Users' perceptions of sustainable buildings – Key findings of recent studies

Motivated by a desire to discover how buildings operate in practice and inspired by the pioneering PROBE Studies (post-occupancy review of buildings and their engineering) the author has spent the last decade investigating both the design and the users' perceptions of (mainly) sustainable buildings. This has involved visiting some 60 commercial or institutional buildings worldwide, interviewing the designers, and in most cases personally conducting a questionnaire survey of the users covering operational, thermal, lighting, noise, control and satisfaction issues.This paper highlights some of the key findings from these investigations, including the design features of the sustainable buildings, how their performance compared with that of more conventional buildings, whether refurbishments achieved better or worse perception scores than new designs, and the characteristics of the users' comments.The paper concludes by outlining potential approaches to benchmarking user perception scores and advocating for their inclusion in building sustainability rating tools.     

A multiplatform energy-aware OWL reasoner benchmarking framework

Performance evaluation is increasingly relevant for Web Ontology Language (OWL) reasoners, due to the expanding availability of knowledge corpuses on the Web, the growing variety of applications, and the rise to prominence of mobile and pervasive computing. Motivated mainly by the difficulty of comparing reasoning engines in the Semantic Web of Things (SWoT), this paper introduces evOWLuator, a novel approach and a multiplatform framework devised to be both flexible and expandable. It features integration of traditional and mobile/embedded engines as well as ontology dataset management, reasoning test execution, and report generation. A case study consisting of an experimental setting for time, memory peak and energy footprint evaluation with eight reasoners and four different platforms allows showcasing usage and validating features and usability of the tool.     

Modelling of two-stage anaerobic digestion using the IWA Anaerobic Digestion Model No. 1 (ADM1)

The aim of the study presented was to implement a process model to simulate the dynamic behaviour of a pilot-scale process for anaerobic two-stage digestion of sewage sludge. The model implemented was initiated to support experimental investigations of the anaerobic two-stage digestion process. The model concept implemented in the simulation software package MATLAB/Simulink is a derivative of the IWA Anaerobic Digestion Model No.1 (ADM1) that has been developed by the IWA task group for mathematical modelling of anaerobic processes. In the present study the original model concept has been adapted and applied to replicate a two-stage digestion process. Testing procedures, including balance checks and 'benchmarking' tests were carried out to verify the accuracy of the implementation. These combined measures ensured a faultless model implementation without numerical inconsistencies. Parameters for both, the thermophilic and the mesophilic process stage, have been estimated successfully using data from lab-scale experiments described in literature. Due to the high number of parameters in the structured model, it was necessary to develop a customised procedure that limited the range of parameters to be estimated. The accuracy of the optimised parameter sets has been assessed against experimental data from pilot-scale experiments. Under these conditions, the model predicted reasonably well the dynamic behaviour of a two-stage digestion process in pilot scale.     

理论知识与政策的衔接:美国社区指标的前景

美国目前已认定的基于社区的指标项目已超过200个.文章回顾了社区指标项目成败的要素,讨论了社区努力达到的预期结果.文章特别探讨了组织和政策这两个对社区指标项目成功至关重要的因素.对于准备开展指标项目的社区,文章也给出了相应建议.     

挖掘机工作装置复合动作性能提升分析与试验

为提高挖掘机工作装置复合动作协调性,在相应位置布局传感器,对3台大型液压挖掘机工作装置复合动作进行性能对标试验。根据设计的试验方式和分析方法,以先导压力开始上升时间为起始点,对工作装置运动时间和时间差进行统计;综合复合动作中液压系统的实时采集数据和MATLAB软件处理结果,分析各挖掘机液压系统的设计细节对工作装置复合动作协调性的影响。在某挖掘机液压系统中增加流量再分配功能,对比改进前后的复合运动效率和协调性。结果表明:在动臂大腔和斗杆大腔液压系统间加入斗杆调速阀并在铲斗大腔液压管路中增加限流阀,可明显提高工作装置复合运动的效率和协调性。     

静压法油罐计量系统在油库的应用

对静压法计量系统在油库中的应用做了说明,该系统运行稳定可靠,加强了罐内油品的管理及液面控制,可降低劳动强度,经济效益显,并从讲理原理、系统构成和计量精度等方面进行了详细的介绍。     

Device-based decision-making for adaptation of three-dimensional content

The goal of this research was the creation of an adaptation mechanism for the delivery of three-dimensional content. The adaptation of content, for various network and terminal capabilities – as well as for different user preferences, is a key feature that needs to be investigated. Current state-of-the art research of the adaptation shows promising results for specific tasks and limited types of content, but is still not well-suited for massive heterogeneous environments. In this research, we present a method for transmitting adapted three-dimensional content to multiple target devices. This paper presents some theoretical and practical methods for adapting three-dimensional content, which includes shapes and animation. We also discuss practical details of the integration of our methods into MPEG-21 and MPEG-4 architectures.     

Performance benchmarking of power-to-gas plants using Composite Indicators

Driven by the need for decarbonizing energy carriers across sectors, and the increasing availability of low-cost renewable electricity generation future energy systems will see a rise of power-to-gas technology. For example, hydrogen and its derivates can make enable the usage of carbon-neutral electricity for hard-to abate industry sectors and serve as long-term seasonal storage. Given recent drafts of ambitious political hydrogen strategies around the world, the question arises which power-to-gas configurations provide the highest value for money from a power system perspective. This work provides a flexible framework to compare the performance of current power-to-gas sites all over the world. Power-to-gas technologies are assessed with a benchmarking framework based on Composite Indicators to compare the system value of existing conversion technologies, plant sizes, cost structures, and configurations. Our analysis confirms recent research that suggests that plant performance is higher for larger projects and improves as projects move from research stage over pilot stage to commercial stage. Our findings inform policy makers and electricity system planners who aim to identify the economically and technically most promising solutions for investment.     

Overcoming missing data bias in water utility indicators by using nested balanced panels

This paper demonstrates a methodology for calculating trends in unbalanced panel nonrandom sample datasets, using the International Benchmarking Network for Water and Sanitation Utilities (IBNET) dataset on more than 5000 utilities. The methodology can be used for any dataset and calculates the change, or delta, between the same unit of observation (in this case, a utility) over two consecutive years and nests these deltas to calculate an average trend for a given variable over the longest time horizon possible. We use this method to show trends in water utilities’ performance between 2004 and 2015 at a global level and to reveal differences in performance between groups of utilities. For the sake of comprehensiveness, the representativeness of IBNET is also discussed to provide more context to the dataset used. A probit analysis, conducted to shed light on the representativeness of utilities in the IBNET dataset over time, reveals that the utilities that reported their data in earlier years, in general, have a higher number of connections and perform better than the utilities that reported their data in later years. This implies that over the years, as the number of utilities reporting their data increases, more utilities outside of the bigger (more connections) and better performing utilities start reporting. In other words, in the earlier years it is the bigger and better performing utilities that first report data. In the later years, the smaller and not so well performing utilities also start reporting their data.     

Policy implications of the World Bank utility staffing analysis in South Africa

In 2016, the World Bank released Working Paper No. 7788, “Financial Viability of Electricity Sectors in Sub-Saharan Africa: Quasi-Fiscal Deficits and Hidden Costs”. The paper concluded that virtually all Sub-Saharan electricity utilities were overstaffed and that Eskom in South Africa had the highest levels of overstaffing. This analysis reveals apparent problems in the Bank's overstaffing study and highlights the impact of the study on staffing decisions and electricity tariffs in South Africa due to perceptions of staffing inefficiency in Eskom's operations. The potential policy implications for utilities in developing countries are discussed.