Where is My Next Hop ? The Case of Indian Ocean Islands

Internet has become a foundation of our modern society. However, all regions or countries do not have the same Internet access regarding quality especially in the Indian Ocean Area (IOA). To improve this quality it is important to have a deep knowledge of the Internet physical and logical topology and associated performance. However, these knowledges are not shared by Internet service providers. In this paper, we describe a large scale measurement study in which we deploy probes in different IOA countries, we generate network traces, develop a tool to extract useful information and analyze these information. We show that most of the IOA traffic exits through one point even if there exists multiple exit points

Waste to energy: A case study of Madinah city

The concept of energy from waste is getting popular nowadays across the globe, as being capable of producing multi fuels and value-added products from different fractions of municipal solid waste (MSW). The energy recovery technologies under this concept are anaerobic digestion (AD), pyrolysis, transesterification, refuse derived fuel (RDF) and incineration. This concept is very relevant to implementation in countries like Saudi Arabia, who wants to cut their dependence on oil. Moreover, the waste to energy becomes the imperative need of the time because of new governmental policy ‘Vision 2030’ that firmly said to produce renewable energy from indigenous sources of waste, wind and solar and due to given situations of Hajj and Umrah with massive amounts of waste generation in a short period. This study focused on two waste to energy technologies, AD and pyrolysis for food (40% of MSW) and plastic (20% of MSW) waste streams respectively. The energy potential of 1409.63 and 5619.80 TJ can be produced if all of the food and plastic waste of the Madinah city are processed through AD and pyrolysis respectively. This is equivalent to 15.64 and 58.81 MW from biogas and pyrolytic oil respectively or total 74.45 MW of continuous electricity supply in Madinah city throughout the whole year. It has been estimated that the development of AD and pyrolysis technologies will also benefit the economy with net savings of around US $63.51 and US$53.45 million respectively, totaling to an annual benefit of US $116.96 million. Therefore, in Saudi Arabia and particularly in Holiest cities of Makkah and Madinah the benefits of waste to energy are several, including the development of renewable-energy, solving MSW problems, new businesses, and job creation and improving environmental and public health

Integrated Decision Support System for Prognostic and Diagnostic Analyses of Water Distribution System Failures

This paper presents an innovative decision support system (DSS) for prognostic and diagnostic analyses of water distribution system (WDS) failures. The framework of the DSS is based on four novel models developed and published by the authors of this paper. The four models include reliability assessment model, leakage potential model, leakage detection model, and water quality failure potential model. Information obtained from these models together with external information such as customer complaints, lab test results (if any), and historical information are integrated using Dempster-Shafer (D-S) theory to evaluate prognostic and diagnostic capabilities of the DSS. The prognostic capabilities of the DSS provide hydraulic and water quality states of a WDS whereas the diagnostic capabilities of the DSS help to identify the failure location with minimal time after the occurrence and will help to reduce false positive and false negative predictions. The framework has ‘unique’ capacity to bring the modeling information (hydraulic and Quality), consumer complaints, historical failure data, and laboratory test information under a single platform to perform a prognostic and diagnostic investigation of WDS failures (hydraulic and Quality). The proof of concept of the DSS has been demonstrated using data used in published four articles. The outcomes of this research widely addressed the uncertainties associated with WDS which improves the efficiency and effectiveness of diagnosis and prognosis analyses of WDS. It is expected that the developed integrated framework will help municipalities to make informed decisions to increase the safety, reliability and the security of public health.Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC-SPG (Strategic Project Grants)

An argument for developing waste-to-energy technologies in Saudi Arabia

Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) management is a chronic environmental problem in most of the developing countries, including the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). The concept of Waste-to-Energy (WTE) is known as one of the several technologies capable of benefiting a society, which desires to reduce fossil-fuel addiction. Currently, there is no WTE facility existing in the KSA. The MSW is collected and disposed in landfills untreated. A substantial increase in the population by 3.4 %/y over the last 35 y coupled with urbanization and raised living standards have resulted in high generation rate of MSW. In 2014, about 15.3 Mt of MSW was generated in KSA. The food and plastic waste are the two main waste streams, which covers 70 % of the total MSW. The waste is highly organic (up to 72 %) in nature and food waste covers 50.6 % of it. An estimated electricity potential of 2.99 TWh can be generated annually, if all of the food waste is utilized in anaerobic digestion (AD) facilities. Similarly, 1.03 and 1.55 TWh electricity can be produced annually if all of the plastics and other mixed waste are processed in the pyrolysis and refuse derived fuel (RDF) technologies respectively. The aim of this paper is to review the prospective WTE technologies in Saudi Arabia. However, the real selection of the conversion technologies will be done in conjunction with the fieldwork on waste characterization and laboratory examination of selected technologies and further socio-economic and environmental evaluations

Development of a GIS Database for Water Resources Management in Ajman Emirate, UAE.

The lack of freshwater resources represents a major constraint against the sustainable development in arid and semi-arid regions. Because of the scarcity and randomness nature of rainfall in arid regions, surface water resources are almost absent. Groundwater resources are always under stress and in many cases do not suffice the water demands for different sectors. Desalination plants are widely constructed to substitute for the water shortage. The UAE, including Ajman emirate, is witnessing a rapid development in the industrial, commercial, construction and agricultural fields which has led to a tremendous increase in water demands. Proper management of the limited water resources in UAE requires a comprehensive knowledge on water resources availability and potentials. Data related to water resources are numerous and diverse and are generally not preserved in a digital form. Therefore, retrieval of data may require excessive effort and time in such a way that hinders the decision makers to take the proper actions. No effort has been made, so far, to review, assess and analyze the available data related to water resources in Ajman emirate. Efficient and integrated management of the available water resources in Ajman require availability of huge data. Such data include, among others, water demand and water supply patterns in the emirate, distribution of water demands among various consumption sectors, geometric, hydrological and hydrogeological characteristics of the aquifer systems, groundwater levels and quality, pumping rates, location of pumping and observation wells, and others. Such diverse data and information can only be managed and analyzed through Geographical Information Systems (GIS) databases. The thesis demonstrates the development of the GIS database of Ajman emirate. Well fields, groundwater levels and quality, geological and hydrogeological information, aquifer parameters, rainfall records, groundwater quality data, pipelines, and other related data were mapped to recent remote sensing images. The obtained GIS maps provide a good support to decision makers in the area of water resources management and sustainability in Ajman emirate. The ultimate aim, which can be fully achieved in future studies, is to integrate the Ajman water resources GIS database into other related databases in the country. The results of the current study can serve as a model for the development of water resources databases in the other emirates. The importance of water resources in the sustainable development in Ajman emirate and UAE cannot be over emphasized. The results of the study are expected to have a direct and significant impact on the water resources management in Ajman. These results will help professionals and researchers to conduct advanced research to assess, develop, protect and sustain the available water resources in Ajman. The GIS database will provide the needed support for decision making process. The developed GIS database of water resources in Ajman might be regarded as a model to GIS databases in the other emirates. Water resources databases in the different emirates can then be integrated to develop a national database

Online purchase behaviour among professionals: a socio-demographic perspective for Turkey

This study reports the findings of a survey concerning the impact of professionals’ selected socio-demographic factors with regard to their online purchasing behaviour in Turkey, since this consumer group plays an important role in adopting new technologies in societies. The survey has been conducted using a ‘face-to-face interview’ approach during an IT event. To keep in line with the available literature, gender, age, education level, income and daily Internet usage, constitute the sociodemographic variants for this study. Five hypotheses were constructed to investigate the nature of the relationship between the socio-demographic factors and the usage of online purchasing. The chi-square method was selected to test the hypotheses. According to the test results, age, income and education level have a significant impact on the online purchasing behaviour of professionals

Examination of factors influencing employees’ adoption of mobile commerce and services in Turkey

This study first reviews and discusses mobile technology issues from a global perspective, and then investigates the impact of demographic (gender, age, income), personal (ICT experience, work experience), and organisational (sector) factors related to employees on adopting mobile commerce (m-commerce) and mobile services (m-services). A survey is conducted among employees from government- and private-sector organisations for this purpose, assuming that this group plays an important role in helping to adopt new technologies in societies. Based on this survey, the results indicate that gender, experience, and sector have an impact on attitude towards using m-technologies and that such attitude has a significant effect on the actual use of m-technologies

Performance Evaluation of Stone Mastic Asphalt and Hot Mix Asphalt Mixtures Containing Recycled Concrete Aggregate

Environmental and economic considerations have encouraged civil engineers to find ways to reuse recycled materials in new constructions. The current paper presents an experimental research on the possibility of utilizing recycled concrete aggregates (RCA) in stone mastic asphalt (SMA) and hot mix asphalt (HMA) mixtures. Three categories of RCA in various percentages were mixed with virgin granite aggregates to produce SMA and HMA specimens. The obtained results indicated that, regardless of the RCA particular sizes, the use of RCA to replace virgin aggregates increased the needed binder content in the asphalt mixtures. Moreover, it was found that even though the volumetric and mechanical properties of the asphalt mixtures are highly affected by the sizes and percentages of the RCA but, based on the demands of the project and traffic volume, utilizing specific amounts of RCA in both types of mixtures could easily satisfy the standard requirements

Recent Trends in Gasification Based Waste-to-Energy

Addressing the contemporary waste management is seeing a shift towards energy production while managing waste sustainably. Consequently, waste treatment through gasification is slowly taking over the waste incineration with multiple benefits, including simultaneous waste management and energy production while reducing landfill volumes and displacing conventional fossil fuels. Only in the UK, there are around 14 commercial plants built to operate on gasification technology. These include fixed bed and fluidized bed gasification reactors. Ultra-clean tar free gasification of waste is now the best available technique and has experienced a significant shift from two-stage gasification and combustion towards a one-stage system for gasification and syngas cleaning. Nowadays in gasification sector, more companies are developing commercial plants with tar cracking and syngas cleaning. Moreover, gasification can be a practical scheme when applying ultra-clean syngas for a gas turbine with heat recovery by steam cycle for district heating and cooling (DHC) systems. This chapter aims to examine the recent trends in gasification-based waste-to-energy technologies. Furthermore, types of gasification technologies, their challenges and future perspectives in various applications are highlighted in detail

Hvordan blir den norske arbeidsorganiseringen ivaretatt når norske bedrifter etableres i et land med annerledes kultur : studie av Jotun i Indonesia

Masteroppgave i Industriell økonomi og informasjonsledelse, Høgskolen i Agder, GrimstadJeg har i denne oppgaven forklart hvordan den norske modellen blir i ivaretatt i et land med et annet kultur ved å se på Jotuns virksomhet i Indonesia. Jotun er et norsk pulver og maleri firma. Dette er forklart i lys av Hofstedes Culture Consequenses teori, organisasjons- og nasjonale kulturen, den norske modellen og ledelsesteori. Den norske modellen er i hovedsak kjent som en velfungerende og demokratisk styrt velferdsstat med sterk medvirkning fra godt organiserte parter i arbeidslivet. Jeg har forklart dette ved å gjøre studie av Jotun i Indonesia, dermed viser den ikke helhets bilde av norske bedrifter i Indonesia. Jeg hadde ikke tid og råd til å finne andre bedrifter, derfor er denne masteroppgaven begrenset til å vise en bedrift, som har erfaring med etableringer i utlandet, med norske ledere. Grunnen til jeg valgte denne bedriften var fordi Jotun har over 40 års erfaring med internasjonalisering og har hatt alltid hatt suksess med sine etableringer i utlandet. Jotun Indonesia har et global organisasjonskultur der de opptrer etter sine verdier og forretningsprinsipper. Jotun gjør forretninger tilpasset etter lokale forhold samtidig som de ivaretar sin organisasjonskultur. Deres organisasjonskultur reflekterer på mange måter den norske modellen. Det er ikke lett å tilpasse seg et helt annerledes kultur der arbeidslivet er det motsatte til den demokratiske stilen i Norge. Jotun er fra Norge noe som er grunnen til Jotun har suksess i utlandet