Search results for: economic planning depth

Authors: Hilary J. Watsilla, Narasimha R. Vajjhala

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Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has made information access easier and affordable. Academic research has also benefited from this, with online journals and academic resource readily available by the click of a button. However, there are limited ways of assessing and controlling the quality of the academic research mostly in public institution. Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa with a significant number of universities and young population. The quality of knowledge created by academic researchers, however, needs to be evaluated due to the high number of predatory journals published by academia. The purpose of this qualitative study is to look at the knowledge creation, acquisition, and assimilation process by academic researchers in public universities in Nigeria. Qualitative research will be carried out using in-depth interviews and observations. Academic researchers will be interviewed and absorptive capacity theory will be used as the theoretical framework to guide the research. The findings from this study should help understand the impact of ICT on the knowledge creation process in academic research and to understand how ICT can affect the quality of knowledge produced by researchers. The findings from this study should help add value to the existing body of knowledge on the quality of academic research, especially in Africa where there is limited availability of quality academic research. As this study is limited to Nigerian universities, the outcome may not be generalized to other developing countries.

Keywords: Knowledge creation, academic research, knowledge management, information and communication technology, research, university.

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Authors: Hsien-cheng Chou, Fei-pei Lai, Hung-chang Lee

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At present, dictionary attack has been the basic tool for recovering key passwords. In order to avoid dictionary attack, users purposely choose another character strings as passwords. According to statistics, about 14% of users choose keys on a keyboard (Kkey, for short) as passwords. This paper develops a framework system to attack the password chosen from Kkeys and analyzes its efficiency. Within this system, we build up keyboard rules using the adjacent and parallel relationship among Kkeys and then use these Kkey rules to generate password databases by depth-first search method. According to the experiment results, we find the key space of databases derived from these Kkey rules that could be far smaller than the password databases generated within brute-force attack, thus effectively narrowing down the scope of attack research. Taking one general Kkey rule, the combinations in all printable characters (94 types) with Kkey adjacent and parallel relationship, as an example, the derived key space is about 240 smaller than those in brute-force attack. In addition, we demonstrate the method's practicality and value by successfully cracking the access password to UNIX and PC using the password databases created

Keywords: Brute-force attack, dictionary attack, depth-firstsearch, password attack.

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Authors: Ishani Pruthi, William Burch Jr

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The concept of sacred and nature have long been interlinked. Various cultural aspects such as religion, faith, traditions bring people closer to nature and the natural environment. Memorial Parks and Sacred Groves are examples of two such cultural landscapes that exist today. The project mainly deals with the significance of such sites to the environment and the deep rooted significance it has to the people. These parks and groves play an important role in biodiversity conservation and environmental protection. There are many differences between the establishment of memorial parks and sacred groves, but the underlying significance is the same. Sentiments, emotions play an important role in landscape planning and management. Hence the people and communities living at these sites need to be involved in any planning activity or decisions. The conservation of the environment should appeal to the sentiments of the people; the need to be 'with nature' should be used in the setting up of memorial forests and in the preservation of sacred groves.

Keywords: Sacred groves, memorial forests, community based natural resource management.

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Authors: Hsiao-Tien Pao, Yi-Ying Li, Hsin-Chia Fu

Abstract:

This paper addressed the impacts of energy consumption, economic growth, financial development, and population size on environmental degradation using grey relational analysis (GRA) for China, where foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows is the proxy variable for financial development. The more recent historical data during the period 2004–2011 are used, because the use of very old data for data analysis may not be suitable for rapidly developing countries. The results of the GRA indicate that the linkage effects of energy consumption–emissions and GDP–emissions are ranked first and second, respectively. These reveal that energy consumption and economic growth are strongly correlated with emissions. Higher economic growth requires more energy consumption and increasing environmental pollution. Likewise, more efficient energy use needs a higher level of economic development. Therefore, policies to improve energy efficiency and create a low-carbon economy can reduce emissions without hurting economic growth. The finding of FDI–emissions linkage is ranked third. This indicates that China do not apply weak environmental regulations to attract inward FDI. Furthermore, China’s government in attracting inward FDI should strengthen environmental policy. The finding of population–emissions linkage effect is ranked fourth, implying that population size does not directly affect CO₂ emissions, even though China has the world’s largest population, and Chinese people are very economical use of energy-related products. Overall, the energy conservation, improving efficiency, managing demand, and financial development, which aim at curtailing waste of energy, reducing both energy consumption and emissions, and without loss of the country’s competitiveness, can be adopted for developing economies. The GRA is one of the best way to use a lower data to build a dynamic analysis model.

Keywords: Grey relational analysis, foreign direct investment, CO2 emissions, China.

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Authors: Burak Köken, Hatice D. Arslan, Bilgehan Y. Çakmak

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Analyzing the relation networks between the hospital buildings which have complex structure and distinctive spatial relationships is quite difficult. The hospital buildings which require specialty in spatial relationship solutions during design and selfinnovation through the developing technology should survive and keep giving service even after the disasters such as earthquakes. In this study, a hospital building where the load-bearing system was strengthened because of the insufficient earthquake performance and the construction of an additional building was required to meet the increasing need for space was discussed and a comparative spatial evaluation of the hospital building was made with regard to its status before the change and after the change. For this reason, spatial organizations of the building before change and after the change were analyzed by means of Space Syntax method and the effects of the change on space organization parameters were searched by applying an analytical procedure. Using Depthmap UCL software, Connectivity, Visual Mean Depth, Beta and Visual Integration analyses were conducted. Based on the data obtained after the analyses, it was seen that the relationships between spaces of the building increased after the change and the building has become more explicit and understandable for the occupants. Furthermore, it was determined according to findings of the analysis that the increase in depth causes difficulty in perceiving the spaces and the changes considering this problem generally ease spatial use.

Keywords: Architecture, hospital building, space syntax, strengthening.

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Authors: V. Charaia

Abstract:

This article presents SWOT analysis for Georgian - South Ossetian conflict. The research analyzes socio-economic aspects and considers future prospects for all sides including neighbor countries and regions. Also it includes the possibilities of positive intervention of neighbor countries to solve the conflict or to mitigate its negative results. The main question of the article is: What will it take to award Georgians and South Ossetians with a peace dividend?

Keywords: Conflict economics, Georgian economy, international organizations, peace building, S. Ossetian economy.

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Authors: Esra E. Aleisa

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A local municipality has decided to build a sewage pit to receive residential sewage waste arriving by tank trucks. Daily accumulated waste are to be pumped to a nearby waste water treatment facility to be re-consumed for agricultural and construction projects. A discrete-event simulation model using Arena Software was constructed to assist in defining the capacity of the system in cubic meters, number of tank trucks to use the system, number of unload docks required, number of standby areas needed and manpower required for data collection at entrance checkpoint and truck tank load toxicity testing. The results of the model are statistically validated. Simulation turned out to be an excellent tool in the facility planning effort for the pit project, as it insured smooth flow lines of tank trucks load discharge and best utilization of facilities on site.

Keywords: Discrete-event simulation, Facilities Planning, Layout, Pit, Sewage management.

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Authors: Anesha Atul Shende

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When we are aiming at high goals for economic development such as sustainable growth and development of economy, poverty reduction, and reduction in inequality etc., we must not forget to include each and everyone in the society in process of achieving these goals. This study particularly talks about women’s participation in economic activities with the special focus on the analysis of female labour force participation rate in the states of India. It makes comparison between the states having low female labour force participation with the states that have comparatively high female labour population. The study began with review of data on the current state of gender biases in employment. It has been found that the male workforce is dominant all across India. Further, the study highlights the major reasons for low women participation in economic activities in some of the backward Indian states like Bihar, etc. Reasons for low female participation are related to economic, cultural and social factors that are responsible for women’s unemployment. Afterwards, it analyses the reasons behind comparatively higher female participation in some of the other states in India. The case of the north-eastern region and state of Telangana and Tamil Nadu have been analysed in brief. These states show improvements in female labour force participation over a few decades. This is due to the government policies that have been adopted, women-friendly workplaces, availability of quality jobs for women etc. UN women has recognized the social and economic benefits of having an active female labour force in a country; if female unemployment declines, it will improve the growth rate of the nation as well as the welfare of the society. The study discusses the reasons why an economy must try to increase female workforce participation. It further provides suggestions to improve the conditions in backward states in India where the unemployment rate for women is high. The policy interventions and government schemes are some of the ways to recognise poor women workforce participation issues and work on it. The condition will improve when the changes would take place from regional level with social and moral support to the women.

Keywords: Women unemployment, labour force participation, women empowerment, economic growth and development, gender disparity.

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Authors: S. Anastasiou, C. Nathanailides, P. Logothetis, G. Kanlis

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The purpose of the present work is to review some data for the management challenges that the aquaculture industry in Greece is currently facing. The results indicate that Greek aquaculture fish farms apply Human Resources Management (HRM) practices which can increase motivation, commitment and job satisfaction of their personnel. In turn, these practices can increase the productivity of the business. The Greek fish farms appear to invest in research and technological innovation with a good record in research activities and the generation of patents. Interestingly, the results of the present work were carried out during the period of the recent economic crisis in Greece. Several sectors of the Greek economy were severely affected by the financial problems of the Greek government and the Greek banks. Under the adverse economical conditions created by the Greek economic crisis, even the Greek aquaculture industry, which historically is considered as a thriving national exporting business sector, experienced harsh economic and market conditions. As a result of the global, European and national economic crisis, consumption of fish dropped while companies had to hold most of their stocked fish in order to regulated the flow to the market and the price. This occurred at a time where Banks in Greece had their own financial crisis – banking crisis - which resulted in limited access to lending for the all business sectors of the national economy including the Greek aquaculture industry. In spite of these economic conditions, the Greek aquaculture industry, after a series of mergers and acquisitions, has now stabilized production and exhibits very good prospects for future growth. Evidently, the firms had to cut salaries and on some occasions even pay their staff in arrears. Nevertheless, the results presented in this paper indicate that during the economic crisis, the surveyed fish farms maintained their HRM practices, investing in their human capital and technological input. In fact, human capital and technological input are the ticket for future success of companies in any business sector.

Keywords: Aquaculture, Human Resources Management.

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Authors: Q. Han, W. Schaefer, R. van den Berg

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This paper deals with stakeholders’ decisions within energy neutral urban redevelopment processes. The decisions of these stakeholders during the process will make or break energy neutral ambitions. An extensive form of game theory model gave insight in the behavioral differences of stakeholders regarding energy neutral ambitions and the effects of the changing legislation. The results show that new legislation regarding spatial planning slightly influences the behavior of stakeholders. An active behavior of the municipality will still result in the best outcome. Nevertheless, the municipality becomes more powerful when acting passively and can make the use of planning tools to provide governance towards energy neutral urban redevelopment. Moreover, organizational support, recognizing the necessity for energy neutrality, keeping focused and collaboration among stakeholders are crucial elements to achieve the objective of an energy neutral urban (re)development.

Keywords: Energy neutrality urban (re)development, stakeholder behavior, legislation, game theory.

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Authors: R. Tandlich, S. Hoossein, K. A. Tagwira, M. M. Marais, T. A. Ludwig, R. P. Chidziva, M. N. Munodawafa, W. M. Wrench

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Response to the public health-related emergencies is analysed here for a rural university in South Africa. The structure of the designated emergency plan covers all the phases of the disaster management cycle. The plan contains elements of the vulnerability model and the technocratic model of emergency management. The response structures are vertically and horizontally integrated, while the planning contains elements of scenario-based and functional planning. The available number of medical professionals at the Rhodes University, along with the medical insurance rates, makes the staff and students potentially more medically vulnerable than the South African population. The main improvements of the emergency management are required in the tornado response and the information dissemination during health emergencies. The latter should involve the increased use of social media and e-mails, following the Taylor model of communication. Infrastructure must be improved in the telecommunication sector in the face of unpredictable electricity outages.

Keywords: Public health, Rural university, Taylor model of communication.

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Authors: R. Pastusiak, M. Jasiniak, A. Kaźmierska

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The impact of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) has been analyzed for many years by researchers. There are lot of theoretical studies proving the SEZs importance for regional development, however, there is lack of empirical studies (and they are mainly focused on China market) that are based on available data. The theoretical studies indicate the various impacts of enterprises operating within SEZs on the economy. The article proves that, in case of Poland, locating SEZs in municipalities is an important part of increasing municipalities’ income. Therefore SEZs have a positive impact on regional development. Municipality income is understood as taxes paid by taxpayers who depend on SEZ companies’ performance. The analysis includes the Corporate Income Tax (CIT), Personal Income Tax (PIT) and real estate tax. The effects of SEZs on regional development were narrowed to a few variables that are most significant for the financial system. The analysis indicates the significant impact of SEZs on the amount of taxes influencing the municipality budget.

Keywords: Government, local finance, municipal finance, Special Economic Zones.

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Authors: T. V. K. Gupta, J. Ramkumar, Puneet Tandon, N. S. Vyas

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Abrasive Water Jet Machining is an unconventional machining process well known for machining hard to cut materials. The primary research focus on the process was for through cutting and a very limited literature is available on pocket milling using AWJM. The present work is an attempt to use this process for milling applications considering a set of various process parameters. Four different input parameters, which were considered by researchers for part separation, are selected for the above application, i.e., abrasive size, flow rate, standoff distance and traverse speed. Pockets of definite size are machined to investigate surface roughness, material removal rate and pocket depth. Based on the data available through experiments on SS304 material, it is observed that higher traverse speeds gives a better finish because of reduction in the particle energy density and lower depth is also observed. Increase in the standoff distance and abrasive flow rate reduces the rate of material removal as the jet loses its focus and occurrence of collisions within the particles. ANOVA for individual output parameter has been studied to know the significant process parameters.

Keywords: Abrasive flow rate, surface finish, abrasive size, standoff distance, traverse speed.

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Authors: Drago Jakovcevic, Mihovil Andelinovic, Igor Husak

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The aim of this paper is to explore the economic circumstances in which the selective credit policy, the least used instrument of four types of instruments on disposal to central banks, should be used. The most significant example includes the use of selective credit policies in response to the emergence of the global financial crisis by the FED. Specifics of the potential use of selective credit policies as the instigator of economic growth in Croatia, a small open economy, are determined by high euroization of financial system, fixed exchange rate and long-term trend growth of external debt that is related to the need to maintain high levels of foreign reserves. In such conditions, the classic forms of selective credit policies are unsuitable for the introduction. Several alternative approaches to implement selective credit policies are examined in this paper. Also, thorough analysis of distribution of selective monetary policy loans among economic sectors in Croatia is conducted in order to minimize the risk of investing funds and maximize the return, in order to influence the GDP growth.

Keywords: Global crisis, Selective credit policy, Small open economy.

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Authors: A. Soikkeli, L. Sorri

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Finnish national research project, User- and Business-oriented Suburb Renovation Concept (KLIKK), was started in January 2012 and will end in June 2014. The perspective of energy efficiency is emphasised in the project, but also it addresses what improving the energy efficiency of suburban apartment buildings means from the standpoint of architecturally valuable buildings representing different periods. The project will also test the impacts of stricter energy efficiency requirements on renovation projects.

The primary goal of the project is to develop a user-oriented, industrial, economic renovation concept for suburban apartment building renovation, extension and construction of additional storeys. The concept will make it possible to change from performance- and cost-based operation to novel service- and user-oriented, site-specifically tailored renovation methods utilizing integrated order and delivery chains.

The present project is collaborating with Ministry of the Environment and participating cities in developing a new type of lighter town planning model for suburban renovations and in-fill construction. To support this, the project will simultaneously develop practices for environmental impact assessment tools in renovation and suburban supplementary and in-fill construction.

 

Keywords: Energy efficiency, Prefabrication, Renovation concept, Suburbs, Sustainability, User-Orientated.

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Authors: Karin Hansson, Göran Cars, Mats Danielson, Love Ekenberg, Aron Larsson

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Within the realm of e-government, the development has moved towards testing new means for democratic decisionmaking, like e-panels, electronic discussion forums, and polls. Although such new developments seem promising, they are not problem-free, and the outcomes are seldom used in the subsequent formal political procedures. Nevertheless, process models offer promising potential when it comes to structuring and supporting transparency of decision processes in order to facilitate the integration of the public into decision-making procedures in a reasonable and manageable way. Based on real-life cases of urban planning processes in Sweden, we present an outline for an integrated framework for public decision making to: a) provide tools for citizens to organize discussion and create opinions; b) enable governments, authorities, and institutions to better analyse these opinions; and c) enable governments to account for this information in planning and societal decision making by employing a process model for structured public decision making.

Keywords: Negotiation games, Agenda setting, Multi-criteria decision analysis, Elicitation method.

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Authors: E.Assareh, M.A. Behrang, R. Assareh, N. Hedayat

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An integrated Artificial Neural Network- Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is presented for analyzing global electricity consumption. To aim this purpose, following steps are done: STEP 1: in the first step, PSO is applied in order to determine world-s oil, natural gas, coal and primary energy demand equations based on socio-economic indicators. World-s population, Gross domestic product (GDP), oil trade movement and natural gas trade movement are used as socio-economic indicators in this study. For each socio-economic indicator, a feed-forward back propagation artificial neural network is trained and projected for future time domain. STEP 2: in the second step, global electricity consumption is projected based on the oil, natural gas, coal and primary energy consumption using PSO. global electricity consumption is forecasted up to year 2040.

Keywords: Particle Swarm Optimization, Artificial NeuralNetworks, Fossil Fuels, Electricity, Forecasting.

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Authors: Amit Gil, Helman Stern, Yael Edan

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A cognitive collaborative reinforcement learning algorithm (CCRL) that incorporates an advisor into the learning process is developed to improve supervised learning. An autonomous learner is enabled with a self awareness cognitive skill to decide when to solicit instructions from the advisor. The learner can also assess the value of advice, and accept or reject it. The method is evaluated for robotic motion planning using simulation. Tests are conducted for advisors with skill levels from expert to novice. The CCRL algorithm and a combined method integrating its logic with Clouse-s Introspection Approach, outperformed a base-line fully autonomous learner, and demonstrated robust performance when dealing with various advisor skill levels, learning to accept advice received from an expert, while rejecting that of less skilled collaborators. Although the CCRL algorithm is based on RL, it fits other machine learning methods, since advisor-s actions are only added to the outer layer.

Keywords: Robot learning, human-robot collaboration, motion planning, reinforcement learning.

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Authors: Zarabizan Zakaria, Syuhaida Ismail, Aminah Md. Yusof

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Delay can be defined as time overrun or extension of time to complete the project. There are high possibilities that delay issues in final account closing cannot be avoided especially in construction project in Malaysia which is unique and dynamic in the terms of nature of design and technical skill. Delay in final account closing is a situation when the actual planning (time and budget allocation) of a construction project exceeds the planned schedule or on the other hand, final account closing exceeds the time and other provisions specified in the contract. The causes of delay discussed in this paper are appraised from the literature review. There are two main types of delay: excusable delay and non-excusable delay. The literature reviews on the delay in final account closing which is then translated into a theoretical framework are summarized in the context of construction players and academician perspective. It is anticipated that the finding reported in this paper could assist the planning of future strategies and guidelines of final account closing for the betterment of construction projects in Malaysia.

Keywords: Construction industry, construction contract, final account closing, delay.

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Authors: Tunjo Peric, Zoran Babic

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The authors of this work indicate by means of a concrete example that it is possible to apply efficaciously the method of multiple criteria programming in dealing with the problem of determining the optimal production plan for a certain period of time. The work presents: (1) the selection of optimization criteria, (2) the setting of the problem of determining an optimal production plan, (3) the setting of the model of multiple criteria programming in finding a solution to a given problem, (4) the revised surrogate trade-off method, (5) generalized multicriteria model for solving production planning problem and problem of choosing technological variants in the metal manufacturing industry. In the final part of this work the authors reflect on the application of the method of multiple criteria programming while determining the optimal production plan in manufacturing enterprises.

Keywords: multi-criteria programming, production planning, technological variant, Surrogate Worth Trade-off Method.

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Authors: Frantisek Bozek, Pavel Budinsky, Ignac Hoza, Alexandr Bozek, Magdalena Naplavova

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A cleaner production project was implemented in a bakery. The project is based on the substitution of the best available technique for an obsolete leaven production technology. The new technology enables production of durable, high-quality leavens. Moreover, 25% of flour as the original raw material can be replaced by pastry from the previous day production which has not been sold. That pastry was previously disposed in a waste incineration plant. Besides the environmental benefits resulting from less waste, lower consumption of energy, reduction of sewage waters quantity and floury dustiness there are also significant economic benefits. Payback period of investment was calculated with help of static method of financial analysis about 2.6 years, using dynamic method 3.5 years and an internal rate of return more than 29%. The supposed annual average profit after taxationin the second year of operation was incompliance with the real profit.

Keywords: Bakery, best available technology, cleaner production, costs, economic benefit, efficiency, energy, environmental benefit, investment, savings.

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Authors: Dubbale Daniel A., Tsutsumi J.

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This research work takes a different approach in the discussion of urban form impacts on transport planning and auto dependency. Concentrated density represented by effective density explains auto dependency better than the conventional density and it is proved to be a realistic density representative for the urban transportation analysis. Model analysis reveals that effective density is influenced by the shopping accessibility index as well as job density factor. It is also combined with the job access variable to classify four levels of Transport Activity Centers (TACs) in Okinawa, Japan. Trip attraction capacity and levels of the newly classified TACs was found agreeable with the amount of daily trips attracted to each center. The trip attraction data set was drawn from a 2007 Okinawa personal trip survey. This research suggests a planning methodology which guides logical transport supply routes and concentrated local development schemes.

Keywords: Effective density, urban form, auto-dependency, transport activity centers

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Authors: V. Fuis, P. Janicek, T. Navrat

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The global solved problem is the calculation of the parameters of ceramic material from a set of destruction tests of ceramic heads of total hip joint endoprosthesis. The standard way of calculation of the material parameters consists in carrying out a set of 3 or 4 point bending tests of specimens cut out from parts of the ceramic material to be analysed. In case of ceramic heads, it is not possible to cut out specimens of required dimensions because the heads are too small (if the cut out specimens were smaller than the normalised ones, the material parameters derived from them would exhibit higher strength values than those which the given ceramic material really has). A special destruction device for heads destruction was designed and the solved local problem is the modification of this destructive device based on the analysis of tensile stress in the head for two different values of the depth of the conical hole in the head. The goal of device modification is a shift of the location with extreme value of σ1max from the region of head’s hole bottom to its opening. This modification will increase the credibility of the obtained material properties of bioceramics, which will be determined from a set of head destructions using the Weibull weakest link theory.

Keywords: Ceramic heads, depth of the conical hole, destruction test, material parameters, principal stress, total hip joint endoprosthesis.

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Authors: James Moir

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Citizens are increasingly are provided with choice and customization in public services and this has now also become a key feature of higher education in terms of policy roll-outs on personal development planning (PDP) and more generally as part of the employability agenda. The goal here is to transform people, in this case graduates, into active, responsible citizen-workers. A key part of this rhetoric and logic is the inculcation of graduate attributes within students. However, there has also been a concern with the issue of student lack of engagement and perseverance with their studies. This paper sets out to explore some of these conceptions that link graduate attributes with citizenship as well as the notion of how identity is forged through the higher education process. Examples are drawn from a quality enhancement project that is being operated within the context of the Scottish higher education system. This is further framed within the wider context of competing and conflicting demands on higher education, exacerbated by the current worldwide economic climate. There are now pressures on students to develop their employability skills as well as their capacity to engage with global issues such as behavioural change in the light of environmental concerns. It is argued that these pressures, in effect, lead to a form of personalization that is concerned with how graduates develop their sense of identity as something that is engineered and re-engineered to meet these demands.

Keywords: students, higher education, employability, knowledge, personal development

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Authors: Mediha B. Sılaydın Aydın, Emine D. Kahraman

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One of the important impacts of climate change is the sea level rise. Turkey is a peninsula, so the coastal areas of the country are threatened by the problem of sea level rise. Therefore, the urbanized coastal areas are highly vulnerable to climate change. At the aim of enhancing spatial resilience of urbanized areas, this question arises: What should be the priority intervention subject in the urban planning process for a given city. To answer this question, by focusing on the problem of sea level rise, this study aims to determine spatial vulnerability typologies and levels of Turkey coastal cities based on morphological, physical and social characteristics. As a method, spatial vulnerability of coastal cities is determined by two steps as level and type. Firstly, physical structure, morphological structure and social structure were examined in determining spatial vulnerability levels. By determining these levels, most vulnerable areas were revealed as a priority in adaptation studies. Secondly, all parameters are also used to determine spatial typologies. Typologies are determined for coastal cities in order to use as a base for urban planning studies. Adaptation to climate change is crucial for developing countries like Turkey so, this methodology and created typologies could be a guide for urban planners as spatial directors and an example for other developing countries in the context of adaptation to climate change. The results demonstrate that the urban settlements located on the coasts of the Marmara Sea, the Aegean Sea and the Mediterranean respectively, are more vulnerable than the cities located on the Black Sea’s coasts to sea level rise.

Keywords: Climate change, coastal cities, sea level rise, urban land use planning, vulnerability.

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Authors: Ebru Aktepe Erkoç, Atilla Uluğ

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In this research which has been prepared to show the relationship between Gökova Bay’s morphotectonic structure and seismicity, it is clear that there are many active faults in the region. The existence of a thick sedimentary accumulation since Late Quaternary times is obvious as a result of the geophysical workings in the region and the interpretation of seismic data which has been planning to be taken from the Bay. In the regions which have been tectonically active according to the interpretation of the taken data, the existence of the successive earthquakes in the last few years is remarkable. By analyzing large earthquakes affecting the areas remaining inside the sediments in West Anatolian Collapse System, this paper aims to reveal the fault systems constituting earthquakes with the information obtained from this study and to determine seismicity of the present residential areas right next to them. It is also aimed to anticipate the measures to be taken against possible earthquake hazards, to identify these areas posing a risk in terms of residential and urban planning and to determine at least partly the characteristics of the basin.

Keywords: Gökova Bay, seismic, sedimentation, West Anatolian Region.

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Authors: M. A. N. Rasanjalee Perera

Abstract:

The world is facing several problems due to increasing elderly population. In Sri Lanka, along with the complexity of the modern society and structural and functional changes of the family, “caring for elders” seems as an emerging social problem. This situation may intensify as the county is moving into a middle income society. Seeking higher education and related career opportunities, and urban living in modern housing are new trends, through which several problems are generated. Among many issues related with elders, “lack of accessible and appropriate facilities in their houses as well as public buildings” can be identified as a major problem. This study argues that welfare facilities provided for the elderly people, particularly in the home environment, in the country are not adequate. Modern housing features such as bathrooms, pantries, lobbies, and leisure areas etc. are questionable as to whether they match with elders’ physical and mental needs. Consequently, elders have to face domestic accidents and many other difficulties within their living environments. Records of hospitals in the country also proved this fact. Therefore, this study tries to identify how far modern houses are suited with elders’ needs. The study further questioned whether “aging” is a considerable matter when people are buying, planning and renovating houses. A randomly selected sample of 50 houses were observed and 50 persons were interviewed around the Maharagama urban area in Colombo district to obtain primary data, while relevant secondary data and information were used to have a depth analysis. The study clearly found that none of the houses included to the sample are considering elders’ needs in planning, renovating, or arranging the home. Instead, most of the families were giving priority to the rich and elegant appearance and modern facilities of the houses. Particularly, to the bathrooms, pantry, large setting areas, balcony, parking slots for two vehicles, ad parapet walls with roller-gates are the main concerns. A significant factor found here is that even though, many children of the aged are in middle age and reaching their older years at present, they do not plan their future living within a safe and comfortable home, despite that they are hoping to spent the latter part of their lives in the their current homes. This fact highlights that not only the other responsible parts of the society, but also those who are reaching their older ages are ignoring the problems of the aged. At the same time, it was found that more than 80% of old parents do not like to stay at their children’s homes as the living environments in such modern homes are not familiar or convenient for them. Due to this context, the aged in Sri Lanka may have to be alone in their own homes due to current trend of society of migrating to urban living in modern houses. At the same time, current urban families who live in modern houses may have to face adding accessible facilities in their home environment, as current modern housing facilities may not be appropriate them for a better life in their latter part of life.

Keywords: Aging population, elderly care, home environment, housing facilities.

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Authors: N. Phanthuna V. Phupha N. Rugthaicharoencheep, S. Lerdwanittip

Abstract:

This paper presents an optimization technique to economic load dispatch (ELD) problems with considering the daily load patterns and generator constraints using a particle swarm optimization (PSO). The objective is to minimize the fuel cost. The optimization problem is subject to system constraints consisting of power balance and generation output of each units. The application of a constriction factor into PSO is a useful strategy to ensure convergence of the particle swarm algorithm. The proposed method is able to determine, the output power generation for all of the power generation units, so that the total constraint cost function is minimized. The performance of the developed methodology is demonstrated by case studies in test system of fifteen-generation units. The results show that the proposed algorithm scan give the minimum total cost of generation while satisfying all the constraints and benefiting greatly from saving in power loss reduction

Keywords: Particle Swarm Optimization, Economic Load Dispatch, Generator Constraints.

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Authors: R. Tur, A. Yardımcı

Abstract:

Imperfect knowledge cannot be avoided all the time. Imperfections may have several forms; uncertainties, imprecision and incompleteness. When we look to classification of methods for the management of imperfect knowledge we see fuzzy set-based techniques. The choice of a method to process data is linked to the choice of knowledge representation, which can be numerical, symbolic, logical or semantic and it depends on the nature of the problem to be solved for example decision support, which will be mentioned in our study. Fuzzy Logic is used for its ability to manage imprecise knowledge, but it can take advantage of the ability of neural networks to learn coefficients or functions. Such an association of methods is typical of so-called soft computing. In this study a new method was used for the management of imprecision for collected knowledge which related to economic analysis of construction industry in Turkey. Because of sudden changes occurring in economic factors decrease competition strength of construction companies. The better evaluation of these changes in economical factors in view of construction industry will made positive influence on company-s decisions which are dealing construction.

Keywords: Fuzzy logic, decision support systems, construction industry.

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Authors: Wan-Yu Liu, Chun-Cheng Lin

Abstract:

The Taiwan government has started to promote the “Plain Landscape Afforestation and Greening Program" since 2002. A key task of the program was the payment for environmental services (PES), entitled the “Plain Landscape Afforestation Policy" (PLAP), which was certificated by the Executive Yuan on August 31, 2001 and enacted on January 1, 2002. According to the policy, it is estimated that the total area of afforestation will be 25,100 hectares by December 31, 2007. Until the end of 2007, the policy had been enacted for six years in total and the actual area of afforestation was 8,919.18 hectares. Among them, Taiwan Sugar Corporation (TSC) was accounted for 7,960 hectares (with 2,450.83 hectares as public service area) which occupied 86.22% of the total afforestation area; the private farmland promoted by local governments was accounted for 869.18 hectares which occupied 9.75% of the total afforestation area. Based on the above, we observe that most of the afforestation area in this policy is executed by TSC, and the achievement ratio by TSC is better than by others. It implies that the success of the PLAP is seriously related to the execution of TSC. The objective of this study is to analyze the relevant policy planning of TSC-s participation in the PLAP, suggest complementary measures, and draw up effective adjustment mechanisms, so as to improve the effectiveness of executing the policy. Our main conclusions and suggestions are summarized as follows: 1. The main reason for TSC-s participation in the PLAP is based on their passive cooperation with the central government or company policy. Prior to TSC-s participation in the PLAP, their lands were mainly used for growing sugarcane. 2. The main factors of TSC-s consideration on the selection of tree species are based on the suitability of land and species. The largest proportion of tree species is allocated to economic forests, and the lack of technical instruction was the main problem during afforestation. Moreover, the method of improving TSC-s future development in leisure agriculture and landscape business becomes a key topic. 3. TSC has developed short and long-term plans on participating in the PLAP for the future. However, there is no great willingness or incentive on budgeting for such detailed planning. 4. Most people from TSC interviewed consider the requirements on PLAP unreasonable. Among them, an unreasonable requirement on the number of trees accounted for the greatest proportion; furthermore, most interviewees suggested that the government should continue to provide incentives even after 20 years. 5. Since the government shares the same goals as TSC, there should be sufficient cooperation and communication that support the technical instruction and reduction of afforestation cost, which will also help to improve effectiveness of the policy.

Keywords: Payment for environmental services (PES), afforestation subsidy, Taiwan Sugar Corporation.

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