of well-defined indicators allows to capture specifically different cost and revenue features of the analyzed systems, as well as to evaluate their competitiveness in the actual and future energy market.

Keywords: cost analysis, energy efficiency assessment, hydrogen production, offshore wind energy

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Authors: Same Noel Ngando, Yakub Abdulfatai Olatunji

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Renewable energy micro-grids, such as those powered by solar or wind energy, are often intermittent in nature. This means that the amount of energy generated by these systems can vary depending on weather conditions or other factors, which can make it difficult to ensure a steady supply of power. To address this issue, energy storage systems have been developed to increase the reliability of renewable energy micro-grids. Battery systems have been the dominant energy storage technology for renewable energy micro-grids. Batteries can store large amounts of energy in a relatively small and compact package, making them easy to install and maintain in a micro-grid setting. Additionally, batteries can be quickly charged and discharged, allowing them to respond quickly to changes in energy demand. However, the process involved in recycling batteries is quite costly and difficult. An alternative energy storage system that is gaining popularity is hydrogen storage. Hydrogen is a versatile energy carrier that can be produced from renewable energy sources such as solar or wind. It can be stored in large quantities at low cost, making it suitable for long-distance mass storage. Unlike batteries, hydrogen does not degrade over time, so it can be stored for extended periods without the need for frequent maintenance or replacement, allowing it to be used as a backup power source when the micro-grid is not generating enough energy to meet demand. When hydrogen is needed, it can be converted back into electricity through a fuel cell. Energy consumption data is got from a particular residential area in Daegu, South Korea, and the data is processed and analyzed. From the analysis, the total energy demand is calculated, and different hybrid energy system configurations are designed using HOMER Pro (Hybrid Optimization for Multiple Energy Resources) and MATLAB software. A techno-economic and environmental comparison and life cycle assessment (LCA) of the different configurations using battery and hydrogen as storage systems are carried out. The various scenarios included PV-hydrogen-grid system, PV-hydrogen-grid-wind, PV-hydrogen-grid-biomass, PV-hydrogen-wind, PV-hydrogen-biomass, biomass-hydrogen, wind-hydrogen, PV-battery-grid-wind, PV- battery -grid-biomass, PV- battery -wind, PV- battery -biomass, and biomass- battery. From the analysis, the least cost system for the location was the PV-hydrogen-grid system, with a net present cost of about USD 9,529,161. Even though all scenarios were environmentally friendly, taking into account the recycling cost and pollution involved in battery systems, all systems with hydrogen as a storage system produced better results. In conclusion, hydrogen is becoming a very prominent energy storage solution for renewable energy micro-grids. It is easier to store compared with electric power, so it is suitable for long-distance mass storage. Hydrogen storage systems have several advantages over battery systems, including flexibility, long-term stability, and low environmental impact. The cost of hydrogen storage is still relatively high, but it is expected to decrease as more hydrogen production, and storage infrastructure is built. With the growing focus on renewable energy and the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, hydrogen is expected to play an increasingly important role in the energy storage landscape.

Keywords: renewable energy systems, microgrid, hydrogen production, energy storage systems

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Authors: Brenda Thean I. Lim, Safurah Jaafar

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Augmented reality (AR) in the healthcare industry has been gaining popularity in recent years, principally in areas of medical education, patient care and digital health solutions. One of the drivers in deciding to invest in AR technology is the potential economic benefits it could bring for patients and healthcare providers, including the pharmaceutical and medical technology sectors. Works of literature have shown that the benefits and impact of AR technologies have left trails of achievements in improving medical education and patient health outcomes. However, little has been published on the economic impact of AR in healthcare, a very resource-intensive industry. This systematic review was performed on studies focused on the benefits and impact of AR in healthcare to appraise if they meet the founded quality criteria so as to identify relevant publications for an in-depth analysis of the economic impact assessment. The literature search was conducted using multiple databases such as PubMed, Cochrane, Science Direct and Nature. Inclusion criteria include research papers on AR implementation in healthcare, from education to diagnosis and treatment. Only papers written in English language were selected. Studies on AR prototypes were excluded. Although there were many articles that have addressed the benefits of AR in the healthcare industry in the area of medical education, treatment and diagnosis and dental medicine, there were very few publications that identified the specific economic impact of technology within the healthcare industry. There were 13 publications included in the analysis based on the inclusion criteria. Out of the 13 studies, none comprised a systematically comprehensive cost impact evaluation. An outline of the cost-effectiveness and cost-benefit framework was made based on an AR article from another industry as a reference. This systematic review found that while the advancements of AR technology is growing rapidly and industries are starting to adopt them into respective sectors, the technology and its advancements in healthcare were still in their early stages. There are still plenty of room for further advancements and integration of AR into different sectors within the healthcare industry. Future studies will require more comprehensive economic analyses and costing evaluations to enable economic decisions for or against implementing AR technology in healthcare. This systematic review concluded that the current literature lacked detailed examination and conduct of economic impact and benefit analyses. Recommendations for future research would be to include details of the initial investment and operational costs for the AR infrastructure in healthcare settings while comparing the intervention to its conventional counterparts or alternatives so as to provide a comprehensive comparison on impact, benefit and cost differences.

Keywords: augmented reality, benefit, economic impact, healthcare, patient care

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Authors: Peter Adly Hamdy Fahmy

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The aim of the study was to examine the effects of a physical education program on student learning by combining the teaching of personal and social responsibility (TPSR) with a physical education model and TPSR with a traditional teaching model, these learning outcomes involving self-learning. -Study. Athletic performance, enthusiasm for sport, group cohesion, sense of responsibility and game performance. The participants were 3 secondary school physical education teachers and 6 physical education classes, 133 participants with students from the experimental group with 75 students and the control group with 58 students, and each teacher taught the experimental group and the control group for 16 weeks. The research methods used surveys, interviews and focus group meetings. Research instruments included the Personal and Social Responsibility Questionnaire, Sports Enthusiasm Scale, Group Cohesion Scale, Sports Self-Efficacy Scale, and Game Performance Assessment Tool. Multivariate analyzes of covariance and repeated measures ANOVA were used to examine differences in student learning outcomes between combining the TPSR with a physical education model and the TPSR with a traditional teaching model. The research findings are as follows: 1) The TPSR sports education model can improve students' learning outcomes, including sports self-efficacy, game performance, sports enthusiasm, team cohesion, group awareness and responsibility. 2) A traditional teaching model with TPSR could improve student learning outcomes, including sports self-efficacy, responsibility, and game performance. 3) The sports education model with TPSR could improve learning outcomes more than the traditional teaching model with TPSR, including sports self-efficacy, sports enthusiasm, responsibility and game performance. 4) Based on qualitative data on teachers' and students' learning experience, the physical education model with TPSR significantly improves learning motivation, group interaction and sense of play. The results suggest that physical education with TPSR could further improve learning outcomes in the physical education program. On the other hand, the hybrid model curriculum projects TPSR - Physical Education and TPSR - Traditional Education are good curriculum projects for moral character education that can be used in school physics.

Keywords: approach competencies, physical, education, teachers employment, graduate, physical education and sport sciences, SWOT analysis character education, sport season, game performance, sport competence

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Authors: Azim Khodadadi, Sahar Sadaat Vakili, Ebrahim Babaei

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This study presents a numerical method to optimize the failure rate and repair time of a typical radial distribution system. Failure rate and repair time are effective parameters in customer and energy based indices of reliability. Decrease of these parameters improves reliability indices. Thus, system stability will be boost. The penalty functions indirectly reflect the cost of investment which spent to improve these indices. Constraints on customer and energy based indices, i.e. SAIFI, SAIDI, CAIDI and AENS have been considered by using a new method which reduces optimization algorithm controlling parameters. Imperialist Competitive Algorithm (ICA) used as main optimization technique and particle swarm optimization (PSO), simulated annealing (SA) and differential evolution (DE) has been applied for further investigation. These algorithms have been implemented on a test system by MATLAB. Obtained results have been compared with each other. The optimized values of repair time and failure rate are much lower than current values which this achievement reduced investment cost and also ICA gives better answer than the other used algorithms.

Keywords: imperialist competitive algorithm, failure rate, repair time, radial distribution network

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Authors: Gopi Kerekere Rangaraju, Madhu Puttegowda

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Natural fibres composites include coir, jute, bagasse, cotton, bamboo, and hemp. Natural fibers come from plants. These fibers contain lingo cellulose in nature. Natural fibers are eco-friendly; lightweight, strong, renewable, cheap, and biodegradable. The natural fibers can be used to reinforce both thermosetting and thermoplastic matrices. Thermosetting resins such as epoxy, polyester, polyurethane, and phenolic are commonly used composites requiring higher performance applications. They provide sufficient mechanical properties, in particular, stiffness and strength at acceptably low-price levels. Recent advances in natural fibers development are genetic engineering. The composites science offers significant opportunities for improved materials from renewable resources with enhanced support for global sustainability. Natural fibers composites are attractive to industry because of their low density and ecological advantages over conventional composites. These composites are gaining importance due to their non-carcinogenic and bio-degradable nature. Natural fibers composites are a very costeffective material, especially in building and construction, packaging, automobile and railway coach interiors, and storage devices. These composites are potential candidates for the replacement of high- cost glass fibers for low load bearing applications. Natural fibers have the advantages of low density, low cost, and biodegradability

Keywords: PMC, basalt, coir, carbon fibers

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Authors: Yaser Ghasemi Aryan, Firoozeh Moghiminejad, Mohammadreza Shahraki

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Background: The cooperative institution is considered the first and most essential pillar of strengthening social capital, whose sustainability is the main guarantee of survival and continued participation of local communities in natural resource management projects. The Village Development Group and the Microcredit Fund are two important social and economic institutions in the implementation of the International Project for the Restoration of Degraded Forest Lands (RFLDL) in Sarayan City, South Khorasan Province, which has learned positive lessons from the participation of the beneficiaries in the implementation. They have brought more effective projects to deal with desertification. However, the low activity or liquidation of some of these institutions has become one of the important challenges and concerns of project executive experts. The current research was carried out with the aim of explaining the main components of the instability of these institutions. Materials and Methods: This research is descriptive-analytical in terms of method, practical in terms of purpose, and the method of collecting information is two documentary and survey methods. The statistical population of the research included all the members of the village development groups and microcredit funds in the target villages of the RFLDL project of Sarayan city, based on the Kochran formula and matching with the Karjesi and Morgan table. Net people were selected as a statistical sample. After confirming the validity of the expert's opinions, the reliability of the questionnaire was 0.83, which shows the appropriate reliability of the researcher-made questionnaire. Data analysis was done using SPSS software. Results: The results related to the extraction of obstacles to the stability of social and economic networks were classified and prioritized in the form of 5 groups of social-cultural, economic, administrative, educational-promotional and policy-management factors. Based on this, in the socio-cultural factors, the items ‘not paying attention to the structural characteristics and composition of groups’, ‘lack of commitment and moral responsibility in some members of the group,’ and ‘lack of a clear pattern for the preservation and survival of groups’, in the disciplinary factors, The items ‘Irregularity in holding group meetings’ and ‘Irregularity of members to participate in meetings’, in the economic factors of the items "small financial capital of the fund’, ‘the low amount of loans of the fund’ and ‘the fund's inability to conclude contracts and attract capital from other sources’, in the educational-promotional factors of the items ‘non-simultaneity of job training with the granting of loans to create jobs’ and ‘insufficient training for the effective use of loans and job creation’ and in the policy-management factors of the item ‘failure to provide government facilities for support From the funds, they had the highest priority. Conclusion: In general, the results of this research show that policy-management factors and social factors, especially the structure and composition of social and economic institutions, are the most important obstacles to their sustainability. Therefore, it is suggested to form cooperative institutions based on network analysis studies in order to achieve the appropriate composition of members.

Keywords: cooperative institution, social capital, network analysis, participation, Sarayan.

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Authors: Jia Yin Tan, Daniel Rambei, Kate Mann, Samuel price, Ahmed Aboelela

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Introduction: Breastfeeding is a complex process, influenced by various factors. Tongue-tie may lead to breastfeeding difficulties due to an inability to suck effectively, causing sore nipples and poor infant weight gain. In the UK, most frenotomies on infants are performed by doctors, nurses, health visitors or midwives. Objectives: Evaluation of safety and efficacy of a multispecialty nurse-led rapid access tongue-tie service at Sheffield Children’s Hospital, run jointly by the ENT and paediatric surgery departments. Methodology: A retrospective observational study, including all patients attending the ENT and paediatric surgery nurse-led tongue tie clinics between 1/10/2021 and 30/09/2022. Results: During the study period there were 1135 referrals for frenotomy, with a mean of 15 days between referral to clinic episode. 86.8% of referred patients underwent frenotomy, with a complication rate of 0.1% and revision rate of 5.4%. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that our rapid access nurse-led outpatient tongue tie service is safe and efficacious, with low complication and revision rates. This suggests a potential for developing a community-based service, allowing safe and effective care closer to home.

Keywords: tongue tie, frenotomy, cost, nurse-led

Procedia PDF Downloads 111

Authors: Hatib Shabbir

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Student support services play an important role in providing technical and motivational support to distance learner. ICT based systems have improved the efficiency and effectiveness of support services. In distance education, students being at distant require quick responses from their institution. In the manual system, it is practically hard to give prompt response to each and every student, so as a result student has to suffer a lot. The best way to minimize inefficiencies is to use automated systems. This project involves the development of centralized automated software that would not only replace the manual degree issuance system of 1.3 million students studying at AIOU but also provide online tracking to all the students applying for Degrees. DTS is also the first step towards the paperless culture which is adopted by the major organizations of the world. DTS would not only save university cost but also save students cost and time too by conveying all the information/objection through email and SMS. Moreover, DTS also monitors the performance of each and every individual working in the exam department AIOU and generates daily, monthly and yearly reports of every individual which helps a lot in continuous performance monitoring of the employees.

Keywords: aiou dts, dts aiou, dts, degree tracking aiou

Procedia PDF Downloads 218

Authors: Salinee Thumronglaohapun

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The proper number and appropriate locations of service centers can save cost, raise revenue and gain more satisfaction from customers. Establishing service centers is high-cost and difficult to relocate. In long-term planning periods, several factors may affect the service. One of the most critical factors is uncertain demand of customers. The opened service centers need to be capable of serving customers and making a profit although the demand in each period is changed. In this work, the capacitated location-allocation problem with stochastic demand is considered. A mathematical model is formulated to determine suitable locations of service centers and their allocation to maximize total profit for multiple planning periods. Two heuristic methods, a local search and genetic algorithm, are used to solve this problem. For the local search, five different chances to choose each type of moves are applied. For the genetic algorithm, three different replacement strategies are considered. The results of applying each method to solve numerical examples are compared. Both methods reach to the same best found solution in most examples but the genetic algorithm provides better solutions in some cases.

Keywords: location-allocation problem, stochastic demand, local search, genetic algorithm

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Authors: Umut Tuğlu Karslı

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While, port function had a major role during the antiquity and medieval times, it has started to lose its significance in 19th century. In many port cities, while heavy industrial functions and ports have been moved out of the former port districts, the resulting derelict spaces have been transformed to new waterfront quarters to accommodate commercial, tourism, cultural, residential and public uses. Primary aim of these operations is to revitalize abandoned spaces of historical potential and re-establish a relationship between the city and the coast. Karakoy Port, field of this study, located in the Bosphorus, was surrounded by the city centre in time due to the transformation of urban functions, and as a result it has lost its former significance. While Karakoy has 24 hours lively residential and commercial uses in old times; in early 1980s, became a district of mechanical, plumbing and electronic parts suppliers during the day and a place for homeless at night. Today, activities for revitalization of this region continue in two forms and scales. First of these activities is the "planned transformation projects," which also includes the most important one “Galataport project”, and the second one is "spontaneous transformation," which consists of individual interventions. Galataport project that based on the idea of arranging the area specifically for tourists was prepared in 2005 and became a topic of tremendous public debate. On the other hand, the "spontaneous transformation" that is observed in the Karakoy District starts in 2004 with the foundation of “Istanbul Modern Museum”. Istanbul Modern, the first contemporary arts museum of the city, allowed the cultural integration of old naval warehouses of the port to the daily life. Following this adaptive reuse intervention, the district started to accommodate numerous art galleries, studios, café-workshops and design stores. In this context, this paper briefly examines revitalization studies in obsolete port regions, analyzes the planned and ongoing socio-spatial transformations in the specific case of Karakoy under the subjects of "planned transformation projects" and "spontaneous transformation", and realizes a critical review of the sustainability of the proposals on how to reinstate the district in the active life of Istanbul.

Keywords: port cities, socio-spatial transformation, urban regeneration, urban revitalization

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Authors: Tauseef-ur-Rehman, Rao Zahid Abbas, Wasim Babar, Arbab Sikandar

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Babesiosis is an infection due to the multiplication of tick borne parasite, Babesia sp., in erythrocytes of host (variety of vertebrates) including small ruminants and is responsible for decreased livestock output and hence economic losses. A cross-sectional study was designed in order to evaluate the prevalence of Babesia and its relation with various associated factors in district Toba Tek Singh, Central Punjab, Pakistan in 2009-2010. A total 10.84% (50/461) out of 461 examined cases for Babesia were found positive for Babesia infection. Month-wise peak prevalence was observed in July (17.95%), while no positive case was recorded in Dec-2009 and Jan-2010. The prevalence of infection in different goat breeds was found as non-significant (P < 0.05) for Babesia infection. The prevalence of Babesia was found significantly (P < 0.05) dependent to the goat age and sex. The feeding system, housing system, floor type and herd size revealed strong correlation with Babesia prevalence, while watering system and body conditions were found to be non-significant (P < 0.05), and hence it is suggested that with the improvement of management precautions Babesiosis can be avoided.

Keywords: Babesia, goat, prevalence, Pakistan, risk factors

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Authors: Li Li, Kai-Hsuan Chu

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It is well known that the real estate price depends on a lot of factors. Each house current value is dependent on the location, room number, transportation, living convenience, year and surrounding environments. Although, there are different experienced models for housing agent to estimate the price, it is a case by case study without overall dynamic variation investigation. However, many economic parameters may more or less influence the real estate price variation. Here, the influences of most macroeconomic parameters on real estate price are investigated individually based on least-square scheme and grey correlation strategy. Then those parameters are classified into leading indices, simultaneous indices and laggard indices. In addition, the leading time period is evaluated based on least square method. The important leading and simultaneous indices can be used to establish an artificial intelligent neural network model for real estate price variation prediction. The real estate price variation of Taipei, Taiwan during 2005 ~ 2017 are chosen for this research data analysis and validation. The results show that the proposed method has reasonable prediction function for real estate business reference.

Keywords: real estate price, least-square, grey correlation, macroeconomics

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Authors: Seyyed Hossein Alavi, Soudabe Mehri Talarposhti

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Passages urban landscape is made up of various components that the component parts of the whole and vice versa has relationships. In today’s cities, we have not seen a dual relationship and only one side of the equation which is the relationships of the component parts are considered. However, the effect of the component to whole is stronger and also longer. This means that every time the outer shell of the building was constructed instant impact on the viewers while it takes a long time to understand the impact of the building in its environment and basically, it seems city portrait has the sensory and untouchable effect on observer. Today, building facades are designated individually and in isolation from the context. Designers are familiar with the details of the facade, but they are not informed with the science of combination and its impact on portrait. The importance of city and also more important than that, the city portrait haven’t confirmed for those involved in the building and authorities and the construction been changed to a market for more glaring taste of designers and attracting more business and the city and its landscape has been forgotten. This essay is an attempt to collect a part of the principles and definitions needed on perspective issues and portrait, and it is hoped that it will open arena for more research and studies in this field and other related fields.

Keywords: facade, urban housing, urban design, sustainable architecture

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Authors: Matt Collins, Bernadette O'Regan, Tom Cosgrove

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To determine the potential of a low cost Irish engineered timber product to replace high cost solid timber for use in bending active structures such as gridshells a single Irish engineered timber product in the form of orientated strand board (OSB) was selected. A comparative study of OSB and solid timber was carried out to determine the optimum properties that make a material suitable for use in gridshells. Three parameters were identified to be relevant in the selection of a material for gridshells. These three parameters are the strength to stiffness ratio, the flexural stiffness of commercially available sections, and the variability of material and section properties. It is shown that when comparing OSB against solid timber, OSB is a more suitable material for use in gridshells that are at the smaller end of the scale and that have tight radii of curvature. Typically, for solid timber materials, stiffness is used as an indicator for strength and engineered timber is no different. Thus, low flexural stiffness would mean low flexural strength. However, when it comes to bending active gridshells, OSB offers a significant advantage. By the addition of multiple layers, an increased section size is created, thus endowing the structure with higher stiffness and higher strength from initial low stiffness and low strength materials while still maintaining tight radii of curvature. This allows OSB to compete with solid timber on large scale gridshells. Additionally, a preliminary sustainability study using a set of sustainability indicators was carried out to determine the relative sustainability of building a large-scale gridshell in Ireland with a primary focus on economic viability but a mention is also given to social and environmental aspects. For this, the Savill garden gridshell in the UK was used as the functional unit with the sustainability of the structural roof skeleton constructed from UK larch solid timber being compared with the same structure using Irish OSB. Albeit that the advantages of using commercially available OSB in a bending active gridshell are marginal and limited to specific gridshell applications, further study into an optimised engineered timber product is merited.

Keywords: bending active gridshells, high end timber structures, low cost material, sustainability

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Authors: Sharifullah Ahmed, Sarwar Jahan Md. Yasin

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Shallow foundations on unimproved soft natural soils can undergo a high consolidation and secondary settlement. For low and medium rise building projects on such soil condition, pile foundation may not be cost effective. In such cases an alternative to pile foundations may be shallow strip footings placed on a double layered improved soil system soil. The upper layer of this system is untreated or cement treated compacted sand and underlying layer is natural soft clay. This system will reduce the settlement to an allowable limit. The current research has been conducted with the settlement of a rigid plane-strain strip footing of 2.5 m width placed on the surface of a soil consisting of an untreated or cement treated sand layer overlying a bed of homogeneous soft clay. The settlement of the mentioned shallow foundation has been studied considering both cases with the thicknesses of the sand layer are 0.3 to 0.9 times the width of footing. The response of the clay layer is assumed as undrained for plastic loading stages and drained during consolidation stages. The response of the sand layer is drained during all loading stages. FEM analysis was done using PLAXIS 2D Version 8.0. A natural clay deposit of 15 m thickness and 18 m width has been modeled using Hardening Soil Model, Soft Soil Model, Soft Soil Creep Model, and upper improvement layer has been modeled using only Hardening Soil Model. The groundwater level is at the top level of the clay deposit that made the system fully saturated. Parametric study has been conducted to determine the effect of thickness, density, cementation of the sand mat and density, shear strength of the soft clay layer on the settlement of strip foundation under the uniformly distributed vertical load of varying value. A set of the chart has been established for designing shallow strip footing on the sand mat over thick, soft clay deposit through obtaining the particular thickness of sand mat for particular subsoil parameter to ensure no punching shear failure and no settlement beyond allowable level. Design guideline in the form of non-dimensional charts has been developed for footing pressure equivalent to medium-rise residential or commercial building foundation with strip footing on soft inorganic Normally Consolidated (NC) soil of Bangladesh having void ratio from 1.0 to 1.45.

Keywords: design charts, ground improvement, PLAXIS 2D, primary and secondary settlement, sand mat, soft clay

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Authors: Bing Lu, Shuang Li, Hongyuan Zhou

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The steel–concrete hybrid structure has been extensively employed in high–rise buildings and super high–rise buildings. The light gauge steel–concrete hybrid structure, including light gauge steel structure and concrete hybrid structure, is a new–type steel–concrete hybrid structure, which possesses some advantages of light gauge steel structure and concrete hybrid structure. The seismic behavior and loss assessment of three high–rise buildings with three different concrete hybrid structures were investigated through finite element software, respectively. The three concrete hybrid structures are reinforced concrete column–steel beam (RC‒S) hybrid structure, concrete–filled steel tube column–steel beam (CFST‒S) hybrid structure, and tubed concrete column–steel beam (TC‒S) hybrid structure. The nonlinear time-history analysis of three high–rise buildings under 80 earthquakes was carried out. After simulation, it indicated that the seismic performances of three high–rise buildings were superior. Under extremely rare earthquakes, the maximum inter–storey drifts of three high–rise buildings are significantly lower than 1/50. The inter–storey drift and floor acceleration of high–rise building with CFST‒S hybrid structure were bigger than those of high–rise buildings with RC‒S hybrid structure, and smaller than those of high–rise building with TC‒S hybrid structure. Then, based on the time–history analysis results, the post-earthquake repair cost ratio and repair time of three high–rise buildings were predicted through an economic performance analysis method proposed in FEMA‒P58 report. Under frequent earthquakes, basic earthquakes and rare earthquakes, the repair cost ratio and repair time of three high-rise buildings were less than 5% and 15 days, respectively. Under extremely rare earthquakes, the repair cost ratio and repair time of high-rise buildings with TC‒S hybrid structure were the most among three high rise buildings. Due to the advantages of CFST-S hybrid structure, it could be extensively employed in high-rise buildings subjected to earthquake excitations.

Keywords: seismic behavior, loss assessment, light gauge steel–concrete hybrid structure, high–rise building, time–history analysis

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Authors: Weber A. R. Souza, Andre A. N. Dantas, Marcio A. Medeiros, Rafaella F. Costa

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The erosive processes are natural phenomena that cause changes in the soil continuously due to the actions of natural erosive agents and their speed can be intensified or retarded by factors such as climate, inclination, type of matrix rock, vegetation and anthropic activities, the latter being very relevant in occupied areas without planning and urban infrastructure. Inadequate housing sites associated with an inefficient urban drainage network and lack of vegetation cover potentiate the erosive processes that, over time, are gaining alarming proportions, as is the case of the erosion in Planaltina in Federal district, a Brazilian state in the central west. Thus, the aim of this work was to compare the use of Vetiver grass and Alfalfa as vegetation cover to slope protection. For that, a study was carried out in the scientific literature about the improvement of the soil properties provided by them and verification of the safety factor through the simulation of slopes with different heights and inclination using SLOPE / W software. The Vetiver grass presented little more satisfactory results than the Alfalfa, but these obtained results slightly closer to that of the vetiver grass in less time of planting.

Keywords: erosive processes, planting, slope protection, vegetation cover

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Authors: María Molinos-Senante, Giulia Romano

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This paper aims at investigating the effect of ownership in the efficiency assessment of municipal solid waste management. In doing so, the Data Envelopment Analysis meta-frontier approach integrating unsorted waste as undesirable output was applied. Three different clusters of municipalities have been created on the basis of the ownership type of municipal waste operators. In the second stage of analysis, the paper investigates factors affecting efficiency, in order to provide an outlook of levers to be used by policy and decision makers to improve efficiency, taking into account different management models in force. Results show that public waste management firms have better performance than mixed and private ones since their efficiency scores are significantly larger. Moreover, it has been demonstrated that the efficiency of waste management firms is statistically influenced by the age of population, population served, municipal size, population density and tourism rate. It evidences the importance of economies of scale on the cost efficiency of waste management. This issue is relevant for policymakers to define and implement policies aimed to improve the long-term sustainability of waste management in municipalities.

Keywords: data envelopment analysis, efficiency, municipal solid waste, ownership, undesirable output

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Authors: Manisha Choudhary, Sudarsan Neogi

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Malachite green (MG), an organic basic dye, has been widely used for the dyeing purpose, as well as a fungicide and antiseptic in aquaculture industry to control fish parasites and disease. However, MG has now turned out to be an extremely controversial compound due to its adverse impact on living beings. Due to high toxicity, proper treatment of wastewater containing MG is utmost important. Among different available technologies, adsorption process is one of the most efficient and cost-effective treatment method due to its simplicity of design, ease of operation and regeneration of used materials. Nonetheless, commercial activated carbon is expensive leading the researchers to focus on utilizing natural resources. In the present work, a species of cactus, Opuntia ficus-indica (OFI), was used to develop a highly efficient, low-cost powdered activated carbon by chemical activation using NaOH. The biosorbent was characterized by Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, field emission scanning electron microscope, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) and X-ray diffraction analysis. Batch adsorption studies were performed to remove MG from an aqueous solution as a function of contact time, initial solution pH, initial dye concentration, biosorbent dosages, the presence of salt and temperature. By increasing the initial dye concentration from 100 to 500 mg/l, adsorption capacity increased from 165.45 to 831.58 mg/g. The adsorption kinetics followed the pseudo-second-order model and the chemisorption mechanisms were revealed. The electrostatic attractions and chemical interactions were observed between amino and hydroxyl groups of the biosorbent and amine groups of the dye. The adsorption was solely controlled by film diffusion. Different isotherm models were used to fit the adsorption data. The excellent recovery of adsorption efficiency after the regeneration of biosorbent indicated the high potential of this adsorbent to remove MG from aqueous solution and an excellent cost-effective biosorbent for wide application in wastewater treatment.

Keywords: adsorption, biosorbent, cactus, malachite green

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Authors: Adriano Z. Zambom, Preethi Ravikumar

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One of the biggest challenges in nonparametric regression is the curse of dimensionality. Additive models are known to overcome this problem by estimating only the individual additive effects of each covariate. However, if the model is misspecified, the accuracy of the estimator compared to the fully nonparametric one is unknown. In this work the efficiency of completely nonparametric regression estimators such as the Loess is compared to the estimators that assume additivity in several situations, including additive and non-additive regression scenarios. The comparison is done by computing the oracle mean square error of the estimators with regards to the true nonparametric regression function. Then, a backward elimination selection procedure based on the Akaike Information Criteria is proposed, which is computed from either the additive or the nonparametric model. Simulations show that if the additive model is misspecified, the percentage of time it fails to select important variables can be higher than that of the fully nonparametric approach. A dimension reduction step is included when nonparametric estimator cannot be computed due to the curse of dimensionality. Finally, the Boston housing dataset is analyzed using the proposed backward elimination procedure and the selected variables are identified.

Keywords: additive model, nonparametric regression, variable selection, Akaike Information Criteria

Procedia PDF Downloads 265

Authors: Atcharawan Phenwansuk

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The product design is important to the development of SME towards the global, because it made to the quality product to react the needs of consumers and could reduces cost in the production, making it more profitable. As a results, the business are competition advantage for more marketing. It also enhance image of product and firms to build its own brand products to be acceptable. The product was designed should be shape, size, colorful, and direct of target consumers. This is method to add value products to get popular and effective, because the beauty is first satisfaction which come from main shape and color of the design product, but the product was designed need to hold data and law combination of shape and color between artistic theory and satisfaction of consumers together. The design must consider the safety of life and asset of consumers the most important. From to use of designed products should be to consider the cost savings, convenient distance, transportation, routes (land, water or air) of living space on transport (capacity, volume, width, length of the car, truck and container, etc). The packaging must be can to prevent not damage of the products. If products is more large , maybe to design new packaging, which can easily disassembled for make smaller package such as designing the assembly. Products must be packed in the container for size standard for save costs, as well as the buyer can make transport and assembly of products to fit easily on your own.

Keywords: logistics process , pineapple’s leaves product, product design, satisfaction of consumers

Procedia PDF Downloads 397

Authors: Sandra Ghavam Shirazi, Komeil Valipourian, Mohammad Reza Golhashem

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This paper represents the basic idea and mechanisms associated with the durability of geomembranes and discusses the factors influencing the service life and temperature of geomembrane liners. Geomembrane durability is stated as field performance and laboratory test outcomes under various conditions. Due to the high demand of geomembranes as landfill barriers and their crucial role in sensitive projects, sufficient service life of geomembranes is very important, therefore in this paper, the durability, the effect of temperature on geomembrane and the role of this type of reinforcement in different types of soil will be discussed. Also, the role of geomembrane in the earthquake will be considered in the last part of the paper.

Keywords: geomembrane, durability temperature soil mechanic, soil

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Authors: Rui Brito

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This contribution regards a literature review of inventory management that is a relevant topic for the firms, due to its important use of capital with implications in firm’s profitability within the complexity of a more competitive and globalized world. Firms look for small inventories in order to reduce holding costs, namely opportunity cost, warehousing and handling costs, deterioration and being out of style, but larger inventories are required by some reasons, such as customer service, ordering cost, transportation cost, supplier’s payment to reduce unit costs or to take advantage of price increase in the near future, and equipment setup cost. Thus, management shall address a trade-off between small inventories and larger inventories. This literature review concerns three types of inventory (spare parts, safety stock, and vendor) whose management usually is beyond the scope of logistics. The applied methodology consisted of an online search of databases regarding scientific documents in English, namely Elsevier, Springer, Emerald, Wiley, and Taylor & Francis, but excluding books except if edited, using search engines, such as Google Scholar and B-on. The search was based on three keywords/strings (themes) which had to be included just as in the article title, suggesting themes were very relevant to the researchers. The whole search period was between 2009 and 2018 with the aim of collecting between twenty and forty studies considered relevant within each of the key words/strings specified. Documents were sorted by relevance and to prevent the exclusion of the more recent articles, based on lower quantity of citations partially due to less time to be cited in new research articles, the search period was divided into two sub-periods (2009-2015 and 2016-2018). The number of surveyed articles by theme showed a variation from 40 to 200 and the number of citations of those articles showed a wider variation from 3 to 216. Selected articles from the three themes were analyzed and the first seven of the first sub-period and the first three of the second sub-period with more citations were read in full to make a synopsis of each article. Overall, the findings show that the majority of article types were models, namely mathematical, although with different sub-types for each theme. Almost all articles suggest further studies, with some mentioning it for their own author(s), which widen the diversity of the previous research. Identified research gaps concern the use of surveys to know which are the models more used by firms, the reasons for not using the models with more performance and accuracy, and which are the satisfaction levels with the outcomes of the inventories management and its effect on the improvement of the firm’s overall performance. The review ends with the limitations and contributions of the study.

Keywords: inventory management, safety stock, spare parts inventory, vendor managed inventory

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Authors: Sungmin Park, Gyungmok Nam, Seungpyo Woo, Young Choi, Sangheon Park, Sang-Hee Yoon

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Puncturing human skin with microneedles is critically important for microneedle-mediate drug delivery. Despite of extensive efforts in the past decades, the scale-up fabrication of sharp-tipped and high-aspect-ratio microneedles, especially made of biodegradable polymers, is still a long way off. Here, we present a UV dose insensitive and cost-effective microfabrication method for the biodegradable polymer microneedles with sharp tips and long lengths which can pierce human skin with low insertion force. The biodegradable polymer microneedles are fabricated with the polymer solution casting where a poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA, 50:50) solution is coated onto a SU-8 mold prepared with a reverse, ramped, and rotational (R3) UV exposure. The R3 UV exposure is modified from the multidirectional UV exposure both to suppress UV reflection from the bottom surface without anti-reflection layers and to optimize solvent concentration in the SU-8 photoresist, therefore achieving robust (i.e., highly insensitive to UV dose) and cost-effective fabrication of biodegradable polymer microneedles. An optical model for describing the spatial distribution of UV irradiation dose of the R3 UV exposure is also developed to theoretically predict the microneedle geometry fabricated with the R3 UV exposure and also to demonstrate the insensitiveness of microneedle geometry to UV dose. In the experimental characterization, the microneedles fabricated with the R3 UV exposure are compared with those fabricated with a conventional method (i.e., multidirectional UV exposure). The R3 UV exposure-based microfabrication reduces the end-tip radius by a factor of 5.8 and the deviation from ideal aspect ratio by 74.8%, compared with conventional method-based microfabrication. The PLGA microneedles fabricated with the R3 UV exposure pierce full-thickness porcine skins successfully and are demonstrated to completely dissolve in PBS (phosphate-buffered saline). The findings of this study will lead to an explosive growth of the microneedle-mediated drug delivery market.

Keywords: R³ UV exposure, optical model, UV dose, reflection, solvent concentration, biodegradable polymer microneedle

Procedia PDF Downloads 167

Authors: James Hilton Williams

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Recent tsunami events, including the 2011 Tohoku Tsunami, Japan, and the 2015 Illapel Tsunami, Chile, have highlighted the potential for tsunami impacts on the built environment. International research in the tsunami impacts domain has been largely focused toward impacts on buildings and casualty estimations, while only limited attention has been placed on the impacts on infrastructure which is critical for the recovery of impacted communities. New Zealand, with 75% of the population within 10 km of the coast, has a large amount of coastal infrastructure exposed to local, regional and distant tsunami sources. To effectively manage tsunami risk for New Zealand critical infrastructure, including energy, transportation, and communications, the vulnerability of infrastructure networks and components must first be determined. This research develops infrastructure asset vulnerability, functionality and repair- cost functions based on international post-event tsunami impact assessment data from technologically similar countries, including Japan and Chile, and adapts these to New Zealand. These functions are then utilized within a New Zealand based impact framework, allowing for cost benefit analyses, effective tsunami risk management strategies and mitigation options for exposed critical infrastructure to be determined, which can also be applied internationally.

Keywords: impact assessment, infrastructure, tsunami impacts, vulnerability functions

Procedia PDF Downloads 161