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A HYBRID APPROACH BASED ON BUILDING PHYSICS AND MACHINE LEARNING FOR THERMAL COMFORT PREDICTION IN SMART BUILDINGS
Get PDFOne of the most important challenges facing the world is the application of modern technology in order to create smart buildings that achieve sustainable development goals (SDGs). Thermal comfort and reduction of energy consumption in buildings are considered important factors which, in turn, are reflected in creating a healthy environment and improving human productivity. Internet of Things (IoT) provides an ideal solution for collecting real-time data on the factors affecting indoor thermal comfort and energy consumption. However, comfort level is subjective and depends on many factors, which may not be learned by conventional models, an integrated model depending on thermal comfort factors is needed. In this work, a hybrid physics-based model incorporated with machine learning techniques is used for the prediction of thermal comfort inside buildings. XGBoost (eXtreme Gradient Boost) algorithm method was used due to its abilities to handle complex problems. A calculated dataset was extracted from the physics-based model gathered with the environmental variables data such as humidity, moisture, temperature, and air velocity collected from IoT devices. The results show an improvement in the prediction of the thermal comfort approach as compared with the conventional models. The XGBoost algorithm can exhibit an effective solution for eliminating deficiencies of traditional models and can be used when designing smart buildings, simulating, and evaluating the designed buildings, controlling energy consumption, and achieving thermal comfort
OUTDOOR ARTIFICIAL LIGHTING EFFECTS ON LIVABILITY OF PEDESTRIAN PATHS IN URBAN HERITAGE CONTEXT
Get PDFLighting is an important ecological factor that influences individuals’ outdoor activities as well as the development of livable communities in cities. Artificial outdoor lighting is vital in improving the quality of urban open places throughout the nighttime and has a significant impact on the pedestrians\u27 night-time perception and mental safety. This study aims to uncover whether outdoor lighting has indeed an effect on the livability of the pedestrian paths of a community and if so, what is the optimal design that fits an urban heritage setting. The research employs a mixed methods approach, where both qualitative and quantitative methods are used. The first part of the study, being qualitative, used a survey conducted in the historic region of the city of Batroun in Lebanon to collect data concerning what the paths’ users regard as important when it comes to artificial outdoor light design with concerns to perceived urban design qualities related to neighborhood livability. The second part of the study is based on simulations of proposals of outdoor artificial light using Dialux in order to find the design the most appropriate to the context of Batroun
BEIRUT ARAB UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF ARCHITECTURE DESIGN & BUILT ENVIRONMENT YEARBOOK 2021-2022
Get PDFThe Faculty of Architecture - Design and Built Environment is proud and honored to release the seventh edition of the Yearbook, comprising the most prominent endeavors of the academic year 2021-2022. The work contained on the following pages gives a small glimpse of the diversity, sense of invention, exploration, passion and significance that characterize and define the design outputs from the studios and courses of Architecture and Design programs.https://digitalcommons.bau.edu.lb/yearbooks/1007/thumbnail.jp
OFFSHORE COMPANIES AUDIT PROCESS EFFECTIVENESS: EVIDENCE FROM LEBANESE AUDITING PROFESSION
Get PDFThis research aims to examine whether audit planning, audit strategy, and audit documentation have a significant impact on the effectiveness of the audit process. It also aims to explore the impact of audit technology on the audit process for offshore companies in Lebanon. This study adds to and contributes to the literature that has examined the separate impacts of each of the above variables on the effectiveness of the audit process. The sample size of this study is 106 certified public accountants who are members of the Lebanese Association of Certified Public Accountants (LACPA). Empirical data was collected using a questionnaire form to test four generated hypotheses. Results show that for e-commerce companies, there is a positive and significant impact of audit planning and audit documentation, on the effectiveness of the audit process. In contrast, there is no significant positive impact of audit strategy on the effectiveness of the audit process. On the other hand, the outcome for offshore companies shows that there is no positive significant impact of audit planning on the effectiveness of the audit process, while there is a positive significant impact of audit strategy and audit documentation on the effectiveness of the audit process. Regarding the association between the adoption of audit technology tools and the effectiveness of the audit process, results show that offshore companies support this association. The researcher faced restrictions on the size of the sample used in this study. This limitation can affect the final results, as the smaller the sample size, the higher the marginal error
GETTING A HANDLE ON FLOOR PLAN ANALYSIS - DOOR CLASSIFICATION IN FLOOR PLANS AND A SURVEY ON EXISTING DATASETS
Get PDFFloor plan interpretation and reconstruction is crucial to enable the transformation of drawings to 3D models or different digital formats. It has recently taken advantage of neural-based architectures, especially in the semantic segmentation field. These techniques perform better than traditional methods, but the results depend mainly on the data used to train the networks, which is often crafted for the specific task being performed, making it hard to reuse for different purposes. In this paper, we conduct a literature survey on the existing datasets for floor plan analysis, and we explore how information regarding door placement and orientation can be recovered without having to change the initial data or model. We propose a two-step recognition method based on image segmentation followed by classification of cropped zones to allow data augmentation during training. In the process, we generate a dataset consisting of 35000 annotated door images extracted from an existing dataset
MINDFUL SPACE IN SENTENCES - A DATASET OF VIRTUAL EMOTIONS FOR NATURAL LANGUAGE CLASSIFICATION
Get PDFSpatial emotions have played a critical role in visual-spatial environmental assessment, which can be assessed using bio-sensors and language description. However, information on virtual spatial emotion assessment with objective emotion labels and natural language processing (NLP) is insufficient in literature. Thus, designers’ ability to assess spatial design quantitatively and cost effectively is limited before the design is finalized. This research measures the emotions expressed using electroencephalograms (EEGs) and descriptions in virtual reality (VR) spaces with different parameters. First, 26 subjects experienced 10 designed virtual spaces with a VR headset (Quest 2 device) corresponding to the different space parameters of shape, height, width, and length. Simultaneously, the EEG measured the emotions of the subjects using four electrodes and the five brain waves. Second, two labels – calm and active – were produced using EEGs to describe these virtual reality spaces. Last, this labeled emotion dataset compared the differences among the virtual spaces, human feelings, and the language description of the participants in the VR spatial experience. Experimental results show that the parameter changes of VR spaces can arouse significant fluctuations in the five brain waves. The EEG brain wave signals, in turn, can label the virtual rooms with calm and active emotions. Specifically, in terms of VR spaces and emotions, the experiments find that more relative spatial height results in less active emotions, while round spaces arouse calmness in the human brain waves. Moreover, the precise connection among VR spaces, brain waves in emotion, and languages still needs further research. This research attempts to offer a useful emotion measurement tool in virtual architectural design and description using EEGs. This research identifies potentials for future applications combining physiological metrics and AI methods, i.e., machine learning for synthetic design generation and evaluation
COMMUNITY PHARMACISTS\u27 COMMITMENT TO PREVENTIVE MEASURES DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC IN LIGHT OF THE ECONOMIC CRISIS IN BEIRUT, LEBANON: A SIMULATED CLIENT STUDY
Get PDFThe burden on community pharmacists has dramatically increased since the COVID-19 pandemic, where the increased number of clients demands adhering to optimal infection protective measures. We aimed to investigate the level of adopted COVID-19 preventative measures by Lebanese community pharmacies and the influencing factors. One hundred community pharmacies in Beirut, were randomly selected and inspected by a simulated client. Signs of face-mask use, declaration of COVID-19 infection, and social distancing were observed in 62%, 48%, and 35% of pharmacies, respectively. Body temperature screening was absent. Only 20% of the pharmacies had limitations for the number of clients, and only 31% offered free disinfectants. Direct pharmacist-patient encounters were observed in 25% of pharmacies. Social distancing among pharmacists was practiced in only 8% of the pharmacies and 37% of pharmacists were not wearing facemasks. Female pharmacists, pharmacists \u3e 40 years, and large pharmacies were associated with a significantly higher score than male pharmacists, younger pharmacists, and smaller pharmacies (6.13 ± 1.73 vs. 4.21 ± 1.70, P = 0.004; 6.27 ± 1.55 vs. 4.40 ± 1.75, P = 0.03; and 6.73 ± 1.66 vs. 4.1 ± 1.74, P = 0.01; respectively). The adherence level of Lebanese community pharmacies to COVID-19 preventive measures is unsatisfactory. The economic crisis in addition to poor pharmacy education about infection control could be behind this level. The authorities are advised to wisely allocate the available resources, strengthen the monitoring process, and revise the pharmacy curriculum to include infection control
LOCALIZED SURFACE PLASMON RESONANCE OF PALLADIUM PARALLELEPIPED NANOPARTICLES
Get PDFLocalized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) of palladium parallelepiped nanoparticle have been investigated using Finite Element Method (FEM) in the frame of COMSOL Multiphysics Software. Spectral characteristics (magnitude, peak position and width) of LSPR of a single Pd nanoparticle having the shape of a parallelepiped are investigated in two different cases. The first case studied the size effect on LSPR by fixing the height with varying both length and width. However, the second case studied the shape effect on the LSPR by rounding the corners of the parallelepiped for different radii while fixing its dimensions. The extinction cross-section spectra of these different size and shape nanoparticles are calculated for two orthogonal polarization angles and performed over a broad spectral range from 200 to 900 nm. By increasing the radius corner of the parallelepiped nanoparticle, the simulations showed a blue-shifting of the LSPR for polarization along y axis. Palladium nanoparticles have shown significant potential for various applications such as in the field of biomedical applications, environment protection, sensing and information technology applications
THE ROLE OF BANK GOVERNANCE IN ECONOMIC REFORMAN APPLIED STUDY ON THE NATIONAL BANK OF EGYPT
Get PDFThis paper aims to shed light on the concept of the method of exercising the powers of good governance, or what has been termed and defined as governance . There is no doubt that governance has become of great importance at the global level now, in light of what the world is witnessing today from the transformation to digitization, in which private companies play a large and influential role, with the consequent necessity of monitoring and correcting this role. Perhaps this issue is becoming increasingly important in Egypt, due to the increasing role of banks in the Egyptian economy, which represents the need to follow up on the performance of these banks, and to bring their performance to the best possible level. Hence the interest of the National Bank of Egypt in this subject.Therefore, this study came to focus on the topic: (The role of bank governance in economic reform. An applied study on the National Bank of Egypt. The structure of the research is based on dividing it into two chapters, and each chapter has two chapters, according to the following:Chapter One: Governance in Banks.The first topic: the concept of governance and its objectives.The second topic: Governance in the Egyptian banking system and its indicators. The second chapter: Governance applications in the National Bank of Egypt and its role in economic reform.The first topic: Governance applications in the National Bank of Egypt.The second topic: the role of bank governance in dealing with crises and financial reform.Then the study ended with a conclusion explaining the most important findings and recommendations
THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE RULES OF INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY IN THE FACE OF BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS.
Get PDFThis study dealt with the talk about biological weapons that have been used in wars since ancient times, and whose reappearance has re-emerged to attract the attention of peoples and governments in our time, and then determine the nature of the acts resulting from them, and the international criminal responsibility resulting from the violations committed through them as one of the most deadly weapons that result in International crimes against humans and other living creatures We reached the ambiguity surrounding some international criminal legal rules and explained how they are adapted to the actions resulting from these weapons and the difficulties facing their criminalization