Search results for: constructive knowledge building

Authors: Shahid Razzaq

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The governments around the globe have started taking into considerations the knowledge management dynamics while formulating, implementing, and evaluating the strategies, with or without the conscious realization, for the different public sector organizations and public policy developments. Health Department of Punjab province in Pakistan is striving to deliver quality healthcare services to the community through an efficient and effective service delivery system. Despite of this struggle some employee performance issues yet exists in the form of challenge to government. To overcome these issues department took several steps including HR strategies, use of technologies and focus of hard issues. Consequently, this study was attempted to highlight the importance of soft issue that is knowledge management in its true essence to tackle their performance issues. Knowledge management in public sector is quite an ignored area in the knowledge management-a growing multidisciplinary research discipline. Knowledge-based view of the firm theory asserts the knowledge is the most deliberate resource that can result in competitive advantage for an organization over the other competing organizations. In the context of our study it means for gaining employee performance, organizations have to increase the heterogeneous knowledge bases. The study uses the cross-sectional and quantitative research design. The data is collected from the knowledge workers of Health Department of Punjab, the biggest province of Pakistan. A total of 341 sample size is achieved. The SmartPLS 3 Version 2.6 is used for analyzing the data. The data examination revealed that knowledge management processes has a strong impact on knowledge worker performance. All hypotheses are accepted according to the results. Therefore, it can be summed up that to increase the employee performance knowledge management activities should be implemented. Health Department within province of Punjab introduces the knowledge management infrastructure and systems to make effective availability of knowledge for the service staff. This knowledge management infrastructure resulted in an increase in the knowledge management process in different remote hospitals, basic health units and care centers which resulted in greater service provisions to public. This study is to have theoretical and practical significances. In terms of theoretical contribution, this study is to establish the relationship between knowledge management and performance for the first time. In case of the practical contribution, this study is to give an insight to public sector organizations and government about role of knowledge management in employ performance. Therefore, public policymakers are strongly advised to implement the activities of knowledge management for enhancing the performance of knowledge workers. The current research validated the substantial role of knowledge management in persuading and creating employee arrogances and behavioral objectives. To the best of authors’ knowledge, this study contribute to the impact of knowledge management on employee performance as its originality.

Keywords: employee performance, knowledge management, public sector, soft issues

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Authors: Satien Janpla, Thanawan Boonpuck, Pattarapan Roonrakwit

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In this paper, we present a hamster knowledge system based on android application. The objective of this system is to advice user to upkeep and feed hamsters based on mobile application. We describe the design approaches and functional components of this system. The system was developed based on knowledge based of hamster experts. The results were divided by the research purposes into 2 parts: developing the mobile application for advice users and testing and evaluating the system. Black box technique was used to evaluate application performances and questionnaires were applied to measure user satisfaction with system usability by specialists and users.

Keywords: hamster knowledge, Android application, black box, questionnaires

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Authors: Sadegh Abedi, Ali Yaghoubi, Hamidreza Mashatzadegan

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This paper proposes an approach to identify key processes required by an organization in the field of knowledge management and aligning them with organizational objectives. For this purpose, first, organization’s most important non-financial objectives which are impacted by knowledge management processes are identified and then, using a quality house, are linked with knowledge management processes which are regarded as technical elements. Using this method, processes that are in need of improvement and more attention are prioritized based on their significance. This means that if a process has more influence on organization’s objectives and is in a dire situation comparing to others, is prioritized for choice and improvement. In this research process dominance is considered to be an influential element in process ranking (in addition to communication matrix). This is the reason for utilizing DEA techniques for prioritizing processes in quality house. Results of implementing the method in Khuzestan steel company represents this method’s capability of identifying key processes that require improvements in organization’s knowledge management system.

Keywords: knowledge management, organizational performance, fuzzy data, envelopment analysis

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Authors: Fu-Chi Chuang, Yu-Liang, Chang, Wen-Der Wang

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Our environment has been contaminated by many artificial chemicals, such as plastics, pesticides. Many of them have hormone-like activity and are classified as 'environmental hormone (also named endocrine disruptors)'. These chemicals interfere with or mimic hormones have adverse effects that persist into adulthood. Environmental education is an important way to teach students to become engaged in real-world issues that transcend classroom walls. Elementary education is the first stage to perform environmental education and it is an important component to help students develop adequate environmental knowledge, attitudes, and behavior. However, elementary teachers' knowledge plays a critical role in this mission. Therefore, we use a questionnaire to survey the knowledge of environmental hormone of elementary school teachers and their learning motivation of the environmental hormone-regarding knowledge. We collected 218 questionnaires from Taiwanese elementary teachers and the results indicate around 73% of elementary teachers do not have enough knowledge about environmental hormones. Our results also reveal the in-service elementary teachers’ learning motivation of environmental hormones knowledge is positively enhanced once they realized their insufficient cognitive ability of environmental hormones. We believe our study will provide the powerful reference for Ministry of Education to set up the policy of environmental education to enrich all citizens sufficient knowledge of the effects of the environmental hormone on organisms, and further to enhance our correct environmental behaviors.

Keywords: elementary teacher, environmental hormones, learning motivation, questionnaire

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Authors: Mounir Ben Zid

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The controversy over the most effective teaching method to facilitate the increase of a student's knowledge has remained a frustration for poetry teachers at Sultan Qaboos University in Oman for the last ten years. Scholars and educationists have pursued answers to this question, and tremendous effort has been marshalled to discover the optimum teaching strategy, with little success. The present study stems from this perpetual frustration among teachers of poetry and the dispute about the repertoire of teaching methods. It attempts to shed light on an alternative direction which, it is believed, has received less scholarly attention than deserved. It emphasizes the need to create a democratic and human atmosphere of learning, arouses students' genuine interest, provides students with aesthetic pleasure, and enable them to appreciate and enjoy the beauty and musicality of words in poems. More important, this teaching-learning style should aim to secure rapport with students, invite teachers to inspire the passion and love of poetry in their students and help them not to lose the sense of wonder and enthusiasm that should be in the forefront of enjoying poetry. Hence, it is the need of the time that, after they have an interest, feeling and desire for poetry, university students can move to heavier tasks and discussions about poetry and how to further understand and analyze what is being portrayed. It is timely that the pendulum swung in support of the humanization of education and building rapport with students at Sultan Qaboos University.

Keywords: education, humanization, learning style, Rapport

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Authors: Farrin Ghorbanalavi, Nihal Arıoğlu

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The concept of enhancing mechanical /thermal/physical properties of architectural materials is being practiced for over five decades. In comparison with other approaches, the current nanotechnology era equally attracted the structural scientists, engineers, and industries. It simply promises that using building blocks with dimensions in the nano size range makes it possible to design and develop new multi-functional materials. This research focuses on understanding the effects of nanotechnology on the building facade and new facade concepts based on the new possibilities of nanotechnology. Mentioned factors are very prosperous for the comfort as well as sustainability of the building itself. Furthermore, the study suggests that the potential for energy conservation and reduced waste, toxicity, non-renewable resource consumption, and carbon emissions through the architectural applications of nanotechnologies significant. More clearly, it provides us the information about what does the future hold for surface structures.

Keywords: sustainable, nano materials, façade, energy efficiency

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Authors: Azeez Balogun

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Inexperienced building score practices are continually evolving and vary across areas. Yet, a few middle ideas stay steady, such as website selection, design, energy efficiency, water and material conservation, indoor environmental great, operational optimization, and waste discount. The essence of green building lies inside the optimization of 1 or more of those standards. This paper conducts a comparative analysis of 7 extensively recognized sustainable score structures—BREEAM, CASBEE, green GLOBES, inexperienced superstar, HK-BEAM, IGBC green homes, and LEED—based totally on the perceptions and opinions of stakeholders in Nigeria certified in green constructing rating systems. The purpose is to pick out and adopt an appropriate green building rating device for Nigeria. Numerous components of those systems had been tested to determine the high-quality health of the Nigerian built environment. The findings imply that LEED, the important machine within the USA and Canada, is the most suitable for Nigeria due to its sturdy basis, extensive funding, and confirmed blessings. LEED obtained the highest rating of eighty out of one hundred points on this assessment.

Keywords: structure, built surroundings, inexperienced building score gadget, Nigeria Inexperienced Constructing Council, sustainability

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Authors: D. Nam Kim, D. Jin Kim, Jeonghwan Jeon

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Defense Defensive Modeling and Simulation (M&S) is a system which enables impracticable training for reducing constraints of time, space and financial resources. The necessity of defensive M&S has been increasing not only for education and training but also virtual fight. Soldiers who are using defensive M&S for education and training will obtain empirical knowledge and know-how. However, the obtained knowledge of individual soldiers have not been managed and utilized yet since the nature of military organizations: confidentiality and frequent change of members. Therefore, this study aims to develop a management system for the experience of defensive M&S based on data mining approach. Since individual empirical knowledge gained through using the defensive M&S is both quantitative and qualitative data, data mining approach is appropriate for dealing with individual empirical knowledge. This research is expected to be helpful for soldiers and military policy makers.

Keywords: data mining, defensive m&s, management system, knowledge management

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Authors: Aline Valverde Arroteia, Tatiana Gondim do Amaral, Silvio Burrattino Melhado

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During the last twenty years, the construction field in Brazil has evolved significantly in response to its market growing and competitiveness. However, this evolving path has faced many obstacles such as cultural barriers and the lack of efforts to achieve quality at the construction site. At the same time, the greatest amount of information generated on the designing or construction phases is lost due to the lack of an effective coordination of these activities. Face this problem, the aim of this research was to implement a French method named PEO which means preparation for building construction (in Portuguese) seeking to understand the design management process and its interface with the building construction phase. The research method applied was qualitative, and it was carried out through two case studies in the city of Goiania, in Goias, Brazil. The research was divided into two stages called pilot study at Company A and implementation of PEO at Company B. After the implementation; the results demonstrated the PEO method's effectiveness and feasibility while a booster on the quality improvement of design management. The analysis showed that the method has a purpose to improve the design and allow the reduction of failures, errors and rework commonly found in the production of buildings. Therefore, it can be concluded that the PEO is feasible to be applied to real estate and building companies. But, companies need to believe in the contribution they can make to the discovery of design failures in conjunction with other stakeholders forming a construction team. The result of PEO can be maximized when adopting the principles of simultaneous engineering and insertion of new computer technologies, which use a three-dimensional model of the building with BIM process.

Keywords: communication, design and construction interface management, preparation for building construction (PEO), proactive coordination (CPA)

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Authors: Anna Juliet Stephens

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This research emphasises the importance of incorporating traditional ecological knowledge into Peru’s development plans, as a way to manage some of the more adverse impacts of globalisation which continue to impinge on one of the world’s most biodiverse regions. In doing so, it argues for a development strategy to be implemented in the Peruvian Amazon which prioritises local and indigenous rights, needs and perspectives.

Keywords: traditional ecological knowledge, peruvian amazon, globalisation, indigenous, development

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Authors: Daniel Y. Abebe, Jaehyouk Choi

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The design philosophy of building structure has been changing over time. The reason behind this is an increase in human interest regarding the improvements in building materials and technology that will affect how we live, the aim to speed up construction period, and the environmental effect which includes earthquakes and other natural disasters. One technique which takes into account the above case is using a prefabricable structural system, in which each and every structural element is designed and prefabricated and assembled on a site so that the construction speed is increased and the environmental impact is also enhanced. This system has immense advantages such as reduced construction cost, reusability, recyclability, faster construction period and less enviromental effect. In this study, some of the developed and evaluated structural elements of building structures are presented.

Keywords: eccentrically braced frame, natural disaster, prefabricable structural system, removable link, SGSS

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Authors: Fumiya Sugino, Naohiro Nakamura, Yuji Miyazu

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In earthquake resistant design of buildings, evaluation of vibration characteristics is important. In recent years, due to the increment of super high-rise buildings, the evaluation of response is important for not only the first mode but also higher modes. The knowledge of vibration characteristics in buildings is mostly limited to the first mode and the knowledge of higher modes is still insufficient. In this paper, using earthquake observation records of a SRC building by applying frequency filter to ARX model, characteristics of first and second modes were studied. First, we studied the change of the eigen frequency and the damping ratio during the 3.11 earthquake. The eigen frequency gradually decreases from the time of earthquake occurrence, and it is almost stable after about 150 seconds have passed. At this time, the decreasing rates of the 1st and 2nd eigen frequencies are both about 0.7. Although the damping ratio has more large error than the eigen frequency, both the 1st and 2nd damping ratio are 3 to 5%. Also, there is a strong correlation between the 1st and 2nd eigen frequency, and the regression line is y=3.17x. In the damping ratio, the regression line is y=0.90x. Therefore 1st and 2nd damping ratios are approximately the same degree. Next, we study the eigen frequency and damping ratio from 1998 after 3.11 earthquakes, the final year is 2014. In all the considered earthquakes, they are connected in order of occurrence respectively. The eigen frequency slowly declined from immediately after completion, and tend to stabilize after several years. Although it has declined greatly after the 3.11 earthquake. Both the decresing rate of the 1st and 2nd eigen frequencies until about 7 years later are about 0.8. For the damping ratio, both the 1st and 2nd are about 1 to 6%. After the 3.11 earthquake, the 1st increases by about 1% and the 2nd increases by less than 1%. For the eigen frequency, there is a strong correlation between the 1st and 2nd, and the regression line is y=3.17x. For the damping ratio, the regression line is y=1.01x. Therefore, it can be said that the 1st and 2nd damping ratio is approximately the same degree. Based on the above results, changes in eigen frequency and damping ratio are summarized as follows. In the long-term study of the eigen frequency, both the 1st and 2nd gradually declined from immediately after completion, and tended to stabilize after a few years. Further it declined after the 3.11 earthquake. In addition, there is a strong correlation between the 1st and 2nd, and the declining time and the decreasing rate are the same degree. In the long-term study of the damping ratio, both the 1st and 2nd are about 1 to 6%. After the 3.11 earthquake, the 1st increases by about 1%, the 2nd increases by less than 1%. Also, the 1st and 2nd are approximately the same degree.

Keywords: eigenfrequency, damping ratio, ARX model, earthquake observation records

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Authors: Henni Sid Ahmed, Belbachir Mohamed Faouzi, Jean Caelen

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Behavior recognition has been studied for realizing drivers assisting system and automated navigation and is an important studied field in the intelligent Building. In this paper, a recognition method of behavior recognition separated from a real image was studied. Images were divided into several categories according to the actual weather, distance and angle of view etc. SIFT was firstly used to detect key points and describe them because the SIFT (Scale Invariant Feature Transform) features were invariant to image scale and rotation and were robust to changes in the viewpoint and illumination. My goal is to develop a robust and reliable system which is composed of two fixed cameras in every room of intelligent building which are connected to a computer for acquisition of video sequences, with a program using these video sequences as inputs, we use SIFT represented different images of video sequences, and SVM (support vector machine) Lights as a programming tool for classification of images in order to classify people’s behaviors in the intelligent building in order to give maximum comfort with optimized energy consumption.

Keywords: video analysis, people behavior, intelligent building, classification

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Authors: Caterina Calicchio, Talia Sbardella

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The ability to move through geographical and symbolic spaces is key for building new nodes and social relationships. Especially in the framework of language learning, accepting and valuing diversity can help to create a constructive atmosphere of cooperation, innovation, and creativity. Thus, it is important to outline the stages of forming a learning community, focusing on the characteristics that can favor its development. It is known that elements like curiosity and motivation are significant for individual language learning; hence, the study attempts to investigate how factors like openness to diversity and cultural immersion could improve Italian learning and teaching. This paper aims to indicate the factors that could be significant for the development of a Learning Community by presenting a case study on a course on Italian as a second language for beginners: first, the theoretical matrices underlying social learning will be outlined. Secondly, a quantitative study will be described based on an adaptation of the openness to diversity and some insights psychometric scale questionnaire developed at the Umbra Institute. The questionnaire was delivered to 52 American college students with open-ended and closed-ended questions. Students were asked to specify their level of agreement to a set of statements on a six-point Likert scale ranging from (1) Strongly disagree to (6) Strongly agree. The data has been analyzed with a quantitative and qualitative method and has been represented in a pie chart and in a histogram. Moreover, mean and frequency have been calculated. The research findings demonstrate that openness to diversity and challenge enhances cross-cutting skills such as intercultural and communicative competence: through cultural immersion and the facility of speaking with locals, the participants have been able to develop their own Italian L2 language community. The goal is to share with the scientific community some insights to trace possible future lines of research.

Keywords: Italian as second language, language learning, learning community, openness to diversity

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Authors: Ahmed Alaoui

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This paper contributes to the ongoing debate as to the relevance of translation studies to professional practitioners. It exposes the various misconceptions permeating the links between theory and practice in the translation landscape in the Arab World. It is a thesis of this paper that specialization in translation should be redefined; taking account of the fact, that specialized knowledge alone is neither crucial nor sufficient in technical translation. It should be tested against the readability of the translated text, the appropriateness of its style and the usability of its content by end-users to carry out their intended tasks. The paper also proposes a preliminary model to establish a working link between theory and practice from the perspective of professional trainers and practitioners, calling for the latter to participate in the production of knowledge in a systematic fashion. While this proposal is driven by a rather intuitive conviction, a research line is needed to specify the methodological moves to establish the mediation strategies that would relate the components in the model of knowledge transfer proposed in this paper.

Keywords: knowledge transfer, misconceptions, specialized texts, translation theory, translation practice

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Authors: Shuaibu Hassan Usman, Ishaq Oyebisi Oyefolahan

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This study was aimed to explore the latent factors in the web 2.0 enabled knowledge sharing practices instrument. Seven latent factors were identified through a factor analysis with orthogonal rotation and interpreted based on simple structure convergence, item loadings, and analytical statistics. The number of factors retains was based on the analysis of Kaiser Normalization criteria and Scree plot. The reliability tests revealed a satisfactory reliability scores on each of the seven latent factors of the web 2.0 enabled knowledge sharing practices. Limitation, conclusion, and future work of this study were also discussed.

Keywords: factor analysis, latent factors, knowledge sharing practices, students, web 2.0 enabled

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Authors: Van Dong Phung, Igor Hawryszkiewycz, Kyeong Kang, Muhammad Hatim Binsawad

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Knowledge sharing (KS) is the key to creativity and innovation in any organizations. Overcoming the KS barriers has created new challenges for designing in dynamic and complex environment. There may be interrelations and interdependences among the barriers. The purpose of this paper is to present a review of literature of KS barriers and impute the relative importance of them through the fuzzy analytic network process that is a generalization of the analytical hierarchy process (AHP). It helps to prioritize the barriers to find ways to remove them to facilitate KS. The study begins with a brief description of KS barriers and the most critical ones. The FANP and its role in identifying the relative importance of KS barriers are explained. The paper, then, proposes the model for research and expected outcomes. The study suggests that the use of the FANP is appropriate to impute the relative importance of KS barriers which are intertwined and interdependent. Implications and future research are also proposed.

Keywords: FANP, ANP, knowledge sharing barriers, knowledge sharing, removing barriers, knowledge management

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Authors: To Quyen Le, Oswald Devisch, Tu Anh Trinh, Els Hannes

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Urban centres worldwide are affected differently by flooding. In Vietnam this impact is increasingly negative caused by a process of rapid urbanisation. Traditional spatial planning and flood mitigation planning are not able to deal with this growing threat. This article therefore proposes to focus on increasing the participation of local communities in flood control and management. It explores, on the basis of a design studio exercise, how lay knowledge on flooding can be integrated within planning processes. The article presents a theoretical basis for the structured criterion for site selection for a flood resilient urban park from the perspective of science, then discloses the tacit and explicit knowledge of the flood-prone area and finally integrates this knowledge into the design strategies for flood resilient urban park design.

Keywords: analytic hierarchy process, AHP, design resilience, flood resilient urban park, knowledge integration

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Authors: S. Biondi, V. Catania, R. Di Natale, A. R. Intilisano, D. Panno

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One of the major goals of Spoken Dialog Systems (SDS) is to understand what the user utters. In the SDS domain, the Spoken Language Understanding (SLU) Module classifies user utterances by means of a pre-definite conceptual knowledge. The SLU module is able to recognize only the meaning previously included in its knowledge base. Due the vastity of that knowledge, the information storing is a very expensive process. Updating and managing the knowledge base are time-consuming and error-prone processes because of the rapidly growing number of entities like proper nouns and domain-specific nouns. This paper proposes a solution to the problem of Name Entity Recognition (NER) applied to a SDS domain. The proposed solution attempts to automatically recognize the meaning associated with an utterance by using the PANKOW (Pattern based Annotation through Knowledge On the Web) method at runtime. The method being proposed extracts information from the Web to increase the SLU knowledge module and reduces the development effort. In particular, the Google Search Engine is used to extract information from the Facebook social network.

Keywords: spoken dialog system, spoken language understanding, web semantic, name entity recognition

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Authors: Dewi Hardiningtyas Sugiono

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Concerning towards the quality of air comfort and safety to pedestrians in the University area should be increased as Indonesia economics booming. Hence, the University management needs guidelines of thermal comfort to innovate a new layout building. The objectives of this study is to investigate and then to evaluate the distribution of thermal comfort which is indicated by predicted mean vote (PMV) index at the University of Brawijaya (UB), Malang. The PMV figures are used to evaluate and to redesign the UB layout. The research is started with study literature and early survey to collect all information of building layout and building shape at the University of Brawijaya. The information is used to create a 3D model in CAD software. The model is simulated by Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) software to measure the PMV factors of air temperature, relative humidity and air speed in some locations. Validation is done by comparing between PMV value from observation and PMV value from simulation. The resuls of the research shows the most sensitive of microclimatic factors is air temperature surrounding the UB building. Finally, the research is successfully figure out the UB layout and provides further actions to increase the thermal comfort.

Keywords: thermal comfort, heat index (HI), CFD, layout

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Authors: Eid Badshah, Amjad Naseer, Muhammad Ashraf

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In this paper full-scale brick masonry room along with the veranda of a typical school building was subjected to eight successive blast tests with increasing charge weights ranging from 0.5kg to 16.02kg at 3.66m fixed stand-off distance. Pressure-time histories were obtained by data acquisition system from pressure sensors, installed on different points of room as well as veranda columns. The resulting damage pattern of different locations was observed during each test. Weak zones of masonry room were identified. Scaled distances for different damage levels in masonry room were experimentally obtained. The results provided a basis for determining the response of masonry room building against blast loading in a specific threat scenario.

Keywords: peak pressure, composition-B, TNT, pressure sensor, scaled distance, masonry

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Authors: Hussain Jiffry, Kypros Pilakoutas, Reyes Garcia Lopez

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This study examines the effect of tsunami loads on reinforced concrete (RC) frame buildings analytically. The impact of tsunami wave loads and waterborne objects are analyzed using a typical substandard full-scale two-story RC frame building tested as part of the EU-funded Ecoleader project. The building was subjected to shake table tests in bare condition and subsequently strengthened using Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymers (CFRP) composites and retested. Numerical models of the building in both bare and CFRP-strengthened conditions are calibrated in DRAIN-3DX software to match the test results. To investigate the response of wave loads and impact forces, the numerical models are subjected to nonlinear dynamic analyses using force-time history input records. The analytical results are compared in terms of displacements at the floors and the 'impact point' of a boat. The results show that the roof displacement of the CFRP-strengthened building reduced by 63% when compared to the bare building. The results also indicate that strengthening only the mid-height of the impact column using CFRP is more efficient at reducing damage when compared to strengthening other parts of the column. Alternative solutions to mitigate damage due to tsunami loads are suggested.

Keywords: tsunami loads, hydrodynamic load, impact load, waterborne objects, RC buildings

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Authors: Lesley Metibogun, Regan Potangaroa

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Some existing sustainable public libraries in New Zealand now depend on air conditioning system for cooling. This seems completely contradictory to sustainable building initiatives. A sustainable building should be ‘self- sufficient’ and must aim at optimising the use of natural ventilation, wind and daylight and avoiding too much summer heat penetration into the building, to save energy consumption and enhance occupants’ comfort. This paper demonstrates that with appropriate architectural passive design input public libraries do not require air conditioning. Following a brief outline of how our dependence on air conditioning has spread over the full range of building types and climatic zones, this paper focuses on public libraries in temperate climates where passive cooling should be feasible for long periods of mild outside temperature. It was found that current design policies, regulations and guidelines and current building design practices militate passive cooling strategies. Perceived association with prestige, inflexibility of design process, rigid planning regulations and sustainability rating systems were identified as key factors forcing the need for air conditioning. Recommendations are made on how to further encourage development in this direction from the perspective of architectural design. This paper highlights how architectural passive cooling design strategies should be implemented in government initiated policies and regulations to develop a more sustainable public libraries.

Keywords: public library, sustainable design, temperate climate, passive cooling, air conditioning

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Authors: Pratik Pankaj Pawar

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Lightweight structures - structures with reduced weight, which otherwise retain the qualities necessary for the building performance, ensuring proper durability and strength, safety, indoor environmental quality, and energy efficiency; structures that strive for the optimization of structural systems - are in tune with current trends and socio-economic, environmental, and technological factors. The growing interest in lightweight structures design makes them an ever more significant field of research. This article focuses on the architectural aspects of lightweight structures and on their contemporary and future applications. The selected advanced building technologies - i.e., Ultra-High-Performance Concrete, fabrics, and flexible photovoltaics.

Keywords: light weight building, carbyne, aerographite, geopolymer reinforced wood particles aggregate

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Authors: M. Fathy, I. Maarouf, S. El-Sayary

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Our buildings are responsible for around 50% of energy consumption and most of this consumption because of spaces design, low heat isolation building material and occupant presence and behavior in buildings beside non-efficient architectural treatments. It has been shown to have large impact on heating, cooling and ventilation demand, energy consumption of lighting and appliances, and building controls. This paper aims to focus on passive treatments in Wakala Buildings in Cairo and how far it meets the LEED Criteria as the LEED – Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design – considered the widest spread rating system in the world. By studying Wakala buildings in Cairo, there are a lot of environmental potentials in it in the field of passive treatments and energy efficiency that could be found in examples by surveying and analyzing Wakala buildings. Besides the environmental treatments through the natural materials and façade architectural treatments, there is a measuring phase to declare the efficiency of the Wakala building through temperature decline between outdoor and indoor the Wakala building. Also, measuring how far the indoor conditions matched the thermal comfort for occupants. After measuring the Wakala buildings, it is the role of applying the criteria of LEED rating system to find out how fare Wakala buildings meet the LEED rating system criteria. After all, the building technologies used in Wakala buildings in the field of passive design and caused that energy efficiency would be clear and what is needed for Wakala buildings to have a LEED Certification.

Keywords: energy awareness, historical commercial buildings, LEED, Wakala buildings

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Authors: E. S. Umdu, Ilker Kahraman, Nurdan Yildirim, Levent Bilir

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Algae-culture offers new applications in sustainable architecture with its continuous productive cycle, and a potential for high carbon dioxide capture. Microalgae itself has multiple functions such as carbon dioxide fixation, biomass production, oxygen generation and waste water treatment. Incorporating microalgae cultivation processes and systems to building design to utilize this potential is promising. Microalgae cultivation systems, especially closed photo bioreactors can be implemented as components in buildings. And these systems be accommodated in the façade of a building, or in other urban infrastructure in the future. Application microalgae bio-reactors of on building’s façade has the added benefit of acting as an effective insulation system, keeping out the heat of the summer and the chill of the winter. Furthermore, microalgae can give a dynamic appearance with a liquid façade that also works as an adaptive sunshade. Recently, potential of microalgae to use as a building component to reduce net energy demand in buildings becomes a popular topic and innovative design proposals and a handful of pilot applications appeared. Yet there is only a handful of examples in application and even less information on how these systems affect building energy behavior. Further studies on microalgae mostly focused on single application approach targeting either carbon dioxide utilization through biomass production or biofuel production. The main objective of this study is to investigate effects of design parameters of microalgae panel bio-reactors on light transmission characteristics and CO2 capture potential during growth of Nannochloropsis occulata sp. A maximum reduction of 18 ppm in CO2 levels of input air during the experiments with a % light transmission of 14.10, was achieved in 6 day growth cycles. Heat transfer behavior during these cycles was also inspected for possible façade applications.

Keywords: building façade, CO2 capture, light transmittance, microalgae

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Authors: Kadri-Ann Kertsmik, Martin Talvik, Kimmo Lylykangas, Simo Ilomets, Targo Kalamees

Abstract:

This study compares the building carbon footprint (CF) values for a case study of a private house located in a cold climate, using the Level(s) methodology. It provides a framework for measuring the environmental performance of buildings throughout their life cycle, taking into account various factors. The study presents the results of the three scenarios, comparing their carbon emissions and highlighting the benefits of circular material usage. The construction process was thoroughly documented, and all materials and components (including minuscule mechanical fasteners, each meter of cable, a kilogram of mortar, and the component of HVAC systems, among other things) delivered to the construction site were noted. Transportation distances of each delivery, the fuel consumption of construction machines, and electricity consumption for temporary heating and electrical tools were also monitored. Using the detailed data on material and energy resources, the CF was calculated for two scenarios: one where circular material usage was applied and another where virgin materials were used instead of reused ones. The results were compared with the CF calculated based on the building permit design model using the Level(s) methodology. To study the range of possible results in the early stage of CF assessment, the same building permit design was given to several experts. Results showed that embodied carbon values for a built scenario were significantly lower than the values predicted by the building permit stage as a result of more precise material quantities, as the calculation methodology is designed to overestimate the CF. Moreover, designers made an effort to reduce the building's CF by reusing certain materials such as ceramic tiles, lightweight concrete blocks, and timber during the construction process. However, in a cold climate context where operational energy (B6) continues to dominate, the total building CF value changes between the three scenarios were less significant. The calculation for the building permit project was performed by several experts, and CF results were in the same range. It alludes that, for the first estimation of preliminary building CF, using average values proves to be an appropriate method for the Estonian national carbon footprint estimation phase during building permit application. The study also identified several opportunities for reducing the carbon footprint of the building, such as reusing materials from other construction sites, preferring local material producers, and reducing wastage on site. The findings suggest that using circular materials can significantly reduce the carbon footprint of buildings. Overall, the study highlights the importance of using a comprehensive approach to measure the environmental performance of buildings, taking into account both the project and the actually built house. It also emphasises the need for ongoing monitoring for designing the building and construction site waste. The study also gives some examples of how to enable future circularity of building components and materials, e.g., building in layers, using wood as untreated, etc.

Keywords: carbon footprint, circular economy, sustainable construction, level(s) methodology

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Authors: Fatema Salman, Ridha Hammam, Fatima Khairallah, Fatima Aradi, Nafeesa Abdulla, Mohammed Alsafar

Abstract:

Purpose: This study aims at measuring the extent of nurses’ knowledge and attitudes toward the use of physical restraints in different hospital wards at Salmaniya Medical Complex (SMC). Background: The habitual use of physical restraint is a widespread practice among nurses working in the clinical settings. Restraints inflict many deleterious consequences on patients physically and psychologically which in turn increases their morbidity and mortality risk and jeopardizes care quality. Nurses’ knowledge and attitudes toward physical restraints are crucial determinants of the persistence of this practice. Literature review: the evidence of lack of knowledge among nurses regarding the use of physical restraints is overwhelming in various clinical settings, especially in two main areas which are the negative consequences and the available alternatives to physical restraints. Studies explored nurses’ attitudes toward physical restraints yielded inconsistent findings. Equally comparable, some studies found that nurses hold positive attitudes toward the use of physical restraints while some others reported just the opposite. Methods: Self-administered knowledge and attitudes scales to 106 nurses working in the SMC. Findings: nurses hold the moderate level of knowledge about restraints (M=58%) with weak negative attitudes (M = -20%) toward using it. Significant moderately-strong negative correlation (r= -0.57, r2= 0.32, p= 0.000) was uncovered between nurses knowledge and their attitudes which provided an empirical explanation of this phenomenon (use of physical restraints). Recommendations: Induction of awareness program that especially focuses on the negative consequences and encourages the use of alternatives is an evident need. This effort necessarily should be adjoined with policy and procedure adjustments.

Keywords: attitudes, knowledge, nurses, restraints

Procedia PDF Downloads 318

Authors: Atoum Abdullah

Abstract:

The purpose of this research is to determine the extent to which computer animation and narration affect students’ understanding of complex scientific concepts and improve their exam performance, this is compared to traditional lectures that include PowerPoints with texts and static images. A mixed-method design in data collection was used, including quantitative and qualitative data. Quantitative data was collected using a pre and post-test method and a close-ended questionnaire. Qualitative data was collected through an open-ended questionnaire. A pre and posttest strategy was used to measure the level of students’ understanding with and without the use of animation. The test included multiple-choice questions to test factual knowledge, open-ended questions to test conceptual knowledge, and to label the diagram questions to test application knowledge. The results showed that students on average, performed significantly higher on the posttest as compared to the pretest on all areas of acquired knowledge. However, the increase in the posttest score with respect to the acquisition of conceptual and application knowledge was higher compared to the increase in the posttest score with respect to the acquisition of factual knowledge. This result demonstrates that animation is more beneficial when acquiring deeper, conceptual, and cognitive knowledge than when only factual knowledge is acquired.

Keywords: animation, narration, science, teaching

Procedia PDF Downloads 170

Authors: Ahmad Naqi

Abstract:

Today, the passively controlled buildings are extensively becoming popular due to its excellent lateral load resistance circumstance. Typically, these buildings are enhanced with a damping device that has high market demand. Some manufacturer falsified the damping device parameter during the production to achieve the market demand. Therefore, this paper evaluates the seismic performance of buildings equipped with damping devices, which their parameter modified to simulate the falsified devices, intentionally. For this purpose, three benchmark buildings of 4-, 10-, and 20-story were selected from JSSI (Japan Society of Seismic Isolation) manual. The buildings are special moment resisting steel frame with oil damper in the longitudinal direction only. For each benchmark buildings, two types of structural elements are designed to resist the lateral load with and without damping devices (hereafter, known as Trimmed & Conventional Building). The target building was modeled using STERA-3D, a finite element based software coded for study purpose. Practicing the software one can develop either three-dimensional Model (3DM) or Lumped Mass model (LMM). Firstly, the seismic performance of 3DM and LMM models was evaluated and found excellent coincide for the target buildings. The simplified model of LMM used in this study to produce 66 cases for both of the buildings. Then, the device parameters were modified by ± 40% and ±20% to predict many possible conditions of falsification. It is verified that the building which is design to sustain the lateral load with support of damping device (Trimmed Building) are much more under threat as a result of device falsification than those building strengthen by damping device (Conventional Building).

Keywords: passive control system, oil damper, seismic assessment, lumped mass model

Procedia PDF Downloads 115