Search results for: Natural ventilation strategies

Authors: Ákos Malatinszky, Szilvia Ádám

Abstract:

Climate change causes severe effects on natural habitats, especially wetlands. These challenges require the adaptation of their management to probable effects of climate change. A compilation of necessary changes in land management was collected in a Hungarian area being both national park and Natura 2000 SAC and SCI site in favor of increasing the resilience and reducing vulnerability. Several factors, such as ecological aspects, nature conservation and climatic adaptation should be combined with social and economic factors during the process of developing climate change adapted management on vulnerable wetlands. Planning adaptive management should be determined by a priority order of conservation aims and evaluation of factors at the determined planning unit. Mowing techniques, frequency and exact date should be observed as well as grazing species and their breed, due to different grazing, group forming and trampling habits. Integrating landscape history and historical land development into the planning process is essential.

Keywords: Adaptation, climate change, management, wetland.

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Authors: T. Utarasakul

Abstract:

Amphawa is the most popular weekend destination for both domestic and international tourists in Thailand. More than 112 homestays and resorts have been developed along the water resources. This research aims to initiate appropriate environmental management system for riverside tourist accommodations in Amphawa by investigating current environmental characteristics. Eighty-eight riverside tourist accommodations were survey from specific questionnaire, GPS data were also gathered for spatial analysis. The results revealed that the accommodations are welled manage in regards to some environmental aspects. In order to reduce economic costs, energy efficiency equipment is utilized. A substantial number of tourist accommodations encouraged waste separation, followed by transfer to local administration organization. Grease traps also utilized in order to decrease chemical discharged, grease and oil from canteen and restaurants on natural environment. The most notable mitigation is to initiate environmental friendly cleansers for tourist accommodation along the riverside in tourism destinations.

Keywords: Environmental Management System, Tourist Accommodations, Amphawa, Samut Songkram

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Authors: Ágoston Winkler, Sándor Juhász

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The localization of software products is essential for reaching the users of the international market. An important task for this is the translation of the user interface into local national languages. As graphical interfaces are usually optimized for the size of the texts in the original language, after the translation certain user controls (e.g. text labels and buttons in dialogs) may grow in such a manner that they slip above each other. This not only causes an unpleasant appearance but also makes the use of the program more difficult (or even impossible) which implies that the arrangement of the controls must be corrected subsequently. The correction should preserve the original structure of the interface (e.g. the relation of logically coherent controls), furthermore, it is important to keep the nicely proportioned design: the formation of large empty areas should be avoided. This paper describes an algorithm that automatically rearranges the controls of a graphical user interface based on the principles above. The algorithm has been implemented and integrated into a translation support system and reached results pleasant for the human eye in most test cases.

Keywords: Graphical user interface, GUI, natural languages, software localization, translation support systems.

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Authors: Roozbeh Molavi, Davood A. Khaburi

Abstract:

The permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) is very useful in many applications. Vector control of PMSM is popular kind of its control. In this paper, at first an optimal vector control for PMSM is designed and then results are compared with conventional vector control. Then, it is assumed that the measurements are noisy and linear quadratic Gaussian (LQG) methodology is used to filter the noises. The results of noisy optimal vector control and filtered optimal vector control are compared to each other. Nonlinearity of PMSM and existence of inverter in its control circuit caused that the system is nonlinear and time-variant. With deriving average model, the system is changed to nonlinear time-invariant and then the nonlinear system is converted to linear system by linearization of model around average values. This model is used to optimize vector control then two optimal vector controls are compared to each other. Simulation results show that the performance and robustness to noise of the control system has been highly improved.

Keywords: Kalman filter, Linear quadratic Gaussian (LQG), Linear quadratic regulator (LQR), Permanent-Magnet synchronousmotor (PMSM).

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Authors: Mohammad Amin Safi, Mahmud Ashrafizaadeh, Amir Ali Ashrafizaadeh

Abstract:

A highly optimized implementation of binary mixture diffusion with no initial bulk velocity on graphics processors is presented. The lattice Boltzmann model is employed for simulating the binary diffusion of oxygen and nitrogen into each other with different initial concentration distributions. Simulations have been performed using the latest proposed lattice Boltzmann model that satisfies both the indifferentiability principle and the H-theorem for multi-component gas mixtures. Contemporary numerical optimization techniques such as memory alignment and increasing the multiprocessor occupancy are exploited along with some novel optimization strategies to enhance the computational performance on graphics processors using the C for CUDA programming language. Speedup of more than two orders of magnitude over single-core processors is achieved on a variety of Graphical Processing Unit (GPU) devices ranging from conventional graphics cards to advanced, high-end GPUs, while the numerical results are in excellent agreement with the available analytical and numerical data in the literature.

Keywords: Lattice Boltzmann model, Graphical processing unit, Binary mixture diffusion, 2D flow simulations, Optimized algorithm.

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Authors: Khan Farhan Rafat, M. Junaid Hussain

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Seamless modification of an entity for the purpose of hiding a message of significance inside its substance in a manner that the embedding remains oblivious to an observer is known as steganography. Together with today's pervasive registering frameworks, steganography has developed into a science that offers an assortment of strategies for stealth correspondence over the globe that must, however, need a critical appraisal from security breach standpoint. Microsoft Word is amongst the preferably used word processing software, which comes as a part of the Microsoft Office suite. With a user-friendly graphical interface, the richness of text editing, and formatting topographies, the documents produced through this software are also most suitable for stealth communication. This research aimed not only to epitomize the fundamental concepts of steganography but also to expound on the utilization of Microsoft Word document as a carrier for furtive message exchange. The exertion is to examine contemporary message hiding schemes from security aspect so as to present the explorative discoveries and suggest enhancements which may serve a wellspring of information to encourage such futuristic research endeavors.

Keywords: Hiding information in plain sight, stealth communication, oblivious information exchange, conceal, steganography.

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Authors: C. D. Papanikolaou, V. A. Giouvanis, E. A. Karatasiou, D. S. Dimakas, M. A. Sakellariou-Makrantonaki

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Irrigation is one of the most important cultivation practices for each crop, especially in areas where rainfall is enough to cover the crop water needs. In such areas, the farmers must irrigate in order to achieve high economical results. The precise irrigation scheduling contributes to irrigation water saving and thus a valuable natural resource is protected. Under this point of view, in the experimental field of the Laboratory of Agricultural Hydraulics of the University of Thessaly, a research was conducted during the growing season of 2012 in order to evaluate the growth, seed and oil production of sunflower as well as the water saving, by applying different methods of irrigation scheduling. Three treatments in four replications were organized. These were: a) surface drip irrigation where the irrigation scheduling based on the Penman-Monteith (PM) method (control); b) surface drip irrigation where the irrigation scheduling based on a soil moisture sensor (SMS); and c) surface drip irrigation, where the irrigation scheduling based on a soil potential sensor (WM).

Keywords: Irrigation scheduling, soil moisture sensors, sustainable agriculture, water saving.

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Authors: A. López–Vásquez, D. Santamaría, M. Tibatá, C. Gómez

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A study concerning the photocatalytic decolourization of Congo red (CR) dye, over artificial UV irradiation is presented. Photocatalysts based on a commercial titanium dioxide (TiO2) modified with transition metals (Ni, Cu and Zn) were used. The dopage method used was wet impregnation. A TiO2 sample without salt was subjected to the same hydrothermal treatment to be used as reference. Congo red solutions to several pH conditions (natural and basic) were used to evaluate photocatalytic performance of each doped catalysts. Photodecolourization percentage was measured spectrofotrometically after 3 h of treatment to 499 nm as response variable. Kinetics investigations of photodegradation indicated that reactions obey to Langmuir-Hinshelwood model and pseudo–first order law. The rate constant studies of photocatalytic decolourization reactions for Zn–TiO2 and Cu–TiO2 photocatalysts indicated that in all cases the rate constant of the reaction was higher than that of TiO2 undoped. These results show that nature of the metal modifying the TiO2 influence on the efficiency of the photocatalyst evaluated in process. Ni does not present an additional effect compared with TiO2, while Zn enhances the photoactivity due to its electronic properties.

Keywords: Congo red, Dopage, Photodecolourization, Titanium dioxide.

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Authors: Sevil Yucel, Zafer Omer Ozdemir, Cem Kesgin, Pinar Terzioglu, Simten Unlu, Yagmur Erdogan, Kubra Pusat

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Chitosan is an attractive polysaccharide obtained by deacetylation of an abundant natural biopolymer called chitin. Chitin and chitosan are excellent materials. To improve the potential of chitin and chitosan modification is needed. In the present study, grafting of maleic acid on to chitosan by cerium ammonium nitrate in acetic acid solution was investigated with use of a microwave and reflux system. The grafted chitosan was characterized by using a Fourier-transform infrared spectrometry. The solubility and swelling behavior of grafted chitosans were determined in acetate buffer (pH 3.6), citrophosphate buffer (pH 5.6 and pH 7.0), and boric buffer (pH 9.2) solutions. The sample obtained by microwave system with use of a chitosan/maleic anhydride/ceric ammonium nitrate 0.2/3.922/0.99 gram of raw material within 30 minute showed the maximum swelling ratio (13.6) in boric buffer solution.

Keywords: Chitosan, cytotoxicity, grafted, maleic acid, swell.

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Authors: Hakan Gürkan, Ahmet Denker

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The Ministry of Defense (MoD) spends hundreds of millions of dollars on software to support its infrastructure, operate its weapons and provide command, control, communications, computing, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) functions. These and other all new advanced systems have a common critical component is information technology. Defense and Aerospace environment is continuously striving to keep up with increasingly sophisticated Information Technology (IT) in order to remain effective in today-s dynamic and unpredictable threat environment. This makes it one of the largest and fastest growing expenses of Defense. Hundreds of millions of dollars spent a year on IT projects. But, too many of those millions are wasted on costly mistakes. Systems that do not work properly, new components that are not compatible with old once, trendily new applications that do not really satisfy defense needs or lost though poorly managed contracts. This paper investigates and compiles the effective strategies that aim to end exasperation with low returns and high cost of Information Technology Acquisition for defense; it tries to show how to maximize value while reducing time and expenditure.

Keywords: Iterative Process, Acquisition Management, Project management, Software Economics, Requirement analysis.

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Authors: Ahmad Yame, Ahad Ali, Badih Jawad, Daw Al-Werfalli Mohamed Nasser, Sabah Abro

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Industries in general have a lot of waste. Wool textile company, Baniwalid, Libya has many complex problems that led to enormous waste generated due to the lack of lean strategies, expertise, technical support and commitment. To successfully address waste at wool textile company, this study will attempt to develop a methodical approach that integrates lean manufacturing tools to optimize performance characteristics such as lead time and delivery. This methodology will utilize Value Stream Mapping (VSM) techniques to identify the process variables that affect production. Once these variables are identified, Design of Experiments (DOE) Methodology will be used to determine the significantly influential process variables, these variables are then controlled and set at their optimal to achieve optimal levels of productivity, quality, agility, efficiency and delivery to analyze the outputs of the simulation model for different lean configurations. The goal of this research is to investigate how the tools of lean manufacturing can be adapted from the discrete to the continuous manufacturing environment and to evaluate their benefits at a specific industrial.

Keywords: Lean manufacturing, DOE, value stream mapping, textiles.

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Authors: Wajeeh Daher, Nimer Baya'a

Abstract:

High Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) are suggested today as essential for the cognitive development of students and as preparing them for real life skills. Teachers are encouraged to use HOTS activities in the classroom to help their students develop higher order skills and deep thinking. So it is essential to prepare preservice teachers to write and use HOTS activities for their students. This paper describes a model for integrating HOTS activities with GeoGebra in pre-service teachers’ preparation. This model describes four aspects of HOTS activities and working with them: activity components, preparation procedure, strategies and processes used in writing a HOTS activity and types of the HOTS activities. In addition, the paper describes the pre-service teachers' difficulties in preparing and working with HOTS activities, as well as their perceptions regarding the use of these activities and GeoGebra in the mathematics classroom. The paper also describes the contribution of a HOTS activity to pupils' learning of mathematics, where this HOTS activity was prepared and taught by one pre-service teacher.

Keywords: Higher order thinking, HOTS activities, pre-service teachers, teachers' preparation.

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Authors: Rizwan Hameed, Obaidullah Nadeem

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Master plan is a tool to guide and manage the growth of cities in a planned manner. The soul of a master plan lies in its implementation framework. If not implemented, people are trapped in a mess of urban problems and laissez-faire development having serious long term repercussions. Unfortunately, Master Plans prepared for several major cities of Pakistan could not be fully implemented due to host of reasons and Lahore is no exception. Being the second largest city of Pakistan with a population of over 7 million people, Lahore holds the distinction that the first ever Master Plan in the country was prepared for this city in 1966. Recently in 2004, a new plan titled `Integrated Master Plan for Lahore-2021- has been approved for implementation. This paper provides a comprehensive account of the weaknesses and constraints in the plan preparation process and implementation strategies of Master Plans prepared for Lahore. It also critically reviews the new Master Plan particularly with respect to the proposed implementation framework. The paper discusses the prospects and pre-conditions for successful implementation of the new Plan in the light of historic analysis, interviews with stakeholders and the new institutional context under the devolution plan.

Keywords: City District Government, Implementation of plan, Lahore Development Authority, Master Planning.

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Authors: F. Bamdad, Sh. Dokhani, J. Keramat, R. Zareie

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Biologically active peptides are of particular interest in food science and human nutrition because they have been shown to play several physiological roles. In vitro gastrointestinal digestion of lentil and whey proteins in this study produced high angiotensin-I converting enzyme inhibitory activity with 75.5±1.9 and 91.4±2.3% inhibition, respectively. High ACE inhibitory activity was observed in lentil after 5 days of germination (84.3±1.2%). Fractionation by reverse phase chromatography gave inhibitory activities as high as 86.3±2.0 for lentil, 94.8±1.8% for whey and 93.7±1.7% at 5th day of germination. Further purification by HPLC resulted in several inhibitory peptides with IC50 values ranging from 0.064 to 0.164 mg/ml. These results demonstrate that lentil proteins are a good source of peptides with ACE inhibitory activity that can be released by germination or gastrointestinal digestion. Despite the lower bioactivity in comparison with whey proteins, incorporation of lentil proteins in functional food formulations and natural drugs look promising.

Keywords: ACE inhibitory peptides, digestion, germination, lentil proteins, whey proteins

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Authors: T. Utarasakul, W. Chomsopha, W. Panrod

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This study aims to initiate sustainable water management for tourist accommodations in Amphawa, Samut Songkram Province, Thailand. Wastewater generated by tourist accommodation was conducted in 10 homestays and resorts in Amphawa during August – October, 2011. The prominent parameters which are of pH, Dissolved Oxygen (DO), Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD), Fat Oil and Grease (FOG), Nitrate (No3-), and Phosphate (PO43-) were conducted monthly. The results revealed that some parameters were over national water quality standard (Class II). Especially, 90% of tourist accommodations have been recorded that FOG was over the standard of wastewater quality from accommodation (group I: total room of accommodation less than 200 rooms). Therefore, grease trap and natural treatment should be utilized in tourist accommodations in order to reduce the discharged of fat, oil, and grease from tourism activities. In addition, number of tourists also relate statistically with BOD and Nitrate at 0.05 level of significance.

Keywords: Sustainable Water Management, Tourist Accommodations, Environmental Protection, Samut Songkram

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Authors: Chutima Ruanguttamanun

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Despite the relatively large number of studies that have examined the use of appeals in advertisements, research on the use of appeals in green advertisements is still underdeveloped and needs to be investigated further, as it is definitely a tool for marketers to create illustrious ads. In this study, content analysis was employed to examine the nature of green advertising appeals and to match the appeals with the green advertisements. Two different types of green print advertisings, product orientation and organizational image orientation were used. Thirty highly educated participants with different backgrounds were asked individually to ascertain three appeals out of thirty-four given appeals found among forty real green advertisements. To analyze participant responses and to group them based on common appeals, two-step K-mean clustering is used. The clustering solution indicates that eye-catching graphics and imaginative appeals are highly notable in both types of green ads. Depressed, meaningful and sad appeals are found to be highly used in organizational image orientation ads, whereas, corporate image, informative and natural appeals are found to be essential for product orientation ads.

Keywords: Advertising appeals, green marketing, green advertisement, printed advertisement.

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Authors: Sheila R. Bonito

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This study describes the relationship between motivation factors and academic performance among distance education students enrolled in a postgraduate nursing course. Students (n=96) participated in a survey that assesses student's motivational orientations from a cognitive perspective using a selfadministered questionnaire based on Pintrich-s Motivation Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MLSQ). Results showed students- motivational factors are highest on task value (6.44, 0.71); followed by intrinsic goal orientation (6.20, 0.76), control beliefs (6.02, 0.89); extrinsic goal orientation (5.85, 1.13); self-efficacy for learning and performance (5.62, 0.84), and finally, test anxiety (4.21, 1.37). Weak positive correlations were found between academic performance and intrinsic goal orientation (r=0.13), extrinsic goal orientation (r=0.04), task value (r=0.09), control beliefs (r=0.02), and self-efficacy (r=0.05), while there was weak negative correlation with test anxiety (r=-0.04). Conclusions from the study indicate the need to focus on improving tasks and targeting intrinsic goal orientations of students to courses since these were positively correlated with academic performance and downplay the use of tests since these were negatively correlated with academic performance.

Keywords: Motivation factors, academic performance, distance education

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Authors: Sirilak Namwong , Wonnop Visessanguan, Soottawat Benjakul, Somboon Tanasupawat

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The halophilic proteinase showed a maximal activity at 50°C and pH 9~10, in 20% NaCl and was highly stabilized by NaCl. It was able to hydrolyse natural actomyosin (NAM), collagen and anchovy protein. For NAM hydrolysis, the myosin heavy chain was completely digested by halophilic proteinase as evidenced by the lowest band intensity remaining, but partially hydrolysed actin. The SR5-3 proteinase was also capable hydrolyzing two major components of collagen, β- and α-compounds, effectively. The degree of hydrolysis (DH) of the halophilic proteinase and commercial proteinases (Novozyme, Neutrase, chymotrypsin and Flavourzyme) on the anchovy protein, were compared, and it was found that the proteinase showed a greater degree of hydrolysis towards anchovy protein than that from commercial proteinases. DH of halophilic proteinase was sharply enhanced according to the increase in the concentration of enzyme from 0.035 U to 0.105 U. The results warranting that the acceleration of the production of fish sauce with higher quality, may be achieved by adding of the halophilic proteinase from this bacterium.

Keywords: Halophilic proteinase, Halobacillus sp. SR5-3, anchovy (Spolephorus spp.) proteins, fish sauce

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Authors: A. Moussouni, L. Mouzai, M. Bouhadef

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The purpose of this investigation is to relate the rain power and the overland flow power to soil erodibility to assess the effects of both parameters on soil erosion using variable rainfall intensity on remoulded agricultural soil. Six rainfall intensities were used to simulate the natural rainfall and are as follows: 12.4mm/h, 20.3mm/h, 28.6mm/h, 52mm/h, 73.5mm/h and 103mm/h. The results have shown that the relationship between overland flow power and rain power is best represented by a linear function (R2=0.99). As regards the relationships between soil erodibility factor and rain and overland flow powers, the evolution of both parameters with the erodibility factor follow a polynomial function with high coefficient of determination. From their coefficients of determination (R2=0.95) for rain power and (R2=0.96) for overland flow power, we can conclude that the flow has more power to detach particles than rain. This could be explained by the fact that the presence of particles, already detached by rain and transported by the flow, give the flow more weight and then contribute to the detachment of particles by collision.

Keywords: Laboratory experiments, soil erosion, flow power, erodibility, rainfall intensity.

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Authors: Frantisek Bozek, Alexandr Bozek, Alena Bumbova, Jiri Dvorak, Lenka Jesonkova

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The contamination of 15 ground water resources of a selected region earmarked for the emergency supply of population has been monitored. The resources have been selected on the basis of previous assessment of natural conditions and the exploitation of territory in their surroundings and infiltration area. Two resources out of 15 have been excluded from further exploitation, because they have not met some of the 72 assessed hygienic indicators of extended analysis. The remaining 13 resources have been the subject of health risk analysis in relation to the contamination by arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury, nickel and manganese. The risk analysis proved that all 13 resources meet health standards with regard to the above mentioned purposefully selected elements and may thus be included into crisis plans. Water quality of ground resources may be assessed in the same way with regard to other contaminants.

Keywords: Contamination, drinking water, emergency supply, health risk, hygienic limits, metals, risk assessment.

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Authors: Bilgehan Gültekin, Tuba Gültekin

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Universities have an important role in social education in many aspects. In terms of creating awareness and convincing public about social issues, universities take a leading position for public. The best way to provide public support for social education is to develop public communication campaigns. The aim of this study is to present a public communication model which will be guided in social education practices. The study titled “Importance of public communication campaigns and art activities in Social Education “is based on the following topics: Effects of public communication campaigns on social education, Public relations techniques for education, communication strategies, Steps of public relations campaigns in social education, making persuasive messages for public communication campaigns, developing artistic messages and organizing art activities in social education. In addition to these topics, media planning for social education, forming a team as campaign managers, dialogues with opinion leaders in education and preparing creative communication models for social education will be taken into consideration. This study also aims to criticize social education Case studies in Turkey. At the same time, some communicative methods and principles will be given in the light of communication campaigns within the context of this notice.

Keywords: Art activities in social education, Persuasive communication, Public communication campaigns, Public relations techniques for education

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Authors: Lubna Shaheen

Abstract:

Palestinian cities face the challenges of land scarcity, high population growth rates, rapid urbanization, uneven development and territorial fragmentation. Due to geopolitical constrains and the absence of an effective Palestinian planning institution, urban development in Palestinian cities has not followed any discernable planning scheme. This has led to a number of internal contradictions in the structure of cities, and adversely affected land use, the provision of urban services, and the quality of the living environment. This paper explores these challenges, and the potential that exists for introducing a more sustainable urban development pattern in Palestinian cities. It assesses alternative development approaches with a particular focus on sustainable development, promoting ecodevelopment imperatives, limiting random urbanization, and meeting present and future challenges, including fulfilling the needs of the people and conserving the scarce land and limited natural resources. This paper concludes by offering conceptual proposals and guidelines for promoting sustainable physical development in Palestinian cities.

Keywords: Palestinian Cities, Rapid urbanization, Sustainableurban development.

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Authors: Kemal Comakli, Meryem Terhan

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In this study, the potential of heat recovery from waste flue gas was examined in 60 MW district heating system of a university, and fuel saving was aimed by using the recovered heat in the system as a source again. Various scenarios are intended to make use of waste heat. For this purpose, actual operation data of the system were taken. Besides, the heat recovery units that consist of heat exchangers such as flue gas condensers, economizers or air pre-heaters were designed theoretically for each scenario. Energy analysis of natural gas-fired boiler’s exhaust flue gas in the system, and economic analysis of heat recovery units to predict payback periods were done. According to calculation results, the waste heat loss ratio from boiler flue gas in the system was obtained as average 16%. Thanks to the heat recovery units, thermal efficiency of the system can be increased, and fuel saving can be provided. At the same time, a huge amount of green gas emission can be decreased by installing the heat recovery units.

Keywords: Heat recovery from flue gas, energy analysis of flue gas, economical analysis, payback period.

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Authors: Cheng Seong Khor, Xiao Qi Yeoh

Abstract:

This work concerns the topological optimization problem for determining the optimal petroleum refinery configuration. We are interested in further investigating and hopefully advancing the existing optimization approaches and strategies employing logic propositions to conceptual process synthesis problems. In particular, we seek to contribute to this increasingly exciting area of chemical process modeling by addressing the following potentially important issues: (a) how the formulation of design specifications in a mixed-logical-and-integer optimization model can be employed in a synthesis problem to enrich the problem representation by incorporating past design experience, engineering knowledge, and heuristics; and (b) how structural specifications on the interconnectivity relationships by space (states) and by function (tasks) in a superstructure should be properly formulated within a mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model. The proposed modeling technique is illustrated on a case study involving the alternative processing routes of naphtha, in which significant improvement in the solution quality is obtained.

Keywords: Mixed-integer linear programming (MILP), petroleum refinery, process synthesis, superstructure.

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Authors: Fei Wang, Kaimin Shih

Abstract:

The persistent nature of perfluorochemicals (PFCs) has attracted global concern in recent years. Perfluorooctanesulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoate (PFOA) are the most commonly found PFC compounds, and thus their fate and transport play key roles in PFC distribution in the natural environment. The kinetic behavior of PFOS or PFOA on boehmite consists of a fast adsorption process followed by a slow adsorption process which may be attributed to the slow transport of PFOS or PFOA into the boehmite pore surface. The adsorption isotherms estimated the maximum adsorption capacities of PFOS and PFOA on boehmite as 0.877 μg/m2 and 0.633 μg/m2, with the difference primarily due to their different functional groups. The increase of solution pH led to a moderate decrease of PFOS and PFOA adsorption, owing to the increase of ligand exchange reactions and the decrease of electrostatic interactions. The presence of NaCl in solution demonstrated negative effects for PFOS and PFOA adsorption on boehmite surfaces, with potential mechanisms being electrical double layer compression, competitive adsorption of chloride.

Keywords: PFOS, PFOA, adsorption, electrostatic interaction, ligand exchange

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Authors: Rahim Ada, Mustafa Harmankaya, Sadiye Ayse Celik

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The safflower seed contains about 25-40% solvent extract and 20-33% fiber. It is well known that dietary phospholipids lower serum cholesterol levels effectively. The nutrient composition of safflower seed changes depending on region, soil and genotypes. This research was made by using of six natural selected (A22, A29, A30, C12, E1, F4, G8, G12, J27) and three commercial (Remzibey, Dincer, Black Sun1) varieties of safflower genotypes. The research was conducted on field conditions for two years (2009 and 2010) in randomized complete block design with three replications in Konya-Turkey ecological conditions. Oil contents, mineral contents and their correlations were determined in the research. According to the results, oil content was ranged from 22.38% to 34.26%, while the minerals were in between the following values: 1469, 04-2068.07 mg kg^-1 for Ca, 7.24-11.71 mg kg^-1 for B, 13.29-17.41 mg kg^-1 for Cu, 51.00-79.35 mg kg^-1 for Fe, 3988-6638.34 mg kg^-1 for K, 1418.61-2306.06 mg kg^-1 for Mg, 11.37-17.76 mg kg^-1 for Mn, 4172.33-7059.58 mg kg^-1 for P and 32.60-59.00 mg kg^-1 for Zn. Correlation analysis that was made separately for the commercial varieties and wild lines showed that high level of oil content was negatively affected by all the investigated minerals except for K and Zn in the commercial varieties.

Keywords: Safflower, oil, mineral content, quality.

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Authors: Z. Noranai, M.Z. Md Yusof

Abstract:

Building Sector is the major electricity consumer and it is costly to building owners. Therefore the application of thermal energy storage (TES) has gained attractive to reduce energy cost. Many attractive tariff packages are being offered by the electricity provider to promote TES. The tariff packages offered higher cost of electricity during peak period and lower cost of electricity during off peak period. This paper presented the return of initial investment by implementing a centralized air-conditioning plant integrated with thermal energy storage with partially operation strategies. Building load profile will be calculated hourly according to building specification and building usage trend. TES operation conditions will be designed according to building load demand profile, storage capacity, tariff packages and peak/off peak period. The Payback Period analysis method was used to evaluate economic analysis. The investment is considered a good investment where by the initial cost is recovered less than ten than seven years.

Keywords: building load profile, energy consumption, payback period, thermal energy storage

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Authors: Mansour Nikpour, Mohd Zin kandar, Mohsen Ghasemi, Hossein Fallah

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Over half of the total electricity consumption is used in buildings. Air-conditioning and electric lighting are the two main resources of electricity consumption in high rise buildings. One way to reduce electricity consumption would be to limit heat gain into buildings, therefore reduce the demand for air-conditioning during hot summer months especially in hot regions. On the other hand natural daylight can be used to reduce the use of electricity for artificial lighting. In this paper effective factors on minimizing heat gain and achieving required day light were reviewed .As daylight always accompanied by solar heat gain. Also interactions between heat gain and daylight were discussed through previous studies and equations which are related to heat gain and day lighting especially in high rise buildings. As a result importance of building-s form and its component on energy consumption in buildings were clarified.

Keywords: High rise buildings, energy demand, day lighting, heat gain.

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Authors: Siyao Zhu, Yifang Xu

Abstract:

After natural and man-made disasters, robots can bypass the danger, expedite the search, and acquire unprecedented situational awareness to design rescue plans. Brain-computer interface is a promising option to overcome the limitations of tedious manual control and operation of robots in the urgent search-and-rescue tasks. This study aims to test the feasibility of using electroencephalography (EEG) signals to decode human intentions and detect the level of consensus on robot-provided information. EEG signals were classified using machine-learning and deep-learning methods to discriminate search intentions and agreement perceptions. The results show that the average classification accuracy for intention recognition and consensus assessment is 67% and 72%, respectively, proving the potential of incorporating recognizable users’ bioelectrical responses into advanced robot-assisted systems for emergency response.

Keywords: Consensus assessment, electroencephalogram, EEG, emergency response, human-robot collaboration, intention recognition, search and rescue.

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Authors: Timothée Bligny, Clément Codron, Antoine Estruch, Nicolas Girodet, Clément Ginet

Abstract:

Collateralized Debt Obligations are not as widely used nowadays as they were before 2007 Subprime crisis. Nonetheless there remains an enthralling challenge to optimize cash flows associated with synthetic CDOs. A Gaussian-based model is used here in which default correlation and unconditional probabilities of default are highlighted. Then numerous simulations are performed based on this model for different scenarios in order to evaluate the associated cash flows given a specific number of defaults at different periods of time. Cash flows are not solely calculated on a single bought or sold tranche but rather on a combination of bought and sold tranches. With some assumptions, the simplex algorithm gives a way to find the maximum cash flow according to correlation of defaults and maturities. The used Gaussian model is not realistic in crisis situations. Besides present system does not handle buying or selling a portion of a tranche but only the whole tranche. However the work provides the investor with relevant elements on how to know what and when to buy and sell.

Keywords: Synthetic Collateralized Debt Obligation (CDO), Credit Default Swap (CDS), Cash Flow Optimization, Probability of Default, Default Correlation, Strategies, Simulation, Simplex.

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