A cost effective approach to design of energy efficient residential buildings

The objective of this study is to identify cost-optimal efficiency packages at several levels of building energy savings.A two-story residential building locate...     

Optimizing the Roadside Unit Deployment Mechanism in VANET with Efficient Protocol to Prevent Data Loss

Wireless Personal Communications - RTS/ CTS protocol serves multihop wireless networks poorly due to its single-hop design. TDMA protocol surpasses RTS/ CTS but unable to solve the dynamic needs of...     

Electro Analytical Determination of Di Hydroxybenzene Isomers Using Glassy Carbon Electrode

In this study, the electrochemical oxidation of CT （catechol）, HQ （hydroquinone） and RS （resorcinol） was investigated using cyclic and linear sweep voltammetries at GCE （glassy carbon electrode）. The GCE showed an excellent electro activity and reversibility towards the oxidation of these isomers at different conditions. HQ and CT showed one defined oxidation peak and one defined reduction peak while RS showed one defined oxidation peak. These isomers were determined also in their binary and tertiary mixtures. The calibration curves for CT, HQ and RS were obtained in the ranges of 5 × 10-6 to 1 × 10-3 mol.dm-3, 5 × 10-6 to 5 × 10-4mol.dm-3 and 1 × 10-5 to 1× 10-3 mol.dm-3, respectively. The detection limits were 9 ×10-7, 3 × 10-7, 6 × 10-6 mol.dm3 for CT, HQ and RS, respectively. At the optimal experimental conditions, these isomers were determined in different water samples. Also, the removal of catechol from aqueous solution by adsorption on activated charcoal and alumina was studied. After 24 h, 88.7% and 65.9% of catechol was removed using charcoal and alumina, respectively.     

Improved Blocking Time Analysis and Evaluation for the Multiprocessor Priority Ceiling Protocol

The Multiprocessor Priority Ceiling Protocol （MPCP） is a classic suspension-based real-time locking protocol for partitioned fixed-priority （P-FP） scheduling. However, existing blocking time analysis is pessimistic under the P-FP ＋ MPCP scheduling, which negatively impacts the schedulability for real-time tasks. In this paper, we model each task as an alternating sequence of normal and critical sections, and use both the best-case execution time （BCET） and the worst-case execution time （WCET） to describe the execution requirement for each section. Based on this model, a novel analysis is proposed to bound shared resource requests. This analysis uses BCET to derive the lower bound on the inter-arrival time for shared resource requests, and uses WCET to obtain the upper bound on the execution time of a task on critical sections during an arbitrary time interval of △t. Based on this analysis, improved blocking analysis and its associated worst-case response time （WCRT） analysis are proposed for P-FP ＋ MPCP scheduling. Schedulability experiments indicate that the proposed method outperforms the existing methods and improves the schedulability significantly.     

Total mercury distribution in sediment cores from Kuwait Bay

Five sediment cores from Kuwait Bay were taken in order to study the present distribution of total mercury (THg) in the vicinity of the Salt and Chlorine Plant (SCP) operated in the 1963–1985 period. The THg concentration profiles were also determined in four sediment cores from the northern part of Kuwait Bay. Additionally, average THg contents were measured in the surface layer (40 cm) of five sediment samples in the entrance of Kuwait Bay, in order to compare the present Hg levels in other parts of this reservoir. The cores were dated by ²¹⁰Pb method. The observed contents of mercury were in the range of 35 to 2000 µg/kg dry weight (ppb). Thus, the bottom sediments in these three areas of Kuwait Bay are still contaminated by Hg. In a few cases, the depth concentration profiles of THg were disturbed as an effect of partial mixing of the sediment layers, especially in the shallow, northern part of Kuwait Bay. This suggestion was supported by the results of additional measurements of the anthropogenic ¹³⁷Cs profiles in the same cores.     

Expert System for Environmental Quality Evaluation

This paper presents the development of an expert system to evaluate the effects on environmental quality of proposed modifications to an office building following a postoccupancy evaluation. The model presented in this paper has been designated Expert System for Environmental Quality Evaluation (ESEQE). The ESEQE model consists of 200 rules covering 65 performance criteria of environmental quality. These performance criteria cover lighting comfort, acoustic comfort, thermal comfort, and indoor air quality. The performance criteria and the method of evaluation were extracted from a series of interviews with experts in the field of environmental quality in the built environment. The structure and development cycles of the ESEQE model are described. A demonstration of using ESEQE to evaluate the environmental quality in office buildings is presented. The potential benefits of using ESEQE during the design stages are also discussed.     

Replacing Outliers and Missing Values from Activated Sludge Data Using Kohonen Self-Organizing Map

Modeling the activated sludge wastewater treatment plant plays an important role in improving its performance. However, there are many limitations of the available data for model identification, calibration, and verification, such as the presence of missing values and outliers. Because available data are generally short, these gaps and outliers in data cannot be discarded but must be replaced by more reasonable estimates. The aim of this study is to use the Kohonen self-organizing map (KSOM), unsupervised neural networks, to predict the missing values and replace outliers in time series data for an activated sludge wastewater treatment plant in Edinburgh, U.K. The method is simple, computationally efficient and highly accurate. The results demonstrated that the KSOM is an excellent tool for replacing outliers and missing values from a high-dimensional data set. A comparison of the KSOM with multiple regression analysis and back-propagation artificial neural networks showed that the KSOM is superior in performance to either of the two latter approaches.     

Analysis of outrigger‐braced reinforced concrete supertall buildings: Core‐supported and tube‐in‐tube lateral systems

This study is primarily focused on the approximate analysis of reinforced concrete outriggers which are commonly used in the design and construction of supertall buildings subject to distributed horizontal loads. Existing global analysis formulae that provide preliminary results for lateral deflections and moments are reviewed for two lateral load resisting systems, namely, core‐supported‐with‐outrigger (CSOR) system and less frequent tube‐in‐tube‐with‐outrigger (TTOR) system. These formulae are only applicable for CSOR and neglect the reverse rotation of the outrigger actually suffered due to the propping action from the outer columns and give rather high predictions of the deflections compared with advanced numerical finite element (FE) models. An improved model is proposed which overcomes this issue and provides more consistent results to FE predictions. The same can also be extended to TTOR. Several case studies are investigated to verify the accuracy of the proposed methodologies. The global analysis is followed by the local analysis of reinforced concrete outrigger beams using strut‐and‐tie modelling and non‐linear FE analysis to obtain optimized reinforcement layouts (reduction of quantities of reinforcement). The results highlight the different challenges in detailing such structural members which are heavily loaded (high congestion of reinforcement), and the behaviour at failure can be brittle.     

A cost effective approach to design of energy efficient residential buildings

The objective of this study is to identify cost-optimal efficiency packages at several levels of building energy savings. A two-story residential building located in Jordan is selected as a case study. DesignBuilder software is used to predict the annual energy usage of a two-story residence in Irbid, Jordan. Real-time experimental data from a single isolated controlled room was used to verify the proposed model. In addition to energy analysis, the economic, environmental, and social benefits of the proposed design have been investigated. The sequential search optimization approach is used to estimate the minimum cost of the building while considering various design scenarios. In addition, the impact of various energy conservation techniques on residential buildings is assessed, and the payback period for each program is calculated. Ultimately, the optimal combination of design to achieve energy efficiency measures has been identified in several climate regions. The simulations results predict that the annual electricity consumption can be reduced up to 50% if the proper combinations of energy conservation measures are selected at the lowest cost. The payback period is 9.3 years. Finally, energy efficiency measures can lead to a total of 9470 jobs/year job opportunities.The study provide practical framework to link between energy performance criteria and economic goals of building. Linking the energy performance requirements to economic targets provides guidelines for homeowners, contractors, and policymakers for making a suitable decision regarding the retrofitting of existing residential buildings. The study focuses on developing new methodologies that support minimizing costs during a building's lifecycle while maximizing environmental benefits which can not be identified by a series of parametric analyses using individual energy-efficient measures.     

Environmental Comfort Criteria: Weighting and Integration

This paper presents an integration method for evaluating environmental quality in office buildings based on a series of interviews with 50 experts in the field of environmental quality in the built environment. A structured questionnaire was completed by experts during the interviews. The categories of environmental quality considered in this evaluation include lighting comfort, acoustic comfort, thermal comfort, and acceptable indoor air quality. Each category includes a set of performance criteria. Sixty-five performance criteria covering the evaluation of environmental quality in office buildings were extracted from the interviewed experts. The development of this integration method for assessing the environmental quality of built environments is described and an illustration of its application is presented.