Energy and historic buildings: toward evidence-based policy reform

Energy efficiency in historic buildings

The particularity of cultural heritage and its interaction with the theme of energy efficiency has often been analysed either for the purposes of integrating climate control systems in listed buildings, which can be quite a complicated problem [ASHRAE, 2003] [CIBSE, 2002], or in the framework of the conservation of cultural heritage, using approaches which at times can be overly sectoral – [Tet...

Applying Interpretive- Structural Modelling to Review Priorities of Health Reform Plan: Evidence-based policy making

  Introduction: Considering the fact that the health reform plan has been implemented for five years, it is necessary to re-evaluate the plan and adapt it to the needs and macro policies of our society. Therefore, the current study aimed to use health-related scientific evidences together with the experiences, opinion, and expertise of field professionals to achieve priorities for health refor...

Health care reform--a historic moment in US social policy.

Prioritization of historic buildings based on their values

Iran is located in a high-risk seismic zone of earthquakes. It has thousands of valuable historic buildings, mostly made of unreinforced masonry, which is quite vulnerable to natural hazards, especially earthquakes. The conservation and seismic upgrading of these buildings is vital for their survival. However, resources are limited and some sort of prioritization is needed in order to alloca...

Semantic Policy-Based Data Management for Energy Efficient Smart Buildings

We describe how the semantics can be applied to the smart buildings, with the goal of making them more energy efficient. Having designed and implemented a semantically enabled smart building system, we discuss and evaluate the typical data management challenges connected with the implementation, extension and (re-)use of such system when employing them in the real buildings. The results demonst...