1,720,952 research outputs found
Talking circularity - the influence of actors on the building process: A study into actor networks and influence on decision-making regarding the implementation of circularity into the building process.
The purpose of this master thesis is to gather information from current practices and make recommendations to facilitate implementation of circularity in the building process. The past years, circularity has become a popular term in the built environment. This approach prefers a more circular way of perceiving the building process. Literature indicates that implementation of circularity in the building process, probably, will require different actors to be involved and different decisions to be made.The following research question is proposed: “Which actors should be involved (in the beginning of the building process) to ensure circularity (implementation of circular building) throughout all phases in the building process and which actors should influence decision-making?”The following research method is adopted: a literature study, and case study research including interviews. From this literature study, assessment criteria for the case study research can be conducted. The case study research evaluates the actor network and decision-making processes based on three building projects. These projects are:Townhall in Brummen by RAU built in 2013; The Green House in Utrecht by cepezed built in 2018; and EDGE Olympic in Amsterdam by Architekten Cie. built in 2018.This thesis concludes that circular-related actors and traditional actors with circular-related resources should be involved and be influential in decision-making in the building process of circular building projects. This study particularly demonstrates the benefit of early on involvement of the following circular-related actors: transformation agent, circularity expert, reclamation expert, dismantler, and legal officer. In order to increase their influence on decision-making these actors should become part of the projectteam, or at least be taken seriously and offered room to influence decision-making. Especially, if traditional actors lack knowledge and resources for implementing circularity. Moreover, contribution of their resources to implement circularity is facilitated, if these actors are involved early on. Early on decision-making on circularity, particularly for long-lived layers (in comparison to short-lived layers), is beneficial for its implementation in practice. Later on in the building process, after the initiation and preparation (and design) phase, implementation is difficult.Civil Engineering | Construction Management and Engineerin
Design for Disassembly - a way to minimize building waste: A design for a transformation of an office building into dwellings taking into account circularity, demonstrating how circularity offers freedom for (non-traditional) households
This graduation is part of a double degree for the master Architecture and the master Construction, Management and Engineering. Research has been conducted into the field of circularity and specifically on design for disassembly as a way to minimize building waste and on improving implementation of circularity by studying the building process and the actors that are involved or should be involved. By relying on case study research including interviews, conclusions were made that circularity is befitted by separability of layers, homogeneity of materials, standardization of dimensions, and fit to different life times. In general, circularity should be aimed at reducing, reusing and recycling building components and materials at both the start and end of a building’s life time. Regarding the improvement of circularity in practice, the following was concluded. Implementation of circularity is benefitted by early on involvement of the following circular-related actors: transformation agent, circularity expert, reclamation expert, dismantler, and legal officer. In order to increase their influence on decision-making these actors should become part of the project team, or at least be taken seriously and offered room to influence decision-making. Especially, if traditional actors lack knowledge and resources for implementing circularity. Moreover, contribution of their resources regarding circularity is facilitated, if these actors are involved early on. Thus, involvement of circular-related actors and traditional actors with circular-related resources early on and subsequent ability to influence and contribute to decision-making, facilitates implementation of circularity in the building process. This is especially of concern nowadays, since circularity has not yet become part of common knowledge of (all) involved actors. Based on findings from these theses a design has been made which concerns a transformation of an existing office building in Buitenveldert, Amsterdam into dwellings. The design demonstrates how circularity principles – such as demountable connections, standardization, prefab, separability of layers, etc. – could provide freedom to generate multiple types of apartments in which residents has the freedom to adjust or personalize the apartment by introducing freedom to change certain layers of the building
Implementation of circularity in the building process: A case study research into organizing the actor network and decision-making process
Circularity aims to reduce waste by closing and narrowing resource loops and by extending the lifetime of materials and products. As a consequence of this fundamentally different approach to construction practices, implementation entails a different organization of the building process. The purpose of this research is to make recommendations with respect to the actor network and the decision-making process to facilitate implementation of circularity in construction practices. First, a theoretical framework is developed to structure and prioritize decision-making to implement circularity based on resource and value strategies. Second, this framework is applied to three circular building cases in the Netherlands, relying on stakeholder interviews and documentation. These cases include a renovation project, a newly built project, and a transformation project. Third, analysis of the case study data demonstrates the actor network and decision-making process including the following aspects: Actors, resources, relations, positions, influence, and decision rounds. It can be concluded that: i) some conventional actors have acquired knowledge on circularity; and ii) expert actors emerged who have specialized in circularity. Both types of actors are a prerequisite iii) to implement circular strategies for the beginning and end phase of the building's lifetime; and iv) should be involved early on (in the design-making processes) to influence decision-making on circularity, especially concerning the long-lived layers of a building.Design & Construction Managemen
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
The 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
“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
We 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
We 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
We 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
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