Australia cultural built heritage:Stakeholders' perceived conservation barriers and motivations

Stakeholders are recognised as drivers of effective conservation of cultural built heritage. Yet, as stakeholders have eclectic views in terms of their interest in, knowledge of and perceptions about the management of historic fabric, their practices are often diverse. The objective of this paper is to gain an understanding of the stakeholders' views drawn from relevant professional field on the issues that act as barriers to conservation and identify the factors that motivate built heritage management in Australia. Using a qualitative research design, two focus groups were conducted in Queensland and New South Wales with purposely selected key informants (N=14) working in the Australian heritage sector. The study presents stakeholders' interest in managing built heritage and the perceptions concerning the application of conservation policy and practices in the Australian built heritage sector, as influenced by the interdisciplinary backgrounds of participants. The paper contributes to an in-depth understanding of the conservation barriers and motivators and their implications for policy and practices in the management of Australian built heritage. The study is based on the perceptions of key informants with diverse interests and knowledge about the conservation of cultural built heritage; this makes the research analysis and implications inclusive and influential from both theoretical and practical points of view.</p

Decision making criteria in adopting renewable energies in the built environment.

The best system for a particular property is strongly linked to the occupiers. User’s energy needs vary depending on type and size of building they occupy. A deeper analysis of the heating and electricity demand should include detailed assessment of activities carried out in the building. Physical constraints due to the site’s characteristics will determine the viability of the different technologies. A complete assessment will require a detailed evaluation of location and orientation of the buildings and the potential obstacles that might reduce the solar radiation or wind speed. The assessment should also include the evaluation of the visual, sound and environmental impact. The chosen solution should be compatible with the building typology, structure, fabric and type of roof. Moreover, some microgeneration technologies can work well even if a property has relatively low insulation and air tightness levels while others will not. When installing new systems in existing buildings, care must be taken to avoid damage or excessive loss particularly where the materials are fragile. The financial viability of a renewable energy system depend not only on the efficiency of the technology, but also on the available budget, the maintenance costs or the estimated lifespan. To evaluate the effectiveness of any system would be necessary to include both the grants funding and the feed-in tariff available for each system

Energy efficient homes: implementation of renewable energies in retrofitted buildings.

According to the Climate change (Scotland) Act 2009, by 2020 total carbon emission should be reduced 42% respect 1990 levels (and 80% lower than the baseline by 2050). In this context, it is important to highlight that buildings are responsible of 45% of total CO2 emissions (RAENG 2010) and just residential buildings represent 26% of UK CO2 emissions (Moran, Nikolopoulou and Natarajan 20212). Moreover, due to the low average renovation rate in Europe, 1.2-1.4% per year (Dyrbøl, Thomsen, et al. 2010), it is estimated that between 80% (RAENG 2010) AND 85% (Palmer et al. 2006) of the buildings we will occupy by 2050 are already built. Consequently, energy efficiency could be achieved working on the equipments substitution and improving the factors that affect the demand. To achieve the low energy demand rates of new buildings in retrofitted properties is almost impossible. However, combination of energy demand reduction measures and use of renewable energies could lead to a high efficient homes with low rates of fuel consumption and thus low greenhouse gases emissions

Analysis of indoor climate and occupants' behaviour in traditional Scottish dwellings.

Due to the relevance of the internal boundary conditions and the lack of specific data for the Scottish context, an exploration of the internal environment of traditional dwellings is needed. In this study the indoor climate of 24 properties with different levels of insulation and air-tightness was analysed using a combination of quantitative and qualitative data. Temperature and relative humidity were recorded at 15 minutes intervals in two rooms per property. The analysis was complemented with semi-structured interviews with the occupants. Based on temperature and relative humidity, the moisture loads were calculated. Results in non- insulated properties showed indoor temperatures lower than the minimum level of thermal comfort, especially in winter, and high values of relative humidity during the warm season. The humidity levels in upgraded buildings are consistently lower despite the greater variability found in the internal temperatures

La communication volontaire d'information par les entreprises en difficulté financière

Notre recherche examine l'étendue de la communication d'information de 59 sociétés américaines éprouvant des difficultés financières entre 2001 et 2003. La détresse financière, et éventuellement la faillite, offre un contexte intéressant pour l'étude des motivations des dirigeants à communiquer leur information privée aux investisseurs externes. Nous utilisons la grille d'analyse de Botosan (1997) pour mesurer l'étendue de la divulgation volontaire d'information dans le rapport annuel. Nos résultats documentent que le niveau global de diffusion d'information ne diffère pas entre l'échantillon d'entreprises en détresse financière et celui d'un groupe de contrôle d'entreprises financièrement saines. Toutefois, l'analyse des sous-catégories de l'indice de communication de l'information montre que les entreprises en difficulté financière divulguent davantage d'information dans le rapport d'analyse et de discussion de la direction relativement à leurs perspectives futures.communication volontaire d'information; détresse financière; rapport annuel

Coping with discomfort at home and its effect on the internal climate: the case of traditional Scottish buildings before and after a retrofit.

This study investigates the relationship between users and internal climate in traditional buildings. Built upon principles of social practice theory, the results presented here compare and contrast occupants's daily practices of comfort with the physical characteristics of the indoor environment. Specifically, this study explores the effect of coping with discomfort on the internal moisture loads (difference in water vapour content ing/m3 between indoor and air). A cross-sectional study was designed to gather qualitative and quantitative data from households of traditionally constructed buildings before and after a thermal retrofit of comfort (such as heating or ventilation) are shaped. More importantly, the comparison between narratives and measurements showed that households where comfort was more difficult to achieve were those with higher moistrue concentrations. The results of the study also showed that the adjusting mechanisms chosen by the users - that is, the way in which users coped with discomfort - and how long they lasted were heavily influence by their perception of how easily comfort could be restored

MGit: A Model Versioning and Management System

Models derived from other models are extremely common in machine learning (ML) today. For example, transfer learning is used to create task-specific models from "pre-trained" models through finetuning. This has led to an ecosystem where models are related to each other, sharing structure and often even parameter values. However, it is hard to manage these model derivatives: the storage overhead of storing all derived models quickly becomes onerous, prompting users to get rid of intermediate models that might be useful for further analysis. Additionally, undesired behaviors in models are hard to track down (e.g., is a bug inherited from an upstream model?). In this paper, we propose a model versioning and management system called MGit that makes it easier to store, test, update, and collaborate on model derivatives. MGit introduces a lineage graph that records provenance and versioning information between models, optimizations to efficiently store model parameters, as well as abstractions over this lineage graph that facilitate relevant testing, updating and collaboration functionality. MGit is able to reduce the lineage graph's storage footprint by up to 7x and automatically update downstream models in response to updates to upstream models

Student perceptions of remote learning transitions in engineering disciplines during the COVID-19 pandemic: a cross-national study

This study captures student perceptions of the effectiveness of remote learning and assessment in two associated engineering disciplines, mechanical and industrial, during the COVID-19 pandemic in a cross-national study. A structured questionnaire with 24 items on a 5-point Likert scale was used. Parallel and exploratory factor analyses identified three primary subscales. The links between student perceptions and assessment outcomes were also studied. There was a clear preference for face-to-face teaching, with the highest for laboratories. Remote live lectures were preferred over recorded. Although students found the switch to remote learning helpful, group work and communication were highlighted as concern areas. Mean scores on subscales indicate a low preference for remote learning (2.23), modest delivery effectiveness (3.05) and effective digital delivery tools (3.61). Gender effects were found significant on all subscales, along with significant interactions with university and year-group. Preference for remote delivery of design-based modules was significantly higher than others

Online Adaptive Radiation Therapy: Implementation of a New Process of Care.

Onboard magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) guided radiotherapy is now clinically available in nine centers in the world. This technology has facilitated the clinical implementation of online adaptive radiotherapy (OART), or the ability to alter the daily treatment plan based on tumor and anatomical changes in real-time while the patient is on the treatment table. However, due to the time sensitive nature of OART, implementation in a large and busy clinic has many potential obstacles as well as patient-related safety considerations. In this work, we have described the implementation of this new process of care in the Department of Radiation Oncology at the&nbsp;University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). We describe the rationale, the initial challenges such as treatment time considerations, technical issues during the process of re-contouring, re-optimization, quality assurance, as well as our current solutions to overcome these challenges.&nbsp;In addition, we describe the&nbsp;implementation of a coverage system with a physician of the day as well as online planners (physicists or dosimetrists) to oversee each OART treatment with patient-specific 'hand-off' directives from the patient's treating physician. The purpose of this effort is to streamline the process without compromising treatment quality and patient safety. As more MRI-guided radiotherapy programs come online, we hope that our experience can facilitate successful adoption of OART in a way that maximally benefits the patient