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The use of renewable energy has become necessary because of the harmful effects of current energy sources on the environment, limited availability and financial crisis. Transparent solar panels have emerged as a promising technology for integrating renewable energy generation into building structures. Therefore, this paper aims to explore the feasibility of transparent solar panels for high-rise building façades in Sri Lanka.

The research apprehended a qualitative approach, including two expert interview rounds adhering to the Delphi technique with 17 and 15 experts each per round. Manual content analysis was incorporated to analyse the collected data.

Regarding operation and maintenance, the study emphasizes the importance of regular inspection, cleaning and repair of transparent solar panels to ensure optimal performance and longevity. These activities contribute to maximizing energy generation and maintaining the aesthetic appeal of the building. The benefits of implementing transparent solar panels on building façades are manifold. They include renewable energy generation, reduced greenhouse gas emissions, improved energy efficiency and enhanced architectural aesthetics. Furthermore, the research findings underscore the potential of transparent solar panels to contribute to Sri Lanka’s sustainable development goals and address the country’s increasing energy demand. However, the study also identifies challenges that need to be addressed for successful implementation.

This study contributes to understanding the feasibility of transparent solar panels for high-rise building façades in Sri Lanka. The research findings offer valuable insights into the operation and maintenance aspects, benefits, challenges and strategies for implementing transparent solar panels effectively. This knowledge can guide policymakers, architects and developers in making informed decisions regarding the integration of transparent solar panels, thereby promoting sustainable and energy-efficient building practices in Sri Lanka.

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.

This paper improves the evaluation index system of green building operation effect and establishes the evaluation model of green building operation effect. It is expected to promote energy saving and emission reduction and provide a more scientific evaluation method for green building operation effect evaluation.

First, 20 key evaluation indexes are selected to establish the operation effective evaluation index system. Then, the combined weight method is proposed to determine the weight of each evaluation index. Next, the gray clustering-fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method is used to construct the green building operation effective evaluation model. Finally, the feasibility and validity of the selected model were verified by taking Shenzhen Bay One green building in Shenzhen as an example.

This paper establishes the evaluation system of green building operational effect, and evaluates green building from the angle of operational effect. Taking Shenzhen Bay One project as an example, the rationality and applicability of the model are verified.

In this paper, for the first time, relevant indexes of user experience are included in the evaluation system of green building operational effect, which makes the evaluation system more perfect. In addition, a more scientific fuzzy gray clustering method is used to evaluate the operational effect of green building, and a new evaluation model is established.

As the size of the population is growing and the capacity of the planet Earth is limited, human beings are searching for sustainable and technology-enabled solutions to support society, ecology and economy. One of the solutions has been developing smart sustainable cities. Smart sustainable cities are cities as systems, where their infrastructure, different subsystems and different functional domains are virtually connected to the information and communication technologies (ICT) and internet via sensors and devices and the Internet of Things (IoT), to collect and process real-time Big Data and make efficient, effective and sustainable solutions for a democratic and liveable city for its various stakeholders. This chapter explores the concepts and practices of sustainable smart cities across the globe and explores the use of technologies such as IoT, Blockchain technology and Cloud computing, etc. their challenges and then presents a view on business models for sustainable smart cities.

This research aims to investigate the role of digitalization in facilitating the integration of circular economy (CE) principles within a firm operating in the Italian agrifood sector. The study seeks to explore the evidence and effects emerging from the adoption of digital technologies in a small and medium enterprise (SME) operational setting.

An interpretative case study was conducted on an SME operating in the Italian agrifood sector. The selected firm is known to adopt a business model oriented towards circularity by using entirely digitized closed-loop hydroponic cultivation.

The findings reveal that the digitalization of the production process, supported by an integrated information system, enables optimizing the use and consumption of natural resources and minimizes waste during the production stage. Additionally, the authors observed that digitalization triggers a complex mechanism of interaction between various firm factors, market dynamics and forms of institutionalization, which are intrinsically intertwined with the concepts of sustainability and resilience in the agrifood sector.

From a theoretical point of view, the interpretive reading key – historically appropriate to embrace the complexity of the phenomena under study – can foster a deeper understanding of the dynamics underlying digitalization as an enabling factor to facilitating the adoption of CE principles in the agrifood sector. Regarding managerial implications, the study contributes to the debate on the importance of digital transition in the agrifood industry, which in the Italian context shows considerable resistance due, especially, to the size of the firms (mainly SMEs and micro) and managerial conservatism tradition.

As numerous research studies have investigated the effect of the built environment on human contentment, building regulations have advanced as a direct impact on indoor environmental quality (IEQ) to include thermal, lighting, air quality and acoustics systems. Yet, while IEQ and residents' satisfaction have been discussed thoroughly in previous research, only a few studies have researched the role of building regulations as motivating factors in the housing context, specifically in Jordan.

A mixed-method approach was adopted to address this issue involving genotype analysis for building morphology and simulation using Design Builder software. This helped to understand the impact of building regulations variables, including building setback, the height of an adjacent building, orientation and building geometry. Meanwhile, an online survey was conducted to include 410 residents spread out in various building categories (A, B, C and D).

The results of this study revealed that building regulation of setbacks, the height of adjacent buildings and orientation are significant parameters that directly affect IEQ and residents' satisfaction. In addition, based on this study, the matter was clear that the highest total satisfaction resulted based on the highest comfort level in terms of temperature and daylight obtained due to larger setback and lower building height. Yet, this finding undermined smart growth principles due to the limited scope of building regulation that focused only on spatial and physical dimensions, so improving to include environmental aspects such as passive design strategies that appreciate natural ventilation and lighting is necessary, which positively impact IEQ.

The concept of IEQ and residents' satisfaction have been discussed thoroughly, but only a few studies have researched the role of building regulations as motivating factors in the housing context specifically in Jordan.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has had a big impact on organisations globally, leaving organisations with no choice but to adapt to the new reality of remote work to ensure business continuity. Such an unexpected reality created the conditions for testing new applications of smart home technology whilst working from home. Given the potential implications of such applications to improve the working environment, and a lack of research on that front, this paper pursued two objectives. First, the paper explored the impact of smart home applications by examining the factors that could contribute to perceived productivity and well-being whilst working from home. Second, the study investigated the role of productivity and well-being in motivating the intention of remote workers to use smart home technologies in a home-work environment in the future.

The study adopted a cross-sectional research design. For data collection, 528 smart home users working from home during the pandemic were recruited. Collected data were analysed using a structural equation modelling approach.

The results of the research confirmed that perceived productivity is dependent on service relevance, perceived usefulness, innovativeness, hedonic beliefs and control over environmental conditions. Perceived well-being correlates with task-technology fit, service relevance, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, attitude to smart homes, innovativeness, hedonic beliefs and control over environmental conditions. Intention to work from a smart home-office in the future is dependent on perceived well-being.

The findings of the research contribute to the organisational and smart home literature, by providing missing evidence about the implications of the application of smart home technologies for employees' perceived productivity and well-being. The paper considers the conditions that facilitate better outcomes during remote work and could potentially be used to improve the work environment in offices after the pandemic. Also, the findings inform smart home developers about the features of technology which could improve the developers' application in contexts beyond home settings.

In the mid-2000s, the operator of New York City’s mass transit network committed more than a half-billion dollars to military contractor Lockheed Martin for a security technology capable, in part, of inferring threats based on analysis of data streams, of developing response strategies, and taking automated action toward alerts and calamities in light of evolving circumstances. The project was a failure. This chapter explores the conceptualization and development of this technology – rooted in cybernetics – and compares its conceptual underpinnings with some situated problems of awareness, communication, coordination, and action in emergencies as they unfold in one of the busiest transport systems in the world, the New York subway. The author shows how the technology, with all the theatrical trappings of a “legitimate” security solution, was apparently conceived without a grounded understanding of actual use-cases, and the degree to which the complex interactions which give rise to subway emergency can be anticipated in – and therefore managed through – a technological system. As a case-study, the chapter illustrates the pitfalls of deploying technology against problems which are not well-defined in the first place, to the neglect of investments against much more fundamental problems – such as inadequate communication systems, and unstable relationships with emergency response agencies – which might offer guaranteed benefits, and indeed lay a firm groundwork for future deployment of more ambitious technology.

This study aims to investigate the physical environmental problems of two Thai community hospitals’ outpatient departments (OPDs) during the COVID-19 outbreak and to provide design guidelines for respiratory disease prevention.

A three-step method was used. The first step involved walk-through observations at Mae Wang Hospital and Doi Saket Hospital to assess the physical environment. The second step consisted of interviews with 22 medical staff working in the two hospitals. Third, the observation and interview data were used to develop a preliminary design guideline, which was evaluated by two focus groups comprising the same interview participants.

The observational findings showed that the two hospitals had difficulties following the COVID-19 prevention protocol due to physical environmental problems. Four different themes emerged from the analysis of the medical staff interviews. The preliminary design guidelines that were evaluated through two focus group discussions resulted in design recommendations for four areas (the overall building, clinical, support and staff areas) in the Mae Wang and Doi Saket OPD buildings. Three topics of design recommendations were provided to reduce the spread of COVID-19: improving hospital management, space design and air quality.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to provide design guidelines for COVID-19 and respiratory disease prevention in Thai community hospital OPD buildings.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the optimal average drag coefficient of the Ahmed body for mixed platoon driving under crosswind and no crosswind conditions using the response surface optimization method. This study has extraordinary implications for the planning of future intelligent transportation.

First, the single vehicle and vehicle platoon models are validated. Second, the configuration with the lowest average drag coefficient under the two conditions is obtained by response surface optimization. At the same time, the aerodynamic characteristics of the mixed platoon driving under different conditions are also analyzed.

The configuration with the lowest average drag coefficient under no crosswind conditions is 0.3 L for longitudinal spacing and 0.8 W for lateral spacing, with an average drag coefficient of 0.1931. The configuration with the lowest average drag coefficient under crosswind conditions is 10° for yaw angle, 0.25 L for longitudinal spacing, and 0.8 W for lateral spacing, with an average drag coefficient of 0.2251. Compared to the single vehicle, the average drag coefficients for the two conditions are reduced by 25.1% and 41.3%, respectively.

This paper investigates the lowest average drag coefficient for mixed platoon driving under no crosswind and crosswind conditions using a response surface optimization method. The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) results of single vehicle and vehicle platoon are compared and verified with the experimental results to ensure the reliability of this study. The research results provide theoretical reference and guidance for the planning of intelligent transportation.