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Metro stations have become a crucial aspect of urban rail transportation, integrating facilities, equipment and pedestrians. Impractical physical layout designs and pedestrian psychology impact the effectiveness of an evacuation during a metro fire. Prior research on emergency evacuation has overlooked the complexity of metro stations and failed to adequately consider the physical heterogeneity of stations and pedestrian psychology. Therefore, this study aims to develop a comprehensive evacuation optimization strategy for metro stations by applying the concept of design for safety (DFS) to an emergency evacuation. This approach offers novel insights into the management of complex systems in metro stations during emergencies.

Physical and social factors affecting evacuations are identified. Moreover, the social force model (SFM) is modified by combining the fire dynamics model (FDM) and considering pedestrians' impatience and panic psychology. Based on the Nanjing South Metro Station, a multiagent-based simulation (MABS) model is developed. Finally, based on DFS, optimization strategies for metro stations are suggested.

The most effective evacuation occurs when the width of the stairs is 3 meters and the transfer corridor is 14 meters. Additionally, a luggage disposal area should be set up. The exit strategy of the fewest evacuees is better than the nearest-exit strategy, and the staff in the metro station should guide pedestrians correctly.

Previous studies rarely consider metro stations as sociotechnical systems or apply DFS to proactively reduce evacuation risks. This study provides a new perspective on the evacuation framework of metro stations, which can guide the designers and managers of metro stations.

Drawing upon the authors’ experiences as minoritised academic scholars within leadership roles of a Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic (BAME) Network in the United Kingdom (UK) academe, the authors explored the research question “In what ways do racially minoritised academics use coping techniques and strategies to counter racism and inequality in the higher education environment”.

The authors used a collective autoethnography approach accompanied by storytelling, underpinned by a qualitative interpretative process, supported by inductive, data-driven theorising. The authors’ approach is supplemented by the usage of content analysis (Schrieier, 2012) to analyse the data and generate findings.

The research findings specifically highlight (1) collectivism, solidarity and belonging, (2) knowledge expansion and critical consciousness, (3) disarming approaches and emotional labour, (4) resistance through setting boundaries and (5) intersectionality and BAME men allyship, as specific approaches for taking forward anti-racism.

Autoethnographic research has encountered challenges around verification, transparency and veracity of data, and issues have been debated due to its subjective nature (see Jones, 2010; Keeler, 2019; Méndez, 2013). Additional complications arise regarding neutrality and objectivity associated with the researchers' identities and experiences being represented in autoethnographic accounts. The authors acknowledge that the accounts provided are subjective, and have influenced the research process and product.

Research on the experiences of minoritised academics leading staff equality networks constitutes a research gap. This article offers an original analysis through outlining the authors’ lived experiences in leadership positions of a BAME Network and hope to other minoritised employees undertaking anti-racist work.

Whenever social injustice tackled by social movements receives heightened media attention, charitable crowdfunding platforms offer an opportunity to proactively advocate for equality by donating money to affected people. This research examines how the Black Lives Matter movement and the associated social protest cycle after the death of George Floyd have influenced donation behavior for campaigns with a personal goal and those with a societal goal supporting the black community.

This paper follows a quantitative research approach by applying a quasi-experimental research design on a GoFundMe dataset. In total, 67,905 campaigns and 1,362,499 individual donations were analyzed.

We uncover a rise in donations for campaigns supporting the black community, which lasts substantially longer for campaigns with a societal than with a personal funding goal. Informed by construal level theory, we attribute this heterogeneity to changes in the level of abstractness of the problems that social movements aim to tackle.

This research advances the knowledge of individual donation behavior in charitable crowdfunding. Our results highlight the important role that charitable crowdfunding campaigns play in promoting social justice and anti-discrimination as part of social protest cycles.

Analysis of architectural space is commonly conducted by examining architectural drawings that project spatial information by means of walls and partitions. To capture the lived experience of space, which is richer than what we can see from drawings, a new method is proposed to quantify the cognitive dimension of space and re-present it as an audible format.

Using an urban vernacular house in Seoul as a case study, this research takes a syntactic approach to quantify one's changing perception through their movement from the main gate to the most private reception room. Based on Luigi Moretti's theory of hollow space, a new method is proposed to measure the level of spatial pressure exerted on a navigating body. The numerical data of spatial pressure are then converted to a sound using musical techniques of the chromatic scale and chorale textures.

Building on Moretti's abstract concept, it has been shown that a rule-based quantification of users' spatial perception is possible. In addition, unlike conventional approaches of treating architecture as a static entity, this study showed an alternative approach to represent it as a sequence of sensorial experience that can be readily converted to a sound of music.

This research developed a quantification method to measure the perception of pressure inside buildings by revisiting Luigi Moretti's theory proposed in 1952. It has been also demonstrated that the visual stimuli in space can be translated into an audible experience. This new method is applicable to a wide range of buildings including important historic architecture.

This paper aims to examine sites of dissonance or consensus between global investor responses to the draft standards, International Financial Reporting Standards S1 (IFRS) (General Requirements for Disclosure of Sustainability-related Financial Information) and IFRS S2 (Climate-related Disclosures), issued by the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB).

A thematic content analysis was used to capture investor views expressed in their comment letters submitted in the consultation period (March to July 2022) in comparison to the ex ante position (issue of draft standards, March 2022) and ex post summary feedback (ISSB staff papers, September 2022) of the ISSB.

There was investor consensus in support of the ISSB and the development of the draft standards. However, there were sites of dissonance between investors and the ISSB, notably regarding the basis and focus of reporting (double or single/financial materiality and enterprise value); definitional clarity; emissions reporting; and assurance. Incrementally, the research further highlights that investors display heterogeneity of opinion.

The ISSB standards will provide a framework for future sustainability reporting. This research highlights the significance of such reporting to investors through their responses to the draft standards. The findings reveal sites of dissonance in the development and alignment of draft standards to user needs. The views of investors, as primary users, should help inform the development of sustainability-related standards by a global standard-setting body apposite to current policy and future reporting requirements, and their usefulness to users in practice.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper makes an original contribution to the comment letter literature, hitherto focused on financial reporting with a relative lack of investor engagement. Using thematic analysis, sites of dissonance are examined between the views of investors and the ISSB on their development of sustainability reporting standards.

Window shading has always been an effective technique to control the access of solar radiation; however, inappropriate selection of the shading technique, location and optical properties may lead to an increase in energy consumed for cooling and artificial lighting. Venetian blinds (VBs) are a type of adjustable shading devices that can be installed to the interior, exterior or in between glass panes of a window and that can be easily implemented in both new and existing buildings. This study aims to investigate the impact of three VB parameters: slat angle, reflectivity and location on the overall energy consumption of a residential space with a south-facing facade under the hot arid desert climate of Saudi Arabia’s capital, Riyadh. For the purpose of globalizing the findings, the same investigations were applied for two other cities of similar climates: Cairo, Egypt, and Arizona, the USA.

A test room was modelled for energy simulation, with a 20% window-to-wall ratio. A VB was assigned with alternatives of being located to the indoor, outdoor or in between double glass panes. High, medium and low reflectivity values were applied at each location at slat angle alternatives of 15°, 30°, 45°, 60°, 75° and 90°.

Results showed VB performance across slat angles, where up to 20.1% energy savings were achieved by mid-pane high reflectivity VBs in Riyadh, while the value exceeded 30% in case of being externally located. A similar performance pattern occurred in the other two cities of hot arid desert climates: Cairo and Arizona.

The study is limited to VBs at a fixed position, with no upward movement for partial or full openness conditions. The effect of blind control and operation on performance, such as the amount and duration of openness/closure of the blind and changes in slat angle across time, in addition to VB automation, shall be investigated in a future study.

The better understanding of VB energy performance achieved would enhance a more rational selection of VBs, which would benefit the construction industry as it would assist designers, real estate developer companies, as well as end-users in the decision-making process and help to realize energy-efficient solutions in residential buildings. VB production entities would also benefit by manufacturing and promoting for energy-efficient products.

In this study, a matrix of combinations of three VB parameters was developed, and the effect of these combinations on the overall energy consumption of both artificial lighting and heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems was evaluated and compared to identify the combinations of higher efficiency. The literature showed that these three parameters were hardly investigated in a combined form and hardly assessed by considering the overall energy consumed by both artificial lighting and HVAC.

This study aims to propose an efficient dual-robot task collaboration strategy to address the issue of low work efficiency and inability to meet the production needs of a single robot during construction operations.

A hybrid task allocation method based on integer programming and auction algorithms, with the aim of achieving a balanced workload between two robots has been proposed. In addition, while ensuring reasonable workload allocation between the two robots, an improved dual ant colony algorithm was used to solve the dual traveling salesman problem, and the global path planning of the two robots was determined, resulting in an efficient and collision-free path for the dual robots to operate. Meanwhile, an improved fast Random tree rapidly-exploring random tree algorithm is introduced as a local obstacle avoidance strategy.

The proposed method combines randomization and iteration techniques to achieve an efficient task allocation strategy for two robots, ensuring the relative optimal global path of the two robots in cooperation and solving complex local obstacle avoidance problems.

This method is applied to the scene of steel bar tying in construction work, with the workload allocation and collaborative work between two robots as evaluation indicators. The experimental results show that this method can efficiently complete the steel bar banding operation, effectively reduce the interference between the two robots and minimize the interference of obstacles in the environment.

The purpose of this paper is to achieve optimal climbing control of the gas-insulated switchgear (GIS) robot, as the authors know that the GIS inspection robot is a kind of artificial intelligent mobile equipment which auxiliary or even substitute human labor drive on the inner wall of the gas-insulated metal enclosed switchgear. The GIS equipment fault inspection and maintenance can be realized through the robot manipulator on the mobile platform and the camera carried on the fuselage, and it is a kind of intelligent equipment for operation. To realize the inspection and operation of the GIS equipment pipeline without blind spots, the robot is required to be able to travel on any wall inside the pipeline, especially the top of the pipeline and both right and left sides of the pipeline, which requires the flexible climbing of the GIS inspection robot. The robot device has a certain adsorption function to ensure that the robot is fully attached to the wall surface. At the same time, the robot manipulator can be used for collision-free obstacle avoidance operation planning in the narrow operation space inside the GIS equipment.

The above two technologies are the key that the robot completes the GIS equipment inspections. Based on this, this paper focuses on modeling and analysis of the chassis adsorption characteristics for the GIS inspection robot. At the same time, the Denavit Hartenberg (D-H) coordinate model of the robot arm system has been established, and the kinematics forward and inverse solutions of the robot manipulator system have been derived.

The reachable working space point cloud diagram of the robot manipulator in MATLAB has been obtained based on the kinematics analysis, and the operation trajectory planning of the robot manipulator using the robot toolbox has been obtained. The simulation results show that the robot manipulator system can realize the movement without collision and obstacle avoidance. The space can cover the entire GIS pipeline so as to achieve no blind area operation.

Finally, the GIS inspection robot physical prototype system has been developed through system integration design, and the inspection, maintenance operation experiment has been carried out in the actual GIS equipment. The entire robot system can complete the GIS equipment inspection operation soundly and improve the operation efficiency. The research in this paper has important theoretical significance and practical application value for the optimization design and practical research of the GIS inspection robot system.

Contemporary interpretations of mental health recovery emphasize the need to understand better the lived experience of people with mental health conditions and how they define the idea of recovery. While traction for such ideas has been building in many western countries, the recovery movement is still in its early stages within most Asian countries. Hence, this study aims to add to this growing effort by understanding various factors that influence the recovery of people with mental health conditions in Singapore.

Braun and Clarke’s thematic analysis was used on the qualitative data provided by 21 participants.

Four themes were revealed: double-edged nature of social support, challenges accessing mental health support, personalized coping strategies and societal influences. As a result, the authors could better understand various factors that influenced the recovery process of people with mental health conditions in Singapore, such as the high costs and low levels of literacy regarding pathways to mental health services. In addition, the importance of societal influences on mental health recovery was highlighted, and their impact could be seen through the participants’ sharing.

These findings form a foundation from which future research and recovery-oriented interventions can work from to provide more tailored approaches to supporting people with mental health conditions.

This study identified cultural nuances to notions of recovery that are commonly found in personal recovery constructs that need to be considered when working within culturally diverse populations.

Nowadays, in building structures, dampers are connected to the building structure to reduce the damages caused by seismicity in addition to enhancing structural stability, and to connect dampers with the structure, joints are used. In this paper, three different configurations of double-lap joints were designed, developed and tested.

This paper aims to analyze three different categories of double-lap single-bolted joints that are used in connecting dampers with concrete and steel frame structures. These joints were designed and tested using computational, numerical and experimental methods. The studies were conducted to examine the reactions of the joints during loading conditions and to select the best joints for the structures that allow easy maintenance of the dampers and also withstand structural deformation when the damper is active during seismicity. Also, a computational analysis was performed on the designed joints integrated with the M25 concrete beam column junction. In this investigation, experimental study was carried out in addition to numerical and computational methods during cyclic load.

It was observed from the result that during deformation the double-base multiplate lap joint was suitable for buildings because the deformations on the joint base was negligible when compared with other joints. From the computational analysis, it was revealed that the three double joints while integrated with the beam column junction of M25 grade concrete structure, the damages induced by the double-base multiplate joint was negligible when compared with other two joints used in this study.

To prevent the collapse of the building during seismicity, dampers are used and further connecting the damper with the building structures, joints are used. In this paper, three double-lap joints in different design configuration were studied using computational, numerical and experimental techniques.