There have been much interest and many efforts to control global warming and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions throughout the world. Recently, the Republic of Korea has also increased its GHG reduction goal and searched for an implementation plan. In buildings, for example, there have been technology developments and deployment policies to reduce GHG emissions from a life cycle perspective,...

Due to the expected climate change driven increase of extreme weather events, damage risks for infrastructure and buildings are rising. Hence spatial decision-support material is necessary to enhance risk management and planning strategies. The presented study contributes to this topic by means of an analysis of cloud-to-ground lightning patterns and their impact on structural facilities using ...

Notably valuable efforts have focused on helping people with special needs. In this work, we build upon the experience from the BlindHelper smartphone outdoor pedestrian navigation app and present Blind MuseumTourer, a system for indoor interactive autonomous navigation for blind and visually impaired persons and groups (e.g., pupils), which has primarily addressed blind or visually impaired (B...

The work presented is part of a project that aims at change detection in urban areas after strong earthquakes. Detection and classification of these changes are used to recognise building damages as an important information input for a disaster management system based on GIS techniques. Airborne laser scanning data was chosen for this approach, because of specific advantages like data acquisiti...

We study the Casimir force on a single surface immersed in an inhomoge-neous medium. Specifically we study the vacuum fluctuations of a scalar field with a spatially varying squared mass, m 2 + λ∆(x − a) + V (x), where V is a smooth potential and ∆(x) is a unit-area function sharply peaked around x = 0. ∆(x − a) represents a semi-penetrable thin plate placed at x = a. In the limits {∆(x−a) → δ(...

Seismic-protection measures make it possible to significantly decrease economical losses. Seismic shock absorption systems and seismic insulation of foundations and buildings can generally increase the reliability of structures. Calculations by Ja. M. Ajzenberg showed that relative horizontal seismic shifts of floors in seismically insulated buildings are significantly lower than in noninsulate...

With the recent housing crisis, studying abandoned buildings has once again become important. However, it has been some time since abandoned buildings were the subject of direct study, leaving scholars with scant knowledge about the characteristics of abandoned buildings, how they change, and their relationship to neighborhood processes. To fill this gap, we employed longitudinal photographic a...

In the architectural field there is no effective process for the rapid generation of computer models from existing buildings. Commonly, engineers use contact probe or laserscanning systems to perform such work, but these machines are not adequate for large objects as buildings. This study aims to solve this limitation through the replication of the human vision process into a computer programme...

Solar UV radiation has both adverse and beneficial effects to human health. Using models (a radiative transfer model coupled to a building shading model), together with satellite and surface measurements, we studied the un-obstructed and obstructed UV environments in a sub-tropical urban environment featured with relatively high pollution (aerosol) loadings and high-rise buildings. Seasonal pat...

abstract since for some reasons such as studying the behaviour of old construction materials and proper replacement of the deteriorated sections, adequate knowledge about the true in situ strength of the construction materials has become a necessity, many attempts have been made to invent and develop new in situ methods in recent years. most of these methods measure the in situ strengths of mat...