Search results for: Thai social and cultural conditions

Authors: M.K. Bhuyan, Aragala Jagan.

Abstract:

Current image-based individual human recognition methods, such as fingerprints, face, or iris biometric modalities generally require a cooperative subject, views from certain aspects, and physical contact or close proximity. These methods cannot reliably recognize non-cooperating individuals at a distance in the real world under changing environmental conditions. Gait, which concerns recognizing individuals by the way they walk, is a relatively new biometric without these disadvantages. The inherent gait characteristic of an individual makes it irreplaceable and useful in visual surveillance. In this paper, an efficient gait recognition system for human identification by extracting two features namely width vector of the binary silhouette and the MPEG-7-based region-based shape descriptors is proposed. In the proposed method, foreground objects i.e., human and other moving objects are extracted by estimating background information by a Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) and subsequently, median filtering operation is performed for removing noises in the background subtracted image. A moving target classification algorithm is used to separate human being (i.e., pedestrian) from other foreground objects (viz., vehicles). Shape and boundary information is used in the moving target classification algorithm. Subsequently, width vector of the outer contour of binary silhouette and the MPEG-7 Angular Radial Transform coefficients are taken as the feature vector. Next, the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is applied to the selected feature vector to reduce its dimensionality. These extracted feature vectors are used to train an Hidden Markov Model (HMM) for identification of some individuals. The proposed system is evaluated using some gait sequences and the experimental results show the efficacy of the proposed algorithm.

Keywords: Gait Recognition, Gaussian Mixture Model, PrincipalComponent Analysis, MPEG-7 Angular Radial Transform.

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Authors: Sudip Kumar Kundu, Charu Singh

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As a great physiographic divide, the Himalayas affecting a large system of water and air circulation which helps to determine the climatic condition in the Indian subcontinent to the south and mid-Asian highlands to the north. It creates obstacles by defending chill continental air from north side into India in winter and also defends rain-bearing southwesterly monsoon to give up maximum precipitation in that area in monsoon season. Nowadays extreme weather conditions such as heavy precipitation, cloudburst, flash flood, landslide and extreme avalanches are the regular happening incidents in the region of North Western Himalayan (NWH). The present study has been planned to investigate the suitable model(s) to find out the rainfall pattern over that region. For this investigation, selected models from Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) and Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) has been utilized in a consistent framework for the period of 1976 to 2000 (historical). The ability of these driving models from CORDEX domain and CMIP5 has been examined according to their capability of the spatial distribution as well as time series plot of rainfall over NWH in the rainy season and compared with the ground-based Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) gridded rainfall data set. It is noted from the analysis that the models like MIROC5 and MPI-ESM-LR from the both CORDEX and CMIP5 provide the best spatial distribution of rainfall over NWH region. But the driving models from CORDEX underestimates the daily rainfall amount as compared to CMIP5 driving models as it is unable to capture daily rainfall data properly when it has been plotted for time series (TS) individually for the state of Uttarakhand (UK) and Himachal Pradesh (HP). So finally it can be said that the driving models from CMIP5 are better than CORDEX domain models to investigate the rainfall pattern over NWH region.

Keywords: Global warming, rainfall, CMIP5, CORDEX, North Western Himalayan region.

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Authors: W. Assaad, D. Wilmink, H. R. Pasaribu, H. J. M. Geijselaers

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Shell has developed a mono-diameter well concept for oil and gas wells as opposed to the traditional telescopic well design. A Mono-diameter well design allows well to have a single inner diameter from the surface all the way down to reservoir to increase production capacity, reduce material cost and reduce environmental footprint. This is achieved by expansion of liners (casing string) concerned using an expansion tool (e.g. a cone). Since the well is drilled in stages and liners are inserted to support the borehole, overlap sections between consecutive liners exist which should be expanded. At overlap, the previously inserted casing which can be expanded or unexpanded is called the host casing and the newly inserted casing is called the expandable casing. When the cone enters the overlap section, an expandable casing is expanded against a host casing, a cured cement layer and formation. In overlap expansion, ironing or lengthening may appear instead of shortening in the expandable casing when the pressure exerted by the host casing, cured cement layer and formation exceeds a certain limit. This pressure is related to cement strength, thickness of cement layer, host casing material mechanical properties, host casing thickness, formation type and formation strength. Ironing can cause implications that hinder the deployment of the technology. Therefore, the understanding of ironing becomes essential. A physical model is built in-house to calculate expansion forces, stresses, strains and post expansion casing dimensions under different conditions. In this study, only free casing and overlap expansion of two casings are addressed while the cement and formation will be incorporated in future study. Since the axial strain can be predicted by the physical model, the onset of ironing can be confirmed. In addition, this model helps in understanding ironing and the parameters influencing it. Finally, the physical model is validated with Finite Element (FE) simulations and small-scale experiments. The results of the study confirm that high pressure leads to ironing when the casing is expanded in tension mode.

Keywords: Casing expansion, cement, formation, metal forming, plasticity, well design.

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Authors: Wann-Ming Wey

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In today's popularity and progress of information technology, the big data set and its analysis are no longer a major conundrum. Now, we could not only use the relevant big data to analysis and emulate the possible status of urban development in the near future, but also provide more comprehensive and reasonable policy implementation basis for government units or decision-makers via the analysis and emulation results as mentioned above. In this research, we set Taipei City as the research scope, and use the relevant big data variables (e.g., population, facility utilization and related social policy ratings) and Analytic Network Process (ANP) approach to implement in-depth research and discussion for the possible reduction of land use in primary and secondary schools of Taipei City. In addition to enhance the prosperous urban activities for the urban public facility utilization, the final results of this research could help improve the efficiency of urban land use in the future. Furthermore, the assessment model and research framework established in this research also provide a good reference for schools or other public facilities land use and adaptive reuse strategies in the future.

Keywords: Adaptive reuse, analytic network process, big data, land use strategy.

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Authors: L. Marcos Domínguez, Nils Rage, Ongun B. Kazanci, Bjarne W. Olesen

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Thermally Activated Building Systems (TABS) have proven to be an energy-efficient solution to provide buildings with an optimal indoor thermal environment. This solution uses the structure of the building to store heat, reduce the peak loads, and decrease the primary energy demand. TABS require the heated or cooled surfaces to be as exposed as possible to the indoor space, but exposing the bare concrete surfaces has a diminishing effect on the acoustic qualities of the spaces in a building. Acoustic solutions capable of providing optimal acoustic comfort and allowing the heat exchange between the TABS and the room are desirable. In this study, the effects of free-hanging units on the cooling performance of TABS and the occupants’ thermal comfort was measured in a full-scale TABS laboratory. Investigations demonstrate that the use of free-hanging sound absorbers are compatible with the performance of TABS and the occupant’s thermal comfort, but an appropriate acoustic design is needed to find the most suitable solution for each case. The results show a reduction of 11% of the cooling performance of the TABS when 43% of the ceiling area is covered with free-hanging horizontal sound absorbers, of 23% for 60% ceiling coverage ratio and of 36% for 80% coverage. Measurements in actual buildings showed an increase of the room operative temperature of 0.3 K when 50% of the ceiling surface is covered with horizontal panels and of 0.8 to 1 K for a 70% coverage ratio. According to numerical simulations using a new TRNSYS Type, the use of comfort ventilation has a considerable influence on the thermal conditions in the room; if the ventilation is removed, then the operative temperature increases by 1.8 K for a 60%-covered ceiling.

Keywords: Acoustic comfort, concrete core activation, full-scale measurements, thermally activated building systems, TRNSYS.

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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: G.T. Cirella, L. Tao

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The index of sustainable functionality (ISF) is an adaptive, multi-criteria technique that is used to measure sustainability; it is a concept that can be transposed to many regions throughout the world. An ISF application of the Southern Regional Organisation of Councils (SouthROC) in South East Queensland (SEQ) – the fastest growing region in Australia – indicated over a 25 year period an increase of over 10% level of functionality from 58.0% to 68.3%. The ISF of SouthROC utilised methodologies that derived from an expert panel based approach. The overall results attained an intermediate level of functionality which amounted to related concerns of economic progress and lack of social awareness. Within the region, a solid basis for future testing by way of measured changes and developed trends can be established. In this regard as management tool, the ISF record offers support for regional sustainability practice and decision making alike. This research adaptively analyses sustainability – a concept that is lacking throughout much of the academic literature and any reciprocal experimentation. This lack of knowledge base has been the emphasis of where future sustainability research can grow from and prove useful in rapidly growing regions. It is the intentions of this research to help further develop the notions of index-based quantitative sustainability.

Keywords: Environmental engineering, index of sustainable functionality, sustainability indicators, sustainable development.

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Authors: Sze Yee Lee

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The death of a sibling in childhood leads to significant impacts on both personal and family development of the surviving siblings, however, both short-term and long-term effects of sibling loss in Chinese societies such as Hong Kong have been inadequately documented in the literature. This paper explores the experience of encountering siblings’ death during childhood with the use of semi-structured interviews. Through thematic analysis, the author explores the impacts on surviving siblings’ emotions, coping styles, struggles and challenges and personal development. Furthermore, the influences on family dynamics are explored thoroughly, including the changes in family atmosphere, family roles, family relationship, family communication and parenting styles. More importantly, the author identifies (i) existing continuing bonds; (ii) crying; (iii) adequate social support; (iv) hiding own emotions as a gesture of protecting parents as the crucial elements pertinent to surviving siblings’ successful adaptation in the face of sibling loss. In addition, “child-centered” and “family-centered” service implications of families with a sibling's death in a Chinese context are discussed.

Keywords: Surviving children, sibling’s death, child-centered, family-centered.

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Authors: Jung-Hun Cho, Tae-Heon Moon, Jin-Hak Lee

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Land price contains the comprehensive characteristics of urban space, representing the social and economic features of the city. Accordingly, land price can be utilized as an indicator, which can identify the changes of spatial structure and socioeconomic variations caused by urban development. This study attempted to explore the changes in land price by a new road construction. Methodologically, it adopted Space Syntax, which can interpret urban spatial structure comprehensively, to identify the relationship between the forms of road networks and land price. The result of the regression analysis showed the ‘integration index’ of Space Syntax is statistically significant and has a strong correlation with land price. If the integration value is high, land price increases proportionally. Subsequently, using regression equation, it tried to predict the land price changes of each of the lots surrounding the roads that are newly opened. The research methods or study results have the advantage of predicting the changes in land price in an easy way. In addition, it will contribute to planners and project managers to establish relevant polices and smoothing urban regeneration projects through enhancing residents’ understanding by providing possible results and advantages in their land price before the execution of urban regeneration and development projects.

Keywords: Space syntax, urban regeneration, spatial structure, official land price.

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Authors: Guyue Zhu, Liangping Hong

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Chinese overall urban design faces a large number of problems such as the neglect of urban characteristics, generalization of content, and difficulty in implementation. Focusing on these issues, this paper proposes the main points of shaping urban characteristics in overall urban design: focuses on core problems in city function and scale, landscape pattern, historical culture, social resources and modern city style and digs the urban characteristic genes. Then, we put forward “core problem location and characteristic gene enhancement” as a kind of overall urban design technical method. Firstly, based on the main problems in urban space as a whole, for the operability goal, the method extracts the key genes and integrates into the multi-dimension system in a targeted manner. Secondly, hierarchical management and guidance system is established which may be in line with administrative management. Finally, by converting the results, action plan is drawn up that can be dynamically implemented. Based on the above idea and method, a practical exploration has been performed in the case of Xiangyang central city.

Keywords: City characteristics, overall urban design, planning implementation, Xiangyang central city.

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Authors: Mikako Nishimuko

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This paper aims to argue that religion and Faith-based Organizations (FBOs) contribute to building democratic process through the provision of education in Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone experienced a civil war from 1991 to 2002 and about 70 percent of the population lives in poverty. While the government has been in the process of rebuilding the nation, many forms of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), including FBOs, have played a significant role in promoting social development. Education plays an important role in supporting people-s democratic movements through knowledge acquisition, spiritual enlightenment and empowerment. This paper discusses religious tolerance in Sierra Leone and how FBOs have contributed to the provision of primary education in Sierra Leone. This study is based on the author-s field research, which involved interviews with teachers and development stakeholders, notably government officials, Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) and FBOs, as well as questionnaires completed by pupils, parents and teachers.

Keywords: Civil society, democracy, faith-based organizations (FBOs), religious tolerance, universal primary education (UPE)

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Authors: Mikako Nishimuko

Abstract:

This paper aims to argue that religion and Faith-based Organizations (FBOs) contribute to building democratic process through the provision of education in Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone experienced a civil war from 1991 to 2002 and about 70 percent of the population lives in poverty. While the government has been in the process of rebuilding the nation, many forms of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), including FBOs, have played a significant role in promoting social development. Education plays an important role in supporting people-s democratic movements through knowledge acquisition, spiritual enlightenment and empowerment. This paper discusses religious tolerance in Sierra Leone and how FBOs have contributed to the provision of primary education in Sierra Leone. This study is based on the author-s field research, which involved interviews with teachers and development stakeholders, notably government officials, Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) and FBOs, as well as questionnaires completed by pupils, parents and teachers.

Keywords: Civil society, democracy, faith-based organizations (FBOs), religious tolerance, universal primary education (UPE).

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Authors: Tanhao Gao, Hongtao Zhou

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With the COVID-19 pandemic spreading worldwide, people are facing more significant mental pressure. The government and social groups are sparing no effort to find ways to heal people's emotions and return to normal life. Therefore, research on emotional healing has urgency and practical significance. From the perspective of urban planning, street furniture has the potential to become "emotional healing touchpoints." This study first analyzed the suitable places for adding emotional healing street furniture in the background of urban micro-renewal and combined the 15-minute living circle, the leftover space, and urban acupuncture theories, then used the 5W analysis method to show the main characteristics of emotionally healing street furniture. Finally, the research discovers four design strategies, which can be summarized as: A. Exploring the renewal potential of the leftover space; B. Integrating with local culture and the surrounding environment; C. Discovering quick and straightforward ways of interaction; D. Finding a delicate balance between artistry and functionality. Then, we take one emotional healing street furniture located on Chifeng Road as an example to show the design strategies vividly.

Keywords: Emotional healing, street furniture, urban micro-renewal, urban acupuncture.

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Authors: Yukinori Taniguchi, Kazuyoshi Kurita, Kohei Mizuta, Keigo Nishitani, Ryuichi Fukuda

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Tungsten carbide is widely used as a tool material in metal manufacturing process. Since tungsten is typical rare metal, establishment of recycle process of tungsten carbide tools and restore into cemented carbide material bring great impact to metal manufacturing industry. Recently, recycle process of tungsten carbide has been developed and established gradually. However, the demands for quality of cemented carbide tool are quite severe because hardness, toughness, anti-wear ability, heat resistance, fatigue strength and so on should be guaranteed for precision machining and tool life. Currently, it is hard to restore the recycled tungsten carbide powder entirely as raw material for new processed cemented carbide tool. In this study, to suggest positive use of recycled tungsten carbide powder, we have tried to fabricate a carbon based sintered steel which shows reinforced mechanical properties with recycled tungsten carbide powder. We have made set of newly designed sintered steels. Compression test of sintered specimen in density ratio of 0.85 (which means 15% porosity inside) has been conducted. As results, at least 1.7 times higher in nominal strength in the amount of 7.0 wt.% was shown in recycled WC powder. The strength reached to over 600 MPa for the Fe-WC-Co-Cu sintered alloy. Wear test has been conducted by using ball-on-disk type friction tester using 5 mm diameter ball with normal force of 2 N in the dry conditions. Wear amount after 1,000 m running distance shows that about 1.5 times longer life was shown in designed sintered alloy. Since results of tensile test showed that same tendency in previous testing, it is concluded that designed sintered alloy can be used for several mechanical parts with special strength and anti-wear ability in relatively low cost due to recycled tungsten carbide powder.

Keywords: Tungsten carbide, recycle process, compression test, powder metallurgy, anti-wear ability.

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Authors: Ekin Kıpçak, Sinan Kutluay, Mesut Akgün

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Recently, a growing interest has emerged on the development of new and efficient energy sources, due to the inevitable extinction of the nonrenewable energy reserves. One of these alternative sources which has a great potential and sustainability to meet up the energy demand is biomass energy. This significant energy source can be utilized with various energy conversion technologies, one of which is biomass gasification in supercritical water. Water, being the most important solvent in nature, has very important characteristics as a reaction solvent under supercritical circumstances. At temperatures above its critical point (374.8oC and 22.1 MPa), water becomes more acidic and its diffusivity increases. Working with water at high temperatures increases the thermal reaction rate, which in consequence leads to a better dissolving of the organic matters and a fast reaction with oxygen. Hence, supercritical water offers a control mechanism depending on solubility, excellent transport properties based on its high diffusion ability and new reaction possibilities for hydrolysis or oxidation. In this study the gasification of a real biomass, namely olive mill wastewater (OMW), in supercritical water is investigated with the use of Pt/Al2O3 and Ni/Al2O3 catalysts. OMW is a by-product obtained during olive oil production, which has a complex nature characterized by a high content of organic compounds and polyphenols. These properties impose OMW a significant pollution potential, but at the same time, the high content of organics makes OMW a desirable biomass candidate for energy production. All of the catalytic gasification experiments were made with five different reaction temperatures (400, 450, 500, 550 and 600°C), under a constant pressure of 25 MPa. For the experiments conducted with Ni/Al2O3 catalyst, the effect of five reaction times (30, 60, 90, 120 and 150 s) was investigated. However, procuring that similar gasification efficiencies could be obtained at shorter times, the experiments were made by using different reaction times (10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 s) for the case of Pt/Al2O3 catalyst. Through these experiments, the effects of temperature, time and catalyst type on the gasification yields and treatment efficiencies were investigated.

Keywords: Catalyst, Gasification, Olive mill wastewater, Supercritical water.

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Authors: Mustafa Elfituri, Jonathan Cook

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Recently, graph-based computations have become more important in large-scale scientific computing as they can provide a methodology to model many types of relations between independent objects. They are being actively used in fields as varied as biology, social networks, cybersecurity, and computer networks. At the same time, graph problems have some properties such as irregularity and poor locality that make their performance different than regular applications performance. Therefore, parallelizing graph algorithms is a hard and challenging task. Initial evidence is that standard computer architectures do not perform very well on graph algorithms. Little is known exactly what causes this. The Graph500 benchmark is a representative application for parallel graph-based computations, which have highly irregular data access and are driven more by traversing connected data than by computation. In this paper, we present results from analyzing the performance of various example implementations of Graph500, including a shared memory (OpenMP) version, a distributed (MPI) version, and a hybrid version. We measured and analyzed all the factors that affect its performance in order to identify possible changes that would improve its performance. Results are discussed in relation to what factors contribute to performance degradation.

Keywords: Graph computation, Graph500 benchmark, parallel architectures, parallel programming, workload characterization.

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Authors: Ali Eryılmaz

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Children and adolescents developing in the worlds of today are facing a getting array of new and old challenges. School counselling is improving rapidly in contemporary education systems around the world. It can be said that counselling system in Turkey was newly borning. In this study, “Family of the Blood" activity is improved with respect to compherensive guidance school program. The sample included 22 adolescents who were high school students. The activity was carried out in 4 sessions, each of which lasted 45 minutes. In the first session, students- personal-social needs were determined. In the second session, in order to warm up, the students were asked three questions consisting of the constructional aspect. In the third session, the counselor and the teacher shared the results of students- responses obtained in the previous session. In the fourth session, the tables formed by students were presented in the classroom. In order to evaluate the activity, three questions were asked of the teacher and counselor. According to the results, the lesson aims of curriculum and counselling aims of curriculum were attained. In the light of literature, the results were discussed and some suggestions were made. It is taken into consideration that the activitiy was beneficial in many respects, similar studies should be carried out in the near future.

Keywords: Comprehensive guidance program, education, family

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Authors: Mustapha Shitu Suleiman, Francis Neshamba, Nestor Valero-Silva

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Small businesses are considered as engine of economic growth, contributing to employment generation, wealth creation, and poverty alleviation and food security in both developed and developing countries. Nigeria is facing many socio-economic problems and it is believed that by supporting small business development, as propellers of new ideas and more effective users of resources, often driven by individual creativity and innovation, Nigeria would be able to address some of its economic and social challenges, such as unemployment and economic diversification. Using secondary literature, this paper examines the role small businesses can play in the creation of jobs in North-West Nigeria to overcome issues of unemployment, which is the most devastating economic challenge facing the region. Most studies in this area have focused on Nigeria as a whole and only a few studies provide a regional focus, hence, this study will contribute to knowledge by filling this gap by concentrating on North-West Nigeria. It is hoped that with the present administration’s determination to improve the economy, small businesses would be used as vehicles for diversification of the economy away from crude oil to create jobs that would lead to a reduction in the country’s high unemployment level.

Keywords: Job creation, North-West Nigeria, small business, unemployment.

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Authors: Robert Grzeszczak, Magdalena Gniadzik

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The article deals with one of the most significant issues concerning the functioning of the internal market of the European Union – the free movement of workers and free movement of persons. The purpose is to identify the political and legal effects of the “renationalisation process” on the EU and its Member States. The concept of renationalisation is expressed through Member States’ aim to verify the relationship with the EU. The tendency is more visible in the public opinion of several MS’s of the ‘EU core’ and may be confirmed by the changes applied by the regulatory body. The thesis for the article is the return of renationalisation tendencies in the area of the Single Market, which is supported by, among others, an open criticism of the foundations of EU integration or considerations on withdrawal from the EU by some MS. This analysis will focus primarily on the effects that renationalisation may have on the free movement of persons. The free movement of persons is one of the key issues for the development of the European integration. It is still subject to theoretical reflections, new doubts and practical issues. The latest developments in politics, law and jurisprudence demonstrate the need to reflect on the attempts to redefine certain principles regarding migrant EU workers and their protection against nationality-based discrimination.

Keywords: European law, European Union, common market, free movement of workers, posting of workers, case law.

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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: Ayman El Sabagh, Sobhy Sorour, Abd Elhamid Omar, Adel Ragab, Mohammad Sohidul Islam, Celaleddin Barutçular, Akihiro Ueda, Hirofumi Saneoka

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Salinity is one of the major factors limiting crop production in an arid environment. Despite its global importance soybean production suffer the problems of salinity stress causing damages at plant development. So it is implacable to either search for salinity enhancement of soybean plants. Therefore, in the current study we try to clarify the mechanism that might be involved in the ameliorating effects of osmo-protectants such as proline and glycine betaine as well as, compost application on soybean plants grown under salinity stress. The experiment was conducted under greenhouse conditions at the Graduate School of Biosphere Science Laboratory of Hiroshima University, Japan in 2011. The experiment was designed as a spilt-split plot based on randomized complete block design with four replications. The treatments could be summarized as follows; (i) salinity concentrations (0 and 15 mM), (ii) compost treatments (0 and 24 t ha-1) and (iii) the exogenous, proline and glycine betaine concentrations (0 mM and 25 mM) for each. Results indicated that salinity stress induced reduction in growth and physiological aspects (dry weight per plant, chlorophyll content, N and K+ content) of soybean plant compared with those of the unstressed plants. On the other hand, salinity stress led to increases in the electrolyte leakage ratio, Na and proline contents. Special attention was paid to, the tolerance against salt stress was observed, the improvement of salt tolerance resulted from proline, glycine betaine and compost were accompanied with improved K+, and proline accumulation. While, significantly decreased electrolyte leakage ratio and Na+ content. These results clearly demonstrate that harmful effect of salinity could reduce on growth aspects of soybean. Consequently, exogenous osmoprotectants combine with compost will effectively solve seasonal salinity stress problem and are a good strategy to increase salinity resistance of soybean in the drylands.

Keywords: Compost, glycine betaine, growth, proline, salinity tolerance, soybean.

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Authors: Y. C. Liou, J. M. Miao, T. L. Liu, M. H. Ho

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The purpose of this study was to explore the complex flow structure a novel active-type micromixer that based on concept of Wankle-type rotor. The characteristics of this micromixer are two folds; a rapid mixing of reagents in a limited space due to the generation of multiple vortices and a graduate increment in dynamic pressure as the mixed reagents is delivered to the output ports. Present micro-mixer is consisted of a rotor with shape of triangle column, a blending chamber and several inlet and outlet ports. The geometry of blending chamber is designed to make the rotor can be freely internal rotated with a constant eccentricity ratio. When the shape of the blending chamber and the rotor are fixed, the effects of rotating speed of rotor and the relative locations of ports on the mixing efficiency are numerical studied. The governing equations are unsteady, two-dimensional incompressible Navier-Stokes equation and the working fluid is the water. The species concentration equation is also solved to reveal the mass transfer process of reagents in various regions then to evaluate the mixing efficiency. The dynamic mesh technique was implemented to model the dynamic volume shrinkage and expansion of three individual sub-regions of blending chamber when the rotor conducted a complete rotating cycle. Six types of ports configuration on the mixing efficiency are considered in a range of Reynolds number from 10 to 300. The rapid mixing process was accomplished with the multiple vortex structures within a tiny space due to the equilibrium of shear force, viscous force and inertial force. Results showed that the highest mixing efficiency could be attained in the following conditions: two inlet and two outlet ports configuration, that is an included angle of 60 degrees between two inlets and an included angle of 120 degrees between inlet and outlet ports when Re=10.

Keywords: active micro-mixer, CFD, mixing efficiency, ports configuration, Reynolds number, Wankle-type rotor

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Authors: Jamaa Salih, Francis Edum-Fotwe, Andrew Price

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One of the most critical aspects of the management of road infrastructure is the type and scale of maintenance systems adopted and the consequences of their inadequacy. The performance of road maintenance systems can be assessed by a number of important indicators such as: cost, safety, environmental impact, and level of complaints by users. A review of practice reveals that insufficient level of expenditure or poor management of the road network often has serious consequences for the economic and social life of a country in terms of vehicle operating costs (VOC), travel time costs, accident costs and environmental impact. Despite an increase in the attention paid by global road agencies to the environmental and the road users’ satisfaction, the overwhelming evidence from the available literature agree on the lack of similar levels of attention for the two factors in many developing countries. While many sources agree that the road maintenance backlog is caused by either the shortage of expenditures or lack of proper management or both, it appears that managing the available assets particularly in the developing countries is the main issue. To address this subject, this paper will concentrate on exposing the various issues related to this field.  

Keywords: Environmental impact, performance indicators, road maintenance, users’ satisfaction.

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Authors: B. Dehghan, T. Toppi, M. Aprile, M. Motta

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The environmental concerns related to global warming and ozone layer depletion along with the growing worldwide demand for heating and cooling have brought an increasing attention toward ecological and efficient Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems. Furthermore, since space heating accounts for a considerable part of the European primary/final energy use, it has been identified as one of the sectors with the most challenging targets in energy use reduction. Heat pumps are commonly considered as a technology able to contribute to the achievement of the targets. Current research focuses on the full load operation and seasonal performance assessment of three gas-driven absorption heat pump cycles. To do this, investigations of the gas-driven air-source ammonia-water absorption heat pump systems for small-scale space heating applications are presented. For each of the presented cycles, both full-load under various temperature conditions and seasonal performances are predicted by means of numerical simulations. It has been considered that small capacity appliances are usually equipped with fixed geometry restrictors, meaning that the solution mass flow rate is driven by the pressure difference across the associated restrictor valve. Results show that gas utilization efficiency (GUE) of the cycles varies between 1.2 and 1.7 for both full and partial loads and vapor exchange (VX) cycle is found to achieve the highest efficiency. It is noticed that, for typical space heating applications, heat pumps operate over a wide range of capacities and thermal lifts. Thus, partially, the novelty introduced in the paper is the investigation based on a seasonal performance approach, following the method prescribed in a recent European standard (EN 12309). The overall result is a modest variation in the seasonal performance for analyzed cycles, from 1.427 (single-effect) to 1.493 (vapor-exchange).

Keywords: Absorption cycles, gas utilization efficiency, heat pump, seasonal performance, vapor exchange cycle.

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Authors: Zakaria Smahi, Khadidja Remaoun, Fatima Achouri

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Bir El Djir is an important coastal township in Oran department, located at 450 Km far away from Algiers on northwest of Algeria. In this coastal area, the urban sprawl is one of the main problems that reduce the limited highly fertile land. So, using the remote sensing and GIS technologies have shown their great capabilities to solve many earth resources issues. The aim of this study is to produce land use and cover map for the studied area at varied periods to monitor possible changes that may occurred, particularly in the urban areas and subsequently predict likely changes. For this, two spatial images SPOT and Landsat satellites from 1987 and 2014 respectively were used to assess the changes of urban expansion and encroachment during this period with photo-interpretation and GIS approach. The results revealed that the town of Bir El Djir has shown a highest growth rate in the period 1987-2014 which is 1201.5 hectares in terms of area. These expansions largely concern the new real estate constructions falling within the social and promotional housing programs launched by the government. The most urban expansion is characterized by the new construction in the form of spontaneous or peripheral precarious habitat, but also unstructured slums settled especially in the southeastern part of town.

Keywords: Urban expansion, Remote Sensing, Photointerpretation, Spatial dynamics.

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Authors: Isaac Kofi Mensah, Jianing Mi, Feng Cheng

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This research paper seeks to investigate the factors determining the continuance usage of online mobile payment applications among WECHAT users in China. Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and the Diffusion of Innovation (DOI) theory would both be applied as the theoretical foundation for this study. A developed instrument would be administered to the targeted sample of 1000 WECHAT Users in the City of Harbin, China, through an online questionnaire administration platform. Factors such as perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, perceived service quality, social influence, trust in the internet, internet self-efficacy, relative advantage, compatibility, and complexity would be explored to determine its significant impact on the continuance intention to use mobile payment apps. This study is at the development and implementation stage. The successful completion of this research article would not only provide an insightful understanding of the factors influencing the decision of WECHAT users in China to use mobile payment applications but also enrich the e-commerce adoption literature.

Keywords: Diffusion of innovation (DOI), e-commerce, mobile payment, technology acceptance model (TAM), WECHAT.

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Authors: Ahmed Aljudaya, Derek Ingham, Lin Ma, Kevin Hughes, Mohammed Pourkashanian

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Researchers, power companies, and state politicians have given concentrated solar power (CSP) much attention due to its capacity to generate large amounts of electricity whereas overcoming the intermittent nature of solar resources. The Linear Fresnel Reflector (LFR) is a well-known CSP technology type for being inexpensive, having a low land use factor, and suffering from low optical efficiency. The LFR was considered a cost-effective alternative option to the Parabolic Trough Collector (PTC) because of its simplistic design, and this often outweighs its lower efficiency. The LFR power plants commercially generate steam directly and indirectly in order to produce electricity with high technical efficiency and lower its costs. The purpose of this important analysis is to compare the annual performance of the Direct Steam Generation (DSG) and Indirect Steam Generation (ISG) of LFR power plants using molten salt and other different Heat Transfer Fluids (HTF) to investigate their technical and economic effects. A 50 MWe solar-only system is examined as a case study for both steam production methods in extreme weather conditions. In addition, a parametric analysis is carried out to determine the optimal solar field size that provides the lowest Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE) while achieving the highest technical performance. As a result of optimizing the optimum solar field size, the solar multiple (SM) is found to be between 1.2 – 1.5 in order to achieve as low as 9 Cent/KWh for the DSG of the LFR. In addition, the power plant is capable of producing around 141 GWh annually and up to 36% of the capacity factor, whereas the ISG produces less energy at a higher cost. The optimization results show that the DSG’s performance overcomes the ISG in producing around 3% more annual energy, 2% lower LCOE, and 28% less capital cost.

Keywords: Concentrated Solar Power, Levelized cost of electricity, Linear Fresnel reflectors, Steam generation.

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Authors: Daniela N. Correa-Llantén, Sebastián A. Muñoz-Ibacache, Mathilde Maire, Jenny M. Blamey

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The biosynthesis of nanoparticles by microorganisms, on the contrary to chemical synthesis, is an environmentally-friendly process which has low energy requirements. In this investigation, we used the microorganism Geobacillus wiegelii, strain GWE1, an aerobic thermophile belonging to genus Geobacillus, isolated from a drying oven. This microorganism has the ability to reduce selenite evidenced by the change of color from colorless to red in the culture. Elemental analysis and composition of the particles were verified using transmission electron microscopy and energy-dispersive X-ray analysis. The nanoparticles have a defined spherical shape and a selenium elemental state. Previous experiments showed that the presence of the whole microorganism for the reduction of selenite was not necessary. The results strongly suggested that an intracellular NADPH/NADH-dependent reductase mediates selenium nanoparticles synthesis under aerobic conditions. The enzyme was purified and identified by mass spectroscopy MALDI-TOF TOF technique. The enzyme is a 1-pyrroline-5-carboxylate dehydrogenase. Histograms of nanoparticles sizes were obtained. Size distribution ranged from 40-160 nm, where 70% of nanoparticles have less than 100 nm in size. Spectroscopic analysis showed that the nanoparticles are composed of elemental selenium. To analyse the effect of pH in size and morphology of nanoparticles, the synthesis of them was carried out at different pHs (4.0, 5.0, 6.0, 7.0, 8.0). For thermostability studies samples were incubated at different temperatures (60, 80 and 100 ºC) for 1 h and 3 h. The size of all nanoparticles was less than 100 nm at pH 4.0; over 50% of nanoparticles have less than 100 nm at pH 5.0; at pH 6.0 and 8.0 over 90% of nanoparticles have less than 100 nm in size. At neutral pH (7.0) nanoparticles reach a size around 120 nm and only 20% of them were less than 100 nm. When looking at temperature effect, nanoparticles did not show a significant difference in size when they were incubated between 0 and 3 h at 60 ºC. Meanwhile at 80 °C the nanoparticles suspension lost its homogeneity. A change in size was observed from 0 h of incubation at 80ºC, observing a size range between 40-160 nm, with 20% of them over 100 nm. Meanwhile after 3 h of incubation at size range changed to 60-180 nm with 50% of them over 100 nm. At 100 °C the nanoparticles aggregate forming nanorod structures. In conclusion, these results indicate that is possible to modulate size and shape of biologically synthesized nanoparticles by modulating pH and temperature.

Keywords: Genus Geobacillus, NADPH/NADH-dependent reductase, Selenium nanoparticles.

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Authors: Layla Mujahed

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COVID-19 is an exam for all the city’s systems. It shows many gaps in the systems such as healthcare, economic, social, and environment. This pandemic is paving for a new era, an era of technology and it has changed people’s lives, such as physical, and emotional changes, and converting communication into digitalized. The effect of COVID-19 has covered all urban city parts. COVID-19 will not be the last pandemic our cities will face. For that, more researches focus on enhancing the quality of the urban environment. This pandemic encourages a rethinking of the environment’s role, especially in cities. Cities are trying to provide the best suitable strategies and regulations to prevent the spread of COVID-19, and an example of that is Amman city. Amman has a high increment in the number of COVID-19 infected people, while it has controlled the situation for months. For that, this paper studies the relation between COVID-19 and urban environmental studies cases about cities around the world, and learns from their models to face COVID-19. In Amman, people’s behavior has changed towards public transportation and public green spaces. N­ew governmental regulations focus on increasing people’s mental awareness, supporting local businesses, and enhancing neighborhood planning that can help Amman to face any future pandemics.

Keywords: COVID-19, urban environment, urban planning, urban resilience.

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Authors: Stanzin Gawa, Nalini Ranjan Kumar, Gohar Bilal Wani, Vinay Maruti Hatte, A. Vinay

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Rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) and Brown trout (Salmo trutta fario) are the two species of trout which were once introduced by British in waters of Kashmir has well adapted to favorable climatic conditions. Cold water fisheries are one of the emerging sectors in Kashmir valley and trout holds an important place Jammu and Kashmir fisheries. Realizing the immense potential of trout culture in Kashmir region, the state fisheries department started privatizing trout culture under the centrally funded scheme of RKVY in which they provide 80 percent subsidy for raceway construction and supply of feed and seed for the first year since 2009-10 and at present there are 362 private trout farms. To cater the growing demand for trout in the valley, it is important to understand the bottlenecks faced in the propagation of trout culture. Value chain analysis provides a generic framework to understand the various activities and processes, mapping and studying linkages is first step that needs to be done in any value chain analysis. In Kashmir, it is found that trout hatcheries play a crucial role in insuring the continuous supply of trout seed in valley. Feed is most limiting factor in trout culture and the farmer has to incur high cost in payment and in the transportation of feed from the feed mill to farm. Lack of aqua clinic in the Kashmir valley needs to be addressed. Brood stock maintenance, breeding and seed production, technical assistance to private farmer, extension services have to be strengthened and there is need to development healthier environment for new entrepreneurs. It was found that trout farmers do not avail credit facility as there is no well define credit scheme for fisheries in the state. The study showed weak institutional linkages. Research and development should focus more on applied science rather than basic science.

Keywords: Trout, Kashmir, value chain, linkages, culture.

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