Browsing by Author "Pearce, Annie R."

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    Alma Mater? Lactation Rooms as a Case Study for Centering Place-making in the Quest for Inclusion on College Campuses
    Nuckols, Erin Lorann (Virginia Tech, 2024-01-23)
    In the 2019-2020 school year, there are at least 30,000 pregnant students on U.S. university campuses who might need a place to pump or nurse while in school. National policies protect the need for time and space for employed lactators, but there are only suggested protections for space for lactating college students. Many postpartum people, members of the campus community, are falling through the gaps of support by their universities. Some universities have developed policies that require lactation rooms for capital construction projects. The state of the policies themselves and consistency of the application in the built space is poorly understood. Few policies address the larger issue of inclusion for this diverse population. This study investigated the issue of lactation rooms on campuses from three different perspectives or domains of knowledge. The work explored the claims made by universities about postpartum support and lactator inclusion (proclamations); the manifestation of those policies in the lactation space (actions); and the user experiences of lactating on their campus (perceptions). The perspectives provide contrasting views on the adequacy of lactation space in this complex ecosystem and the needs for improving the process of developing new policies, the application in capital construction, and the operation of lactation rooms. Merging the socio-ecological model with the human rights model (Availability, Accessibility, Acceptability, and Quality (AAAQ)), lactation policies on two case study campuses were assessed to evaluate the claims made by universities about inclusion and dignity as represented in the built environment. Using a mixed-methods approach of institutional ethnography, an environmental assessment (merging photovoice and indoor comfort measurements), and narrative interviews with lactators, the study centred the lactation room as a site of place-making to demonstrate the overall impact of the interrelationships and intersection of these three domains of knowledge. The results indicated that design and construction standards on the case study campus have changed over time in response to national policies and other influences. The findings illuminate that the facilities themselves have not changed to meet the contemporary needs of lactating bodies of varied academic intersectionalities. Despite policies focused on improving spaces for lactating people, best practice guidelines for lactation rooms, and many publications describing the barriers that users experience in meeting this basic need, universities are still struggling to include all of the lactating people in developing their physical infrastructure and to create the supporting social infrastructure. To address some of the gaps in the immediate future, universities could include the variety of lactating people when creating web-based messaging for lactation room access. Future needs include developing postpartum provisions for the lactators and clearly communicating what is available to them. Universities should develop additional sessions on postpartum support to include in their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) trainings for supervisors. The dramatic change in abortion policies in the U.S. directly impacts this age population. Therefore, student health tracking systems need to incorporate more questions on birth experiences, postpartum needs, and lactation. Universities are unique ecosystems and the current desire to improve in policy and action. There is now an incredible opportunity to explore multi-tiered approaches to improving the DEI landscape.
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    Analytical Framework to Study Energy Efficiency Policy Portfolios across Countries/States
    Bhattacharjee, Suchismita (Virginia Tech, 2010-07-22)
    Energy conservation and implementation of effective energy efficiency policies have become imperative to curbing the escalating consumption of energy. The imbalance in the supply and demand of a country's energy has increased the importance of implementing energy efficiency policies. Proper replication of strategic energy efficiency policies that are known to be successful in one country, along with development of new approaches, can be helpful in developing the energy policy portfolio of another country. Some OECD (Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development) countries like Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States have benefited from their energy policies during the most recent energy crisis. The motivation of this research is to provide a tool for developing countries, which are still in the stage of formulating their energy efficiency policies, to compare energy efficiency policy portfolios across countries. These countries can improve their energy efficiency policy portfolios based on lessons learned from the developed countries. The research develops a framework to compare energy efficiency policy portfolios across countries / states. Although this framework can be adopted for any type of energy policy, targeting any sector with few modifications, the current focus is on policies that target the residential building sector to reduce energy consumption. The research begins with identification of the functional domains that influence human behavior–people, economy, environment and technology–followed by identification of the factors affecting household energy consumption. It uses the four functional domains as the evaluation framework's four axes. The various factors affecting household energy consumption are positioned in the framework based on association with the functional domains. The energy efficiency policies implemented in a country are positioned in the same framework based on the pattern of diffusion of each type of policy. In addition, a prototype method is developed to identify the factors targeted by each energy efficiency policy implemented in a country. This evaluation method allows for a uniform assessment process of how energy efficiency policies target specific socio-economic factors that are known to affect energy consumption. The proposed framework will facilitate the work of policy makers and other decision makers with a powerful tool for evaluating and comparing their individual policies, or their complete portfolio of energy efficiency policies, to those from other states or countries, and to benefit from the lessons learned.
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    A BIM-based Object-oriented Data Model to Support Sustainable Demolition Waste Management Decision Making at End-of-Life
    Hamidi, Behzad (Virginia Tech, 2015-05-22)
    Sustainable demolition waste management is rarely practiced within the construction industry. This is mainly due to the fact that the decision-making process for sustainable demolition waste management is a very resource-demanding and time-consuming task in terms of data collection and data management. The decision-making process includes multiple analyses of possible demolition waste management alternatives from economic, environmental, and social perspectives. Such analyses require waste managers to capture and manage huge amounts of data scattered within fragmented data sources at the end-of-life of a building. The process of capturing and managing this information for the building end-of-life would be time-consuming and costly. Therefore, the waste managers are reluctant to pursue sustainable demolition waste management practices in order to prevent potential delays and incurred costs. This research identified information that is required to conduct sustainable demolition waste management analyses. The identified information was then classified based on information sources. An object-oriented data model (OODM) was proposed to allow the waste managers to more efficiently store and manage the information at the end-of-life phase. Furthermore, a sustainable demolition waste management prototype application was developed to demonstrate how the required information is captured from different sources of data, stored within OODM classes, and retrieved from the integrated database. Finally, the proposed OODM was verified in terms of its scope, flexibility, and implementability. The goal of the research is to offer a method for storing and managing end-of-life information in an efficient and effective manner to support sustainable demolition waste management decision making. To achieve the goal, this dissertation outlines the objectives of the research, the methodologies used in developing the object-oriented data model, conclusions, limitations, and potential future research work.
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    Bridging the Diffusion of Innovation Chasm for Green Housing
    Sanderford, Andrew R. (Virginia Tech, 2013-08-28)
    Limited transaction and unit attribute information curtail the diffusion potential of green homes and create significant valuation and underwriting problems for the housing debt capital markets, more specifically mortgage originators (lenders) and appraisers. Put into the context of the technology adoption life cycle this missing information prevents green homes from crossing the chasm into the mainstream market. As lenders and appraisers are the gatekeepers of the mainstream mortgage markets, they will be key stakeholders in any strategy for green homes to cross this chasm. The missing transaction and attribute data creates two opportunities for scholarship. The first opportunity is to create and provide preliminary evidence of the chasm in the green housing market place. The second opportunity is to analyze, in the context of this chasm, what information and tools appraisers are using, at present, to estimate the value of high performance homes.
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    Cavity Tightness Preferences of Overwintering Halyomorpha halys (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae)
    Chambers, Benjamin D.; Leskey, Tracy C.; Cullum, John P.; Pearce, Annie R.; Kuhar, Thomas P. (2020-06)
    Brown marmorated stink bug (Halyomorpha halys) (Stal) is a household nuisance pest that seeks shelter in buildings during the winter months. It has been found in a variety of cavities and spaces between building elements, as well as in the objects stored within buildings. This experiment examined the cavity tightness preferences for these insects as they settled in winter refugia. Adult overwintering H. halys were placed in two types of simulated refugia made from rigid material. Each type had a cavity of constant width, while one had a flat lid and constant tightness, and the other had a sloped lid that became tighter as insects moved inside. Adults were allowed to enter and settle, then their locations were recorded. In sloped lid cavities, H. halys tended to settle where the cavity tightness was between 4.5 and 5.5 mm. In the flat lid cavity boxes, H. halys tended to move all the way back. In both configurations, H. halys had a significant tendency to orient their heads towards the cavity entrance. A field comparison of cavity tightness in refugia with less rigid cardboard substrates was also performed, with spacers consisting of one or two layers of 3-mm cardboard. This comparison found differences in cavity selection by sex, with males more likely to pick single-spaced layers, and females more likely to select double-spaced layers. Understanding these preferences could be useful for collection, pest management, trap design, and study of impacts on structures.
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    Cognitive Barriers to Energy Efficient Decision Making in US Coast Guard Facility Management
    Delgado, Laura Ana (Virginia Tech, 2017-02-06)
    Government agencies have attempted to reduce energy consumption using executive orders, mandates, and agency policies. Despite these efforts, overall energy consumption of government facilities has not experienced significant energy reductions. Why haven't these efforts succeeded? The premise is that energy consumption decisions and their unintended outcomes contribute to this problem, and in this manuscript research focuses on cognitive bias, choice architecture, and decision making in relation to energy decisions answer this question. Potential impacts cognitive bias has on the decision maker is examined, and if it is possible to design better decision environments to account for cognitive bias and help decision makers maximize benefits (utility). This manuscript first examines the literature of cognitive bias, choice architecture, and government energy management, especially how these topics relate to meeting the country's energy goals. The next chapter examines cognitive bias that government facility managers encounter using qualitative analysis. In this study, the research indicates facility managers encounter loss aversion, risk aversion, choice overload, and the status quo bias during energy decisions. The last chapter examines applications of choice architecture, specifically attribute framing, to emphasize the utility maximizing choice of long term energy reductions over initial cost. This study found that decision makers did not see the utility of the energy efficient option without an intervention to draw their attention to the long term savings. Once the decision makers became aware of the potential savings, they chose the most efficient (and utility maximizing) option.
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    Comparison of Large Scale Renewable Energy Projects for the United States Air Force
    Hughes, Jeffrey S. (Virginia Tech, 2012-10-02)
    This thesis focused on the performance of large-scale renewable energy projects for the United States Air Force. As global energy demands continue to rise, the need to find ways to save energy and produce alternative sources of energy will increase. The Federal Government has begun to address the challenge of energy production and energy security in recent years. In order to increase both the energy production and energy security for the Air Force, there is a trend to increase the amount of renewable energy produced on military installations. The goal of this research was to compare the estimated and actual performance of these large-scale on-site renewable energy projects at Air Force installations. The variables considered for this research were the execution methods and the renewable energy sources. The performance of each project was evaluated against factors identified in previous sustainable construction studies. The study found that actual performance of third party owned and operated projects differed from the expected performance by less than the Air Force owned and operated projects, and that performance of renewable energy projects differed from the expected performance by less than high performance buildings from previous studies. The study also found factors that contributed to the gap between the expected and actual performance including optimistic modeling, unusual weather, operational issues and higher than expected maintenance of the projects. The results of this research were an initial step in understanding the actual performance of large-scale renewable energy projects.
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    Comparison of Occupant Behavior in a Traditional, Green Featured, and LEED Certified Building Case
    Hill, Adrienne Marie (Virginia Tech, 2017-02-08)
    In developed nations, 20-40% of greenhouse gas emissions and more than one-third of energy consumption are attributable to buildings. Among various available strategies, the building sector has the greatest potential for carbon emission reduction. Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) took early action to promote sustainable designs in buildings and has become the most well-known rating system in the field of building sustainability. However, little research has evaluated the effects of LEED on occupant pro-environmental behavior. To examine this, a Post-Occupancy Evaluation (POE) was conducted in a traditional, green featured, and LEED certified building case to compare the similarities and differences in environmental awareness, perceptions, and perceived ease or difficulty of pro-environmental behaviors, as well as to assess the degree to which pro-environmental behaviors were exhibited by occupants. This was used to determine if the aforementioned factors influence occupant behavior in different building cases. Ease or difficulty of pro-environmental behaviors and environmental awareness were found to be significant factors in influencing pro-environmental behavior in the LEED certified and green featured building cases. In addition, being in a LEED building appears to influence occupant pro-environmental behavior in a positive way. Also, there is evidence to suggest that being in a green featured building appears to influence occupants to exhibit pro-environmental behavior as well. These findings are valuable for owners and designers that want occupants in their buildings to exhibit pro-environmental behavior.
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    Designing outdoor spaces to support older adult dog walkers: A multi-method approach to identify and prioritize features in the built environment
    Shealy, Elizabeth Carlisle (Virginia Tech, 2021-04-02)
    Associations between the built environment and walking are well understood among the general population, but far less is known about how features of the built environment influence walking in older adults. As compared to other age groups, older adults, defined as those 65 years of age and older, are more likely to experience declines in physical activity, social interaction, and loss of community connectivity. Animal companionship can provide older adults the motivation to stay physically active and help them mitigate the feelings of isolation. Built environments that align with the needs and abilities of older adults and their animal companions, like dogs, can encourage and help sustain walking habits. The aim of this study was to identify and prioritize features within the built environment pertinent to older adult dog walkers. Existing literature served as the basis for identifying neighborhood design features associated with general walking and dog walking. Through the use of a three round Delphi study, 25 experts from urban planning and design, management of outdoor spaces, public health, gerontology, and human-animal relationships modified and rated the importance of the identified features as it pertains to older adult dog walkers. Following the Delphi study, 12 older adult dog owners from the Warm Hearth Village participated in a guided walk and interview using the Photovoice technique. The goal was to gather their perceptions of the outdoor walking environment. Among expert panelists, safety from motorized traffic, crime, unleashed dogs, and personal injury was paramount (mean (M)= 93.20, standard deviation (SD) = 11.54). Experts also saw the value and agreed upon the importance of dog supportive features within the built environment, like dog waste stations dog waste stations (desirable; M = 87.95, SD = 11.37), and dog policy signage (desirable; M = 79.91, SD = 11.22). Older adults also believed safety was important. They saw their dog as a protective safety factor against walking deterrents like aggressive or unleashed dogs. However, the feature that resonated most with older adult dog walkers in this study was their interaction with nature. They described the pleasure of observing seasons change and the connection with nature that came from the tree canopy cocooning the walking path. Path design is also a necessary consideration. Older adults emphasized the importance of having options between paved and unpaved walking paths. The panelists stressed the need for creating lines of sight (desirable; M = 66.46, SD = 20.71) and lighting (desirable; M = 77.92, SD =19.77). Those who plan, develop, and maintain spaces that support older adults can prioritize the features I identified in my research. Incorporating these features into the design of spaces for older adults has the potential to translate into increased walking and opportunities to socialize, contributing to mental and physical health.
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    Development of a Performance Index for Stormwater Pipeline Infrastructure
    Bhimanadhuni, Sowmya (Virginia Tech, 2015-07-28)
    With new government regulations and emerging knowledge of the risk to the environment posed by the failure of stormwater pipelines, stormwater infrastructure asset management is becoming increasingly important in the U.S. An essential aspect of asset management practice is the accurate performance assessment of one's assets. This paper presents a weighted factor framework to determine the performance of stormwater pipes. This paper prepares a list of 50 parameters affecting the performance of stormwater pipelines; the list is based on a review of the literature, existing asset management plans, and feedback from utilities. This list is broken down into essential and preferential parameters. Indeed, not all utilities necessarily possess sufficient resources to collect such a large set of parameters. This study also develops a three-level hierarchical structure of the degradation of stormwater pipeline infrastructure. The structure consists of five failure modules and the essential parameters only. On the basis of the survey results gathered from 10 utilities across the EPA regions, the study combines the essential parameters into a performance index. The index is a scale of 1 to 5, similar to the National Association of Sewer Service Companies' Pipeline Assessment and Certification Program grading system. Grade 1 implies excellent condition and Grade 5 implies collapse is imminent.
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    Development of a Resilience Assessment Methodology for Networked Infrastructure Systems using Stochastic Simulation, with application to Water Distribution Systems
    Gay Alanis, Leon F. (Virginia Tech, 2013-05-01)
    Water distribution systems are critical infrastructure systems enabling the social and economic welfare of a community. While normal failures are expected and repaired quickly, low-probability and high consequence disruptive events have potential to cause severe damage to the infrastructure and significantly reduce their performance or even stop their function altogether. Resilient infrastructure is a necessary component towards achieving resilient and sustainable communities. Resilience concepts allow improved decision making in relation with risk assessment and management in water utilities. However, in order to operationalize infrastructure resilience concepts, it is fundamental to develop practical resilience assessment methods such as the methodology and tool proposed in this research, named Effective Resilience Assessment Methodology for Utilities (ERASMUS). ERASMUS utilizes a stochastic simulation model to evaluate the probability of resilient response from a water distribution system in case of disruption. This methodology utilizes a parametric concept of resilience, in which a resilient infrastructure system is defined in terms of a set of performance parameters compared with their socially acceptable values under a variety of disruptive events. The methodology is applied to two actual water distribution networks in the East and West coasts of the US.  
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    The Development of Models to Identify Relationships Between First Costs of Green Building Strategies and Technologies and Life Cycle Costs for Public Green Facilities
    Ahn, Yong Han (Virginia Tech, 2010-02-18)
    Public buildings and other public facilities are essential for the functioning and quality of life in modern societies, but they also frequently have a significant negative impact on the natural environment. Public agencies, with their large portfolios of facilities, have faced considerable challenges in recent years in minimizing their negative environmental impacts and energy consumption and coping with shortages of financial capital to invest in new facilities and operate and maintain existing ones, while still meeting their mission goals. These range from the need to provide a quality workplace for their staff to providing a public service and long term benefits to the public. The concept of green building has emerged as a set of objectives and practices designed to reduce negative environment impacts and other challenges while enhancing the functionality of built facilities. However, the prevailing belief related to implementing green building is that incorporating Green Building Strategies and Technologies (GBSTs) increases the initial cost of constructing a facility while potentially reducing its life cycle costs. Thus, this research deals with optimizing the design of individual facilities to balance the initial cost investment for GBSTs versus their potential Life Cycle Cost (LCC) savings without the need to conduct detailed life cycle cost analysis during the early capital planning and budget phases in public sector projects. The purpose of this study is to develop an approach for modeling the general relationship between investments in initial costs versus savings in LCCs involved in implementing green building strategies in public capital projects. To address the research question, this study developed multiple regression models to identify the relationships between GBSTs and their initial cost premiums, operating costs, and LCCs. The multiple regression models include dummy variables because this is a convenient way of applying a single regression equation to represent several nominal variables, which here consist of initial, operating, maintenance, and repair and replacement costs, and ordinal variables, which in this case are the GBST alternatives considered. These new regression models can be used to identify the relationship between GBST alternatives, initial cost premiums, annual operating costs and LCC in the earliest stage of a project, when public agencies are at the capital planning and budgeting stages of facility development, without necessarily needing to know the precise details of design and implementation for a particular building. In addition, this study also proposes and tests a method to generate all the necessary cost data based on building performance models and industry accepted standard cost data. This statistical approach can easily be extended to accommodate additional GBSTs that were not included in this study to identify the relationship between their initial cost premium and their potential LCC saving at the earliest stage of facility development. In addition, this approach will be a useful tool for other institutional facility owners who manage large facility portfolios with significant annual facility investments and over time should help them minimize the environmental impacts caused by their facilities.
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    The difference in BIM component data requirements between prescriptive representations and actual practices
    Kim, Suduck (Virginia Tech, 2015-08-12)
    Utilizing Building Information Modeling (BIM) for Facility Management (FM) can reduce interoperability costs during the Operations and Maintenance (OandM) phase by improving data management. However, there are technological, process related, and organizational barriers to successful implementation of BIM integrated FM (BIM-FM), and process related barriers might be solved by the use of BIM integrated FM (BIM-FM) guidelines. However, the guidelines need to be updated with lessons learned from actual practices in order to maintain their validity. In order to diagnose current practices and identify key differences between prescriptive representations and actual practices, this exploratory research compares BIM component data requirements between guidelines and actual practices at public higher education institutions in Virginia. The gap in BIM component data requirements between the guidelines and the actual practices may prevent successful implementation of BIM-FM. This research is composed of three parts: a synthesis of prescriptive representations, determination of actual data requirements in practice, and comparison of differences between guidelines and practices. Document analysis and case study via document analysis and in-person interviews were conducted to collect data. Then, direct comparison was conducted to test the research question. Though the researcher disapproved the established hypothesis of 'There would be some differences in BIM component data requirements between prescriptive representations and actual practices' due to the difference in level of information and details between prescriptive representations and actual practices, this exploratory research provides useful information.
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    The Ecological Footprints of Tiny Home Downsizers: An Exploratory Study
    Saxton, Maria Wimberly (Virginia Tech, 2019-04-26)
    With our country's unsustainable building practices in the residential sector, there is a need to explore new types of housing to mitigate the negative environmental impacts of current building customs. Recently, there has been a surge of interest in tiny homes characterized as livable dwelling units typically under 400 square feet. However, there is a gap in scholarly knowledge that formally examines how the environmental impact and behaviors of tiny home occupants change after downsizing from a larger home. The purpose of this study was to provide measurable evidence to explore the relationship between downsizing to a tiny home and the corresponding environmental impact. This study, which employed an exploratory sequential mixed design approach, was conducted to measure the ecological footprints of tiny home downsizers. Eighty individuals who have lived in their tiny homes for at least a year volunteered to take an online survey used to calculate their ecological footprints in prior larger homes and current tiny homes. Following the survey, nine interviews were conducted to create an inventory of noteworthy behaviors in each participant's lifestyles that potentially influence ecological footprint changes. Data collected from the survey and interviews were analyzed separately and then comparatively to explore relationships between tiny home living and environmental impacts. This study found that among 80 tiny home downsizers located across the United States, the average ecological footprint was 3.9 global hectares (gha). This footprint was substantially less than the average previous ecological footprint of 7.0 gha and the national average of 8.4 gha. All five footprint components were positively influenced, showing that downsizing can influence many parts of one's lifestyle. Over 100 behaviors were identified that could contribute to ecological footprint changes. The overall insights derived from this study indicate that positive environmental impact behaviors outweigh negative ones by approximately six to one when downsizing to a tiny home. In addition, 100% of participants demonstrated an overall positive ecological footprint. The findings and conclusions of this study provide important insights for the sustainable housing industry that can inform policy and practice, with implications for future research in the sustainable residential field.
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    An Effort to Refine Home Energy Assessment Methods in Support of Retrofit Decision Making
    Ladipo, Oluwateniola Eniola (Virginia Tech, 2013-06-05)
    This research evaluates current home energy assessment tools and practices and investigates their applicability in terms of relevance supporting retrofit decision making in Southwest Virginia. Home energy assessments and audits are comprised of many different tools, strategies, and practices all with the same goal, to achieve accuracy in assessing performance as well as confidence in achieving energy savings from retrofit recommendations. Differing opinions, training, and standards in energy assessments have led to a reduced confidence and reliance on energy assessments, which can ultimately lead to poor retrofit decisions and undesired outcomes. This research undertook an investigation of current tools and practices as well as modeling studies to reveal insights into strengths and weaknesses, and to refine home energy assessments. The goal was to identify opportunities to increase confidence for stakeholders by analyzing energy assessments in terms of what strategies are most suitable to increase the accuracy of capturing different energy influence parameters, as well as to provide a basis for future research and development in this subject area.
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    Energy Efficiency Opportunities for Tobacco Curing Barns
    Reichard, Georg; Pearce, Annie R. (Virginia Tech. Myers Lawson School of Construction, 2013)
    This project report discusses a theoretical assessment model for investigating the savings potential of retrofit scenarios for curing barns. The authors evaluated the most practical and also typical retrofit scenarios, such as envelope improvements and the installation of an automated control systems. In terms of their anticipated impact on energy savings the different opportunities ranged from around 6% for added control strategies to around 12% for typical standard envelope improvements. A total upper limit of savings around 25% has been established, if more aggressive envelope improvements are paired with automated control systems. While the commonly known retrofit scenarios tackle all consumption domains other than the dehumidification/ventilation domain, it became apparent that the most promising savings lay in recovering some of the ventilation losses that are a result of controlling for the relative humidity in the curing compartment of the barn.
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    Ethics Education and Its Relationship to  Undergraduate Construction Students' Professional Ethical Sensitivity
    Sands II, Kenneth Stafford (Virginia Tech, 2014-11-22)
    The construction industry is inundated with many ethical problems that have supported its negative stigma as an unethical and corrupt industry. This inundation instigates the requirements of ethics instruction by accrediting bodies of construction education with the art of teaching this secondary topic left up to construction educators. Literature offers suggestions; however, there is not much understood regarding pedagogical best practice to ensure students are ethically sensitive (aware) to ethical issues related to the construction industry. This research attempts to move toward an understanding of construction ethics education's influence on students' ethical sensitivity. Two research strands were employed. The first strand included the development of a broad collection of ethics pedagogical techniques used in construction education (independent variable), via the administration of a how ethics is taught in construction survey (HETC) to both faculty and students of purposefully selected construction programs. The second strand included the development and administration of a Test for Ethical Sensitivity in Construction (TESC) to evaluate construction students' ability to recognize ethical issues that are specific to the construction industry (dependent variable). Results of the first strand illustrate a wide range of pedagogical techniques available to teach ethics in construction programs to assist and inspire the improvement of construction ethics education. Results of the second strand illustrate various degrees of difficulty students had recognizing ethical issues of the TESC and how this related to ethical content coverage in construction programs' curricula. In addition, regarding participants of this study, there were significant differences found in student level of ethical sensitivity based on program of enrollment; however, there were no significant differences found based on student recollection of the placement of ethics in their curriculum, professional experience, age, or gender. It appears that ethics education has some influence on the professional ethical sensitivity of construction students; however, more research is necessary to confirm the degree of influence. Additional research is necessary to identify the most current and critical ethical issues of the construction industry to develop an auxiliary form of the TESC while controlling for other variables such as co-curricular and personal experiences.
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    Evaluation of Precast Portland Cement Concrete Panels for Airfield Pavement Repairs
    Priddy, Lucy Phillips (Virginia Tech, 2014-04-23)
    Both the identification and validation of expedient portland cement concrete (PCC) repair technologies have been the focus of the pavements research community for decades due to ever decreasing construction timelines. Precast concrete panel technology offers a potential repair alternative to conventional cast-in-place PCC because the panel is fully cured and has gained full strength prior to its use. This repaired surface may be trafficked immediately, thus eliminating the need for long curing durations required for conventional PCC. The literature reveals a number of precast PCC panel investigations in the past 50 years; however precast technology has only recently gained acceptance and increased use in the US for highway pavements. Furthermore, only limited information regarding performance of airfield applications is available. Following a review of the available technologies, an existing panel prototype was redesigned to allow for both single- and multiple-panel repairs. A series of various sized repairs were conducted in a full-scale airfield PCC test section. Results of accelerated testing indicated that precast panels were suitable for airfield repairs, withstanding between 5,000 and 10,000 passes of C-17 aircraft traffic prior to failure. Failure was due to spalling of the transverse doweled joints. The load transfer characteristics of the transverse joint were studied to determine if the joint load test could be used to predict failure. Results showed that the load transfer efficiency calculations from the joint load test data were not useful for predicting failure; however differential deflections could possibly be applied. Additionally, the practice of filling the joints with rapid-setting grout may have resulted in higher measurements of load transfer efficiency. To determine the stresses generated in the doweled joint, three-dimensional finite element analyses were conducted. Results indicated that the dowel diameter should be increased to reduce stresses and to improve repair performance. Finally, the precast repair technology was compared to other expedient repair techniques in terms of repair speed, performance, and cost. Compared to other methods, the precast panel repair alternative provided similar return-to-service timelines and traffic performance at a slightly higher cost. Costs can be minimized through modification to the panel design and by fabricating panels in a precast facility. Modifications to the system design and placement procedures are also recommended to improve the field performance of the panels.
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    Factors Influencing Behavior of Overwintering Brown Marmorated Stink Bugs (Halyomorpha halys) in Human Dwellings
    Chambers, Benjamin D. (Virginia Tech, 2017)
    The brown marmorated stink bug (Halyomorpha halys) (Stål) is known for overwintering in human homes. Studies were conducted to understand the behavior of adult bugs in response to characteristics of potential overwintering structures including gap sizes, light, and presence of dead conspecifics. In a test where bugs were placed in increasingly tight boxes, most bugs settled in gaps 4.5 - 5.5 mm high. None settled in a space less than 3.5 mm high. In boxes with constant tightness, bugs tended to move to the back, and primarily settled along walls and in corners. In both box types, bugs tended to turn and face the cavity entrance during settling. In tests of responses of disturbed overwintering bugs to common household light bulbs over the course of a year, bugs were taken from shelters and exposed to lit bulbs. Bug responses were seasonal, with attraction to light bulbs in spring and summer, but little or no consistent response in fall or winter. The lack of response occurred more often at night than in afternoons. Because not all bugs survive the winter, corpses can accumulate. Single shelter-seeking H. halys were found not to respond to the presence of dead aggregations from the previous years unless touch was possible, in which case aggregations were joined. Dead aggregations from the same year had a repellent effect. Presence of a single dead bug from the same year did not provide any survivorship advantage to overwintering bugs. Results suggest possible improvements to trap shelters.
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    A Framework for Benchmarking and Monitoring Building Construction Embodied Carbon Footprint using Building Information Models
    Taveras Marte, Alba Olimpia (Virginia Tech, 2014-07-02)
    In recent years, the application of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) databases has enabled architects/engineers to quantify the environmental impact of building materials for whole building analysis and comparative analyses of design alternatives. The application of building information modeling (BIM) has facilitated this process by providing designers and engineers with the detailed bill of materials required for LCA. However three limitations exist: First, LCA assessments have been limited to the design phase of a project delivery or post completion phase. Consequently, it does not help incentivize the choice of suppliers and delivery strategies that minimize the cradle-to-site impacts. Second, majority LCA tools ignore the impact of construction means and methods during the construction phase. Third, there is a lack of metrics and visualization tools that assess environmental impacts of decisions made during pre-construction and construction phase. As a result, little incentive exists for suppliers to provide embodied carbon footprint rates, and similarly, for contractors to balance project costs, schedule objectives with the corresponding environmental impact. To address these challenges, we propose and develop a new framework that applies BIM for reliable, effective benchmarking, monitoring, and visualization of embodied carbon footprint of construction projects. It comprises of a benchmarking module, and a monitoring and visualization module. In the experiments, this framework is implemented on concrete placement activities during the construction of the Center for the Arts facility at Virginia Tech. The developed framework can revolutionize construction by a) a rapid assessment and visualization of the deviations between expected and released carbon footprint, b) incentivizing contractors to request that manufacturers and suppliers gauge and share their carbon footprints as a part of contractor submittal process and c) incentivizing those construction firms that can complete their project with an overall carbon footprint rate lower than what is budgeted during the pre-construction or compared to the values from the design phase, while documenting and using the performance results as a benchmark for future similar projects.