Hydraulic conductivity is a measurement of the ease of movement of a fluid through a medium and is therefore a key parameter in the design of landfill leachate management systems. Hydraulic conductivity of landfilled wastes may be affected by several factors such as overburden stress from the weight of overlying waste, water content, the type, age and pre-processing of the waste, and the presence of landfill gas. A further factor that may affect leachate movement through wastes is the predominantly horizontal orientated structure of compacted wastes. This anisotropic structure may result in hydraulic conductivity in the horizontal direction being greater than that in the vertical direction. However existing research has been effectively limited to evaluating hydraulic conductivity in a single plane and so the presence of anisotropic flow in waste remains unproven. Consequently, modelling of leachate and contaminant movement in landfills may be compromised by the use of isotropic, or assumed anisotropic, hydraulic conductivity values. The object of this research has been to assess for the first time the inherent anisotropy of two different waste samples by measuring and comparing the vertical and horizontal hydraulic conductivities over a range of stresses typical of landfill conditions. In this thesis, factors affecting the measurement of hydraulic conductivity of wastes are discussed, and details of the samples tested and test methodology are given. The results of the tests are shown and alternative test methods are discussed. The effects of gas accumulation and pore water pressure on waste hydraulic conductivity encountered during testing are also reported as further research has developed from this important finding.

A considerable amount of work has been conducted developing exposure estimate models for quantitative evaluation of Hg intake and human health risks, but few have assessed the applicability and the validity for evaluating the risks posed by Hg in the environment and have achieved very mixed results. The present study focused on verifying the daily Hg intake estimates using exposure estimate models. Deterministic methods and the probabilistic methods (the Monte Carlo) were applied to simulate the daily Hg intake doses which were verified by comparing the estimates to those established from measured Hg concentrations in the hair of 289 participants. The results showed that the single-value deterministic method for simulating Hg exposure levels overestimated the level of risk by a factor of 1.5 when compared with the highest concentration of the Hg observed in the hair of the study population. The average daily Hg intake doses simulated using the probabilistic simulation were similar in distribution to the biomarker data, with the variability of 23%. The difference between the probabilistic simulation and the data derived from hair Hg levels was considered to be most likely due to the uncertainties in unconfirmed questionnaire-based survey data, small sampling sizes and the surrogates used in the exposure models. When the reference dose (RfD) of 0.1 μg/kg body weight/day was adopted as the acceptable dose for daily intake rate, there were approximately 19% estimated to have potential Hg exposure risks based on the Monte Carlo simulation. This percentage was favourably similar to the 17% determined from Hg concentrations in the hair samples. The findings implied that the existing exposure models together with the probabilistic approach were appropriate for the research of human exposure to Hg. On the other hand, low Hg levels in the participants’ hair indicated that Hg accumulated in the study population was not very serious, probably due to the good Hg absorptivity of the on-site fly ash. However, it should be advised that consumption of river fish elevates the health risks to the local population.

CHUCRE, Mirla Rafaela Rafael Braga. K-nearest neighbors queries in time-dependent road networks: analyzing scenarios where points of interest move to the query point. 2015. 65 f. Dissertação (Mestrado em Ciência da Computação)-Universidade Federal do Ceará, Fortaleza, 2015. / Submitted by Jonatas Martins (jonatasmartins@lia.ufc.br) on 2017-06-29T12:26:58Z No. of bitstreams: 1 2015_dis_mrrbchucre.pdf: 15845328 bytes, checksum: a2e4d0a03ca943372c92852d4bcf7236 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Rocilda Sales (rocilda@ufc.br) on 2017-06-29T13:54:36Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 2015_dis_mrrbchucre.pdf: 15845328 bytes, checksum: a2e4d0a03ca943372c92852d4bcf7236 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-06-29T13:54:36Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2015_dis_mrrbchucre.pdf: 15845328 bytes, checksum: a2e4d0a03ca943372c92852d4bcf7236 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015 / A kNN query retrieve the k points of interest that are closest to the query point, where proximity is computed from the query point to the points of interest. Time-dependent road networks are represented as weighted graphs, where the weight of an edge depends on the time one passes through that edge. This way, we can model periodic congestions during rush hour and similar effects. Travel time on road networks heavily depends on the traffic and, typically, the time a moving object takes to traverse a segment depends on departure time. In time-dependent networks, a kNN query, called TD-kNN, returns the k points of interest with minimum travel-time from the query point. As a more concrete example, consider the following scenario. Imagine a tourist in Paris who is interested to visit the touristic attraction closest from him/her. Let us consider two points of interest in the city, the Eiffel Tower and the Cathedral of Notre Dame. He/she asks a query asking for the touristic attraction whose the path leading up to it is the fastest at that time, the answer depends on the departure time. For example, at 10h it takes 10 minutes to go to the Cathedral. It is the nearest attraction. Although, if he/she asks the same query at 22h, in the same spatial point, the nearest attraction is the Eiffel Tower. In this work, we identify a variation of nearest neighbors queries in time-dependent road networks that has wide applications and requires novel algorithms for processing. Differently from TD-kNN queries, we aim at minimizing the travel time from points of interest to the query point. With this approach, a cab company can find the nearest taxi in time to a passenger requesting transportation. More specifically, we address the following query: find the k points of interest (e.g. taxi drivers) which can move to the query point (e.g. a taxi user) in the minimum amount of time. Previous works have proposed solutions to answer kNN queries considering the time dependency of the network but not computing the proximity from the points of interest to the query point. We propose and discuss a solution to this type of query which are based on the previously proposed incremental network expansion and use the A∗ search algorithm equipped with suitable heuristic functions. We also discuss the design and correctness of our algorithm and present experimental results that show the efficiency and effectiveness of our solution. / Uma consulta de vizinhos mais próximos (ou kNN, do inglês k nearest neighbours) recupera o conjunto de k pontos de interesse que são mais próximos a um ponto de consulta, onde a proximidade é computada do ponto de consulta para cada ponto de interesse. Nas redes de rodovias tradicionais (estáticas) o custo de deslocamento de um ponto a outro é dado pela distância física entre esses dois pontos. Por outro lado, nas redes dependentes do tempo o custo de deslocamento (ou seja, o tempo de viagem) entre dois pontos varia de acordo com o instante de partida. Nessas redes, as consultas kNN são denominadas TD-kNN (do inglês Time-Dependent kNN). As redes de rodovias dependentes do tempo representam de forma mais adequada algumas situações reais, como, por exemplo, o deslocamento em grandes centros urbanos, onde o tempo para se deslocar de um ponto a outro durante os horários de pico, quando o tráfego é intenso e as ruas estão congestionadas, é muito maior do que em horários normais. Neste contexto, uma consulta típica consiste em descobrir os k restaurantes (pontos de interesse) mais próximos de um determinado cliente (ponto de consulta) caso este inicie o seu deslocamento ao meio dia. Nesta dissertação nós estudamos o problema de processar uma variação de consulta de vizinhos mais próximos em redes viárias dependentes do tempo. Diferentemente das consultas TD-kNN, onde a proximidade é calculada do ponto de consulta para um determinado ponto de interesse, estamos interessados em situações onde a proximidade deve ser calculada de um ponto de interesse para o ponto de consulta. Neste caso, uma consulta típica consiste em descobrir os k taxistas (pontos de interesse) mais próximos (ou seja, com o menor tempo de viagem) de um determinado cliente (ponto de consulta) caso eles iniciem o seu deslocamento até o referido cliente ao meio dia. Desta forma, nos cenários investigados nesta dissertação, são os pontos de interesse que se deslocam até o ponto de consulta, e não o contrário. O método proposto para executar este tipo de consulta aplica uma busca A∗ à medida que vai, de maneira incremental, explorando a rede. O objetivo do método é reduzir o percentual da rede avaliado na busca. A construção e a corretude do método são discutidas e são apresentados resultados experimentais com dados reais e sintéticos que mostram a eficiência da solução proposta.

This PhD thesis reports on the potential application of an electronic nose to analysing the quality of potable water. The enrichment of water by toxic cyanobacteria is fast becoming a severe problem in the quality of water and a common source of environmental odour pollution. Thus, of particular interest is the classification and early warning of toxic cyanobacteria in water. This research reports upon the first attempt to identify electronically cyanobacteria in water. The measurement system comprises a Cellfacts instrument and a Warwick e-nose specially constructed for the testing of the cyanobacteria in water. The Warwick e- nose employed an array of six commercial odour sensors and was set-up to monitor not only the different strains, but also the growth phases, of cyanobacteria. A series of experiments was carried out to analyse the nature of two closely related strains of cyanobacteria, Microcystis aeruginosa PCC 7806 which produces a toxin and PCC 7941 that does not. Several pre-processing techniques were explored in order to remove the noise factor associated with running the electronic nose in ambient air, and the normalised fractional difference method was found to give the best PCA plot. Three supervised neural networks, MLP, LVQ and Fuzzy ARTMAP, were used and compared for the classification of both two strains and four different growth phases of cyanobacteria (lag, growth, stationary and late stationary). The optimal MLP network was found to classify correctly 97.1 % of unknown non-toxic and 100 % of unknown toxic cyanobacteria. The optimal LVQ and Fuzzy ARTMAP algorithms were able to classify 100% of both strains of cyanobacteria. The accuracy of MLP, LVQ and Fuzzy ARTMAP algorithms with 4 different growth phases of toxic cyanobacteria was 92.3 %, 95.1 % and 92.3 %, respectively. A hybrid e-nose system based on 6 MOS, 6 CP, 2 temperature sensors, 1 humidity sensor and 2 flow sensors was finally developed. Using the hybrid system, data were gathered on six different cyanobacteria cultures for the classification of growth phase. The hybrid resistive nose showed high resolving power to discriminate six growth stages as well as three growth phases. Even though time did not permit many series of the continuous monitoring, because of the relatively long life span (30-40 days) of cyanobacteria, improved results indicate the use of a hybrid nose. The HP 4440 chemical sensor was also used for the discrimination of six different cyanobacteria samples and the comparison with the electronic nose. The hybrid resistive nose based on 6 MOS and 6 CP showed a better resolving power to discriminate six growth stages as well as three growth phases than the HP 4440 chemical sensor. Although the mass analyser detects individual volatile chemicals accurately, it proves no indication of whether the volatile is an odour. The results demonstrate that it is possible to apply the e-nose system for monitoring the quality of potable water. It would be expected that the hybrid e-nose could be applicable to a large number of applications in health and safety with a greater flexibility.

This thesis examines water conservation in the upper valley of the Huai River in Anhui Province, close to the border between north and south China, during the Republic of China (ROC) era (1912-1949). Two main flood relief and water conservation projects are studied in detail. In order to gain a deeper and broader understanding of water conservation policies and practices in China during that period, additional comparative studies were undertaken of two water conservation projects in the lower areas of the Yangtze River in south and northwest China. The main question addressed in the thesis is: What are the key factors affecting the conservation and management of water in China during the ROC era? A further aim of the thesis is to reveal the inter-relationships between water conservation and ROC government policies, and the influence of grass roots actors and international powers in that period. This thesis includes a review of the literature on environmental history, in particular the history of water conservation. For the empirical investigation, a multi-disciplinary, mixed method was adopted, combining the study of historical documents and fieldwork in a series of detailed case studies. Firstly, this study investigates the relief work project in the upper area of the Huai River. The work and the lives of peasant labourers in a water conservation project, including their cooperation and conflicts with upper class engineers and officials are considered in order to provide a vivid and thorough exploration of the worksite. Secondly, the thesis describes and analyses the relationships between various groups (including engineers, the gentry, residents and officials of the Anfengtang Pond community), through a series of stories that highlight their activities, roles and priorities within water conservation and management initiatives. Thirdly, the thesis considers the history of the Lotus Polder and the story of the Jinghui Channel. Fourth, it explores the relationship between international politics and water conservation in the ROC to explain how modern culture and industry penetrated an old water conservation community. The interplay and influence of a wide variety of factors that affected water conservation in the ROC era, such as land policies, economic situation, national finance, wars, traditions and western factors, are addressed and analysed in this thesis.

Les cristaux moléculaires présentent des applications importantes dans l'électronique/l'optoélectronique, les systèmes 'host-guest', ou encore pour des systèmes mécaniques photo-actifs.Les propriétés mentionnées ci-dessus sont sensiblement affectées par le polymorphisme, qui influence le comportement de chaque composé présent dans une forme cristalline définie. Ce phénomène est rendu difficile à étudier de par la présence d'interactions de dispersion et/ou liaisons hydrogène.Avec l'objectif de décrire précisément ces interactions, et pour prédire des propriétés électroniques, une approche de mécanique quantique (QM) a été adoptée, utilisant la Théorie de la Fonctionnelle de la Densité (DFT).Les avancements les plus importants dans l'étude des cristaux examinées, sont: i) une prédiction correcte de la stabilité relative entre olymorphes, similaire aux résultats prévus par des méthodes plus coûteuses, peut être obtenue par l'utilisation d'une ombinaison entre la DFT et des corrections semi-empiriques moins coûteuses; ii) Le benchmark réalisé ici peut être utile dans le cadre de la création de nouveaux corrections pour la dispersion en DFT; iii) la rédiction de la structure de quatre formes cristallines d'un composé 'host-guest' précédemment synthétisé a été réalisée, notamment grâce aux calculs des déplacements chimiques (RMN) ayant permis de compléter et corriger l'interprétation RMN des résultats expérimentaux; iv) un protocole calculatoire pour l'étude des procédés photophysiques et photochimiques d'un cristal moléculaire thermochromique a été mis en place, basé sur la caractérisation des clusters de molécules extraits du cristal 'bulk' par la mécanique quantique. / Molecular crystals find relevant applications in electronics/optoelectronics, host-guest systems, or photo-activated mechanical systems. The properties mentioned above are severely affected by polymorphism, which influences the behaviour of each compound in a definite crystalline form. This is complicated by the dispersion and/or hydrogen bond interactions, which govern the molecular displacement within the solid. In order to describe accurately these interactions, and to predict advanced electronic properties, a quantum (QM) computational approach has been adopted, at the Density Functional Theory (DFT) level. The more notable advancements in the characterization of the studied crystals are: i) the demonstration that a wise combination of DFT and costless semiempirical corrections for dispersion leads to predict accurately the relative stability between polymorphs, almost at the same level of higher and costly methods; ii) The benchmarking carried out against these last can be exploited to design new dispersion-correction schemes for DFT iii) the structural prediction of four crystal forms of a solid host-guest compound previously synthetized, for that we addressed and clarified some lacks on the experimental NMR interpretation, through calculated NMR chemical shifts; iv) the optimization of a computational protocol for the study of the photophysical-photochemical processes of a thermochromic molecular crystal – based on the QM characterization of clusters of molecules extracted from the bulk crystal.

Legislation will be introduced within the UK by 2004 as a result of a European drive to reduce waste levels arising from the disposal of end of life vehicles (ELVs). With the emergence of the European Directive (2000) on ELV disposal, targets for reduction of waste from ELVs have been set. These targets signify that a major change in non-metallic material recycling and in particular polymer recycling is necessary to meet the legislation. Increasing numbers of vehicle components are made from plastic, replacing metals due to enhanced properties such as light weight, formability and material properties (e.g. corrosion resistance, insulation properties, energy absorption etc.). Ultimately this means that more spent plastic material will require disposal, whilst legislation will limit the amount that can enter landfill sites. Therefore alternatives to landfill for plastic waste need to be found. Ideally plastic waste would be reprocessed and a resulting market found. However, the UK polymer recycling infrastructure cannot cope with high quantities of spent plastics, and there is no organisation that is capable of developing the processes that will be necessary to meet legislation. The author has investigated the current state of plastics recycling in the UK with emphasis on technical and business issues. Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) has been used for the first time in this field to develop the theme and create a series of recommendations that could improve the current situation. An innovative approach using Hoshin Kanri to develop the SSM recommendations resulted in the creation of a framework for deployment that the author named ‘the Polymer Recycling Hub’. The Hub could help all parties affected by the impending legislation to create a polymer recycling infrastructure capable of recycling high levels of spent plastic arising from ELVs. Interest in the Polymer Recycling Hub is growing and the author has the backing of many industrial organisations for its implementation.

Waste management of UK shopping centres must contend with operational performance, variable levels of landlord or corporate financial support, escalating costs of recycling programs and disposal charges for landfill. Recurrent critics challenge the economic prudence and environmental benefit of recycling, which has made it a central component in their businesses. This means that facilities management (FM) plays an imperative role to ensure that shopping centres manage the environmental aspect of their solid waste streams in a comprehensive, cost-effective and responsible manner. Considering the importance of FM success in business, this research introduces the relevance of Critical Success Factors (CSFs) in shopping centre recycling operations research that combined both recycling and critical success factors theory and research. This thesis explicated the FM position inherent in the shopping centre business operation and offers an improved understanding of the environmental aspect of solid waste recycling focused on the UK shopping centre population. By introducing a recycling implementation success framework, the study also demonstrates the use of the appropriate management skills of the current recycling variables have an impact for the success of shopping centre recycling. As previous research relating to this subject has largely been based on case studies, hence the main aim of this research is to investigate the critical factors related to the implementation success of solid waste recycling between the UK shopping centres. An empirical investigation through mixed-methods research was selected as the appropriate research technique. The assessment of practices using the recycling implementation success (performance) framework was carried out through series of interviews and a macro level survey as key methods for generation of research data. Based on this framework, the research concentrates on the cause-effect relationship between critical factors and self-reported of recycling implementation success. Correlation analysis reveals the extent of the critical success factors implemented by these organisations. Further analysis demonstrates the differences between the critical factors which have the effect on over recycling implementation success. In essence, adhering to the various levels of implementation presented will ensure that shopping centre organisations can derive the maximum benefit from recycling initiatives and that the decision-making process as well as the actions regarded as critical are taken into consideration. Finally, this research provides recommendations from both a theoretical and practical point of view.

This thesis describes the present situation of the Al-Hasa oasis, which is critically dependent on a single over-used water resource. Evidence is presented to show that water usage is inefficient, and that real improvements are possible, but only if the local farmers are provided with the means of determining the soil moisture levels of their fields. Simple tensiometers and soil moisture cells are considered for this purpose and both would be effective. Soil moisture cells are likely to be the better choice, but more work is needed to evaluate their response to saline soil moisture conditions. The thesis shows that the widely used pressure plate (for laboratory evaluations) is less accurate than is the simpler filter paper system. Such laboratory determinations will be needed to ensure that the chosen field instruments are as accurate as is wanted. An interesting, and still incompletely understood, phenomenon is that the soil grain sizes do affect the accuracy of results from the chosen field instruments. More work is planned on this subject. A crucial factor also affecting the long term security of the oasis is to improve near surface drainage and evidence is presented that details the adverse effects of the present inadequate drainage system. In view of the vast financial investment already made into the drainage of the oasis, improvements that allow a better drainage of each individual field are seen as sensible. Evaluations of more modern soil moisture measuring equipment (transducer and psychrometer systems) reveal that these are inappropriate for use at Al-Hasa. The emphasis of the thesis is on the positive contribution to water use efficiency that can be achieved by the individual farmer. If the thesis conclusions are accepted then the continued prosperity of Al-Hasa can be assured at a very small cost.

This project concerns the use of an electromagnetic sensor for the detection of leaks/cracks in water pipes. As old metal pipes corrode they start to become brittle, resulting in the potential for cracks to appear in the pipes. In addition corrosion can build up resulting in a restricted flow of water in the pipe. Using an electromagnetic (EM) wave sensor to monitor the signal reflected from the pipes in real time, provides the necessary information to determine where a leak in the pipe has occurred. Analysis of the reflected signal can provide the operator with information about the condition and position of a leak within the pipe. This is the first time research has been carried using EM waves for leak detection in water pipelines. This project involves the design and construction of an EM sensor operating at frequencies in the range of 240MHz to 560MHz, and at a power of OdBm. The sensor is launched into the water pipeline through any existing hydrant and is moved along the pipeline to check for leaks. The simulation software High Frequency Structure Simulator (HFSS) was used to model the pipe section as a circular waveguide cavity, and also for antenna simulation. The monopole and loop antenna were designed to determine the best antenna for this project. The printed circuit board (PCB) design package Eagle was used to provide the surface mount layout for the sensor, and the PCB board was fabricated by using a computer numerical control (CNC) routing machine. Finally the graphical interface package LabVIEW was used to control the frequency sweep for the sensor and to capture the data from the sensor. Based on the findings of this project, the EM wave sensor could be used to determine a leak up to a 0.9 correlation limit using low cost RF electronic devices.