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A growing focus on occupant comfort, health and wellbeing has resulted in attempts to quantify indoor environmental quality (IEQ) and to determine the relative contributions of single IEQ aspects to an overall IEQ index. The recently developed IV20 tool assesses potential IEQ to label overall IEQ, and assign separate scores for the main indoor environment (IE) areas: thermal, visual, acoustic and air quality. In the absence of objective, universally applicable IEQ weights, this paper develops and executes a methodology asking regional experts with different backgrounds to make relative comparisons between related IE aspects. The authors hypothesize that wide-ranging subjective evaluations can be combined into useful relative weights (best operational solution based on the current status of IE literature). This paper presents results from an IE expert survey on relative IE aspect weights using simple percentile prioritization and the Analytic Hierarchy Process pairwise comparison. Results are compared to expert panel judgements to ensure validity. The advantages of this combined weight determination method are (1) that the expert survey ensures a broad spectrum of opinions and allows for input from different built environment disciplines, and (2) that the expert panel has tool-specific insight, methodology awareness and state of the art knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainable building design requires an interplay between multidisciplinary input and fulfilment of diverse criteria to align into one high-performing whole. BIM has already brought a profound change in that direction, by allowing execution of efficient collaborative workflows. However, design decision-making still relies heavily on rules of thumb and previous experiences, and not on sound evidence. To improve the design process and effectively build towards a sustainable future, we need to rely on the multiplicity of data available from our existing building stock. The objective of this research is, therefore, to transform existing data, discover new knowledge and inform future design decision-making in an evidence-based manner. This article looks specifically into this task by (1) outlining and distinguishing between the diverse building data sources and types, (2) indicating how the data can be analysed, (3) demonstrating how the discovered knowledge can be implemented in a semantic integration layer and (4) how it can be brought back to design professionals through the design aids they use. We, therefore, propose a performance-oriented design decision support system, relying on BIM, data mining and semantic data modelling, thereby allowing customized information retrieval according to a defined goal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the organization of distributed innovation shaped by the major discontinuity in the life sciences and their associated technologies. Effects on pharmaceutical research and development; Contribution of public research organizations to distributed research and development; U.S. model for biotechnology growth; Role of public science.

This paper is an attempt to unpack the emergence and dynamics of science-based technologies in conceptual forms that allow us to understand better when and how the social and economic organization of search and problem-solving matters. The evolution over two decades of a specific science-based technology is mapped with data from its 192 patents. For the five European countries generating the majority of patents, we identify the host organizations of all 275 inventors involved in the R&D behind the patents. Using network analysis we then map the evolution of separate innovation systems and their structural and evolutionary characteristics. The best performing system combines a cumulative pattern with frequent and shifting connections to non-system R&D partners while maintaining a small core of almost omnipresent inventor-organizations. The role of multinational corporations in orchestrating innovation systems is apparent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]