Search results for: higher education

Authors: J. Maksimainen, P. Saariluoma, P. Jokivuori

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Corporate social responsibility (CSR) viewpoint have challenged the traditional perception to understand corporations position. Production- and managerial-centred views are expanding towards reference group-centred policies. Consequently, the significance of new kind of knowledge has emerged. In addition to management of the organisation, the idea of CSR emphasises the importance to recognise the value-expectations of operational environment. It is know that management is often well-aware of corporate social responsibilities, but it is less clear how well these high level goals are understood in practical product design and development work. In this study, the apprehension above proved to be real to some degree. While management was very aware of CSR it was less familiar to designers. The outcome shows that it is essential to raise ethical values and issues higher in corporate communication, if it is wished that they materialize also in products.

Keywords: Corporate social responsibility, management, engineering, values.

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Authors: A. Abdedou, K. Bouhadef

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The present study is an analysis of the forced convection heat transfer in porous channel with an oriented jet at the inlet with uniform velocity and temperature distributions. The upper wall is insulated when the bottom one is kept at constant temperature higher than that of the fluid at the entrance. The dynamic field is analysed by the Brinkman-Forchheimer extended Darcy model and the thermal field is traduced by the energy one equation model. The numerical solution of the governing equations is obtained by using the finite volume method. The results mainly concern the effect of Reynolds number, jet angle and thermal conductivity ratio on the flow structure and local and average Nusselt numbers evolutions.

Keywords: Forced convection, oriented confined jet, porous media.

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Authors: Taro Matsuno, Yuta Otani, Ryo Tanaka, Kaori Ikezaki, Hitoshi Yamamoto, Masaru Fujieda, Yoshihisa Ishida

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This paper presents an improvement method of the multiple pitch estimation algorithm using comb filters. Conventionally the pitch was estimated by using parallel -connected comb filters method (PCF). However, PCF has problems which often fail in the pitch estimation when there is the fundamental frequency of higher tone near harmonics of lower tone. Therefore the estimation is assigned to a wrong note when shared frequencies happen. This issue often occurs in estimating octave 3 or more. Proposed method, for solving the problem, estimates the pitch with every harmonic instead of every octave. As a result, our method reaches the accuracy of more than 80%.

Keywords: music transcription, pitch estimation, comb filter, fractional delay

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Authors: An-Shik Yang, Chih-Yung Wen, Chiang-Ho Cheng, Yu-Hsuan Juan

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The objective of this study is to conduct computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations for evaluating the cooling efficacy from vegetation implanted in a public park in the Taipei, Taiwan. To probe the impacts of park renewal by means of adding three pavilions and supplementary green areas on urban microclimates, the simulated results have revealed that the park having a higher percentage of green coverage ratio (GCR) tended to experience a better cooling effect. These findings can be used to explore the effects of different greening modifications on urban environments for achieving an effective thermal comfort in urban public spaces.

Keywords: CFD simulations, green coverage ratio, urban heat island, urban public park.

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Authors: Yu Bin, Zhang Yan

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The prediction of transmembrane helical segments (TMHs) in membrane proteins is an important field in the bioinformatics research. In this paper, a method based on discrete wavelet transform (DWT) has been developed to predict the number and location of TMHs in membrane proteins. PDB coded as 1F88 was chosen as an example to describe the prediction of the number and location of TMHs in membrane proteins by using this method. One group of test data sets that contain total 19 protein sequences was utilized to access the effect of this method. Compared with the prediction results of DAS, PRED-TMR2, SOSUI, HMMTOP2.0 and TMHMM2.0, the obtained results indicate that the presented method has higher prediction accuracy.

Keywords: hydrophobicity, membrane protein, transmembranehelical segments, wavelet transform

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Authors: Muhammad Mujtaba Asad, Razali Bin Hassan, Fahad Sherwani

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This paper explains about the voltage output for DC to DC boost converter between open loop, PID controller and fuzzy logic controller through Matlab Simulink. Simulink input voltage was set at 12V and the voltage reference was set at 24V. The analysis on the deviation of voltage resulted that the difference between reference voltage setting and the output voltage is always lower. Comparison between open loop, PID and FLC shows that, the open loop circuit having a bit higher on the deviation of voltage. The PID circuit boosts for FLC has a lesser deviation of voltage and proved that it is such a better performance on control the deviation of voltage during the boost mode.

Keywords: Boost Convertors, Power Electronics, PID, Fuzzy logic, Open loop.

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Authors: Siau-Chuin Liew, Siau-Way Liew, Jasni Mohd Zain

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Digital watermarking in medical images can ensure the authenticity and integrity of the image. This design paper reviews some existing watermarking schemes and proposes a reversible tamper detection and recovery watermarking scheme. Watermark data from ROI (Region Of Interest) are stored in RONI (Region Of Non Interest). The embedded watermark allows tampering detection and tampered image recovery. The watermark is also reversible and data compression technique was used to allow higher embedding capacity.

Keywords: data compression, medical image, reversible, tamperdetection and recovery, watermark.

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Authors: Chokri Jebali, Noureddine Boulejfen, Ali Gharsallah, Fadhel M. Ghannouchi

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In this paper, a system level behavioural model for RF power amplifier, which exhibits memory effects, and based on multibranch system is proposed. When higher order terms are included, the memory polynomial model (MPM) exhibits numerical instabilities. A set of memory orthogonal polynomial model (OMPM) is introduced to alleviate the numerical instability problem associated to MPM model. A data scaling and centring algorithm was applied to improve the power amplifier modeling accuracy. Simulation results prove that the numerical instability can be greatly reduced, as well as the model precision improved with nonlinear model.

Keywords: power amplifier, orthogonal model, polynomialmodel , memory effects.

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Authors: E. Heikkilä

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The paper discusses European Lifelong Learning policy in the European enlargement to the Balkan. The European Lifelong Learning policy with Human Capital approach is researched in the country case of Macedonia. The paper argues that Human Capital approach focusing on instrumental and economic importance of learning for employability and economic growth needs to be complemented with Capability Approach for intrinsic and noneconomic needs of learning among the ethnic minorities. The paper identifies two dimensions of importance – minority languages and civic education – that the Capability Approach may develop to guarantee equal opportunities to all to benefit from European educational and lifelong learning development and to build an inclusive and socially just democracy in Macedonia.

Keywords: Capability approach, European lifelong learning, human capital theory.

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Authors: Hendrick Maxil Zárate Rocha, Ricardo da Silva Pereira, Manoel Fernandes Martins Nogueira, Carlos R. Pereira Belchior, Maria Emilia de Lima Tostes

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This study investigates experimentally the effects of hydrogen addition in the intake manifold of a diesel generator operating with a 7% biodiesel-diesel oil blend (B7). An experimental apparatus setup was used to conduct performance and emissions tests in a single cylinder, air cooled diesel engine. This setup consisted of a generator set connected to a wirewound resistor load bank that was used to vary engine load. In addition, a flowmeter was used to determine hydrogen volumetric flowrate and a digital anemometer coupled with an air box to measure air flowrate. Furthermore, a digital precision electronic scale was used to measure engine fuel consumption and a gas analyzer was used to determine exhaust gas composition and exhaust gas temperature. A thermopar was installed near the exhaust collection to measure cylinder temperature. In-cylinder pressure was measured using an AVL Indumicro data acquisition system with a piezoelectric pressure sensor. An AVL optical encoder was installed in the crankshaft and synchronized with in-cylinder pressure in real time. The experimental procedure consisted of injecting hydrogen into the engine intake manifold at different mass concentrations of 2,6,8 and 10% of total fuel mass (B7 + hydrogen), which represented energy fractions of 5,15, 20 and 24% of total fuel energy respectively. Due to hydrogen addition, the total amount of fuel energy introduced increased and the generators fuel injection governor prevented any increases of engine speed. Several conclusions can be stated from the test results. A reduction in specific fuel consumption as a function of hydrogen concentration increase was noted. Likewise, carbon dioxide emissions (CO2), carbon monoxide (CO) and unburned hydrocarbons (HC) decreased as hydrogen concentration increased. On the other hand, nitrogen oxides emissions (NOx) increased due to average temperatures inside the cylinder being higher. There was also an increase in peak cylinder pressure and heat release rate inside the cylinder, since the fuel ignition delay was smaller due to hydrogen content increase. All this indicates that hydrogen promotes faster combustion and higher heat release rates and can be an important additive to all kind of fuels used in diesel generators.

Keywords: Diesel engine, hydrogen, dual fuel, combustion analysis, performance, emissions.

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Authors: B. Zvirbule, I. Vilka

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The Baltic States regained independence and started the pathway from command economy to market economy and entered European Union at the same time. Latter internationally recognized evaluations for the countries are diverse. The present diversity of the Baltic States -Economic Development is a subject of interest because of the similarities – all three are small, open economies, countries have similar geographic location and initially likewise historical and political backgrounds. This article explains relationship between social environment, business environment and economic growth. It argues that the elements of social environment underlie more successful economic development. It researches the causes, why Estonia has performed better in economic outcomes and development. The article analyses selection of socio-economic indicators of all three Baltic States – Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia for the time period of ten years to include the influence of economic cycles.

Keywords: Baltic States, economic development, economic growth, level of education, social environment.

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Authors: Amitava Chakraborty, Sudip Kumar De, Ranjan Dasgupta

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Point quad tree is considered as one of the most common data organizations to deal with spatial data & can be used to increase the efficiency for searching the point features. As the efficiency of the searching technique depends on the height of the tree, arbitrary insertion of the point features may make the tree unbalanced and lead to higher time of searching. This paper attempts to design an algorithm to make a nearly balanced quad tree. Point pattern analysis technique has been applied for this purpose which shows a significant enhancement of the performance and the results are also included in the paper for the sake of completeness.

Keywords: Algorithm, Height balanced tree, Point patternanalysis, Point quad tree.

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Authors: László L. Lippai

Abstract:

In addition to the fact that mental health bears great significance to a particular individual, it can also be regarded as an organizational, community and societal resource. Within the Szeged Health Promotion Research Group, we conducted mental health surveys on two levels: The inhabitants of a medium-sized Hungarian town and students of a Hungarian university with a relatively big headcount were requested to participate in surveys whose goals were to define local government priorities and organization-level health promotion programmes, respectively. To facilitate professional decision-making, we defined three, pragmatically relevant, groups of the target population: the mentally healthy, the vulnerable and the endangered. In order to determine which group a person actually belongs to, we designed a simple and quick measurement tool, which could even be utilised as a smoothing method, the Mental State Questionnaire validity of the above three categories was verified by analysis of variance against psychological quality of life variables. We demonstrate the pragmatic significance of our method via the analyses of the scores of our two mental health surveys. On town level, during our representative survey in Hódmezővásárhely (N=1839), we found that 38.7% of the participants was mentally healthy, 35.3% was vulnerable, while 16.3% was considered as endangered. We were able to identify groups that were in a dramatic state in terms of mental health. For example, such a group consisted of men aged 45 to 64 with only primary education qualification and the ratios of the mentally healthy, vulnerable and endangered were 4.5, 45.5 and 50%, respectively. It was also astonishing to see to what a little extent qualification prevailed as a protective factor in the case of women. Based on our data, the female group aged 18 to 44 with primary education—of whom 20.3% was mentally healthy, 42.4% vulnerable and 37.3% was endangered—as well as the female group aged 45 to 64 with university or college degree—of whom 25% was mentally healthy, 51.3 vulnerable and 23.8% endangered—are to be handled as priority intervention target groups in a similarly difficult position. On organizational level, our survey involving the students of the University of Szeged, N=1565, provided data to prepare a strategy of mental health promotion for a university with a headcount exceeding 20,000. When developing an organizational strategy, it was important to gather information to estimate the proportions of target groups in which mental health promotion methods; for example, life management skills development, detection, psychological consultancy, psychotherapy, would be applied. Our scores show that 46.8% of the student participants were mentally healthy, 42.1% were vulnerable and 11.1% were endangered. These data convey relevant information as to the allocation of organizational resources within a university with a considerable headcount. In conclusion, The Mental State Questionnaire, as a valid smoothing method, is adequate to describe a community in a plain and informative way in the terms of mental health. The application of the method can promote the preparation, design and implementation of mental health promotion interventions. 

Keywords: Health promotion, mental health promotion, mental state questionnaire, psychological well-being.

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Authors: Ya-Fen Lee, Yun-Yao Chi, Cing-Hong Hung

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Because of the global warming and the rising sea level, residents living in southwestern coastland, Taiwan are faced with the submerged land and may move to higher elevation area. It is desirable to discuss the key consideration factor for selecting the migration location under five dimensions of ಯ security”, “health”, “convenience”, “comfort” and “socio-economic” based on the document reviews. This paper uses the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) and the questionnaire survey. The analysis results show that the convenience is the most key factor for residents in Taiwan. 

Keywords: Global warming, migration, structural equation modelling, questionnaire survey.

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Authors: Ali Zifan, Sohrab Saberi, Mohammad Hassan Moradi, Farzad Towhidkhah

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Electrocardiogram (ECG) segmentation is necessary to help reduce the time consuming task of manually annotating ECG's. Several algorithms have been developed to segment the ECG automatically. We first review several of such methods, and then present a new single lead segmentation method based on Adaptive piecewise constant approximation (APCA) and Piecewise derivative dynamic time warping (PDDTW). The results are tested on the QT database. We compared our results to Laguna's two lead method. Our proposed approach has a comparable mean error, but yields a slightly higher standard deviation than Laguna's method.

Keywords: Adaptive Piecewise Constant Approximation, Dynamic programming, ECG segmentation, Piecewise Derivative Dynamic Time Warping.

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Authors: Viriyavudh Sim, WooYoung Jung

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Window system in high rise building is occasionally subjected to an excessive wind intensity, particularly during typhoon. The failure of window system did not affect overall safety of structural performance; however, it could endanger the safety of the residents. In this paper, comparison of fragility curves for window system of two residential buildings was studied. The probability of failure for individual window was determined with Monte Carlo Simulation method. Then, lognormal cumulative distribution function was used to represent the fragility. The results showed that windows located on the edge of leeward wall were more susceptible to wind load and the probability of failure for each window panel increased at higher floors.

Keywords: Wind fragility, window system, high rise building.

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Authors: Martin Popescu D. Dana Maria

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The aims of this research are to broaden the study on the relationship between emotional intelligence and counterproductive work behavior (CWB). The study sample consisted in 441 Romanian employees from companies all over the country. Data has been collected through web surveys and processed with SPSS. The results indicated an average correlation between the two constructs and their sub variables, employees with a high level of emotional intelligence tend to be less aggressive. In addition, labeling was considered an individual difference which has the power to influence the level of employee aggression. A regression model was used to underline the importance of emotional intelligence together with labeling as predictors of CWB. Results have shown that this regression model enforces the assumption that labeling and emotional intelligence, taken together, predict CWB. Employees, who label themselves as victims and have a low degree of emotional intelligence, have a higher level of CWB.

Keywords: Aggression, CWB, emotional intelligence, labeling.

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Authors: Sukrit Shankar, Pardha Saradhi K., Chetana Shanta Patsa, Jaydev Sharma

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Fractional Fourier Transform, which is a generalization of the classical Fourier Transform, is a powerful tool for the analysis of transient signals. The discrete Fractional Fourier Transform Hamiltonians have been proposed in the past with varying degrees of correlation between their eigenvectors and Hermite Gaussian functions. In this paper, we propose a new Hamiltonian for the discrete Fractional Fourier Transform and show that the eigenvectors of the proposed matrix has a higher degree of correlation with the Hermite Gaussian functions. Also, the proposed matrix is shown to give better Fractional Fourier responses with various transform orders for different signals.

Keywords: Fractional Fourier Transform, Hamiltonian, Eigen Vectors, Discrete Hermite Gaussians.

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Authors: M. Grifoni, G. Petruzzelli, M. Barbafieri, I. Rosellini, B. Pezzarossa, F. Pedron

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Evapotranspiration (ET) covers are an alternative cover system that utilizes water balance approach to maximize the ET process to reduce the contaminants leaching through the soil profile. Microcosm tests allow to identify in a short time the most suitable plant species to be used as alternative covers, their survival capacity, and simultaneously the transpiration and evaporation rate of the cover in a specific contaminated soil. This work shows the soil characterization and ET results of microcosm tests carried out on two contaminated soils by using Triticum durum and Helianthus annuus species. The data indicated that transpiration was higher than evaporation, supporting the use of plants as alternative cover at this contaminated site.

Keywords: Contaminated sites, ET cover, evapotranspiration, microcosm experiments.

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Authors: F. Nazem, M. Mozaiini, A. Seifi

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The purpose of the present study was to provide a structural model of knowledge management in universities based on organizational climate. The population of the research included all employees of Islamic Azad University (IAU). The sample consisted of 1590 employees selected using stratified and cluster random sampling method. The research instruments were two questionnaires which were administered in 78 IAU branches and education centers: Sallis and Jones’s (2002) Knowledge Management Questionnaire (α= 0.97); and Latwin & Stringer’s (1968) Organizational Climate Questionnaire (α= 0.83). The results of path analysis using LISREL software indicated that dimensions of organizational climate had a direct effect on knowledge management with the indices of 0.94. The model also showed that the factor of support in organizational climate had the highest direct effect on the knowledge management.

Keywords: Knowledge management, Organizational climate, Structural model, Universities.

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Authors: Ioan Rusu

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Let us consider that the entire universe is composed of a single hydrogen atom within which the electron is moving around the proton. In this case, according to classical theories of physics, radiation, photons respectively, should be absorbed by the electron. Depending on the number of photons absorbed, the electron radius of rotation around the proton is established. Until now, the principle of photons absorption by electrons and the electron transition to a new energy level, namely to a higher radius of rotation around the proton, is not clarified in physics. This paper aims to demonstrate that radiation, photons respectively, have mass and negative electrostatic charge similar to electrons but infinitely smaller. The experiments which demonstrate this theory are simple: thermal expansion, photoelectric effect and thermonuclear reaction.

Keywords: Electrostatic, electron, proton, photon, radiation.

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Authors: Abdoullah Fath-Allah, Laila Cheikhi, Rafa E. Al-Qutaish, Ali Idri

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The e-government emerging concept transforms the way in which the citizens are dealing with their governments. Thus, the citizens can execute the intended services online anytime and anywhere. This results in great benefits for both the governments (reduces the number of officers) and the citizens (more flexibility and time saving). Therefore, building a maturity model to assess the egovernment portals becomes desired to help in the improvement process of such portals. This paper aims at proposing an egovernment maturity model based on the measurement of the best practices’ presence. The main benefit of such maturity model is to provide a way to rank an e-government portal based on the used best practices, and also giving a set of recommendations to go to the higher stage in the maturity model.

Keywords: Best practices, e-government portal, maturity model, quality model.

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Authors: S. Youthao, M. Jaroensutasinee, K. Jaroensutasinee

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This study investigated the pattern and seasonal index of influenza cases in Thailand. Our results showed that southern Thailand had the highest influenza incidence among the four regions of Thailand (i.e. north, northeast, central and southern Thailand). The influenza pattern in southern Thailand was similar to that of northeastern Thailand. Seasonal index values of influenza cases in Thailand were higher in the hot season than in the wet season. Influenza cases started to increase at the beginning of the hot season (April), reached a maximum in August, rapidly declined in the middle of the wet season and reached the lowest value in December. Seasonal index values for northern Thailand differed from other regions of Thailand.

Keywords: Influenza, disease index, seasonal index, Thailand.

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Authors: Seyedehzahra Mirrahimi, Nik Lukman Nik Ibrahim, M. Surat

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This paper investigated the impact of ceiling height and window head heights variation on daylighting inside architectural teaching studio with a full width window. In architectural education, using the studio is more than normal classroom in most credit hours. Therefore, window position, size and dimension of studio have direct influence on level of daylighting. Daylighting design is a critical factor that improves student learning, concentration and behavior, in addition to these, it also reduces energy consumption. The methodology of analysis involves using Radiance in IES software under overcast and cloudy sky in Malaysia. It has been established that presentation of daylighting of architecture studio can be enhanced by changing the ceiling heights and window level, because, different ceiling heights and window head heights can contribute to different range of daylight levels.

Keywords: Ceiling height, window head height, daylighting, studio architecture, simulation.

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Authors: Márcia Afonso, Marisa Dinis-Almeida, Cristina Fael

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Climate change, namely precipitation patterns alteration, has led to extreme conditions such as floods and droughts. In turn, excessive construction has led to the waterproofing of the soil, increasing the surface runoff and decreasing the groundwater recharge capacity. The permeable pavements used in areas with low traffic lead to a decrease in the probability of floods peaks occurrence and the sediments reduction and pollutants transport, ensuring rainwater quality improvement. This study aims to evaluate the porous asphalt performance, developed in the laboratory, with addition of cellulosic fibres. One of the main objectives of cellulosic fibres use is to stop binder drainage, preventing its loss during storage and transport. Comparing to the conventional porous asphalt the cellulosic fibres addition improved the porous asphalt performance. The cellulosic fibres allowed the bitumen content increase, enabling retention and better aggregates coating and, consequently, a greater mixture durability. With this solution, it is intended to develop better practices of resilience and adaptation to the extreme climate changes and respond to the sustainability current demands, through the eco-friendly materials use. The mix design was performed for different size aggregates (with fine aggregates – PA1 and with coarse aggregates – PA2). The percentage influence of the fibres to be used was studied. It was observed that overall, the binder drainage decreases as the cellulose fibres percentage increases. It was found that the PA2 mixture obtained most binder drainage relative to PA1 mixture, irrespective of the fibres percentage used. Subsequently, the performance was evaluated through laboratory tests of indirect tensile stiffness modulus, water sensitivity, permeability and permanent deformation. The stiffness modulus for the two mixtures groups (with and without cellulosic fibres) presented very similar values between them. For the water sensitivity test it was observed that porous asphalt containing more fine aggregates are more susceptible to the water presence than mixtures with coarse aggregates. The porous asphalt with coarse aggregates have more air voids which allow water to pass easily leading to ITSR higher values. In the permeability test was observed that asphalt porous without cellulosic fibres presented had lower permeability than asphalt porous with cellulosic fibres. The resistance to permanent deformation results indicates better behaviour of porous asphalt with cellulosic fibres, verifying a bigger rut depth in porous asphalt without cellulosic fibres. In this study, it was observed that porous asphalt with bitumen higher percentages improve the performance to permanent deformation. This fact was only possible due to the bitumen retention by the cellulosic fibres.

Keywords: Binder drainage, cellulosic fibres, permanent deformation, porous asphalt.

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Authors: Yasaman Zeinali, Farid Khosravikia

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This paper presents a multi-objective framework for sustainable urban development. The proposed framework aims to address different aspects of sustainability in urban development planning. These aspects include, but are not limited to education, health, job opportunities, architecture, culture, environment, mobility, energy, water, waste, and so on. Then, the proposed framework is applied to the Brackenridge Tract (an area in downtown Austin, Texas), to redevelop that area in a sustainable way. The detail of the implementation process is presented in this paper. The ultimate goal of this paper is to develop a sustainable area in downtown Austin with ensuring that it locally meets the needs of present and future generations with respect to economic, social, environmental, health as well as cultural aspects. Moreover, it helps the city with the population growth problem by accommodating more people in that area.

Keywords: Environmental impacts of human activities, sustainability, urban planning.

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Authors: M. Seneewong-Na-Ayuttaya, T. Pongprayoon

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The nanofiber sheet of Multiwall Cabon Nanotube (MWCNTs)/Polyacylonitile (PAN) composites was fabricated from electrospun nanofiber. Firstly the surface of MWCNTs was chemically modified, comparing two different techniques consisting of admicellar polymerization and functionalization to improve the dispersion and prevent the aggregation in the PAN matrix. The modified MWCNTs were characterized by the dispersion in dimethylformamide (DMF) solvent, Laser particle size, and FTRaman. Lastly, DSC, SEM and mechanical properties of the nanofiber sheet were examined. The results show that the mechanical properties of the nanofiber sheet prepared from admicellar polymerization-modified MWCNTs were higher than those of the others.

Keywords: Multiwall carbon nanotube, admicellar polymerization, functionalization, nanofiber sheet.

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Authors: Muhammad Nawaz, Sandeep N. Kundu, Farha Sattar

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Augmented reality sandbox adds new dimensions to education and learning process. It can be a core component of geoscience teaching and learning to understand the geographic contexts and landform processes. Augmented reality sandbox is a useful tool not only to create an interactive learning environment through spatial visualization but also it can provide an active learning experience to students and enhances the cognition process of learning. Augmented reality sandbox can be used as an interactive learning tool to teach geomorphic and landform processes. This article explains the augmented reality sandbox and the constructivism approach for geoscience teaching and learning, and endeavours to explore the ways to teach the geographic processes using the three-dimensional digital environment for the deep learning of the geoscience concepts interactively.

Keywords: Augmented Reality Sandbox, constructivism, deep learning, geoscience.

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Authors: R. Usubamatov, Z. A. Rashid

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Simple design of a rotary valve system is capable of controlling intake and exhaust gases, which will eliminate the need of known complex mechanisms. The cost of material and production, maintenance, and noise level of the system can be further reduced. The new mechanism enables the elimination of the overlapping of valves work that reduces gas leakage. This paper examines theoretically the gas flow through the holes of a rotary valve design in a small engine. Preliminary results show that the new gas flow has many positive differences than a conventional poppet-valve system. New dependencies on the gas speed enable the finding of better solutions for the geometry of a rotary valve system that will result in a higher efficiency of an internal-combustion engine of the automotive industry.

Keywords: Gas arrangement, internal combustion engine.

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Authors: Astrid de Leeuw, Pierre Valois

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Environmental education is the key to enhancing or changing students’ ways of thinking and acting in order to create an environmentally robust future for all. The present study investigates the beliefs of 812 primary school students, which merit consideration when developing educational interventions. Results of multiple regression analyses reveal that educational interventions should focus on promoting students’ feelings of control over pro-environmental behaviors (PEB). For example, schools could provide recycling bins on the premises. Furthermore, it is critical to develop positive attitudes in students by stressing the various benefits of PEB for keeping our planet clean and protecting wildlife. Unfortunately, our results indicate that students believe that PEB is boring and annoying. Suggestions are offered for making PEB more interesting and relevant. Further research is needed to test the effectiveness of interventions based on the present results.

Keywords: Pro-environmental behaviors, primary school students, theory of planned behavior, beliefs, educational interventions.

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