ALBERT

Beschreibung: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 22 Author(s): Herman van Os , Rien Herber , Bert Scholtens The decision-making process for subsurface activities in the Netherlands has been unable to cope with the driving forces related to social acceptance in several recently proposed subsurface activities. We therefore investigated the possibility to include the triangle of social acceptance in the decision-making process. Our conceptual model relates the stakeholders, their goals and the driving forces to each other. We developed a framework, which describes the interaction between eleven design criteria for a Decision Support System (DSS). This framework will enable us to design a better, from a social acceptance perspective, DSS for subsurface activities in the Netherlands. Since the goals addressed in the decision-making process are very broad and the stakeholders are quite diverse, a single uniform DSS is not able to provide a satisfactory solution. We therefore suggest to design a DSS that is matched with each class of social acceptance.

Beschreibung: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 22 Author(s): Yoshie Inada , Shinobu Izumi , Motoya Koga , Shigehito Matsubara We are developing a planning support system for welfare urban design. If we quantify the optimal route (the route that is the easiest to pass through) for challenged people, we will be able to select the areas that require adjustment in terms of accessibility with greater efficiency. In this paper we report on our development of the prototype system to present an optimal route for wheelchair users, and also, the two workshops we had for evaluating the accuracy of the resulted optimal route.

Beschreibung: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 22 Author(s): Erfaneh Allameh , Mohammadali Heidari , Bauke De Vries , Harry Timmermans , Mohammad Masoud , Farhang Mozaffar Almost everyone would agree that teleworking is increasingly growing; but beyond this broad statement, we know little about how people behave when they work at home and how they balance their work and life. User comfort and productivity cannot be addressed properly, without a deep understanding of usersʼ working behavior. This gap is even deeper when it comes to the domain of smart homes as new types of housing which aim to enhance working at home. Hence, more user-centered studies are needed to comprehend the interrelationships among housing, technology, daily life and the work activities. In this paper, we use the outputs of an experiment to model usersʼ work activities in a smart home. The experiment was conducted among 254 respondents, who were asked to explore a smart home in a virtual environment and then to arrange their daily activities including work related activities in the virtual smart home. A choice modeling approach, based on the Multinomial Logit Model (MNL), is applied to model how an individual works at a smart home given influential factors such as the individualsʼ socio-demographic profile and their current lifestyle. Two features of working in a smart home are covered in this paper, namely, “the integration of work activities with other daily activities” and “the location of work activities in the house”. The results give better insight into the future trends of working at home and the effects of smart homes on working behavior of people. The results can be used in further developments of both smart homes and teleworking.

Beschreibung: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 22 Author(s): Jinhee Kim , Soora Rasouli , Harry Timmermans Hybrid choice models have been developed as an extension of discrete choice models, particularly multinomial logit models, in an attempt to include attitudinal variables. The quintessence of hybrid choice models is that a model of attitude formation is estimated and the estimated attitudes are added to the commonly used set of attributes in discrete choice models: attributes of the choice alternatives and socio-demographic variables. The most commonly applied model is based on linear specifications, both for the attitude model and the utility function. In this review paper, we discuss the principles underlying the hybrid choice model, summarize the specifications used in previous applications of the model and then continue discussing recent progress that added social influence to the model specification and replaced the linear specification of the utility function with a nonlinear function.

Beschreibung: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 22 Author(s): Yountaik Leem , Sang Ho Lee , Jungho Yoon To overcome many difficulties in sustaining the satisfying quality of life for a large population 1 , urban spaces are evolving toward more efficient spaces by combination with ICTs (information and communication technologies) and raising the possibility to provide improved urban services which can enrich the quality of life of the citizen. In many cities over the world, a good number of public and private services in transportation, environment, urban safety from crime or disaster, health and other fields are designed and implemented with IT infrastructure. In spite of the expectation of cost-effective urban services based on the linkage between data and systems, obstructions in administrative and technical domains have made it difficult to be implemented. In this study, two advanced ICTs based urban services, which were developed by linkage and convergence of urban information and systems of Korea were introduced and analysed. The structural design of system convergence and data sharing scheme of Carbon Emission Monitoring System (CEMS) in Sejong City uses UIS (Urban Information System for local authorities), GIS data and other data provided by the public agencies, such as Korea Meteorological Administration for the monitoring and analysing the characteristics of the energy consumption of household 2 . Another system, Urban Integrated CCTV Control System (ICCS) in Anyang City, shows integrated CCTV networks for crime prevention, traffic control and public facility management to provide extended urban services, such as disaster prevention, police investigation and others. Qualitative and Quantitative effects analyses with technical and policy directions were suggested for the development and improvement of future urban services for a liveable city.

Beschreibung: The efficiency of strengthening traditionally built three-leaf stone masonry walls with different types of composite reinforced coating has been investigated. Glass fibre grid in single component fibre reinforced mortar and glass fibre fabric in epoxy resin matrix were used as coating materials. Four different coating types have been applied, with coating placed on one or both sides of the walls, anchored or not anchored to the masonry at the corners of the walls. Ten walls have been tested by subjecting them to cyclic shear loading at constant precompression, among them two walls in the original state as the control specimens. Four walls have been first tested up to the occurrence of the first significant damage, strengthened and then re-tested up to collapse, whereas four walls have been strengthened undamaged and tested up to collapse. All walls failed in shear. Significant increase in lateral resistance with regard to control walls was observed in all cases, up to 2.5–4.0-times the resistance of the control walls. The degree of improvement did not depend on the type of coating but on the technology of application. Although the coating increased the rigidity of the walls, displacement and energy dissipation capacities have been also improved.

Beschreibung: Estimating earthquake losses is an important issue for many private and public bodies. As a major stakeholder, insurers need realistic probable maximum loss (PML) values to foresee the possible losses they would face after a major earthquake and also to calculate optimal insurance premiums. Insurers generally use fragility curves to manage their portfolio by calculating overall PML values. There are, however, serious impacts of risk based PML estimation on earthquake insurance rates, and in this respect fragility curves, which represent regional losses rather than individual losses, could lead to suboptimal decisions. In this study, a rapid earthquake loss estimation methodology, which can be used even by the non-experts in earthquake engineering without conducting comprehensive structural analyses, is proposed for single-storey reinforced concrete industrial buildings based on parameters determined after investigating more than 80 industrial building projects in Turkey. 384 analytical structural loss estimation curves were obtained via the non-linear structural performance analysis method proposed in the 2007 Turkish Seismic Design Code. To provide a detailed evaluation of the proposed methodology’s performance, fragility curves representative of the structural types and the design levels of the buildings investigated were also developed. Finally, total insurance premiums corresponding to PML values of the inventory buildings were calculated, using the two aforementioned estimation methods and others previously published, by addressing issues such as reinsurance cost, capital cost and profit. Results reveal considerable differences in PML values and eventually earthquake insurance rates for the buildings investigated between the risk based structural loss estimation method and the existing methods, indicating possibilities for improved portfolio analysis and management tools.

Beschreibung: In this paper an analytical expression that estimates the collapse load of a generic class of multi-storey, uniform, moment-resisting steel frames is presented. This expression is validated and calibrated with nonlinear pushover analyses (NPA) and incremental dynamic analyses for a set of buildings, of differing heights, that are designed according to the Eurocodes. The efficacy of different seismically induced load profiles in NPA is discussed with a preferred profile suggested for this class of structural system. The relationship between the actual seismic force reduction factor and code specified behavior factors is underlined.

Beschreibung: In conventional seismic design the capacity of the system is generally exploited only at the superstructure level. However, soil non-linearity as well as soil-foundation interface non-linearity can be crucial in the seismic response of structures. The results of tests performed on physical models allow the main aspects of these interaction mechanisms to be identified and also provide a benchmark for subsequent theoretical or numerical analyses. The present paper deals with two shaking table tests performed at the University of Bristol’s EERC laboratory. The tests were performed on a physical model consisting of a Leighton Buzzard sand deposit and a one-storey steel model structure. Some of the test results are presented and discussed in terms of acceleration and displacement responses. Both time- and frequency-domain representations were adopted to highlight the influence of the frequency and amplitude of the input motion on the coupled and/or uncoupled response of the tested soil-structure system, as well as the effect of soil non linear behaviour.

Beschreibung: The insertion of damped braces proves to be very effective for enhancing the performance of a framed building under seismic loads. For a widespread application of this technique suitable design procedures are needed. In this paper a design procedure which aims to proportion damped braces to attain a designated performance level of the structure, for a specific level of seismic intensity, is proposed. In particular, a proportional stiffness criterion, which assumes the elastic lateral storey-stiffness due to the braces proportional to that of the unbraced frame, is combined with the displacement-based design, in which the design starts from a target deformation. To check the effectiveness and reliability of the design procedure, a six-storey reinforced concrete plane frame, representative of a medium-rise symmetric framed building, is considered as primary structure. This, designed in a medium-risk seismic region, has to be retrofitted as in a high-risk seismic region by the insertion of braces equipped with either metallic-yielding dampers or viscoelastic ones. Nonlinear dynamic analyses of unbraced and damped braced frames are carried out, under real (set A) and artificially generated (set B) ground motions, by a step-by-step procedure. Frame members and hysteretic dampers are idealized by bilinear models, while the viscoelastic dampers are idealized by a six-element generalized model describing the variation of the mechanical properties depending on the frequency, at a given temperature.

Beschreibung: In this paper we describe a stable automatic method to estimate in real time the seismic moment, moment magnitude and corner frequency of events recorded by a network comprising broad-band and accelerometer sensors. The procedure produces reliable results even for small-magnitude events $\hbox {M}_{\mathrm{W}}\approx 3$ . The real-time data arise from both the Transfrontier network at the Alps-Dinarides junction and from the Italian National Accelerometric Network (RAN). The data is pre-processed and the S-wave train identified through the application of an automatic method, which estimates the arrival times based on the hypocenter location, recording site and regional velocity model. The transverse component of motion is used to minimize conversion effects. The source spectrum is obtained by correcting the signals for geometrical spreading and intrinsic attenuation. Source spectra for both velocity and displacement are computed and, following Andrews ( 1986 ), the seismic moment and the first estimate of the corner frequency, $f_{0}$ , derived. The procedure is validated using the recordings of some recent moderate earthquakes (Carnia 2002; Bovec 2004; Parma 2008; Aquila 2009; Macerata 2009; Emilia 2012) and the recordings of some minor events in the SE Alps area for which independent seismic moment and moment magnitude estimates are available. The results obtained with a dataset of 843 events recorded by the Transfrontier and RAN networks show that the procedure is reliable and robust for events with $\hbox {M}_{\mathrm{W}}\ge 3$ . The estimates of $f_{0}$ are less reliable. The results show a scatter, principally for small events with $\hbox {M}_{\mathrm{W}}\le 3$ , probably due to site effects and inaccurate locations.

Beschreibung: Timber-framed (TF) masonry has been developed as an effective lateral-load resisting system in regions of high seismicity such as Southern Europe. A salient feature of the ‘last generation’ of TF buildings is the presence of diagonal members that may consist of two diagonal braces. The present study focusses on alternative modelling procedures, ranging from simple to rather complex, for this interesting type of traditional structure. All models are applied to study the behaviour of full-scale specimens of diagonally-braced TF panels. The complex model is based on plasticity with contact surfaces for the connection between timber diagonals and masonry infills. A parametric analysis using this model shows that masonry infills affect only slightly the lateral force carried by this TF panel configuration. Furthermore, two simple modelling techniques are put forward for application in the analysis of large, realistic structures incorporating TF walls. The first one is directly connected to the complex modelling and is based on substructuring. A nine-step procedure is developed and is found to properly reproduce the response of the test specimens. The second simple model is a phenomenological one, developed on the basis of observed behaviour during tests and is a complete hysteretic model; however, for comparison purposes, all models are evaluated here with respect to the prediction of the envelope (pushover) curve for the walls tested under lateral loads.

Beschreibung: Traditional approaches to damage estimation in earthquake loss modelling make use of relationships between scalar intensity measures and scalar engineering demand parameters. In this study we present a series of vector-valued fragility surfaces computed for low- and mid-rise reinforced concrete frames typical of those found in Europe. The use of vectors of intensity measures can result in conditional standard deviations of logarithmic engineering demand parameters that are up to 50 % smaller than those from traditional scalar methods. These reductions have significant implications for the shapes of loss curves, particularly for long return periods. The most efficient vector corresponds to a combination of spectral acceleration and a spectral shape parameter, $\langle \ln S_a, \ln N_p\rangle $ , when used to predict maximum interstorey drifts. The study also demonstrates that engineering demand parameters have significant heteroskedasticity with respect to various intensity measures and that this feature must be modelled correctly when constructing fragility curves. This feature of the models presented herein has not previously been accounted for during the development of fragility curves or surfaces.

Beschreibung: This paper discusses on the shaking table test results of two 1:4 scale model of two-story masonry structure typically used in constructing low-rise residential buildings. This test is performed to provide a better understanding of the seismic behavior of the PP-band (polypropylene band) mesh retrofitted adobe masonry house. The test structure is subjected to a series of different levels of harmonic motion that applied along the longitudinal direction. The results of the shaking table tests on building models show that the PP-band retrofitting technique can enhance the safety of masonry buildings, even during severe ground motion.

Beschreibung: Robust methods for time-frequency analysis of time series, which provide local information of signals, allow earthquake engineers to study both the input and output of dynamic time history analysis with more reliability. Moreover, time-frequency representations (TFRs) have a major role in the analysis of non-stationary seismic signals exhibiting significant time variation of frequency content. S-Transform (ST) is a modern TFR, which can measure local characteristics of a signal such as amplitude, frequency, and phase at any time instant. This paper presents a new method for decomposition of ground motion signals. A modified version of ST-based technique, originally employed to decompose signals of gearbox vibration, is introduced and applied to the extraction and characterization of pulse-like part of near-fault velocity records, which is contributed to the directivity effects. In addition, a new definition based on ST analysis is used to identify pulse period. The results of implementation of proposed procedure on a database of pulse-like ground motion recordings belonging to the different ranges of magnitude demonstrate the efficiency of proposed method compared with other available approaches. The results, also, indicate that simple approximation of distinct pulses using single-period waveforms, unlike the extracted pulses, cannot represent the impulsive nature of real records adequately.

Beschreibung: In this paper a brief introduction regarding the latest advancements of strong motion instrumentation programs in Greece since the first accelerograph was installed by NOA-IG is given. Analytical description of various utilized analog and digital accelerographic sensors is presented and the evolution of the different types of data processing techniques applied by the two research centers is given using recordings from both Institutes. The site characterization of the strong motion recording sites and the available information for those stations are presented as well. A final evaluation and correlation of the previous proposed configuration of the Hellenic accelerographic networks ITSAK and NOA-IG resulted from previous study (Theodoulidis et al. in Planning of strong motion network. pp 86–04, 1986 ) in regard to the new strong-motion installations within the framework of EPPO’s project is accomplished.

Beschreibung: In November 2012 EEFIT launched its first ever return mission to an earthquake affected site. The L’Aquila Earthquake site was chosen as this is a recent European event of interest to the UK and European earthquake engineering community. The main aims of this return mission were to document the earthquake recovery process and this paper presents an overview of the post-disaster emergency phase and transition to reconstruction in the Aquila area after the earthquake. It takes an earthquake engineering perspective, highlighting areas mainly of interest to the fields of structural/seismic engineering and reconstruction management. Within the paper, reference is made to published literature, but also to data collected in the field during the return mission that would not otherwise have been available. The paper presents some specific observations and lessons learned from the L’Aquila return mission. However, in light of current international efforts in conducting return missions, the paper ends with some reflections on the value that return missions can provide to the field of earthquake engineering in general, based on the EEFIT L’Aquila experience.

Beschreibung: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): N. Agya Utama , Andhy Muhammad Fathoni , Mandau A. Kristianto In the last couple of years and years to come Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia are having the highest GDP growth in ASEAN (South East Asia Nations) member countries; at present Indonesia has the highest GDP, it was $845 billion in 2011 and is predicted to grow up to $ 2,200 billion in 2030. In line with economic growth the countries energy demand also sharply increases, Indonesia primary energy demand has increased four folds in the past 30 years, while the region increase almost five folds. The main energy consumer in the country mainly coming from transportation sector, followed by industrial and residential sectors, while buildings combined (residential and commercial sector) accounted in more than 30% from the total energy consumption. The study focused on alternatives cooling appliances through passive method, where electricity and other source of energy are very limited to be used. The highest cooling appliances for middle class houses are either standing fan or ceiling fan, an alternatives design is developed and simulated by using CFD modeling tools with a tropical climate in Jakarta as the boundaries. The study shows that the passive method could reduce in more than 1800 kg CO2eq annually.

Beschreibung: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): Muhammad Azzam Ismail , Fahanim Abdul Rashid In this paper, the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design for Homes (LEED-H) rating method was tested on three existing Malaysian green homes (GH). This was to ascertain the amount of changes and modifications needed to configure LEED-H to suit the local context. The three GHs are Demonstration, Cool and Energy Efficient House (DCEEH), Smart and Cool Home (SCH) and CoolTek House (CTH). These are benchmark Malaysian GHs either due to their design, construction methods, building materials or operational procedures. It was found that all case studies did not comply with at least 12 mandatory prerequisites out of 23 as outlined in LEED-H.

Beschreibung: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): Edward Endrianto Pandelaki , Wijayanti , Septana Bagus Pribadi This study concerns to the life of the elderly who live in the high-rise housing in urban areas. The aim of this study is to discover a conceptual model of high-rise housing which is capable to accommodate the activities of the elderly by conducting a comparative study between Indonesia and Japan. Qualitative method is used because it has explorative nature. Providing attention toward how to create a safe, comfortable, healthy, economical, self-reliant living environment, and how to encourage creation of social cohesion, are necessary for the life of the elderly who live in high-rise housing in urban areas.

Beschreibung: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): Ratni Prima Lita , Sari Surya , M. Ma’ruf , Laura Syahrul Studies have shown the relationship between attitude, image, intention to visit and willingness to pay more for environmentally friendly services. With unique background of local tourist in West Sumatra Indonesia, this study aims to confirm the previous findings based on perspective of services marketing literatures. This explanatory study investigates causality among cross sectional data that was collected by following convenience sampling technique. The sample size is 200 local tourists, acquired with intercept approach in several main tourist destinations in West Sumatra. The data was analyzed by structural equation model. The results show that the effects of attitude toward green behavior on overall image are positive (0.446) and significant at the alpha of 0.08, with the t-statistic of 4.804. The overall image has positive impact on word of mouth (0.497) and significant at the alpha of 0.05, with the t-statistic of 4.569. The overall image also has positive impact on willingness to pay (0.523) significant at the alpha of 0.05, with the t-statistic of 5.683. These results indicate that attitude toward green behavior has significant influence on overall image of hotels and restaurants. Overall image has significant influence toward re-visit intention, positive word of mouth, and willingness to pay more for environmentally friendly hotels and restaurants. The management of the hotels and restaurants may consider this finding to improve service quality by adopting environmentally friendly practices.

Beschreibung: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): Tye Ying Ying , Lee Keat Teong , Wan Nadiah Wan Abdullah , Leh Cheu Peng In this study, oil palm empty fruit bunch (EFB) and kenaf core fibers were converted into sugar for bioethanol production. Results of enzymatic hydrolysis showed that the untreated EFB and kenaf core fibers were hardly to be hydrolysed, in which yielded only 2.6% and 0.4% of reducing sugar (glucose), respectively. In consideration to environmentally friendliness, simple aqueous pre-treatments were carried out prior to hydrolysis aimed to increase sugar production. Based on the results obtained, it was interesting to note that by adopting merely water, acid and alkaline pre-treatments, the total glucose yields were increased to 34.9%, 34.2% and 27.9% for EFB fiber, while 19.3%, 11.7%, and 12.6% for kenaf core fiber, respectively. The results of chemical composition analysis of pre-treated fibers indicated the increase of the sugar production was highly related to the removal of hemicellulose and/or lignin in the fibers. Between the two fibers, pre-treated EFB fiber attained the highest total glucose yield in all the pre-treatments. This revealed that EFB fiber was more viable for sugar production than kenaf core fiber.

Beschreibung: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): Sasa Sofyan Munawar , Bambang Subiyanto To utilize various potential agricultural residues, pellet making was performed and the pellets obtained were characterized in this study. Oil palm empty fruit bunch (OPEFB), oil palm frond (OPF), oil palm shell (OPS) and oil palm mesocarp (OPM) were employed as feedstock. Biopellet production was started with material crushing to get uniform material and then continued with pellet forming. Pellet making was conducted using conventional pelletizer under temperatures of 150, 200 and 250 °C for 15 minutes. Some characteristics were measured to determine biopellet quality, i.e. moisture content, density, ash content and calorific value. Based on the water content, ash content, density and calorific value, OPM biopellets that pressed at 200 and 250 °C showed the best formula. The characteristics of this biopellet were moisture content of 1.7-1.9%, ash of 6.85-7.45%, and calorific value of 3,814-4,724 kcal/kg.

Beschreibung: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): Priyono Suryanto , E.T.S. Putra , S. Kurniawan , B. Suwignyo , D.A.P. Sukirno This research was conducted to determine maize growth and yield at various agroforestry development levels, especially in Batur Agung area, Gunung Kidul District, Java, Indonesia. This experiment was conducted in a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) single factor with three blocks as replication. Research factor was agroforestry development levels, namely, initial, intermediate, and advanced levels. Observations were done on maize growth and yield variables. Data then was analyzed by applying Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) at 5% level, and continued with the Duncan Multiple Range Test (DMRT) if significant.Maize physiological response on initial to intermediate and advanced agroforestry level demonstrated impairment tendency. This condition continued to maize production decline in line with shade level (initial AF, intermediate AF, and advanced AF). Traditional silvicultural developed with trees along border, alley cropping and mixer characteristics. Tree planting space was irregular with conventional stands management. Although the physiological response decreased in line with shade increase and so did maize production, farmers still continued to develop initial, intermediate, and advanced agroforestry models. Scheme developed to improve the productivity of agroforestry was constructing intensive agroforestry regimes (IAR). There are 3 IAR, namely, IAR-1 to hold initial agroforestry during the acceleration and management of initial agroforestry heading to intermediate and advanced. IAR-1 base is more intensive crown pruning and commercial thinning approach. Crop area was utilized during the management with C4 species. IAR-2 was designed to hold intermediate AF from traditional to intensive by applying intensive harvesting, with need based cutting and C3 species cultivation. IAR-3 was carried out for the development of advanced AF to initial AF with intensive need based cutting, pollarding, and intensive crop with C4 species.

Beschreibung: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): Irma Isnafia Arief , Z. Wulandari , E.L. Aditia , M. Baihaqi , Noraimah , Hendrawan The research aims to evaluate physicochemical and microbiological properties of fermented lamb sausages elaborated with probiotic Lactobacillus. plantarum IIA-2C12 isolated from Indonesian local beef. The result showed that the addition probiotic L. plantarum IIA/2C12 (9 log cfu/ml) produced better quality of fermented lamb sausages than control (without probiotic). Physicochemichal analysis showed that fermented lamb sausage with L. plantarum IIA-2C12 has a considerebely soft texture and the final pH value and aw of fermented lamb sausage with L. plantarum were 4.13 and 0.88, respectively. Additionally, the pressence of L. plantarum IIA-2C12 significantly reduced the fat content (6.39% wb) and increased the protein content (19.26%wb). Microbiological analysis displayed high population of lactic acid bacteria (9 log cfu/g) on fermented lamb sausage with L. plantarum IIA-2C12 with low population of Escherichia coli (1 log cfu/g) and none of Salmonella spp was detected. Preference test revealed that fermented lamb sausage with L. plantarum IIA-2C12 is the most prefereable product.

Beschreibung: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): Srikandi Novianti , M.K. Biddinika , Pandji Prawisudha , Kunio Yoshikawa In this research, the hydrothermal treatment (HT) was applied to treat a waste stream from the commercial production of palm oil. The investigation both lab-scale and pilot-scale reactors have been conducted. The hydrothermal products were characterized and their fuel qualities were evaluated. The results indicated that the fuel qualities of the products improved after HT; such as higher carbon content, higher energy density, and lower O/C and H/C ratios compared with the raw feedstock. The HT products derived from the lab-scale and pilot-scale reactors had similar chemical compositions and energy density which indicated the feasibility of an up-scale application for this technology.

Beschreibung: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): Adrianus Amheka , Yoshiro Higano , Takeshi Mizunoya , Helmut Yabar The Kupang government's target of integrating a renewable energy technology system (RETs) and waste treatment plant system (WTPs) are under consideration to pursue the national target of reduction GHG emission between 26-41% (0.767-1.244) Gton CO 2 e from 2010 to 2020. This research considers the feasibility of developing RETs and WTPs in order to reduce GHG emission by a creating the framework, of an Input Output (IO) table of Kupang and its analysis, counting the amount of total coefficients of GHG and air pollutants for each sector in the form of NO x , SO x , CO 2 , CH 4 , N 2 O from social-economic activities in Kupang. The results show 27 sectors classified in a table, representing the gained coefficients pollutants which will enable the estimate of the total amount of CO 2 e emitted for the year 2010 and a framework for proposal to government. This study is the first research and main reference focusing on pollutant counts and emission coefficients emitted by activity economy on a regional level for Kupang city.

Beschreibung: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): Shaza Rina Sahamir , Rozana Zakaria As Malaysia moves towards a sustainable lifestyles and development, the need to prepare for the change is imperative. Sustainability has become an important initiative discussed and undertaken not only by private buildings but also by public buildings dealing with residential, office, commercial as well as hospital. Building is known as human habitat. The way people design, construct and operate the building has a profound impact on people health and the environment. Compared to other building types, healthcare buildings have an especially large impact on the environment for the 24/7 use. Thus, the development of green hospital is important as it requires strict cleaning procedures and frequent air changes, which increase the already-high energy costs of the 24/7 operations and sophisticated medical equipment that make hospitals among the greatest energy consumers of any institution. The primary aim for this paper is to investigate green assessment criteria for public hospital building development in Malaysia. It compiles the essential criteria of existing green rating systems for healthcare buildings worldwide and presents the difference between each criteria compared to Malaysian green rating system. Existing tools and guidelines are reviewed, analysed and grouped according to the main criteria. The assessment criteria from each rating systems are divided into similar category covers all aspect of building design, construction and operation. Results from the analysis show the important assessment criteria of green public hospital building correspond to Malaysia. The research intended to produce initial guideline as a starting point for Malaysian public hospital in the most consistent and systematic way in practicing green.

Beschreibung: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): Yuri Hermawan Prasetyo , Muhammad Nur Fajri Alfata , Anikmah Ridho Pasaribu Rumah Lontiok is one of the types of Malay traditional houses threatened to extinct since it have been abandoned by the local people. Located in Kampar–Riau, Rumah Lontiok has changed from its original form, particularly in using corrugated metal as rooftop material. The study aims to describe the Rumah Lontiok and its environment, and to investigate its thermal performance. Field experiment was carried out in this study. Thermal properties of material were measured by thermocouple and heat flux sensors, while surface temperature was gathered by thermocouple acquisitioned by datalogger. All thermal environment data were gathered for 24 hours. Data of site situation was documented by recording and sketching on the worksheet. The result of the study figured out the situation of Rumah Lontiok and its environments affecting the thermal performance. The in-situ measurement found out that wall has thermal conductivity of 0.21 W/m.K and the floor is 0.19 W/m.K. The study shows that indoor thermal environment did not quite different compared to the outdoor thermal environment. The roof material is hypothesized as major source of heat gain into inside the building. Even though there are many openings, they cannot remove heat gain effectively.

Beschreibung: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): Sri Atmaja P. Rosyidi , Tjasa Bole-Rentel , Surya Budi Lesmana , Jazaul Ikhsan This paper briefly presents the experience of the Center for Regional Energy Management in the needs assessment, capacity building and adoption of household biogas plants in rural areas of Yogyakarta over the past five years. The biogas program has been designed to solve specific energy provision problems in rural areas, such as securing cooking fuel, as well as to promote ecological farming by using biogas digester as organic manure, thereby efficiently recycling locally available biomass waste. The paper also points that realizing these goals would require significant changes in funding and policy support for the successful implementations of biogas in developing countries. In addition, it highlights some of the key issues related to the implementation of rural energy programs and suggests a new approach and future strategies for initiatives that endeavor to address the issue of rural poverty and improve the living conditions of rural people.

Beschreibung: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): Pannraphat Takolpuckdee In Thailand, Tarad Thai is one of the biggest and significant agricultural markets. Therefore, the problems from fresh waste disposals in this area are recognized as one of environmental significant concerns. In order to manage this problem, the conversion of those possible agricultural waste disposals to biochar soil amendments is studied. In this work, some parts of agricultural fruits waste are durian peel, mangosteen rind, corncob and banana peel. In addition, waste from fresh shrimp, shrimp shell, is also studied. Those previous waste materials are processed by viapyrolysis method to form biochar. The studies of chemical compositions, such as major and some minor nutrition, are analyzed using the Kjeldahl technique, UV-Visible spectrophotometer and Inductively Coupled Plasma (ICP) spectrometer. The heat of combustion and some chemical properties are also studied. The biochar derived from corncob, per gram, dominates the highest value of the heat of combustion (75.151 Kcal). In addition, the study of biocharuses as soil amendments is studied via the growth of swamp morning glory. By comparing the data from typical soil and biochar soil amendments by t-test, it is found that the growing length and number of leafs shows t cal >t crt which means that, for example, the use of the biochar soil amendments from agricultural market waste and shrimp shell as materials to grow the swamp morning glory displays the significance by comparing to typical soil.

Beschreibung: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): Andhy Muhammad Fathoni , N. Agya Utama , Mandau A. Kristianto This paper presents a technical and economic potential of Solar Energy Application in Indonesia. Indonesia consists of thousands islands. Meanwhile, according to the latest data from the Department of Energy and Mineral Resources in 2012, Indonesia's electrification ratio is only around 74%. Renewable energy especially solar energy is one of the most potential energy sources as Indonesia lies in the equator line where the daylight is abundant and available throughout the year. The solar energy technologys is also eco-friendly and its application has the potential to reduce the greenhouse gas emission. A review of solar energy potential in Indonesia based on the solar resource data is presented. Estimation of solar resource in Indonesia was done using solar radiation data from NASA Surface Meteorology and Solar Energy (SSE). Retscreen software was used for all of the calculation in the study. It is found that the proposed system can generate electricity annually vary from 0.46 GWh/year in Denpasar to 217 GWh/year in Pontianak. This paper also calculates the economic viability through pre-tax IRR and simple payback indicator. It was observed that the highest IRR was observed in Makassar and the lowest IRR was observed in Banjarmasin. Meanwhile, it can be observed that Makassar got the shortest payback period for 11 years and Banjarmasin got the longest payback period of 17.6 years. From the side of environmental impact, the proposed system can reduce the GHG emission up to 243252 tons per year in particular selected location.

Beschreibung: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): Nwe Ni Hlaing , Radzali Othman , Hirofumi Hinode , Winarto Kurniawan , Aye Aye Thant , Abdul Rahman Mohamed , Chris Salim , Srimala Sreekantan To capture carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), a major green house gas from flue gas, several kinds of adsorbents have been synthesized, characterized and tested. In this study, CaO-based adsorbents were synthesized via sol-gel-hydrothermal method and different hydrothermal temperatures (100, 120, 140 and 160 °C) have been investigated in order to verify their influence on the CaO-based adsorbents. Experimental results showed that the Ca(OH) 2 adsorbent with a mixture of CaCO 3 synthesized at 120 °C hydrothermal treatment possesses high CO2 adsorption capacity (0.52 g-CO2/g-sorbent) and at 160 °C hydrothermal treatment, CaC 2 O 4 .H 2 O adsorbent was observed and its CO 2 adsorption capacity was 0.46 g-CO 2 /g-sorbent for first carbonation/calcination cycle.

Beschreibung: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): Benjamin C. McLellan , Yusuke Kishita , Go Yoshizawa , Yohei Yamaguchi , Kazumasu Aoki , Itsuki C. Handoh Understanding and assessing sustainable energy systems at various scales are a complex proposition. The task must take into account more than just the technical realm of energy, seeking to model the dynamic interplay between environmental, social and economic systems as they influence and are influenced by the technical energy system. Energy systems are often considered at a coarse level – at the scale of a nation – or at a relatively fine scale – at the technology end. However, scales of governance, institutions and the regional territory of electricity providers (for example) can make for useful scales of analysis. The current paper describes some of the important elements for undertaking co-design and assessment of energy systems for more resilient, desirable and sustainable energy futures. Key steps are described, among which is a novel model of the technical energy system that incorporates local environmental and planetary limitations. The initial model considerations and an analysis of enablers and barriers, as well as the interactions with the scenario development are presented.

Beschreibung: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): Ratih Novi Listyawati , Christia Meidiana , Mustika Anggraeni The Energy Self-Sufficient Village is one of the Indonesian government programs where one of the criteria is that every village has to be able to fulfil minimum of 60% of energy needs with renewable source of potential owned. Tegalweru is a village that has potential of the livestock sector and there are 6 installations of biogas management to utilize manure waste. The evaluation of the energy self-sufficient village was conducted using emergy analysis. The emergy analysis is applied in two different scenarios. The first is baseline scenario where is only 37 cattle owned by ten households are treated to produce biogas. The second scenario is the scenario to fulfil the 60% target of energy self-sufficient. The emergy analysis is done to calculate the value of four emergy indices, which are, EYR to measure the comparison of yield and input added to biogas system, EIR to measure the emergy input needed to treat 1 kg of manure, ELR to measure the load of the manure treatment on environment, and ESI to measure the sustainability of biogas management. Analysis of emission reduction is also done in this research to find out the best scenario to be implemented in Tegalweru Village.

Beschreibung: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): Kanae Ishimaru , Shigeo Kobayashi , Sayaka Yoshikawa Since 1980s, the settlement and occupancy into abandoned or non-cultivated land by poor peoples or landless peasantsbecame popular in Brazil. These people sometimes lack agricultural experiences to yieldsufficient production for livelihoods and it lead them to abandon the land and repeating forest clearance. Sufficient and sustainable agricultural production for subsistence and crop sale is important, especially during the early stage of immigration, in order to settlers to remain the land they had occupied. To elucidate the difference in crop selection tendencies between households with production sales and those without sales, we categorised the households within a single study area in Brazil into three types: (1) households with sales income from agricultural products (SA), and households without sales income in which the variety among cultivated crops was (2) low (NL) or (3) high (NH). The crops were divided into six types: (1) tubers and herbaceous crops that can be harvested within or around a year; tree crops that can be harvested within 3 years either (2) seasonally or (3) year-round; tree crops that can be harvested only after 4 years either (4) seasonally or (5) year-round; and (6) tree crops for timber, colouring, and oil use. Our survey results indicate that the SA households had a well-designed combination of crop species, including both commercial and subsistence crops, whereas the NH and NL households were lacking in short- and long-term sales. None of the NH had any sales income, even though they had the highest calculated number of calories coming from the consumption of agricultural products.

Beschreibung: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): Tippabust Eksangsri , Thanon Jaiwang Water reuse for final cleaning process in electronic industry is evaluated. The target factory produces flexible printed circuit boards, which are washed with purified deep-well water as a final process before packaging. Survey of water consumption and its quality was conducted. Feasibility study aims to find the suitable schemes the factory can apply to the real practice when the water consumption rate for final cleaning process increases, with a few conditions that need to be concerned. Material flux analysis and economical evaluation are also performed. It is found that the water needs to be treated before reusing due to the conductivity and LPC that are too high. It is, therefore, suggested that the reused water recharged to both RO unit and ion- exchanger at a suitable ratio. The most attractive alternative in term of both technical and economical aspects is when the recharged ration is 30:70. Raw water consumption can be saved up to 19,760 m 3 per year and the investment can be paid off within 2 years.

Beschreibung: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): B.C. McLellan , G.D. Corder , A. Golev , S.H. Ali Rare Earths have been of considerable interest in recent years for a variety of reasons, in particular due to concerns over the security of supply for modern high efficiency electronics and energy technologies. Such concerns have placed them among the list of “critical” or “strategic” elements in countries such as the United States of America, the European Union, Japan and even in the largest producer and holder of reserves, China. Focus has been given to the environmental impacts of production, and on the distribution of reserves and politico-economic conflict over supply, but international academic work quantifying these impacts is lacking. Moreover, broader consideration of sustainability impacts and benefits in a systematic manner – particularly in regard to the social impacts of RE extraction, processing and utilisation – is not yet apparent. This paper undertakes a review of the literature and state-of-play of sustainability assessment of rare earth elements. Furthermore, the paper highlights areas of sustainability research considered by academic and industrial representatives to be essential for filling these gaps, and a pathway forward towards a more sustainable rare earths industry.

Beschreibung: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): Fathonatu Anisa Khowatimy , Yoga Priastomo , Erna Febriyanti , Harkam Riyantoko , Wega Trisunaryanti The study of waste lubricant hydrocracking into gasoline and diesel fraction using the combination of Y-Zeolite and ZnO (Y-Zeolite/ZnO) catalyst has been conducted. The hydrocracking of waste lubricant was carried out in a semi-flow stainless steel reactor system (i.d = 3.78 cm; l = 30 cm) with hydrogen stream (20 mL/min) at 573, 623, and 673 K. The characterization of catalysts including crystallinity was analysed by X-Ray diffraction (XRD), the amount of total acid site was determined by gas sorption method, the surface area was measured by BET method, and the morphology of the catalyst was analyzed by Transmission Electron Micrograph (TEM). The activities of catalyst including total convertion, liquid and gas product (yield), and selectivity for gasoline and diesel fractions were evaluated. Total convertion was defined as (100–residue)%. The liquid product was collected and analyzed by gas chromatography (GC) and flame test. The characterization using XRD showed that ZnO could be rested upon the Y-Zeolite by wetblending. The amount of total acid sites of the Y-Zeolite/ZnO was higher than the constituent material. The highest total convertion of the lubricant using the Y-Zeolite/ZnO was 99.49 wt.% while the Y-Zeolite was 99.10 wt.% at 623 K and without catalyst (thermal hydrocracking) was 98.99 wt.% at 673 K. The highest liquid product at 623 K was achieved by the Y-Zeolite/ZnO catalyst (24.75 wt.%) with the selectivity for gasoline and diesel fractions was 25.92 and74.08%.

Beschreibung: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): Danang Sudarwoko Adi , Lucky Risanto , Ratih Damayanti , Sri Rullyati , Listya M. Dewi , Ruliyana Susanti , Wahyu Dwianto , Euis Hermiati , Takashi Watanabe Fast growing wood species has become more promising as alternative wood sources to solve the gap between wood demand and supply. In this study, we focus on their fiber characteristicsand the wood density to determine their potential utilization. Thirty fast growing species were taken from secondary forest at PT Sari BumiKusuma, Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. Several hardwood and softwood species, which are commonly used in pulp and paper industries, were used as a comparison.The result showed that these species are low to high density (0.18-0.86). It is interesting to note that the fiber lengths of the 5 wood species were greater than commonly hardwoods, and similar with fiberlengths of softwoods. The fibers of the woods have good runkle ratio and the flexibility values. There were 7 potential species to be used as alternative wood material for pulp and paper: Endospermumdiadenum , Dillenia sp., Adinandradumosa , Adinandra sp., Naucleajunghuhnii , Neonaucleagigantea and Ficusfulva .

Beschreibung: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): I. Nengah Suwastika , Ryosuke L. Ohniwa , Kunio Takeyasu , Takashi Shiina The Obg/Era proteins of P-loop GTPase superclass are conserved in various prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms. Some of these proteins are critical regulators of many aspects of basic cellular processes, including ribosome biogenesis, translation and signal transduction. However, a genome-wide overview of the Obg/Era GTPase genes in plants is not available. Recent ly studies on comprehensive genomic analyses of Arabidopsis thaliana identified 11 Obg-Hflx like GTPase genes that are divided into nine families/subfamilies: Archaea -related Drg and Nog1 , and Eubacteria -related Obg, EngB, HflX, Era, TrmE, EngA , and EngD . In this study we found that Arabidopsis has 3 (three) Drg homologue proteins, namely AtDrg1-1 , AtDrg1-2 and AtDrg1-3 . Subcellular localization analysis of Arabidopsis Obg-Hflx homologues revealed that Archaea -derived Drg proteins are mainly targeted to cytoplasm, except Drg1-3 was detected not only in cytoplasm but also in nucleus. Furthermore, based on expression pattern profiling indicates that Drg1-1 and Drg1-2 were expressed constitutively trough plant development. On the other hand, Drg1-3 was detected in dry seed and under stress plant.

Beschreibung: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): Erna Wati Ibnu Hajar , Ahmad Ziad Bin Sulaiman , A.M. Mimi Sakinah Stevia has become rather widespread over a wide range of climatic locations around the world and can apparently be successfully grown under different cultivation conditions. Heavy metal accumulation of Stevia extract is dependent on obtaining heavy metals from the soil and water. Heavy metals from plant sources may also vary from place to place because soil heavy metals content varies geographically, thus, they have become the subject of many research projects. Stevia plant is easily contaminated during growth, development and processing and for this, an extensive research is needed to explore the characteristics of the heavy metal produced by the plant. The heavy metals produced from the herb and its toxicity of Stevia plant is not well documented and scientific evidence is limited to establishing Stevia plant as a medicinal plant. The samples were collected from Malacca, Malaysia. The fresh leaves, stems and flowers of the Stevia rebaudiana plant were dried using oven equipment and were grinded until fine to make powder and then of each extracted using Microwave digester. The analysis of samples was carried out by using an Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass-Spectrophotometer (ICP-MS) with different mode equipment to compare results of heavy metals in Stevia rebaudiana plant. Heavy metal accumulation in Stevia rebaudiana from leaves, stems, and flowers extraction is reported. Heavy metals in leaves, stems and flowers of Stevia rebaudiana presented variety of elements such as As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Fe, Mg, Pb, Se, Zn, Al, Ag, Co, Ca, Mn and Ni. The high tolerance to heavy metals in leaves, stems, and flowers of Stevia rebaudiana were presented at fifteen parameters below the permissible limit in plant and can be used as food product or therapeutic agent in traditional medicine.

Beschreibung: Seismic design of concrete structures is currently based on time-invariant capacity design criteria which do not account for environmental hazards. The significant progressive decay of strength and ductility of concrete structures exposed to damage, in particular due to reinforcing steel corrosion, shows that this approach should be revised to consider the deterioration over time of the seismic performance. This is important also for precast systems, for which most of structural members are often directly exposed to the atmosphere and environmental aggressiveness. This paper presents a probabilistic approach for the lifetime assessment of seismic performance of concrete structures considering the interaction of seismic and environmental hazards. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is shown by its application to multistory precast buildings exposed to corrosion. The results show that structures designed for the same seismic action could have different lifetime seismic performance depending on the environmental exposure. These results emphasize the importance of a life-cycle approach to both seismic assessment of existing buildings and seismic design of new structures, and indicate that capacity design criteria need to be properly revised to consider the severity of the environmental exposure.

Beschreibung: Liquefaction or cyclic softening from earthquake shaking have caused significant damage of buildings with shallow foundations. In recent earthquakes, buildings have punched into, tilted excessively, and slid laterally on liquefied/softened ground. The state-of-the-practice still largely involves estimating building settlement using empirical procedures developed to calculate post-liquefaction, one-dimensional, consolidation settlement in the “free-field” away from buildings. Performance-based earthquake engineering requires improved procedures, because these free-field analyses cannot possibly capture shear-induced and localized volumetric-induced deformations in the soil underneath shallow foundations. Recent physical and numerical modeling has provided useful insights into this problem. Centrifuge tests revealed that much of the building movement occurs during earthquake strong shaking, and its rate is dependent on the shaking intensity rate. Additionally, shear strains due to shaking-induced ratcheting of the buildings into the softened soil and volumetric strains due to localized drainage in response to high transient hydraulic gradients are important effects that are not captured in current procedures. Nonlinear effective stress analyses can capture the soil and building responses reasonably well and provide valuable insights. Based on these studies, recommendations for estimating liquefaction-induced movements of buildings with shallow foundations are made.

Beschreibung: A complex seismic sequence characterised by two thrust earthquakes of magnitudes M $_\mathrm{L}$ 5.9 and M $_\mathrm{L}$ 5.8 occurred on May 20 and 29, 2012, respectively, and activated the central portion of the Ferrara Arc structure beneath the Po Plain in northern Italy. The sequence, referred to as Emilia 2012, was recorded by the Italian Strong Motion Network, the Irpinia Network, the Friuli Venezia Giulia Network and 15 temporary stations installed by the Civil Protection Department. In this study, we compile and analyse a large dataset that contains 3,273 waveforms from 37 $M_\mathrm{L} \ge 4.0$ seismic events. The main aim of this paper is to characterise the ground motion induced by the Emilia 2012 seismic sequence and compare it with other data in the Italian strong motion database and to the recent Ground Motion Prediction Equations (GMPEs) developed for northern Italy, all of Italy and Europe. This is achieved by (1) the computation and analysis of the strong motion parameters of the entire Emilia Strong Motion Dataset (ESMD) and (2) a comprehensive investigation of the May 29 event recordings in terms of time–frequency analysis, the ground motion parameters and the response spectra. This detailed analysis was made possible by the temporary Civil Protection Department stations that were installed soon after the May 20 event at several municipalities in the epicentral area. Most of the recordings are characterised by low-frequency content and long durations, which is a result of the thick sedimentary cover that is typical of the Po Plain. The distributions of the observed horizontal peak ground accelerations and velocities (PGAs and PGVs) with distance are generally consistent with the GMPEs. This is particularly true for the data from M $_\mathrm{L} \ge $ 5.0 (M $_\mathrm{W}\ge $ 5.0) events, though the data are scattered at distances beyond approximately 60–70 km and show faster attenuation than the European GMPEs. The horizontal components for the May 29 event at two near-fault stations (Mirandola and San Felice sul Panaro) are overestimated by all of the analysed GMPEs. In contrast, the vertical components, which played an important role in the shaking near the source, are underestimated. The May 29 event produced intense velocity pulses on the horizontal components and the highest peak ground acceleration ever recorded in Italy on the vertical component of the Mirandola near-fault station. The ground motion recordings contained in the ESMD significantly enrich the Italian strong motion database. They contribute new information about (1) the possibility of exceeding the largest recorded PGA in Italy, (2) the development of a spectral design that takes into account the role of the vertical component and the extreme variability of the near-fault ground shaking, and (3) the characterisation of the ground motions in deep sedimentary basins.

Beschreibung: The prediction of non-linear seismic demand using linear elastic behavior for the determination of peak non-linear response is widely used for seismic design as well as for vulnerability assessment. Existing methods use either linear response based on initial period and damping ratio, eventually corrected with factors, or linear response based on increased equivalent period and damping ratio. Improvements to the original EC8 procedure for displacement demand prediction are proposed in this study. Both propositions may be graphically approximated, which is a significant advantage for practical application. A comparison with several other methods (equal displacement rule, EC8 procedure, secant stiffness and empirical equivalent period methods) is performed. The study is based on non-linear SDOF systems subjected to recorded earthquakes, modified to match design response spectra of different ground types, and focuses on the low frequency range that is of interest for most European buildings. All results are represented in the spectral displacement/fundamental period plane that highlights the predominant effect of the fundamental period on the displacement demand. This study shows that linearized methods perform well at low strength reduction factors but may strongly underestimate the displacement demand at strength reduction factors greater than 2. This underestimation is an important issue, especially for assessment of existing buildings, which are often related with low lateral strength. In such cases, the corresponding strength reduction factors are therefore much larger than 2. The new proposals significantly improve the reliability of displacement demand prediction for values of strength reduction factors greater than 2 compared to the original EC8 procedure. As a consequence, for the seismic assessment of existing structures, such as unreinforced masonry low-rise buildings, the current procedure of EC8 should be modified in order to provide accurate predictions of the displacement demand in the domain of the response spectrum plateau.

Beschreibung: The May 20, 2012, Emilia Ml 5.9 earthquake was followed by some major aftershocks, well recorded by a large number of temporary stations that were installed to monitor the sequence. These additional recordings allowed us a thorough testing of the performance of the ShakeMap—a procedure designed to provide rapid information on the experienced ground motion. We found that the shakemaps for the May 29, 2012, Ml 5.8 earthquake, obtained using the permanent stations only, underestimate significantly the ground motion computed with the highest station density, especially for PSA at long periods (T $=$ 3.0 s). This low-frequency motion is controlled primarily by the surface waves recorded in the Po plain: the observed site effects are likely not accounted properly by the site correction coefficient based on Vs30 as implemented in the ShakeMap procedure. The shakemaps determined during the seismic sequence have been included in an Italian national law that was passed after the 2012 earthquake. According to this law, the factories safety verifications were bound to the comparison between the shakemaps and the design acceleration required by the current national seismic code. We then decide to appraise the impact of the shakemap accuracy on the law provisions. Following the law recommendations, we have estimated the possible errors resulting from the incomplete evaluation of the ground shaking: our results show that, if the complete dataset were available at the time of the law approval, the number of buildings for which the safety check was required would have been significantly smaller.

Beschreibung: A damage scenario modelling is developed and compared with the damage distribution observed after the 2011 Lorca earthquake. The strong ground motion models considered include five modern ground motion prediction equations (GMPEs) amply used worldwide. Capacity and fragility curves from the Risk-UE project are utilized to model building vulnerability and expected damage. Damage estimates resulting from different combinations of GMPE and capacity/fragility curves are compared with the actual damage scenario, establishing the combination that best explains the observed damage distribution. In addition, some recommendations are proposed, including correction factors in fragility curves in order to reproduce in a better way the observed damage in masonry and reinforce concrete buildings. The lessons learned would contribute to improve the simulation of expected damages due to future earthquakes in Lorca or other regions in Spain with similar characteristics regarding attenuation and vulnerability.

Beschreibung: This study attempts to propose dynamic centrifuge model tests as a method of seismic risk assessment in order to discover how stone architectural heritages with masonry structures have endured seismic load, and whether there is any possibility of future earthquake damage. Dynamic centrifuge tests have been conducted for one fifteenth scale models of Seok-ga-tap and the five-storey stone pagoda of Jeongnimsa temple site, which are Korean representative stone pagodas. In order to make input motions of the earthquake simulator, site investigation and site-specific response analysis have been performed. The models of two stone pagodas, which have the same number of pieces with the real structures, have been produced and the dynamic centrifuge tests have been conducted for the model pagodas. Accelerometers were attached at different heights of the pagoda. The measured acceleration records and frequency responses were analysed during dynamic centrifuge test. Two real earthquake records, Hachinohe and Ofunato earthquakes and a sweeping signal with ranged frequency were utilised for input motions of dynamic centrifuge tests to evaluate the behaviour of the stone pagodas. For Seok-ga-tap models, it was observed that acceleration tends to be amplified with height. The third floor body shows at most 2.5 amplification of acceleration in comparison to the surface ground. The amplification was at a frequency of 3.83 Hz and it was considered as the natural frequency of the pagoda. For the five-storey stone pagoda, the seismic wave energy significantly reduced while it passed the first body floor, and then the peak acceleration was gradually amplified upwards. It was found that the pagodas did not collapse when the peak acceleration of ground surface was raised to 0.4 g. Given that the maximum design seismic acceleration specified in Korean seismic design guide is 0.22 g and the amplification ratio of peak acceleration in the supporting ground of the pagodas ranges from 1.45 to 1.74, it can be shown that the two pagodas are stable against 2400-year return period earthquake level, and have excellent seismic performance.

Beschreibung: Modern design standards for reinforced concrete (r.c.) buildings allow the achievement of ductile structures, able to globally dissipate seismic energy through the development of plastic deformations located in the dissipative regions (i.e. plastic hinges). The hysteretic capacity of r.c. structures is related to the ability of reinforcing steel bars to sustain many cycles of high plastic deformations without the exhibition significant decrease of strength and stiffness; this condition, typically due to cyclic/seismic action, shall be widely investigated in order to obtain a full and detailed knowledge of the structural behaviour of modern r.c. buildings. In the present paper, elaborated inside the European research project “Rusteel”, the evaluation of the seismic ductile demand on steel reinforcing bars due to real earthquake events was carried out. Representative r.c. case study buildings were designed following the actual European and Italian prescriptions and analyzed using the Incremental Dynamic Analysis technique for the assessment of the behaviour under real seismic events. The elaboration of a simplified mechanical model for the steel reinforcing bars, calibrated on the basis of experimental monotonic and cyclic tests, allowed the evaluation of the effective level of deformation and energy dissipation required by earthquakes and the assessment of the ability of the actual European production to satisfy the effective seismic ductile requirements.

Beschreibung: The earthquake of June 20, 1978 (M6.5) near Thessaloniki, Greece, and the abundant information on damage distribution provided researchers with an opportunity for a more detailed study of earthquake effects. The damage on buildings caused by that earthquake was recorded in several ways. In this paper two of them will be presented and discussed: First, the use of questionnaires filled in by citizens and second, the in situ inspection of the buildings by a team of expert engineers, enriched by data of retrofitting costs, where available. In the current study, the damage data derived from the questionnaires are compared against the ones given by the engineers after they have been both converted to the European Macroseismic Scale 1998 (EMS-98) Damage Grades. It is observed that for EMS-98 damage grades equal and larger than 2 the questionnaire method overestimates damage while for lower grades both approaches provide comparable results.

Beschreibung: Located at the North-Eastern part of Algeria (Tellian Atlas), Constantine has crucial administrative, economic, scientific and cultural importance. It has continuously experienced significant urban evolutions during the different periods of its history. The city is located in an active seismic region within Algeria and has been struck in the past by several moderate and strong earthquakes. The strongest earthquake recorded since the beginning of instrumental seismology took place on October 27, 1985 with a magnitude M $_\mathrm{S}=$ 5.9. Constantine presents a high seismic risk, because of its dense housing and high population density (2,374 inhabitants/km $^{2})$ . This requires a risk assessment in order to take preventive measures and reduce the losses in case of potential major earthquake. For this purpose, a scenario based approach is considered. The building damage assessment methodology adopted for the Algerian context is adapted from HAZUS approach. In the present case, the effective Algerian seismic code response spectrum (RPA 99/2003) is considered as a seismic hazard model. The prediction of the expected damages is performed for a set of almost 29,000 buildings.

Beschreibung: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 21 Author(s): R. Khanna , R. Cayumil , P.S. Mukherjee , V. Sahajwalla The recovery of materials from urban waste has become progressively more important with wastes providing a variety of resources. This study focuses on the recycling of electronic printed circuit boards (PCBs) from mobile phones, computers, TVs, white goods, and micro-processors etc. that contain significant amounts of hazardous/toxic components along with a variety of metals, ceramics and polymers. Both formal and informal sectors are engaged worldwide in recycling such e-waste to recover precious and other metals (upto 40-70% of value). However poor recycling techniques, especially in developing countries, generate high levels of environmental pollution that affects both the ecosystems and the people living within or near the main recycling areas. Various e-waste recycling methods used in the informal sector include manual dismantling, open burning of PCBs, plastic chipping and melting, burning wires to recover copper, acid & cyanide salt leaching, and inadequate metallurgical treatments. These activities release dust particles loaded with heavy metals and flame retardants into the atmosphere that may re-deposit near the emission site, or be transported over long distances depending on their size. Significant levels of environmental pollution are thus associated with recycling e-waste. This study presents an environmentally sustainable solution to e-waste management and reducing associated pollution during recycling. In this study, waste PCBs were heat treated in the temperature range 1150-1350 o C for periods of up to 20 minutes in an Argon atmosphere. Key metallic constituents namely Cu, Sn and Pb showed a tendency to segregate out in the form of copper rich and Sn rich metallic balls. Minor elements such as Al, Fe, Mg, Ni, Pd, Pt and Zn segregated along with metallic droplets. Such high temperatures led to the removal of hazardous lead and the recovery of highly concentrated copper alloys and precious metals. Pyrolysis of PCBs also generated a carbon rich residue containing traces of Sn and very low levels of copper. Various ceramic impurities present precipitated out as slag and did not interfere with metal recovery.

Beschreibung: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 21 Author(s): Luke Beesley Most people spend most of their time in densely populated areas, thus the quality of the environment in and surrounding these areas influences the health, wellbeing and happiness of vast swathes of the world's inhabitants. Cities are constantly migrating and metabolizing, leaving behind industrial legacy and environmental degradation to be remediated by future generations; legacies of toxic waste, polluted ground waters, sealed soils, powsy land and degraded ecosystems. Into new and virgin territories modern industries and commerce move and the following populations then pressurize local natural resources and produce new wastes; just as metallurgic and mining wastes were the products of previous heavy industries and prosperity, now knowledge economy based wastes, such as computers, phones and tablets form an emerging disposal challenge. Learning the lessons from the past our new environs should be ‘future proofed’ to cope with the demands placed upon them; for example innovative schemes for water re-use, traffic free zones to maintain air quality and soil protection measures to preserve this vital resource should be incorporated to planning and policy. Planning and policy must also take account of people's desire for self-sufficiency and provenance; for example urban agriculture, motivated by a need for food security and engaged localism needs a safe resource on which to produce food. But we must avoid becoming risk averse but be creative and free thinking in solutions to new environmental issues. Therefore into the future, risk assessment within the ever changing mosaic of urban land uses will provide vital predictive power on the impacts of people on the landscape, allowing ‘future proofing’. Contemporary construction and then deconstruction of urban fabric and consumer products will also be key to resource re-use and waste minimization to avoid an urban environmental pollution burden in the future greater than that which we are already dealing with. In this special issue a collection of papers presents review and experimental evidence of monitoring and potential solutions to emerging environmental issues in cities.

Beschreibung: The seismic Performance-Based Assessment (PBA) of monumental buildings requires to consider safety and conservation objectives, including also the possible presence of artistic assets. In order to face these issues, the case study of the Great Mosque of Algiers is analysed in this paper: in fact, besides to be one of the remaining Almoradiv architecture and the oldest mosque of the city, it is also characterized by the presence of a mihrâb , a decorated arched niche that represents an interesting artistic asset to be included in the PBA. Within this context, particular attention has been paid to the choice of the most reliable modelling strategy for the application of the displacement approach in the PBA procedure, as a function of different possible seismic behaviours. In the case of Great Mosque both the current state of the building and a virtual strengthened condition are analysed. It is worth noting that, while in the current state the seismic behaviour of the asset is well described by a set of macroelements that may be analysed independently (through 2D models), in the second case the strengthening intervention leads to the adoption of a 3D global model (indeed, the roof bracing promotes a “box-type” behaviour). In the paper, the integrate use of three different modelling strategies of different complexity is discussed: the finite element model, the equivalent frame approach and the macro-block model. The results of nonlinear analyses performed (static and kinematic) constitute the main tool to interpret the seismic response of the asset, perform the PBA and address the choice on the rehabilitation decisions. These latter in this case are mainly affected by the occurrence of too high deformations in local portions of the building, including that in which the artistic asset is located.

Beschreibung: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 21 Author(s): Ravindra Rajarao , Veena Sahajwalla , Romina Cayumil , Miles Park , Rita Khanna Rapid urbanization, a general improvement in living standards and increased consumption has resulted in the generation of unprecedented amounts of waste in recent years. Among different wastes, electronic wastes (e-waste) volumes are growing three times faster than any other forms of urban waste. It is estimated that 20 to 50 million tonnes of e-waste are generated worldwide every year. E-waste contains over 1000 different substances; some are toxic and hazardous, which cause serious problems to environment and on human health. Generation of waste residues during recovery of precious metals from e-waste, the presence of hazardous lead, waste plastics, secondary pollution caused by landfilling non-metallic residues are some of the problems associated with recycling e-waste. We report a novel approach to recover valuable materials from waste printed circuit boards; controlled pyrolysis of e-waste was carried out at high temperatures (750-1550 °C) in an argon atmosphere. Segregation of lead and other metals was investigated as a function of temperature and reaction products were analyzed using Inductively Coupled Plasma spectroscopy and Scanning Electron Microscopy. Temperatures above 1350 °C were required to completely remove lead and other metals from e-waste; waste residue that was left behind was predominantly composed of carbon. Further research was carried out on the utilization of lead free non-metallic residue as a carbon source in ironmaking application. Non-metallic residual waste from recycling PCB was found to be a promising reductant in ironmaking applications. This research has laid the foundations of a ‘Zero Waste’ approach for managing and recycling electronic waste.

Beschreibung: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 21 Author(s): Guangxue Wu , Xiaofeng Zhai , Bo Li , Chengai Jiang , Yuntao Guan Nitrous oxide (N 2 O) emission occurs during denitrification, such as in biological wastewater treatments, but few studies have focused on N 2 O emission during denitrification under endogenous conditions. In the present study denitrifiers were acclimated with acetate or methanol as the electron donor, and endogenous denitrification kinetics including denitrification rates and N 2 O emission were examined in batch experiments for the acclimated denitrifiers. Oxidized nitrogen was denitrified slowly during endogenous respiration for denitrifiers acclimated with acetate or methanol, with the denitrification rate of lower than 2 mg/g VSS h. When the nitrate was used as electron acceptor, a low N 2 O emission ratio (lower than 1%) was obtained, while a high emission ratio (above 10%) was observed with nitrite as electron acceptor for both organic carbon acclimated denitrifiers. More attention should be paid to N 2 O emission during denitrification under endogenous conditions (such as in the settlement tanks) especially for systems with short-cut biological nitrogen removal through nitrite or systems with a high nitrite accumulation.

Beschreibung: The paper presents the results of a broad experimental investigation conducted through diagonal compression tests on masonry specimens strengthened with a mortar coating applied on both surfaces of the wall and reinforced with a glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) mesh. Four types of masonry, three different types of masonry mortar and five diverse GFRP meshes for the reinforcement were considered. In particular, solid brick masonry 250 and 380 mm thick, two-leaf brick masonry with rubble conglomerate infill and rubble stone masonry were tested. The diagonal compression tests, performed on 60 square masonry specimens with loading-unloading cycles up to the collapse, evidenced a good effectiveness of the strengthening technique in terms of both resistance and ductility. Results also showed the resistance increment in reinforced samples is generally greater for weaker masonry types and, referring to a single masonry type, for specimens built with a weaker mortar. Furthermore, the different GFRP meshes influenced very little the resistance of specimens, but higher reinforcement contents induced a lower decrease of the diagonal load after the cracking.

Beschreibung: Presented herein is an updated model for empirical prediction of 5 %-damped elastic response spectra in the period range 0–10 s, peak ground acceleration and velocity, based on a global dataset of digital acceleration records. The predictive model features saturation of the shaking parameters with both magnitude \(M_{W}\) and distance \(R_{ RUP }\) , magnitude-dependent distance attenuation, alternative parameterisations of the amplification effects due to local site conditions (based either on ground types or \(V_{S,30}\) ) and corrective terms for style-of-faulting. The calibration dataset comprises more than \(1{,}880\times 2\) orthogonal horizontal accelerometer records with \(R_{ RUP }〈 150\)  km from 98 global earthquakes with \(4.5\le M_{W}\le 7.9\) . The processing technique applied to the acceleration data optimises the reliability of the predictions at long periods, as required by displacement-based design techniques. Developed independently of the recent NGA-West2 and RESORCE -based models, the new predictive tool effectively contributes to capturing the epistemic uncertainties associated with the prediction of seismic shaking levels for engineering applications.

Beschreibung: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 21 Author(s): George Thomas , A.P. Sherin , Shareekul Ansar , E.J. Zachariah Urban Heat Island (UHI), a measure of the near surface air temperature contrast between urbanised and adjoining rural areas, is the most pronounced effect of urbanisation. The definition of ‘urban’ varies in different contexts, which makes it difficult for direct comparison between cities in different regions. Local climate zone (LCZ) classification based method was adopted in Kochi in Southern India to study its UHI. Twelve mobile surveys were carried out from January 2011 to March 2013 to quantify UHI intensity. Pre-dawn UHI there was more intense than early night UHI, and its intensity in winter was stronger than in summer. UHI observed during winter were 4.6 ° C and 3.7 ° C in pre- dawn and early night respectively. The study area was classified into ten different local climate zones based on the standard zone properties. Thermal gradient between different zones and cooling rates observed in these zones were computed, which validates the LCZ classification. Maximum intensity was seen in Compact Midrise zones which cover the central part of the city. Most intense cooling was observed in openset and sparsely built regions in all seasons. Standard zone properties alone were inadequate to explain variation of UHI intensity of same classes with different surface area and diverse adjacent zones. Two more zone properties, radial distance to adjacent zone called Zone Boundary Distance, and the Nearest Adjacent Zone, are proposed here to overcome this. The use of these additional parameters gives a better understanding of the intra zone variation of UHI intensity of the same classes with different coverage area and diverse adjacent zones.

Beschreibung: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 21 Author(s): George Thomas , A.P. Sherin , E.J. Zachariah Industrialisation and urbanization leads to an increase in concentration of greenhouse gases, which eventually alters the radiation balance of the climate system. Urban regions are hotspots of greenhouse gas emissions which include CO 2 , CH 4 , N 2 O, etc. Methane emitting sources hosted by cities include fossil fuel combustion, municipal waste and sewage management, blocked drains and pools etc. Waste discharges from the residences, food wastes, market places etc., contribute to the methane production. Urban heat island causing warm nights in the city is also a suitable condition for the generation of methane. Ground level mixing ratio of methane in the tropical coastal city of Cochin in South India, during calm early morning periods was measured in this study. A mobile traverse method was employed from January 2011 to March 2013. Measurements were taken during both winter and summer seasons. It was observed that the ground level methane concentrations were significantly higher than the global average value. Intra-city variation in ground level mixing ratio was also significant. The maximum value of ground level methane in winter and summer were 3.85 ppm and 3.21 ppm respectively. The study reveals that the city acts as a source of atmospheric methane.

Beschreibung: The structural performance of historical masonry elements can be understood provided the following factors are known: geometry; the characteristics of its masonry texture and morphology, state of damage and decay, physical, chemical and mechanical characteristics of the components (units, infill, mortar); the characteristics of built masonry as a composite material. In order to quantify the mechanical properties of the masonry both laboratory and in-situ tests are required. However, in the case of cultural heritage assets, the setting up of an effective knowledge procedure is strictly related to the minimization of invasiveness on the structure, with the aim of its conservation, rather than the cost–benefit optimization: thus it is essential to have available reference parameters to be adopted for different masonry types. Within this context, this State-of-the-Art paper on this topic is organized with integrated outcomes from the test campaigns carried out through the PERPETUATE project, that are also briefly presented. Reference parameters for effective seismic assessment are provided both for brick and stone masonry together with their upper and lower bound values for both mechanical parameters and damage limits for which proper limit states (LS) may be associated. Apart from the LS for structural elements (SE), the relevant LS’s for artistic assets attached to the SE are also presented in this paper.

Beschreibung: Recent research showed that the in-plane horizontal displacement capacity of unreinforced masonry (URM) walls depends on numerous factors that are not yet captured by current empirical drift capacity models; e.g., axial stress, shear span, geometry of the walls and the material used. In order to improve the performance-based assessment of URM wall buildings, future research should aim at developing numerical and mechanical models that link the global force-displacement response of URM walls to local deformation measures such as strains. This paper addresses the behaviour of modern clay brick masonry and makes first contributions to such an endeavour by the evaluation of experimental results: first, two sets of limit states are proposed that link local damage limit states to characteristic points of the global force-displacement response of the URM wall. The two sets define limit states for walls developing a shear or a flexural mechanism respectively. Second, local deformation measures deemed suitable for the characterisation of these limit states are evaluated from optical measurement data of quasi-static cyclic wall tests. These include strains, compression zone depth and the ratio of shear to flexural deformations.

Beschreibung: The seismic vulnerability assessment of Nepalese Pagoda temples is essential as these monuments are recognized with high historical and heritage value. Many of these architectural and culture heritage are listed in UNESCO World heritage. Rigorous vulnerability assessment of these structures and the implementation of appropriate retrofitting solutions can help reduce the levels of physical damage and the economic impact of future seismic events. This paper approaches the seismic vulnerability assessment of Pagoda temples by applying a simplified methodology developed. The proposed methodology adopted in this study was based on a vulnerability index used for the evaluation of damage and the study of loss scenarios on a large scale. Over 78 Pagoda temples located in three cities of the Kathmandu valley (Nepal) were assessed using this methodology. The results of the vulnerability assessment together with the surveyed database and damage classification were integrated into a GIS tool, allowing the spatial visualation of damage scenarios, which is potentially useful for the planning of retrofitting priorities to mitigate and manage seismic risk.

Beschreibung: An innovative displacement-based seismic design procedure for regular planar framed structures considering sidesway collapse prevention is presented. The method proposed, based on the characterization of a multiple degree of freedom system by means of a single degree of freedom system, allows the design of structures with a P-Delta induced negative stiffness to satisfy an interstorey drift threshold and/or prevent dynamic instability. The design procedure relies on the use of elastic analysis of simplified models and collapse or constant ductility spectra, hence, non-linear dynamic analyses are not required. To illustrate the potential of the method proposed, example applications and validation of the results obtained via incremental dynamic analysis are shown.

Beschreibung: We carry out simulations of seismic wave propagation in anelastic media in order to study the relative importance of source parameters as well as viscoelastic structures in affecting the decay of the ground motions. First, we verify the efficiency of the implementation in a finite difference code of two coarse-grain memory variables methods to model the anelastic behavior of the soil. We find that both methods are sufficiently consistent for a quality factor (Q) larger than 20. Then, we study the relative importance of the focal mechanism, the magnitude, the source depth, the crustal structure and the quality factor in affecting the decay of the ground motions. We verify that the magnitude and the focal mechanism of the source do not have a significant effect on the decay, whereas the focal depth is more important in explaining the variations in decay. The variations of the decay depending on the crustal structure are more difficult to assess. For the shorter distances (up to about 20 km), the velocity structure does not have a significant effect on the decay of the ground motions. The effect of the quality factor is perceptible but remains less important than the effect of the focal depth. However, for epicentral distances larger than about 20 km, both the velocity structure and the quality factor begin to affect significantly the decay. The effect of the quality factor on the decay becomes then even more important than the effect of the focal depth. Therefore, a reduction in the standard deviation of GMPEs could possibly be achieved through taking into account appropriate anelastic attenuation for each region considered. The effect of a 3D velocity structure is studied introducing a typical basin structure. The presence of a sedimentary basin can affect the decay even outside the basin. The spatial difference in ground motion is more pronounced in the elastic case than in the anelastic case.

Beschreibung: Thousands of road and railway masonry arch bridges are still in service in the Italian and European transportation network, and many of them are located in highly seismic areas. In this work, a kinematic analysis procedure is developed to assess the transverse seismic capacity of multi-span masonry bridges with slender piers, as they may be vulnerable to transverse seismic action. The procedure can calculate the limit horizontal load multiplier of overall collapse mechanisms involving transverse deformation of deck and piers. The procedure is then adopted in a parametric study describing the typical ranges of the main parameters influencing bridge transverse capacity. Parametric analysis yielded a set of iso-acceleration envelope curves which supply the resistant seismic acceleration of a bridge as a function of simple geometric parameters. The resulting graphs can thus be used for preliminary seismic assessments.

Beschreibung: Floor response spectra, which are used for the seismic design of equipment, are often based on the assumption that the behaviour of a structure and its equipment is linearly elastic. Significant reductions in the peak values of floor acceleration spectra can be achieved if inelastic behaviour of the structure is taken into account. This paper presents the most important results of an extensive parametric study of floor acceleration spectra, taking into account inelastic behaviour of the structure, and linear elastic behaviour of the equipment. The structure and the equipment were modelled as single-degree-of-freedom systems. The influences of the input ground motion, ductility, hysteretic behaviour and the natural period of the structure, as well as that of damping of the equipment, have been studied. A simple practice-oriented method for direct determination of floor acceleration spectra from an inelastic spectrum for the structure and an elastic spectrum for the equipment is proposed and validated. In this method, the floor response spectra in the resonance region, where the natural period of the equipment is close to the natural period of the structure, are based on the empirical values obtained in the parametric study, whereas the spectra in the pre- and post-resonance regions are based on the principles of dynamics of structures. The method is intended for a quick estimation of approximate floor acceleration spectra.

Beschreibung: The number of tunnels in seismic regions has grown significantly in recent decades. It has usually been assumed that tunnels perform better than surface structures during seismic events. However, recent cases have shown that tunnels can be significantly damaged by seismic events. Thus, an evaluation of their response to earthquakes has become increasingly necessary. This paper presents a FEM blind prediction of centrifuge tests on a reduced scale tunnel. The main objective of the paper is to evaluate the numerical model that reproduces the response recorded in the centrifuge. The centrifuge tests involved a tunnel in dry sand. The numerical simulation was performed on the physical-scale model of the transverse direction of the tunnel, which is of prime importance, as it can show large stress–strain levels in the tunnel lining. The tunnel behaviour was assumed to be visco-linear-elastic, while the soil behaviour was assumed to be visco-elastic-perfectly plastic. The soil model parameters were calibrated on the basis of laboratory tests performed on the sand used for the test. The comparison between the experimental and numerical results is presented in terms of acceleration in the time and frequency domains. The experimental and numerical settlements of the sand surface and displacements of the sand-tunnel system, as well as the bending moments and hoop forces acting in the tunnel are also compared. Increments of the bending moments and hoop forces are also evaluated using the closed-form solution proposed by Wang (Seismic design of tunnels: a simple state-of-the-art design approach. Parson Brinckerhoff, New York, 1993 ) and Penzien (Earthq Eng Struct Dyn 29:683–691, 2000 ). A very good agreement between the experimental and numerical results is achieved in terms of horizontal acceleration time-histories and their Fourier spectra, as well as in terms of vertical displacements of the sand surface. Moderate differences exist between the experimental and numerical bending moments and hoop forces; experimental, numerical and analytical increments of the bending moments and hoop forces are in a quite good agreement with each other.

Beschreibung: Drift-sensitive seismic damage to the non-structural masonry infills of framed buildings is one of the most detrimental effects of relatively weak earthquakes. Current codes prescribe relevant verification procedures for building design. However, these codes permit assessment of interstorey drift ratios based on analysis of bare frames, without taking into account the great influence of masonry infills on drift demands. In this paper, the degree of correlation between drift ratios of bare and infilled frames is investigated by multivariate statistical methods, in particular, that of canonical correlation. A number of frames with and without infills are analysed, using both artificial and recorded accelerograms, to compare the drift demands from a statistical standpoint. The analysed frames differ in number of storeys, stiffness of infills, ductility class and ground type. Significant correlation appears only with variation in seismic intensity, which is expressed as peak ground acceleration and spectral acceleration. The seismic intensity being fixed, as peak ground acceleration is in the code check, the correlation is too weak to predict the drift demands of an infilled frame from those of its bare counterpart. The null hypothesis of statistical independence of the drifts of the bare and infilled frames cannot be rejected at usual significance levels. The results contradict the code assumption. Modelling the non-structural masonry infills to compute the drift demand should be required in building codes.

Beschreibung: Cloud Analysis is based on simple regression in the logarithmic space of structural response versus seismic intensity for a set of registered records. A Bayesian take on the Cloud Analysis, presented herein, manages to take into account both record-to-record variability and other sources of uncertainty related to structural modelling. First, the structural response to a suite of ground motions, applied to different realizations of the structural model generated through a standard Monte Carlo, is obtained. The resulting suite of structural response is going to be used as “data” in order to update the joint probability distribution function for the two regression parameters and the conditional logarithmic standard deviation. In the next stage, large-sample MC simulation based on the updated joint probability distribution is used to generate a set of plausible fragility curves. The robust fragility is estimated as the average of the generated fragility curves. The dispersion in the robust fragility is estimated as the variance of the plausible fragility curves generated. The plus/minus one standard deviation confidence interval for the robust fragility depends on the size of the sample of “data” employed. Application of the Bayesian Cloud procedure for an existing RC frame designed only for gravity-loading demonstrates the effect of structural modelling uncertainties, such as the uncertainties in component capacities and those related to construction details. Moreover, a comparison of the resulting robust fragility curves with fragility curves obtained based on the Incremental Dynamic Analysis shows a significant dependence on both the structural performance measure adopted and the selection of the records.

Beschreibung: This study is devoted to investigate the effects of inertial soil–structure interaction (SSI) on the constant-strength inelastic displacement ratios of elastoplastic single-degree-of-freedom systems using a suit of 91 pulse-like ground motions. The soil beneath the foundation is simulated based on the cone model. A local minimum for the inelastic displacement ratios around the interacting system-to-pulse period ratio of one is demonstrated. Moreover, the soil flexibility increases the inelastic displacement ratios at all interacting system-to-pulse period ratios. However, the aspect ratio has decreasing and increasing effects on the inelastic displacement ratios before and after a threshold interacting system-to-pulse period ratio, approximately very close to one. It is confirmed that for slender structures, the SSI effects are the lowest at small interacting system-to-pulse period ratios and as this ratio increases, the SSI effects on the inelastic displacement ratios increase. However, for squat structures, the SSI approximately has more significant effects on the inelastic displacement ratios at lower interacting system-to-pulse period ratios and the effects decrease for higher interacting system-to-pulse period ratios. It is noted that the equal displacement rule is not valid as the SSI effects are taken into account. In addition, a formula is proposed to estimate the inelastic displacement ratios of soil–structure systems using nonlinear regression analysis, which is desirable for the displacement assessment of existing structures. Besides, the mean ratios of approximate-to-analytical values, very close to one, emphasize well accuracy of the proposed formula.

Beschreibung: The seismic behavior factor R (noted q in the european seismic design code, the Eurocode 8) of reinforced concrete frame structures is evaluated based on comparative analysis between non-linear static pushover and non-linear incremental dynamic analyses. For this purpose, three-, six-, and nine-storey reinforced concrete frame structures, considered as low-, medium-, and high-rise frame, respectively, were designed according to reinforced concrete code BAEL 91 and Algerian seismic code RPA 99/Version 2003. Non-linear static pushover analysis using inverted triangular loading pattern and incremental dynamic analysis using a set of seven time-history earthquake records were carried out to compute the R factor components, such as ductility and overstrength factors, with the consideration of failure criteria at both member and structural levels. The results obtained by non-linear static pushover and incremental dynamic analyses are compared. According to the analysis results, it is observed that in the case of non-linear static pushover analysis, the value of the seismic behavior factor decreases as the number of stories increases, whereas in the case of non-linear incremental dynamic analysis, the trend observed is not the same: the value of the seismic behavior factor increases as the number of stories increases. This result shows that the value of the seismic behavior factor depends, among others parameters, on the height of a structure, which parameter is not taken into account by the seismic design codes. In the light of the information obtained from incremental dynamic analyses, it is observed that the value of the seismic behavior factor adopted by the seismic design code RPA 99/Version 2003 is overestimated, especially for low-rise frame structure. This paper also provides conclusions and the limitations of this study.

Beschreibung: This study assesses the effect of parameter uncertainty of non-deteriorating P-delta vulnerable single-degree-of-freedom systems on the median and dispersion of the collapse capacity. The post-yielding negative slope is a necessary condition of P-delta induced collapse that dominates the failure mode, and thus, it is the primary system parameter to be considered as a random variable. The parameter uncertainty on the collapse capacity is quantified with the first-order-second-moment method, and verified with the Latin hypercube sampling (LHS) technique. The total variability of the collapse capacity is estimated by combining the parameter uncertainty with record-to-record variability according to the square-root-of-sum-of-squares rule. Alternatively, the total variability of the collapse capacity is obtained from LHS realizations that simultaneously account for uncertainty of the post-yielding negative stiffness ratio and the earthquake excitation. The importance of uncertain post-yielding negative slope on the collapse capacity is underlined, and the main observations of the parameter uncertainty and total uncertainty of the collapse capacity are discussed.

Beschreibung: Many engineering structures have been destroyed due to differential displacements on the ground surface, resulting in the instability of foundations and structures. An Earthquake fault rupture may cause severe damages even to structures designed to be strong against dynamic excitations. This study investigates the interactions of shallow foundations with the faulting incident, and with soil, reinforced with geo-grids, for the cases of normal and reverse faulting. The results of the numerical studies were verified with the results of experiments conducted at the University of Dundee and the University of Waseda. The subroutine of the new behavioral model was developed and then applied in the numerical modeling. A comparison between the numerical and model test results showed good agreement between numerical and experimental results. Then, the foundation rotations and its separation from the soil during fault rupture, the location of the fault outcropping, the vertical displacement of the ground surface, and the effect of soil reinforced with geo-grids on the fault rupture path and surface displacement, some of them for the first time, were predicted and reported in this paper. The amounts of differential displacement (slope) and surface displacement at the surface were reduced when soil was reinforced with geo-grids. Finally, this research concludes with a few parametric studies.

Beschreibung: The paper presents the results of an experimental campaign on the behaviour of engineered masonry infill walls subjected to both in- and out-of-plane loading. The aim of the research was to develop a design approach for masonry infill walls capable of solving their vulnerability and detrimental interaction with the frame structure when exposed to seismic excitation. Tests on two large-scale specimens and sub-assemblies were performed in order to evaluate the infill deformation capacity, the damage associated with different drift levels, and the mechanical properties of the components. A design solution with sliding joints to reduce the infill-frame interaction and ensure out-of-plane stability, which was proposed in a previous study, was developed and refined with focus on construction details. The aim of sliding joints is to ensure a predetermined mechanism in the infill wall, which is governed by hierarchy of strength and is capable of ensuring ductility and energy dissipation that can be taken into account in the design practice, thanks to the predictability of the response. The two infill wall specimens, one of them including an opening, reached up to 3 % in-plane drift with very little damage and supported an out-of-plane force equivalent to a horizontal acceleration four times the acceleration of gravity. The force-displacement hysteretic curve, sliding at the joints and crack pattern show the efficiency of the construction technique, based on affordable and tradition-like construction processes and materials. The technique, presented here for hollow fired-clay masonry units, can be extended to different masonry infill typologies.

Beschreibung: We present a pore pressure model that predicts the build-up of residual pore pressure from accumulated shear stress. The main advantage of the model is that all of the input parameters can be selected from a CSR (cyclic stress ratio)– \(N\) (number of cycles required for liquefaction) curve measured from a stress-controlled test. The formulation of the model and guidelines for selecting its parameters are presented. Comparisons with measurements validated the applicability of the model and also the parameter selection procedure. Further comparisons with another accumulated stress-based model highlight the superiority of the proposed model in terms of accuracy and ease-of-use.

Beschreibung: When testing multi-storey structures, most testing facilities require the testing of a reduced-scale model. A literature review on tests of scaled masonry structural components revealed that scaling of masonry was rather challenging and often significant differences in stiffness, strength and failure mechanisms between the different sized masonry were reported. This paper addresses the scaling of hollow clay brick masonry with fully mortared head and bed joints. We investigate different choices of scaling brick units and mortar joints. Based on the results of an extensive test programme including standard material tests and quasi-static cyclic tests on masonry walls subjected to horizontal and axial loads, we formulate recommendations for the production of a half-scale model of unreinforced masonry structures. The experimental results show a good match between full-scale and half-scale masonry. We discuss the differences in material properties that remained and compare the force-displacement hystereses obtained for the wall tests.

Beschreibung: In this work, we present a 2D elastodynamic model for the seismic response of subway tunnels embedded in a laterally inhomogeneous, multilayered geological region overlying the half-plane. To this end, a finite difference-boundary element methodology (FDM-BEM) is developed, with the latter method embedded in the former so as to capture near-site field effects. More specifically, the FDM is used for simulating in-plane elastic wave propagation from the underlying bedrock through the overlying soil deposits to the surface. A ‘box’ area is then defined within the original FDM mesh and contains lined tunnels. The ‘box’ is modeled by the BEM and its upper boundary coincides with the free surface of the geological deposit. This way, seismically-induced motions are imparted from the FDM mesh to the ‘box’ perimeter, so that the BEM may now be used to efficiently model the near-site layers which contain the tunnels. Verification studies are then successfully conducted for upward moving Gabor pulses, using the FDM alone, the present hybrid FDM-BEM and a hybrid FDM-finite element method formulation. Given that the FDM is defined in the time domain and the BEM in the frequency domain, the fast Fourier transform is used for linking these two constituent parts of the hybrid approach. This methodology is finally applied to a north–south geological cross-section of Thessaloniki, Greece, which contains two Metro tunnels placed directly below an important Roman-era monument known as the Arch of Galerius. Results are then given in the form of free-surface motions stemming from the Thessaloniki 5 July 1978 aftershock recorded at bedrock so as to establish the influence of the ongoing Metro line construction, now temporarily halted because of the economic crisis, on the free surface motions in the city centre where a number historical monuments besides the Arch of Galerius still survive.

Beschreibung: The paper presents an application of the seismic design method named “Direct Displacement Based Design” (DDBD), first introduced in 1990s in the field of earthquake structural engineering, and gaining due attention in the recent years. The method can be applied to a wide range of structural types, including geotechnical structures. The fundamental philosophy behind DDBD is that structures should be designed to achieve a specified performance level under a certain seismic intensity. In the paper, DDBD is described with considerable discussion on its applicability to flexible earth retaining structures in coarse grained-soils. Particular attention is given to the evaluation of the equivalent damping ratio of the wall/soil system, since it sensibly affects the results of the procedure. A simplification of the design process is proposed in order to provide a seismic demand curve, in terms of active/passive thrust, which is dependent on the system ductility. A numerical example of application of the method is provided in the paper.

Beschreibung: This paper outlines the response of the healthcare system in the area mainly affected by the 2012 Emilia earthquake by drawing on specific surveys and information from local health authorities. Some hospitals were evacuated after the M \(_\mathrm{l}\)  = 5.8 May 20 seismic event due to damage to non structural components and minor structural damage. A short description of the damage suffered and characteristics of the healthcare system as a whole is offered initially, followed by a detailed description of the effects which took place at the Santa Maria Bianca hospital of Mirandola. The focus has been on damage to non structural elements and content, whose integrity is of primary importance for healthcare structures performance during and after a seismic event. Some instruments for the acquisition of accelerometric data were installed after the May 20 event both outside and inside a building which is part of the hospital complex. The seismic behavior of this building has also been analysed by means of a purposely made finite element model and on the basis of the recorded data. The contribution of undamaged and damaged masonry infills to the global seismic response has also been estimated thus providing some hints on the observed building performance.

Beschreibung: Data of the Italian National Institute of Statistics are collected aimed at characterizing Reinforced Concrete (RC) building stock of the area struck by the 2012 Emilia earthquake (number of storeys, age of construction, structural typology). Damage observations, collected right after the event in reconnaissance reports, are shown and analyzed emphasizing typical weaknesses of RC buildings in the area. The evolution of seismic classification for Emilia region and RC buildings’ main characteristics represent the input data for the assessment of non-structural damage of infilled RC buildings, through a simplified approach (FAST method), based on EMS-98 damage scale. Peak Ground Acceleration (PGA) capacities for the first three damage states of EMS-98 are compared with registered PGA in the epicentral area. Observed damage and damage states evaluated for the PGA of the event, in the epicentral area, are finally compared. The comparison led to a fair agreement between observed and numerical data.

Beschreibung: Strong-motion data consisting of peak ground acceleration and velocity and 5 % damped response spectra are presented for 46 earthquakes of the Emilia seismic sequence which occurred in the Po Plain (northern Italy) in 2012. The data were recorded by the OGS temporary network installed close to the town of Ferrara following the main shock of May 20, 2012. Ground-motion peak parameters and spectral responses are compared with the ground-motion prediction equation (GMPE) of Bindi et al. (Bull Earthq Eng 9:1899–1920, 2011 ) for soft soils and reverse faults. Peak ground accelerations are in general in good agreement with those predicted by GMPE, while predicted peak ground velocities underestimate the observed data, especially for stronger events at more distant stations. The response spectra follow the trend in peak ground velocities, with observed values higher than predicted values at longer periods. This behavior has been interpreted as a site effect due to the deep soft alluvial cover of the Po Plain, which promotes ground motion characterized by a large low-frequency spectral content that is not yet well modeled by the Italian GMPE. A peculiar behavior was shown by the event occurring on June 6, 04:08:33 UTC, \(\hbox {M}=4.5\) , located at the eastern edge of the Po Plain, which produced peak ground accelerations exceeding three times the values estimated by attenuation laws. Such a great discrepancy could be related to post-critically reflected S-waves and multiples from the Moho (SmSM).

Beschreibung: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 22 Author(s): Yuri Queiroz Abreu Torres , Lucia Maria Sá Antunes Costa Over the last decade, new spatial means have been keenly developed on geo-social, location-based networking systems and more recently through mobile applications, with significant personalized digital content, full of cognitive and perceptive clues. Culling this information and having it as the main source of analysis, this study explores the cartography of the city of Rio de Janeiro, portraying some of its outdoors recreational activities that are partially invisible in the daily life, advocating the potentiality of this methodological and theoretical framework to disrupt traditional spatial paradigms and contributes to urban research, design, education and representation.

Beschreibung: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 22 Author(s): Motoya Koga , Shinobu Izumi , Shigehito Matsubara , Yoshie Inada , Daria Gaidar In this study, we proposed a method of a welfare town planning, and experimentally developed a support system for disabled persons. Our proposed method of welfare town planning is to make a town-maintenance plan to reflect wheelchair users’ opinions by preparing opportunities for them to directly take part in the town planning and actively express their opinions. Furthermore, in the field of town planning we used a function of support system for disabled persons to calculate quantitatively reduction of physical load for the wheelchair users. This support system has another function: to navigate the wheelchair users from one place to another. The suggested route is found by calculating the most comfortable path for the wheelchair user.

Beschreibung: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 22 Author(s): Yang Ding , Bauke de Vries , Qi Han Regional sustainability concerns a complex system that mainly consists of three subsystems, being the economy, society, and the environment. A complex system involves intensive interactions and correlations among its components. Therefore, the way how these components are organized to work together efficiently is of great significance to the development of a complex system. For that reason, measuring regional sustainability should not only focus on changes in each subsystem individually, but also consider the interactions and relationships among the subsystems. In this paper, we apply a modified method to assess coordinated development, which highlights the simultaneous promotions of economic grow, social well-being, and environment al conservation. By introducing the model of coordinated development, we evaluate the sustainable development of Hubei province which is a typical region in Central China. The result shows that Hubei performed poorly in coordinated development. Although the coordinated development index was consistently increasing, the speed was very slow. In a detailed analysis of the economic, societal, and environmental subsystems in Hubei, the shortage of an economic driving force was found the main cause of the poor development of Hubei Province.

Beschreibung: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 22 Author(s): Richard Laing , Marianthi Leon , Lamine Mahdjoubi , Jonathan Scott In recent years, there have been rapid developments in techniques available to capture three dimensional data with regards to the existing built environment. Such technologies support the collection of both large scale landscape and streetscape data, as well as information pertaining to building details such as sculpture and decorative features. During the past five years, there has also been a similar development in the software technologies available to support building information modelling (BIM). Whilst the emphasis in terms of initial introduction of BIM has been predominantly within the construction phase of new developments, there is clear potential to incorporate 3D data pertaining to the existing environment, with apparent value in terms of both the conceptual design phase and during detailed consideration of spatial layout and environmental analysis. This paper describes the processes involved in incorporating on-site collected 3D data within BIM, including modelling and analysis processes.

Beschreibung: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 22 Author(s): Eleonora Pantano , Harry Timmermans While the last decade has seen increasing interest in the smart city phenomenon from both scholars and practitioners, little attention has been paid to what extent retailing might be considered as part of smart cities, with benefits for all the actors involved in the process. In fact, retailing is subject to a radical innovation force that makes available several technologies that can be successfully applied. The extensive use of advanced systems gives rise to new questions concerning the smart use of technologies. Moreover, the application of advanced technologies is part of a trend towards the creation of smart cities for a better urban society. In this scenario, the idea of smartness goes beyond the concept of application of new technologies by also including more important dimensions, such as organizational structure. Hence, our work aims at identifying what can be considered smart for retailing, in terms of features of smart technology for retailing, and the challenges emerging from the adoption of such smart technologies.

Beschreibung: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 22 Author(s): Azarakhsh Rafiee , Eduardo Dias , Steven Fruijtier , Henk Scholten Data collection is moving towards more details and larger scales and efficient ways of interpreting the data and analysing it is of great importance. A Building Information Model (BIM) includes very detailed and accurate information of a construction. However, this information model is not necessarily geo located but uses a local coordinate system hampering environmental analysis. Transforming the BIM to its corresponding geo-located model helps answering many environmental questions efficiently. In this research, we have applied methods to automatically transform the geometric and semantic information of a BIM model to a geo-referenced model. Two analyses, namely view and shadow analysis, have been performed using the geometric and semantic information within the geo-referenced BIM model and other existing geospatial elements. These analyses demonstrate the value of integrating BIM and spatial data for e.g. spatial planning.

Beschreibung: The influence of masonry infills on the in-plane behaviour of RC framed structures is a central topic in the seismic evaluation and retrofitting of existing buildings. Many models in the literature use an equivalent strut member in order to represent the infill but, among the parameters influencing the equivalent strut behaviour, the effect of vertical loads acting on the frames is recognized but not quantified. Nevertheless a vertical load causes a non-negligible variation in the in-plane behaviour of infilled frames by influencing the effective volume of the infill. This results in a change in the stiffness and strength of the system. This paper presents an equivalent diagonal pin-jointed strut model taking into account the stiffening effect of vertical loads on the infill in the initial state. The in-plane stiffness of a range of infilled frames was evaluated using a finite element model of the frame-infill system and the cross-section of the strut equivalent to the infill was obtained for different levels of vertical loading by imposing the equivalence between the frame containing the infill and the frame containing the diagonal strut. In this way a law for identifying the equivalent strut width depending on the geometrical and mechanical characteristics of the infilled frame was generalized to consider the influence of vertical loads for use in the practical applications. The strategy presented, limited to the initial stiffness of infilled frames, is preparatory to the definition of complete non-linear cyclic laws for the equivalent strut.

Beschreibung: In this study, we assess the dynamic characteristics of an 8-story RC-building composed by two units connected through a structural joint. This building, belonging to one of the largest hospitals in northern Greece, has been selected in the framework of an European funded project as test site for developing a structural health monitoring system and it is instrumented with a permanent strong motion network. The assessment of the dynamic characteristics is performed using ambient vibration recorded by a temporary seismic network installed inside the structure. Non-parametric identification methods, namely the peak picking and frequency domain decomposition, are applied to perform operational modal analysis and extract the natural frequencies and mode shapes of the structural system. Since the detection of changes in the shear wave velocity inside the building is relevant for health monitoring analysis, we use the ambient vibration recordings to perform a deconvolution interferometry. Moreover, a shear-beam model is considered to estimate the velocity in the first three floors, where the distribution of internal sources introduces complex patterns in the impulse response functions. The velocity for lowest part of the building is estimated by optimizing the match between the arrival times of the empirical and theoretical pulses. Finally, the velocities and quality factors estimated from ambient vibration analysis are consistent with preliminary results obtained analyzing earthquake data recorded in the same building.

Beschreibung: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 22 Author(s): Kuo-Chung Wen , Shu-Shan Chang The Taipei subway transfer station is a busy space, has a variety of public transportation and also has multiple activities. If this creates an effective understanding of a traveller's dynamic, it can significantly reduce the area of potential danger. In order to ensure the security of personal data, our research uses the lowest-resolution image to record. We survey more than one thousand digital video records, including peak, off-peak and minor peak hours, to find the approximate spatial and temporal distribution of the crowd. Our study proposes a process for crowd investigation and through data analysis assesses the effectiveness of its methods and processes for flow investigation. Our study explores the potential risk of spatial and temporal distribution as the next stage of research for subway transfer station performance assessment.

Beschreibung: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 22 Author(s): Tao Feng , Harry J.P. Timmermans This paper presents an integrated approach to extracting activity-travel diaries from GPS data. The imputation involves a semi-automatic procedure of transportation mode and activity type recognition, and applies full and partial consistency principles to different trip episodes of a tour. Complementing earlier work on the evaluation of this approach at the epoch level, this paper investigates the performance of the integrated imputation at the episode level. The originally imputed data were used as reference to compare the superimposed data against validated data. Results indicate that the distribution of transportation modes and activity types are similar for these data sets. The new algorithm imputes diary data that are closer to the validated data that the results of the original algorithm.

Beschreibung: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 22 Author(s): Michele Campagna , Konstantin Ivanov , Pierangelo Massa Metaplanning can be considered as a necessary step for improving collaboration, transparency and accountability in sustainable and democratic spatial decision-making processes. This paper reports current findings on the operational implementation of the metaplanning concept developed by the authors relying on Business Process Management methods and techniques. Three solutions are presented which implement spatial planning process workflows thanks to the development of original spatial data and processing services connectors to a Business Process Management suite. These results can be considered as a first step towards the development of 2 nd generation Planning Support Systems.

Beschreibung: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 22 Author(s): Kwang Woo Nam , Eui Soo Cho , Il Hwa Kwon , Jung-Hun Yang This paper proposes a framework for identifying and predicting community deprivation, which includes the system of management and analysis. The management system focuses on the query modules for data analysis, such as geographic area, administrative region, and unit of measurement. The query module for geographic area addresses income, employment, health and disability, living conditions, and housing. The query module for administrative region focuses on levels of organization, such as district, dong, and tong in Korea. The query module for unit of measurement covers the values, rankings, and deciles used to present the data. The analytic system plays a key role in identifying and predicting deprivation. The identification process consists of two calculations: the area index and the index of multi-deprivation. The area index involves the allocation of weights, the calculation of ranks, and the transformation of the index distribution through factor analysis. The second step involves obtaining the area index, rankings, and geographic distribution of indices using the weights employed by the 2004 index of multi-deprivation in the UK. The community index of multi-deprivation is finally calculated after weighting the values for each area. The results of this study should help decision makers and planner actively respond to changes by identifying turning points in the growth and decline of communities.

Beschreibung: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 22 Author(s): Luc Wismans , Erik de Romph , Klaas Friso , Kobus Zantema Reliable and accurate short-term traffic state prediction can improve the performance of real-time traffic management systems significantly. Using this short-time prediction based on current measurements delivered by advanced surveillance systems will support decision-making processes on various control strategies and enhance the performance of the overall network. By taking proactive action deploying traffic management measures, congestion may be prevented or its effects limited. An approach of short-term traffic state prediction is presented and implemented in a real life case for the city of Assen in the Netherlands. This prediction is based on connecting online traffic measurements with a real time traffic model using the macroscopic dynamic traffic assignment model StreamLine in a rolling horizon implementation. Different monitoring data sources consisting of both fixed-point and floating car data are used. The advantage of the rolling horizon approach is that no warming-up period is needed for the dynamic traffic assignment taking less computation time while keeping results consistent. Further, the current traffic state estimation is done by combining model estimates of previous predictions and current measurements. The results of predictions made in the real life case are presented as well as several tested methods for improving the current state estimations showing promising results.

Beschreibung: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 22 Author(s): Marc Dankers , Floris van Geel , Nicole M. Segers During the lifecycle of a building, much more information is used and produced than can be contained inside a Building Information Model (BIM). The information outside the BIM is seldom connected to the BIM or connected across domains. Furthermore, information in BIM is only accessible to people with sufficient CAD or architectural background, and often expensive software is needed to edit and add data. This inefficient information management causes significant costs in practice. Our research contributes to the development of IFC based web applications in practice and demonstrates a way of linking machine to human readable data thus making the data accessible to non CAD users or architectural experts. In this paper we describe such a platform for the integration of model-based data and non-model based data. We tried to construct a mapping process from IFC properties to a national building element classification system, as a way of structuring the objects and information for use in our web platform. Since both the structure of IFC and most building element classification systems are based on semantic relations of building elements (i.e. holonym, meronym, hypernym), translations by means of a basic reasoning system should be feasible. We elaborate on several uses of this platform in applications for maintenance and reuse of building materials, buildings and built structures.