Search results

The existing housing stock needs substantial adaptation to meet national and international carbon reduction targets. The largest proportion of housing is owner‐occupied, and will require improvement works which go beyond those measures provided through the Green Deal and similar programmes. Therefore, the motivation of owner‐occupiers to perform more substantial energy efficiency refurbishments is essential to facilitate greater action. This paper aims to address these issues.

A synthesis of the extant literature from a range of disciplines reveals the role of motivation and the factors influencing motivation and pro‐environmental action in the context of the home. Based on this synthesis of the literature, a new motivation model for energy efficiency refurbishment in the owner‐occupied housing stock is then described.

The study has found that multiple factors affect motivation to refurbish in the owner‐occupied housing stock. Key motivations for energy efficient refurbishment can be categorized into the broad themes of economic, social, and environmental motivations. These motivations will be affected by a wide number of interrelated internal and external factors and mediated by the emotions of the individual. The model presented demonstrates the relationship between the multiple factors that affect energy efficiency refurbishment in relation to specific contexts.

The study represents a potential addition to motivational theory and concepts for use within the field of energy efficient refurbishment of the owner‐occupied housing stock. Implications for future government policy and towards raising the motivation of owner‐occupiers are identified: it can be used to shape national and local policy and information campaigns to motivate energy efficiency refurbishment in the owner‐occupied housing stock. To be successful, this should take differing internal factors and contexts into consideration and the dynamic nature of owner‐occupier motivation. The model can also be used by industry professionals to better understand the owner‐occupier customer motivations for energy efficiency refurbishment and therein provide a better service.

The purpose of this paper is to consider whether consumers can recover from a service failure by utilizing internal and external energy resources that are available to them at the time of an online complaint. Based on the Conservation of Resources (COR) theory, this research conceptualizes the complainers' act of complaining through internal and external energy resources. By investing (direct utilization of resources) and mobilizing (utilizing resources to change the trajectory of a loss) these resources, this study aims to understand which resources (internal or external) and what strategies (investment or mobilization) are effective in the face of a resource loss.

Study 1 aimed to test the impact of energy resources (motivation and affordance) on consumers' negative emotions and satisfaction with their complaints through an online panel survey. Study 2 was a between-subjects design experiment aimed to overcome the diversity of the circumstances around a service failure, complaint motivation and complaints that were captured in Study 1.

This study provides evidence of the negative and positive effects of internal and external energy resources, respectively, in altering the consumer's emotions and behavioral intentions. The findings of this study underline the role of affordances of features, specifically perceived conversationality of digital features, in improving consumers' relationship with the defaulting firm.

Based on the findings related to the perceived conversationality of digital features, managers are urged to explore the affordances of online features that consumers use for communications, in general, or for complaints, in particular.

To our understanding, this paper is the first study to employ COR theory as a conceptual background, and in turn, the first to conceptualize complaint motivations and online complaint features as internal and external resources, respectively. As such, this study is the first of its kind to examine complaint media systematically.

This study is concerned with dynamic effects when we use explicit FEM for sheet metal forming analysis. Since sheet metal forming is a quasi‐static process, time scaling and mass scaling techniques have been widely used in order to save computation time. However, to define suitable scale factor still requires several trials. In this study, an internal energy error estimate which indicates accumulated incremental errors due to dynamic effects is suggested. This estimate is applied to each subdomain to consider the locality of deformation. Draw bending problem is analyzed to show the effectiveness of the suggested method. An analytic solution is derived for simplified draw bending to compare with the computed results. The cause of stress error in this problem is investigated and the method to reduce the stress error is suggested. Finally, the suggested method is applied to S‐rail benchmark test.

The purpose of this paper is to calculate the Hugoniot relations of polyurea; also to investigate the atomic-scale energy change, the related chain conformation evolution and the hydrogen bond dissociation of polyurea under high-speed shock.

The atomic-scale simulations are achieved by molecular dynamics (MD). Both non-equilibrium MD and multi-scale shock technique are used to simulate the high-speed shock. The energy dissipation is theoretically derived by the thermodynamic and the Hugoniot relations. The distributions of bond length, angle and dihedral angle are used to characterize the chain conformation evolution. The hydrogen bonds are determined by a geometrical criterion.

The Hugoniot relations calculated are in good agreement with the experimental data. It is found that under the same impact pressure, polyurea with lower hard segment content has higher energy dissipation during the shock-release process. The primary energy dissipation way is the heat dissipation caused by the increase of kinetic energy. Unlike tensile simulation, the molecular potential increment is mainly divided into the increments of the bond energy, angle energy and dihedral angle energy under shock loading and is mostly stored in the soft segments. The hydrogen bond potential increment only accounts for about 1% of the internal energy increment under high-speed shock.

The simulation results are meaningful for understanding and evaluating the energy dissipation mechanism of polyurea under shock loading, and could provide a reference for material design.

This investigation aims to reframe the sizeable literature on barriers and drivers for energy efficiency measures (EEMs) and the phenomenon of the energy efficiency gap. The authors identify a gap between academic methods and industrial needs, as well as a neglect of the cultural dimension, despite its considerable impact. On the basis of this insight, the purpose of this paper is to integrate all of the various influences on industrial energy behavior previously identified in the literature in a refined energy cultures framework.

This paper includes a systematic literature review of research in the field of energy management, energy efficiency and cultural aspects within barriers and drivers of energy behavior. The authors select and refine an existing energy cultures framework for the industrial context. To meet industrial needs, the authors applied an ontology mapping of its core elements onto an international standard common for industrial energy management practice.

First, the authors present a refined framework for industrial energy cultures incorporating past barriers and drivers as factors. The framework enables an evaluation of attitude and behavioral aspects, underlying technologies, organizational culture and actions related to energy as a system of interdependencies. Second, the factors are ranked on the basis of the number of appearances and empirical metadata. Economic aspects such as “purchase, installment and hidden costs”, “general investment and risk behavior” and “regulatory conditions” are the highest ranked factors, but “existing knowledge about EEM”, “hierarchy approach: top down” and “environmental concerns” follow closely and represent cultural aspects, which are still underrated. Third, while illustrating a successful mapping onto a standardized process of continuous improvement, the authors also argue for heightened academia–practice efforts.

Reframing the energy efficiency gap as a problem of what aspirations play a role, what technology is chosen and how technologies are used should increase the level of implementation of EEMs in the real business world. Introducing the refined energy cultures framework serves as a starting point for future transdisciplinary collaboration between academia and practice.

Targeting the energy efficiency gap is an essential part of the sustainable development goals. The refined energy cultures framework allows for a better understanding of the industrial energy behaviors that are responsible for a significant share of a company’s success. The introduction of energy cultures serves as a starting point for future scholarly research within sustainability management accounting.

The investigation combines existing research streams, their concepts and their results about cultural aspects related to energy efficiency for both academics and practitioners. This review is the first to capture all of the various factors analyzed in academic literature using the energy cultures framework as a basis. The authors add to the theoretical development of that framework with its application to the industrial context. This is identified as a gap. Its refinement helps to holistically understand barriers and drivers of industrial EEMs to support its practical implementation.

This study seeks to develop a systematic means of identifying regression models using a complex regression model with a statistical method.

As a widely adopted statistical scheme for analyzing multifactor data, regression analysis provides a conceptually simple algorithm for examining functional relationships among variables. This investigation assesses the proposed relationship using a sample of data in regression analysis and then estimates the fit using statistics. Furthermore, several algorithms and added variable plots are presented to obtain an appropriate regression model and the relationship between response variables y, p and explanatory variables x₀,x₁,x₂, … ,x_p.

The proposed statistical scheme is demonstrated by the analysis of experimental data on internal waves, in which the results can well illustrate what has been investigated in laboratory experiment and may be applicable to the naturally occurring reflection of internal waves from sloping bottoms.

In previous studies, field observations of internal waves were carried out. Owing to the limit of stationary measurement in situ, sufficient experiment data were not easily obtained. On the other hand, data collected by laboratory experiments express more information on wave mechanism, such as energy dissipation, mixing efficiency, and stratification thickness in a stratified layer fluid system. In present study, the authors supply valuable experiment data and analytic method, which will be a great contribution to the geophysical fluid dynamics. The results illustrate well what has been investigated in laboratory experiment and may be applicable to the naturally occurring reflection of internal waves from sloping bottoms.

More recently, it has been proposed that internal wave mixing may contribute significantly to internal mixing in the ocean and hence has an important influence on world climatic changes. Based on the statistical algorithm and regression model, the reduction in internal wave energy can be predicted on a sloping bottom due to frictional effect. Since, interaction between internal waves and uniform slopes has occurred in an estuary, a lake or in the ocean, the results available in this paper would benefit future study on internal wave hydrodynamics.

The purpose of this study is to present the theoretical framework of the “data envelopment analysis (DEA) Energy Management System (DEMS)” proposed to assist individual departments occupying the same buildings on university campus in assessing the energy efficiencies of their facilities, as well as to demonstrate the implementation results of the DEMS applied in the case of the Department of Architecture of NTUST in Taiwan.

The proposed DEMS considers each “space” within a department in a given “time” (such as a month) as a decision-making unit (DMU). Then, regression analysis is performed on data of “existing environment”, “occupancy” factors and “actual energy consumption EUI (energy usage intensity)” related variables. The regression equation derived is then used to calculate the “predicted EUI” for all DMUs. The “actual EUI” is further considered as the input data and the “predicted EUI” as the output data of the DEMS, on which data envelopment analysis is conducted to produce three types of energy-efficiency scores (overall efficiency, scale efficiency, pure technical efficiency) to indicate the energy efficiencies of all DMUs.

The DEMS was developed and further implemented in the Department of Architecture of NTUST in Taiwan to illustrate how it can be used to assist individual departments within universities in assessing the energy management effectiveness of their spaces.

The accuracy of the energy-efficiency scores depends greatly on the accuracy of the predicted EUIs of spaces, and, therefore, it is critical to identify a better regression model with higher predictability (R2). The relatively low actual EUIs of certain student spaces during winter and summer breaks may greatly affect the resulting energy-efficiency scores.

The DEMS allows facility managers to assess and compare the energy-efficiency scores “among different spaces”, to further review the energy efficiency of a space “over time” and to recognize the benchmark cases and pursue actions for energy improvement.

This study explores the research concepts of “space type” and “internal benchmark” with an analytical method “data envelopment analysis” to assess the energy efficiency of an individual department which may only occupy certain floors of a building.

This paper aims to suggest a new revolutionary method and installation for flight on Earth and into outer space.

Methods of electromagnetic physics are used for research and the theory of levitation vehicles is developed and its possibilities researched.

It was found that levitation devices and electricity storage make a jump in aviation, space, storage and transfer energy and many branches of industry.

Many projects were calculated using different versions of the offered AB engine: a small device for levitation‐flight of a human (including flight from Earth to outer space), fly VTOL car (track), big VTOL aircraft, suspended low‐altitude stationary satellite, powerful Space Shuttle‐like booster for travel to the Moon and Mars without spending energy (spent energy is replenished in braking when the ship returns from another planet to its point of origin), using AB‐devices in military, in sea‐going ships (submarines), in energy industry (for example, as small storage of electric energy) and so on. The vehicles equipped with AB propulsion can take flight for days and cover distances of 10,000s of kilometers at hypersonic or extra‐atmosphere space speeds.

The paper promises a new revolutionary method of flight on Earth and into outer space.

This article reviews characteristics of resilience and various types of Asian martial arts and illustrates how Asian martial arts help to cultivate resiliency. Cultivation of internal energy (eg. chi kung), training the breath, meditative techniques and spiritual development, metaphors and models in Asian martial arts, and training ‘heart’ designed to enhance resiliency are mechanisms for how Asian marital arts cultivate resilience. Finally, a brief review of the health and mental health benefits of Asian martial arts is presented.

A GENERAL outline of the processes occurring in the working fluid of a rocket engine has been summarized previously, but the total picture is still far from complete, a number of important phenomena not having been taken into account. Their full analysis would be, however, beyond the scope of this paper, and may be left to specialists more qualified than the author to give an account of combustion processes.