Search results for: natural products

Authors: Aref Aasi, Sadegh Mehdi Aghaei, Balaji Panchapakesan

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This work aims to evaluate the free and forced vibration of a beam with two end joints subjected to a concentrated moving mass and a load using the Euler-Bernoulli method. The natural frequency is calculated for different locations of the concentrated mass and load on the beam. The analytical results are verified by the experimental data. The variations of natural frequency as a function of the location of the mass, the effect of the forced frequency on the vibrational amplitude, and the displacement amplitude versus time are investigated. It is discovered that as the concentrated mass moves toward the center of the beam, the natural frequency of the beam and the relative error between experimental and analytical data decreases. There is a close resemblance between analytical data and experimental observations.

Keywords: Euler-Bernoulli beam, natural frequency, forced vibration, experimental setup.

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Authors: M. Olmedilla, M. R. Martinez-Torres, S. L. Toral

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Electronic Word-Of-Mouth (eWOM) communities represent today an important source of information in which more and more customers base their purchasing decisions. They include thousands of reviews concerning very different products and services posted by many individuals geographically distributed all over the world. Due to their massive audience, eWOM communities can help users to find the product they are looking for even if they are less popular or rare. This is known as the long tail effect, which leads to a larger number of lower-selling niche products. This paper analyzes the long tail effect in a well-known eWOM community and defines a tool for finding niche products unavailable through conventional channels.

Keywords: eWOM, Online user reviews, Long tail theory, Product categorization, Social Network Analysis.

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Authors: Sherine Beshara, Khaled S. El-Kilany, Noha M. Galal

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Supply chain management has become more challenging with the emerging trend of globalization and sustainability. Lately, research related to perishable products supply chains, in particular agricultural food products, has emerged. This is attributed to the additional complexity of managing this type of supply chains with the recently increased concern of public health, food quality, food safety, demand and price variability, and the limited lifetime of these products. Inventory management for agrifood supply chains is of vital importance due to the product perishability and customers- strive for quality. This paper concentrates on developing a simulation model of a real life case study of a two echelon production-distribution system for agri-food products. The objective is to improve a set of performance measures by developing a simulation model that helps in evaluating and analysing the performance of these supply chains. Simulation results showed that it can help in improving overall system performance.

Keywords: Agri-food supply chains, inventory model, modelling and Simulation, supply chain.

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Authors: W. F. Ribeiro, J. L. N. Góes

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The industrial process adds to engineering wood products features absent in solid wood, with homogeneous structure and reduced defects, improved physical and mechanical properties, bio-deterioration, resistance and better dimensional stability, improving quality and increasing the reliability of structures wood. These features combined with using fast-growing trees, make them environmentally ecological products, ensuring a strong consumer market. The wood I-joists are manufactured by the industrial profiles bonding flange and web, an important aspect of the production of wooden I-beams is the adhesive joint that bonds the web to the flange. Adhesives can effectively transfer and distribute stresses, thereby increasing the strength and stiffness of the composite. The objective of this study is to evaluate different resins in a shear strain specimens with the aim of analyzing the most efficient resin and possibility of using national products, reducing the manufacturing cost. First was conducted a literature review, where established the geometry and materials generally used, then established and analyzed 8 national resins and produced six specimens for each.

Keywords: Engineered wood products, structural resin, wood i-joist.

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Authors: P. K. Rahul Krishna, S. Sandeep Kumar, Jayanthi Sunder Raj

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The article explores one of the important relations between numbers-the Pythagorean triples (triplets) which finds its application in distance measurement, construction of roads, towers, buildings and wherever Pythagoras theorem finds its application. The Pythagorean triples are numbers, that satisfy the condition “In a given set of three natural numbers, the sum of squares of two natural numbers is equal to the square of the other natural number”. There are numerous methods and equations to obtain the triplets, which have their own merits and demerits. Here, quadratic approach for generating triples uses the hypotenuse leg difference method. The advantage is that variables are few and finally only three independent variables are present.

Keywords: Arithmetic progression, hypotenuse leg difference method, natural numbers, Pythagorean triplets, quadratic equation.

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Authors: Mohd Yussni Hashim, Mohd Nazrul Roslan, Azriszul Mohd Amin, Ahmad Mujahid Ahmad Zaidi, Saparudin Ariffin

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Environmental awareness and depletion of the petroleum resources are among vital factors that motivate a number of researchers to explore the potential of reusing natural fiber as an alternative composite material in industries such as packaging, automotive and building constructions. Natural fibers are available in abundance, low cost, lightweight polymer composite and most importance its biodegradability features, which often called “ecofriendly" materials. However, their applications are still limited due to several factors like moisture absorption, poor wettability and large scattering in mechanical properties. Among the main challenges on natural fibers reinforced matrices composite is their inclination to entangle and form fibers agglomerates during processing due to fiber-fiber interaction. This tends to prevent better dispersion of the fibers into the matrix, resulting in poor interfacial adhesion between the hydrophobic matrix and the hydrophilic reinforced natural fiber. Therefore, to overcome this challenge, fiber treatment process is one common alternative that can be use to modify the fiber surface topology by chemically, physically or mechanically technique. Nevertheless, this paper attempt to focus on the effect of mercerization treatment on mechanical properties enhancement of natural fiber reinforced composite or so-called bio composite. It specifically discussed on mercerization parameters, and natural fiber reinforced composite mechanical properties enhancement.

Keywords: Mercerization treatment, mechanical properties, natural fiber and bio composite

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Authors: S. Ismail, Z. Yaacob

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The main aim of this research is to study the possible use of recycled fine aggregate made from waste rubble wall to substitute partially for the natural sand used in the production of cement and sand bricks. The bricks specimens were prepared by using 100% natural sand; they were then replaced by recycled fine aggregate at 25, 50, 75, and 100% by weight of natural sand. A series of tests was carried out to study the effect of using recycled aggregate on the physical and mechanical properties of bricks, such as density, drying shrinkage, water absorption characteristic, compressive and flexural strength. Test results indicate that it is possible to manufacture bricks containing recycled fine aggregate with good characteristics that are similar in physical and mechanical properties to those of bricks with natural aggregate, provided that the percentage of recycled fine aggregates is limited up to 50-75%.

Keywords: Bricks, cement, recycled aggregate, sand

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Authors: Chummanond Natchaya, Rotchanakitumnuai Siriluck

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The objective of this study is to identify the factors that influence the online purchasing loyalty for Thai herbal products. Survey research is used to gather data from Thai herb online merchants to assess factors that have impacts on enhancing loyalty. Data were collected from 300 online customers who had experience in online purchasing of Thai Herbal products. Prior experience consists of data from previous usage of online herbs, herb purchase and internet usage. E-Quality data consists of information quality, system quality, service quality and the product quality of Thai herbal products sold online. The results suggest that prior experience, Equality, attitude toward purchase and trust in online merchant have major impacts on loyalty. The good attitude and E-Quality of purchasing Thai herbal product online are the most significant determinants affecting loyalty.

Keywords: e-Commerce, Thai herb, E-Quality, satisfaction, loyalty.

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Authors: E.Darzi

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In this study, a reformer model simulation to use refinery (Farashband refinery, Iran) waste natural gas. In the petroleum and allied sectors where natural gas is being encountered (in form of associated gas) without prior preparation for its positive use, its combustion (which takes place in flares, an equipment through which they are being disposed) has become a great problem because of its associated environmental problems in form of gaseous emission. The proposed model is used to product syngas from waste natural gas. A detailed steady model described by a set of ordinary differential and algebraic equations was developed to predict the behavior of the overall process. The proposed steady reactor model was validated against process data of a reformer synthesis plant recorded and a good agreement was achieved. H2/CO ratio has important effect on Fischer- Tropsch synthesis reactor product and we try to achieve this parameter with best designing reformer reactor. We study different kind of reformer reactors and then select auto thermal reforming process of natural gas in a fixed bed reformer that adjustment H2/CO ratio with CO2 and H2O injection. Finally a strategy was proposed for prevention of extra natural gas to atmosphere.

Keywords: Fischer-Tropsch, injection, reformer, syngas, waste natural gas.

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Authors: J. Zach, J. Hroudova, J. Brozovsky

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Thermal insulation materials based on natural fibers represent a very promising area of materials based on natural easy renewable row sources. These materials may be in terms of the properties of most competing synthetic insulations, but show somewhat higher moisture sensitivity and thermal insulation properties are strongly influenced by the density and orientation of fibers. The paper described the problem of hygrothermal behavior of thermal insulation materials based on natural plant and animal fibers. This is especially the dependence of the thermal properties of these materials on the type of fiber, bulk density, temperature, moisture and the fiber orientation.

Keywords: Thermal insulating materials, hemp fibers, sheep wool fibers, thermal conductivity, moisture.

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Authors: Shivakumar Krishnamurti, Ruchi Agarwal

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The study examines the influence of marital status on consumers of products and services using blogs as a source of information. A pre-designed questionnaire was used to collect the primary data from the respondents (experiences). Data were collected from one hundred and eighty seven respondents residing in and around the Emirates of Sharjah and Dubai of the United Arab Emirates. The collected data was analyzed with the help of statistical tools such as averages, percentages, factor analysis, Student’s t-test and Structural Equation Modelling Technique. Objectives of the study are to know the reasons how married and unmarried or single consumers of products and services are motivated to use blogs as a source of information, to know whether the consumers of products and services irrespective of their marital status share their views and experiences with other bloggers and to know the respondents’ future intentions towards blogging. The study revealed the following: Majority of the respondents have the motivation to blog because they are willing to receive comments on what they post about services, convenience of blogs to search for information about services and products, by blogging respondents share information on the symptoms of a disease/ disorder that may be experienced by someone, helps to share information about ready to cook mix products and are keen to spend more time blogging in the future.

Keywords: Blog, consumer, information, marital status.

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Authors: Mónika Bartalné-Berceli, Eszter Izsó, Szilveszter Gergely, András Salgó

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Presently a significant portion of the Earth's population does not have access to healthy food. Either because they cannot afford it or because they do not know which one are they. The aim of the VII th Framework Chance project (Nr. 266331) supported by the European Union has been to develop relatively cheap food with favourable nutritional value and it should have acceptable quality for consumers. As one task of the project we manufactured bread products as a basic food. We examined the enrichment of bread products with four kinds of bran, with a special milling product of grain industry (aleurone-rich flour) and with a soy-based sprouted additive. The applied concentration of the six mentioned additives has been optimized and the physical properties of the bread products were monitored. The weight/density of the enriched breads increased a bit, however the volume and height decreased slightly compared to the corresponding data of the control bread. The optimized composition of the final product is favourably affected by these additives having highly preferred composition from nutritional point of view.

Keywords: Aleurone-rich flour, Brans, Bread products, Sprouted soybean, YASO.

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Authors: F. Nejati Hafdani, N. Sadeghinia

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In recent years application of natural antimicrobials instead of conventional ones, due to their hazardous effects on health, has got serious attentions. On the basis of the results of different studies, chitosan, a natural bio-degradable and non-toxic biopolysaccharide derived from chitin, has potential to be used as a natural antimicrobial. Chitosan has exhibited high antimicrobial activity against a wide variety of pathogenic and spoilage microorganisms, including fungi, and Gram-positive and Gramnegative bacteria. The antimicrobial action is influenced by intrinsic factors such as the type of chitosan, the degree of chitosan polymerization and extrinsic factors such as the microbial organism, the environmental conditions and presence of the other components. The use of chitosan in food systems should be based on sufficient knowledge of the complex mechanisms of its antimicrobial mode of action. In this article we review a number of studies on the investigation of chitosan antimicrobial properties and application of them in culture and food mediums.

Keywords: Antimicrobial, Chitosan, Preservative

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Authors: Ticiane Rossi, Maurício C. Araújo, José O. Brito, Harold S. Freeman

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Natural dyes are gaining interest due their expected low risk to human health and to the environment. In this study, the wash fastness of a natural coloring matter from the liquid waste produced in the steam treatment of eucalyptus wood in textile fabrics was investigated. Specifically, eucalyptus wood extract was used to dye cotton, nylon and wool in an exhaust dyeing process without the addition of the traditional mordanting agents and then submitted to wash fastness analysis. The resulting dyed fabrics were evaluated for color fastness. It was found that wash fastness of dyed fabrics was very good to cotton and excellent to nylon and wool.

Keywords: Eucalyptus, natural dye, textile fibers, wash fastness.

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Authors: Pibool Waijittragum

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The purpose of this research is to analyze the marketing strategies of Thai Halal products which related to the way of life for Thai Muslims. The expected benefit is the marketing strategy for brand building process for Halal products in Thailand. 4 elements of marketing strategies which necessary for the brand identity creation is the research framework: consists of Attributes, Benefits, Values and Personality. The research methodology was applied using qualitative and quantitative; 19 marketing experts with dynamic roles in Thai consumer products were interviewed. In addition, a field survey of 122 Thai Muslims selected from 175 Muslim communities in Bangkok was studied. Data analysis will be according to 5 categories of Thai Halal product: 1) Meat 2) Vegetable and Fruits 3) Instant foods and Garnishing ingredient 4) Beverages, Desserts and Snacks 5) Hygienic daily products; such as soap, shampoo and body lotion. The results will explain some suitable representation in the marketing strategies of Thai Halal products as are: 1) Benefit; the characteristics of the product with its benefit. Consumers will purchase this product with the reason of; it is beneficial nutrients product, there are no toxic or chemical residues. Fresh and clean materials 2) Attribute; the exterior images that attract to consumer. Consumers will purchase this product with the reason of; there is a standard proof mark, food and drug secure proof mark and Halal products mark. Packaging and its materials should be draw attention. Use an attractive graphic. Use outstanding images of product, material or ingredients. 3) Value; the value of products that affect to consumers perception; it is healthy products. Accumulate quality of life. It is a product of expertise, manufacturing of research result. Consumers are important. It’s sincere, honest and reliable to all. 4) Personality; reflection of consumers thought. The Personality feedback to them after they were consumes this product; they are health care persons. They are the rational person, moral person, justice person and thoughtful person like a progressive thinking.

Keywords: Marketing strategies, Product identity, Branding, Thai Halal products.

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Authors: C. Pacheco, A. Cipriano

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A new concept of response system is proposed for filling the gap that exists in reducing vulnerability during immediate response to natural disasters. Real Time Early Response Systems (RTERSs) incorporate real time information as feedback data for closing control loop and for generating real time situation assessment. A review of the state of the art on works that fit the concept of RTERS is presented, and it is found that they are mainly focused on manmade disasters. At the same time, in response phase of natural disaster management many works are involved in creating early warning systems, but just few efforts have been put on deciding what to do once an alarm is activated. In this context a RTERS arises as a useful tool for supporting people in their decision making process during natural disasters after an event is detected, and also as an innovative context for applying well-known automation technologies and automatic control concepts and tools.

Keywords: Disaster management, emergency response system, natural disasters, real time.

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Authors: Junaid Kameran Ahmed

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A laminated plate composite of graphite/epoxy has been analyzed dynamically in the present work by using a quadratic element (8-node diso-parametric), and by depending on 1^st order shear deformation theory, every node in this element has 6-degrees of freedom (displacement in x, y, and z axis and twist about x, y, and z axis). The dynamic analysis in the present work covered parametric studies on a composite laminated plate (square plate) to determine its effect on the natural frequency of the plate. The parametric study is represented by set of changes (plate thickness, number of layers, support conditions, layer orientation), and the plates have been simulated by using ANSYS package 12. The boundary conditions considered in this study, at all four edges of the plate, are simply supported and fixed boundary condition. The results obtained from ANSYS program show that the natural frequency for both fixed and simply supported increases with increasing the number of layers, but this increase in the natural frequency for the first five modes will be neglected after 10 layers. And it is observed that the natural frequency of a composite laminated plate will change with the change of ply orientation, the natural frequency increases and it will be at maximum with angle 45 of ply for simply supported laminated plate, and maximum natural frequency will be with cross-ply (0/90) for fixed laminated composite plate. It is also observed that the natural frequency increase is approximately doubled when the thickness is doubled.

Keywords: Laminated plate, orthotropic plate, square plate, natural frequency, graphite/epoxy.

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Authors: Khairullah Khan, Baharum B. Baharudin, Aurangzeb Khan, Fazal_e_Malik

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Opinion extraction about products from customer reviews is becoming an interesting area of research. Customer reviews about products are nowadays available from blogs and review sites. Also tools are being developed for extraction of opinion from these reviews to help the user as well merchants to track the most suitable choice of product. Therefore efficient method and techniques are needed to extract opinions from review and blogs. As reviews of products mostly contains discussion about the features, functions and services, therefore, efficient techniques are required to extract user comments about the desired features, functions and services. In this paper we have proposed a novel idea to find features of product from user review in an efficient way. Our focus in this paper is to get the features and opinion-oriented words about products from text through auxiliary verbs (AV) {is, was, are, were, has, have, had}. From the results of our experiments we found that 82% of features and 85% of opinion-oriented sentences include AVs. Thus these AVs are good indicators of features and opinion orientation in customer reviews.

Keywords: Classification, Customer Reviews, Helping Verbs, Opinion Mining.

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Authors: J. Hroudova, J. Zach

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The majority of contemporary insulation materials commonly used in the building industry is made from non-renewable raw materials; furthermore, their production often brings high energy costs. A long-term trend as far as sustainable development is concerned has been the reduction of energy and material demands of building material production. One of the solutions is the possibility of using easily renewable natural raw material sources which are considerably more ecological and their production is mostly less energy-consuming compared to the production of normal insulations (mineral wool, polystyrene). The paper describes the results of research focused on the development of thermal and acoustic insulation materials based on natural fibres intended for floor constructions. Given the characteristic open porosity of natural fibre materials, the hygrothermal behaviour of the developed materials was studied. Especially the influence of relative humidity and temperature on thermal insulation properties was observed.

Keywords: Green thermal and acoustic insulating materials, natural fibres, technical hemp, flax, floor construction.

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Authors: G. Settanni, A. Panarese, R. Vaira, A. Galiano

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Nowadays, artificial intelligence is used successfully in the field of e-commerce for its ability to learn from a large amount of data. In this research study, a prototype software platform was designed and implemented in order to suggest to users the most suitable products for their needs. The platform includes a recommender system based on artificial intelligence algorithms that provide suggestions and decision support to the customer. Specifically, support vector machine algorithms have been implemented combined with natural language processing techniques that allow the user to interact with the system, express their requests and receive suggestions. The interested user can access the web platform on the internet using a computer, tablet or mobile phone, register, provide the necessary information and view the products that the system deems them the most appropriate. The platform also integrates a dashboard that allows the use of the various functions, which the platform is equipped with, in an intuitive and simple way. Also, Long Short-Term Memory algorithms have been implemented and trained on historical data in order to predict customer scores of the different items. Items with the highest scores are recommended to customers.

Keywords: Deep Learning, Long Short-Term Memory, Machine Learning, Recommender Systems, Support Vector Machine.

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Authors: Samera Salimpour Abkenar

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In traditional dyeing of natural fibers with natural dyes, metal salts are commonly used to increase color stability. This method always carries the risk of environmental pollution (contamination of arable soils and fresh groundwater) due to the release of dyeing effluents containing large amounts of metal. Therefore, researchers are always looking for new methods to obtain a green dyeing system. In this research, the use of the enzymatic dyeing method to prevent environmental pollution with metals and reduce production costs has been proposed. After degumming and bleaching, raw silk fabrics were dyed with natural dyes (Madder and Sumac) by three methods (pre-mordanting with a metal salt, one-step enzymatic dyeing, and two-step enzymatic dyeing). Results show that silk dyed with natural dyes by the enzymatic method has higher color strength and colorfastness than the pretreated with a metal salt. Also, the amount of remained dyes in the dyeing wastewater is significantly reduced by the enzymatic method. It is found that the enzymatic dyeing method leads to improvement of dye absorption, color strength, soft hand, no change in color shade, low production costs (due to low dyeing temperature), and a significant reduction in environmental pollution.

Keywords: Eco-friendly, natural dyes, silk, traditional dyeing.

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Authors: Jinyong Yao, Hongzhi Li, Chao Du, Jiao Li

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Reliability of long-term storage products is related to the availability of the whole system, and the evaluation of storage life is of great necessity. These products are usually highly reliable and little failure information can be collected. In this paper, an analytical method based on data from accelerated storage life test is proposed to evaluate the reliability index of the long-term storage products. Firstly, singularities are eliminated by data normalization and residual analysis. Secondly, with the preprocessed data, the degradation path model is built to obtain the pseudo life values. Then by life distribution hypothesis, we can get the estimator of parameters in high stress levels and verify failure mechanism consistency. Finally, the life distribution under the normal stress level is extrapolated via the acceleration model and evaluation of the actual average life is available. An application example with the camera stabilization device is provided to illustrate the methodology we proposed.

Keywords: Accelerated storage life test, failure mechanism consistency, life distribution, reliability.

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Authors: A. Bárbara Cattozatto Fortunato, D. de Lucca Soave, E. Pinheiro de Mello, M. Piasentini Oliva, V. Tavares de Moraes, G. Wolf Lebrão, D. Fernandes Parra, S. Marraccini Giampietri Lebrão

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Due to increasing environmental pressure for biodegradable products, especially in polymeric materials, in order to meet the demands of the biological cycles of the circular economy, new materials have been developed as a sustainability strategy. This study proposes a composite material developed from the biodegradable polymer PLA Ecovio® (polylactic acid - PLA) with natural sisal fibers, where the soybean ester was used as a plasticizer, which can aid in adhesion between the materials and fibers, making the most attractive final composite from an environmental point of view. The composites were obtained by extrusion. The materials tests were produced and submitted to biodegradation tests. Through the biodegradation tests, it can be seen that the biodegradable polymer composition with 5% sisal fiber presented about 12.4% more biodegradability compared to the polymer without fiber addition. It has also been found that the plasticizer was not a compatible with fibers and the polymer. Finally, fibers help to anticipate the decomposition process of the material when subjected to conditions of a landfill. Therefore, its intrinsic properties are not affected during its use, only the biodegradation process begins after its exposure to landfill conditions.

Keywords: Biocomposites, sisal, polylactic acid, PLA.

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Authors: Alexander Wachtel, Michael T. Franzen, Walter F. Tichy

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Programming requires years of training. With natural language and end user development methods, programming could become available to everyone. It enables end users to program their own devices and extend the functionality of the existing system without any knowledge of programming languages. In this paper, we describe an Interactive Spreadsheet Processing Module (ISPM), a natural language interface to spreadsheets that allows users to address ranges within the spreadsheet based on inferred table schema. Using the ISPM, end users are able to search for values in the schema of the table and to address the data in spreadsheets implicitly. Furthermore, it enables them to select and sort the spreadsheet data by using natural language. ISPM uses a machine learning technique to automatically infer areas within a spreadsheet, including different kinds of headers and data ranges. Since ranges can be identified from natural language queries, the end users can query the data using natural language. During the evaluation 12 undergraduate students were asked to perform operations (sum, sort, group and select) using the system and also Excel without ISPM interface, and the time taken for task completion was compared across the two systems. Only for the selection task did users take less time in Excel (since they directly selected the cells using the mouse) than in ISPM, by using natural language for end user software engineering, to overcome the present bottleneck of professional developers.

Keywords: Natural language processing, end user development; natural language interfaces, human computer interaction, data recognition, dialog systems, spreadsheet.

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Authors: Ahmet Yetik, Seyit Ali Kara, Cevat Özarpa

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

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

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Authors: Azam Tabatabaee, Fereshteh Dastgoshadeh, Akram Tabatabaee

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This paper describes the use of by-products as adsorbents for removing heavy metals from aqueous effluent solutions. Products of almond skin, walnut shell, saw dust, rice bran and egg shell were evaluated as metal ion adsorbents in aqueous solutions. A comparative study was done with commercial adsorbents like ion exchange resins and activated carbon too. Batch experiments were investigated to determine the affinity of all of biomasses for, Cd(ΙΙ), Cr(ΙΙΙ), Ni(ΙΙ), and Pb(ΙΙ) metal ions at pH 5. The rate of metal ion removal in the synthetic wastewater by the biomass was evaluated by measuring final concentration of synthetic wastewater. At a concentration of metal ion (50 mg/L), egg shell adsorbed high levels (98.6 – 99.7%) of Pb(ΙΙ) and Cr(ΙΙΙ) and walnut shell adsorbed high levels (35.3 – 65.4%) of Ni(ΙΙ) and Cd(ΙΙ). In this study, it has been shown that by-products were excellent adsorbents for removal of toxic ions from wastewater with efficiency comparable to commercially available adsorbents, but at a reduced cost. Also statistical studies using Independent Sample t Test and ANOVA Oneway for statistical comparison between various elements adsorption showed that there isn’t a significant difference in some elements adsorption percentage by by-products and commercial adsorbents.

Keywords: Adsorbents, heavy metals, commercial adsorbents, wastewater, by-products.

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Authors: Natalia Moreira, Trevor Wood-Harper

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The acceptance of sustainable products by the final consumer is still one of the challenges of the industry, which constantly seeks alternative approaches to successfully be accepted in the global market. A large set of methods and approaches have been discussed and analysed throughout the literature. Considering the current need for sustainable development and the current pace of consumption, the need for a combined solution towards the development of new products became clear, forcing researchers in product development to propose alternatives to the previous standard product development models. This paper presents, through a systemic analysis of the literature on product development, eco-design and consumer involvement, a set of alternatives regarding consumer involvement towards the development of sustainable products and how these approaches could help improve the sustainable industry’s establishment in the general market. Still being developed in the course of the author’s PhD, the initial findings of the research show that the understanding of the benefits of sustainable behaviour lead to a more conscious acquisition and eventually to the implementation of sustainable change in the consumer. Thus this paper is the initial approach towards the development of new sustainable products using the fashion industry as an example of practical implementation and acceptance by the consumers. By comparing the existing literature and critically analysing it, this paper concluded that the consumer involvement is strategic to improve the general understanding of sustainability and its features. The use of consumers and communities has been studied since the early 90s in order to exemplify uses and to guarantee a fast comprehension. The analysis done also includes the importance of this approach for the increase of innovation and ground breaking developments, thus requiring further research and practical implementation in order to better understand the implications and limitations of this methodology.

Keywords: Consumer involvement, Products development, Sustainability.

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Authors: Bahman Ramezani Gourabi

Abstract:

Drought is one of the most important natural disasters which is probable to occur in all regions with completely different climates and in addition to causing death. It results in many economic losses and social consequences. For this reason. Studying the effects and losses caused by drought which include limitation or shortage of agricultural and drinking water resources. Decreased rainfall and increased evapotranspiration. Limited plant growth and decreased agricultural products. Especially those of dry-farming. Lower levels of surface and ground waters and increased immigrations. Etc. in the country is statistical period (1988-2007) for six stations in Roudbar town were used for statistical analysis and calculating humid and dry years. The dependable rainfall index (DRI) was the main method used in this research. Results showed that during the said statistical period and also during the years 1996-1998 and 2007. more than half of the stations had faced drought. With consideration of the conducted studies. Drawing diagrams and comparing the available data with those of dry and humid years it was found that drought affected agricultural products (e.g.olive) in a way that during the year 1996 1996 drought. Olive groves of Roudbar suffered the greatest damages. Whereupon about 70% of the crops were lost.

Keywords: Dependable rainfall, drought, annual rainfall, roudbar, olive, gilan.

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Authors: Su-Hyun Cho, Chang-U Chae

Abstract:

Environmental impact assessment techniques have been developed as a result of the worldwide efforts to reduce the environmental impact of global warming. By using the quantification method in the construction industry, it is now possible to manage the greenhouse gas is to systematically evaluate the impact on the environment over the entire construction process. In particular, the proportion of greenhouse gas emissions at the production stage of construction material occupied is high, and efforts are needed in particular in the construction field. In this research, intended for concrete products for the construction materials, by using the LCA method, we compared the results of environmental impact assessment and carbon emissions of developing products that have been applied low-carbon technologies compared to existing products. As a results, by introducing a raw material of industrial waste, showed carbon reduction. Through a comparison of the carbon emission reduction effect of low carbon technologies, it is intended to provide academic data for the evaluation of greenhouse gases in the construction sector and the development of low carbon technologies of the future.

Keywords: CO2 Emissions, CO2 Reduction, Ready-mixed Concrete, Environmental Impact Assessment.

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Authors: Ashraf S. Hakim, Randa M. Alarousy

Abstract:

The consumption of food contaminated with molds (microscopic filamentous fungi) and their toxic metabolites results in the development of food-borne mycotoxicosis. The spores of molds are ubiquitously spread in the environment and can be detected everywhere. Ochratoxin A is a toxic and potentially carcinogenic fungal toxin found in a variety of food commodities. In this study, the mycological quality of various ready-to-eat local and imported pork meat and meat byproducts sold in Egyptian markets were assessed and the presence of various molds was determined in pork used as a raw material, edible organs as liver and kidney as well as in fermented raw meat by-products. The study assessed the mycological quality of pork raw meat and their by-products sold in commercial shops in Cairo, Egypt. Mycological analysis was conducted on (n=110) samples which included pig’s livers and kidneys from Egyptian Bassatin slaughter house; local and imported processed pork meat by-products from Egyptian pork markets. The isolates were identified using traditional mycological and biochemical tests. All kidney and liver samples were positive to molds growth while all byproducts were negative. Ochratoxin A levels were quantitatively analyzed using the high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and the highest results were present in kidney 7.51 part per billion (ppb) followed by minced meat 6.19 ppb generally the local samples showed higher levels than the imported ones. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report on mycotoxins detection and quantification from pork by-products in Egypt.

Keywords: Egypt, imported pork by-products, local, mycotoxins.

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