Measuring student learning gain: a review of transatlantic measurements of assessments in higher education

Learning gain is a valuable lens on student development.  Its importance has was highlighted by discussions framing the teaching excellence framework (TEF), which considered the ‘distance travelled’ by a learner as a potential metric.  Learning gain in England is at its early stages whilst the United States have had a much more established 'measurement of learning gain' culture.  This paper examines the already existing measures being used within the US including the three standardised measures of the Voluntary System of Accountability, including the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA), and one self-report measure

Being Moved: Louis XIV’s Triumphant Tenderness and the Protestant Object

This essay examines the place of affect in Le Triomphe de la Religion, a text from 1687 that praises Louis XIV for the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes and the forced conversion of French Protestants. It explores the role of the material object in this text and contrasts it with seventeenth-century Protestant fears about the seductive power of Catholic objects. Drawing on the work of affect theory, it suggest how attention to the strange relation between emotion and the material object might better illuminate our sense of what it meant to be religiously different in absolutist France

Achieving literacy in sustainability : shifting the paradigm for construction management education

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

A Comparative Simulation Study of the Thermal Performances of the Building Envelope Wall Materials in the Tropics

The building walls which form the major part of the building envelope thermally interact with the changing surrounding environment throughout the day influencing the indoor thermal comfort of the space. This paper aims at assessing in detail the different aspects (thermophysical properties, thickness, exposure to solar heat gain, etc.) of opaque building wall materials affecting the indoor thermal environment and energy efficiency of the buildings in tropical climate (in the summer and winter days) by conducting simplified simulation analysis using the Integrated Environmental Solutions Virtual Environment (IES-VE) program. Besides, the thermal efficiency of a number of selected wall materials with different thermal properties and wall configurations was analysed to determine the most optimal option for the studied climate. This study first developed the conditions for parametric simulation analysis and then addressed selected findings by comparing the thermal responses of the materials to moderate outdoor temperature and energy-saving potential. While energy consumption estimation for a complete operational building is a complex method by which the performance of the wall materials cannot be properly defined, as a result, this simplistic simulation approach can guide the designers to preliminary analyse the different building wall materials in order to select the best thermal efficiency solution

A Novel Adaptive Lighting System Which Considers Behavioral Adaptation Aspects for Visually Impaired People

The number of visually impaired people and elderly people groups are significant, but the current lighting system used in buildings, which is based on the current standard, cannot provide the necessary lighting comfort for them. The lighting system should provide the correct illuminance for every activity and even pattern of light. This research presents the work in progress in developing the novel adaptive lighting system tailored for visually impaired people, which becomes the solution to the problem. The behavioral adaptation aspects and the experience and memory principle are taken into account in the system design. It also makes use of the latest independent adjustable artificial light (LED) technology, to get an even pattern of lighting, while still considering efficient energy usage. The proposed system structure uses a wireless sensor network (WSN), big data processing, and the Artificial Intelligence (AI) sub-system, which can predict and adaptively regulate the illumination level based on the occupant’s needs and routines. The initial simulation of the lighting model is presented in this paper. The simulation uses five scenarios in different seasons and daylight. The simulation shows satisfactory results for illuminance values 200, 250, 300, 500, and 750 lux, needed by the occupants

EnvironMoores: Efficient NoVel Intelligent Reliable OccupatioN Monitoring for IndOor human-comfORt adaptivE System

In recent years, due to growing low-cost sensing solutions, the provision of lighting and thermal comfort has been widely increased to existing and future smart buildings to aid productivity, health, and wellbeing. Thermal camera, for example, has the potential to be used widely in the home comfort system nowadays. It was very expensive that only military, firefighters and surveyors were able to use it due to its price. However, the current sensing solutions seriously lack real-time intelligent monitoring and thus adaptively control human comfort supporting systems of smart buildings and most of the existing systems only consider quantitative variables. Therefore, EnvironMoores will develop a novel solution based on the fusion of wireless sensors and thermal imaging to monitor lighting and thermal comfort in real-time. The sensing system will collect both environmental and human-related data. The data will also focus on health/disability condition of occupants. The system will be analyzed for its effectiveness in reducing cost and energy. The focus of EnvironMoores will be on the lightning and thermal comfort aspects

The adaptive thermal comfort review from the 1920s, the present, and the future

The typical method for comfort analysis is the Predicted Mean Vote and Predicted Percentage Dissatisfied (PMV-PPD). However, they present limitations in accommodating the comfort of a disabled and elder group of people, which are the most vulnerable to climate change and energy poverty. The adaptive method can give flexibility and personalisation needed to overcome the problem due to the variability of the people’s metabolism, historical and behavioural preferences. Investments to upgrade the indoor environmental quality and building design can then be effectively used and, for the first time, it will be possible to tailor the solutions for these particular groups of people. The adaptive approach uses Artificial Intelligence (AI), where it can introduce the imperfect learning process. Overcoming this, instead of going further for the Explainable AI, the PMV–PPD approach can be used for the learning validation and verification needed for the adaptive setting point and standards