Search results

In the past decade, radio frequency identification devices (RFIDs) have attracted the attention of the construction industry, having been proven to be an effective technology for addressing operational challenges in other industries such as health-care, retail and manufacturing. Despite the benefits, the use of RFID in construction industry is limited even in the face of inefficiencies that exist and that the need for improvement is yet to drive the widespread adoption in the residential/commercial construction industry. The purpose of this study is to investigate key drivers and critical success factors for RFID adoption.

The study included extensive and systematic literature review, interviews and questionnaire survey.

The study revealed that the most important key driver for RFID adoption is productivity improvement, while the most important critical success factors include management support and commitment, having clear RFID strategy, needs and benefits, having strong motivation for improvement, providing adequate funding and proper planning.

This study provides an exploratory framework that can be used by construction company executives and managers to provide justification for deciding to implement RFID on their projects and to enhance success rates of implementation.

This study contributes to the knowledge on RFID use in residential/commercial construction industry and provides a basis for further investigation by construction management researchers on the emerging issues regarding RFID use in the construction industry.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on tracing GHG emissions across the supply chain industries associated with the US residential, commercial and industrial building stock and provides optimized GHG reduction policy plans for sustainable development.

A two-step hierarchical approach is developed. First, Economic Input-Output-based Life Cycle Assessment (EIO-LCA) is utilized to quantify the GHG emissions associated with the US residential, commercial and industrial building stock. Second, a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) based optimization framework is developed to identify the optimal GHG emissions’ reduction (percent) for each industry across the supply chain network of the US economy.

The results indicated that “ready-mix concrete manufacturing”, “electric power generation, transmission and distribution” and “lighting fixture manufacturing” sectors were found to be the main culprits in the GHG emissions’ stock. Additionally, the majorly responsible industries in the supply chains of each building construction categories were also highlighted as the hot-spots in the supply chains with respect to the GHG emission reduction (percent) requirements.

The decision making in terms of construction-related expenses and energy use options have considerable impacts across the supply chains. Therefore, regulations and actions should be re-organized around the systematic understanding considering the principles of “circular economy” within the context of sustainable development.

Although the literature is abundant with works that address quantifying environmental impacts of building structures, environmental life cycle impact-based optimization methods are scarce. This paper successfully fills this gap by integrating EIO-LCA and MILP frameworks to identify the most pollutant industries in the supply chains of building structures.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the long‐term relationship between the rate of inflation and the returns of real estate and financial assets traded in New Zealand markets.

The question of whether these assets are good candidates to hedge inflation in the long run is addressed employing cointegration and causality tests on quarterly data for the period from December 1979 to December 2003.

A strong long‐term relationship was found between the returns offered by all types of real estate assets (i.e. residential, commercial, industrial and farm building) and the rate of inflation. However, such a long run relationship is not detected between the rate of inflation and the returns of financial assets (i.e. stocks, short‐term bills and long‐term bonds).

The empirical findings reveal that the direction of causality is from inflation to real estate assets indicating that changes in property prices do not cause inflation in New Zealand; the cause of inflation is independent of the price movements for real estate assets. The real estate assets are found to offer an effective hedge against inflation in the long run. The same cannot be said for the financial assets, however.

This is the first New Zealand study which investigates the long‐term inflation hedging effectiveness of both real estate and financial assets. The findings should be of interest to most of the investors in New Zealand as the real estate assets play a significant role in their portfolio decisions.

Because Malaysia decided to liberalize its property sector, investors have shown a considerable interest in the country’s property investment. Divided into five sub-sectors, Malaysia’s real estate is sought actively by foreign investors. However, to date, the sub-sectors performance analysis has never been researched for the purpose of investment diversification within the property sector. This paper aims to examine the performance of sub-sectors in the property market, namely, residential, commercial, industrial, agricultural and development land. This paper also assesses the portfolio diversification benefits within the sectors.

Quarterly data from 2002 or 2014 are used to analyze the performance of the Malaysia property market. The analysis is conducted in three phases, pre-liberalization, post-liberalization and overall period, because it considers the liberalization policy introduced in 2009. Statistically, the risk-adjusted return featuring Sharpe’s index is used to observe how these sub-sectors perform relative to each other. Correlation analysis is used to observe the existence of diversification benefits in terms of a Malaysia property context.

It is found that Malaysia’s real estate sub-sectors have different rankings during the pre- and post-liberalization periods. The difference is due to changes in their average return and the risk. During the post-liberalization period, risk for all sub-sectors has increased but has been well compensated by the return. The residential property sector maintains its ranking position as the best sub-sector for every risk investor’s encounter.

Due to wide range of differences and non-uniformity of costs associated with housings, for example tax rates, rental stream, LTV and others, this research focuses on values and data supplied by NAPIC only.

Although performance and portfolio diversification benefits have been tested in many Asian countries, none has tried to assess the Malaysia property. This research enables the policy maker to be informed on whether the sub-sectors are performing in accordance to country’s requirement and which sub-sectors need to be improved further.

The purpose of this study is to analyse the current relationships between developer characteristics in terms of dominant property type (residential, commercial, retail, industrial, tourism, “other”), ownership (publicly listed, publicly unlisted, private, government), organisational structure (speculative-trader, investor developers, development managers) and size (small, medium, large) in the frequency of use and required minimum value of hurdle rate metrics.

A questionnaire survey of 225 Australian and New Zealand trader developers, development managers, investors, valuers, fund managers and government/charities/other relating to the feasibility practices of different types of Australia/New Zealand property development companies.

(1) Residential dominant developers are more likely to use margin on development cost (MDC) required to have a higher minimum internal rate of return (IRR) percentage; (2) investor developers are more likely to use the payback period as a hurdle rate, and specific hurdle rates as a part of a go/no-go decision; (3) trader developers adopt a higher percentage of IRR and deviate further from accepted financial theory in hurdle rate selection; and (4) national property development organisations in multiple geographic regions use qualitative frameworks more as a decision-making process and use MDC less as a hurdle rate.

The study is limited to a sample of property practitioners working in Australia/New Zealand at the time of data collection in 2016 and, further empirical research is needed spatially and temporally to determine the extent of the findings. Further research is also needed with small- to medium-sized development organisations' on the extent to which they should use different metrics in project selection and for an improved understanding of the technical and attitudinal difficulties facing their current adoption.

First study to examine the feasibility practices of different types of Australia/New Zealand property developers.

The City of Syracuse, New York, has undertaken energy conservation measures over the past decade. In 2011, the city completed a greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory that serves as the basis for current sustainability planning processes, and the process to complete this analysis was uniquely collaborative and is offered as a case study. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This inventory was the product of collaboration between the city, the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, and the Central New York Regional Planning and Development Board, through the Climate Change Innovation Program. Following guidance from International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives's Local Government Operations Protocol and utilizing Clean Air and Climate Protection software, the baseline year for the inventory was 2002, and the municipal analysis covered five sectors: buildings and facilities, vehicle fleet, aviation, water delivery, and streetlights and traffic lights. The city's community analysis assessed residential, commercial and industrial energy use, transportation and waste sectors.

The City of Syracuse has achieved energy and GHG reductions over the inventory timeframe. While savings have been accomplished, significant challenges to future energy and GHG reductions remain.

Limitations include obtaining data quality and consistency for analysis.

This case study could serve as a model for moving forward with GHG inventory analysis and action for small- to medium-sized cities in the NE, USA.

This was an experiment in collaboration between an academic institution, NGOs and a municipal entity.

The city's 2010 inventory has been followed by community outreach and stakeholder engagement for the sustainability planning process. The city formed advisory teams composed of community experts in the areas of energy and green building, natural environment, waste and recycling, education and outreach, and food systems. The collaborative approach the city utilized offers a helpful model for other municipalities to follow to overcome resource constraints and complete energy and cost-saving carbon footprinting assessments.

In order to fully appreciate the issues within this paper, a definitive framework is necessary so as to ensure clear semantic interpretation. Estate refers to property, possessions, capital or the collective assets and liabilities of a person and refers to large landed property. Investment is the giving up of a capital sum now in exchange for benefits to be received in the future. These will usually take the form of an income flow and/or capital gain (Enever, 1989). Real property is by definition essentially tangible. It is a legal interest in land and buildings classified as residential, commercial and including land (Littlefair, 1991).

The new town concept originated from the ideal city model of Ebenezer Howard and expanded from Europe to America in the 1900s. It has reemerged as a site for accommodating population from highly dense urban centers of China and India since the early twenty-first century. The massive infusion of public and private investments has enabled the emergence of new towns in China and India as planned centers of world-class residential, commercial, and work spaces. The rational goal of de-densifying the crowded central cities can lead to a more balanced distribution and use of resources across the metropolitan regions with more spacious housing for the growing middle class in China and India. Yet it is a relatively small number of the wealthy and mobile people who have turned out to be beneficiaries of the mostly high-end housing and well-developed transport infrastructure that evokes social and economic polarizations and political contestations. In this chapter, we will examine: (1) how these top-down planned and developed new towns have reshaped the urbanization process of the megacities in India and China, (2) the socio-spatial influence of these settlements on the central city as well as the surrounding rural areas, and (3) the expected and actual spatial users (both old and new residents) of the new towns? We address these questions by organizing two pairs of cases in a systematic framework: Anting New Town and Thames Town in Shanghai, China and Rajarhat New Town and the Kolkata West International City (KWIC) near Kolkata, India.

The electromagnetic field and cooling system of a high power switched reluctance motor (SRM) are studied numerically. The geometry of the motor and its main components are established using a computer-aided design software in the actual size. This study aims to evaluate the resulting thermal losses using the electromagnetic analysis of the motor.

In the electromagnetic analysis, the Joule’s loss in the copper wires of the coil windings and the iron losses (the eddy currents loss and the hysteresis loss) are considered. The flow and heat transfer model for the thermal analysis of the motor including the conduction in solid parts and convection in the fluid part is introduced. The magnetic losses are imported into the thermal analysis model in the form of internal heat generation in motor components. Several cooling system approaches were introduced, such as natural convection cooling, natural convection cooling with various types of fins over the motor casing, forced conviction air-cooled cooling system using a mounted fan, casing surface with and without heat sinks, liquid-cooled cooling system using the water in a channel shell and a hybrid air-cooled and liquid-cooled cooling system.

The results of the electromagnetics analysis show that the low rotational speed of the motor induces higher currents in coil windings, which in turn, it causes higher copper losses in SRM coil windings. For higher rotational speed of SRM, the core loss is higher than the copper loss is in SRM due to the higher frequency. An air-cooled cooling system is used for cooling of SRM. The results reveal when the rotational speed is at 4,000 rpm, the coil loss would be at the maximum value. Therefore, the coil temperature is about 197.9°C, which is higher than the tolerated standard temperature insulation material. Hence, the air-cooled system cannot reduce the temperature to the safe temperature limitation of the motor and guarantee the safe operation of SRM. Thus, a hybrid system of both air-cooled and liquid-cooled cooling system with mounting fins at the outer surface of the casing is proposed. The hybrid system with the liquid flow of Re = 1,500 provides a cooling power capable of safe operation of the motor at 117.2°C, which is adequate for standard insulation material grade E.

The electromagnetic field and cooling system of a high power SRM in the presence of a mounted fan at the rear of the motor are analyzed. The thermal analysis is performed for both of the air-cooled and liquid-cooled cooling systems to meet the cooling demands of the motor for the first time.

With increasing urbanisation in developing countries and the concomitant overcrowding on streets, serious questions remain about the liveability of inner-city residential-commercial streets. This paper contends that lively streets are not necessarily liveable streets. Liveability is defined by other criteria that take cognizance of human comfort and capabilities within living environments. Observations suggest an uneasy relationship between a crowded public space and the private residential spaces that sit next to them. The paper’s focus is to measure the liveability of a lively but overcrowded street and how its everyday use affects the physical characteristics of buildings, the activities, and the wellbeing of residents. Employing a mixed-method strategy, the study draws on observations, semi-structured interviews, and questionnaire survey of residents, shopkeepers, and street traders. The findings suggest that an overcrowded street space has a negative effect on the liveability and quality of living of residents and other users but that this is tempered by intra-dependency amongst the users and the negotiation of the rights accruing to all as individuals and as groups.