Search results for " building"
showing 10 items of 1026 documents
Strategies for building energy retrofit in the mediterranean basin
2012
The paper focuses on passive and active strategies for achieving sustainable recovery of existing buildings in the Mediterranean Basin, in order to improve indoor comfort and reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere. The Mediterranean Basin is characterized by relatively mild winters and very warm summers. Although Mediterranean climate conditions offer excellent opportunity for the application of alternative energy sources (eg. wind, solar, hydroelectric), they are not very applied yet. Italy and Sicily in particular, comparing to most of EU countries , hang still behind in the application of innovative techniques for sustainable design and planning, and energy retrofitting of exi…
Cap Rate as the Interpretative Variable of the Urban Real Estate Capital Asset: A Comparison of Different Sub‐Market Definitions in Palermo, Italy
2017
Real estate capital is in constant competition with other capital assets due to its different and complementary economic functions such as direct use, productive investment, and speculative investment. These features and the resulting opportunities cannot be easily deduced from direct observation of the real estate markets, so some further insights need to be carried out in order to highlight the relationship between prices, rents and performances. This study aims at providing a multifaceted perspective of a specific urban real estate market to overcome the difficulties arising from opacities and informative asymmetries that hinder the decision of investors, by facilitating the comparison o…
An ANN model to correlate roughness and structural performance in asphalt pavements
2017
Abstract In this paper, using a large database from the Long Term Pavement Performance program, the authors developed an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) to estimate the structural performance of asphalt pavements from roughness data. Considering advantages of modern high-performance survey devices in the acquisition of road pavement functional parameters, it would be of practical significance if the structural state of a pavement could be estimated from its functional conditions. To differentiate various road section conditions, several significant input parameters, related to traffic, weather, and structural aspects, have been included in the analysis. The results are very interesting and …
Development of Eco-Friendly and Self-Cleaning Lime-Pozzolan Plasters for Bio-Construction and Cultural Heritage
2020
Summarization: Nowadays, the design and use of multi-functional mortars has increased significantly, with interesting applications in the green building and cultural heritage conservation sectors. A key point for a correct adoption of these innovative materials is their behavior along time and their resistance to the weathering. The objective of this project was to define the performance and durability of innovative mortars, in order to use them correctly and to avoid irreparable damage over time. For the development of this project, lime–metakaolin and hydraulic lime–metakaolin based mortars (hereinafter called A, B), as well as A and B with the addition of nano-TiO2 and perlite (hereinaft…
Artificial Neural Networks to assess energy and environmental performance of buildings: An Italian case study
2019
Abstract Approximately 40% of the European energy consumption and a large proportion of environmental impacts are related to the building sector. However, the selection of adequate and correct designs can provide considerable energy savings and reduce environmental impacts. To achieve this objective, a simultaneous energy and environmental assessment of a building's life cycle is necessary. To date, the resolution of this complex problem is entrusted to numerous software and calculation algorithms that are often complex to use. They involve long diagnosis phases and are characterised by the lack of a common language. Despite the efforts by the scientific community in the building sector, th…
Multiple criteria assessment of methods for forecasting building thermal energy demand
2020
Abstract Nowadays worldwide directives have focused the attention on improving energy efficiency in the building sector. The research of models able to predict the energy consumption from the first design and energy planning phase is conducted to improve building sustainability. Use of traditional forecasting tools for building thermal energy demand tends to encounter difficulties relevant to the amount of data required, implementation of the models, computational costs and inability to generalize the output. Therefore, many studies focused on the research and development of alternative resolution methods, but the choice of the most convenient is not clear and simple. Single comparison of s…
Optimisation of Heat Loss through Ventilation for Residential Buildings
2018
This study presents the results of research on heat loss from various types of residential buildings through ventilation systems. Experimental research was done to analyse the effectiveness of ventilation systems of different types and determine the parameters of air discharged via the ventilation ducts. A model of heat loss from the discharge of exhaust air outside through air ducts has since been developed. Experiments were conducted on three experimental systems of building ventilation: gravitational, mechanical, and supply-exhaust ventilation systems with heat recovery. The proposed model dependencies were used to chart the daily fluctuations of the optimum multiplicity of air exchange …
Investigating student nurses' constructions of health promotion in nursing education
2001
This article describes student nurses' constructions of health promotion and the change of these constructions during their nursing education in two Finnish polytechnics. The data consisted of essays written by the 19 student nurses before they began their nursing education in 1997 and of stimulated recall interviews with the same students during the second year of their education in 1998. The data were analyzed by using thematic analysis. During the first study year, 13 students' constructions of health promotion changed. Six students had initially broad constructions of health promotion and their constructions remained unchanged. Four basic changes were found in the students' construction…
Virtual and Augmented Reality in Finance: State Visibility of Events and Risk"
2021
This chapter reflected on the potential of Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality (VR / AR) technologies in supporting the dynamics of global financial systems and in addressing the grand challenges posed by unexpected events and crisis. The chapter briefly overviewed traditional VR/AR uses and described three early attempts to use 3D/ VR / AR technologies in Finance. In light of the recent financial crisis, there is a potential added valued in harnessing the use of VR/AR technologies to convey a greater visibility of the financial state (including visibility of financial risk). Various dimensions of the problem are considered. The chapter suggested a blend of service oriented computing SOC …
From the Paper to the Tablet: On the Design of an AR-Based Tool for the Inspection of Pre-Fab Buildings. Preliminary Results of the SIRAE Project
2018
Energy-efficient Buildings (EeB) are demanded in today’s constructions, fulfilling the requirements for green cities. Pre-fab buildings, which are modularly fully-built in factories, are a good example of this. Although this kind of building is quite new, the in situ inspection is documented using traditional tools, mainly based on paper annotations. Thus, the inspection process is not taking advantage of new technologies. In this paper, we present the preliminary results of the SIRAE project that aims to provide an Augmented Reality (AR) tool that can seamlessly aid in the regular processes of pre-fab building inspections to detect and eliminate the possible existing quality and ener…