Search results for: Waste Reduction.

Authors: Hasan Kalyoncu, Füsun Kılçık, Hatice Gülboy Akyıldırım, Aynur Özen, Mehmet Acar, Nur Yoluk

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For evaluation of water quality of the river systems in Antalya Basin, macrozoobenthos samples were taken from 22 determined stations by a hand net and identified at family level. Water quality of Antalya Basin was determined according to Biological Monitoring Working Party (BMWP) system, by using macrozoobenthic invertebrates and physicochemical parameters. As a result of the evaluation, while Aksu Stream was determined as the most polluted stream in Antalya Basin, Isparta Stream was determined as the most polluted tributary of Aksu Stream. Pollution level of the Isparta Stream was determined as quality class V and it is the extremely polluted part of stream. Pollution loads at the sources of the streams were determined in low levels in general. Due to some parts of the streams have passed through deep canyons and take their sources from nonresidential and non-arable regions, majority of the streams that take place in Antalya Basin are at high quality level. Waste water, which comes from agricultural and residential regions, affects the lower basins of the streams. Because of the waste water, lower parts of the stream basins exposed to the pollution under anthropogenic effects. However, in Aksu Stream, which differs by being exposed to domestic and industrial wastes of Isparta City, extreme pollution was determined, particularly in the Isparta Stream part.

Keywords: Antalya Basin, biomonitoring, BMWP, water quality.

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Authors: John Lamb, Robert Epstein, Vasundhara L. Bhupathi, Sanjeev Kumar Marimekala

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In this paper, we focus on the importance of scalable architecture for data centers and buildings in general to help an enterprise achieve environmental sustainability. The scalable architecture helps in many ways, such as adaptability to the business and user requirements, promotes high availability and disaster recovery solutions that are cost effective and low maintenance. The scalable architecture also plays a vital role in three core areas of sustainability: economy, environment, and social, which are also known as the 3 pillars of a sustainability model. If the architecture is scalable, it has many advantages. A few examples are that scalable architecture helps businesses and industries to adapt to changing technology, drive innovation, promote platform independence, and build resilience against natural disasters. Most importantly, having a scalable architecture helps industries bring in cost-effective measures for energy consumption, reduce wastage, increase productivity, and enable a robust environment. It also helps in the reduction of carbon emissions with advanced monitoring and metering capabilities. Scalable architectures help in reducing waste by optimizing the designs to utilize materials efficiently, minimize resources, decrease carbon footprints by using low-impact materials that are environmentally friendly. In this paper we also emphasize the importance of cultural shift towards the reuse and recycling of natural resources for a balanced ecosystem and maintain a circular economy. Also, since all of us are involved in the use of computers, much of the scalable architecture we have studied is related to data centers.

Keywords: Scalable Architectures, Sustainability, Application Design, Disruptive Technology, Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing, AI, Social Media Platform, Cloud Computing, Advanced Networking, Storage Devices, Advanced Monitoring, Metering Infrastructure, Climate change.

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Authors: V. K. Bansal, M. Kumar, P. P. Bansal, A. Batish

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This paper presents the results of an experimental investigation carried out to evaluate the effects of partial replacement of cement and fine aggregate with industrial waste by-products on concrete strength properties. The Grey Taguchi approach has been used to optimize the mix proportions for desired properties. In this research work, a ternary combination of industrial waste by-products has been used. The experiments have been designed using Taguchi's L9 orthogonal array with four factors having three levels each. The cement was partially replaced by ladle furnace slag (LFS), fly ash (FA) and copper slag (CS) at 10%, 25% and 40% level and fine aggregate (sand) was partially replaced with electric arc furnace slag (EAFS), iron slag (IS) and glass powder (GP) at 20%, 30% and 40% level. Three water to binder ratios, fixed at 0.40, 0.44 and 0.48, were used, and the curing age was fixed at 7, 28 and 90 days. Thus, a series of nine experiments was conducted on the specimens for water to binder ratios of 0.40, 0.44 and 0.48 at 7, 28 and 90 days of the water curing regime. It is evident from the investigations that Grey Taguchi approach for optimization helps in identifying the factors affecting the final outcomes, i.e. compressive strength and split tensile strength of concrete. For the materials and a range of parameters used in this research, the present study has established optimum mixes in terms of strength properties. The best possible levels of mix proportions were determined for maximization through compressive and splitting tensile strength. To verify the results, the optimal mix was produced and tested. The mixture results in higher compressive strength and split tensile strength than other mixes. The compressive strength and split tensile strength of optimal mixtures are also compared with the control concrete mixtures. The results show that compressive strength and split tensile strength of concrete made with partial replacement of cement and fine aggregate is more than control concrete at all ages and w/c ratios. Based on the overall observations, it can be recommended that industrial waste by-products in ternary combinations can effectively be utilized as partial replacements of cement and fine aggregates in all concrete applications.

Keywords: Analysis of variance, ANOVA, compressive strength, concrete, grey Taguchi method, industrial by-products, split tensile strength.

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Authors: W. M. Wan Muhamad, E. Sujatmika, M.R. Idris, S.A. Syed Ahmad

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A finite element analysis (FEA) computer software HyperWorks is utilized in re-designing an automotive component to reduce its mass. Reduction of components mass contributes towards environmental sustainability by saving world-s valuable metal resources and by reducing carbon emission through improved overall vehicle fuel efficiency. A shape optimization analysis was performed on a rear spindle component. Pre-processing and solving procedures were performed using HyperMesh and RADIOSS respectively. Shape variables were defined using HyperMorph. Then optimization solver OptiStruct was utilized with fatigue life set as a design constraint. Since Stress-Number of Cycle (S-N) theory deals with uni-axial stress, the Signed von Misses stress on the component was used for looking up damage on S-N curve, and Gerber criterion for mean stress corrections. The optimization analysis resulted in mass reduction of 24% of the original mass. The study proved that the adopted approach has high potential use for environmental sustainability.

Keywords: Environmental Sustainability, Shape Optimization, Fatigue, Rear Spindle.

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Authors: M. Kosacka, I. Kudelska

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Vehicle is one of the most influential and complex product worldwide, which affects people’s life, state of the environment and condition of the economy (all aspects of sustainable development concept) during each stage of lifecycle. With the increase of vehicles’ number, there is growing potential for management of End of Life Vehicle (ELV), which is hazardous waste. From one point of view, the ELV should be managed to ensure risk elimination, but from another point, it should be treated as a source of valuable materials and spare parts. In order to obtain materials and spare parts, there are established recycling networks, which are an example of sustainable policy realization at the national level. The basic object in the polish recycling network is dismantling facility. The output material streams in dismantling stations include waste, which very often generate costs and spare parts, that have the biggest potential for revenues creation. Both outputs are stored into warehouses, according to the law. In accordance to the revenue creation and sustainability potential, it has been placed a strong emphasis on storage process. We present the concept of storage method, which takes into account the specific of the dismantling facility in order to support decision-making process with regard to the principles of sustainable development. The method was developed on the basis of case study of one of the greatest dismantling facility in Poland.

Keywords: Dismantling, end of life vehicle, sustainability, storage.

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Authors: Maíra O. Palm, Cintia Marangoni, Ozair Souza, Noeli Sellin

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Wastes from a vegetal extracts industry (cocoa, oak, Guarana and mate) were characterized by particle size, proximate and ultimate analysis, lignocellulosic fractions, high heating value, thermal analysis (Thermogravimetric analysis – TGA, and Differential thermal analysis - DTA) and energy density to evaluate their potential as biomass in the form of briquettes for power generation. All wastes presented adequate particle sizes to briquettes production. The wastes showed high moisture content, requiring previous drying for use as briquettes. Cocoa and oak wastes had the highest volatile matter contents with maximum mass loss at 310 ºC and 450 ºC, respectively. The solvents used in the aroma extraction process influenced in the moisture content of the wastes, which was higher for mate due to water has been used as solvent. All wastes showed an insignificant loss mass after 565 °C, hence resulting in low ash content. High carbon and hydrogen contents and low sulfur and nitrogen contents were observed ensuring a low generation of sulfur and nitrous oxides. Mate and cocoa exhibited the highest carbon and lignin content, and high heating value. The dried wastes had high heating value, from 17.1 MJ/kg to 20.8 MJ/kg. The results indicate the energy potential of wastes for use as fuel in power generation.

Keywords: Agro-industrial waste, biomass, briquettes, combustion.

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Authors: Won-Hee Cho, GeunHyung Lee, Deok-Hwan Kim

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The flash memory has many advantages such as low power consumption, strong shock resistance, fast I/O and non-volatility. And it is increasingly used in the mobile storage device. The YAFFS, one of the NAND flash file system, is widely used in the embedded device. However, the existing YAFFS takes long time to mount the file system because it scans whole spare areas in all pages of NAND flash memory. In order to solve this problem, we propose a new content-based flash file system using a mounting time reduction technique. The proposed method only scans partial spare areas of some special pages by using content-based block management. The experimental results show that the proposed method reduces the average mounting time by 87.2% comparing with JFFS2 and 69.9% comparing with YAFFS.

Keywords: NAND Flash Memory, Mounting Time, YAFFS, JFFS2, Content-based Block management

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Authors: Somaye Abdollahi Pour, Mohsen Saneei

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This paper describes a novel monitoring scheme to minimize total active power in digital circuits depend on the demand frequency, by adjusting automatically both supply voltage and threshold voltages based on circuit operating conditions such as temperature, process variations, and desirable frequency. The delay monitoring results, will be control and apply so as to be maintained at the minimum value at which the chip is able to operate for a given clock frequency. Design details of power monitor are examined using simulation framework in 32nm BTPM model CMOS process. Experimental results show the overhead of proposed circuit in terms of its power consumption is about 40 μW for 32nm technology; moreover the results show that our proposed circuit design is not far sensitive to the temperature variations and also process variations. Besides, uses the simple blocks which offer good sensitivity, high speed, the continuously feedback loop. This design provides up to 40% reduction in power consumption in active mode.

Keywords: active mode, delay monitor, body biasing, VDD scaling, low power.

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Authors: Ahmed Al-Adaileh, Souheil Khaddaj

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Outcomes of exhaustion of natural resources started influencing each spirit on this planet. Energy is an essential factor in this aspect. To restore the circumstance to the appropriate track, all attempts must focus on two fundamental branches: producing electricity from clean and renewable reserves and decreasing the overall unnecessary consumption of energy. The focal point of this paper will be on lessening the power consumption in the household's segment. This paper is an attempt to give a clear understanding of a framework called Reduction of Energy Consumption in Household Sector (RECHS) and how it should help householders to reduce their power consumption by substituting their household appliances, turning-off the appliances when stand-by modus is detected, and scheduling their appliances operation periods. Technically, the framework depends on utilizing Z-Wave compatible plug-ins which will be connected to the usual house devices to gauge and control them remotely and semi-automatically. The suggested framework underpins numerous quality characteristics, for example, integrability, scalability, security and adaptability.

Keywords: Smart energy management systems, internet of things, wireless mesh networks, microservices, cloud computing, big data.

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Authors: Andrew Cummings, Rhianne Boag, Sarah Bryson, Gordon Turner

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Packages designed for transport of radioactive material must satisfy rigorous safety regulations specified by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Higher Activity Waste (HAW) transport packages have to maintain containment of their contents during normal and accident conditions of transport (NCT and ACT). To ensure containment criteria is satisfied these packages are required to be leak-tight in all transport conditions to meet allowable activity release rates. Package design safety reports are the safety cases that provide the claims, evidence and arguments to demonstrate that packages meet the regulations and once approved by the competent authority (in the UK this is the Office for Nuclear Regulation) a licence to transport radioactive material is issued for the package(s). The standard approach to demonstrating containment in the RWM transport safety case is set out in BS EN ISO 12807. In this document a method for measuring a leak rate from the package is explained by way of a small interspace test volume situated between two O-ring seals on the underside of the package lid. The interspace volume is pressurised and a pressure drop measured. A small interspace test volume makes the method more sensitive enabling the measurement of smaller leak rates. By ascertaining the activity of the contents, identifying a releasable fraction of material and by treating that fraction of material as a gas, allowable leak rates for NCT and ACT are calculated. The adherence to basic safety principles in ISO12807 is very pessimistic and current practice in the demonstration of transport safety, which is accepted by the UK regulator. It is UK government policy that management of HAW will be through geological disposal. It is proposed that the intermediate level waste be transported to the geological disposal facility (GDF) in large cuboid packages. This poses a challenge for containment demonstration because such packages will have long seals and therefore large interspace test volumes. There is also uncertainty on the releasable fraction of material within the package ullage space. This is because the waste may be in many different forms which makes it difficult to define the fraction of material released by the waste package. Additionally because of the large interspace test volume, measuring the calculated leak rates may not be achievable. For this reason a justification for a lower releasable fraction of material is sought. This paper considers the use of aerosol processes to reduce the releasable fraction for both NCT and ACT. It reviews the basic coagulation and removal processes and applies the dynamic aerosol balance equation. The proposed solution includes only the most well understood physical processes namely; Brownian coagulation and gravitational settling. Other processes have been eliminated either on the basis that they would serve to reduce the release to the environment further (pessimistically in keeping with the essence of nuclear transport safety cases) or that they are not credible in the conditions of transport considered.

Keywords: Aerosol processes, Brownian coagulation, gravitational settling, transport regulations.

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Authors: G. Aouf, D. Tabbal, A. Sabsabi, R. Aouf

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The aim of this study is to assess the viability of utilizing Municipal Solid Waste Incineration Fly Ash (MSWIFA) with Ordinary Portland cement as soil reinforcement materials for geotechnical engineering applications. A detailed experimental program is carried out followed by analysis of results. Soil samples were prepared by adding cement to MSWIFA-soil mix at different percentages. Then, a series of laboratory tests were performed namely: Sieve analysis, Atterberg limits tests, Unconfined compression test, and Proctor tests. A parametric study is conducted to investigate the effect of adding the cement at different percentages on the unconfined compression strength, maximum dry density (MDD), and optimum moisture content (OMC) of clayey soil-MSWIFA. The variations of admixtures’ contents were 10%, 20%, and 30% for MSWIFA by dry total weight of soil and 10%, 15%, and 20% for Portland cement by dry total weight of the mix. The test results reveal that adding MSWIFA to the soil up to 20% increased the MDD of the mixture and decreased the OMC, then an opposite trend for results were found when the percentage of MSWIFA exceeds 20%. This is due to the low specific gravity of MSWIFA and to the greater water absorption of MSWIFA. The laboratory tests also indicate that the Unconfined Compression Test values were found to be increased for all the mixtures with curing periods of 7, 14, and 28 days. It is also observed that the cement increased the strength of the finished product of the mix of soil and MSWIFA.

Keywords: Clayey soil, cement, Municipal Solid Waste Incineration Fly Ash, MSWIFA, unconfined compression strength.

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Authors: Livinus A. Obasi, Augustine N. Ajah

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Biotechnology in recent times has tried to develop a mechanism whereby sustainable electricity can be generated by the activity of microorganisms on waste and renewable biomass (often regarded as “negative value”) in a device called microbial fuel cell, MFC. In this paper, we established how the biocatalytic activities of bacteria on organic matter (substrates) produced some electrons with the associated removal of some water pollution parameters; Biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD) to the tune of 77.2% and 88.3% respectively from a petrochemical sanitary wastewater. The electricity generation was possible by conditioning the bacteria to operate anaerobically in one chamber referred to as the anode while the electrons are transferred to the fully aerated counter chamber containing the cathode. Power densities ranging from 12.83 mW/m² to 966.66 mW/m² were achieved using a dual-chamber starch membrane MFC experimental set-up. The maximum power density obtained in this research shows an improvement in the use of low cost MFC set up to achieve power production. Also, the level of organic matter removal from the sanitary waste water by the operation of this device clearly demonstrates its potential benefit in achieving an improved benign environment. The beauty of the MFCs is their potential utility in areas lacking electrical infrastructures like in most developing countries.

Keywords: Bioelectricity, chemical oxygen demand, microbial fuel cell, sanitary wastewater, wheat starch.

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Authors: R. Srinivasa Rao, S.V.L. Narasimham, M. Ramalingaraju

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Network reconfiguration in distribution system is realized by changing the status of sectionalizing switches to reduce the power loss in the system. This paper presents a new method which applies an artificial bee colony algorithm (ABC) for determining the sectionalizing switch to be operated in order to solve the distribution system loss minimization problem. The ABC algorithm is a new population based metaheuristic approach inspired by intelligent foraging behavior of honeybee swarm. The advantage of ABC algorithm is that it does not require external parameters such as cross over rate and mutation rate as in case of genetic algorithm and differential evolution and it is hard to determine these parameters in prior. The other advantage is that the global search ability in the algorithm is implemented by introducing neighborhood source production mechanism which is a similar to mutation process. To demonstrate the validity of the proposed algorithm, computer simulations are carried out on 14, 33, and 119-bus systems and compared with different approaches available in the literature. The proposed method has outperformed the other methods in terms of the quality of solution and computational efficiency.

Keywords: Distribution system, Network reconfiguration, Loss reduction, Artificial Bee Colony Algorithm.

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Authors: M. Sedighizadeh, A. Rezazadeh

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This paper presents a method for the optimal allocation of Distributed generation in distribution systems. In this paper, our aim would be optimal distributed generation allocation for voltage profile improvement and loss reduction in distribution network. Genetic Algorithm (GA) was used as the solving tool, which referring two determined aim; the problem is defined and objective function is introduced. Considering to fitness values sensitivity in genetic algorithm process, there is needed to apply load flow for decision-making. Load flow algorithm is combined appropriately with GA, till access to acceptable results of this operation. We used MATPOWER package for load flow algorithm and composed it with our Genetic Algorithm. The suggested method is programmed under MATLAB software and applied ETAP software for evaluating of results correctness. It was implemented on part of Tehran electricity distributing grid. The resulting operation of this method on some testing system is illuminated improvement of voltage profile and loss reduction indexes.

Keywords: Distributed Generation, Allocation, Voltage Profile, losses, Genetic Algorithm.

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Authors: D. Dannehl, Z. Taylor, J. Suhl, L. Miranda, R., Ulrichs, C., Salazar, E. Fitz-Rodriguez, I. Lopez-Cruz, A. Rojano-Aguilar, G. Navas-Gomez, U. Schmidt

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Growing environmental and sustainability concerns have driven continual modernization of horticultural practices, especially for urban farming. Controlled environment and soilless production methods are increasing in popularity because of their efficient resource use and intensive cropping capabilities. However, some popular substrates used for hydroponic cultivation, particularly rock wool, represent a large environmental burden in regard to their manufacture and disposal. Substrate-less hydroponic systems are effective in producing short cropping cycle plants such as lettuce or herbs, but less information is available for the production of plants with larger root-systems and longer cropping times. Here, we investigated the viability of a hybrid aeroponic/nutrient film technique (AP/NFT) system for the cultivation of greenhouse tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum ‘Panovy’). The plants grown in the AP/NFT system had a more compact phenotype, accumulated more Na⁺ and less P and S than the rock wool grown counterparts. Due to forced irrigation interruptions, we propose that the differences observed were cofounded by the differing severity of water-stress for plants with and without substrate. They may also be caused by a higher root zone temperature predominant in plants exposed to AP/NFT. However, leaf area, stem diameter, and number of trusses did not differ significantly. The same was found for leaf pigments and plant photosynthetic efficiency. Overall, the AP/NFT system appears to be viable for the production of greenhouse tomato, enabling the environment to be relieved by way of lessening rock wool usage.

Keywords: Aeroponic/nutrient film technique, greenhouse, nutrient dynamic, soilless culture, urban farming, waste reduction.

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Authors: Venkata Reddy Kota

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These days, the industrial trend is moving away from heavy and bulky passive components to power converter systems that use more and more semiconductor elements. Also, it is difficult to connect the traditional converters to the high and medium voltage. For these reasons, a new family of multilevel inverters has appeared as a solution for working with higher voltage levels. Different modulation topologies like Sinusoidal Pulse Width Modulation (SPWM), Selective Harmonic Elimination Pulse Width Modulation (SHE-PWM) are available for multilevel inverters. In this work, different hybrid modulation techniques which are combination of fundamental frequency modulation and multilevel sinusoidal-modulation are compared. The main characteristic of these modulations are reduction of switching losses with good harmonic performance and balanced power loss dissipation among the device. The proposed hybrid modulation schemes are developed and simulated in Matlab/Simulink for cascaded H-bridge inverter. The results validate the applicability of the proposed schemes for cascaded multilevel inverter.

Keywords: Hybrid PWM techniques, Cascaded Multilevel Inverters, Switching loss minimization.

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Authors: H. Ucar, U. Aridogan

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Composite structures become intriguing for the design of aerospace, automotive and marine applications due to weight reduction, corrosion resistance and radar signature reduction demands and requirements. Studies on piezoelectric ceramic transducers (PZT) for diagnostics and health monitoring have gained attention for their sensing capabilities, however PZT structures are prone to fail in case of heavy operational loads. In this paper, we develop a piezo-based Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) composite finite element (FE) model, validate with experimental setup, and identify the applicability and limitations of PZTs for a marine application. A case study is conducted to assess the piezo-based sensing capabilities in a representative marine composite structure. A FE model of the composite structure combined with PZT patches is developed, afterwards the response and functionality are investigated according to the sea conditions. Results of this study clearly indicate the blockers and critical aspects towards industrialization and wide-range use of PZTs for marine composite applications.

Keywords: FRP, marine composite, piezoelectric transducer, sea state, wave-induced loads.

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Authors: Priyadarsini P. L. K, Hemalatha T.

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This paper proves that the problem of finding connected vertex cover in a 2-connected planar graph ( CVC-2 ) with maximum degree 4 is NP-complete. The motivation for proving this result is to give a shorter and simpler proof of NP-Completeness of TRA-MLC (the Top Right Access point Minimum-Length Corridor) problem [1], by finding the reduction from CVC-2. TRA-MLC has many applications in laying optical fibre cables for data communication and electrical wiring in floor plans.The problem of finding connected vertex cover in any planar graph ( CVC ) with maximum degree 4 is NP-complete [2]. We first show that CVC-2 belongs to NP and then we find a polynomial reduction from CVC to CVC-2. Let a graph G0 and an integer K form an instance of CVC, where G0 is a planar graph and K is an upper bound on the size of the connected vertex cover in G0. We construct a 2-connected planar graph, say G, by identifying the blocks and cut vertices of G0, and then finding the planar representation of all the blocks of G0, leading to a plane graph G1. We replace the cut vertices with cycles in such a way that the resultant graph G is a 2-connected planar graph with maximum degree 4. We consider L = K -2t+3 t i=1 di where t is the number of cut vertices in G1 and di is the number of blocks for which ith cut vertex is common. We prove that G will have a connected vertex cover with size less than or equal to L if and only if G0 has a connected vertex cover of size less than or equal to K.

Keywords: NP-complete, 2-Connected planar graph, block, cut vertex

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Authors: Nasyairi Mat Nasir, Zulhabri Ismail, Faridah Ismail, Sharifah Nur Aina Syed Alwee, Masnizan Che Mat

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The utilisation of Industrial Building System (IBS) in construction industry will lead to a safe site condition since minimum numbers of workers are required to be on-site, timely material delivery, systematic component storage, reduction of construction material and waste. These matters are being promoted in the Construction Industry Master Plan (CIMP 2006-2015). However, the enabling factors of IBS that will foster a safer working environment are indefinite; on that basis a research has been conducted. The purpose of this paper is to discuss and identify the relevant factors towards safety improvement for IBS. A quantitative research by way of questionnaire surveys have been conducted to 314 construction companies. The target group was Grade 5 to Grade 7 contractors registered with Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) which specialise in IBS. The findings disclosed seven factors linked to the safety improvement of IBS construction site in Malaysia. The factors were historical, economic, psychological, technical, procedural, organisational and the environmental factors. From the findings, a psychological factor ranked as the highest and most crucial factor contributing to safer IBS construction site. The psychological factor included the self-awareness and influences from workmates behaviour. Followed by organisational factors, where project management style will encourage the safety efforts. From the procedural factors, it was also found that training was one of the significant factors to improve safety culture of IBS construction site. Another important finding that formed as a part of the environmental factor was storage of IBS components, in which proper planning of the layout would able to contribute to a safer site condition. To conclude, in order to improve safety of IBS construction site, a welltrained and skilled workers are required for IBS projects, thus proper training is permissible and should be emphasised.

Keywords: Enabling Factors, Industrialised Building System, Safety Improvement.

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Authors: Ali Rafiee, Ahad Salimi, Ali Reza Roosta

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Prostate cancer is one of the most frequent cancers in men and is a major cause of mortality in the most of countries. In many diagnostic and treatment procedures for prostate disease accurate detection of prostate boundaries in transrectal ultrasound (TRUS) images is required. This is a challenging and difficult task due to weak prostate boundaries, speckle noise and the short range of gray levels. In this paper a novel method for automatic prostate segmentation in TRUS images is presented. This method involves preprocessing (edge preserving noise reduction and smoothing) and prostate segmentation. The speckle reduction has been achieved by using stick filter and top-hat transform has been implemented for smoothing. A feed forward neural network and local binary pattern together have been use to find a point inside prostate object. Finally the boundary of prostate is extracted by the inside point and an active contour algorithm. A numbers of experiments are conducted to validate this method and results showed that this new algorithm extracted the prostate boundary with MSE less than 4.6% relative to boundary provided manually by physicians.

Keywords: Prostate segmentation, stick filter, neural network, active contour.

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Authors: Touba Amirazodi

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Rapid process of urbanism development has increased the demand for some infrastructures such as supplying potable water, electricity network and transportation facilities and etc. Nonefficiency of the existing system with parallel managements of urban traffic management has increased the gap between supply and demand of traffic facilities. A sustainable transport system requires some activities more important than air pollution control, traffic or fuel consumption reduction and the studies show that there is no unique solution for solving complicated transportation problems and solving such a problem needs a comprehensive, dynamic and reliable mechanism. Sustainable transport management considers the effects of transportation development on economic efficiency, environmental issues, resources consumption, land use and social justice and helps reduction of environmental effects, increase of transportation system efficiency as well as improvement of social life and aims to enhance efficiency, goods transportation, provide services with minimum access problems that cannot be realized without reorganization of strategies, policies and plans.

Keywords: Sustainable Urban Transport, Environment, Social Justice, Air Pollution

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Authors: L. Dahmani

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The first and basic cause of the failure of concrete is repeated freezing (thawing) of moisture contained in the pores, microcracks, and cavities of the concrete. On transition to ice, water existing in the free state in cracks increases in volume, expanding the recess in which freezing occurs. A reduction in strength below the initial value is to be expected and further cycle of freezing and thawing have a further marked effect. By using some experimental parameters like nuclear magnetic resonance variation (NMR), enthalpy-temperature (or heat capacity) variation, we can resolve between the various water states and their effect on concrete properties during cooling through the freezing transition temperature range. The main objective of this paper is to describe the principal type of water responsible for the reduction in strength and structural damage (frost damage) of concrete following repeated freeze –thaw cycles. Some experimental work was carried out at the institute of cryogenics to determine what happens to water in concrete during the freezing transition. 

Keywords: Concrete, frost proof, strength, water diffusion.

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Authors: Rafał Adamczak

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State-of-the-art methods for secondary structure (Porter, Psi-PRED, SAM-T99sec, Sable) and solvent accessibility (Sable, ACCpro) predictions use evolutionary profiles represented by the position specific scoring matrix (PSSM). It has been demonstrated that evolutionary profiles are the most important features in the feature space for these predictions. Unfortunately applying PSSM matrix leads to high dimensional feature spaces that may create problems with parameter optimization and generalization. Several recently published suggested that applying feature extraction for the PSSM matrix may result in improvements in secondary structure predictions. However, none of the top performing methods considered here utilizes dimensionality reduction to improve generalization. In the present study, we used simple and fast methods for features selection (t-statistics, information gain) that allow us to decrease the dimensionality of PSSM matrix by 75% and improve generalization in the case of secondary structure prediction compared to the Sable server.

Keywords: Secondary structure prediction, feature selection, position specific scoring matrix.

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Authors: F. Lops, G. Disciglio, A. Carlucci, G. Gatta, L. Frabboni, A. Tarantino, E. Tarantino

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Phelipanche ramosa L. Pomel is a root holoparasitic weed plant of many cultivations, particularly of tomato (Lycopersicum esculentum L.) crop. In Italy, Phelipanche problem is increasing, both in density and in acreage. The biological control of this parasitic weed involves the use of living organisms as numerous fungi and bacteria that can infect the parasitic weed, while it may improve the crop growth. This paper deals with the biocontrol with microorganism, including Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi and fungal pathogens as Fusarium oxisporum spp. Colonization of crop roots by AM fungi can provide protection of crops against parasitic weeds because of a reduction in their seed germination and attachment, while F. oxisporum, isolated from diseased broomrape tubercles, proved to be highly virulent on P. ramosa. The experimental trial was carried out in open field at Foggia province (Apulia Region, Southern Italy), during the spring-summer season 2016, in order to evaluate the effect of four biological treatments: AM fungi and Fusarium oxisporum applied in the soil alone or combined together, and Rizosum Max^® product, compared with the untreated control, to reduce the P. ramosa infestation in processing tomato crop. The principal results to be drawn from this study under field condition, in contrast of those reported previously under laboratory and greenhouse conditions, show that both AM fungi and F. oxisporum do not provide the reduction of the number of emerged shoots of P. ramosa. This can arise probably from the low efficacy seedling of the agent pathogens for the control of this parasite in the field. On the contrary, the Rizosum Max^® product, containing AM fungi and some rizophere bacteria combined with several minerals and organic substances, appears to be most effective for the reduction of P. ramosa infestation.

Keywords: Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, biocontrol methods, Phelipanche ramosa, F. oxisporum spp.

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Authors: N. Porzionato, M. Mantiñan, E. Bussi, S. Grinberg, R. Gutierrez, G. Curutchet

Abstract:

This work sets out to debate the tensions involved in the processes of contamination and self-purification in the urban space, particularly in the streams that run through the Buenos Aires metropolitan area. For much of their course, those streams are piped; their waters do not come into contact with the outdoors until they have reached deeply impoverished urban areas with high levels of environmental contamination. These are peripheral zones that, until thirty years ago, were marshlands and fields. They are now densely populated areas largely lacking in urban infrastructure. The Cárcova neighborhood, where this project is underway, is in the José León Suárez section of General San Martín county, Buenos Aires province. A stretch of José León Suarez canal crosses the neighborhood. Starting upstream, this canal carries pollutants due to the sewage and industrial waste released into it. Further downstream, in the neighborhood, domestic drainage is poured into the stream. In this paper, we formulate a hypothesis diametrical to the one that holds that these neighborhoods are the primary source of contamination, suggesting instead that in the stretch of the canal that runs through the neighborhood the stream’s waters are actually cleaned and the sediments accumulate pollutants. Indeed, the stretches of water that runs through these neighborhoods act as water processing plants for the metropolis. This project has studied the different organic-load polluting contributions to the water in a certain stretch of the canal, the reduction of that load over the course of the canal, and the incorporation of pollutants into the sediments. We have found that the surface water has considerable ability to self-purify, mostly due to processes of sedimentation and adsorption. The polluting load is accumulated in the sediments where that load stabilizes slowly by means of anaerobic processes. In this study, we also investigated the risks of sediment management and the use of the processes studied here in controlled conditions as tools of environmental restoration.

Keywords: Bioremediation, pollutants, sediments, urban streams.

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Authors: Cora Fernandez Dacosta, John A. Posada, Andrea Ramirez

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The biodegradable family of polymers polyhydroxyalkanoates is an interesting substitute for convectional fossil-based plastics. However, the manufacturing and environmental impacts associated with their production via intracellular bacterial fermentation are strongly dependent on the raw material used and on energy consumption during the extraction process, limiting their potential for commercialization. Industrial wastewater is studied in this paper as a promising alternative feedstock for waste valorization. Based on results from laboratory and pilot-scale experiments, a conceptual process design, techno-economic analysis and life cycle assessment are developed for the large-scale production of the most common type of polyhydroxyalkanoate, polyhydroxbutyrate. Intracellular polyhydroxybutyrate is obtained via fermentation of microbial community present in industrial wastewater and the downstream processing is based on chemical digestion with surfactant and hypochlorite. The economic potential and environmental performance results help identifying bottlenecks and best opportunities to scale-up the process prior to industrial implementation. The outcome of this research indicates that the fermentation of wastewater towards PHB presents advantages compared to traditional PHAs production from sugars because the null environmental burdens and financial costs of the raw material in the bioplastic production process. Nevertheless, process optimization is still required to compete with the petrochemicals counterparts.

Keywords: Circular economy, life cycle assessment, polyhydroxyalkanoates, waste valorization.

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Authors: A. Shayeghi, H. Shayeghi, H. Eimani Kalasar

Abstract:

In recent years, tuned mass damper (TMD) control systems for civil engineering structures have attracted considerable attention. This paper emphasizes on the application of particle swarm application (PSO) to design and optimize the parameters of the TMD control scheme for achieving the best results in the reduction of the building response under earthquake excitations. The Integral of the Time multiplied Absolute value of the Error (ITAE) based on relative displacement of all floors in the building is taken as a performance index of the optimization criterion. The problem of robustly TMD controller design is formatted as an optimization problem based on the ITAE performance index to be solved using the PSO technique which has a story ability to find the most optimistic results. An 11- story realistic building, located in the city of Rasht, Iran is considered as a test system to demonstrate effectiveness of the proposed method. The results analysis through the time-domain simulation and some performance indices reveals that the designed PSO based TMD controller has an excellent capability in reduction of the seismically excited example building.

Keywords: TMD, Particle Swarm Optimization, Tall Buildings, Structural Dynamics.

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Authors: Faten A. Dawood, Rahmita W. Rahmat, Suhaini B. Kadiman, Lili N. Abdullah, Mohd D. Zamrin

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Echocardiography imaging is one of the most common diagnostic tests that are widely used for assessing the abnormalities of the regional heart ventricle function. The main goal of the image enhancement task in 2D-echocardiography (2DE) is to solve two major anatomical structure problems; speckle noise and low quality. Therefore, speckle noise reduction is one of the important steps that used as a pre-processing to reduce the distortion effects in 2DE image segmentation. In this paper, we present the common filters that based on some form of low-pass spatial smoothing filters such as Mean, Gaussian, and Median. The Laplacian filter was used as a high-pass sharpening filter. A comparative analysis was presented to test the effectiveness of these filters after being applied to original 2DE images of 4-chamber and 2-chamber views. Three statistical quantity measures: root mean square error (RMSE), peak signal-to-ratio (PSNR) and signal-tonoise ratio (SNR) are used to evaluate the filter performance quantitatively on the output enhanced image.

Keywords: Gaussian operator, median filter, speckle texture, peak signal-to-ratio

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Authors: Ayad Salih Sabbar, Amin Chegenizadeh, Hamid Nikraz

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Utilizing waste materials in civil engineering applications has a positive influence on the environment by reducing carbon dioxide emissions and issues associated with waste disposal. Granulated blast furnace slag (GBFS) is a by-product of the iron and steel industry, with millions of tons of slag being annually produced worldwide. Slag has been widely used in structural engineering and for stabilizing clay soils; however, studies on the effect of slag on sandy soils are scarce. This article investigates the effect of slag content on shear strength parameters through direct shear tests and unconsolidated undrained triaxial tests on mixtures of Perth sand and slag. For this purpose, sand-slag mixtures, with slag contents of 2%, 4%, and 6% by weight of samples, were tested with direct shear tests under three normal stress values, namely 100 kPa, 150 kPa, and 200 kPa. Unconsolidated undrained triaxial tests were performed under a single confining pressure of 100 kPa and relative density of 80%. The internal friction angles and shear stresses of the mixtures were determined via the direct shear tests, demonstrating that shear stresses increased with increasing normal stress and the internal friction angles and cohesion increased with increasing slag. There were no significant differences in shear stresses parameters when slag content rose from 4% to 6%. The unconsolidated undrained triaxial tests demonstrated that shear strength increased with increasing slag content.

Keywords: Direct shear, shear strength, slag, UU test.

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Authors: Z. Asadgol, A. Nadali, H. Arfaeinia, M. Khalifeh Gholi, R. Fateh, M. Fahiminia

Abstract:

The present investigation was conducted to detect the type and concentrations of bacterial and fungal bioaerosols in one room (bedroom) of each selected residential building located in different regions of Qom during February 2015 (n=9) to July 2016 (n=11). Moreover, we evaluated the efficiency of negative air ions (NAIs) in bioaerosol reduction in indoor air in residential buildings. In the first step, the mean concentrations of bacterial and fungal in nine sampling sites evaluated in winter were 744 and 579 colony forming units (CFU)/m³, while these values were 1628.6 and 231 CFU/m³ in the 11 sampling sites evaluated in summer, respectively. The most predominant genera between bacterial and fungal in all sampling sites were detected as Micrococcus spp. and Staphylococcus spp. and also, Aspergillus spp. and Penicillium spp., respectively. The 95% and 45% of sampling sites have bacterial and fungal concentrations over the recommended levels, respectively. In the removal step, we achieved a reduction with a range of 38% to 93% for bacterial genera and 25% to 100% for fungal genera by using NAIs. The results suggested that NAI is a highly effective, simple and efficient technique in reducing the bacterial and fungal concentration in the indoor air of residential buildings.

Keywords: Bacterial, fungal, negative air ions, indoor air, Iran.

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