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The South Pars Special Economic Energy Zone (SPSEEZ) is the largest petroleum zone in Iran and the second biggest gas producer in the world. It is now one of the world's most important eco-industrial poles. Despite the rapid development and activists' calls to sustainable path, there is little systematic effort in the assessment of industrial zones sustainability in developing countries. Iran, a nation that has ratified the Rio Declaration pact, has moved forward in order to achieve sustainable development. There have always been controversial debates due to its success. This paper employs survey, interview as well as observation to explore the perception of people on planning and sustainable development efforts and to identify the most important challenges at SPSEEZ. The result shows that the major impediment against sustainability is the lack of involvement from urban planners and the public during decision-making process. Finally, the paper contributes to the identification of the most urgent problems in SPSEEZ and the functions of different stakeholders as a reference for better sustainable development planning. Keywords: Sustainable development, Stakeholders' perception, SPSEEZ, 1. Introduction The term sustainability is a very general concept and has too many interpretations (Clifton, 2009). Sustainable development is popularly described by Brundtland as 'a development that meets the [...]

Wind-induced natural ventilation tower is one of the effective devices in enhancing indoor air quality. It can be designed and integrated as part of building components. This paper investigates the performance of various design configurations of a wind-induced natural ventilation tower with the focus on Venturi-shaped roofs and towers. The Venturi-shaped roofs and towers are used to create negative pressure in order to enhance the extraction air flow rates of the wind-induced natural ventilation tower. The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method is used to analyse each of the design configurations. The different design configurations are based on roof tilt angles, roofs' shapes, tower heights and shapes of the wind-induced natural ventilation tower. The parameters analysed are extraction air flow rates and air flow pattern. Based on the CFD simulation results of various design configurations, the 'biconcave'-shaped wind tower has the best design configuration with 14 568.66 m3/h extraction air flow rates at 0.8 m/s external wind velocity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban design plays an important role in a city's daily life. Therefore, accessibility to thermal comfort spaces for citizens engaged in urban outdoor activities could be one of the main goals of urban designers. Urban forms and canyons have important roles in microclimate and thermal comfort situation in outdoor spaces. The hot humid climate of Bandar Abbas, especially in long summers, causes thermal stress for urban activities. In this study, two different urban fabrics were investigated using thermal comfort and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) methods. Eight provisional measuring points in the selected prevailing canyons were used to obtain the data. The results correlated with the effects of the urban canyon orientation to variation of the microclimate factors, and consequently, the thermal comfort situation in the hottest period of the year. In addition, the results also indicated that the traditional urban fabric is more thermally comfortable than the new residential urban fabric. According to field measurements, thermal comfort calculation and wind simulations, the canyons with the north-south direction present a better orientation for air circulation benefiting from the sea breezes as compared to the other canyon orientations. Hence, this study provides insights for urban designers and policy makers residing in the hot and humid climate in the Middle East. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper illustrates a quantitative study on workability and strength properties of concrete which is produced by Oil Palm Shell (OPS) as coarse aggregate. A set of laboratory tests including Slump, Compaction Factor, Density, Compressive Strength and Schmidt Hammer test was conducted on concrete made by natural aggregate as control sample and concrete produced by different percentage of OPS i.e. 10%,20%,30%,40% and 50% of dry weight of coarse aggregate. All samples were submerged for 3, 7, 14 and 28 days as curing age. The results demonstrate that the rate of workability for OPS samples shows a relatively medium to high workability ranging from 28 to 50mm for slump height and 0.93 to 0.95 for compaction factor. The general strength of OPS concrete samples produced high strength concrete with compressive strength reaching up to 52.2N/mm² for 28 days. 50% is sufficient for lightweight concrete however, 30% is the optimum percent to produce high strength with partially lightweight concrete. The results of this study can be contributed to produce high strength concrete as well as lightweight concrete particularly in construction of high rise buildings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although Sustainable Higher Education (SHE) is a very important issue in Malaysia, there have not been any comprehensive studies related to the current public Higher Education initiatives and efforts in sustainability. It is a relevant issue which merits a proper study to evaluate both the strengths and deficiencies of the local universities in terms of sustainability. Thus, to carry out this objective, an exploratory method was conducted by reviewing archival data, observation, interviews, as well as short and long conversations with both the staff and students of the four selected Malaysian research universities. The observation, interviews and conversations have validated the archival research. The results indicated that Malaysian research universities have already recognized the concept of SHE and embarked into the sustainability movement. However, there still remains a big gap towards achieving the idealistic goals. The findings would throw some insights into the existing policies and initiatives of SHE which could serve as a reference and preliminary study to improve the current situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]