10 research outputs found
The Role of Urban Design in Affordable Housing Development: Creating Livable, Inclusive Communities
No full textThis review paper explores the critical role of urban design in the development of affordable housing, with a focus on creating livable and inclusive communities. It examines the impact of key urban design elements such as site planning, density optimization, and community integration on the quality of life in affordable housing projects. The paper also discusses the importance of balancing social, economic, and environmental sustainability in these developments. Through the analysis of design principles, the review identifies challenges and opportunities in implementing effective urban design strategies for affordable housing. The findings highlight the need for innovative approaches, policy support, and community engagement to overcome obstacles and ensure the successful integration of affordable housing into the urban fabric. The paper concludes with recommendations for future directions in urban design that prioritize inclusivity, sustainability, and the overall well-being of residents.
Keywords: Urban design, Affordable housing, Livable communities, Sustainability, Community integration, Policy support
Affordable housing and resilient design: Preparing low-income housing for climate change impacts
No full textThis paper presents a comprehensive framework for integrating resilient design principles into affordable housing to prepare low-income housing to withstand the impacts of climate change. The framework emphasizes the need for architectural strategies that enhance flood resistance, energy efficiency, and disaster preparedness, specifically tailored to the unique challenges faced by low-income communities. Through a detailed analysis of resilient design principles and practical examples from successful projects, the paper highlights the significance of resilient housing in promoting sustainability and protecting vulnerable populations. The paper also addresses the challenges in implementing resilient design, including financial, regulatory, and technical barriers. It explores opportunities for advancing these practices through innovative solutions, emerging technologies, and supportive policies. Recommendations are provided for policymakers, architects, and developers, focusing on fostering collaboration and community engagement. Additionally, the paper identifies key areas for future research to further refine and expand the application of resilient design in affordable housing. Ultimately, this work contributes to the ongoing discourse on sustainable housing by proposing actionable strategies to enhance the resilience of affordable housing in the face of climate change.
Keywords: Resilient Design, Affordable Housing, Climate Change Adaptation, Flood Resistance, Energy Efficiency, Sustainable Architectur
Application of Agile Methodologies in Managing Smart Affordable Housing Infrastructure Projects
No full textThis paper explores the application of Agile methodologies in managing smart affordable housing infrastructure projects, emphasizing their potential to improve project efficiency, cost control, and adaptability. As the demand for affordable housing continues to rise, traditional project management approaches often struggle with delivering projects on time and within budget, particularly when incorporating smart technologies. Agile methodologies, characterized by flexibility, iterative development, and continuous improvement, offer a promising solution for addressing these challenges. The study reviews existing literature on the advantages of Agile in construction and housing, particularly focusing on its application to affordable housing and smart building technologies. Through case studies, the paper highlights successful implementations where Agile practices have contributed to reduced costs, timely delivery, and the seamless integration of technologies such as IoT and AI. The research identifies key strategies for overcoming barriers to Agile adoption, including the need for training, organizational change, and fostering cross-functional collaboration. The paper concludes with strategic recommendations for stakeholders and offers insights into future research areas, particularly regarding the integration of AI and IoT with Agile practices to optimize large-scale housing projects and improve their long-term sustainability. By leveraging Agile methodologies, stakeholders can create affordable housing that is not only cost-effective but also sustainable and technologically advanced.
Keywords: Agile Methodologies, Affordable Housing, Smart Housing Infrastructure, Project Management, Cost Efficiency, Sustainability
Author Correction: A multi-country test of brief reappraisal interventions on emotions during the COVID-19 pandemic.
No full textCorrection to: Nature Human Behaviour https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-021-01173-x, published online 2 August 2021.In the version of this article initially published, the following authors were omitted from the author list and the Author contributionssection for “investigation” and “writing and editing”: Nandor Hajdu (Institute of Psychology, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest,Hungary), Jordane Boudesseul (Facultad de Psicología, Instituto de Investigación Científica, Universidad de Lima, Lima, Perú), RafałMuda (Faculty of Economics, Maria Curie-Sklodowska University, Lublin, Poland) and Sandersan Onie (Black Dog Institute, UNSWSydney, Sydney, Australia & Emotional Health for All Foundation, Jakarta, Indonesia). In addition, Saeideh FatahModares’ name wasoriginally misspelled as Saiedeh FatahModarres in the author list. Further, affiliations have been corrected for Maria Terskova (NationalResearch University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia), Susana Ruiz Fernandez (FOM University of Applied Sciences,Essen; Leibniz-Institut fur Wissensmedien, Tubingen, and LEAD Research Network, Eberhard Karls University, Tubingen, Germany),Hendrik Godbersen (FOM University of Applied Sciences, Essen, Germany), Gulnaz Anjum (Department of Psychology, Simon FraserUniversity, Burnaby, Canada, and Department of Economics & Social Sciences, Institute of Business Administration, Karachi, Pakistan).<br/
Knowledge, attitudes and practices related to stroke in Ghana and Nigeria: A SIREN call to action.
No full textINTRODUCTION:Stroke is a prominent cause of death, disability, and dementia in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The Stroke Investigative Research and Education Network works collaboratively with stroke survivors and individuals serving as community controls to comprehensively characterize the genomic, sociocultural, economic and behavioral risk factors for stroke in SSA. PURPOSE:In this paper, we aim to: i) explore the attitudes, beliefs, and practices related to stroke in Ghana and Nigeria using the process of qualitative description; and ii) propose actions for future research and community-based participation and education. METHODS:Stroke survivors, their caregivers, health care professionals, and community representatives and faith-based leaders participated in one of twenty-six focus groups, which qualitatively explored community beliefs, attitudes and practices related to stroke in Ghana and Nigeria. Arthur Kleinman's Explanatory Model of Illness and the Social Ecological Model guided the questions and/or thematic analysis of the qualitative data. We hereby describe our focus group methods and analyses of qualitative data, as well as the findings and suggestions for improving stroke outcomes. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION:The major findings illustrate the fears, causes, chief problems, treatment, and recommendations related to stroke through the views of the participants, as well as recommendations for working effectively with the SIREN communities. Findings are compared to SIREN quantitative data and other qualitative studies in Africa. As far as we are aware, this is the first paper to qualitatively explore and contrast community beliefs, attitudes, and practices among stroke survivors and their caregivers, community and faith-based leaders, and health professionals in multiple communities within Nigeria and Ghana
Global PIQA: Evaluating Physical Commonsense Reasoning Across 100+ Languages and Cultures
No full textTo date, there exist almost no culturally-specific evaluation benchmarks for large language models (LLMs) that cover a large number of languages and cultures. In this paper, we present Global PIQA, a participatory commonsense reasoning benchmark for over 100 languages, constructed by hand by 335 researchers from 65 countries around the world. The 116 language varieties in Global PIQA cover five continents, 14 language families, and 23 writing systems. In the non-parallel split of Global PIQA, over 50% of examples reference local foods, customs, traditions, or other culturally-specific elements. We find that state-of-the-art LLMs perform well on Global PIQA in aggregate, but they exhibit weaker performance in lower-resource languages (up to a 37% accuracy gap, despite random chance at 50%). Open models generally perform worse than proprietary models. Global PIQA highlights that in many languages and cultures, everyday knowledge remains an area for improvement, alongside more widely-discussed capabilities such as complex reasoning and expert knowledge. Beyond its uses for LLM evaluation, we hope that Global PIQA provides a glimpse into the wide diversity of cultures in which human language is embedded.See §A for author list. Global PIQA would not be possible without the efforts of all of the authors. Wealso thank several anonymous contributors who preferred not to be authors on this paper. The research of Yolanda Xavier is supported by Portuguese national funding through the FCT– Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, I.P. as part of the project UID/3213/2025– Linguistics Research Centre of NOVA University Lisbon (CLUNL) and by the Doctoral Grant (FCT PhD grant) number 2022.13977.BD from the same funder. Group 0025 is supported by the following grants: CLARIN-PL (POIR.04.02.00-00C002/19, FENG.02.04-IP.040004/24, 2024/WK/01), DARIAH-PL (POIR.04.02.00-00-D006/20, KPOD.01.18-IW.03-0013/23). Annika Simonsen was funded by the European Commission under grant agreement no. 101135671. CEB has been partially funded by the German ministry for education and research (BMBF) through the TRAILS project (grant number 01IW24005). Group 0070 is supported by funding from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST)- Center of Excellence for Generative AI, under award number 5940. Group 0079 would like to thank Mr. Sudhir R. Narayana for help with correction and verification of items in their dataset. Sina Ahmadi gratefully acknowledges support from the University of Zurich (UZH) Postdoc Grant (reference number 269093). Group 0133 would like to thank the MbazaNLP community, including students from the University of Rwanda, School of Art and Languages. We would also like to thank Yonatan Bisk for useful insights into the original PIQA dataset
SIREN focus group participant demographics.
No full textSIREN focus group participant demographics.</p
Overview of steps in the siren focus group process for reporting, analyzing and reporting findings [37].
No full textOverview of steps in the siren focus group process for reporting, analyzing and reporting findings [37].</p
Influence of variations in international steel prices on the housing construction sector in Colombia: A study Using the ordinary Least Squares Model
No full textEste estudio analizó la influencia del precio internacional del acero en la construcción de viviendas en Colombia, utilizando un modelo de regresión de mínimos cuadrados ordinarios. Se incluyeron variables como el precio del acero, el área construida de viviendas, las licencias de construcción y los costos de construcción. Tras confirmar la estacionariedad de las variables y realizar pruebas de validación del modelo, los resultados mostraron un poder explicativo bajo, indicando que el precio del acero tiene una influencia limitada sobre la actividad de construcción. Los hallazgos sugieren que otros factores macroeconómicos, además del precio del acero, podrían desempeñar un rol más relevante en la demanda y costos de la construcción de viviendas. En conclusión, el impacto de las fluctuaciones en el precio del acero sobre el sector de la construcción en Colombia es marginal, lo que plantea la necesidad de explorar otros determinantes potenciales, como políticas gubernamentales y el comportamiento de otros insumos.This study analyzed the influence of international steel prices on housing construction in Colombia using an ordinary least squares regression model. Variables included steel prices, housing construction area, construction permits, and construction costs. After confirming the stationarity of variables and conducting model validation tests, results showed a low explanatory power, indicating that steel prices have a limited impact on construction activity. Findings suggest that additional macroeconomic factors, beyond steel prices, may play a more significant role in housing demand and construction costs. In conclusion, the impact of steel price fluctuations on the construction sector in Colombia is marginal, highlighting the need to explore other potential determinants, such as government policies and the behavior of other inputs
