This paper presents an innovative approach for improving the seismic protection of existing structures by introducing an additional dissipative structure (ADS). The seismic energy impacting the building can be dissipated through the contribution provided by the ADS, thereby reducing the need for the existing building to ensure its seismic capacity. This retrofitting technique is well-suited for structures facing architectural restrictions or challenging-to-update elements. It can help address foundation issues by applying loads to new external components. This paper describes the design of the ADS and proposes a displacement-based design procedure. The design process involves a non-linear static analysis and a simple procedure that must be iteratively repeated until the retrofitting target is achieved. This approach is simple and computationally efficient and can also be used for complex and irregular structures. Such structures are frequently encountered, and existing structures often exhibit unusual geometries and materials requiring extensive numerical modeling. The efficacy of the technique was evaluated using the case studiy of a school building located in central Italy. The results of numerical analyses indicated that owing to the ADS’s contribution, the seismic capacity of both buildings was enhanced, addressing the challenges associated with complex foundation interventions.

A large share of the reinforced concrete (RC) building stock in Mediterranean countries faces a dual challenge of seismic vulnerability and energy inefficiency, calling for urgent renovation efforts. While energy upgrades have been the focus of previous renovation policies, recent research highlights the critical need for integrated retrofitting solutions that address both structural integrity and energy performance. Multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approaches are a promising tool for optimizing the combined choice of these integrated interventions, considering various decision variables (DVs) of economic, social, environmental, and technical nature. To understand the impact of climate and seismic hazard conditions on multi-criteria-based retrofitting assessment, a case-study RC school building is selected and assumed to be located in three distinct climate conditions, cold, mild, and warm, and three seismic hazard levels, low, medium and high. Moreover, given the complexity and challenges of quantifying seismic performance metrics for practitioners, an available simplified (practice-oriented) approach is compared herein with a more thorough research-based one for quantifying the seismic performance of RC buildings within the MCDM framework. Both approaches are applied to the case-study building, considering twelve possible combinations of energy and seismic interventions. The accuracy of the practice-oriented approach and its impact on the retrofitting rankings is evaluated, emphasizing the importance of accessible and efficient evaluation methods in facilitating informed decision-making for building renovation

Rapid Visual Screening (RVS) is a procedure that estimates structural scores for buildings and prioritize their retrofit and upgrade requirements. Despite the speed and simplicity of RVS, many of the collected parameters are non-commensurable and include subjectivity due to visual observations. It might cause uncertainties in the evaluation, which emphasizes the use of a fuzzy-based method. This study aims to propose a novel RVS methodology based on the interval type-2 fuzzy logic system (IT2FLS) to set the priority of vulnerable building to undergo detailed assessment while covering uncertainties and minimizing their effects during evaluation. The proposed method estimates the vulnerability of a building, in terms of Visual Damage Index, considering the number of stories, age of building, plan irregularity, vertical irregularity, building quality, and peak ground velocity, as inputs with a single output variable. Applicability of the proposed method has been investigated using a post-earthquake damage database of 28 reinforced concrete buildings from the Bingöl earthquake in Turkey.

In review, the operating principles of the most common bio sensing devices, detection methods and the identification sensitivity of analyzed molecules were shown. The central focus was done on hybridization analysis of nucleic acids (NA), which are considered to be one of the most important analytes in terms of diagnostic point of view. Constructions enabling to transfer the fact of formation of nucleotide probe/target complex in to detectable signal by optical, electrochemical or micromechanical (piezoelectric) sensors were presented in this review.

This study aims to analyse the technical viability and economic feasibility of rainwater harvesting systems for single and multifamily residential buildings in the city of Florianópolis, Brazil. Simulations were conducted for representative buildings in the city under different water usage scenarios and system designs, in a total of 36 simulation scenarios. An economic analysis was performed for four scenarios over a twenty-year period. Both initial and operational costs were considered and net present value, internal rate of return and payback used as feasibility indicators. Almost all of the cases simulated were technically viable for the group of houses, and up to 78.9% for flats. As for the economic analysis, for houses, between 60.1% and 74.8% of the cases were economically feasible, achieving a discounted payback period ranging from 6.2 to 8.6 years. For flats, between 57.8% and 64.2% of the cases were economically feasible, achieving a discounted payback period ranging from 4.8 to 5.6 years. As the water tariff in the city underwent changes recently, the former and current tariff formats were compared. The current tariff format provides more economic benefits for saving potable water, and leads to a higher net present value and a shorter discounted payback period.

By repeated unloading and loading of the excavation dynamic and static loads, repeated train dynamic and static loads of multi-factors, the underpass tunnel, cross tunnel engineering influence area rock layer, the existing tunnel structure of the three constitutes a multifaceted structure, multi-factor interaction system. Existing tunnels into the prediction theory model of the new tunnel excavation process of dynamic and static loads, dynamic and static loads of existing tunnels are mostly analyzed individually, the results of synergistic analysis needs to be improved. Based on the theory of the current layer method, the paper comprehensively considers the stiffness of the existing tunnel, the stiffness of the new tunnel, the excavation method load and the existing tunnel load, coupled with Peck's empirical formula, the theoretical model of deformation prediction for excavation of a two-lane highway tunnel under the tunnel through the existing railroad is proposed, and verified and optimized by numerical calculations and monitoring data, which proves the applicability and reliability of the theoretical model in the similar strata and the project promotion.

The assessment of existing bridges constitutes a serious challenge for the researchers since their safety evaluation is a complex task due to several sources of uncertainty affecting the parameters identified in the knowledge process. In particular, a high level of uncertainties may arise in the case of prestressing systems requiring special investigation strategies and experimental technologies. The paper aims to investigate how the knowledge uncertainties influence the safety assessment of existing post-tensioned bridges. The semi-probabilistic approach is used, and uncertainties related to the knowledge process are described considering the number of tests, the confidence level assumed for the estimation of the problem parameters, and the measurement errors of in-situ tests. Results concerning a typical post-tensioned bridge are reported and the variability of the outcomes is discussed and compared with a reference case of “perfect knowledge”. The main results of the study confirm the general robustness of the semi-probabilistic Eurocodes safety format and provide an overview of dispersion due to different choices about the number of tests and confidence level. The measurement errors may lead to significant under-estimation of the computed structural capacity with respect to the reference one.

Over the past couple of decades, Global positioning system (GPS) technology has been utilized to collect large-scale data from travel surveys. As the precise spatiotemporal characteristics of travel could be provided by GPS devices, the issues of traditional travel survey, such as misreporting and non-response, could be addressed. Considering the defects of dedicated GPS devices (e.g., need much money to buy devices, forget to take devices to collect data, limit the simple size because of the number of devices, etc.), and the phenomenon that the smartphone is becoming one of necessities of life, there is a great chance for the smartphone to replace dedicated GPS devices. Although, several general reviews have been done about smartphone-based GPS travel survey in the literature review section in some articles, a systematic review from smartphone-based GPS data collection to travel mode detection has none. The included studies were searched from six databases. The purpose of this review is to critically assess the current literature on the existing methodologies of travel mode detection based on GPS raw data collected by smartphones. Meanwhile, according to the systematic comparison among different methods from data-preprocessing to travel mode detection, this paper could carefully provide the Strengths and Weaknesses of existing methods. Furthermore, it is the crucial step to develop the methodologies and applications of GPS raw data collected by smartphones.

Innovation is an essential key factor in the technology development history. Past research on innovation focused more on the innovation behavior of technology, but seldom described knowledge assets which also influence innovation behavior greatly. The effect of knowledge assets attribute and result on disruptive innovation is therefore regarded as the research topic in this study, where disruptive innovation is divided into outbound and inbound to combine combination-embeddednessandmajor business specificityof knowledge assets as the research model. Manufacturing enterprises in China are proceeded the questionnaire survey, and 173 valid copies are collected. The empirical analysis shows that combination-embeddedness of knowledge assets presents significantly positive effects on major business specificity and outbound innovationof an enterprise but reveals remarkably negative effects on inbound innovation. Enterprises are suggested to constantly accumulate knowledge assets with low major business specificity before disruptive innovation in order to reduce ineffective inbound innovation.

The decarbonization of the built environment, both in new construction and renovation, is crucial to mitigate its relevant impact on climate change and achieve the Paris agreement goals. This study presents a systematic LCA-based methodology to assess the whole life carbon emissions of buildings, applied to a proposal for the regeneration of one of Milan’s disused railway yards. As an entry for the 2020 Reinventing Cities competition, Scalo Lambrate is a project for a mainly residential neighborhood with a public park. Strategies to reduce carbon emissions deriving both from the operational energy and construction and maintenance were evaluated and their effects compared to a reference scenario over a time horizon of 100 years. The results show that, while the opportunities to reduce carbon emissions during the use phase are somehow limited due to the already stringent performance requirements for new builds, the use of fast-growing biogenic materials for construction materials, even if mixed with more traditional ones, can provide a significant reduction of the global warming potential over the whole life cycle, with a reduction of 70% over the baseline. The remaining emissions can be offset with afforestation initiatives that, however, must be assessed against land use issues.

The research on the excavation mechanical properties of underpass tunnels has already had certain results, but fewer of them consider the effects of dynamic and static loads on the excavation mechanical properties of underground tunnels at the same time, especially the lack of research cases of double-line highway tunnels with angled underpasses of existing railway tunnels. In this paper, based on the tunnel project of the new double-line Shiqian Highway Tunnel passing under the Hurong Railway at an oblique angle, the mechanical parameters of the rock body in the cross-tunneling area under the influence of static and dynamic load coupling are obtained by using the disturbance quantification coefficients and the Hoek-Brown criterion based on the method of over-advanced geological prediction and the investigation of the surrounding rock on the palisade face, and the engineering-scale finite element model is constructed and the mechanical characteristics of the excavation in the tunnel of the double-lane highway tunnel passing under the existing railroad under the influence of the static and dynamic loads are analyzed. The results show that: the new tunnel rock movement law for the top of the arch sinking, bottom plate bulging, side wall to move outward, the height and width of the arch and bottom plate arch with the tunnel excavation and increase, the side wall rock displacement effect is smaller; left and right lines of the tunnel disturbed area of the rule of change is similar; the existing tunnel bottom plate displacement is more than the top plate and the left and right side walls by the excavation of the time step influence is larger. Typical profile displacement is mainly determined by the distance from the excavation surface; the new tunnel in the four types of calculation conditions of the rock disturbance angle is the same; the existing tunnel roof and side wall Von Mises stress extreme occurs in the tunnel structure, the bottom plate there are pressure relief and pressure-bearing areas; based on the displacement control criteria, the recommended upper and lower step blasting method.

The energy efficiency of existing buildings is a crucial factor in addressing Europe’s energy con-sumption challenges, accounting for nearly 40% of the total energy usage. The ongoing energy crisis, driven by the reliance on fossil fuels and increasing prices, has underscored the urgency of adopting sustainable and energy efficient practices especially to the existing building stock. Cyprus is par-ticularly vulnerable due to its heavy dependence on imported fuels for electricity generation and faces significant challenges in transforming its existing building stock into energy-efficient and sustainable structures. Extensive focus has been made by the government on the energy-efficient retrofit of non-residential public buildings. This study examines an existing cultural hall. The case study of the Cultural Hall represents the building stock before 2010 which is lacking thermal in-sulation, double glazing and any energy efficient element. It then offers an ideal case study to ex-plore sustainable solutions which can be easily adopted from the construction industry and from the building owners. The primary objective of this research is twofold: first, to develop a comprehensive retrofit plan to transform the cultural hall into a net-zero energy building; and second, to explore how this transformation can give value back to the local community. After running two simulation scenarios and providing two energy performance certificates, one with at the existing state and one with the intended retrofit measures, it is clear that the building can be a net zero energy consump-tion building. Some interesting results derived, present also how this building can provide value back to the community i.e. through solar carports for EV charging.

The Energy Performance of Buildings Directive 2010 calls for the Nearly Zero Energy Standard for new buildings from 2021 onwards: Buildings using “almost no energy” are powered by renewable sources or energy produced by the building itself. For residential buildings, this ambitious new standard has already been reached. But for other building types this goal is still far away. The potential of these buildings to meet a Nearly Zero Energy Standard was investigated by analyzing ten case studies representing non-residential buildings with different uses. The analysis shows that the primary characteristics common to critical building types are a dense building context with a very high degree of technical installation (such as hospital, research and laboratory buildings). The large primary energy demand of these types of buildings cannot be compensated by building and property-related energy generation including off-site renewables. If the future Nearly Zero Energy Standard were to be defined with lower requirements because of this, the state related properties of Bavaria suggest that the real potential energy savings available in at least 85% of all new buildings would be insufficiently exploited. Therefore, it would be useful to instead individualize the legal energy verification process for new buildings to distinguish critical building types such as laboratories and hospitals.

This study investigates the effectiveness of a range of timber-based solutions for seismic and energy retrofitting of existing masonry buildings. These solutions are designed not only to prevent structural collapse during earthquakes but also to create integrated interventions that enhance thermo-physical performance and reduce emissions in existing buildings. Various case scenarios were considered and both mechanical and energetic behavior post-intervention were evaluated. Timber-engineered products serve as foundational components for the retrofit approach, encompassing one-dimensional vertical elements (strong-backs) and various types of panels (cross-laminated timber panels, laminated veneer lumber panels, and oriented strand board panels). The analyzed retrofit techniques share a common principle, involving the attachment of these timber-based elements to the building's wall surfaces through mechanical point-to-point connections. The proposed solutions integrate strong-backs and timber panels with membranes and insulation layers, yielding cohesive and highly effective interventions. Finite element modeling was employed to analyze the mechanical and thermal responses of the retrofitted walls. A comprehensive comparative analysis of various techniques was conducted to determine the most effective solution for each specific scenario.

Shared public buildings have become centers of innovation, integrating advanced technologies to meet evolving societal needs. With a heightened emphasis on occupants’ health and well-being, these buildings serve as hubs for technological convergence, facilitating seamless connectivity and intelligent data analysis and management. Within this context, environmental monitoring emerges as a foundational element, pivotal to all aspects of building management. This article provides findings from the nationally funded RE-START project, which focuses on shared public buildings, with special regard to educational and medical facilities. The project explores enhanced indoor air quality monitoring, focusing in particular on CO2 concentration that is directly correlated with occupancy, as a fundamental element for developing health and safety protocols, energy efficiency strategies, integration of smart building technologies, and data-driven energy management. The intersection of environmental monitoring, energy efficiency, security, and IoT technologies in in indoor spaces are relevant. The outcomes of the study reveal the delicate nature of all the involved components, that need to be carefully developed in an integrated manner.

Modular steel buildings (MSBs) interlocking inter-module connections (IMCs) have piqued researchers’ interest. However, the existing literature has not yet studied the optimisation of its plate thicknesses. This paper, therefore, focuses on optimising interlocking (IMCs) plate thickness in (MSBs), leveraging previous experimental and numerical simulation methodologies. Various numerical models for four MSBs interlocking (IMCs) with plate thicknesses (4 mm, 6 mm, 10 mm, and 12 mm) were developed under compression loading conditions. The study’s novelty lay in its comprehensive parametric analysis, which evaluated the slip phenomenon in (MSBs) connections and introduced a slip prediction model validated against empirical data. Further innovative machine learning approach was utilised to predict slip values based on applied force through a random forest regression model trained using the 'Treebagger' function. Sensitivity analysis and comparisons with alternative methods were utilised to underscore the reliability and applicability of the findings. The results showed that 11.03 mm was the optimal plate thickness for interlocking (IMCs) in modular steel buildings, with up to 8.08% reduced material costs. Increasing plate thickness boosts its deformation resistance by up to 50.75%. ‘TreeBagger’ random forest for anomaly detection and machine learning improves slip prediction up to 7% at higher force levels.

The EPR paradox was caused by the provision that quantum variables must have pre-existing values. This type of “hidden property realism” was later falsified by Bell’s Theorem. Yet, modern interpretations of quantum entanglement still insist on the reality of pre-existing properties, whether explicitly or implicitly. Instead, they treat Bell’s inequality as a Locality Criterion. This is a questionable practice, considering that classical joint measurements also violate such inequalities for mutually exclusive wave properties. In particular, consecutive measurements of polarization produce the same coefficients of correlation as parallel measurements with polarization-entangled quanta, yet they are explicitly local. Nonetheless, they also require nonlocal interpretations if pre-existing properties are taken for granted. The solution is to reject the models with pre-existing properties for both classical and quantum wave-like phenomena.

The electrical motor design requires a lot of work and resources. In the field, motor designers need to decide on competitive motor sizing quickly to compete with other motor suppliers. Generally, it requires expensive FEM S/W to get accurate motor sizing results, but buying and maintaining many licenses is costly. Moreover, it needs some patience to get the result from FEM analysis. In this paper, the motor sizing technique using an existing production motor is presented to respond to urgent requests from customers without using FEM analysis. In order to enhance the fidelity of the result, magnetic flux loss by magnet coating and non-linear characteristics are considered during the motor sizing process. The proposed sizing method was verified by comparison to the FEM analysis and test result and showed reasonable confidence in them. Also, this method has the substantial advantage of outputting accurate results instantly without taking any time. It helps with the modification design of electrical motors without using expensive FEM S/W and a certain level of skill or experience.

Our search of existing cancer databases aimed to assess the current landscape and identify key needs. We analyzed 71 databases, focusing on genomics, proteomics, lipidomics, and glycomics. We found a lack of cancer-related lipidomic and glycomic databases, indicating a need for further development in these areas. Proteomic databases dedicated to cancer research were also limited. To assess overall progress, we included human non-cancer databases in proteomics, lip-idomics, and glycomics for comparison. This provided insights into advancements in these fields over the past eight years. We also analyzed other types of cancer databases, such as clinical trial databases and web servers. Evaluating user-friendliness, we used the FAIRness principle to assess findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability. This ensured databases were easily accessible and usable. Our search summary highlights significant growth in cancer databases while identifying gaps and needs. These insights are valuable for researchers, clinicians, and database developers, guiding efforts to enhance accessibility, integration, and usability. Addressing these needs will support advancements in cancer research and benefit the wider cancer community.

Enhancing energy efficiency within the building sector is imperative to curbing energy losses, given that this sector alone contributes to over 34% of global energy consumption. Employing a building management system, along with its regular updates, presents a strategic avenue to decrease energy usage, enhance building energy efficiency, and more. Tailored control strategies, aligned with the unique characteristics and usage patterns of each building, are essential for achieving energy savings. This article presents an evaluation of HVAC system efficiency in office buildings, utilizing a data-driven approach coupled with simulations conducted in IDA ICE software. The research explores the control strategy of an office building equipped with a constant air volume HVAC system, featuring a regularly controlled air handling unit. The objective is to boost energy efficiency while striking a balance between occupant comfort and energy consumption. Findings indicate that by analyzing measured data and adjusting configurable parameters, building energy consumption can be significantly reduced. Close monitoring of indoor parameters by building operators and corresponding adjustments to the HVAC system can yield energy savings of up to 16%. Leveraging these insights, the paper suggests integrating data-driven and dynamic simulation methods into building management system models to optimize HVAC systems, enhance energy efficiency, and advance ambitious carbon neutrality objectives.

This paper explores the potential of using the SAM segmentator to enhance the segmentation capability of known methods. SAM is a promptable segmentation system that offers zero-shot generalization to unfamiliar objects and images, eliminating the need for additional training. The open-source nature of SAM on GitHub allows for easy access and implementation. In our experiments, we aim to improve the segmentation performance by providing SAM with checkpoints extracted from the masks produced by DeepLabv3+, then merging the segmentation masks provided by these two networks. Additionally, we examine the \enquote{oracle} method (as upper bound baseline performance), where segmentation masks are inferred only by SAM with checkpoints extracted from ground truth. In addition, we tested in the CAMO datasets an ensemble of PVTv2 transformers; combining the ensemble and SAM yields state-of-the-art performance in that dataset. The results of our study provide valuable insights into the potential of incorporating the SAM segmentator into existing segmentation techniques. We release with this paper the open-source implementation of our method.

Social, environmental and economic problems are the concern in the agroecological communities. To address these issues, it is important to understand how communities think and act towards existing sustainable practices. There are various agriculture practices which are aboriginal to particular region, and have the knowledge of environment in deep sense thus, locals utilize it for coexisting with nature, by preserving environment and fulfilling the human needs for food alongside protecting the disappearing practices. At present, India has only three designated GIAHS sites and no proposed sites at present, despite having a diverse physical environment and area. Therefore, this paper acknowledges the need to recognize potential indigenous agricultural heritage site as GIAHS and its multidimensional Sustainability and vulnerability by climate change, Traditional value, ecological value, socio cultural values and value-added behavior which can increase the economic value and appeal towards agricultural commodities in later phase. Therefore, this paper aims to investigate the potential AHS site in the north east region of India, which is known as Zabö or Ruza and changes in the LULC of the area. Alongside assessing the present agricultural Heritage systems and changes GIAHS recognition brought to it.

Although buildings constitute 35% of global energy use and 38% of carbon emissions from energy, the amount of energy and energy-related carbon emissions are increasing rapidly. On the other hand, non-renewable usable energy resources are decreasing on the contrary. New buildings are being built due to the increasing population and the existing building stock not meeting the needs or losing its lifespan. Some of the existing building stock is demolished and renewed for structural reasons and some for reasons such as usage performance. It is possible to reduce both energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions with strategic energy uses in existing building stocks. There are various techniques to measure the maximum performance of sustainable and energy-efficient use of existing building stocks with which changes. Building Information Modeling (BIM) technology is one of these techniques that provides wide opportunities to users in recent years, and it is almost a virtual laboratory of structures. Building stocks can be modeled with BIM, and alternative shell and system suggestions can be used to measure how building performance has changed and to achieve the best results. In this research study, improvement scenarios that optimize energy use in existing building stocks are investigated on a sample residential building by using the virtual laboratory facilities of BIM. After measuring the current energy performance of the existing building with BIM tools, 192 alternative results were obtained with 6 variables (external walls, roof, insulation layers, transparent surface materials, lighting, and photovoltaic panels). The obtained alternatives were compared with the current state of the existing building. The material expenditures and amortization periods required for these alternative scenarios are also calculated. The results obtained were evaluated according to annual / lifetime energy consumption, fuel, electricity, initial investment costs, energy use intensity, and carbon emission amounts. With the optimization of the current situation of the sample building, annual fuel consumption decreased by 61% and electricity consumption by 64%. The amortization period of the optimum improvement was determined as 12 years.

Improper illumination of cultural heritage buildings and monuments can be a source of enormous light pollution that can have a major impact on the overall environment of the illuminated area. Such lighting can be the result of carelessness or a wrong/badly designed lighting system. This paper presents one of the methodologies that can significantly reduce light pollution, especially the spilt light out of the façade. The methodology is based on using luminaires with specially made shutters with the appropriate silhouette of the object. The shutter is planned with the help of an object photo and sizes measured at the location. The methodology was tested during the renovation of the lighting system of different churches in Slovenia and is described in the example of the Church of St. Thomas near Ptuj, Slovenia. The results showed that the methodology is effective and can significantly reduce light pollution that occurs when such buildings are incorrectly lit.

Approximately 85 million people's houses are scattered all over Indonesia, and almost all are in strong earthquake areas. In every earthquake, the houses are generally damaged or collapsed. Therefore, those houses must be strengthened to make them earthquake resistant. This paper discusses a gradual strengthening of existing houses using ferrocement bandaging. The gradual strengthening is introduced due to limited funding of the people. It also serves as an educational tool to educate people to be self-sufficient in building their earthquake-resistant houses. The first step, maybe the sleeping room shall be strengthened so that if there is an earthquake during night-time, people will be safe, and if there is an earthquake during the daytime, people can immediately run to that particular room. A global analysis is made of a sample house shaken by Palu, Central Sulawesi earthquake 2018, and West Sumatra earthquake 2009, with one room strengthened to show that the strengthened room can survive the earthquakes. Then the analysis is continued gradually to the other rooms until the masonry house is fully strengthened by ferrocement bandaging. The results show that the masonry house strengthened by ferrocement layers is earthquake resistant.

Product counterfeiting is an on-going problem in supply chains and retail environments, Recently an anti-counterfeiting protocol to address this issue via cost-effective use of auto-identification technologies such as radio-frequency identification (RFID) was proposed by researchers.Yet the use case of re-selling the same product was not been fully addressed which might cause serious problem for the exciting and proposed schemes and transactions. This paper proposes an extended RFID-based anti-counterfeiting to address the use case of the original buyer reselling the same item to a second buyer. The extended scheme will be followed by a formal security analysis to show that the proposed protocol satisfies the requirements of security correctness and is resistant to compromise through security attacks.

In recent years, architectural interactions have become the center of many important reflections. However, there is little agreement on the subject. Some authors consider architecture to be about its relations with human and nonhuman agents. Others consider that buildings have an autonomous presence, which transcends all their interactions. These approaches are generally seen as incompatible. Although at the heart of the debate is the role of relations in architecture, their nature is not addressed. The discussion could gain clarity by recognizing the differences between them. In this paper, we propose a classification of architectural interactions, which may help to better inform further discussion on the topic. A closer look at architectural relations reveals that autonomy and relationality are not opposing, but complementary aspects.

Understanding ecological interactions is a key in managing phytopathology. Although entomologists rely mostly on both traditional molecular methods and morphological characteristics to identify pests, next-generation sequencing is becoming the go-to avenue for scientists studying fungal and oomycete phytopathogens. These organisms sometimes infect plants together with insects. There are many relationships yet to be discovered and much to learn about how these organisms interact with one another. Considering the growing number of exotic insect introductions in Canada, a high-throughput strategy for screening those insects is already implemented by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA). However, no plan is deployed to investigate the phytopathogenic fungal and oomycete species interacting with insects. Metagenomics analysis was performed on the preservation fluids from CFIA’s insect traps across Canada. Using the Ion Torrent PGM technology and fusion primers for multiplexing and indexing, community profiling was conducted on the different semiochemicals used in the insect traps and the various areas where these traps were placed. Internal transcribed spacer 1 (fungi and oomycetes) and adenosine triphosphate synthase subunit 9-nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide dehydrogenase subunit 9 spacer amplicons were generated. Although direct links between organisms could not be established, moderately phytopathogenic fungi (e.g., Leptographium spp. and Meria laricis) and oomycetes (mainly Peronospora spp. and Pythium spp.) unique to every type of semiochemical were discovered. The entomopathogenic yeast Candida michaelii was also detected. This project demonstrated our ability to screen for unwanted species faster and at a higher scale and throughput than traditional pathogen diagnostic techniques. Additionally, minimal modifications to this approach would allow it to be used in other phytopathology fields.

Increasing traffic loads and changes in code provisions lead to deficits in shear and flexural capacity of many existing highway bridges. Therefore, a lot of structures in Europe and North America are expected to require refurbishment and strengthening in the future. This projection is based on the current condition of many older road bridges. Different strengthening methods for bridges exist to extent their service life, all having specific advantages and disadvantages. By applying a thin layer of carbon textile reinforced mortar (CTRM) to bridge deck slabs and the webs of prestressed concrete bridges, the fatigue and ultimate strength of these members can be increased significantly. The CTRM-layer is a combination of a corrosion resistant carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) fabric and an efficient mortar. In this paper, the strengthening method and the experimental results obtained at RWTH Aachen University are presented.

This comprehensive critical review shows how green buildings and energy optimization solutions improve indoor air quality as well as environmental quality (IEQ) and human health. Electricity-efficient green buildings create a better indoor atmosphere and save electricity. Green buildings improve occupant well-being through IAQ, thermal comfort, acoustics, and lighting. Renewable energy, green construction materials, and intelligent technologies increase sustainability and reduce environmental impact. Environmental hazards, architectural design, and societal variables can improve indoor air quality and subsequently reduce health risks linked with poor air quality. The evaluation highlights the pros and cons of low-cost IAQ sensors and equipment. These devices provide valuable insights, but calibration and validation using reference equipment are necessary to ensure accuracy and reliability. Architects, engineers, environmentalists, and policymakers are essential in creating green buildings with high IEQ. Prioritizing occupant comfort, health, and productivity ensures a sustainable and healthy future for future generations. However, continual monitoring and research are needed to improve green building practices and overcome construction problems. Intelligent models for continual on-field calibration of low-cost sensors may improve performance. Green buildings benefit occupants and the environment by optimizing energy use and using IAQ monitoring technologies.

Using a safe subset of C++ is a promising direction for increasing the safety of the programming language while maintaining its performance and productivity. In this paper, we examine how close existing C/C++ code is to conforming to a safe subset of C++. We examine the rules presented in existing safe C++ standards and safe C++ subsets. We analyze the code characteristics of 5.8 million code samples from the Exebench benchmark suite and 5 modern C++ applications using a static analysis tool. We find that raw pointers, unsafe casts, and unsafe library functions are used in both C++ code at large and modern C++ applications. In general, C++ code at large does not differ much from modern C++ code, and continued work will be required to transition from existing C/C++ code to a safe subset of C++.

Abstract: Seismic performance and loss assessments can have widely varying degrees of uncertainty. An essential issue is whether a particular assessed seismic loss or performance result has sufficient reliability to serve as the basis for risk management decisions and actions, including whether or not a code prescribed performance level is met, or if an assessed loss level is acceptable. A method is developed measuring the reliability of performance and loss assessments for individual buildings and for portfolios. Consideration is given to how well the building investigation and corresponding evaluation process have been performed, the qualifications of the person(s) doing the assessment, the thoroughness of the evaluation, and the technical validity of the assessment procedure or model. The approach characterizes the uncertainty of each component of the assessment procedure for each building in qualitative terms. The resulting reliability measure is likely to be most useful for the cases where an entity is determining whether/or not a building has acceptable life safety performance, or if a portfolio has an acceptably low risk of seismic damage loss over a given period of time. In both cases, the reliability must either be sufficient to warrant action, or serve to indicate need for improved assessment.

Only now, four decades after passive houses were designed in the US and built in Canada, the authors are able to discuss the next generation of new and retrofitted buildings in the same way. This paper presents a universal system for different types of buildings and climates that includes construction experience and is reinforcing multi-disciplinary synergies. A next generation of technology uses adaptable indoor climate, integrates HVAC and building structure; applies field monitoring of energy and indoor environment and develops a performance model that is based on artificial neutral network. This approach, includes: 1. The self-learning ANN as a part of the building management system, 2. This management system guides energy optimization in a post-construction stage 3. A two-stage construction process for new and retrofits. The first stage prescribes investment level and optimizes performance; opposite in the second stage. This paper highlights that some elements of the proposed methodology have already been applied in the practice. It also underlines that this integrated multi-disciplinary system can be applied with a different combination of technological elements.

Tuberculosis (TB) remains a significant public health challenge in Nigeria, with high rates of transmission and low case detection rates. This paper presents the challenges of TB screening and the existing gaps in Contact Investigation (CI). This descriptive qualitative study was conducted in 8 local government areas with high TB burdens in Oyo and Osun States, Nigeria. Twenty-four focus group discussions and 27 key informant interviews were conducted among TB patients, household TB contacts, and government TB staff, among others. Respondents' ages ranged from 17-85 years with a mean of 42.08±14.9 years, and (4.0%) had a postgraduate degree. The unwillingness of the majority of TB contacts who tested negative for TB to be placed on TB preventive therapy because of the belief that only a sick person should take drugs and hostility from the TB contacts to the contact tracers during the house-to-house screening of presumptive TB cases due to community stigma associated with TB were some of the existing gaps reported in TB contact investigations. The findings emphasize the importance of tailored approaches in TB prevention and control, addressing challenges in testing and contact investigations; this necessitates investments in community engagement strategies to enhance the cooperation of TB contacts.

This is a study on fractals existing in music. The application case is the composition DIAPHONIES of Michael Paouris. Sliding-window fractal analysis indicate areas of continuous fractality dipped in non-fractal areas of possibly deterministic and stochastic nature. Diverging cases of pronounced non-fractal areas are addressed and also areas of mixed fractality and non-fractality. Many segments exhibit persistency-P (2

The process of building microgrids on top of existing passive distribution networks warrants a multi-criteria analysis. Besides the calculation of investment outlays needed for the modernization of distribution networks, such an analysis covers an assessment of the technological and economic effects of building microgrids. The resulting effects depend on the topology and configuration of distribution networks, specific microgrid features, the choice of current type for the entire microgrid or its individual parts, the ways of connecting distributed energy resources (DER), the availability and condition of information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure, and other factors. Complete input data allow one to design an optimal microgrid configuration, but the main technological and economic effects are determined by the algorithms of operation and the parameters setting of the automatic control system (ACS) and the protection system. Known approaches to designing microgrids focus on addressing basic tasks while minimizing investment required for their implementation. The above is fully justified when constructing new microgrids, but building microgrids on top of existing distribution networks, given the uniqueness of their topology and configuration, does not allow the use of standardized solutions. The development of approaches to the design of microgrids under such constraints, with minimized investment for the modernization of existing distribution networks, is an urgent task. The use of different types of current for microgrid segments determines the choice of particular ACS and protection system, which depends on the availability of information and communications technology infrastructure. This article contributes a review of approaches to designing AC and AC-DC microgrids to maximize their technological and economic effects. We review techniques for analyzing existing distribution networks aimed at choosing the type of current for the entire microgrid or its individual parts, the optimal connection points of microgrids to distribution networks, the mix and capacity of DERs, with such choices informed by the condition of switching devices and information and communications technology infrastructure. The article presents the results of the analysis of approaches to choosing the optimal configuration of microgrids, microgrid ACS and protection system, with an evaluation of the technological and economic effects subject to minimization of investment for the modernization of existing distribution networks.

Various methods of water purification, the aim of which is to obtain such a purity class that makes it suitable for consumption are presented in the article. It is a review of solutions, ranging from methods known and used for over 100 years, through research and experiments underway, to those that are only a concept. Some of the solutions are so effective that they should also be combined with the possibility of safe storage of purified water. Flexible tanks are used for this, which significantly improve logistics and provide a supply of water in all places where it is needed.

Naive CD4+ T cells engage cognate peptide MHC-II complexes (pMHC-IIs) to differentiate and acquire one of several T helper (Th) fates whose specific trajectories are guided by a dynamic cytokine milieu that develops in response to antigenic entity. This physiological process is often erroneously conflated with a pathological one termed Th polarization. Using the SPIRAL model, we argue here that unlike Th fate choice, innate signaling alone is insufficient to initiate Th polarization in naive CD4+ T cells, that it instead develops from pre-existing memory CD4+ T cells that express cross-reactive TCRs, and that it inevitably leads to immunopathology.

Stroke represents one of the most important causes of morbidity ( eighty million patients with disabling of ongoing effects of stroke at a given time, globally) and mortality (the second leading cause of death) worldwide. Innovative systems biology-based approach is likely to increase the understanding of the underpinning of acute stroke promise to enhance stroke prevention, acute treatment, and neurorehabilitation. Recent growing body of evidence with shared pathobiology with COVID-19 and the critically important role of inflammation in the context of stroke points to far-reaching consequences of acute stroke, just as in the case of COVID-19 ( post-acute event issues as well as long term issues ) . So far, stroke typically defined by late-appearing disease manifestation by the range of stroke subtypes as defined by the WHO or American Stroke Association. This definition neglects the underlying pathobiological mechanisms such as low-grade chronic inflammation and already compromised vascular system. Diseases such as stroke is hardly a simple result of a single problem, but rather a complex cascade of pathobiological processes and interactions in a complex biochemical environment. The evidence of changes in innate immunity and adaptive immunity during the index event of acute stroke and recovery over next 3-12 months can be easily elicited with simple bedside blood tests such as neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) with well over 300 published papers including several systematic reviews and meta-analyses confirming this. Global standard operating procedures (SOP) of stroke care dictated by the national and international stroke guidelines at present. It is imperative to explore the evidence of systems biology approach in current stroke guidelines. This is likely to be a key turning point in managing stroke across the continuum (prevention, management of acute event and rehabilitation).

Buildings can generate heats which are mostly generated from the machinery using inside the buildings, and these heats generally released to the atmosphere. Buildings can also block the wind flow by their canopies and trap the heat by using low albedo materials. These causes pointedly contribute to urban heat island and greenhouse effects. Likewise, urban development and building construction in Cambodia are growing rapidly. The construction has been recognized as a key development sector while thousands of buildings are being built and have been operated in the main cities. However, those buildings mostly have not been considered to incorporate sustainability concepts while the major final energy consumers in the country are buildings. The buildings’ energy consumption is also projected to increase more than double until 2040. Hence, sustainable building promotion in Cambodia is necessary, and sustainable building criteria are completely required. This research aims to find out significant sustainable building criteria for Cambodia and focused on planning and design criteria because having proper planning and design is a smart start leading to achieving building sustainability in all stages. This research used the Delphi methods to validate the relevant sustainable building criteria available in the literature and then select the significant ones for Cambodia based on the Delphi consensus. The results showed that ninety-nine consensus planning and design criteria were found to be significant for sustainable buildings in Cambodia.

Modern day construction is widely influenced using concrete-steel composite columns. A lot of research on concrete-steel composite columns is being carried out around the world. The rapid growth in concrete-steel composite construction has widely decreased the use of conventional reinforced cement concrete construction (R.C.C), and the steel construction practices. The concrete-steel composite construction has obtained an extensive receiving around the globe. As Pakistan is a developing country, so, it is relatively a new concept for its construction industry when compared with the developed countries around the globe. Although, the R.C.C construction is suitable and economical for construction of framing systems of low-rise buildings, however, the increased dead load, span restrictions, less stiffness and risky formwork makes it uneconomical and unviable when it comes across the construction of intermediate to high-rise buildings. This research is an effort to learn the cost effectiveness, increased or decreased stiffness, and change on the functionality of the composite construction for intermediate to high-rise buildings constructed in Pakistan. A Base + Ground + 11 storey commercial building is selected for this study. A comparison is made between conventional R.C.C columns structure and concrete-encased composite columns structure. The equivalent static nonlinear analysis is performed using ETABS 2017 software. Although, for Base + Ground + 11 storey building, the construction cost of concrete-encased composite structure is 7.7% more than the conventional R.C.C columns structure, but the concrete-encased composite structure will have 13.013% more constructed floor area. This increased floor area helps to settle the cost difference between the two structures.

Satellite Crop Detection technologies are focused on detection of different types of crops on the field in the early stage before harvesting. Crop detection is usually done on a time series of satellite data by classification of the desired fields. Currently, data obtained from Remote Sensing (RS) are used to solve tasks related to the identification of the type of agricultural crops, also modern technologies using AI methods are desired in the postprocessing part. In this challenge Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 time series data were used due to their periodic availability. Our focus was to develop methodology for classification of time series of Sentinel 2 and Sentinel 1 data and compare how accuracy of classification can be increased, but also how to guarantee availability of data. We analyse phenology of single crops and on the basis of this analysis we started to provide crop classification. Original crop classifications were made from Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) layers made from Sentinel-2 time-series data and then we added also . To increase accuracy we also integrate into the process parcel borders and provide classification of fields..

Everyone should therefore consistently get access to enough and safe water. The operation of the existing distribution network as well as the proper optimization and implementation of the new distribution systems are required for a sufficient and safe water supply. In Sekota town sufficient amount of water was not reached to the beneficiaries due to shortage of water at the source. The primary goal of this study was to evaluate the performance and optimize the existing Sekota water supply distribution system using Bentley Water GEMS.The system's hydraulic modeling is carried out by considering as a continuous supply system, and the evaluation procedure used the extended period simulation approach after calibration was done. Calibration is used to ensure the performance of the model using the observed pressure values. The output of the existing system shows pressure is very high means above the maximum pressure and velocity is very low at peak hour demand. The results of velocity and pressure before optimization have negative effect on the performance of the system. The number of pipes and junctions their velocities and pressures which were in admissible ranges are 15 and 42 pipes for velocities and zero and 59 junctions for pressure before and after optimization were evaluated respectively.

This article aims to investigate gaps in the law and policies on e-waste management in communi-ties of Thailand and suggests a guideline for improving, developing, and designing legal measures and state policies for more effective enforcement of the law on e-waste management in communities. The findings reveal that the currently applicable law of Thailand lacks effective approaches and rules for e-waste management. Also, there is not any implementation of key envi-ronmental principles for e-waste management in communities, such as the Polluter Pays Principle (PPP) that requires manufacturing companies to take part in being responsible for disposal ex-penses or the Public Participation principle that requires users, manufacturers, distributors, and government agencies to take parts in disposing e-waste. As a result, problems of e-waste in com-munities of Thailand have been continuously increasing. According to such problems, the authors suggest that legal measures on e-waste management in communities should be specifically de-signed by implementing key environmental principles as a basis in determining formats and guidelines of e-waste management, especially participation of all sectors that can help in solving and reducing e-waste in communities that is harmful to health, sanitation, and environment.

Driven by the proliferation of DC energy sources and DC end-use devices (e.g., photovoltaics, battery storage, solid-state lighting, and consumer electronics), DC power distribution in buildings has recently emerged as a path to improved efficiency, resilience, and cost savings in the transitioning building sector. Despite these important benefits, there are several technological and market barriers impeding the development of DC distribution, which have kept this technology at the demonstration phase. This paper identifies specific end-use cases for which DC distribution in buildings is viable today. We evaluate their technology and market readiness, as well as their efficiency, cost, and resiliency benefits while addressing implementation barriers. The paper starts with a technology review, followed by a comprehensive market assessment, in which we analyze DC distribution field deployments and their end-use characteristics. We also conduct a survey of DC power and building professionals through on-site visits and phone interviews and summarize lessons learned and recommendations. In addition, the paper includes a novel efficiency analysis, in which we quantify energy savings from DC distribution for different end-use categories. Based on our findings, we present specific adoption pathways for DC in buildings that can be implemented today, and for each pathway we identify challenges and offer recommendations for the research and building community.

As fossil-fueled heating in the building sector is responsible for 16 % of Germanys total CO2 emissions, it is of great importance to use climate-neutral alternatives for the decarbonization of this sector. Options for the climate-neutral heating of buildings include electricity or hydrogen as energy carriers, both explicitly considered by German policy. In this paper, bottom-up studies are conducted to investigate the role of hydrogen for the climate-neutral energy supply of ten selected residential buildings in comparison to electricity-based systems. Based on a selection of as different typical buildings as possible for single- (SFH) and multi-family houses (MFH) of different construction years, demand profiles are simulated for each building and the respective cost-optimal supply system is determined. For the construction of this system, the electricity-based technologies available are electric heater and heat pump as well as the hydrogen-based technologies hydrogen boiler and fuel cell combined heat and power (CHP) system. Based on the results of the optimization, sensitivity analyses are performed. These analyses aim to identify threshold values of the hydrogen price for the use of hydrogen in building energy systems as well as to make the quantities of hydrogen consumed visible.The identified threshold values show the significant role of hydrogen-operated CHP in MFH if the hydrogen price reaches 0.17 €/kWh_H2 in 2050 at an electricity price of 0.31 €/kWh_el. So, hydrogen-based energy systems represent an economically viable alternative to electricity-based systems with heat pumps. We identify electricity to hydrogen price ratios for the economically viable use of hydrogen in the examined buildings that range from 1.67 to 2.82. According to these ratios, the economically reasonable use of hydrogen in buildings can be derived. For the individual building groups for the year 2050, a ratio of 2.5 can be determined for SFH and 1.8 for MFH, that is favored by the use of CHP which also supplies electricity to the buildings. However, the role hydrogen will finally play in German residential buildings in the future depends to a large extent on political decisions on distribution issues and price signals.

The urgent need to improve performance in the construction industry has led to the adoption of many innovative technologies. 3D laser scanners are amongst the leading technologies being used to capture and process assets or construction project data for use in various applications. Due to its nascent nature, many questions are still unanswered about 3D laser scanning, which in turn contribute to the slow adaptation of the technology. Some of these include the role of 3D laser scanners in capturing and processing raw construction project data. How accurate is the 3D laser scanner or point cloud data? How does laser scanning fit with other wider emerging technologies such as Building Information Modelling (BIM)? This study adopts a proof-of-concept approach, which in addition to answering the afore-mentioned questions, illustrates the application of the technology in practice. The study finds that the quality of the data, commonly referred to as point cloud data is still a major issue as it depends on the distance between the target object and 3D laser scanner’s station. Additionally, the quality of the data is still very dependent on data file sizes and the computational power of the processing machine. Lastly, the connection between laser scanning and BIM approaches is still weak as what can be done with a point cloud data model in a BIM environment is still very limited. The aforementioned findings reinforce existing views on the use of 3D laser scanners in capturing and processing construction project data.

Incisional hernias have a particular dynamic related both to the repair method and to the absence or presence of a prosthetic material. The incidence of incisional hernias is estimated at 9.8% after 21 months and increases to 18.7% after ten years. This study presents a surgical method for the repair of recurrent incisional hernias, through open surgery and the use of existing mesh. The selection criteria regarding the use of this method are: the prosthesis is well integrated, without granulomas, suppurations, defect appearing on the same prosthetic abdominal area. The analyzed factors were the location of the incisional hernias, the duration of the operation, the duration of hospitalization, identified complications, the size of the parietal defect. The retrospective study carried out focused on recurrences of incisional hernias from a group of 631 patients operated on for incisional hernias in a general surgery department of Dr. Constantin Andreoiu County Emergency Hospital, Ploiești, Romania, during January 2018 - December 2022. Of the total of 18.22% relapses, 13.6% were relapsed eventrations after prosthetic procedures. Following the application of the selection criteria, several 8 patients with recurrent eventrations were operated by the open method using the existing mesh. In the case of recurrences after prosthetic procedures of incisional hernias, the recurrence can be solved by open surgery using the existing well-integrated prosthesis, without tension, absence of suppuration in the wound, and the peritoneal cavity. For the presented case, the return to daily activities occurred after 22 hours of hospitalization.

Many historical areas are exposed to many problems and ongoing changes that may negatively affect those areas. One of these historical areas is Historic Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, which was placed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2014. This site is located within the scope of the second largest city in the Kingdom, which is witnessing a continuous urban movement in which the image of the city is changing in response to (Kingdom’s Vision 2030) to modernize the image of its major cities. The study aims to review the urban preservation strategies for historic Jeddah and the vision set for it through the ongoing modernization process of the city, especially with the projects that have been undertaken in it since 2021. The study follows both theoretical and descriptive approaches with the aim of reviewing current conservation strategies. This is with the aim of reaching results related to the challenges facing the area, demonstrating the effectiveness of the conservation strategies used, and deducing what could contribute in the future to the process of developing, preserving, and optimally exploiting it, without losing its value as a result of the modernization processes taking place now, but rather as a compatible part of it.

Taking an existing public building as an example, on the basis of the measured data, the mathematical model of each equipment module of the chilled station and the TRNSYS custom module are established. The mathematical model of “chilled station cooling capacity—equipment power” is proposed and established. The full-frequency control strategy based on device contribution rate is proposed and established to set up the Matlab control module of the chilled station. The TRNSYS simulation platform is used to simulate a public building chilled station in cooling season. The result shows that the season energy efficiency rate of the public building air-conditioning system is 2.15 times the original after applying the new control strategy.

For the majority of the contractual arrangements used in construction projects, the owner is not responsible for the cost deviations due to the variability of labor productivity or material price, amongst many other aspects. Consequently, the cost performance of a project may be entirely distinct for the owner and the contractor. Since the majority of the quantitative research on cost estimation and deviation found in the literature adopts the owners’ perspective, this research provides a contribution towards modelling costs and cost deviation from a contractors’ perspective. From an initial sample of 13 residential building and 10 office building projects, it was possible to develop models for cost estimation at the early stage of development including both endogenous and exogenous variables. Although the sample is relatively small, the authors were able to fully analyze all the cost data, using no secondary sources of data (very frequent in cost modelling studies). The statistically significant variables in the cost estimation models were the areas above and below ground and the years following the 2008 financial crisis, including the international bailout (2011-2014) period. For estimating the unit cost, a nonlinear model was obtained with the number of underground and total floor, the floor ratio and the years following the 2008 financial crisis, including the international bailout (2011-2014) period as predictors. For the office buildings, it was also found a statistically significant correlation between the cost deviation and the number of underground floors.

Published data or available literature on sustainable building plan-design, construction, performance, and renovation criteria have covered some stages or some parts of each stage. These data usually have been published partially in many different papers―there have not been any papers that published these data together. Hence, this paper aims to collectively review these data and publish them together. The collection and review of these data were carried out by our twenty-five team members who specialized in sustainable urban, architectural, and civil engineering and construction management. The gathered and reviewed outputs were combined and validated based on a general group consensus. This consensus decision-making proceeded through two major group meetings with several follow-up meetings. The first major meeting was to combine and improve the gathered reviewed sustainable building criteria for Cambodia. The second major meeting was to validate the improved reviewed sustainable building criteria for Cambodia. The several follow-up meetings were to discuss the relevance and importance of the validated data “criteria and their classifications and descriptions” in all stages and more focused on their importance and applicability to Cambodia. The collective reviewed data in this paper would be useful to researchers in the fields. They could also be useful collective knowledge and information for policymakers from governmental agencies and development partners, particularly for sustainable building and construction companies.

Hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy (HOCM) is an autosomal dominant disorder leading to left ventricular outflow tract obstruction (LVOTO). It can present with chest pain, syncope, breathlessness, or in some cases sudden cardiac death. Primarily, it is diagnosed based on echocardiographic findings but cardiac computed tomography (CT) or cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can be helpful in selected cases. In this case report, we discuss a case of a young-aged female patient previously diagnosed as HOCM and presented with chest pain, shortness of breath, and palpitations. Her echocardiography revealed severe asymmetrically hypertrophied left ventricle (LV) with normal function and systolic anterior motion of the mitral valve was present and a subvalvular aortic membrane was also seen. The computed tomography (CT) was also performed showing severe asymmetrical hypertrophied and thickened trileaflet tricommissural aortic valve with no calcification or significant valvular aortic stenosis but there was a subaortic membrane (concentric only sparing anteriorly). The presence of subaortic membrane with HOCM is a rare finding and it can be a diagnostic challenge and untreated cases are susceptible to progressive heart failure and worsening of the symptoms by further increasing left ventricular outflow tract obstruction (LVOTO). A thorough investigation and planning before surgical intervention is required to achieve optimal results.

Advances towards smart ecosystems showcases Internet of Things (IoT) as a transversal strategy to improve energy efficiency in buildings, to enhance their comfort and environmental conditions, and to grow knowledge about building behavior, its relationships with the users and the interconnections among themselves and with the environmental and ecological context. EU estimates that 75% of the building stock is inefficient and aged with +40 years old. Although many buildings have some kind of system for regulating their indoor temperature, only a small subset provides integrated Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems; within that subset, only a low percentage includes smart sensors, and only a minimum of that percentage integrates those sensors into IoT ecosystems. This work proposes several contributions. On the one hand, to understand the built environment as a set of interconnected systems that constitute a complex framework where IoT ecosystems are key enabling technologies to improve energy efficiency and Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) by filling the gap between theoretical simulations and real measurements. On the other hand, to understand IoT ecosystems as cost-effective solutions where: acquire data through connected sensors, analyze information in real-time, and build knowledge to make data-driven decisions. Furthermore, data set is public for third-party use to contribute scientific community to their research studies. Thus, this paper also contributes with a detailed functional scheme of IoT ecosystem deployed in 3 buildings of University of Zaragoza (Spain) with +200 geolocated wireless sensors with +100 representative spaces. The obtained results, through real installations with IoT as learning factory, show several learned lessons (about building complexity; energy consumption, costs and savings; and IAQ and health improvement) and contribute, as a proof-of-concept, with a proposal of prediction of building performance based on both correlations (between CO2 and occupancy) and neural networks (applied to CO2 and temperature). In summary, in a real context of economic restrictions, complexity, higher energy costs, social vulnerability and climate change, IoT-based strategies, as proposed in this work, highlight as an open, modular and interoperable approach to move towards smart communities (buildings, cities, regions, etc.) by improving energy efficiency and environmental quality (indoor and outdoor) with low cost, quick implementation, and low impact on users within great challenges for growth, interconnection, climate change and sustainability.

The close proximity of different buildings heights can cause disturbances in the working of the smoke and ventilation ducts of lower buildings, threatening the health and even the lives of residents. To define the influence of high-rise building on the work of the ducts of the neighbouring double-storied building, experimental investigations in the wind tunnel were conducted. On this basis, empirical equations and graphs were developed leading to determining the aerodynamic coefficients considering different wind directions and the height of ducts. The direction of the wind reveals a greater influence than the height of the ducts. Properly using deflectors or increasing the height of the duct ensures maintaining static rarefaction in the area of smoke and ventilation ducts. The creation of rarefaction ensures the reliability of the natural ventilation system and the safety of the health of residents.

The natural frequency of buildings decreases during a strong-motion earthquake, and the structure loses its stiffness. As a result, understanding the damaging process in the structure owing to changes in structural properties is critical during a seismic excitation. The time-frequency technique can detect the damaged building’s time-varying frequency contents. Wigner distributions (WD), Wigner-Ville distributions (WVD), pseudo-Wigner-Ville distributions (PWVD), smoothed pseudo-Wigner-Ville distributions (SPWVD), and synchrosqueezing transforms (SST) have all become popular in recent years for a variety of earthquake engineering applications, including building damage detection. This study proposes the local maximum synchrosqueezing transform (LMSST) for detecting frequency shifts in buildings during strong earthquakes. The data presented in the research show that the suggested method outperforms as compared to the conventional time-frequency methods for detecting frequency shifting in earthquake-damaged structures.

The construction of earth buildings, both throughout history and in the current day, is well-established worldwide. Despite New Zealand's pre- and post-colonial history of earth construction, earth buildings as residential homes have not been well-received or popularised throughout present-day New Zealand. This research aims to identify the reasons for this lack of awareness and to determine methods that promote earth buildings in New Zealand. This research is based on data collected from semi-structured interviews conducted with subject matter experts and via an online questionnaire completed by members of the Earth Building Association New Zealand (EBANZ). The data collected revealed the experiences and perceptions of all participants regarding the advantages, challenges and promotion of earth buildings specific to New Zealand. Upon analysing these responses, key reoccurring themes were identified and compared. Regarding New Zealand's lack of awareness of earth buildings, interview and questionnaire participants responded that this shortcoming was due to earth construction being a very niche market and lacking commercial marketing. Education was the most frequently reoccurring theme raised by all participants as the top promotional tool for raising awareness of earth buildings. The results of this research can be applied to future work regarding obstacles that limit the growth of New Zealand's earth building industry, as well as research on the role of New Zealand's education system in exposing the next generation of builders, designers, and consumers to earth construction.

The need for a relatively quick solution to the problem of providing highways with roadside service facilities necessitates the development of a series of appropriate standard projects. To increase the efficiency of these series, it is advisable to carry out the interconnection of space-planning solutions based on a particular module. Taking into account the variety of planning and landscape characteristics of the sites for the placement of objects of the mainline service, it seems advisable to choose as a module not a square or rectangular, but a triangular configuration, which allows in most cases to harmoniously block the modules. The proposed roof module in the form of a "regular" triangle facing the tetrahedron has a structural basis in the form of a single-tier rod spatial plate. The principal space-planning solutions of all four dozen objects from the approved nomenclature of the mainline service performed in the process of analyzing the possibilities show the real possibility of solving the development tasks on the basis of this system. The use of the proposed modular system makes it possible to successfully solve a number of tasks to reduce the harmful impact on the environment and effectively use renewable energy sources.

Earthquake is among the most devastating natural disasters causing severe economic, environmental, and social destruction. Earthquake safety assessment and building hazard monitoring can highly contribute to urban sustainable development through identification and insight into optimum materials and structures. While the vulnerability of structures mainly depends on the structural resistance, the safety assessment of buildings can be highly challenging. In this paper, we consider Rapid Visual Screening (RVS) method which is a qualitative procedure for estimating structural scores for buildings suitable for medium- to high-seismic cases. This paper presents an overview of the common RVS methods, i.e., FEMA P-154, IITK-GGSDMA, and EMPI. To examine the accuracy and validation, a practical comparison is performed between their assessment and observed damage of reinforced concrete buildings from a street survey in the Bingöl region, Turkey, after the 11 May 2003 earthquake. The results demonstrate that the application of RVS methods for preliminary damage estimation is a vital tool. Furthermore, the comparative analysis showed that FEMA P-154 creates an assessment that overestimates damage states and is not economically viable while EMPI and IITK-GGSDMA provide for more accurate and practical estimation, respectively.

Smart home and building systems are popular solution that support maintaining comfort, safety and improving energy efficiency in buildings. However, dynamically developing distributed network technologies, in particular the Internet of Things, are increasingly entering the above-mentioned application areas of building automation, offering new functional possibilities. The result of these processes is the emergence of many different solutions that mix technologies of field-level and ICT networks in various configurations and architectures. New paradigms are also emerging, such as edge and fog computing, providing support for local monitoring and control networks in the implementation of advanced functions and algorithms, including machine learning and artificial intelligence mechanisms. This paper collects state-of-the-art information in these areas, along with a systematic review of the literature, case-studies and an analysis of selected development trends. The author systematized this information in the context of the potential development of building automation systems. Based on the conclusions of this analysis and discussion, a framework for the development of the Generic IoT paradigm in smart home and building applications has been proposed, along with a SWOT analysis of its usability. Future works are proposed as well.

This paper is an extended version of a previously reported conference paper regarding low power design for NAND Flash. As the number of bits per NAND Flash die increases with cost scaling, IO datapath speed increases to minimize the page access time with scaled CMOS in IOs. The power supply for IO buffers, namely VDDQ, has decreased from 3V to 1.2V, accordingly. In this paper, how a reduction in VDDQ can contribute to power reduction in BL path is discussed and validated. Conventionally, BL voltage of about 0.5V has been supplied from a supply voltage source (VDD) of 3V. BL path power can be reduced by a factor of VDDQ to VDD when BL voltage is supplied from VDDQ. To maintain a sense margin at sense amplifiers, the supply source for BLs is switched from VDDQ to VDD before sensing. As a result, power reduction and equivalent sense margin can be realized at the same time. The overhead of implementing this operation is an increase in BL access time of about 2% for switching the power supply from VDDQ to VDD and an increase in die size of about 0.01% for adding the switching circuit, both of which are not significant in comparison with a significant power reduction in BL path power of NAND die of about 60%. The BL path was designed in 180nm CMOS to validate the design. When the cost for powering SSD becomes quite significant especially for data center, an additional lower voltage supply such as 0.8V dedicated to BL charging for read and program verify operations may be the best option for the future.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the different types of bricks as a construction material. In this study, monitoring different technical specification or characteristics of the bricks. At the end of study, Brick Quality Index (BQI) evaluated. According to BQI, bricks were classified poor to excellent quality.

This paper defines the two main causes of global warming in the UK and seeks to cut climate change using green hydrogen made from renewable electricity sources. Combustion vehicles powered by fossil gasoline and diesel emit a third of UK climate-warming CO2 while buildings heated by natural gas provide a quarter. First, current UK grid problems are defined: Electricity grid, gas grid and petroleum grid. Then experiments on the private energy community of Keele University allow electrolysis demonstrations producing green hydrogen for buildings and vehicle refueling. Next, the model supply chain is planned and tested. Finally, experiments and calculations are outlined, analyzing the optimum system design criteria proposed. We conclude that economic green hydrogen can displace diesel and gasoline in vehicle transport, while also displacing natural gas for combined heat and power in buildings. In addition, the prospect in 2023 is that profits can now be made all along the green hydrogen supply chain, such that new businesses involved in clean communities can beat the National Grid monopoly and other large dominant fossil grid companies.

3D city models integrate heterogeneous urban data from multiple sources in a unified geospatial representation, combining both semantics and geometry. Although in the last decades, they are predominantly used for visualization, today they are used in a large range of tasks related to exploration, analysis, and management across multiple domains. The complexity of urban processes and the diversity of urban environment bring challenges to the implementation of 3D city models. To address such challenges, this paper presents the development process of a 3D city model of a single neighborhood in Sofia city based on CityGML 2.0 standard. The model represents the buildings in LOD1 with a focus on CityGML features of related to the buildings like building part, terrain intersection curve and address. Similar building models of 18 cities provided as open datasets are explored and compared in order to extract good modeling practices. As a result, workflows for generation of 3D building models in LOD1 are elaborated and improvements in the feature modeling are proposed. Two options of building model are examined: modeling of a building as a single solid and modeling of a building with separate building parts. Finally, the possibilities for visualization of the model in popular platforms such as ArcGIS Pro and Cesium Ion are explored.

The UK Government is committed to reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 80% by 2050. Buildings are responsible for 37% of the total GHG emissions in the UK and the need to reduce their emissions has resulted in more stringent building regulations in the recent past. The regulations, energy rating systems and voluntary guidelines — all are primarily aimed at reducing the need for heating and associated energy use by increasing insulation and air-tightness. However, future climates are projected to be warmer than the present day. Internal gains dominated non-domestic buildings will likely overheat, the adaptation to which will require energy-intensive cooling solutions, thus defeating the purpose of heating-focused regulations. This research investigated the effects of warming climate on overheating, and energy use and resulting emissions in representative urban office spaces in London in the present-day and future climates using hourly dynamic thermal simulations. Findings suggest that more airtight and highly—insulated office buildings designed for heating—dominated temperate UK climate will overheat in the 2050s. Heating demand reduces but electricity consumption increases by 121% when hybrid cooling is adopted to ameliorate overheating. Despite the rise, adopting a mixed-mode ventilation strategy was one of the ways of achieving overall energy efficiency while meeting benchmark overheating and carbon emissions target in present and future climatic contradictions. Current heating-focused legislations need to be urgently re-evaluated to account for the effects of climatic variability and overheating risks.

We explores the relational, dynamic elements of Complex Buildings, a type of architecture designed to incubate uses, located in urban areas with high housing density. The uses of Complex Buildings concern different elements, including the network of agents using or managing them, the environment, and the activities and functions that take place occasionally, temporarily or permanently. Data was gathered through ethnographic research lasting 6 months and a chronotopian approach was used to describe time and space. We analyzed and discussed the interaction of the elements of Complex Buildings through a cellular automaton model, a computational method that simulates the growth of complex systems. It was used here to generate patterns that suggest configurations of uses that can optimize management and therefore increase economic and social capital. The cellular automaton model was also used to develop an abstraction of the Centquatre, a public cultural center in Paris. This center is a good example of a Complex Building, being based on a public-private partnership and having an architectural configuration designed to host a wide range of art, social and productive activities. The building includes a large central space used as an urban public area open to different types of people. The importance of this case study lies in its capacity to produce economic value by combining different uses, and also by welcoming different people to the public space. Regarding the building as a living organism, the cellular automaton model reveals the determinant nature of the concepts of configuration, compatibility of uses and economic value generated by the presence of people. We argue that this approach makes it possible to show that the space-time design and public space dimensions are determinant factors in Complex Buildings.

Building energy demand impacts a myriad of interconnected economic, societal, and environmental aspects. As a result, Buildings Energy Models (BEM) play an important role in the process of urban design and planning. While previous studies have investigated the effects of building interventions on energy efficiency, their applicability may be limited due to the BEM’s high computational complexity. This limits their ability to systematically study important aspects of energy demand on a large scale. The development of Machine Learning Models (MLM) allows to design the required detailed analysis and solutions, while reducing the computational burden, making MLM attractive for urban designers. The capability of MLM to generalize well for multiple contexts (in our case, multiple buildings) is a crucial contributor to their applicability. However, the validation process in a wider context is often overlooked, therefore its generalization capabilities are not quantified. In this paper, we present a framework to train and validate a surrogate model derived from a physics-based BEM. Our method employs a Multiple Linear Regression model to predict Energy Use Intensity (EUI) for office buildings in Singapore using 36 input parameters (covariates), based on a training dataset of 23,000 samples. Model validation is performed by comparing the results of the Surrogate Model (SM) to a widely used BEM for a sample of 120 buildings. Our results indicate that the SM has an accuracy of NRMSE of 13%, NMBE of −3.56%, and R2 of 0.92, which suggests it can effectively and accurately predict building EUI. We also conduct a sensitivity analysis, which indicates that the parameters associated with internal loads and internal space usage are the most influential. Additionally, we present a reduced order model trained with only the 11 most influential parameters, which exhibits negligible loss in accuracy compared to the full SM while providing reduced complexity. Finally, we demonstrate an application of our SM to evaluate energy efficiency under uncertainty scenarios. The analytically derived results indicate a potential reduction of EUI of offices in Singapore from 227kWh/m2 to 99kWh/m2 by altering the building parameters that were identified as most influential.

This paper studies the dynamic response of corner supported modular steel buildings with a core wall system, under progressive collapse scenarios, associated with corner module removals. Since using secondary systems such as concrete core in mid- to high-rise buildings is currently una-voidable, understanding their impact on load transfer between modules during collapse scenarios becomes essential. The designated buildings with four-, eight- and twelve-story were modelled using the macro-model based finite element method in Abaqus. Also, three different locations are considered for the concrete shear core within the building plan, leading to nine various case scenarios. Each vertical and horizontal inter-module connection was modelled by one axial and two shear springs with predefined nonlinear force-displacement behaviour. The local and global buckling, which plays an essential role in the building's stability, was considered to obtain accurate results. Finally, parametric studies on the building response were carried out, including the intra-module connection rigidity and inter-module connection stiffness. The results demonstrated that the core wall could maintain the robustness of modular steel building through two mechanisms dependent on its location within the plan. Also, preventing plastic hinges from forming in beams could be introduced as an anti-collapse mechanism in the corner module removal scenarios

The fourth industrial revolution has resulted in the digitalization of projects and operations across all sectors. Accordingly, efforts are being made to utilize advanced technologies to improve the energy efficiency of the building sector. This study has reviewed the current application and limitations of cutting-edge technologies in this regard. An overview of the use of the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), digital twin (DT), and building information modeling (BIM) for energy efficiency of buildings has been provided. It has been found that the use of Industry 4.0 technologies, during the construction and operational phase of buildings, has a great potential to reduce energy consumption and emissions of the sector. This study may help stakeholders of the built environment to understand the role of industry 4.0 tools for energy efficiency of the sector.

As Solar Photovoltaics in buildings reaches maturity, grid integration and economic yield are topics of greater interest. The traditional design of photovoltaic installations has considered the optimal orientation of photovoltaic modules to be that which yields the maximum annual energy production. The influence of the consumption patterns and the hourly-variable electricity prices implies that this traditional optimal design might not be the most profitable. Using a full-year dataset for a residential installation, alternative installations using canopies and modules attached to the façades are simulated. Simulating the energy balances for different annual consumptions, it is found that the canopy and façade installations offer better self-consumption of the PV produced energy, reflected in a 9% higher self-consumption degree using modules on façades and a 5% using canopies. The economic evaluation under the new electricity tariffs in Spain shows a better profit for PV self-consumption, reducing by more than 2 years the time of return on investment. The analysis of different alternatives for an industrial PV has allowed us to identify several benefits for these orientations, such as an increase in annual energy production of up to 59% over the optimal-producing orientation, that are confirmed after several months of operation.

An energy diagnosis is a tool used to seek the improvement of energy saving measures, environmental conservation and energy efficiency, making relevant its implementation in any kind of buildings. For this article, an energy diagnosis of third level was carried out in buildings of the Instituto de Energías Renovables (IER) from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) through survey and census of the 36 buildings in the IER, in order to characterize current patterns of energy consumption and demand, and generating specific strategies towards savings and energy efficiency, such as indicators and corrective proposals within and non-financial investment.

This investigation introduces an efficient method for assessing the reliability of semi-rigid steel frame connections in existing buildings, explicitly targeting the Top Angle and Seat Pad (TA-SP) semi-rigid connection commonly used in Australian cities' high-rise buildings. The moment capacity of these connections was examined through parameter power model testing, meticulously considering the bending, shear, and prying forces actions to determine the weakest elements in the connection system. A plastic hinge model was applied to ensure computational efficiency and accuracy in assessing the connections' ultimate strength. Comparatively, the finite element (F.E) method M−θ curves were introduced to scrutinise the nonlinear behaviour of the connection, providing validation for the predicted analytical approach. Further emphasis was placed on identifying the reliability of the weakest elements in the connection system, employing the First-Order and Second-Order Reliability Methods models to estimate their reliability index. The correlation between the model's failure probability and a percentile error was also explored, utilising Monte Carlo simulation reference for refined validation. Novel formulas and methodologies were introduced to compute the locked-chain-series system reliability, which accounts for the inherent material and geometric variability. The findings highlight the critical significance of the weakest element in determining the overall reliability of the existing TA-SP connection.

Digital health has added numerous promising solutions to enhance the health and wellness of people with neurocognitive disorders (NCDs) and their informal caregivers: (1) Background: It is important to get a comprehensive view of currently available technologies, their outcomes, and conditions of success to inform recommendations regarding digital health solutions for people with NCDs and their caregivers. This environmental scan was performed to identify the features of existing digital health solutions relevant to the targeted population. This work reviews currently available digital health solutions and their related characteristics to develop a decision support tool for older adults living with mild or major neurocognitive disorders and their informal caregivers. This knowledge will inform the development of a decision support tool to assist older adults and their informal caregivers in their search for adequate digital health solutions according to their needs and preferences, based on trustable information.; (2) Methods: We conducted an environmental scan to identify digital health solutions from a systematic review and targeted searches in grey literature covering the regions of Canada and Europe. Technological tools were scanned based on a preformatted extraction grid. We assessed their relevance based on selected attributes and summarized findings; (3) Results: We identified 100 available digital health solutions. The majority (56%) were not specific to NCDs. Only 28% provided scientific evidence of their effectiveness. Remote patient care, movement tracking, and cognitive exercises were the most common purposes of digital health solutions. Most solutions were presented as decision aid tools, pill dispensers, apps, web, or a combination of these platforms. (4) Conclusions: This environmental scan allowed the identification of current digital health solutions for older adults with mild or major neurocognitive disorders and their informal caregivers. Findings from the environmental scan highlight the need for additional approaches to strengthen digital health interventions for the well-being of older adults with mild and major NCDs and their informal and formal healthcare providers.

As urbanization continues to accelerate, the concept of smart buildings has transitioned from a futuristic vision to an integral component of modern cities. These buildings, often seen as the building blocks of smart cities, are increasingly relying on cutting-edge technologies like 5G and cloud computing to reach unprecedented levels of energy efficiency, sustainability, and occupant comfort. This paper offers a comprehensive exploration into the marriage of smart building technologies with 5G and cloud computing. It scrutinizes the individual and combined impacts of these technologies, presents various case studies showcasing real-world applications, and anticipates future trends. Moreover, it delves into technical challenges, policy implications, and offers concrete recommendations for stakeholders.

The behaviour of steel frame buildings under progressive collapse conditions depends on a combination of several parameters including the interplay between different collapse resistance mechanisms mobilized in different structural components. Previous studies have shown that the extent to which these mechanisms may contribute to progressive collapse resistance depends on the ability of the beam-column connections to undergo large inelastic deformations prior to reaching their deformation capacity limits. For this reason, and due to the important role of their flexural strength and tying capacity in the development of essential collapse resistance mechanisms, the response of beam-column connections is one of the most important features of progressive collapse performance. Based on the knowledge gained through previous studies on the mechanics of the problem, the role of the connections is critically reviewed by examining the results of several experimental studies conducted during the past decade. The factors that may adversely affect progressive collapse resistance – such as failure modes of certain connection types – are evaluated, and novel approaches of limiting these factors which are currently under development are reviewed. The assessment of these parameters leads to useful conclusions of practical significance, while highlighting the aspects of the problem that need further study and understanding.

Afterthe series of earthquakes in August 1953, most of Kefalonia’s building stock totally collapsed. The buildings that emerged as a result of a collective effort are commonly referred to as «arogi» buildings, with the term arogimeaning help or assistance. In this way, merely referring to these structures is a direct mention to the circumstances under which they were constructed. The reconstruction of the building stock of the island was based in a series of building types proposed from the authorities, and proceeded replacing the richness of the architectural forms that stood before the earthquake, with austere but necessary settlements. Nevertheless, it is these buildings that constitute today’s image of the island. This study wishes to introduce us to “arogi” buildings structural system, as it was applied in Kefalonia after 1953 earthquake, with reference to recent bibliography and the recent experience of 2014 earthquake. The purpose of setting the grounds for such a research would be to highlight the effectiveness of this structural system. Moreover, to emphasize the fact that “arogi” buildings and their construction procedure incorporate Kefalonia’s recent history and have eventually produced today’s available “traditional” architecture of the island.

There is a continuous growth of heat pump installations in residential buildings in Germany. The heat pumps were not only used for space heating and domestic hot water consumption but also to offer flexibility to the grid. the high coefficient of performance and the low cost of heat storages made the heat pumps an optimal candidate for the power to heat applications. Thus, several questions are raised about the optimal integration and control of the heat pump system with buffer storages to maximize its operation efficiency and minimize the operation costs. In this paper, an experimental investigation is performed to study the performance of a ground source heat pump (GSHP) with a combi-storage under several configurations and control factors. The experiments were performed on an innovative modular testbed that is capable of emulating a ground source to provide the heat pump with different temperature levels at different times of the day. Moreover, it can emulate the different building loads such as the space heating load and the domestic hot water consumption in real-time. The data gathered from the testbed and different experimental studies were used to develop a simulation model based on Modelica that can accurately simulate the dynamics of a GSHP in a building. The model was validated based on different metrics. Energetically, the difference between the developed model and the measured values was only 3.08\% and 4.18\% for the heat generation and electricity consumption, respectively.

The article reveals distinctive features of the interaction between architectural and structural solutions for the design of tall buildings as well as spotlights the most distinctive cases of expression. In the contemporary world, interaction is turning into the antithesis of the formerly dominant utilitarian attitude and standardization of tall buildings architectural solutions. Meanwhile, the search for rational structural solutions leads to new possibilities of architectural expression. This necessitates the transformation of a structural solution and its adaptation to the need of a modern architect to be exceptional and noticed. Interaction covers the current as well as retrospective and perspective periods. SWOT analysis was used by the authors of the article to assess the interaction between architectural and structural solutions in tall buildings design, select the most important criteria that could be used searching for rational architectural and structural solutions in future by applying multi-criteria decision making methods.

This paper attempts to alter a prevailing assumption that buildings use energy to an understanding that in fact, people use energy. Therefore, to successfully accelerate the transition to a low-carbon society and economy more emphasis should be on motivating people and increasing their awareness by making them energy conscious building users and therefore active players in the energy transition process. In this context, this paper provides insights from the Horizon 2020 MOBISTYLE project. It demonstrates research and development approaches, highlights the main project objectives, and presents findings of an ethnographic (qualitative) study of users’ habits, practices, and needs. The aim of the project is to motivate behavioural change by raising consumer awareness through the provision of attractive personalized information on user’s energy use, indoor environment and health, all enabled by an integrated information and communication technology (ICT) service. In this context, the anthropological people-centred approach is integrated into the MOBISTYLE approach putting users at the centre of the ICT tools development process. The main quantitative objective of the project is a reduction of energy use for at least 16 % prompted by the provision of combined information and feedback systems on energy, indoor environmental quality (IEQ) and health. The most relevant motivational factors and key performance indicators (KPIs) for encouraging a more energy conscious and healthy lifestyle were defined by means of a people-centred approach, adopting anthropological inquiries in different settings. Information about users’ lifestyles and their needs was collected in focus groups with potential users in five case studies, located in different European Union (EU) countries. Behaviour change is achieved through awareness campaigns, which encourage users to be pro-active about their energy consumption and to simultaneously improve health and well-being.

The national study analyzes sea level rise (SLR) impacts based on 36 different SLR and storm surge scenarios across 5.7 million geographic locations and 3 time periods. Taking an approach based on engineering design guidelines and current cost estimates, the study details projected cost impacts for states, counties, and cities. These impacts are presented from multiple perspectives including total cost, cost per-capita, and cost per-square mile. The purpose of the study is to identify specific locations where infrastructure is vulnerable to rising sea levels. The study finds that Sea Level Rise (SLR) and minimal storm surge is a $400 billion threat to the United States by 2040 that includes a need for at least 50,000 miles of protective barriers. The research is limited in its scope to protecting coastal infrastructure with sea walls. Additional methods exist and may be appropriate in individual situations. The study is original in that it is a national effort to identify infrastructure that is vulnerable as well as the cost associated with protecting this infrastructure.

The strengthening of existing columns using additional Reinforced Concrete (RC) jackets is one of the most popular techniques for the enhancement of column’s stiffness, load bearing capacity and ductility. Important parameters affecting the effectiveness of this method are the strength of the additional concrete, the concrete shrinkage and the connection between the old and the new con-crete. In this study the application of Ultra High Performance Fibre Reinforced Concrete (UHPFRC) jackets for the structural upgrade of RC columns has been examined. Extensive numerical study has been conducted to evaluate the effect of parameters such as the thickness of the jacket, the concrete shrinkage and the addition of steel bars and comparisons have been made with conventional RC jackets. The results of this study indicate that the use of UHPFRC can considerably im-prove the strength and the stiffness of existing RC columns. The combination of UHPFRC and steel bars in the jacket leads to the most effective strengthening technique as a significant enhancement of the stiffness and the ultimate load capacity has been achieved.

The research on the impact of excavation of underpass tunnels has already had certain results, but there is a lack of research cases of double-line highway tunnels with oblique angles underpass the existing railway tunnels, especially the method of determining the area of the impact of the dynamic and static loads of the new tunnels and existing trains to be enriched by considering them at the same time. In this paper, based on the tunnel project of the new double-line Shiqian Highway Tunnel with oblique angles underpass the Hurong Railway in Wanshoushan. By constructing a three-dimensional finite element model and simulating the application of static tunnel excavation load, dynamic blasting load and dynamic train operation load of the existing tunnel, the overall displacement of the existing tunnel and the settlement value of the bottom plate of the track surface by the static tunnel excavation load were analyzed. Then, the stresses, vibration speeds and displacements of the tunnel due to the dynamic blasting loads and the dynamic train operation loads were obtained. The results show that: the area of influence of the static loads of the new tunnel excavation on the existing tunnel is divided into three types of perturbations presenting strong, weak and slight; the area affected by the blasting dynamic load of new tunnel excavation is a circular domain with the datum point in the tunnel section as the center; the area affected by the dynamic load of train operation in the existing tunnel is an ellipse with the center of the track surface of the existing tunnel as the datum; there is an anomalous shape in the area affected by the blasting dynamic load of new tunnel excavation and the area affected by the dynamic load of train operation in the existing tunnel.

The present state of the natural environment is significantly influenced by the construction sector. Due to the large amounts of consumed natural resources and materials as well as the high volume of emitted pollutants, the building industry is considered to have a key influence in achieving a global sustainable development. A considerable part of the ecological impact of the built environment is influenced by the energy consumed for creating appropriate indoor conditions as well as by the greenhouse gases that are emitted during the operation stage of a building’s life cycle. Therefore, the energy performances of existing buildings must be significantly improved in the near future. This paper analyzes the influence of the thermal insulation thickness of walls on the linear thermal transmittances and the heating demand of an existing building. The resulted values show that while increasing the insulation of the walls leads to a serious heat demand reduction, a deep renovation of the building cannot be achieved solely by using this solution.

Open-source 3-D printing has played a pivotal role in revolutionizing the additive manufacturing (AM) landscape, by making distributed manufacturing economic, democratizing access, and fostering far more rapid innovation than antiquated proprietary systems. Unfortunately, some 3-D printing manufacturing companies began deviating from open-source principles and violating licenses for the detriment of the community. To determine if a pattern has emerged of companies patenting clearly open-source innovations, this study presents three case studies from the three primary regions of open-source 3-D printing development (EU, U.S. and China) as well as three aspects of 3-D printing technology (AM materials, an open-source 3-D printer, and core open-source 3-D printing concepts used in most 3-D printers). The results of this review have shown that non-inventing entities called patent parasites are patenting open-source inventions already well-established in the open source community and in the most egregious cases commercialized by one (or several) firms at the time of the patent filing. Patent parasites are able to patent open-source innovations by using a different language, vague patent titles and broad claims that encompass enormous swaths of widely diffused open-source innovation space. This practice poses a severe threat to innovation and several approaches to irradicate the threat are discussed.

The building sector has a big potential to reduce the material resource demand needed for building construction and therefore, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Digitalisation can help to make use of this potential and improve sustainability throughout the entire building’s life cycle. One way to address this potential is through the integration of Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) into the building process by employing Building Information Modelling (BIM). BIM can reduce the effort needed to carry out an LCA and therefore facilitate the integration into the building process. A review of current industry practice and scientific literature shows two main approaches to address BIM-LCA integration. Either the LCA is performed in a simplified way at the beginning of the building process, or it is done at the very end when all the needed information is available, but it is too late for decision-making. One reason for this is the lack of methods, workflows and tools to implement BIM-LCA integration over the entire building process. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to develop an integrated BIM-LCA workflow implemented into a method for the whole building process using an existing structure for cost estimation. A tool is created and used in a case study in Switzerland to test the developed approach. The results of this study show that LCA can be performed continuously in each building phase over the entire building process using existing BIM modelling techniques. The main benefit of this approach is that the re-work caused by the need for re-entering data and the usage of many different software tools that characterise most of the current LCA practices is minimised. Furthermore, decision-making, both at the element and building levels, is supported.

The occurrence rate of occupational accidents caused by slipping and falling is 50% worldwide. Determining the slip safety risk is necessary to minimize the accidents caused by slipping in pedestrian walking areas. By on-site testing, this study aims to determine the slip risks of floor coverings used in walking areas with many pedestrians in public service buildings (PSB). For this purpose, on-site measurements were performed in two environments and six locations in PSB using portable GMG 200 and pendulum testers operating according to DIN 51131 and TS EN 14231 standards. These tests were performed on four-floor coverings with polished surface treatment in PSB. Since the floor coverings measured have a polished surface, it can be seen that the dynamic friction coefficients (DCOF) values are very low, and the slip risks are high. By statistically analyzing the slip test data using the K-means method, a new safety classification was made according to the usage areas of floor coverings. To minimize the risk of slip safety, especially for students, patients, and employees in PSB, it is recommended to use floor coverings with high DCOF values and low slip risk.

Shape Memory Polymer (SMP) actuators are smart materials that adapt and switch shape in response to environmental conditions, allowing controlled and dynamic building systems. The integrated SMP strip enabled the adaptive facade shading system to operate independently and with flexibility under certain thermoresponsive conditions to regulate building performance. This study aims to improve adaptive façade performance in a hot-humid climate by determining optimal thermal activation factors for the shape memory polymer. This was achieved by comprehensively examining and analysing the impact of various SMP activation parameters on energy efficiency, thermal comfort, and visual comfort. In addition, dynamic IES-VE building energy simulation was used to evaluate the thermal performance of the adaptable facade. The results were validated using a multicriteria approach to compare with the existing glass façade of a high-rise apartment. The results showed that the coactivation technique, which combines solar radiation and air temperature triggers, proved to be the most efficient strategy to improve the performance of the adaptive façade. This strategy minimised heat gain, lowered indoor temperatures, reduced glare, and enhanced daylight comfort, resulting in notable energy savings through reduced cooling consumption. The study concluded that the utilisation of SMP actuators with fine-tuning activation parameters significantly optimised adaptive façade performance, promoting functionality, efficiency, and sustainability in buildings.

Reliable prediction of sustainable energy consumption is the key to designing environmental friend buildings. In this study, two novel hybrid intelligent methods, namely grasshopper optimization algorithm (GOA), wind-driven optimization (WDO), and biogeography-based optimization (BBO) is employed to optimize the multitarget prediction of heating loads (HLs) and cooling loads (CLs) in heating ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems. Concerning the optimization of applied hybrid algorithms, a series of swarm-based iteration is performed, and the best structure for the abovementioned methods are proposed. Besides, through sensitivity analyzing the relationship between the HLs and CLs and influential factors are highlighted. In other words, the GOA, WDO, and BBO algorithm are mixed with a class of feedforward artificial neural networks (ANN), which called MLP (multi-layer perceptron) to predict the HLs and CLs. According to the provided sensitivity analysis, the WDO with swarm size = 500 proposes the most proper-fitted terms after it has been combined with optimized MLP. The proposed WDO-MLP (training (R2 correlation=0.977 and RMSE error=0.183) and testing (R2 correlation=0.973 and RMSE error=0.190)) provided accurate prediction in the heating load and (training (R2 correlation=0.99 and RMSE error=0.147) and testing (R2 correlation=0.99 and RMSE error=0.148)) presents the most-fit prediction in the cooling load.

A characteristic feature of lightweight constructions is their low thermal mass which causes high internal temperature fluctuations that require high heating and cooling demand throughout the year. Phase Change Materials (PCMs) is effective in providing thermal inertia to low thermal mass buildings. The aim of this paper is to analyse the thermal behaviour of two proposed lightweight buildings designed for homeless people and to investigate the potential benefit achievable through the use of different types of PCM in the temperate climatic conditions of Christchurch, New Zealand. For this purpose, over 300 numerical simulations have been conducted using the simulation software DesignBuilder®. The bulk of the simulations were carried out under the assumption that the whole opaque building envelope is equipped with PCM. The results showed significant energy saving and comfort enhancement through the application of PCMs. Thereby, annual energy saving of over 50 % was reached for some of the PCMs considered. Additionally, the effectiveness of single, PCM-equipped structure components was investigated and substantial benefits between 19 and 27 % annual energy saving were achieved. However, occupant behaviour in terms of ventilation habits, occupancy of zones etc. remains one of the biggest challenges in any simulation work due to insufficient data.

Over the last two decades, residential buildings have accounted for nearly 50 percent of total energy use in New Zealand. In order to reduce household energy use, the factors that influence energy use should be continuously monitored and managed. Building researchers and professionals have made efforts to investigate the factors that affect energy use. However, few have concentrated on the association between household energy use and the cost of residential buildings. This study examined the correlation between household energy use and residential building cost. Analysis of the correlation between energy use data and residential building cost indicated that residential building cost in the construction phase and energy use in the operation stage were significantly correlated. These findings suggest that correct monitoring of building costs can help to identify trends in energy use. Therefore, this study proposes a time series model for forecasting residential building costs of five categories of residential building (one-story house, two-story house, townhouse, apartment, retirement village) in New Zealand. The primary contribution of this paper is the identification of the close correlation between household energy use and residential building costs and provide a new area for optimize energy management.

Sound absorbing materials are used in building to dissipate sound energy into heat by viscous and thermal processes. Sound absorbers increase the transmission loss of walls, decrease the reverberation time of rooms and attenuate the noise generated by internal sound sources. Porous absorbers (fibrous, cellular or granular) are the most used materials in noise control applications, since their high performance-to-cost ratio in the frequency band of interest. However, when cleaning and health reasons are of concern, microperforated panel (MPP) absorbers can be preferred. MPPs, consisting of many minute (sub-millimetric) holes in a panel, are tunable absorbers in a prescribed frequency band, which main shortcomings are high manufacturing cost and limited absorption frequency band. Production cost of MPP can nowadays be drastically cut down by means of modern techniques. Absorption frequency band can be considerably enlarged by designing multiple-layer MPPs (ML-MPPs). The aim of this article is to review the high potential of ML-MPPs as a modern, clean and healthy alternative of porous materials for sound absorption.

Precast concrete sandwich panels (PCSP) are energy efficient building system that is achieved through an insulation layer created between the concrete wythes. The insulation layer is usually of low bearing strength material making it more applicable for non-structural building systems. Hence, shear connectors are introduced to improve its structural capacity, which subsequently degrades it thermal performance by serving as thermal bridges across the panel. This article review researches of alternative materials and methods used to improve the thermal efficiency as well as reduced the strength loss due to insulation in PCSP. The alternative materials are basalt fibre reinforced polymer (BFRP), carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP), glass fibre reinforced polymer (GFRP), and foam concrete which are selected due to their low thermal conductivity for use in shear connection. While thermal path method has been used to prevent the effect of thermal bridges. Although, some of these materials have successfully achieved the desirable behaviours, however, several undesirable properties such as brittleness, bond slip, the sudden crushing of the panel system, and FRP failure below its ultimate strength were observed. Hence, the practicality of the alternative materials is still questionable despite its higher cost compared to the conventional steel and concrete used in the PCSP system.

This paper presents a novel segmentation algorithm specially developed for applications in 3D point clouds with high variability and noise, particularly suitable for heritage building 3D data. The method can be categorized within the segmentation procedures based on edge detection. In addition, it uses a graph-based topo-logical structure generated from the supervoxelization of the 3D point clouds, which is used to make the clo-sure of the edge points and to define the different segments. The algorithm provides a valuable tool for generating results that can be used in subsequent classification tasks and broader computer applications dealing with 3D point clouds. One of the characteristics of this segmentation method is that it is unsupervised, which makes it particularly advantageous for heritage applications where labelled data is scarce. It is also easily adaptable to different edge point detection and supervoxelization algorithms. Finally, the results show that the 3D data can be segmented into different architectural elements, which is important for further classification or recognition. Extensive testing on real data from historic buildings demonstrates the effectiveness of the method. The results show superior performance compared to three other segmentation methods, both globally and in the segmentation of planar and curved zones of historic buildings.

Since people spend most of their time in indoor environments, the objective of this work was to study indoor air quality perception and its effects on users’ thermal comfort. Based on previous data from a building with a central air-conditioning system and two mixed-mode buildings located in the humid subtropical climate of Florianópolis, southern Brazil, statistical analyses were performed. Each user subjective answer obtained through a questionnaire was combined with the corresponding environmental conditions – measured using microclimate stations, a portable thermo-anemometer and a CO2 analyser. Results showed that improvement in air quality was associated with the reduction of air temperature and humidity ratio. Also, there was a significant influence of thermal, air movement and humidity sensation and acceptability of air quality perception. Users felt more satisfied or neutral with air quality for being in thermal comfort, and not because of the CO2 level – which means that air quality perception is influenced by factors other than CO2. This study recommends the implementation of an air exchange device in split air-conditioners with air recirculation used in mixed-mode buildings in Brazil. It is important to provide suitable indoor ventilation to reduce pollutants concentration, ensure good air quality and prevent respiratory diseases.

The problem of real-time estimation of occupancy of buildings (number of people in various zones at every time instant) is relevant to a number of emerging applications that achieve high energy efficiency through feedback control. The measurement of CO2 concentration can be considered an important indicator that allows to define the occupation of closed and crowded spaces. Interesting cases can be school buildings and other buildings used in civil and residential (shopping centres, hospitals, etc.). This paper, starting from an experimental analysis in different classrooms of a University campus in real operating conditions, in different period of the year, proposes a possible correlation between CO2 concentration and the occupancy profile of the spaces. The acquired data are used to present some graphical correlations and to understand the most important variables or combination of them. Starting from an accurate analysis of the data, attempts are made to define a preliminary estimation method through the development of a mathematical models of occupancy dynamics in a building, which show interesting results.

The detection of temporary color steel buildings and the analysis of their spatiotemporal patterns and characteristics are of great importance in many developing cities, because areas densely distributed with color steel buildings are usually problematic regions with high population density, sustainable development and risk level, which are challenging for local governments. Using the high-resolution satellite images of the Anning District, Lanzhou City, China as the case study, this paper first extracts the information of the color steel buildings for two different periods. Then the spatiotemporal distributional characteristics of the color steel buildings are analyzed, both at small scale (temporary buildings) and large scale (planthouses, warehouses, etc.). Finally, this paper utilizes kernel density estimation, Delaunay triangulation and Voronoi diagrams to examine the spatial distribution, aggregation and proximity characteristics of the color steel buildings. Our experiments show that the temporal and spatial differences of urban development, the phased characteristics and urban space are represented by various types of color steel buildings. Thus, there are some robust coupling relationship between color steel buildings, urban spatial form and urban development.

The article presents the results of research on a new method of spatial analysis of walls and buildings moisture. Due to the fact that destructive methods are not suitable for historical buildings of great architectural significance, a non-destructive method based on electrical tomography has been adopted. A hybrid tomograph with special sensors was developed for the measurements. This device enables the acquisition of data, which are then reconstructed by appropriately developed methods enabling spatial analysis of wet buildings. Special electrodes that ensure good contact with the surface of porous building materials such as bricks and cement were introduced. During the research, a group of algorithms enabling supervised machine learning was analyzed. They have been used in the process of converting input electrical values into conductance depicted by the output image pixels. The conductance values of individual pixels of the output vector made it possible to obtain images of the interior of building walls, both flat intersections (2D) and spatial (3D) images. The presented group of algorithms has a high application value. The main advantages of the new methods are: high accuracy of imaging, low costs, high processing speed, ease of application to walls of various thickness and irregular surface. By comparing the results of tomographic reconstructions, the most efficient algorithms were identified.

The rising global incidence of acute and chronic kidney diseases has increased the demand for renal replacement therapy. This issue, compounded with the limited availability of viable kidneys for transplantation, has propelled the search for alternative strategies to address the growing health and economic burdens associated with these conditions. In the search for such alternatives, significant efforts have been devised to augment the current and primarily supportive management of renal injury with novel regenerative strategies. For example, gene- and cell-based approaches that utilize recombinant peptides/proteins, gene, cell, organoid, and RNAi technologies have shown promising outcomes primarily in experimental models. Supporting research has also been conducted to improve our understanding of the critical aspects that facilitate the development of efficient gene- and cell-based techniques that the complex structure of the kidney has traditionally limited. This manuscript is intended to communicate efforts that have driven the development of such therapies by identifying the vectors and delivery routes needed to drive exogenous transgene incorporation that may support the treatment of acute and chronic kidney diseases.

Preventing malnutrition and dehydration in older care home residents is complex, with both conditions remaining prevalent, despite numerous guidelines spanning several decades. This policy-mapping scoping review used snowballing search methods to locate publicly-available policies, reports and best practice guidelines relating to hydration and nutrition in UK residential care homes, to describe the existing knowledge base and pinpoint gaps in practice, interpretation and further investigation. Findings were synthesised narratively to identify solutions. Strategies for improvements to nutritional and hydration care include: development of age and population-specific nutrient and fluid intake guidelines; statutory regulation, contractual obligations for commissioners, appropriate menu-planning, implementation and auditing of care, acknowledgment of residents’ eating and drinking experiences, effective screening, monitoring and treatment and staff training. The considerable body of existing knowledge is failing to influence practice, relating to translational issues of implementing knowledge into care at the point of delivery, and this is where future research and actions should focus.

The circular economy is one of the main strategies for mitigating the environmental impacts of civil construction, due to the generation of construction and demolition waste (CDW). In this transition, evaluating alternatives for using buildings as material banks is a way to make the process of reusing construction components more efficient. Thus, the article aimed to evaluate the state of the art of publications on the relationship between the circular economy in civil construction and the conceptual model of buildings as material banks, to mitigate the environmental impacts of CDW. The authors chose the methodological design of Systematic Literature Review, using the Scopus and Web of Science databases for research, with the following search strings: ("construction" or "civil construction" or "built environment" or "construction industry" ) and ("circular economy" or "circular construction") and ("material banks" or "BAMB" or "buildings as material banks" or "building stocks" or "building materials") and ("construction waste" or "demolition waste" or "CDW" or "construction and demolition waste" or "environmental impacts"). After a screening in which only articles published in journals were selected, from 2013 to 2023, inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied, to evaluate only those that had a direct relationship with CDW management through circular economy strategies and buildings such as banks of material. As a result, 93 articles remained, which were analyzed using quantitative and qualitative approach. The quantitative results showed an increase in publications since 2020, which are concentrated in European countries and China. The predominance of applied studies was also noted, through case studies that evaluate the management of materials and waste in the urban environment. The qualitative analysis, carried out using a SWOT Matrix, highlighted the strengths of the buildings, such as material banks, the potential reduction of resource extraction and urban mining, promoting the circulation of construction products. However, the recycling of waste, such as aggregates, still stands out as the main end-of-life strategy adopted, even without occupying the top of the waste hierarchy.