Abstract: The present study investigates the effectiveness of
newly designed clayey pellets (fired clay pellets diameter sizes of 5
and 8 mm, and unfired clay pellets with the diameter size of 15 mm)
as the beds in the column adsorption process. The adsorption
experiments in the batch mode were performed before the column
experiment with the purpose to determine the order of adsorbent
package in the column which was to be designed in the investigation.
The column experiment was performed by using a known mass of the
clayey beds and the volume of the waste printing developer, which
was purified. The column was filled in the following order: fired clay
pellets of the diameter size of 5 mm, fired clay pellets of the diameter
size of 8 mm, and unfired clay pellets of the diameter size of 15 mm.
The selected order of the adsorbents showed a high removal
efficiency for zinc (97.8%) and copper (81.5%) ions. These
efficiencies were better than those in the case of the already existing
mode adsorption. The obtained experimental data present a good
basis for the selection of an appropriate column fill, but further
testing is necessary in order to obtain more accurate results.
Abstract: Landfill waste is a common problem as it has an
economic and environmental impact even if it is closed. Landfill
waste contains a high density of various persistent compounds such
as heavy metals, organic and inorganic materials. As persistent
compounds are slowly-degradable or even non-degradable in the
environment, they often produce sublethal or even lethal effects on
aquatic organisms. The aims of the present study were to estimate
sublethal effects of the Kairiai landfill (WGS: 55°55‘46.74“,
23°23‘28.4“) leachate on the locomotor activity of rainbow trout
Oncorhynchus mykiss juveniles using the original system package
developed in our laboratory for automated monitoring, recording and
analysis of aquatic organisms’ activity, and to determine patterns of
fish behavioral response to sublethal effects of leachate. Four
different concentrations of leachate were chosen: 0.125; 0.25; 0.5 and
1.0 mL/L (0.0025; 0.005; 0.01 and 0.002 as part of 96-hour LC50,
respectively). Locomotor activity was measured after 5, 10 and 30
minutes of exposure during 1-minute test-periods of each fish (7 fish
per treatment). The threshold-effect-concentration amounted to 0.18
mL/L (0.0036 parts of 96-hour LC50). This concentration was found
to be even 2.8-fold lower than the concentration generally assumed to
be “safe” for fish. At higher concentrations, the landfill leachate
solution elicited behavioral response of test fish to sublethal levels of
pollutants. The ability of the rainbow trout to detect and avoid
contaminants occurred after 5 minutes of exposure. The intensity of
locomotor activity reached a peak within 10 minutes, evidently
decreasing after 30 minutes. This could be explained by the
physiological and biochemical adaptation of fish to altered
environmental conditions. It has been established that the locomotor
activity of juvenile trout depends on leachate concentration and
exposure duration. Modeling of these parameters showed that the
activity of juveniles increased at higher leachate concentrations, but
slightly decreased with the increasing exposure duration. Experiment
results confirm that the behavior of rainbow trout juveniles is a
sensitive and rapid biomarker that can be used in combination with
the system for fish behavior monitoring, registration and analysis to
determine sublethal concentrations of pollutants in ambient water.
Further research should be focused on software improvement aimed
to include more parameters of aquatic organisms’ behavior and to
investigate the most rapid and appropriate behavioral responses in
different species. In practice, this study could be the basis for the
development and creation of biological early-warning systems
(BEWS).
Abstract: At the Savonia University of Applied Sciences (UAS),
curriculum and studies have been improved by applying an Open
Innovation Space approach (OIS). It is based on multidisciplinary
action learning. The key elements of OIS-ideology are work-life
orientation, and student-centric communal learning. In this approach,
every participant can learn from each other and innovations will be
created. In this social innovation educational approach, all practices
are carried out in close collaboration with enterprises in real-life
settings, not in classrooms. As an example, in this paper, Savonia
UAS’s Future Food RDI hub (FF) shows how OIS practices are
implemented by providing food product development and consumer
research services for enterprises in close collaboration with
academicians, students and consumers. In particular one example of
OIS experimentation in the field is provided by a consumer research
carried out utilizing verbal analysis protocol combined with audiovisual
observation (VAP-WAVO). In this case, all co-learners were
acting together in supermarket settings to collect the relevant data for
a product development and the marketing department of a company.
The company benefitted from the results obtained, students were
more satisfied with their studies, educators and academicians were
able to obtain good evidence for further collaboration as well as
renewing curriculum contents based on the requirements of working
life. In addition, society will benefit over time as young university
adults find careers more easily through their OIS related food science
studies. Also this knowledge interaction model re-news education
practices and brings working-life closer to educational research
institutes.
Abstract: Purpose: The key aim of the research was to identify
the secondary stressors experienced by businesses affected by single
or repeated flooding and to determine to what extent businesses were
affected by these stressors, along with any resulting impact on health.
Additionally the research aimed to establish the likelihood of
businesses being re-exposed to the secondary stressors through
assessing awareness of flood risk, implementation of property
protection measures and level of community resilience. Design/methodology/approach: The chosen research method
involved the distribution of a questionnaire survey to businesses
affected by either single or repeated flood events. The questionnaire
included the Impact of Event Scale (a 15-item self-report measure
which assesses subjective distress caused by traumatic events). Findings: 55 completed questionnaires were returned by flood
impacted businesses. 89% of the businesses had sustained internal
flooding, while 11% had experienced external flooding. The results
established that the key secondary stressors experienced by
businesses, in order of priority, were: flood damage, fear of
reoccurring flooding, prevention of access to the premise/closure,
loss of income, repair works, length of closure and insurance issues.
There was a lack of preparedness for potential future floods and
consequent vulnerability to the emergence of secondary stressors
among flood affected businesses, as flood resistance or flood
resilience measures had only been implemented by 11% and 13%
respectively. In relation to the psychological repercussions, the
Impact of Event scores suggested that potential prevalence of posttraumatic
stress disorder (PTSD) was noted among 8 out of 55
respondents (l5%). Originality/value: The results improve understanding of the
enduring repercussions of flood events on businesses, indicating that
not only residents may be susceptible to the detrimental health
impacts of flood events and single flood events may be just as likely
as reoccurring flooding to contribute to ongoing stress. Lack of
financial resources is a possible explanation for the lack of
implementation of property protection measures among businesses,
despite 49% experiencing flooding on multiple occasions. Therefore
it is recommended that policymakers should consider potential
sources of financial support or grants towards flood defences for
flood impacted businesses. Any form of assistance should be made
available to businesses at the earliest opportunity as there was no
significant association between the time of the last flood event and
the likelihood of experiencing PTSD symptoms.
Abstract: The rheological response of blends obtained from
quaternized polysulfone and polyvinyl alcohol in N-methyl-2-
pyrrolidone as against structural peculiarity of polymers from the
blend, composition of polymer mixtures, as well as the types of
interactions were investigated. Results show that the variation of
polyvinyl alcohol composition in the studied system determines
changes of the rheological properties, suggesting that the PVA acts as
a plasticizer. Consequently, rheological behavior of complex system,
described by the nonlinear flow curve, indicates the impact of
polyvinil alcohol content to polysulfone solution, in order to facilitate
the subsequently preparation of bioactive membranes.
Abstract: A 15-storey RC building, studied in this paper, is
representative of modern building type constructed in Madina City in
Saudi Arabia before 10 years ago. These buildings are almost
consisting of reinforced concrete skeleton i.e. columns, beams and
flat slab as well as shear walls in the stairs and elevator areas
arranged in the way to have a resistance system for lateral loads
(wind – earthquake loads). In this study, the dynamic properties of
the 15-storey RC building were identified using ambient motions
recorded at several, spatially-distributed locations within each
building. Three dimensional pushover analysis (Nonlinear static
analysis) was carried out using SAP2000 software incorporating
inelastic material properties for concrete, infill and steel. The effect
of modeling the building with and without infill walls, on the
performance point as well as capacity and demand spectra due to EQ
design spectrum function in Madina area has been investigated. ATC-
40 capacity and demand spectra are utilized to get the modification
factor (R) for the studied building. The purpose of this analysis is to
evaluate the expected performance of structural systems by
estimating, strength and deformation demands in design, and
comparing these demands to available capacities at the performance
levels of interest. The results are summarized and discussed.
Abstract: Concrete is an essential building material which is
widely used in construction industry all over the world due to its
compressible strength. Curing of concrete plays a vital role in
durability and other performance necessities. Improper curing can
affect the concrete performance and durability easily. When areas
like scarcity of water, structures is not accessible by humans external
curing cannot be performed, so we opt for internal curing. Internal
curing (or) self curing plays a major role in developing the concrete
pore structure and microstructure. The concept of internal curing is to
enhance the hydration process to maintain the temperature uniformly.
The evaporation of water in the concrete is reduced by self curing
agent (Super Absorbing Polymer – SAP) there by increasing the
water retention capacity of the concrete. The research work was
carried out to reduce water, which is prime material used for concrete
in the construction industry. Concrete curing plays a major role in
developing hydration process. Concept of self curing will reduce the
evaporation of water from concrete. Self curing will increase water
retention capacity as compared to the conventional concrete. Proper
self curing (or) internal curing increases the strength, durability and
performance of concrete. Super absorbing Polymer (SAP) used as
internal curing agent. In this study 0.2% to 0.4% of SAP was varied
in different grade of high strength concrete. In the experiment
replacement of cement by silica fumes with 5%, 10% and 15% are
studied. It is found that replacement of silica fumes by 10 % gives
more strength and durability when compared to others.
Abstract: Excessive vibration means increased wear, increased
repair efforts, bad product selection & quality and high energy
consumption. This may be sometimes experienced by cavitation or
suction/discharge recirculation which could occur only when net
positive suction head available NPSHA drops below the net positive
suction head required NPSHR. Cavitation can cause axial surging, if it
is excessive, will damage mechanical seals, bearings, possibly other
pump components frequently, and shorten the life of the impeller.
Efforts have been made to explain Suction Energy (SE), Specific
Speed (Ns), Suction Specific Speed (Nss), NPSHA, NPSHR & their
significance, possible reasons of cavitation /internal recirculation, its
diagnostics and remedial measures to arrest and prevent cavitation in
this paper. A case study is presented by the author highlighting that
the root cause of unwanted noise and vibration is due to cavitation,
caused by high specific speeds or inadequate net- positive suction
head available which results in damages to material surfaces of
impeller & suction bells and degradation of machine performance, its
capacity and efficiency too. Author strongly recommends revisiting
the technical specifications of CW pumps to provide sufficient NPSH
margin ratios >1.5, for future projects and Nss be limited to 8500 -
9000 for cavitation free operation.
Abstract: A combined heat and power (CHP) system is an efficient and clean way to generate power (electricity). Heat produced by the CHP system can be used for water and space heating. The CHP system which uses hydrogen as fuel produces zero carbon emission. Its’ efficiency can reach more than 80% whereas that of a traditional power station can only reach up to 50% because much of the thermal energy is wasted. The other advantages of CHP systems include that they can decentralize energy generation, improve energy security and sustainability, and significantly reduce the energy cost to the users. This paper presents the economic benefits of using a CHP system in the domestic environment. For this analysis, natural gas is considered as potential fuel as the hydrogen fuel cell based CHP systems are rarely used. UK government incentives for CHP systems are also considered as the added benefit. Results show that CHP requires a significant initial investment in returns it can reduce the annual energy bill significantly. Results show that an investment may be paid back in 7 years. After the back period, CHP can run for about 3 years as most of the CHP manufacturers provide 10 year warranty.
Abstract: Nanotechnology in pristine sense refers to building of
structures at atomic and molecular scale. Meticulously
nanotechnology encompasses the nanomaterials with at least one
dimension size ranging from 1 to 100 nanometres. Unlike the literal
meaning of its name, nanotechnology is a massive concept beyond
imagination. This paper predominantly deals with relevance of
nanotechnology in automotive industries. New generation of
automotives looks at nanotechnology as an emerging trend of
manufacturing revolution. Intricate shapes can be made out of fairly
inexpensive raw materials instead of conventional fabrication
process. Though the current era have enough technology to face
competition, nanotechnology can give futuristic implications to pick
up the modern pace. Nanotechnology intends to bridge the gap
between automotives with superior technical performance and their
cost fluctuation. Preliminarily, it is an area of great scientific interest
and a major shaper of many new technologies. Nanotechnology can
be an ideal building block for automotive industries, under constant
evolution offering a very wide scope of activity. It possesses huge
potential and is still in the embryonic form of research and
development.
Abstract: Energy has a prominent role for development of
nations. Countries which have energy resources also have strategic
power in the international trade of energy since it is essential for all
stages of production in the economy. Thus, it is important for
countries to analyze the weaknesses and strength of the system. On
the other side, international trade is one of the fields that are analyzed
as a complex network via network analysis. Complex network is one
of the tools to analyze complex systems with heterogeneous agents
and interaction between them. A complex network consists of nodes
and the interactions between these nodes. Total properties which
emerge as a result of these interactions are distinct from the sum of
small parts (more or less) in complex systems. Thus, standard
approaches to international trade are superficial to analyze these
systems. Network analysis provides a new approach to analyze
international trade as a network. In this network, countries constitute
nodes and trade relations (export or import) constitute edges. It
becomes possible to analyze international trade network in terms of
high degree indicators which are specific to complex networks such
as connectivity, clustering, assortativity/disassortativity, centrality,
etc. In this analysis, international trade of crude oil and coal which
are types of fossil fuel has been analyzed from 2005 to 2014 via
network analysis. First, it has been analyzed in terms of some
topological parameters such as density, transitivity, clustering etc.
Afterwards, fitness to Pareto distribution has been analyzed via
Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. Finally, weighted HITS algorithm has
been applied to the data as a centrality measure to determine the real
prominence of countries in these trade networks. Weighted HITS
algorithm is a strong tool to analyze the network by ranking countries
with regards to prominence of their trade partners. We have
calculated both an export centrality and an import centrality by
applying w-HITS algorithm to the data. As a result, impacts of the
trading countries have been presented in terms of high-degree
indicators.
Abstract: Biodiesel is widely investigated to solve the twin
problem of depletion of fossil fuel and environmental degradation.
The main objective of the present work is to compare performance,
emissions, and combustion characteristics of biodiesel derived from
cotton seed oil in a diesel engine with the baseline results of
petrodiesel fuel. Tests have been conducted on a single cylinder, four
stroke CIDI diesel engine with a speed of 1500 rpm and a fixed
compression ratio of 17.5 at different load conditions. The
performance parameters evaluated include brake thermal efficiency,
brake specific fuel consumption, brake power, indicated mean
effective pressure, mechanical efficiency, and exhaust gas
temperature. Regarding combustion study, cylinder pressure, rate of
pressure rise, net heat release rate, cumulative heat release, mean gas
temperature, mass fraction burned, and fuel line pressure were
evaluated. The emission parameters such as carbon monoxide, carbon
dioxide, un-burnt hydrocarbon, oxides of nitrogen, and smoke
opacity were also measured by a smoke meter and an exhaust gas
analyzer and compared with baseline results. The brake thermal
efficiency of cotton seed oil methyl ester (CSOME) was lower than
that of petrodiesel and brake specific fuel consumption was found to
be higher. However, biodiesel resulted in the reduction of carbon
dioxide, un-burnt hydrocarbon, and smoke opacity at the expense of
nitrogen oxides. Carbon monoxide emissions for biodiesel was higher
at maximum output power. It has been found that the combustion
characteristics of cotton seed oil methyl ester closely followed those
of standard petrodiesel. The experimental results suggested that
biodiesel derived from cotton seed oil could be used as a good
substitute to petrodiesel fuel in a conventional diesel without any
modification.
Abstract: The introduction of a multitude of new and interactive
e-commerce information technology (IT) artifacts has impacted
adoption research. Rather than solely functioning as productivity
tools, new IT artifacts assume the roles of interaction mediators and
social actors. This paper describes the varying roles assumed by IT
artifacts, and proposes and distinguishes between four distinct foci of
how the artifacts are evaluated. It further proposes a theoretical
model that maps the different views of IT artifacts to four distinct
types of evaluations.
Abstract: In this paper, a modified Wilkinson power divider for
GSM application is presented. The quarter–wavelength microstrip
lines in the conventional Wilkinson power divider (WPD) are
replaced by one-eighth wavelength transmission line. Wilkinson
power divider is designed using λ/4 and λ/8 transmission line. It has
the operating frequency of 915 MHz which is used in the GSM
standard. The proposed Wilkinson Power Divider is designed using
the simulation tool Advanced Design System. The results of λ/8
transmission line are very close to the results of λ/4 transmission line.
The isolation loss of λ/8 transmission line is improved by introducing
a capacitor between the output ports. The proposed Wilkinson power
divider has the best return loss of greater than -10 dB and isolation
loss of -15.25 dB. The λ/8 transmission line Wilkinson power divider
has the reduced size of 53.9 percentages than λ/4 transmission line
WPD. The proposed design has simple structure, better isolation loss
and good insertion loss.
Abstract: Scripts are one of the basic text resources to understand
broadcasting contents. Topic modeling is the method to get the
summary of the broadcasting contents from its scripts. Generally,
scripts represent contents descriptively with directions and speeches,
and provide scene segments that can be seen as semantic units.
Therefore, a script can be topic modeled by treating a scene segment
as a document. Because scene segments consist of speeches mainly,
however, relatively small co-occurrences among words in the scene
segments are observed. This causes inevitably the bad quality of
topics by statistical learning method. To tackle this problem, we
propose a method to improve topic quality with additional word
co-occurrence information obtained using scene similarities. The
main idea of improving topic quality is that the information that
two or more texts are topically related can be useful to learn high
quality of topics. In addition, more accurate topical representations
lead to get information more accurate whether two texts are related
or not. In this paper, we regard two scene segments are related
if their topical similarity is high enough. We also consider that
words are co-occurred if they are in topically related scene segments
together. By iteratively inferring topics and determining semantically
neighborhood scene segments, we draw a topic space represents
broadcasting contents well. In the experiments, we showed the
proposed method generates a higher quality of topics from Korean
drama scripts than the baselines.
Abstract: The early-stage damage detection in offshore
structures requires continuous structural health monitoring and for the
large area the position of sensors will also plays an important role in
the efficient damage detection. Determining the dynamic behavior of
offshore structures requires dense deployment of sensors. The wired
Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) systems are highly expensive
and always needs larger installation space to deploy. Wireless sensor
networks can enhance the SHM system by deployment of scalable
sensor network, which consumes lesser space. This paper presents the
results of wireless sensor network based Structural Health Monitoring
method applied to a scaled experimental model of offshore structure
that underwent wave loading. This method determines the
serviceability of the offshore structure which is subjected to various
environment loads. Wired and wireless sensors were installed in the
model and the response of the scaled BLSRP model under wave
loading was recorded. The wireless system discussed in this study is
the Raspberry pi board with Arm V6 processor which is programmed
to transmit the data acquired by the sensor to the server using Wi-Fi
adapter, the data is then hosted in the webpage. The data acquired
from the wireless and wired SHM systems were compared and the
design of the wireless system is verified.
Abstract: Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a disease which affects the
central nervous system and causes balance problem. In clinical, this
disorder is usually evaluated using static posturography. Some linear
or nonlinear measures, extracted from the posturographic data (i.e.
center of pressure, COP) recorded during a balance test, has been
used to analyze postural control of MS patients. In this study, the
trend (TREND) and the sample entropy (SampEn), two nonlinear
parameters were chosen to investigate their relationships with the
expanded disability status scale (EDSS) score. 40 volunteers with
different EDSS scores participated in our experiments with eyes open
(EO) and closed (EC). TREND and 2 types of SampEn (SampEn1
and SampEn2) were calculated for each combined COP’s position
signal. The results have shown that TREND had a weak negative
correlation to EDSS while SampEn2 had a strong positive correlation
to EDSS. Compared to TREND and SampEn1, SampEn2 showed a
better significant correlation to EDSS and an ability to discriminate
the MS patients in the EC case. In addition, the outcome of the study
suggests that the multi-dimensional nonlinear analysis could provide
some information about the impact of disability progression in MS on
dynamics of the COP data.
Abstract: Energy consumption of a hotel can be a hot topic in
smart city; it is difficult to evaluate the contribution of impact factors
to energy consumption of a hotel. Therefore, grasping the key impact
factors has great effect on the energy saving management of a hotel.
Based on the SPIRTPAT model, we establish the identity with the
impact factors of occupancy rate, unit area of revenue, temperature
factor, unit revenue of energy consumption. In this paper, we use the
LMDI (Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index) to decompose the impact
factors of energy consumption of hotel from Jan. to Dec. in 2001. The
results indicate that the occupancy rate and unit area of revenue are the
main factors that can increase unit area of energy consumption, and the
unit revenue of energy consumption is the main factor to restrain the
growth of unit area of energy consumption. When the energy
consumption of hotel can appear abnormal, the hotel manager can
carry out energy saving management and control according to the
contribution value of impact factors.
Abstract: The focus of this study was to determine the factors associated with the use of substances for sport performance of youth in Lagos state sport. Questionnaire was the instrument used for the study. Descriptive research method was used. The estimated population for the study was 2000 sport men and women. The sample size was 200 respondents for purposive sampling techniques were used. The instrument was validated in it content and constructs value. The instrument was administered with the assistance of the coaches. Same 200 copies administered were returned. The data obtained was analysed using simple percentage and chi-square (x2) for stated hypothesis at 0.05 level of significance. The finding reveal that sport injuries exercise induced and anaphylaxis and asthma and feeling of loss of efficacy associated with alcohol used on sport performance among the users of substances. Alcohol users are recommended to partake in sport like swimming, basketball and volleyball because they have space of time for resting while at play. Government should be fully in charge of the health of sport men and women.
Abstract: Banda Sea Collision Zone (BSCZ) is the result of the
interaction and convergence of Indo-Australian plate, Eurasian plate
and Pacific plate. This location is located in eastern Indonesia. This
zone has a very high seismic activity. In this research, we will
calculate the rate (λ) and Mean Square Error (MSE). By this result,
we will classification earthquakes distribution in the BSCZ with the
point process approach. Chi-square is used to determine the type of
earthquakes distribution in the sub region of BSCZ. The data used in
this research is data of earthquakes with a magnitude ≥ 6 SR for the
period 1964-2013 and sourced from BMKG Jakarta. This research is
expected to contribute to the Moluccas Province and surrounding
local governments in performing spatial plan document related to
disaster management.