Miami's Third Sector Alliance for Community Well-being.

PubMed

Evans, Scotney D; Raymond, Catherine; Levine, Daniella

2014-01-01

Traditional capacity-building approaches tend to be organizationally focused ignoring the fact that community-based organizations learn and take action in a larger network working to promote positive community change. The specific aim of this paper was to outline a vision for a Third Sector Alliance to build organizational, network, and sector capacity for community well-being in Miami. Building a foundation for social impact requires a strategy for organizational, network, and sector capacity building. Organizational, network, and sector capacity building can best be achieved through a cooperative network approach driven by a solid community-university partnership. Although a Third Sector Alliance for Community Well-being does not yet exist in Miami, Catalyst Miami and the University of Miami (UM) have partnered closely to articulate a vision of what could be and have been working to make that vision a reality.

Impact of warmer weather on electricity sector emissions due to building energy use

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Meier, Paul; Holloway, Tracey; Patz, Jonathan; Harkey, Monica; Ahl, Doug; Abel, David; Schuetter, Scott; Hackel, Scott

2017-06-01

Most US energy consumption occurs in buildings, with cooling demands anticipated to increase net building electricity use under warmer conditions. The electricity generation units that respond to this demand are major contributors to sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx), both of which have direct impacts on public health, and contribute to the formation of secondary pollutants including ozone and fine particulate matter. This study quantifies temperature-driven changes in power plant emissions due to increased use of building air conditioning. We compare an ambient temperature baseline for the Eastern US to a model-calculated mid-century scenario with summer-average temperature increases ranging from 1 C to 5 C across the domain. We find a 7% increase in summer electricity demand and a 32% increase in non-coincident peak demand. Power sector modeling, assuming only limited changes to current generation resources, calculated a 16% increase in emissions of NOx and an 18% increase in emissions of SO2. There is a high level of regional variance in the response of building energy use to climate, and the response of emissions to associated demand. The East North Central census region exhibited the greatest sensitivity of energy demand and associated emissions to climate.

Tipping points for carbon dioxide and air pollution benefits: an energy systems analysis of natural gas verses electric technologies in the U.S. buildings sector

EPA Science Inventory

Our analysis examines emission trade-offs between electricity and natural gas use in the buildings sector at the system level, including upstream emissions from the electric sector and natural gas mining emissions.

Measurement methods of building structures deflections

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wróblewska, Magdalena

2018-04-01

Underground mining exploitation is leading to the occurrence of deformations manifested by, in particular, sloping terrain. The structures situated on the deforming subsoil are subject to uneven subsidence which is leading in consequence to their deflection. Before a building rectification process takes place by, e.g. uneven raising, the structure's deflection direction and value is determined so that the structure is restored to its vertical position as a result of the undertaken remedial measures. Deflection can be determined by applying classical as well as modern measurement techniques. The article presents examples of measurement methods used considering the measured elements of building structures' constructions and field measurements. Moreover, for a given example of a mining area, the existing deflections of buildings were compared with mining terrain sloping.

Commercial Buildings Partnerships - Overview of Higher education projects

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Parrish, Kristen; Robinson, Alastair; Regnier, Cindy

2013-02-01

The Commercial Building Partnership (CBP), a public/private, cost-shared program sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), paired selected commercial building owners and operators with representatives of DOE, its national laboratories, and private-sector technical experts. These teams explored energy-saving measures across building systems – including some considered too costly or technologically challenging – and used advanced energy modeling to achieve peak whole-building performance. Modeling results were then included in new construction or retrofit designs to achieve significant energy reductions. CBP design goals aimed to achieve 50 percent energy savings compared to ANSI/ASHRAE/IES Standard 90.1-2004 for new construction, while retrofits aremore » designed to consume at least 30 percent less energy than either Standard 90.1-2004 or current consumption. After construction and commissioning of the project, laboratory staff continued to work with partners to collect and analyze data for verification of the actual energy reduction. CBP projects represent diverse building types in commercial real estate, including lodging, grocery, retail, higher education, office, and warehouse/storage facilities. Partners also commit to replicating low-energy technologies and strategies from their CBP projects throughout their building portfolios. As a result of CBP projects, five sector overviews (Lodging, Food Sales, General Merchandise, Higher Education, Offices) were created to capture successful strategies and recommended energy efficiency measures that could broadly be applied across these sectors. These overviews are supplemented with individual case studies providing specific details on the decision criteria, modeling results, and lessons learned on specific projects. Sector overviews and CBP case studies will also be updated to reflect verified data and replication strategies as they become available.« less

Competitiveness measurement system in the advertising sector.

PubMed

Poveda-Bautista, Rocío; García-Melón, Mónica; Baptista, Doris C

2013-01-01

In this paper a new approach to find indicators that can be used to measure companies' competitiveness and performance in an efficient and reliable way is presented. The aim is to assist managers of companies within a specific industrial sector by providing information about their relative position in the market so as to define better action plans that may improve the company's performance. The approach combines the use of the Analytic Network Process, a multicriteria decision method, with the Balanced Scorecard. It allows the definition of a number of competitiveness indicators based on the performance and setting of the advertising sector. In this way it is possible to obtain a Competitiveness Index that allows a company to know its relative position with respect to other companies in the sector, and establish a ranking of the companies ordered by their competitiveness level. A case study in the advertising industry of Venezuela is provided. Results show that improvement plans for the agencies analyzed should promote creativity, innovation and the use of new technologies, as a particular form of innovation. These factors were considered to be the most relevant indicators in the advertising sector. The participating experts agreed that the methodology is useful and an improvement over current competitiveness assessment methods.

Buildings | NREL

Science.gov Websites

the energy efficiency of both residential and commercial buildings, and to accelerate the integration Commercial Buildings team focuses on providing large institutional and private sector commercial building

Building the Foundations for a Large-Scale, Cross-Sector Collaboration for a Sustainable and Permanent Return to the Lunar Surface

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kapoglou, A.

2017-10-01

This presentation will describe how to build the foundations needed for a large scale, cross-industry collaboration to enable a sustainable and permanent return to the Moon based on system leadership, cross-sector partnership, and inclusive business.

Measuring Building Insulation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Parks, Beth

2013-03-01

Currently, the only way for homeowners to learn about the effectiveness of their home insulation is to hire an energy auditor. This difficulty deters homeowners from taking action to improve energy efficiency. In principle, measuring the temperature difference between a wall surface and the interior of a home is sufficient to determine the wall insulation, but in practice, temperature cycles from the heating system make a single measurement unreliable. I will describe a simple and inexpensive thermocouple-based device to measure this temperature difference and report results obtained by monitoring this temperature difference over multiple heating cycles in a range of buildings. Patent application 12/555371

Assessing reserve-building pursuits and person characteristics: psychometric validation of the Reserve-Building Measure.

PubMed

Schwartz, Carolyn E; Michael, Wesley; Zhang, Jie; Rapkin, Bruce D; Sprangers, Mirjam A G

2018-02-01

A growing body of research suggests that regularly engaging in stimulating activities across multiple domains-physical, cultural, intellectual, communal, and spiritual-builds resilience. This project investigated the psychometric characteristics of the DeltaQuest Reserve-Building Measure for use in prospective research. The study included Rare Patient Voice panel participants. The web-based survey included the Reserve-Building Measure with one-week re-test, measures of quality of life (QOL) and well-being (PROMIS General Health; NeuroQOL Cognitive Function and Positive Affect & Well-Being short-forms; Ryff Environmental Mastery subscale); and the Big Five Inventory-10 personality measure. Classical test theory and item response theory (IRT) analyses investigated psychometric characteristics of the Reserve-Building Measure. This North American sample (n = 592) included both patients and caregivers [mean age = 44, SD 19)]. Psychometric analyses revealed distinct subscales measuring current reserve-building activities (Active in the World, Games, Outdoors, Creative, Religious/Spiritual, Exercise, Inner Life, Shopping/Cooking, Passive Media Consumption,), past reserve-building activities (Childhood Activities, Achievement), and reserve-related person-factors (Perseverance, Current and Past Social Support, and Work Value). Test-retest stability (n = 101) was moderately high for 11 of 15 subscales (ICC range 0.78-0.99); four were below 0.59 indicating a need for further refinement. IRT analyses supported the item functioning of all subscales. Correlational analyses suggest the measure's subscales tap distinct constructs (range r = 0.11-0.46) which are not redundant with QOL, well-being, or personality (range r = 0.11-0.48). The Reserve-Building Measure provides a measure of activities and person-factors related to reserve that may potentially be useful in prospective research.

Building state capacity in Russia: A case study of energy sector reform, 1992--1998

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kim, Younkyoo

This study seeks an explanation for the neglect of state building in Russia. The major hypothesis is that dependence on external rent leads to the weakness of the state. Three intervening variables---transaction costs, bargaining power of the state, and discount rates---are posited to explain variance on the dependent variable, the weakness of the state. Based on the exploration of three dimensions of energy sector reform, the dissertation argues that in the short run resource rents may be the only reliable and adequate source of finance for the Russian government. The division of resource rents among the many claimants (state vs. business, state vs. society, Moscow vs. regions, and Russia vs. foreign companies), it submits, will pose a stringent test of the viability of democratic governance in Russia. The dissertation concludes that some evidence indicates that Russia has in fact met the characteristics of the rentier state. The greater reliance on a large resource sector for revenue has led to high transaction costs of tax collection, weak bargaining power of the state, and high discount rates of government officials in Russia.

Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey - Office Buildings

EIA Publications

2010-01-01

Provides an in-depth look at this building type as reported in the 2003 Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey. Office buildings are the most common type of commercial building and they consumed more than 17% of all energy in the commercial buildings sector in 2003. This special report provides characteristics and energy consumption data by type of office building (e.g. administrative office, government office, medical office) and information on some of the types of equipment found in office buildings: heating and cooling equipment, computers, servers, printers, and photocopiers.

The Information Sector: Definition and Measurement.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Porat, Marc U.

In the last 20 years the U.S. economy had changed as a result of the increase in production, processing, and distribution of information goods and services. Three information sectors--the primary sector producing information goods and services, the private bureaucracy, and the public bureaucracy--are part of a six-sector economy. Today,…

University building safety index measurement using risk and implementation matrix

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rahman, A.; Arumsari, F.; Maryani, A.

2018-04-01

Many high rise building constructed in several universities in Indonesia. The high-rise building management must provide the safety planning and proper safety equipment in each part of the building. Unfortunately, most of the university in Indonesia have not been applying safety policy yet and less awareness on treating safety facilities. Several fire accidents in university showed that some significant risk should be managed by the building management. This research developed a framework for measuring the high rise building safety index in university The framework is not only assessed the risk magnitude but also designed modular building safety checklist for measuring the safety implementation level. The safety checklist has been developed for 8 types of the university rooms, i.e.: office, classroom, 4 type of laboratories, canteen, and library. University building safety index determined using risk-implementation matrix by measuring the risk magnitude and assessing the safety implementation level. Building Safety Index measurement has been applied in 4 high rise buildings in ITS Campus. The building assessment showed that the rectorate building in secure condition and chemical department building in beware condition. While the library and administration center building was in less secure condition.

Utility of de-escalatory confidence-building measures

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Nation, J.

1989-06-01

This paper evaluates the utility of specific confidence-building de-escalatory measures and pays special attention to the evaluation of measures which place restrictions on or establish procedures for strategic forces. Some measures appear more promising than others. Potentially useful confidence-building measures largely satisfy defined criteria and include the phased return of strategic nuclear forces to peacetime bases and operations, the termination of interference with communications and NTMs (National Technical Means) and the termination of civil defense preparations. Less-promising CBMs include the standing down of supplemental early warning systems, the establishment of SSBN keep-out zones, and decreases in bomber alert rates. Establishmentmore » of SSBN keep-out zones and reduction in bomber rates are difficult to verify, while the standing-down of early warning systems provides little benefit at potentially large costs. Particular confidence-building measures (CBMs) may be most useful in building superpower confidence at specific points in the crisis termination phase. For example, a decrease in strategic bomber alert rates may provide some decrease in perception of the likelihood of war, but its potential costs, particularly in increasing bomber vulnerability, may limit its utility and implementation to the final crisis stages when the risks of re-escalation and surprise attack are lower.« less

High-performance commercial building systems

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Selkowitz, Stephen

2003-10-01

and health and performance benefits to occupants. At the same time this program can strengthen the growing energy efficiency industry in California by providing new jobs and growth opportunities for companies providing the technology, systems, software, design, and building services to the commercial sector. The broad objectives across all five program elements were: (1) To develop and deploy an integrated set of tools and techniques to support the design and operation of energy-efficient commercial buildings; (2) To develop open software specifications for a building data model that will support the interoperability of these tools throughout the building life-cycle; (3) To create new technology options (hardware and controls) for substantially reducing controllable lighting, envelope, and cooling loads in buildings; (4) To create and implement a new generation of diagnostic techniques so that commissioning and efficient building operations can be accomplished reliably and cost effectively and provide sustained energy savings; (5) To enhance the health, comfort and performance of building occupants. (6) To provide the information technology infrastructure for owners to minimize their energy costs and manage their energy information in a manner that creates added value for their buildings as the commercial sector transitions to an era of deregulated utility markets, distributed generation, and changing business practices. Our ultimate goal is for our R&D effort to have measurable market impact. This requires that the research tasks be carried out with a variety of connections to key market actors or trends so that they are recognized as relevant and useful and can be adopted by expected users. While some of this activity is directly integrated into our research tasks, the handoff from ''market-connected R&D'' to ''field deployment'' is still an art as well as a science and in many areas requires resources and a timeframe well beyond the scope of this PIER research

Acoustic building infiltration measurement system

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Muehleisen, Ralph T.; Raman, Ganesh

Systems and methods of detecting and identifying a leak from a container or building. Acoustic pressure and velocity are measured. Acoustic properties are acquired from the measured values. The acoustic properties are converted to infiltration/leakage information. Nearfield Acoustic Holography (NAH) may be one method to detect the leakages from a container by locating the noise sources.

Sector-specific issues and reporting methodologies supporting the General Guidelines for the voluntary reporting of greenhouse gases under Section 1605(b) of the Energy Policy Act of 1992. Volume 1: Part 1, Electricity supply sector; Part 2, Residential and commercial buildings sector; Part 3, Industrial sector

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Not Available

DOE encourages you to report your achievements in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and sequestering carbon under this program. Global climate change is increasingly being recognized as a threat that individuals and organizations can take action against. If you are among those taking action, reporting your projects may lead to recognition for you, motivation for others, and synergistic learning for the global community. This report discusses the reporting process for the voluntary detailed guidance in the sectoral supporting documents for electricity supply, residential and commercial buildings, industry, transportation, forestry, and agriculture. You may have reportable projects in several sectors; you maymore » report them separately or capture and report the total effects on an entity-wide report.« less

Ship and Boat Building Sector (NAICS 3336)

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

Find environmental regulatory and compliance information for the shipbuilding sector (NAICS 3336), including NESHAPs and air toxics regulations, nonroad engines and vehicles, managing used oil, and polluted runoff from marinas and boating areas.

To Investigate the Influence of Building Envelope and Natural Ventilation on Thermal Heat Balance in Office Buildings in Warm and Humid Climate

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kini, Pradeep G.; Garg, Naresh Kumar; Kamath, Kiran

2017-07-01

India’s commercial building sector is witnessing robust growth. India continues to be a key growth market among global corporates and this is reflective in the steady growth in demand for prime office space. A recent trend that has been noted is the increase in demand for office spaces not just in major cities but also in smaller tier II and Tier III cities. Growth in the commercial building sector projects a rising trend of energy intensive mechanical systems in office buildings in India. The air conditioning market in India is growing at 25% annually. This is due to the ever increasing demand to maintain thermal comfort in tropical regions. Air conditioning is one of the most energy intensive technologies which are used in buildings. As a result India is witnessing significant spike in energy demand and further widening the demand supply gap. Challenge in India is to identify passive measures in building envelope design in office buildings to reduce the cooling loads and conserve energy. This paper investigates the overall heat gain through building envelope components and natural ventilation in warm and humid climate region through experimental and simulation methods towards improved thermal environmental performance.

Improving building energy efficiency in India: State-level analysis of building energy efficiency policies

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Yu, Sha; Tan, Qing; Evans, Meredydd

India is expected to add 40 billion m2 of new buildings till 2050. Buildings are responsible for one third of India’s total energy consumption today and building energy use is expected to continue growing driven by rapid income and population growth. The implementation of the Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC) is one of the measures to improve building energy efficiency. Using the Global Change Assessment Model, this study assesses growth in the buildings sector and impacts of building energy policies in Gujarat, which would help the state adopt ECBC and expand building energy efficiency programs. Without building energy policies, buildingmore » energy use in Gujarat would grow by 15 times in commercial buildings and 4 times in urban residential buildings between 2010 and 2050. ECBC improves energy efficiency in commercial buildings and could reduce building electricity use in Gujarat by 20% in 2050, compared to the no policy scenario. Having energy codes for both commercial and residential buildings could result in additional 10% savings in electricity use. To achieve these intended savings, it is critical to build capacity and institution for robust code implementation.« less

Review of optimization techniques of polygeneration systems for building applications

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Y, Rong A.; Y, Su; R, Lahdelma

2016-08-01

Polygeneration means simultaneous production of two or more energy products in a single integrated process. Polygeneration is an energy-efficient technology and plays an important role in transition into future low-carbon energy systems. It can find wide applications in utilities, different types of industrial sectors and building sectors. This paper mainly focus on polygeneration applications in building sectors. The scales of polygeneration systems in building sectors range from the micro-level for a single home building to the large- level for residential districts. Also the development of polygeneration microgrid is related to building applications. The paper aims at giving a comprehensive review for optimization techniques for designing, synthesizing and operating different types of polygeneration systems for building applications.

Fade Measurements into Buildings from 500 to 3000 MHz

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Vogel, Wolfhard J.; Torrence, Geoffrey W.

1996-01-01

Slant-path fade measurements from 500 to 3000 MHz were made into six different buildings employing a vector network analyzer, a tower-mounted transmitting antenna and an automatically positioned receiving antenna. The objective of the measurements was to provide information for satellite audio broadcasting and personal communications satellite design on the correlation of fading inside buildings. Fades were measured with 5 cm spatial separation and every 0.2 percent of the frequency. Median fades ranged from 10 to 20 dB in woodframe houses with metal roofs and walls without and with an aluminum heat shield, respectively. The median decorrelation distance was from 0.5 to 1.1. m and was independent of frequency. The attenuation into the buildings increased only moderately with frequency in most of the buildings with a median slope of about 1 to 3 db/GHz, but increased fastest in the least attenuating building with a slope of 5 dB/GHz. The median decorrelation bandwidth ranged from 1.2 to 3.8 percent of frequency in five of the buildings, and was largest in the least attenuating building, with 20.2 percent of frequency.

Fade Measurements into Buildings from 500 to 3000 MHz

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Vogel, Wolfhard J.; Torrence, Geoffrey W.

1996-01-01

Slant-path fade measurements from 500 to 3000 MHz were made into six different buildings employing a vector network analyzer, a tower-mounted transmitting antenna and an automatically positioned receiving antenna. The objective of the measurements was to provide information for satellite audio broadcasting and personal communications satellite design on the correlation of fading inside buildings. Fades were measured with 5 cm spatial separation and every 0.2% of the frequency. Median fades ranged from 10 to 20 dB in woodframe houses with metal roofs and walls without and with an aluminum heatshield, respectively. The median decorrelation distance was from 0.5 to 1.1 m and was independent of frequency. The attenuation into the buildings increased only moderately with frequency in most of the buildings with a median slope of about 1 to 3 dB/GHz, but increased fastest in the least attenuating building with a slope of 5 dB/GHz. The median decorrelation bandwidth ranged from 1.2 to 3.8% of frequency in five of the buildings, and was largest in the least attenuating building, with 20.2% of frequency.

Measure Guideline. Air Sealing Attics in Multifamily Buildings

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Otis, Casey; Maxwell, Sean

2012-06-01

This Building America Measure Guideline is intended for owners, builders, contractors, homeowners, and other stakeholders in the multifamily building industry, and focuses on challenges found in existing buildings for a variety of housing types. It explains why air sealing is desirable, explores related health and safety issues, and identifies common air leakage points in multifamily building attics. In addition, it also gives an overview of materials and techniques typically used to perform air sealing work.

Measure Guideline: Air Sealing Attics in Multifamily Buildings

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Otis, C.; Maxwell, S.

2012-06-01

This Building America Measure Guideline is intended for owners, builders, contractors, homeowners, and other stakeholders in the multifamily building industry, and focuses on challenges found in existing buildings for a variety of housing types. It explains why air sealing is desirable, explores related health and safety issues, and identifies common air leakage points in multifamily building attics. In addition, it also gives an overview of materials and techniques typically used to perform air sealing work.

Construction Sector (NAICS 23)

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

Find environmental regulatory information for the construction sector, including the construction of buildings or engineering projects. This includes RCRA information for hazardous waste, refrigeration compliance, asbestos, effluent guidelines & lead laws

Technology Prioritization: Transforming the U.S. Building Stock to Embrace Energy Efficiency

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Abdelaziz, Omar; Farese, Philip; Abramson, Alexis

2013-01-01

The U.S. Buildings sector is responsible for about 40% of the national energy expenditures. This is due in part to wasteful use of resources and limited considerations made for energy efficiency during the design and retrofit phases. Recent studies have indicated the potential for up to 30-50% energy savings in the U.S. buildings sector using currently available technologies. This paper discusses efforts to accelerate the transformation in the U.S. building energy efficiency sector using a new technology prioritization framework. The underlying analysis examines building energy use micro segments using the Energy Information Administration Annual Energy Outlook and other publically availablemore » information. The tool includes a stock-and-flow model to track stock vintage and efficiency levels with time. The tool can be used to investigate energy efficiency measures under a variety of scenarios and has a built-in energy accounting framework to prevent double counting of energy savings within any given portfolio. This tool is developed to inform decision making and estimate long term potential energy savings for different market adoption scenarios.« less

Analysis of Aircraft Clusters to Measure Sector-Independent Airspace Congestion

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bilimoria, Karl D.; Lee, Hilda Q.

2005-01-01

The Distributed Air/Ground Traffic Management (DAG-TM) concept of operations* permits appropriately equipped aircraft to conduct Free Maneuvering operations. These independent aircraft have the freedom to optimize their trajectories in real time according to user preferences; however, they also take on the responsibility to separate themselves from other aircraft while conforming to any local Traffic Flow Management (TFM) constraints imposed by the air traffic service provider (ATSP). Examples of local-TFM constraints include temporal constraints such as a required time of arrival (RTA), as well as spatial constraints such as regions of convective weather, special use airspace, and congested airspace. Under current operations, congested airspace typically refers to a sector(s) that cannot accept additional aircraft due to controller workload limitations; hence Dynamic Density (a metric that is indicative of controller workload) can be used to quantify airspace congestion. However, for Free Maneuvering operations under DAG-TM, an additional metric is needed to quantify the airspace congestion problem from the perspective of independent aircraft. Such a metric would enable the ATSP to prevent independent aircraft from entering any local areas of congestion in which the flight deck based systems and procedures may not be able to ensure separation. This new metric, called Gaggle Density, offers the ATSP a mode of control to regulate normal operations and to ensure safety and stability during rare-normal or off-normal situations (e.g., system failures). It may be difficult to certify Free Maneuvering systems for unrestricted operations, but it may be easier to certify systems and procedures for specified levels of Gaggle Density that could be monitored by the ATSP, and maintained through relatively minor flow-rate (RTA type) restrictions. Since flight deck based separation assurance is airspace independent, the challenge is to measure congestion independent of sector

Measuring Systemic and Climate Diversity in Ontario's University Sector

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Piché, Pierre Gilles

2015-01-01

This article proposes a methodology for measuring institutional diversity and applies it to Ontario's university sector. This study first used hierarchical cluster analysis, which suggested there has been very little change in diversity between 1994 and 2010 as universities were clustered in three groups for both years. However, by adapting…

Building Energy Efficiency in India: Compliance Evaluation of Energy Conservation Building Code

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Yu, Sha; Evans, Meredydd; Delgado, Alison

India is experiencing unprecedented construction boom. The country doubled its floorspace between 2001 and 2005 and is expected to add 35 billion m2 of new buildings by 2050. Buildings account for 35% of total final energy consumption in India today, and building energy use is growing at 8% annually. Studies have shown that carbon policies will have little effect on reducing building energy demand. Chaturvedi et al. predicted that, if there is no specific sectoral policies to curb building energy use, final energy demand of the Indian building sector will grow over five times by the end of this century,more » driven by rapid income and population growth. The growing energy demand in buildings is accompanied by a transition from traditional biomass to commercial fuels, particularly an increase in electricity use. This also leads to a rapid increase in carbon emissions and aggravates power shortage in India. Growth in building energy use poses challenges to the Indian government. To curb energy consumption in buildings, the Indian government issued the Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC) in 2007, which applies to commercial buildings with a connected load of 100 kW or 120kVA. It is predicted that the implementation of ECBC can help save 25-40% of energy, compared to reference buildings without energy-efficiency measures. However, the impact of ECBC depends on the effectiveness of its enforcement and compliance. Currently, the majority of buildings in India are not ECBC-compliant. The United Nations Development Programme projected that code compliance in India would reach 35% by 2015 and 64% by 2017. Whether the projected targets can be achieved depends on how the code enforcement system is designed and implemented. Although the development of ECBC lies in the hands of the national government – the Bureau of Energy Efficiency under the Ministry of Power, the adoption and implementation of ECBC largely relies on state and local governments. Six years after

Natural radioactivity measurements of building materials in Baotou, China.

PubMed

Zhao, Caifeng; Lu, Xinwei; Li, Nan; Yang, Guang

2012-12-01

Natural radioactivity due to (226)Ra, (232)Th and (40)K in the common building materials collected from Baotou city of Inner Mongolia, China was measured using gamma-ray spectrometry. The radiation hazard of the studied building materials was estimated by the radium equivalent activity (Ra(eq)), internal hazard index (H(in)) and annual effective dose (AED). The concentrations of the natural radionuclides and Ra(eq) in the studied samples were compared with the corresponding results of other countries. The Ra(eq) values of the building materials are below the internationally accepted values (370 Bq kg(-1)). The values of H(in) in all studied building materials are less than unity. The AEDs of all measured building materials are at an acceptable level.

Building Energy Codes: Policy Overview and Good Practices

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Cox, Sadie

2016-02-19

Globally, 32% of total final energy consumption is attributed to the building sector. To reduce energy consumption, energy codes set minimum energy efficiency standards for the building sector. With effective implementation, building energy codes can support energy cost savings and complementary benefits associated with electricity reliability, air quality improvement, greenhouse gas emission reduction, increased comfort, and economic and social development. This policy brief seeks to support building code policymakers and implementers in designing effective building code programs.

Evaluating digital libraries in the health sector. Part 1: measuring inputs and outputs.

PubMed

Cullen, Rowena

2003-12-01

This is the first part of a two-part paper which explores methods that can be used to evaluate digital libraries in the health sector. In this first part, some approaches to evaluation that have been proposed for mainstream digital information services are examined for their suitability to provide models for the health sector. The paper summarizes some major national and collaborative initiatives to develop measures for digital libraries, and analyses these approaches in terms of their relationship to traditional measures of library performance, which are focused on inputs and outputs, and their relevance to current debates among health information specialists. The second part* looks more specifically at evaluative models based on outcomes, and models being developed in the health sector.

Functional materials for energy-efficient buildings

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ebert, H.-P.

2015-08-01

The substantial improving of the energy efficiency is essential to meet the ambitious energy goals of the EU. About 40% of the European energy consumption belongs to the building sector. Therefore the reduction of the energy demand of the existing building stock is one of the key measures to deliver a substantial contribution to reduce CO2-emissions of our society. Buildings of the future have to be efficient in respect to energy consumption for construction and operation. Current research activities are focused on the development of functional materials with outstanding thermal and optical properties to provide, for example, slim thermally superinsulated facades, highly integrated heat storage systems or adaptive building components. In this context it is important to consider buildings as entities which fulfill energy and comfort claims as well as aesthetic aspects of a sustainable architecture.

Energy data sourcebook for the US residential sector

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Wenzel, T.P.; Koomey, J.G.; Sanchez, M.

Analysts assessing policies and programs to improve energy efficiency in the residential sector require disparate input data from a variety of sources. This sourcebook, which updates a previous report, compiles these input data into a single location. The data provided include information on end-use unit energy consumption (UEC) values of appliances and equipment efficiency; historical and current appliance and equipment market shares; appliances and equipment efficiency and sales trends; appliance and equipment efficiency standards; cost vs. efficiency data for appliances and equipment; product lifetime estimates; thermal shell characteristics of buildings; heating and cooling loads; shell measure cost data for newmore » and retrofit buildings; baseline housing stocks; forecasts of housing starts; and forecasts of energy prices and other economic drivers. This report is the essential sourcebook for policy analysts interested in residential sector energy use. The report can be downloaded from the Web at http://enduse.lbl. gov/Projects/RED.html. Future updates to the report, errata, and related links, will also be posted at this address.« less

ISO 50001 for US Commercial Buildings - Current Status and Opportunities

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Liu, Jingjing; Sheaffer, Paul

''ISO 50001: 2011 Energy management systems – Requirements with guidance for use'' is a voluntary International Standard which provides organizations a proven framework to manage energy and continuously improve their energy performance. Implementing ISO 50001 in the commercial building sector has its unique opportunities and challenges in comparison with the industrial sector. The energy footprint of a portfolio of commercial buildings can be just as significant as a large industrial facility in comparison. There are many energy-saving opportunities in commercial buildings that can be addressed without capital investments, and the perceived risks for making energy improvements can be lower thanmore » in the industrial sector. In addition, the energy-consuming systems in commercial buildings are limited in types and have many similarities across buildings, which makes it much easier to standardize many ISO 50001 required processes, 5 procedures and documents to simplify implementation. There are also some sector-unique challenges, such as less familiar with ISO systems and the certification process. Another challenge arises from the complexity in some buildings’ ownership, tenancy, and O&M responsibilities. This whitepaper discusses these opportunities and issues in detail. The paper also recommends the characteristics of organizations in the commercial building sector that can benefit the most from adopting the ISO 50001 standard – namely the “suitable market”. Eight segments (education, food sales, retail, inpatient health care, hospitality, office buildings, laboratories and data centers) within the commercial building sector are highlighted.« less

Fundamental Characteristics For Building Dymanics Obtained From Microtremors Measurements.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Enomoto, T.; Abeki, N.; Kuramochi, D.; Lanuza, A.; Gonzalez, J.; Schmitz, M.; Navarro, M.

We are performing the international joint research investigations for the seismic disaster mitigation in Metro Manila between Philippine and Japan from 1994, in Caracas between Venezuela and Japan from 1996 and also in Almeria and Granada between Spain and Japan from 1996. We have made the microtremor measurements at Reinforced Concrete (RC) buildings existed in these cities and evaluated the dynamical characteristics of RC buildings, natural period and damping factor. Even if it·fs necessary to have some discussions about the accuracy of microtremor measurement in order to evaluate the dynamical characteristics because of small amplitude range phenomena. However, the microtremor measurement method is a simple, low cost and realistic method in order to observe and investigate the actual dynamical behavior for obtaining the useful information in many countries. In these international joint research works, we settled the main object to the getting useful information of building dynamical characteristics for the seismic disaster mitigation. So, we observed microtremors at the top floor of several kinds of buildings which have the different conditions, for examples, existed place, building type, dimensional scale and number of stories etc. Then we realized the evaluation of natural period and responded damping factor of building depending on the building conditions as a statistical tendencies. In this paper, mainly we would like to present the investigated results of regression relationship between the natural period of RC building and the number of stories in Philippine and Venezuela, respectively. and also, we summarized the relationship between the natural period of RC building and damping factor considering the surrounding soil condition. We thought that these relations are reasonable and believable results in the small amplitude range evaluated from microtremors.

"Watts per person" paradigm to design net zero energy buildings: Examining technology interventions and integrating occupant feedback to reduce plug loads in a commercial building

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yagi Kim, Mika

As building envelopes have improved due to more restrictive energy codes, internal loads have increased largely due to the proliferation of computers, electronics, appliances, imaging and audio visual equipment that continues to grow in commercial buildings. As the dependency on the internet for information and data transfer increases, the electricity demand will pose a challenge to design and operate Net Zero Energy Buildings (NZEBs). Plug Loads (PLs) as a proportion of the building load has become the largest non-regulated building energy load and represents the third highest electricity end-use in California's commercial office buildings, accounting for 23% of the total building electricity consumption (Ecova 2011,2). In the Annual Energy Outlook 2008 (AEO2008), prepared by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) that presents long-term projections of energy supply and demand through 2030 states that office equipment and personal computers are the "fastest growing electrical end uses" in the commercial sector. This thesis entitled "Watts Per Person" Paradigm to Design Net Zero Energy Buildings, measures the implementation of advanced controls and behavioral interventions to study the reduction of PL energy use in the commercial sector. By integrating real world data extracted from an energy efficient commercial building of its energy use, the results produce a new methodology on estimating PL energy use by calculating based on "Watts Per Person" and analyzes computational simulation methods to design NZEBs.

A Unidimensional Instrument for Measuring Internal Marketing Concept in the Higher Education Sector: IM-11 Scale

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yildiz, Suleyman Murat; Kara, Ali

2017-01-01

Purpose: Although the existing internal marketing (IM) scales include various scale items to measure employee motivation, they fall short of incorporating the needs and expectations of service sector employees. Hence, the purpose of this study is to present a practical instrument designed to measure the IM construct in the higher education sector.…

Novel method of measurement of radon exhalation from building materials.

PubMed

Awhida, A; Ujić, P; Vukanac, I; Đurašević, M; Kandić, A; Čeliković, I; Lončar, B; Kolarž, P

2016-11-01

In the era of the energy saving policy (i.e. more air tight doors and windows), the radon exhaled from building materials tends to increase its concentration in indoor air, which increases the importance of the measurement of radon exhalation from building materials. This manuscript presents a novel method of the radon exhalation measurement using only a HPGe detector or any other gamma spectrometer. Comparing it with the already used methods of radon exhalation measurements, this method provides the measurement of the emanation coefficient, the radon diffusion length and the radon exhalation rate, all within the same measurement, which additionally defines material's radon protective properties. Furthermore it does not necessitate additional equipment for radon or radon exhalation measurement, which simplifies measurement technique, and thus potentially facilitates introduction of legal obligation for radon exhalation determination in building materials. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Effects of Sectoral Diversity on Community Coalition Processes and Outcomes.

PubMed

Brown, Louis D; Wells, Rebecca; Jones, Eric C; Chilenski, Sarah Meyer

2017-07-01

Collaboration with diverse partners is challenging but essential for the implementation of prevention programs and policies. Increased communication with partners from diverse sectors may help community coalitions overcome the challenges that diversity presents. We examined these issues empirically in a study of 17 substance use prevention coalitions in Mexico. Building on coalition and workgroup literatures, we hypothesized that sectoral diversity would improve outcomes but undermine coalition processes. Conversely, we expected uniformly positive effects from higher levels of intersectoral communication. Data are from a 2015 survey of 211 members within the 17 community coalitions. Regression models used sectoral diversity and intersectoral communication to predict coalition processes (cohesion, leader-member communication, efficiency) and outcomes (community support, community improvement, sustainability planning). Sectoral diversity was negatively associated with coalition processes and was not associated with coalition outcomes. Intersectoral communication was positively associated with two of the three measures of coalition outcomes but not associated with coalition processes. Our findings concur with those from prior research indicating that sectoral diversity may undermine coalition processes. However, more communication between sectors may facilitate the coalition outcomes of community support and sustainability planning. Skilled team leaders and participatory decision making may also help coalitions promote intersectoral communication, thereby engaging diverse community sectors to implement preventive interventions and actualize sustained public health impact.

Quality assured measurements of animal building emissions: odor concentrations.

PubMed

Jacobson, Larry D; Hetchler, Brian P; Schmidt, David R; Nicolai, Richard E; Heber, Albert J; Ni, Ji-Qin; Hoff, Steven J; Koziel, Jacek A; Zhang, Yuanhui; Beasley, David B; Parker, David B

2008-06-01

Standard protocols for sampling and measuring odor emissions from livestock buildings are needed to guide scientists, consultants, regulators, and policy-makers. A federally funded, multistate project has conducted field studies in six states to measure emissions of odor, coarse particulate matter (PM(10)), total suspended particulates, hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, and carbon dioxide from swine and poultry production buildings. The focus of this paper is on the intermittent measurement of odor concentrations at nearly identical pairs of buildings in each state and on protocols to minimize variations in these measurements. Air was collected from pig and poultry barns in small (10 L) Tedlar bags through a gas sampling system located in an instrument trailer housing gas and dust analyzers. The samples were analyzed within 30 hr by a dynamic dilution forced-choice olfactometer (a dilution apparatus). The olfactometers (AC'SCENT International Olfactometer, St. Croix Sensory, Inc.) used by all participating laboratories meet the olfactometry standards (American Society for Testing and Materials and European Committee for Standardization [CEN]) in the United States and Europe. Trained panelists (four to eight) at each laboratory measured odor concentrations (dilution to thresholds [DT]) from the bag samples. Odor emissions were calculated by multiplying odor concentration differences between inlet and outlet air by standardized (20 degrees C and 1 atm) building airflow rates.

Mitigation of CO2 emissions from the EU-15 building stock: beyond the EU Directive on the Energy Performance of Buildings.

PubMed

Petersdorff, Carsten; Boermans, Thomas; Harnisch, Jochen

2006-09-01

GOAL SCOPE AND BACKGROUND: The European Directive on Energy Performance of Buildings which came into force 16 December 2002 will be implemented in the legislation of Member States by 4 January 2006. In addition to the aim of improving the overall energy efficiency of new buildings, large existing buildings will become a target for improvement, as soon as they undergo significant renovation. The building sector is responsible for about 40% of Europe's total end energy consumption and hence this Directive is an important step for the European Union in order that it should reach the level of saving required by the Kyoto Agreement. In this the EU is committed to reduce CO2 emissions relative to the base year of 1990 by 8 per cent, by 2010. But what will be the impact of the new Directive, how large could be the impacts of extending the obligation for energy efficiency retrofitting towards smaller buildings? Can improvement of the insulation offset or reduce the growing energy consumption from the increasing installation of cooling installations? EURIMA, the European Insulation Manufacturers Association and EuroACE, the European Alliance of Companies for Energy Efficiency in Buildings, asked Ecofys to address these questions. The effect of the EPB Directive on the emissions associated with the heating energy consumption of the total EU 15 building stock has been examined in a model calculation, using the Built Environment Analysis Model (BEAM), which was developed by Ecofys to investigate energy saving measures in the building stock. The great complexity of the EU-15 building stock had to be simplified by examining five standard buildings with eight insulation standards, which are assigned to building age and renovation status. Furthermore, three climatic regions (cold, moderate, warm) were distinguished for the calculation of the heating energy demand. This gave a basic 210 building types for which the heating energy demand and CO2 emissions from heating were

Use of asbestos building materials in Malaysia: legislative measures, the management, and recommendations for a ban on use.

PubMed

Safitri Zen, Irina; Ahamad, Rahmalan; Gopal Rampal, Krishna; Omar, Wahid

2013-01-01

Malaysia has partially banned the use of asbestos. The prohibition of asbestos building materials in schools, clinics, and hospitals built by government started in 1999. Since 2005, prohibition has also been applied to all government buildings. However, asbestos construction materials such as roof and ceiling tiles are still sold in the market. There are no acts or regulations prohibiting the use of asbestos in private buildings in Malaysia. Asbestos was first used for industrial purposes in Malaysia in the 1960s and the first regulations related to asbestos have been around since the 1980s. Non-governmental organizations have been pushing the government to impose a total ban since the 1980s. Asbestos is still used in the manufacturing sector under the "control use" concept. The study found difficulties in established and validated medical record data on asbestos-related diseases. This paper reviews existing asbestos-related regulations and guidelines in Malaysia and discusses the urgency for a total ban in the use of asbestos in building materials in the country. In the meanwhile, stricter enforcement of occupational safety and health regulations related to the use and exposure of asbestos among workers in the manufacturing, construction, maintenance, and demolition sectors has been in place.

Energy savings modelling of re-tuning energy conservation measures in large office buildings

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Fernandez, Nick; Katipamula, Srinivas; Wang, Weimin

Today, many large commercial buildings use sophisticated building automation systems (BASs) to manage a wide range of building equipment. While the capabilities of BASs have increased over time, many buildings still do not fully use the BAS’s capabilities and are not properly commissioned, operated or maintained, which leads to inefficient operation, increased energy use, and reduced lifetimes of the equipment. This paper investigates the energy savings potential of several common HVAC system re-tuning measures on a typical large office building, using the Department of Energy’s building energy modeling software, EnergyPlus. The baseline prototype model uses roughly as much energy asmore » an average large office building in existing building stock, but does not utilize any re-tuning measures. Individual re-tuning measures simulated against this baseline include automatic schedule adjustments, damper minimum flow adjustments, thermostat adjustments, as well as dynamic resets (set points that change continuously with building and/or outdoor conditions) to static pressure, supply-air temperature, condenser water temperature, chilled and hot water temperature, and chilled and hot water differential pressure set points. Six combinations of these individual measures have been formulated – each designed to conform to limitations to implementation of certain individual measures that might exist in typical buildings. All the individual measures and combinations were simulated in 16 climate locations representative of specific U.S. climate zones. The modeling results suggest that the most effective energy savings measures are those that affect the demand-side of the building (air-systems and schedules). Many of the demand-side individual measures were capable of reducing annual total HVAC system energy consumption by over 20% in most cities that were modeled. Supply side measures affecting HVAC plant conditions were only modestly successful (less than 5% annual HVAC

Measured moisture in buildings and adverse health effects: A review.

PubMed

Mendell, M J; Macher, J M; Kumagai, K

2018-04-23

It has not yet been possible to quantify dose-related health risks attributable to indoor dampness or mold (D/M), to support setting specific health-related limits for D/M. An overlooked target for assessing D/M is moisture in building materials, the critical factor allowing microbial growth. A search for studies of quantified building moisture and occupant health effects identified 3 eligible studies. Two studies assessed associations between measured wall moisture content and respiratory health in the UK. Both reported dose-related increases in asthma exacerbation with higher measured moisture, with 1 study reporting an adjusted odds ratio of 7.0 for night-time asthma symptoms with higher bedroom moisture. The third study assessed relationships between infrared camera-determined wall moisture and atopic dermatitis in South Korea, reporting an adjusted odds ratio of 14.5 for water-damaged homes and moderate or severe atopic dermatitis. Measuring building moisture has, despite extremely limited available findings, potential promise for detecting unhealthy D/M in homes and merits more research attention. Further research to validate these findings should include measured "water activity," which directly assesses moisture availability for microbial growth. Ultimately, evidence-based, health-related thresholds for building moisture, across specific materials and measurement devices, could better guide assessment and remediation of D/M in buildings. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Review of Building Data Frameworks across Countries: Lessons for India

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Iyer, Maithili; Stratton, Hannah; Mathew, Sangeeta

The report outlines the initial explorations carried out by LBNL on available examples of energy data collection frameworks for buildings. Specifically, this monograph deals with European experience in the buildings sector, the US experience in the commercial buildings sector, and examples of data collection effort in Singapore and China to capture the Asian experience in the commercial sector. The review also provides a summary of the past efforts in India to collect and use commercial building energy data and its strengths and weaknesses. The overall aim of this activity is to help understand the use cases that drive the granularitymore » of data being collected and the range of methodologies adopted for the data collection effort. This review is a key input and reference for developing a data collection framework for India, and also clarifies general thinking on the institutional structure that may be amenable for data collection effort to match the needs and requirements of commercial building sector in India.« less

Work with Us | Buildings | NREL

Science.gov Websites

opportunities to take advantage of our residential and commercial buildings expertise. Here's how you can work commercial and public sectors to improve building energy performance is central to its mission. Learn about available for collaborative research opportunities. Commercial Solutions NREL's Commercial Buildings team

Knowledge Exchange between Academia and the Third Sector

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Murdock, Alex; Shariff, Razia; Wilding, Karl

2013-01-01

This paper considers the different approaches to undertake knowledge exchange between academia and the third sector from three practitioner perspectives. London South Bank University (LSBU), as part of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and Third Sector Research Centre (TSRC) Social Enterprise Capacity Building Cluster (CBC), has been…

Upcoming new international measurement standards in the field of building acoustics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Goydke, Hans

2002-11-01

The extensively completed revision of most of the ISO measurement standards in building acoustics mainly initiated by the European Commissions demand for harmonized standards emphasized the insight that the main goal to avoid trade barriers between the countries can only be reached when the standards sufficiently and comprehensively cover the field when they are related to the actual state of the art and when they are sufficiently related to practice. In modern architecture one can observe the rapid change in the use of building materials, for instance regarding the use of glass. Lightweight constructions as well as heavyweight building elements with additional linings are increasingly in common use and unquestionably there are consequences to be considered regarding the ascertainment of sound insulation properties. Besides others, International Standardization is unsatisfactory regarding the assessment of noise in buildings from waste water installations, in the low frequency area and in general regarding the expression of uncertainty of measurements. Intensity measurements in building acoustics, rainfall noise assessment, estimation of sound insulation, impulse response measurement methods, assessment of sound scattering are examples of upcoming standards.

Feasibility of multi-sector policy measures that create activity-friendly environments for children: results of a Delphi study.

PubMed

Aarts, Marie-Jeanne; Schuit, Albertine J; van de Goor, Ien Am; van Oers, Hans Am

2011-12-15

Although multi-sector policy is a promising strategy to create environments that stimulate physical activity among children, little is known about the feasibility of such a multi-sector policy approach. The aims of this study were: to identify a set of tangible (multi-sector) policy measures at the local level that address environmental characteristics related to physical activity among children; and to assess the feasibility of these measures, as perceived by local policy makers. In four Dutch municipalities, a Delphi study was conducted among local policy makers of different policy sectors (public health, sports, youth and education, spatial planning/public space, traffic and transportation, and safety). In the first Delphi round, respondents generated a list of possible policy measures addressing three environmental correlates of physical activity among children (social cohesion, accessibility of facilities, and traffic safety). In the second Delphi round, policy makers weighted different feasibility aspects (political feasibility, cultural/community acceptability, technical feasibility, cost feasibility, and legal feasibility) and assessed the feasibility of the policy measures derived from the first round. The third Delphi round was aimed at reaching consensus by feedback of group results. Finally, one overall feasibility score was calculated for each policy measure. Cultural/community acceptability, political feasibility, and cost feasibility were considered most important feasibility aspects. The Delphi studies yielded 16 feasible policy measures aimed at physical and social environmental correlates of physical activity among children. Less drastic policy measures were considered more feasible, whereas environmental policy measures were considered less feasible. This study showed that the Delphi technique can be a useful tool in reaching consensus about feasible multi-sector policy measures. The study yielded several feasible policy measures aimed at

[Analysis of accidents at work in building yards: correlation between risk and law defaults in yards of Palermo].

PubMed

Arcadipane, C; Verso, M G; Schillaci, S; Picciotto, D

2007-01-01

In the last years the building firm underwent real boom for investments and workers but not for safety measures. In the building sector there is a great accidents risks for falls from the top. The aim of present study is to analyze trend of accidents at work in building yards according to INAIL DATA and we will identify causes and risks then we will correlate these risks with frequent law defaults that we noticed in the province of Palermo. At the end we will value possible preventive measures to avoid this phenomenon. DATA INAIL of period 2001-2005 about building sector show us a reduction of denounced accidents at work but this phenomenon is changeable. Palermo is the first sicilian province for accidents at work although the number of denounced accidents (from 2001 to 2005) is decreasing while this number in Catania is increasing, CPT of Palermo gave us data (from 2004 to 2006) about inspections in building yards. Our study interests 609 yards and 1827 work stages. We noticed the most number of rests in civil yards.

Measures of Student Learning: Building Administrator

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rhode Island Department of Education, 2014

2014-01-01

The purpose of this Guidebook is to describe the process and basic requirements for the student learning measures that are used as part of the building administrator evaluation and support process. For aspects of the process that have room for flexibility and school/district-level discretion, the different options have been clearly separated and…

Life cycle assessment and environmental building declaration for the design building at the University of Massachusetts

Treesearch

Hongmei Gu; Richard Bergman

2018-01-01

AbstractWith the world’s increasing focus on sustainability in the construction sector through green building systems, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has been ac-tively engaged in green building advocacy in the United States through USDA Tall Wood Building competitions and follow-up research on use of mass timber for nonresi-dential buildings. The USDA...

Russia’s R&D for Low Energy Buildings: Insights for Cooperation with Russia

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Schaaf, Rebecca E.; Evans, Meredydd

Russian buildings, Russian buildings sector energy consumption. Russian government has made R&D investment a priority again. The government and private sector both invest in a range of building energy technologies. In particular, heating, ventilation and air conditioning, district heating, building envelope, and lighting have active technology research projects and programs in Russia.

Solar Heating/Cooling of Buildings: Current Building Community Projects. An Interim Report.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

National Academy of Sciences - National Research Council, Washington, DC. Building Research Advisory Board.

Projects being carried out by the private sector involving the use of solar energy for heating and cooling buildings are profiled in this report. A substantial portion of the data were collected from a broad cross-section of the building community. Data collection efforts also involved the canvassing of the nearly 200 trade and professional…

Austro-Hungarian Public Building Refurbishment and Energy Efficiency Measures - A Case Study on a Public Building in Sarajevo

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Salihbegović, Amira; Čaušević, Amir; Rustempašić, Nerman; Avdić, Dženis; Smajlović, Esad

2017-10-01

Among other pieces of architectural historical heritage in Sarajevo, and Bosnia-Herzegovina in general, the Austro-Hungarian architecture has preserved its original architectural, artistic and engineering characteristics. Both residential and public representative urban blocks, streets and squares are of distinguishable ambience in the architectural and urban image of the city and are testifying about our architectural past. A number of buildings is valorised and protected by law in terms of their architectural, artistic and historical value. In addition, these buildings have a distinct functional, ambiental, historical, and even aesthetical value. To make them last longer, refurbishment of these buildings is challenging and presents potential and multiple benefits for the city, and beyond. Refurbishing built environment through functional reorganizing, redesign and energy efficiency measures applications could result in prolonged longevity, architectural identity preservation and interior comfort improvement. Besides, implemented measures for energy efficiency, through the refurbishment process, should optimize the needs for energy consumption in treated buildings. This paper defines options in comfort improvements and redesign, without implying risks to the building longevity, analyses interventions and energy efficiency measures which would enable potential energy saving assessment in the refurbishment process of masonry buildings. This paper also discusses the different techniques that can be adopted for conservation and preservation of historical masonry buildings from the Austro-Hungarian period dealing with energy efficiency. The works were preceded by historical research and on-site investigations. This paper describes a methodology to quantify their vulnerability. A scheme of structural retrofitting is suggested following the research conducted. Revitalization of the building consisted in the reconstruction of the old building structure, creating the inner

Multidisciplinary life cycle metrics and tools for green buildings.

PubMed

Helgeson, Jennifer F; Lippiatt, Barbara C

2009-07-01

Building sector stakeholders need compelling metrics, tools, data, and case studies to support major investments in sustainable technologies. Proponents of green building widely claim that buildings integrating sustainable technologies are cost effective, but often these claims are based on incomplete, anecdotal evidence that is difficult to reproduce and defend. The claims suffer from 2 main weaknesses: 1) buildings on which claims are based are not necessarily "green" in a science-based, life cycle assessment (LCA) sense and 2) measures of cost effectiveness often are not based on standard methods for measuring economic worth. Yet, the building industry demands compelling metrics to justify sustainable building designs. The problem is hard to solve because, until now, neither methods nor robust data supporting defensible business cases were available. The US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Building and Fire Research Laboratory is beginning to address these needs by developing metrics and tools for assessing the life cycle economic and environmental performance of buildings. Economic performance is measured with the use of standard life cycle costing methods. Environmental performance is measured by LCA methods that assess the "carbon footprint" of buildings, as well as 11 other sustainability metrics, including fossil fuel depletion, smog formation, water use, habitat alteration, indoor air quality, and effects on human health. Carbon efficiency ratios and other eco-efficiency metrics are established to yield science-based measures of the relative worth, or "business cases," for green buildings. Here, the approach is illustrated through a realistic building case study focused on different heating, ventilation, air conditioning technology energy efficiency. Additionally, the evolution of the Building for Environmental and Economic Sustainability multidisciplinary team and future plans in this area are described.

Measuring the gradualist approach to internationalization: Empirical evidence from the wine sector

PubMed Central

2018-01-01

The objective of this paper is to fill a gap in the literature on internationalization, in relation to the absence of objective and measurable performance indicators for the process of how firms sequentially enter external markets. To that end, this research develops a quantitative tool for use as a performance indicator of gradualness for firms entering external markets at a sectoral level. The performance indicator is based on firms’ export volumes, number of years operating in the export market, geographic areas targeted for export and when exports began to each area. The indicator is tested empirically in the wine sector. The main contribution of this study is the creation of a reliable international priority index, which can serve more widely as a valuable tool because of its potential use in other industry sectors and geographic areas, and which would allow the analysis of how geographically differentiated internationalization strategies develop. PMID:29727461

Measuring the gradualist approach to internationalization: Empirical evidence from the wine sector.

PubMed

Clavel San Emeterio, Mónica; Fernández-Ortiz, Rubén; Arteaga-Ortiz, Jesús; Dorta-González, Pablo

2018-01-01

The objective of this paper is to fill a gap in the literature on internationalization, in relation to the absence of objective and measurable performance indicators for the process of how firms sequentially enter external markets. To that end, this research develops a quantitative tool for use as a performance indicator of gradualness for firms entering external markets at a sectoral level. The performance indicator is based on firms' export volumes, number of years operating in the export market, geographic areas targeted for export and when exports began to each area. The indicator is tested empirically in the wine sector. The main contribution of this study is the creation of a reliable international priority index, which can serve more widely as a valuable tool because of its potential use in other industry sectors and geographic areas, and which would allow the analysis of how geographically differentiated internationalization strategies develop.

Effectiveness of biosecurity measures in preventing badger visits to farm buildings.

PubMed

Judge, Johanna; McDonald, Robbie A; Walker, Neil; Delahay, Richard J

2011-01-01

Bovine tuberculosis caused by Mycobacterium bovis is a serious and economically important disease of cattle. Badgers have been implicated in the transmission and maintenance of the disease in the UK since the 1970s. Recent studies have provided substantial evidence of widespread and frequent visits by badgers to farm buildings during which there is the potential for close direct contact with cattle and contamination of cattle feed. Here we evaluated the effectiveness of simple exclusion measures in improving farm biosecurity and preventing badger visits to farm buildings. In the first phase of the study, 32 farms were surveyed using motion-triggered infrared cameras on potential entrances to farm buildings to determine the background level of badger visits experienced by each farm. In the second phase, they were divided into four treatment groups; "Control", "Feed Storage", "Cattle Housing" and "Both", whereby no exclusion measures were installed, exclusion measures were installed on feed storage areas only, cattle housing only or both feed storage and cattle housing, respectively. Badger exclusion measures included sheet metal gates, adjustable metal panels for gates, sheet metal fencing, feed bins and electric fencing. Cameras were deployed for at least 365 nights in each phase on each farm. Badger visits to farm buildings occurred on 19 of the 32 farms in phase one. In phase two, the simple exclusion measures were 100% effective in preventing badger entry into farm buildings, as long as they were appropriately deployed. Furthermore, the installation of exclusion measures also reduced the level of badger visits to the rest of the farmyard. The findings of the present study clearly demonstrate how relatively simple practical measures can substantially reduce the likelihood of badger visits to buildings and reduce some of the potential for contact and disease transmission between badgers and cattle.

Commercial Building Energy Asset Rating Program -- Market Research

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

McCabe, Molly J.; Wang, Na

2012-04-19

Under contract to Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, HaydenTanner, LLC conducted an in-depth analysis of the potential market value of a commercial building energy asset rating program for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. The market research objectives were to: (1) Evaluate market interest and need for a program and tool to offer asset rating and rapidly identify potential energy efficiency measures for the commercial building sector. (2) Identify key input variables and asset rating outputs that would facilitate increased investment in energy efficiency. (3) Assess best practices and lessons learned from existing nationalmore » and international energy rating programs. (4) Identify core messaging to motivate owners, investors, financiers, and others in the real estate sector to adopt a voluntary asset rating program and, as a consequence, deploy high-performance strategies and technologies across new and existing buildings. (5) Identify leverage factors and incentives that facilitate increased investment in these buildings. To meet these objectives, work consisted of a review of the relevant literature, examination of existing and emergent asset and operational rating systems, interviews with industry stakeholders, and an evaluation of the value implication of an asset label on asset valuation. This report documents the analysis methodology and findings, conclusion, and recommendations. Its intent is to support and inform the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy on the market need and potential value impacts of an asset labeling and diagnostic tool to encourage high-performance new buildings and building efficiency retrofit projects.« less

Measuring Thermal Performance of Building Envelopes: Nine Case Studies,

DTIC Science & Technology

1985-03-01

inch P/B = 11.36, present worth factor for an es- of expanded polystyrene insulation) to the build- calating series for a 15-year period ing exterior...inch of The one MCA building roof we measured was a expanded polystyrene at R-3.6 per inch. Where the cathedral system with a sloped built-up roofing

Building Diagnostic Market Deployment - Final Report

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Katipamula, S.; Gayeski, N.

2012-04-30

also provided validation data sets and the WBE software tool to validate the KGS implementation. OAE diagnostician automatically detects and diagnoses problems with outdoor air ventilation and economizer operation for air handling units (AHUs) in commercial buildings using data available from building automation systems (BASs). As part of this CRADA, PNNL developed implementation documentation and provided technical support to KGS to implement the tool into their software suite. PNNL also provided validation data sets and the OAE software tool to validate the KGS implementation. Finally, as part of this CRADA project, PNNL developed new processes to automate parts of the re-tuning process and transfer those process to KGS for integration into their software product. The transfer of DOE-funded technologies will transform the commercial buildings sector by making buildings more energy efficient and also reducing the carbon footprint from the buildings. As part of the CRADA with PNNL, KGS implemented the whole building energy diagnostician, a portion of outdoor air economizer diagnostician and a number of measures that automate the identification of re-tuning measures.« less

Train-induced field vibration measurements of ground and over-track buildings.

PubMed

Zou, Chao; Wang, Yimin; Moore, James A; Sanayei, Masoud

2017-01-01

Transit-oriented development, such as metro depot and over-track building complexes, has expanded rapidly over the last 5years in China. Over-track building construction has the advantage of comprehensive utilization of land resources, ease of commuting to work, and provide funds for subway construction. But the high frequency of subway operations into and out of the depots can generate excessive vibrations that transmit into the over track buildings, radiate noise within the buildings, hamper the operation of vibration sensitive equipment, and adversely affect the living quality of the building occupants. Field measurements of vibration during subway operations were conducted at Shenzhen, China, a city of 10.62 million people in southern China. Considering the metro depot train testing line and throat area train lines were the main vibration sources, vibration data were captured in five measurement setups. The train-induced vibrations were obtained and compared with limitation of FTA criteria. The structure-radiated noise was calculated using measured vibration levels. The vertical vibration energy directly passed through the columns on both sides of track into the platform, amplifying vibration on the platform by up to 6dB greater than ground levels at testing line area. Vibration amplification around the natural frequency in the vertical direction of over-track building made the peak values of indoor floor vibration about 16dB greater than outdoor platform vibration. We recommend to carefully examining design of new over-track buildings within 40m on the platform over the throat area to avoid excessive vertical vibrations and noise. For both buildings, the measured vertical vibrations were less than the FTA limit. However, it is demonstrated that the traffic-induced high-frequency noise has the potential to annoy occupants on the upper floors. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Video: NREL and Buildings Research - Continuum Magazine | NREL

Science.gov Websites

solutions to improve the energy efficiency of both residential and commercial buildings, and to accelerate the integration of clean energy technologies with buildings. NREL's commercial buildings research focuses on providing large institutional and private sector commercial building owners with tools

Building a Comprehensive Mill-Level Database for the Industrial Sectors Integrated Solutions (ISIS) Model of the U.S. Pulp and Paper Sector

EPA Science Inventory

The Industrial Sectors Integrated Solutions (ISIS) model for the pulp and paper sector is currently under development at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and can be utilized to facilitate multi-pollutant sector-based analyses that are performed in conjunction with ...

Characteristics of occupational musculoskeletal disorders of five sectors in service industry between 2004 and 2013.

PubMed

Choi, Hyun-Woo; Kim, Young-Ki; Kang, Dong-Mug; Kim, Jong-Eun; Jang, Bo-Young

2017-01-01

' Work related musculoskeletal disorders (WRMSDs)' have been mostly reported in the manufacturing industry but recently the occurrence of industrial injuries has been constantly increasing in the service industry. This research is going to analyze the data about workers' compensation for WRMSDs in five different service sectors and identify characteristics of occupations with the highest approved occupations. According to the data released from the Korea Worker's Compensation & Welfare Service, the overview of 12,730 cases of workers' compensation for WRMSDs in five service sectors from 2004 to 2013 is going to be analyzed and the source data is going to be classified by the Korean Standard Classification of Occupations to select the top five occupations that have the highest number of approval. After selecting each five occupations from the service sector that have work related musculoskeletal disorders, the result showed that the occupation with the highest number of approval in the health and social care sector were the early childhood educators, cooks in the school canteens in education services sector, garbage collectors in the sanitation and similar services sector, deliverymen in wholesale and retail, consumer goods repair and building cleaners in general management businesses such as those in building maintenance. The major event observed in the top five occupations was the overexertion and reaction as a cause of WRMSDs. The day when the WRMSDs mostly occurred was on Monday and the most likely time was 10 am. The median days away from work and lost working days are 29-90 days and 0-50 days respectively. The difference in each occupation was observed in year of service, age, and gender. 83.21% of the approved cases of workers' compensation for WRMSDs occurred in the top 25 occupations in all of the five service sectors, which meant that the approval of workers' compensation is concentrated in specific occupations. This research is going to suggest

Environmental performance policy indicators for the public sector: the case of the defence sector.

PubMed

Ramos, Tomás B; Alves, Inês; Subtil, Rui; Joanaz de Melo, João

2007-03-01

The development of environmental performance policy indicators for public services, and in particular for the defence sector, is an emerging issue. Despite a number of recent initiatives there has been little work done in this area, since the other sectors usually focused on are agriculture, transport, industry, tourism and energy. This type of tool can be an important component for environmental performance evaluation at policy level, when integrated in the general performance assessment system of public missions and activities. The main objective of this research was to develop environmental performance policy indicators for the public sector, specifically applied to the defence sector. Previous research included an assessment of the environmental profile, through the evaluation of how environmental management practices have been adopted in this sector and an assessment of environmental aspects and impacts. This paper builds upon that previous research, developing an indicator framework--SEPI--supported by the selection and construction of environmental performance indicators. Another aim is to discuss how the current environmental indicator framework can be integrated into overall performance management. The Portuguese defence sector is presented and the usefulness of this methodology demonstrated. Feasibility and relevancy criteria are applied to evaluate the set of indicators proposed, allowing indicators to be scored and indicators for the policy level to be obtained.

Unpacking commercial sector opposition to European smoke-free policy: lack of unity, ‘fear of association’ and harm reduction debates

PubMed Central

Weishaar, Heide; Amos, Amanda; Collin, Jeff

2016-01-01

Objective Tobacco companies have made extensive efforts to build alliances against comprehensive smoke-free legislation. This article analyses the interaction between actors who opposed the development of the European Council Recommendation on smoke-free environments. Methods Drawing on data from 200 policy documents and 32 semistructured interviews and using qualitative textual analysis and organisational network analysis, opponents’ positions on, and responses to, the policy initiative, strategies to oppose the policy, and efforts to build alliances were investigated. Results The non-binding nature of the policy, scientific evidence and clear political will to adopt EU-wide measures combined to limit the intensity of commercial sector opposition to the comprehensive EU smoke-free policy. Most tobacco companies, led by the Confederation of European Community Cigarette Manufacturers (CECCM), voiced reservations against the proposal, criticised the policy process and fought flanking measures on product regulation. However, some companies focused on instigating harm reduction debates. These divergent approaches and the reluctance of other commercial actors to demonstrate solidarity with the tobacco sector prevented the establishment of a cohesive commercial sector alliance. Conclusions The comparatively limited opposition to EU smoke-free policy contrasts with previous accounts of tobacco industry resistance to tobacco control. While context-specific factors can partially explain these differences, the paper indicates that the sector's diminished credibility and lack of unity hampered political engagement and alliance building. Industry efforts to emphasise the benefits of smokeless tobacco during smoke-free policy debates highlight the potential of harm reduction as a gateway for tobacco companies to re-enter the political arena. PMID:26055268

General view of Sector Four Compound, looking north. Antenna Array ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

General view of Sector Four Compound, looking north. Antenna Array is in background, behind Communications Antennas, Receiver Building, and Water Storage Tank - Over-the-Horizon Backscatter Radar Network, Tulelake Radar Site Receive Sector Four Antenna Array, Unnamed Road West of Double Head Road, Tulelake, Siskiyou County, CA

Green buildings for Egypt: a call for an integrated policy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bampou, P.

2017-11-01

As global warming is on the threshold of each country worldwide, Middle East and North African (MENA) region has already adopted energy efficiency (EE) policies on several consuming sectors. The present paper valuates the impact of temperature increase in the residential building sector of Egypt that is the most integrated example of the 7 out of the 20 MENA countries that have started their green efforts upon building environment. Furthermore, as it is based on a literature research upon socio-economic characteristics, existing building stock, existing legal and institutional framework, it elaborates a quantitative evaluation of Egypt's energy-saving potential, outlining basic constraints upon energy conservation, in order for Egypt to be able to handle the high energy needs due to its warm climate. Last but not least, the paper proposes a policy pathway for the implementation of green building codes and concludes with the best available technologies to promote EE in the Egyptian building sector.

Social profit in the context of the activities at Fluids Measurement Sector in Legal Metrology Department - Inmetro

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cinelli, L. R.; Silva, L. G.; Junior, E. A.; Almeida, R. O.

2018-03-01

This article was prepared in the context of the work of the Fluids Measurement Sector (Seflu) of the Legal Metrology Department of Inmetro (Dimel) in order to try to answer the following question: What is the magnitude of Social Profit generated for brazilian society from the existence of legal control of measuring instruments within the scope of this sector? In this sense, some examples of a case study containing the main measurement instruments related to the evaluation process of models performed at the Seflu are presented.

Vision for Future Buildings

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

None

2016-05-19

In the last 10 years our lives have changed so quickly, and drastically, that it's hard to imagine what the distant future might bring. Because buildings are large, long-term investments, the building sector has been slower to change. It can take more than 100 years for our cities to be renovated or rebuilt using updated methods and technologies. But to get there, we must start to conceptualize what the functions and capabilities of these future buildings could be, today.

Vision for Future Buildings

ScienceCinema

None

2018-01-16

In the last 10 years our lives have changed so quickly, and drastically, that it's hard to imagine what the distant future might bring. Because buildings are large, long-term investments, the building sector has been slower to change. It can take more than 100 years for our cities to be renovated or rebuilt using updated methods and technologies. But to get there, we must start to conceptualize what the functions and capabilities of these future buildings could be, today.

Significance of the Hygiene Charter towards different sectors in Hong Kong.

PubMed

Lee, A; Cheng, F F K; Yuen, H S K; Ho, M; Ngan, W P; Suen, Y P; Au, S M Y; Li, S N; Tso, C Y; Ng, P P Y; Wong, Y P; Keung, M W; Lo, A S C; Wong, W S; Siu, D C H; Yuen, W K; Mok, K K; Fung, W Y; Wong, K K

2004-01-01

The occurrence of SARS in March 2003 has resulted in an increased interest, worldwide in emerging infectious diseases. The SARS experience provided us a lesson on the importance of promoting hygienic practices among individuals and different working sectors. In Hong Kong, a voluntary organization called the UNITE proposed a Hygiene Charter which aimed at taking hygiene to new levels. This action has been supported by individuals and different sectors including the Personal and Family, Management, Buildings, Catering, Education, Finance and Commercial, Industrial, Medical and Health, Public Transportation, Social Welfare, Sports and Culture and Tourism. As promotion and maintenance of environmental health requires input from different sectors, the signing of the Hygiene Charter provides an opportunity for individuals and the public to show their pledge and commitment to good hygiene practices. As a result, with environment improvement and good infectious disease control measures, prevention of epidemics of infectious diseases is deemed to be possible.

Building a Sustainable Higher Education Sector in the UAE

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jose, Saju; Chacko, Jacob

2017-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the relevant economic aspects that could affect the sustainability of the HE sector in the UAE. Design/methodology/approach: Data are collected mainly through secondary sources and based on the relevant information. Two constructs, namely, market factors and educational governance are identified…

Building technolgies program. 1994 annual report

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Selkowitz, S.E.

1995-04-01

The objective of the Building Technologies program is to assist the U.S. building industry in achieving substantial reductions in building sector energy use and associated greenhouse gas emissions while improving comfort, amenity, health, and productivity in the building sector. We have focused our past efforts on two major building systems, windows and lighting, and on the simulation tools needed by researchers and designers to integrate the full range of energy efficiency solutions into achievable, cost-effective design solutions for new and existing buildings. In addition, we are now taking more of an integrated systems and life cycle perspective to create cost-effectivemore » solutions for more energy efficient, comfortable, and productive work and living environments. More than 30% of all energy use in buildings is attributable to two sources: windows and lighting. Together they account for annual consumer energy expenditures of more than $50 billion. Each affects not only energy use by other major building systems, but also comfort and productivity-factors that influence building economics far more than does direct energy consumption alone. Windows play a unique role in the building envelope, physically separating the conditioned space from the world outside without sacrificing vital visual contact. Throughout every space in a building, lighting systems facilitate a variety of tasks associated with a wide range of visual requirements while defining the luminous qualities of the indoor environment. Window and lighting systems are thus essential components of any comprehensive building science program.« less

Energy demand of the German and Dutch residential building stock under climate change

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Olonscheck, Mady; Holsten, Anne; Walther, Carsten; Kropp, Jürgen P.

2014-05-01

In order to mitigate climate change, extraordinary measures are necessary in the future. The building sector, in particular, offers considerable potential for transformation to lower energy demand. On a national level, however, successful and far-reaching measures will likely be taken only if reliable estimates regarding future energy demand from different scenarios are available. The energy demand for space heating and cooling is determined by a combination of behavioral, climatic, constructional, and demographic factors. For two countries, namely Germany and the Netherlands, we analyze the combined effect of future climate and building stock changes as well as renovation measures on the future energy demand for room conditioning of residential buildings until 2060. We show how much the heating energy demand will decrease in the future and answer the question of whether the energy decrease will be exceeded by an increase in cooling energy demand. Based on a sensitivity analysis, we determine those influencing factors with the largest impact on the future energy demand from the building stock. Both countries have national targets regarding the reduction of the energy demand for the future. We provide relevant information concerning the annual renovation rates that are necessary to reach these targets. Retrofitting buildings is a win-win option as it not only helps to mitigate climate change and to lower the dependency on fossil fuels but also transforms the buildings stock into one that is better equipped for extreme temperatures that may occur more frequently with climate change. For the Netherlands, the study concentrates not only on the national, but also the provincial level, which should facilitate directed policy measures. Moreover, the analysis is done on a monthly basis in order to ascertain a deeper understanding of the future seasonal energy demand changes. Our approach constitutes an important first step towards deeper insights into the internal dynamics

Towards Developing a Theoretical Framework for Measuring Public Sector Managers' Career Success

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rasdi, Roziah Mohd; Ismail, Maimunah; Uli, Jegak; Noah, Sidek Mohd

2009-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop a theoretical framework for measuring public sector managers' career success. Design/methodology/approach: The theoretical foundation used in this study is social cognitive career theory. To conduct a literature search, several keywords were identified, i.e. career success, objective and subjective…

The potential of net zero energy buildings (NZEBs) concept at design stage for healthcare buildings towards sustainable development

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hazli Abdellah, Roy; Asrul Nasid Masrom, Md; Chen, Goh Kai; Mohamed, Sulzakimin; Omar, Roshartini

2017-11-01

The focus on net-zero energy buildings (NZEBs) has been widely analysed and discussed particularly when European Union Parliament are progressively moving towards regulation that promotes the improvement of energy efficiency (EE). Additionally, it also to reduce energy consumption through the recast of the EU Directive on Energy Performance of Buildings (EPBD) in which all new buildings to be “nearly Zero-Energy” Buildings by 2020. Broadly, there is a growing trend to explore the feasibility of net zero energy in healthcare sector as the level energy consumption for healthcare sector is found significantly high. Besides that, healthcare buildings energy consumption also exceeds of many other nondomestic building types, and this shortcoming is still undetermined yet especially for developing countries. This paper aims to review the potential of NZEBs in healthcare buildings by considering its concept in design features. Data are gathered through a comprehensive energy management literature review from previous studies. The review is vital to encourage construction players to increase their awareness, practices, and implementation of NZEBs in healthcare buildings. It suggests that NZEBs concept has a potential to be adapted in healthcare buildings through emphasizing of passive approach as well as the utilization of energy efficiency systems and renewable energy systems in buildings. This paper will provide a basis knowledge for construction key players mainly architects to promote NZEBs concept at design stage for healthcare buildings development.

ImSET: Impact of Sector Energy Technologies

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Roop, Joseph M.; Scott, Michael J.; Schultz, Robert W.

2005-07-19

This version of the Impact of Sector Energy Technologies (ImSET) model represents the ''next generation'' of the previously developed Visual Basic model (ImBUILD 2.0) that was developed in 2003 to estimate the macroeconomic impacts of energy-efficient technology in buildings. More specifically, a special-purpose version of the 1997 benchmark national Input-Output (I-O) model was designed specifically to estimate the national employment and income effects of the deployment of Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) -developed energy-saving technologies. In comparison with the previous versions of the model, this version allows for more complete and automated analysis of the essential featuresmore » of energy efficiency investments in buildings, industry, transportation, and the electric power sectors. This version also incorporates improvements in the treatment of operations and maintenance costs, and improves the treatment of financing of investment options. ImSET is also easier to use than extant macroeconomic simulation models and incorporates information developed by each of the EERE offices as part of the requirements of the Government Performance and Results Act.« less

Capacity building in public health nutrition.

PubMed

Geissler, Catherine

2015-11-01

The aim of the present paper is to review capacity building in public health nutrition (PHN), the need for which has been stressed for many years by a range of academics, national and international organisations. Although great strides have been made worldwide in the science of nutrition, there remain many problems of undernutrition and increasingly of obesity and related chronic diseases. The main emphasis in capacity building has been on the nutrition and health workforce, but the causes of these health problems are multifactorial and require collaboration across sectors in their solution. This means that PHN capacity building has to go beyond basic nutrition and beyond the immediate health workforce to policy makers in other sectors. The present paper provides examples of capacity building activities by various organisations, including universities, industry and international agencies. Examples of web-based courses are given including an introduction to the e-Nutrition Academy. The scope is international but with a special focus on Africa. In conclusion, there remains a great need for capacity building in PHN but the advent of the internet has revolutionised the possibilities.

A Brief History of Knowledge Building

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Scardamalia, Marlene; Bereiter, Carl

2010-01-01

Knowledge Building as a theoretical, pedagogical, and technological innovation focuses on the 21st century need to work creatively with knowledge. The team now advancing Knowledge Building spans multiple disciplines, sectors, and cultural contexts. Several teacher-researcher-government partnerships have formed to bring about the systemic changes…

Field measurement of moisture-buffering model inputs for residential buildings

DOE PAGES

Woods, Jason; Winkler, Jon

2016-02-05

Moisture adsorption and desorption in building materials impact indoor humidity. This effect should be included in building-energy simulations, particularly when humidity is being investigated or controlled. Several models can calculate this moisture-buffering effect, but accurate ones require model inputs that are not always known to the user of the building-energy simulation. This research developed an empirical method to extract whole-house model inputs for the effective moisture penetration depth (EMPD) model. The experimental approach was to subject the materials in the house to a square-wave relative-humidity profile, measure all of the moisture-transfer terms (e.g., infiltration, air-conditioner condensate), and calculate the onlymore » unmeasured term—the moisture sorption into the materials. We validated this method with laboratory measurements, which we used to measure the EMPD model inputs of two houses. After deriving these inputs, we measured the humidity of the same houses during tests with realistic latent and sensible loads and demonstrated the accuracy of this approach. Furthermore, these results show that the EMPD model, when given reasonable inputs, is an accurate moisture-buffering model.« less

Measuring sustainability as a programming tool for health sector investments: report from a pilot sustainability assessment in five Nepalese health districts.

PubMed

Sarriot, Eric; Ricca, Jim; Ryan, Leo; Basnet, Jagat; Arscott-Mills, Sharon

2009-01-01

Sustainability is a critical determinant of scale and impact of health sector development assistance programs. Working with USAID/Nepal implementing partners, we adapted a sustainability assessment framework to help USAID test how an evaluation tool could inform its health portfolio management. The essential first process step was to define the boundaries of the local system being examined. This local system-the unit of analysis of the study-was defined as the health district.We developed a standardized set of assessment tools to measure 53 indicators. Data collection was carried out over 4 weeks by a Nepalese agency. Scaling and combining indicators into six component indices provided a map of progress toward sustainable maternal, child, health, and family planning results for the five districts included in this pilot study, ranked from "no sustainability" to "beginning of sustainability."We conclude that systematic application of the Sustainability Framework could improve the health sector investment decisions of development agencies. It could also give districts an information base on which to build autonomy and accountability. The ability to form and test hypotheses about the sustainability of outcomes under various funding strategies-made possible by this approach-will be a prerequisite for more efficiently meeting the global health agenda.

Rapid Measurement Of Asbestos Content Of Building Materials

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Weiss, James R.; Grove, Cindy I.; Hoover, Gordon L.; Stephens, James B.

1994-01-01

Portable instrument measures asbestos content of construction materials in place. Helps building renovators determine, quickly and accurately, whether asbestos is present. Concept readily adapted to special-purpose, battery-powered instrument. Contractor using such instrument could obtain reliable information on asbestos content in minutes.

Low-cost NORM concentrations measuring technique for building materials of Uzbekistan

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Safarov, Akmal; Safarov, Askar; Azimov, Askarali; Darby, Iain G.

2016-04-01

Concentrations of natural radionuclides of building materials are important in order to estimate exposure of humans to radiation, who can spend up to 80% of their time indoors. One of the indicators of building materials' safety is the radium equivalent activity, which is regulated by national and international normative documents [1,2,3]. Materials with Ra(eq) =< 370 Bq/kg are considered to be safe [4,5]. We have studied the possibility of performing express analysis of building materials samples without ageing. Long measurement times including ageing of samples are major constraints for performing large number of analyses [6]. Typically ageing of samples and analysis is 40 days. Gamma-spectrometric analysis of brick, crushed stone, red sand, granite, white marble and concrete cubes was performed both before and after ageing of samples (10, 20, 30 and 40 days). Measurement times of samples were 1, 3, 6 and 12 hours. Samples were measured in 1 liter Marinelli beaker geometry, using NaI(Tl) spectrometers with crystal sizes 2.5 x 2.5 in and 3.1 x 3.1 in. Efficiency calibration of spectrometers was done using certified volumetric (1 liter Marinelli beaker) Ra-226, Th-232 and K-40 sources filled with silica sand and density 1,7 kg/l. Herein we present results indicating that one hour measuring may be sufficient for samples in 1 liter Marinelli beakers offering prospect of significant time and cost improvements. References: 1. NEA-OECD (1979): Exposure to radiation from natural radioactivity in building materials. Report by Group of Experts of the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) Paris 2. STUK (Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority) (2003): The radioactivity of building materials and ash. Regulatory Guides on Radiation Safety (ST Guides) ST 12.2 (Finland) (8 October 2003) 3. GOST 30108-94 (1995): Building materials and elements. Determination of specific activity of natural radioactive nuclei. Interstate Standard. 4. Krisiuk E.M. et al., (1971). A study on

Measurement Invariance: A Foundational Principle for Quantitative Theory Building

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nimon, Kim; Reio, Thomas G., Jr.

2011-01-01

This article describes why measurement invariance is a critical issue to quantitative theory building within the field of human resource development. Readers will learn what measurement invariance is and how to test for its presence using techniques that are accessible to applied researchers. Using data from a LibQUAL+[TM] study of user…

Energy and Cost Savings of Retro-Commissioning and Retrofit Measures for Large Office Buildings

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Wang, Weimin; Zhang, Jian; Moser, Dave

2012-08-03

This paper evaluates the energy and cost savings of seven retro-commissioning measures and 29 retrofit measures applicable to most large office buildings. The baseline model is for a hypothetical building with characteristics of large office buildings constructed before 1980. Each retro-commissioning measure is evaluated against the original baseline in terms of its potential of energy and cost savings while each retrofit measure is evaluated against the commissioned building. All measures are evaluated in five locations (Miami, Las Vegas, Seattle, Chicago and Duluth) to understand the impact of weather conditions on energy and cost savings. The results show that implementation ofmore » the seven operation and maintenance measures as part of a retro-commissioning process can yield an average of about 22% of energy use reduction and 14% of energy cost reduction. Widening zone temperature deadband, lowering VAV terminal minimum air flow set points and lighting upgrades are effective retrofit measures to be considered.« less

Unpacking commercial sector opposition to European smoke-free policy: lack of unity, 'fear of association' and harm reduction debates.

PubMed

Weishaar, Heide; Amos, Amanda; Collin, Jeff

2016-07-01

Tobacco companies have made extensive efforts to build alliances against comprehensive smoke-free legislation. This article analyses the interaction between actors who opposed the development of the European Council Recommendation on smoke-free environments. Drawing on data from 200 policy documents and 32 semistructured interviews and using qualitative textual analysis and organisational network analysis, opponents' positions on, and responses to, the policy initiative, strategies to oppose the policy, and efforts to build alliances were investigated. The non-binding nature of the policy, scientific evidence and clear political will to adopt EU-wide measures combined to limit the intensity of commercial sector opposition to the comprehensive EU smoke-free policy. Most tobacco companies, led by the Confederation of European Community Cigarette Manufacturers (CECCM), voiced reservations against the proposal, criticised the policy process and fought flanking measures on product regulation. However, some companies focused on instigating harm reduction debates. These divergent approaches and the reluctance of other commercial actors to demonstrate solidarity with the tobacco sector prevented the establishment of a cohesive commercial sector alliance. The comparatively limited opposition to EU smoke-free policy contrasts with previous accounts of tobacco industry resistance to tobacco control. While context-specific factors can partially explain these differences, the paper indicates that the sector's diminished credibility and lack of unity hampered political engagement and alliance building. Industry efforts to emphasise the benefits of smokeless tobacco during smoke-free policy debates highlight the potential of harm reduction as a gateway for tobacco companies to re-enter the political arena. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://www.bmj.com/company/products-services/rights-and-licensing/

[Health, hospitality sector and tobacco industry].

PubMed

Abella Pons, Francesc; Córdoba Garcia, Rodrigo; Suárez Bonel, Maria Pilar

2012-11-01

To present the strategies used by the tobacco industry to meet government regulatory measures of its products. To demonstrate the relationship between tobacco industry and the hospitality sector. Note that the arguments and strategies used routinely by the hospitality industry have been previously provided by the tobacco industry. Location of key documents by meta-search, links to declassified documents, specific websites of the tobacco and hospitality industry, news sources and published articles in health journals. This review reveals the close relationship between tobacco industry and hospitality sector. It highlights the strategies carried out by the tobacco industry, including strategic hoarding of information, public relations, lobbying, consultation program, smoker defence groups, building partnerships, intimidation and patronage. The arguments and strategies used by the hospitality industry to match point by point that used by the tobacco industry. These arguments are refutable from the point of view of public health as it is scientifically proven that totally smoke-free environments are the only way to protect non-smokers from tobacco smoke exposure and its harmful effects on health. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier España, S.L. All rights reserved.

Measurement of thoron exhalation rates from building materials.

PubMed

de With, G; de Jong, P; Röttger, A

2014-09-01

Thoron (220Rn) exhalation from building materials has become increasingly recognized as a potential source for radiation exposure in dwellings. However, contrary to radon (220Rn), limited information on thoron exposure is available. The purpose of this study is to develop a test method for the determination of the thoron exhalation rate from building materials. The method is validated, and subsequently the thoron exhalation rates from 10 widely-applied concretes, gypsums, brick, limestone, and mortar are determined. The measured thoron exhalation rates of these materials range from 0.01 Bq m-2 s-1 to 0.43 Bq m-2 s-1, with relative standard uncertainties between 6% to 14%.

Energy in buildings: Efficiency, renewables and storage

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Koebel, Matthias M.

2017-07-01

This lecture summary provides a short but comprehensive overview on the "energy and buildings" topic. Buildings account for roughly 40% of the global energy demands. Thus, an increased adoption of existing and upcoming materials and solutions for the building sector represents an enormous potential to reduce building related energy demands and greenhouse gas emissions. The central question is how the building envelope (insulation, fenestration, construction style, solar control) affects building energy demands. Compared to conventional insulation materials, superinsulation materials such as vacuum insulation panels and silica aerogel achieve the same thermal performance with significantly thinner insulation layers. With low-emissivity coatings and appropriate filler gasses, double and triple glazing reduce thermal losses by up to an order of magnitude compared to old single pane windows, while vacuum insulation and aerogel filled glazing could reduce these even further. Electrochromic and other switchable glazing solutions maximize solar gains during wintertime and minimize illumination demands whilst avoiding overheating in summer. Upon integration of renewable energy systems into the building energy supply, buildings can become both producers and consumers of energy. Combined with dynamic user behavior, temporal variations in the production of renewable energy require appropriate storage solutions, both thermal and electrical, and the integration of buildings into smart grids and energy district networks. The combination of these measures allows a reduction of the existing building stock by roughly a factor of three —a promising, but cost intensive way, to prepare our buildings for the energy turnaround.

Chapter 15: Commercial New Construction Evaluation Protocol. The Uniform Methods Project: Methods for Determining Energy Efficiency Savings for Specific Measures

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Kurnik, Charles W.; Keates, Steven

This protocol is intended to describe the recommended method when evaluating the whole-building performance of new construction projects in the commercial sector. The protocol focuses on energy conservation measures (ECMs) or packages of measures where evaluators can analyze impacts using building simulation. These ECMs typically require the use of calibrated building simulations under Option D of the International Performance Measurement and Verification Protocol (IPMVP).

29. Historic American Buildings Survey, 1932 measured drawing from old ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

29. Historic American Buildings Survey, 1932 measured drawing from old Philadelphia Survey, 1897 measured drawing by C. L. Hillman and John McClintock, photocopy courtesy of the Free Library of Philadelphia ELEVATIONS: NORTH AND SOUTH. - Woodford, Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, PA

28. Historic American Buildings Survey, 1932 measured drawing from old ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

28. Historic American Buildings Survey, 1932 measured drawing from old Philadelphia Survey, 1897 measured drawing by C. L. Hillman and John McClintock, photocopy courtesy of the Free Library of Philadelphia EAST ELEVATION AND DETAILS. - Woodford, Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, PA

A System for Measuring the Sway of the Vehicle Assembly Building

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Youngquist, Robert; Starr, Stanley; Lane, John; Simmons, Stephen; Ihlefeld, Curtis

2013-01-01

A system was developed to measure the sway of the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at Kennedy Space Center. This system was installed in the VAB and gathered more than one total year of data. The building movement was correlated with measurements provided by three wind towers in order to determine the maximum deflection of the building during high-wind events. The VAB owners were in the process of obtaining new platforms for use in assembling very tall rockets when analysis of the VAB showed that a high wind could move the building sufficiently that an upper platform might impact a rocket. The problem arises because safety requires a relatively small gap between the platform and the rocket, while a large enough gap is needed to ensure that stacking tolerances prevent contact between the rocket and the platform. This only leaves an inch or two (approximately 2 to 5 cm) of total clearance, so when the analysis showed that more than a couple of inches of motion could occur in a high wind, there was a potential for damaging the rocket. The KSC Applied Physics Laboratory was asked to install a system in the VAB that could measure the motion of the building in high winds to determine the actual building sway. The motion of the VAB roof under wind load was measured optically, and under analysis, it was determined that a relatively large-aperture optical system would be required to reduce diffraction effects to less than a small fraction of an inch (approximately mm) at a distance of 500 ft (˜150 m). A 10-in. (approximately 250 mm) telescope was placed on the floor of the building, looking at the ceiling. On the ceiling, a flat plate with three white LEDs was mounted in an "L" shape, such that the telescope was essentially looking at three stars. Software was written to track the motion of these three points using an image processing system. This provided a better than 1/10-in. (approximately 2.5-mm) 2D measurement faster than once a second. Data was downloaded once a

Photovoltaic electricity generation: Value for residential and commercial sectors

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bhattacharjee, Ujjwal

The photovoltaic (PV) industry in the US has seen an upsurge in recent years, and PV holds great promise as a renewable technology with no greenhouse gas emissions with its use. We aim to assess the value of PV based electricity for users in the residential and commercial sectors focusing on the financial impacts it has, which may not be greatly recognized. Specifically, we pursue two goals. First, the emerging 'renewable portfolio standard (RPS)' adopted in several states in the country has been a driving force for large scale PV deployment, but financial incentives offered to PV in different RPS states differ considerably. We use life cycle cost model to estimate the cost of PV based electricity for thirty-two RPS states in the country. Results indicate that the levelized cost of PV electricity is high (40 to 60 Cents/kWh). When the contribution of the financial incentives (along with the cost of energy saved) is taken into account, the cost of PV based electricity is negative in some RPS states such as California, New Jersey, New York, while for most of the RPS states the cost of PV electricity continues to remain high. In addition, the states with negative or low cost of PV electricity have been driving the PV diffusion in the residential sector. Therefore, a need to adjust the financial incentive structure in different RPS states is recommended for homogenous development of the residential PV market in the country. Second, we assess the value of the PV in reducing the highest peak load demand in commercial buildings and hence the high value demand charge. The Time-of-Use (TOU) based electricity tariff is widely used by electric utilities in the commercial sector. Energy and peak load are two important facets of the TOU tariff regime. Tools are well established to estimate the energy contribution from a PV system (installed in a commercial building), but not power output on a short time interval. A joint conditional probability model has been developed that

Environmental Evaluation of Building Materials of 5 Slovak Buildings

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Porhincak, Milan; Estokova, Adriana

2013-11-01

Building activity has recently led to the deterioration of environment and has become unsustainable. Several strategies have been introduced in order to minimize consumption of energy and resulting CO2 emissions having their origin in the operational phase. But also other stages of Life Cycle should are important to identify the overall environmental impact of construction sector. In this paper 5 similar Slovak buildings (family houses) were analyzed in terms of environmental performance of building materials used for their structures. Evaluation included the weight of used materials, embodied energy and embodied CO2 and SO2 emissions. Analysis has proven that the selection of building materials is an important factor which influences the environmental profile. Findings of the case study indicated that materials like concrete, ceramic or thermal insulation materials based on polystyrene and mineral wool are ones with the most negative environmental impact.

Advanced Commercial Buildings Initiative Final Report

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Roberts, Sydney G.

The Southface Advanced Commercial Buildings Initiative has developed solutions to overcome market barriers to energy reductions in small commercial buildings by building on the success of four local and Southeast regional energy efficiency deployment programs. These programs address a variety of small commercial building types, efficiency levels, owners, facility manager skills and needs for financing. The deployment programs also reach critical private sector, utility, nonprofit and government submarkets, and have strong potential to be replicated at scale. During the grant period, 200 small commercial buildings participated in Southface-sponsored energy upgrade programs, saving 166,736,703 kBtu of source energy.

Buildings interoperability landscape - Draft

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Hardin, Dave B.; Stephan, Eric G.; Wang, Weimin

2015-02-01

Buildings are an integral part of our nation’s energy economy. The advancement in information and communications technology (ICT) has revolutionized energy management in industrial facilities and large commercial buildings. As ICT costs decrease and capabilities increase, buildings automation and energy management features are transforming the small-medium commercial and residential buildings sectors. A vision of a connected world in which equipment and systems within buildings coordinate with each other to efficiently meet their owners’ and occupants’ needs, and where buildings regularly transact business with other buildings and service providers (such as gas and electric service providers) is emerging. However, while themore » technology to support this collaboration has been demonstrated at various degrees of maturity, the integration frameworks and ecosystems of products that support the ability to easily install, maintain, and evolve building systems and their equipment components are struggling to nurture the fledging business propositions of their proponents.« less

Fieldwork measurement of indoor environmental quality (IEQ) in Malaysian platinum-rated green office buildings

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tharim, Asniza Hamimi Abdul; Samad, Muna Hanim Abdul; Ismail, Mazran

2017-10-01

An Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) fieldwork assessment was conducted in the Platinum-rated GBI office building located in Putrajaya Malaysia. The aim of the study is to determine the current indoor performance of the selected green office building. The field measurement consists of several IEQ parameters counted under the GBI Malaysia namely the Thermal Comfort of temperature, relative humidity, air movement and heat transfer as well as solar radiation. This field measurement also comprises of the measurement for the background noise, visual lighting and Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) focusing on the aspect of carbon dioxide concentration. All the selected indoor parameters were measured for the period of five working days and the results were compared to the Malaysian Standard. Findings of the field measurement show good indoor performance of the Platinum rated office building that complies with the GBI standard. It is hoped that the research findings will be beneficial for future design and construction of office building intended to be rated under the GBI Malaysia.

Fractal attractors and singular invariant measures in two-sector growth models with random factor shares

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

La Torre, Davide; Marsiglio, Simone; Mendivil, Franklin; Privileggi, Fabio

2018-05-01

We analyze a multi-sector growth model subject to random shocks affecting the two sector-specific production functions twofold: the evolution of both productivity and factor shares is the result of such exogenous shocks. We determine the optimal dynamics via Euler-Lagrange equations, and show how these dynamics can be described in terms of an iterated function system with probability. We also provide conditions that imply the singularity of the invariant measure associated with the fractal attractor. Numerical examples show how specific parameter configurations might generate distorted copies of the Barnsley's fern attractor.

30. Historic American Buildings Survey, 1932 measured drawing from old ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

30. Historic American Buildings Survey, 1932 measured drawing from old Philadelphia Survey, 1897 measured drawing by C. L. Hillman and John McClintock, photocopy courtesy of the Free Library of Philadelphia MISCELLANEOUS DETAILS: INTERIOR DOORS, STAIRS, SOUTH ROOM CHIMNEY-PIECE, ENTRANCE HALL. - Woodford, Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, PA

Overview of building energy use and report of analyses - 1985: buildings and community systems

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Schnader, M.; Lamontagne, J.

1985-10-01

The US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Buildings and Community Systems (BCS) encourages increased efficiency of energy use in the buildings sector through the conduct of a comprehensive research program, the transfer of research results to industry, and the implementation of DOE's statutory responsibilities in the buildings area. This report summarizes the results of data development and analytical activities undertaken on behalf of BCS during 1985. It provides historical data on energy consumption patterns, prices, and building characteristics used in BCS's planning processes, documents BCS's detailed projections of energy use by end use and building type (the Disaggregate Projection),more » and compares this forecast to other forecasts. Summaries of selected recent BCS analyses are also provided.« less

The Building Blocks Collaborative: advancing a life course approach to health equity through multi-sector collaboration.

PubMed

Shrimali, Bina Patel; Luginbuhl, Jessica; Malin, Christina; Flournoy, Rebecca; Siegel, Anita

2014-02-01

Too many children are born into poverty, often living in disinvested communities without adequate opportunities to be healthy and thrive. Two complementary frameworks-health equity and life course-propose new approaches to these challenges. Health equity strategies seek to improve community conditions that influence health. The life course perspective focuses on key developmental periods that can shift a person's trajectory over the life course, and highlights the importance of ensuring that children have supports in place that set them up for long-term success and health. Applying these frameworks, the Alameda County Public Health Department launched the Building Blocks Collaborative (BBC), a countywide multi-sector initiative to engage community partners in improving neighborhood conditions in low-income communities, with a focus on young children. A broad cross-section of stakeholders, called to action by the state of racial and economic inequities in children's health, came together to launch the BBC and develop a Bill of Rights that highlights the diverse factors that contribute to children's health. BBC partners then began working together to improve community conditions by learning and sharing ideas and strategies, and incubating new collaborative projects. Supportive health department leadership; dedicated staff; shared vision and ownership; a flexible partnership structure; and broad collective goals that build on partners' strengths and priorities have been critical to the growth of the BBC. Next steps include institutionalizing BBC projects into existing infrastructure, ongoing partner engagement, and continued project innovation-to achieve a common vision that all babies have the best start in life.

Design, Specification and Construction of Specialized Measurement System in the Experimental Building

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fedorczak-Cisak, Malgorzata; Kwasnowski, Pawel; Furtak, Marcin; Hayduk, Grzegorz

2017-10-01

Experimental buildings for “in situ” research are a very important tool for collecting data on energy efficiency of the energy-saving technologies. One of the most advanced building of this type in Poland is the Maloposkie Laboratory of Energy-saving Buildings at Cracow University of Technology. The building itself is used by scientists as a research object and research tool to test energy-saving technologies. It is equipped with a specialized measuring system consisting of approx. 3 000 different sensors distributed in technical installations and structural elements of the building (walls, ceilings, cornices) and the ground. The authors of the paper will present the innovative design and technology of this specialized instrumentation. They will discuss issues arising during the implementation and use of the building.

Activity measurement and effective dose modelling of natural radionuclides in building material.

PubMed

Maringer, F J; Baumgartner, A; Rechberger, F; Seidel, C; Stietka, M

2013-11-01

In this paper the assessment of natural radionuclides' activity concentration in building materials, calibration requirements and related indoor exposure dose models is presented. Particular attention is turned to specific improvements in low-level gamma-ray spectrometry to determine the activity concentration of necessary natural radionuclides in building materials with adequate measurement uncertainties. Different approaches for the modelling of the effective dose indoor due to external radiation resulted from natural radionuclides in building material and results of actual building material assessments are shown. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Leadership Strategies of Performance Measures Impacts in Public Sector Management: A National Content Analysis.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kubala, James Joseph

A quantitative and qualitative study examined three leadership strategies found in performance-based management (human resource, scientific management and political strategies used in public sector management); a framework by which performance measurement (PM) supports leadership strategies; and how the strategies impact PM. It examined leadership…

Building simulation: Ten challenges

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Hong, Tianzhen; Langevin, Jared; Sun, Kaiyu

Buildings consume more than one-third of the world’s primary energy. Reducing energy use and greenhouse-gas emissions in the buildings sector through energy conservation and efficiency improvements constitutes a key strategy for achieving global energy and environmental goals. Building performance simulation has been increasingly used as a tool for designing, operating and retrofitting buildings to save energy and utility costs. However, opportunities remain for researchers, software developers, practitioners and policymakers to maximize the value of building performance simulation in the design and operation of low energy buildings and communities that leverage interdisciplinary approaches to integrate humans, buildings, and the power gridmore » at a large scale. This paper presents ten challenges that highlight some of the most important issues in building performance simulation, covering the full building life cycle and a wide range of modeling scales. In conclusion, the formulation and discussion of each challenge aims to provide insights into the state-of-the-art and future research opportunities for each topic, and to inspire new questions from young researchers in this field.« less

Building simulation: Ten challenges

DOE PAGES

Hong, Tianzhen; Langevin, Jared; Sun, Kaiyu

2018-04-12

Buildings consume more than one-third of the world’s primary energy. Reducing energy use and greenhouse-gas emissions in the buildings sector through energy conservation and efficiency improvements constitutes a key strategy for achieving global energy and environmental goals. Building performance simulation has been increasingly used as a tool for designing, operating and retrofitting buildings to save energy and utility costs. However, opportunities remain for researchers, software developers, practitioners and policymakers to maximize the value of building performance simulation in the design and operation of low energy buildings and communities that leverage interdisciplinary approaches to integrate humans, buildings, and the power gridmore » at a large scale. This paper presents ten challenges that highlight some of the most important issues in building performance simulation, covering the full building life cycle and a wide range of modeling scales. In conclusion, the formulation and discussion of each challenge aims to provide insights into the state-of-the-art and future research opportunities for each topic, and to inspire new questions from young researchers in this field.« less

19. Historic American Buildings Survey, 1932 measured drawing from old ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

19. Historic American Buildings Survey, 1932 measured drawing from old Philadelphia Survey, photocopy courtesy of the Free Library of Philadelphia DETAILS: MAIN STAIRS. - Woodford, Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, PA

16. Historic American Buildings Survey, 1932 measured drawing from old ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

16. Historic American Buildings Survey, 1932 measured drawing from old Philadelphia Survey, photocopy courtesy of the Free Library of Philadelphia MAIN ENTRANCE DETAILS. - Woodford, Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, PA

22. Historic American Buildings Survey, 1932 measured drawing from old ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

22. Historic American Buildings Survey, 1932 measured drawing from old Philadelphia Survey, photocopy courtesy of the Free Library of Philadelphia DETAILS: PALLADIAN WINDOW. - Woodford, Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, PA

24. Historic American Buildings Survey, 1932 measured drawing from old ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

24. Historic American Buildings Survey, 1932 measured drawing from old Philadelphia Survey, photocopy courtesy of the Free Library of Philadelphia DETAILS: ENTRANCE HALL. - Woodford, Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, PA

Wind tunnel measurements of three-dimensional wakes of buildings. [for aircraft safety applications

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Logan, E., Jr.; Lin, S. H.

1982-01-01

Measurements relevant to the effect of buildings on the low level atmospheric boundary layer are presented. A wind tunnel experiment was undertaken to determine the nature of the flow downstream from a gap between two transversely aligned, equal sized models of rectangular cross section. These building models were immersed in an equilibrium turbulent boundary layer which was developed on a smooth floor in a zero longitudinal pressure gradient. Measurements with an inclined (45 degree) hot-wire were made at key positions downstream of models arranged with a large, small, and no gap between them. Hot-wire theory is presented which enables computation of the three mean velocity components, U, V and W, as well as Reynolds stresses. These measurements permit understanding of the character of the wake downstream of laterally spaced buildings. Surface streamline patterns obtained by the oil film method were used to delineate the separation region to the rear of the buildings for a variety of spacings.

26. Historic American Buildings Survey, 1932 measured drawing from old ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

26. Historic American Buildings Survey, 1932 measured drawing from old Philadelphia Survey, photocopy courtesy of the Free Library of Philadelphia DETAILS: FIRST FLOOR WINDOW. - Woodford, Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, PA

20. Historic American Buildings Survey, 1932 measured drawing from old ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

20. Historic American Buildings Survey, 1932 measured drawing from old Philadelphia Survey, photocopy courtesy of the Free Library of Philadelphia FURTHER DETAILS: MAIN STAIRS. - Woodford, Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, PA

23. Historic American Buildings Survey, 1932 measured drawing from old ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

23. Historic American Buildings Survey, 1932 measured drawing from old Philadelphia Survey, photocopy courtesy of the Free Library of Philadelphia FURTHER DETAILS: LIVING ROOM. - Woodford, Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, PA

14. Historic American Buildings Survey, 1932 measured drawing from old ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

14. Historic American Buildings Survey, 1932 measured drawing from old Philadelphia Survey, photocopy courtesy of the Free Library of Philadelphia DETAIL OF EAST ELEVATION. - Woodford, Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, PA

Historic American Buildings Survey PHOTOCOPY OF MEASURED DRAWING BY DIETER ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

Historic American Buildings Survey PHOTOCOPY OF MEASURED DRAWING BY DIETER SENGLER, 1964 CROSS SECTION AND ORIGINAL JACKSON BOULEVARD ELEVATION - Monadnock Block, 53 West Jackson Boulevard, Chicago, Cook County, IL

122. HISTORIC AMERICAN BUILDINGS SURVEY TEAM MEASURING EXTERIOR OF INDEPENDENCE ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

122. HISTORIC AMERICAN BUILDINGS SURVEY TEAM MEASURING EXTERIOR OF INDEPENDENCE HALL (LEE NELSON ON CORNER LEANING OVER) - Independence Hall Complex, Independence Hall, 500 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, PA

Improving health sector travel.

PubMed

Hurdle, David; Davis, Adrian

2004-10-01

Preventing ill health and obesity and building more physical activity into our daily lives have never been so high on the agenda, and the way we travel can help. Many workplaces and schools are drawing up travel plans, with the aims usually to minimise car use and encourage healthier and more environmentally friendly travel. The Transport White Paper of 1998 advocated travel plans and singled out hospitals for action. Travel plans continue to be a focus within the latest Transport White Paper, launched in July 2004. This article covers various prompts to the health sector to implement travel plans. It addresses issues and concerns facing NHS Trusts, the practical things Trusts can do, and the increasing amount of good practice available. Finally, it demonstrates that travel plans can work, and are working, in the health sector.

12. Historic American Buildings Survey, 1932 measured drawing from old ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

12. Historic American Buildings Survey, 1932 measured drawing from old Philadelphia Survey, photocopy courtesy of the Free Library of Philadelphia WEST ELEVATION AND NORTH ELEVATION. - Woodford, Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, PA

11. Historic American Buildings Survey, 1932 measured drawing from old ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

11. Historic American Buildings Survey, 1932 measured drawing from old Philadelphia Survey, photocopy courtesy of the Free Library of Philadelphia EAST ELEVATION AND SOUTH ELEVATION. - Woodford, Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, PA

15. Historic American Buildings Survey, 1932 measured drawing from old ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

15. Historic American Buildings Survey, 1932 measured drawing from old Philadelphia Survey, photocopy courtesy of the Free Library of Philadelphia CROSS SECTION AND LONGITUDINAL SECTION. - Woodford, Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, PA

31. Historic American Buildings Survey, 1932 measured drawing from old ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

31. Historic American Buildings Survey, 1932 measured drawing from old Philadelphia Survey, 1897 measured drawing by C. L. Hillman and John McClintock, photocopy courtesy of the Free Library of Philadelphia ELEVATIONS AND PROFILES, PALLADIAN WINDOW, EAST END OF HALL, SECOND STORY; PLAN AND CORNICE DETAILS, FIRST FLOOR. - Woodford, Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, PA

A SOFTWARE TOOL TO COMPARE MEASURED AND SIMULATED BUILDING ENERGY PERFORMANCE DATA

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Maile, Tobias; Bazjanac, Vladimir; O'Donnell, James

2011-11-01

Building energy performance is often inadequate when compared to design goals. To link design goals to actual operation one can compare measured with simulated energy performance data. Our previously developed comparison approach is the Energy Performance Comparison Methodology (EPCM), which enables the identification of performance problems based on a comparison of measured and simulated performance data. In context of this method, we developed a software tool that provides graphing and data processing capabilities of the two performance data sets. The software tool called SEE IT (Stanford Energy Efficiency Information Tool) eliminates the need for manual generation of data plots andmore » data reformatting. SEE IT makes the generation of time series, scatter and carpet plots independent of the source of data (measured or simulated) and provides a valuable tool for comparing measurements with simulation results. SEE IT also allows assigning data points on a predefined building object hierarchy and supports different versions of simulated performance data. This paper briefly introduces the EPCM, describes the SEE IT tool and illustrates its use in the context of a building case study.« less

Brownfields Shifting Gears: Driving Toward Auto Sector Property Revitalization

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

This is an overview of community success stories. By building strong partnerships and setting priorities for recovery and revitalization, the public and private sectors are realizing a great deal of success in addressing idle industrial brownfields.

Measurement of Seafloor Deformation in the Marine Sector of the Campi Flegrei Caldera (Italy)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Iannaccone, Giovanni; Guardato, Sergio; Donnarumma, Gian Paolo; De Martino, Prospero; Dolce, Mario; Macedonio, Giovanni; Chierici, Francesco; Beranzoli, Laura

2018-01-01

We present an assessment of vertical seafloor deformation in the shallow marine sector of the Campi Flegrei caldera (southern Italy) obtained from GPS and bottom pressure recorder (BPR) data, acquired over the period April 2016 to July 2017 in the Gulf of Pozzuoli by a new marine infrastructure, MEDUSA. This infrastructure consists of four fixed buoys with GPS receivers; each buoy is connected by cable to a seafloor multisensor module hosting a BPR. The measured maximum vertical uplift of the seafloor is about 4.2 ± 0.4 cm. The MEDUSA data were then compared to the expected vertical displacement in the marine sector according to a Mogi model point source computed using only GPS land measurements. The results show that a single point source model of deformation is able to explain both the GPS land and seafloor data. Moreover, we demonstrate that a network of permanent GPS buoys represents a powerful tool to measure the seafloor vertical deformation field in shallow water. The performance of this system is comparable to on-land high-precision GPS networks, marking a significant achievement and advance in seafloor geodesy and extending volcano monitoring capabilities to shallow offshore areas (up to 100 m depth). The GPS measurements of MEDUSA have also been used to confirm that the BPR data provide an independent measure of the seafloor vertical uplift in shallow water.

13. Historic American Buildings Survey, 1932 measured drawing from old ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

13. Historic American Buildings Survey, 1932 measured drawing from old Philadelphia Survey, photocopy courtesy of the Free Library of Philadelphia DETAILS: EXTERIOR CORNICES AND DORMER WINDOWS. - Woodford, Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, PA

Renewable energy and conservation measures for non-residential buildings

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Grossman, Andrew James

The energy demand in most countries is growing at an alarming rate and identifying economically feasible building retrofit solutions to decrease the need for fossil fuels so as to mitigate their environmental and societal impacts has become imperative. Two approaches are available for identifying feasible retrofit solutions: 1) the implementation of energy conservation measures; and 2) the production of energy from renewable sources. This thesis focuses on the development of retrofit software planning tools for the implementation of solar photovoltaic systems, and lighting system retrofits for mid-Michigan institutional buildings. The solar planning tool exploits the existing blueprint of a building's rooftop, and via image processing, the layouts of the solar photovoltaic arrays are developed based on the building's geographical location and typical weather patterns. The resulting energy generation of a PV system is estimated and is utilized to determine levelized energy costs. The lighting system retrofit analysis starts by a current utilization assessment of a building to determine the amount of energy used by the lighting system. Several LED lighting options are evaluated on the basis of color correlation temperature, color rendering index, energy consumption, and financial feasibility, to determine a retrofit solution. Solar photovoltaic installations in mid-Michigan are not yet financially feasible, but with the anticipated growth and dynamic complexity of the solar photovoltaic market, this solar planning tool is able to assist building proprietors make executive decisions regarding their energy usage. Additionally, a lighting system retrofit is shown to have significant financial and health benefits.

18. Historic American Buildings Survey, 1932 measured drawing from old ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

18. Historic American Buildings Survey, 1932 measured drawing from old Philadelphia Survey, photocopy courtesy of the Free Library of Philadelphia BASEMENT FLOOR PLAN AND THIRD FLOOR PLAN. - Woodford, Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, PA

25. Historic American Buildings Survey, 1932 measured drawing from old ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

25. Historic American Buildings Survey, 1932 measured drawing from old Philadelphia Survey, photocopy courtesy of the Free Library of Philadelphia DETAILS: MISCELLANEOUS CORNICES, CHAIR RAILS, AND BASES. - Woodford, Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, PA

17. Historic American Buildings Survey, 1932 measured drawing from old ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

17. Historic American Buildings Survey, 1932 measured drawing from old Philadelphia Survey, photocopy courtesy of the Free Library of Philadelphia FIRST FLOOR PLAN AND SECOND FLOOR PLAN. - Woodford, Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, PA

Measuring site-level success in brownfield redevelopments: a focus on sustainability and green building.

PubMed

Wedding, G Christopher; Crawford-Brown, Douglas

2007-10-01

This research has met the following four objectives within the broader research topic of characterizing and quantifying success in brownfield revitalization: (1) to define 40 total indicators that define and determine the success of brownfield redevelopments in four categories: environment-health, finance, livability, and social-economic; (2) to use these indicators to develop a partially automated tool that stakeholders in brownfield redevelopment may use to more easily assess and communicate success (or failures) in these projects; (3) to integrate "green" building as an important aspect of successful brownfield redevelopments; and (4) to develop this tool within the framework of a specific multi-attribute decision method (MADM), the analytical hierarchical process (AHP). Future research should include the operationalization and application of this tool to specific sites. Currently, no such indicator framework or automated tool is known to exist or be in use. Indicators were chosen because of their ability to reduce data into comprehensible measurements and to systematically measure success in a standardized fashion. Appropriate indicators were selected based on (1) interviews with prominent private developers and national leaders in brownfield redevelopment, (2) a review of the relevant literature, (3) objective hierarchies created in this project, and (4) the ability for each indicator to serve goals in more than one of the four categories described above. These were combined to form the Sustainable Brownfields Redevelopment (SBR) Tool. A survey was conducted to serve as a preliminary assessment and proposed methodology for judging the validity of the SBR Tool. Professionals in the academic, private, and public sector were asked to provide an evaluation of the management tool and a weighting of the relative importance of each indicator and each of the four categories listed previously. Experts rated the tool at 7.68 out of 10 suggesting that this framework will

27. Historic American Buildings Survey, 1932 measured drawing from old ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

27. Historic American Buildings Survey, 1932 measured drawing from old Philadelphia Survey, photocopy courtesy of the Free Library of Philadelphia ELEVATION AND DETAILS: PANELLED WALL, SECOND FLOOR BEDROOM. - Woodford, Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, PA

21. Historic American Buildings Survey, 1932 measured drawing from old ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

21. Historic American Buildings Survey, 1932 measured drawing from old Philadelphia Survey, photocopy courtesy of the Free Library of Philadelphia DETAILS: LIVING ROOM, INTERIOR ELEVATIONS, NORTH AND WEST. - Woodford, Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, PA

Exploring the validity of HPQ-based presenteeism measures to estimate productivity losses in the health and education sectors.

PubMed

Scuffham, Paul A; Vecchio, Nerina; Whiteford, Harvey A

2014-01-01

Illness-related presenteeism (suboptimal work performance) may be a significant factor in worker productivity. Until now, there has been no generally accepted best method of measuring presenteeism across different industries and occupations. This study sought to validate the Health and Work Performance Questionnaire (HPQ)-based measure of presenteeism across occupations and industries and assess the most appropriate method for data analysis. . Work performance was measured using the modified version of the HPQ conducted in workforce samples from the education and health workforce in Queensland, Australia (N = 30,870) during 2005 and 2006. Three approaches to data analysis of presenteeism measures were assessed using absolute performance, the ratio of own performance to others' performance, and the difference between others' and own performance. The best measure is judged by its sensitivity to changes in health indicators. . The measure that best correlated to health indicators was absolute presenteeism. For example, in the health sector, correlations between physical health status and absolute presenteeism were 4 to 5 times greater than the ratio or difference approaches, and in the education sector, these correlations were twice as large. Using this approach, the estimated cost of presenteeism in 2006 was $Aus8338 and $Aus8092 per worker per annum for the health and education sectors, respectively. . The HPQ is a valid measure of presenteeism. Transforming responses by perceived performance of peers is unnecessary as absolute presenteeism correlated best with health indicators. Absolute presenteeism was more insightful for ascertaining the cost of presenteeism.

Demystifying first-cost green building premiums in healthcare.

PubMed

Houghton, Adele; Vittori, Gail; Guenther, Robin

2009-01-01

This study assesses the extent of "first-cost green building construction premiums" in the healthcare sector based on data submitted by and interviews with 13 current LEED-certified and LEED-registered healthcare project teams, coupled with a literature survey of articles on the topics of actual and perceived first-cost premiums associated with green building strategies. This analysis covers both perceived and realized costs across a range of projects in this sector, leading to the following conclusions: Construction first-cost premiums may be lower than is generally perceived, and they appear to be independent of both building size and level of "green" achievement; projects are using financial incentives and philanthropy to drive higher levels of achievement; premiums are decreasing over time; and projects are benefiting from improvements in health and productivity which, although difficult to monetize, are universally valued.

Historic American Buildings Survey PHOTOCOPY OF MEASURED DRAWING BY DIETER ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

Historic American Buildings Survey PHOTOCOPY OF MEASURED DRAWING BY DIETER SENGLER, 1964 ELEVATION, PLAN AND SECTION OF TYPICAL BAY SHOWING SECOND, THIRD, FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH FLOORS - Monadnock Block, 53 West Jackson Boulevard, Chicago, Cook County, IL

Transforming State-of-the-Art into Best Practice: A Guide for High-Performance Energy Efficient Buildings in India

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Singh, Reshma; Ravache, Baptiste; Sartor, Dale

India launched the Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC) in 2007, and a revised version in 2017 as ambitious first steps towards promoting energy efficiency in the building sector. Pioneering early adopters—building owners, A&E firms, and energy consultants—have taken the lead to design customized solutions for their energy-efficient buildings. This Guide offers a synthesizing framework, critical lessons, and guidance to meet and exceed ECBC. Its whole-building lifecycle assurance framework provides a user-friendly methodology to achieve high performance in terms of energy, environmental, and societal impact. Class A offices are selected as a target typology, being a high-growth sector, with significant opportunitiesmore » for energy savings. The practices may be extrapolated to other commercial building sectors, as well as extended to other regions with similar cultural, climatic, construction, and developmental contexts« less

77 FR 59899 - U.S. Multi-Sector Trade Mission to South India and Sri Lanka

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2012-10-01

... development of the residential and mixed use, tourism, and healthcare sectors, and encourage applications from... following text: Architecture Services Sub-Sectors [cir] Tourism [cir] Hospital and Healthcare [cir... broad need for all building types, especially for residential development, tourism and health facilities...

Harmonizing health information systems with information systems in other social and economic sectors.

PubMed Central

Macfarlane, Sarah B.

2005-01-01

Efforts to strengthen health information systems in low- and middle-income countries should include forging links with systems in other social and economic sectors. Governments are seeking comprehensive socioeconomic data on the basis of which to implement strategies for poverty reduction and to monitor achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. The health sector is looking to take action on the social factors that determine health outcomes. But there are duplications and inconsistencies between sectors in the collection, reporting, storage and analysis of socioeconomic data. National offices of statistics give higher priority to collection and analysis of economic than to social statistics. The Report of the Commission for Africa has estimated that an additional US$ 60 million a year is needed to improve systems to collect and analyse statistics in Africa. Some donors recognize that such systems have been weakened by numerous international demands for indicators, and have pledged support for national initiatives to strengthen statistical systems, as well as sectoral information systems such as those in health and education. Many governments are working to coordinate information systems to monitor and evaluate poverty reduction strategies. There is therefore an opportunity for the health sector to collaborate with other sectors to lever international resources to rationalize definition and measurement of indicators common to several sectors; streamline the content, frequency and timing of household surveys; and harmonize national and subnational databases that store socioeconomic data. Without long-term commitment to improve training and build career structures for statisticians and information technicians working in the health and other sectors, improvements in information and statistical systems cannot be sustained. PMID:16184278

Investigations on the Use of Multi-Species Flask Measurements for Sector-Specific Fossil Fuel CO2 Attribution to Aid Policymakers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nathan, B.; Lauvaux, T.; Turnbull, J. C.; Sweeney, C.; Karion, A.; Richardson, S.; Miles, N.; Gurney, K. R.; Patarasuk, R.

2016-12-01

Part of the Indianapolis Flux (INFLUX) Experiment has, since 2010, involved recording atmospheric trace gas measurements using NOAA flask packages. The goal of these measurements is to better inform policymakers about the behaviors of greenhouse gas emissions in the Indianapolis urban environment. Radiocarbon dioxide (14CO2) measurements recorded from the flasks allow for delineation of the fossil-fuel carbon dioxide (CO2ff) signal from the total carbon dioxide (CO2) measurement. To give policymakers even more detailed information, we investigate whether the co-measured trace gases could be used as tracers for economic source sectors of CO2ff as predefined by the bottom-up data product Hestia. This is extensively tested using an Observation System Simulation Experiment (OSSE) combining both a top-down approach for all species—influence functions from the tower flask measurements—, and attempting to assign sources via spatial overlaps with the available bottom-up inventory CO2ff source sector definitions. A self-organizing map is implemented for the mathematical attribution of signals to sources, because it can compensate for nonlinear signals (i.e. tracer emissions that do not scale linearly with CO2ff emissions). It is determined that proper attribution is at least not feasible with such a complete lack of bottom-up spatial information about all non-CO2ff potential tracers. This unfeasibility is shown not to be resolved by a test of expanding the dataset with many more theoretical measurements than are realistically available. Here we alter the approach to include the missing prior information: bottom-up estimates of the emission fluxes for a suite of species. We develop these bottom-up emission fluxes from existing whole-city emission fluxes, species-specific source sector partitioning, and the spatial patterns from Hestia CO2ff source sectors. We validate the general approach using the whole-city species: CO2ff ratios derived from all tower flask

Applicability and economic efficiency of earthquake retrofit measures on existing buildings in Bucharest, Romania

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bostenaru, M.

2009-04-01

The research discussed in this contribution contains two aspects: on one side the economic efficiency of seismic retrofit measures, and on the other their applicability. The research was limited to housing buildings. Bucharest, the capital of Romania, was the object of the research. Strong earthquakes affect Bucharest about three times in a century, the damaging earthquakes of the 20th century being in 1940 and 1977. Other strong earthquakes occurred in 1986 and 1990. Since it is a broad topic, first the building type was determined, which should serve further research. For this scope the building types of the 20th century, which are common in Bucharest, Romania, were investigated. For each building type reports have been written, which comprised the earthquake resilient features, the seismic defficiencies, the damage patterns and the retrofit measures. Each of these features was listed for elements of the building. A first result of the research was an integrated system in order to include latter aspects in the planning in the first steps. So already at the building survey attention has to be paid on how a building is subdivided in order to be able to determine the economic efficiency of the planned action. So were defined the `retrofit elements`. In a first step the characteristics were defined, through which these retrofit elements (for example column, wall part between two windows) can be recognised in the building survey. In a further one, which retrofit measures can be connected to these. Diagrams were built, in order to visualise these findings. For each retrofit element and the corresponding measure the costs were calculated. Also, these retrofit elements and the measures connected to them were modelled for the simulation with the structural software, so that the benefit of the measures could be determined. In the part which regarded the economic efficiency, benefits and costs of retrofit measures had to be compared, so the improvement in the rigidity

Improving energy efficiency via smart building energy management systems. A comparison with policy measures

DOE PAGES

Rocha, Paula; Siddiqui, Afzal; Stadler, Michael

2014-12-09

In this study, to foster the transition to more sustainable energy systems, policymakers have been approving measures to improve energy efficiency as well as promoting smart grids. In this setting, building managers are encouraged to adapt their energy operations to real-time market and weather conditions. Yet, most fail to do so as they rely on conventional building energy management systems (BEMS) that have static temperature set points for heating and cooling equipment. In this paper, we investigate how effective policy measures are at improving building-level energy efficiency compared to a smart BEMS with dynamic temperature set points. To this end,more » we present an integrated optimisation model mimicking the smart BEMS that combines decisions on heating and cooling systems operations with decisions on energy sourcing. Using data from an Austrian and a Spanish building, we find that the smart BEMS results in greater reduction in energy consumption than a conventional BEMS with policy measures.« less

Estimating energy intensity and CO{sub 2} emission reduction potentials in the manufacturing sectors in Thailand

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Wangskarn, P.; Khummongkol, P.; Schrattenholzer, L.

The final energy consumption in Thailand increased at about ten percent annually within the last 10 years. To slow the energy demand growth rate while maintaining the country`s economic advance and environmental sustainability, the Energy Conservation Promotion Act (ECPA) was adopted in 1992. With this Act, a comprehensive Energy Conservation Program (ENCON) was initiated. ENCON commits the government to promoting energy conservation, to developing appropriate regulations, and to providing financial and organizational resources for program implementation. Due to this existing ENCON program a great benefit is expected not only to reducing energy consumption, but also to decreasing GHGs emissions substantially.more » This study is a part of the ENCON research program which was supported by the German Federal Government under the program called Prompt-Start Measures to Implement the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC). The basic activities carried out during the project included (1) An assessment of Thailand`s total and specific energy consumption in the industrial sectors and commercial buildings; (2) Identification of existing and candidate technologies for GHG emission reduction and energy efficiency improvements in specific factories and commercial buildings; and (3) Identification of individual factories and commercial buildings as candidates for detailed further study. Although the energy assessment had been carried out for the commercial buildings also, this paper will cover only the work on the manufacturing sector. On the basis of these steps, 14 factories were visited by the project team and preliminary energy audits were performed. As a result, concrete measures and investments were proposed and classified into two groups according to their economic characteristics. Those investments with a payback time of less than four years were considered together in a Moderate scenario, and those with longer payback times in an Intensive scenario.« less

Biosecurity Measures Applied in the United Arab Emirates - a Comparative Study Between Livestock and Wildlife Sectors.

PubMed

Chaber, A L; Saegerman, C

2017-08-01

In 2013, the livestock population in the UAE exceeded 4.3 million heads with sheep and goats accounting for 90% of this. The overall number of captive wild ungulates (gazelle types) is difficult to assess as there is no registration system in place or enforced in the UAE with regard to the possession of wildlife. Those animal collections, mainly owned by high-ranking families, are therefore not registered and kept far from public viewing. Nonetheless, some collections are housing more than 30 000 ungulates in one location. The primary objective of this study was to describe the biosecurity measures currently applied in UAE ungulate facilities for different wildlife and livestock sectors. A secondary objective was to use the output from this biosecurity survey to investigate which sector could be categorized into risk groups for disease introduction and spread. Between October 2014 and May 2015, biosecurity questionnaire data were collected in the Emirates of Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Ras Al Khaimah, Fujeirah, Ajman, Umm al Quwain and Sharjah from 14 wildlife collections, 30 livestock farms and 15 mixed (wildlife and livestock farms). These investigations through questionnaires allowed us to quantify and assess statistically biosecurity practices and levels for both livestock and wildlife sectors. In both sectors, biosecurity measures could be improved and only a few facilities had high biosecurity scores. The group of small unregistered farms (Ezba) represented the highest risk of disease transmission to other animals due to their lack of biosecurity awareness. © 2016 Blackwell Verlag GmbH.

Energy efficiency design strategies for buildings with grid-connected photovoltaic systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yimprayoon, Chanikarn

The building sector in the United States represents more than 40% of the nation's energy consumption. Energy efficiency design strategies and renewable energy are keys to reduce building energy demand. Grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) systems installed on buildings have been the fastest growing market in the PV industry. This growth poses challenges for buildings qualified to serve in this market sector. Electricity produced from solar energy is intermittent. Matching building electricity demand with PV output can increase PV system efficiency. Through experimental methods and case studies, computer simulations were used to investigate the priorities of energy efficiency design strategies that decreased electricity demand while producing load profiles matching with unique output profiles from PV. Three building types (residential, commercial, and industrial) of varying sizes and use patterns located in 16 climate zones were modeled according to ASHRAE 90.1 requirements. Buildings were analyzed individually and as a group. Complying with ASHRAE energy standards can reduce annual electricity consumption at least 13%. With energy efficiency design strategies, the reduction could reach up to 65%, making it possible for PV systems to meet reduced demands in residential and industrial buildings. The peak electricity demand reduction could be up to 71% with integration of strategies and PV. Reducing lighting power density was the best single strategy with high overall performances. Combined strategies such as zero energy building are also recommended. Electricity consumption reductions are the sum of the reductions from strategies and PV output. However, peak electricity reductions were less than their sum because they reduced peak at different times. The potential of grid stress reduction is significant. Investment incentives from government and utilities are necessary. The PV system sizes on net metering interconnection should not be limited by legislation existing in

Measurements of VOC adsorption/desorption characteristics of typical interior building materials

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

An, Y.; Zhang, J.S.; Shaw, C.Y.

2000-07-01

The adsorption/desorption of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) on interior building material surfaces (i.e., the sink effect) can affect the VOC concentrations in a building, and thus need to be accounted for an indoor air quality (IAQ) prediction model. In this study, the VOC adsorption/desorption characteristics (sink effect) were measured for four typical interior building materials including carpet, vinyl floor tile, painted drywall, and ceiling tile. The VOCs tested were ethylbenzene, cyclohexanone, 1,4-dichlorobenzene, benzaldehyde, and dodecane. These five VOCs were selected because they are representative of hydrocarbons, aromatics, ketones, aldehydes, and chlorine substituted compounds. The first order reversible adsorption/desorption model wasmore » based on the Langmuir isotherm was used to analyze the data and to determine the equilibrium constant of each VOC-material combination. It was found that the adsorption/desorption equilibrium constant, which is a measure of the sink capacity, increased linearly with the inverse of the VOC vapor pressure. For each compound, the adsorption/desorption equilibrium constant, and the adsorption rate constant differed significantly among the four materials tested. A detailed characterization of the material structure in the micro-scale would improve the understanding and modeling of the sink effect in the future. The results of this study can be used to estimate the impact of sink effect on the VOC concentrations in buildings.« less

Building and Testing a Superconductivity Measurement Platform for a Helium Cryostat

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rose, Heath; Ostrander, Joshua; Wu, Jim; Ramos, Roberto

2013-03-01

Superconductivity experiments using Josephson junctions are an excellent environment to study quantum mechanics and materials science. A standard electrical transport technique uses filtered four wire measurement of these superconducting devices. We report our experience as undergraduates in a liberal arts college in building and testing an experimental platform anchored on the cold-finger of a helium cryostat and designed for performing differential conductance measurements in Josephson junctions. To filter out RF, we design, build and test cryogenic filters using ceramic capacitors and inductors and thermocoax cables. We also use fixed attenuators for thermal anchoring and use miniature connectors to connect wires and coax to a sample box. We report on progress in our diagnostic measurements as well as low-temperature tunneling experiments to probe the structure of the energy gap in both single- and multi-gapped superconductors. We acknowledge the support of the National Science Foundation through NSF Grant DMR-1206561.

A participatory model for improving occupational health and safety: improving informal sector working conditions in Thailand.

PubMed

Manothum, Aniruth; Rukijkanpanich, Jittra; Thawesaengskulthai, Damrong; Thampitakkul, Boonwa; Chaikittiporn, Chalermchai; Arphorn, Sara

2009-01-01

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the implementation of an Occupational Health and Safety Management Model for informal sector workers in Thailand. The studied model was characterized by participatory approaches to preliminary assessment, observation of informal business practices, group discussion and participation, and the use of environmental measurements and samples. This model consisted of four processes: capacity building, risk analysis, problem solving, and monitoring and control. The participants consisted of four local labor groups from different regions, including wood carving, hand-weaving, artificial flower making, and batik processing workers. The results demonstrated that, as a result of applying the model, the working conditions of the informal sector workers had improved to meet necessary standards. This model encouraged the use of local networks, which led to cooperation within the groups to create appropriate technologies to solve their problems. The authors suggest that this model could effectively be applied elsewhere to improve informal sector working conditions on a broader scale.

Evaluating building performance in healthcare facilities: an organizational perspective.

PubMed

Steinke, Claudia; Webster, Lynn; Fontaine, Marie

2010-01-01

Using the environment as a strategic tool is one of the most cost-effective and enduring approaches for improving public health; however, it is one that requires multiple perspectives. The purpose of this article is to highlight an innovative methodology that has been developed for conducting comprehensive performance evaluations in public sector health facilities in Canada. The building performance evaluation methodology described in this paper is a government initiative. The project team developed a comprehensive building evaluation process for all new capital health projects that would respond to the aforementioned need for stakeholders to be more accountable and to better integrate the larger organizational strategy of facilities. The Balanced Scorecard, which is a multiparadigmatic, performance-based business framework, serves as the underlying theoretical framework for this initiative. It was applied in the development of the conceptual model entitled the Building Performance Evaluation Scorecard, which provides the following benefits: (1) It illustrates a process to link facilities more effectively to the overall mission and goals of an organization; (2) It is both a measurement and a management system that has the ability to link regional facilities to measures of success and larger business goals; (3) It provides a standardized methodology that ensures consistency in assessing building performance; and (4) It is more comprehensive than traditional building evaluations. The methodology presented in this paper is both a measurement and management system that integrates the principles of evidence-based design with the practices of pre- and post-occupancy evaluation. It promotes accountability and continues throughout the life cycle of a project. The advantage of applying this framework is that it engages health organizations in clarifying a vision and strategy for their facilities and helps translate those strategies into action and measurable performance

CO2 Mitigation Measures of Power Sector and Its Integrated Optimization in China

PubMed Central

Dai, Pan; Chen, Guang; Zhou, Hao; Su, Meirong; Bao, Haixia

2012-01-01

Power sector is responsible for about 40% of the total CO2 emissions in the world and plays a leading role in climate change mitigation. In this study, measures that lower CO2 emissions from the supply side, demand side, and power grid are discussed, based on which, an integrated optimization model of CO2 mitigation (IOCM) is proposed. Virtual energy, referring to energy saving capacity in both demand side and the power grid, together with conventional energy in supply side, is unified planning for IOCM. Consequently, the optimal plan of energy distribution, considering both economic benefits and mitigation benefits, is figured out through the application of IOCM. The results indicate that development of demand side management (DSM) and smart grid can make great contributions to CO2 mitigation of power sector in China by reducing the CO2 emissions by 10.02% and 12.59%, respectively, in 2015, and in 2020. PMID:23213305

Developing a Defense Sector Assessment Rating Tool

DTIC Science & Technology

2010-01-01

JUSTICE EDUCATION ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT HEALTH AND HEALTH CARE INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS NATIONAL SECURITY POPULATION AND AGING PUBLIC SAFETY SCIENCE AND...Cathryn Quantic Thurston, and Gregory F. Treverton (MG-863-OSD). • Making Liberia Safe: Transformation of the National Security Sector, by David C...Cathryn Quantic Thurston, and Gregory F. Treverton, A Framework to Assess Programs for Building Partnerships, Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation

Multi-sectoral interventions for healthy growth.

PubMed

Casanovas, Ma del Carmen; Lutter, Chessa K; Mangasaryan, Nune; Mwadime, Robert; Hajeebhoy, Nemat; Aguilar, Ana Maria; Kopp, Ciro; Rico, Luis; Ibiett, Gonzalo; Andia, Doris; Onyango, Adelheid W

2013-09-01

The risk of stunted growth and development is affected by the context in which a child is born and grows. This includes such interdependent influences as the political economy, health and health care, education, society and culture, agriculture and food systems, water and sanitation, and the environment. Here, we briefly review how factors linked with the key sectors can contribute to healthy growth and reduced childhood stunting. Emphasis is placed on the role of agriculture/food security, especially family farming; education, particularly of girls and women; water, sanitation, and hygiene and their integration in stunting reduction strategies; social protection including cash transfers, bearing in mind that success in this regard is linked to reducing the gap between rich and poor; economic investment in stunting reduction including the work with the for-profit commercial sector balancing risks linked to marketing foods that can displace affordable and more sustainable alternatives; health with emphasis on implementing comprehensive and effective health care interventions and building the capacity of health care providers. We complete the review with examples of national and subnational multi-sectoral interventions that illustrate how critical it is for sectors to work together to reduce stunting. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

SMART WINDOWS FOR SMART BUILDINGS

EPA Science Inventory

Roughly one third of all energy consumed in the U.S. is used in the residential or commercial sector. Of that, over half of the energy is used to provide lighting and to control the temperature of those buildings. “Smart buildings” is a concept to apply principles ...

Fayette County Better Buildings Initiative

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Capella, Arthur

The Fayette County Better Buildings Initiative represented a comprehensive and collaborative approach to promoting and implementing energy efficiency improvements. The initiative was designed to focus on implementing energy efficiency improvements in residential units, while simultaneously supporting general marketing of the benefits of implementing energy efficiency measures. The ultimate goal of Fayette County’s Better Buildings Initiative was to implement a total of 1,067 residential energy efficiency retrofits with a minimum 15% estimated energy efficiency savings per unit. Program partners included: United States Department of Energy, Allegheny Power, and Private Industry Council of Westmoreland-Fayette, Fayette County Redevelopment Authority, and various local partners.more » The program was open to any Fayette County residents who own their home and meet the prequalifying conditions. The level of assistance offered depended upon household income and commitment to undergo a BPI – Certified Audit and implement energy efficiency measures, which aimed to result in at least a 15% reduction in energy usage. The initiative was designed to focus on implementing energy efficiency improvements in residential units, while simultaneously supporting general marketing of the benefits of implementing energy efficiency measures. Additionally, the program had components that involved recruitment and training for employment of persons in the energy sector (green jobs), as well as marketing and implementation of a commercial or community facilities component. The residential component of Fayette County’s Better Buildings Initiative involved a comprehensive approach, providing assistance to low- moderate- and market-rate homeowners. The initiative will also coordinate activities with local utility providers to further incentivize energy efficiency improvements among qualifying homeowners. The commercial component of Fayette County’s Better Building Initiative involved

Austerity and the "sector-wide approach" to health: The Mozambique experience.

PubMed

Pfeiffer, James; Gimbel, Sarah; Chilundo, Baltazar; Gloyd, Stephen; Chapman, Rachel; Sherr, Kenneth

2017-08-01

Fiscal austerity policies imposed by the IMF have reduced investments in social services, leaving post-independence nations like Mozambique struggling to recover from civil war and high disease burden. By 2000, a sector-wide approach (SWAp) was promoted to maximize aid effectiveness. 'Like-minded' bilateral donors, from Europe and Canada, promoted a unified approach to health sector support focusing on joint planning, common basket funding, and streamlined monitoring and evaluation to improve sector coordination, amplify country ownership, and build sustainable health systems. Notable donors - including US government and the Global Fund - did not participate in the SWAp, and increased vertical funding weakened the SWAp in favor of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). In spite of some success in harmonizing aid to the health sector, the SWAp experience in Mozambique demonstrates how continued austerity regimes that severely constrain public spending will continue to undermine health system strengthening in Africa, even in the midst of high levels of foreign aid with the ostensible purpose of strengthening those systems. The SWAp story provides a poignant illustration of how continued austerity will impede progress toward Sustainable Development Goal 3 (SDG 3); "Achieve universal health coverage, including financial risk protection, access to quality essential health-care services and access to safe, effective, quality and affordable essential medicines and vaccines for all". However, the SWAp continues to offer an alternative model to health system support that can provide a foundation for resistance to renewed austerity measures. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Industrial wastes from the boat-building sector in the Marche Region (Italy): a parametric and chemical-physical characterization.

PubMed

Carchesio, M; Tatàno, F; Tosi, G; Trivellone, C H

2013-01-01

Using the renowned leisure boat-building sector in the Marche Region (Italy) as a case-study, this paper addresses the characterization of (1) the industrial waste generation from the building of composite material-based boats and (2) some chemical-physical properties of representative types of boat-building residues (plastic foam, hardened resin, fibre-reinforced composite residues, and sanding dust). A parametric evaluation based on the number of employees gave a representative unit generation rate per employee (UGRpE) of 1.47 tons(waste) employee(-1) year(-1) for the entire Marche regional boatbuilding district, whereas evaluations carried out separately for three case-study companies provided values of 1.56, 3.07, and 1.12 tons(waste) employee(-1) year(-1) as representative for a mass-produced motor boat builder (case-study company '1'), a customized sailing boat builder (case-study company '2'), and a mould and structural component builder (case-study company '3'), respectively. The original proposal and evaluation of two additional generation rates based on physical characteristics intrinsic to the manufactured product, i.e. the unit generation rate per boat area (UGRpA) and per boat weight (UGRpW), confirmed the higher waste generation for the sailing boat builder(representative UGRpA and UGRpW values of 0.35 tons(waste) m(-2)(boat) year(-1) and 2. 71 tons(waste) tons(-1)(boat) year(-1), respectively) compared with the motor boat builder (representative UGRpA and UGRpW values of 0.06 tons(waste) m(-2)(boat) year(-1) and 0.49 tons(waste) tons(-1)(boat) year(-1), respectively). The chemical-physical property characterization of the selected residues revealed the following aspects: a general condition of low moisture contents; significant ash contents in the glass- and carbon-fibre composite residues and the correlated sanding dust; and relatively high energy content values in the overall range 14,144-32,479 kJ kg(-1), expressed as the lower heating value.

Private sector joins family planning effort.

PubMed

1989-12-01

Projects supported by the Directorate for Population (S&T/POP) of the U.S. Agency for International Development and aimed at increasing for-profit private sector involvement in providing family planning services and products are described. Making products commercially available through social-marketing partnerships with the commercial sector, USAID has saved $1.1 million in commodity costs from Brazil, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Indonesia, and Peru. Active private sector involvement benefits companies, consumers, and donors through increased corporate profits, healthier employees, improved consumer access at lower cost, and the possibility of sustained family planning programs. Moreover, private, for-profit companies will be able to meet service demands over the next 20 years where traditional government and donor agency sources would fail. Using employee surveys and cost-benefit analyses to demonstrate expected financial and health benefits for businesses and work forces, S&T/POP's Technical Information on Population for the Private Sector (TIPPS) project encourages private companies in developing countries to invest in family planning and maternal/child health care for their employees. 36 companies in 9 countries have responded thus far, which examples provided from Peru and Zimbabwe. The Enterprise program's objectives are also to increase the involvement of for-profit companies in delivering family planning services, and to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of private volunteer organizations in providing services. Projects have been started with mines, factories, banks, insurance companies, and parastatals in 27 countries, with examples cited from Ghana and Indonesia. Finally, the Social Marketing for Change project (SOMARC) builds demand and distributes low-cost contraceptives through commercial channels especially to low-income audiences. Partnerships have been initiated with the private sector in 17 developing countries, with examples provided from

The crucial role of the private sector.

PubMed

Barberis, M; Paxman, J M

1986-12-01

Private support for the development of family planning programs continues to grow and now includes industries that provide family planning services, commercial outlets that distribute contraceptives, community groups that help to build demand, private medical practitioners who include contraception as a part of health care, organizations that provide technical and financial assistance to developing country programs, pharmaceutical firms, and foundations that underwrite contraceptive research. Although the mix of private and public programs differs from country to country, these 2 family planning programs complement each other and often work in close partnership. The private sector has the advantages of being able to pioneer innovative programs the public sector is unwilling or unable to pursue, to bring foreign financial and technical assistance to developing countries without political implications, and to achieve financially self-sustaining family planning efforts that are linked to other development efforts. In many countries, the private sector has been instrumental in developing a national family planning program and in eliminating barriers to family planning in countries with restrictive laws and policies. The private sector has been especially important in pioneering grassroots programs that improve the status of women through education, health care, training, and economic opportunity.

Evaluation of Stiffness Changes in a High-Rise Building by Measurements of Lateral Displacements Using GPS Technology

PubMed Central

Choi, Se Woon; Kim, Ill Soo; Park, Jae Hwan; Kim, Yousok; Sohn, Hong Gyoo; Park, Hyo Seon

2013-01-01

The outrigger truss system is one of the most frequently used lateral load resisting structural systems. However, little research has been reported on the effect of installation of outrigger trusses on improvement of lateral stiffness of a high-rise building through full-scale measurements. In this paper, stiffness changes of a high-rise building due to installation of outrigger trusses have been evaluated by measuring lateral displacements using a global positioning system (GPS). To confirm the error range of the GPS measurement system used in the full-scale measurement tests, the GPS displacement monitoring system is investigated through a free vibration test of the experimental model. Then, for the evaluation of lateral stiffness of a high-rise building under construction, the GPS displacement monitoring system is applied to measurements of lateral displacements of a 66-story high-rise building before and after installation of outrigger truss. The stiffness improvement of the building before and after the installation is confirmed through the changes of the natural frequencies and the ratios of the base shear forces to the roof displacements. PMID:24233025

Odor and odorous chemical emissions from animal buildings: Part 4 - correlations between sensory and chemical measurements

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

This study supplemented the National Air Emissions Monitoring Study (NAEMS) by making comprehensive measurements, over a full calendar year, of odor emissions from five swine and four dairy rooms/buildings (subset of the total number of buildings monitored for the NAEMS project). The measurements ma...

[Intervention methodology for training and information for workers of the building sector].

PubMed

Pedron, F; Zanin, T; Ferrante, D; Fania, E

2006-01-01

Regarding the seriousness of work-accident in Gorizia district, various organizations as ASL 2 "Isontina" (local health agency), INAIL of Friuli Venezia Giulia (National Institute for occupational accident insurance), trade unions and trade associations created a organization called "Observatory for Working-accidents and Professional Illness Prevention". The aim of this association is the promotion of safety in working environment. Diffusing importance of safety in building trade was the first projects of Observatory. So, Observatory carried an initiative to make more aware the workers. Than, it organized training courses for building workers. Moreover, the construction of an informative pamphlet on risks in building trade was made. For some experimental investigation, Observatory works with Department of Psychology, University of Trieste.

Cost Effective Measures to Reduce CO2 Emissions in the Air Freight Sector

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Blinge, Magnus

2003-01-01

This paper presents cost effective measures to reduce CO2 emissions in the air freight sector. One door-to-door transport chain is studied in detail from a Scandinavian city to a city in southern Europe. The transport chain was selected by a group of representatives from the air freight sector in order to encompass general characteristics within the sector. Three different ways of shipping air cargo are studied, i.e., by air freighter, as belly freight (in passenger aircrafts) and trucking. CO2 emissions are calculated for each part of the transport chain and its relative importance towards the total amount CO2 emitted during the whole transport chain is shown. It is confirmed that the most CO2 emitting part of the transport chain is the actual flight and that it is in the take-off and climbing phases that most fuel are burned. It is also known that the technical development of aircraft implies a reduction in fuel consumption for each new generation of aircraft. Thus, the aircraft manufacturers have an important role in this development. Having confirmed these observations, this paper focuses on other factors that significantly affects the fuel consumption. Analyzed factors are, e.g., optimization of speed and altitude, traffic management, congestion on and around the airfields, tankering, "latest acceptance time" for goods and improving the load factor. The different factors relative contribution to the total emission levels for the transport chain has been estimated.

Converting Energy Subsidies to Investments: Scaling-Up Deep Energy Retrofit in Residential Sector of Ukraine

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Denysenko, Artur

After collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine inherited vast and inefficient infrastructure. Combination of historical lack of transparency, decades without reforms, chronical underinvestment and harmful cross-subsidization resulted in accumulation of energy problems, which possess significant threat to economic prosperity and national security. High energy intensity leads to excessive use of energy and heavy reliance on energy import to meet domestic demand. Energy import, in turn, results in high account balance deficit and heavy burden on the state finances. A residential sector, which accounts for one third of energy consumption and is the highest consumer of natural gas, is particularly challenging to reform. This thesis explores energy consumption of the residential sector of Ukraine. Using energy decomposition method, recent changes in energy use is analyzed. Energy intensity of space heating in the residential sector of Ukraine is compared with selected EU member states with similar climates. Energy efficiency potential is evaluated for whole residential sector in general and for multistory apartment buildings connected to the district heating in particular. Specifically, investments in thermal modernization of multistory residential buildings will result in almost 45TWh, or 3.81 Mtoe, of annual savings. Required investments for deep energy retrofit of multistory buildings is estimated as much as $19 billion in 2015 prices. Experience of energy subsidy reforms as well as lessons from energy retrofit policy from selected countries is analyzed. Policy recommendations to turn energy subsidies into investments in deep energy retrofit of residential sector of Ukraine are suggested. Regional dimension of existing energy subsidies and capital subsidies required for energy retrofit is presented.

The Power of String: Building a Conceptual Foundation for Measuring Rate

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lucey, Linda Polhemus; Jennings, Sybillyn; Olson, Peter; Rubenfeld, Lester; Holmes, Aliya E.

2007-01-01

This article describes how Lego robotics, interactive multimedia, and a simple manipulative--string--can be offered to students through coordinated activities to help them build a conceptual foundation for measuring rate. (Contains 5 figures and 3 tables.)

Updated Buildings Sector Appliance and Equipment Costs and Efficiency

EIA Publications

2016-01-01

EIA works with technology experts to project the cost and efficiency of future HVAC, lighting, and other major end-use equipment rather than developing residential and commercial technology projections in-house. These reports have always been available by request. By providing the reports online, EIA is increasing transparency for some of the most important assumptions used for our AEO projections of buildings energy demand.

Energy Efficiency: Transportation and Buildings

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lubell, Michael S.; Richter, Burton

2011-11-01

We present a condensed version of the American Physical Society's 2008 analysis of energy efficiency in the transportation and buildings sectors in the United States with updated numbers. In addition to presenting technical findings, we include the report's recommendations for policy makers that we believe are in the best interests of the nation.

Private sector data for performance management.

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

2011-07-01

This report examines and analyzes technical and institutional issues associated with the use of private sector travel time and speed data for public sector performance management. The primary data needs for congestion performance measures are outline...

The Impact of DOE Building Technology Energy Efficiency Programs on U.S. Employment, Income, and Investment

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Scott, Michael J.; Roop, Joseph M.; Schultz, Robert W.

2008-07-31

To more fully evaluate its programs to increase the energy efficiency of the U.S. residential and commercial building stock, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) assesses the macroeconomic impacts of those programs, specifically on national employment, wage income, and (most recently) investment. The analysis is conducted using the Impact of Sector Energy Technologies (ImSET) model, a special-purpose 188-sector input-output model of the U.S. economy designed specifically to evaluate the impacts of energy efficiency investments and saving. For the analysis described in the paper, ImSET was amended to provide estimates of sector-by-sector capital requirementsmore » and investment. In the scenario of the Fiscal Year (FY) 2005 Buildings Technology (BT) program, the technologies and building practices being developed and promoted by the BT program have the prospect of saving about 2.9×1015 Btu in buildings by the year 2030, about 27% of the expected growth in buildings energy consumption by the year 2030. The analysis reported in the paper finds that, by the year 2030, these savings have the potential to increase employment by up to 446,000 jobs, increase wage income by $7.8 billion, reduce needs for capital stock in the energy sector and closely related supporting industries by about $207 billion (and the corresponding annual level of investment by $13 billion), and create net capital savings that are available to grow the nation’s future economy.« less

The potential for PVs in Greek commercial buildings

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Samouil, Chris

The photovoltaic sector has been growing explosively, worldwide, for the past few years. At present, grid-connected installations dominate the world market. The photovoltaic technology, types of systems, applications and the market of PVs are presented, placing emphasis on installations regarding the building sector. The main focus of the project is concentrated on Greece. The fact that Greece has favourable natural conditions for the exploitation of solar energy, coupled with the support scheme on phototovoltaics introduced with the new law on renewable energy sources voted in June 2006, makes it very interesting to invest in the Greek PV market. Using a newly built office building in Athens with a roof-top PV installation as a case study, this project looks at the viability of grid-connected systems in the building sector. The annual energy output of the system and CO2 emissions reduction were modelled. Embodied energy, installation cost and annual savings were also considered to determine payback periods. The economic payback period of the system was found to be shorter than its lifetime at 16.2 years, reducing to 9.7 years when grants were included. The carbon payback period was calculated at 6.3 years. A sensitivity analysis on the effect of different factors affecting the viability of the PV installation was carried out. Assuming constant electricity rate increases or a more favourable location for the project the results are more attractive. The same case study in Crete would have a payback period reduced by almost 20% compared to that in Athens. A method to extrapolate the findings for the whole building sector of Attica is proposed as a future research project. As an indication it is found that 60,000 similar to the base case roof-top PV systems can produce around 3.1% of the country's thermally produced electricity and save 0.9% of its CO2 emissions. Finally, the strengths and weeknesses of the new RES law are identified and suggestions are made in order

Sector-scanning echocardiography

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Henry, W. L.; Griffith, J. M.

1975-01-01

The mechanical sector scanner is described in detail, and its clinical application is discussed. Cross sectional images of the heart are obtained in real time using this system. The sector scanner has three major components: (a) hand held scanner, (b) video display, and (c) video recorder. The system provides diagnostic information in a wide spectrum of cardiac diseases, and it quantitates the severity of mitral stenosis by measurement of the mitral valve orifice area in diagnosing infants, children and adults with cyanotic congenital heart disease.

Performative building envelope design correlated to solar radiation and cooling energy consumption

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jacky, Thiodore; Santoni

2017-11-01

Climate change as an ongoing anthropogenic environmental challenge is predominantly caused by an amplification in the amount of greenhouse gases (GHGs), notably carbon dioxide (CO2) in building sector. Global CO2 emissions are emitted from HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning) occupation to provide thermal comfort in building. In fact, the amount of energy used for cooling or heating building is implication of building envelope design. Building envelope acts as interface layer of heat transfer between outdoor environment and the interior of a building. It appears as wall, window, roof and external shading device. This paper examines performance of various design strategy on building envelope to limit solar radiation and reduce cooling loads in tropical climate. The design strategies are considering orientation, window to wall ratio, material properties, and external shading device. This research applied simulation method using Autodesk Ecotect to investigate simultaneously between variations of wall and window ratio, shading device composition and the implication to the amount of solar radiation, cooling energy consumption. Comparative analysis on the data will determine logical variation between opening and shading device composition and cooling energy consumption. Optimizing the building envelope design is crucial strategy for reducing CO2 emissions and long-term energy reduction in building sector. Simulation technology as feedback loop will lead to better performative building envelope.

Safety concerns related to modular/prefabricated building construction.

PubMed

Fard, Maryam Mirhadi; Terouhid, Seyyed Amin; Kibert, Charles J; Hakim, Hamed

2017-03-01

The US construction industry annually experiences a relatively high rate of fatalities and injuries; therefore, improving safety practices should be considered a top priority for this industry. Modular/prefabricated building construction is a construction strategy that involves manufacturing of the whole building or some of its components off-site. This research focuses on the safety performance of the modular/prefabricated building construction sector during both manufacturing and on-site processes. This safety evaluation can serve as the starting point for improving the safety performance of this sector. Research was conducted based on Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigated accidents. The study found 125 accidents related to modular/prefabricated building construction. The details of each accident were closely examined to identify the types of injury and underlying causes. Out of 125 accidents, there were 48 fatalities (38.4%), 63 hospitalized injuries (50.4%), and 14 non-hospitalized injuries (11.2%). It was found that, the most common type of injury in modular/prefabricated construction was 'fracture', and the most common cause of accidents was 'fall'. The most frequent cause of cause (underlying and root cause) was 'unstable structure'. In this research, the accidents were also examined in terms of corresponding location, occupation, equipment as well as activities during which the accidents occurred. For improving safety records of the modular/prefabricated construction sector, this study recommends that future research be conducted on stabilizing structures during their lifting, storing, and permanent installation, securing fall protection systems during on-site assembly of components while working from heights, and developing training programmes and standards focused on modular/prefabricated construction.

SCENARIOS FOR MEETING CALIFORNIA'S 2050 CLIMATE GOALS California's Carbon Challenge Phase II Volume I: Non-Electricity Sectors and Overall Scenario Results

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Wei, Max; Greenblatt, Jeffrey; Donovan, Sally

2014-06-01

This study provides an updated analysis of long-term energy system scenarios for California consistent with the State meeting its 2050 climate goal, including detailed analysis and assessment of electricity system build-out, operation, and costs across the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) region. Four key elements are found to be critical for the State to achieve its 2050 goal of 80 percent greenhouse (GHG) reductions from the 1990 level: aggressive energy efficiency; clean electricity; widespread electrification of passenger vehicles, building heating, and industry heating; and large-scale production of low-carbon footprint biofuels to largely replace petroleum-based liquid fuels. The approach taken heremore » is that technically achievable energy efficiency measures are assumed to be achieved by 2050 and aggregated with the other key elements mentioned above to estimate resultant emissions in 2050. The energy and non-energy sectors are each assumed to have the objective of meeting an 80 percent reduction from their respective 1990 GHG levels for the purposes of analysis. A different partitioning of energy and non-energy sector GHG greenhouse reductions is allowed if emission reductions in one sector are more economic or technically achievable than in the other. Similarly, within the energy or non-energy sectors, greater or less than 80 percent reduction from 1990 is allowed for sub-sectors within the energy or non-energy sectors as long as the overall target is achieved. Overall emissions for the key economy-wide scenarios are considered in this report. All scenarios are compliant or nearly compliant with the 2050 goal. This finding suggests that multiple technical pathways exist to achieve the target with aggressive policy support and continued technology development of largely existing technologies.« less

Future projections of insured losses in the German private building sector following the A1B climatic change scenario

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Held, H.; Gerstengarbe, F.-W.; Hattermann, F.; Pinto, J. G.; Ulbrich, U.; Böhm, U.; Born, K.; Büchner, M.; Donat, M. G.; Kücken, M.; Leckebusch, G. C.; Nissen, K.; Nocke, T.; Österle, H.; Pardowitz, T.; Werner, P. C.; Burghoff, O.; Broecker, U.; Kubik, A.

2012-04-01

We present an overview of a complementary-approaches impact project dealing with the consequences of climate change for the natural hazard branch of the insurance industry in Germany. The project was conducted by four academic institutions together with the German Insurance Association (GDV) and finalized in autumn 2011. A causal chain is modeled that goes from global warming projections over regional meteorological impacts to regional economic losses for private buildings, hereby fully covering the area of Germany. This presentation will focus on wind storm related losses, although the method developed had also been applied in part to hail and flood impact losses. For the first time, the GDV supplied their collected set of insurance cases, dating back for decades, for such an impact study. These data were used to calibrate and validate event-based damage functions which in turn were driven by three different types of regional climate models to generate storm loss projections. The regional models were driven by a triplet of ECHAM5 experiments following the A1B scenario which were found representative in the recent ENSEMBLES intercomparison study. In our multi-modeling approach we used two types of regional climate models that conceptually differ at maximum: a dynamical model (CCLM) and a statistical model based on the idea of biased bootstrapping (STARS). As a third option we pursued a hybrid approach (statistical-dynamical downscaling). For the assessment of climate change impacts, the buildings' infrastructure and their economic value is kept at current values. For all three approaches, a significant increase of average storm losses and extreme event return levels in the German private building sector is found for future decades assuming an A1B-scenario. However, the three projections differ somewhat in terms of magnitude and regional differentiation. We have developed a formalism that allows us to express the combined effect of multi-source uncertainty on return

Measuring and Understanding the Energy Use Signatures of a Bank Building

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Xie, YuLong; Liu, Bing; Athalye, Rahul A.

The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory measured and analyzed the energy end-use patterns in a bank building located in the north-eastern United States. This work was performed in collaboration with PNC Financial Service Group under the US DOE’s Commercial Building Partnerships Program. This paper presents the metering study and the results of the metered data analysis. It provides a benchmark for the energy use of different bank-related equipments. The paper also reveals the importance of metering in fully understanding building loads and indentifying opportunities for energy efficiency improvements that will have impacts across PNC’s portfolio of buildings and were crucial tomore » reducing receptacle loads in the design of a net-zero bank branches. PNNL worked with PNC to meter a 4,000 ft2 bank branch in the state of Pennsylvania. 71 electrical circuits were monitored and 25 stand-alone watt-hour meters were installed at the bank. These meters monitored the consumption of all interior and exterior lighting, receptacle loads, service water heating, and the HVAC rooftop unit at a 5-minute sampling interval from November 2009 to November 2010. A total of over 8 million data records were generated, which were then analyzed to produce the end-use patterns, daily usage profiles, rooftop unit usage cycles, and inputs for calibrating the energy model of the building.« less

A Case Study in Security Sector Reform: Learning from Security Sector Reform/Building in Afghanistan (October 2002-September 2003)

DTIC Science & Technology

2009-11-01

Amb G (Ambassador-Italy)10. Mrs. G (ISAF Political Advisor)11. Amb K (Amb-Japan)12. Mr. K (ISAF PolAd)13. Mrs. M (Chargé-Netherlands)14. Mr. M ...DCM-Japan)15. BG M (Senior Military Advisor-Finland)16. Amb N (Amb-UK)17. Mr. S (DCM-Germany)18. Lt Col S (MilAd-GE)19. Amb T (Donor Asst-U.S...Building, Year One: From Bonn to Kabul.” Antonio Donini , Norah Niland, and Karin Wermester, eds., Nation Building Unraveled, pp. 39-60. Bloomfield, CT

Model estimation and measurement of ammonia emission from naturally ventilated dairy cattle buildings with slatted floor designs.

PubMed

Wang, Chaoyuan; Li, Baoming; Zhang, Guoqiang; Rom, Hans Benny; Strøom, Jan S

2006-09-01

Laboratory experiments were carried out in a wind tunnel with a model of a slurry pit to investigate the characteristics of ammonia emission from dairy cattle buildings with slatted floor designs. Ammonia emission at different temperatures and air velocities over the floor surface above the slurry pit was measured with uniform feces spreading and urine sprinkling on the surface daily. The data were used to improve a model for estimation of ammonia emission from dairy cattle buildings. Estimates from the updated emission model were compared with measured data from five naturally ventilated dairy cattle buildings. The overall measured ammonia emission rates were in the range of 11-88 g per cow per day at air temperatures of 2.3-22.4 degrees C. Ammonia emission rates estimated by the model were in the range of 19-107 g per cow per day for the surveyed buildings. The average ammonia emission estimated by the model was 11% higher than the mean measured value. The results show that predicted emission patterns generally agree with the measured one, but the prediction has less variation. The model performance may be improved if the influence of animal activity and management strategy on ammonia emission could be estimated and more reliable data of air velocities of the buildings could be obtained.

Better Buildings Alliance 2013 Annual Report

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

None

2014-01-31

We are pleased to share with you a copy of the 2013 Annual Report. Inside, you’ll find significant program accomplishments, profiles on highlighted members, and plans for 2014. With your contributions, support, and leadership over the past 12 months, the program has reached significant milestones, including: Growing membership to over 200 members, to represent over 10 billion square feet of U.S. commercial building space and one-seventh of the market; Increasing participation in the 15 Solutions Teams by 75%; Developing 3 new high-efficiency technology specifications that if widely implemented, could save more than $5 billion in energy costs per year; Launchingmore » the Advanced RTU Campaign and Wireless Meter Challenge, and surpassing 100 million sq. ft. in the Lighting Energy Efficiency in Parking (LEEP) Campaign; Welcoming partners in new sectors, including K-12 schools and local governments; The program is a critical element of the Better Buildings Initiative, driving 20% energy savings in the building sector by 2020 through innovation, new technologies, and profiling leadership. Thank you for your ongoing participation, we are looking forward to working with you in the new year on your energy saving targets and advancing technical and market practices that promote energy savings at your organization.« less

Commercial sector solid oxide fuel cell business assessment. Interim report

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Schafer, P.

Estimates for the commercial potential of solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) from the year 2001 to 2015 is 4 billion MWh. Their quiet operation, low cost, efficiency, and small size could make SOFCs ideal power sources for commercial customers. To better understand the market, this study had three main objectives: (1) identify the extent of the commercial market potential; (2) describe the most likely commercial segments and locations for SOFCs to be competitive; and, (3) determine the most appropriate product sizes. To profile commercial sectors by energy use, investigators conducted a market segmentation analysis. They classified markets within sectors asmore » cogeneration and electric-only applications. Investigators then performed a market analysis to estimate the cost competitiveness of SOFC energy production by state, segment, and operating mode (cogeneration or electric-only). To determine which locations and sectors would be competitive with current utility retail rates, they used the cost per kWh of electrical energy produced by SOFC technology. Study results indicated that three sizes of SOFCs would meet most market capacity requirements: 20, 100, and 250 kW. The largest number of potential SOFC building applications fell into these sectors: education, health care, food service, and skilled nursing. In terms of competitive building applications, California, New York, Illinois, Texas, and Michigan were the top states. The potential market for SOFCs, however, could be much smaller if the pressures of deregulation decrease commercial retail rates or if the rates themselves increase more slowly than expected.« less

Re-conceiving building design quality: A review of building users in their social context.

PubMed

Watson, Kelly J; Evans, James; Karvonen, Andrew; Whitley, Tim

2016-05-01

Considerable overlap exists between post-occupancy research evaluating building design quality and the concept of 'social value', popularised by its recent application to issues of the public realm. To outline this potential research agenda, the paper reviews design quality research on buildings in relation to users and their social context where the term 'social context' refers to building user group dynamics, a combination of organisational cultures, management strategies, and social norms and practices. The review is conducted across five key building types, namely housing, workplaces, healthcare, education, and the retail/service sector. Research commonalities and gaps are identified in order to build a more comprehensive picture of the design quality literature and its handling of users in their social context. The key findings concerning each building type are presented visually. It is concluded that the design quality field comprises a patchwork of relatively isolated studies of various building types, with significant potential for theoretical and empirical development through interdisciplinary collaboration. Users tend to be conceived as anonymous and autonomous individuals with little analysis of user identity or interaction. Further, the contextual impact of user group dynamics on the relationship between building design and building user is rarely addressed in the literature. Producing a more nuanced understanding of users in situ is proposed as an important area for future design quality research.

Re-conceiving building design quality: A review of building users in their social context

PubMed Central

Evans, James; Karvonen, Andrew; Whitley, Tim

2014-01-01

Considerable overlap exists between post-occupancy research evaluating building design quality and the concept of ‘social value’, popularised by its recent application to issues of the public realm. To outline this potential research agenda, the paper reviews design quality research on buildings in relation to users and their social context where the term ‘social context’ refers to building user group dynamics, a combination of organisational cultures, management strategies, and social norms and practices. The review is conducted across five key building types, namely housing, workplaces, healthcare, education, and the retail/service sector. Research commonalities and gaps are identified in order to build a more comprehensive picture of the design quality literature and its handling of users in their social context. The key findings concerning each building type are presented visually. It is concluded that the design quality field comprises a patchwork of relatively isolated studies of various building types, with significant potential for theoretical and empirical development through interdisciplinary collaboration. Users tend to be conceived as anonymous and autonomous individuals with little analysis of user identity or interaction. Further, the contextual impact of user group dynamics on the relationship between building design and building user is rarely addressed in the literature. Producing a more nuanced understanding of users in situ is proposed as an important area for future design quality research. PMID:27110217

Evaluation of environmental health benefits of China's building energy conservation policies: an integrated assessment on national and provincial levels.

PubMed

Yang, Xi; Xi, Xiaoqian; Lin, Wanqi; Guo, Shan; Feng, Xiangzhao; Gilmore, Elisabeth

2018-05-04

This article evaluates the effect of energy conservation policies and carbon mitigation efforts on reducing health damage in China's building sector, which has been long ignored. The study bases on both national and provincial levels. To evaluate the health damage effect, we use domestic data by region to ensure the reliability of the evaluation. Results show that in the co-control scenario, the GDP loss saved from health benefit in 2020, 2030, and 2050 is 0.13 %, 0.16 %, and 0.23 %, respectively, compared to reference scenario. At a provincial level, extra health benefit of 16, 16, 33, 25, and 23 RMB/person can be observed for Beijing, Heilongjiang, Guangdong, Henan, and Qinghai owing to energy conservation, even with the strictest end-of-pipe control measures. The results confirm the significant effect of energy conservation efforts on reducing the health damage in China's building sector at both national and provincial levels.

Hess Tower field study: sonic measurements at a former building-integrated wind farm site

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Araya, Daniel

2017-11-01

Built in 2010, Hess Tower is a 29-story office building located in the heart of downtown Houston, TX. Unique to the building is a roof structure that was specifically engineered to house ten vertical-axis wind turbines (VAWTs) to partially offset the energy demands of the building. Despite extensive atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) wind tunnel tests to predict the flow conditions on the roof before the building was constructed, the Hess VAWTs were eventually removed after allegedly one of the turbines failed and fell to the ground. This talk presents in-situ sonic anemometry measurements taken on the roof of Hess Tower at the former turbine locations. We compare this wind field characterization to the ABL wind tunnel data to draw conclusions about building-integrated wind farm performance and prediction capability.

Awareness of occupational skin disease in the service sector.

PubMed

Holness, D L; Kudla, I; Brown, J; Miller, S

2017-06-01

Occupational skin disease (OSD) is a common occupational disease. Although primary prevention strategies are known, OSDs remain prevalent in a variety of work environments including the service sector (restaurant/food services, retail/wholesale, tourism/hospitality and vehicle sales and service). To obtain information about awareness and prevention of OSD in the service sector. Focus groups and a survey were conducted with two groups. The first consisted of staff of the provincial health and safety association for the service sector and the second group comprised representatives from sector employers. Focus groups highlighted key issues to inform the survey that obtained information about perceptions of awareness and prevention of OSD and barriers to awareness and prevention. Both provincial health and safety association staff and sector employer representatives highlighted low awareness and a low level of knowledge of OSD in the sector. Barriers to awareness and prevention included a low reported incidence of OSD, low priority, lack of training materials, lack of time and cost of training, lack of management support and workplace culture. A starting point for improving prevention of OSD in the service sector is increased awareness. Identification of the barriers to awareness and prevention will help to shape an awareness campaign and prevention strategies. Building on existing experience in Europe will be important. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society of Occupational Medicine. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com

India Commercial Buildings Data Framework: A Summary of Potential Use Cases

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Mathew, Paul; Mathew, Sangeeta; Kumar, Satish

This report details a potential set of use cases for India’s Commercial Buildings Data Framework. The use cases are aimed at enabling data-driven, evidence-based policy making and at transforming the market for energy efficiency in the building sector by facilitating the adoption of (1) superior energy-efficient building design and operation and maintenance practices, and (2) better specification and procurement of end-use equipment and systems.

Integrated clinical and quality improvement coaching in Son La Province, Vietnam: a model of building public sector capacity for sustainable HIV care delivery.

PubMed

Cosimi, Lisa A; Dam, Huong V; Nguyen, Thai Q; Ho, Huyen T; Do, Phuong T; Duc, Duat N; Nguyen, Huong T; Gardner, Bridget; Libman, Howard; Pollack, Todd; Hirschhorn, Lisa R

2015-07-17

The global scale-up of antiretroviral therapy included extensive training and onsite support to build the capacity of HIV health care workers. However, traditional efforts aimed at strengthening knowledge and skills often are not successful at improving gaps in the key health systems required for sustaining high quality care. We trained and mentored existing staff of the Son La provincial health department and provincial HIV clinic to work as a provincial coaching team (PCT) to provide integrated coaching in clinical HIV skills and quality improvement (QI) to the HIV clinics in the province. Nine core indicators were measured through chart extraction by clinic and provincial staff at baseline and at 6 month intervals thereafter. Coaching from the team to each of the clinics, in both QI and clinical skills, was guided by results of performance measurements, gap analyses, and resulting QI plans. After 18 months, the PCT had successfully spread QI activities, and was independently providing regular coaching to the provincial general hospital clinic and six of the eight district clinics in the province. The frequency and type of coaching was determined by performance measurement results. Clinics completed a mean of five QI projects. Quality of HIV care was improved throughout all clinics with significant increases in seven of the indicators. Overall both the PCT activities and clinic performance were sustained after integration of the model into the Vietnam National QI Program. We successfully built capacity of a team of public sector health care workers to provide integrated coaching in both clinical skills and QI across a province. The PCT is a feasible and effective model to spread and sustain quality activities and improve HIV care services in a decentralized rural setting.

Complex Permittivity of Planar Building Materials Measured With an Ultra-Wideband Free-Field Antenna Measurement System.

PubMed

Davis, Ben; Grosvenor, Chriss; Johnk, Robert; Novotny, David; Baker-Jarvis, James; Janezic, Michael

2007-01-01

Building materials are often incorporated into complex, multilayer macrostructures that are simply not amenable to measurements using coax or waveguide sample holders. In response to this, we developed an ultra-wideband (UWB) free-field measurement system. This measurement system uses a ground-plane-based system and two TEM half-horn antennas to transmit and receive the RF signal. The material samples are placed between the antennas, and reflection and transmission measurements made. Digital signal processing techniques are then applied to minimize environmental and systematic effects. The processed data are compared to a plane-wave model to extract the material properties with optimization software based on genetic algorithms.

Ergonomics and design in the Brazilian agricultural sector: a proposal to build matrix of contradictions.

PubMed

Tosetto, Thaís; Camarotto, João Alberto

2012-01-01

The paper presents a correlation between the parameters of classical TRIZ and variables of analysis of the EWA to construct a matrix of contradictions in ergonomics, with the objective of assisting the designing processes in the Brazilian agricultural sector. Given the representativeness of the sector in the economy, the boundary conditions in which the activities are developed and their impact on the health of workers, this proposal should contribute to the development of adaptable solutions and the promotion of Decent Work.

A comprehensive framework to assess, model, and enhance the human role in conserving energy in commercial buildings

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Azar, Elie

Energy conservation and sustainability are subjects of great interest today, especially in the commercial building sector which is witnessing a very high and growing demand for energy. Traditionally, efforts to reduce energy consumption in this sector consisted of researching and developing energy efficient building technologies and systems. On the other hand, recent studies indicate that human actions are major determinants of building energy performance and can lead to excessive energy use even in advanced low-energy buildings. As a result, it is essential to determine if the approach to future energy reduction initiatives should remain solely technology-focused, or if a human-focused approach is also needed to complement advancements in technology and improve building operation and performance. In practice, while technology-focused solutions have been extensively researched, promoted, and adopted in commercial buildings, research efforts on the role of human actions and energy use behaviors in energy conservation remain very limited. This study fills the missing gap in literature by presenting a comprehensive framework to (1) understand and quantify the influence of human actions on building energy performance, (2) model building occupants' energy use behaviors and account for potential changes in these behaviors over time, and (3) test and optimize different human-focused energy reduction interventions to increase their adoption in commercial buildings. Results are significant and prove that human actions have a major role to play in reducing the energy intensity of the commercial building sector. This sheds the light on the need for a shift in how people currently use and control different buildings systems, as this is crucial to ensure efficient building operation and to maximize the return on investment in energy-efficient technologies. Furthermore, this study proposes methods and tools that can be applied on any individual or groups of commercial buildings

Building and measuring a high performance network architecture

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Kramer, William T.C.; Toole, Timothy; Fisher, Chuck

2001-04-20

Once a year, the SC conferences present a unique opportunity to create and build one of the most complex and highest performance networks in the world. At SC2000, large-scale and complex local and wide area networking connections were demonstrated, including large-scale distributed applications running on different architectures. This project was designed to use the unique opportunity presented at SC2000 to create a testbed network environment and then use that network to demonstrate and evaluate high performance computational and communication applications. This testbed was designed to incorporate many interoperable systems and services and was designed for measurement from the very beginning.more » The end results were key insights into how to use novel, high performance networking technologies and to accumulate measurements that will give insights into the networks of the future.« less

An Advanced IoT-based System for Intelligent Energy Management in Buildings.

PubMed

Marinakis, Vangelis; Doukas, Haris

2018-02-16

The energy sector is closely interconnected with the building sector and integrated Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) solutions for effective energy management supporting decision-making at building, district and city level are key fundamental elements for making a city Smart. The available systems are designed and intended exclusively for a predefined number of cases and systems without allowing for expansion and interoperability with other applications that is partially due to the lack of semantics. This paper presents an advanced Internet of Things (IoT) based system for intelligent energy management in buildings. A semantic framework is introduced aiming at the unified and standardised modelling of the entities that constitute the building environment. Suitable rules are formed, aiming at the intelligent energy management and the general modus operandi of Smart Building. In this context, an IoT-based system was implemented, which enhances the interactivity of the buildings' energy management systems. The results from its pilot application are presented and discussed. The proposed system extends existing approaches and integrates cross-domain data, such as the building's data (e.g., energy management systems), energy production, energy prices, weather data and end-users' behaviour, in order to produce daily and weekly action plans for the energy end-users with actionable personalised information.

A New Metre for Cheap, Quick, Reliable and Simple Thermal Transmittance (U-Value) Measurements in Buildings.

PubMed

Andújar Márquez, José Manuel; Martínez Bohórquez, Miguel Ángel; Gómez Melgar, Sergio

2017-09-03

This paper deals with the thermal transmittance measurement focused on buildings and specifically in building energy retrofitting. Today, if many thermal transmittance measurements in a short time are needed, the current devices, based on the measurement of the heat flow through the wall, cannot carry out them, except if a great amount of devices are used at once along with intensive and tedious post-processing and analysis work. In this paper, from well-known physical laws, authors develop a methodology based on three temperatures measurements, which is implemented by a novel thermal transmittance metre. The paper shows its development step by step. As a result the developed device is modular, scalable, and fully wireless; it is capable of taking as many measurements at once as user needs. The developed system is compared working together on a same test to the currently used one based on heat flow. The results show that the developed metre allows carrying out thermal transmittance measurements in buildings in a cheap, quick, reliable and simple way.

Federal Existing Buildings Handbook for Net Zero Energy, Water, and Waste

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

None

In 2015, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) defined zero energy buildings as "an energy-efficient building where, on a source energy basis, the actual annual delivered energy is less than or equal to the on-site renewable exported energy." This handbook is focused on applying the EERE definition of zero energy buildings to existing buildings in the federal sector. However, it is not intended to replace, substitute, or modify any statutory or regulatory requirements and mandates.

Federal New Buildings Handbook for Net Zero Energy, Water, and Waste

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

None

In 2015, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) defined zero energy buildings as "an energy-efficient building where, on a source energy basis, the actual annual delivered energy is less than or equal to the on-site renewable exported energy." This document is focused on applying EERE’s definition of zero energy buildings to federal sector new buildings. However, it is not intended to replace, substitute, or modify any statutory or regulatory requirements and mandates.

Routine measurement of outcomes in Australia's public sector mental health services

PubMed Central

Pirkis, Jane; Burgess, Philip; Coombs, Tim; Clarke, Adam; Jones-Ellis, David; Dickson, Rosemary

2005-01-01

Objective This paper describes the Australian experience to date with a national 'roll out' of routine outcome measurement in public sector mental health services. Methods Consultations were held with 123 stakeholders representing a range of roles. Results Australia has made an impressive start to nationally implementing routine outcome measurement in mental health services, although it still has a long way to go. All States/Territories have established data collection systems, although some are more streamlined than others. Significant numbers of clinicians and managers have been trained in the use of routine outcome measures, and thought is now being given to ongoing training strategies. Outcome measurement is now occurring 'on the ground'; all States/Territories will be reporting data for 2003–04, and a number have been doing so for several years. Having said this, there is considerable variability regarding data coverage, completeness and compliance. Some States/Territories have gone to considerable lengths to 'embed' outcome measurement in day-to-day practice. To date, reporting of outcome data has largely been limited to reports profiling individual consumers and/or aggregate reports that focus on compliance and data quality issues, although a few States/Territories have begun to turn their attention to producing aggregate reports of consumers by clinician, team or service. Conclusion Routine outcome measurement is possible if it is supported by a co-ordinated, strategic approach and strong leadership, and there is commitment from clinicians and managers. The Australian experience can provide lessons for other countries. PMID:15840170

Greenhouse gas emissions reduction in different economic sectors: Mitigation measures, health co-benefits, knowledge gaps, and policy implications.

PubMed

Gao, Jinghong; Hou, Hongli; Zhai, Yunkai; Woodward, Alistair; Vardoulakis, Sotiris; Kovats, Sari; Wilkinson, Paul; Li, Liping; Song, Xiaoqin; Xu, Lei; Meng, Bohan; Liu, Xiaobo; Wang, Jun; Zhao, Jie; Liu, Qiyong

2018-09-01

To date, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, mitigation strategies and the accompanying health co-benefits in different economic sectors have not been fully investigated. The purpose of this paper is to review comprehensively the evidence on GHG mitigation measures and the related health co-benefits, identify knowledge gaps, and provide recommendations to promote further development and implementation of climate change response policies. Evidence on GHG emissions, abatement measures and related health co-benefits has been observed at regional, national and global levels, involving both low- and high-income societies. GHG mitigation actions have mainly been taken in five sectors: energy generation, transport, food and agriculture, household and industry, consistent with the main sources of GHG emissions. GHGs and air pollutants to a large extent stem from the same sources and are inseparable in terms of their atmospheric evolution and effects on ecosystem; thus, GHG reductions are usually, although not always, estimated to have cost effective co-benefits for public health. Some integrated mitigation strategies involving multiple sectors, which tend to create greater health benefits. The pros and cons of different mitigation measures, issues with existing knowledge, priorities for research, and potential policy implications were also discussed. Findings from this study can play a role not only in motivating large GHG emitters to make decisive changes in GHG emissions, but also in facilitating cooperation at international, national and regional levels, to promote GHG mitigation policies that protect public health from climate change and air pollution simultaneously. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Evaluation of Immunization Knowledge, Practices, and Service-delivery in the Private Sector in Cambodia

PubMed Central

Soeung, Sann Chan; Grundy, John; Morn, Cheng; Samnang, Chham

2008-01-01

A study of private-sector immunization services was undertaken to assess scope of practice and quality of care and to identify opportunities for the development of models of collaboration between the public and the private health sector. A questionnaire survey was conducted with health providers at 127 private facilities; clinical practices were directly observed; and a policy forum was held for government representatives, private healthcare providers, and international partners. In terms of prevalence of private-sector provision of immunization services, 93% of the private inpatient clinics surveyed provided immunization services. The private sector demonstrated a lack of quality of care and management in terms of health workers’ knowledge of immunization schedules, waste and vaccine management practices, and exchange of health information with the public sector. Policy and operational guidelines are required for private-sector immunization practices that address critical subject areas, such as setting of standards, capacity-building, public-sector monitoring, and exchange of health information between the public and the private sector. Such public/private collaborations will keep pace with the trends towards the development of private-sector provision of health services in developing countries. PMID:18637533

Modal mass estimation from ambient vibrations measurement: A method for civil buildings

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Acunzo, G.; Fiorini, N.; Mori, F.; Spina, D.

2018-01-01

A new method for estimating the modal mass ratios of buildings from unscaled mode shapes identified from ambient vibrations is presented. The method is based on the Multi Rigid Polygons (MRP) model in which each floor of the building is ideally divided in several non-deformable polygons that move independent of each other. The whole mass of the building is concentrated in the centroid of the polygons and the experimental mode shapes are expressed in term of rigid translations and of rotations. In this way, the mass matrix of the building can be easily computed on the basis of simple information about the geometry and the materials of the structure. The modal mass ratios can be then obtained through the classical equation of structural dynamics. Ambient vibrations measurement must be performed according to this MRP models, using at least two biaxial accelerometers per polygon. After a brief illustration of the theoretical background of the method, numerical validations are presented analysing the method sensitivity for possible different source of errors. Quality indexes are defined for evaluating the approximation of the modal mass ratios obtained from a certain MRP model. The capability of the proposed model to be applied to real buildings is illustrated through two experimental applications. In the first one, a geometrically irregular reinforced concrete building is considered, using a calibrated Finite Element Model for validating the results of the method. The second application refers to a historical monumental masonry building, with a more complex geometry and with less information available. In both cases, MRP models with a different number of rigid polygons per floor are compared.

Transferring new technologies within the federal sector: The New Technology Demonstration Program

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Conover, D.R.; Hunt, D.M.

1994-08-01

The federal sector is the largest consumer of products in the United States and annually purchases almost 1.5 quads of energy measured at the building site at a cost of almost $10 billion (U.S. Department of Energy 1991). A review of design, construction, and procurement practices in the federal sector, as well as discussions with manufacturers and vendors, indicated that new technologies are not utilized in as timely a manner as possible. As a consequence of this technology transfer lag, the federal sector loses valuable energy and environmental benefits that can be derived through the application of new technologies. Inmore » addition, opportunities are lost to reduce federal energy expenditures and spur U.S. economic growth through the procurement of such technologies. In 1990, under the direction of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Federal Energy Management Program, the Pacific Northwest Laboratory began the design of a program to accelerate the introduction of new U.S. technologies into the federal sector. Designated first as the Test Bed Demonstration Program and more recently the New Technology Demonstration Program, it sought to shorten the acceptance period of new technologies within the federal sector. By installing and evaluating various new technologies at federal facilities, the Program attempts to increase the acceptance of those new technologies through the results of {open_quotes}real-world{close_quotes} federal installations. Since that time, the Program has conducted new technology demonstrations and evaluations, evolved to address the need for more timely information transfer, and explored collaborative opportunities with other DOE offices and laboratories. This paper explains the processes by which a new technology demonstration project is implemented and presents a general description of the Program results to date.« less

Reimagining Building Sensing and Control (Presentation)

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Polese, L.

2014-06-01

Buildings are responsible for 40% of US energy consumption, and sensing and control technologies are an important element in creating a truly sustainable built environment. Motion-based occupancy sensors are often part of these control systems, but are usually altered or disabled in response to occupants' complaints, at the expense of energy savings. Can we leverage commodity hardware developed for other sectors and embedded software to produce more capable sensors for robust building controls? The National Renewable Energy Laboratory's (NREL) 'Image Processing Occupancy Sensor (IPOS)' is one example of leveraging embedded systems to create smarter, more reliable, multi-function sensors that openmore » the door to new control strategies for building heating, cooling, ventilation, and lighting control. In this keynote, we will discuss how cost-effective embedded systems are changing the state-of-the-art of building sensing and control.« less

The measures for achieving nZEB standard of retrofitted educational building for specific polish location - case study

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kwiatkowski, Jerzy; Mijakowski, Maciej; Trząski, Adrian

2017-11-01

Most of the EU member states have already set a definition of nZEB for new buildings and some of the countries also done it for existing buildings. As there is no definition of nZEB for existing buildings in Poland, the paper will include various considerations of such a standard. Next, a case study of educational building retrofitting to a proposed nZEB standard will be presented. The aim of the paper is to present what measures can be used in order to decrease energy consumption in existing building. The measures are divided into three parts: architectural and construction, installations and energy sources. Thus a complexity of the solutions are presented. As the nZEB standard is related to available energy sources, also an influence of local condition will be considered. Building chosen for analysis is located in an area under historic protection which makes the work even more difficult. It was proved that used solutions were chosen not only to reduce energy demand or increase energy production from renewable energy sources, but also to increase social and aesthetic features of the building.

Field Measurement-Based System Identification and Dynamic Response Prediction of a Unique MIT Building.

PubMed

Cha, Young-Jin; Trocha, Peter; Büyüköztürk, Oral

2016-07-01

Tall buildings are ubiquitous in major cities and house the homes and workplaces of many individuals. However, relatively few studies have been carried out to study the dynamic characteristics of tall buildings based on field measurements. In this paper, the dynamic behavior of the Green Building, a unique 21-story tall structure located on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA), was characterized and modeled as a simplified lumped-mass beam model (SLMM), using data from a network of accelerometers. The accelerometer network was used to record structural responses due to ambient vibrations, blast loading, and the October 16th 2012 earthquake near Hollis Center (ME, USA). Spectral and signal coherence analysis of the collected data was used to identify natural frequencies, modes, foundation rocking behavior, and structural asymmetries. A relation between foundation rocking and structural natural frequencies was also found. Natural frequencies and structural acceleration from the field measurements were compared with those predicted by the SLMM which was updated by inverse solving based on advanced multiobjective optimization methods using the measured structural responses and found to have good agreement.

Field Measurement-Based System Identification and Dynamic Response Prediction of a Unique MIT Building

PubMed Central

Cha, Young-Jin; Trocha, Peter; Büyüköztürk, Oral

2016-01-01

Tall buildings are ubiquitous in major cities and house the homes and workplaces of many individuals. However, relatively few studies have been carried out to study the dynamic characteristics of tall buildings based on field measurements. In this paper, the dynamic behavior of the Green Building, a unique 21-story tall structure located on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA), was characterized and modeled as a simplified lumped-mass beam model (SLMM), using data from a network of accelerometers. The accelerometer network was used to record structural responses due to ambient vibrations, blast loading, and the October 16th 2012 earthquake near Hollis Center (ME, USA). Spectral and signal coherence analysis of the collected data was used to identify natural frequencies, modes, foundation rocking behavior, and structural asymmetries. A relation between foundation rocking and structural natural frequencies was also found. Natural frequencies and structural acceleration from the field measurements were compared with those predicted by the SLMM which was updated by inverse solving based on advanced multiobjective optimization methods using the measured structural responses and found to have good agreement. PMID:27376303

Convective Weather Forecast Accuracy Analysis at Center and Sector Levels

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wang, Yao; Sridhar, Banavar

2010-01-01

This paper presents a detailed convective forecast accuracy analysis at center and sector levels. The study is aimed to provide more meaningful forecast verification measures to aviation community, as well as to obtain useful information leading to the improvements in the weather translation capacity models. In general, the vast majority of forecast verification efforts over past decades have been on the calculation of traditional standard verification measure scores over forecast and observation data analyses onto grids. These verification measures based on the binary classification have been applied in quality assurance of weather forecast products at the national level for many years. Our research focuses on the forecast at the center and sector levels. We calculate the standard forecast verification measure scores for en-route air traffic centers and sectors first, followed by conducting the forecast validation analysis and related verification measures for weather intensities and locations at centers and sectors levels. An approach to improve the prediction of sector weather coverage by multiple sector forecasts is then developed. The weather severe intensity assessment was carried out by using the correlations between forecast and actual weather observation airspace coverage. The weather forecast accuracy on horizontal location was assessed by examining the forecast errors. The improvement in prediction of weather coverage was determined by the correlation between actual sector weather coverage and prediction. observed and forecasted Convective Weather Avoidance Model (CWAM) data collected from June to September in 2007. CWAM zero-minute forecast data with aircraft avoidance probability of 60% and 80% are used as the actual weather observation. All forecast measurements are based on 30-minute, 60- minute, 90-minute, and 120-minute forecasts with the same avoidance probabilities. The forecast accuracy analysis for times under one-hour showed that the errors in

Engagement of Sectors Other than Health in Integrated Health Governance, Policy, and Action.

PubMed

de Leeuw, Evelyne

2017-03-20

Health is created largely outside the health sector. Engagement in health governance, policy, and intervention development and implementation by sectors other than health is therefore important. Recent calls for building and implementing Health in All Policies, and continued arguments for intersectoral action, may strengthen the potential that other sectors have for health. This review clarifies the conceptual foundations for integral health governance, policy, and action, delineates the different sectors and their possible engagement, and provides an overview of a continuum of methods of engagement with other sectors to secure integration. This continuum ranges from institutional (re)design to value-based narratives. Depending on the lens applied, different elements can be identified within the continuum. This review is built on insights from political science, leadership studies, public health, empirical Health in All Policy research, knowledge and evidence nexus approaches, and community perspectives. Successful integration of health governance, policy, and action depends on integration of the elements on the continuum.

Short-Lived Buildings in China: Impacts on Water, Energy, and Carbon Emissions.

PubMed

Cai, Wenjia; Wan, Liyang; Jiang, Yongkai; Wang, Can; Lin, Lishen

2015-12-15

This paper has changed the vague understanding that "the short-lived buildings have huge environmental footprints (EF)" into a concrete one. By estimating the annual floor space of buildings demolished and calibrating the average building lifetime in China, this paper compared the EF under various assumptive extended buildings' lifetime scenarios based on time-series environmental-extended input-output model. Results show that if the average buildings' lifetime in China can be extended from the current 23.2 years to their designed life expectancy, 50 years, in 2011, China can reduce 5.8 Gt of water withdrawal, 127.1 Mtce of energy consumption, and 426.0 Mt of carbon emissions, each of which is equivalent to the corresponding annual EF of Belgium, Mexico, and Italy. These findings will urge China to extend the lifetime of existing and new buildings, in order to reduce the EF from further urbanization. This paper also verifies that the lifetime of a product or the replacement rate of a sector is a very important factor that influences the cumulative EF. When making policies to reduce the EF, adjusting people's behaviors to extend the lifetime of products or reduce the replacement rate of sectors may be a very simple and cost-effective option.

Effect of energy-efficient measures in building construction on indoor radon in Russia.

PubMed

Vasilyev, A; Yarmoshenko, I

2017-04-28

The effect of implementation of energy-efficient measures in building construction was studied. Analysis includes study of indoor radon in energy-efficient buildings in Ekaterinburg, Russia, and results of radiation measurements in 83 regions of Russia conducted within the regional programmes. The forecast distribution of radon concentration in Ekaterinburg was built with regard to the city development programme. With Ekaterinburg taken as representative case, forecast distribution of radon concentration in Russia in 2030 was built. In comparison with 2000, average radon concentration increases by a factor of 1.42 in 2030 year; percentage above the reference level 300 Bq/m3 increases by a factor of 4 in 2030 year. It is necessary to perceive such an increase with all seriousness and to prepare appropriate measures for optimization of protection against indoor radon. Despite the high uncertainty, reconstructed distribution of radon concentration can be applied for justification of measures to be incorporated in the radon mitigation strategy. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

First experiences with methods to measure ammonia emissions from naturally ventilated cattle buildings in the U.K.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Demmers, T. G. M.; Burgess, L. R.; Short, J. L.; Phillips, V. R.; Clark, J. A.; Wathes, C. M.

A method has been developed to measure the emission rate of ammonia from naturally ventilated U.K. livestock buildings. The method is based on measurements of ammonia concentration and estimates of the ventilation rate of the building by continuous release of carbon monoxide tracer within the building. The tracer concentration is measured at nine positions in openings around the perimeter of the building, as well as around a ring sampling line. Two criteria were evaluated to decide whether, at any given time, a given opening in the building acted as an air inlet or as an air outlet. Carbon monoxide concentration difference across an opening was found to be a better criterion than the temperature difference across the opening. Ammonia concentrations were measured continuously at the sampling points using a chemiluminescence analyser. The method was applied to a straw-bedded beef unit and to a slurry-based dairy unit. Both buildings were of space-boarded construction. Ventilation rates estimated by the ring line sample were consistently higher than by the perimeter samples. During calm weather, the ventilation estimates by both samples were similar (10-20 air changes h -1). However, during windy conditions (>5 m s -1) the ventilation rate was overestimated by the ring line sample (average 100 air changes h -1) compared to the perimeter samples (average 50 air changes h -1). The difference was caused by incomplete mixing of the tracer within the building. The ventilation rate estimated from the perimeter samples was used for the calculation of the emission rate. Preliminary estimates of the ammonia emission factor were 6.0 kg NH 3 (500 kg live-weight) -1 (190 d) -1 for the slurry-based dairy unit and 3.7 for the straw-bedded beef unit.

Building Energy Monitoring and Analysis

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Hong, Tianzhen; Feng, Wei; Lu, Alison

U.S. and China are the world’s top two economics. Together they consumed one-third of the world’s primary energy. It is an unprecedented opportunity and challenge for governments, researchers and industries in both countries to join together to address energy issues and global climate change. Such joint collaboration has huge potential in creating new jobs in energy technologies and services. Buildings in the US and China consumed about 40% and 25% of the primary energy in both countries in 2010 respectively. Worldwide, the building sector is the largest contributor to the greenhouse gas emission. Better understanding and improving the energy performancemore » of buildings is a critical step towards sustainable development and mitigation of global climate change. This project aimed to develop a standard methodology for building energy data definition, collection, presentation, and analysis; apply the developed methods to a standardized energy monitoring platform, including hardware and software, to collect and analyze building energy use data; and compile offline statistical data and online real-time data in both countries for fully understanding the current status of building energy use. This helps decode the driving forces behind the discrepancy of building energy use between the two countries; identify gaps and deficiencies of current building energy monitoring, data collection, and analysis; and create knowledge and tools to collect and analyze good building energy data to provide valuable and actionable information for key stakeholders.« less

Assessing National Employment Impacts of Investment in Residential and Commercial Sector Energy Efficiency: Review and Example Analysis

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Anderson, David M.; Belzer, David B.; Livingston, Olga V.

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) modeled the employment impacts of a major national initiative to accelerate energy efficiency trends at one of two levels: • 15 percent savings by 2030. In this scenario, efficiency activities save about 15 percent of the Annual Energy Outlook (AEO) Reference Case electricity consumption by 2030. It is assumed that additional energy savings in both the residential and commercial sectors begin in 2015 at zero, and then increase in an S-shaped market penetration curve, with the level of savings equal to about 7.0 percent of the AEO 2014 U.S. national residential and commercial electricity consumptionmore » saved by 2020, 14.8 percent by 2025, and 15 percent by 2030. • 10 percent savings by 2030. In this scenario, additional savings begin at zero in 2015, increase to 3.8 percent in 2020, 9.8 percent by 2025, and 10 percent of the AEO reference case value by 2030. The analysis of the 15 percent case indicates that by 2030 more than 300,000 new jobs would likely result from such policies, including an annual average of more than 60,000 jobs directly supporting the installation and maintenance of energy efficiency measures and practices. These are new jobs resulting initially from the investment associated with the construction of more energy-efficient new buildings or the retrofit of existing buildings and would be sustained for as long as the investment continues. Based on what is known about the current level of building-sector energy efficiency jobs, this would represent an increase of more than 10 percent from the current estimated level of over 450,000 such jobs. The more significant and longer-lasting effect comes from the redirection of energy bill savings toward the purchase of other goods and services in the general economy, with its attendant influence on increasing the total number of jobs. This example analysis utilized PNNL’s ImSET model, a modeling framework that PNNL has used over the past two decades

36 CFR 1281.16 - What standard does NARA use for measuring building size?

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... 36 Parks, Forests, and Public Property 3 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false What standard does NARA use... does NARA use for measuring building size? For purposes of 44 U.S.C. 2112(g)(3) and (4), and this part... measuring the size of the facility and the value for calculating the endowment. The architectural and design...

Three Dimensional Sector Design with Optimal Number of Sectors

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Xue, Min

2010-01-01

In the national airspace system, sectors get overloaded due to high traffic demand and inefficient airspace designs. Overloads can be eliminated in some cases by redesigning sector boundaries. This paper extends the Voronoi-based sector design method by automatically selecting the number of sectors, allowing three-dimensional partitions, and enforcing traffic pattern conformance. The method was used to design sectors at Fort-Worth and Indianapolis centers for current traffic scenarios. Results show that new designs can eliminate overloaded sectors, although not in all cases, reduce the number of necessary sectors, and conform to major traffic patterns. Overall, the new methodology produces enhanced and efficient sector designs.

Measurement of Moisture in Wood for Application in the Restoration of Old Buildings.

PubMed

Moron, Carlos; Garcia-Fuentevilla, Luisa; Garcia, Alfonso; Moron, Alberto

2016-05-14

There are many historic buildings whose construction is based on timber frame walls. Most buildings built during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were based on timber frame walls with vertical support elements. These timber frame elements are affected by their moisture content and by the passage of time. If the interaction of the timber frame walls with hygrothermal fluctuations were known, the maintenance of these buildings could be improved significantly. To determine the moisture content of wood there are two types of meters on the market: on the one hand, capacitance meters which consist of two side ends and where the moisture content is measured locally between two peaks. On the other hand, there are meters based on the variation of electromagnetic transmittance of timber, which depends on the moisture of timber. The second ones are very expensive and difficult to handle. This work presents a new non-intrusive capacitive sensor that measures the global moisture content in a section of the timber frame walls and therefore its accuracy is similar to the accuracy that can be obtained with electromagnetic transmittance meters. Additionally, as it is a capacitive sensor, it is low cost and easy to operate.

Buildings Energy Use Data Book, Edition 1.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Liepins, G. E.; And Others

The stated purpose of this publication is to present a large amount of relevant data on energy use in an easily retrievable and usable format. The following topics are covered in eight chapters: (1) sector definitions; (2) buildings inventory; (3) appliance inventory; (4) heating and cooling units inventory; (5) appliance efficiencies; (6)…

General view of Antenna Array and building complex, looking northeast ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

General view of Antenna Array and building complex, looking northeast - Over-the-Horizon Backscatter Radar Network, Tulelake Radar Site Receive Sector Six Antenna Array, Unnamed Road West of Double Head Road, Tulelake, Siskiyou County, CA

General view of Antenna Array and building complex, looking southwest ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

General view of Antenna Array and building complex, looking southwest - Over-the-Horizon Backscatter Radar Network, Tulelake Radar Site Receive Sector Six Antenna Array, Unnamed Road West of Double Head Road, Tulelake, Siskiyou County, CA

NLOS Correction/Exclusion for GNSS Measurement Using RAIM and City Building Models

PubMed Central

Hsu, Li-Ta; Gu, Yanlei; Kamijo, Shunsuke

2015-01-01

Currently, global navigation satellite system (GNSS) receivers can provide accurate and reliable positioning service in open-field areas. However, their performance in the downtown areas of cities is still affected by the multipath and none-line-of-sight (NLOS) receptions. This paper proposes a new positioning method using 3D building models and the receiver autonomous integrity monitoring (RAIM) satellite selection method to achieve satisfactory positioning performance in urban area. The 3D building model uses a ray-tracing technique to simulate the line-of-sight (LOS) and NLOS signal travel distance, which is well-known as pseudorange, between the satellite and receiver. The proposed RAIM fault detection and exclusion (FDE) is able to compare the similarity between the raw pseudorange measurement and the simulated pseudorange. The measurement of the satellite will be excluded if the simulated and raw pseudoranges are inconsistent. Because of the assumption of the single reflection in the ray-tracing technique, an inconsistent case indicates it is a double or multiple reflected NLOS signal. According to the experimental results, the RAIM satellite selection technique can reduce by about 8.4% and 36.2% the positioning solutions with large errors (solutions estimated on the wrong side of the road) for the 3D building model method in the middle and deep urban canyon environment, respectively. PMID:26193278

NLOS Correction/Exclusion for GNSS Measurement Using RAIM and City Building Models.

PubMed

Hsu, Li-Ta; Gu, Yanlei; Kamijo, Shunsuke

2015-07-17

Currently, global navigation satellite system (GNSS) receivers can provide accurate and reliable positioning service in open-field areas. However, their performance in the downtown areas of cities is still affected by the multipath and none-line-of-sight (NLOS) receptions. This paper proposes a new positioning method using 3D building models and the receiver autonomous integrity monitoring (RAIM) satellite selection method to achieve satisfactory positioning performance in urban area. The 3D building model uses a ray-tracing technique to simulate the line-of-sight (LOS) and NLOS signal travel distance, which is well-known as pseudorange, between the satellite and receiver. The proposed RAIM fault detection and exclusion (FDE) is able to compare the similarity between the raw pseudorange measurement and the simulated pseudorange. The measurement of the satellite will be excluded if the simulated and raw pseudoranges are inconsistent. Because of the assumption of the single reflection in the ray-tracing technique, an inconsistent case indicates it is a double or multiple reflected NLOS signal. According to the experimental results, the RAIM satellite selection technique can reduce by about 8.4% and 36.2% the positioning solutions with large errors (solutions estimated on the wrong side of the road) for the 3D building model method in the middle and deep urban canyon environment, respectively.

Modernizing confidence-building measures for the Biological Weapons Convention.

PubMed

Koblentz, Gregory D; Chevrier, Marie Isabelle

2011-09-01

The Seventh Review Conference of the Biological Weapons Convention in December 2011 provides an opportunity to modernize the treaty to better address the challenges of the 21st century. The key to this modernization is to redesign the treaty's Confidence-Building Measures (CBMs), the only formal mechanism for increasing transparency and demonstrating compliance with the treaty, to address changes in the global scientific, health, and security environments since the end of the Cold War. The scope of the CBMs should be expanded beyond state-run biological warfare programs to encompass a broader array of threats to global security, such as biological terrorism, laboratory accidents, dual-use research, and disease pandemics. Modernizing the CBM mechanism to take into account these new risks would extend the transparency-enhancing benefits of CBMs to a range of new and important topics, such as biosafety, laboratory biosecurity, and dual-use research oversight; make the CBMs and the treaty itself more relevant to the concerns and priorities of more states; and build on progress made during the recent series of intersessional meetings. To accomplish this, the CBMs need to be revised to shift their focus from hardware, the dual-use capabilities relevant to the treaty, to software, the political and legal institutions that govern the development and use of these capabilities. A more modern CBM mechanism should encourage greater participation in the confidence-building process, improve international cooperation against the full spectrum of biological risks, and promote the goal of universal membership in the treaty.

Measurement of natural radioactivity in building materials of Namakkal, Tamil Nadu, India using gamma-ray spectrometry.

PubMed

Ravisankar, R; Vanasundari, K; Chandrasekaran, A; Rajalakshmi, A; Suganya, M; Vijayagopal, P; Meenakshisundaram, V

2012-04-01

The natural level of radioactivity in building materials is one of the major causes of external exposure to γ-rays. The primordial radionuclides in building materials are one of the sources of radiation hazard in dwellings made of these materials. By the determination of the radioactivity level in building materials, the indoor radiological hazard to human health can be assessed. This is an important precautionary measure whenever the dose rate is found to be above the recommended limits. The aim of this work was to measure the specific activity concentration of (226)Ra, (232)Th and (40)K in commonly used building materials from Namakkal, Tamil Nadu, India, using gamma-ray spectrometer. The radiation hazard due to the total natural radioactivity in the studied building materials was estimated by different approaches. The concentrations of the natural radionuclides and the radium equivalent activity in studied samples were compared with the corresponding results of different countries. From the analysis, it is found that these materials may be safely used as construction materials and do not pose significant radiation hazards. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A Fast Evaluation Method for Energy Building Consumption Based on the Design of Experiments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Belahya, Hocine; Boubekri, Abdelghani; Kriker, Abdelouahed

2017-08-01

Building sector is one of the effective consumer energy by 42% in Algeria. The need for energy has continued to grow, in inordinate way, due to lack of legislation on energy performance in this large consumer sector. Another reason is the simultaneous change of users’ requirements to maintain their comfort, especially summer in dry lands and parts of southern Algeria, where the town of Ouargla presents a typical example which leads to a large amount of electricity consumption through the use of air conditioning. In order to achieve a high performance envelope of the building, an optimization of major parameters building envelope is required, using design of experiments (DOE), can determine the most effective parameters and eliminate the less importance. The study building is often complex and time consuming due to the large number of parameters to consider. This study focuses on reducing the computing time and determines the major parameters of building energy consumption, such as area of building, factor shape, orientation, ration walls to windows …etc to make some proposal models in order to minimize the seasonal energy consumption due to air conditioning needs.

Life cycle study of different constructive solutions for building enclosures.

PubMed

Garcia-Ceballos, Luz; de Andres-Díaz, Jose Ramon; Contreras-Lopez, Miguel A

2018-06-01

The construction sector must advance in a more sustainable way and to achieve this goal, the application of global methodologies is needed. These methodologies should take into account all life stages of a building: planning, design, construction, use and demolition. The quantity and variety of the materials used in building construction condition the buildings' environmental and energy impacts. Life Cycle Assessment offers a standardized framework to evaluate the environmental loads of a product, process or activity. This work aims to demonstrate the feasibility of using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to select facilities in the construction sector, which minimize environmental and energy impacts. To facilitate the understanding of the proposed methodology, a comparative LCA is performed, to determine the type of thermal insulating material in a double sheet ceramic façade and its thickness, which allows reducing the environmental impacts associated to the enclosure. The three most used enclosure types used in the city of Malaga (Spain) have been selected for this study. The results show the adequacy of the procedure used. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Research utilization in the building industry: decision model and preliminary assessment

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Watts, R.L.; Johnson, D.R.; Smith, S.A.

1985-10-01

The Research Utilization Program was conceived as a far-reaching means for managing the interactions of the private sector and the federal research sector as they deal with energy conservation in buildings. The program emphasizes a private-public partnership in planning a research agenda and in applying the results of ongoing and completed research. The results of this task support the hypothesis that the transfer of R and D results to the buildings industry can be accomplished more efficiently and quickly by a systematic approach to technology transfer. This systematic approach involves targeting decision makers, assessing research and information needs, properly formatingmore » information, and then transmitting the information through trusted channels. The purpose of this report is to introduce elements of a market-oriented knowledge base, which would be useful to the Building Systems Division, the Office of Buildings and Community Systems and their associated laboratories in managing a private-public research partnership on a rational systematic basis. This report presents conceptual models and data bases that can be used in formulating a technology transfer strategy and in planning technology transfer programs.« less

Building Capacity to Use NASA Earth Observations in the Water Resource Sector

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Childs-Gleason, L. M.; Ross, K. W.; Crepps, G.; Clayton, A.; Ruiz, M. L.; Rogers, L.; Allsbrook, K. N.

2017-12-01

The NASA DEVELOP National Program builds capacity to use and apply NASA Earth observations to address environmental concerns around the globe. The DEVELOP model builds capacity in both participants (students, recent graduates, and early and transitioning career professionals) who conduct the projects and partners (decision and policy makers) who are recipients of project methodologies and results. Projects focus on a spectrum of thematic topics, including water resource management which made up 30% of the DEVELOP FY2017 portfolio. During this period, DEVELOP conducted water-focused feasibility studies in collaboration with 22 partners across 13 U.S. states and five countries. This presentation will provide an overview of needs identified, DEVELOP's response, data sources, challenges, and lessons learned.

Innovative Strategies for Building Community Resilience: Lessons from the Frontlines of Climate Change Capacity-Building

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Abrash Walton, A.

2017-12-01

There is broad scientific consensus that climate change is occurring; however, there is limited implementation of measures to create resilient local communities (Abrash Walton, Simpson, Rhoades, & Daniels, 2016; Adger, Arnell, & Tompkins, 2005; Glavovic & Smith, 2014; Moser & Ekstrom, 2010; Picketts, Déry, & Curry, 2014). Communities that are considered climate leaders in the United States may have adopted climate change plans, yet few have actually implemented the policies, projects and recommendations in those plans. A range of innovative, education strategies have proven effective in building the capacity of local decision makers to strengthen community resilience. This presentation draws on the results of two years of original research regarding the information and support local decision makers require for effective action. Findings are based on information from four datasets, with more than 600 respondents from 48 U.S. states and 19 other countries working on local adaptation in a range of capacities. These research results can inform priority setting for public policy, budget setting, and action as well as private sector funding and investment. The presentation will focus, in particular, on methods and results of a pioneering Facilitated Community of Practice model (FCoP) for building climate preparedness and community resilience capacity, among local-level decision makers. The FCoP process includes group formation and shared capacity building experience. The process can also support collective objective setting and creation of structures and processes for ongoing sustainable collaboration. Results from two FCoPs - one fully online and the other hybrid - suggest that participants viewed the interpersonal and technical assistance elements of the FCoP as highly valuable. These findings suggest that there is an important need for facilitated networking and other relational aspects of building capacity among those advancing resilience at the local level.

Hindrances to Green Building Developments in Nigeria’s Built Environment: “The Project Professionals’ Perspectives”

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dalibi, S. G.; Feng, J. C.; Shuangqin, Liu; Sadiq, Abubakar; Bello, B. S.; Danja, I. I.

2017-05-01

Developing countries like Nigeria are faced with the growth of residential housing sector accompanied by huge power, water, and material consumptions etc., which were due to the population growth, increased households and the increased urbanization. The construction industry is guilty of many practices because its activities have adversely affected the environment negatively. It responded with new initiative called Eco / green / sustainable buildings to ensure environmental sustainability. Despite all these glaring challenges green building developments and sustainable practices are embraced very slowly and practiced at slow pace in the Nigeria’s construction industry. This is worrisome and is due to some factors hindering such pace. The aim of this paper is to identify, examine and assess the factors that are hindering green building developments based on the project professionals’ perceptions. Reviewed literatures were used to identify the various factors that hindered the adoption of green measures and practices within the Nigeria’s built environment. A questionnaire survey was conducted within the industry. The results showed the major factors hindering green building developments and practices in the Nigeria’s built environment.

Nonstructural urban stormwater quality measures: building a knowledge base to improve their use.

PubMed

Taylor, André C; Fletcher, Tim D

2007-05-01

This article summarizes a research project that investigated the use, performance, cost, and evaluation of nonstructural measures to improve urban stormwater quality. A survey of urban stormwater managers from Australia, New Zealand, and the United States revealed a widespread trend of increasing use of nonstructural measures among leading stormwater management agencies, with at least 76% of 41 types of nonstructural measures being found to be increasing in use. Data gathered from the survey, an international literature review, and a multicriteria analysis highlighted four nonstructural measures of greatest potential value: mandatory town planning controls that promote the adoption of low-impact development principles and techniques; development of strategic urban stormwater management plans for a city, shire, or catchment; stormwater management measures and programs for construction/building sites; and stormwater management activities related to municipal maintenance operations such as maintenance of the stormwater drainage network and manual litter collections. Knowledge gained on the use and performance of nonstructural measures from the survey, literature review, and three trial evaluation projects was used to develop tailored monitoring and evaluation guidelines for these types of measure. These guidelines incorporate a new evaluation framework based on seven alternative styles of evaluation that range from simply monitoring whether a nonstructural measure has been fully implemented to monitoring its impact on waterway health. This research helps to build the stormwater management industry's knowledge base concerning nonstructural measures and provides a practical tool to address common impediments associated with monitoring and evaluating the performance and cost of these measures.

Nationwide Analysis of U.S. Commercial Building Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Breakeven Conditions

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Davidson, Carolyn; Gagnon, Pieter; Denholm, Paul

2015-10-01

The commercial sector offers strong potential for solar photovoltaics (PV) owing to abundant available roof space suitable for PV and the opportunity to offset the sector's substantial retail electricity purchases. This report evaluated the breakeven price of PV for 15 different building types and various financing options by calculating electricity savings based on detailed rate structures for most U.S. utility territories (representing approximately two thirds of U.S. commercial customers). We find that at current capital costs, an estimated 1/3 of U.S. commercial customers break even in the cash scenario and approximately 2/3 break even in the loan scenario. Variation inmore » retail rates is a stronger driver of breakeven prices than is variation in building load or solar generation profiles. At the building level, variation in the average breakeven price is largely driven by the ability for a PV system to reduce demand charges.« less

An Advanced IoT-based System for Intelligent Energy Management in Buildings

PubMed Central

Doukas, Haris

2018-01-01

The energy sector is closely interconnected with the building sector and integrated Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) solutions for effective energy management supporting decision-making at building, district and city level are key fundamental elements for making a city Smart. The available systems are designed and intended exclusively for a predefined number of cases and systems without allowing for expansion and interoperability with other applications that is partially due to the lack of semantics. This paper presents an advanced Internet of Things (IoT) based system for intelligent energy management in buildings. A semantic framework is introduced aiming at the unified and standardised modelling of the entities that constitute the building environment. Suitable rules are formed, aiming at the intelligent energy management and the general modus operandi of Smart Building. In this context, an IoT-based system was implemented, which enhances the interactivity of the buildings’ energy management systems. The results from its pilot application are presented and discussed. The proposed system extends existing approaches and integrates cross-domain data, such as the building’s data (e.g., energy management systems), energy production, energy prices, weather data and end-users’ behaviour, in order to produce daily and weekly action plans for the energy end-users with actionable personalised information. PMID:29462957

Measurement of Moisture in Wood for Application in the Restoration of Old Buildings

PubMed Central

Moron, Carlos; Garcia-Fuentevilla, Luisa; Garcia, Alfonso; Moron, Alberto

2016-01-01

There are many historic buildings whose construction is based on timber frame walls. Most buildings built during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were based on timber frame walls with vertical support elements. These timber frame elements are affected by their moisture content and by the passage of time. If the interaction of the timber frame walls with hygrothermal fluctuations were known, the maintenance of these buildings could be improved significantly. To determine the moisture content of wood there are two types of meters on the market: on the one hand, capacitance meters which consist of two side ends and where the moisture content is measured locally between two peaks. On the other hand, there are meters based on the variation of electromagnetic transmittance of timber, which depends on the moisture of timber. The second ones are very expensive and difficult to handle. This work presents a new non-intrusive capacitive sensor that measures the global moisture content in a section of the timber frame walls and therefore its accuracy is similar to the accuracy that can be obtained with electromagnetic transmittance meters. Additionally, as it is a capacitive sensor, it is low cost and easy to operate. PMID:27187410

KLIMA 2050: a research-based innovation centre for risk reduction through climate adaptation of infrastructure and buildings

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Solheim, Anders; Time, Berit; Kvande, Tore; Sivertsen, Edvard; Cepeda, Jose; Lappegard Hauge, Åshild; Bygballe, Lena; Almås, Anders-Johan

2016-04-01

Klima 2050 - Risk reduction through climate adaptation of buildings and infrastructure is a Centre for Research based Innovation (SFI), funded jointly by the Research Council of Norway (RCN) and the partners of the centre. The aim of Klima 2050 is to reduce the societal risks associated with climate changes, including enhanced precipitation and flood water exposure within the built environment. The Centre will strengthen companies' innovation capacity through a focus on long-term research. It is also a clear objective to facilitate close cooperation between Research & Development, performing companies, public entities, and prominent research groups. Emphasis will be placed on development of moisture-resilient buildings, storm-water management, blue-green solutions, mitigation measures for water-triggered landslides, socio-economic incentives and decision-making processes. Both extreme weather and gradual climatic changes will be addressed. The Centre consists of a consortium of 18 partners from three sectors: industry, public entities and research/education organizations. The partners from the industry/private sector include a variety of companies from the building industry. The public entities comprise the most important infrastructure owners in Norway (public roads, railroads, buildings, airports), as well as the directorate for water and energy. The research and education partners are SINTEF Building and Infrastructure, the Norwegian Business School, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, the Norwegian Meteorological Institute, and the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute. This contribution presents the main research plans and activities of this Centre, which was started in 2015 and will run for 8 years, until 2023. The presentation also includes options for international cooperation in the Centre via PhD and postdoctoral positions, MSc projects and guest-researcher stays with Klima 2050 partners.

Measuring the influence of industry sector membership on supply chain disruption reporting.

PubMed

Alcantara, Patrick

2015-01-01

The global Supply Chain Resilience Survey by the Business Continuity Institute and Zurich Insurance is a comprehensive study on the state of supply chains in different organisations worldwide. As a benchmarking tool, it also contains data about business continuity arrangements in place to ensure supply chain resilience. Given this study's historically qualitative approach to reporting, this paper aims to introduce quantitative analysis. In this paper, responses that report membership in Standard Industrial Classification 2007 industry sectors from the 2013 Supply Chain Resilience Survey were disaggregated and related to supply chain disruption reporting. A chi-square test of independence reveals that membership in a particular industry sector influences reporting of supply chain disruption. Nonetheless, the relationship between these variables is weak. This study demonstrates interesting differences between industry sectors in terms of supply chain resilience. Further research is required in terms of other variables in order to provide granularity and relevant findings to supply chain planners.

Health-Related Resource-Use Measurement Instruments for Intersectoral Costs and Benefits in the Education and Criminal Justice Sectors.

PubMed

Mayer, Susanne; Paulus, Aggie T G; Łaszewska, Agata; Simon, Judit; Drost, Ruben M W A; Ruwaard, Dirk; Evers, Silvia M A A

2017-09-01

Intersectoral costs and benefits (ICBs), i.e. costs and benefits of healthcare interventions outside the healthcare sector, can be a crucial component in economic evaluations from the societal perspective. Pivotal to their estimation is the existence of sound resource-use measurement (RUM) instruments; however, RUM instruments for ICBs in the education or criminal justice sectors have not yet been systematically collated or their psychometric quality assessed. This review aims to fill this gap. To identify relevant instruments, the Database of Instruments for Resource Use Measurement (DIRUM) was searched. Additionally, a systematic literature review was conducted in seven electronic databases to detect instruments containing ICB items used in economic evaluations. Finally, studies evaluating the psychometric quality of these instruments were searched. Twenty-six unique instruments were included. Most frequently, ICB items measured school absenteeism, tutoring, classroom assistance or contacts with legal representatives, police custody/prison detainment and court appearances, with the highest number of items listed in the Client Service Receipt Inventory/Client Sociodemographic and Service Receipt Inventory/Client Service Receipt Inventory-Children's Version (CSRI/CSSRI/CSRI-C), Studying the Scope of Parental Expenditures (SCOPE) and Self-Harm Intervention, Family Therapy (SHIFT) instruments. ICBs in the education sector were especially relevant for age-related developmental disorders and chronic diseases, while criminal justice resource use seems more important in mental health, including alcohol-related disorders or substance abuse. Evidence on the validity or reliability of ICB items was published for two instruments only. With a heterogeneous variety of ICBs found to be relevant for several disease areas but many ICB instruments applied in one study only (21/26 instruments), setting-up an international task force to, for example, develop an internationally

Government and voluntary sector differences in organizational capacity to do and use evaluation.

PubMed

Cousins, J Bradley; Goh, Swee C; Elliott, Catherine; Aubry, Tim; Gilbert, Nathalie

2014-06-01

Research on evaluation capacity is limited although a recent survey article on integrating evaluation into the organizational culture (Cousins, Goh, Clark, & Lee, 2004) revealed that interest in the topic is increasing. While knowledge about building the capacity to do evaluation has developed considerably, less is understood about building the organizational capacity to use evaluation. This article reports on the results of a pan-Canadian survey of evaluators working in organizations (internal evaluators or organization members with evaluation responsibility) conducted in 2007. Reliability across all constructs was high. Responses from government evaluators (N=160) were compared to responses from evaluators who work in the voluntary sector (N=89). The former were found to self-identify more highly as 'evaluators' (specialists) whereas the latter tended to identify as 'managers' (non-specialists). As a result, government evaluators had significantly higher self-reported levels of evaluation knowledge (both theory and practice); and they spent more time performing evaluation functions. However, irrespective of role, voluntary sector respondents rated their organizations more favorably than did their government sector counterparts with respect to the antecedents or conditions supporting evaluation capacity, and the capacity to use evaluation. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for evaluation practice and ongoing research. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Measurement of the natural radioactivity in building materials used in Ankara and assessment of external doses.

PubMed

Turhan, S; Baykan, U N; Sen, K

2008-03-01

A total of 183 samples of 20 different commonly used structural and covering building materials were collected from housing and other building construction sites and from suppliers in Ankara to measure the natural radioactivity due to the presence of (226)Ra, (232)Th and (40)K. The measurements were carried out using gamma-ray spectrometry with two HPGe detectors. The specific activities of the different building materials studied varied from 0.5 +/- 0.1 to 144.9 +/- 4.9 Bq kg(-1), 0.6 +/- 0.2 to 169.9 +/- 6.6 Bq kg(-1) and 2.0 +/- 0.1 to 1792.3 +/- 60.8 Bq kg(-1) for (226)Ra, (232)Th and (40)K, respectively. The results show that the lowest mean values of the specific activity of (226)Ra, (232)Th and (40)K are 0.8 +/- 0.5, 0.9 +/- 0.4 and 4.1 +/- 1.4 Bq kg(-1), respectively, measured in travertine tile while the highest mean values of the specific activity of the same radionuclides are 78.5 +/- 18.1 (ceramic wall tile), 77.4 +/- 53.0 (granite tile) and 923.4 +/- 161.0 (white brick), respectively. The radium equivalent activity (Ra(eq)), the gamma-index, the indoor absorbed dose rate and the corresponding annual effective dose were evaluated to assess the potential radiological hazard associated with these building materials. The mean values of the gamma-index and the estimated annual effective dose due to external gamma radiation inside the room for structural building materials ranged from 0.15 to 0.89 and 0.2 to 1.1 mSv, respectively. Applying criteria recently recommended for building materials in the literature, four materials meet the exemption annual dose criterion of 0.3 mSv, five materials meet the annual dose limit of 1 mSv and only one material slightly exceeds this limit. The mean values of the gamma-index for all building materials were lower than the upper limit of 1.

PRIVATE SECTOR IN HEALTH CARE DELIVERY: A REALITY AND A CHALLENGE IN PAKISTAN.

PubMed

Shaikh, Babar Tasneem

2015-01-01

Under performance of the public sector health care system in Pakistan has created a room for private sector to grow and become popular in health service delivery, despite its questionable quality, high cost and dubious ethics of medical practice. Private sector is no doubt a reality; and is functioning to plug many weaknesses and gaps in health care delivery to the poor people of Pakistan. Yet, it is largely unregulated and unchecked due to the absence of writ of the state. In spite of its inherent trait of profit making, the private sector has played a significant and innovative role both in preventive and curative service provision. Private sector has demonstrated great deal of responsiveness, hence creating a relation of trust with the consumers of health in Pakistan, majority of who spend out of their pocket to buy 'health'. There is definitely a potential to engage and involve private and non-state entities in the health care system building their capacities and instituting regulatory frameworks, to protect the poor's access to health care system.

Government stewardship of the for-profit private health sector in Afghanistan

PubMed Central

Sayedi, Omarzaman; Irani, Laili; Archer, Lauren C.; Sears, Kathleen; Sharma, Suneeta

2017-01-01

Abstract Background: Since 2003, Afghanistan's largely unregulated for-profit private health sector has grown at a rapid pace. In 2008, the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) launched a long-term stewardship initiative to oversee and regulate private providers and align the sector with national health goals. Aim: We examine the progress the MoPH has made towards more effective stewardship, consider the challenges and assess the early impacts on for-profit performance. Methods: We reviewed publicly available documents, publications and the grey literature to analyse the development, adoption and implementation of strategies, policies and regulations. We carried out a series of key informant/participant interviews, organizational capacity assessments and analyses of hospital standards checklists. Using a literature review of health systems strengthening, we proposed an Afghan-specific definition of six key stewardship functions to assess progress towards MoPH stewardship objectives. Results: The MoPH and its partners have achieved positive results in strengthening its private sector stewardship functions especially in generating actionable intelligence and establishing strategic policy directions, administrative structures and a legal and regulatory framework. Progress has also been made on improving accountability and transparency, building partnerships and applying minimum required standards to private hospitals. Procedural and operational issues still need resolution and the MoPH is establishing mechanisms for resolving them. Conclusions: The MoPH stewardship initiative is notable for its achievements to date under challenging circumstances. Its success is due to the focus on developing a solid policy framework and building institutions and systems aimed at ensuring higher quality private services, and a rational long-term and sustainable role for the private sector. Although the MoPH stewardship initiative is still at an early stage, the evidence suggests that

Government stewardship of the for-profit private health sector in Afghanistan.

PubMed

Cross, Harry E; Sayedi, Omarzaman; Irani, Laili; Archer, Lauren C; Sears, Kathleen; Sharma, Suneeta

2017-04-01

Since 2003, Afghanistan's largely unregulated for-profit private health sector has grown at a rapid pace. In 2008, the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) launched a long-term stewardship initiative to oversee and regulate private providers and align the sector with national health goals. We examine the progress the MoPH has made towards more effective stewardship, consider the challenges and assess the early impacts on for-profit performance. We reviewed publicly available documents, publications and the grey literature to analyse the development, adoption and implementation of strategies, policies and regulations. We carried out a series of key informant/participant interviews, organizational capacity assessments and analyses of hospital standards checklists. Using a literature review of health systems strengthening, we proposed an Afghan-specific definition of six key stewardship functions to assess progress towards MoPH stewardship objectives. The MoPH and its partners have achieved positive results in strengthening its private sector stewardship functions especially in generating actionable intelligence and establishing strategic policy directions, administrative structures and a legal and regulatory framework. Progress has also been made on improving accountability and transparency, building partnerships and applying minimum required standards to private hospitals. Procedural and operational issues still need resolution and the MoPH is establishing mechanisms for resolving them. The MoPH stewardship initiative is notable for its achievements to date under challenging circumstances. Its success is due to the focus on developing a solid policy framework and building institutions and systems aimed at ensuring higher quality private services, and a rational long-term and sustainable role for the private sector. Although the MoPH stewardship initiative is still at an early stage, the evidence suggests that enhanced stewardship functions in the MoPH are leading to a

Assessment of capacity-building activities for forest measurement, reporting, and verification, 2011–15

USGS Publications Warehouse

Peneva-Reed, Elitsa I.; Romijn, J. Erika

2018-05-31

This report was written as a collaborative effort between the U.S. Geological Survey, SilvaCarbon, and Wageningen University with funding provided by the U.S. Agency for International Development and the European Space Agency, respectively, to address a pressing need for enhanced result-based monitoring and evaluation of delivered capacity-building activities. For this report, the capacity-building activities delivered by capacity-building providers (referred to as “providers” hereafter) during 2011–15 (the study period) to support countries in building measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV) systems for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) were assessed and evaluated.Summarizing capacity-building activities and outcomes across multiple providers was challenging. Many of the providers did not have information readily available, which precluded them from participating in this study despite the usefulness of their information. This issue led to a key proposed future action: Capacity-building providers could establish a central repository within the Global Forestry Observation Initiative (GFOI; http://www.gfoi.org/) where data from past, current, and future activities of all capacity-building providers could be stored. The repository could be maintained in a manner to continually learn from previous lessons.Although various providers monitored and evaluated the success of their capacity-building activities, such evaluations only assessed the success of immediate outcomes and not the overarching outcomes and impacts of activities implemented by multiple providers. Good monitoring and evaluation should continuously monitor and periodically evaluate all factors affecting the outcomes of a provided capacity-building activity.The absence of a methodology to produce quantitative evidence of a causal link between multiple capacity-building activities delivered and successful outcomes left only a plausible association. A previous

Odor and odorous chemical emissions from animal buildings: part 4-correlations between sensory and chemical measurements

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

This study supplemented the National Air Emissions Monitoring Study (NAEMS) with one year of comprehensive measurements of odor emission at five swine and four dairy buildings. The measurements included both standard human sensory measurements using dynamic forced-choice olfactometry and chemical an...

Vulnerability Assessment, Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Measures in Slovenia

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cegnar, T.

2010-09-01

In relation to the priority tasks of the climate change measures, the Republic of Slovenia estimates that special attention needs to be devoted to the following sectors in general: - sectors that currently indicate a strong vulnerability for the current climate variability (for instance, agriculture), - sectors where the vulnerability for climate change is increased by current trends (for instance, urban development, use of space), - sectors where the adaptation time is the longest and the subsequent development changes are connected with the highest costs (for instance, use of space, infrastructural objects, forestry, urban development, building stock). Considering the views of Slovenia to the climate change problem in Europe and Slovenia, priority measures and emphasis on future adaptation to climate change, the Republic of Slovenia has especially exposed the following action areas: - sustainable and integrated management of water sources for water power production, prevention of floods, provision of water for the enrichment of low flow rates, and preservation of environmental function as well as provision of water for other needs; - sustainable management of forest ecosystems, adjusted to changes, for the provision of their environmental function as well as being a source of biomass, wood for products for the conservation of carbon, and carbon sinks; - spatial planning as one of the important preventive instruments for the adaptation to climate change through the processes of integral planning of spatial and urban development; - sustainable use and preservation of natural wealth and the preservation of biodiversity as well as ecosystem services with measures and policies that enable an enhanced resistance of ecosystems to climate change, and the role of biological diversity in integral adaptation measures; - informing and awareness on the consequences of climate change and adaptation possibilities. For years, the most endangered sectors have been agriculture and

Climate Change and its Impact on the Energy Sector in the Eastern Mediterranean

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lange, M. A.

2009-04-01

It is anticipated that the Eastern Mediterranean and Cyprus will be disproportionally and adversely affected by future climate change. Impacts of these changes include rising summer temperatures and decreasing annual precipitation thereby causing strains on the energy sector in the region. Increases in the frequency of heat waves and tropical nights will lead to rising demands for air-conditioning of private and public housing on the one hand and to growing water scarcity, which will have to be satisfied by additional seawater desalination, on the other, to name just two of the repercussions of climate change on energy demand. Coping with these impacts will require additional electricity generation and will lead to enhanced energy demands. In the case of Cyprus, this will add to an already strained sector of the economy. The current electricity production is entirely based on fossil-fuel fired power plants. However, the use of conventional energy sources is clearly an undesirable option. It enhances the economic burden on energy consumers and at the same time increases Cyprus' dependency on external providers of hydrocarbon products. Moreover, it leads to growing emissions of carbon dioxide and thereby worsens Cyprus' already challenged greenhouse gas emission budget. While current emissions amount to app. 9.9 Mill. t of CO2, the total allowance according to EU regulations lies at 5.5 Mill. t. Possible remedies, which will be relevant for other countries in the Eastern Mediterranean, as well include energy saving measures in the building sector and the use of renewable energy sources. With regard to sustainable building technologies, new and innovative building materials will have to be introduced. This includes advanced thermochromic materials based on nanotechnology techniques combined with phase change microcapsules, photochromic coatings able to present very high or low solar reflectance, chameleon coatings presenting very low emissivity and time varying

Measurement of radon exhalation rate in various building materials and soil samples

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bala, Pankaj; Kumar, Vinod; Mehra, Rohit

2017-03-01

Indoor radon is considered as one of the potential dangerous radioactive elements. Common building materials and soil are the major source of this radon gas in the indoor environment. In the present study, the measurement of radon exhalation rate in the soil and building material samples of Una and Hamirpur districts of Himachal Pradesh has been done with solid state alpha track detectors, LR-115 type-II plastic track detectors. The radon exhalation rate for the soil samples varies from 39.1 to 91.2 mBq kg-1 h-1 with a mean value 59.7 mBq kg-1 h-1. Also the radium concentration of the studied area is found and it varies from 30.6 to 51.9 Bq kg-1 with a mean value 41.6 Bq kg-1. The exhalation rate for the building material samples varies from 40.72 (sandstone) to 81.40 mBq kg-1 h-1 (granite) with a mean value of 59.94 mBq kg-1 h-1.

OpenADR Specification to Ease Saving Power in Buildings

ScienceCinema

None

2017-12-09

A new data model developed by researchers at the Department of Energys Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and their colleagues at other universities and in the private sector will help facilities and buildings save power through automated demand response technology, and advance the development of the Smart Grid.

Measurements of radioactivity and dose assessments in some building materials in Bitlis, Turkey.

PubMed

Kayakökü, Halime; Karatepe, Şule; Doğru, Mahmut

2016-09-01

In this study, samples of perlite, pumice and Ahlat stones (Ignimbrite) extracted from mines in Bitlis and samples of other building materials produced in facilities in Bitlis were collected and analyzed. Activity concentrations of (226)Ra, (232)Th and (40)K in samples of building materials were measured using NaI detector (NaI(Tl)) with an efficiency of 24%. The radon measurements of building material samples were determined using CR-39 nuclear track detectors. (226)Ra, (232)Th and (40)K radioactivity concentrations ranged from (29.6±5.9 to 228.2±38.1Bq/kg), (10.8±5.4 to 95.5±26.1Bq/kg) and (249.3±124.7 to 2580.1±266.9Bq/kg), respectively. Radon concentration, radium equivalent activities, absorbed dose rate, excess lifetime cancer risk and the values of hazard indices were calculated for the measured samples to assess the radiation hazards arising from using those materials in the construction of dwellings. Radon concentration ranged between 89.2±12.0Bq/m(3) and 1141.0±225.0Bq/m(3). It was determined that Raeq values of samples conformed to world standards except for perlite and single samples of brick and Ahlat stone. Calculated values of absorbed dose rate ranged from 81.3±20.5 to 420.6±42.8nGy/h. ELCR values ranged from (1.8±0.3)×10(-3) to (9.0±1.0)×10(-3). All samples had ELCR values higher than the world average. The values of Hin and Hex varied from 0.35±0.11 to 1.78±0.18 and from 0.37±0.09 to 1.17±0.13, respectively. The results were compared with standard radioactivity values determined by international organizations and with similar studies. There would be a radiation risk for people living in buildings made of perlite, Ahlat-1 and Brick-3. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Micro enterprise initiative in water sector and poverty reduction .

PubMed

Jose, T K

2003-01-01

The author reports on the Kerala model for water sector development, broadly adopted as a role model for poverty reduction and build up of social capital. It is a community based organisation with its focus on facilitating a stable income to the poor, and composed of a People's Plan Campaign, the Kudumbashree (women-based poverty eradication programme), with grassroot level neighbourhood groups, federated into an area development society. It promotes savings and credit channelling, capacity building and entrepreneurship development. Activities include awareness raising on water conservation and hygiene, utilization of student power, promotion of small, cheap and low technology projects that people can understand and undertake (small reservoirs, tanks, rainwater harvesting structures, water meters), as well as microenterprises, and training of women-based repair groups.

Optical properties of ITO nanocoatings for photovoltaic and energy building applications

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kaplani, E.; Kaplanis, S.; Panagiotaras, D.; Stathatos, E.

2014-10-01

Targeting energy savings in buildings, photovoltaics and other sectors, significant research activity is nowadays focused on the production of spectral selective nanocoatings. In the present study an ITO coating on glass substrate is prepared from ITO powder, characterized and analysed. The spectral transmittance and reflectance of the ITO coated glass and of two other commercially developed ITO coatings on glass substrate were measured and compared. Furthermore, a simulation algorithm was developed to determine the optical properties of the ITO coatings in the visible, solar and near infrared regions in order to assess the impact of the ITO coatings in the energy performance of buildings, and particularly the application in smart windows. In addition, the current density produced by a PV assuming each of the ITO coated glass served as a cover was computed, in order to assess their effect in PV performance. The preliminary ITO coating prepared and the two other coatings exhibit different optical properties and, thus, have different impact on energy performance. The analysis assists in a better understanding of the desired optical properties of nanocoatings for improved energy performance in PV and buildings.

Highly-Damped Spectral Acceleration as a Ground Motion Intensity Measure for Estimating Collapse Vulnerability of Buildings

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Buyco, K.; Heaton, T. H.

2016-12-01

Current U.S. seismic code and performance-based design recommendations quantify ground motion intensity using 5%-damped spectral acceleration when estimating the collapse vulnerability of buildings. This intensity measure works well for predicting inter-story drift due to moderate shaking, but other measures have been shown to be better for estimating collapse risk.We propose using highly-damped (>10%) spectral acceleration to assess collapse vulnerability. As damping is increased, the spectral acceleration at a given period T begins to behave like a weighted average of the corresponding lowly-damped (i.e. 5%) spectrum at a range of periods. Weights for periods longer than T increase as damping increases. Using high damping is physically intuitive for two reasons. Firstly, ductile buildings dissipate a large amount of hysteretic energy before collapse and thus behave more like highly-damped systems. Secondly, heavily damaged buildings experience period-lengthening, giving further credence to the weighted-averaging property of highly-damped spectral acceleration.To determine the optimal damping value(s) for this ground motion intensity measure, we conduct incremental dynamic analysis for a suite of ground motions on several different mid-rise steel buildings and select the damping value yielding the lowest dispersion of intensity at the collapse threshold. Spectral acceleration calculated with damping as high as 70% has been shown to be a better indicator of collapse than that with 5% damping.

A Value Measure for Public-Sector Enterprise Risk Management: A TSA Case Study.

PubMed

Fletcher, Kenneth C; Abbas, Ali E

2018-05-01

This article presents a public value measure that can be used to aid executives in the public sector to better assess policy decisions and maximize value to the American people. Using Transportation Security Administration (TSA) programs as an example, we first identify the basic components of public value. We then propose a public value account to quantify the outcomes of various risk scenarios, and we determine the certain equivalent of several important TSA programs. We illustrate how this proposed measure can quantify the effects of two main challenges that government organizations face when conducting enterprise risk management: (1) short-term versus long-term incentives and (2) avoiding potential negative consequences even if they occur with low probability. Finally, we illustrate how this measure enables the use of various tools from decision analysis to be applied in government settings, such as stochastic dominance arguments and certain equivalent calculations. Regarding the TSA case study, our analysis demonstrates the value of continued expansion of the TSA trusted traveler initiative and increasing the background vetting for passengers who are afforded expedited security screening. © 2017 Society for Risk Analysis.

Spatially Enabling the Health Sector

PubMed Central

Weeramanthri, Tarun Stephen; Woodgate, Peter

2016-01-01

Spatial information describes the physical location of either people or objects, and the measured relationships between them. In this article, we offer the view that greater utilization of spatial information and its related technology, as part of a broader redesign of the architecture of health information at local and national levels, could assist and speed up the process of health reform, which is taking place across the globe in richer and poorer countries alike. In making this point, we describe the impetus for health sector reform, recent developments in spatial information and analytics, and current Australasian spatial health research. We highlight examples of uptake of spatial information by the health sector, as well as missed opportunities. Our recommendations to spatially enable the health sector are applicable to high- and low-resource settings. PMID:27867933

Spatially Enabling the Health Sector.

PubMed

Weeramanthri, Tarun Stephen; Woodgate, Peter

2016-01-01

Spatial information describes the physical location of either people or objects, and the measured relationships between them. In this article, we offer the view that greater utilization of spatial information and its related technology, as part of a broader redesign of the architecture of health information at local and national levels, could assist and speed up the process of health reform, which is taking place across the globe in richer and poorer countries alike. In making this point, we describe the impetus for health sector reform, recent developments in spatial information and analytics, and current Australasian spatial health research. We highlight examples of uptake of spatial information by the health sector, as well as missed opportunities. Our recommendations to spatially enable the health sector are applicable to high- and low-resource settings.

Examination of the Work Organization Assessment Questionnaire in public sector workers.

PubMed

Wynne-Jones, Gwenllian; Varnava, Alice; Buck, Rhiannon; Karanika-Murray, Maria; Griffiths, Amanda; Phillips, Ceri; Cox, Tom; Kahn, Sayeed; Main, Chris J

2009-05-01

To investigate the utility of the Work and Organization Assessment Questionnaire (WOAQ) for public sector data. A cross-sectional survey was performed in public sector organizations measuring demographics, work characteristics, work perceptions (WOAQ), sickness absence, and work performance. Confirmatory factor analysis of the WOAQ showed that factor structure derived for the manufacturing sector, for which the questionnaire was developed, could be replicated moderately well with public sector data. The study then considered whether a better more specific fit for public sector data was possible. Principal components analysis of the public sector data identified a two-factor structure linked to four of the five scales of the WOAQ assessing Management and Work Design, and Work Culture. These two factors may offer a context-sensitive scoring method for the WOAQ in public sector populations. These two factors were found to have good internal consistency, and correlated with the full WOAQ scales and the measures of performance and absence. The WOAQ is a useful and potentially transferable tool. The modified scoring may be used to assess work and organizational factors in the public sector.

Sector-wide or disease-specific? Implications of trends in development assistance for health for the SDG era.

PubMed

Buffardi, Anne L

2018-04-01

The record of the Millennium Development Goals broadly reflects the trade-offs of disease-specific financing: substantial progress in particular areas, facilitated by time-bound targets that are easy to measure and communicate, which shifted attention and resources away from other areas, masked inequalities and exacerbated fragmentation. In many ways, the Sustainable Development Goals reflect a profound shift towards a more holistic, system-wide approach. To inform responses to this shift, this article builds upon existing work on aggregate trends in donor financing, bringing together what have largely been disparate analyses of sector-wide and disease-specific financing approaches. Looking across the last 26 years, the article examines how international donors have allocated development assistance for health (DAH) between these two approaches and how attempts to bridge them have fared in practice. Since 1990, DAH has overwhelmingly favoured disease-specific earmarks over health sector support, with the latter peaking in 1998. Attempts to integrate system strengthening elements into disease-specific funding mechanisms have varied by disease, and more integrated funding platforms have failed to gain traction. Health sector support largely remains an unfulfilled promise: proportionately low amounts (albeit absolute increases) which have been inconsistently allocated, and the overall approach inconsistently applied in practice. Thus, the expansive orientation of the Sustainable Development Goals runs counter to trends over the last several decades. Financing proposals and efforts to adapt global health institutions must acknowledge and account for the persistent challenges in the financing and implementation of integrated, cross-sector policies. National and subnational experimentation may offer alternatives within and beyond the health sector.

Buildings' integral role in good health.

PubMed

Hall, Chris

2014-05-01

As reported in last month's HEJ, the new Sustainable Development Strategy for the Health, Public Health and Social Care System for 2014-20 rightly emphasises the importance of the built environment to health and well-being. Chris Hall, the BRE's health sector lead, says this message 'stretches far beyond hospitals and healthcare buildings into the communities and homes that people live in'. Here he highlights some of the key elements relating to the current carbon efficiency of healthcare buildings, considers the impact of 'good' housing on health and preventing illness, and looks forward to a series of joint IHEEM and BRE 'Building Sustainable Development' mini-conference events planned in the run-up to October's Healthcare Estates 2014 event in response to the new Strategy, designed to share ideas and good practice on sustainable estates issues. The first takes place in London later this month (see panel below).

Accuracy of automated measurement and verification (M&V) techniques for energy savings in commercial buildings

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Granderson, Jessica; Touzani, Samir; Custodio, Claudine

Trustworthy savings calculations are critical to convincing investors in energy efficiency projects of the benefit and cost-effectiveness of such investments and their ability to replace or defer supply-side capital investments. However, today’s methods for measurement and verification (M&V) of energy savings constitute a significant portion of the total costs of efficiency projects. They also require time-consuming manual data acquisition and often do not deliver results until years after the program period has ended. The rising availability of “smart” meters, combined with new analytical approaches to quantifying savings, has opened the door to conducting M&V more quickly and at lower cost,more » with comparable or improved accuracy. These meter- and software-based approaches, increasingly referred to as “M&V 2.0”, are the subject of surging industry interest, particularly in the context of utility energy efficiency programs. Program administrators, evaluators, and regulators are asking how M&V 2.0 compares with more traditional methods, how proprietary software can be transparently performance tested, how these techniques can be integrated into the next generation of whole-building focused efficiency programs. This paper expands recent analyses of public-domain whole-building M&V methods, focusing on more novel M&V2.0 modeling approaches that are used in commercial technologies, as well as approaches that are documented in the literature, and/or developed by the academic building research community. We present a testing procedure and metrics to assess the performance of whole-building M&V methods. We then illustrate the test procedure by evaluating the accuracy of ten baseline energy use models, against measured data from a large dataset of 537 buildings. The results of this study show that the already available advanced interval data baseline models hold great promise for scaling the adoption of building measured savings calculations using Advanced

Accuracy of automated measurement and verification (M&V) techniques for energy savings in commercial buildings

DOE PAGES

Granderson, Jessica; Touzani, Samir; Custodio, Claudine; ...

2016-04-16

Trustworthy savings calculations are critical to convincing investors in energy efficiency projects of the benefit and cost-effectiveness of such investments and their ability to replace or defer supply-side capital investments. However, today’s methods for measurement and verification (M&V) of energy savings constitute a significant portion of the total costs of efficiency projects. They also require time-consuming manual data acquisition and often do not deliver results until years after the program period has ended. The rising availability of “smart” meters, combined with new analytical approaches to quantifying savings, has opened the door to conducting M&V more quickly and at lower cost,more » with comparable or improved accuracy. These meter- and software-based approaches, increasingly referred to as “M&V 2.0”, are the subject of surging industry interest, particularly in the context of utility energy efficiency programs. Program administrators, evaluators, and regulators are asking how M&V 2.0 compares with more traditional methods, how proprietary software can be transparently performance tested, how these techniques can be integrated into the next generation of whole-building focused efficiency programs. This paper expands recent analyses of public-domain whole-building M&V methods, focusing on more novel M&V2.0 modeling approaches that are used in commercial technologies, as well as approaches that are documented in the literature, and/or developed by the academic building research community. We present a testing procedure and metrics to assess the performance of whole-building M&V methods. We then illustrate the test procedure by evaluating the accuracy of ten baseline energy use models, against measured data from a large dataset of 537 buildings. The results of this study show that the already available advanced interval data baseline models hold great promise for scaling the adoption of building measured savings calculations using Advanced

Models for residential-and commercial-sector energy conservation analysis: Applications, limitations, and future potential

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cole, H. E.; Fuller, R. E.

1980-09-01

Four of the major models used by DOE for energy conservation analyses in the residential and commercial building sectors are reviewed and critically analyzed to determine how these models can serve as tools for DOE and its Conservation Policy Office in evaluating and quantifying their policy and program requirements. The most effective role for each model in addressing future issues of buildings energy conservation policy and analysis is assessed. The four models covered are: Oak Ridge Residential Energy Model; Micro Analysis of Transfers to Households/Comprehensive Human Resources Data System (MATH/CHRDS) Model; Oak Ridge Commercial Energy Model; and Brookhaven Buildings Energy Conservation Optimization Model (BECOM).

[The productive sector].

PubMed

Santolaria, Encarna; Fernández, Alberto; Daponte, Antonio; Aguilera, I

2004-05-01

In the last 25 years, the production sector in Spain has undergone important changes. Among these changes, the important growth of the services sector at the expense of the primary sector, the increasing flexibility of the labour market, and the rise in the female workforce could be considered as the most relevant ones. Spanish women have higher rates of unemployment, temporary jobs and part time contracts than Spanish men. Moreover, job access and work conditions are highly related to gender and social class. Because women are forced to compensate for the scarcity of social services for caring for young children and for dependent elderly, they become informal and socially unrecognised caregivers, preventing them from getting or holding a job, and significantly limiting their opportunities for professional development. These social conditions are closely related with the fact that work conditions for women involve higher temporality rates and shorter contracts than those of men, given the sectors and jobs in which they tend to work (due to segregation). Similarly, workers of the less privileged social classes have poorer work conditions. Thus, women of the lower income class are mainly suffering the worst job contracts and the poorest work conditions. More social services are needed to make it possible to attend to family needs and still be able to access and maintain a job contract. Policies tending to conciliate labour and family life are indispensable and should incorporate measures to equally distribute the house keeping activities between women and men.

Reducing Transaction Costs for Energy Efficiency Investments and Analysis of Economic Risk Associated With Building Performance Uncertainties: Small Buildings and Small Portfolios Program

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Langner, R.; Hendron, B.; Bonnema, E.

2014-08-01

The small buildings and small portfolios (SBSP) sector face a number of barriers that inhibit SBSP owners from adopting energy efficiency solutions. This pilot project focused on overcoming two of the largest barriers to financing energy efficiency in small buildings: disproportionately high transaction costs and unknown or unacceptable risk. Solutions to these barriers can often be at odds, because inexpensive turnkey solutions are often not sufficiently tailored to the unique circumstances of each building, reducing confidence that the expected energy savings will be achieved. To address these barriers, NREL worked with two innovative, forward-thinking lead partners, Michigan Saves and Energi,more » to develop technical solutions that provide a quick and easy process to encourage energy efficiency investments while managing risk. The pilot project was broken into two stages: the first stage focused on reducing transaction costs, and the second stage focused on reducing performance risk. In the first stage, NREL worked with the non-profit organization, Michigan Saves, to analyze the effects of 8 energy efficiency measures (EEMs) on 81 different baseline small office building models in Holland, Michigan (climate zone 5A). The results of this analysis (totaling over 30,000 cases) are summarized in a simple spreadsheet tool that enables users to easily sort through the results and find appropriate small office EEM packages that meet a particular energy savings threshold and are likely to be cost-effective.« less

Building Capacity for Actionable Science and Decision Making in Alaska

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Timm, K.; Kettle, N.; Buxbaum, T. M.; Trainor, S.; Walsh, J. E.; York, A.

2017-12-01

Investigations of the processes for developing actionable science and supporting partnerships between researchers and practitioners has received increasing attention over the past decade. These studies highlight the importance of leveraging existing relationships and trust, supporting iterative interactions, and dedicating sufficient financial and human capital to the development of usable climate science. However, significant gaps remain in our understanding of how to build capacity for more effective partnerships. To meet these ends, the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy (ACCAP) is developing a series of trainings for scientists and practitioners to build capacity for producing actionable science. This process includes three phases: scoping and development, training, and evaluation. This presentation reports on the scoping and development phase of the project, which draws on an extensive web-based search of past and present capacity building and training activities, document analysis, and surveys of trainers. A synthesis of successful formats (e.g., training, placements, etc.), curriculum topics (e.g., climate science, interpersonal communication), and approaches to recruitment and curriculum development will be outlined. We then outline our approach for co-developing trainings in three different sectors, which engages other boundary organizations to leverage trust and exiting network connections to tailor the training activities. Through this effort we ultimately seek to understand how the processes and outcomes for co-developing trainings in actionable science vary across sectors and their implications for building capacity.

Interplanetary sector boundaries, 1971 - 1973

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Klein, L.; Burlaga, L. F.

1979-01-01

Eighteen interplanetary sector boundary crossings observed at 1 AU by the magnetometer on the IMP-6 spacecraft are discussed. The events were examined on many different time scales ranging from days on either side of the boundary to high resolution measurements of 12.5 vectors per second. Two categories of boundaries were found, one group being relatively thin and the other being thick. In many cases the field vector rotated in a plane from one polarity to the other. Only two of the transitions were null sheets. Using the minimum variance analysis to determine the normals to the plane of rotation, and assuming that this is the same as the normal to the sector boundary surface, it was found that the normals were close to the ecliptic plane. An analysis of tangential discontinuities contained in 4-day periods about the events showed that their orientations were generally not related to the orientations of the sector boundary surface, but rather their characteristics were about the same as those for discontinuities outside the sector boundaries.

Population Health Measurement: Applying Performance Measurement Concepts in Population Health Settings

PubMed Central

Stoto, Michael A.

2014-01-01

Introduction: Whether the focus of population-health improvement efforts, the measurement of health outcomes, risk factors, and interventions to improve them are central to achieving collective impact in the population health perspective. And because of the importance of a shared measurement system, appropriate measures can help to ensure the accountability of and ultimately integrate the efforts of public health, the health care delivery sector, and other public and private entities in the community to improve population health. Yet despite its importance, population health measurement efforts in the United States are poorly developed and uncoordinated. Collaborative Measurement Development: To achieve the potential of the population health perspective, public health officials, health system leaders, and others must work together to develop sets of population health measures that are suitable for different purposes yet are harmonized so that together they can help to improve a community’s health. This begins with clearly defining the purpose of a set of measures, distinguishing between outcomes for which all share responsibility and actions to improve health for which the health care sector, public health agencies, and others should be held accountable. Framework for Population Health Measurement: Depending on the purpose of the analysis, then, measurement systems should clearly specify what to measure—in particular the population served (the denominator), what the critical health dimensions are in a measurement framework, and how the measures can be used to ensure accountability. Building on a clear understanding of the purpose and dimensions of population health that must be measured, developers can then choose specific measures using existing data or developing new data sources if necessary, with established validity, reliability, and other scientific characteristics. Rather than indiscriminately choosing among the proliferating data streams, this

Triple-Loop Learning in a Cross-Sector Partnership: The DC Central Kitchen Partnership

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ameli, Patrizia; Kayes, D. Christopher

2011-01-01

Purpose: This paper aims to build on notions of a higher level of organizational learning to suggest another dimension: interorganizational learning that emerges in a cross-sector partnership. Design/methodology/approach: A case study was conducted with the DC Central Kitchen (DCCK) partnership with for-profit and governmental entities. Research…

How effective is mandatory building energy disclosure program in Australia?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kim, S.; Lim, B. T. H.

2018-04-01

Mandatory green building regulations are often considered as the most effective tool to promote better energy efficiency and environmental protection. Nevertheless, its effectiveness compared to the voluntary counterpart has not been fully explored yet. In addressing this gap, this study aims to examine the environmental performance of green building stocks affected by the Australian mandatory building energy disclosure program. To this, this study analysed energy savings and carbon reduction efficiencies using the normalisation approach. The result shows that mandatory energy disclosure program did contribute to the reduction in energy usage and carbon emissions from the affected building stocks. More specifically, affected green building stocks showed a good efficiency especially in carbon reductions. The research results inform policymakers the possible improvement required for the mandatory disclosure program to increase the effectiveness towards dealing with the contemporary environmental issues aroused from the building sector, especially in energy savings perspective.

36 CFR 1281.16 - What standard does NARA use for measuring building size?

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-07-01

... 36 Parks, Forests, and Public Property 3 2012-07-01 2012-07-01 false What standard does NARA use for measuring building size? 1281.16 Section 1281.16 Parks, Forests, and Public Property NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION NARA FACILITIES PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY FACILITIES § 1281.16 What standard...

Approaches to formalization of the informal waste sector into municipal solid waste management systems in low- and middle-income countries: Review of barriers and success factors.

PubMed

Aparcana, Sandra

2017-03-01

The Municipal Solid Waste Management (MSWM) sector represents a major challenge for low-and middle-income countries due to significant environmental and socioeconomic issues involving rapid urbanization, their MSWM systems, and the existence of the informal waste sector. Recognizing its role, several countries have implemented various formalization measures, aiming to address the social problems linked to this sector. However, regardless of these initiatives, not all attempts at formalization have proved successful due to the existence of barriers preventing their implementation in the long term. Along with this, there is a frequent lack of knowledge or understanding regarding these barriers and the kind of measures that may enable formalization, thereby attaining a win-win situation for all the stakeholders involved. In this context, policy- and decision-makers in the public and private sectors are frequently confronted with the dilemma of finding workable approaches to formalization, adjusted to their particular MSWM contexts. Building on the review of frequently implemented approaches to formalization, including an analysis of the barriers to and enabling measures for formalization, this paper aims to address this gap by explaining to policy- and decision-makers, and to waste managers in the private sector, certain dynamics that can be observed and that should be taken into account when designing formalization strategies that are adapted to their particular socioeconomic and political-institutional context. This includes possible links between formalization approaches and barriers, the kinds of barriers that need to be removed, and enabling measures leading to successful formalization in the long term. This paper involved a literature review of common approaches to formalization, which were classified into three categories: (1) informal waste workers organized in associations or cooperatives; (2) organized in CBOs or MSEs; and (3) contracted as individual

Building heating and cooling applications thermal energy storage program overview

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Eissenberg, D. M.

1980-01-01

Thermal energy storage technology and development of building heating and cooling applications in the residential and commercial sectors is outlined. Three elements are identified to undergo an applications assessment, technology development, and demonstration. Emphasis is given to utility load management thermal energy system application where the stress is on the 'customer side of the meter'. Thermal storage subsystems for space conditioning and conservation means of increased thermal mass within the building envelope and by means of low-grade waste heat recovery are covered.

Improving Cross-Sector Comparisons: Going Beyond the Health-Related QALY.

PubMed

Brazier, John; Tsuchiya, Aki

2015-12-01

The quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) has become a widely used measure of health outcomes for use in informing decision making in health technology assessment. However, there is growing recognition of outcomes beyond health within the health sector and in related sectors such as social care and public health. This paper presents the advantages and disadvantages of ten possible approaches covering extending the health-related QALY and using well-being and monetary-based methods, in order to address the problem of using multiple outcome measures to inform resource allocation within and between sectors.

Non-government organisation engagement in the sanitation sector: opportunities to maximise benefits.

PubMed

Carrard, N; Pedi, D; Willetts, J; Powell, B

2009-01-01

Non-government organisations (NGOs) have long played a role in delivering sanitation services to communities in Southeast Asia and Pacific countries, particularly in rural areas. In contrast with large scale infrastructure focused initiatives, NGO programs commonly focus on building linkages between technical and social realms. Drawing on the breadth and depth of NGO experiences, there are opportunities for NGOs to play a greater role in the sanitation sector and to work in partnership with other actors including utilities and government agencies to ensure both 'hardware' and 'software' components of sanitation are built in to project design and delivery to maximise community benefits and ensure longer term system sustainability. This paper discusses these issues and considers how the contribution of NGOs to the sanitation sector in developing countries might be enhanced. The paper is based on recent research for the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) intended to guide investment in the water and sanitation sectors of Asia and Pacific partner countries, exploring the potential for increased NGO engagement. The paper presents findings of the research concerning NGO roles and approaches, discusses existing NGO activities in the sanitation sector in Vietnam and Timor Leste and identifies strategies for NGOs and for other sector actors including utilities and government agencies to maximise the benefits of NGO engagement in the sanitation sector.

Measurement of Scientific Productivity in R&D Sector: Changing paradigm.

PubMed

Kumar, Abhishek; Srivastava, Alpana; Kumar, R P Jeevan; Tiwari, Rajesh K

2017-01-01

Scientific Productivity is a demand of policy makers for a judicious utilization of massive R&D budget allocated and utilized. A huge mass of intellectual assets is employed, which after investing manpower, infrastructure and lab consumables demand for a major outcome which contributes towards building nation's economy. Scientific productivity was only measured through publications or patents. Patents, earmarked as a strong parameter for innovation generation, where, Word Intellectual Property Organisation generated a data on applications for the top 20 offices for patents, where Australia, Brazil and Canada occupied top 3 positions. India ranked 9th with the total patent applications rising from 39762 (2010) to 42854 (2014) i.e. 15%, whereas, it contributes around 2% Patents (innovative productivity) on global scale. Many studies have come forward interestingly within scientific and academic domains in the form of measurement of scientific performance, however, development of productivity indicators and calculation of Scientific Productivity (SP) as a holistic evaluation system is a significant demand. SP, a herculean task is envisaged for productivity analysis and would submit significant factors towards fabricating an effective measurement engine in a holistic manner viable for an individual and organization, being supplementary to each other. This review projects the significance of performance measurement system in R&D through identification and standardization of key parameters. It also includes emphasis on inclusion of standardized parameters, effective for performance measurement which is applicable for scientists, technical staff as well as lab as a facility. This review aims at providing an insight to the evaluators, policy makers, and high level scientific panels to stimulate the scientific intellects on identified indicators so that their work proceeds to generate productive outcome contributing to the economic growth. Copyright© Bentham Science

Cross-sector Service Provision in Health and Social Care: An Umbrella Review.

PubMed

Winters, Shannon; Magalhaes, Lilian; Anne Kinsella, Elizabeth; Kothari, Anita

2016-04-08

Meeting the complex health needs of people often requires interaction among numerous different sectors. No one service can adequately respond to the diverse care needs of consumers. Providers working more effectively together is frequently touted as the solution. Cross-sector service provision is defined as independent, yet interconnected sectors working together to better meet the needs of consumers and improve the quality and effectiveness of service provision. Cross-sector service provision is expected, yet much remains unknown about how it is conceptualised or its impact on health status. This umbrella review aims to clarify the critical attributes that shape cross-sector service provision by presenting the current state of the literature and building on the findings of the 2004 review by Sloper. Literature related to cross-sector service provision is immense, which poses a challenge for decision makers wishing to make evidence-informed decisions. An umbrella review was conducted to articulate the overall state of cross-sector service provision literature and examine the evidence to allow for the discovery of consistencies and discrepancies across the published knowledge base. Sixteen reviews met the inclusion criteria. Seven themes emerged: Focusing on the consumer, developing a shared vision of care, leadership involvement, service provision across the boundaries, adequately resourcing the arrangement, developing novel arrangements or aligning with existing relationships, and strengthening connections between sectors. Future research from a cross-organisational, rather than individual provider, perspective is needed to better understand what shapes cross-sector service provision at the boundaries. Findings aligned closely with the work done by Sloper and raise red flags related to reinventing what is already known. Future researchers should look to explore novel areas rather than looking into areas that have been explored at length. Evaluations of out

Measuring organizational flexibility in community pharmacy: Building the capacity to implement cognitive pharmaceutical services.

PubMed

Feletto, Eleonora; Wilson, Laura Kate; Roberts, Alison Sarah; Benrimoj, Shalom Isaac

2011-03-01

Community pharmacy is undergoing transformation with increasing pressure to build its capacity to deliver cognitive pharmaceutical services ("services"). The theoretical framework of organizational flexibility (OF) may be used to assess the capacity of community pharmacy to implement change programs and guide capacity-building initiatives. To test the applicability of an existing scale measuring OF to the industry of community pharmacy in Australia. A mail survey was used to test a preexisting scale measuring OF amended from 28 items to 20 items testing 3 underlying factors of operational, structural, and strategic flexibility in the Australian community pharmacy context. The sample was 2006 randomly-stratified community pharmacies. A confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to assess the validity and reliability of the 1-factor models for each underlying construct and the full measurement model. Responses were received from a total of 395 (19.7%) community pharmacies. The 1-factor models of operational, structural, and strategic flexibility fit the data with appropriate respecification. Overall, the favorable fit of the individual factor constructs suggested that the multiple-factor measurement model should be tested. However, this model did not yield an interpretable response. Operational flexibility covaried negatively to the other factors, whereas structural and strategic flexibility shared covariance. Despite this, the results highlighting the individual factor fit suggest the constructs have application to pharmacy. The individual OF constructs were useful in the development and initial testing of a scale adapted for community pharmacy. When further developed and validated, the scale could be used to identify group of pharmacies that require individualized assistance to build capacity and integrate services and other new endeavors. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Life cycle assessment: Existing building retrofit versus replacement

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Darabi, Nura

The embodied energy in building materials constitutes a large part of the total energy required for any building (Thormark 2001, 429). In working to make buildings more energy efficient this needs to be considered. Integrating considerations about life cycle assessment for buildings and materials is one promising way to reduce the amount of energy consumption being used within the building sector and the environmental impacts associated with that energy. A life cycle assessment (LCA) model can be utilized to help evaluate the embodied energy in building materials in comparison to the buildings operational energy. This thesis takes into consideration the potential life cycle reductions in energy and CO2 emissions that can be made through an energy retrofit of an existing building verses demolition and replacement with a new energy efficient building. A 95,000 square foot institutional building built in the 1960`s was used as a case study for a building LCA, along with a calibrated energy model of the existing building created as part of a previous Masters of Building Science thesis. The chosen case study building was compared to 10 possible improvement options of either energy retrofit or replacement of the existing building with a higher energy performing building in order to see the life cycle relationship between embodied energy, operational energy, and C02 emissions. As a result of completing the LCA, it is shown under which scenarios building retrofit saves more energy over the lifespan of the building than replacement with new construction. It was calculated that energy retrofit of the chosen existing institutional building would reduce the amount of energy and C02 emissions associated with that building over its life span.

Measures to reduce construction time of high-rise buildings

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kolchedantsev, Leonid; Adamtsevich, Aleksey; Stupakova, Olga; Drozdov, Alexander

2018-03-01

The organizational and technological solutions for high-rise buildings construction efficiency increase are considered, primarily - decrease of typical floor construction time and improvement of bearing structures concrete quality. The essence of offered technology is: a concrete mixing station and a polygon mainly for load-bearing wall panels with starter bars casting are located on the building site; for reinforced concrete components manufacturing and butt joints grouting the warmed-up concrete mixtures are used. The results of researches and elaborations carried out by the SPSUACE in area of a preliminary warming-up of concrete mixtures are presented. The possibility and feasibility of their usage in high-rise buildings and of excess height buildings construction including cast-in-place and precast execution are shown. The essence of heat-vibro treating of concrete mixture is revealed as a kind of prior electroresistive curing, and the achieved results are: accelerated concrete strength gain, power inputs decrease, concrete quality improvement. It is shown that the location of a concrete mixing station on the building site enables to broaden possibilities of the "thermos" method use and to avoid concrete mixtures warming up in medium-mass structures erection (columns, girders) during the high-rise buildings construction. It is experimentally proved that the splice between precast elements encased with warmed-up concrete mixture is equal with conjugated elements in strength.

Sectoral Economies, Economic Contexts, and Attitudes toward Immigration

PubMed Central

Donnelly, Michael J.

2013-01-01

Do economic considerations shape attitudes toward immigration? In this article, we consider the relationship between economic interests and immigration preferences by examining how developments in individuals' sectors of employment affect these views. Using survey data across European countries from 2002 to 2009 and employing new measures of industry-level exposure to immigration, we find that sectoral economies shape opinions about immigration. Individuals employed in growing sectors are more likely to support immigration than are those employed in shrinking sectors. Moreover, the economic context matters: Making use of the exogenous shock to national economies represented by the 2008 financial crisis, we show that sector-level inflows of immigrant workers have little effect on preferences when economies are expanding, but that they dampen support for immigration when economic conditions deteriorate and confidence in the economy declines. These sectoral effects remain even when controlling for natives' views about the impact of immigration on the national economy and culture. When evaluating immigration policy, individuals thus appear to take into account whether their sector of employment benefits economically from immigration. PMID:24363457

Sectoral Economies, Economic Contexts, and Attitudes toward Immigration.

PubMed

Dancygier, Rafaela M; Donnelly, Michael J

2013-01-01

Do economic considerations shape attitudes toward immigration? In this article, we consider the relationship between economic interests and immigration preferences by examining how developments in individuals' sectors of employment affect these views. Using survey data across European countries from 2002 to 2009 and employing new measures of industry-level exposure to immigration, we find that sectoral economies shape opinions about immigration. Individuals employed in growing sectors are more likely to support immigration than are those employed in shrinking sectors. Moreover, the economic context matters: Making use of the exogenous shock to national economies represented by the 2008 financial crisis, we show that sector-level inflows of immigrant workers have little effect on preferences when economies are expanding, but that they dampen support for immigration when economic conditions deteriorate and confidence in the economy declines. These sectoral effects remain even when controlling for natives' views about the impact of immigration on the national economy and culture. When evaluating immigration policy, individuals thus appear to take into account whether their sector of employment benefits economically from immigration.

Biotechnology developments in the livestock sector in developing countries.

PubMed

Onteru, Suneel; Ampaire, Agatha; Rothschild, Max

2010-01-01

Global meat and milk consumption is exponentially increasing due to population growth, urbanization and changes in lifestyle in the developing world. This is an excellent opportunity for developing countries to improve the livestock sector by using technological advances. Biotechnology is one of the avenues for improved production in the "Livestock revolution". Biotechnology developments applied to livestock health, nutrition, breeding and reproduction are improving with a reasonable pace in developing countries. Simple bio-techniques such as artificial insemination have been well implemented in many parts of the developing world. However, advanced technologies including transgenic plant vaccines, marker assisted selection, solid state fermentation for the production of fibrolytic enzymes, transgenic fodders, embryo transfer and animal cloning are confined largely to research organizations. Some developing countries such as Taiwan, China and Brazil have considered the commercialization of biotechnology in the livestock sector. Organized livestock production systems, proper record management, capacity building, objective oriented research to improve farmer's income, collaborations with the developed world, knowledge of the sociology of an area and research on new methods to educate farmers and policy makers need to be improved for the creation and implementation of biotechnology advances in the livestock sector in the developing world.

Impact of Clean Energy R&D on the U.S. Power Sector

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Donohoo-Vallett, Paul; Mai, Trieu; Mowers, Matthew

The U.S. government, along with other governments, private corporations and organizations, invests significantly in research, development, demonstration and deployment (RDD&D) activities in clean energy technologies, in part to achieve the goal of a clean, secure, and reliable energy system. While specific outcomes and breakthroughs resulting from RDD&D investment are unpredictable, it can be instructive to explore the potential impacts of clean energy RDD&D activities in the power sector and to place those impacts in the context of current and anticipated market trends. This analysis builds on and leverages analysis by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) titled “Energy CO 2more » Emissions Impacts of Clean Energy Technology Innovation and Policy” (DOE 2017). Similar to DOE (2017), we explore how additional improvements in cost and performance of clean energy technologies could impact the future U.S. energy system; however, unlike the economy-wide modeling used in DOE (2017) our analysis is focused solely on the electricity sector and applies a different and more highly spatially-resolved electric sector model. More specifically, we apply a scenario analysis approach to explore how assumed further advancements in clean electricity technologies would impact power sector generation mix, electricity system costs, and power sector carbon dioxide (CO 2) emissions.« less

Short Summary European Reports on Retail Sector, Motor Vehicle Repair and Sales Sector, Food and Beverages Sector.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training, Berlin (Germany).

This document is composed of European synthesis reports on retail trade, the agro-food sector, and the motor vehicle sales and repair sector. They are based on the most important findings of the European report and the 12 national reports for each sector. Section 1, "Retail Sector," deals in part 1 with the structure of retailing in the…

Building Energy-Efficiency Best Practice Policies and Policy Packages

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Levine, Mark; de la Rue de Can, Stephane; Zheng, Nina

2012-10-26

This report addresses the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions and the greatest opportunity to reduce these emissions. The IPCC 4 th Assessment Report estimates that globally 35% to 40% of all energy-related CO2 emissions (relative to a growing baseline) result from energy use in buildings. Emissions reductions from a combination of energy efficiency and conservation (using less energy) in buildings have the potential to cut emissions as much as all other energy-using sectors combined. This is especially the case for China, India and other developing countries that are expected to account for 80% or more of growth inmore » building energy use worldwide over the coming decades. In short, buildings constitute the largest opportunity to mitigate climate change and special attention needs to be devoted to developing countries.« less

Capacity building in the health sector to improve care for child nutrition and development.

PubMed

Yousafzai, Aisha K; Rasheed, Muneera A; Daelmans, Bernadette; Manji, Sheila; Arnold, Caroline; Lingam, Raghu; Muskin, Joshua; Lucas, Jane E

2014-01-01

The effectiveness of interventions promoting healthy child growth and development depends upon the capacity of the health system to deliver a high-quality intervention. However, few health workers are trained in providing integrated early child-development services. Building capacity entails not only training the frontline worker, but also mobilizing knowledge and support to promote early child development across the health system. In this paper, we present the paradigm shift required to build effective partnerships between health workers and families in order to support children's health, growth, and development, the practical skills frontline health workers require to promote optimal caregiving, and the need for knowledge mobilization across multiple institutional levels to support frontline health workers. We present case studies illustrating challenges and success stories around capacity development. There is a need to galvanize increased commitment and resources to building capacity in health systems to deliver early child-development services. © 2014 New York Academy of Sciences.

Developing Common Measures in Evaluation Capacity Building: An Iterative Science and Practice Process

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Labin, Susan N.

2014-01-01

A fundamental reason for doing evaluation capacity building (ECB) is to improve program outcomes. Developing common measures of outcomes and the activities, processes, and factors that lead to these outcomes is an important step in moving the science and the practice of ECB forward. This article identifies a number of existing ECB measurement…

[The evaluation of biological effects of exposure to respirable crystalline silica in building industry].

PubMed

Pira, E; Piolatto, P G

2012-01-01

The building industry entails the exposure to Respirable Crystalline Silica (RCS), though there is a large variability among different sectors. The environmental values reported for the current conditions seem to be relatively low. For example the mean exposure estimated by IOM for all industrial sectors in the EU is 0.07 mg/m3. There are few studies in the building sector which show similar values. This is obviously not representative of past exposure. Moreover, the problems of sampling and analysis techniques are still at issue. The well known effect of RCS exposure is silicosis. The carcinogenicity of RCS is still under debate, especially regarding the question of whether RCS is carcinogenic "per se" or whether the risk of developing lung cancer is mediated by silicosis. Although the IARC includes RCS in the Group I (human carcinogen), the reference should be the CLP regulation, of which carcinogen definition criteria allow to state that today there are not sufficient data to classify RCS as a carcinogen and that it seems more appropriate to include RCS in different STOT.RE categories. This is valid for building industry as well as for the other industrial sectors. In Italy the recommended exposure limit is the ACGIH value of 0.025 mg/m3. At EU level it is still debated which is the best choice, based on cost/benefits evaluation, among the following limit values: 0.2, 0.1 and 0.05 respectively. The authors obviously believe that the most protective value should be adopted.

The impact of green building approach to office property value

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sitanggang, Yosephine; Susanto, Dalhar

2017-12-01

A real estate development often produces negative impacts towards the environment such as the reduction of the ecological capacity in the site and its surroundings, energy exploitation, and excessive pollutant emission. To overcome these issues, the green building concept or approach has been adapted by several real estate businesses in Indonesia especially in the office sector. According to the data provided by GBCI in 2017, there are 17 buildings listed as a certified green building office in various levels. As what has been known, the green building approach results in the increase of price in the planning, construction and the building's maintenance. This paper will discuss about the research results regarding the effect of the green building approach towards the property value of office buildings especially in Jakarta. The research will be executed through the comparison method, which is the process of comparing office building that have already adapted the green building concept with the one that have not, or in other words, the conventional office buildings. Data gathering is done through observation and interviews with developers and building managers. The research results show that by adapting the green building approach for office buildings in Jakarta, the property value regarding the utility, scarcity, effective demands, and transferability aspect can increase.

Response measurements for two building structures excited by noise from a large horizontal axis wind turbine generator

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hubbard, H. H.; Shepherd, K. P.

1984-01-01

Window and wall acceleration measurements and interior noise measurements ere made for two different building structures during excitation by noise from the WTS-4 horizontal axis wind turbine generator operating in a normal power generation mode. With turbine noise input pulses resulted in acceleration pulses for the wall and window elements of the two tests buildings. Response spectra suggest that natural vibration modes of the structures are excited. Responses of a house trailer were substantially greater than those for a building of sturdier construction. Peak acceleration values correlate well with similar data for houses excited by flyover noise from commercial and military airplanes and helicopters, and sonic booms from supersonic aircraft. Interior noise spectra have peaks at frequencies corresponding to structural vibration modes and room standing waves; and the levels for particular frequencies and locations can be higher than the outside levels.

Improving quality: bridging the health sector divide.

PubMed

Pringle, Mike

2003-12-01

All too often, quality assurance looks at just one small part of the complex system that is health care. However, evidently each individual patient has one set of experiences and outcomes, often involving a range of health professionals in a number of settings across multiple sectors. In order to solve the problems of this complexity, we need to establish high-quality electronic recording in each of the settings. In the UK, primary care has been leading the way in adopting information technology and can now use databases for individual clinical care, for quality assurance using significant event and conventional auditing, and for research. Before we can understand and quality-assure the whole health care system, we need electronic patient records in all settings and good communication to build a summary electronic health record for each patient. Such an electronic health record will be under the control of the patient concerned, will be shared with the explicit consent of the patient, and will form the vehicle for quality assurance across all sectors of the health service.

Identification of ergonomics interventions used to reduce musculoskeletal loading for building installation tasks.

PubMed

Albers, Jim; Estill, Cherie; MacDonald, Leslie

2005-07-01

Skilled workers in the mechanical and electrical installation (M/EI) building and construction trades experience high rates of disabling work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs). The M/EI trades involve installing piping; heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC), and electrical systems in residential, commercial, and industrial buildings. In the absence of an ergonomics standard in the United States, some building and construction contractors, including M/EI sector contractors, have implemented various ergonomics interventions on their worksites on a voluntary basis. However, no data were available to determine the type of voluntary control measures being implemented, the task-specific hazards for which control measures needed to be developed or refined, and perceived barriers to improving hazard control. As part of a larger effort to obtain this data, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) organized a stakeholder meeting to gather information regarding ergonomics interventions or "best practices" by M/EI contractors and tradespeople. The attendees included 39 industry representatives, 17 construction ergonomics researchers from government and academia, and four ergonomics consultants with experience in the construction industry. Participants spent more than 50% of time meeting in small trade-specific breakout sessions. According to the participants, tasks common to the three trades included (1) drill holes and shoot fasteners; (2) place and install systems, and (3) lift and carry materials and equipment. Engineering interventions described in the stakeholder meeting included tools, equipment, and engineered building materials; administrative controls largely consisted of training and education programs and modifications of work and management practice. Most participants believed that there were significant limits to the impact individual contractors and tradespeople could have in leading ergonomics improvement in the

High Energy Colliders and Hidden Sectors

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dror, Asaf Jeff

This thesis explores two dominant frontiers of theoretical physics, high energy colliders and hidden sectors. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is just starting to reach its maximum operational capabilities. However, already with the current data, large classes of models are being put under significant pressure. It is crucial to understand whether the (thus far) null results are a consequence of a lack of solution to the hierarchy problem around the weak scale or requires expanding the search strategy employed at the LHC. It is the duty of the current generation of physicists to design new searches to ensure that no stone is left unturned. To this end, we study the sensitivity of the LHC to the couplings in the Standard Model top sector. We find it can significantly improve the measurements on ZtRtR coupling by a novel search strategy, making use of an implied unitarity violation in such models. Analogously, we show that other couplings in the top sector can also be measured with the same technique. Furthermore, we critically analyze a set of anomalies in the LHC data and how they may appear from consistent UV completions. We also propose a technique to measure lifetimes of new colored particles with non-trivial spin. While the high energy frontier will continue to take data, it is likely the only collider of its kind for the next couple decades. On the other hand, low-energy experiments have a promising future with many new proposed experiments to probe the existence of particles well below the weak scale but with small couplings to the Standard Model. In this work we survey the different possibilities, focusingon the constraints as well as possible new hidden sector dynamics. In particular, we show that vector portals which couple to an anomalous current, e.g., baryon number, are significantly constrained from flavor changing meson decays and rare Z decays. Furthermore, we present a new mechanism for dark matter freezeout which depletes the dark sector through an

First regulatory inspections measuring adherence to Good Pharmacy Practices in the public sector in Uganda: a cross-sectional comparison of performance between supervised and unsupervised facilities.

PubMed

Trap, Birna; Kikule, Kate; Vialle-Valentin, Catherine; Musoke, Richard; Lajul, Grace Otto; Hoppenworth, Kim; Konradsen, Dorthe

2016-01-01

Since its inception, the Uganda National Drug Authority (NDA) has regularly inspected private sector pharmacies to monitor adherence to Good Pharmacy Practices (GPP). This study reports findings from the first public facility inspections following an intervention (SPARS: Supervision, Performance Assessment, and Recognition Strategy) to build GPP and medicines management capacity in the public sector. The study includes 455 public facilities: 417 facilities were inspected after at least four SPARS visits by trained managerial district staff (SPARS group), 38 before any exposure to SPARS. NDA inspectors measured 10 critical, 20 major, and 37 minor GPP indicators in every facility and only accredited facilities that passed all 10 critical and failed no more than 7 major indicators. Lack of compliance for a given indicator was defined as less than 75 % facilities passing that indicator. We assessed factors associated with certification using logistic regression analysis and compared number of failed indicators between the SPARS and comparative groups using two sample t-tests with equal or unequal variance. 57.4 % of inspected facilities obtained GPP certification: 57.1 % in the SPARS and 60.5 % in the comparative group (Adj. OR = 0.91, 95 % CI 0.45-1.85, p = 0.802). Overall, facilities failed an average of 10 indicators. SPARS facilities performed better than comparative facilities (9 (SD 6.1) vs. 13 (SD 7.7) failed indicators respectively; p = 0.017), and SPARS supported facilities scored better on indicators covered by SPARS. For all indicators but one minor, performance in the SPARS group was equal to or significantly better than in unsupervised facilities. Within the SPARS (intervention) group, certified facilities had < 75 % compliance on 7 indicators (all minor), and uncertified facilities on 19 (4 critical, 2 major, and 13 minor) indicators. Half of the Ugandan population obtains medicines from the public sector. Yet, we found only 3/5 of

Modeling of indoor radon concentration from radon exhalation rates of building materials and validation through measurements.

PubMed

Kumar, Amit; Chauhan, R P; Joshi, Manish; Sahoo, B K

2014-01-01

Building materials are the second major source of indoor radon after soil. The contribution of building materials towards indoor radon depends upon the radium content and exhalation rates and can be used as a primary index for radon levels in the dwellings. The radon flux data from the building materials was used for calculation of the indoor radon concentrations and doses by many researchers using one and two dimensional model suggested by various researchers. In addition to radium content, the radon wall flux from a surface strongly depends upon the radon diffusion length (L) and thickness of the wall (2d). In the present work the indoor radon concentrations from the measured radon exhalation rate of building materials calculated using different models available in literature and validation of models was made through measurement. The variation in the predicted radon flux from different models was compared with d/L value for wall and roofs of different dwellings. The results showed that the radon concentrations predicted by models agree with experimental value. The applicability of different model with d/L ratio was discussed. The work aims to select a more appropriate and general model among available models in literature for the prediction of indoor radon. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Combustion Temperature Measurement by Spontaneous Raman Scattering in a Jet-A Fueled Gas Turbine Combustor Sector

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hicks, Yolanda R.; DeGroot, Wilhelmus A.; Locke, Randy J.; Anderson, Robert C.

2002-01-01

Spontaneous vibrational Raman scattering was used to measure temperature in an aviation combustor sector burning jet fuel. The inlet temperature ranged from 670 K (750 F) to 756 K (900 F) and pressures from 13 to 55 bar. With the exception of a discrepancy that we attribute to soot, good agreement was seen between the Raman-derived temperatures and the theoretical temperatures calculated from the inlet conditions. The technique used to obtain the temperature uses the relationship between the N2 anti-Stokes and Stokes signals, within a given Raman spectrum. The test was performed using a NASA-concept fuel injector and Jet-A fuel over a range of fuel/air ratios. This work represents the first such measurements in a high-pressure, research aero-combustor facility.

Analysis of Installed Measures and Energy Savings for Single-Family Residential Better Buildings Projects

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Heaney, M.; Polly, B.

2015-04-30

This report presents an analysis of data for residential single-family projects reported by 37 organizations that were awarded federal financial assistance (cooperative agreements or grants) by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Better Buildings Neighborhood Program.1 The report characterizes the energy-efficiency measures installed for single-family residential projects and analyzes energy savings and savings prediction accuracy for measures installed in a subset of those projects.

Designing Graduate-Level Plant Breeding Curriculum: A Delphi Study of Private Sector Stakeholder Opinions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Miller, Jane K.; Repinski, Shelby L.; Hayes, Kathryn N.; Bliss, Frederick A.; Trexler, Cary J.

2011-01-01

A broad-based survey using the Delphi method was conducted to garner current information from private sector stakeholders and build consensus opinions supporting key ideas for enhancing plant breeder education and training. This study asked respondents to suggest and rate topics and content they deemed most important to plant breeding graduate…

Vision-based building energy diagnostics and retrofit analysis using 3D thermography and building information modeling

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ham, Youngjib

The emerging energy crisis in the building sector and the legislative measures on improving energy efficiency are steering the construction industry towards adopting new energy efficient design concepts and construction methods that decrease the overall energy loads. However, the problems of energy efficiency are not only limited to the design and construction of new buildings. Today, a significant amount of input energy in existing buildings is still being wasted during the operational phase. One primary source of the energy waste is attributed to unnecessary heat flows through building envelopes during hot and cold seasons. This inefficiency increases the operational frequency of heating and cooling systems to keep the desired thermal comfort of building occupants, and ultimately results in excessive energy use. Improving thermal performance of building envelopes can reduce the energy consumption required for space conditioning and in turn provide building occupants with an optimal thermal comfort at a lower energy cost. In this sense, energy diagnostics and retrofit analysis for existing building envelopes are key enablers for improving energy efficiency. Since proper retrofit decisions of existing buildings directly translate into energy cost saving in the future, building practitioners are increasingly interested in methods for reliable identification of potential performance problems so that they can take timely corrective actions. However, sensing what and where energy problems are emerging or are likely to emerge and then analyzing how the problems influence the energy consumption are not trivial tasks. The overarching goal of this dissertation focuses on understanding the gaps in knowledge in methods for building energy diagnostics and retrofit analysis, and filling these gaps by devising a new method for multi-modal visual sensing and analytics using thermography and Building Information Modeling (BIM). First, to address the challenges in scaling and

Building Leadership Capacity in Early Childhood Pre-Service Teachers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Campbell-Evans, Glenda; Stamopoulos, Elizabeth; Maloney, Carmel

2014-01-01

Building leadership capacity has emerged as a key concern within the early childhood profession in Australia as the sector responds to recent national reforms focusing on raising standards and improving quality provision of services. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the discussion around these reforms and to make a case for changes…

Does an expansion in private sector contraceptive supply increase inequality in modern contraceptive use?

PubMed

Agha, Sohail; Do, Mai

2008-11-01

To determine whether an expansion in private sector contraceptive supply is associated with increased socio-economic inequality in the modern contraceptive prevalence rate (MCPR inequality). Multiple rounds of Demographic and Health Surveys data were analysed for five countries that experienced an increase in the private sector supply of contraceptives: Morocco, Indonesia, Kenya, Ghana and Bangladesh. Information on household assets and amenities was used to construct wealth quintiles. A concentration index, which calculates the degree of inequality in contraceptive use by wealth, was calculated for each survey round. Socio-economic inequality in the MCPR (MCPR inequality) declined in Morocco and Indonesia, where substantial expansion in private sector contraceptive supply occurred. In both countries, poor women continued to rely heavily on contraceptives supplied by the public sector even as they increased use of contraceptives obtained from the private sector. A marginally significant decline in MCPR inequality occurred in Bangladesh, where the increase in private sector supply was modest. There was no significant overall change in MCPR inequality in Kenya or Ghana. In Kenya, this lack of significant overall change disguised trends moving in opposite directions in urban and rural areas. In urban Kenya, MCPR inequality declined as low-income urban women increased use of contraceptives obtained primarily from the public sector. In rural Kenya, MCPR inequality increased. This increase was associated with a decline in the supply of contraceptives by the public sector and non-governmental organizations to the poorest, rural, women. The study found no support for the hypothesis that an increase in private sector contraceptive supply leads to higher MCPR inequality. The findings suggest that continued public sector supply of contraceptives to the poorest women protects against increased MCPR inequality. The study highlights the role of the public sector in building

Chilly dark sectors and asymmetric reheating

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Adshead, Peter; Cui, Yanou; Shelton, Jessie

2016-06-01

In a broad class of theories, the relic abundance of dark matter is determined by interactions internal to a thermalized dark sector, with no direct involvement of the Standard Model (SM). We point out that these theories raise an immediate cosmological question: how was the dark sector initially populated in the early universe? Motivated in part by the difficulty of accommodating large amounts of entropy carried in dark radiation with cosmic microwave background measurements of the effective number of relativistic species at recombination, N eff , we aim to establish which admissible cosmological histories can populate a thermal dark sector that never reaches thermal equilibrium with the SM. The minimal cosmological origin for such a dark sector is asymmetric reheating, when the same mechanism that populates the SM in the early universe also populates the dark sector at a lower temperature. Here we demonstrate that the resulting inevitable inflaton-mediated scattering between the dark sector and the SM can wash out a would-be temperature asymmetry, and establish the regions of parameter space where temperature asymmetries can be generated in minimal reheating scenarios. Thus obtaining a temperature asymmetry of a given size either restricts possible inflaton masses and couplings or necessitates a non-minimal cosmology for one or both sectors. As a side benefit, we develop techniques for evaluating collision terms in the relativistic Boltzmann equation when the full dependence on Bose-Einstein or Fermi-Dirac phase space distributions must be retained, and present several new results on relativistic thermal averages in an appendix.

Building Sustainable Health and Education Partnerships: Stories From Local Communities

PubMed Central

Blank, Martin J

2015-01-01

BACKGROUND Growing health disparities have a negative impact on young people's educational achievement. Community schools that involve deep relationships with partners across multiple domains address these disparities by providing opportunities and services that promote healthy development of young people, and enable them to graduate from high school ready for college, technical school, on-the-job training, career, and citizenship. METHODS Results from Milwaukie High School, North Clackamas, OR; Oakland Unified School District, Oakland, CA; and Cincinnati Community Learning Centers, Cincinnati, OH were based on a review of local site documents, web-based information, interviews, and e-mail communication with key local actors. RESULTS The schools and districts with strong health partnerships reflecting community schools strategy have shown improvements in attendance, academic performance, and increased access to mental, dental, vision, and health supports for their students. CONCLUSIONS To build deep health-education partnerships and grow community schools, a working leadership and management infrastructure must be in place that uses quality data, focuses on results, and facilitates professional development across sectors. The leadership infrastructure of community school initiatives offers a prototype on which others can build. Moreover, as leaders build cross-sector relationships, a clear definition of what scaling up means is essential for subsequent long-term systemic change. PMID:26440823

Application of validity theory and methodology to patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs): building an argument for validity.

PubMed

Hawkins, Melanie; Elsworth, Gerald R; Osborne, Richard H

2018-07-01

Data from subjective patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) are now being used in the health sector to make or support decisions about individuals, groups and populations. Contemporary validity theorists define validity not as a statistical property of the test but as the extent to which empirical evidence supports the interpretation of test scores for an intended use. However, validity testing theory and methodology are rarely evident in the PROM validation literature. Application of this theory and methodology would provide structure for comprehensive validation planning to support improved PROM development and sound arguments for the validity of PROM score interpretation and use in each new context. This paper proposes the application of contemporary validity theory and methodology to PROM validity testing. The validity testing principles will be applied to a hypothetical case study with a focus on the interpretation and use of scores from a translated PROM that measures health literacy (the Health Literacy Questionnaire or HLQ). Although robust psychometric properties of a PROM are a pre-condition to its use, a PROM's validity lies in the sound argument that a network of empirical evidence supports the intended interpretation and use of PROM scores for decision making in a particular context. The health sector is yet to apply contemporary theory and methodology to PROM development and validation. The theoretical and methodological processes in this paper are offered as an advancement of the theory and practice of PROM validity testing in the health sector.

Building new WDM regulations for the Namibian tourism sector on factors influencing current water-management practices at the enterprise level

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schachtschneider, Klaudia

Namibia's aridity is forcing its water sector to resort to new water resource management approaches, including water demand management (WDM). Such a change in management approach is facilitated through the country's opportunity at independence to rewrite and adapt its old policies, including those for water and tourism. Legal support for WDM through the Water Act and other sector-specific Acts is crucial to plan the practical implementation of WDM throughout the different water use sectors of Namibia. In order to be able to put the policy into practice, it is imperative to understand which factors motivate people to adopt WDM initiatives. Within the Namibian tourism industry three main factors have been identified which influence the water-management approaches at tourist facilities. This paper discusses how the water and tourism decision makers can consider these factors when developing new regulations to introduce WDM in the tourism sector.

Indoor air quality and health in two office buildings with different ventilation systems

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Hedge, A.; Sterling, T.D.; Sterling, E.M.

1989-01-01

Measurements of indoor air pollutants were taken in (1) an air conditioned and (2) an adjacent, naturally ventilated office of a public sector organization. Self-administered questionnaires on the work environment and health were distributed to all workers. No differences in concentrations of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, ozone, and total oxidants were found between buildings. Concentrations of formaldehyde, volatile organic compounds, and respirable particulates were higher in the air conditioned offices. Symptoms of sleepiness, nasal irritation, concentration difficulties, cold/flu-like symptoms, and eye focusing problems were significantly more prevalent in the air conditioned offices. In the air conditioned offices, most symptoms weremore » significantly more prevalent among women than men. Passive smoking was associated with symptom prevalence, but alcohol, tea, and coffee consumption was unrelated. No significant correlations between pollutant concentrations and symptom prevalence were found, however, recalled reports of leaving work early because of feeling ill were significantly correlated with formaldehyde levels in the air conditioned building.« less

Community Education and Youth Mentoring: How to Build Good Practice?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Broadbent, Robyn; Papadopoulos, Theo

2009-01-01

In 2008, the Helen Macpherson Smith (HMS) Trust commissioned Victoria University to conduct an evaluation of the Mentoring and Capacity Building Initiative's Regional Coordination Projects (RCPs). The RCPs are founded on a model of community education and collaboration that aims to enhance cross-sectoral and whole-of-community approaches to…

Leadership, institution building and pay-back of health systems research in Mexico

PubMed Central

González-Block, Miguel Angel

2009-01-01

Background Health systems research is being increasingly called upon to support scaling up of disease control interventions and to support rapid health sector change. Yet research capacity building and pay-back take years or even decades to be demonstrated, while leadership and institution building are critical for their success. The case of Mexico can be illustrative for middle income countries and emerging economies striving to build health research systems. Methods Historical reflection suggests the relationship between health sector reforms and economic crisis, on the one hand, and research capacity building and payback, on the other. Mexico's post-revolutionary background and its three health sector reforms are analyzed to identify the emphases given to health systems research. Results The first wave of health reform in the 1940s emphasized clinical and epidemiological research. Health systems research was not encouraged in a context of rapid economic development and an authoritarian regime. In contrast, health systems research was given a privileged place with the second wave of health reforms in the 1980s, which addressed health system coordination, decentralization and the universal right to health in a context of a deep economic crisis. The third wave of health reforms between 2003 and 2006 was based on the health system models proposed through research in the 90s. The credibility gained by research institutions was critical to ensure government uptake. Research influence can be traced through the role it played in defining a problem, in designing innovative insurance mechanisms and in establishing evaluation frameworks. It is argued that the Ministry of Health's budget increase of 56% between 2003 and 2006 and the reductions in inequity are pay-back to research investments since the 1980s. PMID:19793399

OpenADR Specification to Ease Saving Power in Buildings

ScienceCinema

Piette, Mary Ann

2017-12-09

A new data model developed by researchers at the Department of Energys Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and their colleagues at other universities and in the private sector will help facilities and buildings save power through automated demand response technology, and advance the development of the Smart Grid. http://newscenter.lbl.gov/press-releases/2009/04/27/openadr-specification/

Research on the Implementation of Technological Measures for Controlling Indoor Environmental Quality in Green Residential Buildings

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Ruozhu; Liu, Pengda; Qian, Yongmei

2018-02-01

This paper analyzes the design technology of controlling indoor quality in engineering practice, it is proposed that, in framework system of green residential building design, how to realize the design idea of controlling the indoor environment quality, and the design technology with feasibility, including the sunshine and lighting, indoor air quality and thermal environment, sound insulation and noise reduction measures, etc.. The results of all will provide a good theoretical supportting for the design of green residential building.

Sector retinitis pigmentosa.

PubMed

Van Woerkom, Craig; Ferrucci, Steven

2005-05-01

Retinitis pigmentosa (RP) is one of the most common hereditary retinal dystrophies and causes of visual impairment affecting all age groups. The reported incidence varies, but is considered to be between 1 in 3,000 to 1 in 7,000. Sector retinitis pigmentosa is an atypical form of RP that is characterized by regionalized areas of bone spicule pigmentation, usually in the inferior quadrants of the retina. A 57-year-old Hispanic man with a history of previously diagnosed retinitis pigmentosa came to the clinic with a longstanding symptom of decreased vision at night. Bone spicule pigmentation was found in the nasal and inferior quadrants in each eye. He demonstrated superior and temporal visual-field loss corresponding to the areas of the affected retina. Clinical measurements of visual-field loss, best-corrected visual acuity, and ophthalmoscopic appearance have remained stable during the five years the patient has been followed. Sector retinitis pigmentosa is an atypical form of RP that is characterized by bilateral pigmentary retinopathy, usually isolated to the inferior quadrants. The remainder of the retina appears clinically normal, although studies have found functional abnormalities in these areas as well. Sector RP is generally considered a stationary to slowly progressive disease, with subnormal electro-retinogram findings and visual-field defects corresponding to the involved retinal sectors. Management of RP is very difficult because there are no proven methods of treatment. Studies have shown 15,000 IU of vitamin A palmitate per day may slow the progression, though this result is controversial. Low vision rehabilitation, long wavelength pass filters, and pedigree counseling remain the mainstay of management.

Attributes of the Federal Energy Management Program's Federal Site Building Characteristics Database

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Loper, Susan A.; Sandusky, William F.

2010-12-31

Typically, the Federal building stock is referred to as a group of about one-half million buildings throughout the United States. Additional information beyond this level is generally limited to distribution of that total by agency and maybe distribution of the total by state. However, additional characterization of the Federal building stock is required as the Federal sector seeks ways to implement efficiency projects to reduce energy and water use intensity as mandated by legislation and Executive Order. Using a Federal facility database that was assembled for use in a geographic information system tool, additional characterization of the Federal building stockmore » is provided including information regarding the geographical distribution of sites, building counts and percentage of total by agency, distribution of sites and building totals by agency, distribution of building count and floor space by Federal building type classification by agency, and rank ordering of sites, buildings, and floor space by state. A case study is provided regarding how the building stock has changed for the Department of Energy from 2000 through 2008.« less

Planning building energy conservation research in the US

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Abel, F.; LaMontagne, J.

1988-01-01

In the US, the federal government plays a key role in the development of energy conserving technologies and practices for buildings. The Office of Buildings and Community Systems (BCS) of the US Department of Energy provides federal leadership for both private and public sector activities in building energy conservation. The federal role in recent years has been largely limited to the development of technical options; behavioral and institutional factors are considered only to the extent necessary to inform the research planning process. Planning in the US requires dealing with uncertainties regarding the federal approach to energy conservation; this can change,more » often dramatically, with changes in administrations or changing economic and energy conditions. Thus federal research plans must be designed to be useful in a wide variety of circumstances. 7 refs.« less

Natural radioactivity measurements in building materials used in Samsun, Turkey.

PubMed

Tufan, M Çagatay; Disci, Tugba

2013-01-01

In this study, radioactivity levels of 35 different samples of 11 commonly used building materials in Samsun were measured by using a gamma spectrometry system. The analysis carried out with the high purity Germanium gamma spectrometry system. Radioactivity concentrations of (226)Ra, (232)Th and (40)K range from 6 to 54 Bq kg(-1), 5 to 88 Bq kg(-1) and 6 to 1070 Bq kg(-1), respectively. From these results, radium equivalent activities, gamma indexes, absorbed dose rates and annual effective doses were calculated for all samples. Obtained results were compared with the available data, and it was concluded that all the investigated materials did not have radiological risk.

Study of the possibilities of more rational use of energy in the sector of trade and commerce, part 2

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ebersbach, K. F.; Fischer, A.; Layer, G.; Steinberger, W.; Wegner, M.; Wiesner, B.

1982-07-01

The energy demand in the sector of trade and commerce was registered and analyzed. Measures to improve the energy demand structure are presented. In several typical firms like hotels, office buildings, locksmith's shops, motor vehicle repair shops, butcher's shops, laundries and bakeries, detailed surveys of energy consumption were done and included in a statistic evaluation. Subjects analyzed were: development of the energy supply; technology of energy application; final energy demand broken down into demand for light, power, space heating and process heat as well as the demand for cooling; daily and annual load curves of energy consumption and their dependence on various parameters; and measures to improve the structure of energy demand. Detailed measurement points out negligences in the surveyed firms and shows possibilities for likely energy savings. In addition, standard values for specific energy consumption are obtained.

Investigation on factors that contribute to the abandonment of building in construction industry in Malaysia

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Farhayu Ariffin, Nur; Jaafar, Mohd Faizal Md; Idris Ali, Mohamad; Irwan Ramli, Noram; Muthusamy, Khairunisa; Shukor Lim, Nor Hasanah Abdul

2018-03-01

In Malaysia, the construction sector is one of the important sectors that contribute to economic growth and employments. However, a major concern facing the construction industry is the growing rate of delays in project delivery. In the worse cases, the projects were abandoned due to some reasons when the contract period ended. Abandoned building defines as construction work that has been continuously stalled for 6 months or more, during the project completion period or beyond the scheduled date of completion. When the projects become abandoned, it gives an adverse effect on many parties such as the developer, contractor, consultant and also client. According to previous researchers, the abandonment of building causes a serious problem and need some mitigation plan to avoid this problem from occurring. This study will investigate the fundamental factors that contribute to the abandonment of building and projects in Malaysia based on the current data of the abandoned building in most states in Malaysia. The data was collected from the respondents who is in the construction industry and had experience working with abandoned housing project. Form the respondents perspective, it shows that the main factor contribute to the building abandonment is due to the financial problem facing by the developer company.

HIV / AIDS and the retail sector.

PubMed

Michael, K

1999-01-01

Employing approximately 1.5 million employees and comprised of 80,000 employers, the retail and wholesale sector accounted for 16.1% of South Africa's gross domestic product in 1996. HIV/AIDS threatens the retail sector, but it is unclear whether the pandemic threatens equally every sub-sector of the industry. The 4 main sub-sectors are fast-moving consumer goods; clothing, footwear, and textiles; vehicles; and furniture and major appliances. The nature of retail infrastructure and competitive and economic trends are described. Over the next decade, AIDS may reduce the size of consumer markets through increased mortality, and will certainly slow growth in spending. The pandemic may also divert spending away from retail merchandise to health care, and threaten businesses which extend credit and offer death benefits and funeral policies to clients. AIDS morbidity and mortality could also disrupt supply chains, especially for retailers who buy their products locally. The vulnerability of retail activities is discussed, with reference to the Living Standards Measure (LSM) developed by the South African Advertising Research Foundation.

Cross-sector Service Provision in Health and Social Care: An Umbrella Review

PubMed Central

Magalhaes, Lilian; Anne Kinsella, Elizabeth; Kothari, Anita

2016-01-01

Introduction: Meeting the complex health needs of people often requires interaction among numerous different sectors. No one service can adequately respond to the diverse care needs of consumers. Providers working more effectively together is frequently touted as the solution. Cross-sector service provision is defined as independent, yet interconnected sectors working together to better meet the needs of consumers and improve the quality and effectiveness of service provision. Cross-sector service provision is expected, yet much remains unknown about how it is conceptualised or its impact on health status. This umbrella review aims to clarify the critical attributes that shape cross-sector service provision by presenting the current state of the literature and building on the findings of the 2004 review by Sloper. Methods: Literature related to cross-sector service provision is immense, which poses a challenge for decision makers wishing to make evidence-informed decisions. An umbrella review was conducted to articulate the overall state of cross-sector service provision literature and examine the evidence to allow for the discovery of consistencies and discrepancies across the published knowledge base. Findings: Sixteen reviews met the inclusion criteria. Seven themes emerged: Focusing on the consumer, developing a shared vision of care, leadership involvement, service provision across the boundaries, adequately resourcing the arrangement, developing novel arrangements or aligning with existing relationships, and strengthening connections between sectors. Future research from a cross-organisational, rather than individual provider, perspective is needed to better understand what shapes cross-sector service provision at the boundaries. Conclusion: Findings aligned closely with the work done by Sloper and raise red flags related to reinventing what is already known. Future researchers should look to explore novel areas rather than looking into areas that have been

High-Performance Buildings – Value, Messaging, Financial and Policy Mechanisms

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

McCabe, Molly

At the request of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, an in-depth analysis of the rapidly evolving state of real estate investments, high-performance building technology, and interest in efficiency was conducted by HaydenTanner, LLC, for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Building Technologies Program. The analysis objectives were • to evaluate the link between high-performance buildings and their market value • to identify core messaging to motivate owners, investors, financiers, and others in the real estate sector to appropriately value and deploy high-performance strategies and technologies across new and existing buildings • to summarize financial mechanisms that facilitate increased investment inmore » these buildings. To meet these objectives, work consisted of a literature review of relevant writings, examination of existing and emergent financial and policy mechanisms, interviews with industry stakeholders, and an evaluation of the value implications through financial modeling. This report documents the analysis methodology and findings, conclusion and recommendations. Its intent is to support and inform the DOE Building Technologies Program on policy and program planning for the financing of high-performance new buildings and building retrofit projects.« less

Automobile, construction and entertainment business sector influences on sedentary lifestyles.

PubMed

Parra, Diana C; de Sá, Thiago H; Monteiro, Carlos A; Freudenberg, Nicholas

2018-04-01

Sedentary lifestyles contribute to premature death and health inequalities. Researchers have studied personal and community-level determinants of inactivity but few have analyzed corporate influences. To reframe the public health debate on inactivity and open new doors for public sector intervention, we conducted a scoping review of evidence from several disciplines to describe how the business and political practices of the automobile, construction, and entertainment sectors have encouraged sedentary lifestyles. In the last 50 years, these industries have found it profitable to produce motor vehicles, housing, and entertainment, which intentionally or unintentionally discourage physical activity. Ceding primary authority for policy decisions in these sectors to the market-based economy has enabled the growth of powerful lobbies that encourage and maintain sedentary lifestyles. To counteract these influences, public health and civil society need to confront more upstream economic and social determinants of sedentary lifestyles. Building on evidence from efforts to change harmful tobacco, alcohol and food industry practices, we propose the creation of research and policy agendas that contribute to public health practice that can modify corporate practices that contribute to physical, social and political environments that discourage physical activity.

Retail Building Guide for Entrance Energy Efficiency Measures

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Stein, J.; Kung, F.

2012-03-01

This booklet is based on the findings of an infiltration analysis for supermarkets and large retail buildings without refrigerated cases. It enables retail building managers and engineers to calculate the energy savings potential for vestibule additions for supermarkets; and bay door operation changes in large retail stores without refrigerated cases. Retail managers can use initial estimates to decide whether to engage vendors or contractors of vestibules for pricing or site-specific analyses, or to decide whether to test bay door operation changes in pilot stores, respectively.

Occupational fatalities, injuries, illnesses, and related economic loss in the wholesale and retail trade sector.

PubMed

Anderson, Vern Putz; Schulte, Paul A; Sestito, John; Linn, Herb; Nguyen, Long S

2010-07-01

The wholesale and retail trade (WRT) sector employs over 21 million workers, or nearly 19% of the annual average employment in private industry. The perception is that workers in this sector are generally at low risk of occupational injury and death. These workers, however, are engaged in a wide range of demanding job activities and are exposed to a variety of hazards. Prior to this report, a comprehensive appraisal of the occupational fatal and nonfatal burdens affecting the retail and wholesale sectors was lacking. The focus of this review is to assess the overall occupational safety and health burden in WRT and to identify various subsectors that have high rates of burden from occupational causes. Ultimately, these findings should be useful for targeted intervention efforts. We reviewed Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), 2006 fatality, injury, and illness data for the WRT sector and provide comparisons between the WRT sector, its' subsectors, and private industry, which serves as a baseline. The BLS data provide both counts and standardized incidence rates for various exposures, events, and injury types for fatalities, injuries, and illnesses. In an effort to estimate the economic burden of these fatalities, injuries, and illnesses, a focused review of the literature was conducted. In 2006, WRT workers experienced 820,500 injuries/illnesses and 581 fatalities. The total case injury/illness rate for the retail sector was 4.9/100 FTE and for the wholesale sector 4.1/100 FTE. The WRT sector represents 15.5% of the private sector work population in 2006, yet accounts for 20.1% of nonfatal injuries and illnesses of the private sector. In 2003, the disparity was only 2% but increased to 3% in 2004 and 2005. Three WRT subsectors had injury/illness rates well above the national average: beer/wine/liquor (8.4/100); building materials/supplies (7.6/100); and grocery-related products (7.0/100). Occupational deaths with the highest rates were found in gasoline stations (9

Extremely low frequency magnetic field measurements in buildings with transformer stations in Switzerland.

PubMed

Röösli, Martin; Jenni, Daniela; Kheifets, Leeka; Mezei, Gabor

2011-08-15

The aim of this study was to evaluate an exposure assessment method that classifies apartments in three exposure categories of extremely low frequency magnetic fields (ELF-MF) based on the location of the apartment relative to the transformer room. We completed measurements in 39 apartments in 18 buildings. In each room of the apartments ELF-MF was concurrently measured with 5 to 6 EMDEX II meters for 10 min. Measured arithmetic mean ELF-MF was 0.59 μT in 8 apartments that were fully adjacent to a transformer room, either directly above the transformer or touching the transformer room wall-to-wall. In apartments that only partly touched the transformer room at corners or edges, average ELF-MF level was 0.14 μT. Average exposure in the remaining apartments was 0.10 μT. Kappa coefficient for exposure classification was 0.64 (95%-CI: 0.45-0.82) if only fully adjacent apartments were considered as highly exposed (>0.4 μT). We found a distinct ELF-MF exposure gradient in buildings with transformer. Exposure classification based on the location of the apartment relative to the transformer room appears feasible. Such an approach considerably reduces effort for exposure assessment and may be used to eliminate selection bias in future epidemiologic studies. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Place-Based Initiatives to Improve Health in Disadvantaged Communities: Cross-Sector Characteristics and Networks of Local Actors in North Carolina.

PubMed

Dupre, Matthew E; Moody, James; Nelson, Alicia; Willis, Janese M; Fuller, Lori; Smart, Allen J; Easterling, Doug; Silberberg, Mina

2016-09-01

To examine the leadership attributes and collaborative connections of local actors from the health sector and those outside the health sector in a major place-based health initiative. We used survey data from 340 individuals in 4 Healthy Places North Carolina counties from 2014 to assess the leadership attributes (awareness, attitudes, and capacity) and network connections of local actors by their organizational sector. Respondents' leadership attributes-scored on 5-point Likert scales-were similar across Healthy Places North Carolina counties. Although local actors reported high levels of awareness and collaboration around community health improvement, we found lower levels of capacity for connecting diversity, identifying barriers, and using resources in new ways to improve community health. Actors outside the health sector had generally lower levels of capacity than actors in the health sector. Those in the health sector exhibited the majority of network ties in their community; however, they were also the most segregated from actors in other sectors. More capacity building around strategic action-particularly in nonhealth sectors-is needed to support efforts in making widespread changes to community health.

Establishing a Commercial Buildings Energy Data Framework for India: A Comprehensive Look at Data Collection Approaches, Use Cases and Institutions

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Iyer, Maithili; Kumar, Satish; Mathew, Sangeeta

Enhancing energy efficiency of the commercial building stock is an important aspect of any national energy policy. Understanding how buildings use energy is critical to formulating any new policy that may impact energy use, underscoring the importance of credible data. Data enables informed decision making and good quality data is essential for policy makers to prioritize energy saving strategies and track implementation. Given the uniqueness of the buildings sector and challenges to collecting relevant energy data, this study characterizes various elements involved in pertinent data collection and management, with the specific focus on well-defined data requirements, appropriate methodologies and processes,more » feasible data collection mechanisms, and approaches to institutionalizing the collection process. This report starts with a comprehensive review of available examples of energy data collection frameworks for buildings across different countries. The review covers the U.S. experience in the commercial buildings sector, the European experience in the buildings sector and other data collection initiatives in Singapore and China to capture the more systematic efforts in Asia in the commercial sector. To provide context, the review includes a summary and status of disparate efforts in India to collect and use commercial building energy data. Using this review as a key input, the study developed a data collection framework for India with specific consideration to relevant use cases. Continuing with the framework for data collection, this study outlines the key performance indicators applicable to the use cases and their collection feasibility, as well as immediate priorities of the participating stakeholders. It also discusses potential considerations for data collection and the possible approaches for survey design. With the specific purpose of laying out the possible ways to structure and organize data collection institutionally, the study collates existing

Building energy analysis tool

DOEpatents

Brackney, Larry; Parker, Andrew; Long, Nicholas; Metzger, Ian; Dean, Jesse; Lisell, Lars

2016-04-12

A building energy analysis system includes a building component library configured to store a plurality of building components, a modeling tool configured to access the building component library and create a building model of a building under analysis using building spatial data and using selected building components of the plurality of building components stored in the building component library, a building analysis engine configured to operate the building model and generate a baseline energy model of the building under analysis and further configured to apply one or more energy conservation measures to the baseline energy model in order to generate one or more corresponding optimized energy models, and a recommendation tool configured to assess the one or more optimized energy models against the baseline energy model and generate recommendations for substitute building components or modifications.

Behavioral Change and Building Performance: Strategies for Significant, Persistent, and Measurable Institutional Change

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Wolfe, Amy K.; Malone, Elizabeth L.; Heerwagen, Judith H.

2014-04-01

The people who use Federal buildings — Federal employees, operations and maintenance staff, and the general public — can significantly impact a building’s environmental performance and the consumption of energy, water, and materials. Many factors influence building occupants’ use of resources (use behaviors) including work process requirements, ability to fulfill agency missions, new and possibly unfamiliar high-efficiency/high-performance building technologies; a lack of understanding, education, and training; inaccessible information or ineffective feedback mechanisms; and cultural norms and institutional rules and requirements, among others. While many strategies have been used to introduce new occupant use behaviors that promote sustainability and reduced resourcemore » consumption, few have been verified in the scientific literature or have properly documented case study results. This paper documents validated strategies that have been shown to encourage new use behaviors that can result in significant, persistent, and measureable reductions in resource consumption. From the peer-reviewed literature, the paper identifies relevant strategies for Federal facilities and commercial buildings that focus on the individual, groups of individuals (e.g., work groups), and institutions — their policies, requirements, and culture. The paper documents methods with evidence of success in changing use behaviors and enabling occupants to effectively interact with new technologies/designs. It also provides a case study of the strategies used at a Federal facility — Fort Carson, Colorado. The paper documents gaps in the current literature and approaches, and provides topics for future research.« less

CLIPS: An expert system building tool

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Riley, Gary

1991-01-01

The C Language Integrated Production System (CLIPS) is an expert system building tool, which provides a complete environment for the development and delivery of rule and/or object based expert systems. CLIPS was specifically designed to provide a low cost option for developing and deploying expert system applications across a wide range of hardware platforms. The commercial potential of CLIPS is vast. Currently, CLIPS is being used by over 3,300 individuals throughout the public and private sector. Because the CLIPS source code is readily available, numerous groups have used CLIPS as a basis for their own expert system tools. To date, three commercially available tools have been derived from CLIPS. In general, the development of CLIPS has helped to improve the ability to deliver expert system technology throughout the public and private sectors for a wide range of applications and diverse computing environments.

Health sector governance: should we be investing more?

PubMed

Fryatt, Robert; Bennett, Sara; Soucat, Agnes

2017-01-01

Governance is central to improving health sector performance and achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC). However, the growing body of research on governance and health has not yet led to a global consensus on the need for more investment in governance interventions to improve health. This paper aims to summarise the latest evidence on the influence of governance on health, examines how we can assess governance interventions and considers what might constitute good investments in health sector governance in resource constrained settings. The paper concludes that agendas for improving governance need to be realistic and build on promising in-country innovation and the growing evidence base of what works in different settings. For UHC to be achieved, governance will require new partnerships and opportunities for dialogue, between state and non-state actors. Countries will require stronger platforms for effective intersectoral actions and more capacity for applied policy research and evaluation. Improved governance will also come from collective action across countries in research, norms and standards, and communicable disease control.

Health sector governance: should we be investing more?

PubMed Central

Fryatt, Robert; Bennett, Sara; Soucat, Agnes

2017-01-01

Governance is central to improving health sector performance and achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC). However, the growing body of research on governance and health has not yet led to a global consensus on the need for more investment in governance interventions to improve health. This paper aims to summarise the latest evidence on the influence of governance on health, examines how we can assess governance interventions and considers what might constitute good investments in health sector governance in resource constrained settings. The paper concludes that agendas for improving governance need to be realistic and build on promising in-country innovation and the growing evidence base of what works in different settings. For UHC to be achieved, governance will require new partnerships and opportunities for dialogue, between state and non-state actors. Countries will require stronger platforms for effective intersectoral actions and more capacity for applied policy research and evaluation. Improved governance will also come from collective action across countries in research, norms and standards, and communicable disease control. PMID:29225938

36 CFR § 1281.16 - What standard does NARA use for measuring building size?

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-07-01

... 36 Parks, Forests, and Public Property 3 2013-07-01 2012-07-01 true What standard does NARA use for measuring building size? § 1281.16 Section § 1281.16 Parks, Forests, and Public Property NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION NARA FACILITIES PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY FACILITIES § 1281.16 What...

Comparison of Building Loads Analysis and System Thermodynamics (BLAST) Computer Program Simulations and Measured Energy Use for Army Buildings.

DTIC Science & Technology

1980-05-01

engineering ,ZteNo D R RPTE16 research w 9 laboratory COMPARISON OF BUILDING LOADS ANALYSIS AND SYSTEM THERMODYNAMICS (BLAST) AD 0 5 5,0 3COMPUTER PROGRAM...Building Loads Analysis and System Thermodynamics (BLAST) computer program. A dental clinic and a battalion headquarters and classroom building were...Building and HVAC System Data Computer Simulation Comparison of Actual and Simulated Results ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS

Commercial Building Energy Saver, Web App

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Hong, Tianzhen; Piette, Mary; Lee, Sang Hoon

The CBES App is a web-based toolkit for use by small businesses and building owners and operators of small and medium size commercial buildings to perform energy benchmarking and retrofit analysis for buildings. The CBES App analyzes the energy performance of user's building for pre-and posto-retrofit, in conjunction with user's input data, to identify recommended retrofit measures, energy savings and economic analysis for the selected measures. The CBES App provides energy benchmarking, including getting an EnergyStar score using EnergyStar API and benchmarking against California peer buildings using the EnergyIQ API. The retrofit analysis includes a preliminary analysis by looking upmore » retrofit measures from a pre-simulated database DEEP, and a detailed analysis creating and running EnergyPlus models to calculate energy savings of retrofit measures. The CBES App builds upon the LBNL CBES API.« less

Measuring Use and Cost of Health Sector and Related Care in a Population of Girls and Young Women with Rett Syndrome

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hendrie, Delia; Bebbington, Ami; Bower, Carol; Leonard, Helen

2011-01-01

This study measured use and cost of health sector and related services in Rett syndrome and effects of socio-demographic, clinical severity and genetic factors on costs. The study population consisted of individuals with Rett syndrome registered with the Australian Rett Syndrome Database in 2004. Descriptive analysis was used to examine patterns…

Private sector participation and health system performance in sub-saharan Africa.

PubMed

Yoong, Joanne; Burger, Nicholas; Spreng, Connor; Sood, Neeraj

2010-10-07

The role of the private health sector in developing countries remains a much-debated and contentious issue. Critics argue that the high prices charged in the private sector limits the use of health care among the poorest, consequently reducing access and equity in the use of health care. Supporters argue that increased private sector participation might improve access and equity by bringing in much needed resources for health care and by allowing governments to increase focus on underserved populations. However, little empirical exists for or against either side of this debate. We examine the association between private sector participation and self-reported measures of utilization and equity in deliveries and treatment of childhood respiratory disease using regression analysis, across a sample of nationally-representative Demographic and Health Surveys from 34 SSA economies. We also examine the correlation between private sector participation and key background factors (socioeconomic development, business environment and governance) and use multivariate regression to control for potential confounders. Private sector participation is positively associated with greater overall access and reduced disparities between rich and poor as well as urban and rural populations. The positive association between private sector participation and improved health system performance is robust to controlling for confounders including per capita income and maternal education. Private sector participation is positively correlated with measures of socio-economic development and favorable business environment. Greater participation is associated with favorable intermediate outcomes in terms of access and equity. While these results do not establish a causal link between private sector participation and health system performance, they suggest that there is no deleterious link between private sector participation and health system performance in SSA.

Europe sees mixed results from public-private partnerships for building and managing health care facilities and services.

PubMed

Barlow, James; Roehrich, Jens; Wright, Steve

2013-01-01

Prompted in part by constrained national budgets, European governments are increasingly partnering with the private sector to underwrite the costs of constructing and operating public hospitals and other health care facilities and delivering services. Through such public-private partnerships, governments hope to avoid up-front capital expenditure and to harness private-sector efficiencies, while private-sector partners aim for a return on investment. Our research indicates that to date, experience with these partnerships has been mixed. Early models of these partnerships-for example, in which a private firm builds a hospital and carries out building maintenance, which we term an "accommodation-only" model-arguably have not met expectations for achieving greater efficiencies at lower costs. Newer models described in this article offer greater opportunities for efficiency gains but are administratively harder to set up and manage. Given the shortages in public capital for new infrastructure, it seems likely that the attractiveness of these partnerships to European governments will grow.

Building sustainable health and education partnerships: stories from local communities.

PubMed

Blank, Martin J

2015-11-01

Growing health disparities have a negative impact on young people's educational achievement. Community schools that involve deep relationships with partners across multiple domains address these disparities by providing opportunities and services that promote healthy development of young people, and enable them to graduate from high school ready for college, technical school, on-the-job training, career, and citizenship. Results from Milwaukie High School, North Clackamas, OR; Oakland Unified School District, Oakland, CA; and Cincinnati Community Learning Centers, Cincinnati, OH were based on a review of local site documents, web-based information, interviews, and e-mail communication with key local actors. The schools and districts with strong health partnerships reflecting community schools strategy have shown improvements in attendance, academic performance, and increased access to mental, dental, vision, and health supports for their students. To build deep health-education partnerships and grow community schools, a working leadership and management infrastructure must be in place that uses quality data, focuses on results, and facilitates professional development across sectors. The leadership infrastructure of community school initiatives offers a prototype on which others can build. Moreover, as leaders build cross-sector relationships, a clear definition of what scaling up means is essential for subsequent long-term systemic change. © 2015 Institute for Educational Leadership. Journal of School Health published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of American School Health Association.

Data on European non-residential buildings.

PubMed

D'Agostino, Delia; Cuniberti, Barbara; Bertoldi, Paolo

2017-10-01

This data article relates to the research paper Energy consumption and efficiency technology measures in European non-residential buildings (D'Agostino et al., 2017) [1]. The reported data have been collected in the framework of the Green Building Programme that ran from 2006 to 2014. The project has encouraged the adoption of efficiency measures to boost energy savings in European non-residential buildings. Data focus on the one-thousand buildings that joined the Programme allowing to save around 985 GWh/year. The main requirement to join the Programme was the reduction of at least 25% primary energy consumption in a new or retrofitted building. Energy consumption before and after the renovation are provided for retrofitted buildings while, in new constructions, a building had to be designed using at least 25% less energy than requested by the country's building codes. The following data are linked within this article: energy consumption, absolute and relative savings related to primary energy, saving percentages, implemented efficiency measures and renewables. Further information is given about each building in relation to geometry, envelope, materials, lighting and systems.

Urban Renewable Building And Neighborhood Optimization

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

URBANopt is a user interface for creating and running district and city scale building energy simulations. The framework is built around the OpenStudio Urban Measures which are part of the OpenStudio project. Building footprints, building height, building type, and other data can be imported from public records or other sources. Footprints and locations for new buildings and district systems can also be specified. OpenStudio Measures are used to create starting point energy models and to model energy design features and efficiency measures for each building. URBANopt allows a user to pose several scenarios such as “what if 30% of themore » commercial retail buildings added roof top solar” or “what if all elementary schools converted to ground source heat pumps” and then visualize the impacts at a district or city scale. URBANopt is capable of modeling existing buildings, new construction, and district energy systems. URBANopt can be used to explore options for achieving Zero Energy across a collection of buildings (e.g., Zero Energy Districts).« less

Chapter 8: Whole-Building Retrofit with Consumption Data Analysis Evaluation Protocol. The Uniform Methods Project: Methods for Determining Energy Efficiency Savings for Specific Measures

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Kurnik, Charles W.; Agnew, Ken; Goldberg, Mimi

Whole-building retrofits involve the installation of multiple measures. Whole-building retrofit programs take many forms. With a focus on overall building performance, these programs usually begin with an energy audit to identify cost-effective energy efficiency measures for the home. Measures are then installed, either at no cost to the homeowner or partially paid for by rebates and/or financing. The methods described here may also be applied to evaluation of single-measure retrofit programs. Related methods exist for replace-on-failure programs and for new construction, but are not the subject of this chapter.

Building Trades. Block II. Foundations.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Texas A and M Univ., College Station. Vocational Instructional Services.

Twelve informational lessons and eleven manipulative lessons are provided on foundations as applied to the building trades. Informational lessons cover land measurements; blueprint reading; level instruments; building and site planning; building site preparation; laying out building lines; soil preparation and special evacuation; concrete forms;…

Building the Synergy between Public Sector and Research Data Infrastructures

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Craglia, Massimo; Friis-Christensen, Anders; Ostländer, Nicole; Perego, Andrea

2014-05-01

INSPIRE is a European Directive aiming to establish a EU-wide spatial data infrastructure to give cross-border access to information that can be used to support EU environmental policies, as well as other policies and activities having an impact on the environment. In order to ensure cross-border interoperability of data infrastructures operated by EU Member States, INSPIRE sets out a framework based on common specifications for metadata, data, network services, data and service sharing, monitoring and reporting. The implementation of INSPIRE has reached important milestones: the INSPIRE Geoportal was launched in 2011 providing a single access point for the discovery of INSPIRE data and services across EU Member States (currently, about 300K), while all the technical specifications for the interoperability of data across the 34 INSPIRE themes were adopted at the end of 2013. During this period a number of EU and international initiatives has been launched, concerning cross-domain interoperability and (Linked) Open Data. In particular, the EU Open Data Portal, launched in December 2012, made provisions to access government and scientific data from EU institutions and bodies, and the EU ISA Programme (Interoperability Solutions for European Public Administrations) promotes cross-sector interoperability by sharing and re-using EU-wide and national standards and components. Moreover, the Research Data Alliance (RDA), an initiative jointly funded by the European Commission, the US National Science Foundation and the Australian Research Council, was launched in March 2013 to promote scientific data sharing and interoperability. The Joint Research Centre of the European Commission (JRC), besides being the technical coordinator of the implementation of INSPIRE, is also actively involved in the initiatives promoting cross-sector re-use in INSPIRE, and sustainable approaches to address the evolution of technologies - in particular, how to support Linked Data in INSPIRE and

Europe’s Role in Nation-Building: From the Balkans to the Congo

DTIC Science & Technology

2008-01-01

for nonmilitary international actors; thus, Con- cordia was primarily a confidence-building and liaison mission.22 As the EU’s first military mission...for security-sector reform. Con- cordia field teams collected intelligence from several sources, supported the police retraining and integration

Sectoral risk research about input-output structure of the United States

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Mao

2018-02-01

There exist rare researches about economic risk in sectoral level, which is significantly important for risk prewarning. This paper employed status coefficient to measure the symmetry of economic subnetwork, which is negatively correlated with sectoral risk. Then, we do empirical research in both cross section and time series dimensions. In cross section dimension, we study the correlation between sectoral status coefficient and sectoral volatility, earning rate and Sharpe ratio respectively in the year 2015. Next, in the perspective of time series, we first investigate the correlation change between sectoral status coefficient and annual total output from 1997 to 2015. Then, we divide the 71 sectors in America into agriculture, manufacturing, services and government, compare the trend terms of average sectoral status coefficients of the four industries and illustrate the causes behind it. We also find obvious abnormality in the sector of housing. At last, this paper puts forward some suggestions for the federal government.

2020 Leadership Agenda for Existing Commercial and Multifamily Buildings

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Burr, Andrew; Goldthwaite, Carolyn Sarno; Coffman, Eric

Leadership by state and local governments is critical to unlock national energy efficiency opportunities and deliver the benefits of efficiency to all Americans. But related to building energy efficiency, what will it mean to be a public sector leader over the next several years? What are the energy efficiency solutions that cities, counties, and states are implementing today that will make their communities more affordable, livable, healthy, and economically competitive? The SEE Action Network 2020 Leadership Agenda for Existing Commercial and Multifamily Buildings establishes a benchmark for state and local government leadership on improving the energy efficiency of buildings andmore » seeks two-way collaboration among state, local, and federal officials. It defines a suite of innovative, yet practical policies and programs for policymakers to consider implementing by 2020, focusing on six important areas.« less

Application of life-cycle assessment (LCA) methodology for valorization of building demolition materials and products

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sara, Balazs; Antonini, Ernesto; Tarantini, Mario

2001-02-01

The VAMP project (VAlorization of building demolition Materials and Products, LIFE 98/ENV/IT/33) aims to build an effective and innovative information system to support decision making in selective demolition activity and to manage the valorization (recovery-reuse-recycling) of waste flows produced by the construction and demolition (C&D) sector. The VAMP information system will be tested it in Italy in some case studies of selective demolition. In this paper the proposed demolition-valorization system will be compared to the traditional one in a life cycle perspective, applying LCA methodology to highlight the advantages of VAMP system from an eco-sustainability point of view. Within the system boundaries demolition processes, transport of demolition wastes and its recovery/treatment or disposal in landfill were included. Processes avoided due to reuse-recycling activities, such as extraction of natural resources and manufacture of building materials and components, were considered too. In this paper data collection procedure applied in inventory and impact assessment phases and a general overview about data availability for LCA studies in this sector are presented. Results of application of VAMP methodology to a case study are discussed and compared with a simulated traditional demolition of the same building. Environmental advantages of VAMP demolition-valorization system are demonstrated quantitatively emphasizing the special importance of reuse of building components with high demand of energy for manufacture.

Evaluating digital libraries in the health sector. Part 2: measuring impacts and outcomes.

PubMed

Cullen, Rowena

2004-03-01

This is the second part of a two-part paper which explores methods that can be used to evaluate digital libraries in the health sector. Part 1 focuses on approaches to evaluation that have been proposed for mainstream digital information services. This paper investigates evaluative models developed for some innovative digital library projects, and some major national and international electronic health information projects. The value of ethnographic methods to provide qualitative data to explore outcomes, adding to quantitative approaches based on inputs and outputs is discussed. The paper concludes that new 'post-positivist' models of evaluation are needed to cover all the dimensions of the digital library in the health sector, and some ways of doing this are outlined.

End-use energy consumption estimates for US commercial buildings, 1989

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Belzer, D.B.; Wrench, L.E.; Marsh, T.L.

An accurate picture of how energy is used in the nation`s stock of commercial buildings can serve a variety of program planning and policy needs within the Department of Energy, by utilities, and other groups seeking to improve the efficiency of energy use in the building sector. This report describes an estimation of energy consumption by end use based upon data from the 1989 Commercial Building Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS). The methodology used in the study combines elements of engineering simulations and statistical analysis to estimate end-use intensities for heating, cooling, ventilation, lighting, refrigeration, hot water, cooking, and miscellaneous equipment.more » Billing data for electricity and natural gas were first decomposed into weather and nonweather dependent loads. Subsequently, Statistical Adjusted Engineering (SAE) models were estimated by building type with annual data. The SAE models used variables such as building size, vintage, climate region, weekly operating hours, and employee density to adjust the engineering model predicted loads to the observed consumption. End-use consumption by fuel was estimated for each of the 5,876 buildings in the 1989 CBECS. The report displays the summary results for eleven separate building types as well as for the total US commercial building stock.« less

Development of air conditioning technologies to reduce CO2 emissions in the commercial sector

PubMed Central

Yoshida, Yukiko

2006-01-01

Background Architectural methods that take into account global environmental conservation generally concentrate on mitigating the heat load of buildings. Here, we evaluate the reduction of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions that can be achieved by improving heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) technologies. Results The Climate Change Research Hall (CCRH) of the National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES) is used as a case study. CCRH was built in line with the "Green Government Buildings" program of the Government Buildings Department at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport in Japan. We have assessed the technology used in this building, and found that there is a possibility to reduce energy consumption in the HVAC system by 30%. Conclusion Saving energy reduces CO2 emissions in the commercial sector, although emission factors depend on the country or region. Consequently, energy savings potential may serve as a criterion in selecting HVAC technologies with respect to emission reduction targets. PMID:17062161

Cyclical absenteeism among private sector, public sector and self-employed workers.

PubMed

Pfeifer, Christian

2013-03-01

This research note analyzes differences in the number of absent working days and doctor visits and in their cyclicality between private sector, public sector and self-employed workers. For this purpose, I used large-scale German survey data for the years 1995 to 2007 to estimate random effects negative binomial (count data) models. The main findings are as follows. (i) Public sector workers have on average more absent working days than private sector and self-employed workers. Self-employed workers have fewer absent working days and doctor visits than dependent employed workers. (ii) The regional unemployment rate is on average negatively correlated with the number of absent working days among private and public sector workers as well as among self-employed men. The correlations between regional unemployment rate and doctor visits are only significantly negative among private sector workers. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Agriculture Sectors

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

The Agriculture sectors comprise establishments primarily engaged in growing crops, raising animals, and harvesting fish and other animals. Find information on compliance, enforcement and guidance on EPA laws and regulations on the NAICS 111 & 112 sectors.

Disease surveillance and private sector in the metropolitans: a troublesome collaboration.

PubMed

Ahmadi, Ayat; Nedjat, Saharnaz; Gholami, Jaleh; Majdzadeh, Reza

2013-09-01

An effective response to health problems is completely dependent upon the capacities of the health system in providing timely and valid information to take action. This study was designed to identify various reasons from various perspectives for underreporting disease by physicians in the private sector in big cities in developing countries setting. In this qualitative study, we used focus group discussions (16 manager), and in-depth semi-structured interviews. Themes were classified in 6 categories: Infrastructure and legal issues, the priority of disease reporting, workflow processes, motivation and attitude, human resources and knowledge and awareness. As the main reasons of under reporting, most physicians pointed out complicacy in reporting process and inadequate attention by the public sector. Managers emphasized instituting legal incentives and penalties. Experts focused on physicians' knowledge and expressed a need for continuing medical education programs. Independent interventions will have little chance of success and sustainability. Different intervention programs should consider legal issues, attitude and knowledge of physicians in the private sector, and building a simple reporting process for physicians. Intervention programs in which the reporting process offers incentives for all stakeholders can help improving and sustaining the disease reporting system.

Disease Surveillance and Private Sector in the Metropolitans: A Troublesome Collaboration

PubMed Central

Ahmadi, Ayat; Nedjat, Saharnaz; Gholami, Jaleh; Majdzadeh, Reza

2013-01-01

Background: An effective response to health problems is completely dependent upon the capacities of the health system in providing timely and valid information to take action. This study was designed to identify various reasons from various perspectives for underreporting disease by physicians in the private sector in big cities in developing countries setting. Methods: In this qualitative study, we used focus group discussions (16 manager), and in-depth semi-structured interviews Results: Themes were classified in 6 categories: Infrastructure and legal issues, the priority of disease reporting, workflow processes, motivation and attitude, human resources and knowledge and awareness. As the main reasons of under reporting, most physicians pointed out complicacy in reporting process and inadequate attention by the public sector. Managers emphasized instituting legal incentives and penalties. Experts focused on physicians’ knowledge and expressed a need for continuing medical education programs. Conclusions: Independent interventions will have little chance of success and sustainability. Different intervention programs should consider legal issues, attitude and knowledge of physicians in the private sector, and building a simple reporting process for physicians. Intervention programs in which the reporting process offers incentives for all stakeholders can help improving and sustaining the disease reporting system. PMID:24130945

Assessing the impact of nuclear retirements on the U.S. power sector

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Richards, James; Cole, Wesley J.

This work utilizes the Regional Energy Deployment System (ReEDS) model to analyze the impacts of four nuclear retirement scenarios of the U.S. electricity sector, from nuclear plant lifetimes of 50 to 80 years. The analysis finds that longer nuclear lifetimes decrease the amount of renewable and natural gas capacity. Longer nuclear lifetimes also resulted in lower cumulative and annual carbon emissions, lower transmission builds, and higher energy curtailment and water usage.

Measurement of natural radioactivity in building materials used in Urumqi, China.

PubMed

Ding, Xiang; Lu, Xinwei; Zhao, Caifeng; Yang, Guang; Li, Nan

2013-07-01

Building materials contain natural radionuclides (226)Ra, (232)Th and (40)K, which cause direct radiation exposure of the public. The concentrations of (226)Ra, (232)Th and (40)K in commonly used building materials of Urumqi, China have been analysed using gamma-ray spectrometry. The concentrations of (226)Ra, (40)K and (232)Th in the studied building materials range from 19.8 to 87.4, from 273.3 to 981.2 and from 11.6 to 47.7 Bq kg(-1), respectively. The radium equivalent activity (Raeq), gamma index (Iγ) and alpha index (Iα) were calculated to assess the radiation hazards to people living in dwellings made of the materials studied. The calculated Raeq values of all the building materials are lower than the limit of 370 Bq kg(-1) for building materials. The values of Iγ and Iα of all the building materials are less than unity. The study shows that these materials may be safely used as construction materials and do not pose significant radiation hazards.

Setting Whole-Building Absolute Energy Use Targets for the K-12 School, Retail, and Healthcare Sectors: Preprint

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Leach, M.; Bonnema, E.; Pless, S.

2012-08-01

This paper helps owners' efficiency representatives to inform executive management, contract development, and project management staff as to how specifying and applying whole-building absolute energy use targets for new construction or renovation projects can improve the operational energy performance of commercial buildings.

3D WindScanner lidar measurements of wind and turbulence around wind turbines, buildings and bridges

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mikkelsen, T.; Sjöholm, M.; Angelou, N.; Mann, J.

2017-12-01

WindScanner is a distributed research infrastructure developed at DTU with the participation of a number of European countries. The research infrastructure consists of a mobile technically advanced facility for remote measurement of wind and turbulence in 3D. The WindScanners provide coordinated measurements of the entire wind and turbulence fields, of all three wind components scanned in 3D space. Although primarily developed for research related to on- and offshore wind turbines and wind farms, the facility is also well suited for scanning turbulent wind fields around buildings, bridges, aviation structures and of flow in urban environments. The mobile WindScanner facility enables 3D scanning of wind and turbulence fields in full scale within the atmospheric boundary layer at ranges from 10 meters to 5 (10) kilometers. Measurements of turbulent coherent structures are applied for investigation of flow pattern and dynamical loads from turbines, building structures and bridges and in relation to optimization of the location of, for example, wind farms and suspension bridges. This paper presents our achievements to date and reviews briefly the state-of-the-art of the WindScanner measurement technology with examples of uses for wind engineering applications.

Quality assured measurements of animal building emissions: gas concentrations.

PubMed

Heber, Albert J; Ni, Ji-Qin; Lim, Teng T; Tao, Pei-Chun; Schmidt, Amy M; Koziel, Jacek A; Beasley, David B; Hoff, Steven J; Nicolai, Richard E; Jacobson, Larry D; Zhang, Yuanhui

2006-10-01

Comprehensive field studies were initiated in 2002 to measure emissions of ammonia (NH3), hydrogen sulfide (H2S), carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nonmethane hydrocarbons (NMHC), particulate matter <10 microm in diameter, and total suspended particulate from swine and poultry production buildings in the United States. This paper focuses on the quasicontinuous gas concentration measurement at multiple locations among paired barns in seven states. Documented principles, used in air pollution monitoring at industrial sources, were applied in developing quality assurance (QA) project plans for these studies. Air was sampled from multiple locations with each gas analyzed with one high quality commercial gas analyzer that was located in an environmentally controlled on-farm instrument shelter. A nominal 4 L/min gas sampling system was designed and constructed with Teflon wetted surfaces, bypass pumping, and sample line flow and pressure sensors. Three-way solenoids were used to automatically switch between multiple gas sampling lines with > or =10 min sampling intervals. Inside and outside gas sampling probes were between 10 and 115 m away from the analyzers. Analyzers used chemiluminescence, fluorescence, photoacoustic infrared, and photoionization detectors for NH3, H2S, CO2, CH4, and NMHC, respectively. Data were collected using personal computer-based data acquisition hardware and software. This paper discusses the methodology of gas concentration measurements and the unique challenges that livestock barns pose for achieving desired accuracy and precision, data representativeness, comparability and completeness, and instrument calibration and maintenance.

Operative air temperature data for different measures applied on a building envelope in warm climate.

PubMed

Baglivo, Cristina; Congedo, Paolo Maria

2018-04-01

Several technical combinations have been evaluated in order to design high energy performance buildings for the warm climate. The analysis has been developed in several steps, avoiding the use of HVAC systems. The methodological approach of this study is based on a sequential search technique and it is shown on the paper entitled "Envelope Design Optimization by Thermal Modeling of a Building in a Warm Climate" [1]. The Operative Air Temperature trends (TOP), for each combination, have been plotted through a dynamic simulation performed using the software TRNSYS 17 (a transient system simulation program, University of Wisconsin, Solar Energy Laboratory, USA, 2010). Starting from the simplest building configuration consisting of 9 rooms (equal-sized modules of 5 × 5 m 2 ), the different building components are sequentially evaluated until the envelope design is optimized. The aim of this study is to perform a step-by-step simulation, simplifying as much as possible the model without making additional variables that can modify their performances. Walls, slab-on-ground floor, roof, shading and windows are among the simulated building components. The results are shown for each combination and evaluated for Brindisi, a city in southern Italy having 1083 degrees day, belonging to the national climatic zone C. The data show the trends of the TOP for each measure applied in the case study for a total of 17 combinations divided into eight steps.

National transparency assessment of Kuwait's pharmaceutical sector.

PubMed

Badawi, Dalia A; Alkhamis, Yousif; Qaddoumi, Mohammad; Behbehani, Kazem

2015-09-01

Corruption is one of several factors that may hinder the access to pharmaceuticals. Since Kuwait has the highest per-capita spending on pharmaceuticals in the region, we wanted to evaluate the level of transparency in its pharmaceutical sector using an established assessment tool adapted by the World Health Organization. Standardized questionnaires were conducted via semi-structured interviews with key informants to measure the level of transparency in eight functions of the public pharmaceutical sector. The scores for the degree of vulnerability to corruption reflected marginal to moderate venerability to corruption for most pharmaceutical sectors. The perceived strengths included availability of appropriate laws, the presence of clear standard operating procedures, and the use of an efficient registration/distribution system. Weaknesses included lack of conflict of interest guidelines and written terms of reference, absence of pharmacoeconomic studies, and inconsistencies in law enforcement. Findings reveal that few functions of Kuwait pharmaceutical sector remain fairly vulnerable to corruption. However, the willingness of Kuwait Ministry of Health to adopt the assessment study and the acknowledgement of the weaknesses of current processes of the pharmaceutical sector may assist to achieve a transparent pharmaceutical system in the near future. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

The Role of Women's Creativity and Innovations in the Nigerian Informal Sector of Oke Ogun Zone

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Alese, Oluwatoyin Dorcas

2011-01-01

This study was guided by the desire to advance whether concerted effort could enhance the creativity and innovations of women towards empowerment. Other purposes include: establishing the level of empowerment towards attaining good growth in building the informal sector economy and enhancing the status of women in Oke Ogun zone of Nigeria;…

Child and Adolescent Obesity and Employment Sector in Urban China

PubMed Central

Li, Yi; Zimmer, Zachary

2013-01-01

Despite its importance as a part of the economic reform in China, sectoral employment has been overlooked as a potential determinant of child and adolescent obesity (CAO). Using large-scale longitudinal data from surveys conducted from 1989 to 2006, this paper examines the relationship between the sector in which a parent is employed and CAO, with the sector being based on ownership and categorised as either state or non-state. Analyses of over 1,700 children and adolescents show that children and adolescents whose parents work in the state sector are less likely to be obese. Patterns of sectoral employment's effect are robust across time periods, in fixed-effects models, and across multiple measures of obesity. Additionally, the paper shows that socioeconomic characteristics of the parent, such as income, education, and occupation, typically thought to be important predictors of CAO, are not as important when the parental working sector is included in the models. PMID:24298293

Child and Adolescent Obesity and Employment Sector in Urban China.

PubMed

Li, Yi; Zimmer, Zachary

2013-01-01

Despite its importance as a part of the economic reform in China, sectoral employment has been overlooked as a potential determinant of child and adolescent obesity (CAO). Using large-scale longitudinal data from surveys conducted from 1989 to 2006, this paper examines the relationship between the sector in which a parent is employed and CAO, with the sector being based on ownership and categorised as either state or non-state. Analyses of over 1,700 children and adolescents show that children and adolescents whose parents work in the state sector are less likely to be obese. Patterns of sectoral employment's effect are robust across time periods, in fixed-effects models, and across multiple measures of obesity. Additionally, the paper shows that socioeconomic characteristics of the parent, such as income, education, and occupation, typically thought to be important predictors of CAO, are not as important when the parental working sector is included in the models.

The application, benefits and challenges of retrofitting the existing buildings

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Khairi, Muhammad; Jaapar, Aini; Yahya, Zaharah

2017-11-01

Sustainable development has been the main topic of debate for years in some countries such as United Kingdom, United State of America and Malaysia. Depletion of natural resources, global warming, economics uncertainty and health issues are some of the reasons behind sustainable development movements, it is not just a political debate in the parliament but more towards collective works among sectors in order to minimizing the negative impact of development to the environment and other living organism. Retrofit an existing building is one of the solutions to reduce the dependency on constructing new buildings. There are huge numbers of existing building stocks that suitable to be retrofitted such as historical buildings, offices, residential, warehouse, factories, vacant buildings and other historical buildings. Therefore, the aim of this research is to provide information on the application, benefits and challenges of retrofitting an existing building. Two buildings were chosen as case studies following by site visits and observation to the buildings. The data were then compared in a table form. Primary and secondary sources were also used for this research. The application of retrofit should be promoted across the construction and conservation industries since it has significant tangible and intangible benefits. It is one of the most environmentally friendly and efficient solutions to optimize the energy performance and could also helps to extend the life of the existing building or historical buildings while ensuring optimum thermal comfort for the occupants which leads to higher productivity.

Unlocking energy efficiency in small commercial buildings through mechanical contractors

DOE PAGES

Granderson, Jessica; Hult, Erin; Fernandes, Samuel; ...

2017-03-01

Although buildings smaller than 4,645 m 2 account for nearly half of the energy used in U.S. commercial buildings, energy-efficiency programs to date have primarily focused on larger buildings. Stakeholder interviews conducted during a scoping study by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) indicated interest in energy efficiency from the small commercial building sector, provided solutions are simple and of low cost. To address this need, an energy management package (EMP) was developed to deliver energy management to small commercial buildings via HVAC contractors, because they already serve these clients and the transaction cost to market would be reduced. This energy-managementmore » approach is unique from, but often complementary to, conventional quality maintenance or retrofit-focused programs targeting the small commercial segment. Furthermore, this paper presents an overview of the EMP, the business model to deliver it, and preliminary demonstration findings from a pilot use of the EMP. Results from the pilot validated that contractors could deliver the EMP in 4–8 h per building per year and that energy savings of 3–5% are feasible through this approach.« less

Unlocking energy efficiency in small commercial buildings through mechanical contractors

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Granderson, Jessica; Hult, Erin; Fernandes, Samuel

Although buildings smaller than 4,645 m 2 account for nearly half of the energy used in U.S. commercial buildings, energy-efficiency programs to date have primarily focused on larger buildings. Stakeholder interviews conducted during a scoping study by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) indicated interest in energy efficiency from the small commercial building sector, provided solutions are simple and of low cost. To address this need, an energy management package (EMP) was developed to deliver energy management to small commercial buildings via HVAC contractors, because they already serve these clients and the transaction cost to market would be reduced. This energy-managementmore » approach is unique from, but often complementary to, conventional quality maintenance or retrofit-focused programs targeting the small commercial segment. Furthermore, this paper presents an overview of the EMP, the business model to deliver it, and preliminary demonstration findings from a pilot use of the EMP. Results from the pilot validated that contractors could deliver the EMP in 4–8 h per building per year and that energy savings of 3–5% are feasible through this approach.« less

Recovery Act. Advanced Load Identification and Management for Buildings

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Yang, Yi; Casey, Patrick; Du, Liang

2014-02-12

In response to the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE)’s goal of achieving market ready, net-zero energy residential and commercial buildings by 2020 and 2025, Eaton partnered with the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Georgia Institute of Technology to develop an intelligent load identification and management technology enabled by a novel “smart power strip” to provide critical intelligence and information to improve the capability and functionality of building load analysis and building power management systems. Buildings account for 41% of the energy consumption in the United States, significantly more than either transportation or industrial. Within the buildingmore » sector, plug loads account for a significant portion of energy consumption. Plug load consumes 15-20% of building energy on average. As building managers implement aggressive energy conservation measures, the proportion of plug load energy can increase to as much as 50% of building energy leaving plug loads as the largest remaining single source of energy consumption. This project focused on addressing plug-in load control and management to further improve building energy efficiency accomplished through effective load identification. The execution of the project falls into the following three major aspects; An intelligent load modeling, identification and prediction technology was developed to automatically determine the type, energy consumption, power quality, operation status and performance status of plug-in loads, using electric waveforms at a power outlet level. This project demonstrated the effectiveness of the developed technology through a large set of plug-in loads measurements and testing; A novel “Smart Power Strip (SPS) / Receptacle” prototype was developed to act as a vehicle to demonstrate the feasibility of load identification technology as a low-cost, embedded solution; and Market environment for plug-in load control and management

Measuring the progress of capacity building in the Alberta Policy Coalition for Cancer Prevention.

PubMed

Raine, Kim D; Sosa Hernandez, Cristabel; Nykiforuk, Candace I J; Reed, Shandy; Montemurro, Genevieve; Lytvyak, Ellina; MacLellan-Wright, Mary-Frances

2014-07-01

The Alberta Policy Coalition for Cancer Prevention (APCCP) represents practitioners, policy makers, researchers, and community organizations working together to coordinate efforts and advocate for policy change to reduce chronic diseases. The aim of this research was to capture changes in the APCCP's capacity to advance its goals over the course of its operation. We adapted the Public Health Agency of Canada's validated Community Capacity-Building Tool to capture policy work. All members of the APCCP were invited to complete the tool in 2010 and 2011. Responses were analyzed using descriptive statistics and t tests. Qualitative comments were analyzed using thematic content analysis. A group process for reaching consensus provided context to the survey responses and contributed to a participatory analysis. Significant improvement was observed in eight out of nine capacity domains. Lessons learned highlight the importance of balancing volume and diversity of intersectoral representation to ensure effective participation, as well as aligning professional and economic resources. Defining involvement and roles within a coalition can be a challenging activity contingent on the interests of each sector represented. The participatory analysis enabled the group to reflect on progress made and future directions for policy advocacy. © 2013 Society for Public Health Education.

Public Sector Employment Inequality in the United States and the Great Recession.

PubMed

Laird, Jennifer

2017-02-01

Historically in the United States, the public sector has served as an equalizing institution through the expansion of job opportunities for minority workers. This study examines whether the public sector continues to serve as an equalizing institution in the aftermath of the Great Recession. Using data from the Current Population Survey, I investigate changes in public sector employment between 2003 and 2013. My results point to a post-recession double disadvantage for black public sector workers: they are concentrated in a shrinking sector of the economy, and they are more likely than white and Hispanic public sector workers to experience job loss. These two trends are a historical break for the public sector labor market. I find that race and ethnicity gaps in public sector employment cannot be explained by differences in education, occupation, or any of the other measurable factors that are typically associated with employment. Among unemployed workers who most recently worked for the public sector, black women are the least likely to transition into private sector employment.

PERFORMANCE CRITERIA, A SYSTEM OF COMMUNICATION FOR MOBILIZING BUILDING INDUSTRY RESOURCES.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

JACQUES, RICHARD G.

A PROGRAM TO TEST AND DEMONSTRATE THE EFFICACY OF PERFORMANCE CRITERIA FOR UNIVERSITY BUILDING DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION IS UNDER WAY IN NEW YORK STATE UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE NEW YORK STATE UNIVERSITY CONSTRUCTION FUND. THE PROGRAM IS TO RESULT IN AN EXTENSIVE LIBRARY OF PERFORMANCE CRITERIA TO AID COMMUNICATION WITH ALL SECTORS OF THE BUILDING…

Energy disclosure, market behavior, and the building data ecosystem.

PubMed

Kontokosta, Constantine E

2013-08-01

Energy disclosure laws represent one of the most promising public policy tools to accelerate market transformation around building energy efficiency. For this type of information to have an impact on market behavior, it must be collected, analyzed, and disseminated to support the decision-making processes of each end user and influence both the producers and consumers of building performance data. This paper explores the significance of energy disclosure requirements and outlines a framework for utilizing these new sources of transparent, publicly available information. It presents the mechanisms by which information can alter market behavior in the commercial real estate sector and develops a wiring diagram for the flows of information through the building data ecosystem. It concludes with a discussion of the motivations, metrics, and constraints faced by the various stakeholders in the ecosystem and how these factors influence investment decision models. © 2013 New York Academy of Sciences.

Building Low Carbon Cities: Framework to Design and Evaluate Alternative Technologies and Policies for Land Use Planning

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hashimoto, S.; Hamano, H.; Fujita, T.; Hori, H.

2008-12-01

Annex I parties of the Kyoto Protocol are facing even greater pressures to fulfill their commitment for GHG reduction as they enter the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol 2008-2012. In Japanese context, one such challenge is to reduce CO2 emissions from the household and business sectors because CO2 emissions from the both sectors has increased by 12% and 20% respectively since 1990 while the industry has achieved 21% of CO2 emissions reduction. Land use planning, which, either directly or indirectly, controls appropriate uses for land within jurisdictions, might play very important roles to deal with CO2 reductions from the household and business sectors. In this research, aiming at effective reductions of air- conditioning energy consumption and resultant CO2 emissions from the household and business sectors, the framework to design and evaluate land use planning was developed. The design and evaluation processes embraced in this framework consist of GIS database, technology and policy inventory for planning, one- dimensional urban canopy model which evaluate urban climate at neighborhood level and air-conditioning load calculation procedure. The GIS database provides spatial information of target areas such as land use, building use and road networks, which, then, helps design alternative land use plans. The technology and policy inventory includes various planning options ranging from those for land over control to those for building energy control, which, combined with the GIS database, serves for planning process. The urban canopy model derives vertical profiles of local climate, such as temperature and humidity, using the information of land use, building height and so on, aided by the GIS database. Vertical profiles of the urban climate are then utilized to derive air-conditioning load and associated CO2 emissions for each building located in target areas. The framework developed was applied to the coastal district of Kawasaki, Japan, with an

The third sector, user involvement and public service reform: a case study in the co-governance of health service provision.

PubMed

Martin, Graham P

2011-01-01

The ‘modernization’ of British public services seeks to broaden public sector governance networks, bringing the views of third sector organizations, the public and service users (among others) to the design, management and delivery of welfare. Building on previous analyses of the contradictions generated by these roles, this paper draws on longitudinal qualitative research to enunciate the challenges faced by one third-sector organization in facilitating service user influence in a UK National Health Service (NHS) pilot programme, alongside other roles in tension with this advocacy function. The analysis highlights limits in the extent to which lateral governance networks pluralize stakeholder involvement. The ‘framing’ of governance may mean that traditional concerns outweigh the views of new stakeholders such as the third sector and service users. Rather than prioritizing wider stakeholders' views in the design and delivery of public services, placing third sector organizations at the centre of governance networks may do more to co-opt these organizations in reproducing predominant priorities.

Better Buildings Neighborhood Program: BetterBuildings Lowell Final Report

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Heslin, Thomas

the local Historic Board, which has jurisdiction in the NHP. The Historic Board was cooperative with any exterior renovations as long as they were not changing the existing aesthetics of the property. If we were replacing a rooftop condenser it needed to be placed where the existing rooftop condenser was located. Receiving proper approval from the Historic Board for any external energy conservation measures was known by all the participating contractors. One area of the retrofits that was contentious regarded venting of the new HVAC equipment. Installing external stacks was not allowed so the contractors had to negotiate with the Historic Board regarding the proper way to vent the equipment that met the needs mechanically and aesthetically. Overall BetterBuildings Lowell was successful at implementing energy and cost saving measures into 31 commercial properties located within the NHP. The 31 retrofits had 1,554,768 square feet of commercial and multifamily housing and a total predicted energy savings exceeding 22,869 a year. Overall the City of Lowell achieved its target goals and is satisfied with the accomplishments of the BetterBuildings program. The City will continue to pursue energy efficient programs and projects.« less

Measurements of carbonyls in a 13-story building.

PubMed

Báez, Armando P; Padilla, Hugo G; García, Rocío M; Belmont, Raúl D; Torres, Maria del Carmen B

2004-01-01

Formaldehyde and acetaldehyde are emitted by many mobile and stationary sources and secondary aldehydes are intermediates in the photo-oxidation of organic compounds in the atmosphere. These aldehydes are emitted indoors by many materials such as furniture, carpets, heating and cooling systems, an by smoking. Carbonyls, mainly formaldehyde and acetaldehyde, have been studied because of their adverse health effects. In addition, formaldehyde is a suspected carcinogen. Therefore, the concentrations of formaldehyde and acetaldehyde were determined to assess the inhalation exposure doses to carbonyls for people who work in a 13-story building and in order to evaluate the cancer hazard. Carbonyl compounds in indoor and outdoor air were measured at a 13-story building located in Mexico City. The mezzanine, fifth and tenth floors, and the third level-parking garage were selected for sampling. Samples were collected in two sampling periods, the first from April 20 to 29, 1998 and the second from December 1 to 20, 1998. Carbonyls were sampled by means of DNHP-coated cartridges at a flow rate of 1 l min(-1) from 9:00 to 19:00 hours, during 2-hour time intervals and analyzed by HPLC with hours, during 2-hour time intervals and analyzed by HPLC with UV/VIS detection. Mean carbonyl concentrations were highest in the 3rd level-parking garage, with the formaldehyde concentration being the highest ranging from 108 to 418 microg m(-3). In working areas, the highest carbonyl arithmetic mean concentrations (AM) were observed on the 5th floor. Acetone and formaldehyde concentrations were highest in April ranging from 161 to 348 microg m(-3) (AM = 226) and from 157 to 270 microg m(-3) (AM = 221), respectively. Propionaldehyde and butyraldehyde were present in smaller concentrations ranging from 2 to 25 and 1 to 28 microg m(-3), respectively, considering all the samples. Mean indoor/outdoor ratios of carbonyls ranged from 1.8 to 9.6. A reduction of inhalation exposure doses of 41% and

Multi-Sector Sustainability Browser (MSSB) User Manual: A ...

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

EPA’s Sustainable and Healthy Communities (SHC) Research Program is developing methodologies, resources, and tools to assist community members and local decision makers in implementing policy choices that facilitate sustainable approaches in managing their resources affecting the built environment, natural environment, and human health. In order to assist communities and decision makers in implementing sustainable practices, EPA is developing computer-based systems including models, databases, web tools, and web browsers to help communities decide upon approaches that support their desired outcomes. Communities need access to resources that will allow them to achieve their sustainability objectives through intelligent decisions in four key sustainability areas: • Land Use • Buildings and Infrastructure • Transportation • Materials Management (i.e., Municipal Solid Waste [MSW] processing and disposal) The Multi-Sector Sustainability Browser (MSSB) is designed to support sustainable decision-making for communities, local and regional planners, and policy and decision makers. Document is an EPA Technical Report, which is the user manual for the Multi-Sector Sustainability Browser (MSSB) tool. The purpose of the document is to provide basic guidance on use of the tool for users

Uncertainty quantification and propagation in dynamic models using ambient vibration measurements, application to a 10-story building

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Behmanesh, Iman; Yousefianmoghadam, Seyedsina; Nozari, Amin; Moaveni, Babak; Stavridis, Andreas

2018-07-01

This paper investigates the application of Hierarchical Bayesian model updating for uncertainty quantification and response prediction of civil structures. In this updating framework, structural parameters of an initial finite element (FE) model (e.g., stiffness or mass) are calibrated by minimizing error functions between the identified modal parameters and the corresponding parameters of the model. These error functions are assumed to have Gaussian probability distributions with unknown parameters to be determined. The estimated parameters of error functions represent the uncertainty of the calibrated model in predicting building's response (modal parameters here). The focus of this paper is to answer whether the quantified model uncertainties using dynamic measurement at building's reference/calibration state can be used to improve the model prediction accuracies at a different structural state, e.g., damaged structure. Also, the effects of prediction error bias on the uncertainty of the predicted values is studied. The test structure considered here is a ten-story concrete building located in Utica, NY. The modal parameters of the building at its reference state are identified from ambient vibration data and used to calibrate parameters of the initial FE model as well as the error functions. Before demolishing the building, six of its exterior walls were removed and ambient vibration measurements were also collected from the structure after the wall removal. These data are not used to calibrate the model; they are only used to assess the predicted results. The model updating framework proposed in this paper is applied to estimate the modal parameters of the building at its reference state as well as two damaged states: moderate damage (removal of four walls) and severe damage (removal of six walls). Good agreement is observed between the model-predicted modal parameters and those identified from vibration tests. Moreover, it is shown that including prediction

Malaysia and the Knowledge Economy: Building a World-Class Higher Education System. Human Development Sector Reports

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Regel, Omporn; Salmi, Jamil; Watkins, Alfred; Tan, Hong; Dawkins, John; Saroyan, Alenoush; Vestergaard, Jakob

2007-01-01

This report was prepared at the request of the Government of Malaysia (GOM) as a contribution to the long term development objectives for the university sector under the Ninth Malaysia Plan. The GOM is considering new policy directions to make the country a more competitive player in the world economy. Such a strategy will require bold innovations…

A long-term, integrated impact assessment of alternative building energy code scenarios in China

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Yu, Sha; Eom, Jiyong; Evans, Meredydd

2014-04-01

China is the second largest building energy user in the world, ranking first and third in residential and commercial energy consumption. Beginning in the early 1980s, the Chinese government has developed a variety of building energy codes to improve building energy efficiency and reduce total energy demand. This paper studies the impact of building energy codes on energy use and CO2 emissions by using a detailed building energy model that represents four distinct climate zones each with three building types, nested in a long-term integrated assessment framework GCAM. An advanced building stock module, coupled with the building energy model, ismore » developed to reflect the characteristics of future building stock and its interaction with the development of building energy codes in China. This paper also evaluates the impacts of building codes on building energy demand in the presence of economy-wide carbon policy. We find that building energy codes would reduce Chinese building energy use by 13% - 22% depending on building code scenarios, with a similar effect preserved even under the carbon policy. The impact of building energy codes shows regional and sectoral variation due to regionally differentiated responses of heating and cooling services to shell efficiency improvement.« less

Seismic damage diagnosis of a masonry building using short-term damping measurements

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kouris, Leonidas Alexandros S.; Penna, Andrea; Magenes, Guido

2017-04-01

It is of considerable importance to perform dynamic identification and detect damage in existing structures. This paper describes a new and practical method for damage diagnosis of masonry buildings requiring minimum computational effort. The method is based on the relative variation of modal damping and validated against experimental data from a full scale two storey shake table test. The experiment involves a building subjected to uniaxial vibrations of progressively increasing intensity at the facilities of EUCENTRE laboratory (Pavia, Italy) up to a near collapse damage state. Five time-histories are applied scaling the Montenegro (1979) accelerogram. These strong motion tests are preceded by random vibration tests (RVT's) which are used to perform modal analysis. Two deterministic methods are applied: the single degree of freedom (SDOF) assumption together with the peak-picking method in the discrete frequency domain and the Eigen realisation algorithm with data correlations (ERA-DC) in the discrete time domain. Regarding the former procedure, some improvements are incorporated to locate rigorously the natural frequencies and estimate the modal damping. The progressive evolution of the modal damping is used as a key indicator to characterise damage on the building. Modal damping is connected to the structural mass and stiffness. A square integrated but only with two components expression for proportional (classical) damping is proposed to fit better with the experimental measurements of modal damping ratios. Using this Rayleigh order formulation the contribution of each of the damping components is evaluated. The stiffness component coefficient is proposed as an effective index to detect damage and quantify its intensity.

77 FR 48499 - U.S. Multi-Sector Trade Mission to South India and Sri Lanka Chennai and Cochin, India and...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2012-08-14

... losses in India's transmission and distribution sector exceed 30%, which ranks among the highest rates of... Sri Lanka boost their infrastructure and building requirements. Target subsectors holding high.... The availability of electricity, fresh water, long coastline, backwaters, good banking facilities...

Place-Based Initiatives to Improve Health in Disadvantaged Communities: Cross-Sector Characteristics and Networks of Local Actors in North Carolina

PubMed Central

Moody, James; Nelson, Alicia; Willis, Janese M.; Fuller, Lori; Smart, Allen J.; Easterling, Doug; Silberberg, Mina

2016-01-01

Objectives. To examine the leadership attributes and collaborative connections of local actors from the health sector and those outside the health sector in a major place-based health initiative. Methods. We used survey data from 340 individuals in 4 Healthy Places North Carolina counties from 2014 to assess the leadership attributes (awareness, attitudes, and capacity) and network connections of local actors by their organizational sector. Results. Respondents’ leadership attributes—scored on 5-point Likert scales—were similar across Healthy Places North Carolina counties. Although local actors reported high levels of awareness and collaboration around community health improvement, we found lower levels of capacity for connecting diversity, identifying barriers, and using resources in new ways to improve community health. Actors outside the health sector had generally lower levels of capacity than actors in the health sector. Those in the health sector exhibited the majority of network ties in their community; however, they were also the most segregated from actors in other sectors. Conclusions. More capacity building around strategic action—particularly in nonhealth sectors—is needed to support efforts in making widespread changes to community health. PMID:27459443

Directions for model building from asymptotic safety

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bond, Andrew D.; Hiller, Gudrun; Kowalska, Kamila; Litim, Daniel F.

2017-08-01

Building on recent advances in the understanding of gauge-Yukawa theories we explore possibilities to UV-complete the Standard Model in an asymptotically safe manner. Minimal extensions are based on a large flavor sector of additional fermions coupled to a scalar singlet matrix field. We find that asymptotic safety requires fermions in higher representations of SU(3) C × SU(2) L . Possible signatures at colliders are worked out and include R-hadron searches, diboson signatures and the evolution of the strong and weak coupling constants.

THE CO2 ABATEMENT POTENTIAL OF CALIFORNIA'S MID-SIZED COMMERCIAL BUILDINGS

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Stadler, Michael; Marnay, Chris; Cardoso, Goncalo

2009-12-31

The Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) is working with the California Energy Commission (CEC) todetermine the potential role of commercial sector distributed generation (DG) with combined heat and power (CHP) capability deployment in greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) reductions. CHP applications at large industrial sites are well known, and a large share of their potential has already been harvested. In contrast, relatively little attention has been paid to the potential of medium-sized commercial buildings, i.e. ones with peak electric loads ranging from 100 kW to 5 MW. We examine how this sector might implement DG with CHP in costmore » minimizing microgrids that are able to adopt and operate various energy technologies, such as solar photovoltaics (PV), on-site thermal generation, heat exchangers, solar thermal collectors, absorption chillers, and storage systems. We apply a mixed-integer linear program (MILP) that minimizes a site?s annual energy costs as its objective. Using 138 representative mid-sized commercial sites in California (CA), existing tariffs of three major electricity distribution ultilities, and performance data of available technology in 2020, we find the GHG reduction potential for this CA commercial sector segment, which represents about 35percent of total statewide commercial sector sales. Under the assumptions made, in a reference case, this segment is estimated to be capable of economically installing 1.4 GW of CHP, 35percent of the California Air Resources Board (CARB) statewide 4 GW goal for total incremental CHP deployment by 2020. However, because CARB?s assumed utilization is far higher than is found by the MILP, the adopted CHP only contributes 19percent of the CO2 target. Several sensitivity runs were completed. One applies a simple feed-in tariff similar to net metering, and another includes a generous self-generation incentive program (SGIP) subsidy for fuel cells. The feed-in tariff proves ineffective at

Emission projections of the transport Sector in China: 2015-2040

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yan, L.

2016-12-01

Driven by the significant growth freight and passenger transport demand, transport sector has become a sector that is largely responsible for increases in emissions of atmospheric pollutants (NOx, CO, HC, PM2.5) in China. Figuring out the emission trend in China's transport sector has great influence on formulating emission reduction measures in the future. In this work, both on-road and off-road transport emissions in China were estimated from 2015 to 2040 for CO, NOx, HC and PM2.5. The projection was conducted based on on the energy consumption structure forecast from IEA (International Energy Agency), the future national average annual distance traveled per vehicle and fuel consumption per distance derived from simulation results of the Fuel Economy and Environmental Impact (FEEI) model. The results show that the ownership of on-road vehicles in China increases rapidly during 2015 to 2030 and then the growth slows down. Finally, the total amount reaches up to 522 million in 2040 in which 84.5% turns out to be light-duty vehicles. Because current control legislations for the transport sector in China will continue to be strengthened in the future, the total emissions of China's transport sector were projected to peak around 2030, due to the improvement of vehicle emission standard and the retirement of old vehicles are the most effective measures. The off-road transport will become the main contributor to emissions from transport sector in China since 2030. This work provides a new perspective to understand emissions from both on-road and off-road transport in China, which can support the achievement of improving air quality promised by the Chinese government. This work provides a new perspective to understand the emission trends of on-road and off-road transport sector in China from 2015 to 2040, which can support the achievement of the air quality goal promised by the Chinese government. Driven by the significant growth freight and passenger transport demand

U.S. Energy Sector Impacts of Technology Innovation, Fuel Price, and Electric Sector CO 2 Policy: Results from the EMF 32 Model Intercomparison Study

DOE PAGES

Hodson, Elke L.; Brown, Maxwell; Cohen, Stuart; ...

2018-03-22

We study the impact of fuel prices, technology innovation, and a CO 2 emissions reduction policy on both the electric power and end-use sectors by comparing outputs from four U.S. energyeconomic models through the year 2050. Achieving innovation goals decreases CO 2 emissions in all models, regardless of natural gas price, due to increased energy efficiency and low-carbon generation becoming more cost competitive. For the models that include domestic natural gas markets, achieving innovation goals lowers wholesale electricity prices, but this effect diminishes as projected natural gas prices increase. Higher natural gas prices lead to higher wholesale electricity prices butmore » fewer coal capacity retirements. A CO 2 electric power sector emissions cap influences electric sector evolution under reference technology assumptions but has little to no incremental influence when added to innovation goals. Long-term, meeting innovation goals achieves a generation mix with similar CO 2 emissions compared to the CO 2 policy but with smaller increases to wholesale electricity prices. In the short-term, the relative effect on wholesale prices differs by model. Finally, higher natural gas prices, achieving innovation goals, and the combination of the two, increases the amount of renewable generation that is cost-effective to build and operate while slowing the growth of natural-gas fired generation, which is the predominant generation type in 2050 under reference conditions.« less

U.S. Energy Sector Impacts of Technology Innovation, Fuel Price, and Electric Sector CO 2 Policy: Results from the EMF 32 Model Intercomparison Study

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Hodson, Elke L.; Brown, Maxwell; Cohen, Stuart

We study the impact of fuel prices, technology innovation, and a CO 2 emissions reduction policy on both the electric power and end-use sectors by comparing outputs from four U.S. energyeconomic models through the year 2050. Achieving innovation goals decreases CO 2 emissions in all models, regardless of natural gas price, due to increased energy efficiency and low-carbon generation becoming more cost competitive. For the models that include domestic natural gas markets, achieving innovation goals lowers wholesale electricity prices, but this effect diminishes as projected natural gas prices increase. Higher natural gas prices lead to higher wholesale electricity prices butmore » fewer coal capacity retirements. A CO 2 electric power sector emissions cap influences electric sector evolution under reference technology assumptions but has little to no incremental influence when added to innovation goals. Long-term, meeting innovation goals achieves a generation mix with similar CO 2 emissions compared to the CO 2 policy but with smaller increases to wholesale electricity prices. In the short-term, the relative effect on wholesale prices differs by model. Finally, higher natural gas prices, achieving innovation goals, and the combination of the two, increases the amount of renewable generation that is cost-effective to build and operate while slowing the growth of natural-gas fired generation, which is the predominant generation type in 2050 under reference conditions.« less

Developing an Integrated Information System for the Food Sector. Agricultural Economic Report No. 575.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Manchester, Alden

This document proposes an information system for the food sector that integrates measures of prices, quantities, and values. It suggests that such an integrated information system provides more information about many developments in the food sector than a system that separately measures prices, quantities, or values. Concepts and approaches…

Risk-based input-output analysis of influenza epidemic consequences on interdependent workforce sectors.

PubMed

Santos, Joost R; May, Larissa; Haimar, Amine El

2013-09-01

Outbreaks of contagious diseases underscore the ever-looming threat of new epidemics. Compared to other disasters that inflict physical damage to infrastructure systems, epidemics can have more devastating and prolonged impacts on the population. This article investigates the interdependent economic and productivity risks resulting from epidemic-induced workforce absenteeism. In particular, we develop a dynamic input-output model capable of generating sector-disaggregated economic losses based on different magnitudes of workforce disruptions. An ex post analysis of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic in the national capital region (NCR) reveals the distribution of consequences across different economic sectors. Consequences are categorized into two metrics: (i) economic loss, which measures the magnitude of monetary losses incurred in each sector, and (ii) inoperability, which measures the normalized monetary losses incurred in each sector relative to the total economic output of that sector. For a simulated mild pandemic scenario in NCR, two distinct rankings are generated using the economic loss and inoperability metrics. Results indicate that the majority of the critical sectors ranked according to the economic loss metric comprise of sectors that contribute the most to the NCR's gross domestic product (e.g., federal government enterprises). In contrast, the majority of the critical sectors generated by the inoperability metric include sectors that are involved with epidemic management (e.g., hospitals). Hence, prioritizing sectors for recovery necessitates consideration of the balance between economic loss, inoperability, and other objectives. Although applied specifically to the NCR, the proposed methodology can be customized for other regions. © 2012 Society for Risk Analysis.

Risk-Based Input-Output Analysis of Influenza Epidemic Consequences on Interdependent Workforce Sectors

PubMed Central

Santos, Joost R.; May, Larissa; Haimar, Amine El

2013-01-01

Outbreaks of contagious diseases underscore the ever-looming threat of new epidemics. Compared to other disasters that inflict physical damage to infrastructure systems, epidemics can have more devastating and prolonged impacts on the population. This paper investigates the interdependent economic and productivity risks resulting from epidemic-induced workforce absenteeism. In particular, we develop a dynamic input-output model capable of generating sector-disaggregated economic losses based on different magnitudes of workforce disruptions. An ex post analysis of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic in the National Capital Region (NCR) reveals the distribution of consequences across different economic sectors. Consequences are categorized into two metrics: (i) economic loss, which measures the magnitude of monetary losses incurred in each sector, and (ii) inoperability, which measures the normalized monetary losses incurred in each sector relative to the total economic output of that sector. For a simulated mild pandemic scenario in NCR, two distinct rankings are generated using the economic loss and inoperability metrics. Results indicate that the majority of the critical sectors ranked according to the economic loss metric comprise of sectors that contribute the most to the NCR's gross domestic product (e.g., federal government enterprises). In contrast, the majority of the critical sectors generated by the inoperability metric include sectors that are involved with epidemic management (e.g., hospitals). Hence, prioritizing sectors for recovery necessitates consideration of the balance between economic loss, inoperability, and other objectives. Although applied specifically to the NCR region, the proposed methodology can be customized for other regions. PMID:23278756

Damages of surface ozone: evidence from agricultural sector in China

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yi, Fujin; McCarl, Bruce A.; Zhou, Xun; Jiang, Fei

2018-03-01

This study measures the damages that surface ozone pollution causes within the Chinese agricultural sector under 2014 conditions. It also analyzes the agricultural benefits of ozone reductions. The analysis is done using a partial equilibrium model of China’s agricultural sector. Results indicate that there are substantial, spatially differentiated damages that are greatest in ozone-sensitive crop growing areas with higher ozone concentrations. The estimated damage to China’s agricultural sector range is between CNY 1.6 trillion and 2.2 trillion, which for comparison is about one fifth of 2014 agricultural revenue. When considering concentration reduction we find a 30% ozone reduction yields CNY 678 billion in sectoral benefits. These benefits largely fall to consumers with producers losing as the production gains lead to lower prices.

Effects of long-term climate change on global building energy expenditures

DOE PAGES

Clarke, Leon; Eom, Jiyong; Marten, Elke Hodson; ...

2018-01-06

Our paper explores potential future implications of climate change on building energy expenditures around the globe. Increasing expenditures result from increased electricity use for cooling, and are offset to varying degrees, depending on the region, by decreased energy consumption for heating. WE conducted an analysis using a model of the global buildings sector within the GCAM integrated assessment model. The integrated assessment framework is valuable because it represents socioeconomic and energy system changes that will be important for understanding building energy expenditures in the future. Results indicate that changes in net expenditures are not uniform across the globe. Net expendituresmore » decrease in some regions, such as Canada and Russia, where heating demands currently dominate, and increase the most in areas with less demand for space heating and greater demand for space cooling. We explain these results in terms of the basic drivers that link building energy expenditures to regional climate.« less

Effects of long-term climate change on global building energy expenditures

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Clarke, Leon; Eom, Jiyong; Marten, Elke Hodson

Our paper explores potential future implications of climate change on building energy expenditures around the globe. Increasing expenditures result from increased electricity use for cooling, and are offset to varying degrees, depending on the region, by decreased energy consumption for heating. WE conducted an analysis using a model of the global buildings sector within the GCAM integrated assessment model. The integrated assessment framework is valuable because it represents socioeconomic and energy system changes that will be important for understanding building energy expenditures in the future. Results indicate that changes in net expenditures are not uniform across the globe. Net expendituresmore » decrease in some regions, such as Canada and Russia, where heating demands currently dominate, and increase the most in areas with less demand for space heating and greater demand for space cooling. We explain these results in terms of the basic drivers that link building energy expenditures to regional climate.« less

Analysis of energy-saving potential in residential buildings in Xiamen City and its policy implications for southern China

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Guo, Fei

The buildings sector is the largest energy-consuming sector in the world. Residential buildings consume about three-quarters of the final energy in the buildings sector. Promoting residential energy savings is in consequence critical for addressing many energy-use-related environmental challenges, such as climate change and air pollution. Given China's robust economic growth and fast urbanization, it is now a critical time to develop policy interventions on residential energy use in the nation. With this as a background, this dissertation explores effective policy intervention opportunities in southern China through analyzing the residential energy-saving potential, using the city of Xiamen as a case study. Four types of residential energy-saving potential are analyzed: technical potential, economic potential, maximum achievable potential (MAP), and possible achievable potential (PAP). Of these, the first two types are characterized as static theoretical evaluation, while the last two represent dynamic evaluation within a certain time horizon. The achievable potential analyses are rarely seen in existing literature. The analytical results reveal that there exists a significant technical potential for residential energy savings of about 20.9-24.9% in the city of Xiamen. Of the technical potential, about two-thirds to four-fifths are cost-effective from the government or society perspective. The cost-effectiveness is evaluated by comparing the "Levelized Cost of Conserved Energy (LCOCE)" of available advanced technical measures with the "Actual Cost" of conserved energy. The "Actual Cost" of energy is defined by adding the environmental externalities costs and hidden government subsidies over the retail prices of energy. The achievable potential analyses are particularly based on two key realistic factors: 1) the gradual ramping-up adoption process of advanced technical measures; and 2) individuals' adoption-decision making on them. For implementing the achievable

How the Timing of Climate Change Policy Affects Infrastructure Turnover in the Electricity Sector: Engineering, Economic and Policy Considerations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Izard, Catherine Finlay

The electricity sector is responsible for producing 35% of US greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Estimates suggest that ideally, the electricity sector would be responsible for approximately 85% of emissions abatement associated with climate polices such as America's Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES). This is equivalent to ˜50% cumulative emissions reductions below projected cumulative business-as-usual (BAU) emissions. Achieving these levels of emissions reductions will require dramatic changes in the US electricity generating infrastructure: almost all of the fossil-generation fleet will need to be replaced with low-carbon sources and society is likely to have to maintain a high build rate of new capacity for decades. Unfortunately, the inertia in the electricity sector means that there may be physical constraints to the rate at which new electricity generating capacity can be built. Because the build rate of new electricity generating capacity may be limited, the timing of regulation is critical---the longer the U.S. waits to start reducing GHG emissions, the faster the turnover in the electricity sector must occur in order to meet the same target. There is a real, and thus far unexplored, possibility that the U.S. could delay climate change policy implementation for long enough that it becomes infeasible to attain the necessary rate of turnover in the electricity sector. This dissertation investigates the relationship between climate policy timing and infrastructure turnover in the electricity sector. The goal of the dissertation is to answer the question: How long can we wait before constraints on infrastructure turnover in the electricity sector make achieving our climate goals impossible? Using the Infrastructure Flow Assessment Model, which was developed in this work, this dissertation shows that delaying climate change policy increases average retirements rates by 200-400%, increases average construction rates by 25-85% and increases maximum construction

June Solstice Equatorial Spread F in the American Sector: A Numerical Assessment of Linear Stability Aided by Incoherent Scatter Radar Measurements

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhan, Weijia; S. Rodrigues, Fabiano

2018-01-01

Previous studies have suggested that weakening downward plasma drifts can produce favorable conditions for the ionospheric Generalized Rayleigh-Taylor (GRT) instability and explain the occurrence of postmidnight equatorial spread F (ESF). We evaluated this hypothesis using numerical simulations aided by measurements and attempted to explain ESF events observed in the American sector during June solstice, low solar flux conditions. We analyzed plasma drifts and ESF measurements made by the incoherent scatter radar of the Jicamarca Radio Observatory (11.95° S, 76.87° W, ˜1° dip). We found adequate measurements during a prototypical, quiet time event on 4-5 June 2008 when the downward drifts weakened and a fully developed ESF appeared. The measured drifts were used as input for the SAMI2 model. SAMI2 reproduced an "apparent" uplift of the ionosphere based on h'F measurements that was consistent with expectations and observations. SAMI2 also provided parameters for estimation of the flux tube linear growth rates of GRT instability associated with the weakening drift event. We found that the weakening drifts did produce unstable conditions with positive growth rates. The growth rates, however, were slower than those obtained for typical, premidnight ESF events and those obtained for similar drift conditions in other longitude sectors. We show, however, that departures in the wind pattern, from climatological model predictions, can produce favorable conditions for instability development. Following the hypothesis of Huba and Krall (2013) and using SAMI2 simulations, we show that equatorward winds, when combined with weakening drifts, could have contributed to the unstable conditions responsible for the postmidnight ESF events.

Knowledge translation in tri-sectoral collaborations: An exploration of perceptions of academia, industry and healthcare collaborations in innovation adoption.

PubMed

Ii, Suzanne Sayuri; Fitzgerald, Louise; Morys-Carter, Megan M; Davie, Natasha L; Barker, Richard

2018-02-01

With the aging population and increase in chronic disease conditions, innovation to transform treatment pathways and service delivery will be necessary. The innovation adoption process however, can take 15 years before widespread adoption occurs in most healthcare systems. Current UK government policies to increase the facilitation of innovation adoption are under way. The aim of this study is to explore perceptions of tri-sectoral collaborations in the healthcare sector. The data in the study are drawn from a cross-sectional survey conducted in 2015 of professionals in academia, industry and the healthcare sectors in England, focusing on Diabetes care. Academia and healthcare respondents had the least work experience outside of their sectors compared to the industry respondents. Healthcare and academia respondents rated the industry sector less trustworthy, unethical, having different goals and less understanding of the other sectors. Industry respondents had a more positive perspective towards potential collaborators. The results from the study demonstrate greater potential challenges to tri-sectoral collaborations and the government's knowledge translation policy, due to pre-conceived notions and lack of understanding of other sectors. The purely structural approach of establishing government mandated translational networks may be insufficient without active attempts to improve collaborative relationships. Mechanisms to facilitate trust building and collaboration are proposed. Crown Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Standardized Curriculum for Building Trades.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mississippi State Dept. of Education, Jackson. Office of Vocational, Technical and Adult Education.

Standardized curricula are provided for two courses for the secondary vocational education program in Mississippi: building trades I and II. The eight units in building trades I are as follows: safety; measurement; tools, equipment, and hardware; building plans and blueprints; introduction to carpentry; introduction to plumbing; introduction to…

Re-Assessing Green Building Performance: A Post Occupancy Evaluation of 22 GSA Buildings

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Fowler, Kimberly M.; Rauch, Emily M.; Henderson, Jordan W.

2010-06-01

2nd report on the performance of GSA's sustainably designed buildings. The purpose of this study was to provide an overview of measured whole building performance as it compares to GSA and industry baselines. The PNNL research team found the data analysis illuminated strengths and weaknesses of individual buildings as well as the portfolio of buildings. This section includes summary data, observations that cross multiple performance metrics, discussion of lessons learned from this research, and opportunities for future research. The summary of annual data for each of the performance metrics is provided in Table 25. The data represent 1 year ofmore » measurements and are not associated with any specific design features or strategies. Where available, multiple years of data were examined and there were minimal significant differences between the years. Individually focused post occupancy evaluation (POEs) would allow for more detailed analysis of the buildings. Examining building performance over multiple years could potentially offer a useful diagnostic tool for identifying building operations that are in need of operational changes. Investigating what the connection is between the building performance and the design intent would offer potential design guidance and possible insight into building operation strategies. The 'aggregate operating cost' metric used in this study represents the costs that were available for developing a comparative industry baseline for office buildings. The costs include water utilities, energy utilities, general maintenance, grounds maintenance, waste and recycling, and janitorial costs. Three of the buildings that cost more than the baseline in Figure 45 have higher maintenance costs than the baseline, and one has higher energy costs. Given the volume of data collected and analyzed for this study, the inevitable request is for a simple answer with respect to sustainably designed building performance. As previously stated, compiling

Energy Efficiency Building Systems Regional Innovation Cluster Initiative

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Krebs, Martha

The Consortium for Building Energy Innovation (CBEI) was established through a Funding Opportunity Announcement led by the U.S. Department of Energy, under a cooperative agreement managed by the National Energy Technology Laboratory. CBEI is led by The Pennsylvania State University and is composed of partners from academia, the private sector, and economic development agencies. The Consortium has included as many as 24 different partners over the five years, but 14 have been core to the work over the five year cooperative agreement. CBEI primarily focused on developing energy efficiency solutions for the small and medium commercial building market, with amore » focus on buildings less than 50,000 square feet. This market has been underserved by the energy efficiency industry, which has focused on larger commercial buildings where the scale of an individual retrofit lends itself to the use of sophisticated modeling tools and more advanced solutions. Owners/operators and retrofit providers for larger buildings have a greater level of understanding of, and experience with different solutions. In contrast, smaller commercial building retrofits, like residential retrofits, often have owners with less knowledge about energy management and less time to learn about it. This market segment is also served by retrofit providers that are smaller and often focused on particular building systems, e.g. heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC), lighting, roofing, or insulation. The size of a smaller commercial building retrofit does not lend itself, from a cost perspective, to the application of multiple, sophisticated design and modeling tools, which means that they are less likely to have integrated solutions.« less

One Health: a perspective from the human health sector.

PubMed

Kakkar, M; Hossain, S S; Abbas, S S

2014-08-01

Despite emerging consensus that the One Health concept involves multiple stakeholders, the human health sector has continued to view it from a predominantly human health security perspective. It has often ignored the concerns of other sectors, e.g. concerns that relate to trade, commerce, livelihoods and sustainable development, all of which are important contributors to societal well-being. In the absence of a culture of collaboration, clear One Health goals, conceptual clarity and operating frameworks, this disconnect between human health and One Health efforts has often impeded the translation of One Health from concept to reality, other than during emergency situations. If there are to be effective and sustainable One Health partnerships we must identify clear operating principles that allow flexible approaches to intersectoral collaborations. To convince technical experts and political leaders in the human health sector of the importance of intersectoral cooperation, and to make the necessary structural adjustments, we need examples of best practice models and trans-sectoral methods for measuring the risks, burden and costs across sectors. Informal collaborations between researchers and technical experts will play a decisive role in developing these methods and models and instilling societal well-being into the human health sector's view of One Health.