Influence of probabilistic climate projections on building energy simulation

The Chartered Institute of Building Service Engineers (CIBSE) produced a technical memorandum (TM36) presenting research on future climate impacting building energy use and thermal comfort. One climate projection for each of four CO2 emissions scenario were used in TM36, so providing a deterministic outlook. As part of the UK Climate Impacts Programme (UKCIP) probabilistic climate projections are being studied in relation to building energy simulation techniques. Including uncertainty in climate projections is considered an important advance to climate impacts modelling and is included in the latest UKCIP data (UKCP09). Incorporating the stochastic nature of these new climate projections in building energy modelling requires a significant increase in data handling and careful statistical interpretation of the results to provide meaningful conclusions. This paper compares the results from building energy simulations when applying deterministic and probabilistic climate data. This is based on two case study buildings: (i) a mixed-mode office building with exposed thermal mass and (ii) a mechanically ventilated, light-weight office building. Building (i) represents an energy efficient building design that provides passive and active measures to maintain thermal comfort. Building (ii) relies entirely on mechanical means for heating and cooling, with its light-weight construction raising concern over increased cooling loads in a warmer climate. Devising an effective probabilistic approach highlighted greater uncertainty in predicting building performance, depending on the type of building modelled and the performance factors under consideration. Results indicate that the range of calculated quantities depends not only on the building type but is strongly dependent on the performance parameters that are of interest. Uncertainty is likely to be particularly marked with regard to thermal comfort in naturally ventilated buildings.

Professionalism and professional institutions in times of change

Professionalism and professional institutions have developed and changed very gradually in recent decades, such that there are conflicting and competing definitions of what it means to be a professional. The direction of travel is examined through an institutional lens in terms of current trends and practices that have transformed professional life. At first sight, the evolution of professionalism appears to be developing into a new professionalism that requires less of professional institutions and more of the institutions of societal governance, such as contracts and statutes. These transformations are explored with reference to the need for a sustainable urban environment, showing that despite a reduced role of professional institutions, certain aspects of professionalism remain crucially important, especially in those jurisdictions where societal governance is not well developed. With the growing sophistication of legislation, insurance and commerce, the emphasis of what it means to be a professional is evolving. One key aspect of professionalism that is not usually listed in most texts is role definition and how this provides a sense of identity. Professionalism remains a relevant and important concept, but the exigencies of a sustainable urban environment transcend the objectives of the professions and demand a broader, collaborative and participative agenda.

Bis(azidophenyl)phosphole building block for extended π-conjugated systems

Novel bis(azidophenyl)phosphole sulfide building block 8 has been developed to give access to a plethora of phosphole-containing π-conjugated systems in a simple synthetic step. This was explored for the reaction of the two azido moieties with phenyl-, pyridyl- and thienylacetylenes, to give bis(aryltriazolyl)-extended π-systems, having either the phosphole sulfide (9) or the phosphole (10) group as central ring. These conjugated frameworks exhibit intriguing photophysical and electrochemical properties that vary with the nature of the aromatic end-group. The λ3-phospholes 10 display blue fluorescence (λem = 460–469 nm) with high quan-tum yield (ΦF = 0.134–0.309). The radical anion of pyridylsubstituted phosphole sulfide 9b was observed with UV/Vis spectroscopy. TDDFT calculations on the extended π-systems showed some variation in the shape of the HOMOs, which was found to have an effect on the extent of charge transfer, depending on the aromatic end-group. Some fine-tuning of the emission maxima was observed, albeit subtle, showing a decrease in conjugation in the order thienyl � phenyl � pyridyl. These results show that variations in the distal ends of such π-systems have a subtle but significant effect on photophysical properties.

Transfers, contracts and regulation: a new institutional economics perspective on the changing provision of social housing in Britain

Social housing policy in the UK mirrors wider processes Associated with shifts in broad welfare regimes. Social housing has moved from dominance by state housing provision to the funding of new investment through voluntary sector housing associations to what is now a greater focus on the regulation and private financing of these not-for-profit bodies. If these trends run their course, we are likely to see a range of not-for-profit bodies providing non-market housing in a highly regulated quasi-market. This paper examines these issues through the lens of new institutional economics, which it is believed can provide important insights into the fundamental contractual and regulatory relationships that are coming to dominate social housing from the perspective of the key actors in the sector (not-for-profit housing organisations, their tenants, private lenders and the regulatory state). The paper draws on evidence recently collected from a study evaluating more than 100 stock transfer organisations that inherited ex-public housing in Scotland, including 12 detailed case studies. The paper concludes that social housing stakeholders need to be aware of the risks (and their management) faced across the sector and that the state needs to have clear objectives for social housing and coherent policy instruments to achieve those ends.

Whole life carbon – a building case study

There is potential to reduce both operational and embodied greenhouse gas emission from buildings. To date the focus has been on reducing the operational element, although given the urgency of carbon reductions, it may be more beneficial to consider upfront embodied carbon reductions. This paper describes a case study on the whole life carbon cycle of a warehouse building in Swindon, UK. It examines the relationship between embodied carbon (Ec) and operational carbon (Oc), the proportions of Ec from the structural and non-structural elements, carbon benchmarking of the structure, the value of ‘cradle to site’ or ‘cradle to grave’ assessments and the significance of the timing of emissions during the life of the building. The case study indicates that Ec was dominant for the building and that the structure was responsible for more than half of the Ec. Weighting of future emissions appears to be an important factor to consider. The PAS 2050 reduction factors had only a modest effect but weighting to allow for future decarbonisation of the national grid energy supply had a large effect. This suggests that future operational carbon emissions are being overestimated compared to embodied.

Corruption and state-building

The chapter examines the compex roles of corruption in state-buioding environments. The first section briefly outlines how statebuilding is conceptualized in this discussion. The second section examines the concept of corruption,and argues that the organization, rather than the scale of corruption, offers a better lens through which its impact can be analyzed. The third section examines the complex relationship between corruption and statebuilding through the lenses of two key aspects of statebuilding – elite settlements, and the provision of public services – and briefly discusses both the complex relationship between corruption and security, and the impact of aid on corruption in statebuilding environments. The fourth section concludes the chapter with a reflection on the implications of the analysis for understanding contemporary statebuilding efforts and policy.

The political economy of state-building in Kosovo

The chapter examines the impact of international statbuilding efforts on political and economic dynamics in Kosovo from 1999 to 2011

Does infrastructure investment stimulate building supply? The case of the English regions

Does infrastructure investment stimulate building supply? The case of the English regions, Regional Studies. Policies to improve infrastructure to stimulate regional growth remain common. This paper investigates whether increases in infrastructure investment in the English regions lead to subsequent rises in new commercial and residential property, using time-series modelling. Both physical (roads and harbours) and social infrastructure (education and health) impacts are investigated. Hardly any infrastructure effects with respect to commercial property investment were found, which raises doubts about whether extra infrastructure creates employment, though some impact was related to residential building. Overall, these results raise doubts about the supposed direct effects of infrastructure policies on regional jobs and growth.

Changing building user attitude and organisational policy towards sustainable resource use in healthcare

Health care provision is significantly impacted by the ability of the health providers to engineer a viable healthcare space to support care stakeholders needs. In this paper we discuss and propose use of organisational semiotics as a set of methods to link stakeholders to systems, which allows us to capture clinician activity, information transfer, and building use; which in tern allows us to define the value of specific systems in the care environment to specific stakeholders and the dependence between systems in a care space. We suggest use of a semantically enhanced building information model (BIM) to support the linking of clinician activity to the physical resource objects and space; and facilitate the capture of quantifiable data, over time, concerning resource use by key stakeholders. Finally we argue for the inclusion of appropriate stakeholder feedback and persuasive mechanism, to incentivise building user behaviour to support organisational level sustainability policy.

Social development as knowledge building: research as a sphere of policy influence

The value of using social development knowledge as a tool for building development policy was promoted by the British Department for International Development in the late 1990s. This article takes the case of a capacity building initiative that sought to build social development knowledge as a resource for policy formulation in 'southern' countries. Situating knowledge as a development resource presents difficulties for intervention processes that have historically developed to provide access to economic and social assets. This article highlights some of the issues involved in trying to build social development capacity and questions the suitability of this style of intervention. Inappropriate and short-term support for knowledge capacity building carries the danger that the traditional separation between the academic and practice spheres will be reinforced, making the process of democratising knowledge more difficult.

Building from scratch a marketing services giant by acquisition: case study and interview with Sir Martin Sorrell, Chief Executive of WPP

Purpose – Mergers and acquisitions are among the most intensely used strategic decisions. Yet research by both academics and consulting groups suggests that many mergers and acquisitions fail to add value. On the other hand there are many companies that successfully use mergers and acquisition to grow and add shareholder value. One such company is WPP. The aim of this paper is to explore why WPP has been successful in its acquisition strategy while so many other companies fail. Design/methodology/approach – The paper draws on documentary evidence and a semi-structured interview with Sir Martin Sorrell – Chief Executive and founder of WPP. Research limitations/implications – The case study offers a unique insight into thinking of a successful acquirer and sheds light on how mergers and acquisitions are managed by WPP. However, because of its design the findings are not generalisable. Originality/value – This case study sheds light on how mergers and acquisitions can be used to create a £9 billion company from a standing start. Furthermore, very few case studies offer insight into the thinking of entrepreneurial Chief Executives who established the business, grew it to become the largest and most profitable marketing services company in the world and engineered close to 300 acquisitions.

Demonstrating the importance of criteria and sub-criteria in building assessment methods

Building assessment methods have become a popular research field since the early 1990s. An international tool which allows the assessment of buildings in all regions, taking into account differences in climates, topographies and cultures does not yet exist. This paper aims to demonstrate the importance of criteria and sub-criteria in developing a new potential building assessment method for Saudi Arabia. Recently, the awareness of sustainability has been increasing in developing countries due to high energy consumption, pollution and high carbon foot print. There is no debate that assessment criteria have an important role to identify the tool’s orientation. However, various aspects influence the criteria and sub-criteria of assessment tools such as environment, economic, social and cultural to mention but a few. The author provides an investigation on the most popular and globally used schemes: BREEAM, LEED, Green Star, CASBEE and Estidama in order to identify the effectiveness of the different aspects of the assessment criteria and the impacts of these criteria on the assessment results; that will provide a solid foundation to develop an effective sustainable assessment method for buildings in Saudi Arabia. Initial results of the investigation suggest that each country needs to develop its own assessment method in order to achieve desired results, while focusing upon the indigenous environmental, economic, social and cultural conditions. Keywords: Assessment methods, BREEAM, LEED, Green Star, CASBEE, Estidama, sustainability, sustainable buildings, Environment, Saudi Arabia.