Development of an assessment framework for green highway construction

Abstract

The objective of this research is to develop a framework for the assessment of green highway projects. Highway construction is chosen from among the various types of large‐scale infrastructure because they cover broad areas and take up a large share of a nation's infrastructure development. After completing a literature review we employ the Max‐Min Fuzzy Delphi method to identify the major categories and their corresponding items most suitable for assessing the “greenness” of a highway project. The five major categories identified are: preservation of the eco‐system, plantations to reduce CO₂ emission, preservation of material resources, waste reduction, and water conservation. The Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) is then employed to determine the weighting of the major categories as well as the sub items in each category. The end result is an assessment rating framework to assess the “greenness” of a highway construction project.     

Reflecting on the preparation of guidelines for strategic environmental assessment (SEA) of nuclear power programmes

In this paper, the ‘guidelines for strategic environmental assessment (SEA) of nuclear power programmes’ by the International Atomic Energy Agency are introduced. This includes a reflection on their preparation process and contents as well as consultation feedback. The preparation process started with two meetings of international nuclear and SEA experts and the creation of a writing team which prepared an initial set of draft guidelines. This was followed by various consultation exercises. The guidelines are organised along an allocation of tasks within a tiered system of energy related policies, plans, programmes and projects. Whilst consultation showed that there was agreement on the approach to most issues, no consensus was present on the extent to which economic and social issues should be fully integrated with environmental considerations. Strong support was given to the way quality review is designed, going beyond focusing on the main SEA reports to cover procedural and participatory aspects next to elements of a comprehensively tiered decision making framework, the ability to influence decisions as well as the quality (expertise and experience) of those involved in conducting the SEA.

Abbreviation: SEA: Strategic Environmental Assessment; EIA: Environmental Impact Assessment; IAEA: International Atomic Energy Agency     

Development of a quality assurance review framework for health impact assessments

The use of health impact assessments (HIAs) has rapidly increased over the last two decades and has been undertaken to evaluate the health implications of many new projects across the globe. In July 2017, Wales became the first country to legislate for broad approach HIAs, i.e. it considers not only environmental health effects but the social determinants of health, well-being and inequalities. Although the introduction of statutory HIA will ensure the use of HIAs, experts have expressed concerns that legislative measures could lead to poor-quality HIAs and associated reports. This paper outlines the development process and analytical reflections of a quality assurance (QA) review framework for HIAs. The framework has been developed over a 2-year period which allowed the collective intellectual capital behind it to evolve in response to practice-based learning. A standardised form of QA for all types and levels of HIA will provide greater clarity regarding the required criteria for conducting and completing an HIA and ensuring this takes place in a robust, interdisciplinary and inter-sectoral manner. Therefore, this QA review framework should fit into existing HIA practice and complement other tools such as best practice guidance to sustain the global reputation of HIA.     

核电厂安全相关的组织因素分类

通过收集现有的组织因素分类并结合问卷调查,基于组织管理过程发展了一种比较全面的组织因素分类,其主体框架包括组织的目标和策略、组织结构、组织文化三大类,基本克服原有分类的缺陷。基于此分类框架,对某核电厂2000~2003年发生的71件人因事件报告进行再分析,通过描述性统计分析,识别出核电厂存在的主要组织管理缺陷。经R型聚类分析,得到影响核电厂安全的组织因素分类。     

Modelling robustness for manufacturing processes: a critical review

‘Robustness’ is an important concept used in quality engineering for the improvement of quality in a manufacturing process. A process which is insensitive to noise variation is called a robust process. The robustness is modelled by several researchers and practioners for its design and implementation in a manufacturing process. A review of all these approaches is essential in order to assess their strengths, limitations and applicability under different process conditions and constraints. Over the years, many of these approaches have found widespread application in measuring, assessing and modelling of process robustness in manufacturing and other industries. In this paper, an attempt has been made to review critically the existing approaches as proposed and applied for measuring and evaluating robustness of manufacturing processes. Based on the critical appraisal, the key issues are identified and a generic framework for modelling and measuring of process robustness in single- and multi-stage manufacturing processes is presented.     

A simultaneous collaborative framework for mould and die design

The fiercely competitive global market is obligating mould and die manufacturers to embrace Computer-Supported Collaborative Design (CSCD) as a way to shorten delivery time and improve product quality. A number of collaborative tools have been developed to keep up with demand. Unfortunately, these existing tools support either collaborative review or collaborative design, but hardly consider the seamless integration of the two types of tools and the characteristics of mould and die. This paper presents a novel framework that combines co-review and co-design in one system so as to cover different aspects of mould and die design. The framework consists of four tiers. In the core, five databases serving different purposes are settled for geographically distributed engineers to inherit various disciplines and propagate their intents. Then, an access-control mechanism is employed to synchronize and secure data during the process of mould and die design in the next tier. For the purpose of interchanging information in real time, an event-driven strategy is applied in the third tier. Afterwards, the outmost tier provides uniform interfaces for invoking application tools and manipulating design information in the collaborative system. Finally, the framework proves effective to support simultaneous collaborative design of mould and die through an example scenario.     

Energy rating system for climate conscious operation of multi-unit residential buildings

Residential sector accounts for 17% of domestic energy use and 14% of the greenhouse gas emissions in Canada. Improving the energy performance of the Canadian residential building stock is vital in achieving climate action goals. A comprehensive review of popular building energy rating systems noted their lack of life cycle thinking. The scope of the popular rating systems is limited to operational performance, ignoring the condition of the assets. This paper proposes a condition assessment framework for the energy system of existing multi-unit residential buildings (MURB), which combines the concepts of asset rating and operational rating. Indicators were identified to define energy, environmental, economic, and asset performance of MURB. A life cycle assessment was conducted to quantify the overall environmental impacts of energy technologies from point of generation. A fuzzy logic-based approach was used to overcome the challenges due to data uncertainty and impreciseness. A case study was conducted for a residential building at UBC Okanagan, Canada. The weights at indicator level and category level were defined based on stakeholder consultation, while also considering different decision scenarios. A fuzzy rule-based approach was used to combine the different performance categories to obtain an overall condition rating. The results indicate that the performance of the case study building can be rated as “good” under operational, asset, and overall categories. The findings of this research can be used to improve the asset and operational management strategies in existing buildings and can inform the key stakeholders during the operational phase of the buildings.     

HELP-WSN-A Novel Adaptive Multi-Tier Hybrid Intelligent Framework for QoS Aware WSN-IoT Networks

Wireless Sensor Network is considered as the intermediate layer in the paradigm of Internet of things (IoT) and its effectiveness depends on the mode of deployment without sacrificing the performance and energy efficiency. WSN provides ubiquitous access to location, the status of different entities of the environment and data acquisition for long term IoT monitoring. Achieving the high performance of the WSN-IoT network remains to be a real challenge since the deployment of these networks in the large area consumes more power which in turn degrades the performance of the networks. So, developing the robust and QoS (quality of services) aware energy-efficient routing protocol for WSN assisted IoT devices needs its brighter light of research to enhance the network lifetime. This paper proposed a Hybrid Energy Efficient Learning Protocol (HELP). The proposed protocol leverages the multi-tier adaptive framework to minimize energy consumption. HELP works in a two-tier mechanism in which it integrates the powerful Extreme Learning Machines for clustering framework and employs the zonal based optimization technique which works on hybrid Whale-dragonfly algorithms to achieve high QoS parameters. The proposed framework uses the sub-area division algorithm to divide the network area into different zones. Extreme learning machines (ELM) which are employed in this framework categories the Zone's Cluster Head (ZCH) based on distance and energy. After categorizing the zone's cluster head, the optimal routing path for an energy-efficient data transfer will be selected based on the new hybrid whale-swarm algorithms. The extensive simulations were carried out using OMNET++-Python user-defined plugins by injecting the dynamic mobility models in networks to make it a more realistic environment. Furthermore, the effectiveness of the proposed HELP is examined against the existing protocols such as LEACH, M-LEACH, SEP, EACRP and SEEP and results show the proposed framework has outperformed other techniques in terms of QoS parameters such as network lifetime, energy, latency.     

A GDPR Compliant Approach to Assign Risk Levels to Privacy Policies

Data privacy laws require service providers to inform their customers on how user data is gathered, used, protected, and shared. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a legal framework that provides guidelines for collecting and processing personal information from individuals. Service providers use privacy policies to outline the ways an organization captures, retains, analyzes, and shares customers’ data with other parties. These policies are complex and written using legal jargon; therefore, users rarely read them before accepting them. There exist a number of approaches to automating the task of summarizing privacy policies and assigning risk levels. Most of the existing approaches are not GDPR compliant and use manual annotation/labeling of the privacy text to assign risk level, which is time-consuming and costly. We present a framework that helps users see not only data practice policy compliance with GDPR but also the risk levels to privacy associated with accepting that policy. The main contribution of our approach is eliminating the overhead cost of manual annotation by using the most frequent words in each category to create word-bags, which are used with Regular Expressions and Pointwise Mutual Information scores to assign risk levels that comply with the GDPR guidelines for data protection. We have also developed a web-based application to graphically display risk level reports for any given online privacy policy. Results show that our approach is not only consistent with GDPR but performs better than existing approaches by successfully assigning risk levels with 95.1% accuracy after assigning data practice categories with an accuracy rate of 79%.     

Friction stir based welding and processing technologies - processes,parameters, microstructures and applications: A review

Friction stir welding (FSW) has achieved remarkable success in the joining and processing of aluminium alloys and other softer structural alloys. Conventional FSW, however, has not been entirely successful in the joining, processing and manufacturing of different desired materials essential to meet the sophisticated green globe requirements. Through the efforts of improving the process and transferring the existing friction stir knowledge base to other advanced applications, several friction stir based daughter technologies have emerged over the timeline. A few among these technologies are well developed while others are under the process of emergence. Beginning with a broad classification of the scattered frictions stir based technologies into two categories, welding and processing, it appears now time to know, compile and review these to enable their rapid access for reference and academia. In this review article, the friction stir based technologies classified under the category of welding are those applied for joining of materials while the remnant are labeled as friction stir processing (FSP) technologies. This review article presents an overview of four general aspects of both the developed and the developing friction stir based technologies, their associated process parameters, metallurgical features of their products and their feasibility and application to various materials. The lesser known and emerging technologies have been emphasized.     

A quality management framework for implementing additive manufacturing of medical devices

This paper aims to provide a comprehensive review of the implementation of additive manufacturing (AM) for medical devices. A quality management framework is proposed with discussion on topics such as software and data input, product understanding, AM equipment qualification, process understanding and continuous process verification. The interplay between input materials, process controls, and final outcomes of AM were analysed in the framework of quality management. Opportunities and challenges in implementing AM for medical devices are discussed.     

Congruence of manufacturing decision areas in a production system: a research framework

A well designed production system secures environmental and internal fit. Environmental fit in a production system refers to alignment of manufacturing decisions to the external settings such as product and market. Internal fit implies that manufacturing decisions are mutually supportive. This paper develops a framework to analyse congruence of manufacturing decision areas in a production system. The framework considers six broad manufacturing decision areas. Based on the literature review, 54 decision types and alternative decision choices for each decision type are identified. The subjective and/or objective constructs to measure decision type are presented which should be useful in designing construct and in data gathering to conduct empirical research. Using the proposed framework, many research questions concerning the settings of several decision types for a specific type of production system can be generated and empirically tested.     

Process Development and Product Quality of Micro-Metal Powder Injection Molding

Injection molding has been found to be an efficient and cost-effective manufacturing technique for the production of a wide variety of parts and components at both macro- and microscale. This is attributed to the application of robust design and process development. However, every manufacturing technique is challenged by quality issues and part defects, but tackled by continuous improvement framework(s). This systematic monitoring and control approach of dimensional accuracy, mechanical properties, and surface quality of the finished part strongly depend on process conditions at different production stage. Therefore, the aim of this study is to review process development of micro-metal injection molding; focusing on critical factors influencing part quality and optimization of process parameters. The critical factors that influenced the finished part quality are part design, mold design, material selection, machine, and process conditions. Optimizing mold temperature, melt temperature, injection speed, injection pressure, cooling time, packing, and holding parameters improve the quality of the molded part. This trend of process development of injection molding gave rise to a broad scope of applications with brighter future potentials for the next decades, particularly for medical and electronics applications.     

Exposure data and risk indicators for safety performance assessment in Europe

The objective of this paper is the analysis of the state-of-the-art in risk indicators and exposure data for safety performance assessment in Europe, in terms of data availability, collection methodologies and use. More specifically, the concepts of exposure and risk are explored, as well as the theoretical properties of various exposure measures used in road safety research (e.g. vehicle- and person-kilometres of travel, vehicle fleet, road length, driver population, time spent in traffic, etc.). Moreover, the existing methods for collecting disaggregate exposure data for risk estimates at national level are presented and assessed, including survey methods (e.g. travel surveys, traffic counts) and databases (e.g. national registers). A detailed analysis of the availability and quality of existing risk exposure data is also carried out. More specifically, the results of a questionnaire survey in the European countries are presented, with detailed information on exposure measures available, their possible disaggregations (i.e. variables and values), their conformity to standard definitions and the characteristics of their national collection methods. Finally, the potential of international risk comparisons is investigated, mainly through the International Data Files with exposure data (e.g. Eurostat, IRTAD, ECMT, UNECE, IRF, etc.). The results of this review confirm that comparing risk rates at international level may be a complex task, as the availability and quality of exposure estimates in European countries varies significantly. The lack of a common framework for the collection and exploitation of exposure data limits significantly the comparability of the national data. On the other hand, the International Data Files containing exposure data provide useful statistics and estimates in a systematic way and are currently the only sources allowing international comparisons of road safety performance under certain conditions.     

The impacts of sharing production information on supply chain dynamics: A review of the literature

This paper is a review of research into the impacts of sharing production information on the supply chain dynamics. The purpose of the review is to understand the needs to unravel such impacts on the supply chain design and management, to identify the current research frontier and to study the future trend in this field. The scope of the review is somewhat broad in the sense that more than 100 relevant publications resulting from major research projects and originating from some leading research groups are selected for review. In order to maintain the necessary coherence and consistency, this comprehensive review proposes a loose reference framework to reflect major elements commonly involved in this type of research, including the decision level investigated, supply chain structure, research questions addressed, factors involved, supply chain dynamics measured, modelling methodology adopted, data analysis technique used, and findings and insights from the managerial perspective obtained. The framework serves as a skeleton for categorizing literature and research areas into these key elements. It is hoped that this review is valuable and beneficial both to new researchers entering the field, in order to gain their interest, references and focus, and to experienced researchers, in order, perhaps, to identify new research opportunities and/or issues that intersect these researchers' past and current interests.     

Implementing Evaluation of the Measurement Process in an Automotive Manufacturer: a Case Study

Reducing process variability is presently an area of much interest in manufacturing organizations. Programmes such as Six Sigma robustly link the financial performance of the organization to the degree of variability present in the processes and products of the organization. Data, and hence measurement processes, play an important part in driving such programmes and in making key manufacturing decisions. In many organizations, however, little thought is given to the quality of the data generated by such measurement processes. By using potentially flawed data in making fundamental manufacturing decisions, the quality of the decision‐making process is undermined and, potentially, significant costs are incurred. Research in this area is sparse and has concentrated on the technicalities of the methodologies available to assess measurement process capability. Little work has been done on how to operationalize such activities to give maximum benefit. From the perspective of one automotive company, this paper briefly reviews the approaches presently available to assess the quality of data and develops a practical approach, which is based on an existing technical methodology and incorporates simple continuous improvement tools within a framework which facilitates appropriate improvement actions for each process assessed. A case study demonstrates the framework and shows it to be sound, generalizable and highly supportive of continuous improvement goals. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Ageing and human-system errors in manufacturing: a scoping review

Population ageing is acknowledged as a global trend affecting the manufacturing workforce. The progressive age-related decline of human capabilities may lead to an increase in human-system errors (HSEs) in production environments; hence, the study conducted a scoping literature review to determine the relationship between ageing and HSEs in manufacturing contexts. The review identified only 26 relevant studies, which showed that age is associated with HSEs in complex ways. With increasing age, the number, frequency, and probability of HSEs tend to increase, but this trend may be countered by experience effects. The review results suggested that it is necessary to consider the impact of ageing on operators’ performance. A theoretical framework for addressing the relationship between ageing and HSEs in manufacturing contexts was proposed. The framework highlighted the absence of studies reporting on perceptual, cognitive, and/or physical task demands, and the limited application of existing error typologies in the current literature. The results highlighted that important safety, productivity, and quality benefits accrue from paying attention to HSEs in system design and management, which should motivate further research in this area of growing importance.     

Use and effectiveness of health impact assessment in the energy and natural resources sector in the United States, 2007 – 2016

Decisions made in the energy and natural resources sector can affect public health. This report reviews the characteristics and assesses the effectiveness of health impact assessments (HIAs) conducted in this sector. A total of 30 HIAs conducted in 14 states in the United States were identified using a targeted literature search. Five HIAs illustrative of the different source and sub-sector categories, and with identifiable impacts on decision-making processes were selected for review. An existing conceptual framework (Wismar) was used to assess the effectiveness of the five selected HIAs on decision-making related to non-renewable energy, renewable energy, mining, and energy conservation. The 30 HIAs were performed for a variety of projects and assessed health impacts ranging from metabolic disorders to community livability. Eight of the 30 reports were incorporated into environmental impact assessments. All five selected HIAs were generally effective and raised awareness of the health effects of the projects being assessed; four were directly effective and led to changes in final project decisions. Their variable effectiveness may be related to the extent of community engagement and consideration of equity issues, differences in the details and quality of monitoring and evaluation plans devised as part of the HIA process, and whether the outcomes of monitoring and evaluation are reported.     

Comprehensive Analysis of Secure Data Aggregation Scheme for Industrial Wireless Sensor Network

As an Industrial Wireless Sensor Network (IWSN) is usually deployed in a harsh or unattended environment, the privacy security of data aggregation is facing more and more challenges. Currently, the data aggregation protocols mainly focus on improving the efficiency of data transmitting and aggregating, alternately, the aim at enhancing the security of data. The performances of the secure data aggregation protocols are the trade-off of several metrics, which involves the transmission/fusion, the energy efficiency and the security in Wireless Sensor Network (WSN). Unfortunately, there is no paper in systematic analysis about the performance of the secure data aggregation protocols whether in IWSN or in WSN. In consideration of IWSN, we firstly review the security requirements and techniques in WSN data aggregation in this paper. Then, we give a holistic overview of the classical secure data aggregation protocols, which are divided into three categories: hop-by-hop encrypted data aggregation, end-to-end encrypted data aggregation and unencrypted secure data aggregation. Along this way, combining with the characteristics of industrial applications, we analyze the pros and cons of the existing security schemes in each category qualitatively, and realize that the security and the energy efficiency are suitable for IWSN. Finally, we make the conclusion about the techniques and approach in these categories, and highlight the future research directions of privacy preserving data aggregation in IWSN.     

A Framework for the Development of an Environmental Management System: A Case Study in a Thermal Power Plant

A framework for the development of an environmental management system that satisfies the requirements of the ISO 14001 standards is presented. The framework is developed for NB Power, a company producing electricity for the province of New Brunswick in Canada. A case study is carried out in a thermal power plant called Coleson Cove. An initial review of the existing environmental management programs is presented. The environmental policy is evaluated, and the environmental aspects and impacts of the plant's activities are identified and prioritized according to prespecified criteria of severity, frequency, degree of control, and existence of regulation. Environmental objectives and targets are set and recommendations are presented.