Evaluation and selection strategy for green supply chain using interval-valued q-rung orthopair fuzzy combinative distance-based assessment

Environment, Development and Sustainability - Environmental deterioration and global warming has created a substantial impact on international companies to incorporate eco-friendly, green supply...     

Environmental management systems in the architectural,engineering and construction sectors: a roadmap to aid the delivery of the sustainable development goals

Environment, Development and Sustainability - Realisation of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) will provide improvements to people's lives and longevity of the planet. The architectural,...     

Proposing of new building scheme and composite towards global warming mitigation for Malaysia

The building sector has been regarded as a potential sector where there is large capacity to reduce the climate change effect. This study has proposed solutions to mitigate environmental impacts and achieve low CO₂ emission from residential sector. Therefore, full life cycle assessment (LCA) has been run to assess the CO₂ emission and its effect on the atmosphere and climate change. Based on the result, timber scheme is the best choice due to releasing less CO₂ emissions to the atmosphere. However, house builders in Malaysia have almost completely neglected timber as a building material, with timber use as building components reduced to 5%. In this study, LCA Software was used to assess CO₂ emissions from different wall construction. The alternative building scheme has been made by reinforce steel stud, wooden beam and timber wall (S8) to improve the scheme deficiency while releasing less CO₂ emissions compared to other schemes. Therefore, S8 has a decreased CO₂ effect by 85% less than precast concrete frame and 90% less than brick over their lifetime. (S8) increased the load bearing compared to conventional timber beam. Thus, new scheme S8 could be replaced by current scheme and promote more adjustable scheme for Malaysian housing.     

Synthesis of piperazine functionalized magnetic sporopollenin: a new organic-inorganic hybrid material for the removal of lead(II) and arsenic(III) from aqueous solution

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - The present work describes the successful functionalization/magnetization of bio-polymeric spores of Lycopodium clavatum (sporopollenin) with...     

Re-construction of the shut-down PM10 monitoring stations for the reliable assessment of PM10 in Berlin using fuzzy modelling and data transformation

A dense monitoring network is vital for the reliable assessment of PM10 in different parts of an urban area. In this study, a new idea is employed for the re-construction of the 20 shut-down PM10 monitoring stations of Berlin. It endeavours to find the non-linear relationship between the hourly PM10 concentration of both the still operating and the shut-down PM10 monitoring stations by using a fuzzy modelling technique, called modified active learning method (MALM). In addition, the simulations were performed by using not only raw PM10 databases but also log-transformed PM10 databases for skewness reduction. According to the results of hourly PM10 simulation (root mean square error about 13.0 μg/m³, correlation coefficient 0.88), the shut-down stations have been appropriately simulated and the idea of dense monitoring network development by the re-construction of the shut-down stations was realised. The results of simulations using raw and log-transformed databases showed that data transformation has no significant effect on the performance of MALM in the simulation of shut-down PM10 stations. By the combination of the 11 still operating stations and the 20 re-constructed stations, a dense monitoring network was generated for Berlin and was utilised for the calculation of the reliable monthly and mean annual PM10 concentration for five different PM10 zones in Berlin (the suburban-background, urban-background, urban-traffic, rural-background and suburban-traffic areas). The results showed that the mean annual concentration of PM10 at the five zones increased by about 13.0% in 2014 (26.3 μg/m³) in comparison with 2013 (23.3 μg/m³). Furthermore, the mean annual concentration of PM10 in the traffic lanes of the suburban (2013 25.0 μg/m³, 2014 26.9 μg/m³) and urban (2013 27.7 μg/m³, 2014 31.3 μg/m³) areas is about 14 and 20% higher than the PM10 concentration of suburban-background (2013 21.3 μg/m³, 2014 24.5 μg/m³) and urban-background (2013 23.0 μg/m³, 2014 26.1 μg/m³) areas, respectively.     

Anti-oviposition activities of used sock media against a dengue vector: prospects of eco-friendly control and solutions to pollution

Yearly, huge amounts of sock refuse are discarded into the environment. Socks contain many molecules, and worn ones, which are rich in smell-causing bacteria, have a strong influence on animals’ behaviors. But the impacts of sock odor on the oviposition behavior of dengue vectors are unknown. We assessed whether Aedes albopictus changes its oviposition activity in response to the presence of used socks extract (USEx) in potential breeding grounds, using choice and no-choice bioassays (NCB). When furnished even chances to oviposit in two sites holding USEx and two others containing water (control), Ae. albopictus deposited significantly less eggs in USEx than in water sites. A similar pattern of oviposition preference was also observed when there were more oviposition options in water. When there were greater oviposition opportunities in USEx sites, Ae. albopictus oviposited preferentially in water. Females laid significantly more eggs during the NCB involving water than USEx. Also, significantly more mature eggs were retained by females in the NCB with USEx than in that with water. These observations strongly suggest the presence of molecules with either repellent or deterrent activities against Ae. albopictus females and provide an impetus to advocate the integration of used socks in dengue control programs. Such applications could be a realistic end-of-life recourse to reroute this waste from landfills.

     

Field crops (Ipomoea aquatica Forsk. and Brassica chinensis L.) for phytoremediation of cadmium and nitrate co-contaminated soils via rotation with Sedum alfredii Hance

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Phytoremediation coupled with crop rotation (PCC) is a feasible strategy for remediation of contaminated soil without interrupting crop production....     

Influence of polymethyl acrylate additive on the formation of particulate matter and NOX emission of a biodiesel–diesel-fueled engine

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of the polymethyl acrylate (PMA) additive on the formation of particulate matter (PM) and nitrogen...