Search results for: energy and environmental assessment

Authors: Yashvir Singh

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Around the globe, there is demand for the development of bio-based lubricant which will be biodegradable, non -toxic and environmental friendly. This paper outlines the friction and wear characteristics of Pongamia oil (PO) contaminated bio-lubricant by using pin-on-disc tribometer. To formulate the bio-lubricants, PO was blended in the ratios 15, 30 and 50% by volume with the base lubricant SAE 20 W 40. Tribological characteristics of these blends were carried out at 3.8 m/s sliding velocity and loads applied were 50, 100, 150 N. Experimental results showed that the lubrication regime that occurred during the test was boundary lubrication while the main wear mechanisms were abrasive and the adhesive wear. During testing, the lowest wear was found with the addition of 15% PO, and above this contamination, the wear rate was increased considerably. With increase in load, viscosity of all the bio-lubricants increases and meets the ISO VG 100 requirement at 40 ^oC except PB 50. The addition of PO in the base lubricant acted as a very good lubricant additive which reduced the friction and wear scar diameter during the test. It has been concluded that the PB 15 can act as an alternative lubricant to increase the mechanical efficiency at 3.8 m/s sliding velocity and contribute in reduction of dependence on the petroleum based products.

Keywords: Pongamia oil, sliding velocity, load, friction, wear.

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Authors: Rachel Bardy Prado, Vinícius de Melo Benites, José Carlos Polidoro, Carlos Eduardo Gonçalves, Alexey Naumov

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Most agricultural crops cultivated in Brazil are highly nutrient demanding. Brazilian soils are generally acidic with low base saturation and available nutrients. Demand for fertilizer application has increased because the national agricultural sector expansion. To improve productivity without environmental impact, there is the need for the utilization of novel procedures and techniques to optimize fertilizer application. This includes the digital soil mapping and GIS application applied to mapping in different scales. This paper is based on research, realized during 2005 to 2010 by Brazilian Corporation for Agricultural Research (EMBRAPA) and its partners. The purpose was to map soil fertility in national and regional scales. A soil profile data set in national scale (1:5,000,000) was constructed from the soil archives of Embrapa Soils, Rio de Janeiro and in the regional scale (1:250,000) from COMIGO Cooperative soil data set, Rio Verde, Brazil. The mapping was doing using ArcGIS 9.1 tools from ESRI.

Keywords: agricultural sustainability, fertilizer optimization, GIS, soil attributes.

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Authors: Danijela Tuljak-Suban, Valter Suban

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Food as perishable goods represents a specific and sensitive part in the supply chain theory, since changing physical or chemical characteristics considerably influence the approach to stock management. The most delicate phase of this process is transportation, where it becomes difficult to ensure the stable conditions which limit deterioration, since the value of the deterioration rate could be easily influenced by the mode of transportation. The fuzzy definition of variables allows one to take these variations into account. Furthermore, an appropriate choice of the defuzzification method permits one to adapt results to real conditions as far as possible. In this article those methods which take into account the relationship between the deterioration rate of perishable goods and transportation by ship will be applied with the aim of (a) minimizing the total cost function, defined as the sum of the ordering cost, holding cost, disposing cost and transportation costs, and (b) improving the supply chain sustainability by reducing environmental impact and waste disposal costs.

Keywords: Perishable goods, fuzzy reasoning, transport by ship, supply chain sustainability.

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Authors: Mohsen Noroozi, Maryam Khalili

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Creating cities, objects and spaces that are economically, environmentally and socially sustainable and which meet the challenge of social interaction and generation change will be one of the biggest tasks of designers. Social sustainability is about how individuals, communities and societies live with each other and set out to achieve the objectives of development model which they have chosen for themselves. Urban lightning as one of the most important elements of urban furniture that people constantly interact with it in public spaces; can be a significant object for designers. Using intelligence by internet of things for urban lighting makes it more interactive in public environments. It can encourage individuals to carry out appropriate behaviors and provides them the social awareness through new interactions. The greatest strength of this technology is its strong impact on many aspects of everyday life and users' behaviors. The analytical phase of the research is based on a multiple method survey strategy. Smart lighting proposed in this paper is an urban lighting designed on results obtained from a collective point of view about the social sustainability. In this paper, referring to behavioral design methods, the social behaviors of the people has been studied. Data show that people demands for a deeper experience of social participation, safety perception and energy saving with the meaningful use of interactive and colourful lighting effects. By using intelligent technology, some suggestions are provided in the field of future lighting to consider the new forms of social sustainability.

Keywords: Behavior model, internet of things, social sustainability, urban lighting.

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Authors: N. P. Singh, Brahmjit Singh

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CDMA cellular networks support soft handover, which guarantees the continuity of wireless services and enhanced communication quality. Cellular networks support multimedia services under varied propagation environmental conditions. In this paper, we have shown the effect of characteristic parameters of the cellular environments on the soft handover performance. We consider path loss exponent, standard deviation of shadow fading and correlation coefficient of shadow fading as the characteristic parameters of the radio propagation environment. A very useful statistical measure for characterizing the performance of mobile radio system is the probability of outage. It is shown through numerical results that above parameters have decisive effect on the probability of outage and hence the overall performance of the soft handover algorithm.

Keywords: CDMA, Correlation coefficient, Path loss exponent, Probability of outage, Soft handover.

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Authors: A. Q. Sobia, A. Shyzleen, M. S. Hamidah, I. Azmi, S. F. A. Rafeeqi, S. Ahmad

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Reinforced Concrete (RC) structures strengthened with fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) lack in thermal resistance under elevated temperatures in the event of fire. This phenomenon led to the lining of strengthened concrete with thin high performance cementitious composites (THPCC) to protect the substrate against elevated temperature. Elevated temperature effects on THPCC, based on different cementitious materials have been studied in the past but high-alumina cement (HAC)-based THPCC have not been well characterized. This research study will focus on the THPCC based on HAC replaced by 60%, 70%, 80% and 85% of ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBS). Samples were evaluated by the measurement of their mechanical strength (28 & 56 days of curing) after exposed to 400°C, 600°C and 28°C of room temperature for comparison and corroborated by their microstructure study. Results showed that among all mixtures, the mix containing only HAC showed the highest compressive strength after exposed to 600°C as compared to other mixtures. However, the tensile strength of THPCC made of HAC and 60% GGBS content was comparable to the THPCC with HAC only after exposed to 600°C. Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) images of THPCC accompanying Energy Dispersive X-ray (EDX) microanalysis revealed that the microstructure deteriorated considerably after exposure to elevated temperatures which led to the decrease in mechanical strength.

Keywords: Ground granulated blast furnace slag, high aluminacement, microstructure at elevated temperature and residual strength.

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Authors: Loai Ben Naji, Osama M. Ibrahim, Khaled J. Al-Fadhalah

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The objective of this paper is to investigate the formation and adhesion of a protective aluminum-oxide (Al₂O₃, alumina) layer on the surface of Iron-Chromium-Aluminum Alloy (Fe-Cr-Al) sintered-metal-fibers. The oxide-scale layer was developed via multi-stage thermal oxidation at 930 ^oC for 1 hour, followed by 1 hour at 960 ^oC, and finally at 990 ^oC for 2 hours. Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) images show that the multi-stage thermal oxidation resulted in the formation of predominantly Al₂O₃ platelets-like and whiskers. SEM images also reveal non-uniform oxide-scale growth on the surface of the fibers. Furthermore, peeling/spalling of the alumina protective layer occurred after minimum handling, which indicates weak adhesion forces between the protective layer and the base metal alloy.  Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS) analysis of the heat-treated Fe-Cr-Al sintered-metal-fibers confirmed the high aluminum content on the surface of the protective layer, and the low aluminum content on the exposed base metal alloy surface. In conclusion, the failure of the oxide-scale protective layer exposes the base metal alloy to further oxidation, and the fragile non-uniform oxide-scale is not suitable as a support for catalysts.

Keywords: High-temperature oxidation, alumina protective layer, iron-chromium-aluminum alloy, sintered-metal-fibers.

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Authors: Zhichao Jiao, Craig Farnham, Jihui Yuan, Kazuo Emura

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It is common to use the outdoor design weather data to select the air-conditioning capacity in the building design stage. The meteorological elements of outdoor design weather data are usually selected based on their excess frequency separately while the dependency between the elements is not well considered. It means that the simultaneous occurrence probability of these elements is smaller than the original excess frequency which may cause an overestimation of selecting air-conditioning capacity. Therefore, the copula approach which can capture the dependency between multivariate data was used to model the joint distributions of the meteorological elements, like air temperature and global solar radiation. We suggest a method based on the specific simultaneous occurrence probability of these two elements of selecting more credible outdoor design conditions. The hourly weather data at 12 noon from 2001 to 2010 in Tokyo, Japan are used to analyze the dependency structure and joint distribution, the Gaussian copula represents the dependence of data best. According to calculating the air temperature and global solar radiation in specific simultaneous occurrence probability and the common exceeding, the results show that both the air temperature and global solar radiation based on simultaneous occurrence probability are lower than these based on the conventional method in the same probability.

Keywords: Copula approach, Design weather database, energy conservation, HVAC.

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Authors: Ibrahim Abubakar Alkali, Abubakar Sarkile Kawuwa, Ibrahim Sani Khalil

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The concept of space and function forms the bedrock for spatial configuration in architectural design. Thus, the effectiveness and functionality of an architectural product depends their cordial relationship. This applies to all buildings especially to a hospital ward setting designed to accommodate various complex and diverse functions. Health care facilities design, especially an inpatient setting, is governed by many regulations and technical requirements. It is also affected by many less defined needs, particularly, response to culture and the need to provide for patient families’ presence and participation. The spatial configuration of the hospital ward setting in developing countries has no consideration for the patient’s families despite the significant role they play in promoting recovery. Attempts to integrate facilities for patients’ families have always been challenging, especially in developing countries like Nigeria, where accommodation for inpatients is predominantly in an open ward system. In addition, the situation is compounded by culture, which significantly dictates healthcare practices in Africa. Therefore, achieving such a hospital ward setting that is patient and family-centered requires careful assessment of family care actions and transaction spaces so as to arrive at an evidence based solution. Therefore, the aim of this study is to identify how hospital ward spaces can be reconfigured to provide for sustainable family integration. In achieving this aim, a qualitative approach using the principles of behavioral mapping was employed in male and female medical wards of the Federal Teaching Hospital (FTH) Gombe, Nigeria. The data obtained was analysed using classical and comparative content analysis. Patients’ families have been found to be a critical component of hospital ward design that cannot be undermined. Accordingly, bedsides, open yards, corridors and foyers have been identified as patient families’ transaction spaces that require design attention. Arriving at sustainable family integration can be achieved by revisiting the design requirements of the family transaction spaces based on the findings in order to avoid the rowdiness of the wards and uncoordinated sprawl.

Keywords: Caregiving, design basics, family integration, hospital ward, sustainability.

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Authors: Paul O. Udofot, Emem B. Inyang

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The study investigated the variability in aptitude amidst interactive effects of several social and environmental factors that could influence individual tendencies to engage in entrepreneurship in Nigeria. Consequently, the study targeted a population having similar backgrounds in type and level of higher education that are tailored toward enterprise management and development in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. A two-stage sampling procedure was used to select 67 respondents. Primarily, the study assessed the salient pattern of entrepreneurship aptitude of respondents, and estimated and analyzed the index against their personal characteristics. Male respondents belonged to two extremes of aptitude index ranges (poor and high). Though female respondents did not exhibit a poor entrepreneurship aptitude index, the incidence percentage of the high index range of entrepreneurship aptitude among male trainees was more than the combined incidence percentage of their female counterparts. Respondents’ backgrounds outside gender presented a serious influence on entrepreneurship uptake likelihood if all situations were normal.

Keywords: Aptitude, entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial orientation, gender divide, intention, trainee.

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Authors: N. Khomarloo, F. Mousazadegan, M. Latifi, N. Hemmatinejad

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Recently, the utilization of reusable surgical gowns in order to decrease costs, environmental protection and enhance surgeon’s comfort is considered. One of the concerns in applying this kind of medical protective clothing is reduction of their resistance to bacterial penetration especially in wet state, after repeated laundering and sterilizing process. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of the laundering and sterilizing process on the reusable surgical gown’s resistance against bacterial wet penetration. To this end, penetration of Staphylococcus aureus bacteria in wet state after 70 washing and sterilizing cycles was evaluated on the two single-layer and three-layer reusable gowns. The outcomes reveal that up to 20 laundering and sterilizing cycles, protective property of samples improves due to fabric shrinkage, after that because of the fabric’s construction opening, the bacterial penetration increase. However, the three-layer gown presents higher protective performance comparing to the single-layer one.

Keywords: Reusable surgical gown, laundry, sterilization, wet bacterial penetration.

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Authors: Libin Ouyang

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China has experienced a very fast urbanization process in the past two decades. Due to the uncoordinated characteristics of regional development in China, a large number of people from rural areas or small towns have flooded into regional central cities, which are building new cities around them due to the shortage of construction land or the need for urban development. However, the construction of some new cities has not achieved the expected effect, the absorption capacity of industry and population is limited, and the phenomenon of capital and land waste is obvious. This paper takes Xixian New Area in Shaanxi Province, an inland area in Northwest China, as an example, and tries to analyze the reasons for the lack of vitality in Xixian New Area from the perspectives of land use layout and urban design. This paper will also select the Energy-Finance-Trade Start-up Area in Xixian New Area as an important research site, and study how to optimize the land use layout and urban design to ease the population of big cities, effectively solve the problems of big cities, improve the vitality and attractiveness of the new city, and promote the sustainable development of the new city. The study can provide reference for urban planning practitioners and policy makers, provide theoretical help for the construction of new cities in other underdeveloped regions of China, and provide certain case references for the construction of cities in other developing countries in the process of rapid urbanization.

Keywords: New city, land use layout, urban design, urban planning.

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Authors: Diana Gómez-Cano, J. C. Ochoa-Botero, Roberto Bernal Correa, Yhan Paul Arias

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To obtain high mechanical performance, the fresh conditions of a mortar are decisive. Measuring the absorption of aggregates used in mortar mixes is a fundamental requirement for proper design of the mixes prior to their placement in construction sites. In this sense, absorption is a determining factor in the design of a mix because it conditions the amount of water, which in turn affects the water/cement ratio and the final porosity of the mortar. Thus, this work focuses on the mechanical behavior of recycled mortars manufactured from moisture correction using the Thermogravimetric Balancing Halogen Light (TBHL) technique in comparison with the traditional ASTM C 128 International Standard method. The advantages of using the TBHL technique are favorable in terms of reduced consumption of resources such as materials, energy and time. The results show that in contrast to the ASTM C 128 method, the TBHL alternative technique allows obtaining a higher precision in the absorption values of recycled aggregates, which is reflected not only in a more efficient process in terms of sustainability in the characterization of construction materials, but also in an effect on the mechanical performance of recycled mortars.

Keywords: Alternative raw materials, halogen light, recycled mortar, resources optimization, water absorption.

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Authors: Vince Scolaro, Lakshman Prasad, Ted Polley, Sanjivan Deshpande

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The LH Ford Bridge, built in the 1960’s, comprises 28 spans, is 800 m long and crosses the Macquarie River at Dubbo, NSW. The main bridge spans comprise three spans with a 63 m centre span (25 m drop-in section) supported by halving joints from the main cantilevers and back spans of 28 m. The main bridge spans were built using complex construction staging (first of this type in NSW). They comprise twin precast boxes, in-situ reinforced concrete infills, and cantilevered outriggers stressed both longitudinally and transversely. Since construction, this bridge has undergone significantly increased design vehicle loads and showed signs of excessive shrinkage and creep leading to significant sagging of the centre span with evidence of previous failure and remediation of the halving joints. A comprehensive load rating assessment was undertaken taking account of the original complex construction staging. Deficiencies identified included, inadequate capacity of the halving joints, failure of the bearings at the halving joints, inadequate shear capacity of the girder webs and inadequate girder flexural capacity to carry B-Double design vehicles. A strengthening system comprising two new piers (under each of the halving joints), new bearings and installation of external prestressing to the soffit of both drop-in-span and back spans was adopted. A portion of dead load had to be transferred from the superstructure to the new piers via innovative soft/stiff bearing combinations to reduce new locked in stresses resulting from the new pier supports. Significant temporary works comprised a precast concrete shell beam forming the pile cap/pier structure, addition of temporary suspended scaffold (without overstressing the existing superstructure) and installation of jacking stays for new bearing top and bottom plates. This paper presents how this existing historic and socially important bridge was strengthened and updated to increase its design life without the need for replacement.

Keywords: Strengthening, creep, construction, box girder.

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Authors: Jawad Makki, Anne-Marie Alquier, Violaine Prince

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In this paper we propose an NLP-based method for Ontology Population from texts and apply it to semi automatic instantiate a Generic Knowledge Base (Generic Domain Ontology) in the risk management domain. The approach is semi-automatic and uses a domain expert intervention for validation. The proposed approach relies on a set of Instances Recognition Rules based on syntactic structures, and on the predicative power of verbs in the instantiation process. It is not domain dependent since it heavily relies on linguistic knowledge. A description of an experiment performed on a part of the ontology of the PRIMA1 project (supported by the European community) is given. A first validation of the method is done by populating this ontology with Chemical Fact Sheets from Environmental Protection Agency2. The results of this experiment complete the paper and support the hypothesis that relying on the predicative power of verbs in the instantiation process improves the performance.

Keywords: Information Extraction, Instance Recognition Rules, Ontology Population, Risk Management, Semantic analysis.

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Authors: Houda Najeh, Mahendra Pratap Singh, Stéphane Ploix, Antoine Caucheteux, Karim Chabir, Mohamed Naceur Abdelkrim

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Building system is highly vulnerable to different kinds of faults and human misbehaviors. Energy efficiency and user comfort are directly targeted due to abnormalities in building operation. The available fault diagnosis tools and methodologies particularly rely on rules or pure model-based approaches. It is assumed that model or rule-based test could be applied to any situation without taking into account actual testing contexts. Contextual tests with validity domain could reduce a lot of the design of detection tests. The main objective of this paper is to consider fault validity when validate the test model considering the non-modeled events such as occupancy, weather conditions, door and window openings and the integration of the knowledge of the expert on the state of the system. The concept of heterogeneous tests is combined with test validity to generate fault diagnoses. A combination of rules, range and model-based tests known as heterogeneous tests are proposed to reduce the modeling complexity. Calculation of logical diagnoses coming from artificial intelligence provides a global explanation consistent with the test result. An application example shows the efficiency of the proposed technique: an office setting at Grenoble Institute of Technology.

Keywords: Heterogeneous tests, validity, building system, sensor grids, sensor fault, diagnosis, fault detection and isolation.

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Authors: Sri Ratna Rahayu, Oktia Woro Kasmini Handayani, Lourensiana Y. S. Ngaga, Imade Sudana, Irwan Budiono

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Malaria is an infectious disease that still cannot be solved in Kori village, West Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia, where the most of people live in rumah panggung (Stilts House). The purpose of this study was to know whether there were the effects of rumah panggung environment, social culture, and behavior on malaria incidence in the Kori village. A cross-sectional study was performed to explore the effects of rumah panggung environment, social culture and behavior on malaria incidence. This study recruited 280 respondents, who live in the rumah panggung, permanent residents in Kori village, were age above 17 years old, and suffered from malaria in the past year. The collected data were analyzed with path analysis. The results of this study showed that the environment of rumah panggung and behavior have a direct effect on the incidence of malaria (p < 0.05). It could be concluded that improvement of environmental conditions of rumah panggung, sociocultural, and behavioral changes to maintain a healthy environment are needed to reduce the malaria incidence.

Keywords: Rumah panggung, socio cultural, behavior, malaria.

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Authors: Adilah Shariff, Radin Hakim, Nurhayati Abdullah

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Utilisation of biomass feedstock for biochar has received increasing attention because of their potential for carbon sequestration and soil amendment. The aim of this study is to investigate the characteristics of rubber wood as a biomass feedstock for biochar via slow pyrolysis process. This was achieved by using proximate, ultimate, and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) as well as heating value, pH and lignocellulosic determination. Rubber wood contains 4.13 mf wt.% moisture, 86.30 mf wt.% volatile matter, 0.60 mf wt.% ash content, and 13.10 mf wt.% fixed carbon. The ultimate analysis shows that rubber wood consists of 44.33 mf wt.% carbon, 6.26 mf wt.% hydrogen, 19.31 mf wt.% nitrogen, 0.31 mf wt.% sulphur, and 29.79 mf wt.% oxygen. The higher heating value of rubber wood is 22.5 MJ/kg, and its lower heating value is 21.2 MJ/kg. At 27 °C, the pH value of rubber wood is 6.83 which is acidic. The lignocellulosic analysis revealed that rubber wood composition consists of 2.63 mf wt.% lignin, 20.13 mf wt.% cellulose, and 65.04 mf wt.% hemicellulose. The volatile matter to fixed carbon ratio is 6.58. This led to a biochar yield of 25.14 wt.% at 500 °C. Rubber wood is an environmental friendly feedstock due to its low sulphur content. Rubber wood therefore is a suitable and a potential feedstock for biochar production via slow pyrolysis.

Keywords: Biochar, biomass, rubber wood, slow pyrolysis.

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Authors: V. Radenkovs, D. Klava, K. Juhnevica

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The present study addresses problems and solutions related to new functional food production. Wheat (Triticum aestivum L) bran obtained from industrial mill company “Dobeles dzirnavieks”, was used to investigate them as raw material like nutrients for Bifidobacterium lactis Bb-12. Enzymatic hydrolysis of wheat bran starch was carried out by α-amylase from Bacillus amyloliquefaciens (Sigma Aldrich). The Viscozyme L purchased from (Sigma Aldrich) were used for reducing released sugar. Bifidibacterium lactis Bb-12 purchased from (Probio-Tec® CHR Hansen) was cultivated in enzymatically hydrolysed wheat bran mash. All procedures ensured the number of active Bifidobacterium lactis Bb-12 in the final product reached 105 CFUg-1. After enzymatic and bacterial fermentations sample were freeze dried for analysis of chemical compounds. All experiments were performed at Faculty of Food Technology of Latvia University of Agriculture in January- March 2013. The obtained results show that both types of wheat bran (enzymatically treated and non-treated) influenced the fermentative activity and number of Bifidibacterium lactis Bb-12 viable in wheat bran mash. Amount of acidity strongly increase during the wheat bran mash fermentation. The main objective of this work was to create low-energy functional enzymatically and bacterially treated food from wheat bran using enzymatic hydrolysis of carbohydrates and following cultivation of Bifidobacterium lactis Bb-12.

Keywords: Viscozyme L, α-amylase, Bifidobacterium lactis, fermented wheat bran.

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Authors: Abhishek Agarwal, Manoj Sarda, Juhi Kaushik, Vatsal Sanjay, Arup Kumar Das

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Propagation of fire through a non-air conditioned railway compartment is studied by virtue of numerical simulations. Simultaneous computational fire dynamics equations, such as Navier-Stokes, lumped species continuity, overall mass and energy conservation, and heat transfer are solved using finite volume based (for radiation) and finite difference based (for all other equations) solver, Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS). A single coupe with an eight berth occupancy is used to establish the numerical model, followed by the selection of a three coupe system as the fundamental unit of the locomotive compartment. Heat Release Rate Per Unit Area (HRRPUA) of the initial fire is varied to consider a wide range of compartmental fires. Parameters, such as air inlet velocity relative to the locomotive at the windows, the level of interaction with the ambiance and closure of middle berth are studied through a wide range of numerical simulations. Almost all the loss of lives and properties due to fire breakout can be attributed to the direct or indirect exposure to flames or to the inhalation of toxic gases and resultant suffocation due to smoke and soot. Therefore, the temporal stature of fire and smoke are reported for each of the considered cases which can be used in the present or extended form to develop guidelines to be followed in case of a fire breakout.

Keywords: Fire dynamics, flame propagation, locomotive fire, soot flow pattern.

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Authors: Johana Jaramillo, Robin Kalfat, Dmitriy A. Dikin

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The cement production process is one of the major sources of carbon dioxide (CO2), a potent greenhouse gas. Indeed, as a result of its cement manufacturing process, concrete contributes approximately 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions. In addition to environmental concerns, concrete also has a low tensile and ductility strength, which can lead to cracks. Graphene Nanoplatelets (GNPs) have proven to be an eco-friendly solution for improving the mechanical and durability properties of concrete. The current research investigates the effects of preparing concrete enhanced with GNPs by using different wet dispersions techniques and mixing methods on its mechanical properties. Concrete specimens were prepared with 0.00 wt%, 0.10 wt%, 0.20 wt%, 0.30 wt% and wt% GNPs. Compressive and flexural strength of concrete at age 7 days were determined. The results showed that the maximum improvement in mechanical properties was observed when GNPs content was 0.20 wt%. The compressive and flexural strength were improved by up to 17.5% and 8.6%, respectively. When GNP dispersions were prepared by the combination of a drill and an ultrasonic probe, mechanical properties experienced maximum improvement.

Keywords: Concrete, dispersion techniques, graphene nanoplatelets, mechanical properties, mixing methods.

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Authors: Doaa M. Atia, Faten H. Fahmy, Ninet M. Ahmed, Hassen T. Dorrah

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Fuel cells have become one of the major areas of research in the academia and the industry. The goal of most fish farmers is to maximize production and profits while holding labor and management efforts to the minimum. Risk of fish kills, disease outbreaks, poor water quality in most pond culture operations, aeration offers the most immediate and practical solution to water quality problems encountered at higher stocking and feeding rates. Many units of aeration system are electrical units so using a continuous, high reliability, affordable, and environmentally friendly power sources is necessary. Aeration of water by using PEM fuel cell power is not only a new application of the renewable energy, but also, it provides an affordable method to promote biodiversity in stagnant ponds and lakes. This paper presents a new design and control of PEM fuel cell powered a diffused air aeration system for a shrimp farm in Mersa Matruh in Egypt. Also Artificial intelligence (AI) techniques control is used to control the fuel cell output power by control input gases flow rate. Moreover the mathematical modeling and simulation of PEM fuel cell is introduced. A comparison study is applied between the performance of fuzzy logic control (FLC) and neural network control (NNC). The results show the effectiveness of NNC over FLC.

Keywords: PEM fuel cell, Diffused aeration system, Artificialintelligence (AI) techniques, neural network control, fuzzy logiccontrol

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Authors: Iwan Nugroho, Purnawan D. Negara

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This paper is aimed to study the roles of leadership and innovation in the development of local people based ecotourism services. The survey is conducted in Candirejo village, Borobudur District, Magelang Regency. The study of a descriptive approach is employed to identify people's behavior in ecotourism services. The results showed that ecotourism services have developed and provided benefits to the people. The roles of leadership and innovation interact positively with a cooperative to organize an ecotourism services management. The leadership is able to identify substances, to do the vision and missions of environmental and cultural conservation. The innovation provides alternative development efforts and increases the added value of ecotourism. The cooperative management was able to support a process to realize the goals of ecotourism, to build participation and communication, and to perform organizational learning. The phenomenon of the leadership in the Candirejo ecotourism enriches the studies of the ecotourism management. During this time, the ecotourism management is always associated with the standard management of national park. The ecotourism management of Candirejo is considered successful even outside the national park management.

Keywords: Borobudur, Candirejo, ecotourism, inovation, Leadership.

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Authors: Deogratius Musiige, François Anton, Vital Yatskevich, Laulagnet Vincent, Darka Mioc, Nguyen Pierre

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This paper presents a methodology towards the emulation of the electrical power consumption of the RF device during the cellular phone/handset transmission mode using the LTE technology. The emulation methodology takes the physical environmental variables and the logical interface between the baseband and the RF system as inputs to compute the emulated power dissipation of the RF device. The emulated power, in between the measured points corresponding to the discrete values of the logical interface parameters is computed as a polynomial interpolation using polynomial basis functions. The evaluation of polynomial and spline curve fitting models showed a respective divergence (test error) of 8% and 0.02% from the physically measured power consumption. The precisions of the instruments used for the physical measurements have been modeled as intervals. We have been able to model the power consumption of the RF device operating at 5MHz using homotopy between 2 continuous power consumptions of the RF device operating at the bandwidths 3MHz and 10MHz.

Keywords: Radio frequency, high power amplifier, baseband, LTE, power, emulation, homotopy, interval analysis, Tx power, register-transfer level.

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Authors: Mengist Hailemariam, Assegid Ajeme

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The ever increasing amount of solid waste (SW) generated which is exacerbated by lack of proper waste management system is of growing concern worldwide and in major cities in developing countries due to its social, economic and environmental implications. This study attempts to describe the aspects of solid waste management (SWM) in Adama, one of the fast urbanizing cities in Ethiopia, and highlights the challenges thereof. Data were gathered through interview supplemented by field observation and self-administered questionnaire. Then, the data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) software. In addition, secondary data were gathered from documents. Findings revealed that the current SWM practice couldn’t cope with the fast urbanizing needs and the rapid population growth exhibited by the city. Besides, major factors contributing to the inefficient system were identified. The study would provide practical insights to decision makers in developing a sustainable SWM system leading to minimized risk in the city.

Keywords: Adama, Aspects and challenges, Ethiopia, Solid waste management.

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Authors: Gulnara N. Nabiyeva, Stephen M. Wheeler

Abstract:

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is a multipurpose computer-based tool that provides a sophisticated ability to map and analyze data on different spatial layers. However, GIS is far more easily applied in some policy areas than others. This paper seeks to determine the areas of sustainable development, including environmental, economic, and social dimensions, where GIS has been used to date to support efforts to implement the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and to discuss potential areas where it might be used more. Based on an extensive analysis of published literature, we ranked the SDGs according to how frequently GIS has been used to study related policy. We found that SDG#15 “Life on Land” is most often addressed with GIS, following by SDG#11 “Sustainable Cities and Communities”, and SDG#13 “Climate Action”. On the other hand, we determined that SDG#2 “Zero Hunger”, SDG#8 “Decent Work and Economic Growth”, and SDG#16 “Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions” are least addressed with GIS. The paper outlines some specific ways that GIS might be applied to the SDGs least linked to this tool currently.

Keywords: GIS, GIS application, sustainable community development, sustainable development goals.

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Authors: Aeslina Abdul Kadir, Abbas Mohajerani

Abstract:

Over a million tonnes of cigarette butts (CBs) are produced worldwide annually. These CBs accumulate in the environment due to the poor biodegradability of the cellulose acetate filters and pose a serious environmental risk. This paper presents some of the results from a continuing study on recycling CBs into fired clay bricks. Properties including compressive strength, flexural strength, density, water absorption and thermal conductivity of fired clay bricks are reported and discussed. Furthermore, leaching of heavy metals from the manufactured clay bricks was tested. The results show that the density of fired bricks was reduced by about 8 – 30 %, depending on the percentage of CBs incorporated into the raw materials. The compressive strength of bricks tested was 12.57, 5.22 and 3.00 MPa for 2.5, 5.0 and 10 % CB content respectively. Water absorption and initial rate of absorption values increased as density, and hence porosity, of bricks decreased with increasing CB volume. The leaching test results revealed trace amounts of heavy metals.

Keywords: Cigarette butts, Fired clay bricks, Light bricks, Recycling waste, Thermal conductivity.

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

Abstract:

Biomass treatment through densification is very suitable and helpful technology before its effective energy recovery. Densification process of biomass is significantly influenced by various technological and material variables, which are ultimately reflected on the final solid biofuels quality. The paper deals with the experimental research of the relationship between technological and material variables during densification of fast-growing trees, roundly fast-growing willows. The main goal of presented experimental research is to determine the relationship between compression pressure and raw material particle size from a final briquettes density point of view. Experimental research was realized by single-axis densification. The impact of particle size with interaction of compression pressure and stabilization time on the quality properties of briquettes was determined. These variables interaction affects the final solid biofuels (briquettes) quality. From briquettes production point of view and from densification machines constructions point of view is very important to know about mutual interaction of these variables on final briquettes quality. The experimental findings presented here are showing the importance of mentioned variables during the densification process. 

Keywords: Briquettes density, densification, particle size, compression pressure, stabilization time.

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Authors: Yuji Kotani, Shunsuke Kanai, Hisaki Watari

Abstract:

In recent years, global warming has become a worldwide problem. The reduction of carbon dioxide emissions is a top priority for many companies in the manufacturing industry. In the automobile industry as well, the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions is one of the most important issues. Technology to reduce the weight of automotive parts improves the fuel economy of automobiles, and is an important technology for reducing carbon dioxide. Also, even if this weight reduction technology is applied to electric automobiles rather than gasoline automobiles, reducing energy consumption remains an important issue. Plastic processing of hollow pipes is one important technology for realizing the weight reduction of automotive parts. Ohashi et al. [1],[2] present an example of research on pipe formation in which a process was carried out to enlarge a pipe diameter using a lost core, achieving the suppression of wall thickness reduction and greater pipe expansion than hydroforming. In this study, we investigated a method to increase the wall thickness of a pipe through pipe compression using planetary rolls. The establishment of a technology whereby the wall thickness of a pipe can be controlled without buckling the pipe is an important technology for the weight reduction of products. Using the finite element analysis method, we predicted that it would be possible to increase the compression of an aluminum pipe with a 3mm wall thickness by approximately 20%, and wall thickness by approximately 20% by pressing the hollow pipe with planetary rolls.

Keywords: Pipe-Forming, Wall Thickness, Finite-element-method

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Authors: Mustafa M. Donma, Orkide Donma

Abstract:

Anthropometric measurements are essential for obesity studies. Waist circumference (WC) is the most frequently used measure and along with hip circumference (HC), it is used in most equations derived for the evaluation of obese individuals. Morbid obesity (MO) is the most severe clinical form of obesity and such individuals may also exhibit some clinical findings leading to metabolic syndrome (MetS). Then, it becomes a requirement to discriminate MO children with MetS (MOMetS+) from MO children without MetS (MOMetS-). Almost all obesity indices can differentiate obese (OB) children from children with normal body mass index (N-BMI). However, not all of them are capable of making this distinction. The aim of this study was to find out the clinical availability of (waist circumference + hip circumference)/2 ((WC+HC)/2) for the differential diagnosis of MOMetS+ and MOMetS- and to compare the possible preponderance of it over some other anthropometric or fat-based obesity indices. 45 MOMetS+ and 45 MOMetS- children were included in the study. Participants have submitted informed consent forms. The study protocol was approved by the Non-interventional Clinical Studies Ethics Committee of Tekirdag Namik Kemal University. Anthropometric measurements were performed. BMI, waist-to-hip circumference (WHR), (WC+HC)/2, trunk-to-leg fat ratio (TLFR), trunk-to-appendicular fat ratio (TAFR), trunk fat+leg fat/2 ((trunk+leg fat)/2), diagnostic obesity notation model assessment index-2 (D2I) and fat mass index (FMI) were calculated for both groups. Study data were analyzed statistically and 0.05 for p value was accepted as the statistical significance degree. Statistically higher BMI, WC, (WC+HC)/2, (trunk+leg fat)/2 values were found in MOMetS+ children than MOMetS- children. No statistically significant difference was detected for WHR, TLFR, TAFR, D2I and FMI between two groups. The lack of difference between the groups in terms of FMI and D2I pointed out the fact that the recently developed fat-based index; (trunk+leg fat)/2 gives much more valuable information during the evaluation of MOMetS+ and MOMetS- children. Upon evaluation of the correlations, (WC+HC)/2 was strongly correlated with D2I and FMI in both MOMetS+ and MOMetS- groups. Neither D2I nor FMI was correlated with W/H. Strong correlations were calculated between (WC+HC)/2 and (trunk+leg fat)/2 in both MOMetS- (r = 0.961; p < 0.001) and MOMetS+ (r = 0.936; p < 0.001) groups. Partial correlations between (WC+HC)/2 and (trunk+leg fat)/2 after controlling the effect of basal metabolic rate were r = 0.726; p < 0.001 in MOMetS- group and r = 0.932; p < 0.001 in MOMetS+ group. The correlation in the latter group was higher than the first group. In conclusion, recently developed anthropometric obesity index (WC+HC)/2 and fat-based obesity index (trunk+leg fat)/2 were of preponderance over the previously introduced classical obesity indices such as WHR, D2I and FMI during the differential diagnosis of MOMetS+ and MOMetS- children.

Keywords: Hip circumference, metabolic syndrome, morbid obesity, waist circumference.

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