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This article is referring to an analysis regarding the skating temperature variation and the electrical power energy consumption obtained by a removable outdoor ice rink, which was seasonal installed in the exterior of a big size commercial building in Romania. The electrical energy power consumption was performed during a period of five years, between 2014/2015, 2015/2016, 2016/2017 and 2017/2018, starting with the 15th of November and ending with the 15th of March, each period. The skating rink temperature varia...

Glass and ceramic industries fall into the category of energy-intensive emitting combustion gases and particulate matter to the air and considered as Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control installations both in the European Union and Russia. Since early 2000s, traditional sub-sectors including tile and brick manufacturing have been participating in a number of pilot projects intended to assess their environmental performance and energy efficiency evaluate opportunities for implementing Best Available Techniqu...

In this paper it is proposed a Hybrid Power Source (HPS), based on Renewable Energy Sources (RES), and a Fuel Cell (FC) system as backup energy source, which uses an optimal control strategy for the fueling rates of the FC (hydrogen and air) based on the load following (LF) control. The RESs power profile is given by the Photovoltaic (PV) panels and Wind Turbine (WT). Hydrogen and air needed to sustain the load are achieved through optimal control of the current realized in the LF control loop, the value of the cu...

The increasing demand for energy imposes strengthening the energy efficiency as a part of energy management on every level, with stress on production plants. Present paper is focused on energy management in renovated pellets production plant in Shumen town, Bulgaria. A comprehensive comparative analysis between the new wood pellets production line and substituted one is conducted. The net energy savings per year are calculated. The improvement of production line results in enhancing energy efficiency on every stag...

One of the main factors that influence the efficient use of cogeneration systems is the heat demand variation. The second influencing factor is generated by the restrictions imposed by the related legislation. Besides this two, the poor stage of the consumer?s insulation and of the heat distribution network, or the lack of the main know-how energy management concepts seriously affects the good functioning of a producer-consumer energy mix. The university together with the university Combined Heat and Power Plant (...

Can civilisation at its current level of development afford the further wasting of all forms of energy? This is the question that forms the foundation of the entire philosophy of energy saving, and - to be more precise - of the work towards its efficient use. The greatest consumers of energy are mega-metropolises, as the amount of energy required to build them, produce all the necessary construction materials and their transport to the construction site, followed by the occupancy of the structures that have thus b...

This paper addresses the possibility of using poultry manure pyrolysis to obtain energy-efficient products. Poultry manure pyrolysis is the intended technology of combustion for both ecological and energy generation purposes, obtaining coke and gas fuel. The waste subjected to pyrolysis had a behaviour very close to that of the inferior coal. This is also confirmed by the elemental analysis; high moisture value raising issues when direct combustion is used. The combustion of the poultry manure through various tech...

Considerable efforts have been devoted to the exploration of Latvian forest resources as the most significant national natural wealth. The State Forestry Research Institute is conducting the statistical forest inventory, is fixing the data of felling and recovery of forest stands. Detailed statistical information for the assessment of different aspects is available. In recent years, the consumption of certain woody biomass products, such as chips and pellets, has a tendency to grow, due to a number of factors: the...

Forest resources are the most significant natural resources of the state of Latvia. According to the second stage data of Forest Resource Monitoring, in 2014, Latvia has 3575 thousand hectares of forest land, which accounts for approximately 55.3 percent of the total territory of Latvia, while the total wood stock is estimated at 668 million cubic meters. A considerable part of it can be used for energy production, thus practically providing most of the necessary heat energy, a large part of the amount of electric...

The article discusses the need to create a unified engineering geology information data-base. Taking into consideration the fact that the stored information is found in a scat-tered way (paper, electronic, separate reports), its wider application is complicated. The given paper deals with the basic principles of creating a common database of engineer-ing geology, as well as making reporting forms to facilitate the work of the geological engineer and to satisfy the need in geological information by various departme...

The broadleave tree species have always been in the focus of attention of forest managers and owners because of valuable wood. Moreover, the presence of broadleaves increases the forest biological diversity. There is only a limited selection of tree species in Latvia ? the Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.), Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karsten), silver birch (Betula pendula Roth), pubescent birch (Betula pubescens Ehrh.), black alder (Alnus glutinosa (L.) Gaertn.), less represented - common ash (Fraxinus excelsi...

Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) is a cloud technology that converges telecommunication and computing capabilities in radio access network. The research and standardization activities for enabling advanced mobile edge services are ongoing with diverse challenges yet to be met. A key area is the development of Application Programming Interfaces (API) that enable application to acquire mobile edge resources and simply and efficiently to manage them. Bandwidth Management Service (BWMS) is a mobile edge service that ...

The challenge for the International Maritime Organization IMO is to reduce and eliminate any adverse impact by shipping on the environment by increasing the emphasis on the role of the human element in environmentally sound shipping. Nautical students become familiar with the international regulations for the prevention of air pollution from ships such as the revised Annex VI of the MARPOL Convention during the IMO courses [1] or other subjects (i.e. Maritime Law) that are mandatory for obtaining the certificate o...

Nowadays, the role of healthy and sustainable consumption is increasing in Latvia. This trend focuses on animal welfare issues, promotion of organic products and enhancing of local businesses? green competiveness. Owing to the growing demand for organic products, the number of organic farms in Latvia is increasing. However, not all local producers are aware of their marketing strategy?s compliance with the real situation in the market. Today, customers? needs are more sophisticated and they are knowledgeable about...

The El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) plays a key role in the interannual variability of the global climate. Its prediction and recognition has been a big challenge to the atmospheric and ocean science modeling community despite significant advances in understanding, improved models, and enhanced observational networks. The present study proposes a new approach by using the support vector machines (SVM) classification model of machine learning algorithm to identify and possible predict the future ENSO events. Th...

The increase of private car share in travels causes significant difficulties in functioning of transport systems especially in large urban agglomerations. Excessive use of cars is associated with: energy consumption, traffic congestion, negative influence on the environment (increase in noise level, increase in emission of fumes), cutting up of the neighborly bonds, road accidents, destruction of urban landscape, which in turn leads to general deterioration of the quality of urban life. The main real countermeasur...

This article was published within the Sub-project "Manufacturing of composite materials sanitary ware", funded under the "Fostering Productive Innovation" Project, supported by the World Bank and the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Conservation and protection of the environment is one of the important and priority areas of the World Bank work. The Bank requires environmental assessment for the Sub-project to help to ensure its environmental safety and sustainability. Therefore, the Environmental Manageme...

The paper describes the case of excavation reclamation after exploitation of gravel, located in the Sola River valley in Rajsko, in the range of the Nature 2000 area Lower Sola Valley (PLB120004), within and the vicinity of the Nature 2000 area of Lower Sola (PLH120083), the vicinity of breeding ponds. There is a Quaternary aquifer in the excavation bottom. 540,000 tonnes of waste from a nearby hard coal mine were used for ground works, which filled the excavation after exploitation of gravel. As a part of the fie...

At the global scale, the construction sector has a significant social and economic influence over people?s daily activities. At the same time, it is well known that the built environment is responsible for a significant negative influence over the Earth?s ecosystem. Taking into account the climate change phenomena registered nowadays, as well as the expected increase in the global volume of negative effects over the natural environment, considering the ecological dimension of sustainability in the construction sec...

As a rule, buildings make an impact on their surroundings. Industrial and manufacturing facilities obviously create the most severe problems. This is due to the technological processes involved, the need to ensure transportation routes to provide supplies and the necessity to handle waste products. Residential buildings are not normally considered in terms of being a threat to the environment, although their large agglomerations are likely to give rise to many problems and are not neutral to the environment. This ...

Water level fluctuations play a significant role in linking water and soil environments and shaping littoral zone. The aim of study was to evaluate the physical and chemical features of water as well as light availability in phytolittoral zone in the case of water level rise. Investigations were carried out in deep mesotrophic lake with well-developed charophytes meadow, above which samples were collected (30 stations). In this lake between year 2010 and 2012 water level increased over 1.0 m as a result of intense...

Environmental change is, today, an unavoidable cause of societal stress that leads to suffering and migration. The focus here is not on change itself, but on the local and regional resources and environment conditions that frame both the extent of change and the alternative actions that might mitigate effects. In this context, a modelling approach to resource and risk assessment and possible responses change is presented. Complex systems are not initially suitable for a bottom-up approach to modelling that assumes...

Small rivers play an important role in the development of the hydrographic network and are tributaries of basin-forming rivers. Usually, it is shallow, which largely exposes them to the high impact of anthropogenic load. Anthropogenic pressure on water resources, especially in the Moscow and Moscow region, reached a rather significant level in this period. A critical situation occurs during the low water period, when the rivers switch to groundwater feeding and their runoff becomes minimal. With the formation of r...

At present, the building sector holds more than 40% of energy consumption and 36% production of greenhouse gas emissions. The whole sector of buildings uses more than 50% of the Earth's raw materials and produces approximately 50% of world waste. The current legislative standards require as much as possible energy efficient construction. The inadequate thermal performance of the buildings and are currently the biggest challenges for the sector of buildings in the European Union in the context of addressing the sus...

The Plan of Economic and Social Development is a basic and medium-term developmental document for the local self-government in which environmental policy is focused on the quality of citizens lives. The cities and the municipalities through the Plan of Economic and Social development, express interest in their future, as well as the future of their residents. The self-government is getting with the mentioned document a tool for an active developmental management based on initiating of the necessary and desirable c...

The purpose of the article (research) is to determine the impact of environmental policy on the possibilities and ways of implementing the socio-economic development strategy of the Leningrad Region of the Russian Federation for the period until 2030. The work used systematic and dialectical-materialist approaches, methods of forecasting, comparison, formal-logical and statistical analysis, as well as tools for scientific analysis of documents and performance results. In the course of the work, the essence and pec...

Along with welding, the casting of metal alloys is a primary production process, with great spread in the industry, especially in the machine building industry. By casting, a series of semi-fabricated products are obtained, from which, subsequently, by metal grinding processes finite parts are obtained such as straight and cranked shafts, belt wheels, gears, various casings, motor blocks for internal combustion engines and others. There are many casting processes used on an industrial scale such as: casting in tem...

Based on the data analysis on emission, discharge and waste of the mining and processing enterprise В«ApatitВ» (Murmansk region, Russia), the article submits data on the enterprise activities impact on the atmospheric air quality and water bodies for the period from 2009 to 2017, also submitted data on compliance with limits and on environmental payments. Statistical data on the composition of production and consumption wastes are shown. Special attention is paid to the analysis of environmental activities of the ...

Natural environment plays the principal role in the physical as well as socio-cultural adjustment of past and present human populations as evidenced by anthropological and material culture records. This is well-observed particularly among the aboriginal nations occupying intermittently pristine northern territories absent of major human migrations, ethnical gene-flows and associated historical inter-cultural exchanges. Specific natural factors linked to regional climate and geography, persisting for a certain time...

As of January 1, 2017, according to the Directive 2014/95/EU of the European Parliament and the Council of 22 October 2014 amending Directive 2013/34/EU as regards disclosure of non-financial and diversity information by certain large undertakings and groups public-interest entities fulfilling particular requirements described in the document are obligated to disclose non-financial and diversity information. Due to this fact, the main aim of the paper was the assessment of the current state of reporting of environ...

In the design of new cars, great demands are placed on the passive safety of a vehicle. This is especially true for the front part of a car. Each item for this part of a car must absorb a part of energy which arises when a pedestrian is hit. The headlights also belong among the core elements here. The size of the energy that a headlight is capable of absorbing is first calculated by the finite element method using specialized software. It is necessary that these theoretical values are validated in practice, using ...

Recycling of spoil and demolition wastes is in general complicated process, that require quality processing technology connected with equipment designed for those purposes. During recycling is important factor perfect separation of spoil and demolition waste. Mainly separation of individual components of such waste as glass, plastics, metal parts, wood etc. From concrete, bricks, asphalt and similar construction material. Separated components are utilized by their type. It is necessary to not have dangerous admixt...

The present study investigates spatial and temporal variability of permafrost coasts? retreat rates at the offshore gas pipeline crossing of the Western Yamal Peninsula coast under conditions of climate change and local human impact. Erosion of permafrost coasts is determined by a combination of hydrometeorological factors, such as wave height, air and water temperature, ice-free period duration, and the features of coastal structure: cliff height, ground ice content, type of sediments. Coastal dynamics were studi...

Power transformers are the main equipment of a mining power network. The power of the mining transformer is determined by the power required by the connected consumers. The correctness of its determination depends on all indicators of the power supply system, namely investments, operating expenses, power and energy losses, consumption of conductive material and other materials. When determining the power demanded by consumers, consideration is given to the evolution over time of their burden and the emergence of n...

This article aims at determining the optimal number of organizational levels in a company's hierarchical structure. Based on this, the author establishes a certain number of managerial levels that simultaneously create the levels in the structure of the priority communication system ? information exchange ? in an organization. Also, the role of managers in an efficient and effective information flow is presented. Businesses that operate by market principles must strive for the highest possible efficiency and effec...

The publication concerns the issue of losses and gains related to the rock mining activity in the whole business life cycle of a mining undertaking in relation to: mining entrepreneur, communes, local communities and the environment. The analysis of the issues was conducted for three specific stages of a mining undertaking: identification of geological resources and technical and economic analyses of an undertaking, preparatory works, deposit opening and mining as well as winding up of the mine. The conducted anal...

Modeling is used to predict the effects of chemicals at the a global or regional scale. Several models have been developed that describe the fate of chemicals in the environment, which are used to assess the mercury footprint of a country or even entire regions. For example, the following models are implemented in the form of software packages: CalTox, BETR, USEtox and others. However, imminent studies and models practically do not evaluate the spatial differentiation of the residence time of chemicals in the comp...

For modelling the water fluxes through the vadose zone, it is necessary to know the soil hydraulic properties. Because many of the soil parameters cannot be measured directly in the field, inverse modeling methods are used to find the most appropriate solution. For a limited number of parameters, the minimization approach provided by Marquardt-Levenberg (ML) has become a usual technique in nonlinear least-squares fitting in soil and hydrological studies. Classical gradient-based methods find the solution in the ne...

The paper is aimed at estimating the abundance of polymetallic nodules in the Pacific area is administered by the Interoceanmetal Joint Organization (IOM) using statistical and geostatistical methods. Polymetallic nodules occurring in the Clarion-Clipperton zone in the Eastern Pacific Ocean contain numerous metals, of which the most important are Co, Cu, Ni, and Mn. In the area administered by the IOM, the four genotypes of nodules are marked with the following symbols: D and D1 (diagenetic), H (hydrogenic), and H...

Obtaining more data on coalbeds in advance will presumably enhance the whole coal production process. Therefore, there is a need to employ a method of mechanical logging, which is able to provide data on coalbeds, including such parameters as coal seems thickness, depth of a coal seam?s roof, and coal ash content. Since drilling and blasting operations are inevitably used to burst overburden rocks, it would be much more efficient to employ them in extensive and accelerated data extraction. In some cases, the dista...

Rocks can be structurally represented as layered bodies, whereby the layers can be located at different orientation angles with respect to the original ground. Such angles are usually called the bedding angles. To avoid mistakes in the calculations of the stress-strain state of rock massifs, it is very important to take into account the dependencies of mechanical properties of layered rocks on the bedding angle. Also, rocks are at a certain depth under hydrostatic compression conditions. For an adequate simulation...

Biodiesel is a relatively new type of environmentally friendly fuel, which is made from renewable resources. Biodiesel is a mixture of methyl or ethyl esters of fatty acids. It is obtained by re-esterification of vegetable oils or others fat-containing substrate, including animal origin. Iodine and acid numbers of vegetable oils, such as rapeseed, olive, linseed, nut and sunflower, are determined. In addition, conditions for obtaining biodiesel by en-zymatic catalysis using pancreatic lipase as an enzyme and rapes...

Biodiesel is a relatively new type of environmentally friendly fuel, which is made from renewable resources. Biodiesel is a mixture of methyl or ethyl esters of fatty acids. It is obtained by re-esterification of vegetable oils or others fat-containing substrate, including animal origin. Iodine and acid numbers of vegetable oils, such as rapeseed, olive, linseed, nut and sunflower, are determined. In addition, conditions for obtaining biodiesel by en-zymatic catalysis using pancreatic lipase as an enzyme and rapes...

An important indicator of the existing and possible pollution of any water area is the content of trace metals in bottom sediments that can characterize the level of anthropogenic load. Analysis of the content of metals in bottom sediments in different parts of the water area made it possible to establish the features of distribution of toxic metals in dependence on natural geochemical processes and to identify the areas that experience the most intensive anthropogenic load. In the paper, estimates of the spatial ...

For reducing the negative environmental impacts of agriculture, the European strategy should aim to enhance the development of farming systems that will be able to give high yields with low environmental impacts. This can only be achieved by combining technologies from both organic and conventional farming systems. In this respect, the EU Directive 2009/128/EC, set rules for the sustainable use of pesticides aiming the decrease of risk and negative impact both on human health and environment. The Directive recomme...

Urban sustainability is a major pillar in the European Union policy towards reaching Paris Agreement targets. In order to support cities and local communities around EU in their effort to implement innovative solutions and integrated approaches to increase their resource efficiency and climate resilience, European Commission funds the instrument "Smart Cities and Communities" (SCC) as part of its Research and Innovation Programme Horizon 2020 (H2020). The overall approach is to define and implement sets of innovat...

The paper refers to the evaluation and calculation of the uncertainty of measurement in the calibration of secondary standard volume measures, with a ruler on the neck, which equips standard installation for liquids flow meter verification. Calibration involves assigning actual values to certain nominal values, materialized on a standard scale. For the design and construction of a secondary volume measure, it is necessary to take into account all metrological requirements related to the shape and materials from wh...

In the presented article the approach to establishment of complex noise exposure in conditions of urban territories of a large settlement with application of geoinformation systems is proposed and tested. The main advantages of using geoinformation systems in conjunction with specialized software products used to perform and visualize acoustic calculations are described. Approbation of the proposed approaches was carried out using the example of Perm with the identification of sources of road noise as the main con...

The rapid growth of the archives of the publicly available remote sensing data (RSD) of the Earth turns them into big data. In fact, for every element of the RSD resolution, tens of thousands of scenes and hundreds of thousands of spectral values are accumulated. The processing of individual images and channels becomes difficult, if at all possible. On the other hand, the quality of traditional statistical information on the territory of Russia is decreasing. It is almost impossible to understand where, how much a...

The indoor climate of buildings is one of the most important components that directly affect human health, well-being, and then the work performance of each of us. We are witnesses of the past and the present when we are experiencing so-called sick building syndrome. At present, however, an extraordinary emphasis is placed on building assessment from the energy saving point of view. The era of homes with almost zero energy consumption is beginning. To meet this requirement, attention must be paid not only to energ...