Search results for: Sustainable building

Authors: Ahmed H. El-Masry, Mohamed A. Dabaon, Tarek F. El-Shafiey, Abd El-Hakim A. Khalil

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An experimental study was performed to investigate the behavior and strength of proposed technique to connect reinforced concrete (RC) beam to steel or composite columns. This approach can practically be used in several types of building construction. In this technique, the main beam of the frame consists of a transfer part (part of beam; Tr.P) and a common reinforcement concrete beam. The transfer part of the beam is connected to the column, whereas the rest of the beam is connected to the transfer part from each side. Four full-scale beam-column connections were tested under static loading. The test parameters were the length of the transfer part and the column properties. The test results show that using of the transfer part technique leads to modify the deformation capabilities for the RC beam and hence it increases its resistance against failure. Increase in length of the transfer part did not necessarily indicate an enhanced behavior. The test results contribute to the characterization of the connection behavior between RC beam - steel column and can be used to calibrate numerical models for the simulation of this type of connection.

Keywords: Composite column, reinforced concrete beam, Steel Column, Transfer Part.

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Authors: Thu Le Thi Bao

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Industrial parks have both active roles in promoting economic development, and source of appearance of boarding houses and slums in the adjacent area, lacking infrastructure, causing many social matters. The context of recent pandemic and climate change on a global scale pose issues that need to be resolved for sustainable development. Ho Chi Minh city aims to develop housing for migrant workers to stabilize human resources and at the same time, solve problems of social evils caused by poor living conditions. The paper focuses on the content of renovating existing industrial parks and worker accommodation in Ho Chi Minh city to propose appropriate models, contributing to the goal of urban embellishment and solutions for industrial parks to adapt to decree 29/2008/ND-CP abnormal impact conditions such as pandemics, climate change, crises.

Keywords: Industrial park, social housing, accommodation, distribution centre.

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Authors: Chen Bi-Hsiang, Yang Hung-Wen, Lou Jie-Chung, Han Jia-Yun

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This study was investigated on sampling and analyzing water quality in water reservoir & water tower installed in two kind of residential buildings and school facilities. Data of water quality was collected for correlation analysis with frequency of sanitization of water reservoir through questioning managers of building about the inspection charts recorded on equipment for water reservoir. Statistical software packages (SPSS) were applied to the data of two groups (cleaning frequency and water quality) for regression analysis to determine the optimal cleaning frequency of sanitization. The correlation coefficient (R) in this paper represented the degree of correlation, with values of R ranging from +1 to -1.After investigating three categories of drinking water users; this study found that the frequency of sanitization of water reservoir significantly influenced the water quality of drinking water. A higher frequency of sanitization (more than four times per 1 year) implied a higher quality of drinking water. Results indicated that sanitizing water reservoir & water tower should at least twice annually for achieving the aim of safety of drinking water.

Keywords: cleaning frequency of sanitization, parameters ofwater quality, regression analysis, water reservoir & water tower

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Authors: Sung-Hun Lee, Yun-Seong Lee, Jin-O Kim

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Reliability Centered Maintenance(RCM) is one of most widely used methods in the modern power system to schedule a maintenance cycle and determine the priority of inspection. In order to apply the RCM method to the Smart Grid, a precedence study for the new structure of rearranged system should be performed due to introduction of additional installation such as renewable and sustainable energy resources, energy storage devices and advanced metering infrastructure. This paper proposes a new method to evaluate the priority of maintenance and inspection of the power system facilities in the Smart Grid using the Risk Priority Number. In order to calculate that risk index, it is required that the reliability block diagram should be analyzed for the Smart Grid system. Finally, the feasible technical method is discussed to estimate the risk potential as part of the RCM procedure.

Keywords: Expert System, FMECA, Fuzzy Theory, Reliability Centered Maintenance, Risk Priority Number

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Authors: Ilona Mewes, Helena Jenzer, Farshideh Einsele

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Objective: The objective of the study was to integrate two big databases from Swiss nutrition national survey (menuCH) and Swiss health national survey 2012 for data mining purposes. Each database has a demographic base data. An integrated Swiss database is built to later discover critical food consumption patterns linked with lifestyle diseases known to be strongly tied with food consumption. Design: Swiss nutrition national survey (menuCH) with approx. 2000 respondents from two different surveys, one by Phone and the other by questionnaire along with Swiss health national survey 2012 with 21500 respondents were pre-processed, cleaned and finally integrated to a unique relational database. Results: The result of this study is an integrated relational database from the Swiss nutritional and health databases.

Keywords: Health informatics, data mining, nutritional and health databases, nutritional and chronical databases.

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Authors: Wenzhe Li, Xiaoyu Ying, Grace Ding

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Architecture plane form is an important consideration in the design of green buildings due to its significant impact on energy performance. The most effective method to consider energy performance in the early design stages is parametric modelling. This paper presents a methodology to program plane forms using MATLAB language, generating 16 kinds of plane forms by changing four designed parameters. DesignBuilder (an energy consumption simulation software) was proposed to simulate the energy consumption of the generated planes. A regression mathematical model was established to study the relationship between the plane forms and their energy consumption. The main finding of the study suggested that there was a cubic function relationship between the depth-ratio of U-shaped buildings and energy consumption, and there is also a cubic function relationship between the width-ratio and energy consumption. In the design, the depth-ratio of U-shaped buildings should not be less than 2.5, and the width-ratio should not be less than 2.

Keywords: Graphic parameterization, green building design, mathematical model, U-shaped buildings.

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Authors: Mukesh Singh Boori, Venerando Eustáquio Amaro, Helenice Vital

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The present study has been carried out with a view to calculate the coastal vulnerability index (CVI) to know the high and low sensitive areas and area of inundation due to future SLR. Both conventional and remotely sensed data were used and analyzed through the modelling technique. Out of the total study area, 8.26% is very high risk, 14.21% high, 9.36% medium, 22.46% low and 7.35% in the very low vulnerable category, due to costal components. Results of the inundation analysis indicate that 225.2 km² and 397 km² of the land area will be submerged by flooding at 1m and 10m inundation levels. The most severely affected sectors are expected to be the residential, industrial and recreational areas. As this coast is planned for future coastal developmental activities, measures such as industrializations, building regulation, urban growth planning and agriculture, development of an integrated coastal zone management, strict enforcement of the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) Act, monitoring of impacts and further research in this regard are recommended for the study area.

Keywords: Coastal planning, land use, satellite data, vulnerability.

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Authors: A. R. Ismail, N. Jusoh, M. Z. Nuawi, B. M. Deros, N. K. Makhtar, M. N. A. Rahman

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The objective of this study is to determine the thermal comfort among worker at Malaysian automotive industry. One critical manual assembly workstation had been chosen as a subject for the study. The human subjects for the study constitute operators at Body Assembly Station of the factory. The environment examined was the Relative Humidity (%), Airflow (m/s), Air Temperature (°C) and Radiant Temperature (°C) of the surrounding workstation area. The environmental factors were measured using Babuc apparatus, which is capable to measure simultaneously those mentioned environmental factors. The time series data of fluctuating level of factors were plotted to identify the significant changes of factors. Then thermal comfort of the workers were assessed by using ISO Standard 7730 Thermal sensation scale by using Predicted Mean Vote (PMV). Further Predicted percentage dissatisfied (PPD) is used to estimate the thermal comfort satisfaction of the occupant. Finally the PPD versus PMV were plotted to present the thermal comfort scenario of workers involved in related workstation. The result of PMV at the related industry is between 1.8 and 2.3, where PPD at that building is between 60% to 84%. The survey result indicated that the temperature more influenced comfort to the occupants

Keywords: Thermal, Comfort, Temperature, PPD, PMV

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Authors: A. Smagina, A. Lindemanis

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In the time of globalisation, growing uncertainty, ambiguity and change, traditional way of doing business are no longer sufficient and it is important to consider non-conventional methods and approaches to release creativity and facilitate innovation and growth. Thus, creative industries, as a natural source of creativity and innovation, draw particular attention. This paper explores feasibility of building creative partnerships between creative industries and business and brings attention to mutual benefits derived from such partnerships. Design/approach - This paper is a theoretical exploration of projects, practices and research findings addressing collaboration between creative industries and business. Thus, it concerns creative industries, arts, business and its representatives in order to define requirements for creative partnerships to work and succeed. Findings – Current practices in engaging into arts-business partnerships are still very few, although most of creative partnerships proved to be highly valuable and mutually beneficial. Certain conditions shall be provided in order to benefit from arts-business creative synergy. Originality/value- By integrating different sources of literature, this article provides a base for conducting empirical research in several dimensions within arts-business partnerships.

Keywords: Arts, artists, business, creative industries, partnership

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Authors: Anna Costanza Russo, Daniele Landi, Michele Germani

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Nowadays, the European Ecodesign Directive has emerged as a new approach to integrate environmental concerns into the product design and related processes. Ecodesign aims to minimize environmental impacts throughout the product life cycle, without compromising performances and costs. In addition, the recent Ecodesign Directives require products which are increasingly eco-friendly and eco-efficient, preserving high-performances. It is very important for producers measuring performances, for electric cooking ranges, hobs, ovens, and grills for household use, and a low power consumption of appliances represents a powerful selling point, also in terms of ecodesign requirements. The Ecodesign Directive provides a clear framework about the sustainable design of products and it has been extended in 2009 to all energy-related products, or products with an impact on energy consumption during the use. The European Regulation establishes measures of ecodesign of ovens, hobs, and kitchen hoods, and domestic use and energy efficiency of a product has a significant environmental aspect in the use phase which is the most impactful in the life cycle. It is important that the product parameters and performances are not affected by ecodesign requirements from a user’s point of view, and the benefits of reducing energy consumption in the use phase should offset the possible environmental impact in the production stage. Accurate measurements of cooking appliance performance are essential to help the industry to produce more energy efficient appliances. The development of ecodriven products requires ecoinnovation and ecodesign tools to support the sustainability improvement. The ecodesign tools should be practical and focused on specific ecoobjectives in order to be largely diffused. The main scope of this paper is the development, implementation, and testing of an innovative tool, which could be an improvement for the sustainable design of induction hobs. In particular, a prototypical software tool is developed in order to simulate the energy performances of the induction hobs. The tool is focused on a multiphysics model which is able to simulate the energy performances and the efficiency of induction hobs starting from the design data. The multiphysics model is composed by an electromagnetic simulation and a thermal simulation. The electromagnetic simulation is able to calculate the eddy current induced in the pot, which leads to the Joule heating of material. The thermal simulation is able to measure the energy consumption during the operational phase. The Joule heating caused from the eddy currents is the output of electromagnetic simulation and the input of thermal ones. The aims of the paper are the development of integrated tools and methodologies of virtual prototyping in the context of the ecodesign. This tool could be a revolutionary instrument in the field of industrial engineering and it gives consideration to the environmental aspects of product design and focus on the ecodesign of energy-related products, in order to achieve a reduced environmental impact.

Keywords: Ecodesign, induction hobs, virtual prototyping, energy efficiency.

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Authors: Harkishen Singh, Gavin Mangeni

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This project aims at building an efficient and automatic power monitoring SCADA system, which is capable of monitoring the electrical parameters of high voltage powered devices in real time for example RMS voltage and current, frequency, energy consumed, power factor etc. The system uses RS-485 serial communication interface to transfer data over longer distances. Embedded C programming is the platform used to develop two hardware modules namely: RTU and Master Station modules, which both use the CC2540 BLE 4.0 microcontroller configured in slave / master mode. The Si8900 galvanic ally isolated microchip is used to perform ADC externally. The hardware communicates via UART port and sends data to the user PC using the USB port. Labview software is used to design a user interface to display current state of the power loads being monitored as well as logs data to excel spreadsheet file. An understanding of the Si8900’s auto baud rate process is key to successful implementation of this project.

Keywords: SCADA, RS485, CC2540, Labview, Si8900.

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Authors: Daniela Ocipova, Zuzana Vranayova, Ondrej Sikula

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Safe drinking water is one of the biggest issues facing the planet this century. The primary aim of this paper is to present our research focused on theoretical and experimental analysis of potable water and in-building water distribution systems from the point of view of microbiological risk on the basis of confrontation between the theoretical analysis and synthesis of gathered information in conditions of the Slovak Republic. The presence of the bacteria Legionella in water systems, especially in hot water distribution system, represents in terms of health protection of inhabitants the crucial problem which cannot be overlooked. Legionella pneumophila discovery, its classification and its influence on installations inside buildings are relatively new. There are a lot of guidelines and regulations developed in many individual countries for the design, operation and maintenance for tap water systems to avoid the growth of bacteria Legionella pneumophila, but in Slovakia we don-t have any. The goal of this paper is to show the necessity of prevention and regulations for installations inside buildings verified by simulation methods.

Keywords: Legionella pneumophila, water temperature, distribution system, risk analysis, simulations.

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Authors: Montree Kumngern, Kobchai Dejhan

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Versatile dual-mode class-AB CMOS four-quadrant analog multiplier circuit is presented. The dual translinear loops and current mirrors are the basic building blocks in realization scheme. This technique provides; wide dynamic range, wide-bandwidth response and low power consumption. The major advantages of this approach are; its has single ended inputs; since its input is dual translinear loop operate in class-AB mode which make this multiplier configuration interesting for low-power applications; current multiplying, voltage multiplying, or current and voltage multiplying can be obtainable with balanced input. The simulation results of versatile analog multiplier demonstrate a linearity error of 1.2 %, a -3dB bandwidth of about 19MHz, a maximum power consumption of 0.46mW, and temperature compensated. Operation of versatile analog multiplier was also confirmed through an experiment using CMOS transistor array.

Keywords: Class-AB, dual-mode CMOS analog multiplier, CMOS analog integrated circuit, CMOS translinear integrated circuit.

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Authors: Chien-Hui Yang, Che-Yang Lin, Ya-Chen Hsu

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Gold passbook is an investing tool that is especially suitable for investors to do small investment in the solid gold. The gold passbook has the lower risk than other ways investing in gold, but its price is still affected by gold price. However, there are many factors can cause influences on gold price. Therefore, building a model to predict the price of gold passbook can both reduce the risk of investment and increase the benefits. This study investigates the important factors that influence the gold passbook price, and utilize the Group Method of Data Handling (GMDH) to build the predictive model. This method can not only obtain the significant variables but also perform well in prediction. Finally, the significant variables of gold passbook price, which can be predicted by GMDH, are US dollar exchange rate, international petroleum price, unemployment rate, whole sale price index, rediscount rate, foreign exchange reserves, misery index, prosperity coincident index and industrial index.

Keywords: Gold price, Gold passbook price, Group Method ofData Handling (GMDH), Regression.

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Authors: Ivana Tadić, Željana Aljinović Barać, Nikolina Plazonić

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Living today in turbulent business environment forces companies to distinguish from each other, securing sustainable competitive growth and competitive advantage. The best possible solution is to invest (effort and financial resources) within companies’ different practices of human resource management (HRM), more specifically in employees’ knowledge, skills and abilities. Applying this approach companies will create enviable level of human capital securing its economic growth. Employees become human capital for their employers at the moment when they contribute with their own knowledge and abilities in creating material and non-material value of the company. The main aim of this research is to explore the relations between human capital investments and business excellence of Croatian companies. Furthermore, the differences in the level of human capital investments with regard to several companies’ characteristics (e.g. size of the company, ownership and type of the industry) are investigated.

Keywords:

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Authors: Ibrahim Cil, Onur Kurtcu, H. Ibrahim Demir, Furkan Yener, Yusuf. S. Turkan, Muharrem Unver, Ramazan Evren

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Fuzzy AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) method is decision-making way at the end of integrating the current AHP method with fuzzy structure. In this study, the processes of production planning, inventory management and purchasing department of a system were analysed and were requested to decide the performance criteria of each area. At this point, the current work processes were analysed by various decision-makers and comparing each criteria by giving points according to 1-9 scale were completed. The criteria were listed in order to their weights by using Fuzzy AHP approach and top three performance criteria of each department were determined. After that, the performance criteria of supply chain consisting of three departments were asked to determine. The processes of each department were compared by decision-makers at the point of building the supply chain performance system and getting the performance criteria. According to the results, the criteria of performance system of supply chain by using Fuzzy AHP were determined for which will be used in the supply chain performance system in the future.

Keywords: AHP, fuzzy, performance evaluation, supply chain.

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Authors: Gabriela R. Fernandes, Renato F. Denadai, Guido J. Denipotti

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In this work, are discussed two formulations of the boundary element method - BEM to perform linear bending analysis of plates reinforced by beams. Both formulations are based on the Kirchhoff's hypothesis and they are obtained from the reciprocity theorem applied to zoned plates, where each sub-region defines a beam or a slab. In the first model the problem values are defined along the interfaces and the external boundary. Then, in order to reduce the number of degrees of freedom kinematics hypothesis are assumed along the beam cross section, leading to a second formulation where the collocation points are defined along the beam skeleton, instead of being placed on interfaces. On these formulations no approximation of the generalized forces along the interface is required. Moreover, compatibility and equilibrium conditions along the interface are automatically imposed by the integral equation. Thus, these formulations require less approximation and the total number of the degree s of freedom is reduced. In the numerical examples are discussed the differences between these two BEM formulations, comparing as well the results to a well-known finite element code.

Keywords: Boundary elements, Building floor structures, Platebending.

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Authors: Amna Javed, Hisashi Masuda, Youji Kohda

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This study examines the value analysis in Islamic and conventional banking services in Pakistan. Many scholars have focused on co-creation of values in services but mainly economic values not non-economic. As Islamic banking is based on Islamic principles that are more concerned with non-economic values (well-being, partnership, fairness, trust worthy, and justice) than economic values as money in terms of interest.  This study is important to know the providers point of view about the co-created values, because, it may be more sustainable and appropriate for today’s unpredictable socio-economic environment. Data were collected from 4 banks (2 Islamic and 2 conventional banks). Text mining technique is applied for data analysis, and values with 100% occurrences in Islamic banking are chosen. The results reflect that Islamic banking is more centric towards non-economic values than economic values and it promotes team work and partnership concept by applying Islamic spirit and trust worthiness concept.

Keywords: Economic values, Islamic banking, Non-economic values, Value system.

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Authors: F. May Liou, Y. C. Edwin Tang

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This paper aims to provide a conceptual framework to examine competitive disadvantage of banks that suffer from poor performance. Banks generate revenues mainly from the interest rate spread on taking deposits and making loans while collecting fees in the process. To maximize firm value, banks seek loan growth and expense control while managing risk associated with loans with respect to non-performing borrowers or narrowing interest spread between assets and liabilities. Competitive disadvantage refers to the failure to access imitable resources and to build managing capabilities to gain sustainable return given appropriate risk management. This paper proposes a four-quadrant framework of organizational typology is subsequently proposed to examine the features of competitive disadvantage in the banking sector. A resource configuration model, which is extracted from CAMEL indicators to examine the underlying features of bank failures.

Keywords: Bank failure, CAMEL, competitive disadvantage, resource configuration.

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Authors: Aline F. Marcon, Eduardo F. da Silva, Marina Bouzon

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The impact of lean management on environmental sustainability is the research line that receives the most attention from academicians. Therefore, the social dimension of sustainable development has so far received less attention. This paper aims to evaluate the impact of intra-plant lean manufacturing practices on social sustainability indicators extracted from the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) parameters. The method is two-phased, including MCDM approach to uncover the most relevant practices regarding social performance and Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) method to reveal the structural relationship among lean practices. Professionals from the academic and industrial fields answered the questionnaires. From the results of this paper, it is possible to verify that practices such as “Safety Improvement Programs”, “Total Quality Management” and “Cross-functional Workforce” are the ones which have the most positive influence on the set of GRI social indicators.

Keywords: Indicators, ISM, lean, social, sustainability.

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Authors: Andrei Ursachi, Dorin Bordeasu

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The Smart Grid Simulator is a computer software based on advance algorithms which has as the main purpose to lower the energy bill in the most optimized price efficient way as possible for private households, companies or energy providers. It combines the energy provided by a number of solar modules and wind turbines with the consumption of one household or a cluster of nearby households and information regarding weather conditions and energy prices in order to predict the amount of energy that can be produced by renewable energy sources and the amount of energy that will be bought from the distributor for the following day. The user of the system will not only be able to minimize his expenditures on energy factures, but also he will be informed about his hourly consumption, electricity prices fluctuation and money spent for energy bought as well as how much money he saved each day and since he installed the system. The paper outlines the algorithm that supports the Smart Grid Simulator idea and presents preliminary test results that supports the discussion and implementation of the system.

Keywords: Applied Science, Renewable energy sources, Smart Grid, Sustainable energy.

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Authors: Farid Arya, Trevor Hyde

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The development of vacuum glazing represents a significant advancement in the area of low heat loss glazing systems with the potential to substantially reduce building heating and cooling loads. Vacuum glazing consists of two or more glass panes hermetically sealed together around the edge with a vacuum gap between the panes. To avoid the glass panes from collapsing and touching each other under the influence of atmospheric pressure an array of support pillars is provided between the glass panes. A high level of thermal insulation is achieved by evacuating the spaces between the glass panes to a very low pressure which greatly reduces conduction and convection within the space; therefore heat transfer through this kind of glazing is significantly lower when compared with conventional insulating glazing. However, vacuum glazing is subject to inherent stresses due to atmospheric pressure and temperature differentials which can lead to fracture of the glass panes and failure of the edge seal. A flexible edge seal has been proposed to minimise the impact of these issues. In this paper, vacuum glazing system with rigid and flexible edge seals is theoretically studied and their advantages and disadvantages are discussed.

Keywords: Flexible edge seal, stress, support pillar, vacuum glazing.

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Authors: Maryam Mirdehghani, S. Amirhassan Monadjemi

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Web sites are rapidly becoming the preferred media choice for our daily works such as information search, company presentation, shopping, and so on. At the same time, we live in a period where visual appearances play an increasingly important role in our daily life. In spite of designers- effort to develop a web site which be both user-friendly and attractive, it would be difficult to ensure the outcome-s aesthetic quality, since the visual appearance is a matter of an individual self perception and opinion. In this study, it is attempted to develop an automatic system for web pages aesthetic evaluation which are the building blocks of web sites. Based on the image processing techniques and artificial neural networks, the proposed method would be able to categorize the input web page according to its visual appearance and aesthetic quality. The employed features are multiscale/multidirectional textural and perceptual color properties of the web pages, fed to perceptron ANN which has been trained as the evaluator. The method is tested using university web sites and the results suggested that it would perform well in the web page aesthetic evaluation tasks with around 90% correct categorization.

Keywords: Web Page Design, Web Page Aesthetic, Color Spaces, Texture, Neural Networks

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Authors: Shahrol Mohamaddan, Keith Case, Ana Sakura Zainal Abidin

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Human movement in the real world provides important information for developing human behaviour models and simulations. However, it is difficult to assess ‘real’ human behaviour since there is no established method available. As part of the AUNTSUE (Accessibility and User Needs in Transport – Sustainable Urban Environments) project, this research aimed to propose a method to assess human movement and behaviour in crowded areas. The method is based on the three major steps of video recording, conceptual behavior modelling and video analysis. The focus is on individual human movement and behaviour in normal situations (panic situations are not considered) and the interactions between individuals in localized areas. Emphasis is placed on gaining knowledge of characteristics of human movement and behaviour in the real world that can be modelled in the virtual environment.

Keywords: Video observation, Human movement, Behaviour, Crowds, Ergonomics, AUNT-SUE

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Authors: L. Mota, O. Frausto

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Marine Protected Areas can benefit from nature based tourism, monitoring environmental impacts and also become target for human presence. From more than 3 million tourists visiting Cozumel Island every year, an average of 2,8 million arrive by cruise ship, and 41% are estimated to have motivation for water activities. The destination is relying so much on the tourism activity, that scuba diving and snorkeling in the National Park Reef of Cozumel sustain the major economic activity. In order to achieve the sustainable development indicator designed for regional environmental development, the PNAC offers a training course to tourism providers to access the protected area. This way, the update of the last 5 years of such training is directed to diving staff, boat crew and professionals, making them able to assist in managing the natural resource. Moreover, the case study is an example to be used for raising awareness among tourists visiting protected areas.

Keywords: Education, Marine Protected Area, scuba diving, sustainability, tourism.

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Authors: Yoon-Hyuk Choi

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Studies on the distribution of traffic demands have been proceeding by providing traffic information for reducing greenhouse gases and reinforcing the road's competitiveness in the transport section, however, since it is preferentially required the extensive studies on the driver's behavior changing routes and its influence factors, this study has been developed a discriminant model for changing routes considering driving conditions including traffic conditions of roads and driver's preferences for information media. It is divided into three groups depending on driving conditions in group classification with the CART analysis, which is statistically meaningful. And the extent that driving conditions and preferred media affect a route change is examined through a discriminant analysis, and it is developed a discriminant model equation to predict a route change. As a result of building the discriminant model equation, it is shown that driving conditions affect a route change much more, the entire discriminant hit ratio is derived as 64.2%, and this discriminant equation shows high discriminant ability more than a certain degree.

Keywords: CART analysis, Diversion, Discriminant model, Driving conditions, and preferred media

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Authors: Emmanuel O.O. Ojakominor, Tian F. Lai

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A handful of propagation textbooks that discuss radio frequency (RF) propagation models merely list out the models and perhaps discuss them rather briefly; this may well be frustrating for the potential first time modeller who's got no idea on how these models could have been derived. This paper fundamentally provides an overture in modelling the radio channel. Explicitly, for the modelling practice discussed here, signal strength field measurements had to be conducted beforehand (this was done at 469 MHz); to be precise, this paper primarily concerns empirically/statistically modelling the radio channel, and thus provides results obtained from empirically modelling the environments in question. This paper, on the whole, proposes three propagation models, corresponding to three experimented environments. Perceptibly, the models have been derived by way of making the most use of statistical measures. Generally speaking, the first two models were derived via simple linear regression analysis, whereas the third have been originated using multiple regression analysis (with five various predictors). Additionally, as implied by the title of this paper, both indoor and outdoor environments have been experimented; however, (somewhat) two of the environments are neither entirely indoor nor entirely outdoor. The other environment, however, is completely indoor.

Keywords: RF propagation, radio channel modelling, statistical methods.

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Authors: Leena N. Fukey, Surya S. Issac

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This review paper aims at understanding the importance of implementing sustainable green practices in the current hotel industry and the perception of the same from the point of view of the customers as well as the industry experts. Many hotels have benefited from green management such as enhanced reputation of the firm and more worth customers. For the business standing, it reduces business’s cost for posting advertisements and the clear hotel’s orientation shows hotels’ positive image which might increase employees’ recognition toward the business. Sustainability in business is the growth in lively processes which enable people to understand the potential to protect the Earth’s existent support systems. Well, looking to the future today’s green concerns will definitely become facet of more synchronized business environment, perhaps the concerns discussed in this study, may exchange a few words which hotels may consider in near future to widen awareness and improve business model.

Keywords: Environmental Protection, Green Hotel Concept, Hotel Industry, Sustainability.

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Authors: Rossi A. Hassad

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There is widespread emphasis on reform in the teaching of introductory statistics at the college level. Underpinning this reform is a consensus among educators and practitioners that traditional curricular materials and pedagogical strategies have not been effective in promoting statistical literacy, a competency that is becoming increasingly necessary for effective decision-making and evidence-based practice. This paper explains the historical context of, and rationale for reform-oriented teaching of introductory statistics (at the college level) in the health, social and behavioral sciences (evidence-based disciplines). A firm understanding and appreciation of the basis for change in pedagogical approach is important, in order to facilitate commitment to reform, consensus building on appropriate strategies, and adoption and maintenance of best practices. In essence, reform-oriented pedagogy, in this context, is a function of the interaction among content, pedagogy, technology, and assessment. The challenge is to create an appropriate balance among these domains.

Keywords: Reform-oriented, reform, introductory statistics, health, behavioral sciences, evidence-based, psychology, teaching, learning.

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Authors: Masoud Saeedi, Mansour Tavakoli, Shirin Rahimi Kazerooni, Vahid Parvaresh

Abstract:

This article investigated the validity of C-test and Cloze test which purport to measure general English proficiency. To provide empirical evidence pertaining to the validity of the interpretations based on the results of these integrative language tests, their criterion-related validity was investigated. In doing so, the test of English as a foreign language (TOEFL) which is an established, standardized, and internationally administered test of general English proficiency was used as the criterion measure. Some 90 Iranian English majors participated in this study. They were seniors studying English at a university in Tehran, Iran. The results of analyses showed that there is a statistically significant correlation among participants- scores on Cloze test, C-test, and the TOEFL. Building on the findings of the study and considering criterion-related validity as the evidential basis of the validity argument, it was cautiously deducted that these tests measure the same underlying trait. However, considering the limitations of using criterion measures to validate tests, no absolute claims can be made as to the construct validity of these integrative tests.

Keywords: Integrative testing, C-test, Cloze test, theTOEFL, Validity.

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