Building materials — The Indian scenario

Professor Deb's analysis is timely and emphasizes the need for the Indian construction industry to react in a global manner to the importation of materials, the use of scarce natural building resources in the continent and the need to be aware of the environmental damage, production of traditional materials, such as clay, can have on fertile river plains.     

Air quality monitoring in Chennai, India, in the summer of 2005

During the summer of 2005, concentrations of surface ozone (O(3)), oxides of nitrogen (NO(x)), respirrable suspended particulate matter (RSPM) and total suspended particulate matter (TSPM), relative humidity (RH), wind speed (WS) and wind direction (WD) were collected over successive periods of about 24 h at five sites. UV photometric ozone analyzer was used to measure the concentration of surface O(3). The study deals with the characteristics of hourly and daily mean surface O(3) under different climatic conditions, such as temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and wind direction and other pollutant concentrations. The maximum hourly O(3) concentration reached 53 ppb on 17th May. The ground-level O(3) concentration in Chennai varied between 2 and 53 ppb. The concentration of NO(x) and O(3) were below the prescribed limits. The TSPM values were exceeded the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) at Koyambedu, Mandaveli, Taramani and Vallalar Nagar study area.     

Dragons Adrift: The New Chinese Landscape

The work of New York-based artist Nancy Wolf is preoccupied with the relationship between people and the contemporary city. Here she explains how a meeting with scholar and poet Lap Lam in Hong Kong provided much of the inspiration for her work in China, which she describes as ‘a commentary on the enormous changes in today's Chinese landscape created by Modernist architecture and urban planning’.     

印度大停电对我国电力工业的启示

印度大停电是世界上受影响人口最多的一次停电事故,这对于在人口和能源分布上特征相似的中国具有重要警示作用。从印度电力供需和电力供应整体格局两方面阐述印度电力工业的基本情况,分析印度电力改革和目前电力体制特点,着重分析印度电力系统的输配关系、调度管理模式和产权关系;在此基础上,提出印度电力工业在电网安全、电力市场建设以及电力体制改革等方面存在的问题,并进一步分析印度大停电对我国电力工业发展的启示。     

Integration of AHP-TOPSIS method for prioritizing the solutions of reverse logistics adoption to overcome its barriers under fuzzy environment

Reverse logistics practices are gaining attention due to industrial ecology, enforced legislation and corporate citizenship but presence of barriers make reverse logistics (RL) implementation difficult and hence reduce the success rate. To increase RL adoption, robust and flexible strategies are required to overcome its barriers. This study focuses on identification and ranking the solutions of reverse logistics adoption in electronics industry to overcome its barriers. It aids firms to ponder on high rank solutions and develop strategies to implement them on priority. This paper proposes a methodology based on fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and fuzzy technique for order performance by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) to identify and rank the solutions of RL adoption to overcome its barriers. Fuzzy AHP is applied to get weights of the barriers as criteria by pairwise comparison and final ranking of the solutions of RL adoption is obtained through fuzzy TOPSIS. The empirical case of Indian electronics industry is shown to illustrate the use of the proposed method. This proposed method offers a more precise, efficient and effective decision support tool for stepwise implementation of the solutions due to consideration of fuzzy environment. Finally sensitivity analysis is performed to illustrate the robustness of the method.     

Intentions to participate in political crowdfunding- from the perspective of civic voluntarism model and theory of planned behavior

The study has integrated the civic voluntarism and planned behavior model to check the intentions of people towards political crowdfunding. Participation in politics is the civic duty of a citizen in a democratic country and exercising this right leads to government formation. Participation in the political process is behavior influenced by the intention to do so. The study examines the influence of the civic voluntarism model (CVM) and the theory of planned behavior (TPB) factors on the intention to participate in political crowdfunding. The study was done in India, the largest democracy in the world, taking a sample size of 374 respondents. Partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to analyze the data through SmartPLS-3.2. The results of this study revealed that resources - financial, time, and technological - are essential for participating in political crowdfunding. Political engagement, political interest, and political awareness are significantly associated with the intention to participate in crowdfunding. Online community engagement also shows a positive relationship with the intention. Among the three factors of TPB, attitude and subjective norms are significantly influencing the intention towards participation. The results of this study will help the political parties and candidates to identify factors that will help them to get maximum funding and support from the crowd through political crowdfunding. The theoretical implication is that political crowdfunding can come up as a distinct segment of crowdfunding to be studied.     

Combating overheating: mixed-mode conditioning for workplace comfort

ABSTRACT

Using post-occupancy evaluations of seven mixed-mode buildings – three in Australia and four in India – this paper demonstrates that effective mixed-mode conditioning (instead of year-round air-conditioning) can deliver comfortable workspaces. Occupant feedback reinforces strong associations between overheating, thermal comfort, overall comfort and perceived productivity. However, differing levels of thermal acceptability within and between the Australian and Indian contexts are evident. Occupants in the Indian buildings were found to tolerate a wider range of temperatures when compared with Western contexts where lower temperature limits entrench an energy demand through a greater reliance on air-conditioning. The outcomes from the study suggest that the perception of overheating and consequent risk to building performance can be intensified when occupants perceive limited adaptive opportunity or problems are not rectified quickly, whereas perceived control is less important where building systems are user responsive. Occupants in three of the study buildings also perceived higher-than-anticipated comfort which could be attributable to well-liked attributes, such as break-out spaces, daylight and fresh air included in these buildings. The findings challenge designers and clients to develop user-responsive climate interactive workplaces that capitalize on spatial and mixed-mode environmental control to tackle the question of overheating.     

First record of Platygaster luteipes Buhl (Hymenoptera: Platygastridae) from leaf galls on black pepper along with first report of the species from India.

Platygaster luteipes Buhl (Hymenoptera: Platygastridae) is reported for the first time from India. Several specimens of both sexes of the species were reared from the globular galls on mature leaves of black pepper. The hitherto undescribed male of the species is characterized and illustrated.     

Everyday resistance: exposing the complexities of participatory slum-upgrading projects in Nagpur

Abstract

This paper exposes practices of informal, everyday resistance by slum-dwellers against the implementation of large-scale public housing projects in India. During the last few decades, various large-scale urban projects have been implemented in order to redevelop Indian cities. In these projects, the emphasis is on community participation. By focusing on the local level, we scrutinize how these projects are put into practice. Specifically, we look at how two slum communities react, contest and protest against the implementation of a large-scale public housing project. Using two case studies in Nagpur under the Basic Services to the Urban Poor—an overarching, nation-wide slum-upgrading scheme—this paper explores how standardized, participatory large-scale housing projects often clash with social realities on the ground, which results in various forms of everyday resistance and protest.