1,721,017 research outputs found
Methodologies for continuous commissioning of integrated building systems
No full textAs a valid means to improve building sustainability, envelope and energy consuming systems’ (e.g. HVAC, BMS) commissioning should be performed continually during the whole building lifecycle. ICT-supported lifecycle commissioning of integrated systems is experiencing a rapid growth through international cooperation in Research and Development (R&D). Therefore, the author formulates the following hypothesis for his research: New properties should be constructed matching high energy standards. Furthermore, there is a need to maintain existing buildings regularly to prevent their degradation. If energy consumption of buildings is to be reduced and acceptable comfort levels are to be maintained, then Continual Commissioning (CC) methodologies should be deployed. However, all currently identified CC practices are based on specific skills and tools available to their developers, and without common methodological structure applicable to every system or facility under commissioning. This gap should be covered with formulation of the progressive, flexible and scalable concept called “Modular Continual Commissioning” (mCC). Practical application of this concept will help to save labour, time and costs required for building integrated systems’ operation and commissioning. It is expected that the results of this thesis will be generally applicable and can be used for the further development of Continual Commissioning (CC) processes in various facilities and will improve buildings’ comfort and efficiency
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe 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
Project delivery configuration for satisficing building energy renovation activities
Get PDFThe essence of this thesis is a transdisciplinary exploration of value within building energy renovation projects. How it is understood, from which activities it is derived, who is responsible for its creation, how it is distributed. The temporary multi-firm configurations that coalesce to deliver such renovations are central to the research. Adopting a life cycle perspective and selecting three primary measures of success – energy savings, avoided greenhouse gas emissions and financial return – the thesis examines how achieving these objectives can be incentivised. It looks at how project success (and increased renovation market capacity) can be encouraged through delivering adequate value, in whatever shape that may take, to key stakeholders in the value chain(s) associated with buildings and their renovation. This research required understanding of both construction activities, and the groups of entities that deliver energy renovations. This is achieved through the application of a transdisciplinary methodology that combines engineering and social scientific knowledge. In addition to knowledge about the construction activities, it requires the use of methodological understandings and approaches from the human and social sciences which are used to theorise, conceptualise, contextualise, and actualise the required research. This thesis posits that these groups are fundamentally social constructs, albeit guided by ‘rules’ in the form of contracts or governmental regulations. Acknowledging the social nature of the configurations, the research in the thesis draws on an anti-foundationalist ontology, and adopts a social-constructivist epistemology. Accordingly, in addition to significant review of the literature, qualitative data gathering and analysis techniques are used to understand the objectives of building energy renovation projects, the nature of the groups of stakeholders that deliver them, and the workings of the value chains within which the stakeholders operate. To understand construction and related functions involved with renovation projects, the lifecycle of a building was disaggregated to identify all the various activities which occur throughout a building’s life. These undertakings were then grouped into six phases of activity, which are labelled hubs of activity. This model was used to map stakeholders across the lifecycle of a building, this identification and characterisation facilitated an in-depth engagement with key stakeholders throughout the value chains that deliver building energy renovation. This engagement constituted face-to-face semi-structured interviews i.e., comprising open-ended questions which allow respondents to tell ‘their story’. The interviews were recorded and transcribed to form a valuable qualitative dataset. The interview transcripts were thematically analysed as a means of understanding stakeholder interactions, determining how key stakeholders define ‘value’ and to exploring ‘flows’ through the energy supply chain, including value, practices, norms and influences. The need to develop business models for building renovation which offer adequate value (i.e., satisfice) for stakeholders is recognised, as is the imperative that key stakeholders be incentivised to align their objectives with that of the energy renovation project. Simon (1955, 1956) coined the term ‘satisfice’, a combination of the words satisfy and suffice, for an alternative decision-making strategy that seeks to find an acceptable choice under a limited set of considered options. Findings from the interviews are presented with an exploration of the stakeholder relationships, power flows, drivers, conflicts, and potential synergies within building energy renovation projects. These findings are then discussed in the context of configuring project delivery of building energy renovation activities, such that the interests of all (important) stakeholders are satisficed and that they are appropriately incentivised to align their objectives with that of the project and in doing so deliver successful renovation projects
An inquiry into the "effort space" for computational building design analysis
No full textThis paper describes a case study to estimate the time and effort needed by novice designers to computationally evaluate the performance of building designs. A group of senior architecture students participated in the study, learning and using a software application to assess the energy performance of six project submissions for a school building design competition. The study's outcome (time investment ranges for various components of the modelling activity) was evaluated and further extrapolated to estimate the effort neede for a more comprehensive computational assessment of the environmental performance of designs. Moreover, the results were applied toward the demonstrative derivation of multi-dimensional simulation "effort space" for the estimation of time requirement for computationally supported building performance analysis
A methodology for the introduction of integrated building energy systems
No full textThere is an increasing awareness around the impact that society is having on global environmental issues, specifically in relation to the use of natural resources, and, in particular, the use of limited energy resources such as fossil fuels. The term ‘sustainability’ is now at the forefront of society’s moral consciousness as limited global resources come under increasing pressure due to their depletion, accelerated by economic development and expanding populations. This is evidenced in the rapid development and investment in energy efficient products and services and renewable energy generation technologies. However, for the foreseeable future clean renewables such as hydro, solar and wind will need to be supplemented by less clean energy sources such as fossil fuels and nuclear power [1]. The demand for energy use in buildings will remain a significant challenge particularly with buildings providing central societal functions as well as interacting with transport and renewable energy infrastructure. Therefore, the strategies to reduce energy consumption must consider methods to improve and sustain building energy performance that support deep renovation projects and renewable energy management. Therefore, developing strategies for integrated facility management (FM) is a key enabler of building energy conservation through more efficient operations and a greater awareness and understanding of building performance. However, FM providers and building owners struggle to implement holistic efficient energy use and opportunities for implementing conservation projects are not being undertaken due to perceived barriers in terms of financing and delivering projects to deliver the expected benefits. Despite the obvious benefits the implementation rate remains poor. The uncertainty of project outcomes due to legacy issues with control systems and a need to ensure continuity of reliable building functions mean that capital expenditure is preferred in areas with known direct business impact. This thesis sets out to address these issues by developing an iterative process for evaluating and delivering improved performance of building energy through integrated systems optimisation. The objective is to enable building managers to develop a structured approach to developing building energy performance improvements. Considering a systematic lifecycle approach will deliver comprehensive and verified building energy renovation and integration cycles. More specifically, this thesis proposes that introducing integrated systems with integrated business modelling analysis can help identify the best value projects that deliver strong energy and cost savings and enable sustainability in current building stock as an effective realization of the 2020 targets for the building sector. This thesis delivers a methodology that combines business modelling, energy performance analysis and monitoring, opportunity prioritisation and measurement and verification processes. These have been organised in an iterative, lean systems based framework that can be implemented by building owners. The methodology was developed following a case study project where an integration platform was deployed to optimise energy systems performance. The case study delivered positive results and the SSIRR methodology developed from this project is robust, repeatable and can be used to introduce integrated building energy systems management for improved performance
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“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
Analysis on automatic generation of BEPS model from BIM model
Get PDFThe interlinking of enriched BIM data to Building Energy Performance Simulation (BEPS) models facilitates the data flow throughout the building life cycle. This seamless data transfer from BIM to BEPS models increases design efficiency. To investigate the interoperability between these models, this paper analyses different data transfer methodologies along with input data requirements for the simulation process. Based on the analysed knowledge, a methodology is adopted and demonstrated to identify the quality of the data transfer process. Furthermore, discussions are provided on identified efficiency gaps and future work.:Abstract
Introduction and background
Methodology
Methodology demonstration
Creation and export of BIM data
Verification of OpenBIM meta-data
BEPS model generation and validation
Import statics
Model Geometry and Orientation
Construction details
Thermal Profile
Results and discussion
Summary and future work
Reference
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe 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
Get PDFWe 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
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