320 research outputs found
Sustainability of underground hydro-technologies: From ancient to modern times and toward the future
No full textAn underground aqueduct is usually a canal built in the subsurface to transfer water from a starting point to a distant location. Systems of underground aqueducts have been applied by ancient civilizations to manage different aspects of water supply. This research reviews underground aqueducts from the prehistoric period to modern times to assess the potential of achieving sustainable development of water distribution in the sectors of agriculture and urban management, and provides valuable insights into various types of ancient underground systems and tunnels. The review illustrates how these old structures are a testament of ancient people’s ability to manage water resources using sustainable tools such as aqueducts, where the functionality works by using, besides gravity, only “natural” engineering tools like inverted siphons. The study sheds new light on human’s capability to collect and use water in the past. In addition, it critically analyzes numerous examples of ancient/historic/pre-industrial underground water supply systems that appear to have remained sustainable up until recent times. The sustainability of several underground structures is examined, correlated to their sound construction and regular maintenance. Moreover, several lessons can be learned from the analysis of ancient hydraulic works, particularly now, as many periodically hydrologic crises have occurred recently, overwhelmingly impacted by climate change and/or over-exploitation and degradation of available water resources.Teachers of Practice /
Towards Acceleration of Re-Use Transition in the Infrastructure Sector: A practical framework for public client organizations to link the tactical level to the operational level in implementing the re-use strategy
No full textThe existing high level of greenhouse emissions and raw material consumption are the current concerns in the infrastructure sector. On the other hand, the programs for renovating the aged and overloaded infrastructures are currently under progress as substantial national programs with circularity targets in the Dutch context, involving various public-private networks. Implementing the circularity strategy of re-use in conducting the infrastructure projects will be beneficial to reduce the amount of emissions, minimize the raw material consumption, and facilitate the formulated national programs. Currently, there are just a few re-use projects, and running a higher number of these projects and accelerating the re-use transition in the infrastructure sector are urgent topics in the global and Dutch context. Public client organizations (PCOs) have determining role in this regard, as owners and commissioners of infrastructure projects. There are wider networks of actors and extra stages to follow in re-use projects, which can create barriers and make the organizational aspects of these projects extremely important. Most attempts are locked at the tactical level of PCOs, and a gap has emerged between the tactical and operational levels of these organizations in the implementation of the re-use strategy, which prevents acceleration of the re-use projects. There is less attention in the current studies to the existing gap between the tactical and operational level of PCOS in conducting re-use projects in the infrastructure sector, the required procedures to fill that, and accelerating the re-use transition, which are zoomed in and investigated in this research. The research is conducted through a qualitative method, following three different phases of theoretical study, empirical study, and solution development in the context of a PCO. This research recognized that the existing gap between the two levels is rooted in different fields, and the most urgent ones have been identified. It revealed that tackling such gaps requires following specific organizational procedures by actors within each of the two organizational levels and between them. Following such procedures to deal with the addressed gaps can be easier through using a framework. The required framework, provided in this study for public clients including organizational procedures and their relevant re-use implementation factors embedded in certain categories. Among the existing gaps in practice, three gaps are recognized as the most urgent ones, which are placed in the two top categories of ‘culture, communication and behavior’ and ‘contract, manuals and guidelines’. The top three gaps addressed by three re-use implementation factors of ‘target formulation, follow-up & evaluation’, ‘internal & external communication’, and ‘collaboration with external parties’. The provided organizational procedures are interrelated in implementing the re-use strategy, and the result of implementing some procedures should be followed by the work of actors at the same or another level. The strategic level should also intervene to fill the gaps specifically in formulating and re-visioning the targets. Structuring the communications, collaborations, and target formulation stages through implementing the procedures recommended in the presented framework in this research, and consistency with that, will prepare the organizational context, and link the tactical and operational level of PCOs in implementing the re-use projects. As a result, the re-use activities at the operational level of public client organizations will be more structured. With well-linked tactical and operational level and structured re-use activities, the re-use transition will be facilitated and can be accelerated at the operational level of the public client organizations. To address a circular solution for the national programs of renovating infrastructures, the active networks in them can consider the networks as the national context for re-use transition, and customize the framework to structure the inter-organizational procedures between the involved parties in the tactical and operational transition levels. Through structuring collaborations & communications between tactical and operational parties, developing clear and detailed targets, and evaluating them, the re-use transition can also be accelerated on the national scale.Civil Engineering | Construction Management and Engineerin
Understanding the importance of side information in graph matching problem
No full textGraph matching algorithms rely on the availability of seed vertex pairs as side information to deanonymize users across networks. Although such algorithms work well in practice, there are other types of side information available which are potentially useful to an attacker. In this thesis, we consider the problem of matching two correlated graphs when an attacker has access to side information either in the form of community labels or an imperfect initial matching. First, we propose a naive graph matching algorithm by introducing the community degree vectors which harness the information from community labels in an e cient manner. Next, we analyze the basic percolation algorithm for graphs with community structure. Finally, we propose a novel percolation algorithm with two thresholds which uses an imperfect matching as input to match correlated graphs. We also analyze these algorithms and provide theoretical guarantees for matching graphs generated using the Stochastic Block Model.
We evaluate the proposed algorithms on synthetic as well as real world datasets using various experiments. The experimental results demonstrate the importance of communities as side information especially when the number of seeds is small and the networks are weakly correlated. These results motivate the study of other types of potential side information available to the attacker. Such studies could assist in devising mechanisms to counter the effects of side information in network deanonymization.Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'U of I Access', the embargo will last until 2018-12-01The student, Kushagra Singhal, accepted the attached license on 2016-11-22 at 11:10.The student, Kushagra Singhal, submitted this Thesis for approval on 2016-11-22 at 11:16.This Thesis was approved for publication on 2016-11-22 at 12:00.DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #10224 on 2017-02-28 at 14:36:15Made available in DSpace on 2017-03-01T16:36:46Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2
SINGHAL-THESIS-2016.pdf: 390320 bytes, checksum: 96d12f05add1e7756426924faa9c6f2d (MD5)
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Previous issue date: 2016-11-22Embargo set by: Seth Robbins for item 98583
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Boundary conditions for an inclusive local Peer-to-Peer energy trading market: Case studies of the Smart City demonstration projects: The Next Generation Prinsenland and Het Lage Land in Rotterdam
No full textInclusive Cities - International Planning and Developing RegionsManagement of Technology (MoT
A study of covert queueing channels in shared schedulers
No full textWe study covert queueing channels (CQCs), which are a kind of covert timing channel that may be exploited in shared queues across supposedly isolated users. In our system model, a user modulates messages to another user via his pattern of access to the shared resource. One example of such a channel is the cross-virtual network covert channel in data center networks resulting from the queueing effects of the shared resource.
First, we study a system comprising a transmitter and a receiver that share a deterministic and work-conserving first-come-first-served scheduler, and we compute the maximum reliable data transmission rate, i.e., the capacity, of this channel. Next, we extend the model to include a third user who also uses the shared resource and study the effect of the presence of this user on the information transmission rate. The solution approach presented in this extension may be applied to calculate the capacity of the covert queueing channel among any number of users.
We also study a queueing covert channel between two users sharing a round robin scheduler. Such a covert channel can arise when users share a resource such as a computer processor or a router arbitrated by a round robin policy. We present an information-theoretic framework to model and derive the capacity of this channel for both noiseless and noisy scenarios. Our results show that seemingly isolated users can communicate at a high rate over the covert channel. Furthermore, we propose a practical finite-length code construction, which achieves the capacity limit.Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'U of I Access', the embargo will last until 2018-12-01The student, Amiremad Ghassami, accepted the attached license on 2016-11-29 at 03:09.The student, Amiremad Ghassami, submitted this Thesis for approval on 2016-11-29 at 03:25.This Thesis was approved for publication on 2016-11-29 at 12:05.DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #10343 on 2017-02-28 at 14:36:55Made available in DSpace on 2017-03-01T16:36:58Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2
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Previous issue date: 2016-11-29Embargo set by: Seth Robbins for item 98606
Lift date: 2019-03-01T16:37:19Z
Reason: Author requested U of Illinois access only (OA after 2yrs) in Vireo ETD systemU of I Only Restriction Lifted for Item 98606 on 2019-03-02T10:15:07Z
Police Genre: Interruption and its Classification as a Sign of Asymmetry in Police Interview/Interrogation
No full textGeneric knowledge is, in part, knowledge of what texts and their constituents do. Since this knowledge creates infrastructure for different kinds of talk like legal talk, police genre as a branch of legal talk is born. As Gibbons (2003:130) says (quoting Swales 1990), genres are ‘prototypes’ that can be followed or modified. The most usual feature of police genre is questioning. Questioning is done under powerful relation between police officer [interviewer] and culprit [interviewee]. This asymmetrical relation cause police officer easily interrupts his interviewee. In order to explain and analyze the police genre, all signs should be identified. Therefore, the author concentrates on interruption and its types. Having gathered data in Iranian courts and Bureau of Police Investigation, the author found nine different types of interruption with aims of getting information, cooperation, etc
Linguistic recontextualization of police interrogation: a new approach in Forensic Linguistics
No full textForensic linguistics is a discipline coordinated with legal goals in the judicial system, focusing on all branches of linguistics including phonetics, semantics, discourse etc. This science is not so known in Iran; where as, it can have a lot of applications in judicial system. The author aims to show how linguistic tools can help to rebuild the police interrogation. In Iran, it is common a police interview is changed into a written form. It brings some problems like the accused one denies what has been written later in front of a judge that he has not said that so. Having observed more than 50 live cases in courts and police stations, the author draws this conclusion that linguistic parameters like semantic tools (meaning of verb), syntactic tools (mood of verb), discoursal tools (power relation)… can be effective to recontextualize the police interrogation
Forensic Linguistics: A Conceptual Frame of Bribery with Linguistic and Legal Features (a case study in Iran)
No full textCriminology is a wide-spread science with different scientific branches, one of which is forensic linguistics. Forensic linguistics as a sub-branch of linguistics is a new-born science which makes connection between linguistics and the law. Linguistic findings have been considered as evidences in courts in two last decades. Linguistics is a scientific study of language, and forensic linguistics as sub-branch of it could push linguistic findings into the jurisdiction. Forensic linguistics examines crime such as bribery with a new look. Bribery is a special crime committed by language; therefore, it is called language crime. The author aims to provide a conceptual frame, considering constructive features. Having gathered different data in Iranian courts and Bureau of Police investigation, the author found that speech act as a linguistic and constructive element is very important to form language crimes like bribery. Besides, bribery has five stages including problem, illegal proposal, perlocutionary act, completion and extension
Accelerating the growth of start-ups in the Smart City Entrepreneurial Ecosystem: an empirical analysis of the Brainport Smart District (BSD) in Helmond, the Netherlands
No full textSmart City has become one of the most popular topics in recent years due to the emergence of innovative digital technologies. Start-ups have been active in an innovation system defined as Smart City Entrepreneurial Ecosystem (SCEE) in this study, where stakeholders in the Smart City industry are involved and interact with each other, including start-ups, government, industry players, knowledge institutions, citizens, etc. It is observed that start-ups have encountered the “valley of death” problem in their early development stage with limited commercial resources such as funding, unstable customers, brandings, etc. Hence, it is imperative to research the SCEE and figure out how to help start-ups address these problems by strengthening favourable interactions with other actors in the ecosystem. Since little research has been done on the development and analysis of SCEE, this study aims to develop a theoretical framework of SCEE with the systematic literature review and apply it to analyse the case of Brainport Smart District (BSD) by using Social Network Analysis. The developed theoretical framework consists of sixteen groups of actors under four main categories (i.e., government, academia, industry, and society) and ten types of interactions. As for the social network results, the social network of SCEE is relatively condensed; its diameter is 3, the average clustering coefficient is 0.622, and the average path length is 1.697. Start-ups/SMEs, the local management team of BSD, users & consumers, and software & hardware infrastructure providers are the key players with high values in terms of degree centrality, betweenness centrality, closeness centrality, and eigenvector centrality. When it comes to interactions, most interactions happened between start-ups and actors in the government and industry. And there is also a self-loop in the social network of the SCEE in BSD, which means that start-ups are interacting with other start-ups in the ecosystem. Identifying key actors will be helpful for policymakers or other actors to make strategic decisions to improve the SCEE and create a better environment for start-ups to thrive and grow. The analysis of interactions provides guidance on how to improve the current interactions between start-ups and other actors and points out what interactions are lacking in the ecosystem. This study not only fills in the knowledge gap in the development and analysis of SCEE and benefits scholars interested in this field but also can be adopted by policymakers and practitioners to improve the whole ecosystem and stimulate entrepreneurship and innovation in smart cities.Civil Engineering | Construction Management and Engineerin
Life Cycle Thinking : Sustainable Ideation Tool for architects and designers
No full textThis project aimed to investigate factors that help architects and designers to evaluate thesustainability of their ideas in the early stage of building design through Life Cycle Thinkingin a more simplified and comprehensible way. In order to achieve this goal, the author tookadvantage of valuable tools for ideation, realization and validation that are used in aninnovation process. The findings helped the author to realize what are the needs of thearchitects and designers to be able to step into the road of sustainability and raise theirknowledge about how to bring Life Cycle Thinking into their design process. Analyzingempirical findings and the competitors made it clear that some features, which are actuallydemanding attention from architects and designers, are missing in the current existingsolutions. As a result, a digital ideation tool was brought to this project through UserInterface (UI) Design. The noted solution is an add-on feature which is compatible and can beadded to the current digital tools and other Building Information Modelling (BIM) softwarefor a better fulfillment of architects and designers requirements
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