It is becoming increasingly relevant that designs address sustainability requirements. The objectives of any sustainable design are: to reduce resource depletion of energy, water, and raw materials; prevent environmental degradation caused throughout the building lifecycle; provide a safe, comfortable and healthy living environment. Currently, the sustainability of a building is judged by standards codified in a rating system. (1) Although compliance with a sustainability rating system is not mandatory, increasingly, it is becoming a goal that many designers and authorities would like to achieve. However, there are impediments to the pervasive use of sustainable design rating systems. 1. Certification is expensive. ( 2 ) It is labor intensive, involving large volumes of data aggregation, information accounting and exchange, which, can be a deterrent to designers and the design process. 2. Ratings systems are periodically reviewed; as our understanding increase and technology improve, sustainability requirements on designs become more extensive and, sometimes, more stringent. (3) 3. Sustainable building design rating tools are not readily integrated into the design process whereby the design solution can be developed by different disciplines. 4. The design information model associated with a building may not contain the data (attributes) necessary to evaluate its design. 5. Information is disparate and distributed—requiring it to be supplemented, augmented from various sources, and managed for the different stages of a building design process In practice, designers tend to employ commercial (and reasonably stable) design tools, making it imperative to develop an approach that utilizes information readily and currently available in digital form in conjunction with rating system requirements. This research focuses on supporting sustainability assessment where designers need to evaluate the information in a design in order to fulfill sustainability metrics. The main research objective is an approach to integrating sustainability assessment with a design environment. This comprises: identifying informational requirements from rating systems; representing them in computable form; mapping them to information in a commercial design tool; and assessing the performance of a design. An overall framework for organizing, managing and representing sustainability information requirements is developed as the demonstrator. Case study of an actual project demonstrates the flow of information from a commercially available building information modeler and a sustainable building rating system. The process developed bridges sustainability assessment requirements with information from the model for preevaluation prior to submission for certification. Contributions include a technical implementation of sustainable design assessment for pre assessment through a process of identifying information availability, augmentation, representation and management focused on two credits (Reduce indoor water use and Minimum energy performance) over evolving rating standards, namely (LEED 2.1, LEED 2009 and LEED v4). These contributions are intended to enable designers, stakeholders, contractors and other professionals to communicate strategies and make informed decisions to achieve sustainability goals for a project from design through to operation. (1) Design choices are validated, by measuring design performance against criteria specified by the rating system. See Chapter 2: Research Background. (2) “Shame on you for perpetuating this myth that green design costs more even if integrated properly. LEED certification does, but green design need not.” (Kats, 2010) (3) “Sustainability is not static–it is iteratively changing, based on knowledge that connects science and design.” (Williams, 2007)

Abstract does not copy

Environmental sustainability in regards to infrastructure and the built environment is a significant consideration for the Department of National Defence (DND). As the 2nd largest landowner in Canada, the DND is making great efforts to operate in a sustainable manner through the creation and implementation of sustainable building policies. Meeting the green/sustainable buildings requirements of the recent Federal Sustainable Development Strategy, and the 2006 DND Sustainable Development Strategy to achieve accreditation within generic green building systems, has proven to be extremely challenging given the mandate and the nature of Canadian Forces (CF) operations, both domestically and overseas. This line of research was conducted in order to identify the unique requirements and the sustainability factors/criteria that are applicable to the CF / DND and to investigate how to best align these requirements within the context of sustainable development strategies. Input data was obtained through an analysis of literature and relevant documents, as well as a series of interviews with individuals at all levels within the Federal Government. The result of this research undertaking was, in part, the creation of a Sustainable Development for DND based on a thorough, comprehensive and internationally-investigated factor selection process. These results illustrate the importance for the DND to consider implementing a department-specific sustainable building strategy; one that is more representative of the unique type of infrastructure DND owns and operates. The results of such an investigation can surely be used to assist with best practices and strategic policies within DND and to potentially influence policies at the Federal level of governance in this regard. The ultimate goal of this thesis was to establish the policy framework with a view for DND to develop and implement its own unique Sustainability Standard. / Thesis (Master, Environmental Studies) -- Queen's University, 2012-11-29 14:21:37.63

Regular online outrage about changed content in regional editions of video games has brought our attention to the concepts of censorship and localization. Game Rating Systems have their fair share of critics among those debating the details of localized content and prove to be in a peculiar position between developers and the end-user. The current state of the industry shows that alterations are made to regional versions of a game, especially with regards to sensitive topics such as violence, nudity, and sexualization. A survey to gauge end-users’ perception on these topics has been spread amongst residents of Japan and Western regions. Japanese respondents show to be more accepting of legislation surrounding video games whereas Western respondents tend to display a severe dislike for any sort of legislation, and often see not only censorship, but also localization in a negative context. Censorship, self-censorship, and localization are complicated and nuanced topics that turn out to be complexly intertwined with the practice of game production.

"Numerous higher education (HE) institutions in the United States (US) have created sustainability agendas, including construction of sustainable buildings. More than 200 US HE institutions, have at least one Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certified building on their campus (Princeton Review 2012). With the growing student population and need to house them, residence hall construction is rising nationwide. A profile of newly constructed building types shows residence halls hold the largest median area (Princeton Review 2012). In an effort to assess if sustainable residence halls are performing sustainably, a series of post occupancy evaluation (POE) indicators were selected. POE indicators were chosen through a review of widely adopted sustainability rating systems, scientific literature and student occupant feedback. The selected indicators address a range of parameters including: water and energy consumption, occupant thermal comfort, occupant consumption behavior and education, noise insulation (indoor and outdoor), and Facilities Management (FM) operational feedback. Furthermore, specific indicators such as building energy management systems (BEMS), building automation control systems (BACS) and artificial intelligence (AI) agents were examined. The proposed POE indicator framework data was collected from various key stakeholders including: designers, HE FM departments, residential life personnel, and student occupants. The dataset includes: actual temperature (T) and relative humidity (RH) measurements of a LEED-Gold residence hall, actual water (9 residence halls) and energy consumption (4 residence halls) data, and feedback from designers, HE FM departments and 593 student occupants (LEED and non-LEED residence halls). The proposed POE indicator framework triangulates quantitative and qualitative data, via investigative and diagnostic techniques; creating a comprehensive building performance picture, vis-à-vis technical and non-technical parameters."

In urbanized areas, building and transportation systems generally comprise the majority of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and energy consumption. Realization of global environmental sustainability depends upon efficiency improvements of building and transportation systems in the built environment. The selection of efficient buildings and locations can help to improve the efficient utilization of transportation and building systems. Green building design and rating frameworks provide some guidance and incentive for the development of more efficient building and transportation systems. However, current frameworks are based primarily on prescriptive, component standards, rather than performance-based, whole-building evaluations. This research develops a commercial building/site evaluation framework for the minimization of GHG emissions and energy consumption of transportation and building systems through building/site selection. The framework examines, under uncertainty, multiple dimensions of building/site operation efficiencies: transportation access to/from a building site; heating, ventilation, air conditioning, and domestic hot water; interior and exterior lighting; occupant conveyances; and energy supply. With respect to transportation systems, the framework leverages regional travel demand model data to estimate the activity associated with home-based work and non-home-based work trips. A Monte Carlo simulation approach is used to quantify the dispersion in the estimated trip distances, travel times, and mode choice. The travel activity estimates are linked with a variety of existing calculation resources for quantifying energy consumption and GHG emissions. With respect to building systems, the framework utilizes a building energy simulation approach to estimate energy consumption and GHG emissions. The building system calculation procedures include a sensitivity analysis and Monte Carlo analysis to account for the impacts of input parameter uncertainty on estimated building performance. The framework incorporates a life cycle approach to performance evaluation, thereby incorporating functional units of building/site performance (e.g energy use intensity). The evaluation framework is applied to four case studies of commercial office development in the Atlanta, GA metropolitan region that represent a potential range of building/site alternatives for a 100-employee firm in an urbanized area. The research results indicate that whole-building energy and GHG emissions are sensitive to building/site location, and that site-related transportation is the major determinant of performance. The framework and findings may be used to support the development of quantitative performance evaluations for building/site selection in green building rating systems and other efficiency incentive programs designed to encourage more efficient utilization and development of the built environment.

abstract: The green building movement has been an effective catalyst in reducing energy demands of buildings and a large number of `green' certified buildings have been in operation for several years. Whether these buildings are actually performing as intended, and if not, identifying specific causes for this discrepancy falls into the general realm of post-occupancy evaluation (POE). POE involves evaluating building performance in terms of energy-use, indoor environmental quality, acoustics and water-use; the first aspect i.e. energy-use is addressed in this thesis. Normally, a full year or more of energy-use and weather data is required to determine the actual post-occupancy energy-use of buildings. In many cases, either measured building performance data is not available or the time and cost implications may not make it feasible to invest in monitoring the building for a whole year. Knowledge about the minimum amount of measured data needed to accurately capture the behavior of the building over the entire year can be immensely beneficial. This research identifies simple modeling techniques to determine best time of the year to begin in-situ monitoring of building energy-use, and the least amount of data required for generating acceptable long-term predictions. Four analysis procedures are studied. The short-term monitoring for long-term prediction (SMLP) approach and dry-bulb temperature analysis (DBTA) approach allow determining the best time and duration of the year for in-situ monitoring to be performed based only on the ambient temperature data of the location. Multivariate change-point (MCP) modeling uses simulated/monitored data to determine best monitoring period of the year. This is also used to validate the SMLP and DBTA approaches. The hybrid inverse modeling method-1 predicts energy-use by combining a short dataset of monitored internal loads with a year of utility-bills, and hybrid inverse method-2 predicts long term building performance using utility-bills only. The results obtained show that often less than three to four months of monitored data is adequate for estimating the annual building energy use, provided that the monitoring is initiated at the right time, and the seasonal as well as daily variations are adequately captured by the short dataset. The predictive accuracy of the short data-sets is found to be strongly influenced by the closeness of the dataset's mean temperature to the annual average temperature. The analysis methods studied would be very useful for energy professionals involved in POE. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S. Architecture 2011

Submitted by Caio Paes Leme Lorecchio (caio.lorecchio@gmail.com) on 2017-06-07T16:01:31Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Bad Reputation with Rating Systems.pdf: 556649 bytes, checksum: 01e7c1222ac8b0ed3258d714f7adc3b2 (MD5) / Rejected by Suzinei Teles Garcia Garcia (suzinei.garcia@fgv.br), reason: Boa tarde Caio, Por favor, tirar o acento da palavra Getulio em todas as páginas, Agradecimento/Resumo/Abstract em caixa alta, letra padrão ABNT ou APA (capa.....) e tirar a linha do cabeçalho conforme conversamos. Abs. Suzi 3799-7876 on 2017-06-07T18:39:31Z (GMT) / Submitted by Caio Paes Leme Lorecchio (caio.lorecchio@gmail.com) on 2017-06-07T19:58:22Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Bad Reputation with Rating Systems.pdf: 373018 bytes, checksum: 6855d5f3fc595b138d084679ef3eeabe (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Suzinei Teles Garcia Garcia (suzinei.garcia@fgv.br) on 2017-06-08T11:43:14Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Bad Reputation with Rating Systems.pdf: 373018 bytes, checksum: 6855d5f3fc595b138d084679ef3eeabe (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-06-08T12:52:00Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Bad Reputation with Rating Systems.pdf: 373018 bytes, checksum: 6855d5f3fc595b138d084679ef3eeabe (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-05-11 / Este trabalho analisa um modelo de má reputação com sistemas de rating como uma forma particular de memória limitada. Em cada período, um cliente preocupado apenas com ganhos correntes escolhe se contrata ou não um especialista. O cliente compreende as regras de transição do sistema, mas observa apenas a realização de um rating (uma nota) que carrega informação sobre o provável tipo de especialista para tomar a decisão de contrato. Um especialista do tipo estratégico escolhe prover ou não o tratamento correto quando contratado e um especialista do tipo ruim sempre oferece o tratamento mais caro, independentemente do problema observado. Quando clientes observam todo o histórico de interacões, um especialista estratégico ou tem fortes incentivos para oferecer o tratamento barato (quando o tratamento correto seria o mais caro) ou eventualmente a crença no mercado de que ele é do tipo ruim é suficientemente grande para que deixe de ser contratado. Quando clientes possuem apenas o sistema de rating como fonte de informação, este trabalho demonstra que não apenas é possível evitar esse efeito negativo, como também é possível aumentar os ganhos de equilíbrio em comparação à ausência de qualquer sistema informacional. Ademais, este trabalho desenha os sistemas ótimos do ponto de vista tanto do cliente quando do especialista para todas as crenças iniciais, discutindo como eles diferem em um sistema de dois estados e quando há ganhos de eficiência. / We study a bad reputation model with rating system as a special form of limited memory. At each period, a myopic customer knowing the rules of the system but observing only a current public realization of a finite set of states uses this information to infer expert's type and take hiring decisions. A strategic expert chooses whether or not to provide correct treatment whenever hired and a bad (committed) expert always proposes an expensive treatment. With full memory, a patient expert cannot refrain from gaining reputation of being bad or lying to separate herself from a bad type. With rating systems, we show that it is possible not only to overcome bad reputation effect, but generate higher equilibrium outcomes relative to trivial information censoring (no memory at all). We characterize optimal systems from customer and strategic expert's point of view in a two-state setting for all prior beliefs and show how they differ and when a rating system can bring efficiency to experts' markets.

Reducing and managing the environmental impacts of building structures has become a priority of building stakeholders and within the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) community; although, conflicting approaches and methods to combat the issues are present. For example, green building standards are widespread throughout the world; however each one has its own characteristics and consequently its own specific requirements. While all have proven to be effective rating systems and have similar requirements, the distinguishing characteristic that separates them is their treatment of performance and prescriptive metrics. The feature they all severely lack or currently limit is the inclusion of strict engineering evaluation through energy simulations; hence, the reason why they fail to offer procedural steps to meet performance metrics. How can design professionals design energy efficient buildings with such constraints? Fortunately, advances in technology have allowed design professionals access to content found in Building Information Modeling (BIM). However, extracting pertinent information for specific use in energy analysis is problematic because BIM software currently available is filled with interoperability issues when placed in external software for energy analysis and energy analysis software itself is created with many assumptions that affect the tabulated energy results. This research investigates current building rating systems, determines how current professionals meet energy requirements, and prove that it is possible to create an add-on feature to Autodesk Revit that will allow design professionals to extract the needed information to meet energy goals with actual prescribed methods of mechanical systems selection and evaluation.

This report is a discussion of the multifarious applications of the modern day geographic information system and how the universal merit of the technology across disciplines has led to the emergence of GeoDesign. The purpose of this Master’s Professional Report was to retrace the core conceptual framework and landmark events occurring in the evolution GIS technology, and how these factors have led to recent creation of new performance based rating systems and evidence-based design techniques. The Sustainable Sites Initiative (SITES), a new performance based rating system that has emerged in response to the call for increased knowledge and best practices lacking in LEED, is discussed; along with integrated project management. This professional report was intended to be an exploratory discussion of the larger theoretical implications fueling the shift towards mandating greater standards for sustainable design. It offers some ideas for how we should continue evolving GeoDesign moving into the next century; and outlines the importance of all new rating systems needing to acknowledge the growing importance of GeoDesign and ever advancing imagery technologies in understanding complex system processes in the future. / text