Within the European project LIQUEFACT some activities have been devoted to the experimental verification of the effectiveness of two techniques in the mitigation of soil liquefaction susceptibility: ...induced partial saturation (IPS) and horizontal drains. After a preliminary check of their efficiency via centrifuge tests, the two techniques have been studied by means of some large scale shaking tests carried out in a field trial located in the Emilia-Romagna Region (Italy). A preliminary extensive in situ and laboratory investigation was necessary to identify the shallow liquefiable soil layer in which the mitigation techniques and the monitoring instrumentations (pore pressure transducers and geophones) had to be installed. Both techniques required the installation of horizontal well screens via a directional controlled drilling technique: the pipes were used as drainage systems (linear HDL and rhomboidal configurations HDR) or for the air injection in the area treated with IPS technique. The in situ experimental evidences showed that both techniques are able to avoid liquefaction triggering, that on the contrary was attained during the tests in the untreated testing area. The processing of in situ data highlighted that the efficiency of the two techniques is strictly related to chosen arrangement of the horizontal drains and the induced degree of saturation.
The development of social entrepreneurship has required new effective management approaches and tools. The authors refer to European experience and standards in the field of project management in ...order to develop a methodological approach to organizing project management for achieving the outstanding results in social entrepreneurship projects.
The article presents the results of the quasi-experiment aimed to identify differences in the achieved results among projects using the European PM2 methodology and projects carried out within the PMI methodology. The assessment technique developed by the authors is based on EFQM model.
No significant difference among the project results in the experimental and control groups has been found, which indicates the importance of applying the project management methodology, regardless of its origin. By clustering project results, it was found that projects adapted the European methodology were more focused on strategic development and integration into the ecosystem on the principles of long-term cooperation, while the projects of the control group paid more attention to the effective organization and coordination of processes, resources and activities.
Mapping large territories for earthquake-induced soil liquefaction hazard may sound like an oxymoron since soil liquefaction is by itself a spatially highly localized phenomenon. Thus, the zonation ...of liquefaction hazard at the continental scale (i.e.
megazonation
) is a truly hard facing challenge even if accepting a low level accuracy. Yet, the availability of a megazonation chart of liquefaction hazard could be useful to identify territories that in case of an earthquake may display this phenomenon of soil instability distinguishing them from the regions where soil liquefaction is not expected even in case of strong ground shaking. A representation of the spatial variability of liquefaction hazard potential within a single country is within reach considering the resolution and accuracy of geological and geotechnical information that is currently available in the most developed nations. The LIQUEFACT project fully addressed in a specific work package the problem of constructing georeferenced, earthquake-induced soil liquefaction hazard maps in continental Europe for various return periods. They were built using homogeneous datasets in Europe on the expected seismic hazard and on the geological, geomorphological, hydrogeological, shallow lithology and digital terrain information. A probabilistic prediction model based on a logistic regression for liquefaction occurrence was purposely developed using a set of optimal geospatial predictors (explanatory variables) which include the weighted-magnitude peak ground acceleration, the weighted-mean shear-wave velocity in the top 30 m (V
S30
) and the compound topographic index. The optimal geospatial descriptors were selected based on the Luco and Cornell methodology, namely on the criteria of efficiency, practicality and proficiency. To calibrate and successively validate the logistic regression, a database of liquefaction manifestations occurred in continental Europe was used. Although the level of accuracy provided by these models at a local scale is low, still the availability of continental charts of liquefaction hazard may help policy makers and administrators to prioritize which urbanized territories should be investigated further to assess the seismic risk of structures and infrastructures associated to the occurrence of soil liquefaction.
Mercado del Val is an iron market located within the old town of Valladolid, Spain, whose construction was completed in 1882, being currently the oldest preserved market in the city. During the ...period 2013 – 2017, the market was part of a FP7 European demonstration project, called CommONEnergy (Re-conceptualize shopping malls from consumerism to energy conservation) under grant agreement n° 608678, focused on the rehabilitation and energy efficiency improvement of shopping centres. The CommONEnergy project focused on improving the energy efficiency of the market was part of a new integral refurbishment project already planned for the market in 2013. Before the rehabilitation project of 2013, the market presented a decaying appearance. From 2013, the market was fully renovated by recovering a building representative of the architectural and commercial activity of the late 19th century, being respectful of its essence, but transforming it into an innovative building that responds to the commercial needs and potential of the 21st century. The inclusion of the market in the European project made possible to improve the building’s energy performance and indoor environmental conditions together with the satisfaction of vendors and customers.
The quantitative assessment of natural risks offers a rational strategy to protect communities, undertake cost effective mitigation and plan the organic and sustainable development of urban systems. ...For cascade events such as earthquake-induced liquefaction, assessment implies to characterize and reconstruct the areal distribution of seismic hazard, subsoil susceptibility, physical vulnerability, economic and social relevance of structures and to combine all factors in a unitary predictive model. Considering that aleatory variability and epistemic uncertainty affect the characteristic variables and their mutual correlation, it is also necessary to quantify their influence on the prediction. Within this framework, a vulnerability model is proposed to comprehensively assess the physical damage of buildings in an urban system. A chain method is formulated combining calculation schemes recently introduced in the literature with ad hoc numerical analyses. The effectiveness of the method is tested comparing prediction with the effects observed in the city of Christchurch during the 22nd February 2011 earthquake. The unprecedented documentation available after this earthquake enables to validate different components of the model and disclose the importance of possible disregarded factors. A geostatistical methodology is proposed throughout the paper to process data, quantify and govern the different uncertainty factors.
Exploiting software development related data from software-development intensive organizations to support tactical and strategic decision making is a challenge. Combining data-driven approaches with ...expert knowledge has been highlighted as a sensible approach for leading software-development intensive organizations to rightful decision-making improvements. However, most of the existing proposals lack of important aspects that hinders their industrial uptake such as: customization guidelines to fit the proposals to other contexts and/or automatic or semi-automatic data collection support for putting them forward in a real organization. As a result, existing proposals are rarely used in the industrial context.
Support software-development intensive organizations with guidance and tools for exploiting software development related data and expert knowledge to improve their decision making.
We have developed a novel method called SESSI (Specification and Estimation of Software Strategic Indicators) that was articulated from industrial experiences with Nokia, Bittium, Softeam and iTTi in the context of Q-Rapids European project following a design science approach. As part of the industrial summative evaluation, we performed the first case study focused on the application of the method.
We detail the phases and steps of the SESSI method and illustrate its application in the development of ModelioNG, a software product of Modeliosoft development firm.
The application of the SESSI method in the context of ModelioNG case study has provided us with useful feedback to improve the method and has evidenced that applying the method was feasible in this context.
Contribution: An analysis of the extent to which sustainability is present in the syllabi, project briefs, report templates, and student final reports of the three Iberian European project semester ...(EPS) providers, over a five-year period. Background: EPS is a one-semester capstone project framework that adopts project-based learning and multicultural, multidisciplinary teamwork. Educating engineers for sustainable development requires fostering critical and ethical thinking and a desire for equity, solidarity and preservation of natural resources, and cultural and genetic diversity. Existing engineering capstone design programs emphasize solving real world problems, hands-on training, and soft skills, but few focus on sustainability aspects of engineering design. The three Iberian EPS providers adopt project-based learning and teamwork methodologies, promoting the development of transversal skills and addressing sustainability in a multicultural and multidisciplinary background. Intended Outcomes: To show that the three Iberian EPS providers follow these recommendations and contribute to raising students' awareness of sustainable development. Application Design: The proposed sustainability learning assessment method collects evidence from syllabi, project briefs, report templates, and final reports to extract faculty and student perspectives. The sustainability-related terms collected were processed into word cloud format, allowing a simple and intuitive interpretation of students' understanding of sustainability, and in co-occurrence network format, to understand if sustainability has a pervasive or confined presence within the reports. Findings: Iberian EPS faculty and students are aware of the social, economic, and environmental impact of their projects, in terms of quality of life, social responsibility, the use of resources, and environmentally friendly technology.
As cities become larger and more densely populated the impacts of major earthquake events on city communities become more severe. Improving community resilience to earthquake events relies on the ...complex relationships that exist between different community stakeholder groups (citizens, businesses, community groups, emergency services, critical infrastructure providers, politicians etc.). This paper reports results from a major EU funded study (LIQUEFACT) that developed a tool for assessing community resilience to Earthquake Induced Liquefaction Disaster (EILD) events. The tool is based on a customised version of the UNDRR Disaster Resilience Scorecard for Cities. The paper reviews alternative approaches to measuring community resilience and describes the process used in the LIQUEFACT project to develop and validate the customised scorecard. The paper presents the results of a questionnaire survey to identify the best generic approach to measure community resilience and a series of semi-structured group interviews to define a range of specific metrics for assessing community resilience to EILD events; and the results of a validation workshop to assess the effectiveness and usability of the customised scorecard. The paper concludes that it is possible to develop a customised version of the UNDRR Scorecard at an appropriate level of granularity to support improved community resilience to earthquake induced soil liquefaction disaster events. The paper also presents key lessons that could assist those developing similar customised versions of the UNDRR scorecard for use in different geographical settings or against different disaster scenarios.
Access to potable water is still a challenge in many African regions. Our transnational project, LEDSOL, aims at enabling a sustainable access to clean water through a combination of three ...components: a smart UV/LED disinfection unit, a solar-energy-based power source, and a standalone low-cost satellite-based positioning engine. This paper presents the first unified set of test results based on the three individual components of LEDSOL system and discusses further challenges. Water quality measurements from Togo and Algeria are also presented to illustrate the severity of the problem.
In this article a high-fidelity aircraft benchmark, developed by Airbus for advanced flight control related studies, is presented in relation to its evolution towards advanced fault diagnosis within ...a European 7th Framework Program project entitled “Advanced Fault Diagnosis for Sustainable Flight Guidance and Control (ADDSAFE)”. This European project was established to study and facilitate the transfer of model-based fault detection and diagnosis methods from Academia to Industry. The importance of the project arose on the one hand, due to the representativeness of the benchmark, and on the other hand, the industrial benchmarking and validation of the developed designs. The results presented in this article represent a quantitative measure of the success of the project since five of the developed designs were successfully validated in Airbus Verification and Validation (V&V) set-ups, and are currently undergoing further tests towards a possible real aircraft implementation.
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