The increased urbanization of a growing global population makes imperative the development of sustainable integrated pest management (IPM) strategies for urban pest control. This emphasizes pests that are closely associated with the health and wellbeing of humans and domesticated animals. Concurrently there are regulatory requirements enforced to minimize inadvertent exposures to insecticides i...

This paper presents a generative grammar producing a language of patterns for the south façade of a prototype sustainable house. The patterns are produced through the activation of the electrochromic material that is applied on the windowpanes of the façade. The class of the performatively effective configurations of the façade is approached as a visual language and the productive (generation),...

A green house experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of arbuscular mycorrhiza inoculation on plant growth and uptake of mineral nutrition in Ipomoea aquatica considering the objective of using environmental friendly biofertilizer instead of chemical fertilizer. A common leafy vegetable plant Ipomoea aquatica was grown with mycorrhiza and without mycorrhiza for 42 days. After harvest...

This paper assesses the energy and water consumption practices of existing housing in Saudi Arabia, with the ultimate aim of establishing guidelines for delivering sustainable residential buildings in the near future. In order to achieve this aim the current status of a typical Saudi residence (i.e. an apartment complex) is investigated in terms of energy and water consumption using simulation ...

Growth of urban areas and abandonment of rural areas are phenomena that increase quickly. The main consequences of urbanization are pollution, consumption of resources and energy, waste dumps, and junk yards. These aspects require a better planning and design of European urban metropolitan areas, considering benefits, opportunities, costs and risks (B.O.C.R.), derivable by urban transformations...

The articles in this special issue have demonstrated how unprecedented transitions have come with both challenges and opportunities for health financing. Against the background of these challenges and opportunities, the Working Group on Health Financing at the Chatham House Centre on Global Health Security laid out, in 2014, a set of policy responses encapsulated in 20 recommendations for how t...

In line with the goals of Europe 2020 strategy, energy resource saving represent a key issue for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. Recent developments in ICTs offer home devices featuring local intelligence and connectivity services. So, basing on such technologies, a house becomes Collaborative Smart Environment (CSE), a place where multimedia services are provided to users, while heter...

The trend with organisational adoption of virtual learning environments (VLE) seems to be cyclical. Initially, a decentralised approach was adopted, wherein each department implemented different learning environments or mixtures of technology, often developed in-house. The last five years have seen an increased centralisation of learning environment implementation, with most universities adopti...

This paper reports a study regarding households’ willingness to pay for private sector solid waste management services. The data originated from a contingent valuation survey conducted in 224 households in Ilorin in southwest Nigeria and was analysed using tobit and censored least absolute deviations models. The use of a robust and consistent estimator to model zero willingness to pay responses...

Awareness of resource consumption in the home is a key part of reducing our ecological footprint yet lack of appropriate understanding and motivation often deters residents from behaviour change. The coming deployment of smart metering technologies, the increasing practicality of embedded devices, and the widespread use of Internet and mobile tools offer new opportunities for “greener” resident...