Search results for: road construction supply chain.

Authors: N. Ikasari, T. Sumransat, U. Eko, R. Kusumastuti

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Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are regarded as the engine for economic development, notwithstanding their continuous financing conundrum. In the case of developing countries, access to finance is a reflection of the effectiveness of government policy. The widely accepted perspective to assess small businesses’ access to finance is that of economic view. The existing body of literature presents access to finance in three dimensions; they are accessibility, eligibility and affordability. Within this perspective, the role of socio-cultural has not explored. This study is aimed at investigating the existence of any socio-cultural factors within access to finance issue in Asian countries where governance is enriched by countries’ values and beliefs. The significance of this study is the instigation of supplementary dimension to assess access to finance that eventually contributes to the development of micro-finance policy. Indonesia and Thailand are selected as cases in point, where distinction is drawn on the level of cultural diversity and micro-finance policy in respective country. A questionnaire is used to collect information related to the three dimensions of access to finance as well as to explore alternative financing reasoning to elaborate the issue from the demand side. Questionnaires are distributed to 60 small business owners operating in Indonesia and the same number in Thailand. In order to present a complete understanding on the matter at hand, interviews with banks are conducted to capture the perspective as presented by the supply side. Research findings show that small business owners and banks in Indonesia and Thailand are in agreement that access to finance is not deemed as an issue. However, trust issue that exists mutually between financing users and providers leads small business owners in Indonesia to look for alternative financing other than banks. The findings contribute to the refinement of micro-financing policy in Indonesia and Thailand.

Keywords: Access to finance, Indonesia, small and medium enterprises, Thailand.

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Authors: S. Aziz, M. Ali, S. Asghar, S. Ahmed

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Comparing other methods of waste water treatment, constructed wetlands are one of the most fascinating practices because being a natural process they are eco-friendly have low construction and maintenance cost and have considerable capability of wastewater treatment. The current research was focused mainly on comparison of Ranunculus muricatus and Typha latifolia as wetland plants for domestic wastewater treatment by designing and constructing efficient pilot scale horizontal subsurface flow mesocosms. Parameters like chemical oxygen demand, biological oxygen demand, phosphates, sulphates, nitrites, nitrates, and pathogenic indicator microbes were studied continuously with successive treatments. Treatment efficiency of the system increases with passage of time and with increase in temperature. Efficiency of T. latifolia planted setups in open environment was fairly good for parameters like COD and BOD5 which was showing reduction up to 82.5% for COD and 82.6% for BOD5 while DO was increased up to 125%. Efficiency of R. muricatus vegetated setup was also good but lowers than that of T. latifolia planted showing 80.95% removal of COD and BOD5. Ranunculus muricatus was found effective in reducing bacterial count in wastewater. Both macrophytes were found promising in wastewater treatment.

Keywords: Biological oxygen demand, chemical oxygen demand, horizontal subsurface flow, Total suspended solids, Wetland.

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Authors: Yunjia Wang, Zhihong Zhao, Erxiang Song

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Rockfills are widely used in civil engineering, such as dams, railways, and airport foundations in mountain areas. A significant long-term post-construction settlement may affect the serviceability or even the safety of rockfill infrastructures. The creep behavior of rockfills is influenced by a number of factors, such as particle size, strength and shape, water condition and stress level. However, the effect of particle shape on rockfill creep still remains poorly understood, which deserves a careful investigation. Particle-based discrete element method (DEM) was used to simulate the creep behavior of rockfills under different boundary conditions. Both angular and rounded particles were considered in this numerical study, in order to investigate the influence of particle shape. The preliminary results showed that angular particles experience more breakages and larger creep strains under one-dimensional compression than rounded particles. On the contrary, larger creep strains were observed in he rounded specimens in the direct shear test. The mechanism responsible for this difference is that the possibility of the existence of key particle in rounded particles is higher than that in angular particles. The above simulations demonstrate that the influence of particle shape on the creep behavior of rockfills can be simulated by DEM properly. The method of DEM simulation may facilitate our understanding of deformation properties of rockfill materials.

Keywords: Rockfills, creep behavior, particle crushing, discrete element method, boundary conditions.

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Authors: K. Jayakumar, S. Thangavel

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In this paper proposed the effective fault detection of industrial drives by using Biorthogonal Posterior Vibration Signal-Data Probabilistic Wavelet Neural Network (BPPVS-WNN) system. This system was focused to reducing the current flow and to identify faults with lesser execution time with harmonic values obtained through fifth derivative. Initially, the construction of Biorthogonal vibration signal-data based wavelet transform in BPPVS-WNN system localizes the time and frequency domain. The Biorthogonal wavelet approximates the broken bearing using double scaling and factor, identifies the transient disturbance due to fault on induction motor through approximate coefficients and detailed coefficient. Posterior Probabilistic Neural Network detects the final level of faults using the detailed coefficient till fifth derivative and the results obtained through it at a faster rate at constant frequency signal on the industrial drive. Experiment through the Simulink tool detects the healthy and unhealthy motor on measuring parametric factors such as fault detection rate based on time, current flow rate, and execution time.

Keywords: Biorthogonal Wavelet Transform, Posterior Probabilistic Neural Network, Induction Motor.

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Authors: Abtehal Y. Anaas, Mohd. Nazmi Bin Abd. Manap

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Meat Tenderness is one of the most important factors affecting consumers' assessment of meat quality. Variation in meat tenderness is genetically controlled and varies among breeds, and it is also influenced by environmental factors that can affect its creation during rigor mortis and postmortem. The final postmortem meat tenderization relies on the extent of proteolysis of myofibrillar proteins caused by the endogenous activity of the proteolytic calpain system. This calpain system includes different calcium-dependent cysteine proteases, and an inhibitor, calpastatin. It is widely accepted that in farm animals including chickens, the μ-calpain gene (CAPN1) is a physiological candidate gene for meat tenderness. This study aimed to identify the association of single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers in the CAPN1 gene with the tenderness of chicken breast meat from two Malaysian native and commercial broiler breed crosses. Ten, five months old native chickens and ten, 42 days commercial broilers were collected from the local market and breast muscles were removed two hours after slaughter, packed separately in plastic bags and kept at -20ºC for 24 h. The tenderness phenotype for all chickens’ breast meats was determined by Warner-Bratzler Shear Force (WBSF). Thawing and cooking losses were also measured in the same breast samples before using in WBSF determination. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used to identify the previously reported C7198A and G9950A SNPs in the CAPN1 gene and assess their associations with meat tenderness in the two breeds. The broiler breast meat showed lower shear force values and lower thawing loss rates than the native chickens (p<0.05), whereas there were similar in the rates of cooking loss. The study confirms some previous results that the markers CAPN1 C7198A and G9950A were not significantly associated with the variation in meat tenderness in chickens. Therefore, further study is needed to confirm the functional molecular mechanism of these SNPs and evaluate their associations in different chicken populations.

Keywords: CAPNl, chicken, meat tenderness, meat quality, SNPs.

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Authors: Reza Meimandi Parizi, Abdul Azim Abdul Ghani

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The ever-growing usage of aspect-oriented development methodology in the field of software engineering requires tool support for both research environments and industry. So far, tool support for many activities in aspect-oriented software development has been proposed, to automate and facilitate their development. For instance, the AJaTS provides a transformation system to support aspect-oriented development and refactoring. In particular, it is well established that the abstract interpretation of programs, in any paradigm, pursued in static analysis is best served by a high-level programs representation, such as Control Flow Graph (CFG). This is why such analysis can more easily locate common programmatic idioms for which helpful transformation are already known as well as, association between the input program and intermediate representation can be more closely maintained. However, although the current researches define the good concepts and foundations, to some extent, for control flow analysis of aspectoriented programs but they do not provide a concrete tool that can solely construct the CFG of these programs. Furthermore, most of these works focus on addressing the other issues regarding Aspect- Oriented Software Development (AOSD) such as testing or data flow analysis rather than CFG itself. Therefore, this study is dedicated to build an aspect-oriented control flow graph construction tool called AJcFgraph Builder. The given tool can be applied in many software engineering tasks in the context of AOSD such as, software testing, software metrics, and so forth.

Keywords: Aspect-Oriented Software Development, AspectJ, Control Flow Graph, Data Flow Analysis

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Authors: R. M. Siddiqui, D. Z. Moghaddam, T. R. Turlapati, S. H. Khan, I. Ul Ahad

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Quality of 2D and 3D cross-sectional images produce by Computed Tomography primarily depend upon the degree of precision of primary and secondary X-Ray intensity detection. Traditional method of primary intensity detection is apt to errors. Recently the X-Ray intensity measurement system along with smart X-Ray sensors is developed by our group which is able to detect primary X-Ray intensity unerringly. In this study a new smart X-Ray sensor is developed using Light-to-Frequency converter TSL230 from Texas Instruments which has numerous advantages in terms of noiseless data acquisition and transmission. TSL230 construction is based on a silicon photodiode which converts incoming X-Ray radiation into the proportional current signal. A current to frequency converter is attached to this photodiode on a single monolithic CMOS integrated circuit which provides proportional frequency count to incoming current signal in the form of the pulse train. The frequency count is delivered to the center of PICDEM FS USB board with PIC18F4550 microcontroller mounted on it. With highly compact electronic hardware, this Demo Board efficiently read the smart sensor output data. The frequency output approaches overcome nonlinear behavior of sensors with analog output thus un-attenuated X-Ray intensities could be measured precisely and better normalization could be acquired in order to attain high resolution.

Keywords: Computed tomography, detector technology, X-Ray intensity measurement

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Authors: B. Karakas, S. Lakestani, C. Guler, B. Guciz Dogan, S. Acar Vaizoglu, A. Taner, B. Sekerel, R. Tıpırdamaz, G. Gullu

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Particulate matter (PM) in ambient air is responsible for adverse health effects in adults and children. Relatively little is known about the concentrations, sources and health effects of PM in indoor air. A monitoring study was conducted in Ankara by three campaigns in order to measure PM levels in indoor and outdoor environments to identify and quantify associations between sources and concentrations. Approximately 82 homes (1st campaign for 42, 2nd campaign for 12, and 3rd campaign for 28), three rooms (living room, baby-s room and living room used as a baby-s room) and outdoor ambient at each home were sampled with Grimm Environmental Dust Monitoring (EDM) 107, during different seasonal periods of 2011 and 2012. In this study, the relationship between indoor and outdoor PM levels for particulate matter less than 10 micrometer (.m) (PM10), particulate matter less than 2.5.m (PM2.5) and particulate matter less than 1.0.m (PM1) were investigated. The mean concentration of PM10, PM2.5, and PM1.0 at living room used as baby-s room is higher than living and baby-s room (or bedroom) for three sampling campaigns. It is concluded that the household activities and environmental conditions are very important for PM concentrations in the indoor environments during the sampling periods. The amount of smokers, being near a main street and/or construction activities increased the PM concentration. This study is based on the assessment the relationship between indoor and outdoor PM levels and the household activities and environmental conditions

Keywords: Indoor air quality, particulate matter (PM), PM10, PM2.5, PM1.0.

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Authors: M. G. Cattaneo

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The non-effectiveness of certain codified human rights is particularly apparent with reference to the lack of access to essential drugs in developing countries, which represents a breach of the human right to receive adequate health assistance. This paper underlines the conflict and the legal contradictions between human rights, namely health rights, international Intellectual Property Rights, in particular patent law, as well as international trade law. The paper discusses the crucial links between R&D costs for innovation, patents and new medical drugs, with the goal of reformulating the hierarchies of priorities and of interests at stake in the international intellectual property (IP) law system. Different from what happens today, International patent law should be a legal instrument apt at rebalancing an axiological asymmetry between the (conflicting) needs at stake The core argument in the paper is the proposal of an alternative pathway, namely a feasible proposal for a patent law reform. IP laws tend to balance the benefits deriving from innovation with the costs of the provided monopoly, but since developing countries and industrialized countries are in completely different political and economic situations, it is necessary to (re)modulate such exchange according to the different needs. Based on this critical analysis, the paper puts forward a proposal, called Trading Time for Space (TTS), whereby a longer time for patent exclusive life in western countries (Time) is offered to the patent holder company, in exchange for the latter selling the medical drug at cost price in developing countries (Space). Accordingly, pharmaceutical companies should sell drugs in developing countries at the cost price, or alternatively grant a free license for the sale in such countries, without any royalties or fees. However, such social service shall be duly compensated. Therefore, the consideration for such a service shall be an extension of the temporal duration of the patent’s exclusive in the country of origin that will compensate the reduced profits caused by the supply at the price cost in developing countries.

Keywords: Global health, global justice, patent law reform, access to drugs.

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Authors: C. Ardil

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This paper presents preference programming technique based multiple criteria decision making analysis for selecting a facility location for a new organization or expansion of an existing facility which is of vital importance for a decision support system and strategic planning process. The implementation of decision support systems is considered crucial to sustain competitive advantage and profitability persistence in turbulent environment. As an effective strategic management and decision making is necessary, multiple criteria decision making analysis supports the decision makers to formulate and implement the right strategy. The investment cost associated with acquiring the property and facility construction makes the facility location selection problem a long-term strategic investment decision, which rationalize the best location selection which results in higher economic benefits through increased productivity and optimal distribution network. Selecting the proper facility location from a given set of alternatives is a difficult task, as many potential qualitative and quantitative multiple conflicting criteria are to be considered. This paper solves a facility location selection problem using preference programming, which is an effective multiple criteria decision making analysis tool applied to deal with complex decision problems in the operational research environment. The ranking results of preference programming are compared with WSM, TOPSIS and VIKOR methods.

Keywords: Facility Location Selection, Multiple Criteria Decision Making, Multiple Criteria Decision Making Analysis, Preference Programming, Location Selection, WSM, TOPSIS, VIKOR

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Authors: A. Masi, A. Digrisolo, G. Santarsiero

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Concrete strength evaluated from compression tests on cores is affected by several factors causing differences from the in-situ strength at the location from which the core specimen was extracted. Among the factors, there is the damage possibly occurring during the drilling phase that generally leads to underestimate the actual in-situ strength. In order to quantify this effect, in this study two wide datasets have been examined, including: (i) about 500 core specimens extracted from Reinforced Concrete existing structures, and (ii) about 600 cube specimens taken during the construction of new structures in the framework of routine acceptance control. The two experimental datasets have been compared in terms of compression strength and specific weight values, accounting for the main factors affecting a concrete property, that is type and amount of cement, aggregates' grading, type and maximum size of aggregates, water/cement ratio, placing and curing modality, concrete age. The results show that the magnitude of the strength reduction due to drilling damage is strongly affected by the actual properties of concrete, being inversely proportional to its strength. Therefore, the application of a single value of the correction coefficient, as generally suggested in the technical literature and in structural codes, appears inappropriate. A set of values of the drilling damage coefficient is suggested as a function of the strength obtained from compressive tests on cores.

Keywords: RC Buildings, Assessment, In-situ concrete strength, Core testing, Drilling damage.

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Authors: Chiung-Hui Chen

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Traditional service channel is losing its edge due to emerging service technology. To establish interaction with the clients, the service industry is using effective mechanism to give clients direct access to services with emerging technologies. Thus, as service science receives attention, special and unique consumption pattern evolves; henceforth, leading to new market mechanism and influencing attitudes toward life and consumption patterns. The market demand for customized services is thus valued due to the emphasis of personal value, and is gradually changing the demand and supply relationship in the traditional industry. In respect of interior design service, in the process of traditional interior design, a designer converts to a concrete form the concept generated from the ideas and needs dictated by a user (client), by using his/her professional knowledge and drawing tool. The final product is generated through iterations of communication and modification, which is a very time-consuming process. Although this process has been accelerated with the help of computer graphics software today, repeated discussions and confirmations with users are still required to complete the task. In consideration of what is addressed above a space user’s life model is analyzed with visualization technique to create an interaction system modeled after interior design knowledge. The space user document intuitively personal life experience in a model requirement chart, allowing a researcher to analyze interrelation between analysis documents, identify the logic and the substance of data conversion. The repeated data which is documented are then transformed into design information for reuse and sharing. A professional interior designer may sort out the correlation among user’s preference, life pattern and design specification, thus deciding the critical design elements in the process of service design.

Keywords: Information Design, Life Model-Based, Aesthetic Computing, Communication.

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Authors: Yu-Wei Chang, Chiao-Hung Cheng, Wen-Fang Wu, Sih-Li Chen

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This article experimentally investigates the thermal performance of thermoelectric air-cooling module which comprises a thermoelectric cooler (TEC) and an air-cooling heat sink. The influences of input current and heat load are determined. And performances under each situation are quantified by thermal resistance analysis. Since TEC generates Joule heat, this nature makes construction of thermal resistance network difficult. To simplify the analysis, this article emphasizes on the resistance heat load might meet when passing through the device. Therefore, the thermal resistances in this paper are to divide temperature differences by heat load. According to the result, there exists an optimum input current under every heating power. In this case, the optimum input current is around 6A or 7A. The performance of the heat sink would be improved with TEC under certain heating power and input current, especially at a low heat load. According to the result, the device can even make the heat source cooler than the ambient. However, TEC is not always effective at every heat load and input current. In some situation, the device works worse than the heat sink without TEC. To determine the availability of TEC, this study figures out the effective operating region in which the TEC air-cooling module works better than the heat sink without TEC. The result shows that TEC is more effective at a lower heat load. If heat load is too high, heat sink with TEC will perform worse than without TEC. The limit of this device is 57W. Besides, TEC is not helpful if input current is too high or too low. There is an effective range of input current, and the range becomes narrower when the heat load grows.

Keywords: Thermoelectric cooler, TEC, electronic cooling, heat sink.

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Authors: Izian Abd. Karim, Kachalla Mohammed, Nora Farah A. A. Aziz, Law Teik Hua

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The economic use and ease of construction of profiled deck composite slab is marred with the complex and un-economic strength verification required for the serviceability and general safety considerations. Beside these, albeit factors such as shear span length, deck geometries and mechanical frictions greatly influence the longitudinal shear strength, that determines the ultimate strength of profiled deck composite slab, and number of methods available for its determination; partial shear and slope-intercept are the two methods according to Euro-code 4 provision. However, the complexity associated with shear behavior of profiled deck composite slab, the use of these methods in determining the load carrying capacities of such slab yields different and conflicting values. This couple with the time and cost constraint associated with the strength verification is a source of concern that draws more attentions nowadays, the issue is critical. Treating some of these known shear strength influencing factors as random variables, the load carrying capacity violation of profiled deck composite slab from the use of the two-methods defined according to Euro-code 4 are determined using reliability approach, and comparatively studied. The study reveals safety values from the use of m-k method shows good standing compared with that from the partial shear method.

Keywords: Composite slab, first order reliability method, longitudinal shear, partial shear connection, slope-intercept.

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Authors: H. Rahman, T. Donchev, D. Petkova

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Earthquakes claim thousands of lives around the world annually due to inadequate design of lateral load resisting systems particularly shear walls. Additionally, corrosion of the steel reinforcement in concrete structures is one of the main challenges in construction industry. Fibre Reinforced Polymer (FRP) reinforcement can be used as an alternative to traditional steel reinforcement. FRP has several excellent mechanical properties than steel such as high resistance to corrosion, high tensile strength and light self-weight; additionally, it has electromagnetic neutrality advantageous to the structures where it is important such as hospitals, some laboratories and telecommunications. This paper is about results of experimental research and it is incorporating experimental testing of two medium-scale concrete shear wall samples; one reinforced with Basalt FRP (BFRP) bar and one reinforced with steel bars as a control sample. The samples are tested under quasi-static-cyclic loading following modified ATC-24 protocol standard seismic loading. The results of both samples are compared to allow a judgement about performance of BFRP reinforced against steel reinforced concrete shear walls. The results of the conducted researches show a promising momentum toward utilisation of the BFRP as an alternative to traditional steel reinforcement with the aim of improving durability with suitable energy dissipation in the reinforced concrete shear walls.  

Keywords: Shear walls, internal FRP reinforcement, cyclic loading, energy dissipation and seismic behaviour.

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Authors: Md. SajadulAlam, I. Ahmed, A. Naqib Jimmy, M. Haque Munna, N. Ahsan Khan

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The construction of coastal polders to reduce salinity ingress at greater Khulna-Jashore region area was initiated in the 1960s by Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB). Although successful in a short run the, the Coastal Embankment Project (CEP) and its predecessors are often held accountable for the entire ecological disasters that affected many people. To overcome the water-logging crisis the first Tidal River Management (TRM) at Beel Bhaiana, Bhabodaho was implemented by the affected local people in an unplanned. TRM is an eco-engineering, low cost and participatory approach that utilizes the natural tidal characteristics and the local community’s indigenous knowledge for design and operation of watershed management. But although its outcomes were overwhelming in terms of reducing water-logging, increasing navigability etc. at Beel Bhaina the outcomes of its consequent schemes were debatable. So this study aims to examine the effectiveness and impact of the TRM schemes. Primary data were collected through questionnaire survey, Focus Group Discussion (FGD) and Key Informant Interview (KII) so as to collect mutually complementary quantitative and qualitative information along with extensive literature review. The key aspects that were examined include community participation, community perception on effectiveness and operational challenges.

Keywords: Sustainable, livelihood, salinity, water-logging, shrimp fry collectors, coastal region.

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Authors: Nihad Chakri, Btissam El Amrani, Faouzi Berrada, Fouad Amraoui

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In Morocco, water scarcity requires the exploitation of non-conventional resources. Rural areas are under-equipped with sanitation infrastructure, unlike urban areas. Decentralized and low-cost solutions could improve the quality of life of the population and the environment. In this context, the Faculty of Sciences Ain Chock (FSAC) has undertaken an integrated project to treat part of its wastewater using a decentralized compact system. The project will propose alternative solutions that are inexpensive and adapted to the context of peri-urban and rural areas in order to treat the wastewater generated and to use it for irrigation, watering and cleaning. For this purpose, several tests were carried out in the laboratory in order to develop a liquid waste treatment system optimized for local conditions. Based on the results obtained at laboratory scale of the different proposed scenarios, we designed and implemented a prototype of a mini wastewater treatment plant for the faculty. In this article, we will outline the steps of dimensioning, construction and monitoring of the mini-station in our faculty.

Keywords: Wastewater, purification, response methodology surfaces optimization, vertical filter, Moving Bed Biofilm Reactors, MBBR process, sizing, prototype, Faculty of Sciences Ain Chock, decentralized approach, mini wastewater treatment plant, reuse of treated wastewater reuse, irrigation, sustainable development.

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Authors: M. Alwetaishi

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One of the most common and traditional strategies in architecture is to design buildings passively. This is a way to ensure low building energy reliance with respect to specific micro-building locations. There are so many ways where buildings can be designed passively, some of which are applying thermal insulation, thermal mass, courtyard and glazing to wall ratio. This research investigates the impact of each of these aspects with respect to the hot and dry climate of the capital of Riyadh. Thermal Analysis Simulation (TAS) will be utilized which is powered by Environmental Design Simulation Limited company (EDSL). It is considered as one of the most powerful tools to predict energy performance in buildings. There are three primary building designs and methods which are using courtyard, thermal mass and thermal insulation. The same building size and fabrication properties have been applied to all designs. Riyadh city which is the capital of the country was taken as a case study of the research. The research has taken into account various zone directions within the building as it has a large contribution to indoor energy and thermal performance. It is revealed that it is possible to achieve nearly zero carbon building in the hot and dry region in winter with minimum reliance on energy loads for building zones facing south, west and east. Moreover, using courtyard is more beneficial than applying construction materials into building envelope. Glazing to wall ratio is recommended to be 10% and not exceeding 30% in all directions in hot and arid regions.

Keywords: Sustainable buildings, hot and arid climates, passive building design, Saudi Arabia.

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Authors: Pingping Zhang, Yanpeng Cai, Jianlong Wang

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Stormwater storage tank (SST) is a popular low impact development technology for reducing stormwater runoff in the construction of sponge city. At present, it is difficult to perform the automatic control of SST for reducing peak flow. In this paper, fuzzy control was introduced into the peak control of SST to improve the efficiency of reducing stormwater runoff. Firstly, the design of SST was investigated. A catchment area and a return period were assumed, a SST model was manufactured, and then the storage capacity of the SST was verified. Secondly, the control parameters of the SST based on reducing stormwater runoff were analyzed, and a schematic diagram of real-time control (RTC) system based on peak control SST was established. Finally, fuzzy control system of a double input (flow and water level) and double output (inlet and outlet valve) was designed. The results showed that 1) under the different return periods (one year, three years, five years), the SST had the effect of delayed peak control and storage by increasing the detention time, 2) rainfall, pipeline flow, the influent time and the water level in the SST could be used as RTC parameters, and 3) the response curves of flow velocity and water level fluctuated very little and reached equilibrium in a short time. The combination of online monitoring and fuzzy control was feasible to control the SST automatically. This paper provides a theoretical reference for reducing stormwater runoff and improving the operation efficiency of SST.

Keywords: Stormwater runoff, stormwater storage tank, real-time control, fuzzy control.

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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: Z. A. Ahmad Noor Syukri, A. J. Nawal Aswan, S. V. Wong

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The motorcycle has become one of the most common type of vehicles used on the road, particularly in the Asia region, including Malaysia, due to its size-convenience and affordable price. This study focuses only on crashes involving motorcycles with passenger cars consisting 43 real world crashes obtained from in-depth crash investigation process from June 2016 till July 2017. The study collected and analyzed vehicle and site parameters obtained during crash investigation and injury information acquired from the patient-treating hospital. The investigation team, consisting of two personnel, is stationed at the Emergency Department of the treatment facility, and was dispatched to the crash scene once receiving notification of the related crashes. The injury information retrieved was coded according to the level of severity using the Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS) and classified into different body regions. The data revealed that weekend crashes were significantly higher for the night time period and the crash occurrence was the highest during morning hours (commuting to work period) for weekdays. Bad weather conditions play a minimal effect towards the occurrence of motorcycle – passenger vehicle crashes and nearly 90% involved motorcycles with single riders. Riders up to 25 years old are heavily involved in crashes with passenger vehicles (60%), followed by 26-55 year age group with 35%. Male riders were dominant in each of the age segments. The majority of the crashes involved side impacts, followed by rear impacts and cars outnumbered the rest of the passenger vehicle types in terms of crash involvement with motorcycles. The investigation data also revealed that passenger vehicles were the most at-fault counterpart (62%) when involved in crashes with motorcycles and most of the crashes involved situations whereby both of the vehicles are travelling in the same direction and one of the vehicles is in a turning maneuver. More than 80% of the involved motorcycle riders had sustained yellow severity level during triage process. The study also found that nearly 30% of the riders sustained injuries to the lower extremities, while MAIS level 3 injuries were recorded for all body regions except for thorax region. The result showed that crashes in which the motorcycles were found to be at fault were more likely to occur during night and raining conditions. These types of crashes were also found to be more likely to involve other types of passenger vehicles rather than cars and possess higher likelihood in resulting higher ISS (>6) value to the involved rider. To reduce motorcycle fatalities, it first has to understand the characteristics concerned and focus may be given on crashes involving passenger vehicles as the most dominant crash partner on Malaysian roads.

Keywords: Motorcycle crash, passenger vehicle, in-depth crash investigation, injury mechanism.

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Authors: Ana Paula Melchiors Stahlschmidt

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This paper discusses the role of music as a ludic activity and constituent element of voice in the construction and consolidation of the relationship of the baby and his/her mother or caretaker, evaluating its implications in his/her psychic structure and constitution as a subject. The work was based on the research developed as part of the author’s doctoral activities carried out from her insertion in a project of the Music Department of Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul - UFRGS, which objective was the development of musical activities with groups of babies from 0 to 24 months old and their caretakers. Observations, video recordings of the meetings, audio testemonies, and evaluation tools applied to group participants were used as instruments for this research. Information was collected on the participation of 195 babies, among which 8 were more focused on through interviews with their mothers or caretakers. These interviews were analyzed based on the referential of French Discourse Analysis, Psychoanalysis, Psychology of Development and Musical Education. The results of the research were complemented by other posterior experiences that the author developed with similar groups, in a context of a private clinic. The information collected allowed the observation of the ludic and structural functions of musical activities, when developed in a structured environment, as well as the importance of the musicality of the mother’s voice to the psychical structuring of the baby, allowing his/her insertion in the language and his/her constitution as a subject.

Keywords: Music and babies, maternal voice, Psychoanalysis and music, Psychology and music.

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Authors: J. Hroudova, M. Sedlmajer, J. Zach

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Problems insulation of building structures is often closely connected with the problem of moisture remediation. In the case of historic buildings or if only part of the redevelopment of envelope of structures, it is not possible to apply the classical external thermal insulation composite systems. This application is mostly effective thermal insulation plasters with high porosity and controlled capillary properties which assures improvement of thermal properties construction, its diffusion openness towards the external environment and suitable treatment capillary properties of preventing the penetration of liquid moisture and salts thereof toward the outer surface of the structure. With respect to the current trend of reducing the energy consumption of building structures and reduce the production of CO2 is necessary to develop capillary-active materials characterized by their low density, low thermal conductivity while maintaining good mechanical properties. The aim of researchers at the Faculty of Civil Engineering, Brno University of Technology is the development and study of hygrothermal behaviour of optimal materials for thermal insulation and rehabilitation of building structures with the possible use of alternative, less energy demanding binders in comparison with conventional, frequently used binder, which represents cement. The paper describes the evaluation of research activities aimed at the development of thermal insulation and repair materials using lightweight aggregate and alternative binders such as metakaolin and finely ground fly ash.

Keywords: Thermal insulating plasters, rehabilitation materials, thermal conductivity, lightweight aggregate, alternative binders.

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Authors: Stéphanie Leheis

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To fight against the economic crisis, French Government, like many others in Europe, has decided to give a boost to high-speed line projects. This paper explores the implementation and decision-making process in TGV projects, their evolutions, especially since the Mediterranean TGV-line. This project was probably the most controversial, but paradoxically represents today a huge success for all the actors involved. What kind of lessons we can learn from this experience? How to evaluate the impact of this project on TGV-line planning? How can we characterize this implementation and decision-making process regards to the sustainability challenges? The construction of Mediterranean TGV-line was the occasion to make several innovations: to introduce more dialog into the decisionmaking process, to take into account the environment, to introduce a new project management and technological innovations. That-s why this project appears today as an example in terms of integration of sustainable development. In this paper we examine the different kinds of innovations developed in this project, by using concepts from sociology of innovation to understand how these solutions emerged in a controversial situation. Then we analyze the lessons which were drawn from this decision-making process (in the immediacy and a posteriori) and the way in which procedures evolved: creation of new tools and devices (public consultation, project management...). Finally we try to highlight the impact of this evolution on TGV projects governance. In particular, new methods of implementation and financing involve a reconfiguration of the system of actors. The aim of this paper is to define the impact of this reconfiguration on negotiations between stakeholders.

Keywords: High-speed train, innovation, governance, sustainability.

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Authors: Padmanabhan Balasubramanian, C. Hari Narayanan

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This paper discusses a new, systematic approach to the synthesis of a NP-hard class of non-regenerative Boolean networks, described by FON[FOFF]={mi}[{Mi}], where for every mj[Mj]∈{mi}[{Mi}], there exists another mk[Mk]∈{mi}[{Mi}], such that their Hamming distance HD(mj, mk)=HD(Mj, Mk)=O(n), (where 'n' represents the number of distinct primary inputs). The method automatically ensures exact minimization for certain important selfdual functions with 2n-1 points in its one-set. The elements meant for grouping are determined from a newly proposed weighted incidence matrix. Then the binary value corresponding to the candidate pair is correlated with the proposed binary value matrix to enable direct synthesis. We recommend algebraic factorization operations as a post processing step to enable reduction in literal count. The algorithm can be implemented in any high level language and achieves best cost optimization for the problem dealt with, irrespective of the number of inputs. For other cases, the method is iterated to subsequently reduce it to a problem of O(n-1), O(n-2),.... and then solved. In addition, it leads to optimal results for problems exhibiting higher degree of adjacency, with a different interpretation of the heuristic, and the results are comparable with other methods. In terms of literal cost, at the technology independent stage, the circuits synthesized using our algorithm enabled net savings over AOI (AND-OR-Invert) logic, AND-EXOR logic (EXOR Sum-of- Products or ESOP forms) and AND-OR-EXOR logic by 45.57%, 41.78% and 41.78% respectively for the various problems. Circuit level simulations were performed for a wide variety of case studies at 3.3V and 2.5V supply to validate the performance of the proposed method and the quality of the resulting synthesized circuits at two different voltage corners. Power estimation was carried out for a 0.35micron TSMC CMOS process technology. In comparison with AOI logic, the proposed method enabled mean savings in power by 42.46%. With respect to AND-EXOR logic, the proposed method yielded power savings to the tune of 31.88%, while in comparison with AND-OR-EXOR level networks; average power savings of 33.23% was obtained.

Keywords: AOI logic, ESOP, AND-OR-EXOR, Incidencematrix, Hamming distance.

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Authors: Sarah Barrere

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The area of liberty, security and justice within the European Union is still a work in progress. No one can deny that the EU struggles between a monistic and a dualist approach. The aim of our essay is to first review how the European law is perceived by the rest of the international scene. It will then discuss two main mechanisms at play: the interpretation of larger international treaties and the penal mechanisms of European law. Finally, it will help us understand the role of a penal Europe on the international scene with concrete examples. Special attention will be paid to cases that deal with fundamental rights as they represent an interesting case study in Europe and in the rest of the World. It could illustrate the aforementioned duality currently present in the Union’s interpretation of international public law. On the other hand, it will explore some specific European penal mechanism through mutual recognition and the European arrest warrant in the transnational criminality frame. Concerning the interpretation of the treaties, it will first, underline the ambiguity and the general nature of some treaties that leave the EU exposed to tension and misunderstanding then it will review the validity of an EU act (whether or not it is compatible with the rules of International law). Finally, it will focus on the most complete manifestation of liberty, security and justice through the principle of mutual recognition. Used initially in commercial matters, it has become “the cornerstone” of European construction. It will see how it is applied in judicial decisions (its main event and achieving success is via the European arrest warrant) and how European member states have managed to develop this cooperation.

Keywords: European penal law, International scene, Liberty security and justice area, mutual recognition.

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Authors: Amalka Nawarathna, Nirodha Fernando, Zaid Alwan

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Global carbon reduction is not merely a responsibility of environmentally advanced developed countries, but also a responsibility of developing countries regardless of their less impact on global carbon emissions. In recognition of that, Sri Lanka as a developing country has initiated promoting green building construction as one reduction strategy. However, notwithstanding the increasing attention on Embodied Carbon (EC) reduction in the global building sector, they still mostly focus on Operational Carbon (OC) reduction (through improving operational energy). An adequate attention has not yet been given on EC estimation and reduction. Therefore, this study aims to identify the reasons for the slow uptake of EC estimation in the Sri Lankan building sector. To achieve this aim, 16 numbers of global barriers to estimate EC were identified through existing literature. They were then subjected to a pilot survey to identify the significant reasons for the slow uptake of EC estimation in the Sri Lankan building sector. A questionnaire with a three-point Likert scale was used to this end. The collected data were analysed using descriptive statistics. The findings revealed that 11 out of 16 challenges/ barriers are highly relevant as reasons for the slow uptake in estimating EC in buildings in Sri Lanka while the other five challenges/ barriers remain as moderately relevant reasons. Further, the findings revealed that there are no low relevant reasons. Eventually, the paper concluded that all the known reasons are significant to the Sri Lankan building sector and it is necessary to address them in order to upturn the attention on EC reduction.

Keywords: Embodied carbon emissions, embodied carbon estimation, global carbon reduction, Sri Lankan building sector.

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Authors: Lara A. Alshawawreh, R. Sean Smith, John B. Wood

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This study focuses on the sheltering response in the Middle East, specifically through reviewing two Syrian refugee camps in Jordan, involving Zaatari and Azraq. Zaatari camp involved the rapid deployment of tents and shelters over a very short period of time and Azraq was purpose built and pre-planned over a longer period. At present, both camps collectively host more than 133,000 occupants. Field visits were taken to both camps and the main issues and problems in the sheltering response were highlighted through focus group discussions with camp occupants and inspection of shelter habitats. This provided both subjective and objective research data sources. While every case has its own significance and deployment to meet humanitarian needs, there are some common requirements irrespective of geographical region. The results suggest that there is a gap in the suitability of the required habitat needs and what has been provided. It is recommended that the global international response and support could be improved in relation to the habitat form, construction type, layout, function and critically the cultural aspects. Services, health and hygiene are key elements to the shelter habitat provision. The study also identified the amendments to shelters undertaken by the beneficiaries providing insight into their key main requirements. The outcomes from this study could provide an important learning opportunity to develop improved habitat response for future shelters.

Keywords: Culture, post-disaster, refugees, shelters.

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Authors: Ojin Kwon, Yong-Jin Yoon, Liu Xin, Zhang Hongbao

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Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) is a short-range wireless communication around human body for various applications such as wearable devices, entertainment, military, and especially medical devices. WBAN attracts the attention of continuous health monitoring system including diagnostic procedure, early detection of abnormal conditions, and prevention of emergency situations. Compared to cellular network, WBAN system is more difficult to control inter- and inner-cell interference due to the limited power, limited calculation capability, mobility of patient, and non-cooperation among WBANs. In this paper, we compare the performance of resource allocation scheme based on several Pseudo Orthogonal Codewords (POCs) to mitigate inter-WBAN interference. Previously, the POCs are widely exploited for a protocol sequence and optical orthogonal code. Each POCs have different properties of auto- and cross-correlation and spectral efficiency according to its construction of POCs. To identify different WBANs, several different pseudo orthogonal patterns based on POCs exploits for resource allocation of WBANs. By simulating these pseudo orthogonal resource allocations of WBANs on MATLAB, we obtain the performance of WBANs according to different POCs and can analyze and evaluate the suitability of POCs for the resource allocation in the WBANs system.

Keywords: Wireless body area network, body sensor network, resource allocation without feedback, interference mitigation, pseudo orthogonal pattern.

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Authors: Mohamed Omar

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Superelastic Shape Memory Alloy (SMA) is accepted when it used as connection in steel structures. The seismic behaviour of steel frames with SMA is being assessed in this study. Three eightstorey steel frames with different SMA systems are suggested, the first one of which is braced with diagonal bracing system, the second one is braced with nee bracing system while the last one is which the SMA is used as connection at the plastic hinge regions of beams. Nonlinear time history analyses of steel frames with SMA subjected to two different ground motion records have been performed using Seismostruct software. To evaluate the efficiency of suggested systems, the dynamic responses of the frames were compared. From the comparison results, it can be concluded that using SMA element is an effective way to improve the dynamic response of structures subjected to earthquake excitations. Implementing the SMA braces can lead to a reduction in residual roof displacement. The shape memory alloy is effective in reducing the maximum displacement at the frame top and it provides a large elastic deformation range. SMA connections are very effective in dissipating energy and reducing the total input energy of the whole frame under severe seismic ground motion. Using of the SMA connection system is more effective in controlling the reaction forces at the base frame than other bracing systems. Using SMA as bracing is more effective in reducing the displacements. The efficiency of SMA is dependant on the input wave motions and the construction system as well.

Keywords: Finite element analysis, seismic response, shapesmemory alloy, steel frame, superelasticity

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