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This study aims to evaluate the efficiency of various techniques for enhancing indoor air quality (IAQ) in construction. It analyzed the alterations in the concentration of indoor air pollutants over time for each product employed in controlling pollution sources and removing it, which included eco-friendly substances and adsorbents. The study will provide more precise and dependable data on the effectiveness of these control methods, ultimately supporting the creation of more efficient and sustainable approaches for managing indoor air pollution in buildings.

The research investigates the impact of eco-friendly materials and adsorbents on improving indoor air quality (IAQ) in Dubai's tall apartment buildings. Field experiments were conducted in six units of The Gate Tower, comparing the IAQ of three units built with “excellent” grade eco-friendly materials with three built with “good” grade materials. Another experiment evaluated two adsorbent products (H and Z) in the Majestic Tower over six months. Results indicate that “excellent” grade materials significantly reduced toluene emissions. Adsorbent product Z showed promising results in pollutant reduction, but there is concern about the long-term behavior of adsorbed chemicals. The study emphasizes further research on household pollutant management.

The research studied the effects of eco-friendly materials and adsorbents on indoor air quality in Dubai's new apartments. It found that apartments using “excellent” eco-friendly materials had significantly better air quality, particularly reduced toluene concentrations, compared to those using “good” materials. However, high formaldehyde (HCHO) emissions were observed from wood products. While certain construction materials led to increased ethylbenzene and xylene levels, adsorbent product Z showed promise in reducing pollutants. Yet, there is a potential concern about the long-term rerelease of these trapped chemicals. The study emphasizes the need for ongoing research in indoor pollutant management.

The research, while extensive, faced limitations in assessing the long-term behavior of adsorbed chemicals, particularly the potential for rereleasing trapped pollutants over time. Despite the study spanning a considerable period, indoor air pollutant concentrations in target households did not stabilize, making it challenging to determine definitive improvement effects and reduction rates among products. Comparisons were primarily relative between target units, and the rapid rise in pollutants during furniture introduction warrants further examination. Consequently, while the research provides essential insights, it underscores the need for more prolonged and comprehensive evaluations to fully understand the materials' and adsorbents' impacts on indoor air quality.

The research underscores the importance of choosing eco-friendly materials in new apartment constructions for better IAQ. Specifically, using “excellent” graded materials can significantly reduce harmful pollutants like toluene. However, the study also highlights that certain construction activities, such as introducing furniture, can rapidly elevate pollutant levels. Moreover, while adsorbents like product Z showed promise in reducing pollutants, there is potential for adsorbed chemicals to be rereleased over time. For practical implementation, prioritizing higher-grade eco-friendly materials and further investigation into furniture emissions and long-term behavior of adsorbents can lead to healthier indoor environments in newly built apartments.

The research offers a unique empirical assessment of eco-friendly materials' impact on indoor air quality within Dubai's rapidly constructed apartment buildings. Through field experiments, it directly compares different material grades, providing concrete data on pollutant levels in newly built environments. Additionally, it explores the efficacy of specific adsorbents, which is of high value to the construction and public health sectors. The findings shed light on how construction choices can influence indoor air pollution, offering valuable insights to builders, policymakers and residents aiming to promote public health and safety in urban living spaces.

Indoor air quality monitoring is extremely important in urban, industrial areas. Considering the devastating effect of declining quality of air in major part of the countries like India and China, it is highly recommended to monitor the quality of air which can help people with respiratory diseases, children and elderly people to take necessary precautions and stay safe at their homes. The purpose of this study is to detect air quality and perform predictions which could be part of smart home automation with the use of newer technology.

This study proposes an Internet-of-Things (IoT)-based air quality measurement, warning and prediction system for ambient assisted living. The proposed ambient assisted living system consists of low-cost air quality sensors and ESP32 controller with new generation embedded system architecture. It can detect Indoor Air Quality parameters like CO, PM2.5, NO2, O3, NH3, temperature, pressure, humidity, etc. The low cost sensor data are calibrated using machine learning techniques for performance improvement. The system has a novel prediction model, multiheaded convolutional neural networks-gated recurrent unit which can detect next hour pollution concentration. The model uses a transfer learning (TL) approach for prediction when the system is new and less data available for prediction. Any neighboring site data can be used to transfer knowledge for early predictions for the new system. It can have a mobile-based application which can send warning notifications to users if the Indoor Air Quality parameters exceed the specified threshold values. This is all required to take necessary measures against bad air quality.

The IoT-based system has implemented the TL framework, and the results of this study showed that the system works efficiently with performance improvement of 55.42% in RMSE scores for prediction at new target system with insufficient data.

This study demonstrates the implementation of an IoT system which uses low-cost sensors and deep learning model for predicting pollution concentration. The system is tackling the issues of the low-cost sensors for better performance. The novel approach of pretrained models and TL work very well at the new system having data insufficiency issues. This study contributes significantly with the usage of low-cost sensors, open-source advanced technology and performance improvement in prediction ability at new systems. Experimental results and findings are disclosed in this study. This will help install multiple new cost-effective monitoring stations in smart city for pollution forecasting.

This paper aims to interrogate the accountabilities of the foreign companies which have directly invested in the Iraqi oil and gas industry.

Using both qualitative and quantitative methodologies, the authors first map the stakeholder accountabilities (qualitative) of foreign oil and gas companies and second, the authors seek to demonstrate quantitatively – through structural break tests and publicly available sustainability reports – whether these companies have accounted for their environmental and social impacts both to Iraqi people and to the global community.

The authors find that the Western democratic values embedded in stakeholder theory, in terms of sustainability, do not hold the same meaning in cultural contexts where conceptions and application of Western democratic values are deeply problematic. This paper identifies a crucial problem in the global oil supply chain and problematises the application of traditional theoretical approaches in the context of the Iraqi oil and gas industry.

Implications of this study include the refocus of attention onto the local and global environmental impacts of the Iraqi oil and gas industry by foreign direct investments. Such a refocus highlights the reasons and ways that decision makers should accommodate these less salient stakeholders.

The primary contribution is the critique of the lack of environmental accountability of foreign direct investment companies in the Iraqi oil and gas industry. The authors also make theoretical and methodological contributions via the problematisation of the cultural bias inherent in traditional stakeholder theories, and by introducing a quantitative method to evaluate the accountabilities of companies.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the significance impact of air quality as a contributing factor on residential property rents by applying geo-informatics to economic issues. Since air pollution poses a severe health threat, city residents should have a right to know about the (invisible) hazards they are exposed to.

Within spatial-temporal modeling of air pollutants in Berlin, Germany, three interpolation techniques are tested. The most suitable one is selected to create seasonal maps for 2018 and 2021 with pollution concentrations for particulate matter values and nitrogen dioxide for each 1,000 m² cell within the administrative boundaries. Based on the evaluated pollution particulate matter values, which are used as additional variables for semi-parametric regressions the impact of the air quality on rents is estimated.

The findings reveal a compelling association between air quality and the economic aspect of the residential real estate market, with noteworthy implications for both tenants and property investors. The relationship between air pollution variables and rents is statistically significant. However, there is only a “willingness-to- pay” for low particulate matter values, but not for nitrogen dioxide concentrations. With good air quality, residents in Berlin are willing to pay a higher rent (3%).

These results suggest that a “marginal willingness-to-pay” occurs in a German city. The research underscores the multifaceted impact of air quality on the residential rental market in Berlin. The evidence supports the notion that a cleaner environment not only benefits human health and the planet but also contributes significantly to the economic bottom line of property investors.

The paper has a unique data engineering approach. It collects spatiotemporal data from network of state-certified measuring sites to create an index of air pollution. This spatial information is merged with residential listings. Afterward non-linear regression models are estimated.

In this chapter, the authors envision a new framework for technology-enabled local engagement. This framework would exploit web-based collaboration technology in order to create local engagement panels that represent a cross section of ordinary residents. For concreteness, the authors illustrate the framework in a proposed study called “Clearing the Air” would enable residents in the areas of Southern California that are most impacted by the logistics industry to have substantive and constructive opportunities to engage local officials on the complex economic and environmental matters related to logistics and emissions in the Southern California region. The authors propose methods to evaluate best practices in the use of collaboration technology, in particular, to learn whether the technology enables and empowers the engagement panels to participate in air quality governance at a high level and helps local officials better understand the considered opinions of residents on these important matters. If successful, this framework would integrate the policy views of individual residents alongside those of organized stakeholders, experts, and agency officials in the policy process.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether air pollution has significant impact on corporate cash holdings and financial leverage.

The data of 199 firms listed on Istanbul Stock Exchange during the period 2009–2020 is analyzed by using pooled ordinary least squares and two-step system generalized method of moments models.

The results indicate that firms in regions with high air pollution tend to increase cash level. In addition, the positive effect of air pollution on cash level is stronger and more significant for environmentally sensitive firms and firms with low operational and distress risk. The results also show insignificant effect of air pollution on financial leverage.

Firms in regions with high air pollution should conduct proactive environmental protection procedures and enhance their eco-efficiency instead of holding excess cash that could negatively affect financial performance. In this context, policymakers should provide financial facilities to firms located in regions with high air pollution and that have low ability to finance environmental investments. On the other hand, the environmental laws and regulations introduced by regulatory authorities can enhance the economic development and firm performance by decreasing the adverse influences of air pollution on corporate financial policies.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this research is one of few that examines the impact of air pollution on corporate cash holdings and financial leverage in emerging markets.

Heating, ventilating, air-conditioning and cooling (HVAC) systems are crucial in daily health-care facility services. Design-related defects can lead to maintenance issues, causing service disruptions and cost overruns. These defects can be avoided if a link between the early design stages and maintenance feedback is established. This study aims to use experts’ experience in HVAC maintenance in health-care facilities to list and evaluate the risk of each maintenance issue caused by a design defect, supported by the literature.

Following semistructured interviews with experts, 41 maintenance issues were identified as the most encountered issues. Subsequently, a survey was conducted in which 44 participants evaluated the probability and impact of each design-caused issue.

Chillers were identified as the HVAC components most prone to design defects and cost impact. However, air distribution ducts and air handling units are the most critical HVAC components for maintaining healthy conditions inside health-care facilities.

The unavailability of comprehensive data on the cost impacts of all design-related defects from multiple health-care facilities limits the ability of HVAC designers to furnish case studies and quantitative approaches.

This study helps HVAC designers acquire prior knowledge of decisions that may have led to unnecessary and avoidable maintenance. These design-related maintenance issues may cause unfavorable health and cost consequences.

Road transport is an important sector of the economy, however, its negative impacts on the environment, human health and sustainability of potential economic growth are significant. Transport externalities tend to be neglected within the market process. The damage generated through significant externalities of road transport in Czechia was identified, based on unique data processing, to reach almost 3.5 billion € annually. This chapter presents an overview of internalization taxes and fees, their current rates and generated receipts. If excise duty is disregarded as fundamentally unsuitable for the internalization of externalities, then the receipts from other applied taxes and fees, particularly the road tax, seem to be insufficient. Although economic growth is encouraged, its form is not sustainable in view of the rising phase of the Kuznets curve and the related irreversible environmental impacts.

In the aerial transportation area, fuel costs are critical to the economic viability of companies, and so urgent measures should be adopted to avoid any unnecessary increase in operational costs. In particular, this paper addresses the case of missed approach manouevres, showing that it is still possible to optimize the usual procedure.

The costs involved in a standard procedure following a missed approach are analysed through a simulation model, and they are compared with the improvements achieved with a fast reinjection scheme proposed in a prior work.

Experimental results show that, for a standard A320 aircraft, fuel savings ranging from 55% to 90% can be achieved through the reinjection method.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this work is the first study in the literature addressing the fuel savings benefits obtained by applying a reinjection technique for missed approach manoeuvres.