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Located in the northern part of continental Portugal, the city of Porto is characterized by low-to-moderate levels of seismicity, thus one of reasons for the lack of studies regarding the influence of site effects in this area. In this study, the HVSR technique (horizontal-to-vertical spectral ratio) was used in order to obtain information about the fundamental frequencies of the ground in several parts of the city which was later compared to the geotechnical information presented in the Geotechnical Map of Porto,...

Costs constitute the basic economic indicator that affects the business activities of mining companies. Cost optimization in the mining company is a key factor of business and the goal to successful growth and profit formation. The costs of the mining company are high and costs affect negatively corporate profit. We will search costs in mining companies in Slovakia in area of small, medium and large companies. The goal of this paper is to find out the development costs in the mining companies in Slovakia relative ...

There are an industrial air pollutants as a new, negative factor in agriculture, reflected mainly in second part of the 20. century. There are thousands of hectares of uncultivated agricultural land as a consequence of this form of soil intoxication. There is also reduced soil fertility below the fertility level, on the another thousand hectares of soil, where is needed high energy excess in the form of fertilizers or agro-technical works. Physical and chemical properties of soils have been changed, erosion has be...

The aim of this study is certainly not to include and introduce various types of civic amenity buildings in terms of functionality and hierarchy, nor to investigate in detail particular types of civic amenity buildings. The aim of this study is rather to focus on the current trends in building types within the new public facilities, which are based on current problems, namely the lack of services and facilities which are being either supplemented with new ones or are completely replacing the existing, nowadays unu...

The issue of preserving and protecting forests in the face of increasing human activity was presented as very up-to-date. Irrational human activity and fires have led to deforestation of places, once completely covered with forests. The area of tropical forests in Africa has decreased by 70 percent, South America пїЅ by 60 percent, only 8 percent of Chinese territory is covered with forest. The article briefly examines the process of degradation of forest resources in the global economy. This study explores the lo...

This paper studies one of the biggest problems facing older buildings or historic monuments like ascendant humidity that occurs upward because water migrates into the walls from different sources from the soil found in foundation. The experimental researches have been made in the basement of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering from Craiova, which is a heritage building that was badly affected by the earthquake from 1977. The subsequent rehabilitation was unable to repair the damage of the building's foundation. ...

One of the main factors determining economic and social development of particular countries is availability of cheap energy source. In a case of European countries, this availability has also important influence on the integration process. Amount of produced energy in given country tells about the level of its civilizing development. Also so-called energy independence that most countries are aimed and which guarantees political independence is strictly related to this problem. It can be assumed, that energy is one...

The basic tasks of building and production sphere, housing and communal services are connected with life protection and comfortable conditions creations for people. In this way the automated control systems of distributed energy supply and life support facilities play an important part. The main scientific direction in this area is increasing their energy efficiency. Paper represents results of implementation of automated dispatch control systems of distributed energy supply and life support facilities that includ...

We offer two approaches for construction of block lithosphere models. First is for selection of blocks in mantle only, it is applicable to both two- and three-dimensial models. Second method (3D) helps to select blocks related to known tectonic structures. Usual approach for tectonic maps construction is the gravity field analysis. However, this method is significantly limited because the gravity field includes integral information about density features in lithosphere. This makes impossible to split selected tect...

This article is dedicated to issues of commissioning of a small pumped storage hydropower plant in mine. Pumped storage hydropower plants are one of several ways to solve the problem of non-constant power consumption from the mains. This hydropower plant, we are going to deal with in this article, is located at Jeremenko mine in Ostrava, 580 meters below the surface of the earth. The entire facility is composed of Pelton turbine, Bibi's coupling and a generator of electrical energy. There will be described the iss...

The introduction of energy dissipating devices as passive dampers in structural systems under earthquake excitation is intended to reduce structural deformation and in certain cases to reduce the risk of damage to equipment attached to the structural system. In seismic design, the input energy of an earthquake is typically dissipated through hysteretic behaviour of structural members, which allows the structure to undergo inelastic deformations without compromising the stability of the structure. The energy dissip...

In this study, we present series of GPR experiments to identify and solve problems, which might be encountered while carrying out GPR survey in sandy soils for various purposes. Study was carried out in the Smeceres sils sand-gravel quarry, which is located in the Madona-Trepe ice-marginal ridge in Eastern Latvia. This specific quarry was selected as a study site, because it has a boulder pavement located in its uppermost part. Two similar experiments were carried out in dry (after long period of dry weather condi...

Passage form the idea to market is a long journey, which if it is appropriately planned, may bring satisfaction and success. On the other hand, implementation new technology on the market give a risk of grave errors committing at the stage of planning. The procedure of transfer may end with fiasco, even though the concepts were really innovative and interesting. In this paper determinants of geothermal water deironing technology commercialization has been presented. The developed technology has been not breakthrou...

Contribution follows the issues included in the contribution пїЅInfluence of a possibility to emplace a building and a type of a building being placed on the value of the landпїЅ published in the conference proceedings SGEM 2016. The authors of the contribution focused on issues related to the conditions for the building placement on the land. They will examine what conditions must be met to place a building, in response to various forms of placement permits. The conditions of the building placement determine the ...

Oil production decline in Russia can be explained by deterioration of its oil reserves. That is why the country pays much attention to development issues of high-viscosity oil fields of the Middle and Lower Carboniferous sediments. In this regard, using new chemical agents with combined effects and study of their impact mechanism has become of scientific and practical significance. This paper presents a laboratory physical simulation experiment to study reservoir performance after steam and chemical agent injectio...

The aim of this paper is to thermo-analytically study the process of heat generation during flame and flameless combustion of lignocellulos pellets dust made from various types of raw materials. The heat release rate of the test samples was measured by a cone calorimeter. Different heat fluxes (30, 35, 40, 45 and 50 kW.m-2) were used to determine the behaviour of three different types of lignocellulose pellets dust under a thermal load. The mass loss and the time to ignition was continuously monitored during each ...

Small hydroelectric power plants (SHPP) are accepted by the legislation of EU Member States to benefit from renewable energy promotion scheme through various market mechanism. The SHPPs are a particular form and case of hydroelectric power plants (HPP) and are having a maximum capacity of 10 MW. Since the green certificate (GC) promotion scheme was awarded in Romania (2008), a considerable number of SHPP were constructed and commissioned in the last years. These projects have the same philosophy as a large hydro, ...

Circular economy, i.e. a closed-loop economy, is an idea in which the value of products and materials is retained as long as possible. A concept that minimizes the environmental impact of the products created, through such choice of components and design that will allow them to be reused. Speaking of circular economy, it is impossible not to mention the role of alternative fuels. According to the EN-15359: 2005 standard - Solid recovered fuels. Specification and classes, alternative fuels are flammable wastes, def...

The paper presents development of Geotourism and associated mining heritage on a unique example of two mining sites пїЅ the oldest mine in the world for mining opal above the village of ?ervenica (Slovakia) and the oldest mine in the world for oil in BпїЅbrka (Poland). Both sites have rich mining past, which they want to use for the development of tourism. Based on the visits, structure of services and development plans, we speak in terms of tourism development on two different sites, even though the distance betw...

Rural tourism has many development opportunities, mainly in the areas that still preserve customs, traditions, craft and handicraft. Ideal for creating a tourist offer competitive on international market would be the possibility of developing some tourist packages with local specific, to this purpose all the natural elements, plus the traditions and folklore, creates clear possibilities for realizing a rural tourism, at high international standards, allowing attracting tourists. In many countries operate successfu...

Lake Baikal is a world heritage site, one of the most valuable sources of a large volume of fresh water of its own purity. A serious threat to the endemic ecosystems of Lake Baikal, which determines the properties of Baikal water, are the wastes from the Baikal pulp and paper mill accumulated over the years of its operation (1966-2003). Sludge accumulators of this enterprise finding on the shore of Lake Baikal. They contains more than 6.2 million cubic meters of various wastes. There is a rather real threat of pol...

In many cases, the specific energy consumption indicators do not reflect the energy efficiency, since the amount of energy consumption is affected both by the technical condition and design of buildings and the specific use of energy, and specifics of its use and the proper organization (culture) energy consumption. The paper presents a generalized indicator of the energy efficiency of objects that have different purposes and are located in buildings with different technical conditions. The indicator contains two ...

This article describes a study approach of winter multi-hazards and assessment of their impact on shores, coastal infrastructure and hydraulic structures in the closed water bodies on an example of the Caspian Sea. The whole approach is divided into four main stages. The first stage is devoted to the analysis of existing criteria for hazardous natural phenomena. The second stage is devoted to the reconstruction (hidcasting) of winter multi-hazards. At the third stage, the classification of winter periods depending...

The purpose of this article is to discuss the authigenic chlorite, illite and illite-smectite mixed layers at the sandstone of upper Triassic reservoir at Euphrates graben fields east of Syria related to their structural, morphology and diagenetic events and precipitation. The upper Triassic sandstone reservoir is one of the most important oil and gas reser-voirs at the east of Syria; it contains about 60 % of the total hydrocarbon volume at the area. Petrographical analyses combined with the different core analys...

Based on the example of arsenic, co-occurring in the Cu-Ag deposits (the Fore-Sudetic Monocline, Poland) while considered to be harmful for the environment, the paper describes difficulties associated with the reliable estimation of trace and rare elements concentrating in parts of deposits. The characteristics of these elements that make the estimation of the resources difficult include: extremely high variability of content, the dominant share of random components in the differentiation structure, and the concep...

The paper presents the results of surface geochemical surveys carried out using "free gas method" in "Brzesko-Wojnicz" area in the SE part of the Poland. The surveys were conducted along 2 measurement profiles. A total of 341 soil gas samples were collected from 1.2 m depth below the surface. Maximum concentrations of CH4, total alkanes C2- C5, total alkenes C2-C4 reached: 27,1 vol.%., 45,3 ppm and 0,174 ppm, respectively. In total, in the analyzed area there are anomalous concentration of total C2-C5 alkanes (ove...

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 non-fin...

Romania is an active country from a seismic point of view, every year occurring around 250 earthquakes, many of these of a medium to strong level. This is one of the reasons why the seismic design of bridges is very important in Romania. The seismic provisions applied in Romania evolved from P100 - 92 to P100 - 2013, containing major changes regarding the ground acceleration and corner period, but also regarding the structural details. The cantilever method for prestressed concrete bridges has obvious benefits for...

In this paper it has been analyzed the water quality from a total of nine wells located in Radovan village, as sources of drinking water from groundwater aquifers. For this, in 2012 there has been collected a total of 567 samples, monthly from March to November, analyzing the content of ammonium, nitrate, chloride, potassium, sodium, phosphate and pH. Analyzing the content of nitrates can be seen that, except well no. 1, in March and April in all other wells, to the data of determinations, nitrate content exceeds ...

Eco-system services, particularly agricultural eco-system services as landscape functions are defined as goods and services provided that contribute to human well-being. The aim of the study is to evaluate the capability of sustainable providing agricultural eco-services - landscapes as base of innovative activities in the rural areas. The following aspects as the tasks have been covered in the study: to evaluate sustainability aspects of Latvian agricultural landscapes, as agricultural eco-system services; to inv...

Ecolabel is an environmental policy tool introduced at European level in 2000 by Ecolabel Regulation. Ecolabel is a tool to promote products with reduced environmental impact throughout their life cycle. These products contribute to an efficient use of resources and a level of environmental protection, offering consumers accurate information about the eco-labeled products. Touristic enterprises that have Ecolabel care for environment and consumer health. If we take the examples of agritourism structures, we will h...

The aim of this paper is to draw attention to the relatively simple way how to both increase fire safety of paper technology processing and to remove one environmentally unfriendly and unhealthy chemical substance from the production process. Practical examination of flammability based on standardized testing method STN ISO 871:2010-07 of selected cellulosic material focusing on harvesting specimens and tissue paper bring new insights into the issues of flammability and combustion of the materials and finished pro...

Background: With the development of ecological awareness, the demand for financial and non-financial information is growing with regard to an entity's relationship with the environment. The literature presents various opinions on the solutions applied and their effects. Environmental reporting is only partially mandatory in Poland. Environmental information of business entity is generally non-financial and has various forms and scopes. This article aims to analyze and evaluate the state of environmental reporting ...

The study responds to the need for restoring the natural function of small streams and recovery thereof in terms of European Parliament and Council Water Framework Directive 2000/60/EC within brown coal mining areas damaged by anthropogenic impacts. The study observed: which environmental factors are the most relevant to the current state of these sites (the positive and negative effects), what types of recovery are typical of natural parts of the streams and significantly changed/affected ones, and the effect of ...

Providing the environmentally healthy conditions in rivers is main prerequisite to guarantee the sustainable river ecosystems development. This is connected to implementation of various measures accounting the increasing anthropogenic and climate change impacts. For the purpose on local, national and international level various tools and practices are implemented following the adopted legislation. For the countries of European Union Directive 2000/60/EC (WFD) stipulates main framework for community action in the a...

The construction industry is one of the most material and energy-intensive manufacturing industries in the world, with about 50% of energy consumption and 60% of material resources. Obviously, the rational resource consumption, and as a consequence, the environmental future of humanity, to a large extent depends on the current state of this issue in the construction industry, and mainly emerging prospects for its modernization. For the construction, as the production sphere of national and global economies, findin...

Heavy and radioactive metal poisoning has become a problem of current interest as a result of environmental pollution on a global scale. Studies to test the noxious effect of radioactive metal ions on wheat germination and seedling growth showed that germination rate, shoot length, and fresh weights varied as a function of their concentration in the treatment solutions. We report here the effect of some radioactive and non-radioactive (stable) elements on the wheat seeds and seedlings (Triticum aestivum L.) in the...

This paper deals with the possibilities of concentration of electromagnetic radiation through Fresnel lenses. The article points out errors in the optical system and their possible solutions, which are based on the latest scientific knowledge. At present, there is a development of Concentrator photovoltaics (CPV) and high-concentration photovoltaics (HCPV) systems that make the possibility of more efficient transformation of solar energy into electrical energy. Manufacturing of photovoltaic cells differs in the co...

During combustion of natural fuels together with oxides of main fuel elements (carbon and hydrogen) fly ash with unburnt fuel particles, sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, some amount of fluorine-containing compounds and gaseous products of incomplete combustion of fuel are released into the atmosphere. The technology and technological parameters of equipment for purification of exhaust gases of TPP, which allows to remove up to 95% of sulfur and carbon oxides by low-temperature liquid-phase catalytic oxidation at at...

Air injection techniques (high pressure air injection and in-situ combustion) for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) have attracted extensive attention due to its low cost. Air injection can be applied in many candidate reservoirs including carbonate reservoirs that account for a great proportion of total oil reserves all over the world. Dolomite and calcite are the main minerals of carbonate reservoirs. Therefore, it is necessary to study their effect on the oxidation of crude oil as the oxidation reaction exactly occur...

Alumina and silica are commonly used as solid matrix for characterizing the combustion behavior of crude oils by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) technique. However, the two basic factors, heating rate and total sample mass, were paid less attention in the process of experiments. Our recent study found that they might significantly change the oxidation behavior due to the use of alumina and silica as solid matrix. In this study, the effects of heating rate and sample mass on the combustion behavior of crude...

The effect of different doses and time of boron fertilization on growth and development of grape plants were studied on the soils of Terek-Kumskiy sands of Chechen Republic, Russian Federation. The aim of research is to study the content of boron in the soil and to identify the physiological response of the vine plants on boron fertilizer. The obtained data of the boron total content in the studied sandy soil showed that in 0-60 cm layer of the soil the boron total content ranges from 0.4 to 0.5 mg/kg, in 60-150 c...

The purpose of the study was to develop an electrochemical method for detection of lead at low level of contamination in water samples using a carbon glassy electrode modified with the functionalized azulene: (2E)-2-(azulen-1-ylmethylidene) hydrazine carbothioamide (L) as a complexing polymer film. The modified electrodes were prepared in L solutions (1mM) in acetonitrile (CH3CN) containing tetra n-butyl ammonium perchlorate (0.1 M TBAP) as supporting electrolyte. The analyses were performed on Autolab PGSTAT 12 P...

The research is devoted to the investigation of meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria (L.) Maxim., Rosaceae line), which is widely used by population for medical purposes. The results are represented by the concentrations of 28 chemical elements determined by INAA method and 55 ones determined by ICP-MS in 201 samples of the aboveground part of the plants collected in different regions of the south of Siberia. The analysis of the data obtained allowed concluding that the chemical elements varied depending on the region...

The continuous improvement of building insulation and air tightness means that controlled ventilation is becoming more important every day. The ground-air heat exchanger makes a considerable contribution to this, especially when used in conjunction with an air heat exchanger unit. As well as increasing the quality of life within the building, this also provides significant energy cost reductions by using the embodied ground energy to pre-condition the incoming ventilation air. The Canadian wells use geothermal ene...

Multipurpose vehicles are trucks that were implemented in order to achieve some different equipment related to road works such as snow removal, sweeping and spraying the streets, roadside mowing, trimming trees etc. Multipurpose vehicles have two operating modes. ? Regime for marching. Rapidly moving vehicles from one location to another. Torque at the drive wheels is small and the speed is high. ? Technological regime. The vehicle traveling at a low speed (max 8 km/h) imposed by technology of working multifunctio...

The environment and its protection are among the most followed topics of today. Logging using forest machines is closely associated with the hazard of service fluids spills and their negative impact on the forest ecosystem. Engine oils represent the highest share of all service fluids used in forest machines. In the present study we tested engine oil fouled during regular operation of the forest machine. Synthetic, as well as natural sorbents can be used for a quick and effective removal of engine oil spills. Proc...

Construction development of forest-tundra areas shall take into account their peculiar characteristics: enhanced susceptibility of landscape components to man-made impact, presence of permafrost, and also insufficient exploration of environmental conditions. These factors make it essential to carry out a detailed investigation of natural and man-made conditions as a part of engineering and environmental surveys during environmental feasibility study of the projected construction in such areas. This work is dedicat...

In this study, the feasibility of zwitterionic surfactants for EOR from high-temperature and high-salinity reservoir was investigated. Three different types of zwitterionic betaine surfactants were selected based on their abilities to address issues of displacement oil from high-temperature and high-salinity reservoir. And their abilities of reducing interfacial and surface tension (IFT), increasing viscosity, and long-term stability at high temperature and high salinity were investigated and compared with the mos...

ShakeMaps are one of the most applicative products of seismological research and monitoring, becoming available minutes after earthquakes. They are maps depicting the ground shaking produced by an earthquake and the estimated intensity distribution, being extremely useful for authorities, population, private sector and researchers too. However, the outcome of the result пїЅ consisting of easy to read maps representing the potential area affected, often hides the fact that many compromise decisions and uncertaintie...