1,720,979 research outputs found
Protocols for the assessment of building sustainability level. A new proposal for the Italian context
Full text linkThe paper aims at illustrating an innovative methodology for the development of a system to assess and rate the sustainability level of buildings, with particular reference to the Italian context. First, a review of the state of the art is presented, focusing on the existing sustainability tools, which characterize the building sector. Afterwards, the main criticalities of the current systems are pointed out, laying the basis for the setting-up of the new protocol. Consequently, the paper illustrates the process leading to the development of the new sustainability evaluation system, showing all the main steps towards its final inner structure. Finally, the research work introduces the concept of ‘benchmark’, underlining its importance within the new protocol framework. In particular, the absence of reference or limit values for some performance indicators is emphasized and a computation methodology is proposed for those performance indicators lacking of benchmark values, with respect to the Italian background.
As a result, the paper provides an effective methodological and operative tool for decision makers, such as designers, constructors, developers and users of sustainability systems. The outcomes offer a contribution to the national and international development of methods and guidelines, supporting the overall sustainability evaluations in the building field
An overall methodology to define reference values for building sustainability parameters
Full text linktThe paper presents a methodology to define reference values regarding building environmental impacts,energy outputs, and global costs. Four exemplary Italian residential categories were analyzed, focusingon the recent existing stock and on the most common kinds of houses. Buildings were subjected to LifeCycle Assessment (LCA) analyses, through SimaPro software, in order to define specific values linkedto the environmental impacts and to the total energy spent. The amount of energy related to the usephase, including heating, domestic hot water, and cooling systems, was estimated by using the energysimulation program EnergyPlus. Building economic performance was analyzed through Life Cycle Costing(LCC) analyses, with the global cost approach. The results showed that the use phase implied the largestcontribution to the environmental and energy impacts; instead the pre-use phase was predominant inlife cycle costs. Furthermore, since a considerable amount of consistent data was used for this study, theoutcomes could be treated as reliable for the definition of benchmarks. For instance, the results indicatedthat, during the whole life cycle, Italian residential buildings could spend around 140 kWh/m2, with aproduction of about 35 kg CO2eq/m2each year, reaching a global cost of nearly 1420 D/m2
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
Sustainable Business Models for Deep Energy Retrofitting of Buildings: State-of-the-art and Methodological Approach
No full textAbstractThe achievement of the sustainability goals within the building sector involves the adoption of sustainable business models (SBMs) and energy efficiency measures. On one side, traditional business models (BM s), aiming to express the business logic of firms, need to incorporate the triple bottom line, by embracing the economic, environmental and social dimensions. On the other side, the implementation of energy efficiency measures might occur through deep energy retrofits on buildings, considering their significant contribution to the decrease of greenhouse gas emissions and energy use. The measures of energy refurbishment are not only useful in reducing environmental impacts and saving building owners’ money, but might also represent a powerful source of business for other stakeholders, e.g., retrofitting service providers.This paper first illustrates the state-of-the-art of BMs for energy efficient retrofitting actions within the building field. Therefore, common BMs in this scope are described and compared in their main components, with an analysis of potentials and limitations. This leads to the identification of research gaps, with the formulation of a set of questions that need further examination. Afterwards, the paper presents a methodological approach regarding a possible way to incorporate quantitative sustainability analyses into BM s related to projects of energy efficient refurbishment in buildings. The aim is to provide the basis for empirical testing on case studies, with further development of the proposed methodology. Lastly, there is a critical discussion on how the presented methodological approach could fill the research gaps, with the indication of possible future research directions
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
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