Cyprus Journal of Science and Technology Vol. 2.3 (1999)

List of Abstracts

Vsevolod Levtchitch

“Cyclic and Seismic Behaviour of Tensile Reinforcement in Reinforced Concrete Beams”

An assessment of low-and-high cycle fatigue of longitudinal reinforcement is presented. Reinforcement in air, reinforced concrete tensile elements, beams with traditional externally placed steel strip reinforcement and partially unbounded beams were tested and analysed. Variables: maximum and minimum stress levels and asymmetry coefficients of cyclic loadings, frequency, type, grade and unbonded length of reinforcement. Experimentally obtained quantities of strains provided the basis for an analysis of deformality and fatigue limits. By determining strains at any number of cyclic loadings which is of interest, we open a way for the realistic assessment of stress-strain state, development of cracks and deflections. Both deformality and strength capacities may be evaluated on the common base: strains.

John Mylonakis

“The Marketing of Museum Services. A Research study of the Hellenic Museums attitudes”

Museums offer services in the non-profit sector of the economy. As such, they possess all the characteristics of services, likely intagibility, inseparability, heterogeneity, perishability and lack of ownership. Museums need to be market-oriented, if they are to survive, if they are to command not only the respect of the taxpayer or ratepayer or visitor, but the willingness of those users to provide the funds which they need. The basic objective for the majority of the Greek museums is mainly to collect and preserve objects. Museums were built for the purpose of collecting and preserving antiquities, while collecting is a major task for most museums, since the country is rich in ancient treasures. The present study showed the increasing interest of the museums $(B!G (B directors to turn to marketing principles to help them better understand and satisfy the needs and wants of their various publics.

Dimitris Papaioannou, Maria Caparis

“Strategies for sustainable management of freshwater resources on Mediterranean Islands”

Freshwater as a natural resource exhibits a growing shortage worldwide due to persistent drought, linked to the greenhouse effect, combined with a steady increase in water consumption due to increased human activity. Islands especially suffer from water shortage more than continental areas due to difficulties in transferring water through natural sources, such as rivers, aquifers etc. The purpose of this study is to review existing problems related to freshwater resources management on Mediterranean islands and policies implemented to overcome them, to present foreseeable mid-term developments and to propose strategies required at regional and European level in order to manage and use freshwater resources in a more rational and sustainable manner, to prevent or at least limit all types of pollution in the future and to monitor the quality of freshwater.

The main conclusion of the study is that, the rational and sustainable management of freshwater resources may be encompassed in a plan of 9 points in which are included priorities and models for liquid waste treatment with emphasis on full treatment and recycling. Furthermore, the advanced treatment of liquid wastes followed by recycling is considered as the best practice for pollution prevention.

Andreas Poullikkas, Adonis kellas

“Power Generation Using Conventional Fuels”

In this work, the future of power generation using various conventional fuels is examined. The chemical content and the properties of each fuel is described. Also, their reserves, their supply and their foreseen prices are discussed.

Yiannis Katsoulacos, Nicolas Tsounis

“Services as carriers of technology flows in the Greek economy”

Technology diffusion is the mechanism through which firms acquire technology from external sources rather than generating it internally. In the literature it has been established that there are links between technology diffusion and productivity gains. Since, knowledge intensive business services (KIBS) promote technology and knowledge diffusion they are expected to have positive effects on the productivity growth of the primary factors of production. This paper examines the effects of services as carriers of technology flows on productivity growth in the Greek economy using measurements of KIBS inputs based on input-output methodology. The findings suggest that business services play an important role in explaining the rates of growth of total factor productivity. It is strongly suggested that business services are a distinct factor of production since they are important factors of production, capital and labour. Further, it has been found that sectors over the years; manufacturing sectors tend to use business services more than the tertiary sectors over the years. Finally, it has been found that there is a shift in business service use from the labour-intensive sectors to capital-intensive sectors.

Leonidas Constantinou, Rafiqul Gani, Khosrow Bagherpour, David Bogle

“An application of the group contribution approach to study biochemical processes involving an organic phase”

A Computer-Aided Molecular Design (CAMD) methodology has been developed to design solvents for a particular class of biochemical processes, two liquid phase biotransformations involving organic solvents. New property estimation methods have been included in order to expand the scope of the molecular design. An example of industrial application involving the design of solvents for the biotransformation of Toluene to Toluene Cis-Glycol has been studied and the results have been discussed and verified by process simulation.

Nitin Naresh, Costas Kyriacou, Costas Sofroniou

“Hardware Implementation of the fast fourier transform algorithm using reconfigurable computing techniques”

Re-configurable Logic technology has revolutionized the design cycle for digital circuits and systems. Digital Signal Processing systems are now being implemented on FPGAs (Field Programmable Gate Arrays) since they provide easy programmability, less time-to-market and, also, prove economical as compared to traditional ASIC (Application-Specific Integrated Circuit) designs. This paper presents a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) implementation using FPGAs and gives a quantitative report on the possible designs for small, fast FFT implementations. Resource requirements and timing analysis for N-point FFTs {for N between 4 and 64} were calculated using the simulations reports generated by Xilinx M1-based Foundation Tools 1.5 for all the basic necessary components. The designs for all components were described in VHDL and compiled in the Xilinx Design Synthesis and Implementation Tools.