Search results for: relative position

Authors: A.H. Sajedipoor, N. Hedayat, M. Mashal

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Sedimentation is a hydraulic phenomenon that is emerging as a serious challenge in river engineering. When the flow reaches a certain state that gather potential energy, it shifts the sediment load along channel bed. The transport of such materials can be in the form of suspended and bed loads. The movement of these along the river course and channels and the ways in which this could influence the water intakes is considered as the major challenges for sustainable O&M of hydraulic structures. This could be very serious in arid and semi-arid regions like Iran, where inappropriate watershed management could lead to shifting a great deal of sediments into the reservoirs and irrigation systems. This paper aims to investigate sedimentation in the Western Canal of Dez Diversion Weir in Iran, identifying factors which influence the process and provide ways in which to mitigate its detrimental effects by using the SHARC Software. For the purpose of this paper, data from the Dezful water authority and Dezful Hydrometric Station pertinent to a river course of about 6 Km were used. Results estimated sand and silt bed loads concentrations to be 193 ppm and 827ppm respectively. Given the available data on average annual bed loads and average suspended sediment loads of 165ppm and 837ppm, there was a significant statistical difference (16%) between the sand grains, whereas no significant difference (1.2%) was find in the silt grain sizes. One explanation for such finding being that along the 6 Km river course there was considerable meandering effects which explains recent shift in the hydraulic behavior along the stream course under investigation. The sand concentration in downstream relative to present state of the canal showed a steep descending curve. Sediment trapping on the other hand indicated a steep ascending curve. These occurred because the diversion weir was not considered in the simulation model.

Keywords: SHARC model, sedimentation, Western canal, Dezdiversion weir

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Authors: Shih-Wen Hsiao, Yi-Cheng Tsao

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In the field of reverse engineering and creative industries, applying 3D scanning process to obtain geometric forms of the objects is a mature and common technique. For instance, organic objects such as faces and nonorganic objects such as products could be scanned to acquire the geometric information for further application. However, although the data resolution of 3D scanning device is increasing and there are more and more abundant complementary applications, the penetration rate of 3D scanning for the public is still limited by the relative high price of the devices. On the other hand, Kinect, released by Microsoft, is known for its powerful functions, considerably low price, and complete technology and database support. Therefore, related studies can be done with the applying of Kinect under acceptable cost and data precision. Due to the fact that Kinect utilizes optical mechanism to extracting depth information, limitations are found due to the reason of the straight path of the light. Thus, various angles are required sequentially to obtain the complete 3D information of the object when applying a single Kinect for 3D scanning. The integration process which combines the 3D data from different angles by certain algorithms is also required. This sequential scanning process costs much time and the complex integration process often encounter some technical problems. Therefore, this paper aimed to apply multiple Kinects simultaneously on the field of developing a rapid 3D mannequin scan platform and proposed suggestions on the number and angles of Kinects. In the content, a method of establishing the coordination based on the relation between mannequin and the specifications of Kinect is proposed, and a suggestion of angles and number of Kinects is also described. An experiment of applying multiple Kinect on the scanning of 3D mannequin is constructed by Microsoft API, and the results show that the time required for scanning and technical threshold can be reduced in the industries of fashion and garment design.

Keywords: 3D scan, depth sensor, fashion and garment design, mannequin, multiple kinect sensor.

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Authors: Mehrdad Hashemi, Mitra Behrooz Aghdam, Reza Mahdian, Ahmad Reza Kamyab

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Cytogenetic analysis still remains the gold standard method for prenatal diagnosis of trisomy 21 (Down syndrome, DS). Nevertheless, the conventional cytogenetic analysis needs live cultured cells and is too time-consuming for clinical application. In contrast, molecular methods such as FISH, QF-PCR, MLPA and quantitative Real-time PCR are rapid assays with results available in 24h. In the present study, we have successfully used a novel MGB TaqMan probe-based real time PCR assay for rapid diagnosis of trisomy 21 status in Down syndrome samples. We have also compared the results of this molecular method with corresponding results obtained by the cytogenetic analysis. Blood samples obtained from DS patients (n=25) and normal controls (n=20) were tested by quantitative Real-time PCR in parallel to standard G-banding analysis. Genomic DNA was extracted from peripheral blood lymphocytes. A high precision TaqMan probe quantitative Real-time PCR assay was developed to determine the gene dosage of DSCAM (target gene on 21q22.2) relative to PMP22 (reference gene on 17p11.2). The DSCAM/PMP22 ratio was calculated according to the formula; ratio=2 -ΔΔCT. The quantitative Real-time PCR was able to distinguish between trisomy 21 samples and normal controls with the gene ratios of 1.49±0.13 and 1.03±0.04 respectively (p value <0.001). These results represent the presence of 3 copies of target gene in DS samples Vs 2 copies in normal controls. The results of quantitative Real-time PCR were in complete agreement with results of cytogenetic analysis. This study confirms previous reports regarding successful implementation of quantitative Real-time PCR for detection of trisomy 21. However, the assay has been improved by using MGB probes and more accurate data analysis. This assay, in particular, when performed in combination with another molecular assay such as QF-PCR or MLPA, can be used as a reliable technique for rapid prenatal diagnosis of trisomy 21.

Keywords: Trisomy 21, Real-time PCR, MGB-TaqMan Probes, Gene Dosage.

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Authors: N. Umasuthan, S. D. N. K. Bathige, W. S. Thulasitha, I. Whang, J. Lee

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The MyD88 is an evolutionarily conserved host-expressed adaptor protein that is essential for proper TLR/ IL1R immune-response signaling. A previously identified complete cDNA (1626 bp) of OfMyD88 comprised an ORF of 867 bp encoding a protein of 288 amino acids (32.9 kDa). The gDNA (3761 bp) of OfMyD88 revealed a quinquepartite genome organization composed of 5 exons (with the sizes of 310, 132, 178, 92 and 155 bp) separated by 4 introns. All the introns displayed splice signals consistent with the consensus GT/AG rule. A bipartite domain structure with two domains namely death domain (24-103) coded by 1^st exon, and TIR domain (151-288) coded by last 3 exons were identified through in silico analysis. Moreover, homology modeling of these two domains revealed a similar quaternary folding nature between human and rock bream homologs. A comprehensive comparison of vertebrate MyD88 genes showed that they possess a 5-exonic structure.In this structure, the last three exons were strongly conserved, and this suggests that a rigid structure has been maintained during vertebrate evolution.A cluster of TATA box-like sequences were found 0.25 kb upstream of cDNA starting position. In addition, putative 5'-flanking region of OfMyD88 was predicted to have TFBS implicated with TLR signaling, including copies of NFkB1, APRF/ STAT3, Sp1, IRF1 and 2 and Stat1/2. Using qPCR technique, a ubiquitous mRNA expression was detected in liver and blood. Furthermore, a significantly up-regulated transcriptional expression of OfMyD88 was detected in head kidney (12-24 h; >2-fold), spleen (6 h; 1.5-fold), liver (3 h; 1.9-fold) and intestine (24 h; ~2-fold) post-Fla challenge. These data suggest a crucial role for MyD88 in antibacterial immunity of teleosts.

Keywords: MyD88, Innate immunity, Flagellin, Genomic analysis.

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Authors: Erica Lima

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The objective of this paper is to discuss relevant points about teaching translation in Brazilian universities and the possible impacts of blogs and social networks to translator education today. It is intended to analyze the curricula of Brazilian translation courses, contrasting them to information obtained from two social networking groups of great visibility in the area concerning essential characteristics to become a successful profession. Therefore, research has, as its main corpus, a few undergraduate translation programs’ syllabuses, as well as a few postings on social networks groups that specifically share professional opinions regarding the necessity for a translator to obtain a degree in translation to practice the profession. To a certain extent, such comments and their corresponding responses lead to the propagation of discourses which influence the ideas that aspiring translators and recent graduates end up having towards themselves and their undergraduate courses. The postings also show that many professionals do not have a clear position regarding the translator education; while refuting it, they also encourage “free” courses. It is thus observed that cyberspace constitutes, on the one hand, a place of mobilization of people in defense of similar ideas. However, on the other hand, it embodies a place of tension and conflict, in view of the fact that there are many participants and, as in any other situation of interlocution, disagreements may arise. From the postings, aspects related to professionalism were analyzed (including discussions about regulation), as well as questions about the classic dichotomies: theory/practice; art/technique; self-education/academic training. As partial result, the common interest regarding the valorization of the profession could be mentioned, although there is no consensus on the essential characteristics to be a good translator. It was also possible to observe that the set of socially constructed representations in the group reflects characteristics of the world situation of the translation courses (especially in some European countries and in the United States), which, in the first instance, does not accurately reflect the Brazilian idiosyncrasies of the area.

Keywords: Cyberspace, teaching translation, translator education, university.

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Authors: Popoola M. O., Abiola S. O., Adeniji W. A.

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This study investigates the causes, effects and remedies of traffic congestion which has become a common sight in most highways in Nigeria; Mowe/Ibafo section of the Lagos-Ibadan expressway was used as the case-study. 300 Structured questionnaires were distributed among the road users comprising drivers (Private and Commercial), passengers, pedestrians, traffic officers, church congregations, community leaders, Mowe/Ibafo residents, and other users of the road.

300 questionnaires were given out; the average of 276 well completed returned questionnaires formed the basis of the study and was analyzed by the Relative Importance Index (R.I.I.). The result from the study showed the causes of traffic congestion as inadequate road capacity, poor road pavement, poor traffic management, poor drainage system poor driving habit, poor parking habit, poor design junctions/round-about, presence of heavy trucks, lack of pedestrian facilities, lack of road furniture, lack of parking facilities and others. Effects of road congestion from the study are waste of time, delay movement, stress, accident, inability to forecast travel of time, fuel consumption, road rage, relocation, night driving, and environmental pollution. To drastically reduce these negative effects; there must be provision for adequate parking space, construction of proper drainage, enlarging the width of the road, rehabilitate all roads needing attention, public enlightenment, traffic education, hack down all illegal buildings/shops built on the right of way (ROW), create a separate/alternative root for trucks and heavy vehicles, provision of pedestrian facilities, In-depth training of transport/traffic personnel, ban all form of road trading/hawking, and reduce the number of bus-stop where necessary. It is hoped that this study will become the foundation of further research in the area of improve road traffic management on our major highway.

Keywords: Highways, Congestion, Traffic, Traffic congestion, traffic management, Nigeria.

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Authors: Ticijana Prijon, Branko Ermenc

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Background: Blunt aortic trauma (BAT) includes various morphological changes that occur during deceleration, acceleration and/or body compression in traffic accidents. The various forms of BAT, from limited laceration of the intima to complete transection of the aorta, depends on the force acting on the vessel wall and the tolerance of the aorta to injury. The force depends on the change in velocity, the dynamics of the accident and of the seating position in the car. Tolerance to aortic injury depends on the anatomy, histological structure and pathomorphological alterations due to aging or disease of the aortic wall. An overview of the literature and medical documentation reveals that different terms are used to describe certain forms of BAT, which can lead to misinterpretation of findings or diagnoses. We therefore, propose a classification that would enable uniform systematic screening of all forms of BAT. We have classified BAT into three morphologycal types: TYPE I (intramural), TYPE II (transmural) and TYPE III (multiple) aortic ruptures with appropriate subtypes. Methods: All car accident casualties examined at the Institute of Forensic Medicine from 2001 to 2009 were included in this retrospective study. Autopsy reports were used to determine the occurrence of each morphological type of BAT in deceased drivers, front seat passengers and other passengers in cars and to define the morphology of BAT in relation to the accident dynamics and the age of the fatalities. Results: A total of 391 fatalities in car accidents were included in the study. TYPE I, TYPE II and TYPE III BAT were observed in 10,9%, 55,6% and 33,5%, respectively. The incidence of BAT in drivers, front seat and other passengers was 36,7%, 43,1% and 28,6%, respectively. In frontal collisions, the incidence of BAT was 32,7%, in lateral collisions 54,2%, and in other traffic accidents 29,3%. The average age of fatalities with BAT was 42,8 years and of those without BAT 39,1 years. Conclusion: Identification and early recognition of the risk factors of BAT following a traffic accident is crucial for successful treatment of patients with BAT. Front seat passengers over 50 years of age who have been injured in a lateral collision are the most at risk of BAT.

Keywords: Aorta, blunt trauma, car accidents, morphology, risk factors.

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Authors: Rawan A. Abdelrazeq, Ahmed M. Khalafallah, Nabil A. Kartam

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Selection of competent contractors for construction projects is usually accomplished through competitive bidding or negotiated contracting in which the contract bid price is the basic criterion for selection. The evaluation of contractor’s safety performance is still not a typical criterion in the selection process, despite the existence of various safety prequalification procedures. There is a critical need for practical and automated systems that enable owners and decision makers to evaluate contractor safety performance, among other important contractor selection criteria. These systems should ultimately favor safety-conscious contractors to be selected by the virtue of their past good safety records and current safety programs. This paper presents an exploratory sequential mixed-methods approach to develop a framework for an automated decision support system that evaluates contractor safety performance based on a multitude of indicators and metrics that have been identified through a comprehensive review of construction safety research, and a survey distributed to domain experts. The framework is developed in three phases: (1) determining the indicators that depict contractor current and past safety performance; (2) soliciting input from construction safety experts regarding the identified indicators, their metrics, and relative significance; and (3) designing a decision support system using relational database models to integrate the identified indicators and metrics into a system that assesses and rates the safety performance of contractors. The proposed automated system is expected to hold several advantages including: (1) reducing the likelihood of selecting contractors with poor safety records; (2) enhancing the odds of completing the project safely; and (3) encouraging contractors to exert more efforts to improve their safety performance and practices in order to increase their bid winning opportunities which can lead to significant safety improvements in the construction industry. This should prove useful to decision makers and researchers, alike, and should help improve the safety record of the construction industry.

Keywords: Construction safety, contractor selection, decision support system, relational database.

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Authors: Matthew P. Mancini, Vincent Ribiere

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Today’s workers face more numerous and complex challenges and are required to be increasingly interdependent and faster learners. Knowledge sharing activities between people have been understood as a significant element affecting organizational innovation performance. While they do have the potential to spark cognitive conflict, disagreement is important from an organizational perspective because it can stimulate the development of new ideas and perhaps pave the way for creativity, innovation, and competitive advantage. How teams cope with the cognitive conflict dimension of knowledge sharing and the associated interpersonal risk is what captures our attention. Specifically, assertive conflict management strategies have a positive influence on knowledge sharing behaviors, and team psychological safety has a positive influence on knowledge sharing intention. This paper focuses on explaining the impact that these factors have on the shaping of an individual’s decision to engage or not in knowledge sharing activities. To accomplish this, we performed an empirical analysis on the results of our questionnaire about knowledge-sharing related conflict management and team psychological safety in pharmaceutical enterprises located in North America, Europe, and Asia. First, univariate analysis is used to characterize behavior regarding conflict management strategy into two groups. Group 1 presents assertive conflict management strategies and group 2 shows unassertive ones. Then, by using SEM methodology, we evaluated the relationships between them and the team psychological safety construct with the knowledge sharing process. The results of the SEM analysis show that assertive conflict management strategies affect the knowledge sharing process the most with a small, but significant effect from team psychological safety. The findings suggest that assertive conflict management strategies are just as important as knowledge sharing intentions for encouraging knowledge sharing behavior. This paper provides clear insights into how employees manage the sharing of their knowledge in the face of conflict and interpersonal risk and the relative importance of these factors in sustaining productive knowledge sharing activities.

Keywords: Cognitive dissonance, conflict management, knowledge sharing, organizational behavior, psychological safety.

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Authors: Manuel A. Alonso-Tarajano, Roberto Mosca, Patrick Aloy

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Protein kinases participate in a myriad of cellular processes of major biomedical interest. The in vivo substrate specificity of these enzymes is a process determined by several factors, and despite several years of research on the topic, is still far from being totally understood. In the present work, we have quantified the contributions to the kinase substrate specificity of i) the phosphorylation sites and their surrounding residues in the sequence and of ii) the association of kinases to adaptor or scaffold proteins. We have used position-specific scoring matrices (PSSMs), to represent the stretches of sequences phosphorylated by 93 families of kinases. We have found negative correlations between the number of sequences from which a PSSM is generated and the statistical significance and the performance of that PSSM. Using a subset of 22 statistically significant PSSMs, we have identified specificity determinant residues (SDRs) for 86% of the corresponding kinase families. Our results suggest that different SDRs can function as positive or negative elements of substrate recognition by the different families of kinases. Additionally, we have found that human proteins with known function as adaptors or scaffolds (kAS) tend to interact with a significantly large fraction of the substrates of the kinases to which they associate. Based on this characteristic we have identified a set of 279 potential adaptors/scaffolds (pAS) for human kinases, which is enriched in Pfam domains and functional terms tightly related to the proposed function. Moreover, our results show that for 74.6% of the kinase–pAS association found, the pAS colocalize with the substrates of the kinases they are associated to. Finally, we have found evidence suggesting that the association of kinases to adaptors and scaffolds, may contribute significantly to diminish the in vivo substrate crossed-specificity of protein kinases. In general, our results indicate the relevance of several SDRs for both the positive and negative selection of phosphorylation sites by kinase families and also suggest that the association of kinases to pAS proteins may be an important factor for the localization of the enzymes with their set of substrates.

Keywords: Kinase, phosphorylation, substrate specificity, adaptors, scaffolds, cellular colocalization.

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Authors: Ritu Ahlawat

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Among all geo-hydrological relationships, rainfallrunoff relationship is of utmost importance in any hydrological investigation and water resource planning. Spatial variation, lag time involved in obtaining areal estimates for the basin as a whole can affect the parameterization in design stage as well as in planning stage. In conventional hydrological processing of data, spatial aspect is either ignored or interpolated at sub-basin level. Temporal variation when analysed for different stages can provide clues for its spatial effectiveness. The interplay of space-time variation at pixel level can provide better understanding of basin parameters. Sustenance of design structures for different return periods and their spatial auto-correlations should be studied at different geographical scales for better management and planning of water resources. In order to understand the relative effect of spatio-temporal variation in hydrological data network, a detailed geo-hydrological analysis of Betwa river catchment falling in Lower Yamuna Basin is presented in this paper. Moreover, the exact estimates about the availability of water in the Betwa river catchment, especially in the wake of recent Betwa-Ken linkage project, need thorough scientific investigation for better planning. Therefore, an attempt in this direction is made here to analyse the existing hydrological and meteorological data with the help of SPSS, GIS and MS-EXCEL software. A comparison of spatial and temporal correlations at subcatchment level in case of upper Betwa reaches has been made to demonstrate the representativeness of rain gauges. First, flows at different locations are used to derive correlation and regression coefficients. Then, long-term normal water yield estimates based on pixel-wise regression coefficients of rainfall-runoff relationship have been mapped. The areal values obtained from these maps can definitely improve upon estimates based on point-based extrapolations or areal interpolations.

Keywords: Catchment's runoff estimates, influence area regional regression coefficients, runoff yield series,

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Authors: Y. C. Liou, J. M. Miao, T. L. Liu, M. H. Ho

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The purpose of this study was to explore the complex flow structure a novel active-type micromixer that based on concept of Wankle-type rotor. The characteristics of this micromixer are two folds; a rapid mixing of reagents in a limited space due to the generation of multiple vortices and a graduate increment in dynamic pressure as the mixed reagents is delivered to the output ports. Present micro-mixer is consisted of a rotor with shape of triangle column, a blending chamber and several inlet and outlet ports. The geometry of blending chamber is designed to make the rotor can be freely internal rotated with a constant eccentricity ratio. When the shape of the blending chamber and the rotor are fixed, the effects of rotating speed of rotor and the relative locations of ports on the mixing efficiency are numerical studied. The governing equations are unsteady, two-dimensional incompressible Navier-Stokes equation and the working fluid is the water. The species concentration equation is also solved to reveal the mass transfer process of reagents in various regions then to evaluate the mixing efficiency. The dynamic mesh technique was implemented to model the dynamic volume shrinkage and expansion of three individual sub-regions of blending chamber when the rotor conducted a complete rotating cycle. Six types of ports configuration on the mixing efficiency are considered in a range of Reynolds number from 10 to 300. The rapid mixing process was accomplished with the multiple vortex structures within a tiny space due to the equilibrium of shear force, viscous force and inertial force. Results showed that the highest mixing efficiency could be attained in the following conditions: two inlet and two outlet ports configuration, that is an included angle of 60 degrees between two inlets and an included angle of 120 degrees between inlet and outlet ports when Re=10.

Keywords: active micro-mixer, CFD, mixing efficiency, ports configuration, Reynolds number, Wankle-type rotor

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Authors: G. Zuppardi, F. Romano

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Technology of thin film deposition is of interest in many engineering fields, from electronic manufacturing to corrosion protective coating. A typical deposition process, like that developed at the University of Eindhoven, considers the deposition of a thin, amorphous film of C:H or of Si:H on the substrate, using the Expanding Thermal arc Plasma technique. In this paper a computing procedure is proposed to simulate the flow field in a deposition chamber similar to that at the University of Eindhoven and a sensitivity analysis is carried out in terms of: precursor mass flow rate, electrical power, supplied to the torch and fluid-dynamic characteristics of the plasma jet, using different nozzles. To this purpose a deposition chamber similar in shape, dimensions and operating parameters to the above mentioned chamber is considered. Furthermore, a method is proposed for a very preliminary evaluation of the film thickness distribution on the substrate. The computing procedure relies on two codes working in tandem; the output from the first code is the input to the second one. The first code simulates the flow field in the torch, where Argon is ionized according to the Saha-s equation, and in the nozzle. The second code simulates the flow field in the chamber. Due to high rarefaction level, this is a (commercial) Direct Simulation Monte Carlo code. Gas is a mixture of 21 chemical species and 24 chemical reactions from Argon plasma and Acetylene are implemented in both codes. The effects of the above mentioned operating parameters are evaluated and discussed by 2-D maps and profiles of some important thermo-fluid-dynamic parameters, as per Mach number, velocity and temperature. Intensity, position and extension of the shock wave are evaluated and the influence of the above mentioned test conditions on the film thickness and uniformity of distribution are also evaluated.

Keywords: Deposition chamber, Direct Simulation Mote Carlo method (DSMC), Plasma chemistry, Rarefied gas dynamics.

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Authors: Pravesh Chandra Shukla, Kunal Ghosh

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Over 90% of the world trade is carried by the international shipping industry. As most of the countries are developing, seaborne trade continues to expand to bring benefits for consumers across the world. Studies show that world trade will increase 70-80% through shipping in the next 15-20 years. Present global fleet of 70000 commercial ships consumes approximately 200 million tonnes of diesel fuel a year and it is expected that it will be around 350 million tonnes a year by 2020. It will increase the demand for fuel and also increase the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. So, it-s essential to control this massive fuel consumption and CO2 emission. The idea is to utilize a diesel-wind hybrid system for ship propulsion. Use of wind energy by installing modern wing-sails in ships can drastically reduce the consumption of diesel fuel. A huge amount of wind energy is available in oceans. Whenever wind is available the wing-sails would be deployed and the diesel engine would be throttled down and still the same forward speed would be maintained. Wind direction in a particular shipping route is not same throughout; it changes depending upon the global wind pattern which depends on the latitude. So, the wing-sail orientation should be such that it optimizes the use of wind energy. We have made a computer programme in which by feeding the data regarding wind velocity, wind direction, ship-motion direction; we can find out the best wing-sail position and fuel saving for commercial ships. We have calculated net fuel saving in certain international shipping routes, for instance, from Mumbai in India to Durban in South Africa. Our estimates show that about 8.3% diesel fuel can be saved by utilizing the wind. We are also developing an experimental model of the ship employing airfoils (small scale wingsail) and going to test it in National Wind Tunnel Facility in IIT Kanpur in order to develop a control mechanism for a system of airfoils.

Keywords: Commercial ships, Wind diesel hybrid system, Wing-sail, Wind direction, Wind velocity.

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Authors: K. Karuppasamy

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In this paper, analysis of an infinite beam resting on multilayer tensionless extensible geosynthetic reinforced granular fill-poor soil system overlying soft soil strata under moving load with constant velocity is presented. The beam is subjected to a concentrated load moving with constant velocity. The upper reinforced granular bed is modeled by a rough membrane embedded in Pasternak shear layer overlying a series of compressible nonlinear winkler springs representing the underlying the very poor soil. The multilayer tensionless extensible geosynthetic layer has been assumed to deform such that at interface the geosynthetic and the soil have some deformation. Nonlinear behaviour of granular fill and the very poor soil has been considered in the analysis by means of hyperbolic constitutive relationships. Governing differential equations of the soil foundation system have been obtained and solved with the help of appropriate boundary conditions. The solution has been obtained by employing finite difference method by means of Gauss-Siedal iterative scheme. Detailed parametric study has been conducted to study the influence of various parameters on the response of soil–foundation system under consideration by means of deflection and bending moment in the beam and tension mobilized in the geosynthetic layer. These parameters include magnitude of applied load, velocity of load, damping, ultimate resistance of poor soil and granular fill layer. Range of values of parameters has been considered as per Indian Railway conditions. This study clearly observed that the comparisons of multilayer tensionless extensible geosynthetic reinforcement with poor foundation soil and magnitude of applied load, relative compressibility of granular fill and ultimate resistance of poor soil has significant influence on the response of soil–foundation system.

Keywords: Infinite beams, multilayer tensionless extensible geosynthetic, granular layer, moving load, nonlinear behavior of poor soil.

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Authors: M. Collins, B. O’Regan, T. Cosgrove

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To determine the potential of a low cost Irish engineered timber product to replace high cost solid timber for use in bending active structures such as gridshells a single Irish engineered timber product in the form of orientated strand board (OSB) was selected. A comparative study of OSB and solid timber was carried out to determine the optimum properties that make a material suitable for use in gridshells. Three parameters were identified to be relevant in the selection of a material for gridshells. These three parameters are the strength to stiffness ratio, the flexural stiffness of commercially available sections, and the variability of material and section properties. It is shown that when comparing OSB against solid timber, OSB is a more suitable material for use in gridshells that are at the smaller end of the scale and that have tight radii of curvature. Typically, for solid timber materials, stiffness is used as an indicator for strength and engineered timber is no different. Thus, low flexural stiffness would mean low flexural strength. However, when it comes to bending active gridshells, OSB offers a significant advantage. By the addition of multiple layers, an increased section size is created, thus endowing the structure with higher stiffness and higher strength from initial low stiffness and low strength materials while still maintaining tight radii of curvature. This allows OSB to compete with solid timber on large scale gridshells. Additionally, a preliminary sustainability study using a set of sustainability indicators was carried out to determine the relative sustainability of building a large-scale gridshell in Ireland with a primary focus on economic viability but a mention is also given to social and environmental aspects. For this, the Savill garden gridshell in the UK was used as the functional unit with the sustainability of the structural roof skeleton constructed from UK larch solid timber being compared with the same structure using Irish OSB. Albeit that the advantages of using commercially available OSB in a bending active gridshell are marginal and limited to specific gridshell applications, further study into an optimised engineered timber product is merited.

Keywords: Bending active gridshells, High end timber structures, Low cost material, Sustainability.

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Authors: Indunil Jayatilake, Warna Karunasena

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Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP) composites enjoy an array of applications ranging from aerospace, marine and military to automobile, recreational and civil industry due to their outstanding properties. A structural glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) composite sandwich panel made from E-glass fiber skin and a modified phenolic core has been manufactured in Australia for civil engineering applications. One of the major mechanisms of damage in FRP composites is skin-core debonding. The presence of debonding is of great concern not only because it severely affects the strength but also it modifies the dynamic characteristics of the structure, including natural frequency and vibration modes. This paper deals with the investigation of the dynamic characteristics of a GFRP beam with single and multiple debonding by finite element based numerical simulations and analyses using the STRAND7 finite element (FE) software package. Three-dimensional computer models have been developed and numerical simulations were done to assess the dynamic behavior. The FE model developed has been validated with published experimental, analytical and numerical results for fully bonded as well as debonded beams. A comparative analysis is carried out based on a comprehensive parametric investigation. It is observed that the reduction in natural frequency is more affected by single debonding than the equally sized multiple debonding regions located symmetrically to the single debonding position. Thus it is revealed that a large single debonding area leads to more damage in terms of natural frequency reduction than isolated small debonding zones of equivalent area, appearing in the GFRP beam. Furthermore, the extents of natural frequency shifts seem mode-dependent and do not seem to have a monotonous trend of increasing with the mode numbers.

Keywords: Debonding, dynamic response, finite element modelling, FRP beams.

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Authors: Yanqun Li, Hong Geng

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The occurrence of Wenchuan earthquake in 2008 has led to severe damage to the rural areas of Chengdu city, such as the rupture of the social network, the stagnation of economic production and the rupture of living space. The post-disaster reconstruction has become a sustainable issue. As an important link to maintain the order of rural social development, social network should be an important content of post-disaster reconstruction. Therefore, this paper takes rural reconstruction communities in earthquake-stricken areas of Chengdu as the research object and adopts sociological research methods such as field survey, observation and interview to try to understand the transformation of rural social relations network under the influence of earthquake and its impact on rural space. It has found that rural societies under the earthquake generally experienced three phases: the break of stable social relations, the transition of temporary non-normal state, and the reorganization of social networks. The connotation of phased rural social relations also changed accordingly: turn to a new division of labor on the social orientation, turn to a capital flow and redistribution in new production mode on the capital orientation, and turn to relative decentralization after concentration on the spatial dimension. Along with such changes, rural areas have emerged some social issues such as the alienation of competition in the new industry division, the low social connection, the significant redistribution of capital, and the lack of public space. Based on a comprehensive review of these issues, this paper proposes the corresponding response mechanism. First of all, a reasonable division of labor should be established within the villages to realize diversified commodity supply. Secondly, the villages should adjust the industrial type to promote the equitable participation of capital allocation groups. Finally, external public spaces should be added to strengthen the field of social interaction within the communities.

Keywords: Social relations, social support networks, industrial division, capital allocation, public space.

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Authors: Shaibu Baanni Azumah, William Adzawla

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Rice is an important staple crop, with current demand higher than the domestic supply in Ghana. This has led to a high and unfavourable import bill. Therefore, recent policies and interventions in the agricultural sub-sector aim at promoting various improved agricultural technologies in order to improve domestic production and reduce the importation of rice. In this study, we examined the effect of the adoption of Urea Deep Placement (UDP) technology by rice farmers on the position of the production frontier. This involved 200 farmers selected through a multi stage sampling technique in the Northern region of Ghana. A Cobb-Douglas stochastic frontier model was fitted. The result showed that the adoption of UDP technology shifts the output frontier outward and also move the farmers closer to the frontier. Farmers were also operating under diminishing returns to scale which calls for redress. Other factors that significantly influenced rice production were farm size, labour, use of certified seeds and NPK fertilizer. Although there was an opportunity for improvement, the farmers were highly efficient (92%), compared to previous studies. Farmers’ efficiency was improved through increased education, household size, experience, access to credit, and lack of extension service provision by MoFA. The study recommends the revision of Ghana’s agricultural policy to include the UDP technology. Agricultural Extension officers of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) should be trained on the UDP technology to support IFDC’s drive to improve adoption by rice farmers. Rice farmers are also encouraged to expand their farm lands, improve plant population, and also increase the usage of fertilizer to improve yields. Mechanisms through which credit can be made easily accessible and effectively utilised should be identified and promoted.

Keywords: Efficiency, rice farmers, stochastic frontier, UDP technology.

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Authors: S.F.S. Draman, R. Daik, A. Musa

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Three sulphonic acid-doped polyanilines were synthesized through chemical oxidation at low temperature (0-5 oC) and potential of these polymers as sensing agent for O2 gas detection in terms of fluorescence quenching was studied. Sulphuric acid, dodecylbenzene sulphonic acid (DBSA) and camphor sulphonic acid (CSA) were used as doping agents. All polymers obtained were dark green powder. Polymers obtained were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, ultraviolet-visible absorption spectroscopy, thermogravimetry analysis, elemental analysis, differential scanning calorimeter and gel permeation chromatography. Characterizations carried out showed that polymers were successfully synthesized with mass recovery for sulphuric aciddoped polyaniline (SPAN), DBSA-doped polyaniline (DBSA-doped PANI) and CSA-doped polyaniline (CSA-doped PANI) of 71.40%, 75.00% and 39.96%, respectively. Doping level of SPAN, DBSAdoped PANI and CSA-doped PANI were 32.86%, 33.13% and 53.96%, respectively as determined based on elemental analysis. Sensing test was carried out on polymer sample in the form of solution and film by using fluorescence spectrophotometer. Samples of polymer solution and polymer film showed positive response towards O2 exposure. All polymer solutions and films were fully regenerated by using N2 gas within 1 hour period. Photostability study showed that all samples of polymer solutions and films were stable towards light when continuously exposed to xenon lamp for 9 hours. The relative standard deviation (RSD) values for SPAN solution, DBSA-doped PANI solution and CSA-doped PANI solution for repeatability were 0.23%, 0.64% and 0.76%, respectively. Meanwhile RSD values for reproducibility were 2.36%, 6.98% and 1.27%, respectively. Results for SPAN film, DBSAdoped PANI film and CSA-doped PANI film showed the same pattern with RSD values for repeatability of 0.52%, 4.05% and 0.90%, respectively. Meanwhile RSD values for reproducibility were 2.91%, 10.05% and 7.42%, respectively. The study on effect of the flow rate on response time was carried out using 3 different rates which were 0.25 mL/s, 1.00 mL/s and 2.00 mL/s. Results obtained showed that the higher the flow rate, the shorter the response time.

Keywords: conjugated polymer, doping, fluorescence quenching, oxygen gas.

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Authors: S. Varnagiris, M. Urbonavicius, S. Tuckute, M. Lelis, K. Bockute

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Amongst many water purification techniques, TiO₂ photocatalysis is recognized as one of the most promising sustainable methods. It is known that for photocatalytical applications anatase is the most suitable TiO₂ phase, however heterojunction of anatase/rutile phases could improve the photocatalytical activity of TiO₂ even further. Despite the relative simplicity of TiO₂ different synthesis methods lead to the highly dispersed crystal phases and photocatalytic activity of the corresponding samples. Accordingly, suggestions and investigations of various innovative methods of TiO₂ synthesis are still needed. In this work structural and photocatalytical properties of TiO₂ films deposited by the unconventional method of simultaneous co-sputtering from two magnetrons powered by pulsed-Direct Current (pDC) and Radio Frequency (RF) power sources with negative bias voltage have been studied. More specifically, TiO₂ film thickness, microstructure, surface roughness, crystal structure, optical transmittance and photocatalytical properties were investigated by profilometer, scanning electron microscope, atomic force microscope, X-ray diffractometer and UV-Vis spectrophotometer respectively. The proposed unconventional two magnetron co-sputtering based TiO₂ film formation method showed very promising results for crystalline TiO₂ film formation while keeping process temperatures below 100 °C. XRD analysis revealed that by using proper combination of power source type and bias voltage various TiO₂ phases (amorphous, anatase, rutile or their mixture) can be synthesized selectively. Moreover, strong dependency between power source type and surface roughness, as well as between the bias voltage and band gap value of TiO₂ films was observed. Interestingly, TiO₂ films deposited by two magnetron co-sputtering without bias voltage had one of the highest band gap values between the investigated films but its photocatalytic activity was superior compared to all other samples. It is suggested that this is due to the dominating nanocrystalline anatase phase with various exposed surfaces including photocatalytically the most active {001}.

Keywords: Films, magnetron co-sputtering, photocatalysis, TiO2.

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Authors: Fariba Tadayon, Elmira Hassanlou, Hasan Bagheri, Mostafa Jafarian

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Heavy metals are released into water, plants, soil, and food by natural and human activities. Lead has toxic roles in the human body and may cause serious problems even in low concentrations, since it may have several adverse effects on human. Therefore, determination of lead in different samples is an important procedure in the studies of environmental pollution. In this work, an ultrasonic assisted-ionic liquid based-liquid-liquid microextraction (UA-IL-DLLME) procedure for the determination of lead in zucchini, pomegranate, and lettuce has been established and developed by using flame atomic absorption spectrometer (FAAS). For UA-IL-DLLME procedure, 10 mL of the sample solution containing Pb2+ was adjusted to pH=5 in a glass test tube with a conical bottom; then, 120 μL of 1-Hexyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluoro phosphate (CMIM)(PF6) was rapidly injected into the sample solution with a microsyringe. After that, the resulting cloudy mixture was treated by ultrasonic for 5 min, then the separation of two phases was obtained by centrifugation for 5 min at 3000 rpm and IL-phase diluted with 1 cc ethanol, and the analytes were determined by FAAS. The effect of different experimental parameters in the extraction step including: ionic liquid volume, sonication time and pH was studied and optimized simultaneously by using Response Surface Methodology (RSM) employing a central composite design (CCD). The optimal conditions were determined to be an ionic liquid volume of 120 μL, sonication time of 5 min, and pH=5. The linear ranges of the calibration curve for the determination by FAAS of lead were 0.1-4 ppm with R2=0.992. Under optimized conditions, the limit of detection (LOD) for lead was 0.062 μg.mL-1, the enrichment factor (EF) was 93, and the relative standard deviation (RSD) for lead was calculated as 2.29%. The levels of lead for pomegranate, zucchini, and lettuce were calculated as 2.88 μg.g-1, 1.54 μg.g-1, 2.18 μg.g-1, respectively. Therefore, this method has been successfully applied for the analysis of the content of lead in different food samples by FAAS.

Keywords: Dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction, Central composite design, Food samples, Flame atomic absorption spectrometry.

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Authors: Kinda AlSamara

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The nineteenth century was characterized by major educational reforms in the Arab World. One of the unintended outcomes of colonization in Arab countries was the initiation of women liberation as well as the introduction of modern education and its application in sensitizing people on the rights of women and their liberation. The reforms were often attributed to various undercurrents that took place at different levels within the Ottoman Empire, and particularly the arrival and influence of the Christian missionaries were supported by the American and European governments. These trends were also significantly attributed to the increase in the presence of Europeans in the region, as well as the introduction of secular ideas and approaches related to the meaning of modernity. Using literary analysis as a method, this paper examines the role of an important male figure like the political activist and writer Qāsim Amīn and the religious reformer Muḥammad ʻAbduh in starting this discourse and shows their impact on the emancipation of women movement (Taḥrīr), and how later women led the movement with their published work. This paper explores Arab Salons and the initiation of women’s literary circles. Women from wealthy families in Egypt and Syria who had studied in Europe or interacted with European counterparts began these circles. These salons acted as central locations where people could meet and hold discussions on political, social, and literary trends as they happened each day. The paper concludes with a discussion of current debates between the Islamist and the secularist branches of the movement today. While the Islamists believe that adhering to the core of Islam with some of its contested position on women is a modern ideology of liberation that fits the current culture of modern time Egypt; the secularists argue that the influence that Islam has on the women’s liberation movement in Egypt has been a threat to the natural success and progress of the movement, which was initiated in the early nineteenth century independent of the more recent trends towards religiosity in the country.

Keywords: Educational model, crisis of terminologies, Arab awakening, nineteenth century.

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Authors: Marisa Catarina da Conceição Dinis

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The commercial companies’ management has suffered an important material and legal transformation in the last years, mainly related to the changes in the Portuguese legal framework and because of the fact they were recently object of great expansion. In fact, next to the smaller family businesses, whose management is regularly assumed by partners, companies with social investment highly scattered, whose owners are completely out from administration, are now arising. In those particular cases, the business transactions are much more complex and require from the companies’ managers a highly technical knowledge and some specific professionals’ skills and abilities. This kind of administration carries a high-level risk that can both result in great success or in great losses. Knowing that the administration performance can result in important losses to the companies, the Portuguese legislator has created a legal structure to impute them some responsibilities and sanctions. The main goal of this study is to analyze the Portuguese law and some jurisprudence about companies’ management rules and about the conflicts between the directors and the company. In order to achieve these purposes we have to consider, on the one hand, the legal duties directly connected to the directors’ functions and on the other hand the disrespect for those same rules. The Portuguese law in this matter, influenced by the common law, determines that the directors’ attitude should be guided by loyalty and honesty. Consequently, we must reflect in which cases the administrators should respond to losses that they might cause to companies as a result of their duties’ disrespect. In this way is necessary to study the business judgment rule wich is a rule that refers to a liability exclusion rule. We intend, in the same way, to evaluate if the civil liability that results from the directors’ duties disrespect can extend itself to those who have elected them ignoring or even knowing that they don´t have the necessary skills or appropriate knowledge to the position they hold. To charge directors’, without ruining entrepreneurship, charging, in the same way, those who select them reinforces the need for more responsible and cautious attitudes which will lead consequently to more confidence in the markets.

Keywords: Duty of loyalty, duty of care, business judgment rule, civil liability of directors.

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Authors: Daniele Losanno, Giorgio Serino

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This paper focuses on parametric analysis of reinforced concrete structures equipped with supplemental damping braces. Practitioners still luck sufficient data for current design of damper added structures and often reduce the real model to a pure damper braced structure even if this assumption is neither realistic nor conservative. In the present study, the damping brace is modelled as made by a linear supporting brace connected in series with the viscous/hysteretic damper. Deformation capacity of existing structures is usually not adequate to undergo the design earthquake. In spite of this, additional dampers could be introduced strongly limiting structural damage to acceptable values, or in some cases, reducing frame response to elastic behavior. This work is aimed at providing useful considerations for retrofit of existing buildings by means of supplemental damping braces. The study explicitly takes into consideration variability of (a) relative frame to supporting brace stiffness, (b) dampers’ coefficient (viscous coefficient or yielding force) and (c) non-linear frame behavior. Non-linear time history analysis has been run to account for both dampers’ behavior and non-linear plastic hinges modelled by Pivot hysteretic type. Parametric analysis based on previous studies on SDOF or MDOF linear frames provide reference values for nearly optimal damping systems design. With respect to bare frame configuration, seismic response of the damper-added frame is strongly improved, limiting deformations to acceptable values far below ultimate capacity. Results of the analysis also demonstrated the beneficial effect of stiffer supporting braces, thus highlighting inadequacy of simplified pure damper models. At the same time, the effect of variable damping coefficient and yielding force has to be treated as an optimization problem.

Keywords: Brace stiffness, dissipative braces, non-linear analysis, plastic hinges, reinforced concrete.

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Authors: Ola Elfmark, Lars M. Bardal, Luca Oggiano, H˚avard Myklebust

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Team pursuit is a relatively new event in international long track speed skating. For a single speed skater the aerodynamic drag will account for up to 80% of the braking force, thus reducing the drag can greatly improve the performance. In a team pursuit the interactions between athletes in near proximity will also be essential, but is not well studied. In this study, systematic measurements of the aerodynamic drag, body posture and relative positioning of speed skaters have been performed in the low speed wind tunnel at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, in order to investigate the aerodynamic interaction between two speed skaters. Drag measurements of static speed skaters drafting, leading, side-by-side, and dynamic drag measurements in a synchronized and unsynchronized movement at different distances, were performed. The projected frontal area was measured for all postures and movements and a blockage correction was performed, as the blockage ratio ranged from 5-15% in the different setups. The static drag measurements where performed on two test subjects in two different postures, a low posture and a high posture, and two different distances between the test subjects 1.5T and 3T where T being the length of the torso (T=0.63m). A drag reduction was observed for all distances and configurations, from 39% to 11.4%, for the drafting test subject. The drag of the leading test subject was only influenced at -1.5T, with the biggest drag reduction of 5.6%. An increase in drag was seen for all side-by-side measurements, the biggest increase was observed to be 25.7%, at the closest distance between the test subjects, and the lowest at 2.7% with ∼ 0.7 m between the test subjects. A clear aerodynamic interaction between the test subjects and their postures was observed for most measurements during static measurements, with results corresponding well to recent studies. For the dynamic measurements, the leading test subject had a drag reduction of 3% even at -3T. The drafting showed a drag reduction of 15% when being in a synchronized (sync) motion with the leading test subject at 4.5T. The maximal drag reduction for both the leading and the drafting test subject were observed when being as close as possible in sync, with a drag reduction of 8.5% and 25.7% respectively. This study emphasize the importance of keeping a synchronized movement by showing that the maximal gain for the leading and drafting dropped to 3.2% and 3.3% respectively when the skaters are in opposite phase. Individual differences in technique also appear to influence the drag of the other test subject.

Keywords: Aerodynamic interaction, drag cycle, drag force, frontal area, speed skating.

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Authors: Cheima Ben Soltane, Ittansa Yonas Kelbesa

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Speaker Identification (SI) is the task of establishing identity of an individual based on his/her voice characteristics. The SI task is typically achieved by two-stage signal processing: training and testing. The training process calculates speaker specific feature parameters from the speech and generates speaker models accordingly. In the testing phase, speech samples from unknown speakers are compared with the models and classified. Even though performance of speaker identification systems has improved due to recent advances in speech processing techniques, there is still need of improvement. In this paper, a Closed-Set Tex-Independent Speaker Identification System (CISI) based on a Multiple Classifier System (MCS) is proposed, using Mel Frequency Cepstrum Coefficient (MFCC) as feature extraction and suitable combination of vector quantization (VQ) and Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) together with Expectation Maximization algorithm (EM) for speaker modeling. The use of Voice Activity Detector (VAD) with a hybrid approach based on Short Time Energy (STE) and Statistical Modeling of Background Noise in the pre-processing step of the feature extraction yields a better and more robust automatic speaker identification system. Also investigation of Linde-Buzo-Gray (LBG) clustering algorithm for initialization of GMM, for estimating the underlying parameters, in the EM step improved the convergence rate and systems performance. It also uses relative index as confidence measures in case of contradiction in identification process by GMM and VQ as well. Simulation results carried out on voxforge.org speech database using MATLAB highlight the efficacy of the proposed method compared to earlier work.

Keywords: Feature Extraction, Speaker Modeling, Feature Matching, Mel Frequency Cepstrum Coefficient (MFCC), Gaussian mixture model (GMM), Vector Quantization (VQ), Linde-Buzo-Gray (LBG), Expectation Maximization (EM), pre-processing, Voice Activity Detection (VAD), Short Time Energy (STE), Background Noise Statistical Modeling, Closed-Set Tex-Independent Speaker Identification System (CISI).

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Authors: A.H. Sajedipoor, N. Hedayat , M. Mashal, R. Nazarzadeh

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Sedimentation formation is a complex hydraulic phenomenon that has emerged as a major operational and maintenance consideration in modern hydraulic engineering in general and river engineering in particular. Sediments accumulation along the river course and their eventual storage in a form of islands affect water intake in the canal systems that are fed by the storage reservoirs. Without proper management, sediment transport can lead to major operational challenges in water distribution system of arid regions like the Dez and Hamidieh command areas. The paper aims to investigate sedimentation in the Western Canal of Dez Diversion Weir using the SHARC model and compare the results with the two intake structures of the Hamidieh dam in Iran using SSIIM model. The objective was to identify the factors which influence the process, check reliability of outcome and provide ways in which to mitigate the implications on operation and maintenance of the structures. Results estimated sand and silt bed loads concentrations to be 193 ppm and 827ppm respectively. This followed ,ore or less similar pattern in Hamidieh where the sediment formation impeded water intake in the canal system. Given the available data on average annual bed loads and average suspended sediment loads of 165ppm and 837ppm in the Dez, there was a significant statistical difference (16%) between the sand grains, whereas no significant difference (1.2%) was find in the silt grain sizes. One explanation for such finding being that along the 6 Km river course there was considerable meandering effects which explains recent shift in the hydraulic behavior along the stream course under investigation. The sand concentration in downstream relative to present state of the canal showed a steep descending curve. Sediment trapping on the other hand indicated a steep ascending curve. These occurred because the diversion weir was not considered in the simulation model. The comparative study showed very close similarities in the results which explains the fact that both software can be used as accurate and reliable analytical tools for simulation of the sedimentation in hydraulic engineering.

Keywords: SHARC, SSIIM, sedimentation, Dez diversion weir, Hamidieh dam, Intake structures

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Authors: Appanah Rao Appadu, Muhammad Zaid Dauhoo

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In this paper, we have combined some spatial derivatives with the optimised time derivative proposed by Tam and Webb in order to approximate the linear advection equation which is given by = 0. Ôêé Ôêé + Ôêé Ôêé x f t u These spatial derivatives are as follows: a standard 7-point 6 th -order central difference scheme (ST7), a standard 9-point 8 th -order central difference scheme (ST9) and optimised schemes designed by Tam and Webb, Lockard et al., Zingg et al., Zhuang and Chen, Bogey and Bailly. Thus, these seven different spatial derivatives have been coupled with the optimised time derivative to obtain seven different finite-difference schemes to approximate the linear advection equation. We have analysed the variation of the modified wavenumber and group velocity, both with respect to the exact wavenumber for each spatial derivative. The problems considered are the 1-D propagation of a Boxcar function, propagation of an initial disturbance consisting of a sine and Gaussian function and the propagation of a Gaussian profile. It is known that the choice of the cfl number affects the quality of results in terms of dissipation and dispersion characteristics. Based on the numerical experiments solved and numerical methods used to approximate the linear advection equation, it is observed in this work, that the quality of results is dependent on the choice of the cfl number, even for optimised numerical methods. The errors from the numerical results have been quantified into dispersion and dissipation using a technique devised by Takacs. Also, the quantity, Exponential Error for Low Dispersion and Low Dissipation, eeldld has been computed from the numerical results. Moreover, based on this work, it has been found that when the quantity, eeldld can be used as a measure of the total error. In particular, the total error is a minimum when the eeldld is a minimum.

Keywords: Optimised time derivative, dissipation, dispersion, cfl number, Nomenclature: k : time step, h : spatial step, β :advection velocity, r: cfl/Courant number, hkrβ= , w =θ, h : exact wave number, n :time level, RPE : Relative phase error per unit time step, AFM :modulus of amplification factor

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Authors: Chuang-Hung Lin, Cheng-Yuan Hsu, Jia-Yan Lin

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It is an indispensible strategy to adopt greenery approach on architectural bases so as to improve ecological habitats, decrease heat-island effect, purify air quality, and relieve surface runoff as well as noise pollution, all of which are done in an attempt to achieve sustainable environment. How we can do with plant design to attain the best visual quality and ideal carbon dioxide fixation depends on whether or not we can appropriately make use of greenery according to the nature of architectural bases. To achieve the goal, it is a need that architects and landscape architects should be provided with sufficient local references. Current greenery studies focus mainly on the heat-island effect of urban with large scale. Most of the architects still rely on people with years of expertise regarding the adoption and disposition of plantation in connection with microclimate scale. Therefore, environmental design, which integrates science and aesthetics, requires fundamental research on landscape environment technology divided from building environment technology. By doing so, we can create mutual benefits between green building and the environment. This issue is extremely important for the greening design of the bases of green buildings in cities and various open spaces. The purpose of this study is to establish plant selection and allocation strategies under different building sunshade levels. Initially, with the shading of sunshine on the greening bases as the starting point, the effects of the shades produced by different building types on the greening strategies were analyzed. Then, by measuring the PAR (photosynthetic active radiation), the relative DLI (daily light integral) was calculated, while the DLI Map was established in order to evaluate the effects of the building shading on the established environmental greening, thereby serving as a reference for plant selection and allocation. The discussion results were to be applied in the evaluation of environment greening of greening buildings and establish the “right plant, right place” design strategy of multi-level ecological greening for application in urban design and landscape design development, as well as the greening criteria to feedback to the eco-city greening buildings.

Keywords: Daily light integral, plant design, urban open space.

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