Engineering Commons^™

Enhancing Fish Farming Sustainability In Guatemala: A Cost-Effective Oxygenation Solution, Olivia Wheeler, Creighton Seibeert, Carlos Gomez Gutierrez

Scholar Week 2016 - present

This project addresses a critical challenge faced by small-scale, family-owned fish farms in Guatemala, providing adequate oxygen to their fishponds due to the lack of reliable grid power and high energy costs. The primary goal is to design a sustainable and cost-effective solution that ensures continuous oxygenation within the range of 5-7 parts per million (ppm) of dissolved oxygen (DO). To achieve this, the solution must operate independently of grid power, withstand Guatemala's environmental conditions, and be replicable by local farmers for widespread accessibility. The holistic design objectives focus on boosting fish harvest yields, reducing operational costs, promoting sustainability, empowering …

Neutralization Of Fuel Tankering Emissions For Environmental Sustainability, Peter O'Reilly, Maria Petrescu, Fabricio Sulzbacher, Diogo Coutinho

National Training Aircraft Symposium (NTAS)

As aviation has been one of the fastest-growing sources of emissions, this paper explores sustainable solutions in the equation of the economic savings from the fuel tankering practice, in a way it could represent gains of credibility for this industry (Boussauw & Vanoutrive, 2019). The fuel expenses in Brazil have been responsible for the highest operational cost for the airlines and, as a result, there has been an ongoing pursuit of the highest level of efficiency (ANAC, 2019). In this context, this study has been focused on the emerging Brazilian aviation market, and uses primary data collected from three major …

A Qualitative Look Into Repair Practices, Jumana Labib

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

This research poster is based on a working research paper which moves beyond the traditional scope of repair and examines the Right to Repair movement from a smaller, more personal lens by detailing the 6 categorical impediments as dubbed by Dr. Alissa Centivany (design, law, economic/business strategy, material asymmetry, informational asymmetry, and social impediments) have continuously inhibited repair and affected repair practices, which has consequently had larger implications (environmental, economic, social, etc.) on ourselves, our objects, and our world. The poster builds upon my research from last year (see "The Right to Repair: (Re)building a better future"), this time pulling …

Environmental Sustainability Of Precast And Cast-In-Situ Concrete Structures: A Case-Study Comparison Based On Built Supermarket Facilities, Bruno Dal Lago, Davide Visconti, Visar Krelani

UBT International Conference

Environmental sustainability is assuming a growing role in the strategic plans of several countries worldwide. In order to switch to more sustainable solutions in the construction field, many researchers and efforts are focusing on the material level, mainly concerning solutions aimed at partially or fully replacing the most impacting components with alternative or recycled solutions characterised by a lower carbon footprint or a higher durability, in view of a life-cycle assessment. Alongside these positive efforts, another instrument to reduce the environmental impact of construction materials, often less tackled by researchers, is reduction of material consumption by structural optimisation, often ensured …

Building Materials And Environmental Indicators For Urban Planning-Exposure, Afrim Syla

UBT International Conference

Sustainable development is a key component in urban studies. The sustainability of buildings has become a headline topic in recent years. Buildings do not exist in isolation from their environment, however, but are integrated with infrastructure. In defining sustainable buildings, the issue arises how to incorporate the influences of not only user behavior, building design and technologies, but the associated infrastructure that comprises the entire built environment. The built environment considered here includes all buildings and infrastructure, and in this context, comprises approximately 10% of global GDP. The building and construction sector alone is not only the largest consumer of …

Adaptable Clean Energy Laboratory, Joao Marcelo Rocha Belmonte, Marc D. Compere

Sustainability Conference

The Adaptable Clean Energy (ACE) Lab is a real-world, long term, test platform that will guide the courses of the Energy Systems track. The lab will provide realistic electrical and HVAC loads that mimic a solar powered office. The lab is a 20’ high cube shipping container modified with a door, windows, lights computers, air conditioner and appliances. The lab is Net-Zero and powered entirely from the sun. Two insulation test sections expose the exterior walls for research access to real external heat loads in a real building

Determination Of The Type Of Turbines For Use In Restelica 1,2 And 3 Hydropower Plants Based On The Natural Characteristics Of The River, Bukurije Hoxha

UBT International Conference

The focus of this paper describes the designing procedure of Small hydro power plant implemented in Restelica River, Kosovo. For normal operation of the Small hydro power plant, there must be done measurements of the river basin annually water flow, hydraulic net head of water, to calculate sustainability of water flow, flow duration curve, flow rate, configuration units depending on flow rate etc. The choice of the turbines was made depending on head and flow rate of water from which has resulted in the installation of different turbines that have fit better those conditions. The head losses in penstock are …

Human Rights, Environmental Justice, Social Justice, Faith Values And Ethics: Building Stronger Partnerships For The Common Good By Understanding The Differences, Theresa Harris, Leanne M. Jablonski, Sarah Fortner, Malcolm Daniels

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Partnerships between human rights practitioners, local communities, scientists, engineers, and health professionals have shown potential to address deeply rooted, systemic human rights concerns. These collaborations are essential for achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and for engaging the perspectives and expertise of all constituents. However, even when the individuals in these partnerships or the organizations they represent have common goals, their motivations, analyses, and solutions often come from different perspectives. Members of good will can inadvertently alienate one another when attempting to work together. The fields of human rights, social justice, environmental justice, and ethics have each developed their …

High Performance Mortar With 100% Recycled Aggregate Using Titanium Dioxide Nanoparticles, Molly Schrager, Vito Francioso, Arjun Kadakia, Mirian Velay-Lizancos

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Concrete and mortar are materials commonly used in construction. Their main compounds are cement, aggregates (sand and gravel) and water. In an effort to increase the sustainability of these materials, the idea of using recycled aggregates from ground old concrete and using it to make mortar and concrete has gained more interest. It has two advantages: it reduces the need to mine for raw materials and lessens the amount of old and defective concrete that is typically put in landfills. But, the use of recycled concrete aggregate lowers the strength of mortars and concretes because the residual compounds in the …

Ecological Footprint Of Flood Mitigation Structures At The Absecon Inlet, Eduardo Garcia, Mackenzie Carr, Jason Loeffler

STEM Student Research Symposium Posters

The primary goal of this clinic project is to measure the ecological footprint of the flood mitigation structures in Absecon Inlet. This area is prone to floods due to rising sea levels and storms. Beaches and boardwalks were affected during numerous hurricanes including: Jose (2017), Andrea (2013), Sandy (2012), Irene (2011), and Hanna (2008). Seawalls, sand dunes, and jetties were constructed to protect the shoreline from these floods based on the studies conducted by the US Army Corp of Engineers. In this clinic, we assess the effect of these man-made structures on the ecology of the surrounding areas. The ecology …

Metabolic Comparison Of Wild-Type And Transgenic Synechocystis Pcc 6803 Cyanobacteria, Ian A. Mcluckey, John A. Morgan, Joel Yu King Hing

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

The Calvin-Benson (CBB) cycle is an essential part of nature. This phenomenon allows carbon molecules in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to be converted into useful energy in the form of sugars. Cyanobacteria are single-celled organisms capable of utilizing energy from sunlight to drive this cycle and are also readily engineered. In hopes of improving this cycle, we compared a wild-type version of the Synechocystis PCC6803 cyanobacteria to an engineered version overexpressing the enzyme FBA (fructose-biphosphate aldolase), called 70 glpX, to deduce how the overexpressing strain is able to be more photosynthetically efficient. To do this, comparative metabolomics were done …

Characterization Of High Oleic Acid Biodiesel: Improving Biofuel Properties, James M. Muskat, Nathan Mosier

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

In 2016, the world produced an amount of biofuel equivalent to 82,306,000 tonnes of oil. A portion of the biofuels produced was categorized as biodiesel. While still growing as a fuel alternative, current biodiesel fuels are at risk for causing increased engine coking, lower engine performance and durability, oil ring sticking, carbon deposits, and gelling of lubricating oil. Due to these primary issues, biodiesel cannot completely replace petroleum diesel as a fuel source. Instead, biodiesel is commonly blended with petroleum diesel at 5% and 20% (B5 and B20) in the U.S. to create a mixture that has acceptable fuel properties. …

Effects Of Sustainable Materials In Construction, Environment And Health, Muhamet Ahmeti, Mimoza Sylejmani, Vlora Aliu

UBT International Conference

In this paper it is presented a definition of sustainable construction from ecological aspect, characterized by reducing the impact of different materials in the environment during construction, but also during the whole lifetime of use of buildings. To assess the impact of materials on health and environment is necessary to examine all phases from beginning of the materials manufacturing till the insertion to the construction, including the use of natural resources for the production of construction products, necessary energy for production, amount of release and CO2 emissions (carbon dioxide) in different stages, methods of construction, use of construction and in …

Systems Approach To Link Big Socio-Ecological Geo-Data To Food Systems Sustainability, Quang Bao Le, Chandrashekhar Biradar, Enrico Bonaiuti, Richard Thomas

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Rapid development of multi-dimensionally, multi-scale, timely updated socio-ecological geo-data presents an opportunity as potential information resource for supporting effective decision- making of stakeholders involved with food systems, from daily routines of individuals to strategic decisions of manager and policy-makers. However, the use of this type of big data toward supporting the sustainability of food systems at different scales still fall short of (i) what information commonly needed by food system actors to response and adapt to socio-ecological change and enhance the system performance, (ii) interoperability between different types of data across scales, and (iii) sufficient guidance to utilize big data …

Methodological Abilities Of Integrated Models To Support Agricultural Landscape Resilience: Current Status And Research Perspectives, Quang Bao Le

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

It is important to increase the resilience of rural landscapes in the face of global changes. It is widely recognized that integrated modeling is often a methodological choice to study landscape resilience because the task is often beyond the ability of direct, empirical studies. However, so far there has not yet been a systemized, critical review on methodological abilities current modeling approaches can have for supporting management for agricultural landscape resilience. This review study (i) highlighted the methodological abilities of integrated system modeling ideally needed for agricultural landscape management for resilience, (ii) reviewed strengths and weakness of common integrated modeling …

The Role Of Social Institutions In The Resolution Of International Conflicts Over Shared Fishing Resources, Cezara Păstrăv, Frank Dignum

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

International conflicts over shared fishing resources may rise in numbers in the context of climate change, which has lead, and will continue to lead, to changes in behavior patterns and geographic distribution of fish and other marine resources of interest to the fishing industry. Under these circumstances, being able to quickly adapt to unexpected changes becomes a very desirable trait for the fishing industry. Unfortunately, the current conflict resolution processes are often difficult, time consuming and sometimes not maintained.

We are interested in whether more sustainable mechanisms, that act from the bottom up and are easier to enforce by the …

Exploration Of The Long Term Sustainability Of The French Risk Management, Frédéric Grelot, Bruno Bonté, Zhongyang Fang

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Public flood risk management (FRM) in France, as in other countries like USA, Great Britain, relies on a combination of tools dealing with the negative consequences of flood. Spatial scale of those tools differs: insurance is defined and managed at national scale, land use regulation is defined at national scale but implemented at local scale, protection against flood may be implemented at local or even individual scales. The objective of this communication is to build a model for the analysis of the sustainability of the French FRM. For this, we used a simple but contextualized agent-based model (Cat-Nat ABM).

In …

Motorizing Cbd Of Tirana. A Before And After Study In Tirana From Sustainability Point Of View, Edison Barhani

UBT International Conference

The Center Business District of Tirana (Skanderbeg Square) plays a crucial part in Tirana Transportation System. After a closure of about 2 years, being under reconstruction, CBD opened to traffic on November 14th, 2011. This study analyses performance parameters like: travel time for both cars and buses, waiting time at bus stations, and passenger boarding/alignment for bus passing through or around the CBD before and after it was opened to traffic. Route that follows Kinostudio-Kombinat bus line has been selected as a representative of all other lines passing through the center of Tirana. Opened to traffic for the supply to …

Experiences With A Serious Online Game For Exploring Complex Relationships Of Sustainable Land Management And Human Well-Being: Landyous, Ralf Seppelt, Romina Martin, Alexander Finger, Christin Henzen, Martin Linder, Katrin Pietzsch, Andreas Werntze, Ute Zander, Jule Schulze

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Land is a limited resource. Its use for one purpose excludes other uses. Addressing the issue of human appropriation of natural resources thus requires understanding of a variety of complex feedbacks between decisions on land use and ecosystem services. The complexity is caused by a large number of mostly nonlinear feedbacks between management strategies, productivity, environmental quality, human well-being, consumption and many other aspects of land use. Here, we present LandYOUs: an educational online game, which aims at explaining and illustrating various options and feedbacks of sustainable land management (SLM) to the interested public, students and stakeholders. The game gives …