Around 1200 AD, a number of remarkable rock churches were constructed in Lalibela, a town in northern Ethiopia. One construction manner stands apart in its uniqueness. This is the rock-hewn monolithic church, which while imitating a built-up structure is actually cut in one piece from the rock and separated from it by an all-around trench. The best known of the monolithic churches is Bet Giorgi...

Abstract Bener Dam Diversion Tunnel is located in two rock units such as andesite and breccia. Based on the engineering geology investigation, subsurface tunnel will penetrate breccia with good mass quality (fresh-moderately weathered), while surrounding consist of breccias moderate poor quality. Geological conditions are used basis for stability analysis excavation methods determining primary ...

The correlation between the geographic occurrence of Balkan endemic nephropathy (BEN) and low rank Pliocene lignites is striking. Comparison of mass spectra of methanol extracts from lignite samples collected in the vicinity of two endemic villages, with mass spectra of methanol extracts higher grade coals, shows the presence of many more potentially nephrotoxic compounds, and much higher total...

This work aimed to evaluate the capability of different microorganisms to degrade commercial diesel oil in comparison to a weathered diesel oil collected from the groundwater at a petrol station. Two microbiological methods were used for the biodegradability assessment: the technique based on the redox indicator 2,6 -dichlorophenol indophenol (DCPIP) and soil respirometric experiments using bio...

I will start this treatise with a history of two major themes in data integration. In my opinion, the topic began with the major retailers in the 1990s consolidating their sales data into a data warehouse. To do this they needed to extract data from in-store sales systems, transform it into a predefined common representation (think of this as a global schema), and then load it into a data wareh...

In order to automate the scooping task, it is desirable that the resistive force acting on the bucket be obtained before the scooping is performed. The objective of this study is to derive theoretically the resistive forces acting on the bucket during scooping of piled rock fragments. First, the changes in the shape of the rock pile due to the penetration of it by the bucket are modeled. Based ...

The fragmentation of high-density polyethylene (HDPE) films from single-use supermarket plastic bags to microplastics under laboratory-simulated onshore and nearshore conditions was investigated for a period of 6 months. The weathering process of the plastic strips either on beach sand or in seawater under direct natural sunlight was monitored by tensile strength, molecular weight measurements,...