Search results for: tower crane boom

Authors: Mohammed Nabeel Khan, C. Perisamy

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Convective vortices are normal highlights of air that ingest lower-entropy-energy at higher temperatures than they dismiss higher-entropy-energy to space. By means of the thermodynamic proficiency, it has been anticipated that the force of convective vortices relies upon the profundity of the convective layer. The atmospheric vortex engine is proposed as a gadget for delivering mechanical energy by methods for artificially produced vortex. The task of the engine is in view of the certainties that the environment is warmed from the base and cooled from the top. By generation of the artificial vortex, it is planned to take out the physical solar updraft tower and decrease the capital of the solar chimney power plants. The study shows the essentials of the atmospheric vortex engine, furthermore, audits the cutting edge in subject. Moreover, the study talks about a thought on using the solar energy as heat source to work the framework. All in all, the framework is attainable and promising for electrical power production.

Keywords: AVE, atmospheric vortex engine, atmosphere, updraft, vortex

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Authors: Shaheena Erkiah, Adjnu Damar Ladkoo

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Worldwide, improving tourism competitiveness has been on the agendas of many stakeholders of the hotel sector, and they seem to have agreed that one of the best ways to compete is via the implementation of electronic customer relationship management (e-CRM). In so doing, the organizations enjoy strategic positioning on the competitive market by managing better not only the customers but, other business components including knowledge and employee management. Over the recent years, the tourism industry in Mauritius has witnessed a drastic economic boom at international and national levels; providing a new outlook to boost business performance through existing and potential customers. E-CRM has been one of the management tools used to achieving this position. Thus, this insightful context- Mauritius- was opted for the study. The aim was to assess the effectiveness of e-CRM as a strategic tool in the hotel sector in Mauritius through the implementation of business strategy to create competitive advantage and impact on the business performance. To achieve the objectives of the study, a quantitative research methodology was adopted and the research revealed that e-CRM is indeed an effective strategic tool in the hotel industry in Mauritius that can provide a competitive advantage and impact positively on the organization’s performance.

Keywords: customer, electronic, management, relationship, strategic

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Authors: Budihardjo Sarwo Sastrosudiro, Arnas Lubis, Muhammad Idrus Alhamid, Nasruddin Jusuf

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Solar thermal cooling system was installed on Mechanical Research Center (MRC) Building that is located in Universitas Indonesia, Depok, Indonesia. It is the first cooling system in Indonesia that utilizes solar energy as energy input combined with natural gas; therefore, the control system must be appropriated with the climates. In order to stabilize the cooling capacity and also to maximize the use of solar energy, the system applies some controllers. Constant flow rate and on/off controller are applied for the hot water, chilled water and cooling water pumps. The hot water circulated by pump when the solar radiation is over than 400W/m², and the chilled water is continually circulated by pump and its temperature is kept constant 7 °C by absorption chiller. The cooling water is also continually circulated until the outlet temperature of cooling tower below than 27 ^oC. Furthermore, the three-way valve is used to control the hot water for generate vapor on absorption chiller. The system performance using that control system is shown in this study results.

Keywords: absorption chiller, control system, solar cooling, solar energy

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Authors: Robin Becker, Maike Eilers, Nane Roetmann, Manfred Helmus

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The shortage of junior staff in the construction industry is a problem that will be further exacerbated in the coming years by the retirement of the baby-boom generations (1955-1969) from employment. In addition, the current working conditions in the field of construction management are not attractive for young professionals. A survey of students revealed a desire for an increase in flexibility and an improved work-life balance in everyday working life. Students of civil engineering and architecture are basically interested in a career in construction management but have reservations due to the image of the profession and the current working conditions. A survey among experts from the construction industry shows that the profession can become more attractive. This report provides recommendations for action in the form of working modules to improve the working conditions of employees. If these are taken into account, graduates can be attracted to the profession of construction management, and existing staff can be retained more effectively. The aim of this report is to show incentives for employers to respond to the wishes and needs of their current and future employees to the extent that can be implemented.

Keywords: modern construction management, construction industry, work modules, shortage of junior staff, sustainable personnel management, making construction management more attractive, working time model

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Authors: Navneet Dabra, Baljinder Kaur, Lakhbir Singh, V. Annapu Reddy, R. Nath, Dae-Yong Jeong, Jasbir S. Hundal

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The ferroelectric properties of fused potassium nitrate (KNO3)- polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) composite films have been investigated. The composite films of KNO3-PVA have been prepared by solvant cast technique and then fused over the brass substrate. The ferroelectric hysteresis loops (P-E) have been obtained at room temperature using modified Sawyer-Tower circuit. Percentage of back switching and differential dielectric constant has been derived from P-V loops. The x-ray diffraction (XRD) studies confirm the formation of ferroelectric phase (phase III) in these composite films. The AFM and FE-SEM studies have been used to study the surface morphology of these composite films. The values of remanemt polarization, coercive field, back switching, crystallite size, lattice parameters, and surface roughness have been estimated and correlated.

Keywords: ferroelectric polymer composite, remanemt polarization, back switching, crystallite size, lattice parameters and surface roughness

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Authors: Mohammed Ibahrine

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One of the prominent trends in the Saudi digital space in recent years is the boom in the use of social networking sites such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. As of 2016, Twitter has over six million users in Saudi Arabia. In the wake of the recent political instability in the Arab region, digital platforms have gained importance for both, personal and professional purposes. A conspicuously observable tide of social activism has risen, with Twitter playing an increasingly important role. One of their primary goals is to enforce the logic of public visibility, social mobility and civic participation in the Saudi society. Saudi women use Twitter to disseminate specific and relevant information and promote their social agenda that remained unrecognized and invisible in the mainstream media and thus in the public sphere. The question is to what extent does Twitter empower Saudi women or reinforces their social immobility and invisibility? This paper focuses on three kinds of empowerment through Twitter in the religiously conservative and socially patriarchal Saudi society. It traces and analyses how Saudi female hashtactivism is increasingly becoming a site of struggle over visibility, mobility, control, and civic participation. The underlying thesis is that Twitter makes a contribution to the development of participatory culture, especially in the lives of women.

Keywords: civic, hashtactivism, Saudi Arabia, Twiterverse

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Authors: Nasiruddin Khan, Saud Iqbal

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Arabian Gulf region has undergone enormous development due to oil boom resulting in overwhelming changes in the lifestyle of the population over the past few decades. This study focused on food consumption patterns of Omani university students. Information, on anthropometric measurements, dietary intakes (measured by a food frequency questionnaire) of students was recorded. Anthropometric data revealed 62.5% of the subjects to be of normal weight and approximately 25% being overweight. Female students appeared to be more weight conscious than males. Dietary intakes in terms of servings (Mean ± S.D) per day among normal weight (BMI 18.5 – 24.9) males vs. females were approximately; cereals (7.5 ± 5.9 vs. 4.9 ± 2.9 servings), meat and alternatives (1.9 ± 0.9 vs. 1.5 ± 0.9 servings), dairy foods (0.9 ± 0.8 vs. 1.1 ± 0.9 servings) per day, respectively. Overall 55.3% of both males (average 1.9 servings) as well as females (average 1.7 servings) had severely inadequate intakes of vegetables on a daily basis as per the food guide pyramid recommendations. Only the fruit group intakes were adequate in about 70% of the population. Adequate intakes of dairy and meat and alternatives group were found in only 22% and 32% of the subjects, respectively. These results indicate a significant influence of a modern lifestyle on dietary habits and food selection of the target population.

Keywords: dietary pattern, food guide pyramid, lifestyle, Oman

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Authors: Sajeesh Sulaiman, Gomathisankar A., Aravind Devaraj, Aswin R., Vijay Kumar G., Rachana Raj

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Wind turbines are the next big answer to the emerging and ever-growing demand for electricity, and this need is increasing day by day. These high mast structures, whether on land or on the sea, has also become one of the big sources of electromagnetic interferences (EMI) in the not so distant past. With the emergence of the AC-AC converter and drawing of large power cables through the wind turbine towers has made this clean and efficient source of renewable energy to become one of the culprits in creating electromagnetic interference. This paper will present the sources of such EMIs, a comparison of radiated emissions (both electric and magnetic field) patterns in wind turbine towers for both onshore and offshore wind turbines and close look into the IEC 61400-40 (new standard for EMC design on wind turbine). At present, offshore wind turbines are tested in onshore facilities. This paper will present the anomaly in results for offshore wind turbines when tested in onshore, which the existing standards and the upcoming standards have failed to address.

Keywords: emissions, electric field, magnetic field, wind turbine, tower, standards and regulations

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Authors: Zeineb Deymi-Gheriani

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In the last two decades, one can clearly observe a boom of interest for e-learning and web-supported programs. However, one can also notice that many of these programs focus on the accumulation and delivery of content generally as a business industry with no much concern for theoretical underpinnings. The existing research, at least in online English language teaching (ELT), has demonstrated a lack of an effective online teaching pedagogy anchored in a well-defined theoretical framework. Hence, this paper comes as an attempt to present constructivism as one of the theoretical bases for the design of an effective online language teaching pedagogy which is at the same time technologically intelligent and theoretically informed to help envision how education can best take advantage of the information and communication technology (ICT) tools. The present paper discusses the key principles underlying constructivism, its implications for online language teaching design, as well as its limitations that should be avoided in the e-learning instructional design. Although the paper is theoretical in nature, essentially based on an extensive literature survey on constructivism, it does have practical illustrations from an action research conducted by the author both as an e-tutor of English using Moodle online educational platform at the Virtual University of Tunis (VUT) from 2007 up to 2010 and as a face-to-face (F2F) English teaching practitioner in the Professional Certificate of English Language Teaching Training (PCELT) at AMIDEAST, Tunisia (April-May, 2013).

Keywords: active learning, constructivism, experiential learning, Piaget, Vygotsky

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Authors: Chu Liu

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With the development of society and the changes of the times, the requirements for the cultivation of learners are different. In the 21st century, STEM education has become a boom in the development of education in various countries, aiming to improve the comprehensive ability of learners in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The rise of robot education provides an effective way for STEM education to cultivate computational thinking ability, interdisciplinary ability, problem-solving ability, and teamwork ability. Although robot education has been developed in China for several years, it still lacks a standard curriculum system. This article uses programming software as a platform, through the research and analysis of 'Basic Education Information Technology Curriculum Standards (2012 Edition)', combines with the actual learning situation of learners, tries to conduct teaching project design research, and aims at providing references for the teaching ideas and method of robot education courses. In contemporary society, technological advances increasingly require creativity. Innovative comprehensive talents urgently need a radical and effective education reform to keep up with social changes. So in this context, robot teaching design can be used for students. The tendency of creativity to influence is worth to be verified.

Keywords: STEM education, robot teaching, primary and secondary school students, tendency of creativity

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Authors: Heba Elbibas, Esra Gnijeewa, Zedan Hatush

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This paper presents research on occupational safety in construction projects, where the importance of safety management in projects was studied, including the preparation of a safety plan and program for each project and the identification of the responsibilities of each party to the contract. The research consists of two parts: 1-Field visits: which were field visits to three construction projects, including building projects, road projects, and tower installation. The safety level of these projects was evaluated through a checklist that includes the most important safety elements in terms of the application of these items in the projects. 2-Preparation of a questionnaire: which included supervisors and engineers and aimed to determine the level of awareness and commitment of different project categories to safety standards. The results showed the following: i) There is a moderate occupational safety policy. ii) The preparation and storage of maintenance reports are not fully complied with. iii) There is a moderate level of training on occupational safety for project workers. iv) The company does not impose penalties on safety violators permanently. v) There is a moderate policy for equipment and machinery safety. vi) Self-injuries occur due to (fatigue, lack of attention, deliberate error, and emotional factors), with a rate of 82.4%.

Keywords: management, safety, occupational safety, classification

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Authors: Sara Mosteller, Larissa K. Samuelson, Sobanawartiny Wijeakumar, John P. Spencer

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This study was designed to examine how humans are able to teach and learn semantic information as well as cooperate in order to jointly achieve sophisticated goals. Specifically, we are measuring individual differences in how these abilities develop from foundational building blocks in early childhood. The current study adopts a paradigm for novel noun learning developed by Samuelson, Smith, Perry, and Spencer (2011) to a hyperscanning paradigm [Cui, Bryant and Reiss, 2012]. This project measures coordinated brain activity between a parent and child using simultaneous functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) in pairs of 2.5, 3.5 and 4.5-year-old children and their parents. We are also separately testing pairs of adult friends. Children and parents, or adult friends, are seated across from one another at a table. The parent (in the developmental study) then teaches their child the names of novel toys. An experimenter then tests the child by presenting the objects in pairs and asking the child to retrieve one object by name. Children are asked to choose from both pairs of familiar objects and pairs of novel objects. In order to explore individual differences in cooperation with the same participants, each dyad plays a cooperative game of Jenga, in which their joint score is based on how many blocks they can remove from the tower as a team. A preliminary analysis of the noun-learning task showed that, when presented with 6 word-object mappings, children learned an average of 3 new words (50%) and that the number of objects learned by each child ranged from 2-4. Adults initially learned all of the new words but were variable in their later retention of the mappings, which ranged from 50-100%. We are currently examining differences in cooperative behavior during the Jenga playing game, including time spent discussing each move before it is made. Ongoing analyses are examining the social dynamics that might underlie the differences between words that were successfully learned and unlearned words for each dyad, as well as the developmental differences observed in the study. Additionally, the Jenga game is being used to better understand individual and developmental differences in social coordination during a cooperative task. At a behavioral level, the analysis maps periods of joint visual attention between participants during the word learning and the Jenga game, using head-mounted eye trackers to assess each participant’s first-person viewpoint during the session. We are also analyzing the coherence in brain activity between participants during novel word-learning and Jenga playing. The first hypothesis is that visual joint attention during the session will be positively correlated with both the number of words learned and with the number of blocks moved during Jenga before the tower falls. The next hypothesis is that successful communication of new words and success in the game will each be positively correlated with synchronized brain activity between the parent and child/the adult friends in cortical regions underlying social cognition, semantic processing, and visual processing. This study probes both the neural and behavioral mechanisms of learning and cooperation in a naturalistic, interactive and developmental context.

Keywords: communication, cooperation, development, interaction, neuroscience

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Authors: Amirreza Niktash, B. P. Huynh

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A windcatcher is a structure fitted on the roof of a building for providing natural ventilation by using wind power; it exhausts the inside stale air to the outside and supplies the outside fresh air into the interior space of the building working by pressure difference between outside and inside of the building and using ventilation principles of passive stacks and wind tower, respectively. In this paper, the effect of different heights of inlet/outlets’ ducts of a two-sided windcatcher on the flow rate, flow velocity and flow pattern through a three-dimensional room fitted with the windcatcher are investigated and analysed by using RANS CFD technique and applying standard K-ε turbulence model via a commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software package. The achieved results show that the inlet/outlet ducts height strongly affects flow rate, flow velocity and flow pattern especially in the living area of the room when the wind velocity is not too low. The results are confirmed by the experimental test for constructed scaled model in the laboratory and it develops the two-sided windcatcher’s performance in ventilation applications.

Keywords: CFD, RANS, ventilation, windcatcher

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Authors: Hanei Son

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Since the beginning of the 2010s, ‘start-up boom’ has continued with the creation of many new enterprises in Korea. Such tendency was led by various changes in society such as emergence and diffusion of smartphones. Especially, the Korean government has been interested in start-ups and entrepreneurship as an alternative engine for Korea's economic growth. With strong support from the government, as a result, many new enterprises have been established for recent years and the Korean government seems to have achieved its goal: expanding the basis of start-ups. However, it is unclear which factors affect the survival and growth of these new enterprises after their creation. Therefore, this study aims to identify which start-ups from early 2010s survived and which factors influenced their survival and growth. The study will strongly focus on which industries the new enterprises were in, as environmental elements are expected to be critical factors for business of start-ups in Korean context. For this purpose, 105 companies which were introduced as high potential start-ups from 2010 to 2012 were considered in the analysis. According to their current status, dead or alive, the start-ups were categorized by their industries and service area. Through this analysis, it was observed that many start-ups that are still in business are in internet or mobile platform businesses and four major sectors. In each group, a representative case has been studied to reveal its survival and growth factors. The results point to the importance of industrial characteristics for the survival and success of Korean startups and offer political implications in which sector and business more potentials for start-ups in Korea lie in.

Keywords: government support for start-ups, industrial characteristics, Korean start-ups, survival of start-ups

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Authors: Dawei Li, Cheng Liu, Yiteng Liu

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This paper introduces an embedded digital image system for Chinese space environment vertical exploration sounding rocket. In order to record the flight status of the sounding rocket as well as the payloads, an onboard embedded image processing system based on ADV212, a JPEG2000 compression chip, is designed in this paper. Since the sounding rocket is not designed to be recovered, all image data should be transmitted to the ground station before the re-entry while the downlink band used for the image transmission is only about 600 kbps. Under the same condition of compression ratio compared with other algorithm, JPEG2000 standard algorithm can achieve better image quality. So JPEG2000 image compression is applied under this condition with a limited downlink data band. This embedded image system supports lossless to 200:1 real time compression, with two cameras to monitor nose ejection and motor separation, and two cameras to monitor boom deployment. The encoder, ADV7182, receives PAL signal from the camera, then output the ITU-R BT.656 signal to ADV212. ADV7182 switches between four input video channels as the program sequence. Two SRAMs are used for Ping-pong operation and one 512 Mb SDRAM for buffering high frame-rate images. The whole image system has the characteristics of low power dissipation, low cost, small size and high reliability, which is rather suitable for this sounding rocket application.

Keywords: ADV212, image system, JPEG2000, sounding rocket

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Authors: Aghbalou Nihad, Charki Abderafi, Saida Rahali, Reklaoui Kamal

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Maximize the benefit from the wind energy potential is the most interest of the wind power stakeholders. As a result, the wind tower size is radically increasing. Nevertheless, choosing an appropriate wind turbine for a selected site require an accurate estimate of vertical wind profile. It is also imperative from cost and maintenance strategy point of view. Then, installing tall towers or even more expensive devices such as LIDAR or SODAR raises the costs of a wind power project. Various models were developed coming within this framework. However, they suffer from complexity, generalization and lacks accuracy. In this work, we aim to investigate the ability of neural network trained using the Bayesian Regularization technique to estimate wind speed profile up to height of 100 m based on knowledge of wind speed lower heights. Results show that the proposed approach can achieve satisfactory predictions and proof the suitability of the proposed method for generating wind speed profile and probability distributions based on knowledge of wind speed at lower heights.

Keywords: bayesian regularization, neural network, wind shear, accuracy

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Authors: Cuma Şimşek

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Nowadays our globalized world is in a very rapid and sophisticated change. In the information age, notion of ‘information’ has begun to spread faster than ever also in this age, changes and transformation has gained tremendous momentum with technology boom. This continuous change and transformation, increased the competition between existing organizations and corporations. Besides, the organizations which show resistance to change has been put out of action in this competitive environment. It is not possible to sustain the existence of organizations without adapting to change and transformation by isolating itself from developments. As a consequence of improved communication and dialog possibilities by means of increasing knowledge level, there has been made a change of scene in administrative mentality, style and activation, especially in 21th century. Leaders emerge as the most important factor in this process of perception and success. At the same time it is not enough to adapt the alteration with conventional leadership abilities and behaviors. In parallel with alteration, new types of leadership are coming up. The optimal leadership type for our era and a trending topic "Transformational Leadership" is in great demand now. In this research, current situation of the Air Forces which use high-technology weapons efficiently, operates in an environment full of threats and is analyzed. It is evaluated that in order to be ready for war continuously and adjusting itself to changing terms of warfare atmosphere , Air Forces need ‘transformational leaders’ who are innovative, foreseeing and having a vision so that they can develop new methods and strategies for complex problems. Because it is the Air Force which is responsible for being the deterrent force of its country.

Keywords: transformational, change, air force, leadership

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Authors: Anjali Chouksey, Riya Nimje, Jahanvi Saraf

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Online transactions have increased dramatically in this new ‘social-distancing’ era. With online transactions, Fraud in online payments has also increased significantly. Frauds are a significant problem in various industries like insurance companies, baking, etc. These frauds include leaking sensitive information related to the credit card, which can be easily misused. Due to the government also pushing online transactions, E-commerce is on a boom. But due to increasing frauds in online payments, these E-commerce industries are suffering a great loss of trust from their customers. These companies are finding credit card fraud to be a big problem. People have started using online payment options and thus are becoming easy targets of credit card fraud. In this research paper, we will be discussing machine learning algorithms. We have used a decision tree, XGBOOST, k-nearest neighbour, logistic-regression, random forest, and SVM on a dataset in which there are transactions done online mode using credit cards. We will test all these algorithms for detecting fraud cases using the confusion matrix, F1 score, and calculating the accuracy score for each model to identify which algorithm can be used in detecting frauds.

Keywords: machine learning, fraud detection, artificial intelligence, decision tree, k nearest neighbour, random forest, XGBOOST, logistic regression, support vector machine

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Authors: Smoki Musaraj

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Classic studies of the Mediterranean as a cultural and geographic unit of analysis have emphasized the theme of cosmopolitan urbanism as a key feature of the Mediterranean city. This paper explores the Mediterranean city today, considering continuities and ruptures from images of the Mediterranean of the past. The paper seeks to address the following questions: What are some defining characteristics of Mediterranean cities today? What are some of the shared challenges? The paper focuses on two interrelated themes: public space and tourism management. Several examples of protest and contestation in Mediterranean cities will be analyzed. These examples include cities where tourism presents opportunities and challenges to city planning and management; and where new private and public developments threaten the management of public space. The paper draws on ethnographic research in the city of Saranda, Albania, a small attractive tourist destination on the border with Greece, and Barcelona, Spain, a leading example of urban transformation and tourism massification. While different in size and popularity, both cities share some similar developments and contestations. In both cities, authorities have taken up different strategies to manage tourism and restore public space. The comparison will focus on social movements in the respective cities that target tourism and urban development in the name of preserving theirMediterraneaness. These examples are used to reflect more broadly on what are some features of the Mediterranean city today and how they can be preserved in the current climate of tourism expansion of urban development boom.

Keywords: mediterranean, urbanism, tourism, public space, anthropology, human geography, sustainability

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Authors: N. David, H. O. Gao

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Air pollution is a serious environmental threat on a global scale and can cause harm to human health, morbidity and premature mortality. Reliable monitoring and control systems are therefore necessary to develop coping skills against the hazards associated with this phenomenon. However, existing environmental monitoring means often do not provide a sufficient response due to practical and technical limitations. Commercial microwave links that form the infrastructure for transmitting data between cell phone towers can be harnessed to map rain at high tempo-spatial resolution. Rainfall causes a decrease in the signal strength received by these wireless communication links allowing it to be used as a built-in sensor network to map the phenomenon. In this study, we point to the potential that lies in this system to indirectly monitor areas where air pollution is reduced. The relationship between pollutant wash-off and rainfall provides an opportunity to acquire important spatial information about air quality using existing cell-phone tower signals. Since the density of microwave communication networks is high relative to any dedicated sensor arrays, it could be possible to rely on this available observation tool for studying precipitation scavenging on air pollutants, for model needs and more.

Keywords: air pollution, commercial microwave links, rainfall, washout

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Authors: Nicolas Haber

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The study addresses the conceptual design of Product-Service Systems (PSSs) as a means of innovating solutions with the aim of reducing the environmental load of conventional product based solutions. Functional approaches targeting PSS solutions are developed in instinctive methods within the constraints of the setting in which they are conceived. Adopting morphological matrices in designing PSS concepts allows a thorough understanding of the settings, stakeholders, and functional requirements. Additionally, such a methodology is robust and adaptable to product-oriented, use-oriented and result-oriented systems. The research is based on a functional decomposition of the task in a similar way as in product design; while extended to include service components, providers, and receivers, while assessing the adaptability and homogeneity of the selected components and actors. A use-oriented concept is presented via a practical case study at an agricultural boom-sprayer manufacturer to demonstrate the effectiveness of the morphological approach to justify its viability. Additionally, a life cycle analysis is carried out in order to evaluate the environmental advantages inherited in a PSS solution versus a conventional solution. In light of the applications presented, the morphological approach appears to be a valid and generic tactic to conceiving integrated solutions whilst capturing the interrelations between the actors and elements of an integrated product-service system.

Keywords: conceptual design, design for sustainability, functional decomposition, product-service systems

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Authors: A. Latif Karimi

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Since 2001, construction works, especially the construction of new homes and residential buildings, witnessed a dramatic boom across Afghanistan. More so, the construction industry and house builders are relied upon as important players in the country’s job market, economy and infrastructural development schemes. However, a lack of innovation, quality assurance mechanism, substandard construction and market dominance by traditional methods push all the parties in house building sector to shift for more advanced construction techniques and mass production technologies to meet the rising demands for proper accommodation. Meanwhile, rapid population growth and urbanization are widening the gap between the demand and supply of new and modern houses in urban areas like Kabul, Herat, etc. This paper investigates about current condition of construction practices in house building projects, the associated challenges, and the outcomes of transition to more reasonable and sustainable building methods. It is obvious, the introduction and use of Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) can help construction industry and house builders in Afghanistan to tackle the challenges and meet the desired standards for modern houses. This paper focuses on prefabrication, a popular MMC that is becoming more common, improving in quality and available in a variety of budgets. It is revealed that this method is the way forward to improving house building practices as it has been proven to reduce construction time, minimize waste and improve environmental performance of construction developments.

Keywords: modern houses, traditional construction, modern methods of construction, prefabrication, sustainable building

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Authors: Nureni A. Yekini, Isaac T. Babalola, Edwin E. Aighokhan, Agnes K. Akinwole, N. Stephen Igwe

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Survey was conducted to gather information on potential adverse health effects of Mobile Phones, and Telecommunication Tower Base Stations in Nigeria. Data was sourced from two sampled populations. Firstly from the people living in close proximity to base stations, and secondly from cell phone users. Questionnaire was used to gathered information from 574 people on thirteen non-specific health symptoms. Data obtained was presented and analyzed. The analysis shows that people living close to the based stations over a long period of time with or without cell phone, and also the heavy phone users with close proximity to the base stations are liable to have some potential health hazards, such as fatigue, sleep disturbances, headaches, feeling of discomfort, difficulty in concentrating, depression, memory loss, visual disruptions, irritability, hearing disruptions, skin problems, cardiovascular disorders, and dizziness.

Keywords: health hazards, wireless base stations, phone users, mobile phones, Nigeria

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Authors: Morten Stigaard Laursen, Rasmus Nyholm Jørgensen, Henrik Skov Midtiby, Anders Krogh Mortensen, Sanmohan Baby

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This work contributes a statistical model and simulation framework yielding the best estimate possible for the potential herbicide reduction when using the MoDiCoVi algorithm all the while requiring a efficacy comparable to conventional spraying. In June 2013 a maize field located in Denmark were seeded. The field was divided into parcels which was assigned to one of two main groups: 1) Control, consisting of subgroups of no spray and full dose spraty; 2) MoDiCoVi algorithm subdivided into five different leaf cover thresholds for spray activation. In addition approximately 25% of the parcels were seeded with additional weeds perpendicular to the maize rows. In total 299 parcels were randomly assigned with the 28 different treatment combinations. In the statistical analysis, bootstrapping was used for balancing the number of replicates. The achieved potential herbicide savings was found to be 70% to 95% depending on the initial weed coverage. However additional field trials covering more seasons and locations are needed to verify the generalisation of these results. There is a potential for further herbicide savings as the time interval between the first and second spraying session was not long enough for the weeds to turn yellow, instead they only stagnated in growth.

Keywords: herbicide reduction, macrosprayer, weed crop discrimination, site-specific, sprayer boom

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Authors: Tijjani Bashir Musa

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The recent global crisis which suddenly results to Nigerian stock market crash revealed some peculiarities of Nigerian firms. Some firms in Nigeria are performing but their stock prices are not increasing while some firms are at the brink of collapse but their stock prices are increasing. Thus, this study examines the relationship between firm performance and stock price in Nigeria. The study covered the period of 2005 to 2009. This period is the period of stock boom and also marked the period of stock market crash as a result of global financial meltdown. The study is a panel study. A total of 140 firms were sampled from 216 firms listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE). Data were collected from secondary source. These data were divided into four strata comprising the most performing stock, the least performing stock, most performing firms and the least performing firms. Each stratum contains 35 firms with characteristic of most performing stock, most performing firms, least performing stock and least performing firms. Multiple linear regression models were used to analyse the data while statistical/econometrics package of Stata 11.0 version was used to run the data. The study found that, relationship exists between selected firm performance parameters (operating efficiency, firm profit, earning per share and working capital) and stock price. As such firm performance gave sufficient information or has predictive power on stock prices movements in Nigeria for all the years under study.. The study recommends among others that Managers of firms in Nigeria should formulate policies and exert effort geared towards improving firm performance that will enhance stock prices movements.

Keywords: firm, Nigeria, performance, stock price

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Authors: William Fuentes, Melany Gil

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Numerical simulations of offshore wind turbines (OWTs) in shallow waters demand sophisticated models considering the cyclic nature of the environmental loads. For the case of an OWT founded on sands, rapid loading may cause a reduction of the effective stress of the soil surrounding the structure. This eventually leads to its settlement, tilting, or other issues affecting its serviceability. In this work, a 3D FE model of an OWT founded on sand is constructed and analyzed. Cyclic loading with different histories is applied at certain points of the tower to simulate some environmental forces. The mechanical behavior of the soil is simulated through the recently proposed ISA-hypoplastic model for sands. The Intergranular Strain Anisotropy ISA can be interpreted as an enhancement of the intergranular strain theory, often used to extend hypoplastic formulations for the simulation of cyclic loading. In contrast to previous formulations, the proposed constitutive model introduces an elastic range for small strain amplitudes, includes the cyclic mobility effect and is able to capture the cyclic behavior of sands under a larger number of cycles. The model performance is carefully evaluated on the FE dynamic analysis of the OWT.

Keywords: offshore wind turbine, monopile, ISA, hypoplasticity

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Authors: Saw Thiha, Jay Rajasekera

Abstract:

A boom in video conferencing generated millions of hours of video data daily to be analyzed. However, such enormous data pose certain scalability issues to be analyzed efficiently, let alone do it in real-time, as online conferences can involve hundreds of people and can last for hours. This paper proposes an efficient online proctoring solution that can analyze the online conferences real-time on edge devices such as Android, iOS, and desktops. Since the computation can be done upfront on the devices where online conferences take place, it can scale well without requiring intensive resources such as GPU servers and complex cloud infrastructure. According to the linear models, face orientation does indeed impact the perceived eye openness. Also, the proposed z score facial landmark standardization was proven to be functional in detecting face orientation and contributed to classifying eye blinks with single eyelid distance computation while achieving a better f1 score and accuracy than the Eye Aspect Ratio (EAR) threshold method. Last but not least, the authors implemented the solution natively in the MediaPipe framework and open-sourced it along with the reproducible experimental results on GitHub. The solution provides face orientation, eye blink, facial activity, and translation detections out of the box and is highly customizable and extensible.

Keywords: android, desktop, edge computing, blink, face orientation, facial activity and translation, MediaPipe, open source, real-time, video conference, web, iOS, Z score facial landmark standardization

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Authors: Charles Esambe Alobwede

Abstract:

From the time of the biblical story of the Tower of Babel, languages as well as people have learnt to co-exist. It is obvious that when languages co-exist, there is the inevitable tendency of linguistic influence. This is because a language can either be a unifying factor or a factor of division within a given community, especially in a multicultural and multi-linguistic community where such a situation has led to socio-political and economic tension. Thus, leaders of such communities have a duty to plan and implement a language policy that will meet the needs of all members of the community in order to enhance its corporateness. The present article will focus on some of the major reasons that prompted the government of Cameroon to embark on an official bilingual policy after independence in 1961 and then evaluate the evolution of the linguistic situation. The article will equally look at the consequences, especially on a socio-political platform and what today has been termed 'the Anglophone problem' in Cameroon which has caused a fuse between the country’s minority Anglophone population and the majority Francophone administration. Data for the present article is collected from literature on the state of official bilingualism in Cameroon, newspapers articles on the prevailing situation in the country and interviews with actors on the field.

Keywords: language policy, linguistic influence, multicultural, official bilingualism, socio-political tension

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Authors: Isabella Jabbour

Abstract:

The world's population is expected to reach over 10 billion by 2050, creating a significant demand for food production, particularly in the agricultural industry. Cellular agriculture presents a solution to this challenge by producing meat that resembles traditionally produced meat, but with significantly less land use. Decellularized plant scaffolds, such as spinach leaves, have been shown to be a suitable edible scaffold for growing animal muscle, enabling cultured cells to grow and organize into three-dimensional structures that mimic the texture and flavor of conventionally produced meat. However, the use of freshwater to remove the intact extracellular material from these plants remains a concern, particularly when considering scaling up the production process. In this study, two protocols were used, 1X SDS and Boom Sauce, to decellularize spinach leaves with both distilled water and ocean water. The decellularization process was confirmed by histology, which showed an absence of cell nuclei, DNA and protein quantification. Results showed that spinach decellularized with ocean water contained 9.9 ± 1.4 ng DNA/mg tissue, which is comparable to the 9.2 ± 1.1 ng DNA/mg tissue obtained with DI water. These findings suggest that decellularized spinach leaves using ocean water hold promise as an eco-friendly and cost-effective scaffold for laboratory-grown meat production, which could ultimately transform the meat industry by providing a sustainable alternative to traditional animal farming practices while reducing freshwater use.

Keywords: cellular agriculture, plant scaffold, decellularization, ocean water usage

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Authors: Jalalludin Abdul Malek, Zurinah Tahir

Abstract:

When the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) was launched in 1995, it became the catalyst for the implementation of the intelligent city concept, an area that covers about 15 x 50 kilometres from Kuala Lumpur City Centre (KLCC), Putrajaya and Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA). The concept of intelligent city means that the city has an advanced infrastructure and infostructure such as information technology, advanced telecommunication systems, electronic technology and mechanical technology to be utilized for the development of urban elements such as industries, health, services, transportation and communications. For example, the Golden Triangle of Kuala Lumpur has also many intelligent buildings developed by the private sector such as the KLCC Tower to implement the intelligent city concept. Consequently, the intelligent buildings in the Golden Triangle can be linked directly to the Putrajaya Intelligent City and Cyberjaya Intelligent City within the confines of the MSC. However, the reality of the situation is that there are not many intelligent buildings within the Golden Triangle Kuala Lumpur scope which can be considered of high-standard intelligent buildings as referred to by the Intelligence Quotient (IQ) building standard. This increases the need to implement the real ‘intelligent city’ concept. This paper aims to show the strengths and weaknesses of the intelligent buildings in the Golden Triangle by taking into account aspects of 'intelligence' in the areas of technology and infrastructure of buildings.

Keywords: intelligent city concepts, intelligent building, Golden Triangle, Kuala Lumpur

Procedia PDF Downloads 258