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In 2012 the City of Flagstaff partnered with researchers at the Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Northern Arizona University to successfully develop a mix design utilizing sludge derived from the manufacturing of recycled paper pulp sludge (PPS) and fly ash as a component of a landfill cap. This research has been extended to explore the addition of polymers to the mix of waste materials in order to optimize a design that would be suitable as a component for an EPA Subtitle D-approvable landfill liner. Cinder Lake Landfill (CLL) serves several communities in Northern Arizona and is managed by the City of Flagstaff. CLL does not have a reliable source of clay needed to construct a required landfill liner, which is necessary for the upcoming 108-acre landfill expansion. However, CLL receives approximately 80 tons of recycled PPS daily from the local tissue manufacturing plant. PPS is currently used as daily cover and was tested for use as part of a landfill cap, as noted above. Incorporating polymers in alternative materials such as PPS and fly ash has the potential to meet performance criteria and be approved by state and federal regulators, and has the potential to save the City millions of dollars over conventional composite liners of geomembrane and clay. Different mixtures of PPS, fly ash and three different polymers are currently being subjected to testing for the following: Water Content, Specific Gravity, Porosity, Organic Content, Atterberg Limits (plasticity), Proctor Compaction, Consolidation, California Bearing Ratio, Shear Strength, Gas Permeability, and Liquid Permeability. The optimal mixture of PPS and fly ash will be blended with a range of polymer concentrations. The goal is to find an optimal mix of PPS, fly ash, and polymer to achieve regulatory standards related to permeability, along with other desirable properties such as strength and flexibility. The optimum mixture(s) will then be subjected to field trials, scheduled to begin in 2016, in which test cells will be created at CLL. The liner will be constructed with the optimized mixture(s), and the cells will be operated as landfills for 1-2 years. Results from lab and field testing will be submitted to federal and state regulators for consideration as an alternative liner approach.

In this work, the fabrication of Rochelle salt based piezoelectric structures is illustrated. Structures composed of paper and Rochelle salt are easily manufactured using simple processes. Both manufacturing and the material itself are environmental friendly. Additionally Rochelle salt is biocompatible. In the paradigm of a cleaner piezoelectric technology, the fabrication of active sensing or actuating devices is developed. Thus processing method, material and piezoelectric properties have been studied: (1) pure crystals are used as acoustic actuator, (2) properties of paper impregnated with Rochelle salt are detailed, (3) charge generation is demonstrated on the impregnated material. Actuating and sensing devices are reported in order to highlight the potential of this green piezoelectric material. © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

The fabrication of a mechanically flexible piezoresistive load sensor is reported. Inkjet printing offers an inexpensive non-contact fabrication method for microelectronics. Herein we report the first direct fabrication of inkjet-printed graphene arrays, and apply them to electromechanical detection of force. The graphene ink was printed on a cantilever shape paper substrate. The results illustrated a linear resistance change with the applied forces. The force range, force resolution, and sensitivity were found to be 25 mN, 10 μN, and 1.2 mV/mN, respectively. In addition, graphite ink was also used as the sensing component in order to make a comparison between the piezoresistive effect of graphene and graphite ink. The results show that using graphene ink instead of graphite increases the force range and gauge factor of the sensor, which are two important designing factors. This sensor is inexpensive, simple to fabricate, lightweight, and disposable.

This paper is focuses modeling of the last part of the paper machine – the drying section. Paper is dried by letting it pass through a series of steam heated group of cylinders and the evaporation is thus performed by the latent heat of vaporization of the steam. The moisture in the paper is controlled by adjusting the set point of the steam presure controllers to the cylinders. There exist several incentives to focus on the performance of the moisture control. The time to perform a grade change is often limited by the moisture and shorter grade change time is directly correlated to economic profit. The plant model is identified periodically and the changes in its dynamic characteristics are observed. Periodic identification gives a great advantage over the conventional controller tuning methods, which uses the plant model at the nominal operating conditions. A variety of model structures are available to assist in modelling a system. Model for the drying process of Paper industry is established based on gathering 1000 groups of 2500 real-time sample data. Based on the collection of data, that was adapted to both the conventional and intelligent modelling process. Finally the suitable model is tuned with the suitable controller for optimal control of the drying process.

The aim of the study is to model and to simulate the thermal and electrical efficiencies of the cogeneration plant of a paper mill. The final purpose is the benefits optimization by adjusting production to the amount of energy to be sold. It is necessary to know it because the sale price goes down when the actual production of electrical energy does not match the scheduled power.

Remaining Life of the oil-immersed transformer is decided due to deterioration of the winding insulation paper (WIP). The DGA method is conventionally used to estimate the WIP deterioration status condition. This paper presented the four status conditions assessment of paper deterioration for oil-immersed transformer using fuzzy-logic (FL). In this paper the correlation between accumulated values of carbon dioxide (CO2) and carbon monoxide (CO) with insulation resistance in oil-filled power transformers is studied using FL. The authors have estimated the insulation paper deterioration condition using proposed method for 20 transformers or more. As a result, appropriate maintenance scenario can be planned.

Commercial inkjet-printers from manufacturers like Epson or Brother can be used for rapid prototype printing conductive traces onto paper or flexible PET substrates by using nanoparticle based dispersions. The surface coating of the substrate influences the attainable electrical conductivity and dielectric permittivity as well as the loss tangent, which are important parameters for developing inkjet-printed microwave circuits on paper substrates. For characterizing the permittivity conventional methods are using microstrip ring or microstrip transmission line resonators that require the printing of two electrically conductive layers. In the proposed paper, a novel method is introduced to determine the relative permittivity and loss tangent via a coplanar waveguide resonator realized on a single layer.

Ever increasing user demands and development of modern communication technologies have led to the evolution of communication networks from 1st Generation (1G) network to 4G heterogeneous networks. Further, 4G with heterogeneous network environment will provide features such as, “Always Best Connected”, “Anytime Anywhere” and seamless communication. Due to diverse characteristics of heterogeneous networks such as bandwidth, latency, cost, coverage and Quality of Service (QoS) etc., there are several open and unsolved issues namely mobility management, network administration, security etc. Hence, Designing proficient mobility management to seamlessly integrate heterogeneous wireless networks with all-IP is the most challenging issue in 4G networks. Mobile IPv6 (MIPv6) developed by Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has mobility management for the packet-switched devices of homogeneous wireless networks. Further, mobility management of homogeneous networks depends on network related parameter i.e., Received Signal Strength (RSS). However the mobility management of heterogeneous networks, not only depends on network related parameters, but also on terminal-velocity, battery power, location information, user-user profile & preferences and service-service capabilities & QoS etc. Designing mobility management with all-IP, while, considering issues such as context of networks, terminal, user and services is the main concern of industry and researchers in the current era.

We study the evolution of deformation on a quasi 2D paper sample during fatigue and creep experiments. Paper is a fibrous material, sensitive to various parameters (humidity, temperature, history effect). As for many materials, the lifetime varies a lot. Basquin's law claims that the number of cycles at break in fracture tests has a power-law dependence on the external load amplitude; Monkman-Grant relationship predicts that lifetime is proportional to the minimum strain rate during creep. The main question is therefore: is it possible to predict the time-dependent rupture? We perform creep and cyclic tests on paper samples. The main tools of investigation are acoustic emission (AE) -based analysis and digital image correlation (DIC). Via the AE, one can follow the damage evolution in samples, like microcrack formation that releases elastic energy. The DIC instead works well as a tool to measure at great accuracy both global and local deformation fields. From these, local strain rates can be derived, which then can be used to understand the microscopic dynamics that lie behind a certain rheology or sample response. The issue is to predict the break by looking at the sample-to-sample variation and by comparing experiments.

Australia produces both black and brown coal and is the world's fourth largest producer of black coal, after China, USA and India. Australian underground coal mines operate under controlled safety codes. The establishment of the mine safety management system, including the 1994 outburst management plan, contributed to a significant improvement in mine safety leading to non-fatality in outburst related incidences since 1994. The management of outburst risk, as a part of the overall safety and health management system is described. Also discussed are the introduction of outburst threshold limit values and the desorption rate index which forms the basis for determining safe mining conditions along with the “Authority to Mine” process The measures taken and lessons learned from safe mining of Australia's outburst prone mines represent an opportunity for improved mining safety in other countries, such as China.. The role of the Australian Coal Association Research Program, which supports research in critical areas such as outburst risk control and management, is also discussed.

For successful management of construction projects and organizations, it is crucial to adopt effective management systems that can handle the various information and documents of project activities. Document Management System (DMS) is the system used to store, control, coordinate, process and/or retrieve documents whether it is in electronic or paper based format. This research aims at investigating existing electronic and paper based DMSs in a sample of small size contracting companies in Jordan. Interviews and questionnaire survey with contractors, contractors’ representatives and practitioners of DMSs in a number of small contracting companies were carried out to investigate and evaluate the components, processes, motivations and challenges of the existing and intended DMSs. Electronic formats of documents and files used in small contracting companies will be also investigated. The results of this research can help contracting companies to enhance their DMSs, and improve efficiency and performance of the processes of construction projects management.

The paper presents the state-of-the-art concerning the current achievements in the field of 3D printing of buildings and building components. The 3D printing technologies, comparing to traditional techniques of constructing the buildings, could be considered as environmental friendly derivative giving almost unlimited possibilities for geometric complexity realizations. Two kinds of technologies were described in this paper with pointing to Contour Crafting as a promising technique that may be able to revolutionize construction industry in near future. Numerous advantages of this technology, such as reduction of the costs and time, minimizing the pollution of environment and decrease of injuries and fatalities on construction sites could be cited. Despite many advantages and hopes, some concerns are summarized in the conclusions, as the technology still has many limitations. A brief description of few examples of pioneering usage of 3D printing in construction industry are presented (Canal House in Amsterdam, WinSun company and printing application for building carried out by Skanska company). Creating a model that will be appropriate for 3D printers is possible in many different modelling programs. One of the most popular formats for sharing such models is STL format. In the paper sample models crated in Autodesk Inventor are shown, but also other tools suitable for preparing models for 3D printing are briefly discussed.

Carbon dioxide, a byproduct of fossil-fuel combustion, is a greenhouse gas, which traps solar radiation in the atmosphere. This cause climate change and global warming issues. Biodiesel has gained increasing attention as an alternative to fossil fuels for reducing the greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector. Yellow oleander (Thevetia peruviana) grows extensively in gardens as a decorative tree throughout Sri Lanka. The plant is a potential source of feed stock for biodiesel production as it produces fruit with two seeds with higher oil content as 49.6% (db) and it is a non-utilized oil crop without any economic value. The objective of this study is to produce biodiesel by transesterifying using extracting oil and to determine its properties. Yellow oleander oil with proper free fatty acid limit was pretreated with NaOH as catalyst and anhydrous methanol amount as 20% of oil volume. The produced yellow oleander methyl ester was characterized. It was observed as gross calorific value as 37.74 MJ/kg (ASTM D 240), flash point of 118°C (ASTM D 93), Kinematic viscosity at 40°C of 5.96 mm2/s (ISO 3105:1976), specific gravity of 0.8874 (ASTM D 1298) and density at 15°C of 887 kg/m3. All the tested parameters are within the accepted limits of the biodiesel thus making it an alternate fuel as transportation fuel for diesel engines.

Recognizing the widespread of negative impact from the usage of fossil fuels, biodiesel has been explored to ensure the sustainability of the environment. Recently, microtube reactor has been widely studied for continuous synthesis of biodiesel production. Therefore, this paper is intended to investigate the transesterification of palm oil using micro- and milli-channel reactors. The research was conducted to study the effects of catalyst concentration (0.5-5.0 wt%) and residence time (60-180 s) for two different tube internal diameters of 1.6 and 0.58 mm. The results showed that the oil conversion and FAME yield are greatly influenced by the tube internal diameter, catalyst concentration and residence time. The effect of tube internal diameter may be attributed to mass transfer effect between oil and methanol phases. The microtube reactor achieved more than 95% at 4.5 wt% of catalyst concentration and 180 s of residence time. Besides, the ester content determined by GC-FID analysis is a good estimation to the FAME yield determined by HPLC analysis.

Most popular renewable energy source is biomass. The typical form of biomass is wood. Use of wood for fuel have long tradition in Slovakia. Between a normally trees in Slovakia belongs beech and spruce. This article deals with the energy properties of spruce (Picea Abies). On different parts of the tree have been performed experimental measurements. The measured results show that the parts of the tree have potential for to the next application and processing.

Branded blends of wool and cotton for high-end apparel fabrics were established in Britain and later exported to many English-speaking countries during the 19 th century (e.g. woven fabrics Viyella™, 55% wool, 45% cotton; Clydella™, 81% cotton, 19% wool). During the late 20 th century, cotton and wool blend yarns for high-end apparel applications were developed in Australia (Colana®, 70% cotton, 30% wool). None of these branded blends of wool and cotton has a current market presence, yet there is evidence of relevance and interest in such blends for the high-end apparel market. How can we account for this disappearance and for the renewed interest?

This position paper presents a set of recommendations, advocating that all stakeholders concerned with tackling the Syrian humanitarian crisis should adopt a new scheme for emerging from this crisis. It draws the initial features of a proposed mechanism for easing the immense burden of the Syrian humanitarian crisis, leveraging the resources of the international community.

Malaysian construction industry follows the British Standards. Currently, the British Standards have been withdrawn and replaced by Eurocodes. In 2004, the Institution of Engineers Malaysia published a position paper on the concrete codes of practice in Malaysia after 2010 and recommended that the Eurocodes be adopted after the withdrawal of the British Standards. The structural Eurocode is undoubtedly a state –of-the art design code for structural engineering. Hence we have little choice except to adopt the current Eurocodes as Malaysian National Standards. However, it is permitted to attach a national annex with Nationally Determined Parameters (NDP) to the main body of the Eurocode New concepts and terminologies related to reliability and quality management have been introduced by the Eurocodes. This would to a certain extent affect engineering practice in Malaysia, and it will be the choice of the construction industry whether to adopt them or not. People concerned with the requirements of the Eurocode are: committees drafting standards; professionals; designers and constructors, clients (e.g. for the formulation of their specific requirements on reliability levels and durability) and relevant authorities. This paper will look into the aspects related to reliability and quality management proposed by the Eurocode and the respective comments given in the Malaysian National Annex. This covers definitions, basic requirements, measures and applications, and specific requirements on reliability and Iquality management. implementing the Eurocodes would require high standard of engineering practice and more time and understanding of the various aspects introduced. It is concluded that in order to produce safe and durable structure, all requirements of the Eurocode must be considered. Malaysia must take serious steps towards building a national reliability safety model. Issues related to liability and standard of care, in case of non compliance with the code requirements should also be addressed.

Herein, a simple and novel method was used to synthesize a new structure of graphene which can be called hollow graphene. First, the ZnO-Graphene QDs synthesized by solution method and then ZnO QDs were dissolved from this structure using an acidic solution to obtain hollow structure of graphene. Afterward, this structure was used in PbS QDs solar cell in order to improve the transport of electron and decrease the recombination of the carriers. A power conversion efficiency of 5.3% was obtained using hollow graphene as a fast electron extraction layer due to the enhancement of EQE and current density. The improvement of PCE in this device was corresponded to efficient photosensitized electron injection from the conduction band of PbS QDs to the LUMO levels of hollow graphene and slow carriers recombination.

Biological corrosion of sewers and sewage treatment plants constitutes a serious problem and its effects result in the loss of billions of dollars a year. It is generally acknowledged that corrosion of concrete caused by microorganisms is associated with their production of sulphuric acid as the main metabolic product. The activity of the bacteria leads to the formation of the sulphur cycle in the system, and consequently to the formation of sulphuric acid, whose presence causes corrosion of concrete. Moreover, the presence of other organisms, such as nitrifying bacteria, fungi and organic acids also contributes to the degradation of the concrete. This article discusses the mechanism caused by biogenic inorganic acids.

Locally available different bbiomass solid wastes, pine seed, date seed, plum seed, nutshell, hay of catkin, rice husk, jute stick, saw-dust, wheat straw and linseed residue in the particle form have been pyrolyzed in laboratory scale fixed bed reactor. The products obtained are pyrolysis oil, solid char and gas. The oil and char are collected while the gas is flared into atmosphere. The variation of oil yield for different biomass feedstock with reaction parameters like, reactor bed temperature, feed size and running time is presented in a comparative way in the paper. A maximum liquid yield of 55 wt% of dry feedstock is obtained at an optimum temperature of 500 °C for a feed size of 300-600 μm with a running time of 55 min with nutshell as the feedstock while the minimum liquid yield is found to be 30 wt% of feedstock at an optimum temperature of 400 °C for a feed size of 2.36 mm with a running time of 65 min for linseed residue. A detailed study on the variation of product yields with reaction parameters is presented for the latest investigation with pine seed as the feedstock where a maximum liquid yield of 40 wt% of dry feedstock is obtained at an optimum temperature of 500 °C for a feed size of 2.36-2.76 mm with a running time of 120 min. The characterization of the pyrolysis oil is carried out and a comparison of some selected properties of the oil is presented. From the study it is exhibited that the biomass solid wastes have the potential to be converted into liquid oil as a source of renewable energy with some further upgrading of the products.

In this work, attempts to float the micro-fine low rank coal and its particle size distribution in the flotation were made. Then, standard screening, FT-IR, XRD and SEM were adopted to characterize the size distribution and flotation of micro-fine Shendong low rank coal. The results indicated that the size fraction of -0.045 mm was the dominant size fraction in raw coal with a yield of 91.65% and ash content of 46.25%. Flotation of Shendong low rank coal required a larger dosage of collector, 50 kg/t of diesel oil, to achieve a higher combustible matter recovery (63.25%) and flotation efficiency index (40.70%) accompanied with a significant decrease in ash content (22.44 percentage points) due to the hydrophilicity of coal surface. Under this condition, concentrate contained 83.38% of -0.045 mm size fraction (38.04% of total particles in feed) with ash content of 24.98%. In comparison, tailing was almost consisted of -0.045 mm fraction (93.63%) with a higher ash content of 60.82%. It seems that the higher ash particles in feed were largely migrated in tailing at a proper collector dosage. The analysis of FT-IR, XRD and SEM would contribute to the understanding of the flotation and size distribution.

Yara own, operate and license fertiliser plants and technologies throughout the world. Phosphoric acid production is an important part of the Yara licensing portfolio. Formerly known as Hydro Agri and prior to that, Fisons, we have successfully designed and commissioned several world scale hemihydrate and hemidihydrate process phosphoric acid plants over the course of the last forty years. The largest of these plants was the IPL (formerly WMC) HH process phosphoric acid plant in Queensland, Australia. This single line grass roots 1500 tpd P2O5 plant has now been successfully operating for over ten years. The HH and HDH processes are characterised by producing high strength phosphoric acid directly from the hemihydrate filters; either negating or significantly reducing the degree of acid concentration required for downstream processes. The HH process is therefore energy efficient, simple to operate and as most of the aluminium reports to the solid phase, the phosphoric acid is of high quality. The HDH process is a two stage process whereby the hemihydrate produced in the energy efficient first stage is transformed to dihydrate in the second stage and the liberated P2O5 losses present in the hemihydrate produced in the first stage are recovered, resulting in a very high P2O5 recovery efficiency. This paper focuses on the hemihydrate technologies developed by Yara (as Fisons Fertilizers) and looks forward to the next major hemihydrate complex at Ras Az Zawr in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia where Yara are providing the license for Ma’aden Phosphate Company (MPC) to operate three independent phosphoric acid trains, each with a capacity of 1460 tpd P2O5.

In the process of promoting agricultural information, “Last Mile” problem is the long plagued to adopt information technology problems for farmers.This paper based on UTAUT to analyse the impact on farmers’ adoption of information technology services factors with the collection of specific data.The results show that the main factors are effort expect,performance expect,social influence and facilitating conditions,howerver,it is different in other circumstances that farmers pay more attention to the operation of the system simple and functional practicality.

During the first edition of Symphos, Prayon presented a newcomer in the family of phosphoric acid processes: the Prayon Dihydrate Attack – Hemi Filtration process (DA-HF). In this process all the dihydrate slurry from attack tank is converted into hemihydrate before filtration. Process conditions have been found such as to make possible phosphoric acid production directly from hemihydrate conversion tank. Based on pilot test results with more than 6 different phosphate rocks, with this process P 2 O 5 recovery gains of about 1,5% - 2% were expected with respect to a dihydrate process. Slurry filterability is also improved by about 10% - 20% and P 2 O 5 content of the produced acid is increased by more than 6% compared to a Dihydrate process. Based on such promising results Grupa Azoty and Prayon Technologies decided to join their forces to run two industrial tests in Grupa Azoty plants. One of the Dihydrate production plant was converted into DA-HF process by simple modifications, including piping modifications, pump addition, steam and sulphuric acid injection pipes installation. During the tests, Egyptian and Moroccan rocks were processed successfully. The joint project team showed that the process is stable, it can be stopped and started easily. The efficiency obtained is about 97,5% with Morocco rock and the P 2 O 5 produced above 33%. This corresponds to an impressive gain in efficiency of about 4% P 2 O 5 compared to the dihydrate process. The results obtained being very promising, Grupa Azoty and Prayon Technologies have agreed to move forward studying the conversion of one Grupa Azoty production plant into this new recently patented technology. Grupa Azoty, in cooperation with Prayon, is preparing to change the technology of phosacid production from DH to DA-HF. As a next step in this project feasibility study, including process and technical issues, is being prepared.

The abundance of empty fruit bunch (EFB) was generated over time as the by-products during oil palm fresh fruit bunches processing for the production of crude palm oil. The EFB was viewed as renewable energy resources. In this study, two series of the EFB pyrolysis experiments were conducted using a fixed-bed reactor to determine the effects of holding time and the sweeping nitrogen gas flowrates on the pyrolysis yields. In each experiment, the pyrolysis temperature was raised to 442.15 °C with a ramprate of 50 °C/min and nitrogen flowrate of 150 cm 3 /min. The first series of experiment was conducted to determine the effect of holding time on the distribution of pyrolysis products. Therefore, the holding time was varied at 6, 8, 10 and 12 minutes. It was identified that at 10 minutes holding time, the highest bio-oil yield of 45.72% was obtained with bio-char yield of 25.88% and 28.40% gas produced. In the second series of experiments, the effect of nitrogen flow rates was investigated by varying the nitrogen flowrates at 150, 200, 300,400 and 500 cm/min. It was identified that at nitrogen flowrates of 200 cm 3 /min, the bio-oil yield of 46.02% was at its maximum with bio-char and gas production of 26.69% and 27.29% respectively.

The present study aims to compare the performance in batch test of TSP and SSP fertilizer manufacturing from different grades of Down Stream phosphate compared to standard qualities. The results showed the technical feasibility of manufacturing these fertilizers from DS rock phosphates tested, however obtaining a TSP according to commercial specifications, requires grinding of phosphate DS to a fineness such as 90% passing 160 μm. The study demonstrated the feasibility of manufacturing these fertilizers from DS phosphates, however, to get fertilizers that comply completely with the commercial specifications it is necessary to grind them such as 90% passes at 160 μm.

Solar drying is considered to be a useful solar energy technology for developing counties. In this work, the performance of a large-scale greenhouse type solar dryer for drying chilli was investigated. The dryer has a parabolic shape and it is covered with polycarbonate sheets. The base of the dryer is a concrete floor with an area of 8×20 m2. Nine DC fans powered by three 50 W solar cell modules were used to ventilate the dryer. The dryer was installed at Ubon Ratchathani, Thailand. Three batches of chilli were dried in the dryer. It was found that five hundred kilograms of chilli with the initial moisture content of 74% (wb) were dried within 3 days while the natural sun dried needed 5 days. The chilli dried in this dryer was completely protected from insects, animals and rain. In addition, good quality of chilli was obtained.

TiO2/graphene composite photocatalysts were fabricated and the photocatalytic hydrogen-generating capabilities of the catalysts from H2O and H2S were investigated. The results showed that Ti-O-C bond formed in the TiO2/graphene composites, and as a co-catalyst, graphene attached to semiconductor surfaces can efficiently enhance the hydrogen evolution from H2O and H2S, which can be compared with that of the same semiconductor materials containing platinum under the same conditions. And the TiO2/graphene composite photocatalysts can still remain over 90% photocatalytic activity after photocatalytic hydrogen-generating from H2S and renewed in organic solution.

The authors regret an error in table 1. The correct table is presented below: The authors would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused.

This article has been removed: please see Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal (http://www.elsevier.com/locate/withdrawalpolicy).This article has been removed at the request of the Executive Publisher.This article has been removed because it was published without the permission of the author(s).

This paper based on the images of the primary short circuited melted mark (PSM) and secondary short-circuited melted mark(SSM), set out to demonstrate the application of image processing in fire material evidence identification. Because there are few researches about the accurate description for image of different situation, it is difficult to further study the differences between PSM and SSM. therefore, in this paper, the image processing technique, as an accurate description based on quantitative analysis method is put forward, and it is found that the images can be extracted out of contour and texture characteristics, which can be processed with the statistical means, so as to classify the PSM and SSM from the morphologically point of view accurately.

In the pulp and paper industry, the design of industrial equipment based on empirical correlations can be avoided using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) tools. The present study aims at investigation of the turbulent pipe flow of concentrated Eucalyptus pulp suspension using the ANSYS FLUENT® CFD software package. The modelling strategy was a pseudo-homogeneous approach. The non-Newtonian behavior of the pulp suspension was introduced into the CFD code considering its viscosity as a function of a shear rate. Additionally, the existence of a water annulus at the pipe wall surrounding the core flow was taken into account. Four low-Reynolds k-ɛ turbulence models were selected in the present study aiming at describing the presence of a drag reduction effect. All the models used were able to reproduce the drag reduction effect. Additionally the Lam-Bremhorst model was modified taking into account alterations applied successfully by other authors for the turbulent flow of polymer solutions. A good correspondence between the peculiar S-shaped profile near the wall, for the dimensionless velocity, reported in literature for these systems and those obtained numerically was achieved. The approach followed was validated by comparing the numerical results of pressure drop with those from literature.

The dissolved CO 2 accumulation has become an important factor restricting production in the high-density recirculating aquaculture system in which pure oxygen injection is used. In this paper, a novel CO 2 removal device is designed for the recirculating aquaculture water environment based on the principle of gas exchange. In terms of experiments, the DOE (design of experiment) method is applied to design three factor two level orthogonal experiment, Further, significance effect of gas to liquid ratios (G / L), inlet CO 2 concentration, the water flow rate (Q W ) on CO 2 removal efficiency is analyzed. Results show that G/L has the most significant influence on the CO 2 removal efficiency. Influences of the latter two on CO 2 removal efficiency are not apparent. Tests results of G/L effect on CO 2 removal efficiency show that, when G/L=1∼5, CO 2 removal efficiency increases rapidly with the increase of G/L; when G/L=5, CO 2 removal efficiency=80%∼88%; when G/L=8, CO 2 removal efficiency=86%∼92%, when G/L>8, CO 2 removal efficiency increases gently with the increase of G/L. Considering both system energy saving and effective removal of carbon dioxide, G/L=5∼8 is considered to be the best for the aquaculture water CO2 removal device running, CO 2 removal efficiency=80%∼92%.

This paper based on rough set, the original data, attribute reduction, value reduction, the rule extraction, the final diagnosis model building apple’s disease, disease diagnosis for apple to provide practical diagnostic tool.

Northern white ash had been the wood of choice for Major League Baseball (MLB) bats until the introduction of hard maple in the late 1990 s. Since the introduction of maple to the game, there has been a perceived increase in the rate of bats to exhibit multi-piece failures (MPF)–both ash and maple. Lab and field data indicate that while a maple bat is as equally likely to crack as an ash bat, maple is three times more likely than ash to exhibit an MPF. In 2009 MLB implemented a number of additional regulations and inspection processes for the wood billets in an effort to reduce the MPF rate. In 2010, another regulation was added requiring that before any new wood species can be introduced to the game, it must it must obtain approval from MLB Baseball Operations. This paper will describe a proposed wood species certification protocol to quantify its durability relative to ash, where ash is being taken as the acceptable baseline for durability. A demonstration of the protocol is conducted using yellow birch with white ash as the baseline. Finite element models of bats made of these two wood species are used to explore the relationship between wood density and bat durability.

The continuous increasing demand for energy and the decreasing petroleum resources has led to the search for alternative fuel which is renewable and sustainable. The quality and efficiency of Biodiesel fuel was found to be more significant than petro diesel. For predicting the properties of Biodiesel, various models were developed using various feed oils and blends, the quality of Biodiesel depends on the type of feed oils. The %ARD values were proposed, which vary with composition of feed oils for a given model in comparison between predicted and experimental data. There is a huge scope in the development of accurate models to predict the properties of Biodiesel and more importantly their blends as they are gaining significance with the ever increasing demand of Diesel fuel.

The growing concern on fossil fuel depletion, environmental awareness, increasing energy consumption and food-fuel conflict has initiated the thought of using non-edible oils such as crude rubber seed oil (RSO) to produce renewable fuels. Besides being largely available in Malaysia the rubber seeds is still underutilized. In this study the physicochemical properties of RSO as a potential inedible oil for biogasoline production were analysed using American Oil Chemists Society (AOCS) standard procedures. The RSO was characterised in terms of colour (dark brown), state (liquid), viscosity (40.86 mm 2 /s), specific gravity (0.91), peroxide value (3.42 Mg/g), moisture content (0.37wt%), high heating value (39.71 MJ/kg), acid value (83.76 mg KOH/g), free fatty acid contents (41.64%), iodine value (118.8) and sulphur content (0%). These values obtained were then analysed and compared with the commonly used crude palm oil. The acquired results produced were convincing and matched in agreeable values with other literatures on RSO. The results strongly suggest that RSO is a promising alternative energy source to fuel vehicles in the coming future.

The present study represents the conversion of biomass solid waste in the form of pine seed into bio-oil by solvent extraction method. Hexane is used as solvent in this process which forms miscella (mixture of solvent and oil). Solvent is recovered by distillation from miscella. The oil obtained was analyzed for their properties as an alternative fuel and was compared with petroleum product and other biomass derived oil. The fuel properties compared were higher calorific value, density and viscosity.

Methane production from biomass gasification is an alternative route compared to conventional techniques for the efforts to reduce the carbon foot print. In the current work, production of methane is studied from steam gasification of palm kernel shell (PKS) in thermo gravimetric analyser (TGA) and mass spectrometer (MS). Response surface methodology (RSM) is applied to investigate the effect of operating parameters and to identify the optimized parameters. The four main process variables were investigated within the specific range of temperature of 650 -750 °C, particle size of 0.5-1 mm, CaO/biomass of 0.5-2 and coal bottom ash % of 0.02-1. Temperature and CaO/biomass ratio were found to be the most influencing variables on methane production. The optimised conditions obtained were temperature of 750 °C, particle size of 0.99 mm, CaO/biomass of 1.25 and coal bottom ash of 0.08%. The presence of Fe, Mg, Al oxides in the coal bottom ash catalysed the process and enhanced the methane yield from 37 to 43.3 vol %.

The way in which construction projects are managed has not changed significantly in the last decades; however, stakeholders, materials, competition, and user requirements are continuously changing. This creates a gap between the current managerial view on how construction projects are conducted and how they could be managed to increase efficiency. The construction industry could use new frameworks for action in the project and product management, and learn from the experiences of other industries. With this background in mind, some construction companies are enhancing the performance of their project teams to improve their competitiveness and increase the added value to their clients and themselves. This paper investigates the implementation of a framework from the IT sector into the construction industry: Scrum. Conducting a case study, the implementation and application of Scrum was analysed through the evaluation of its different artifacts. This research covers the following questions: Can Scrum be implemented in the design phase of the construction industry? What adaptations are needed to use Scrum to improve the design phase of construction projects? How and where could Scrum, or parts of it, be used by the design and planning departments of construction companies? The results from this study show that Scrum has great potential in the design and planning departments of construction firms. From the analysis of the applications of Scrum in the case study, tangible benefits and weaknesses of the implementation, and its different artifacts, were identified. Finally, this paper gives recommendations about the use of Scrum in the design phase and proposes an outlook to implement Scrum in other phases of construction projects., Procedia Engineering, 164, Selected papers from Creative Construction Conference 2016

Purpose-The purpose of this paper is to establish the key role of power and legitimacy attributes in effective community participation in post-disaster reconstruction (PDR) projects. Design/methodology/approach-The research applies a qualitative research approach in conjunction with a case study method, using semi-structured interviews and purposive sampling techniques. The principal source of data were semi-structured interviews of affected community members and other stakeholders of a post-natural disaster reconstruction project initiated in the aftermath of 2005 devastating earthquake in Pakistan. The interviews were undertaken between October and December 2016. Findings-Participation of affected community is significant for the success of a PDR projects; however effective participation cannot be ensured without empowerment and legitimization. In context of post disaster reconstruction; both, power and legitimacy attributes have a direct effect on effective participation of the community. Originality/value-This paper has explored the relationship of stakeholder's attributes with participation and have also proposed an attribute model for future PDR projects. Adoption of attribute model will enhance the chances of success of future PDR projects.

© 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Disaster Risk Management (DRM) and Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) emerged as systematic approaches to reduce the impact of climate change on the built environment. However, post 2015 United Nations (UN) disaster management and emergency policies failed to capture the dynamics of hazards, exposure and vulnerability essential for building urban resilience. As part of an ongoing PhD study, this paper aims to identify common principles for DRM and DRR in the context of urban resilience, towards building coherence between the 2015-2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for the built environment and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR). The paper adopts a constructivist position to investigate the historical emergence of DRM and DRR in pre-and-post the year 2015. Learning lessons, identifying gaps and future challenges, a correlational study of the three-stage disaster preparedness process of recovery, rehabilitation and reconstruction in DRR and DRM is conducted, against the indicators of Target D for the SFDRR, and Goal 11 for the SDGs three main constructs: disaster damage, critical infrastructure and disruption of basic services. The outcomes of this study show the absence of indicators to monitor progress on evolving disasters and underlying risk drivers. A Preparedness Framework is developed in this paper with recommendations to integrate the UN Habitat Urban System Model Approach for urban resilience, and develop risk-resilient DRM and DRR frameworks for sustainable built environments.

The policies guiding the Nigerian environment, oil and gas production is enormous. Nigeria is a signatory to innumerable international agreements and conventions related to environmental sustainability, climate change, health and safety of its citizens and protection of marine waters, fishes and livelihood structures. The regulations are aimed to reduce the dangers that emanates from industrial activities and safeguard the surroundings and wellbeing. This paper is a review of some instructive environmental policies and guidelines in the Nigerian oil and gas industry in relation to compensation for environmental damages resulted from oil spillages. The literature including journal articles, conference papers, government documents and news papers were reviewed to understand the influence of the established policies on communities affected by oil spills. The study establishes that the policies are laudably pronounced theoretically rather than practically. The policies lack consistency, enforcement and overlaps of mandates which is contradicting and controversial for the affected communities. In addition, the lack of clarity in compensation strategies and transparency in the process calls for a greater attention. The paper recommends that government and the oil and gas industries revisit the existing policies to in-cooperate compensation for damages due to oil spills, or enact a separate law specifically for damages from oil spillages. Also, there should be a clear mandate between agencies for an effective enforcement of the laws.

Nigeria is the sixth-largest exporter of oil and correspondingly the sixth largest nation among the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). The petroleum product account for more than 90% foreign exchange for the Federation of Nigeria while the immediate environment suffers more than 90% environment and socio-economic degeneration. The incidences of oil spills however, negatively impacted the Niger Delta communities and the environment described as one among the worst impacted zones globally. Whilst the affected communities struggle for attention and justice for the environmental damages through protest, agitations and violence, the Nigerian state and the oil and gas industries continue with their operations. The paper investigates impact of the oil spills on community’s livelihood structures and its influence on restiveness in selected Niger delta affected communities. The paper adopts a qualitative research through interviews and group discussions with social activist, chiefs, experts in the field, youths and community leaders to identify oil spill impacts on community socio-economic conditions. Data collected were analysed using thematic templet analytic techniques. The study shows a high impact on the entire communities with different factors that have contributed to the increase on social aspects of the affected. The paper makes a recommendation to all stakeholders within oil related and the multinationals to improve their strategies and or contingency planning in tackling oil spill-related issues and adhere to community’s plight when appropriate.

In Sri Lanka, development projects and their aims cannot be understood in absence of politics. Not only the rationale of the project, but also it’s the process and outcomes are products of the clientelistic politics practiced in the country’s politics since its independence. In that context, examining the process and politics is immensely important to understand the disaster potential of the Moragahakanda Development Project. This project is one of the last components of the Mahaweli Development Program that was designed as a 30-year project. The main objective of the project is to provide irrigation facilities to the existing water scarce farmlands (82,000ha) and also to open up new land (5000ha) for agriculture development in Northern, North Central, and Eastern and North Western provinces. In addition, generating and supplying of 25MW hydro-power to the national grid, increasing inland fish production, provision of potable and industrial water requirements, Eco tourism and effective flood control are also among the objectives of the project. According to the Mahaweli Authority, nearly 70% of the construction work of the Moragahakanda reservoir has been completed and the project is expected to be concluded by December 2017. This paper will be based on the field research that the author is carrying out for his forthcoming publication. Often such mega projects present its objectives loud and clear while keeping pitch silent about its negative effects. This paper, in order to examine the relationship between development politics and disaster mitigation, focuses mainly on the issues that are hardly being discussed. The Moragahakanda project has displaced a total of 5870 people in 1181 families from 11 Grama Niladari Divisions (GNDs). Once the project is completed Six GNDs areas will be totally and six other partially submerged causing more displacement of families. It effect on the environment is also alarming. This paper aims to examine the role of politics in development in relation to Moragahakanda project and thereby study the readiness of such mega projects to mitigate possible future disasters. It is naive to expect development projects to be completely free of consequences on environment and human lives. In addition, one has to completely ignorant of the nature of politics in our society to believe that development projects to be initiated and implemented free of politics and practice of clientalism. Therefore, the strategies for mitigating potential disasters of such projects should also be examined in relation to the politics within which such projects are implemented.

International collaborations in the context of Disaster Resilience (DR) is pivotal due to several reasons. It helps to propose ways to create more coherent international approaches on disaster risk reduction, climate change adaptation and resilience strengthening; it helps to enhance risk management capabilities by bridging the gap between science and legal/policy issues; it helps to address the issue of efficient management of trans-boundary crises. The need to optimise international cooperation in relation to resourcing research, capacity building to undertake research and facilitating its uptake is mentioned throughout the Sendai Framework for disaster risk reduction 2015-2030 (SFDRR). Given their different capacities, as well as the linkage between the level of support provided to them and the extent to which they will be able to implement the SFDRR, developing countries require an enhanced provision of means of implementation, including adequate, sustainable and timely resources, through international cooperation and global partnerships for development, and continued international support, so as to strengthen their efforts to reduce disaster risk. The purpose of this paper is to examine the level of engagement of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in developing countries in Asia in international collaborations to improve their Research and Innovation (R&I) capacities in DR. Based on a project entitled ASCENT (Advancing Skills Creation and Enhancement), the findings of the paper focuses on three Asian countries, i.e. Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Thailand. Other than an extant literature review, the paper findings are drawn from a questionnaire survey carried out in eight HEIs from the said countries. There are already several regional initiatives that promote collaboration among HEIs towards building resilience. These networks should be supported and encouraged to grow. These global networks should collaborate with existing bodies to ensure that the role of higher education is understood and can be made use of. Findings of this paper supports the need for an enhanced international partnership to improve the science-policy interface in DR and to achieve the objectives of the SFDRR.

There are three major methods to verify the durability characteristics of a new designed leaf spring. These are simulation, test bench and rough road testing. Simulation is a rapid approach to find out the very first results for the assessment of the design. Test bench uses a pre-defined load program to estimate the lifetime of the leaf spring. It takes more time than simulation and is more costly. Rough road testing covers a complete endurance run for the whole heavy duty truck structure which is very costly and takes a very long time to accomplish. The aim of this paper is to reduce the time and the cost of the development procedure of a new designed leaf spring. The most efficient way to reach this goal is to correlate the results of the testing and simulation, so that, it would be possible to release new designs mostly depending on the simulation which is the fastest and the reasonable way to reach a final evaluation. A new designed leaf spring, with two leaves, is simulated in finite element analysis with the loads from multi body simulations in order to reach a fatigue life assessment; is tested in the test bench with the pre-defined loads from the rough road; is mounted to a complete truck structure to run a full rough road truck program to reach the final evaluation. In this paper, these three durability assessment techniques are compared and correlated with each other as a main scope. Additionally, the simulation methodology, the structure of the test bench and the procedure of the rough road testing are given in details.

The 3rd Edition of API 579-1/ASME FFS-1 2016 Fitness-For-Service includes a new Part 14 dedicated to fatigue assessment. An important section in this part covers the fatigue assessment of welded joints. In this paper, an overview of the fatigue methods for welded joints is provided and extensions are recommended. First, an overview is given of the classical fatigue method used in the ASME B&PV Code based on smooth bar fatigue curves in conjunction with a fatigue strength reduction factor. In addition, the mesh insensitive structural stress method is outlined using an equivalent stress parameter based on fracture mechanics considerations in conjunction with a master S-N curve based on the analysis of over 2000 high and low cycle S-N test data. The resulting master S-N curve approach is applicable to high cycle fatigue and low cycle fatigue if a Neuber correction is introduced. In this paper, a new structural strain method is presented to extend the early structural stress based master S-N curve method to the low cycle fatigue regime in which plastic deformations can be significant while an elastic core is present. With this new method, some of the inconsistencies of the pseudo-elastic structural stress procedure can be eliminated, such as its use of Neuber’s rule in approximating structural strain beyond yield. The earlier mesh-insensitive structural stress based master S-N curve method can now be viewed as an application of the structural strain method in the high cycle regime, in which structural strains are linearly related to traction-based structural stresses according to Hooke’s law. Thus, both low cycle and high cycle fatigue behavior can now be treated in a unified manner. In the low-cycle regime, the structural strain method characterizes fatigue damage directly in terms of structural strains that satisfy a linear through-thickness deformation gradient assumption, material nonlinear behavior, and equilibrium conditions. A PVRC Joint Industry Project is currently sponsoring work on the structural strain method that will lead to its incorporation in the next edition of API 579-1/ASME FFS-1.