Social exclusion has garnered much attention from researchers across the social sciences, especially among social psychologists. However, given the fact that social relationships and consumption are two of the central activities in daily life, there is surprisingly little research on the impact of social connection threats within the realm of consumer behavior. This study examines the effect of social exclusion on proenvironmental behavior and green consumption. More precisely, the objectives of this study are threefold. The first objective is to examine whether the findings in social psychology literature on how excluded individuals respond to exclusion when they are exposed to proenvironmental consumption behavior. The second objective of this research is to find the underlying mechanism and to rule out some of the possible explanations (e.g., mood) for this effect. The final objective of this study is to establish some of the boundary conditions (individual differences and situational factors) for the proposed effect. The hypotheses of this study were developed based on two main theoretical bases borrowed from social psychology literature: empathy-altruism hypothesis (Batson 1991) and social reconnection hypothesis (Maner et al. 2007). Overall, it was proposed that while social exclusion decreases individuals’ inclination to engage in proenvironmental activities, socially excluded people are motivated to use green consumption behaviors to establish new social bonds with others. These propositions were tested and supported across four experiments. Across these experiments, the findings demonstrated that social exclusion causes people to express lower tendency to engage in proenvironmental behaviors. The findings also consistently suggest that mood does not explain why social rejection leads to negative environmental outcomes. Additionally, social exclusion appears to cause a temporary absence of empathic concern toward others, which leads to less green behavior with altruistic motivation. Further, the role of emotional empathy as a boundary condition was tested in this study and the findings indicate that experiencing social exclusion does not negatively impact proenvironmental behavior in highly empathetic individuals. Finally, this investigation showed that when a proenvironmental behavior is perceived as an opportunity to reconnect and positive social feedback is expected from peers, socially excluded participants favor products that signal to their peers that they too are concerned about environmental issues. In addition to its contributions to consumer research and marketing, this work provides several practical implications. For instance, as established in this study, green products by default are not perceived by excluded individuals as tools that facilitate social reconnection. However, when such products are positioned properly, such individuals tend to capitalize on the social acceptability of their behavior to help them fulfill their threatened need for affiliation. The implication here is that marketers should attempt to customize their promotional strategies accordingly and direct the consumer’s attention to this covert benefit of green products.

While studying at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, I noticed a significant issue: the town lacked a central hub to unite people of all ages, including students, families, and the elderly. Blacksburg needed to transcend its reputation as solely a college town, and that became the main focus of my thesis. My goal was to explore effective ways of connecting people and boosting the town's economy. Drawing from my experience growing up in a European town, I realized that Blacksburg didn't have a dedicated space for its residents. The streets were dominated by vehicles, making it difficult for pedestrians to navigate. Main St., the busiest road in town, connected the south and north but was consistently congested, especially at night when students were out and about. To address this issue, I chose to intervene near the lively downtown area. Draper St., which runs parallel to Main St. and serves as the border between Blacksburg and Virginia Tech campus, seemed ideal. While Draper St. currently accommodated both vehicles and pedestrians, it didn't experience significant traffic. I decided to remove vehicular traffic from a four-block stretch, from College Avenue to Washington St. This section housed important landmarks like the Black House and the iconic Benny pizza place. The Farmer's Market, where locals sold fresh local produce twice a week, was also located here, along with popular social spots like Rivermill and Milk Parlor. To make space for new structures like a greenhouse, hotel, apartment complex, and retail spaces, I planned to eliminate some parking lots. The urban intervention would have only one intersection, where Draper St. meets Roanoke St., allowing for shared use by vehicles and pedestrians. This intersection would also serve as a drop-off point for Farmer's Market vendors. I firmly believe that this project has immense potential to benefit Blacksburg, not just financially but also by enriching its cultural fabric. / Master of Architecture / While at Grad school in Virginia Tech (Blacksburg, VA), I realized the lack of a connecting point between all the group ages including students, families and elderly people. Blacksburg should be more than a college town, and this is the main point of my thesis. How to connect people in a successful way as well as helping the town's economy. Based on my experience growing up in a European town, I realized there is no place in Blacksburg fully dedicated to people. All the streets share vehicular and pedestrian circulation. Main St. is the busiest in town, but it is also the principal axis connecting south and north Blacksburg. This road always has traffic, and it is not safe for pedestrians, especially at night when the students come out. This intervention should be close to downtown where activities take place. For this reason, I chose Draper St. which is directly parallel to Main St, acting as the borderline between Blacksburg and Virginia Tech campus. This street is currently design for cars and people, but it does not have a lot of traffic, so I decided to remove the vehicular circulation along 4 blocks, from College Avenue to Washington St. This portion has some important buildings such as the Black House, and the iconic Benny pizza place. There is also a very important location on this street, the Farmer Market where they sell fresh local products every Wednesday and Saturday. Rivermill and Milk Parlor are some popular social places on this street. There are some parking lots which I am getting rid of to add other structures like a green house, a hotel, an apartment complex and retail among others. This urban scale intervention will only have one intersection at Draper St. and Roanoke St. where cars will share road with pedestrians. This will also allow for a place to drop off the products for the Farmer Market. In my opinion this project will bring a lot of benefits to the town of Blacksburg, not only financially but also culturally.

Building a livable city is the top objective of local governments. 'Green City' is concerned, researched, and constructed effectively in some cities around the world. The paper is to identify a green city's benefits to humans and the environment. Moreover, this study also establishes criteria of the green city according to international standards in emerging cities, especially in 5 criteria such as green space and land use, atmosphere, water resource, and energy supply. Finally, the criteria of the green city established are used for scoring and assessing Vung Tau city. Currently, Vung Tau city has 60.9 scores below a green city's standards with 65 scores; however, it can be changed by proposals in development policies to get 69.3 scores. / Việc xây dựng một thành phố đáng sống là một mục tiêu hàng đầu của các chính phủ địa phương. Thành phố xanh “Green City” đang được quan tâm, nghiên cứu, và xây dựng một cách hiệu quả tại nhiều thành phố trên thế giới. Bài báo này sẽ làm rõ ràng những chức năng mà một thành phố xanh mang lại. Ngoài ra, nghiên cứu này cũng xây dựng những tiêu chí của thành phố xanh đạt tiêu chuẩn quốc tế tại các thành phố đang phát triển, đặc biệt là 5 tiêu chí không gian xanh và sử dụng đất; giao thông; không khí; nguồn nước; nguồn năng lượng. Hơn nữa, việc ứng dụng các tiêu chí thành phố xanh cho việc chấm điểm và đánh giá Thành phố Vũng Tàu. Hiện nay, thành phố Vũng Tàu được chấm 60.9 điểm, mức điểm này ở dưới tiêu chuẩn của một thành phố xanh là 65 điểm, tuy nhiên trong tương lai gần với những chính sách phát triển phù hợp thì số điểm này có thể tăng lên đến 69.3 điểm.

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Biodiesel is one of the most widely used biofuels in the world, due in part to its simplicity of production, compatibility with existing engines, and reduction of green house gas emissions. However, technical difficulties with biodiesel include: (1) the need of highly refined oil for ASTM compliance, (2) incompatibility with the petroleum-diesel pipeline distribution system, and (3) a relatively small inventory of expensive feedstocks. Issues (1) and (2) could be overcome by the production of biofuels using chemical processes associated with petroleum refining. Catalytic lipid cracking could result in green diesel, a fuel chemically similar to conventional diesel but derived from a clean renewable feedstock. The impact of phosphorus poisoning on catalytic cracking of lipids has been studied in this work using both homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysts. Catalytic cracking of model lipids was shown to occur in a homogeneous liquid phase with triflic acid, a superacid 100 times more acidic than sulfuric acid. Products obtained from the reaction were heavily oxygenated and generally unsuitable for fuel use, suggesting the need for heterogeneous catalytic cracking. Reaction kinetics show a high linear dependence on Brönsted system acidity, with an overall reaction order of 3. The affect of phosphorus on heterogeneous acid cracking was then studied. Since lipid feedstocks contain small amounts of phospholipids knowledge of the interactions between phospholipids and zeolites is crucial to a system-wide understanding of the lipid cracking process. Phosphorus-containing compounds were used to poison ZSM-5 (a solid zeolite catalyst) in order to simulate the cracking of phospholipids. Model compounds were then cracked over the poisoned zeolite, with differences in product distribution and kinetics based on phosphorus loading recorded. It was shown that phosphorous has a dramatic effect on both conversion and product distribution of cracking reactions. It is believed that phosphorous binds irreversibly to heterogeneous active sites, causing the majority of deactivation. To address the issue of limited feedstock availability, research was also undertaken to find new lipids sources for biofuel use. It was determined that lipids extracted from microorganisms grown in a municipal wastewater treatment system could be suitable. However, any phosphorous must be removed before catalytic cracking of the extracted lipids.

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