Search results for "CONSTRUCTION"
showing 10 items of 2670 documents
Quarry limestone dust as fine aggregate for concrete
2018
In quarrying activities, rock is extracted and transformed into aggregate of various sizes for civil engineering applications. In this process waste fine aggregates (dust waste) are generated. The disposal of this type of waste is a further cost in the extraction process, but also a possible cause of environmental pollution (e.g. leaching into water reserves, atmospheric pollution as a result of small particles causing respiratory diseases or deposited on plants disrupting photosynthesis, affecting aquatic habitats, etc.). A strategy for the effective recycling of quarry dust does not only reduce waste generation and disposal, but also addresses protection of the environment. The Italian qu…
Superresolved imaging of remote moving targets.
2006
We present a superresolving approach that allows one to exceed the diffraction limit and recover highly resolved contours of moving targets from a sequence of low-resolution images. The presented approach is suitable for remote sensing applications. The resolution decoding algorithm that is used to recover the high-resolution features of the target can be run partially via optical means and that way can be used to reduce the required computational complexity.
Iterative Regularization Techniques in Image Reconstruction
2000
In this survey we review recent developments concerning the efficient iterative regularization of image reconstruction problems in atmospheric imaging. We present a number of preconditioners for the minimization of the corresponding Tikhonov functional, and discuss the alternative of terminating the iteration early, rather than adding a stabilizing term in the Tikhonov functional. The methods are examplified for a (synthetic) model problem.
Comparing the Socio-Political Ethics of Fighting Terrorism with Extreme Self-Defense in USA
2018
In this study the authors adopted a post-positivist research design philosophy to explore the likelihood that Americans would support extreme self-defense policies like torture, reducing human rights or banning Muslims to fight against global terrorism, especially after 9/11 and in light of the Trump conservative government. The authors grounded their research questions into the literature to form hypotheses in a correlational design strategy which they tested using nonparametric statistics. They collected opinions from 3213 Americans during 2016-2017 about applying extreme self-defense tactics to combat global terrorism and how these opinions contrasted between those holding a conservative…
What’s Wrong with the Diffusion of Innovation Theory?
2001
This paper examines the usefulness of the diffusion of innovation research in developing theoretical accounts of the adoption of complex and networked IT solutions. We contrast six conjectures underlying DOI research with field data obtained from the study of the diffusion of EDI. Our analysis shows that DOI based analyses miss some important facets in the diffusion of complex technologies. We suggest that complex IT solutions should be understood as socially constructed and learning intensive artifacts, which can be adopted for varying reasons within volatile diffusion arenas. Therefore DOI researchers should carefully recognize the complex, networked, and learning intensive features of te…
Chile helps Chile: exploring the effects of earthquake Chile 2010
2014
Purpose– The purpose of the present paper is to explore the political discourse present in the show Chile Ayuda a Chile [Chile helps Chile] to support the survivors and victims of the last earthquake hit Chile in 2010. Based on the belief that nationalism plays a vital role in cementing the process of recovery by making survivors believe that they, after all, have a new opportunity to be on feet again.Design/methodology/approach– The visual methodology (enrooted in the analysis of content) is the chosen technique to develop five indicators which replicates the nationalist sentiment of Chileans post-disaster context. The archetype of nationalism is activated whenever the community is in dang…
Measuring the wastewater treatment plants productivity change: Comparison of the Luenberger and Luenberger-Hicks-Moorsteen Productivity Indicators
2019
Abstract It is essential to assess the productivity of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) to improve their economic and technical performance over time. In doing so, reliable indexes should be used to avoid biased conclusions leading to unsuccessful policy and managerial measures. Ratio-based indexes are typically employed, but are infeasible when any of the variables are equal or close to zero. To overcome this limitation, this paper presents the innovative approach of applying and comparing two difference-based productivity indicators, Luenberger (LPI) and Luenberger-Hicks-Moorsteen (LHMPI), to evaluate how productivity changes in a sample of WWTPs. Because the LHMPI is an additively com…
Energy intensity of treating drinking water: Understanding the influence of factors
2017
Abstract To provide safe drinking water to urban populations, raw water must be treated in drinking water treatment plants, which are energy-intensive facilities. Previous studies have assessed energy intensity (EI: unit of energy required per unit of treated water) of conventional drinking water treatment plants, but they ignored variations related to water treatment trains. By modeling 179 facilities of four water treatment trains, we explored factors potentially affecting energy intensity, such as removal efficiencies of pollutants and treatment capacities of drinking water treatment plants. We also investigated the economies of scale in energy intensity of drinking water treatment plant…
Evaluation of energy performance of drinking water treatment plants: Use of energy intensity and energy efficiency metrics
2018
Abstract One of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals is to provide access to safe and clean drinking water. However, treating raw water in facilities currently involves using a non-negligible amount of energy, and the fossil fuels used are both expensive and emit greenhouse gases when combusted. Previous studies have evaluated the energy performance of drinking water treatment plants by estimating the amount of energy consumed per volume of water. However, such studies have not accounted for differences between treatment technologies and have assumed a common standard water treatment technology. To overcome these limitations, this study employed metafrontier data envelopment ana…
Damage monitoring on carbonate stones: Field exposure tests contributing to pollution impact evaluation in two Italian sites
2017
During the last decades, many studies have been carried out on environmental monitoring in specific sites aiming at their protection and conservation; however, researches focused on the direct implications, in terms of quantitative evaluation of stone deterioration, of these monitoring actions are still scarce. This experimental work aims at monitoring the degradation processes affecting historical buildings constituted by carbonate stones. Specifically, specimens of Carrara marble and two limestones largely used in the Sicilian Baroque architecture, namely Noto and Comiso stones, were exposed outdoor in two Italian sites (Catania and Palermo), which are characterized by different environme…