ALBERT

Description: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 22 Author(s): Herman van Os , Rien Herber , Bert Scholtens The decision-making process for subsurface activities in the Netherlands has been unable to cope with the driving forces related to social acceptance in several recently proposed subsurface activities. We therefore investigated the possibility to include the triangle of social acceptance in the decision-making process. Our conceptual model relates the stakeholders, their goals and the driving forces to each other. We developed a framework, which describes the interaction between eleven design criteria for a Decision Support System (DSS). This framework will enable us to design a better, from a social acceptance perspective, DSS for subsurface activities in the Netherlands. Since the goals addressed in the decision-making process are very broad and the stakeholders are quite diverse, a single uniform DSS is not able to provide a satisfactory solution. We therefore suggest to design a DSS that is matched with each class of social acceptance.

Description: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 22 Author(s): Yoshie Inada , Shinobu Izumi , Motoya Koga , Shigehito Matsubara We are developing a planning support system for welfare urban design. If we quantify the optimal route (the route that is the easiest to pass through) for challenged people, we will be able to select the areas that require adjustment in terms of accessibility with greater efficiency. In this paper we report on our development of the prototype system to present an optimal route for wheelchair users, and also, the two workshops we had for evaluating the accuracy of the resulted optimal route.

Description: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 22 Author(s): Erfaneh Allameh , Mohammadali Heidari , Bauke De Vries , Harry Timmermans , Mohammad Masoud , Farhang Mozaffar Almost everyone would agree that teleworking is increasingly growing; but beyond this broad statement, we know little about how people behave when they work at home and how they balance their work and life. User comfort and productivity cannot be addressed properly, without a deep understanding of usersʼ working behavior. This gap is even deeper when it comes to the domain of smart homes as new types of housing which aim to enhance working at home. Hence, more user-centered studies are needed to comprehend the interrelationships among housing, technology, daily life and the work activities. In this paper, we use the outputs of an experiment to model usersʼ work activities in a smart home. The experiment was conducted among 254 respondents, who were asked to explore a smart home in a virtual environment and then to arrange their daily activities including work related activities in the virtual smart home. A choice modeling approach, based on the Multinomial Logit Model (MNL), is applied to model how an individual works at a smart home given influential factors such as the individualsʼ socio-demographic profile and their current lifestyle. Two features of working in a smart home are covered in this paper, namely, “the integration of work activities with other daily activities” and “the location of work activities in the house”. The results give better insight into the future trends of working at home and the effects of smart homes on working behavior of people. The results can be used in further developments of both smart homes and teleworking.

Description: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 22 Author(s): Jinhee Kim , Soora Rasouli , Harry Timmermans Hybrid choice models have been developed as an extension of discrete choice models, particularly multinomial logit models, in an attempt to include attitudinal variables. The quintessence of hybrid choice models is that a model of attitude formation is estimated and the estimated attitudes are added to the commonly used set of attributes in discrete choice models: attributes of the choice alternatives and socio-demographic variables. The most commonly applied model is based on linear specifications, both for the attitude model and the utility function. In this review paper, we discuss the principles underlying the hybrid choice model, summarize the specifications used in previous applications of the model and then continue discussing recent progress that added social influence to the model specification and replaced the linear specification of the utility function with a nonlinear function.

Description: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 22 Author(s): Yountaik Leem , Sang Ho Lee , Jungho Yoon To overcome many difficulties in sustaining the satisfying quality of life for a large population 1 , urban spaces are evolving toward more efficient spaces by combination with ICTs (information and communication technologies) and raising the possibility to provide improved urban services which can enrich the quality of life of the citizen. In many cities over the world, a good number of public and private services in transportation, environment, urban safety from crime or disaster, health and other fields are designed and implemented with IT infrastructure. In spite of the expectation of cost-effective urban services based on the linkage between data and systems, obstructions in administrative and technical domains have made it difficult to be implemented. In this study, two advanced ICTs based urban services, which were developed by linkage and convergence of urban information and systems of Korea were introduced and analysed. The structural design of system convergence and data sharing scheme of Carbon Emission Monitoring System (CEMS) in Sejong City uses UIS (Urban Information System for local authorities), GIS data and other data provided by the public agencies, such as Korea Meteorological Administration for the monitoring and analysing the characteristics of the energy consumption of household 2 . Another system, Urban Integrated CCTV Control System (ICCS) in Anyang City, shows integrated CCTV networks for crime prevention, traffic control and public facility management to provide extended urban services, such as disaster prevention, police investigation and others. Qualitative and Quantitative effects analyses with technical and policy directions were suggested for the development and improvement of future urban services for a liveable city.

Description: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): N. Agya Utama , Andhy Muhammad Fathoni , Mandau A. Kristianto In the last couple of years and years to come Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia are having the highest GDP growth in ASEAN (South East Asia Nations) member countries; at present Indonesia has the highest GDP, it was $845 billion in 2011 and is predicted to grow up to $ 2,200 billion in 2030. In line with economic growth the countries energy demand also sharply increases, Indonesia primary energy demand has increased four folds in the past 30 years, while the region increase almost five folds. The main energy consumer in the country mainly coming from transportation sector, followed by industrial and residential sectors, while buildings combined (residential and commercial sector) accounted in more than 30% from the total energy consumption. The study focused on alternatives cooling appliances through passive method, where electricity and other source of energy are very limited to be used. The highest cooling appliances for middle class houses are either standing fan or ceiling fan, an alternatives design is developed and simulated by using CFD modeling tools with a tropical climate in Jakarta as the boundaries. The study shows that the passive method could reduce in more than 1800 kg CO2eq annually.

Description: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): Muhammad Azzam Ismail , Fahanim Abdul Rashid In this paper, the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design for Homes (LEED-H) rating method was tested on three existing Malaysian green homes (GH). This was to ascertain the amount of changes and modifications needed to configure LEED-H to suit the local context. The three GHs are Demonstration, Cool and Energy Efficient House (DCEEH), Smart and Cool Home (SCH) and CoolTek House (CTH). These are benchmark Malaysian GHs either due to their design, construction methods, building materials or operational procedures. It was found that all case studies did not comply with at least 12 mandatory prerequisites out of 23 as outlined in LEED-H.

Description: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): Edward Endrianto Pandelaki , Wijayanti , Septana Bagus Pribadi This study concerns to the life of the elderly who live in the high-rise housing in urban areas. The aim of this study is to discover a conceptual model of high-rise housing which is capable to accommodate the activities of the elderly by conducting a comparative study between Indonesia and Japan. Qualitative method is used because it has explorative nature. Providing attention toward how to create a safe, comfortable, healthy, economical, self-reliant living environment, and how to encourage creation of social cohesion, are necessary for the life of the elderly who live in high-rise housing in urban areas.

Description: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): Ratni Prima Lita , Sari Surya , M. Ma’ruf , Laura Syahrul Studies have shown the relationship between attitude, image, intention to visit and willingness to pay more for environmentally friendly services. With unique background of local tourist in West Sumatra Indonesia, this study aims to confirm the previous findings based on perspective of services marketing literatures. This explanatory study investigates causality among cross sectional data that was collected by following convenience sampling technique. The sample size is 200 local tourists, acquired with intercept approach in several main tourist destinations in West Sumatra. The data was analyzed by structural equation model. The results show that the effects of attitude toward green behavior on overall image are positive (0.446) and significant at the alpha of 0.08, with the t-statistic of 4.804. The overall image has positive impact on word of mouth (0.497) and significant at the alpha of 0.05, with the t-statistic of 4.569. The overall image also has positive impact on willingness to pay (0.523) significant at the alpha of 0.05, with the t-statistic of 5.683. These results indicate that attitude toward green behavior has significant influence on overall image of hotels and restaurants. Overall image has significant influence toward re-visit intention, positive word of mouth, and willingness to pay more for environmentally friendly hotels and restaurants. The management of the hotels and restaurants may consider this finding to improve service quality by adopting environmentally friendly practices.

Description: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): Tye Ying Ying , Lee Keat Teong , Wan Nadiah Wan Abdullah , Leh Cheu Peng In this study, oil palm empty fruit bunch (EFB) and kenaf core fibers were converted into sugar for bioethanol production. Results of enzymatic hydrolysis showed that the untreated EFB and kenaf core fibers were hardly to be hydrolysed, in which yielded only 2.6% and 0.4% of reducing sugar (glucose), respectively. In consideration to environmentally friendliness, simple aqueous pre-treatments were carried out prior to hydrolysis aimed to increase sugar production. Based on the results obtained, it was interesting to note that by adopting merely water, acid and alkaline pre-treatments, the total glucose yields were increased to 34.9%, 34.2% and 27.9% for EFB fiber, while 19.3%, 11.7%, and 12.6% for kenaf core fiber, respectively. The results of chemical composition analysis of pre-treated fibers indicated the increase of the sugar production was highly related to the removal of hemicellulose and/or lignin in the fibers. Between the two fibers, pre-treated EFB fiber attained the highest total glucose yield in all the pre-treatments. This revealed that EFB fiber was more viable for sugar production than kenaf core fiber.