Planning the sustainable eco-city in Taipei: The implementation of green design and green building schemes

Taipei City has put a significant effort toward the implementation of green design and green building schemes towards a sustainable eco-city. Although some of the environmental indicators have not indicated significant progress in environmental improvement, implementing the two schemes has obtained considerable results; therefore, the two schemes are on the right path towards promoting a sustainable eco-city. However, it has to be admitted that the two schemes are a rather “technocratic” set of solutions and eco-centric approach. It is suggested that not only the public sector but also the private sector need to put more effort toward implement the schemes, and the government needs to encourage the private sector to adopt the schemes in practice.

Health informatics: improving patient-centred healthcare pathway

Nowadays the use of information and communication technology is becoming prevalent in many aspects of healthcare services from patient registration, to consultation, treatment and pathology tests request. Manual interface techniques have dominated data-capture activities in primary care and secondary care settings for decades. Despites the improvements made in IT, usability issues still remain over the use of I/O devices like the computer keyboard, touch-sensitive screens, light pen and barcodes. Furthermore, clinicians have to use several computer applications when providing healthcare services to patients. One of the problems faced by medical professionals is the lack of data integrity between the different software applications which in turn can hinder the provision of healthcare services tailored to the needs of the patients. The use of digital pen and paper technology integrated with legacy medical systems hold the promise of improving healthcare quality. This paper discusses the issue of data integrity in e-health systems and proposes the modelling of "Smart Forms" via semiotics to potentially improve integrity between legacy systems, making the work of medical professionals easier and improve the quality of care in primary care practices and hospitals.

Taking the LEED? Analyzing spatial variations in market penetration rates of eco-labeled properties

This paper investigates the impact of policies to promote the adoption of LEED-certified buildings across CBSA in the United States. Drawing upon a unique database that combines data from a large number of sources and using a number of regression procedures, the determinants of the proportion LEED-certified space for more than 170 CBSA in the US is modeled. LEED-certified space still accounts for a relatively small proportion of commercial stock in all markets. The average proportion is less than 1%. There is no conclusive evidence of a positive impact of policy intervention on the levels of LEED-certified space. However, after accounting for bias introduced by non-random assignment of policies, we find preliminary evidence of a positive impact of city-level green building incentives. There is a significant positive association between market size and indicators of economic vitality on proportions of LEED-certified space.