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Despite the dramatic increase in construction toward additive manufacturing, several challenges are faced using natural materials such as Earth and salt compared to the most market-useable materials in 3D printing as concrete which consumes high carbon emission.

Characterization and mechanical tests were conducted on 19 samples for three natural binders in dry and wet tests to mimic the additive manufacturing process in order to reach an efficient extrudable and printable mixture that fits the 3D printer.

Upon testing compressive strength against grain size, compaction, cohesion, shape, heat and water content, X-Salt was shown to record high compressive strength of 9.5 MPa. This is equivalent to old Karshif and fire bricks and surpasses both rammed Earth and new Karshif. Material flow analysis for X-Salt assessing energy usage showed that only 10% recycled waste was produced by the end of the life cycle compared to salt.

Findings are expected to upscale the use of 3D salt printing in on-site and off-site architectural applications.

Findings contribute to attempts to resolve challenges related to vernacular architecture using 3D salt printing with sufficient stability.

Benefits include recyclability and minimum environmental impact. Social aspects related to technology integration remain however for further research.

This paper expands the use of Karshif, a salt-based traditional building material in Egypt's desert by using X-Salt, a salt-base and natural adhesive, and investigating its printability by testing its mechanical properties to reach a cleaner and low-cost sustainable 3D printed mixture.

In recent years there has been growing discussion in the library community regarding the civic role of the public library. The discussion is rooted in a deep-seated professional commitment to the value of the public library as an institution of democratic society. As a recent president of the American Library Association, Nancy Kranich, wrote in 2001, “Libraries serve the most fundamental ideals of our society as uniquely democratic institutions. As far back as the nineteenth century, libraries were hailed as institutions that schooled citizens in the conduct of democratic life.” (p. vi).

The purpose of this paper is to present a “bottom-up approach” for cultural tourism management in the old city of As-Salt in Jordan. The city of As-Salt has unique historic buildings that represent Jordan’s traditional urban life; however, it is rarely promoted in the tourism map of Jordan.

This paper assessed the existing local policies and strategies dealing with the case of As-Salt, and reviewed some other international and regional case studies. The method adopted included semi-structured interviews and designated questionnaires directed to the most relevant stakeholders and visitors. The assessment process depended on “Integrated Cultural Heritage Management Approach” in order to identify the parameters that needed to be considered while planning for a sustainable management approach in the city.

The results showed many managerial problems and gaps in dealing with the core of the city as a tourist attraction. Results and recommendations mainly relied on the need for an entity to be an official umbrella to guide the relationship between heritage protection and tourism development in the city. A new scenario of tourist itineraries in the city is presented with new idea of developing cultural events and activities.

No similar prior studies were carried out in As-Salt that are tackling this subject. And it is hoped that this approach will lead and guide other similarly situated destinations as they develop plans and approaches for their cities.

The objective of this research study is to formulate and develop a novel optimization model that enables planners of modular construction to minimize the total transportation and storage costs of prefabricated modules in modular construction projects.

The model is developed by identifying relevant decision variables, formulating an objective function capable of minimizing the total transportation and storage costs and modelling relevant constraints. The model is implemented by providing all relevant planner-specified data and performing the model optimization computations using mixed-integer programming to generate the optimal solution.

A case study of hybrid modular construction of a healthcare facility is used to evaluate the model performance and demonstrate its capabilities in minimizing the total transportation and onsite storage costs of building prefabricated modules.

The model can be most effective in optimizing transportation for prefabricated modules with rectangular shapes and might be less effective for modules with irregular shapes. Further research is needed to consider the shape of onsite storage area and its module arrangement.

The developed model supports construction planners in improving the cost effectiveness of modular construction projects by optimizing the transportation of prefabricated modules from factories to construction sites.

The original contributions of this research is selecting an optimal module truck assignment from a feasible set of trucks, identifying an optimal delivery day of each module as well as its location and orientation on the assigned truck and complying with relevant constraints including the non-overlap of modules on each truck, shipment weight distribution and aerodynamic drag reduction.

Salt weathering is one of the most common agents of decay of Central Asian earthen sites and is in function of water evaporation from the wall surface. Soon after excavation the earthen walls and the stupa of the Buddhist temple of Ajina Tepa (seventh-eighth century AD) started to deteriorate due lack of protection and surface erosion. The most important issue in the planning of conservation work was to understand such mechanisms and to decrease the effect of salt weathering on structural damage. The purpose of this paper is to discuss these issues.

Evaporation distribution and salts types were studied on selected walls. In addition, three-dimensional recording of the walls and the stupa was undertaken with digital photogrammetric methods.

It was clearly found that the intensity of salt weathering in the site is high and some salts such as halite (sodium chloride) are thought to originate from groundwater. On the basis of the results obtained, thick shelter coating with mud brick and mud render was designed and constructed as protective measure for the earthen walls.

Those walls that were most affected by salts weathering and erosion at the base (coving) became structurally less sound and eventually collapsed if not conserved.

The work is the first attempt in the design of a methodology for the selection of earthen repair materials and methods.

The World Heritage site of Moenjodaro, located in the Indus flood plain and dating to the early Bronze Age, is believed to be the most important urban centre of the Indus valley culture. The purpose of the paper is to discuss the main conservation threats and the mechanisms of decay affecting the site and to understand the influence of soluble salts on materials such as fired brick and soil. Furthermore, the paper aims to describe the repair methods employed against salt attack and provides a scheme for site management.

In the paper a literature review is followed by laboratory experiments.

The main result is the experimental assessment of the repair materials and methods traditionally employed in Moenjodaro. No evaluation was undertaken prior to this study and this makes the work the more relevant.

A more complete and detailed study of the materials examined here might have been achieved if more samples had been analysed. The present study is therefore characterised by this limitation which, however, does not undermine the significance of the work.

The results have practical applicability to the conservation of Moenjodaro in a variety of ways. The experimental analysis of materials will be essential to determine the type of intervention required for conserving the site.

The value of this paper derives from the originality of the work done, being the first of its kind for Moenjodaro. It will be especially useful to those conservators working in the site, but also in similar sites. It stresses the importance of testing before any conservation work is carried out.

Cloud computing is becoming increasingly popular as it facilitates convenient, ubiquitous, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources and applications that can be quickly retrieved and released. Despite its numerous merits, it faces setbacks in data security and privacy. Data encryption is one of the most popular solutions for data security in the cloud. Various encryption algorithms have been implemented to address security concerns. These algorithms have been reviewed along with the Jumbling Salting algorithm and its applications. The framework for using Jumbling Salting to encrypt text files in the cloud environment (CloudJS) has been thoroughly studied and improvised. The purpose of this paper is to implement the CloudJS algorithm, to discuss its performance and compare the obtained results with existing cloud encryption schemes.

The paper uses six research questions to analyze the performance of CloudJS algorithm in the cloud environment. The research questions are about measuring encryption time and throughput, decryption time and throughput, the ratio of cipher to the plain text of CloudJS algorithm with respect to other Cloud algorithms like AES and DES. For this purpose, the algorithm has been implemented using dockers-containers in the Linux environment.

It was found that CloudJS performs well in terms of encryption time, decryption time and throughput. It is marginally better than AES and undoubtedly better than DES in these parameters. The performance of the algorithm is not affected by a number of CPU cores, RAM size and Line size of text files. It performs decently well in all scenarios and all resultant values fall in the desired range.

CloudJS can be tested with cloud simulation platforms (CloudSim) and cloud service providers (AWS, Google Cloud). It can also be tested with other file types. In the future, CloudJS algorithm can also be implemented in images and other files.

To the best of the knowledge, this is the first attempt to implement and analysis of a custom encryption algorithm (CloudJS) in the cloud environment using dockers-containers.

The authors have carried out a research project on artisanal salt activity in the Gulf of Cadiz, providing a new vision of the theories of intangible cultural heritage. The main objective has been to characterise artisanal salt activity in terms of its cultural and sustainable values, a perspective that had not been addressed until now. Moreover, the replacement of this activity by a more industrialised one has contributed to problems in the preservation of this heritage and a transformation of its places.

The research has combined qualitative methodology, based on observation and fieldwork, with a statistical review of the phenomenon under study. Finally, the data has been triangulated to understand the heritage and sustainable value, as well as its historical evolution.

All this contributes to understanding the importance of artisanal salt activity as an element of the intangible cultural heritage of the region, for the conservation of biodiversity and sustainable ways of life in the marshes of the Gulf of Cadiz, and the possibility of preserving it in the face of the problems of globalisation.

To date, there has been no research that combines sustainability and heritage in the field of salt activity. Likewise, until this study was carried out, there had been no research on salt activity from the perspective of intangible cultural heritage.

Paint that is used as exterior finish is subject to the stresses of the climate. The factors of climate such as sun and rain are major source of quick deterioration of paint. The existence of saline air and endogenic salt in substrates in any environment will increase the rate of failure and frequency of repainting of building exterior wall. The purpose of this paper is to ascertain the difference in the frequency of repainting of exterior surface of buildings in areas at close proximity to the Atlantic Ocean and the hinterland.

The research adopted a survey method that involved the administration of structured questionnaire on 384 respondents to elicit data for analysis. SPSS 15.0 software was used to analyse the data. The study area is divided into two zones.

Paint of the same quality from the same manufacturer is found to perform differently. All defects that are caused by salt attack occur earlier in Zone B than Zone A. The frequency of repainting (maintenance) in Zone A is two years due to direct contact with the Atlantic Ocean and Zone B is four years because of the distance from the ocean.

This study enlightens the stakeholders in the building industry in the preparation of maintenance schedule for buildings in salty environment. It will also assist the architects in decision making during specifications of exterior finishes in such environments. The maintenance challenges of paint that is applied as exterior finish in salty environment is made clear.

It is a novel search into understanding the maintenance frequency of paint that is applied as exterior finish of buildings in areas with direct and indirect contact to salt attack.

Khiva is a UNESCO World Heritage site with ancient mudbrick buildings and a complete city wall. These are threatened from below by water and salt, and we seek to understand how the deterioration is happening and can be stopped. We have done investigations in the subsoil over several years to determine that destruction is caused by waterlogging, shifts in the ground, termites, and other damage. The damage has been caused by agricultural practices, especially leaky irrigation systems. Some of Khiva's buildings are becoming structurally unsound from water damage. Our studies at several sites confirm that water diversion will be necessary to prevent further infiltration of salt and water. Khiva's legacy is contained in the ancient buildings which are an important part of Silk Road history. Our research contributes to the understanding how to protect mudbrick buildings from environmental factors and deformation processes.