Search results for: Global economic environment (GEE)

Authors: I. Szer, J. Szer, K. Czarnocki, E. Błazik-Borowa

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People on construction scaffoldings work in dynamically changing, often unfavourable climate. Additionally, this kind of work is performed on low stiffness structures at high altitude, which increases the risk of accidents. It is therefore desirable to define the parameters of the work environment that contribute to increasing the construction worker occupational safety level. The aim of this article is to present how changes in microclimate parameters on scaffolding can impact the development of dangerous situations and accidents. For this purpose, indicators based on the human thermal balance were used. However, use of this model under construction conditions is often burdened by significant errors or even impossible to implement due to the lack of precise data. Thus, in the target model, the modified parameter was used – apparent environmental temperature. Apparent temperature in the proposed Scaffold Use Risk Assessment Model has been a perceived outdoor temperature, caused by the combined effects of air temperature, radiative temperature, relative humidity and wind speed (wind chill index, heat index). In the paper, correlations between component factors and apparent temperature for facade scaffolding with a width of 24.5 m and a height of 42.3 m, located at south-west side of building are presented. The distribution of factors on the scaffolding has been used to evaluate fitting of the microclimate model. The results of the studies indicate that observed ranges of apparent temperature on the scaffolds frequently results in a worker’s inability to adapt. This leads to reduced concentration and increased fatigue, adversely affects health, and consequently increases the risk of dangerous situations and accidental injuries

Keywords: Apparent temperature, health, safety work, scaffoldings.

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Authors: M. Gómez-Ramírez, A. Rivas-Castillo, I. Rodríguez-Pozos, R. A. Avalos-Zuñiga, N. G. Rojas-Avelizapa

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Among the diverse types of pollutants produced by anthropogenic activities, metals represent a serious threat, due to their accumulation in ecosystems and their elevated toxicity. The mine tailings of abandoned mines contain high levels of metals such as arsenic (As), zinc (Zn), copper (Cu), and lead (Pb), which do not suffer any degradation process, they are accumulated in environment. Abandoned mine tailings potentially could contaminate rivers and aquifers representing a risk for human health due to their high metal content. In an attempt to remove the metals and thereby mitigate the environmental pollution, an environmentally friendly and economical method of bioremediation has been introduced. Bioleaching has been actively studied over the last several years, and it is one of the bioremediation solutions used to treat heavy metals contained in sewage sludge, sediment and contaminated soil. Acidithiobacillus thiooxidans, an extremely acidophilic, chemolithoautotrophic, gram-negative, rod shaped microorganism, which is typically related to Cu mining operations (bioleaching), has been well studied for industrial applications. The sulfuric acid produced plays a major role in bioleaching. Specifically, Acidithiobacillus thiooxidans strain DSM 26636 has been able to leach Al, Ni, V, Fe, Mg, Si, and Ni contained in slags from coal combustion wastes. The present study reports the ability of A. thiooxidans DSM 26636 for the bioleaching of metals contained in two different mine tailing samples (MT1 and MT2). It was observed that Al, Fe, and Mn were removed in 36.3±1.7, 191.2±1.6, and 4.5±0.2 mg/kg for MT1, and in 74.5±0.3, 208.3±0.5, and 20.9±0.1 for MT2. Besides, < 1.5 mg/kg of Au and Ru were also bioleached from MT1; in MT2, bioleaching of Zn was observed at 55.7±1.3 mg/kg, besides removal of < 1.5 mg/kg was observed for As, Ir, Li, and 0.6 for Os in this residue. These results show the potential of strain DSM 26636 for the bioleaching of metals that came from different mine tailings.

Keywords: A. thiooxidans, bioleaching, metals, mine tailings.

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Authors: Marjan Mahdavi-Roshan, Arsalan Salari, Mahbobeh Gholipour

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Hypertension is one of the important reasons of morbidity and mortality in countries, including Iran. It has been shown that hypertension is a consequence of the interaction of genetics and environment. Nutrients have important roles in the controlling of blood pressure. We assessed dietary habit and anthropometric status in patients with hypertension in the north of Iran, and that have special dietary habit and according to their culture. This study was conducted on 127 patients with newly recognized hypertension and the 120 normotensive participants. Anthropometric status was measured and demographic characteristics, and medical condition were collected by valid questionnaires and dietary habit assessment was assessed with 3-day food recall (two weekdays and one weekend). The mean age of participants was 58 ± 6.7 years. The mean level of energy intake, saturated fat, vitamin D, potassium, zinc, dietary fiber, vitamin C, calcium, phosphorus, copper and magnesium was significantly lower in the hypertensive group compared to the control (p < 0.05). After adjusting for energy intake, positive association was observe between hypertension and some dietary nutrients including; Cholesterol [OR: 1.1, P: 0.001, B: 0.06], fiber [OR: 1.6, P: 0.001, B: 1.8], vitamin D [OR: 2.6, P: 0.006, B: 0.9] and zinc [OR: 1.4, P: 0.006, B: 0.3] intake. Logistic regression analysis showed that there was not significant association between hypertension, weight and waist circumference. In our study, the mean intake of some nutrients was lower in the hypertensive individuals compared to the normotensive individual. Health training about suitable dietary habits and easier access to vitamin D supplementation in patients with hypertension are cost-effective tools to improve outcomes in Iran.

Keywords: Hypertension, dietary intake, weight, waist circumference, North of Iran.

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Authors: Yongsheng Guo, Xiaoxian Zhu, Mandella Osei-Assibey Bonsu

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This study explores the effects of national culture on consumer behaviour by identifying the characteristics of Chinese consumers’ decision making in Europe. It offers a better understanding of how cultural factors affect consumers’ behaviour, and how consumers make decisions in other nations with different culture. It adopted a grounded theory approach and conducted 24 in-depth interviews. Grounded theory models are developed to link the causal conditions, process, and consequences. Results reveal that some cultural factors including conservatism, emotionality, acquaintance community, long-term orientation and principles affect Chinese consumers when making purchase decisions in Europe. Most Chinese consumers plan and prepare their expenditure and stay in Europe as cultural learners, and purchase durable products or assets as investment, and share their experiences within a community. This study identified potential problems such as political and social environment, complex procedures, and restrictions. This study found that external factors influence internal factors and then internal characters determine consumer behaviour. This study proposes that cultural traits developed in convergence evolution through social selection and Chinese consumers persist most characters but adapt some perceptions and actions overtime in other countries. This study suggests that cultural marketing could be adopted by companies to reflect consumers’ preferences. Agencies, shops, and the authorities could take actions to reduce the complexity and restrictions.

Keywords: National culture, consumer behaviour, cultural marketing, decision making.

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Authors: H. Heidari-Bafroui, B. Ribeiro, A. Charbaji, C. Anagnostopoulos, M. Faghri

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In this paper, we report the development of a portable and inexpensive infrared lightbox for improving the detection limits of paper-based phosphate devices. Commercial paper-based devices utilize the molybdenum blue protocol to detect phosphate in the environment. Although these devices are easy to use and have a long shelf life, their main deficiency is their low sensitivity based on the qualitative results obtained via a color chart. To improve the results, we constructed a compact infrared lightbox that communicates wirelessly with a smartphone. The system measures the absorbance of radiation for the molybdenum blue reaction in the infrared region of the spectrum. It consists of a lightbox illuminated by four infrared light-emitting diodes, an infrared digital camera, a Raspberry Pi microcontroller, a mini-router, and an iPhone to control the microcontroller. An iPhone application was also developed to analyze images captured by the infrared camera in order to quantify phosphate concentrations. Additionally, the app connects to an online data center to present a highly scalable worldwide system for tracking and analyzing field measurements. In this study, the detection limits for two popular commercial devices were improved by a factor of 4 for the Quantofix devices (from 1.3 ppm using visible light to 300 ppb using infrared illumination) and a factor of 6 for the Indigo units (from 9.2 ppm to 1.4 ppm) with repeatability of less than or equal to 1.2% relative standard deviation (RSD). The system also provides more granular concentration information compared to the discrete color chart used by commercial devices and it can be easily adapted for use in other applications.

Keywords: Infrared lightbox, paper-based device, phosphate detection, smartphone colorimetric analyzer.

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Authors: Akram Mahdaviparsa, Tamera McCuen, Vahideh Karimimansoob

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Fire service is responsible for protecting life, assets, and natural resources from fire and other hazardous incidents. Search and rescue in unfamiliar buildings is a vital part of firefighters’ responsibilities. Providing firefighters with precise building information in an easy-to-understand format is a potential solution for mitigating the negative consequences of fire hazards. The negative effect of insufficient knowledge about a building’s indoor environment impedes firefighters’ capabilities and leads to lost property. A data rich building information modeling (BIM) is a potentially useful source in three-dimensional (3D) visualization and data/information storage for fire emergency response. Therefore, this research’s purpose is prioritizing the required information for firefighters from the most important information to the least important. A survey was carried out with firefighters working in the Norman Fire Department to obtain the importance of each building information item. The results show that “the location of exit doors, windows, corridors, elevators, and stairs”, “material of building elements”, and “building data” are the three most important information specified by firefighters. The results also implied that the 2D model of architectural, structural and way finding is more understandable in comparison with the 3D model, while the 3D model of MEP system could convey more information than the 2D model. Furthermore, color in visualization can help firefighters to understand the building information easier and quicker. Sufficient internal consistency of all responses was proven through developing the Pearson Correlation Matrix and obtaining Cronbach’s alpha of 0.916. Therefore, the results of this study are reliable and could be applied to the population.

Keywords: BIM, building fire response, ranking, visualization.

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Authors: Daohong Yang, Xiang Zhang, Wanting Zhou, Lei Li

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Visual Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (VSLAM) is a technology that gathers information about the surrounding environment to ascertain its own position and create a map. It is widely used in computer vision, robotics, and various other fields. Many visual SLAM systems, such as OBSLAM3, utilize a constant velocity motion model. The utilization of this model facilitates the determination of the initial pose of the current frame, thereby enhancing the efficiency and precision of feature matching. However, it is often difficult to satisfy the constant velocity motion model in actual situations. This can result in a significant deviation between the obtained initial pose and the true value, leading to errors in nonlinear optimization results. Therefore, this paper proposes a motion model based on acceleration that can be applied to most SLAM systems. To provide a more accurate description of the camera pose acceleration, we separate the pose transformation matrix into its rotation matrix and translation vector components. The rotation matrix is now represented by a rotation vector. We assume that, over a short period, the changes in rotating angular velocity and translation vector remain constant. Based on this assumption, the initial pose of the current frame is estimated. In addition, the error of the constant velocity model is analyzed theoretically. Finally, we apply our proposed approach to the ORBSLAM3 system and evaluate two sets of sequences from the TUM datasets. The results show that our proposed method has a more accurate initial pose estimation, resulting in an improvement of 6.61% and 6.46% in the accuracy of the ORBSLAM3 system on the two test sequences, respectively.

Keywords: Error estimation, constant acceleration motion model, pose estimation, visual SLAM.

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Authors: Ahmet Yetik, Seyit Ali Kara, Cevat Özarpa

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Load changes occur on natural gas and oil pipelines due to natural disasters. The displacement of the soil around the natural gas and oil pipes due to situations that may cause erosion, such as earthquakes, landslides, and floods, is the source of this load change. The exposure of natural gas and oil pipes to variable loads causes deformation, cracks, and breaks in these pipes. Such cracks and breaks can cause significant damage to people and the environment, including the risk of explosions. Especially with the examinations made after natural disasters, it can be easily understood which of the pipes has sustained more damage in those quake-affected regions. It has been determined that earthquakes in Türkiye have caused permanent damage to pipelines. This project was initiated in response to the identification of cracks and gas leaks in the insulation gaskets placed in the pipelines, especially at the junction points. In this study, a SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) application has been developed to monitor load changes caused by natural disasters. The developed SCADA application monitors the changes in the x, y, and z axes of the stresses occurring in the pipes with the help of strain gauge sensors placed on the pipes. For the developed SCADA system, test setups in accordance with the standards were created during the fieldwork. The test setups created were integrated into the SCADA system, and the system was followed up. Thanks to the SCADA system developed with the field application, the load changes that will occur on the natural gas and oil pipes are instantly monitored, and the accumulations that may create a load on the pipes and their surroundings are immediately intervened, and new risks that may arise are prevented. It has contributed to energy supply security, asset management, pipeline holistic management, and overall sustainability in the industry.

Keywords: Earthquake, natural gas pipes, oil pipes, voltage measurement, landslide.

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Authors: Oliver Ohneiser, Francesca De Crescenzio, Gianluca Di Flumeri, Jan Kraemer, Bruno Berberian, Sara Bagassi, Nicolina Sciaraffa, Pietro Aricò, Gianluca Borghini, Fabio Babiloni

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An increasing degree of automation in air traffic will also change the role of the air traffic controller (ATCO). ATCOs will fulfill significantly more monitoring tasks compared to today. However, this rather passive role may lead to Out-Of-The-Loop (OOTL) effects comprising vigilance decrement and less situation awareness. The project MINIMA (Mitigating Negative Impacts of Monitoring high levels of Automation) has conceived a system to control and mitigate such OOTL phenomena. In order to demonstrate the MINIMA concept, an experimental simulation set-up has been designed. This set-up consists of two parts: 1) a Task Environment (TE) comprising a Terminal Maneuvering Area (TMA) simulator as well as 2) a Vigilance and Attention Controller (VAC) based on neurophysiological data recording such as electroencephalography (EEG) and eye-tracking devices. The current vigilance level and the attention focus of the controller are measured during the ATCO’s active work in front of the human machine interface (HMI). The derived vigilance level and attention trigger adaptive automation functionalities in the TE to avoid OOTL effects. This paper describes the full-scale experimental set-up and the component development work towards it. Hence, it encompasses a pre-test whose results influenced the development of the VAC as well as the functionalities of the final TE and the two VAC’s sub-components.

Keywords: Automation, human factors, air traffic controller, MINIMA, OOTL, Out-Of-The-Loop, EEG, electroencephalography, HMI, human machine interface.

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Authors: Amèdédjihundé H. J. Hounnou, Frédéric Dubas, François-Xavier Fifatin, Didier Chamagne, Antoine Vianou

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This paper presents the techno-economic evaluation of run-of-river small-hydropower plants. In this regard, a multi-objective optimization procedure is proposed for the optimal sizing of the hydropower plants, and NSGAII is employed as the optimization algorithm. Annual generated energy and investment cost are considered as the objective functions, and number of generator units (n) and nominal turbine flow rate (Q_T) constitute the decision variables. Site of Yeripao in Benin is considered as the case study. We have categorized the river of this site using its environmental characteristics: gross head, and first quartile, median, third quartile and mean of flow. Effects of each decision variable on the objective functions are analysed. The results gave Pareto Front which represents the trade-offs between annual energy generation and the investment cost of hydropower plants, as well as the recommended optimal solutions. We noted that with the increase of the annual energy generation, the investment cost rises. Thus, maximizing energy generation is contradictory with minimizing the investment cost. Moreover, we have noted that the solutions of Pareto Front are grouped according to the number of generator units (n). The results also illustrate that the costs per kWh are grouped according to the n and rise with the increase of the nominal turbine flow rate. The lowest investment costs per kWh are obtained for n equal to one and are between 0.065 and 0.180 €/kWh. Following the values of n (equal to 1, 2, 3 or 4), the investment cost and investment cost per kWh increase almost linearly with increasing the nominal turbine flowrate while annual generated. Energy increases logarithmically with increasing of the nominal turbine flowrate. This study made for the Yeripao river can be applied to other rivers with their own characteristics.

Keywords: Hydropower plant, investment cost, multi-objective optimization, number of generator units.

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Authors: Lanka Dinushke Weerasiri, Subrat Das, Daniel Fabijanic, William Yang

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Fluidization at vacuum pressure has been a topic that is of growing research interest. Several industrial applications (such as drying, extractive metallurgy, and chemical vapor deposition (CVD)) can potentially take advantage of vacuum pressure fluidization. Particularly, the fine chemical industry requires processing under safe conditions for thermolabile substances, and reduced pressure fluidized beds offer an alternative. Fluidized beds under vacuum conditions provide optimal conditions for treatment of granular materials where the reduced gas pressure maintains an operational environment outside of flammability conditions. The fluidization at low-pressure is markedly different from the usual gas flow patterns of atmospheric fluidization. The different flow regimes can be characterized by the dimensionless Knudsen number. Nevertheless, hydrodynamics of bubbling vacuum fluidized beds has not been investigated to author’s best knowledge. In this work, the two-fluid numerical method was used to determine the impact of reduced pressure on the fundamental properties of a fluidized bed. The slip flow model implemented by Ansys Fluent User Defined Functions (UDF) was used to determine the interphase momentum exchange coefficient. A wide range of operating pressures was investigated (1.01, 0.5, 0.25, 0.1 and 0.03 Bar). The gas was supplied by a uniform inlet at 1.5U_mf and 2U_mf. The predicted minimum fluidization velocity (U_mf) shows excellent agreement with the experimental data. The results show that the operating pressure has a notable impact on the bed properties and its hydrodynamics. Furthermore, it also shows that the existing Gorosko correlation that predicts bed expansion is not applicable under reduced pressure conditions.

Keywords: Computational fluid dynamics, fluidized bed, gas-solid flow, vacuum pressure, slip flow, minimum fluidization velocity.

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Authors: Musthaya Patchanee

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This research aimed to study form of traffic distribution and environmental factors of road that affect traffic accidents in Dusit District, only areas responsible of Samsen Police Station. Data used in this analysis is the secondary data of traffic accident case from year 2011. Observed area units are 15 traffic lines that are under responsible of Samsen Police Station. Technique and method used are the Cartographic Method, the Correlation Analysis, and the Multiple Regression Analysis. The results of form of traffic accidents show that, the Samsen Road area had most traffic accidents (24.29%), second was Rachvithi Road(18.10%), third was Sukhothai Road (15.71%), fourth was Rachasrima Road (12.38%), and fifth was Amnuaysongkram Road(7.62%). The result from Dusit District, onlyareasresponsibleofSamsen police station, has suggested that the scale of accidents have high positive correlation with statistic significant at level 0.05 and the frequency of travel (r=0.857). Traffic intersection point (r=0.763)and traffic control equipments (r=0.713) are relevant factors respectively. By using the Multiple Regression Analysis, travel frequency is the only one that has considerable influences on traffic accidents in Dusit district only Samsen Police Station area. Also, a factor in frequency of travel can explain the change in traffic accidents scale to 73.40 (R² = 0.734). By using the Multiple regression summation from analysis was Ŷ=-7.977+0.044X6

Keywords: Form of Traffic Distribution, Environmental Factors of road, Traffic Accidents, Dusit District.

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Authors: Laurent Pitteloud, Jörg Meier

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Piled raft foundations represent an efficient and reliable technique for transferring high vertical and horizontal loads to the subsoil. Piled raft foundations were success­fully implemented for several high-rise buildings world­wide over the last decades. For the structural design of this foundation type the stiffnesses of both the piles and the raft have to be deter­mined for the static (e.g. dead load, live load) and the dynamic load cases (e.g. earthquake). In this context the question often arises, to which proportion wind loads are to be considered as dynamic loads. Usually a piled raft foundation has to be monitored in order to verify the design hypotheses. As an additional benefit, the analysis of this monitoring data may lead to a better under­standing of the behaviour of this foundation type for future projects in similar subsoil conditions. In case the measurement frequency is high enough, one may also draw conclusions on the effect of wind loading on the piled raft foundation. For a 41-storey office building in Basel, Switzerland, the preliminary design showed that a piled raft foundation was the best solution to satisfy both design requirements, as well as economic aspects. A high-frequency monitoring of the foundation including pile loads, vertical stresses under the raft, as well as pore water pressures was performed over 5 years. In windy situations the analysis of the measure­ments shows that the pile load increment due to wind consists of a static and a cyclic load term. As piles and raft react with different stiffnesses under static and dynamic loading, these measure­ments are useful for the correct definition of stiffnesses of future piled raft foundations. This paper outlines the design strategy and the numerical modelling of the aforementioned piled raft foundation. The measurement results are presented and analysed. Based on the findings, comments and conclusions on the definition of pile and raft stiffnesses for vertical and wind loading are proposed.

Keywords: Dynamic loading, high-frequency monitoring, piled raft foundations, wind loading.

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Authors: Nikou Javadi, Uğur Dağlı

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The importance of culture and tourism in the attractiveness and competitiveness of the countries is central, and many regions are evidencing their cultural assets, tangible and intangible, as a means to create comparative advantages in tourism and produce a distinctive place in response to the pressures of globalization. Culture and tourism are interlinked because of their obvious combination and growth potential. Cultural tourism is a crucial global tourism market with fast growing. Regions can develop significant relations between culture and tourism to increase their attractiveness as places to visit, live and invest, increasing their competitiveness. Accordingly, having new and creative approach to historical areas as cultural value-based destinations can improve their conditions to promote tourism. Furthermore, in 21st century, media become the most important factor affecting the development of urban cities, including public places. As a result of the digital revolution, re-imaging and re-linkage public places by media are essential to create more interactions between public spaces and users, interaction media display, and urban screens, one of the most important defined media. This interaction can transform the urban space from being neglected to be more interactive space with users, especially the pedestrians. The paper focuses on The Walled City of Famagusta. As many other historic quarters elsewhere in the world, is in a process, of decay and deterioration, and its functionally distinctive areas are severely threatened by physical, functional, locational, and image obsolescence at varying degrees. So the focus on the future development of this area through tourism promotion can be an appropriate decision for the monument enhancement of the spatial quality in Walled City of Famagusta. In this paper, it is aimed to identify the effects of these new digital factors to transform public spaces especially in historic urban areas to promote creative tourism. Accordingly, two different analysis methods are used as well as a theoretical review. The first is case study on site and the second is Close ended questionnaire, test many concepts raised in this paper. The physical analysis on site carried out in order to evaluate the walled city restoration for touristic purpose. Besides, theoretical review is done in order to provide background to the subject and cleared Factors to attract tourists.

Keywords: Historical areas, Media Facade, Sustainable tourism, Walled city of Famagusta.

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Authors: Pegah Farokhzad

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Family has a crucial role in maintaining the physical, social and mental health of the children. Most of the mental and anxiety problems of children reflect the complex interpersonal situations among family members, especially parents. In other words, anxiety problems of the children are correlated with deficit relationships of family members and improper childrearing styles. The parental child rearing styles leads to positive and negative consequences which affect the children’s mental health. Therefore, the present research was aimed to compare the parental childrearing styles and anxiety of children with stuttering and normal population. It was also aimed to study the relationship between parental child rearing styles and anxiety of children. The research sample included 54 boys with stuttering and 54 normal boys who were selected from the children (boys) of Tehran, Iran in the age range of 5 to 8 years in 2013. In order to collect data, Baum-rind Childrearing Styles Inventory and Spence Parental Anxiety Inventory were used. Appropriate descriptive statistical methods and multivariate variance analysis and t test for independent groups were used to test the study hypotheses. Statistical data analyses demonstrated that there was a significant difference between stuttering boys and normal boys in anxiety (t = 7.601, p< 0.01); but there was no significant difference between stuttering boys and normal boys in parental childrearing styles (F = 0.129). There was also not found significant relationship between parental childrearing styles and children anxiety (F = 0.135, p< 0.05). It can be concluded that the influential factors of children’s society are parents, school, teachers, peers and media. So, parental childrearing styles are not the only influential factors on anxiety of children, and other factors including genetic, environment and child experiences are effective in anxiety as well. Details are discussed.

Keywords: Anxiety, Childrearing Styles, Stuttering.

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Authors: Vikram Jeganathan, A. V. Sai Balasubramanian, N. Ravi Shankar, S. Subbaraman, R. Rengaraj

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Heating systems are a necessity for regions which brace extreme cold weather throughout the year. To maintain a comfortable temperature inside a given place, heating systems making use of- Hydronic boilers- are used. The principle of a single pipe system serves as a base for their working. It is mandatory for these heating systems to control the room temperature, thus maintaining a warm environment. In this paper, the concept of regulation of the room temperature over a wide range is established by using an Adaptive Fuzzy Controller (AFC). This fuzzy controller automatically detects the changes in the outside temperatures and correspondingly maintains the inside temperature to a palatial value. Two separate AFC's are put to use to carry out this function: one to determine the quantity of heat needed to reach the prospective temperature required and to set the desired temperature; the other to control the position of the valve, which is directly proportional to the error between the present room temperature and the user desired temperature. The fuzzy logic controls the position of the valve as per the requirement of the heat. The amount by which the valve opens or closes is controlled by 5 knob positions, which vary from minimum to maximum, thereby regulating the amount of heat flowing through the valve. For the given test system data, different de-fuzzifier methods have been implemented and the results are compared. In order to validate the effectiveness of the proposed approach, a fuzzy controller has been designed by obtaining a test data from a real time system. The simulations are performed in MATLAB and are verified with standard system data. The proposed approach can be implemented for real time applications.

Keywords: Adaptive fuzzy controller, Hydronic heating system

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Authors: Liang Wang, Wei Zhang

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Nowadays sustainable development has increasingly become an important research topic of engineering education all over the world. Engineering Education for Sustainable Development (EESD) highlighted the importance of addressing sustainable development in engineering practice. However, whether and how the professional engineering learning and experience affect those perceptions is an interesting research topic especially in Chinese context. Our study fills this gap by investigating perceptions bias of EESD among first-grade engineering students, fourth-grade engineering students and experienced engineers using a triple-dimensional model. Our goal is to find the effect of engineering learning and experience on sustainable development and make these learning and experiences more accessible for students and engineers in school and workplace context. The data (n = 138) came from a Likert questionnaire based on the triple-dimensional model of EESD adopted from literature reviews and the data contain 48 first-grade students, 56 fourth-grade students and 34 engineers with rich working experience from Environmental Engineering, Energy Engineering, Chemical Engineering and Civil Engineering in or graduated from Zhejiang University, China. One-way ANOVA analysis was used to find the difference in different dimensions among the three groups. The statistical results show that both engineering students and engineers have a well understanding of sustainable development in ecology dimension of EESD while there are significant differences among three groups as to the socio-economy and value rationality dimensions of EESD. The findings provide empirical evidence that both engineering learning and professional engineering experience are helpful to cultivate the cognition and perception of sustainable development in engineering education. The results of this work indicate that more practical content should be added to students’ engineering education while more theoretical content should be added to engineers’ training in order to promote the engineering students’ and engineers’ perceptions of sustainable development. In addition, as to the design of engineering courses and professional practice system for sustainable development, we should not only pay attention to the ecological aspects, but also emphasize the coordination of ecological, socio-economic and human-centered sustainable development (e.g., engineer's ethical responsibility).

Keywords: Engineering education, sustainable development, experienced engineers, engineering students.

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Authors: Namugenyi Ephrance Eunice, Julianne Sansa Otim, Marco Zennaro, Stephen D. Wolthusen

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The Internet of Things (IoT) is a network of connected data processing devices, mechanical and digital machinery, items, animals, or people that may send data across a network without requiring human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction. Each component has sensors that can pick up on specific phenomena, as well as processing software and other technologies that can link to and communicate with other systems and/or devices over the Internet or other communication networks and exchange data with them. IoT is increasingly being used in fields other than consumer electronics, such as public safety, emergency response, industrial automation, autonomous vehicles, the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT), and general environmental monitoring. Consumer-based IoT applications, like smart home gadgets and wearables, are also becoming more prevalent. This paper presents the main IoT deployment areas for environmental monitoring in developing regions and the backhaul options suitable for them based on a couple of related works. The study includes an overview of existing IoT deployments, the underlying communication architectures, protocols, and technologies that support them. This overview shows that Low Power Wireless Area Networks (LPWANs) are very well suited for monitoring environment architectures designed for remote locations. LoRa technology, particularly the LoRaWAN protocol, has an advantage over other technologies due to its low power consumption, adaptability, and suitable communication range. The current challenges of various architectures are discussed in detail, with the major issue identified as obstruction of communication paths by buildings, trees, hills, etc.

Keywords: Communication technologies, environmental monitoring, Internet of Things, IoT, IoT deployment challenges.

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Authors: C. Galasso

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The ancestral relationship between humans and geographical environment has long been at the center of an interdisciplinary dialogue, which sees one of its main research nodes in the relationship between memory and places. Given its deep complexity, this symbiotic connection continues to look for a proper definition that appears increasingly negotiated by different disciplines. Numerous fields of knowledge are involved, from anthropology to semiotics of space, from photography to architecture, up to subjects traditionally far from these reasonings. This is the case of Design of Communication, a young discipline, now confident in itself and its objectives, aimed at finding and investigating original forms of visualization and representation, between sedimented knowledge and new technologies. In particular, Design of Communication for the Territory offers an alternative perspective to the debate, encouraging the reactivation and reconstruction of the memory of places. Recognizing mnemotopes as a cultural object of vertical interpretation of the memory-place relationship, design can become a real mediator of the territorial fixation of memories, making them increasingly accessible and perceptible, contributing to build a topography of memory. According to a mnemotopic vision, Communication Design can support the passage from a memory in which the observer participates only as an individual to a collective form of memory. A mnemotopic form of Communication Design can, through geolocation and content map-based systems, make chronology a topography rooted in the territory and practicable; it can be useful to understand how the perception of the memory of places changes over time, considering how to insert them in the contemporary world. Mnemotopes can be materialized in different format of translation, editing and narration and then involved in complex systems of communication. The memory of places, therefore, if stabilized by the tools offered by Communication Design, can make visible ruins and territorial stratifications, illuminating them with new communicative interests that can be shared and participated.

Keywords: Memory of places, design of communication, territory, mnemotope, topography of memory.

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Authors: Makkia, Ahmad, Al-Falahi, Abdullah Abdelaziz Muharram

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Healthcare workers (HCWs) in Yemen are exposed to a myriad of occupational health hazards, including biological, physical, ergonomic, chemical and psychosocial hazards. HCWs operate in an environment that is considered to be one of the most hazardous occupational settings. The current study aimed to assess sng the prevalence of ‎occupational health hazards among Health care workers and associated ‎risk factors in public hospitals in Sana'a City, Yemen. Descriptive cross-sectional design was utilized; out of 5443 totals of HCWs 396 were selected by multistage sampling technique was carried out in the public hospitals in Sana'a city, Yemen. More the half (60.6%) of HCWs were aged between 20-30 years, 50.8% were males, 56.3% were married, and 45.5% had a diploma qualification, while 65.2% of HCWs had less than 6 years of experience. The results show a high prevalence of occupational hazards (99%); ergonomic hazards (93.4%), biological hazards (87.6%), psychosocial (86.65%), physical hazards (83.3%), and chemical hazards (73.5%). There were no statistically significant differences between demographic characteristics and the prevalence of occupational hazards (p > 0.05). The study revealed that occupational hazards were highly prevalent among the participants. The most common biological hazard was exposure to sharp-related injuries, while the predominant physical hazard was slip, trip, and fall incidents. Ergonomic hazards manifested as back or neck pain during work. Chemical hazards were represented by allergic reactions to medical gloves powder. Psychosocial hazards included experiencing verbal and physical harassment. In conclusion, the study emphasized the importance of raising awareness among HCWs and conducting training courses to prevent occupational hazards.

Keywords: Health workers, occupational hazard, prevalence, risk factors.

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Authors: Mike Dee

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Urban public spaces are sutured with a range of surveillance and sensor technologies that claim to enable new forms of ‘data based citizen participation’, but also increase the tendency for ‘function-creep’, whereby vast amounts of data are gathered, stored and analysed in a broad application of urban surveillance. This kind of monitoring and capacity for surveillance connects with attempts by civic authorities to regulate, restrict, rebrand and reframe urban public spaces. A direct consequence of the increasingly security driven, policed, privatised and surveilled nature of public space is the exclusion or ‘unfavourable inclusion’ of those considered flawed and unwelcome in the ‘spectacular’ consumption spaces of many major urban centres. In the name of urban regeneration, programs of securitisation, ‘gentrification’ and ‘creative’ and ‘smart’ city initiatives refashion public space as sites of selective inclusion and exclusion. In this context of monitoring and control procedures, in particular, children and young people’s use of space in parks, neighbourhoods, shopping malls and streets is often viewed as a threat to the social order, requiring various forms of remedial action. This paper suggests that cities, places and spaces and those who seek to use them, can be resilient in working to maintain and extend democratic freedoms and processes enshrined in Marshall’s concept of citizenship, calling sensor and surveillance systems to account. Such accountability could better inform the implementation of public policy around the design, build and governance of public space and also understandings of urban citizenship in the sensor saturated urban environment.

Keywords: Citizenship, Public Space, Surveillance, Young People.

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Authors: Siti Nor Hafizah binti Mohd Zaid, Mohamed Abdel-Maguid, Abdel-Hamid Soliman

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An Advance Driver Assistance System (ADAS) is a computer system on board a vehicle which is used to reduce the risk of vehicular accidents by monitoring factors relating to the driver, vehicle and environment and taking some action when a risk is identified. Much work has been done on assessing vehicle and environmental state but there is still comparatively little published work that tackles the problem of driver state. Visual attention is one such driver state. In fact, some researchers claim that lack of attention is the main cause of accidents as factors such as fatigue, alcohol or drug use, distraction and speeding all impair the driver-s capacity to pay attention to the vehicle and road conditions [1]. This seems to imply that the main cause of accidents is inappropriate driver behaviour in cases where the driver is not giving full attention while driving. The work presented in this paper proposes an ADAS system which uses an image based template matching algorithm to detect if a driver is failing to observe particular windscreen cells. This is achieved by dividing the windscreen into 24 uniform cells (4 rows of 6 columns) and matching video images of the driver-s left eye with eye-gesture templates drawn from images of the driver looking at the centre of each windscreen cell. The main contribution of this paper is to assess the accuracy of this approach using Receiver Operating Characteristic analysis. The results of our evaluation give a sensitivity value of 84.3% and a specificity value of 85.0% for the eye-gesture template approach indicating that it may be useful for driver point of regard determinations.

Keywords: Advanced Driver Assistance Systems, Eye-Tracking, Hazard Detection.

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Authors: Vincent A. Adzika, Franklin N. Glozah, Collins S. K. Ahorlu

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Background: Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) is of major public-health concern globally, with majority of patients living in Africa. Despite its relevance, there is a dearth of research to determine the socio-demographic distribution and psychosocial impact of SCD in Africa. The objective of this study therefore was to examine the socio-demographic distribution and psychosocial consequences of SCD among patients in Ghana and to assess their quality of life and coping mechanisms. Methods: A cross-sectional research design was used, involving the completion of questionnaires on socio-demographic characteristics, quality of life of individuals, anxiety and depression. Participants were 387 male and female patients attending a sickle cell clinic in a public hospital. Results: Results showed no gender and marital status differences in anxiety and depression. However, there were age and level of education variances in depression but not in anxiety. In terms of quality of life, patients were more satisfied by the presence of love, friends, relatives as well as home, community and neighbourhood environment. While pains of varied nature and severity were the major reasons for attending hospital in SCD condition, going to the hospital as well as having Faith in God was the frequently reported mechanisms for coping with an unbearable SCD attacks. Multiple regression analysis showed that some socio-demographic and quality of life indicators had strong associations with anxiety and/or depression. Conclusion: It is recommended that a multi-dimensional intervention strategy incorporating psychosocial dimensions should be considered in the treatment and management of SCD.

Keywords: Sickle cell disease, quality of life, anxiety, depression, socio-demographic characteristics, Ghana.

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Authors: Manish Kumar Gautam, Raj Kumar Goel

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Delayed wound healing in diabetes is primarily associated with hyperglycemia, over-expression of inflammatory marker, oxidative stress and delayed collagen synthesis. This unmanaged wound is producing high economic burden on the society. Thus research is required to develop new and effective treatment strategies to deal with this emerging issue. Our present study incorporates the evaluation of wound healing effects of 50% ethanol extract of Ocimum sanctum (OSE) in streptozotocin (45mg/kg)-induced diabetic rats with concurrent wound ulcer. The animals showing diabetes (Blood glucose level >140 and <250 mg/dL) will be selected for wound healing study using standard dead space wound model. Wounds were created by implanting two polypropylene tubes (0.5 x 2.5 cm2 each), one on either side in the lumbar region on the dorsal surface of each rat. On the 10th postwounding day, the animals were sacrificed and granulation tissue formed on the implanted tubes was carefully dissected out and study the status of antioxidants (Superoxide dismutase, SOD and Glutathione, GSH) free radicals (Lipid peroxidation, LPO and nitric oxide, NO) acute inflammatory marker (myeloperoxidase, MPO) connective tissue determinants, hydroxyproline, hexosamine and hexuronic acid, which play a major role in wound healing and diabetes. Besides the anti-diabetic parameters (estimation of serum blood glucose, triglycerides and total cholesterol), the above parameters for wound healing were studied both in normal, untreated and OSE treated diabetic rats. The effects of extract on above parameters will be compared with known standard antioxidant (Vitamin E) and anti-diabetic (Glybenclamide) drugs. OSE 400 mg/kg substantiated by significantly decreased serum blood glucose, triglycerides and total cholesterol. OSE also decrease granulation tissue free radicals (LPO, 58.1% and NO, 52.7%) and myeloperoxidase (MPO, 63.3%), and enhanced antioxidants (GSH, 116.4% and SOD, 201.1%)

Keywords: Wound healing, diabetes, Ocimum sanctum, Antioxidant, Free radical, Myeloperoxidase

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Authors: Ah-young Jeon, In-cheol Kim, Jae-hee Jung, Soo-young Ye, Jae-hyung Kim, Ki-gon Nam, Seoung-wan Baik, Jung-hoon Ro, Gye-rok Jeon

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The aged are faced with increasing risk for falls. The aged have the easily fragile bones than others. When falls have occurred, it is important to detect this emergency state because such events often lead to more serious illness or even death. A implementation of PDA system, for detection of emergency situation, was developed using 3-axis accelerometer in this paper as follows. The signals were acquired from the 3-axis accelerometer, and then transmitted to the PDA through Bluetooth module. This system can classify the human activity, and also detect the emergency state like falls. When the fall occurs, the system generates the alarm on the PDA. If a subject does not respond to the alarm, the system determines whether the current situation is an emergency state or not, and then sends some information to the emergency center in the case of urgent situation. Three different studies were conducted on 12 experimental subjects, with results indicating a good accuracy. The first study was performed to detect the posture change of human daily activity. The second study was performed to detect the correct direction of fall. The third study was conducted to check the classification of the daily physical activity. Each test was lasted at least 1 min. in third study. The output of acceleration signal was compared and evaluated by changing a various posture after attaching a 3-axis accelerometer module on the chest. The newly developed system has some important features such as portability, convenience and low cost. One of the main advantages of this system is that it is available at home healthcare environment. Another important feature lies in low cost to manufacture device. The implemented system can detect the fall accurately, so will be widely used in emergency situation.

Keywords: Alarm System, Ambulatory monitoring, Emergency detection, Classification of activity, and 3-axis accelerometer.

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Authors: Kemalettin Erbatur, Özer Koca, Evrim Taşkıran, Metin Yılmaz, Utku Seven

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Recent fifteen years witnessed fast improvements in the field of humanoid robotics. The human-like robot structure is more suitable to human environment with its supreme obstacle avoidance properties when compared with wheeled service robots. However, the walking control for bipedal robots is a challenging task due to their complex dynamics. Stable reference generation plays a very important role in control. Linear Inverted Pendulum Model (LIPM) and the Zero Moment Point (ZMP) criterion are applied in a number of studies for stable walking reference generation of biped walking robots. This paper follows this main approach too. We propose a natural and continuous ZMP reference trajectory for a stable and human-like walk. The ZMP reference trajectories move forward under the sole of the support foot when the robot body is supported by a single leg. Robot center of mass trajectory is obtained from predefined ZMP reference trajectories by a Fourier series approximation method. The Gibbs phenomenon problem common with Fourier approximations of discontinuous functions is avoided by employing continuous ZMP references. Also, these ZMP reference trajectories possess pre-assigned single and double support phases, which are very useful in experimental tuning work. The ZMP based reference generation strategy is tested via threedimensional full-dynamics simulations of a 12-degrees-of-freedom biped robot model. Simulation results indicate that the proposed reference trajectory generation technique is successful.

Keywords: Biped robot, Linear Inverted Pendulum Model, Zero Moment Point, Fourier series approximation.

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Authors: T. R. Bandara, H. Jaelani, G. J. Griffin

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The conversion of lignocellulosic waste materials, such as sugar cane bagasse, to biofuels such as ethanol has attracted significant interest as a potential element for transforming transport fuel supplies to totally renewable sources. However, the refractory nature of the cellulosic structure of lignocellulosic materials has impeded progress on developing an economic process, whereby the cellulose component may be effectively broken down to glucose monosaccharides and then purified to allow downstream fermentation. Ionic liquid (IL) treatment of lignocellulosic biomass has been shown to disrupt the crystalline structure of cellulose thus potentially enabling the cellulose to be more readily hydrolysed to monosaccharides. Furthermore, conventional hydrolysis of lignocellulosic materials yields byproducts that are inhibitors for efficient fermentation of the monosaccharides. However, selective extraction of monosaccharides from an aqueous/IL phase into an organic phase utilizing a combination of boronic acids and quaternary amines has shown promise as a purification process. Hydrolysis of sugar cane bagasse immersed in an aqueous solution with IL (1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium acetate) was conducted at different pH and temperature below 100 ºC. It was found that the use of a high concentration of hydrochloric acid to acidify the solution inhibited the hydrolysis of bagasse. At high pH (i.e. basic conditions), using sodium hydroxide, catalyst yields were reduced for total reducing sugars (TRS) due to the rapid degradation of the sugars formed. For purification trials, a supported liquid membrane (SLM) apparatus was constructed, whereby a synthetic solution containing xylose and glucose in an aqueous IL phase was transported across a membrane impregnated with phenyl boronic acid/Aliquat 336 to an aqueous phase. The transport rate of xylose was generally higher than that of glucose indicating that a SLM scheme may not only be useful for purifying sugars from undesirable toxic compounds, but also for fractionating sugars to improve fermentation efficiency.

Keywords: Biomass, bagasse, hydrolysis, monosaccharide, supported liquid membrane, purification.

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Authors: G. Bumanis, D. Bajare

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With demand for primary energy continuously growing, search for renewable and efficient energy sources has been high on agenda of our society. One of the most promising energy sources is biogas technology. Residues coming from dairy industry and milk processing could be used in biogas production; however, low efficiency and high cost impede wide application of such technology. One of the main problems is management and conversion of organic residues through the anaerobic digestion process which is characterized by acidic environment due to the low whey pH (<6) whereas additional pH control system is required. Low buffering capacity of whey is responsible for the rapid acidification in biological treatments; therefore alkali activated material is a promising solution of this problem. Alkali activated material is formed using SiO2 and Al2O3 rich materials under highly alkaline solution. After material structure forming process is completed, free alkalis remain in the structure of materials which are available for leaching and could provide buffer capacity potential. In this research porous alkali activated material was investigated. Highly porous material structure ensures gradual leaching of alkalis during time which is important in biogas digestion process. Research of mixture composition and SiO2/Na2O and SiO2/Al2O ratio was studied to test the buffer capacity potential of alkali activated material. This research has proved that by changing molar ratio of components it is possible to obtain a material with different buffer capacity, and this novel material was seen to have considerable potential for using it in processes where buffer capacity and pH control is vitally important.

Keywords: Alkaline material, buffer capacity, biogas production.

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Authors: Malte Brettel, Niklas Friederichsen, Michael Keller, Marius Rosenberg

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The German manufacturing industry has to withstand an increasing global competition on product quality and production costs. As labor costs are high, several industries have suffered severely under the relocation of production facilities towards aspiring countries, which have managed to close the productivity and quality gap substantially. Established manufacturing companies have recognized that customers are not willing to pay large price premiums for incremental quality improvements. As a consequence, many companies from the German manufacturing industry adjust their production focusing on customized products and fast time to market. Leveraging the advantages of novel production strategies such as Agile Manufacturing and Mass Customization, manufacturing companies transform into integrated networks, in which companies unite their core competencies. Hereby, virtualization of the process- and supply-chain ensures smooth inter-company operations providing real-time access to relevant product and production information for all participating entities. Boundaries of companies deteriorate, as autonomous systems exchange data, gained by embedded systems throughout the entire value chain. By including Cyber-Physical-Systems, advanced communication between machines is tantamount to their dialogue with humans. The increasing utilization of information and communication technology allows digital engineering of products and production processes alike. Modular simulation and modeling techniques allow decentralized units to flexibly alter products and thereby enable rapid product innovation. The present article describes the developments of Industry 4.0 within the literature and reviews the associated research streams. Hereby, we analyze eight scientific journals with regards to the following research fields: Individualized production, end-to-end engineering in a virtual process chain and production networks. We employ cluster analysis to assign sub-topics into the respective research field. To assess the practical implications, we conducted face-to-face interviews with managers from the industry as well as from the consulting business using a structured interview guideline. The results reveal reasons for the adaption and refusal of Industry 4.0 practices from a managerial point of view. Our findings contribute to the upcoming research stream of Industry 4.0 and support decision-makers to assess their need for transformation towards Industry 4.0 practices. 

Keywords: Industry 4.0., Mass Customization, Production networks, Virtual Process-Chain.

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Authors: M. Kobylanski, D. Buskulic, P.-H. Duron, D. Revuz, F. Ruggieri, E. Sandier, C. Tijus

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In order to design a cooperative e-learning platform, we observed teams of Teacher [T], Computer Scientist [CS] and exerciser's programmer-designer [ED] cooperating for the conception of a self-correcting exercise, but without the use of such a device in order to catch the kind of interactions a useful platform might provide. To do so, we first run a task analysis on how T, CS and ED should be cooperating in order to achieve, at best, the task of creating and implementing self-directed, self-paced, repeatable self-correcting exercises (RSE) in the context of open educational resources. The formalization of the whole process was based on the “objectives, activities and evaluations” theory of educational task analysis. Second, using the resulting frame as a “how-to-do it” guide, we run a series of three contrasted Hackathon of RSE-production to collect data about the cooperative process that could be later used to design the collaborative e-learning platform. Third, we used two complementary methods to collect, to code and to analyze the adequate survey data: the directional flow of interaction among T-CS-ED experts holding a functional role, and the Means-End Problem Solving analysis. Fourth, we listed the set of derived recommendations useful for the design of the exerciser as a cooperative e-learning platform. Final recommendations underline the necessity of building (i) an ecosystem that allows to sustain teams of T-CS-ED experts, (ii) a data safety platform although offering accessibility and open discussion about the production of exercises with their resources and (iii) a good architecture allowing the inheritance of parts of the coding of any exercise already in the data base as well as fast implementation of new kinds of exercises along with their associated learning activities.

Keywords: Distance open educational resources, pedagogical alignment, self-correcting exercises, teacher’s involvement, team roles.

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