Search results for: Environmental Impacts

Authors: Daniele Contini, Antonio Donateo, Andrea Gambaro, Athanasios Argiriou, Dimitrios Melas, Daniela Cesari, Anastasia Poupkou, Athanasios Karagiannidis, Apostolos Tsakis, Eva Merico, Rita Cesari, Adelaide Dinoi

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Emissions of atmospheric pollutants from ships and harbour activities are a growing concern at international level given their potential impacts on air quality and climate. These close-to-land emissions have potential impact on local communities in terms of air quality and health. Recent studies show that the impact of maritime traffic to atmospheric particulate matter concentrations in several coastal urban areas is comparable with the impact of road traffic of a medium size town. However, several different approaches have been used for these estimates making difficult a direct comparison of results. In this work, an integrated approach based on emission inventories and dedicated measurement campaigns has been applied to give a comparable estimate of the impact of maritime traffic to PM2.5 and particle number concentrations in three major harbours of the Adriatic/Ionian Seas. The influences of local meteorology and of the logistic layout of the harbours are discussed.

Keywords: Ship emissions, PM2.5, particle number concentrations, impact of shipping to atmospheric aerosol.

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Authors: Nima Farkhondeh Jahromi, George Papaefthymiou, Lou van der Sluis

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The incorporation of renewable energy sources for the sustainable electricity production is undertaking a more prominent role in electric power systems. Thus, it will be an indispensable incident that the characteristics of future power networks, their prospective stability for instance, get influenced by the imposed features of sustainable energy sources. One of the distinctive attributes of the sustainable energy sources is exhibiting the stochastic behavior. This paper investigates the impacts of this stochastic behavior on the small disturbance rotor angle stability in the upcoming electric power networks. Considering the various types of renewable energy sources and the vast variety of system configurations, the sensitivity analysis can be an efficient breakthrough towards generalizing the effects of new energy sources on the concept of stability. In this paper, the definition of small disturbance angle stability for future power systems and the iterative-stochastic way of its analysis are presented. Also, the effects of system parameters on this type of stability are described by performing a sensitivity analysis for an electric power test system.

Keywords: Power systems stability, Renewable energy sources, Stochastic behavior, Small disturbance rotor angle stability.

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Authors: H. Malachova, A. Oulehlova, D. Rezac

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Crisis preparedness training is the best possible strategy for identifying weak points, understanding vulnerability, and finding possible strategies for mitigation of blackout consequences. Training represents an effective tool for developing abilities and skills to cope with crisis situations. This article builds on the results of the research carried out in the field of preparation, realization, process, and impacts of training on subjects of energy sector critical infrastructure as a part of crisis preparedness. The research has revealed that the subjects of energy sector critical infrastructure have not realized training and therefore are not prepared for the restoration of the energy supply and black start after blackout regardless of the fact that most subjects state blackout and subsequent black start as key dangers. Training, together with mutual communication and processed crisis documentation, represent a basis for successful solutions for dealing with emergency situations. This text presents the suggested model of SIMEX simulator as a tool which supports managing crisis situations, containing training environment. Training models, possibilities of constructive simulation making use of non-aggregated as well as aggregated entities and tools of communication channels of individual simulator nodes have been introduced by the article.

Keywords: Energetic critical infrastructure, preparedness, training, simulation.

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Authors: Aleksander Nawrat, Karol Jędrasiak, Artur Ryt, Dawid Sobel

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The goal of the article is to present a novel Multimedia Firearms Training System. The system was developed in order to compensate for major problems of existing shooting training systems. The designed and implemented solution can be characterized by five major advantages: algorithm for automatic geometric calibration, algorithm of photometric recalibration, firearms hit point detection using thermal imaging camera, IR laser spot tracking algorithm for after action review analysis, and implementation of ballistics equations. The combination of the abovementioned advantages in a single multimedia firearms training system creates a comprehensive solution for detecting and tracking of the target point usable for shooting training systems and improving intervention tactics of uniformed services. The introduced algorithms of geometric and photometric recalibration allow the use of economically viable commercially available projectors for systems that require long and intensive use without most of the negative impacts on color mapping of existing multi-projector multimedia shooting range systems. The article presents the results of the developed algorithms and their application in real training systems.

Keywords: Firearms shot detection, geometric recalibration, photometric recalibration, IR tracking algorithm, thermography, ballistics.

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Authors: Omer F. Cansiz, Said M. Easa

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The purpose of this study is mainly to predict collision frequency on the horizontal tangents combined with vertical curves using artificial neural network methods. The proposed ANN models are compared with existing regression models. First, the variables that affect collision frequency were investigated. It was found that only the annual average daily traffic, section length, access density, the rate of vertical curvature, smaller curve radius before and after the tangent were statistically significant according to related combinations. Second, three statistical models (negative binomial, zero inflated Poisson and zero inflated negative binomial) were developed using the significant variables for three alignment combinations. Third, ANN models are developed by applying the same variables for each combination. The results clearly show that the ANN models have the lowest mean square error value than those of the statistical models. Similarly, the AIC values of the ANN models are smaller to those of the regression models for all the combinations. Consequently, the ANN models have better statistical performances than statistical models for estimating collision frequency. The ANN models presented in this paper are recommended for evaluating the safety impacts 3D alignment elements on horizontal tangents.

Keywords: Collision frequency, horizontal tangent, 3D two-lane highway, negative binomial, zero inflated Poisson, artificial neural network.

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Authors: A. M. Tarola, R. Preti, A. M. Girelli, P. Campana

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Goat dairy products are gaining popularity worldwide. In developing countries, but also in many marginal regions of the Mediterranean area, goats represent a great part of the economy and ensure food security. In fact, these small ruminants are able to convert efficiently poor weedy plants and small trees into traditional products of high nutritional quality, showing great resilience to different climatic and environmental conditions. In developed countries, goat milk is appreciated for the presence of health-promoting compounds, bioactive compounds such as conjugated linoleic acids, oligosaccharides, sphingolipids and polyammines. This paper focuses on the recent advances in literature on the nutritional properties of goat milk and on innovative techniques to improve its quality as to become a promising functional food. The environmental sustainability of different methodologies of production has also been examined. Goat milk is valued today as a food of high nutritional value and functional properties as well as small environmental footprint. It is widely consumed in many countries due to high nutritional value, lower allergenic potential, and better digestibility when compared to bovine milk, that makes this product suitable for infants, elderly or sensitive patients. The main differences in chemical composition between a cow and goat milk rely on fat globules that in goat milk are smaller and in fatty acids that present a smaller chain length, while protein, fat, and lactose concentration are comparable. Milk nutritional properties have demonstrated to be strongly influenced by animal diet, genotype, and welfare, but also by season and production systems. Furthermore, there is a growing interest in the dairy industry in goat milk for its relatively high concentration of prebiotics and a good amount of probiotics, which have recently gained importance for their therapeutic potential. Therefore, goat milk is studied as a promising matrix to develop innovative functional foods. In addition to the economic and nutritional value, goat milk is considered a sustainable product for its small environmental footprint, as they require relatively little water and land, and less medical treatments, compared to cow, these characteristics make its production naturally vocated to organic farming. Organic goat milk production has becoming more and more interesting both for farmers and consumers as it can answer to several concerns like environment protection, animal welfare and economical sustainment of rural populations living in marginal lands. These evidences make goat milk an ancient food with novel properties and advantages to be valorized and exploited.

Keywords: Goat milk, nutritional quality, bioactive compounds, sustainable production.

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Authors: S. M. Ali, A. Salam Khan, A. U. Khan, M. Tariq, M. S. Hussain, B. A. Abbasi, I. Hussain, U. Farid

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Environment and surrounding plays a pivotal rule in structuring life-style of the consumers. Living standards intern effect the energy consumption of the consumers. In smart grid paradigm, climate drifts, weather parameter and green environmental directly relates to the energy profiles of the various consumers, such as residential, commercial and industrial. Considering above factors helps policy in shaping utility load curves and optimal management of demand and supply. Thus, there is a pressing need to develop correlation models of load and weather parameters and critical analysis of the factors effecting energy profiles of smart grid consumers. In this paper, we elaborated various environment and weather parameter factors effecting demand of consumers. Moreover, we developed correlation models, such as Pearson, Spearman, and Kendall, an inter-relation between dependent (load) parameter and independent (weather) parameters. Furthermore, we validated our discussion with real-time data of Texas State. The numerical simulations proved the effective relation of climatic drifts with energy consumption of smart grid consumers.

Keywords: Climatic drifts, correlation analysis, energy consumption, smart grid, weather parameter.

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Authors: H. Ahmed, A. Schlenkhoff, R. Rousta, R. Abdelaziz

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Vertical slotted walls can be used as permeable breakwaters to provide economical and environmental protection from undesirable waves and currents inside the port. The permeable breakwaters are partially protection and have been suggested to overcome the environmental disadvantages of fully protection breakwaters. For regular waves a semi-analytical model is based on an eigenfunction expansion method and utilizes a boundary condition at the surface of each wall are developed to detect the energy dissipation through the slots. Extensive laboratory tests are carried out to validate the semi-analytic models. The structure of the physical model contains two walls and it consists of impermeable upper and lower part, where the draft is based a decimal multiple of the total depth. The middle part is permeable with a porosity of 50%. The second barrier is located at a distant of 0.5, 1, 1.5 and 2 times of the water depth from the first one. A comparison of the theoretical results with previous studies and experimental measurements of the present study show a good agreement and that, the semi-analytical model is able to adequately reproduce most the important features of the experiment.

Keywords: Permeable breakwater, double vertical slotted walls, semi-analytical model, transmission coefficient, reflection coefficient, energy dissipation coefficient.

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Authors: Shrikrishan Yadav, Akhilesh Saini, Krishna Chandra Roy

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The electromagnetic spectrum is a natural resource and hence well-organized usage of the limited natural resources is the necessities for better communication. The present static frequency allocation schemes cannot accommodate demands of the rapidly increasing number of higher data rate services. Therefore, dynamic usage of the spectrum must be distinguished from the static usage to increase the availability of frequency spectrum. Cognitive radio is not a single piece of apparatus but it is a technology that can incorporate components spread across a network. It offers great promise for improving system efficiency, spectrum utilization, more effective applications, reduction in interference and reduced complexity of usage for users. Cognitive radio is aware of its environmental, internal state, and location, and autonomously adjusts its operations to achieve designed objectives. It first senses its spectral environment over a wide frequency band, and then adapts the parameters to maximize spectrum efficiency with high performance. This paper only focuses on the analysis of Bit-Error-Rate in cognitive radio by using Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm. It is theoretically as well as practically analyzed and interpreted in the sense of advantages and drawbacks and how BER affects the efficiency and performance of the communication system.

Keywords: BER, Cognitive Radio, Environmental Parameters, PSO, Radio spectrum, Transmission Parameters

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Authors: N. K. Ambujam, V. Sudha

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Reservoirs are being contaminated all around the world with point source and Non-Point Source (NPS) pollution. The most common NPS pollutants are sediments and nutrients. Krishnagiri Reservoir (KR) has been chosen for the present case study, which is located in the tropical semi-arid climatic zone of Tamil Nadu, South India. It is the main source of surface water in Krishnagiri district to meet the freshwater demands. The reservoir has lost about 40% of its water holding capacity due to sedimentation over the period of 50 years. Hence, from the research and management perspective, there is a need for a sound knowledge on the spatial and seasonal variations of KR water quality. The present study encompasses the specific objectives as (i) to investigate the longitudinal heterogeneity and seasonal variations of physicochemical parameters, nutrients and biological characteristics of KR water and (ii) to examine the extent of degradation of water quality in KR. 15 sampling points were identified by uniform stratified method and a systematic monthly sampling strategy was selected due to high dynamic nature in its hydrological characteristics. The physicochemical parameters, major ions, nutrients and Chlorophyll a (Chl a) were analysed. Trophic status of KR was classified by using Carlson's Trophic State Index (TSI). All statistical analyses were performed by using Statistical Package for Social Sciences programme, version-16.0. Spatial maps were prepared for Chl a using Arc GIS. Observations in KR pointed out that electrical conductivity and major ions are highly variable factors as it receives inflow from the catchment with different land use activities. The study of major ions in KR exhibited different trends in their values and it could be concluded that as the monsoon progresses the major ions in the water decreases or water quality stabilizes. The inflow point of KR showed comparatively higher concentration of nutrients including nitrate, soluble reactive phosphorus (SRP), total phosphors (TP), total suspended phosphorus (TSP) and total dissolved phosphorus (TDP) during monsoon seasons. This evidently showed the input of significant amount of nutrients from the catchment side through agricultural runoff. High concentration of TDP and TSP at the lacustrine zone of the reservoir during summer season evidently revealed that there was a significant release of phosphorus from the bottom sediments. Carlson’s TSI of KR ranged between 81 and 92 during northeast monsoon and summer seasons. High and permanent Cyanobacterial bloom in KR could be mainly due to the internal loading of phosphorus from the bottom sediments. According to Carlson’s TSI classification Krishnagiri reservoir was ranked in the hyper-eutrophic category. This study provides necessary basic data on the spatio-temporal variations of water quality in KR and also proves the impact of point and NPS pollution from the catchment area. High TSI warrants a greater threat for the recovery of internal P loading and hyper-eutrophic condition of KR. Several expensive internal measures for the reduction of internal loading of P were introduced by many scientists. However, the outcome of the present research suggests for the innovative algae harvesting technique for the removal of sediment nutrients.

Keywords: Hyper-eutrophication, Krishnagiri reservoir, nutrients, NPS pollution.

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Authors: Tania Elena González Alvarado, Ma. Antonieta Martín Granados

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The aim of this paper is to explain what a multienterprise tie is, what evidence its analysis provides and how does the cooperation mechanism influence the establishment of a multienterprise tie. The study focuses on businesses of smaller dimension, geographically dispersed and whose businessmen are learning to cooperate in an international environment. The empirical evidence obtained at this moment permits to conclude the following: The tie is not long-lasting, it has an end; opportunism is an opportunity to learn; the multi-enterprise tie is a space to learn about the cooperation mechanism; the local tie permits a businessman to alternate between competition and cooperation strategies; the disappearance of a tie is an experience of learning for a businessman, diminishing the possibility of failure in the next tie; the cooperation mechanism tends to eliminate hierarchical relations; the multienterprise tie diminishes the asymmetries and permits SME-s to have a better position when they negotiate with large companies; the multi-enterprise tie impacts positively on the local system. The collection of empirical evidence was done trough the following instruments: direct observation in a business encounter to which the businesses attended in 2003 (202 Mexican agro industry SME-s), a survey applied in 2004 (129), a questionnaire applied in 2005 (86 businesses), field visits to the businesses during the period 2006-2008 and; a survey applied by telephone in 2008 (55 Mexican agro industry SME-s).

Keywords: Cooperation, multi-enterprise tie, links, networks.

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Authors: Chandra Prayaga, Lakshmi Prayaga, Aaron Wade, Kyle Rank, Gopi Shankar Mallu, Sri Satya Harsha Pola

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In today's tech-driven world, where connectivity shapes our daily lives, maintaining physical and emotional health is crucial. Athletic trainers play a vital role in optimizing athletes' performance and preventing injuries. However, a shortage of trainers impacts the quality of care. This study introduces a vision-based exercise monitoring system leveraging Google's MediaPipe library for precise tracking of bicep curl exercises and simultaneous posture monitoring. We propose a three-stage methodology: landmark detection, side detection, and angle computation. Our system calculates angles at the elbow, wrist, neck, and torso to assess exercise form. Experimental results demonstrate the system's effectiveness in distinguishing between good and partial repetitions and evaluating body posture during exercises, providing real-time feedback for precise fitness monitoring.

Keywords: Physical health, athletic trainers, fitness monitoring, technology driven solutions, Google's MediaPipe, landmark detection, angle computation, real-time feedback.

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Authors: Khodadad Mostafavi, Alireza Nabipour, Mohammad Norouzi

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Biplot can be used to evaluate cultivars for their oil percent potential and stability and to evaluate trial sites for their discriminating ability and representativeness. Multi-environmental trial (MET) data for oil percent of 10 open pollinating sunflower cultivars were analyzed to investigate the genotype-environment interactions. The genotypes were evaluated in four locations with different climatic conditions in Iran in 2010. In each location, a Randomized Complete Block design with four replications was used. According to both mean and stability, Zaria, Master and R453, had highest performances among all cultivars. The graphical analysis identified best cultivar for each environment. Cultivars Berezans and Record performed best in Khoy and Islamabad. Zaria and R453 were the best genotypes in Sari and Karaj followed by Master and Favorit. The GGE bi-plot indicated two mega-environments, group one contained Karaj, Khoy and Islamabad and the second group contained Sari. The best discriminating location was Karaj followed with Khoy, Islamabad and Sari. The best representative genotypes were Zaria, R453, Master and Favorit. Ranking of ten cultivars based their oil percent was as Zaria > R453 ≈ Master ≈ Favorit > Record ≈ Berezans > Sor > Lakumka > Bulg3 > Bulg5.

Keywords: Stability, Bi-plot, Genotype- environment interaction, Sunflower

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Authors: Lubis A., Setiawati L., Setyoningrum A. R., Suryawan A., Irwanto

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Asthma is a condition that causing chronic health problems in children. In addition to basic therapy against disease, we must try to reduce the impact of chronic health problems and also optimize their medical aspect of growth and development. A boy with mild asthma attack frequent episode did not showed any improvement with medical treatment and his asthma control test was 11. From radiologic examination he got hyperaerated lung and billateral sinusitis maxillaris; skin test results were house dust, food and pet allergy; an overweight body; bad school grades; psychological and environmental problem. We followed and evaluated this boy in 6 months, treated holistically. Even we could not do much on environmental but no more psychological and school problems, his on a good bodyweight and his asthma control test was 22. A case of a child with mild asthma attack frequent episode was reported. Asthma clinical course show no significant improvement when other predisposing factor is not well-controlled and a child’s growth and development may be affected. Improving condition of the patient can be created with the help of loving and caring way of nurturing from the parents and supportive peer group. Therefore, continuous and consistent monitoring is required because prognosis of asthma is generally good when regularly and properly controlled.

Keywords: Asthma, chronic health problems, growth and development.

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Authors: V. Jafari, M. Jafari

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When long-term changes in normal weather patterns happen in a certain area, it generally could be identified as climate change. Concentration of principal's greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane, ozone, and water vapor will cause climate change and perhaps climate variability. Main climate factors are temperature, precipitation, air pressure, and humidity. Extreme events may be the result of the changing of carbon dioxide concentration levels in the atmosphere which cause a change in temperature. Extreme events in some ways will affect the productivity of crop and dairy livestock. In this research, the correlation of milk production and temperature as the main climate factor in ChaharMahal and Bakhtiari province in Iran has been considered. The methodology employed for this study consists, collect reports and published national and provincial data, available recorded data on climate factors and analyzing collected data using statistical software. Milk production in ChaharMahal and Bakhtiari province is in the same pattern as national milk production in Iran. According to the current study results, there is a significant negative correlation between milk production in ChaharMahal and Bakhtiari provinces and temperature as the main climate change factor.

Keywords: ChaharMahal and Bakhtiari, climate change, impacts, Iran, milk production.

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Authors: Mohammad Iman Mokhlespour Esfahani, Masoud Mosayebi, Mohammad Pourshams, Ahmad Keshavarzi

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Simulation accuracy by recent dynamic vehicle simulation multidimensional expression significantly has progressed and acceptable results not only for passive vehicles but also for active vehicles normally equipped with advanced electronic components is also provided. Recently, one of the subjects that has it been considered, is increasing the safety car in design. Therefore, many efforts have been done to increase vehicle stability especially in the turn. One of the most important efforts is adjusting the camber angle in the car suspension system. Optimum control camber angle in addition to the vehicle stability is effective in the wheel adhesion on road, reducing rubber abrasion and acceleration and braking. Since the increase or decrease in the camber angle impacts on the stability of vehicles, in this paper, a car suspension system mechanism is introduced that could be adjust camber angle and the mechanism is application and also inexpensive. In order to reach this purpose, in this paper, a passive double wishbone suspension system with variable camber angle is introduced and then variable camber mechanism designed and analyzed for study the designed system performance, this mechanism is modeled in Visual Nastran software and kinematic analysis is revealed.

Keywords: Suspension molding, double wishbone, variablecamber, hydraulic mechanism

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Authors: Jamal S. Yassin

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This paper is to formulate a mathematical model to predict the amounts of the emissions produced from the combustion process of the gas turbine unit of the jet engine. These emissions have bad impacts on the environment if they are out of standards, which cause real threats to all type of life on the earth. The amounts of the emissions from the gas turbine engine are functions to many operational and design factors. In landing-takeoff (LTO) these amounts are not the same as in taxi or cruise of the plane using jet engines, because of the difference in the activity period during these operating modes. These emissions can be affected by several physical and chemical variables, such as fuel type, fuel to air ratio or equivalence ratio, flame temperature, combustion pressure, in addition to some inlet conditions such as ambient temperature and air humidity. To study the influence of these variables on the amounts of these emissions during the combustion process in the gas turbine unit, a computer program has been developed by using the visual basic 6 software. Here, the analysis of the combustion process is carried out by considering it as a chemical reaction with shifting equilibrium to find the products of the combustion of the octane fuel, at different equivalence ratios, compressor pressure ratios (CPR) and combustion temperatures. The results obtained have shown that there is noticeable influence of the equivalence ratio, CPR, and the combustion temperature on the amounts of the main emissions which are considered pollutants, such as CO, CO₂ and NO.

Keywords: Mathematical model, gas turbine unit, equivalence ratio, emissions, shifting equilibrium.

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Authors: Romain Bosquet, Pierre-Olivier Vandanjon, Alex Coiret, Tristan Lorino

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In the hardening energy context, the transport sector which constitutes a large worldwide energy demand has to be improving for decrease energy demand and global warming impacts. In a controversial situation where subsists an increasing demand for long-distance and high-speed travels, high-speed trains offer many advantages, as consuming significantly less energy than road or air transports. At the project phase of new rail infrastructures, it is nowadays important to characterize accurately the energy that will be induced by its operation phase, in addition to other more classical criteria as construction costs and travel time. Current literature consumption models used to estimate railways operation phase are obsolete or not enough accurate for taking into account the newest train or railways technologies. In this paper, an updated model of consumption for high-speed is proposed, based on experimental data obtained from full-scale tests performed on a new high-speed line. The assessment of the model is achieved by identifying train parameters and measured power consumptions for more than one hundred train routes. Perspectives are then discussed to use this updated model for accurately assess the energy impact of future railway infrastructures.

Keywords: High-speed train, energy, model, track profile, infrastructure

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Authors: Ahmadu Girgiri, Lawan Gana Ali, Mamman M. Baba

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Environmental security clearly articulates the perfections and developments of various communities around the world irrespective of the region, culture, religion or social inclination. Although, the present state of insecurity has become serious issue devastating the peace, unity, stability and progress of man and his physical environment particularly in developing countries. Recently, measure of security and it management in Nigeria has been a bottle-neck to the effectiveness and advancement of various sectors that include; business, education, social relations, politics and above all an economy. Several measures have been considered on mitigating environment insecurity such as surveillance, demarcation, security personnel empowerment and the likes, but still the issue remains disturbing. In this paper, we present the application of new technology that contributes to the improvement of security surveillance known as “Wireless Sensor Network (WSN)”. The system is new, smart and emerging technology that provides monitoring, detection and aggregation of information using sensor nodes and wireless network. WSN detects, monitors and stores information or activities in the deployed area such as schools, environment, business centers, public squares, industries, and outskirts and transmit to end users. This will reduce the cost of security funding and eases security surveillance depending on the nature and the requirement of the deployment.

Keywords: Wireless sensor network, node, application, monitoring, insecurity, environment.

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Authors: Isabella Bianco, Gian Andrea Blengini

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The environmental impact related to ornamental stones (such as marbles and granites) is largely debated. Starting from the industrial revolution, continuous improvements of machineries led to a higher exploitation of this natural resource and to a more international interaction between markets. As a consequence, the environmental impact of the extraction and processing of stones has increased. Nevertheless, if compared with other building materials, ornamental stones are generally more durable, natural, and recyclable. From the scientific point of view, studies on stone life cycle sustainability have been carried out, but these are often partial or not very significant because of the high percentage of approximations and assumptions in calculations. This is due to the lack, in life cycle databases (e.g. Ecoinvent, Thinkstep, and ELCD), of datasets about the specific technologies employed in the stone production chain. For example, databases do not contain information about diamond wires, chains or explosives, materials commonly used in quarries and transformation plants. The project presented in this paper aims to populate the life cycle databases with specific data of specific stone processes. To this goal, the methodology follows the standardized approach of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), according to the requirements of UNI 14040-14044 and to the International Reference Life Cycle Data System (ILCD) Handbook guidelines of the European Commission. The study analyses the processes of the entire production chain (from-cradle-to-gate system boundaries), including the extraction of benches, the cutting of blocks into slabs/tiles and the surface finishing. Primary data have been collected in Italian quarries and transformation plants which use technologies representative of the current state-of-the-art. Since the technologies vary according to the hardness of the stone, the case studies comprehend both soft stones (marbles) and hard stones (gneiss). In particular, data about energy, materials and emissions were collected in marble basins of Carrara and in Beola and Serizzo basins located in the province of Verbano Cusio Ossola. Data were then elaborated through an appropriate software to build a life cycle model. The model was realized setting free parameters that allow an easy adaptation to specific productions. Through this model, the study aims to boost the direct participation of stone companies and encourage the use of LCA tool to assess and improve the stone sector environmental sustainability. At the same time, the realization of accurate Life Cycle Inventory data aims at making available, to researchers and stone experts, ILCD compliant datasets of the most significant processes and technologies related to the ornamental stone sector.

Keywords: LCA datasets, life cycle assessment, ornamental stone, stone environmental impact.

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Authors: Y. Deng, X. Li, C. Kwan, B. Raj, R. Stern

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The current speech interfaces in many military applications may be adequate for native speakers. However, the recognition rate drops quite a lot for non-native speakers (people with foreign accents). This is mainly because the nonnative speakers have large temporal and intra-phoneme variations when they pronounce the same words. This problem is also complicated by the presence of large environmental noise such as tank noise, helicopter noise, etc. In this paper, we proposed a novel continuous acoustic feature adaptation algorithm for on-line accent and environmental adaptation. Implemented by incremental singular value decomposition (SVD), the algorithm captures local acoustic variation and runs in real-time. This feature-based adaptation method is then integrated with conventional model-based maximum likelihood linear regression (MLLR) algorithm. Extensive experiments have been performed on the NATO non-native speech corpus with baseline acoustic model trained on native American English. The proposed feature-based adaptation algorithm improved the average recognition accuracy by 15%, while the MLLR model based adaptation achieved 11% improvement. The corresponding word error rate (WER) reduction was 25.8% and 2.73%, as compared to that without adaptation. The combined adaptation achieved overall recognition accuracy improvement of 29.5%, and WER reduction of 31.8%, as compared to that without adaptation.

Keywords: speaker adaptation; environment adaptation; robust speech recognition; SVD; non-native speech recognition

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Authors: L. P. K. Liyanage, N. R. P. Withana, A. L. Sandika

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The purpose of this study was to determine tourist and community perception-based sustainable tourism indicators as well as Human Pressure Index (HPI) and Tourist Activity Index (TAI). Study was carried out in Sinharaja forest which is considered as one of the major eco-tourism destination in Sri Lanka. Data were gathered using a pre-tested semi-structured questionnaire as well as records from Forest department. Convenient sampling technique was applied. For the majority of issues, the responses were obtained on multi-point Likert-type scales. Visual portrayal was used for display analyzed data. The study revealed that the host community of the Kudawa gets many benefits from tourism. Also, tourism has caused negative impacts upon the environment and community. The study further revealed the need of proper waste management and involvement of local cultural events for the tourism business in the Kudawa conservation center. The TAI, which accounted to be 1.27 and monthly evolution of HPI revealed that congestion can be occurred in the Sinharaja rainforest during peak season. The results provide useful information to any party involved with tourism planning anywhere, since such attempts would be more effective once the people’s perceptions on these aspects are taken into account.

Keywords: Kudawa conservation center, Sinharaja world heritage rainforest, sustainability indicators.

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Authors: Lamia Hammadi, Abdellah Ait Ouhman, Aomar Ibourk

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It is widely assumed that the case of Customs Supply Chain is classified as a complex system, due to not only the variety and large number of actors, but also their complex structural links, and the interactions between these actors, that’s why this system is subject to various types of Risks. The economic, political and social impacts of those risks are highly detrimental to countries, businesses and the public, for this reason, Risk management in the customs supply chain is becoming a crucial issue to ensure the sustainability, security and safety. The main characteristic of customs risk management approach is determining which goods and means of transport should be examined? To what extend? And where future compliance resources should be directed? The purposes of this article are, firstly to deal with the concept of customs supply chain, secondly present our risk management approach based on Cross Activity Based Costing (ABC) Method as an interactive tool to support decision making in customs risk management. Finally, analysis of case study of Moroccan customs to putting theory into practice and will thus draw together the various elements of a structured and efficient risk management approach.

Keywords: Cross ABC Method, Customs Supply Chain, Risk, Risk Management.

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Authors: Sirirat Taneerananon

Abstract:

This paper presents the results of a study of the ultra-poor in the south of Thailand, revisited after 10 years since the original study in 2000. The original study was conducted in four provinces. The first two namely Phatthalung and Nakorn were chosen to represent the Thai Buddhists and the others, Satun and Pattani were chosen to represent the Thai Muslims. For this study, only the results from the three provinces except Pattani are reported as it was difficult and dangerous to conduct fieldwork in Pattani due to the continued unrest in the area since 2005.

The objectives of the study are to find out the changes of the poverty situation after 10 years and to see the impacts of the poverty reduction projects implemented by the government on the poor. The research methodology used both quantitative and qualitative methods. The same villages in the four provinces studied in 1999 were again chosen. In each village, five ultra-poor people and heads of the villages were interviewed. The results show that the poverty situation of the ultra-poor groups has not changed much since they lacked the basic key factor to get themselves out of poverty: The ownership of land. Their chronic poverty situation has been passed on from the last generation. In the province of Phatthalung, the ultra-poor have improved in terms of economic situation because of the big increase in the price of rubber. However, the same could not be said for other provinces. Even though the government’s projects have not reduced the poverty directly, the projects have significantly contributed to the improvement of the quality of life of the poor and the people in the areas. 

Keywords: Poverty, Southern Thailand, Ultra-poor.

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Authors: Christos Bouras, Eirini Stergiou, Charitini Karakostaki, Vasileios Tzanos, Vasileios Kokkinos

Abstract:

Wind power represents a major pathway to curtailing greenhouse gas emissions and thus reducing the rate of climate change. A wind turbine runs practically emission-free for 20 years, representing one of the most environmentally sustainable sources of energy. Nevertheless, environmental and biodiversity concerns can often slow down or halt the deployment of wind farms due to local public opposition. This opposition is often fuelled by poor relationships between wind energy stakeholders and civil society, which in many cases led to conflictual protests and property damage. In this context, addressing these concerns is essential in order to facilitate the proliferation of wind farms in Europe and the phase-out of fossil fuels from the energy mix. The aim of this study is to identify a number of good practices and cases to avoid increasing biodiversity protection at all stages of wind farms’ lifecycle in three participating countries, namely Greece, Latvia, and Poland. The results indicate that although available technological solutions are already being exploited worldwide, in these countries, there is still room for improvement. To address this gap, a set of policy recommendations is proposed to accomplish the wind energy targets in the near future while simultaneously mitigating the pertinent biodiversity risks.

Keywords: Biodiversity protection, environmental impact, social acceptance, wind energy.

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Authors: Yuan-Hong Ho, Chiung-Ju Huang

Abstract:

Previous studies on political budget cycles (PBCs) implicitly assume the executive has full discretion power over fiscal policy, neglecting the role of checks and balances of the legislature. This paper goes beyond traditional PBCs models and sheds light on the case study of Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan over the 1988-2007 periods. Based on the results, we find no evidence of electoral impacts on the public expenditures in South Korean and Taiwan's congressional elections. We also noted that PBCs are found on Taiwan-s government expenditures during our sample periods. Furthermore, the results also show that Japan-s legislature has a significant checks and balances on government-s expenditures. However, empirical results show that the legislature veto player in Taiwan neither has effect on the reduction of public expenditures, nor has the moderating effect over Taiwan-s political budget cycles, albeit that they are statistically insignificant.We suggest that the existence of PBCs in Taiwan is due to a weaker systemof checks and balances. Our conjecture is that Taiwan either has no legislative veto player or has observed low compliance to the law during the time period examined in our study.

Keywords: Checks and balances, compliance to the law, political budget cycles, veto player.

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Authors: Heeyeul Kwon, Yongtae Park

Abstract:

Despite the highly touted benefits, emerging technologies have unleashed pervasive concerns regarding unintended and unforeseen social impacts. Thus, those wishing to create safe and socially acceptable products need to identify such side effects and mitigate them prior to the market proliferation. Various methodologies in the field of technology assessment (TA), namely Delphi, impact assessment, and scenario planning, have been widely incorporated in such a circumstance. However, literatures face a major limitation in terms of sole reliance on participatory workshop activities. They unfortunately missed out the availability of a massive untapped data source of futuristic information flooding through the Internet. This research thus seeks to gain insights into utilization of futuristic data, future-oriented documents from the Internet, as a supplementary method to generate social impact scenarios whilst capturing perspectives of experts from a wide variety of disciplines. To this end, network analysis is conducted based on the social keywords extracted from the futuristic documents by text mining, which is then used as a guide to produce a comprehensive set of detailed scenarios. Our proposed approach facilitates harmonized depictions of possible hazardous consequences of emerging technologies and thereby makes decision makers more aware of, and responsive to, broad qualitative uncertainties.

Keywords: Emerging technologies, futuristic data, scenario, text mining.

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Authors: A. M. Qahtani, G. B. Wills, A. M. Gravell

Abstract:

Communicating and managing customers’ requirements in software development projects play a vital role in the software development process. While it is difficult to do so locally, it is even more difficult to communicate these requirements over distributed boundaries and to convey them to multiple distribution customers. This paper discusses the communication of multiple distribution customers’ requirements in the context of customised software products. The main purpose is to understand the challenges of communicating and managing customisation requirements across distributed boundaries. We propose a model for Communicating Customisation Requirements of Multi-Clients in a Distributed Domain (CCRD). Thereafter, we evaluate that model by presenting the findings of a case study conducted with a company with customisation projects for 18 distributed customers. Then, we compare the outputs of the real case process and the outputs of the CCRD model using simulation methods. Our conjecture is that the CCRD model can reduce the challenge of communication requirements over distributed organisational boundaries, and the delay in decision making and in the entire customisation process time.

Keywords: Customisation Software Products, Global Software Engineering, Local Decision Making, Requirement Engineering, Simulation Model.

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Authors: Mi Ok Kang

Abstract:

This study examined the influences of including LGBTQ-related content in a multicultural teacher education course on the development of prospective teachers’ social justice identities. Appling a content analysis to 53 reflection texts written by participating prospective teachers in response to the relevant course content, this study deduced the stages of social justice identity development (naïve, acceptance, resistance, redefinition, and internalization) that participants reached during the course. The analysis demonstrated that the participants reached various stages in the social identity development model and none of the participants remained at the naïve stage during/after class. The majority (53%) of the participants reached the internalization stage during the coursework and became conscious about the heterosexual privileges they have had and aware of possible impacts of such privilege on their future LGBTQ students. Also the participants had begun to develop pedagogic action plans and devised applicable teaching strategies for their future students based on the new understanding of heteronormativity. We expect this study will benefit teacher educators and educational administrators who want to address LGBTQ-related issues in their multicultural education programs and/or revisit the goals, directions, and implications of their approach.

Keywords: LGBTQ, heteronormativity, social justice identity, teacher education, multicultural education, content analysis.

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Authors: Ayo Afolabi, Rudzani Sigwadi, Ambali Abdulkareem

Abstract:

All around the world pulp and paper industries are the biggest plant production with the environmental pollution as the biggest challenge facing the pulp manufacturing operations. The concern among these industries is to produce a high volume of papers with the high quality standard and of low cost without affecting the environment. This result obtained from this bleaching study show that the activation of peroxide was an effective method of reducing the total applied charge of chlorine dioxide which is harmful to our environment and also show that softwood and hardwood Kraft pulps responded linearly to the peroxide treatments. During the bleaching process the production plant produce chlorines. Under the trial stages chloride dioxide has been reduced by 3 kg/ton to reduce the brightness from 65% ISO to 60% ISO of pulp and the dosing point returned to the E stage charges by pre-treating Kraft pulps with hydrogen peroxide. The pulp and paper industry has developed elemental chlorine free (ECF) and totally chlorine free (TCF) bleaching, in their quest for being environmental friendly, they have been looking at ways to turn their ECF process into a TCF process while still being competitive. This prompted the research to investigate the capability of the hydrogen peroxide as catalyst to reduce chloride dioxide.

Keywords: bleaching, chloride dioxide, elemental chlorine free (ECF), hydrogen peroxide, totally chlorine free (TCF).

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