Search results

The building sector contributes one-third of the energy-related carbon dioxide globally. Therefore, framing appropriate energy-related policies for the next decades becomes essential in this scenario to realize the global net-zero goals. The purpose of the proposed study is to evaluate the impact of the widespread adoption of such guidelines in a building community in the context of mixed-mode buildings.

This study decentralizes the theme of improving the energy efficiency of the national building stock in parcels by proposing a community-based hybrid bottom-up modelling approach using urban building energy modelling (UBEM) techniques to analyze the effectiveness of the community-wide implementation of energy conservation guidelines.

In this study, the UBEM is developed and validated for the 14-building residential community in Mumbai, India, adopting the framework. Employing Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC) compliance on the UBEM shows an energy use reduction potential of up to 15%. The results also reveal that ECBC compliance is more advantageous considering the effects of climate change.

In developing countries where the availability of existing building stock information is minimal, the proposed study formulates a holistic framework for developing a detailed UBEM for the residential building stock from scratch. A unique method of assessing the actual cooling load of the developed UBEM is presented. A thorough sensitivity analysis approach to investigate the effect of cooling space fraction on the energy consumption of the building stock is presented, which would assist in choosing the appropriate retrofit strategies. The proposed study's outcomes can significantly transform the formulation and validation of appropriate energy policies.

Urban communities can be faced with many destructive events that can disrupt the daily functioning of activities and livelihood of people living in the communities. In this regard, during the last couple of years, many governments have put a lot of efforts into building resilient urban communities. Essentially, a resilient urban community has the capacity to anticipate future disasters, prepare for and recover timely from adverse effects of disasters and unexpected circumstances. Considering this, it is therefore important for the need to continuously review the existing urban community resilience indicators, in order to identify emerging ones to enable comprehensive evaluation of urban communities in the future against unexpected events. This study therefore aims to conduct a systematic review to develop and critically analyse the emerging and leading urban community resilience indicators.

Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRSIMA) protocol, 53 journal articles were selected using Scopus. The selected papers were subjected to thorough content analysis.

From the review, 45 urban community resilience indicators were identified. These indicators were grouped into eight broad categories namely, Socio-demographic, Economic, Institutional Resilience, Infrastructure and Housing Resilience, Collaboration, Community Capital, Risk Data Accumulation and Geographical and Spatial characteristics of community. Further, the results indicated that the U.S had the highest number of publications, followed by Australia, China, New Zealand and Taiwan. In fact, very few studies emanated from developing economies.

The outputs of this study will inform policymakers, practitioners and researchers on the new and emerging indicators that should be considered when evaluating the resilience level of urban communities. The findings will also serve as a theoretical foundation for further detailed empirical investigation.

Rural communities around the world are searching for solutions to upkeep, restore and improve local services that are deteriorating. They are exploring the potential of a digital transition along with the opportunities and threats created by new patterns of mobility and closer links with urban areas. The expansion of information and communication technologies (ICT)-enhanced applications enables rural communities to improve their quality of life. The concept of smart village is primarily about how rural communities make the best use of both ICT and social innovation by responding to the ongoing and emerging challenges. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to investigate strategies for adoption of smart villages along with the challenges faced.

A quantitative research methodology was adopted in this research. A web-based questionnaire survey was conducted to collect data. In total, 110 fully completed and useable questionnaires were received. Statistical analyses were undertaken using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS).

The results indicate that lack of budget, lack of clear strategies for development of sustainable “smart villages”, lack of collaboration between stakeholders and lack of knowledge related to “smart villages” are the most debated challenges for implementing smart village agenda. Whereas smart energy, smart healthcare, smart transport, smart education and smart water are the top five most important smart village strategies.

Despite the novel insights provided by this study, it has some limitations. Given that the research reported in this paper is based on literature review and small-scale survey, results presented are only tentative and not generalisable. The findings of this paper are limited to the UK context only. Although generalisability outside of this context may be limited, the authors infer that the results are relevant to other comparable developed countries.

Research on smart village development is rare. This paper presents a theoretical basis on the concept of smart villages. It adds to the rich insight that goes into the understanding and awareness of the current smart village strategies along with the key challenges organisations encounter when implementing smart village initiatives. This research has implications towards informing professionals and policymakers on key lessons learnt during the implementation of smart village strategies. Also, this paper contributes to the academic debate on smart village development and provides useful recommendations to both policymakers and practitioners.

Existing Neighborhood Sustainability Assessment (NSA) tools such as “Leadership for Energy and Environmental Design - Neighborhood Development” (LEED-ND) and “Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method” (BREEAM Communities) are widely criticized for a lack of transparency in the selection of indicators and an unbalanced focus on specific sustainability dimensions.

This paper asks how the expectations and use values of the professionals and residents involved in developing, designing, managing and living in a sustainable neighborhood can shape sustainability indicators that affect progress towards project goals. Taking as its focus The Sustainable City (TSC), a neighborhood in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), the paper develops data from in-depth, go-along interviews with 46 different actors.

Findings indicate that when given the opportunity to express their opinion, many actors will prioritize metrics different than the metrics dictated to the by sustainability experts and international rating systems. The findings suggest that NSA tools should place greater emphasis on local factors, public engagement and operational concerns.

The paper provides a method that any community can replicate to better understand the different use values of local actors and establish its own NSA tool. This can help experts learn how design, management and operational decisions interact to impact different dimensions of performance.

This paper recognizes sustainable neighborhoods as spaces with multiple identities. Hence, the indicators used to evaluate these neighborhoods need to be based on the expectations and use values of different actors. This paper proposes using the priorities of different local actors to reshape how these neighborhoods are assessed.

This study investigated the role of community infrastructure planning in Sarawak, Malaysia, by concentrating on the obstacles that hinder effective governance of community infrastructure planning.

The qualitative approach via case study design was adopted in this study. The Song District, located in the State of Sarawak, Malaysia, was selected as the case study area. Semi-structured interview sessions were conducted with 21 respondents who belonged to the government agencies involved in rural community infrastructure planning and village community representatives to capture their views on community infrastructure development planning in the selected district. The gathered responses were analysed thematically and the outcomes are discussed.

The findings revealed that although the development of community infrastructure in Song District has progressed and has exerted transformative impacts on rural livelihood, several challenges were identified in the delivery of community infrastructure. The four main themes of challenges that emerged from the data were location factors, financial resources, cooperation and collaboration of stakeholders, as well as community involvement. The outcomes disclosed that, in terms of governance, the institutional roles of the community, stakeholders and government agencies must be integrated throughout the rural community infrastructure planning process to resolve the emerging challenges effectively so that the demands of the rural community are met meritoriously.

An effective and efficient community infrastructure planning approach ascertains that the community infrastructure development gaps in rural areas are bridged and brings fruition to the rural communities for their livelihood transformation.

This paper delineates a view on the governance aspect of community infrastructure planning in Sarawak, Malaysia, that is largely untapped. The study outcomes may facilitate practitioners and academics to move forward and recommend improvements in the approach to rural community infrastructure planning.

Ecosystem-based livelihood diversification (ESLD) approaches have been identified as one of the best solutions to alleviate poverty and improve living standards in rural communities in developing nations. This study aims to elucidate the motivations that drive Sri Lankan women in rural agri-based community to adopt ESLD activities.

The sustainable livelihood approach (SLA) five pillars were used as a theoretical framework. This study was carried out with women living in farmer families located in Anuradhapura District, Sri Lanka. A purposive sampling technique was used, and semistructured interviews were performed with 46 women in a noncontrived setting. Deductive content analysis approach was used for answering research questions.

Making handcrafts using different plants, composting and home gardening are the major sources of ESLD of women in the study areas. Under the SLA factors, human resources include family size, education, vocational training, age and attitude. Social resources like participation in community work, family support received and becoming members in cooperatives encourage the women to partake in ESLD. Nonagriculture natural resources were considered as an incentive to engage in ESLD. Satisfaction with the income generated by the livelihood, other income sources and loans from the informal sector were the vital financial resources. Regarding the physical resources, the respondents were profound with infrastructure, marketplaces, training centers and tools/equipment.

Knowing the existing ESLD strategies and pointing out the determinant factors affecting women in practicing ESLD activities are unquestionably important in the provision of information to formulate an appropriate strategy for the development of the rural agri-based community.

Little is known about the ESLD efforts and the extent of adoption of ESLD practices by women in rural communities. The findings based on the SLA framework help to understand what is happening in livelihood diversifications in agri-based community and suggest important implications for the development of ESLD for the future.

The purpose of this study is to examine the state of the literature on knowledge sharing in open source software (OSS) development communities by examining the existing research and identifying the knowledge gaps and opportunities that can inform areas for future research.

A systematic literature review was conducted of literature published between January 2011 and February 2023. A total of 24 papers were identified and reviewed.

The findings reveal that the literature on knowledge sharing in OSS development communities from developing countries are limited. Additionally, there exists a limited focus on the development of frameworks to support knowledge sharing in OSS communities. The transient nature of OSS development contributors’ results in knowledge loss; thus, knowledge retention needs further investigation.

This study only included papers whose titles, keywords or abstracts included the search keywords “knowledge sharing” and “Open Source Software”. While the keywords were carefully applied, when applying the search, it cannot be ruled that some relevant studies might have been missed. The study was also limited to conferences and journal papers published in English. Despite the limitations, the study provides a systematic review of knowledge sharing in OSS communities and presents findings that can be useful to researchers and practitioners interested in this area.

The study provides a systematic literature review of published papers and identifies themes and future research areas on knowledge sharing in OSS communities. Additionally, this review offers insights into future research avenues for theory, content and context on knowledge sharing in OSS development communities.

This paper aims to identify the aspects that social actors consider in constructing shared futures in communities. In their application in emerging countries, especially in the Global South, the socio-cultural particularities of communities and actors are often overlooked, generating friction or social conflicts. This paper presents two critical elements contributing to the debate: the importance of understanding Social Actors within a model of generating community futures in emerging countries; and the relevant factors that influence the actors in an exercise of building futures in communities.

From qualitative research, a case study of community foresight of the future was used: the future of Puerto Gaitán 2037 (Meta, Colombia). A method of information collection was applied from observation of the participants and analysis of documentation. The analysis method was the deductive qualitative analysis (DQA).

The participation of the social actors presents a model of five relevant elements that influence the actors for the successful construction of futures in communities. The first four factors, revealed from theory, are presented in real life. Likewise, a fifth factor is proven, Long-term thinking, which is evidenced by a model of application of futures studies for the specific context, applicable to the case of communities in countries of the Global South.

Although there are isolated examples of recommendations regarding studies to generate the future of communities, to the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study that presents concrete factors that contribute to guiding the construction of community futures from social actors, especially in countries of the Global South such as Colombia. It is also one of the first studies to use the DQA as a method of analysis in a topic of futures studies.

Building on Stimulus Organism Response theory, the current study examines the influence of Integrated store service quality (ISSQ) on the omnichannel customer experience dimensions (Cognitive, Affective and Relational), subsequently leading to their psychological ownership of the store, which eventually explains their Augmenting, Co-developing, Influencing and Mobilizing behaviors. The moderating role of omnichannel shopper perceived relationship investment in a few proposed relationships was tested.

The research is a descriptive, quantitative and cross-sectional investigation. A purposive sampling technique was used. It was conducted using data collected from 554 Indian omnichannel shoppers using a validated self-administered questionnaire. The proposed conceptual model was tested using PLS-SEM.

The results indicate that ISSQ positively impacts all three dimensions of omnichannel customer experience (cognitive, affective and relational). All three dimensions directly affect psychological ownership, eventually impacting their (Augmenting, Co-developing, Influencing and Mobilizing) engagement behaviors. The moderating effect of the omnichannel shopper, perceived relationship investment, revealed that it had a significant positive impact on the relationship between dimensions of omnichannel customer experience and psychological ownership of shoppers towards the store, which eventually fosters the customer–retailer value co-creation like engagement behaviors.

The study is conducted in the Indian population, where omnichannel retailing is still nascent.

This study addresses the need to investigate other dimensions (apart from cognitive and affective) of the omnichannel customer experience that might eventually influence various service firms' customer engagement behaviors. This study is the first to show that integrated store service quality might stimulate (Augmenting, Co-developing, Influencing and Mobilizing) engagement behaviors through customer experience dimensions and the customer's sense of belongingness to the store. The moderating role of omnichannel shoppers' perceived relationship investment in a few proposed relationships was tested.

Research in critical disaster studies stresses the urgency to explore alternative ontological framings (Gaillard and Raju, 2022) that encourages researchers and practitioners, especially Indigenous communities, to nurture spaces where Indigenous voices are well represented. It is imperative that research in the Pacific should be guided by Pacific research methodologies to maximize positive outcomes (Ponton, 2018) and break free from limited Eurocentric ideologies that are often ill-suited in Pacific contexts. Hazards in the South Pacific region have become more frequent and volatile. This has created a growing interest in the study of disasters in the region. However, current disaster studies in the Pacific are often problematic as they often fail to challenge the implicit coloniality of the discipline.

This paper will expand on these arguments, suggesting ways to overcome the limits of common Eurocentric research frameworks in disaster studies and to illustrate the significance and relevance of Pacific methodologies.

It is pertinent that critical disaster studies encapsulate Pacific worldviews and knowledge as valued and valid to reconstruct Pacific research. Decolonizing disaster research will ultimately liberate the discipline from limitations of its colonial past and allow for truly engaging and critical research practices.

This paper will illustrate and articulate how Talanoa, a pan-Pacific concept, could offer a more culturally appropriate research methodology to disasters, seen through a Samoan lens. Talanoa is an informal conversation that is widely shared among Pacific communities based on pure, authentic and real conversations which are crucial elements in building relationships with Pacific communities (Vaioleti, 2006).