AbstractDuring the transition to a market economy, many countries with a planned economy in Central and Eastern Europe face similar challenges when the established socio-economic systems and infrastructures deemed inefficient in a market economy. Also new issues are being raised by the trends of globalization and the vision of sustainable development. In the energy sector the challenges raised by the Kyoto Protocol and its implementation mechanisms are especially interesting, because they are in...
Autori: Andrius Plepys, Giulia Gervasoni, Jean-Philippe Boutin, Kes McCormick, Kristin Seyboth, Luis Mundaca, Marko Ratton, Patrick Lamers, Robert Hlep
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=25104

River runoff forecasting is one of the most complex areas of research in hydrology because of the uncertainty of hydrological and meteorological parameters and scarcity of adequate records. Artificial neural networks (ANN) can be an efficient way of modelling stream flow processes as it is capable of controlling and modelling nonlinear and complex systems and does not require describing the complex nature of the hydrological processes. In this study, daily river flow is forecasted using two ANN ...
Autori: Cintia Bertacchi Uvo, Dimitri Namgaladze, George Gabitsinashvili
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=25110

AbstractThe corrosion behaviour of three commercial nickel-chromium based dental materials was investigated by electrochemical methods in a corroding mixture of sodium chloride, oxalic acid and lactic acid. In order to establish electrochemical parameters of the corrosion process, linear and cyclic polarization curves were plotted. The samples performances in the corroding system were investigated by weight loss, pH and electrical conductivity measurements. The quantitative analysis related with...
Autori: , Daniel Mareci, Daniel Sutiman, Mircea Teodor Nechita
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=25132

AbstractOne of the basic principles in the European policy to cope with the growing challenge of water scarcity is that water demand management should be considered before opting for additional water infrastructure. The implication of this is that water must be treated as an economic good, which means that the "user's pays' principle"has to be implemented. At the same time there is much political consensus that the water price has to be "equitable". Water can be subsidized without violating the ...
Autori: Lars Hansson
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=25155

AbstractThis paper presents the architectures of wireless sensor networks integrated in a complex monitoring system for a waste water treatment plant. Presently is a very expressive trend to use wireless technology for smart sensor network communication. The measurement system avoids manual data storage and an Internet server assures remote access from a station with a Web browser. ...
Autori: Florina Ungureanu, Marcelin Iulian Balasca
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=25190

AbstractFrom a traditional market economy perspective, the productivity attained when water and land is used for acequias is much lower than the productivity achieved when applying these same resources to urban and industrial uses. An analysis of key stakeholders has indicated that there are cultural and environmental attributes of acequia agriculture landscapes that are not captured in the market-assigned value of acequias. This analysis revealed the motivations behind the value placed on acequ...
Autori: Joseph Ulibarri, Steven Archambault
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=25212

AbstractThe present paper proposes the design of a modules system of measurement and control of data distributed transmission, implemental on automatic irrigation systems of central pivot or linear movement type. By this it is intended to obtain a complex irrigation system that allows optimization of nutrient application....
Autori: Codrin Donciu, Marinel Temneanu,
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=25219

AbstractThe absorption of CO2 into an aqueous solution with 1.45 mol/L 1,5,8,12-tetraazadodecane (APEDA) polyamine has been studied at three temperature (298, 313, 333 K) in a Lewis type absorber with a constant gas-liquid interface area of (15.34 Âą 0.05) x 10-4 m2. The experimental results have been interpreted using the equations derived from the two film model with the assumption that the absorption occurred in the fast pseudo- first- order kinetic regime. The results confirmed the validity ...
Autori: Chakib Bouallou, Ilie Siminiceanu, Ramona-Elena Tataru-Farmus
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=25223

AbstractTogether with other public utilities, water supply systems management aims to provide an efficient operation of the system and lower operational costs. In complex water distribution systems there is a large variety of consumers, which differ from one another not only by values of inflows, but also by how this inflows vary from hour to hour. This paper presents a self-organizing based approach to the problem of classification of water consumption profiles from the nodes of a water distrib...
Autori: Gilda Gavrilaş, Mihai Gavrilas
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=25254

AbstractDepletion of world recourses, increasing pollution, and climate change make us shift from linear economy to system economy - an economy of technologies integrated to reach a non-polluting zero emissions production system. Transition to renewable resources requires replacement the present crude oil refinery by biomass refinery. Along with conventional biomass refinery technologies bioengineering and nano-technologies become significant players of systems in the design of clusters of integ...
Autori: Arnis Kokorevics, Janis Abolins, Janis Gravitis
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=25304

AbstractThe present work carries out a parallel analysis between the performances and, on the other hand, of the restrictions of two different model systems designed to assess the nearshore circulation. These are SHORECIRC, which is a widely known general prediction system for nearshore circulation and ISSM (the Interface for SWAN and SURF Models). SHORECIRC is a quasi-3D model that combines a numerical solution for the depth-integrated 2D horizontal momentum balance equations with an analytical...
Autori: Eugen Rusu, Silviu Macuţă
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=25345

Pollution with sources from towns and industrial centres affect considerable the ecosystem waters. An accumulation of nutrients favourable to the growth of certain tiny marine organisms called phytoplankton stimulates their rapid reproduction in the water.These plankton blooms appear as patches on the surface of the water. The consequence of this process is the diminishing of the amount of oxygen from water (in the process of decompose the algae), the decease of aquatic animal and the multiply o...
Autori: Laura Stefanescu, Laura Ungureanu
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=25351

AbstractAn experimental three-stage subsurface flow constructed wetland system was investigated for the removal of nutrient and organic matter from primary-treated domestic wastewater. Built in the Turkey Scientific and Technical Research Council-Marmara Research Center, Gebze, Turkey (Istanbul), the system consisted of a vertical flow-gravel filtration in the first stage, a horizontalsubsurface flow bed vegetated with Iris in the second stage, and a vertical-subsurface flow bed vegetated Phragm...
Autori: Bilal Tuncsiper
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=25358

AbstractThe paper proposes a simple and less expensive gas chromatographic method for analyzing acrylamide in food and reveals comparative results regarding the acrylamide content in commercial and home toasted bread. Validation of the method has been achieved by establishing parameters linearity, limit of detection (LOD = 0.1 mg/L), limit of quantization (LOQ = 0.5 mg/L), precision, stability. Run-to-run precision was determined by carrying out five replicate determinations for three acrylamide...
Autori: Anca Irina Burlacu, Rodica Cuciureanu, Patricia Fitterman, Michel Larroque
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=25385

Abstract Fine particulate matter and ground-level ozone are now generally recognized as the most significant in terms of health impacts. This study shows that concentrations of particulate matter up to 10 microns in diameter (PM10) in Suceava city exceeded EU limits set to protect human health during 2004-2007. In order to design effective PM10 air quality management programmes, it is essential to identify the sources affecting PM10 background levels. For this, PM10 data series were analyzed ...
Autori: Lacramioara Gina Ursul, , Doina Carmen Manciuc
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=25409

Abstract Analytical equations for the variation of soil moisture content and for the local storage coefficient for a layered soil with a relatively shallow water table were developed in this study, based on a linear distribution law of the moisture retention on soil's profile, and the van Genuchten-Mualem parametrical model for the moisture-suction curve. By considering this mathematical model, an original computer code was written in MATLAB to determine and then to graphically represent the...
Autori: Dan Prepelita, Stefan Popescu, Esmeralda Chiorescu
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=25429

Abstract The paper presents a risk analysis and assessment of the defence linear systems failure (dykes) in case of accidental flood. Also, breach scenarios and hydrographs computation for the corresponding accidental high waters are provided. The impact assessment is highlighted through a global matrix model for costs quantification. It is also presented the flooding computation model for different versions of the linear defence systems and in a correspondent way the Inundation Accidental D...
Autori: Codruta Badaluta-Minda, Gheorghe Creţu
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=25433

Abstract The Romanian standard for the analytical method for phenols measurements in aquatic media was subject of internal validation procedure, adapted to the specific concentration domain of the laboratory. Method performance criteria were investigated on standard samples measurements: selectivity, linearity domain, precision, accuracy, limit of detection, limit of quantification androbustness. The validated method was further used on real samples of domestic and industrial wastewaters from...
Autori: Carmen Dima, Cristina Jelescu, Camelia Draghici
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=25448

Abstract Romania’s drinking water and wastewater sector is currently going through a process of regionalization. This process involves a replacement of a local-focused governance structure by a regional-focused governance structure. The objective of this paper is to explore and explain this regionalization from a governance perspective. In two case studies, the situation before and after the regionalization are investigated. Analyses of the case studies show that the local-focused governanc...
Autori: Joanne Vinke-de Kruijf, Valentina Dinica, Denie C.M. Augustijn
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=25536

Abstract University campuses can be seen as â€?small cities’ due to their high population (students, professors, employees) and corresponding high traffic flow, which may have a significant impact on both environment and people health. The objective of this work was to analyze particulate matter seasonal trends in the university area of Cosenza (University of Calabria). The relationship between sources emission, meteorological parameters and particle properties was defined. Sampling was co...
Autori: Monica Filice, Pierantonio De Luca, Giuseppe Piero Guido
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=25564

Abstract Tourism and services are important components of any developed European society. The Northern-Eastern Region of Romania (NER), which comprises six counties with various problems, is lacking of good promotion and there are major gaps between the component counties. The failures of the communication and promotion system are caused by an insufficient development of the domestic network of tourist information offices within the towns and villages. The limited financial resources of the l...
Autori: Florin Alexandru Luca, Igor Creţescu
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=25580

Abstract Commercial pure titanium (Cp-Ti) and titanium alloys are used on large scale in restorative dentistry due to their advantages as compared with other similar materials: chemical inertia, low density, high strength, high corrosion resistance in biological media and increased biocompatibility.The effect of fluoride and pH on the corrosion behaviour of Cp-Ti and a new Ti50Ta alloy were examined by open circuit potential (EOC) measurement, linear polarization, potentiodynamic polarization...
Autori: Daniel Mareci, Daniel Sutiman, Georgiana Ciurescu, Igor Creţescu, Romeo Chelariu
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=25591

Abstract The use of biomaterials as biosorbents for treatment of wastewaters will provide as a potential alternate to the conventional treatment methods. The main advantages of biosorption are high selectivity , cost effectiveness and good removal performance. World wide numerous low cost bio materials have tried for biosorption of dyes. In this present investigation, the dead biomass of Penicillium sp. fungus and wood sawdust was used as biosorbents and their capacity to removed malachite gr...
Autori: Cornel Pohontu, Florin Luca, Igor Creţescu, Manea Liliana, Mariana Diaconu
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=25593

Abstract Characterization of soil permeability is of great importance for several geotechnical analyses. In common practice, because of the difficulty in sampling of granular material, constant head permeability tests are usually employed on specimens having similar relative densities to those in the field. An alternative approach to permeability tests for granular soils is the prediction of permeability levels by means of empirical equations depending on several particle size distribution an...
Autori: Alper Sezer, Burak A. Goktepe, Selim Altun
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=25609

Abstract Mathematical modeling of the ultrafiltration (UF) process is motivated by the complexity of retention phenomena that occur during the UF in conjunction with the complexity of wastewater matrices submitted to ultrafiltration, as well as by the need to predict the process behavior in extreme conditions, such as high pollution loads for UF-membrane cleaning cycles optimization or for automated control of the process. Thus, series of laboratory-scale ultrafiltration experiments were perf...
Autori: , George Barjoveanu
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=25630

? COMPACT MICROPULSE BACKSCATTER LIDAR: AIRBORNE AND GROUND-BASED APPLICATIONS ? STUDIES OF THE IMPACT OF AEROSOL OPTICAL PROPERTIES ON CLIMATE CHANGE PROCESSES ? A STUDY OF THE AEROSOL OPTICAL PROPERTIES AT TWO AERONET STATIONS FROM ROMANIA ? COMPLEMENTARY ATMOSPHERIC URBAN POLLUTION STUDIES IN THE NORTH-EAST REGION OF ROMANIA, IASI COUNTY ? ?NGSTR?M TURBIDITY IN THE LOWER LAYERS OF THE TROPOSPHERE ? LIDAR MONITORING OF ANTHROPOGENIC POLLUTION AND NATURAL PHENOMENA ...
Autori:
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=25665

? Environmental Engineering and Management Journal, Vol. 9 Nr. 4 ? THE PROTECTION OF EQUIPMENTS USING VOLATILE INHIBITORS ? CONTINUOUS SURFACE TEMPERATURE MONITORING TO ESTIMATE SENSIBLE HEAT LOSS BY BUILDING FINISHES ? RECYCLE OF POLYAMIDE DYEING WASTEWATER FOLLOWING DECOLORIZATION WITH POLYMERIC SORBENTS ? PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF AMINO ACID SALT-BASED COMPLEX ABSORBENTS FOR CO2 CAPTURE ? ADSORPTION EQUILIBRIUM STUDIES ON COPPER (II) IONS REMOVAL BY NATURAL WASTE USIN...
Autori:
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=25666

This study investigated the effectiveness of using anaerobic effluent as a nutrient supplement for cultivation of green algae Chlorella sp. Different concentration of 0%, 15%, 30%, 45%, 60%, 75%, 90% and 100% which were raw (group �r�) as well as autoclaved (group �a�) were applied to the anaerobic effluent and algae growth. They were compared in terms of growth rate and final algae biomass production. In the initial cultivation days, slower growth rates with an increased anaerobic efflu...
Autori: Yubi Chen, Renjie Dong, Gaojun Peng, Zhu Yi, Shuhao Huo, Yupeng Liu, Changle Panghttp://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=25701

Abstract:In order to capture as much solar energy as possible, the photovoltaic converter has to follow the sun movement during a day; thiscan be achieved by a tracking system. Most tracking systems have complex and costly structures that can provide wide anglevariations. This paper presents a geared linkage that is build up by a planetary system of gears fitted on a linkage, and thus helpsin reaching wide angles. Starting from a patented linkage, which reaches ≈200° angular strokes, by a...
Autori: Dorin Diaconescu, Ioana Hermenean, Nora Creanga
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=25736

Abstract:The paper presents a method to improve the efficiency of a photovoltaic (PV) string by employing a mono-axis trackingmechanism. The tracking system was optimized so that it has minimum energy consumption during tracking. The PV stringsimultaneously changes the daily position using a linear actuator which transmits the motion to all modules by a rack-pinion gearmechanism. The system is designed in virtual prototyping concept with the following software solutions: for the solid modeling -...
Autori: Cătălin Alexandru, Nicoleta-Irina Tatu
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=25766

The performances of two types of multi-walled carbon nanotubes-based composite electrodes, i.e., MWCNT-Epoxy (CNTEpoxy) and Natural Zeolite-modified- MWCNT- Epoxy (NZ-CNT-Epoxy) are described in order to use them for electroanalytical application. Both electrodes were synthesized, electrically and electrochemically characterized and tested for the detection of ascorbic acid (AA) in aqueous solutions. The electrochemical characterization using classical potassium ferricyanide method showed a high...
Autori: Adriana Remes, Anamaria Baciu, Elida Ilinoiu, Florica Manea, Joop Schoonman, Stephen J. Picken
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=25877

Since the last century, as a consequence of advanced industrialization, the remarkable growth of population, and its mobility have turned the field of transport into the main factor responsible for air pollution attributable to mobile sources of pollution. The continuous accumulation of various pollutants in the environment determines severe consequences on humans, animals and plants, buildings, works of art and landscape. Road transport represents, through its characteristic features – high f...
Autori: Gabriela Mitran, Ion Tabacu, Sorin Ilie, Viorel Nicolae
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=25898

Abstract Oil contamination has been one of the most common environmental pollution due to its threat to both human health andecosystems. It is difficult for the application of conventional chemical analysis to detect oil contamination in-situ, estimatebioavailability and rapidly assess the environmental risk. In this study, two bioreporters were employed for the rapid and directdetection of oil content and genotoxicity in a cutting oil contaminated site in China. Acinetobacter baylyi ADPWH_...
Autori: Bo Jiang, Chuan Li, Dayi Zhang, Guanghe Li, Wei E. Huang, Yizhi Song
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=25944

AbstractThe regional ecological risk assessment of water resources has spatial, nonlinear and stochastic characteristics. GIS technologycan handle large volumes of spatial information, conduct spatial analysis and spatial data management operations. It visuallydisplays the distribution trend of environmental factors and the relationship between topology and regional water ecological riskpattern. This paper presents the five stages of the application of GIS in the regional ecological assessment o...
Autori: Lin Gang Wang, Ning Lian Wang, Xiao BoWu, Ya Qian Zhao, Yin Ge Liu
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=25958

AbstractDue to rapid growth in both population and economic development in China, water demand is increasing dramatically andChina is facing more and more severe water scarcity problems. Thus competitions for water (between uses, users and regions) areincreasing which make water use efficiency an important issue in China, together with the uneven spatial and temporaldistribution of water, all of which drive the Chinese government and water planners to find the optimal water resource allocationpl...
Autori: Adrian T. McDonald, Linda See, Martin Clarke, Yanan Jiang
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=25961

AbstractWastewater streams and particularly industrial effluents tend to increase in volumes and to get more complex in terms ofpollution. Nevertheless, nowadays the focus is directed towards recycling or reuse of treated wastewater so as to close the wateruse loop. Advanced wastewater treatment allows these possible applications by achieving good quality effluent to suit the newpurposes, but the implementation of this treatment stage is a difficult task. This study gives an example on how to ap...
Autori: , Daniela Cailean, Florina Ungureanu
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=25971

AbstractThis study presents the development and use of a hydraulic-coupled water quality model for the simulation of BiochemicalOxygen Demand (BOD) concentrations in the Bahlui River, a small river located in northeastern Romania. This river experiencesthe typical pollution problems for many Romanian water bodies: heavy pollution from both diffuse and point sources, lowconnectivity to wastewater systems in rural areas and moderate removal of pollutants in municipal wastewater treatment plants.Th...
Autori: , Claudia Cojocariu, Denie C.M. Augustijn, George Bârjoveanu, Ioan Crăciun
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=25985

AbstractThe developing of the infrastructure for wastewater collection and treatment in Romania is leading more and more to theproduction of huge quantities of activated sludge, as direct result of the application of state of wastewater treatment. The rapidand rational development of a national policy for management of activated on short, medium and long term has emerged as anecessity, and must be implemented urgently.The EU 27 countries consider environmental management of activated sludge as a...
Autori: Ilie Vlaicu, Ioan Neamt, Ioana Ionel, Mihail Reinhold Wächter
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26019

AbstractIn this work, cyclic voltammetry (CV) and differential-pulsed voltammetry (DPV) were used to detect pentachlorophenol (PCP)at two types of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (CNT)-based composite electrode, i.e., TiO2-modified-CNT-Epoxy (TiO2-CNTEpoxy)and CNT-Epoxy in 0.1 M sodium sulphate solution supporting electrolyte. The electrochemical behaviour of theelectrodes was investigated in the absence and presence of UV irradiation. A single oxidation peak at a potential value of about+1 V vers...
Autori: , Ágnes Jakab, Aniela Pop, Cornelia Bandas, Florica Manea, Joop Schoonman, Rodica Pode
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26033

AbstractThere are many treatment methods used to remove color from textile wastewater, and Fenton oxidation, a well known AdvancedOxidation Process is one of the most efficient. Apart of Fe(II), other metal ions have been used as catalysts in Fenton’s Reagent,and Cu(II) proved to be a good alternative.In this study the effect of the concentration of dye, catalyst and hydrogen peroxide were studied and optimized for thediscoloration process of Reactive Black 5 using a Fenton-like process, H2O2/Cu...
Autori: Andrei-Petru Bertea, Armand-Florin Bertea, Romen Butnaru
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26042

AbstractThis paper presents research into conceptualisation, design and implementation of an innovative web-based virtual environmentfor flood information sharing and dissemination. A system intended to be used by flood management authorities and potentiallyaffectedcitizens is demonstrated. Latest technological advances for collection, archiving and sharing of environmental data usingweb-based Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) are used for system implementation. Flood-related data and models are...
Autori: Adrian Almoradie, Andreja Jonoski, Dimitri Solomatine, Florin Stoica, Ioana Popescu
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26045

AbstractThe geodetic, photogrammetric and topographic works necessary for the introduction of cadastre were performed in the city ofIasi in a series of various coordinate systems depending of the cartographic projections used in different periods of time. In a firstphase (1951-1973) the creation and the organization of topographical plans relied on the coordinate system of the LocalStereographic Projection - Iasi with the central point at Golia and the Gauss - Krüger Conformal Transverse Cylindr...
Autori: Adrian Popia, Ersilia Oniga, Valeriu Moca
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26060

AbstractThe stability of soil aggregates is an indicator of soil structure. Soil acidity affects soil structure stability. Soil acidity has twocomponents: active acidity and exchangeable acidity. In natural conditions, each soil type has a certain level of acidity, which isgiven by its composition, natural vegetation, the chemical composition of precipitations and other factors that cause changes overtime in soil pH. Acidic soils are characterized by physical, chemical and biological properties ...
Autori: Dorin Cotiusca Zauca, , Lucian Vasile Pavel
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26064

AbstractThe removal of residual oil from palm oil mill effluent (POME) using boiler fly ash was studied in this paper, with focus on theadsorption isotherms and kinetic studies by measuring the residual oil concentration using UV-spectrophotometer. The percentresidual oil adsorbed decreased from 80% to 5% as contact time was increased from 10 mins to 120 mins but increased from2.74% to 72.98% as initial concentration of residual oil increased from 0.04812 mg/L to 0.2406 mg/L. Pseudo-second order...
Autori: Jude C. Igwe, Stella N. Anioke, Uche Arukwe
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26078

AbstractIn road traffic noise issues, experimental measurements are a relevant element in order to understand the problem and to adjustmodels. Sometimes, when measurements are not possible or in the designing phase, prediction models are used to perform anestimation of the equivalent level produced by a road infrastructure. Usually models parameters are obtained by a statistical datafit and thus they are related to the area where measurements have been performed. These models are suitable for st...
Autori: Gerardo Iannone
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26087

AbstractThe evaluation of the environmental impact of transport infrastructure entails a complex characterization of factors, attitudes andconsequences. In the frame of an ecologically friendly approach, sustainable alternatives and solutions for road asphaltpavements production and exploitation must be identified. A comparative evaluation of the environmental impact for recycledand traditional road pavements asphalt mixtures, expressed as the amount of equivalent carbon dioxide, per ton of mixt...
Autori: Alina Mihaela Nicuţă
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26096

Abstract The paper deals with reinforced soil structures used in critical infrastructures for ecological landfills. During the last 17 years in Romania 28 such landfills were completed. Romania is however a country where strong earthquakes often occur. About 60% of its territory feels the seismic actions which combine with the existing ones. During earthquakes in the massive structures of landfills, huge inertial forces are developing. Due to uncontrolled movements and deformations...
Autori: Cristina Feodorov
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26118

Abstract The article presents the development of a mathematical model concerning thermal desorption in a tubular electric furnace, using the linear regression analysis principle. With a range of experimental data obtained from some laboratory tests on water evaporation plus pollutant (Hexaclorocyclohexane - HCH), evaporation resulting from the application of thermal desorption on some soil samples; a mathematical model was developed to calculate the mass of substance evaporated fro...
Autori: Calin Vasile Prodan
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26125

AbstractThis study estimates the number of visitors to State Protected Wilderness Areas (SPWAs) in Chile by origin (national andforeign), using annual data from 1986 to 2011. Two linear regression models were used: one to estimate the number of Chileanvisitors and the other for foreign visitors. The model to predict Chilean visitors in 2013-2014 incorporates the GDP per capita inChile, the annual trend in the conditions of international economic crises, while the model to predict the number of f...
Autori: Jaime Pérez-Kallens
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26189

AbstractThe removal of Acid Black 1 dye was investigated by acid treated pumice stone as a low cost adsorbent, since acidicmodifications were expected to improve the sorption capacity. The main components of the considered adsorbent were SiO2 andAl2O3 and acid treated pumice shows irregular structure. The effect of various parameters such as the initial dye concentration,the contact time, the temperature and the pH were studied. An increase of the contact time, the initial dye concentration or a...
Autori:
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26211

AbstractKohonen Self-organizing map (KSOM) modeling have been applied increasingly for analysis, estimation and prediction ofseveral water quality processes, which are embedded with high complexity, dynamism and non-linearity. KSOM or unsupervisedneural networks were applied to microbial data (Escherichia coli, faecal streptococci, and total coliforms) from the effluent of atwo year data set (2008-2010) on two permeable (pervious) pavement systems used to treat storm water runoff contaminated wi...
Autori: Kiran Tota-Maharaj
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26226

AbstractNutrient runoff is an environmental concern. There is a need for a robust method of predicting nutrient concentrations in runofffrom feedlots to facilitate management practices. To investigate the feasibility of using multiple linear regression (MLR) andartificial neural network (ANN) in predicting nutrients in runoff, simple water quality paramters (e.g., pH and EC) of runoff froma feedlot in North Dakota, USA, were used to train an ANN. Both models accurately predicted potassium concen...
Autori: Bilal Cemek
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26236

AbstractNon-pesticide persistent organic pollutants (POPs) under the Stockholm Convention include polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs),polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDDs/PCDFs), polybrominated diphenyl ethers(PBDEs), polybromobiphenyls (PBBs) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), which are industrial chemicals and/orunintentional byproducts that remain in the environment, bioaccumulate in human and animal tissue through the food chain, andhave adverse effects ...
Autori: Wen-Tien Tsai
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26239

AbstractThe extent of the problem of the excessive fluoride in drinking water remains an important health issue. In the present work,strong-base anion resins were investigated to assess their sorptive removal capacity of fluoride from water. It was found that theremoval of fluoride was high at natural pH (7) and was improved for increasing contact time and adsorbent dosage. Themaximum sorption of the resin was 13.7 mg/g according to the Langmuir model, namely higher than the values reported in t...
Autori: Mohammad Taghi Samadi
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26273

AbstractThe road infrastructure has a major environmental impact by covering important land surfaces and consuming enormous amounts of raw materials for construction and maintenance. The impact of transport pavements needs to be considered from the design stage and to be examined during the whole life cycle of the infrastructure: raw materials extraction and initial transformation, manufacturing, placement on site, exploitation, maintenance, and demolition. This paper evaluates the impact of asp...
Autori: Isabela Maria Simion, Laura Dumitrescu, Maria Gavrilescu, , Radu Andrei, Sebastian George Maxineasa
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26297

AbstractA number of 138 samples of citrus fruits (oranges), produced in Souss-Massa area in south of Morocco, were analysed. Amultiresidue method was assessed for the determination of several organophosphorus pesticides using gas chromatography. Theextraction of pesticides was carried out by liquid-liquid extraction and solid-phase clean-up. The pesticide were separated bycapillary column gas chromatography and detected by the Nitrogen Phosphorus Detector (NPD). The majority of pesticidesrecover...
Autori: Abdelaziz Ait Addi, El Habib Ait Addi, Fouad Achemchem
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26320

AbstractThis research introduces a new Robust Interval Type-2 Fuzzy Set Linear Programming (R-IT2FSLP) model to manage irrigationwater resources. This method improves upon previous interval fuzzy bound models by allowing uncertainties presented asmultiple fuzzy boundaries. It creates additional degrees of freedom and enable direct modeling of uncertainties within anoptimization framework. It more explicitly reflects the system’s uncertainties under the fuzzy membership function. The more ofR-IT2...
Autori: Guohe Huang, Lei Jin
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26324

AbstractIn this study artificial neural network (ANN) has been applied to predict noise pollution level in Chandigarh, a newly plannedcity of India. Factors that predominantly influence noise pollution level in a traffic noise model framework were classified intotwo categories: traffic volume and traffic speed. Volume, speed and noise level data of traffic were collected at nine identifiedlocations in the city. For development of ANN model, classified traffic volume (Car/Jeep/Van, Scooter/ Motor...
Autori: Kranti Kumar, Manoranjan Parida, Vinod Kumar Katiyar
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26336

AbstractMonitoring an unstable slope is quite important for environmental safety. Based on our previous studies, this paper presents athird-generation distributed optical fibre transducer. The operating mechanism of this novel transducer was analysed for itsresponse to a single concentrated and uniform load, and a theoretical study was conducted on the elongation of the bottomsurfacefibres of a bending resistance model at the phases of linear elasticity and total cross-section cut-off stage. A b...
Autori: Bang Liu, Dong-Yan Liu, Hu Luo, Jing-Cheng Liu, Qiao-Ying Yuan, Yun-Ju Luo, Zheng-Wei Zhu
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26348

AbstractWireless sensor network (WSN) has been widely used in national defense, military and security, environmental monitoring andmany other fields. It’s of great significance to design WSN which consumes little energy but supports service quality flexibly andeffectively. To further improve the performance of WSN, this article, focusing on aspects of low energy consumption and longlife cycle of the WSN and taking energy limits and coverage requirements in WSN into account, attributes the covera...
Autori: Wenjuan Cheng, Yiming Tian, Yourui Huang
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26359

AbstractTo deal with the undesirable factors in Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), a non-linear DEA model was previously developedfor a paper production system, where the desirable outputs are increased and the undesirable outputs are decreased for efficiencyimprovement. To convert the proposed non-linear model into a linear one, a linear approximation to the non-linear constraint isused and an approximate efficiency score is obtained. In this paper, we propose a new method to solve the non-linear...
Autori: Jie Wu, Zhixiang Zhou
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26363

AbstractA township consists of diversified communities, and communities are the basic units of local infrastructure. The public buildings,public lighting equipment, private buildings, and community residents are the normal-state energy consuming aggregates. Ascommunity organizations have great influences, the promotion of community energy-saving policy under the organizationalinfluence, along with the concepts of direction, evaluation, and subsidy, can help to realize the community energy-saving...
Autori: Sung-Lin Hsueh
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26374

AbstractAs environmental problems are of concern in modern times, decision makers, dealing with resource allocation, should considerenvironmental aspects. This paper examines a resource allocation problem confronted by a central decision making unit. Thecentral unit is assumed to be interested in maximizing the total amount of desirable outputs. The optimal scale of production isobtained by allocating available resources to decision making units (DMUs) efficiently under the current production po...
Autori: Gongbing Bi, Tao Zhu, Yan Luo
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26377

AbstractThis paper proposes a tridimensional mathematical model for water migration time in a soil sample, as a prerequisite for thestudy of migration of various liquid pollutants in soil. The variables taken into consideration were measurement position, soiltype, porosity and the height of soil column. The mathematical models were elaborated and tested based on experimental data,assisted by TableCurve 3D software for generating linear and non-linear equations. The proposed mathematical models o...
Autori: Alexandra-Dana Chiţimuş
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26425

AbstractThe supply of building materials in the city of Kinshasa is one of the major challenges for sustainable development andespecially at this time when the authorities are committed to rebuild the country and to rehabilitate the basic infrastructure,mobilization and knowledge of these materials appears to be of paramount importance. In this context, the Kinshasa morphologywill change day by day because of the operations of construction materials extraction, to meet the needs of the populatio...
Autori: Holenu Holy Mangenda
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26428

AbstractThe dynamic monitoring system continuously performs the monitoring of physicochemical quality indicators of water quality ininvestigated areas. In case of ecological risk due to accidental pollution situations, the system alarms in real time the decisionfactors for the diminution of the environmental impacts and other negative effects. The distributed networks of the system arecomposed of floatable structures of Buoys Monitoring (BM) type, autonomous and adaptable to the environmental co...
Autori: Constantin Vîlcu
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26445

AbstractIn the present work, the kinetics of amaranth dye biosorption onto the roots, stems, leaves and the whole plant of water hyacinth(Eichhornia crassipes) were studied for differential evaluation of the plant’s biosorptive potential to remove the toxic dye fromaqueous solutions. E. crassipes´ leaves showed the highest level of amaranth dye biosorption (43.1 mg/g), followed by the entireplant (31.18 mg/g), the roots (28.51 mg/g), and finally by the stems (23.97 mg/g). The same differential t...
Autori: Imelda Guerrero-Coronilla
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26463

AbstractIn this paper, a study is conducted to assess the ability and the accuracy of a CFD approach concerning the behavior of a linearheat source positioned in a test room. Firstly, the main characteristics of our numerical model (mesh generation, turbulencemodel, near wall treatment, radiation model and boundary conditions) are presented after a briefly description of the test roomtaken into account. In addition, we show also the significance of these issues within our CFD approach. Furthermo...
Autori: Raluca Teodosiu
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26467

AbstractThe aim of this study is to investigate new perspectives with respect to the greening of the wastewater collection, subsequentlyassessing the value of the vacuum over the conventional wastewater collecting system in rural areas. The research was framedfrom the perspective of policy makers to aid in making decisions about benefits on long term horizon in implementing ecoinnovativeinfrastructure technologies. The study postulates the hypothesis that the vacuum sewerage system is technologi...
Autori: Iulia Carmen Ciobotici Terryn
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26456

AbstractWastewater treatment processes with activated sludge are described in the specialized literature by complex models withnonlinear parameterization, such as for example Activated Sludge Model ASM1, ASM2 or ASM3. Under these conditions, thedesign of control structures using the state space representation is very difficult. Suitable techniques to approach the control ofthese processes are using control structures based on an input-output model or using control structures obtained without eve...
Autori: Daniela Carp
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26470

AbstractAir flow measurements as well as concentration measurements within a naturally ventilated dairy barn (NVD) were carried outduring one summer season of 2012. Air flow measurements were performed using ultrasonic anemometers (UA), either as shortduration (20 min duration) measurements with a higher spatial distribution (using up to 9 UAs at the same time) or as long period(roughly 2 weeks) measurements with a lower spatial resolution (3 to 5 UAs). Measurements were conducted at two heights...
Autori: Merike Fiedler
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26496

AbstractVegetables are an important part of a healthy diet because of their nutritional value. Contamination in vegetable may provehazardous for population. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are compounds widespread in the environment, many ofthem showing carcinogenic effects. These compounds can reach the food chain by different ways and, therefore, the analysis ofPAHs in food is a matter of concern.The present work provides data regarding levels of PAHs: acenaphthene (Ace), acenaphthylen...
Autori: Alina Soceanu
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26510

AbstractAt the University of Debrecen, the Department of Electrical Engineering and Mechatronics operates in the BuildingMechatronics Research Center, where researchers took the initial steps of constructing an intelligent and sustainable building,which involved the configuring of the research infrastructure and the measurement network. In this article, we present a possibleapplication and several advantages of the developed measurement network, which are principally conducive to monitoring thee...
Autori: Eva Adamko
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26530

AbstractThis paper presents the experimental results obtained during testing in an electromagnetic field with non-ionizing radiations fromlow-intensity microwaves acting on a group of substances consisting of: double distilled water, neutralized to pH = 7; drinkingwater with pH = 7.3; slightly acidic aqueous solutions obtained by diluting the acetic acid at concentrations of 2.25‰, 4.5‰ and9‰ in double distilled water, for pH = 6.8, 6.7 and 6.5, respectively. The exposure of the samples was perf...
Autori: Gheorghe Morariu
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26562

AbstractHeavy metals in sludge have been one of the limiting factors for sludge reclamation, and therefore the changes of heavy metalsduring sludge treatment process should be concerned. This study investigated the detailed profile of changes of seven typicalheavy metals (As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb, and Hg) in the activated sludge during ultrasonic treatment process. The influences ofsonication time and ultrasonic power density were studied. Results showed that heavy metals in sludge were released i...
Autori: Tian Wan
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26563

AbstractThe problem of noise levels in the home is of increasing interest for reasons of health and psychological well-being, amongothers. This study analyses in detail the meta-data compiled in the Spanish Census of Population and Housing, which provideddata on a large number of environmental variables, including noise pollution in the home. A geostatistical study is conductedfrom the data provided by the latter survey, in which spatial autocorrelation is measured by analytical techniques by us...
Autori: María-Dolores Huete-Morales
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26575

Abstract In the Netherlands green gas is seen as a sustainable alternative to natural gas. However, green gas is still not competitive to natural gas in terms of pricing, and production volumes are remarkably low. Currently, there is a lot of attention to green gas which stems from upgraded biogas, which is produced by manure-based anaerobic co-digestion by livestock farmers. In this article the central question is to understand green gas demonstration projects from stakeholders’ persp...
Autori: Thomas Hoppe
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26603

Abstract Remote sensing data has been broadly used in assessing and monitoring natural resources. Monitoring forest resources with Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) and other fine resolution sensors has become a challenging work in a wide variety of forest applications. In this paper, the relationships between stand crown closure with spectral reflectance values and some vegetation indices (VIs) obtained from Landsat TM were investigated in a case study area. The Pearson correlation and multiple ...
Autori: Alkan Günlü
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26631

Abstract During the creation of a product, the majority of the enterprises still apply a linear approach. This approach has been imposed by the organization way of the company and by the informational flow between the different departments. In the present time different models of integrated engineering oppose to the sequential organization. These models permit the simultaneity of the activities deploying or at least their partial overlap. The activities overlap can be imagined eliminating fi...
Autori: Petrică Corăbieru
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26633

Abstract 18F-FDG is a glucose analog in which the hydroxyl group on the second carbon is substituted with 18F, being used as an indicator of glucose uptake and cell viability. The aim of this work was to synthesize the 18F-FDG and to validate the methodology for the assessment of its both radiochemical and chemical purities, according to the European Pharmacopoeia. The proposed methodology encompasses three chromatographic methods: radio-HPLC, radio-TLC and HS/GC. Radiochemical impurities ...
Autori: Mirela Mihon
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26640

Abstract Molinate (S-ethyl-azepane-1-carbothioate) is a thiocarbamate herbicide used in rice cultivation for the control of grass weeds. Environmental contamination with molinate is of major concern due to the adverse effects described both for humans and animals. Molinate hydrolase, a novel amidohydrolase previously characterized, is responsible for the initial breakdown of molinate, cleaving the thioester bond of molinate, releasing ethanethiol and azepane-1-carboxylate (ACA). Biotechnolo...
Autori: Ana M. Paiva
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26642

Abstract This study focused on the use of jet aeration to treat printing and dyeing wastewater. The related environmental factors influencing the dynamical efficiency of a jet aerator were investigated. Results showed that an ideal linear relation existed between dynamical efficiency and working pressure (R2 > 0.98), with dynamical efficiency decreasing gradually as the working pressure increased. When the gas–liquid ratio was approximately 0.6:1 to 1.4:1, more bubbles were formed b...
Autori: Chunsheng Le
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26664

Abstract A novel sensitive and rapid analytical approach based on ultra-high performance liquid chromatography - mass spectrometry (UHPLC/MS/MS) tandem was developed for the monitoring of pentachlorophenol in water samples. Chromatographic separation was carried out on Acquity BEH C18 (100 x 2.1 mm, 1.7 μm) column under gradient mode using a mobile phase consisting of acetonitrile/ultrapure water/formic acid. Quantification of pentachlorophenol was performed on a triple-quadrupole tandem ...
Autori: Yassine Kadmi
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26673

Abstract The degradation and adsorption behavior of dibutyl phthalate (DBP) in methanogenic phase refuse was investigated through laboratory microcosm experiments. The results showed that the half-life of DBP in the sterilized refuse was 5.9 times higher than in unsterilized samples, but that it decreased by 35.8% when dominant bacterial strains were added. Different concentrations of DBP did not have obvious effects on its degradation. The half-lives of DBP were decreased by 53.0%, 37.2% an...
Autori: Chengran Fang
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26690

Abstract Data envelopment analysis (DEA) has been recently utilized as a multiple criteria tool for environmental performance evaluation by incorporating undesirable outputs. Most DEA models to measure environmental performance follows the assumptions of crisp data and radial measures. In this paper, we present a fuzzy non-radial DEA approach with Russell measure for environmental performance evaluation. A pair of bi-level mathematical programs is formulated to calculate the lower and upper ...
Autori: Zhongbao Zhou
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26691

Abstract In many coastal areas strong currents may occur from tidal effects, rivers discharges and high waves breaking due to abrupt changes in local topography. The modification of the wave fields by currents and vice versa need to be predicted by reliable nonlinear numerical models, when wave and current coexist along and around the approach tracks of the ports and harbors, or in the areas of ongoing offshore and coastal developments, or in areas subjected to intense navigation. Various wa...
Autori: Angela Ivan
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26695

Abstract Simple, cost effective, accurate and reproducible UV-spectrometric method was developed and validated in order to estimate total polyphenolics content (TPC) of some Romanian red and white wines. Furthermore, the total flavonoids and nonflavonoids of the wines were also determined. The TPC has been measured using the Folin-Ciocalteu method. The method was tested and validated for various parameters: specificity and selectivity, precision, accuracy, detection and quantization limits a...
Autori: Simona Dobrinas
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26708

Abstract One of the changes in marketing refers to the redirection of focus from profit to sustainable development. Sustainability marketing can influence sustainable development. The key contribution of the paper is the presentation of holistic approach to sustainable development and sustainability marketing through three dimensions: goals, actors and capital. Holistic management of sustainability marketing in the process of sustainable development is focused on economic, environmental and ...
Autori: Beba Rakic
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26711

Abstract Resilience is meant in this paper as the capability of a networked infrastructure to provide its service even if some components are failed: it depends both on net-wide measures of connectivity and the role of a single component. This paper has two objectives: first to show how a set of global measures can be obtained using techniques from network theory, in particular how the spectral analysis of the adjacency and Laplacian matrices allows us to obtain a characterization of global ...
Autori: Antonio Candelieri
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26746

Abstract The interaction between groundwater systems and urban environments has become an important challenge that fast developing modern cities must face. Contributing factors are, but not limited to, the continuous horizontal and vertical expansion of cities, population growth, climate change, water scarcity and water quality degradation. The present paper provides an overview on several aspects related to the interaction between aquifer systems and urban infrastructures. A review of urban...
Autori: Mohamed Amine Boukhemacha
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26748

Abstract This paper reports the activity, promoted by the Italian agency for new technologies, energy and sustainable economic development (ENEA), in the framework of the project for the development and implementation of the first Italian Platform for Industrial Symbiosis implemented in Sicily (2011-2015). The goals of the project were: to provide a methodology and an instrument for industrial symbiosis implementation at regional scale, to implement a IS Platform as a support to SMEs to ind...
Autori: Laura Cutaia
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26774

Abstract The wide spread traffic congestion witnessed in urban transportation network, especially during rush hours, aggravates vehicle exhaust emissions. Previous studies reveal that congestion not only slows down the traffic flow but also significantly increases emissions. This highlights the need of accounting for congestion-related emissions in transportation planning. In this paper, congestion-related emission is incorporated into a transit bus scheduling problem by a nonlinear programm...
Autori: Yan Chen
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26806

Abstract The feasibility of humidification-dehumidification utilizing waste heat from exhaust gas was investigated. The exhaust gas below 100°C was used as the heat resource and to evaporate the salt water. The effect of operation conditions on the fresh water productivity and thermal efficiency was studied, including the salt water flow rate, exhaust gas flow rate and temperature. The performance of this process was discussed from the view of temperature field, and the temperature field...
Autori: Huaigang Cheng
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26812

Abstract Vacuum-tube thermal collectors are used to collect heat radiated by the sun. This heat is then used to drive the forced evaporation of concentrated seawater (saltwater) released by reverse osmosis and the extraction of NaCl. This paper reports heat consumption during evaporation. About 78.90% of seawater has to be evaporated in advance through insolation to initiate forced evaporation. This step is conducted to precipitate the NaCl because only CaSO4·2H2O are initially precip...
Autori: Huaigang Cheng
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26813

Abstract The problem of monitoring and controlling the complex and heterogeneous water distribution networks in urban environments is not new. Existing solutions include high-resilience and availability of telemetry systems where a wired or less often wireless backbone is connecting heterogeneous field devices to a centralized control centre. In the control centre, the administrative personnel of the utility are offered an overview of the system status, presented with possible alarms and may...
Autori: Athanasia Tsertou
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26825

Abstract Water Distribution Networks (WDN) are large-scale systems whose management is a complex task, with increasing environmental and socio-economic implications worldwide, and with a renewed considerable attention by all stakeholders: local authorities, regulators, environmental groups and the scientific community. WDM managers need to reliably estimate the water demand in the short-term (typically 1 day ahead), in order to operate their reservoirs and treatment plants appropriately to ...
Autori: Antonio Candelieri
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26830

Abstract Urban environments present unique opportunities for developing new system architectures and applications aligned with the “Internet of things” paradigm. The data sources are still largely provided by physical sensors and technical devices, albeit a significant role is already played (e.g. in environmental monitoring networks) by virtual or soft sensors provided by simulation models, while a growing role is being played by human data generated thru participatory platforms...
Autori: Francesco Archetti
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26833

Abstract The feasibility of treating tannery wastewater having high organic loads was studied using ceramic membrane based microfiltration process. The common effluent treatment plant (CETP) of a centralized leather complex was selected for the study which accommodates about 450 tanneries in the city, processing hides from raw to finished products. Effluent sample was collected from different locations of the CETP, i.e. untreated composite effluent, effluent from primary clarifier and from ...
Autori: Priyankari Bhattacharya
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26837

Abstract Landslides constitute an abrupt and short-lived geomorphic risk phenomena, which may cause significant damages to human made infrastructures or even claim human lives. The present study aims to assess landslide susceptibility, at regional scale, in the Bârlad Basin, situated in eastern Romania. The subject is approached by means of logistic regression analysis, which is one of the main methods employed for this purpose worldwide. A landslide inventory was carried out by digiti...
Autori: Cristian Valeriu Patriche
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26846

Abstract The first step for scientific and sustainable aquaculture development is appropriate site selection, and the success or failure of any aquaculture development largely depends on the right selection of the site. Due to favorable climatic conditions, suitable water quality, soil high natural productivity and space availability, the long southern coastline of Iran is regarded as highly suitable for aquaculture development. Site selection can be viewed as a multi-criteria decision makin...
Autori: Freydoon Vafaie
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26866

Abstract Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder that occurs due to a progressive degeneration of dopaminergic (DA) neurons. Brain area affected by progressive destruction of neurons controls movements, and patients with PD reveal rigid and uncontrollable gestures, postural instability, small handwriting and tremor. There are some risk factors that have been proven to trigger PD with a certain probability (for example insecticides exposure, and genetic and environmental ...
Autori: Oana Geman
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26868

Abstract The adsorption of phosphorus (P) on sediment plays a significant role in phosphorus transport in aquatic systems. This research examined the effect of the main components of sediments (including iron (Fe), manganese (Mn) oxides and organic matter (OM)) on P adsorption and to evaluate their relative contribution with different sediment particle sizes. The sediments were separated into four particle-size fractions: 0-30 μm, 30-62 μm, 62-90 μm, and 90-125 μm, and then selec...
Autori: Yang Xiao
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26873

Abstract Urban areas represent the main zones of anthropogenic emissions and, at the same time, includes the largest number of population exposed to air pollution. Data related to traffic hot spots locations in Sibiu urban areas are presented and discussed in this paper. It is important to assess the impact of changing climate conditions and concentration of pollutants, these aspects are of special interest because of high and increasing population of urban regions exposed to consequences of...
Autori: Valentin Petrescu
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26887

Abstract The CoCrMo alloys have been widely used in artificial knee or hip joints. It is well known that these materials have a good corrosion resistance and acceptable biocompatibility properties. Zirconia as a ceramic biomaterial facilitates the osteoconductivity and tissue osteogenetic capacity in new bone formation around implant. Linear polarization and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) were employed to characterize the electrochemical behavior of plasma sprayed yttrium oxid...
Autori: Manuela Romaş
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26896

Abstract The ethanol-gasoline blends have brought new challenges to the in-cylinder mixture air-fuel ratio control for the variable fuel characteristics especially in the traditional PFI (Port Fuel Injection) SI (Spark Ignition) engines. This paper studied all the dynamic links in the intake fuel transfer process from the fuel injectors to cylinders, including the wall-wetting effect and injector fuel flow characteristics. A wall-wetting fuel film evaporation model and an injector fuel flow ...
Autori: Dongwei Yao
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26918

Environmental persistence of endocrine disrupting estrogen chemicals (EDC) subsequent to endocrine function even at nanogram concentration in environmental matrices has garnered significant global attention due to their possible disruptive effects in an intact organism, or its progeny. An attempt was made in present study to investigate the occurrence of two estrogens viz. natural (estriol, E3) and synthetic (17α-ethynylestradiol, EE2) in the surface waster bodies of Hyderabad, India. A...
Autori: A. Kiran Kumar
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26953

The present paper discusses the current situation in the municipal solid management existing in the North-East region of Romania. Furthermore, a Decision Support Tool is implemented in order to compare viable alternative waste management scenarios. The most recent data on the available current infrastructure and the amount of the generated waste have been used so as to determine the baseline status, while the results from the onsite waste analysis were also used as input data. To verify sever...
Autori: Vassilis Inglezakis
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26974

Knowledge of the basic levels of heavy metal concentrations in soil and their spatial disposition, on a certain area, is particularly important for economic activities, but especially for preventing and stopping pollution. The spatial distribution maps, obtained by measurements performed (of a certain density), cover the entire studied area and are very useful. According to the literature several methods are known for building such maps, most of them based on a simple mathematical interpolati...
Autori: George-Călin Rogozan
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27031

Since the link between tourism and economic growth is not automatic, a country must meet certain characteristics in order for this link to occur and make it sustainable through time. Among these characteristics, environmental and sustainable policies, the existence of hard and soft infrastructure, a regulated labour market and economic and financial indicators play a key role. Therefore, Country Risk Score (CRS) can represent a good indicator of the sustainability of countries. Using Country ...
Autori: Roberto Cervelló-Royo
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27074

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is implemented unevenly in the Spanish tourism industry. The country’s hotel infrastructure is not an exception. Many researchers have focused on finding out to what extent the implementation of CSR is ideal from a hotel management perspective and what its effects and consequences are. To a lesser extent, this work has analyzed how and how much consumers rate socially responsible actions, particularly those associated with the environment, society a...
Autori: José Mondéjar Jiménez
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27077

Triton X-100 (TX100) and Tween 80 (TW80) were used to study the decontamination of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in the bulk and different size fractions of soil samples from a former coke oven plant. The effects of PAH ring number, initial concentration and soil total organic carbon (TOC)/black carbon (BC) contents on PAH removal efficiencies were analyzed. Surfactant washing for the bulk sample showed clear relation between the removal efficiency and PAH ring number. When the sur...
Autori: Helian Li
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27093

In this study, an interval-parameter queuing model (IPQM) for planning a municipal solid waste (MSW) management system with cost-effective objective is developed through introducing the queuing model with limited capacity into an interval-parameter linear programming (ILP) framework. IPQM can examine the effects of limited queue capacity on waste-flow allocation pattern and system cost under uncertainty. Random vehicles have to wait in queue due to limited capacities for disposing MSW, leadin...
Autori: Yongping Li
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27094

The concentrations of isopropyl alcohol were monitored during the working time (8 hours) in three different printing plants (two sheet-fed offset and one digital) in Novi Sad, Serbia, using portable gas chromatograph. The concentration levels were below the recommended limits by the U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Unequal presence of isopropyl alcohol in printing plants involved a multiple linear regression analysis of microclimate parameters using program ORIGIN 5...
Autori: Jelena Kiurski
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27096

This study investigated the different behavioral responses of zebrafish (Danio rerio) under sudden stress from two types of chemicals (heavy metals and insecticides) and explored the correlations of behavioral responses and several well-known biomarkers. Adult zebrafish were exposed to cadmium (Cd) and deltamethrin for 5 hours. An increase in avoidance speed and turning frequency was first detected behavioral response. The duration of hyperactivity was almost 50 min in the deltamethrin expos...
Autori: Yi Huang
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27149

Nowadays environmental protection has become a valuable asset for the entire society. The information based society can provide more efficient solutions in its risks mitigation. There are already in place complex infrastructures used to monitor and control the natural environment, but most of them have lower or no interdependency. A solution to gain this integration level is represented by the “smart cities” concept. This study will present an approach used to integrate almost eve...
Autori: Mihai Horia Zaharia
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27164

Dried Typha angustifolia (TA) leavesor commonly known as the common cattail were evaluated as an adsorbent for the adsorption of lead in synthetic aqueous solutions. Equilibrium studies were conducted in a batch mode and the selected sorption isotherms were then applied. Equilibrium was achieved after 8 hours. The selected sorption isotherms were the Langmuir, Freundlich, D-R and Temkin model. Data fitting was done based on linear regression analysis. The adsorption system fitted the Langmui...
Autori: Yen Ling Sharain-Liew
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27166

The adsorbent gels utilized in this research project were synthesized from non-commercially available chitosan, obtained by deacetylation of chitin, which was isolated from fermented shrimp waste by a major local industrial food biopolymer. Chitosan-based adsorbent gels were used for the removal of a tris-azo dye (Direct Blue 71) from aqueous solutions. Sorption experiments focused on the chemical modification of chitosan using two cross-linking agents, sodium tripolyphosphate (TPP) and glutaral...
Autori: Reyna G. Sánchez-Duarte
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27184

A new simple empirical model is proposed to describe the waste sludge volumetric flow rate in the steady-state completely mixed activated sludge process. The model is derived based on the nonlinear regression analysis by using the Richardson’s extrapolation method and the Levenberg–Marquardt algorithm. The application of the model has been explored for a wide range of eleven fundamental biological design variables and tested against a total of 1500 additional computational scenarios ...
Autori: Kaan Yetilmezsoy
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27202

Any modern enterprise, with focus on marketing and management success have to be based on market principles, pursuing the main objectives, of increasing production and services in terms of sustainable development. In this context, rural tourism and agritourism, with a high rate in rural areas, is a major factor, with direct consequences on local development and meeting the consumption needs of tourists. There are several advantages of the agritourism which had been described previously such as: ...
Autori: Elena Leonte
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27206

In this article we present the results of the study concerning the relationship between the concentration of trace elements (lead, chromium, cadmium, cobalt, copper, zinc and nickel) in soil and in the leaves and bark of Populus nigra L. The samples were collected in the period May 2010 – October 2010 in two areas from the Romanian North Littoral of Black Sea. The concentrations of the trace elements in soil, leaves and bark were determined using Flame Atomic Absorption Spectrometry (F...
Autori: Lucica Barbeş
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27239

The Romanian peat was used as low-cost adsorbent to remove Cd(II) ions from aqueous solutions. The cadmium adsorption capacity of the peat was studied as a function of the solution pH (3-5.5) and temperature (293 – 333 K). Adsorption capacity was found to increase with the pH increasing and temperature decreasing and attained a maximum value of 27.9 mg/g at pH = 5±0.1 (acetate buffer) and 293 K. In addition, various thermodynamic parameters such as free energy change (ΔG0), en...
Autori: Catalin Balan
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27276

Analyzing and reducing the possible effects of air pollution on human health became important issues for improving the quality of life in urban areas. Particulate matters (PM) are air pollutants with a potential important impact on human health of vulnerable people (e.g., children, elderly) and non-vulnerable people as well. The level of PM air pollution is mainly influenced by the PM concentration and parameters such as meteorological conditions and synergic effects of other air pollutants. The...
Autori: Mihaela Oprea
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27286

In this study, a decision support system based on a stochastic optimization model under modeling uncertainty and parameter certainty (SOMUM-DSS) is developed for petroleum-contaminated sites management. The SOMUM-DSS incorporates scenario analysis, numerical simulation, multivariate analysis, nonlinear optimization within a decision support system. It provides an effective tool for decision makers to select the optimal remediation strategy. The developed SOMUM-DSS is then applied to a petroleum-...
Autori: Qi Yang
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27374

Effective adsorbents were developed from sewage sludge by chemical activation with different activators (5M ZnCl2, 3M H2SO4, 3M H3PO4, 5M ZnCl2: 3M H2SO4, and 5M ZnCl2: 3M H3PO4). The developed adsorbents were used for the removal of the heavy metals Cd (II), Pb (II), Cu (II) and Mn (II) from wastewater. The effect of several parameters (pH, initial metal ion concentration, adsorbent dose, contact time and solution temperature) on the metal adsorption capacity were evaluated by batch experiments...
Autori: Mohamed Nageeb Rashed
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27385

• EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF TEMPERATURE EFFECTS ON THE PARAMETERS OF PHOTOVOLTAIC PANELS    • CONCENTRATIONS OF CHROMIUM, CADMIUM AND NICKEL IN TWO CONSUMED FISH SPECIES OF PERSIAN GULF, IRAN    • IMPROVING THE ENERGY EFFICIENCY OF RESIDENTIAL BUILDINGS BY USING A DRAIN WATER HEAT RECOVERY SYSTEM    • ASSESSMENT OF METAL CONTAMINATION AND ECOLOGICAL RISK IN URBAN SOILS SITUATED NEAR A METALLURGICAL COMPLEX    • FINANCIAL DE...
Autori:
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27398

EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF TEMPERATURE EFFECTS ON THE PARAMETERS OF PHOTOVOLTAIC PANELS    • CONCENTRATIONS OF CHROMIUM, CADMIUM AND NICKEL IN TWO CONSUMED FISH SPECIES OF PERSIAN GULF, IRAN    • IMPROVING THE ENERGY EFFICIENCY OF RESIDENTIAL BUILDINGS BY USING A DRAIN WATER HEAT RECOVERY SYSTEM    • ASSESSMENT OF METAL CONTAMINATION AND ECOLOGICAL RISK IN URBAN SOILS SITUATED NEAR A METALLURGICAL COMPLEX    • FINANCIAL DEVELOPME...
Autori:
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27399

The research work aimed at analysing the drinking water quality in Vilanculos (Mozambique) and at investigating the influence of poor sanitation management on drinking water quality. The purpose was to understand the reasons of water source contamination and re-contamination in the water supply chain, in order to define strategies to control source contamination and to suggest practical ways for reducing the risk of recontamination. A first phase of microbiological drinking water quality monito...
Autori: Silvia Gibellini
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27406

A worldwide trend is leading the international community to explore the possible paths for the transition from a linear to a circular economic model. Recent studies identified the main enabling factors to facilitate this transition, among which closed loop logistics models and new service-based and function-oriented business models play a significant role. The diffusion of new business models relating to the use of a product rather than its ownership can indeed reduce material consumption and th...
Autori: Maria Grazia Gnoni
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27418

The efficient use of fresh water sources and proper modeling of the water quality can only be possible when flows in the dam reservoir are well defined. Therefore, in this study, a hydrodynamics model of an actual dam reservoir in three dimensions for simulating a real dam reservoir flows for summer season is created. The model is developed using nonlinear and unsteady continuity, momentum, energy and k-ε turbulence model equations. In order to include the Coriolis force effect on the...
Autori: Fatih Üneş
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27430

The paper evaluates the effect of selected socio-economic parameters on the generation of municipal waste in Podlasie Province of north-eastern Poland. The study was made over the eight year period (2001-2008) and seventeen separate counties were analyzed. Principal component analysis (PCA) as a multivariate statistical method was used for filtering the data so that only the significant independent variables could be determined. The first component explained over the 54% of waste production v...
Autori: Izabela Anna Talalaj
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27431

A light-driven dissipative engine, which must necessarily operates at a nonzero rate and far from equilibrium to be capable of providing power and work, is investigated in this paper. On the basis of the assumptions that the heat exchange between the working fluid and the environment obeys the linear phenomenological heat transfer law [ q  (T 1) ], the piston trajectories minimizing the entropy generation are determined. Furthermore, numerical examples are provided for...
Autori: Lingen Chen
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27432

Globalization and a growing awareness of environmental issues are compelling firms to adhere to international environmental standards. Lebanese manufacturing industries are increasingly pressured to integrate environmental standards, mainly the ISO 14001 certification, in order to access - enter and compete - international markets. Although the ISO 14001 model is proposed to promote continual environmental improvement, the standard does not specify definite requirements for environmental per...
Autori: May A. Massoud
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27450

This paper displays the kinetics of the corrosion process for short-term immersion of seven mild steel samples of similar compositions. A comparison between the data obtained for corrosion process in three types of water: bidistilled water (BW), drinking water (DW) (tap water) and river water (RW) (from Bahlui River, Iasi, Romania) has been done. Electrochemical techniques such as the cyclic voltammetry (CV), the linear voltammetry (LV) and the rotating disk electrode technique (RDE) have been u...
Autori: Alexandra Ciomaga
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27460

A micelle-mediated preconcentration method has been developed for determination of Safranine T at trace amounts, which is widely used in textile industry. It can be evaluated as one of the dangereous chemicalsdue to its carcinogenicity and toxic properties. The method is based on the cloud point extraction (CPE) of Safranine T at pH 8.0 in the presence of Triton X-114 as nonionic surfactant. The obtained surfactant–rich phase (SRP) was diluted with ethanol and its absorbance was measured ...
Autori: Songül Ulusoy
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27538

Two multiple linear regression (MLR) models were developed with the aim to estimate the decomposition temperature of a series of polyimides. Two parameters, Tni and Tai, corresponding to the temperature of 10 % weight loss of the sample, determined by dynamic thermogravimetric analysis under conditions of N2 inert atmosphere and air, respectively, were used as a criterion for thermal stability. The obtained MLR models correlate thermostability with a series of characteristics of the studied poly...
Autori: Catalin Lisa
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27556

Livestock production is under growing public and scientific scrutiny for its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This article contains a preliminary assessment of the inclusion of upstream life-cycle GHG emissions in concentrated feeds design, using the most common nonlinear programming optimization algorithms to determine feed composition. First, GHG emissions are included as costs in a single criteria optimization problem. The unit price of GHG emissions was obtained using a genetic algorithm. Sec...
Autori: Ricardo F.M. Teixeira
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27572

• Environmental engineering and Management Journal No. 4    • AN ENHANCED ENVIRONMENTAL MULTIMEDIA MODELLING SYSTEM (FEMMS): PART II – USER INTERFACE AND FIELD VALIDATION    • COST-EFFECTIVENESS OF OPTIMIZING CONCENTRATED FEED BLENDS TO DECREASE GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS    • FATE AND BIODEGRADATION OF ESTROGENS IN THE ENVIRONMENT AND ENGINEERING SYSTEMS – A REVIEW    • ANALYSIS OF THE MATERIAL COMPOSITION OF MIXED MUN...
Autori:
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27577

• Environmental engineering and Management Journal No. 4    • AN ENHANCED ENVIRONMENTAL MULTIMEDIA MODELLING SYSTEM (FEMMS): PART II – USER INTERFACE AND FIELD VALIDATION    • COST-EFFECTIVENESS OF OPTIMIZING CONCENTRATED FEED BLENDS TO DECREASE GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS    • FATE AND BIODEGRADATION OF ESTROGENS IN THE ENVIRONMENT AND ENGINEERING SYSTEMS – A REVIEW    • ANALYSIS OF THE MATERIAL COMPOSITION OF MIXED MUN...
Autori:
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27576

The impacts of anthropogenic activities on the water and sediment fluxes in coastal areas have caused significant economic and environmental damages over the last century. The development of large-scale water abstraction and sediment retention infrastructures has facilitated phenomena such as coastal erosion, frequent eutrophication events and sea water anoxia. The present work investigates the alterations that have been observed over the last 50 years in the area of Thermaikos Gulf, Northern Gr...
Autori: Elias Dimitriou
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27582

A new methodology is presented for relating the generation and/or the consumption of heat and electrical energy to the rate of CO2, NO2, and SO2 emissions to the environment. Two indices are provided for the precise determination of emissions of these gases to the atmosphere and are of help in the analysis and comparison of the quality and efficiency of energy options. The indices have no linear dependency on energy consumptions (unlike EIA and EPA methodologies) and can be applied to any indust...
Autori: Mohammad Hossein Ordouei
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27640

This paper reviews the recent developments and implementations for greenhouses facilities, focusing on recent progress regarding greenhouse environment monitoring and control with many available application examples. State of the art and current trends concerning the main parts of the greenhouse environment automation are discussed: i) greenhouse climate models, ii) wireless sensor networks, iii) remote monitoring/command and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems, iv) image pr...
Autori: Eugen Horatiu Gurban
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27644

Inadequate sanitation and poor infrastructure for waterborne sanitation are common in many developing countries. The anaerobic/aerobic baffled reactor (AABR) is a sustainable option for water sanitation in developing countries. In the present study, a 2.50 m3 AABR reactor working with real municipal wastewater was monitored. Four sequenced chambers, the first three being anaerobic and the fourth aerobic composed the AABR reactor. AABR efficiency and performance were examined during four diff...
Autori: Gustavo Henrique Ribeiro da Silva
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27656

In this work, PM2.5 removal mechanism was explored to investigate PM2.5 collection efficiency under the influences of applied magnetic field and diffusion charging (the main charging mode for submicron particle). The proposed electrostatic precipitators (ESPs) mathematical model considered three-field interaction between fluid field, electromagnetic field and particle dynamic field. CFD software FLUENT was used to generate the simplified solid structure of the ESP. In numerical calculation, t...
Autori: Jian-Ping Zhang
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27667

Several studies have been conducted in various fields comparing Mamdani and Sugeno fuzzy inference systems (FISs). This study contributes to the literature by comparing the performance of Mamdani and Sugeno hierarchical fuzzy systems (HFSs) in terms of their technical performance within the context of environmental impact assessment (EIA), a multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) method, with the aim of illuminating practical issues that need to be taken into account during application. The con...
Autori:
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27681

Geocomposite materials consisting of lightly cemented mixtures of expanded polystyrene beads (EPS) and backfill soils are commonly used as fillers and for the construction of light weight embankments. The constant normal stress (CNS) and constant volume (CV) direct shear parameters as well as the relationship between gradation properties of four residual granular backfill soils and direct shear parameters of lightly cemented mixture of EPS and backfill soils was evaluated. The maximum density an...
Autori: Felix Okonta
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27771

The development of Multi-Energy Systems (MES) or District Energy Systems (DES) requires suitable design and operation optimization tools, in order to assess their feasibility and economic profitability. These tools can be helpful in choosing the proper technologies and also in the perspective of defining proper incentive or taxation schemes. A critical result of the analysis of MES is that, when optimizing their design, the operation strategy and the part load behavior of the units must be consi...
Autori: Matteo Zatti
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27795

The development of Multi-Energy Systems (MES) or District Energy Systems (DES) requires suitable design and operation opti-mization tools, in order to assess their feasibility and economic profitability. These tools can be helpful in choosing the proper technologies and also in the perspective of defining proper incentive or taxation schemes. A critical result of the analysis of MES is that, when optimizing their design, the operation strategy and the part load behavior of the units must be cons...
Autori: Marco Migliore
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27796

The development of Multi-Energy Systems (MES) or District Energy Systems (DES) requires suitable design and operation opti-mization tools, in order to assess their feasibility and economic profitability. These tools can be helpful in choosing the proper technologies and also in the perspective of defining proper incentive or taxation schemes. A critical result of the analysis of MES is that, when optimizing their design, the operation strategy and the part load behavior of the units must be cons...
Autori: Marco Migliore
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27803

Sustainable development is a key issue for the modern world economy. A solution for reducing the impact of carbon dioxide emissions on climate change and for compensating depletion of conventional energy resources relies on green economy and renewable energy. Polytechnic University Timisoara has a pioneering role in research and applications of solar energy to industrial and residential systems in Romania. The "Renewable Energies - Solar Energy" master program has been introduced fo...
Autori: Ioan Luminosu
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27901

This paper presents the results of a case study conducted between 2.04 and 24.04.2013 in order to establish the most relevant indicators that characterize the influence of outdoor air pollution, with particulate matter having a nominal diameter less than 2.5μm (PM2.5), on the quality of indoor air from a new building. The tests consisted in simultaneous determination of the daily average PM2.5 concentrations at four indoor sites and at one outside, nearby the building. The average PM2.5 c...
Autori: Elena Bucur
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27914

Biosorption of copper(II) by lyophilized and thermally treated bacterial biomass of Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1 and Pseudomonas fluorescens BME in aqueous suspension was studied. The cell surface properties were characterized and the experimental conditions, e.g., pH, adsorption time, and initial metal concentration were optimized for efficient biosorption. The surface charge was negative at pH above 2.5 for P. aeruginosa, and above pH 4 for P. fluorescens. The highest copper(II) uptake was ...
Autori: Anikó Kőnig-Péter
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27917

We assessed the variability of the main physico-chemical parameters of drinking water: oxidability, turbidity, conductivity, water hardness, free chlorine concentration, chlorides and nitrates across the four seasons (Spring, Summer, Autumn of 2013 and Winter of 2014). We collected data from several points in the supply network of Satu Mare city, NW of Romania, where the source of drinking water is groundwater. The results revealed significant higher average values in spring for some of the ...
Autori: Thomas Dippong
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27928

The education for sustainable development (ESD) in Taiwan’s higher education institutions with 160 universities and colleges plays a leading role in promoting sustainable campus since the 1990s. This article was based on the documents of official and non-profit organizations attempting to review ESD policy and programs for pursuing environmental sustainability in these institutions. These mission-oriented programs include sustainability education curriculum, sustainable campus infrastru...
Autori: Wen-Tien Tsai
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27936

Sustainable development brings in advance a new set of values that will guide the future model of economic and social progress, values that focus on human and his current and future needs, on the natural environment - protecting and preserving it, as well as on mitigating the current deterioration of ecosystems. The present paper aims at improving a calculation method for measuring the ecological footprint generated by road traffic, through modifying the concept of integrating variables, incr...
Autori:
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27948

The related European directives in force stipulate that product testing shall be performed in conditions that reproduce as accurately as possible the real ones that may be encountered during their operation. These are products whose intended use are specified in the safety data sheet or within the instructions for use, and whose limits of the micro-climatic parameters that can be encountered (temperature, humidity, wind - for the outside ones, temperature, humidity, generation of restricted t...
Autori: Ilie Ciprian Jitea
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27956

The influence of the piston effect in subway tunnels depends on a train speed, the geometry of a tunnel and a train, the types of air flow caused by mechanical ventilation and other variable characteristics. Tables and graphs of changes in air flows generated by the effect of the piston are presented depending on the speed of a train and the degree of fill rate of a tunnel. It is noted that the piston effect is characterized by two phases. At the first stage, the piston effect and the process...
Autori: Omar Lanchava
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27959

The great degree of human development in recent centuries has generated an environmental problem: the spread of human activities through the landscape without sustainable planning. Currently, most natural areas of the planet that are protected for their natural resources have not been impacted by linear infrastructure. The landscape is one of the natural resources that is adversely affected by linear infrastructure. In this short essay, a methodological procedure is described that is easy to ...
Autori: Antonio Miguel Martínez-Grańa
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27990

This study aims to define a municipal Solid Waste Management (SWM) strategy using Multi-objective Optimization Problem (MOP) and ELECTRE method. Four waste treatment technologies were considered: recycling, composting, incineration and landfilling. Firstly, a Multi-objective Linear Programing (MOLP) model was developed. The solutions obtained from this model were ranked using the ELECTRE method. It was considered as case study a hypothetical city of 1,000,000 of inhabitants, presenting the a...
Autori: Rafaella de Souza Henriques
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27998

This paper aims to disclose the quantitative relationship between benthic diatom biomass in natural rivers and environmental factors. For this purpose, the author selected seven natural rivers in the basin of Minjiang River as the objects. First, the samples of benthic diatoms and the environmental factors were collected from 14 different sampling sites of five rivers and the diatom density and Chlorophyll a (Chl a) content were selected to characterize the diatom biomass. Then, the number of...
Autori: Baichuan Zhang
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=28001

This paper aims to disclose the spatiotemporal distribution of rainfall in time domain or frequency domain. For this purpose, the rainfall data at seven stations in Hebei Plain since the 1960s were subjected to trend analysis by innovative trend analysis (ITA), Mann–Kendall (MK) test and linear regression and periodicity analysis by continuous wavelet transform (CWT). The results show that different rainfall intensities obeyed different trends on spatial and temporal scale. Firstly, on ...
Autori: Dan Huang
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=28003

Dairy wastewater has been a major environmental concern because of massive effluents characterized by high pollution load. This study reports the influence of initial pH (pHi), residence time (τ) and elapsed time (t) on the %COD removal (Y1) and specific energy consumed (kWh per kg of COD removed, Y2) for real dairy industry wastewater treatment in continuous stirred tank electrochemical reactor (CSTER) using aluminum electrodes. Central composite design (CCD) was applied for designing th...
Autori: Poonam Kumari
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=28011

The shift from a linear economy to the circular economy emerges as a solution to save natural resources and to decrease the effects of the climate change on the environment. Understanding the role of the waste as secondary resource and recovering it can reduce the consumption of non-renewable primary resources, the consumption of energy in the production processes and can also lower the CO2 emissions. The study aims at evaluating the environmental impact when applying the principles of the ci...
Autori: Mihaela Berechet
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=28017

The present study has established a methodology to determine the most environmentally sustainable area for the expansion of a city center using Geographic Information System (GIS) technology. This technology permits the graphical information associated with a municipality to be manipulated, integrated, analyzed and represented in a simple way that is cost effective during the early decision making steps, which analyze the various options regarding the urbanistic planning prior to taking final...
Autori: Marco Criado
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=28028

Due to emissions from power station using fossil fuels, the decrease of existing pollution as well as of operational costs should be taken into consideration, when resolving environmental economic dispatch problems. In this research, we will evidence that nonlinear constraints of generating units, forbidden regions, and ramp-rate of generating units will reduce operational costs and environmental pollution, to achieve environmental economic dispatch effectiveness, by employing an improved mul...
Autori: Daqing Wu
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=28045

Evapotranspiration is one of the main sources of water loss in arid regions. Although FAO Penman-Monteith (FAO-PM) method is one of the accurate method to estimate potential evapotranspiration (PET). Nevertheless, it is a point-based method and requires several weather data such as radiation, wind speed, air humidity and temperature, which is not available in all regions. Therefore, this study is aimed to estimate PET equivalent to FAO-PM model using satellite data and Priestly-Taylor (PT) model...
Autori: Azam Sadat Hosseini
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=28062

The embedment of circular economy principles in cities is an opportunity to reduce the urban waste production and resource consumption towards closed-loop systems. In particular, the adoption of circular economy strategies as regeneration, optimization, sharing and loops can overcome waste and inefficiencies of linear economy. This paper presents some circular economy practices bringing an integration of circular strategies at urban scale. This work was funded by the Research into Electrical Sys...
Autori: Francesca Cappellaro
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=28076

This manuscript presents the bicriteria optimization of a polygeneration system to be installed in a tertiary sector building, considering economic and environmental objective functions. Electricity, hot water, steam, and cooling demands were considered. The bicriteria problem considered the annual costs and the annual carbon footprint. Updated environmental information was obtained through the application of the Life Cycle Assessment methodology and implemented within a Mixed Integer Linear Pr...
Autori: Bruno Campos Teixeira de Carvalho
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=28103

For efficient management of the losses of drinking water distribution networks, it is essential to have a precise knowledge of the system and its infrastructures. In this context, our study focused on describing two drinking water distribution networks, from two different countries: Rabat and Sale, Morocco and Timisoara, Romania, for water losses over a period of four and five years, respectively. The work consists of calculating some performance indicators to establish thematic maps using Geogr...
Autori: Ziane Imane
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=28113

Different anthropogenic influences and irresponsible actions pollute all the components of the environment and groundwater is no exception. Nitrates, which are one of the most common groundwater contaminants, come from different sources and they are not always easily detectable. The paper presents a study of a groundwater quality at the VaraĹždin wellfield in the north part of Croatia. The nitrate concentration at this location has been above the maximum allowed concentration for several decades...
Autori: Marko Ĺ rajbek
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=28140

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions represents a global challenge and a quantitative approach is a support for decision makers. The aim of this paper is to estimate future values of GHG emissions in Europe, considering different periods of reference and through two common mathematical parameters (average annual growth rate (AAGR) and compound annual growth rate (CAGR)). Results analysis show that a reduction of GHG emissions can be reached. However, some Member States (MSs) as Ireland and Netherland...
Autori: Federica Cucchiella
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=28144

The goal of this paper is to contribute to environmental improvement. This goal has been achieved by the development of an algorithm that allows the optimization of fuel consumption and transport of combustion products. The paper considers the outlier – robust recursive algorithm. This algorithm is used for identification of multivariable ARMAX (Autoregressive Moving Average with Exogenous Variables) models. In this paper, we introduce pseudo-Huber loss function which is a continuous nonli...
Autori: Vojislav Filipovic
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=28167

Due to the population growth and urbanization’s trend, peri-urban areas that surround major cities are haphazardly increasing without proper infrastructure in the developing world. Even though the literature review points out that there are several suitable wastewater treatment system (WWTS) alternatives which could mitigate that issue, one of the main problems lies on the process of making decisions. Thus, this study applies the Structured Decision Making (SDM) instrument through the use ...
Autori: Danilo Cesar Strapasson
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=28182

This present study, investigates the performance of activated sardine scale powder (ASSP)/ Cellulose acetate (CA)/Polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) and powdered activated carbon (PAC)/ Cellulose acetate (CA) / Polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) composites membranes prepared by phase inversion for the elimination of humic substances (HS) from aqueous solutions. The materials and composites membranes were characterized by FTIR, XRD, SEM analyses. Overall, the results exhibit the higher performance of ASSP /CA/ P...
Autori: Naziha Sid-Sahtout
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=28199

In the last decades, the effects of the climate change phenomena and the consumption rates of raw materials have led to an increasing awareness regarding the need of implementing the sustainable development concept at the global scale. The activities we complete each day have a direct negative influence over the current situation of the natural ecosystems, and therefore it is highly important to understand and reduce at the same time our global environmental footprint. One of the most significa...
Autori: Sebastian George Maxineasa
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=28219

In Brazil, there is a deficit of access in relation to sewage services for a large part of the population, and this fact is the one responsible for the contamination of watercourses. This is because to the lack of investment in infrastructure in the country, since sewage treatment plants require high costs and high area demand for deployment, besides the installation of the collection system, which directs the wastewater to treatment. This paper describes the behavior of wetlands as a post trea...
Autori: Rodrigo de Freitas Bueno
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=28241

Drought prediction is fundamental to the management of drought risks. This paper collects the monthly precipitation data in 1957~2009 from 19 meteorological stations in the Yellow River Basin, and sets up a log-linear model to predict the drought level in the study period using the standardized precipitation index (SPI). Based on the SPI drought classification criterion, the drought level sequences were established, the frequency of drought level conversion was determined, and the dominance and ...
Autori: Chunyan Huang
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=28267

In this paper, we propose innovative solutions for reusing an inactive offshore gas platform and its associated infrastructures as a scientific research hub, where an integrated energy system and innovative environmental monitoring methods are envisaged. To this end, the Azalea A platform, located in the northern Adriatic Sea, is considered a good pilot site. This study analyzes the engineering solutions on Azalea A for the combined production of solar and wind energy coupled with hydrogen produ...
Autori: Ilaria Antoncecchi
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=28284

A circular economy system will allow company to directly operate an effective re-cycling policy. Establishing a new “zero waste” impact scheme, in order to recover by-products from the production process, thus leading to an increased market price in comparison to their economic value, and by doing so with full respect of the blue and circular economy standards applied to the product. The main objective of the PVC upcycling project is to facilitate the transition of R.ED.EL.’s ...
Autori: Consuelo Nava
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=28304

‘Labaro-Prima Porta’ is a district in the outskirts of Rome, increasingly afflicted by recurrent floods. In order to reduce the local runoff volume, this paper defines a resilience and twofold strategy. At first, the use of a hydrologic software, called Storm Water Management Model (SWMM), along the research makes possible the evaluation of which Nature-based Solutions (NbS) are more effective in terms of runoff management. The results demonstrate short-term positive effects, with an...
Autori: Giulia Pandolfi
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=28306

This study analysed the recycling of debris derived from the partial and selective demolition of concrete structures of Sant’Elia Stadium in Cagliari (Sardinia, Italy). This recycling was carried out to obtain coarse recycled aggregates for the production of recycled concrete. The experimental investigations demonstrated the possibility of using these recycled concrete aggregates in structural concrete and in precast concrete element, with unchanged production processes and suitable mechan...
Autori: Luisa Pani
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=28307

Healthcare wastes are produced from all medical and therapeutic activities in hospitals and healthcare centres. Around 15-20% of these wastes are classified as infectious wastes that could be hazardous. Therefore, an effective approach is required for handling costs and environmental issues. In this paper, a bi-objective Mixed-Integer Linear Programming (MILP) model is presented for logistics of infectious and non-infectious wastes. The proposed bi-objective model aims to minimize network costs ...
Autori: Mohammad Nikzamir
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=28314

This study shows the results of the experimental investigation of refinery wastewater treatment by the electro-Fenton process. The experiments were designed using Taguchi design approach with an orthogonal array (OA) of L16 runs. Four process variables (current density (CD), temperature (T), Fe2+ concentration (Fe2+), and time (t)) at four different levels were considered for the present design. Regression analysis was performed to predict a correlation for the response function (chemical oxyge...
Autori: Zainab I. Abbas
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=28322

Since the emission of greenhouse gases is an important environment issue, this paper presents an analysis of CO2 emissions between two different building methodologies: conventional masonry and light steel frame. To this end, a 70m² building project used in Social Brazilian Housing Programs (SBHP) built according to both methods was analyzed. In addition to that, the quantitative materials used were determined, according to the building services (infrastructure, superstructure, closing and...
Autori: Silmara Dias Feiber
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=28332