The Evaluation of Temporary Shelter Areas Locations Using Geographic Information System and Analytic Hierarchy Process

Earthquakes are notorious as devastating natural disasters that can result in tragic fatalities and economic loss. The building of earthquake evacuation shelters is an effective way to reduce earthquake consequences and protect lives. In present study, analytic hierarchy process (AHP) was applied as a multiple criteria of decision making (MCDM) method to investigate different shelter sites that belong to a disaster-prone area of the north of Iran. The principles of vulnerable areas, access to roads, firefighting centers, populated areas, fault lines, and medical centers were considered to determine optimal temporary shelter areas locations. With the support of a geographic information system (GIS), the method comprised three steps, i.e. selecting candidate shelters, analyzing the spatial coverage of the shelters, and determining the shelter locations. Finally, a case study was used to demonstrate the application of the multi-criteria model and the corresponding solution method and their effectiveness in planning urban earthquake evacuation shelters. It was found that the “distance from fault line” criterion of 0.429 could be the most effective factor along the others

Compressive Strength Prediction of Self-Compacting Concrete Incorporating Silica Fume Using Artificial Intelligence Methods

This paper investigates the capability of utilizing Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines (MARS) and Gene Expression Programing (GEP) methods to estimate the compressive strength of self-compacting concrete (SCC) incorporating Silica Fume (SF) as a supplementary cementitious materials. In this regards, a large experimental test database was assembled from several published literature, and it was applied to train and test the two models proposed in this paper using the mentioned artificial intelligence techniques. The data used in the proposed models are arranged in a format of seven input parameters including water, cement, fine aggregate, specimen age, coarse aggregate, silica fume, super-plasticizer and one output. To indicate the usefulness of the proposed techniques statistical criteria are checked out. The results testing datasets are compared to experimental results and their comparisons demonstrate that the MARS (R2=0.98 and RMSE= 3.659) and GEP (R2=0.83 and RMSE= 10.362) approaches have a strong potential to predict compressive strength of SCC incorporating silica fume with great precision. Performed sensitivity analysis to assign effective parameters on compressive strength indicates that age of specimen is the most effective variable in the mixture

Uso de criterios múltiples para introducir y clasificar los criterios de diseño de recompensa en proyectos de construcción

The objective of this study was to The Use of Multi-Criteria Decision Making to Introduce and Rank of Design Criteria of Reward in Construction Projects. In this research, the design criteria of rewards in construction projects are ranked. In the present study, in order to identify and rank the criteria of employee reward allocation the methods of Demetel and expansion of the performance of fuzzy quality in two steps were used. the results showed that the professional ethics is the most important criterion for reward allocation to the employees in the construction projects. Results show that considering the work environment of construction projects, maintaining discipline and having organizational commitment and helping others is very important. Also, having the spirit of teamwork and cooperation with others is very important for working in such environments. One of the notable points in the findings of this study is the less attention paid by construction managers to the use of labor quantity measurement indicators as a criterion for reward allocation and more attention to quality criteria such as professional ethics, creativity, etc., which shows the difference between the nature of the work and the end product of this industry with manufacturing industries such as parts manufacturing.El objetivo de este estudio fue el uso de la toma de decisiones de criterios múltiples para introducir y clasificar los criterios de diseño de recompensa en proyectos de construcción. En esta investigación se clasifican los criterios de diseño de recompensas en proyectos de construcción. En el presente estudio, para identificar y clasificar los criterios de asignación de recompensas a los empleados se utilizaron los métodos de Demetel y la expansión del desempeño de calidad difusa en dos pasos. Los resultados mostraron que la ética profesional es el criterio más importante para la asignación de recompensas a los empleados en los proyectos de construcción. Los resultados muestran que considerar el clima laboral de los proyectos de construcción, mantener la disciplina y tener compromiso organizacional y ayudar a los demás es muy importante. Además, tener el espíritu de trabajo en equipo y cooperación con los demás es muy importante para trabajar en estos entornos. Uno de los puntos destacables en los hallazgos de este estudio es la menor atención prestada por los gerentes de obra al uso de indicadores de medición de cantidad de mano de obra como criterio para la asignación de recompensas y mayor atención a criterios de calidad como la ética profesional, la creatividad, etc., que muestra la diferencia entre la naturaleza del trabajo y el producto final de esta industria con industrias manufactureras como la fabricación de piezas

THE EFFECT OF NANOPARTICLE ZnO ON ENVIRONMENT AND DIFFERENT ORGANIZMS (Review)

ABSTRACT: Nanotechnology has noticeably developed with potential effects in every science specially by using nanoscale chemical element. Among nano material ZnO is more attention due to its special properties and its less hazard to environmental impact. ZnO like most of nanoparticles is toxic in organiams, however the toxicity of this nanoparticles can be used for antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral and antialga. To reduce the hazard effect of nanoparticles some manufact or chemical particles such as Nanoscale zero-valent iron are introduce that can be used for environmental remediation of polluted water, soil and sediments. In the present study, the effect of Nanoparticle ZnO on environment and different organisms from virous to fish has been reviewed and the application of nanoscale material in treatment of water are discuss