Search results for: weather change

Authors: I. Szer, J. Szer, M. Pieńko, A. Robak, P. Jamińska-Gadomska

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Work at height, such as construction works on scaffoldings, is associated with a considerable risk. Scaffolding workers are usually exposed to changing weather conditions what can additionally increase the risk of dangerous situations. Therefore, it is very important to foresee the risk of adverse conditions to which the worker may be exposed. The data from meteorological stations may be used to asses this risk. However, the dependency between weather conditions on a scaffolding and in the vicinity of meteorological station, should be determined. The paper presents an analysis of two selected environmental parameters which have influence on the behavior of workers – air temperature and wind speed. Measurements of these parameters were made between April and November of 2016 on ten scaffoldings located in different parts of Poland. They were compared with the results taken from the meteorological stations located closest to the studied scaffolding. The results gathered from the construction sites and meteorological stations were not the same, but statistical analyses have shown that they were correlated.

Keywords: scaffolding, health and safety at work, temperature, wind velocity

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Authors: Zahra Ali Abbasi, Syed Muhammad Saqib Saleem

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This research explores the relationship between social media and awareness about climate change amongst the university students of Lahore, Pakistan. The aim is to understand how the people of Pakistan perceive climate change, especially on the social media. A deductive and quantitative method is applied on the research to find out the awareness of climate change in the people using social media. For this purpose, a survey method is used, to analyze the response from 167 online respondents through stratified random sampling technique. The relation between multiple variables including awareness about important climatic events like Paris agreement, GreenTube, Smog in Lahore, Floods in Pakistan and other eminent incidents of climate change and social media are calculated by analyzing social media as a source to impart information about climate change. The results show that as people get aware of climate change, they post about different national and international events/incidents of climate which reveal a significant relationship between respondents' awareness about climate change and their posting and sharing of content about climate change. Another test indicates that respondents’ post/share/comment (impart) information about climate change when there is a shift in the climate both globally and nationally. However, the significance of both these correlations has been found to be negligible. Social media being an independent platform holds greater influencing power, hence, as consumers of the environment the users hold the responsibility of producing and sharing content at a global platform about climate. However, matters of politics, economy and religion seem to have overshadowed the significance of climate.

Keywords: climate change, diffusion of innovation, environment, social media, Pakistan

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Authors: Bandreddy Anand Babu, Srinivasa Rao Mandadi, C. Pradeep Reddy, N. Ramesh Babu

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In this paper quickly illustrate the correlation investigation of Auto-Regressive Integrated Moving and Average (ARIMA) and daptive Network Based Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) models done by climate estimating. The climate determining is taken from University of Waterloo. The information is taken as Relative Humidity, Ambient Air Temperature, Barometric Pressure and Wind Direction utilized within this paper. The paper is carried out by analyzing the exhibitions are seen by demonstrating of ARIMA and ANIFIS model like with Sum of average of errors. Versatile Network Based Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) demonstrating is carried out by Mat lab programming and Auto-Regressive Integrated Moving and Average (ARIMA) displaying is produced by utilizing XLSTAT programming. ANFIS is carried out in Fuzzy Logic Toolbox in Mat Lab programming.

Keywords: ARIMA, ANFIS, fuzzy surmising tool stash, weather forecasting, MATLAB

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Authors: Chatrabhuti Pipop, Visessri Supattra, Charinpanitkul Tawatchai

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Durian is one of the top agricultural products exported by Thailand. There is the massive market potential for the durian industry. While the global demand for Thai durians, especially the demand from China, is very high, Thailand's durian supply is far from satisfying strong demand. Poor agricultural practices result in low yields and poor quality of fruit. Most irrigation systems currently used by the farmers are fixed schedule or fixed rates that ignore actual weather conditions and crop water requirements. In addition, the technologies emerging are too difficult and complex and prices are too high for the farmers to adopt and afford. Many farmers leave the durian trees to grow naturally. With improper irrigation and nutrient management system, durians are vulnerable to a variety of issues, including stunted growth, not flowering, diseases, and death. Technical development or research for durian is much needed to support the wellbeing of the farmers and the economic development of the country. However, there are a limited number of studies or development projects for durian because durian is a perennial crop requiring a long time to obtain the results to report. This study, therefore, aims to address the problem of durian production by developing an autonomous and precision irrigation system. The system is designed and equipped with an industrial programmable controller, a weather station, and a digital flow meter. Daily water requirements are computed based on weather data such as rainfall and evapotranspiration for daily irrigation with variable flow rates. A prediction model is also designed as a part of the system to enhance the irrigation schedule. Before the system was installed in the field, a simulation model was built and tested in a laboratory setting to ensure its accuracy. Water consumption was measured daily before and after the experiment for further analysis. With this system, the crop water requirement is precisely estimated and optimized based on the data from the weather station. Durian will be irrigated at the right amount and at the right time, offering the opportunity for higher yield and higher income to the farmers.

Keywords: Durian, precision irrigation, precision agriculture, smart farm

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Authors: Patience Muchini, Electdom Matandiroya, Emmanuel Mashonjowa

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A ground-end manifestation of space weather phenomena is known as geomagnetically induced currents (GICs). GICs flow along the electric power transmission cables connecting the transformers and between the grounding points of power transformers during significant geomagnetic storms. Geomagnetically induced currents have been studied in other regions and have been noted to affect the power grid network. In Zimbabwe, grid failures have been experienced, but it is yet to be proven if these failures have been due to GICs. The purpose of this paper is to characterize geomagnetically induced currents with a power grid network. This paper analyses data collected, which is geomagnetic data, which includes the Kp index, DST index, and the G-Scale from geomagnetic storms and also analyses power grid data, which includes reactive power, relay tripping, and alarms from high voltage substations and then correlates the data. This research analysis was first theoretically analyzed by studying geomagnetic parameters and then experimented upon. To correlate, MATLAB was used as the basic software to analyze the data. Latitudes of the substations were also brought into scrutiny to note if they were an impact due to the location as low latitudes areas like most parts of Zimbabwe, there are less severe geomagnetic variations. Based on theoretical and graphical analysis, it has been proven that there is a slight relationship between power system failures and GICs. Further analyses can be done by implementing measuring instruments to measure any currents in the grounding of high-voltage transformers when geomagnetic storms occur. Mitigation measures can then be developed to minimize the susceptibility of the power network to GICs.

Keywords: adverse space weather, DST index, geomagnetically induced currents, KP index, reactive power

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Authors: Nihit Madireddi, P. A. Mahanwar

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We have aimed to produce a self-cleaning transparent polymer coating with polyurethane (PU) matrix as the latter is highly solvent, chemical and weather resistant having good mechanical properties. Nano-silica modified by 1H, 1H, 2H, 2H-perflurooctyltriethoxysilane was incorporated into the PU matrix for attaining self-cleaning ability through hydrophobicity. The modification was confirmed by particle size analysis and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Thermo-gravimetric (TGA) studies were carried to ascertain the grafting of silane onto the silica. Several coating formulations were prepared by varying the silica loading content and compared to a commercial equivalent. The effect of dispersion and the morphology of the coated films were assessed by SEM analysis. All coating standardized tests like solvent resistance, adhesion, flexibility, acid, alkali, gloss etc. have been performed as per ASTM standards. Water contact angle studies were conducted to analyze the hydrophobic character of the coating. In addition, the coatings were also subjected to salt spray and accelerated weather testing to analyze the durability of the coating.

Keywords: FAS, nano-silica, PU clear coat, self-cleaning

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Authors: Mohammad Zare, Mahbubeh Sheikh

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Many of the impact of climate change will material through change in soil erosion which were rarely addressed in Iran. This paper presents an investigation of the impacts of climate change soil erosin for the Kasilian basin. LARS-WG5 was used to downscale the IPCM4 and GFCM21 predictions of the A2 scenarios for the projected periods of 1985-2030 and 2080-2099. This analysis was carried out by means of the dataset the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) of Trieste. Soil loss modeling using Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE). Results indicate that soil erosion increase or decrease, depending on which climate scenarios are considered. The potential for climate change to increase soil loss rate, soil erosion in future periods was established, whereas considerable decreases in erosion are projected when land use is increased from baseline periods.

Keywords: Kasilian watershed, climatic change, soil erosion, LARS-WG5 Model, RUSLE

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Authors: Arefeh Lotfi, Mahdi Babaei, Ayda Mashhadizadeh, Samira Nikpour, Morteza Bagheri

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The main objective of this study is to investigate the key factors in accidents’ severity at rail-road level crossings. The data required for this study is obtained from both accident and inventory database of Iran Railways during 2009-2015. The Ordered Probit model is developed using SPSS software to identify the significant factors in the accident severity at rail-road level crossings. The results show that 'train speed', 'vehicle type' and 'weather' are the most important factors affecting the severity of the accident. The results of these studies assist to allocate resources in the right place. This paper suggests mandating the regulations to reduce train speed at rail-road level crossings in bad weather conditions to improve the safety of rail-road level crossings.

Keywords: rail-road level crossing, ordered probit model, accidents’ severity, significant factors

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Authors: Bishwa Nath Oli

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Nepal is highly impacted by climate change and adaptation has been a major focus. This paper investigates the gaps and coherence in national policies across water, forestry, local development and agriculture sectors, identifies their links to climate change adaptation and national development plans and analyzes the effectiveness of climate change policy on adaptation. The study was based on a content analysis of relevant policy documents on the level of attention given to adaptation and key informant interviews. Findings show that sectoral policies have differing degrees of cross thematic coherence, often with mismatched priorities and differing the paths towards achieving climate change goal. They are somewhat coherent in addressing immediate disaster management issues rather than in climate adaptation. In some cases, they are too broad and complicated and the implementation suffers from barriers and limits due to lack of capacity, investment, research and knowledge needed for evidence-based policy process. They do not adequately provide operational guidance in supporting communities in adapting to climate change. The study recommends to a) embrace longer-term cross-sectoral planning within government structures to foster greater policy coherence and integrated adaptation planning, b) increase awareness and flow of information on the potential role of communities in climate change, c) review the existing development sectors from the climate change perspectives, and d) formulate a comprehensive climate change legislation based on the need to implement the new Constitution.

Keywords: agriculture, climate change adaptation, forestry, policies

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Authors: Amira Balaska, Ali Tahri, Amine Boudghene Stambouli, Takashi Oozeki

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This paper is dealing with the evaluation of photovoltaic modules as part of the Sahara Solar Breeder project (SSB), five different photovoltaic module technologies which are: m-si, CIS, HIT, Back Contact, a-si_μc -si and a weather station recently installed at the University of Saida (Tahar Moulay) in Saida city located at the gate of the great southern Algeria’s Sahara. The objective of the present work is the study of solar photovoltaic capacity and performance parameters of each PV module technology. The goal of the study is to compare the five different PV technologies in order to find which technologies are suitable for the climate conditions of Algeria’s desert. Measurements of various parameters as irradiance, temperature, humidity and so on by the weather station and I-V curves were performed outdoors at the location without shadow. Finally performance parameters as performance ratio, energy yield and temperature losses are given and analyzed.

Keywords: photovoltaic modules, performance ratio, energy yield, sahara solar breeder, outdoor conditions

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Authors: Hung-Shuo Wu, Huan-Chieh Chiu, Xiang-Yao Zheng, Yu-Cheng Yang, Chien-Hao Wang, Jen-Cheng Wang, Chwan-Lu Tseng, Joe-Air Jiang

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Dynamic Thermal Rating (DTR) provides crucial information by estimating the ampacity of transmission lines to improve power dispatching efficiency. To perform the DTR, it is necessary to install on-line thermal sensors to monitor conductor temperature and weather variables. A simple and intuitive strategy is to allocate a thermal sensor to every span of transmission lines, but the cost of sensors might be too high to bear. To deal with the cost issue, a thermal sensor placement problem must be solved. This research proposes and implements a hybrid algorithm which combines proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) with particle swarm optimization (PSO) methods. The proposed hybrid algorithm solves a multi-objective optimization problem that concludes the minimum number of sensors and the minimum error on conductor temperature, and the optimal sensor placement is determined simultaneously. The data of 345 kV transmission lines and the hourly weather data from the Taiwan Power Company and Central Weather Bureau (CWB), respectively, are used by the proposed method. The simulated results indicate that the number of sensors could be reduced using the optimal placement method proposed by the study and an acceptable error on conductor temperature could be achieved. This study provides power companies with a reliable reference for efficiently monitoring and managing their power grids.

Keywords: dynamic thermal rating, proper orthogonal decomposition, particle swarm optimization, sensor placement, smart grid

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Authors: B. G. Ayantunji, B. Musa, H. Mai-Unguwa, L. A. Sunmonu, A. S. Adewumi, L. Sa'ad, A. Kado

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For achieving reliable and efficient communication system, both terrestrial and satellite communication, surface refractivity is critical in planning and design of radio links. This study analyzed the impact of atmospheric parameters on Ultra High Frequency (UHF) signal strength over Gusau, North West, Nigeria. The analysis exploited meteorological data measured simultaneously with UHF signal strength for the month of June 2017 using a Davis Vantage Pro2 automatic weather station and UHF signal strength measuring devices respectively. The instruments were situated at the premise of Federal University, Gusau (6° 78' N, 12° 13' E). The refractivity values were computed using ITU-R model. The result shows that the refractivity value attained the highest value of 366.28 at 2200hr and a minimum value of 350.66 at 2100hr local time. The correlation between signal strength and refractivity is 0.350; Humidity is 0.532 and a negative correlation of -0.515 for temperature.

Keywords: refractivity, UHF (ultra high frequency) signal strength, free space, automatic weather station

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Authors: Rafia Afroz

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This article examines the perceptions, consciousness and attitudes of farmers on climate change in Kedah Malaysia. To reach the objectives of this study, a survey was conducted on 350 farmers and the collected data were used to perform multiple regression analysis. The results show that factors such as age, farm income, farm experience, limited agricultural prevalence, inadequacies in credit availability and farm size are factors influencing adjustment practices. Moreover, farmers have a positive attitude through adaptation strategies that are appropriate for climate change issues. However, the study found that various adaptation barriers prevented farmers from implementing climate change adjustment policies. At present, Malaysia does not seem to have a specific policy aimed at counteracting the impacts and productivity of climate change on individual sectors. For this reason, the findings of this study will help policymakers to comply with an appropriate policy framework that takes into account the best fit alignment strategies that can come across all relevant obstacles.

Keywords: climate change, adaptation, awareness, perception, attitude

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Authors: Antigoni Panagiotopoulou, Lemonia Ragia

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High-resolution satellite images can provide detailed information about change detection on the earth. In the present work, QuickBird images of spatial resolution 60 cm/pixel and WorldView images of resolution 30 cm/pixel are utilized to perform automatic change detection in urban and suburban areas of Crete, Greece. There is a relative time difference of 13 years among the satellite images. Multiindex scene representation is applied on the images to classify the scene into buildings, vegetation, water and ground. Then, automatic change detection is made possible by pixel-per-pixel comparison of the classified multi-temporal images. The vegetation index and the water index which have been developed in this study prove effective. Furthermore, the proposed change detection approach not only indicates whether changes have taken place or not but also provides specific information relative to the types of changes. Experimentations with other different scenes in the future could help optimize the proposed spectral indices as well as the entire change detection methodology.

Keywords: change detection, multiindex scene representation, spectral index, QuickBird, WorldView

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Authors: Francesca Nicolosi, Teresa Cosola

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

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

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Authors: Ouerchefani Dalel, Mahdhaoui Basma

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Land use change is one of the important factors needed to evaluate later on the impact of human actions on land degradation. This work present the application of a methodology based on remote sensing for evaluation land use change in an arid region of Tunisia. This methodology uses Landsat TM and ETM+ images to produce land use maps by supervised classification based on ground truth region of interests. This study showed that it was possible to rely on radiometric values of the pixels to define each land use class in the field. It was also possible to generate 3 land use classes of the same study area between 1988 and 2011.

Keywords: land use, change, remote sensing, GIS

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Authors: Kiwon Yeom

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Change points are abrupt variations in a data sequence. Detection of change points is useful in modeling, analyzing, and predicting time series in application areas such as robotics and teleoperation. In this paper, a change point is defined to be a discontinuity in one of its derivatives. This paper presents a reliable method for detecting discontinuities within a three-dimensional trajectory data. The problem of determining one or more discontinuities is considered in regular and irregular trajectory data from teleoperation. We examine the geometric detection algorithm and illustrate the use of the method on real data examples.

Keywords: change point, discontinuity, teleoperation, abrupt variation

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Authors: Ismail Elkhrachy

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Determination of land use changing is an important component of regional planning for applications ranging from urban fringe change detection to monitoring change detection of land use. This data are very useful for natural resources management.On the other hand, the technologies and methods of change detection also have evolved dramatically during past 20 years. So it has been well recognized that the change detection had become the best methods for researching dynamic change of land use by multi-temporal remotely-sensed data. The objective of this paper is to assess, evaluate and monitor land use change surrounding the area of Najran city, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) using Landsat images (June 23, 2009) and ETM+ image(June. 21, 2014). The post-classification change detection technique was applied. At last,two-time subset images of Najran city are compared on a pixel-by-pixel basis using the post-classification comparison method and the from-to change matrix is produced, the land use change information obtained.Three classes were obtained, urban, bare land and agricultural land from unsupervised classification method by using Erdas Imagine and ArcGIS software. Accuracy assessment of classification has been performed before calculating change detection for study area. The obtained accuracy is between 61% to 87% percent for all the classes. Change detection analysis shows that rapid growth in urban area has been increased by 73.2%, the agricultural area has been decreased by 10.5 % and barren area reduced by 7% between 2009 and 2014. The quantitative study indicated that the area of urban class has unchanged by 58.2 km〗^2, gained 70.3 〖km〗^2 and lost 16 〖km〗^2. For bare land class 586.4〖km〗^2 has unchanged, 53.2〖km〗^2 has gained and 101.5〖km〗^2 has lost. While agriculture area class, 20.2〖km〗^2 has unchanged, 31.2〖km〗^2 has gained and 37.2〖km〗^2 has lost.

Keywords: land use, remote sensing, change detection, satellite images, image classification

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Authors: Reza Davoodi, Hamid Abbasi, Heidar Norouzi, Gholamabbas Alipourian

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A dynamic model shaping a process of knowledge management (KM) culture change is suggested. It is aimed at providing effective KM of employees for obtaining desired results in an organization. The essential requirements for obtaining KM culture change are determined. The proposed model realizes these requirements. Dynamics of the model are expressed by a change of its parameters. It is adjusted to the dynamic process of KM culture change. Building the model includes elaboration and integration of interconnected components. The “Result” is a central component of the model. This component determines a desired organizational goal and possible directions of its attainment. The “Confront” component engenders constructive confrontation in an organization. For this reason, the employees are prompted toward KM culture change with the purpose of attaining the desired result. The “Assess” component realizes complex assessments of employee proposals by management and peers. The proposals are directed towards attaining the desired result in an organization. The “Reward” component sets the order of assigning rewards to employees based on the assessments of their proposals.

Keywords: knowledge management, organizational culture change, employee, result

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Authors: Sandani Muthukumarana, Malith Shehan Keraminiyage, Pavithra Rathnasiri

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Climate change is one of the most pressing issues facing our generation. However, it also presents an opportunity to grow the economy using biotechnology. Biotechnology offers a variety of solutions that can help mitigate the effects of global warming. Despite this, there is a lack of research on the potential and challenges associated with the further use of biotechnology to combat the impacts of climate change. To address this gap, it is essential to investigate the current context surrounding the use of biotechnology for climate change mitigation, including potential applications, current practices, and existing challenges. By reviewing the existing literature on these perspectives, this paper aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the potential for biotechnology to mitigate the hazards of climate change. The use of biotechnology to mitigate the effects of climate change will be made easier as a result, and this will lay the groundwork for further study and actual initiatives in this field. Biotechnology can play a crucial role in mitigating the impacts of climate change. It offers a range of solutions, such as genetically modified crops, bioremediation, and bioenergy, that can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, enhance carbon sequestration, and increase climate resilience. By utilizing biotechnology, we can reduce the negative impacts of climate change and create a more sustainable future. According to this knowledge, researchers can harness the potential of biotechnology to fight climate change and build a more sustainable future for future generations.

Keywords: biotechnology, impact, solutions, climate changes

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Authors: Mohammed Sale Abubakar, Kabir Omar, Mohammed Umar Abba

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The effects of climate change continue to ravage globe upsetting or even overturning the entire communities in its wake. It is therefore on the front burner of most global issues affecting the world today. Hardly any field of endeavor has escaped the manifestation of its effects. The effects of climate change on agricultural productivity calls for intense study because of the nexus between agriculture, global food security and provision of employment for the teaming population in sub-saharan Africa. This paper examines current challenges of climate change on agricultural productivity in this region. This challenge indicated that both long and short-term change in climate bring unpleasant repercussion on agricultural productivity as they manifest in the vulnerability of industrial work force. The paper also focused on the impact of agriculture and bio-environmental engineering as a separate entity that will help to fight these major challenges facing humanity currently associated with negative effects of climate change such as scarcity of water, declining agricultural yields, desert encroachment, and damage of coastal structures. Finally, a suggestion was put forward as an effort that should be directed towards mitigating the negative effects of climate change on our environment.

Keywords: climate change mitigation, desert encroachment, environment, global food security, greenhouse gases (GHGs)

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Authors: Kopal Verma, Umesh C. Kulshrestha

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The mountainous regions are very crucial for a country because of their importance for weather, water supply, forests, and various other socio-economic benefits. But the increasing population and its demand for energy and infrastructure have contributed very high loadings of air pollution. Various activities such as cooking, heating, manufacturing, transport, etc. contribute various particulate and gaseous pollutants in the atmosphere. This study was focused upon indoor air pollution and was carried out in four rural households of the Baggi village located in the Hamirpur District of the Himachal Pradesh state. The residents of Baggi village use biomass as fuel for cooking on traditional stove (Chullah). The biomass types include wood (mainly Beul, Grewia Optiva), crop residue and dung cakes. This study aimed to determine the organic carbon (OC), elemental carbon (EC), major cations and anions in the indoor air of each household. During non-cooking hours, it was found that the indoor air contained OC and EC as low as 21µg/m³ and 17µg/m³ respectively. But during cooking hours (with biomass burning), the levels of OC and EC were raised significantly by 91.2% and 85.4% respectively. Then the residents were advised to switch over as per our soft approach options. In the first approach change, they were asked to prepare the meal partially on Chullah using biomass and partially with liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). By doing this change, a considerable reduction in OC (53.1%) and in EC (41.8%) was noticed. The second change of approach included the cooking of entire meal by using LPG. This resulted in the reduction of OC (84.1%) and EC (73.3%) as compared to the values obtained during cooking entirely with biomass. The carbonaceous aerosol levels were higher in the morning hours than in the evening hours because of more biomass burning activity in the morning. According to a general survey done with the residents, the study provided them an awareness about the air pollution and the harmful effects of biomass burning. Some of them correlated their ailments like weakened eyesight, fatigue and respiratory problems with indoor air pollution. This study demonstrated that by replacing biomass with clean fuel such as LPG, the indoor concentrations of EC and OC can be reduced substantially.

Keywords: biomass burning, carbonaceous aerosol, elemental carbon, organic carbon, LPG

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Authors: Hosen Tilat Mahal, Monir Hossain

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Despite being a food-sufficient country after revolutionary changes in agricultural inputs, Bangladesh still has food insecurity and undernutrition. This study examines the association between agricultural practices (as social practices) and food security concentrating on the potential impact of sociodemographic factors and climate change. Using data from the 2012 Bangladesh Integrated Household Survey (BIHS), this study shows how modifiedagricultural practices are strongly associated with climate change and different sociodemographic factors (land ownership, religion, gender, education, and occupation) subsequently affect the status of food security in Bangladesh. We used linear and logistic regression models to analyze the association between modified agricultural practices and food security. The findings indicate that socioeconomic statuses are significant predictors of determining agricultural practices in a society like Bangladesh and control food security at the household level. Moreover, climate change is adversely impactingeven the modified agricultural and food security association version. We conclude that agricultural practices must consider climate change while boosting food security. Therefore, future research should integrate climate change into the agriculture and food-related mitigation and resiliency models.

Keywords: food security, agricultural productivity, climate change, bangladesh

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Authors: Chih-Wen Fan

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Backgrounds/ Research goals : School improvement requires change leadership, which often means discomfort. Principals are the key people that determine the effectiveness of schools. In an era of organization’s pursuit of speed and effectiveness, school administration has to be accountable and innovative. Effective principals work to improve achievement by focusing on the administrative and teaching quality of improvement. However, there is a lack of literature addressing the relevant case studies on school change leadership. This article explores how principals can use change leadership to drive school change. It analyze the driving factors of principal changes in the case school, the beliefs of change leadership, specific methods, and what impact they have. Methods: This study applies the case study research method to the selected primary school located in an urban area for case study, which has achieved excellent performance after reform and innovation. The researchers selected an older primary school located in an urban area that was transformed into a high-performance primary school after changes were enacted by the principal. The selected case was recommended by three supervisors of the Education Department. The case school underwent leadership change by the new principal during his term, and won an award from the Ministry of Education. Total of 8 teachers are interviewed. The data encoding includes interviews and documents. Expected results/ conclusions: The conclusions of the study are, as follows: (1) The influence for Principal Lin's change leadership is from internal and external environmental development and change pressures. (2) The principal's belief in change leadership is to recognize the sense of crisis, and to create a climate of change and demand for change. (3) The principal's specific actions are intended to identify key members, resolve resistance, use innovative thinking, and promote organizational learning. (4) Principal Lin's change leadership can enhance the professional functions of all employees through appropriate authorization. (5) The effectiveness of change leadership lies in teachers' participation in decision-making; the school's reputation has been enhanced through featured courses.

Keywords: change leadership, empowerment, crisis awareness, case study

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Authors: Bright Msukwa

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Background: Malawi suffered economic instability, bad weather and massive flooding in the year 2015. A massive flood in the country, mainly in the southern region lead to damage of agriculture products. As a result, one of the heavily affected was Zingwangwa, Blantyre. Methods: We interviewed a selected number of houses residing in donor constructed temporal shelters and those still residing close to the floods prone areas in Zingwangwa, Blantyre. Results: About 67% of the population insisted that they resided on the land, which was prone to the floods as it belonged to their ancestors and their staying was part of preserving ancestral values. The remaining 23% of the population demonstrated economic challenges due to floods that contributed to the damage of their food crops, property and houses. Conclusion: Beliefs can negatively affect economic life improvement if mindsets are not changed among people in the rural area. Recommendation: Improving natural resource management, climate and disaster resilience.

Keywords: economic, belief, walfare, poverty

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Authors: Sungwoo Park

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The paper attempts to investigate the correlation between climate change and migration that has caused violent disputes in some regions of the world. Recently, NGOs and educational institutions have proposed claims that migratory patterns and violent uprisings are intertwined with climate change. Thus, the paper is primarily concerned with collecting evidences provided from scholars, validating this significant connection between climate change and migration, and evaluating and suggesting current and future research approaches respectively to enhance the acknowledgment and protection of environmental refugees. In order to examine the linkage of environmental migration, primary sources, such as political speeches, and secondary sources like theses from environmental policy analysts, books, and reports are used. More specifically, the investigation focuses on an civil war in Syria to draw a connection between environmental migration and violent dispute that threatens the global security. The examination undertaken specifically analyzes examples where forced migration occurred due to climate change. In Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Kiribati, residents have been at risk of fleeing their countries because of abnormal climate patterns, such as the rise of sea level or an excessive heat stress. As the brutal uprising in Syria has proven that climate change can pose a significant threat to global security, correlation between climate change and migration is surely worth delving into.

Keywords: climate change, climate migration, global security, refugee crisis

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Authors: Nicola Colaninno, Eugenio Morello

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The urban environment affects local-to-global climate and, in turn, suffers global warming phenomena, with worrying impacts on human well-being, health, social and economic activities. Physic-morphological features of the built-up space affect urban air temperature, locally, causing the urban environment to be warmer compared to surrounding rural. This occurrence, typically known as the Urban Heat Island (UHI), is normally assessed by means of air temperature from fixed weather stations and/or traverse observations or based on remotely sensed Land Surface Temperatures (LST). The information provided by ground weather stations is key for assessing local air temperature. However, the spatial coverage is normally limited due to low density and uneven distribution of the stations. Although different interpolation techniques such as Inverse Distance Weighting (IDW), Ordinary Kriging (OK), or Multiple Linear Regression (MLR) are used to estimate air temperature from observed points, such an approach may not effectively reflect the real climatic conditions of an interpolated point. Quantifying local UHI for extensive areas based on weather stations’ observations only is not practicable. Alternatively, the use of thermal remote sensing has been widely investigated based on LST. Data from Landsat, ASTER, or MODIS have been extensively used. Indeed, LST has an indirect but significant influence on air temperatures. However, high-resolution near-surface air temperature (NSAT) is currently difficult to retrieve. Here we have experimented Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) as an effective approach to enable NSAT estimation by accounting for spatial non-stationarity of the phenomenon. The model combines on-site measurements of air temperature, from fixed weather stations and satellite-derived LST. The approach is structured upon two main steps. First, a GWR model has been set to estimate NSAT at low resolution, by combining air temperature from discrete observations retrieved by weather stations (dependent variable) and the LST from satellite observations (predictor). At this step, MODIS data, from Terra satellite, at 1 kilometer of spatial resolution have been employed. Two time periods are considered according to satellite revisit period, i.e. 10:30 am and 9:30 pm. Afterward, the results have been downscaled at 30 meters of spatial resolution by setting a GWR model between the previously retrieved near-surface air temperature (dependent variable), the multispectral information as provided by the Landsat mission, in particular the albedo, and Digital Elevation Model (DEM) from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM), both at 30 meters. Albedo and DEM are now the predictors. The area under investigation is the Metropolitan City of Milan, which covers an area of approximately 1,575 km2 and encompasses a population of over 3 million inhabitants. Both models, low- (1 km) and high-resolution (30 meters), have been validated according to a cross-validation that relies on indicators such as R2, Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE) and Mean Absolute Error (MAE). All the employed indicators give evidence of highly efficient models. In addition, an alternative network of weather stations, available for the City of Milano only, has been employed for testing the accuracy of the predicted temperatures, giving and RMSE of 0.6 and 0.7 for daytime and night-time, respectively.

Keywords: urban climate, urban heat island, geographically weighted regression, remote sensing

Procedia PDF Downloads 168

Authors: Abdullah Al Mohiuddin

Abstract:

Bangladesh is one of the poorest countries in the world, and ranks low on almost all measures of economic development, thus leaving the population extremely vulnerable to natural disasters and climate events. 20% of GDP come from agriculture but more than 60% of the population relies on agriculture as their main source of income making the entire economy vulnerable to climate change and natural disasters. High population density exacerbates the exposure to and effect of climate events, and increases the levels of vulnerability, as does the poor institutional development of the country. The most vulnerable sectors to climate change impacts in Bangladesh are agriculture, coastal zones, water resources, forestry, fishery, health, biomass, and energy. High temperatures, heavy rainfall, high humidity and fairly marked seasonal variations characterize the climate in Bangladesh: Mild winter, hot humid summer and humid, warm rainy monsoon. Much of the country is flooded during the summer monsoon. The Department of Environment (DOE) under the Ministry of Environment and Forestry (MoEF) is the focal point for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and coordinates climate related activities in the country. Recently, a Climate Change Cell (CCC) has been established to address several issues including adaptation to climate change. The climate change focus started with The National Environmental Management Action Plan (NEMAP) which was prepared in 1995 in order to initiate the process to address environmental and climate change issues as long-term environmental problems for Bangladesh. Bangladesh was one of the first countries to finalise a NAPA (Preparation of a National Adaptation Plan of Action) which addresses climate change issues. The NAPA was completed in 2005, and is the first official initiative for mainstreaming adaptation to national policies and actions to cope with climate change and vulnerability. The NAPA suggests a number of adaptation strategies, for example: - Providing drinking water to coastal communities to fight the enhanced salinity caused by sea level rise, - Integrating climate change in planning and design of infrastructure, - Including climate change issues in education, - Supporting adaptation of agricultural systems to new weather extremes, - Mainstreaming CCA into policies and programmes in different sectors, e.g. disaster management, water and health, - Dissemination of CCA information and awareness raising on enhanced climate disasters, especially in vulnerable communities. Bangladesh has geared up its environment conservation steps to save the world’s poorest countries from the adverse effects of global warming. Now it is turning towards green economy policies to save the degrading ecosystem. Bangladesh is a developing country and always fights against Natural Disaster. At the same time we also fight for establishing ecological environment through promoting Green Economy/Energy by Youth Networking. ANTAR is coordinating a big Youth Network in the southern part of Bangladesh where 30 Youth group involved. It can be explained as the economic development based on sustainable development which generates growth and improvement in human’s lives while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities. Green economy in Bangladesh promotes three bottom lines – sustaining economic, environment and social well-being.

Keywords: resilience, networking, mobilizing, resource

Procedia PDF Downloads 282

Authors: Durga Prasad Sapkota, Madhu Sudan Kayastha, Koichi Wakita

Abstract:

In this paper, we have compared and analyzed the electron absorption properties between with and without excitonic effect bulk in high purity GaAs spatial light modulator for an optical fiber communication network. The electroabsorption properties such as absorption spectra, change in absorption spectra, change in refractive index and extinction ratio have been calculated. We have also compared the result of absorption spectra and change in absorption spectra with the experimental results and found close agreement with experimental results.

Keywords: exciton, refractive index change, extinction ratio, GaAs

Procedia PDF Downloads 549

Authors: Boshra Mozaffar, Iskandar Idris

Abstract:

Taste change is a common complication after Bariatric surgery (BS). However, the cause of this is still not clear. Since zinc is important fortaste perception, zinc deficiency, which is common after BS, may play an important role for taste change after BS. In this review, we aimto collate evidence relating to taste change and zinc deficiencyin relation to BS; effects of zinc replacement on taste perception in general and thereafter discuss the possible role of zinc deficiency to induce taste change after BS. A literature search was conducted, using four electronic bibliographical databases—EMBASE, PubMed, AMED and MEDLINE. We identified all available and relevant articles published before 30th February 2021.In total, 33 studies were included. The total number of participants analysed was N= 3264. We showed that taste change is a frequent complication after BS, especially after Roux-en-Y gastric bypass RYGBP comparing to other types of procedures. Patients' taste sensitivity differs among studies, but the most important decline in taste preference was observed for sweet food. Twelve studies investigating zinc deficiency following BS showed a significant decrease in zinc levels at six months after surgery. Supplementation with 45–50 mg of zinc sulphate was effective in improving taste, except in cancer patients, who showed no improvement in taste following zinc supplementation. Zinc deficiency appears to be associated with taste change after BS. Supplementation with much higher levels of zinc, at 45–50 mg, was effective in taste change treatment for many cases of taste disorder. The currently recommended levels of zinc replacements currently prescribed to patients following BS were not effective for avoiding zinc deficiency after BS—and thus not effective for averting taste change. It is therefore suggested that taste change following BS is closely related to zinc deficiency induced by the surgery.

Keywords: taste change, taste disorder, bariatric surgery, zinc, zinc sulphate or Zn, deficiency, supplementation, and micro-nutrient deficiencies

Procedia PDF Downloads 147