Post-Disaster Reconstruction of Road Infrastructure

The rehabilitation and reconstruction of damaged road infrastructure plays a vital role in the recovery of disaster affected regions. The methods and processes adopted by road-asset owners during the reconstruction phase influence the longer term effects in disaster hit communities. While the decision making processes are intended to reduce impacts, mistakes at the decision making stage can lead to an increase in social and economic impacts in the longer term. It is thus imperative to understand how decision making takes place with regard to post-disaster reconstruction of road infrastructure. The objective of this paper is to understand how road asset owners assess and prioritise post-disaster reconstruction projects in order to identify how decision making could be improved in Australia and similar regions. The results of in-depth interviews conducted with road infrastructure practitioners in disaster affected regions are presented. The findings showed that there is a gap between the research community and practitioners in the use of systematic methods to aid prioritisation and decision making. The interviews also showed that the consideration of only a limited set of engineering and financial elements can lead to unintended consequences that impede resilience. A causal loop diagram was developed to illustrate the interrelationship between factors and showed that active intervention based on a systems thinking approach will benefit post-disaster decision making. These findings suggest that the development of more localised decision making tools can increase their adoption among practitioners.&nbsp

Abwasserreinigung und Wasserkreislaufführung in der Papierindustrie - Weiterentwicklung deutscher Techniken für den chinesischen Markt

Aufgrund der Rohstoffzusammensetzung zur Zellstoffherstellung und veralteten Fertigungstechniken ist in China die Papierindustrie eine typische Branche mit hoher Umweltbelastung und niedrigem Wasserwiederverwendungsgrad. Im Jahr 2009 betrug der spezifische Frischwasserbedarf in China bei der Herstellung von Papier 55,1 m3/t und der Wasserwiederverwendungsgrad nur 57,0 %. Im Vergleich dazu gelang es in Deutschland innerhalb der letzten 30 Jahre durch Mehrfachnutzung des Prozesswassers den durchschnittlichen spezifischen Frischwasserbedarf auf 14 m3/t Papier zu reduzieren. Der Wasserwiederverwendungsgrad bei der Papierherstellung betrug in Deutschland im Jahr 2000 ca. 98 %. Im Jahr 2008 wurden von der Zentralregierung in China die Einleitungsgrenzwerte von Abwässern aus der Zellstoff- und Papierproduktion verschärft. Seitdem muss direkt in die Vorflut eingeleitetes Abwasser einen Grenzwert von 90 mg/L CSB unterschreiten, sodass die meisten Zellstoffhersteller in China die vorhandenen Kläranlagen auf den neuesten Stand umrüsten müssen. Aufgrund der oben genannten Hintergründe soll in dieser Arbeit ein optimiertes und effizientes Behandlungsverfahren bzw. eine Verfahrenskombination zur Papierabwasserbehandlung mit Hilfe moderner deutscher Abwasserbehandlungstechnologien in China entwickelt werden. Im Rahmen dieser Arbeit wurde eine halbtechnische Verfahrenskombination bestehend aus den Verfahrensschritten Mikro-Elektrolyse Verfahren (MEV) - Hochlastbelebung - Biofilter und UASB-Reaktor - Biofilter untersucht. Bei der CSB-Eingangskonzentration des Abwassers von ca. 1.000-2.300 mg/L konnte mit keiner der Verfahrensketten die staatlich geforderte Ablaufkonzentration von CSB < 90 mg/L [GB 3544-2008] eingehalten werden. Die typischen Ablaufkonzentrationen betrugen 140 -180 mg/L. Mit der Verfahrenskombination (MEV - UASB-Reaktor - Hochlastbelebung - Biofilter) konnten im Labormaßstab CSBAblaufkonzentrationen von ca. 100 mg CSB/L erreicht und somit die regional geforderte CSB-Ablaufkonzentration von 120 mg/L [DB37/336-2003] eingehalten werden. Die staatlich geforderte CSB-Ablaufkonzentration von 90 mg/L [GB 3544-2008] konnte nicht erreicht werden. Es ist jedoch zu erwarten, dass mit einer betrieblichen Optimierung die vorgegebenen Ablaufkonzentrationen eingehalten werden können. Das Abwasser bei der Zellstoff- und Papierherstellung enthält viele schwer biologisch abbaubare organische Verbindungen, wie z.B. Lignine, Cellulose und Hemicellulose. Die biologische Abbaubarkeit des Papierabwassers beeinflusst die Effizienz der Abwasserbehandlung und die Wirtschaftlichkeit im besonderen Maße. Die biologische Abbaubarkeit des Papierabwassers konnte durch MEV und UASB-Reaktor verbessert werden. Die Versuche im Labormaßstab sowie im halbtechnischen Maßstab zeigten, dass mit dem Mikro-Elektrolyse- Verfahren (MEV) das Verhältnis von BSB5 zu CSB des Papierabwassers durchschnittlich von 0,13 auf 0,28 (Labormaßstab) und von 0,29 auf 0,36 (halbtechnischer Maßstab) erhöht werden konnte. Mit dem UASB-Reaktor (halbtechnischer Maßstab) konnte das Verhältnis BSB5/CSB von 0,36 auf 0,45 gesteigert werden. Die Untersuchung der Molekulargewichtsverteilungen mittels Gel-Filtration-Chromatographie-Verfahren (GFC-Verfahren) zeigte, dass nach der Elektrolysereaktion große organische Moleküle (> 5.000 Dalton (g/mol)) im Kurzfassung III Abwasser in kleine Moleküle (2.500-4.000 g/mol) gespalten und mit dem UASB-Reaktor große organische Moleküle (> 5.500 Dalton (g/mol)) in kleine Moleküle (2.500-3.500 g/mol) umgewandelt wurden. Die Anzahl der kleinen Moleküle stieg nach dem UASB-Reaktor deutlich an. Die oben genannte Verfahrenskombination (MEV - UASB-Reaktor - Hochlastbelebung - Biofilter) wurde verfahrenstechnisch beispielhaft für 12.000 m3 Abwasser/d ausgelegt. Es ist vorgesehen, die im Rahmen dieser Untersuchung ausgearbeiteten Verfahrenskombinationen und Bemessungsergebnisse auf weiteren Papierfabriken der Shandong Provinz bzw. in der gesamten V.R. China hinsichtlich ihrer Anwendbarkeit zu überprüfen und ggf. umzusetzen

Using Shipping Containers to Provide Temporary Housing in Post-disaster Recovery: Social Case Studies

AbstractHousing that makes use of the ubiquitous general purpose shipping container is becoming more commonly seen as a useful way of reusing the empty vessels as valuable accommodation. In particular, the application of shipping container temporary housing is suited to post-disaster situations, design examples of which can be found in the literature. However, ensuring the success of implementing such projects in a post-disaster setting requires investigation into the social considerations of temporary housing. This research takes a qualitative approach, focusing particularly on case studies of temporary housing experiences following the Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the Christchurch Earthquake in 2011 and a field study of 2009 Black Saturday bushfire-affected communities in Victoria, Australia. Key social factors found to be significant to the success of shipping container temporary housing projects relate to flexibility in ownership, reuse and siting arrangement, in addition to robust pre-disaster planning by authorities, taking into account the varying characteristics of different types of disasters

A study of sustainable practices in the sustainability leadership of international contractors

With an increasing global need for sustainable development, numerous world‐leading construction corporations have devoted significant efforts to implementing sustainable practices. However, few previous studies have shared these valuable experiences in a systematic and quantitative way. RobecoSAM has published The Sustainability Yearbook annually since 2004, which lists the sustainability leaders in various industries, including the construction industry. Learning from those sustainability leaders in the construction industry can provide useful references for construction‐related companies when developing their sustainable development strategies. Based on a comprehensive literature review, this paper identified 51 methods used for improving sustainability performance and 34 outcomes achieved via these methods. These methods and outcomes are used for coding the sustainable practices of sustainability leaders in the construction sector. Using the coding system, 133 annual sustainability reports issued by 22 sustainability leaders (The Sustainability Yearbook, RobecoSAM 2010–2016) in the construction sector were analyzed using content analysis. Social network analysis was then employed to identify the key adopted methods and achieved outcomes (KAMAO) of these leaders. The dynamic trend and regional analysis of KAMAO are also presented. These KAMAO findings provide valuable guidance for international contractors to develop a better understanding of the primary sustainable methods adopted by sustainability leaders in the construction sector and the top outcomes achieved by these leaders. The findings also provide a useful reference for international contractors to evaluate their current sustainability‐related strategies and make improvements.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/156206/2/sd2020.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/156206/1/sd2020_am.pd

Life cycle assessment of kerbside waste material for an open-looped and closed-loop production– towards circular economy designs

Urbanization growth has increased the generation of municipal solid waste (MSW) and has the potential for recycling and reuse. However, it is frequently limited to a linear lifecycle mode which end up in landfills. A novel attributional lifecycle inventory model for lifecycle assessment based on value retention process (VRP) model of circular economy was developed to quantify the lifecycle inventory and measure the environmental impacts of multiple lifecycle stages, from in-community separation to the end-of-use/life stage and subsequent lifecycles. This investigation focused on assessing the environmental impacts of two distinct in-community waste glass separation methods - separate kerbside glass recycling bin (SKGRB) and mixed kerbside recycling bin (MKRB) - in combination with two recycling approaches - open-loop (asphalt) and closed-loop (glass container). The goal of the study was to make a comparative evaluation of the environmental impacts of these methods. Results showed that the SKGRB method had better environmental performance (40–60% reduction compared to the MKRB method) for both materials. Closed-loop recycling of glass container production had higher environmental impacts due to higher energy consumption in production in one lifecycle, while the open-loop recycling method of asphalt had higher environmental impacts despite fewer circulations, due to higher production volume in 21 years. The results of the sensitivity/uncertainty analysis showed that environmental impacts decreased as the allocation coefficient decreased, reaching stability when the coefficient reached the waste materials percentage in the new product’s mixed design

A fast and accurate method to predict reliability of project completion time

To meet the target completion time of a construction project is one of the most important performance indi­cators of project management. This paper proposes a fast and accurate method for evaluating the reliability of project completion time in large construction projects, using reliability theory. The proposed method is developed to overcome the limitations of existing methods, including the inaccuracy of the program evaluation and review technique and the long computational time of the narrow reliability bounds method. The proposed method is established in three main parts: (i) calculating the statistics of paths duration in the network; (ii) truncating insignificant paths of the network; and (iii) proposing an innovative solution to accurate estimate for reliability of project completion time. The effectiveness of the proposed method is evaluated using an example project. It is found that the results of the proposed method on the reliability of completion time are accurate. It is also found that the proposed method significantly reduces the number of analysed network paths and the computational effort. The method proposed here can serve as a fast and accurate tool for project managers and project planners in project planning, re-planning, and project control phases. First published online: 01 Jul 201

Prioritising sustainability factors for Australian community buildings’ management using Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP)

The essence of Australian community buildings’ sustainable management drives through a previously established decision-making structure with four sustainability aspects and accompanying 18 criteria. Informed decisions are supported with a decision-making model that generates sustainability impacts of building components based on this decision-making structure. Building components’ individual impacts can be assigned using a numbering scale incorporated with linguistic terms. However, similar importance given to each aspect or criterion is arguable when the combined effect is considered. Hence, they should be given different weightings and their combination with individual impacts will produce final sustainability impacts. For calculating weightings, the study uses Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), widely used technique in Multi Attribute Decision-Making (MADM). The study also conducted an industry-wide questionnaire across Australian local councils because pair-wise comparison data is essential for weighting calculation. This paper presents the survey data and analysis results that captured weightings of sustainability aspects and criteria

A Network Pharmacology Approach to Explore the Pharmacological Mechanism of Xiaoyao Powder on Anovulatory Infertility

Aim. To explore the pharmacological mechanism of Xiaoyao powder (XYP) on anovulatory infertility by a network pharmacology approach. Method. Collect XYP’s active compounds by traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) databases, and input them into PharmMapper to get their targets. Then note these targets by Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) and filter out targets that can be noted by human signal pathway. Get the information of modern pharmacology of active compounds and recipe’s traditional effects through databases. Acquire infertility targets by Therapeutic Target Database (TTD). Collect the interactions of all the targets and other human proteins via String and INACT. Put all the targets into the Database for Annotation, Visualization, and Integrated Discovery (DAVID) to do GO enrichment analysis. Finally, draw the network by Cytoscape by the information above. Result. Six network pictures and two GO enrichment analysis pictures are visualized. Conclusion. According to this network pharmacology approach some signal pathways of XYP acting on infertility are found for the first time. Some biological processes can also be identified as XYP’s effects on anovulatory infertility. We believe that evaluating the efficacy of TCM recipes and uncovering the pharmacological mechanism on a systematic level will be a significant method for future studies