1,720,958 research outputs found
Implementing building energy efficiency retrofits (beer) in hotel buildings: a case study of shallow retrofit
No full textCurrently, there is a decisive need around the world to retrofit existing buildings to have higher energy performance. Compared to the significant potential for energy conservation in existing buildings, still the level of implementation of Building Energy Efficiency Retrofits (BEER) is comparatively low. The absence of a clearly defined process for ensuring the delivery of BEER; lack of proactive guidance for project teams to ensure that they make the right decisions to achieve the desired Energy Efficiency (EE) outcomes; and execution of BEER projects in ad hoc basis have been identified as some of the key reasons limiting EE improvements over the long term. Hence, this paper is aimed at developing an initial level decision-making process by incorporating the key decisions to be made and key activities to be performed, during each stage of the BEER decision-making process. The study is limited in its focus to existing hotel buildings, due to their level of energy consumption and potential for conservation. Using a case study, the study derived a total of twelve key decisions to be made and twenty-eight key activities to be performed throughout the decision-making process, based upon which an initial level decision-making process is developed. It is hoped that the findings of this study could facilitate the practitioners in the hotel sector to properly undertake and execute BEER projects
Performance comparison of prefabricated building construction projects vs. traditional on-site construction projects
No full textThe development of the construction industry has
rapidly increased with the introduction of new construction
technologies. Among these novel construction methods,
Prefabricated Construction (PFC) plays a significant role as it has
the potential to cater the increased demand as well as to resolve
the current problems in the construction industry. Despite the
benefits that PFC offers, still PFC contributes to only a very small
percentage of construction activity in the country compared to
Traditional On-site Construction (TOC) methods. Lack of records
on successful experiences in PFC methods is identified as a major
reason for the poor perception of practitioners on PFC. Within this
context, evaluating the project performance of PFC projects
compared to TOC is crucial to make the practitioners aware
whether the actual benefits of PFC have been gained by such
projects in practice. Hence, the aim of this study was to evaluate
and compare the project performances of PFC with TOC building
projects. To attain the research aim, this study employed four case
studies wherein both semi-structured interviews and documentary
reviews were used to collect the required data. The research
findings revealed that the performance of selected PFC projects
was lower compared to TOC in terms of time, cost, and quality
performance aspects due to different challenges. However, the
performance in terms of health and safety criteria was found to be
good in PFC cases. Besides, the findings disclosed that by adopting
the panelised PFC method rather than the sub-assemblies and
component PFC method, successful time, quality performances
can be achieved. However, realisation of the stated benefits in the
real life scenario might differ., ,
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
- …
