Search results for: sustainable urban morphology.

Authors: Benedetto Manganelli, Beniamino Murgante

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The distinction among urban, periurban and rural areas represents a classical example of uncertainty in land classification. Satellite images, geostatistical analysis and all kinds of spatial data are very useful in urban sprawl studies, but it is important to define precise rules in combining great amounts of data to build complex knowledge about territory. Rough Set theory may be a useful method to employ in this field. It represents a different mathematical approach to uncertainty by capturing the indiscernibility. Two different phenomena can be indiscernible in some contexts and classified in the same way when combining available information about them. This approach has been applied in a case of study, comparing the results achieved with both Map Algebra technique and Spatial Rough Set. The study case area, Potenza Province, is particularly suitable for the application of this theory, because it includes 100 municipalities with different number of inhabitants and morphologic features.

Keywords: Land Classification, Map Algebra, Periurban Fringe, Rough Set, Urban Planning, Urban Sprawl.

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Authors: Mike Dee

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Urban public spaces are sutured with a range of surveillance and sensor technologies that claim to enable new forms of ‘data based citizen participation’, but also increase the tendency for ‘function-creep’, whereby vast amounts of data are gathered, stored and analysed in a broad application of urban surveillance. This kind of monitoring and capacity for surveillance connects with attempts by civic authorities to regulate, restrict, rebrand and reframe urban public spaces. A direct consequence of the increasingly security driven, policed, privatised and surveilled nature of public space is the exclusion or ‘unfavourable inclusion’ of those considered flawed and unwelcome in the ‘spectacular’ consumption spaces of many major urban centres. In the name of urban regeneration, programs of securitisation, ‘gentrification’ and ‘creative’ and ‘smart’ city initiatives refashion public space as sites of selective inclusion and exclusion. In this context of monitoring and control procedures, in particular, children and young people’s use of space in parks, neighbourhoods, shopping malls and streets is often viewed as a threat to the social order, requiring various forms of remedial action. This paper suggests that cities, places and spaces and those who seek to use them, can be resilient in working to maintain and extend democratic freedoms and processes enshrined in Marshall’s concept of citizenship, calling sensor and surveillance systems to account. Such accountability could better inform the implementation of public policy around the design, build and governance of public space and also understandings of urban citizenship in the sensor saturated urban environment.

Keywords: Citizenship, Public Space, Surveillance, Young People.

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Authors: K. Tadjer, M. Bensaibi, A. Chaid

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The seismic vulnerability of an urban area is of a great deal for local authorities especially those facing earthquakes. So, it is important to have an efficient tool to assess the vulnerability of existing buildings. The use of the VIP (Vulnerability Index Program) and the GIS (Geographic Information System) let us to identify the most vulnerable districts of an urban area. The use of the vulnerability index method lets us to assess the vulnerability of the center town of Blida (Algeria) which is a historical town and which has grown enormously during the last decades. In this method, three levels of vulnerability are defined. The GIS has been used to build a data base in order to perform different thematic analyses. These analyses show the seismic vulnerability of Blida.

Keywords: Blida, Earthquake, GIS, Seismic vulnerability, Urban area.

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Authors: J. Costa, M. Ortigueira, A. Batista, T. Paiva

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Sleep spindles are the most interesting hallmark of stage 2 sleep EEG. Their accurate identification in a polysomnographic signal is essential for sleep professionals to help them mark Stage 2 sleep. Sleep Spindles are also promising objective indicators for neurodegenerative disorders. Visual spindle scoring however is a tedious workload. In this paper three different approaches are used for the automatic detection of sleep spindles: Short Time Fourier Transform, Wavelet Transform and Wave Morphology for Spindle Detection. In order to improve the results, a combination of the three detectors is presented and comparison with human expert scorers is performed. The best performance is obtained with a combination of the three algorithms which resulted in a sensitivity and specificity of 94% when compared to human expert scorers.

Keywords: EEG, Short Time Fourier Transform, Sleep Spindles, Wave Morphology for Spindle Detection, Wavelet Transform.

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Authors: Liang Wang, Wei Zhang

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Nowadays sustainable development has increasingly become an important research topic of engineering education all over the world. Engineering Education for Sustainable Development (EESD) highlighted the importance of addressing sustainable development in engineering practice. However, whether and how the professional engineering learning and experience affect those perceptions is an interesting research topic especially in Chinese context. Our study fills this gap by investigating perceptions bias of EESD among first-grade engineering students, fourth-grade engineering students and experienced engineers using a triple-dimensional model. Our goal is to find the effect of engineering learning and experience on sustainable development and make these learning and experiences more accessible for students and engineers in school and workplace context. The data (n = 138) came from a Likert questionnaire based on the triple-dimensional model of EESD adopted from literature reviews and the data contain 48 first-grade students, 56 fourth-grade students and 34 engineers with rich working experience from Environmental Engineering, Energy Engineering, Chemical Engineering and Civil Engineering in or graduated from Zhejiang University, China. One-way ANOVA analysis was used to find the difference in different dimensions among the three groups. The statistical results show that both engineering students and engineers have a well understanding of sustainable development in ecology dimension of EESD while there are significant differences among three groups as to the socio-economy and value rationality dimensions of EESD. The findings provide empirical evidence that both engineering learning and professional engineering experience are helpful to cultivate the cognition and perception of sustainable development in engineering education. The results of this work indicate that more practical content should be added to students’ engineering education while more theoretical content should be added to engineers’ training in order to promote the engineering students’ and engineers’ perceptions of sustainable development. In addition, as to the design of engineering courses and professional practice system for sustainable development, we should not only pay attention to the ecological aspects, but also emphasize the coordination of ecological, socio-economic and human-centered sustainable development (e.g., engineer's ethical responsibility).

Keywords: Engineering education, sustainable development, experienced engineers, engineering students.

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Authors: Fan Yang

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With the development of social economy and the popularization of quality education, the Chinese government invests more and more funding in education. Campus constructions are experiencing a great development phase. Under the trend of sustainable development, modern green campus design needs to meet new requirements of contemporary, informational and diversified education means and adapt to future education development. Educators, designers and other participants of campus design are facing new challenges. By studying and analyzing the universal unsatisfied current situations and sustainable development requirements of Chinese campuses, this paper summarizes the strategies and intentions of the whole-life-cycle campus design. In addition, a Chinese high school in Zhejiang province is added to illustrate the design cycle in an actual case. It is aimed to make all participants of campus design, especially the designers, to realize the importance of whole-life-cycle campus design and cooperate better. Sustainable campus design is expected to come true in deed instead of becoming a slogan in this way.

Keywords: Campus design, green school, sustainable development, whole-life-cycle design.

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Authors: Mahendran Samykano, Ram Mohan, Shyam Aravamudhan

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The objective of this work is to study the effect of two key factors - external magnetic field and applied current density during template-based electrodeposition of nickel nanowires using an electrode distance of 20 mm. Morphology, length, crystallite size and crystallographic characterization of the grown nickel nanowires at an electrode distance of 20mm are presented. For this electrode distance of 20 mm, these two key electrodeposition factors when coupled was found to reduce crystallite size with a higher growth length and preferred orientation of Ni crystals. These observed changes can be inferred to be due to coupled interaction forces induced by the intensity of applied electric field (current density) and external magnetic field known as magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) effect during the electrodeposition process.

Keywords: Anodic alumina oxide, electrodeposition, nanowires, nickel.

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Authors: Yoong H. Chan, Brenda C. T. Lee, Jin C. Lee

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As Malaysia aims to be a developed country by year 2020; the construction industry has since been identified as a major catalyst for the country to attain the status. It is one of the sectors that contribute to most environmental pollutions. It is, therefore, important for the industry to implement sustainable construction practices to reduce the negative impacts that it has on the environment. However, most Malaysian developers have placed much focus on market demand and economic factors; neglecting the need for attention on environmental issues. The practice of sustainable construction is deemed to be an obstacle to achieve short-term economic goals due to the higher cost incurred in the operations. Hence, choices need to be made and a balance needs to be struck in weighing the long-term environmental benefits against immediate economic factors. This paper discusses the challenges faced by Malaysian developers in adopting sustainable practices in the construction industry and the cause of these challenges. It also looks into the achievements and breakthroughs that developers in Malaysia have achieved so far. The paper aims explores the long-term benefits of sustainable practices that would potentially raise awareness on the feasibility and economic potential of sustainable construction.

Keywords: Construction industry, construction method, sustainability.

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Authors: Meryem Elif Çelebi Yakartepe, Ayşe Betül Gökarslan

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Sustainable architecture is an approach which accepts the climatic and tomographic data as a necessary preliminary data package by favoring the relationship between human and nature and which strives to use the sources economically. The reflection of sustainable architecture approach to preservation - restoration discipline is including the architectural inheritance to daily life with its unique or new function by restoring it.

The restoration decisions of Yılan Kırkan Fountain in Isparta province of Turkey is a good example of the works of sustainable architecture and the preservation of architectural inheritance. It is aimed that Yılan Kırkan Fountain, which is desolate nowadays with no function, to be restored by the local authorities and university, included in the daily life and continue its function.

Keywords: Conservation and Restoration, Sustainable Architecture, Movement Technique, Isparta Yılan Kırkan Fountain.

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Authors: Mary L. G. S. Senna, Veruska C. Dutra, Afonso R. Aquino

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The study is in application and analysis of two tourism management tools that can contribute to making public managers decision: the Barometer of Tourism Sustainability (BTS) and the Ecological Footprint (EF). The results have shown that BTS allows you to have an integrated view of the tourism system, awakening to the need for planning of appropriate actions so that it can achieve the positive scale proposed (potentially sustainable). Already the methodology of ecological tourism footprint is an important tool to measure potential impacts generated by tourism to tourist reality.

Keywords: Barometer of tourism sustainability, ecological footprint of tourism, Jalapão/Brazil, sustainable tourism.

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Authors: J. Subbalakshmi, G. Dhruvasamhith, S. M. Hussain

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Polyaniline (PANI) is one of the most extensively studied material among the conducting polymers due to its simple synthesis by chemical and electrochemical routes. PANIs have advantages of chemical stability and high conductivity making their commercial applications quite attractive. However, to our knowledge, very little work has been reported on the tensile strength properties of templated PANIs processed with polyvinyl alcohol and also, detailed study has not been carried out. We have investigated the effect of small molecule and polymers as templates on PANI. Stable aqueous colloidal suspensions of trisodium citrate (TSC), poly(ethylenedioxythiophene)-polystyrene sulfonate (PEDOT-PSS), and polyethylene glycol (PEG) templated PANIs were prepared through chemical synthesis, processed with polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and were fabricated into films by solution casting. Absorption and infra-red spectra were studied to gain insight into the possible molecular interactions. Surface morphology was studied through scanning electron microscope and optical microscope. Interestingly, tensile testing studies revealed least strain for pure PVA when compared to the blends of templated PANI. Furthermore, among the blends, TSC templated PANI possessed maximum elasticity. The ultimate tensile strength for PVA processed, PEG-templated PANI was found to be five times more than other blends considered in this study. We establish structure–property correlation with morphology, spectral characterization and tensile testing studies.

Keywords: Processed films, polyvinyl alcohol, spectroscopy, surface morphology, templated polyanilines, tensile test.

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Authors: Ahmed S. Attia

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This paper includes a study of modern sustainable architectural techniques and elements that are originally found in vernacular and traditional architecture, particularly in the Arab region. Courtyards, Wind Catchers, and Mashrabiya, for example, are elements that have been developed in contemporary architecture using modern technology to create sustainable architecture designs. An analytical study of the topic will deal with some examples of the Islamic House in Fatimid Cairo city in Egypt, analyzing its elements and their relationship to the environment, in addition to the examples in southern Egypt (Nubba) of sustainable architecture systems, and traditional houses in Sana'a city, Yemen, using earth resources of mud bricks and other construction materials. In conclusion, a comparative study between traditional and contemporary techniques will be conducted to confirm that it is possible to achieve sustainable architecture through the use of low-technology in buildings in Arab regions.

Keywords: Islamic context, cultural environment, natural environment, Islamic House, low-technology, mud brick, vernacular and traditional architecture.

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Authors: Paul Osmond

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This paper reports a new application of material accounting techniques to characterise and quantify material stocks and flows at the “neighbourhood" scale. The study area is the main campus of the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. The system boundary is defined by the urban structural unit (USU), a typological construct devised to facilitate assessment of the metabolism of urban systems. A streamlined material flow analysis (MFA) was applied to quantify the stocks and flows of key construction materials within the campus USU over time, drawing on empirical data from a major campus development project. The results are reviewed to assess the efficacy of the method in supporting urban environmental evaluation and design practice, for example to facilitate estimation of significant impacts such as greenhouse gas emissions. It is concluded that linking a service (in this case, teaching students) enabled by a given product (university buildings) to the amount of materials used in creating that product offers a potential way to reduce the environmental impact of that service, through more efficient use of materials.

Keywords: Construction materials, material flow analysis, urban metabolism, urban structural unit.

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Authors: Fahanim Abdul Rashid, Muhammad Azzam Ismail, Deo Prasad

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In order to encourage the construction of green homes (GH) in Malaysia, a simple and attainable framework for designing and building GHs is needed. This can be achieved by aligning GH principles against Cole-s 'Sustainable Building Criteria' (SBC). This set of considerations was used to categorize the GH features of three case studies from Malaysia. Although the categorization of building features is useful at exploring the presence of sustainability inclinations of each house, the overall impact of building features in each of the five SBCs are unknown. Therefore, this paper explored the possibility of quantifying the impact of building features categorized in SBC1 – “Buildings will have to adapt to the new environment and restore damaged ecology while mitigating resource use" based on existing GH assessment tools and methods and other literature. This process as reported in this paper could lead to a new dimension in green home rating and assessment methods.

Keywords: Green homes, Malaysia, Sustainable BuildingCriteria, Sustainable homes

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Authors: Hani Mekdash, Lina Jaber, Yehia Temsah

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Underground space is becoming a necessity nowadays, especially in highly congested urban areas. Retaining underground excavations using shoring systems is essential in order to protect adjoining structures from potential damage or collapse. Reinforced Concrete Piles (RCP) supported by multiple rows of tie-back anchors are commonly used type of shoring systems in deep excavations. However, executing anchors can sometimes be challenging because they might illegally trespass neighboring properties or get obstructed by infrastructure and other underground facilities. A technique is proposed in this paper, and it involves the addition of eccentric high-strength steel strands to the RCP section through ducts without providing the pile with lateral supports. The strands are then vertically stressed externally on the pile cap using a hydraulic jack, creating a compressive strengthening force in the concrete section. An experimental study about the behavior of the shoring wall by pre-stressed piles is presented during the execution of an open excavation in an urban area (Beirut city) followed by numerical analysis using finite element software. Based on the experimental results, this technique is proven to be cost-effective and provides flexible and sustainable construction of shoring works.

Keywords: Excavation, inclinometer, prestressing, shoring system.

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Authors: Salfarina A.G., Nor Malina M., Azrina H.

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The right to housing is a basic need while good quality and affordable housing is a reflection of a high quality of life. However, housing remains a major problem for most, especially for the bottom billions. Satisfaction on housing and neighbourhood conditions are one of the important indicators that reflect quality of life. These indicators are also important in the process of evaluating housing policy with the objective to increase the quality of housing and neighbourhood. The research method is purely based on a quantitative method, using a survey. The findings show that housing purchasing trend in urban Malaysia is determined by demographic profiles, mainly by education level, age, gender and income. The period of housing ownership also influenced the socio-cultural interactions and satisfaction of house owners with their neighbourhoods. The findings also show that the main concerns for house buyers in urban areas are price and location of the house. Respondents feel that houses in urban Malaysia is too expensive and beyond their affordability. Location of houses and distance from work place are also regarded as the main concern. However, respondents are fairly satisfied with religious and socio-cultural facilities in the housing areas and most importantly not many regard ethnicity as an issue in their decision-making, when buying a house.

Keywords: Housing, Urban Housing, Malaysia

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Authors: Chiung-Ju Huang

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This study examines whether the Taiwan’s public debt is sustainable utilizing an unrestricted two-regime threshold autoregressive (TAR) model with an autoregressive unit root. The empirical results show that Taiwan’s public debt appears as a nonlinear series and is stationary in regime 1 but not in regime 2. This result implies that while Taiwan’s public debt was mostly sustainable over the 1996 to 2013 period examined in the study, it may no longer be sustainable in the most recent two years as the public debt ratio has increased cumulatively to 3.618%.

Keywords: Nonlinearity, public debt, sustainability, threshold autoregressive model.

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Authors: Collins C. Ngwakwe

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The objective of this paper is to establish a possible relationship between sustainable business practice and firm performance. Using a field survey methodology, a sample of sixty manufacturing companies in Nigeria was studied. The firms were categorised into two groups, environmentally 'responsible' and 'irresponsible' firms. An investigation was undertaken into the possible relationship between firm performance and three selected indicators of sustainable business practice: employee health and safety (EHS), waste management (WM), and community development (CD), common within the 30 'responsible' firms. Findings from empirical results reveal that the sustainable practices of the 'responsible' firms are significantly related with firm performance. In addition, sustainable practices are inversely related with fines and penalties. The paper concludes that, within the Nigerian setting at least, sustainability affects corporate performance and sustainability may be a possible tool for corporate conflict resolution as evidenced in the reduction of fines, penalties and compensations. The paper therefore recommends research into the relationship between sustainability and conflict management.

Keywords: Environmental responsibility, environmental investment, social responsibility, sustainable business, social ethics, environmental ethics.

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Authors: Jijimon Alakkalam Joseph

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The UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development claims to be a comprehensive and integrated plan of action for prosperity for people and the planet, including almost all dimensions of human existence. Nevertheless, the religious dimension of human existence has been kept away from development discussions. Care for the earth is one of the vital aspects of sustainable development. Farmers all over the world contribute much to environmental protection. Most farmers are religious believers and religious ideologies influence their agricultural practices. This nexus between faith and agriculture has forced policymakers to include religion in development discussions. This paper delves deeper into this religion and sustainable development connection. Buddhism and Christianity have contributed much to environmental protection in Taiwan. However, interviews conducted among 40 Taiwanese farmers (10 male and female farmers from Buddhism and Christianity) show that their faith experiences make them relate to the natural environment differently. Most of the Buddhist farmers interviewed admitted that they chose their religious adherence, while most of the Christian farmers inherited their faith. The in-depth analysis of the interview data collected underlines the close relationship between religion and sustainable development. More importantly, concerning their intention to care for the earth, farmers whose religious adherence is ‘chosen’ are self-motivated and more robust compared to those whose religious adherence is ‘inherited’.

Keywords: Buddhism, Christianity, environmental protection, sustainable development.

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Authors: Z.F. Fadzil, H.S. Hashim, A.I. Che-Ani, S. Aziz

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Campus sustainability is the goal of a university striving for sustainable development. This study found that of 17 popular approaches, two comprehensive campus sustainability assessment frameworks were developed in the context of Sustainability in Higher Education (SHE), and used by many university campuses around the world. Sustainability Tracking Assessment and Rating Systems (STARS) and the Campus Sustainability Assessment Framework (CSAF) approaches are more comprehensive than others. Therefore, the researchers examined aspects and elements used by CSAF and STARS in the approach to develop a campus sustainability assessment framework for Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM). Documents analysis found that CSAF and STARS do not focus on physical development, especially the construction industry, as key elements of campus sustainability assessment. This finding is in accordance with the Sustainable UKM Programme which consists of three main components of sustainable community, ecosystem and physical development.

Keywords: Campus sustainability, campus sustainability assessment, sustainability assessment framework, sustainable campus

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Authors: Chandra Sabnani, M. V. Latkar, Utpal Sharma

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A large section of the society in Urban India is unable to afford a basic dwelling unit. Housing shortage due to the rising unafforability makes it logical to consider alternative technologies more seriously for their application How far do these alternative technologies match up with the conventional techniques? How do these integrate with the present-day need for urban amenities and facilities? Are the owners of bamboo dwellings, for instance, a part of the mainstream housing sector, having the same rights and privileges as those enjoyed by other property owners? Will they have access to loans for building, improving, renovating or repairing their dwellings? Why do we still hesitate to build a bamboo house for ourselves? Is our policy framework and political resolve in place, to welcome such alternative technologies? It is time we found these answers, in order to explore the reasons for large-scale nonacceptance, of a technology proven for its worthiness.

Keywords: Affordable housing, Appropriateness, Bamboo technology, Urban Poor.

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Authors: S. Pushkar, O. Verbitsky

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Currently, green rating systems are mainly utilized for correctly sizing mechanical and electrical systems, which have short lifetime expectancies. In these systems, passive solar and bio-climatic architecture, which have long lifetime expectancies, are neglected. Urban rating systems consider buildings and services in addition to neighborhoods and public transportation as integral parts of the built environment. The main goal of this study was to develop a more consistent point allocation system for urban building standards by using six different lifetime shearing layers: Site, Structure, Skin, Services, Space, and Stuff, each reflecting distinct environmental damages. This shearing-layer concept was applied to internationally well-known rating systems: Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) for Neighborhood Development, BRE Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) for Communities and Comprehensive Assessment System for Building Environmental Efficiency (CASBEE) for Urban Development. The results showed that LEED for Neighborhood Development and BREEAM for Communities focused on long-lifetime-expectancy building designs, whereas CASBEE for Urban Development gave equal importance to the Building and Service Layers. Moreover, although this rating system was applied using a building-scale assessment, “Urban Area + Buildings” focuses on a short-lifetime-expectancy system design, neglecting to improve the architectural design by considering bioclimatic and passive solar aspects.

Keywords: Green rating system, passive solar architecture, shearing-layer concept, urban community.

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Authors: Farah Mahmoud Attallah, Sara El-Deeb

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The non-profit sector has been heavily rising with the rise of sustainable development in developed and developing countries. Most economies are putting high pressure on this sector, believing that nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are one of the main rescues during crises worldwide. However, with the rising number of those NGOs comes their incapability of sustaining their performance and fundraising. Additionally, donors who are considered the key partners for those organizations have become knowledgeable about this sector which made them more demanding, putting high pressure on those organizations to believe that there must be a valuable return for the economy in order to donate. This research aims to study the impact of a sustainable strategic planning model on raising loyal donors; the proposed model of this research presents several independent variables determining their impact on donors' intention to become loyal.

Keywords: Non-profit sector, non-governmental organizations, strategic planning, sustainable business model.

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Authors: Yassamina Berkane, Leïla Kloul, Yoann Demoli

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Quality of life, environmental impact, congestion of mobility means, and infrastructures remain significant challenges for urban mobility. Solutions like car sharing, spatial redesign, eCommerce, and autonomous vehicles will likely increase the unit veh-km and the density of cars in urban traffic, thus reducing congestion. However, the impact of such solutions is not clear for researchers. Congestion arises from growing populations that must travel greater distances to arrive at similar locations (e.g., workplaces, schools) during the same time frame (e.g., rush hours). This paper first reviews the research and application cases of urban congestion methods through recent years. Rethinking the question of time, it then investigates people’s willingness and flexibility to adapt their arrival and departure times from workplaces. We use neural networks and methods of supervised learning to apply a methodology for predicting peoples’ intentions from their responses in a questionnaire. We created and distributed a questionnaire to more than 50 companies in the Paris suburb. Obtained results illustrate that our methodology can predict peoples’ intentions to reschedule their activities (work, study, commerce, etc.).

Keywords: Urban mobility, decongestion, machine learning, neural network.

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Authors: Andreas L. Savvides

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For a long time as a result of accommodating car traffic, planning ideologies in the past put a low priority on public space, pedestrianism and the role of city space as a meeting place for urban dwellers. In addition, according to authors such as Jan Gehl, market forces and changing architectural perceptions began to shift the focus of planning practice from the integration of public space in various pockets around the contemporary city to individual buildings. Eventually, these buildings have become increasingly more isolated and introverted and have turned their backs to the realm of the public space adjoining them. As a result of this practice, the traditional function of public space as a social forum for city dwellers has in many cases been reduced or even phased out. Author Jane Jacobs published her seminal book “The Death and Life of Great American Cities" more than fifty years ago, but her observations and predictions at the time still ring true today, where she pointed out how the dramatic increase in car traffic and its accommodation by the urban planning ideology that was brought about by the Modern movement has prompted a separation of the uses of the city. At the same time it emphasizes free standing buildings that threaten urban space and city life and result in underutilized and lifeless urban cores. In this discussion context, the aim of this paper is to showcase a reversal of just such a situation in the case of the Dasoupolis neighborhood in Strovolos, Cyprus, where enlightened urban design practice has see the reclamation of pedestrian space in a car dominated area.

Keywords: Urban Design, Public Space, Right to the City, Accessibility, Mobility

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Authors: Aelita Skarzauskiene, Monika Maciuliene

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In this paper, we conduct a systematic survey of urban communities in Lithuania to evaluate their potential to co-create collective intelligence or “civic intelligence” applying Digital Co-creation Index methodology that includes different socio-technological indicators. Civic intelligence is a form of collective intelligence that refers to the group’s capacity to perceive societal problems and to address them effectively. The research focuses on evaluation of diverse organizational designs that increase efficient collective performance. The current scientific project advanced the state of the art by evaluating the basic preconditions in the urban communities through which the collective intelligence is being co-created under the systemic manner. The research subject is the “bottom up” digital enabled urban platforms, initiated by Lithuanian public organizations, civic movements or business entities. The web-based monitoring results obtained by applying a social indices calculation methodology and Pearson correlation analysis provided the information about the potential and limits of the urban communities and what possible changes need to be implemented to overcome the limitations.

Keywords: Computer supported collaboration, co-creation, collective intelligence, socio-technological system, networked society.

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Authors: Gholam Hossein Naseri, Manucher Tamizi

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Light is one of the most important qualitative and symbolic factors and has a special position in architecture and urban development in regard to practical function. The main function of light, either natural or artificial, is lighting up the environment and the constructional forms which is called lighting. However, light is used to redefine the urban spaces by architectural genius with regard to three aesthetic, conceptual and symbolic factors. In architecture and urban development, light has a function beyond lighting up the environment, and the designers consider it as one of the basic components. The present research aims at studying the function of light and color in architectural view and their effects in buildings.

Keywords: Architectural View , Color , Light

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Authors: M. Izvercianu, L. Ivascu

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This paper presents an innovative computer system that contributes to sustainable development of the enterprise. The research refers to a rethinking of traditional systems of collaboration and risk assessment, present in any organization, leading to a sustainable enterprise. This concept integrates emerging tools that allow the implementation and exploitation of the collective intelligence of the enterprise, allowing the exchange of contextual, agile and simplified information, and collaboration with networks of customers and partners in an environment where risks are controlled. Risk assessment is done in a systemic way: the enterprise as the system compared to the contained departments and the enterprise as a subsystem compared to: families of international standards and sustainability-s responsibilities. The enterprise, in this systemic vision, responds to the requirements that any existing system to operate continuously in an indefinite future without reaching key resource depletion. The research is done by integrating collaborative science, engineering, management, psychology, obtaining thus a cornerstone of sustainable development of the enterprise.

Keywords: Enterprise 2.0, ISO, Risk management, Sustainable development

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Authors: M. Kheirandish, S. Borhani

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In this experiment Polystyrene/Zinc-oxide (PS/ZnO) nanocomposite fibers were produced by electrospinning technique using limonene as a green solvent. First, the morphology of electrospun pure polystyrene (PS) and PS/ZnO nanocomposite fibers investigated by SEM. Results showed the PS fiber diameter decreased by increasing concentration of Zinc Oxide nanoparticles (ZnO NPs). Thermo Gravimetric Analysis (TGA) results showed thermal stability of nanocomposites increased by increasing ZnO NPs in PS electrospun fibers. Considering Differential Scanning Calorimeter (DSC) thermograms for electrospun PS fibers indicated that introduction of ZnO NPs into fibers affects the glass transition temperature (Tg) by reducing it. Also, UV protection properties of nanocomposite fibers were increased by increasing ZnO concentration. Evaluating the effect of metal oxide NPs amount on mechanical properties of electrospun layer showed that tensile strength and elasticity modulus of the electrospun layer of PS increased by addition of ZnO NPs. X-ray diffraction (XRD) pattern of nanopcomposite fibers confirmed the presence of NPs in the samples.

Keywords: Electrospininng, nanoparticle, polystyrene, ZnO.

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Authors: Dimitra Alexiou

Abstract:

In an urban area the location allocation of emergency services mobile units, such as ambulances, police patrol cars must be designed so as to achieve a prompt response to demand locations. In this paper the partition of a given urban network into distinct sub-networks is performed such that the vertices in each component are close and simultaneously the sums of the corresponding population in the sub-networks are almost uniform. The objective here is to position appropriately in each sub-network a mobile emergency unit in order to reduce the response time to the demands. A mathematical model in framework of graph theory is developed. In order to clarify the corresponding method a relevant numerical example is presented on a small network.

Keywords: Distances, Emergency Service, Graph Partition, location.

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