Medium Density - Adaptable Amenity: A flexible housing system to facilitate change and maximise production efficiencies

<p>Medium-density Group Housing (“MDH”) has been defined as “a number of horizontally attached (or directly related) dwellings which are normally of one or two stories and rarely exceed three stories above the ground” (Judd 8). In the context of the New Zealand built environment, this housing typology is widely perceived as being a ‘cheaper’ form of construction, providing a lower standard housing environment. This perception has arisen for a number of reasons. Specifically, MDH is often regarded as lacking appropriate ‘fit’ with the existing urban character and is seen as giving rise to a number of problems associated with close visual and acoustic living proximities, inadequate privacy and daylight, insufficient outdoor private and public spaces and lack of design flexibility. These issues have resulted in MDH being viewed as an urban housing typology that, while accepted as being necessary to meet space and budget constraints, is very much ‘second best’, problematic and not as being particularly desirable. With shortages of suitable land and existing housing, intensification is a growing issue for policy planners and developers, and a growing focus of residential development. This research investigation looks at how design and construction of MDH could be enhanced through use of prefabrication in order to provide an inspirational and affordable housing alternative that promotes efficient land use, positive health outcomes and social wellbeing and which can generally enhance the lifestyles of occupants. In this context MDH may offer a possible part solution to what is viewed by many as a current crisis in New Zealand housing. Modular and panelised technologies offer possible solutions to the challenge of providing housing that is efficiently produced, provides flexibility and adaptability in terms of spatial configurations and functionality, offering high levels of customisation and personalisation. These solutions are explored in this thesis through research of theory, literature and precedent studies which inform a design framework. This framework is developed under the following subject areas, namely; • density and amenity; • environmental fit; • flexibility and adaptability and • production efficiencies and are used as a basis for design and project evaluation.</p>

Medium Density - Adaptable Amenity: A flexible housing system to facilitate change and maximise production efficiencies

<p>Medium-density Group Housing (“MDH”) has been defined as “a number of horizontally attached (or directly related) dwellings which are normally of one or two stories and rarely exceed three stories above the ground” (Judd 8). In the context of the New Zealand built environment, this housing typology is widely perceived as being a ‘cheaper’ form of construction, providing a lower standard housing environment. This perception has arisen for a number of reasons. Specifically, MDH is often regarded as lacking appropriate ‘fit’ with the existing urban character and is seen as giving rise to a number of problems associated with close visual and acoustic living proximities, inadequate privacy and daylight, insufficient outdoor private and public spaces and lack of design flexibility. These issues have resulted in MDH being viewed as an urban housing typology that, while accepted as being necessary to meet space and budget constraints, is very much ‘second best’, problematic and not as being particularly desirable. With shortages of suitable land and existing housing, intensification is a growing issue for policy planners and developers, and a growing focus of residential development. This research investigation looks at how design and construction of MDH could be enhanced through use of prefabrication in order to provide an inspirational and affordable housing alternative that promotes efficient land use, positive health outcomes and social wellbeing and which can generally enhance the lifestyles of occupants. In this context MDH may offer a possible part solution to what is viewed by many as a current crisis in New Zealand housing. Modular and panelised technologies offer possible solutions to the challenge of providing housing that is efficiently produced, provides flexibility and adaptability in terms of spatial configurations and functionality, offering high levels of customisation and personalisation. These solutions are explored in this thesis through research of theory, literature and precedent studies which inform a design framework. This framework is developed under the following subject areas, namely; • density and amenity; • environmental fit; • flexibility and adaptability and • production efficiencies and are used as a basis for design and project evaluation.</p>

Hope for Change: Is Diversifying Production Portfolios an Ideal Strategy to Boost Farming Efficiency in Afghanistan?

In this article, I present empirical evidence on the extent of crop diversification and assess its merits as a strategy for improving production efficiency in Afghanistan. The transformed Herfindahl–Harshman index is used to measure the scale and magnitude of crop diversification. I find a compelling evidence that diversifying production portfolios significantly improves production efficiencies. This finding is critical, given that the data show that nearly a third of the farm households do not diversify, achieving, on average, about 52% of potential revenues. The estimated efficiency scores reveal that, on average, the farm households in our analytical sample of over 7,000 households achieve 74% of potential revenue, with nearly 15% of households realizing less than 50% and about 23% between 50% and 70% of potential revenue. These results infer that there exist substantial inefficacies in agricultural production that can be eliminated by employing improved management practices without having to use additional inputs and production resources and rising cost of production. Our results are robust to potential endogeneity bias in crop diversification; I account for the endogeneity problem in the stochastic frontier analysis, by employing a recent estimation approach, using instrumental variable techniques. Mapping the spatial distribution of crop diversification index and estimated efficiency scores across the country revealed that districts with higher diversification levels correspond to higher efficiency indices. Aside from crop diversification, other socio-economic factors also have critical implications for efficiency; households with access to farm assets (such as land, cattle, oxen and tractor) and extension services appear to realize substantially higher production efficiencies. A direct policy recommendation that can be generated from the findings of this study is that crop diversification should be given more recognition by policymakers to enhance productivity and resilience in agriculture.

Production Efficiencies of the Nigerian Agricultural Insurance Corporation (NAIC) Insured and Non-NAIC Insured Livestock Farmers in Kwara State, Nigeria

This study used structured questionnaire to randomly collect data from livestock farmers insured under the NAIC scheme and their counterparts not under the NAIC scheme in Kwara State. The study comparatively examined their socio-economic characteristics and production efficiencies using The Stochastic Frontier Analysis and t-test. Results from the study showed that not enough youths participate in livestock production in the study area and it is a male dominated activity. A lot of non-beneficiaries of the NAIC intervention scheme are not members of cooperatives and losing out in the benefits of cooperative membership. The insured farmers are more efficient compared to those that were not insured with both having potentials for increasing their efficiency of production at the moment. The study therefore recommend that youths of ages 35years and below be encourage and provided some incentives to participate in livestock farming as well as women to check the gender imbalance of male dominance. Awareness of NAIC intervention schemes is created for livestock farmers who are not registered for the scheme while beneficiaries are made ambassadors of the scheme to have it promoted to non-beneficiaries. Livestock farmers that do not belong to any cooperative are recommended to form or belong to one so as to access the benefits of belonging to a cooperative group. The study also recommends that stakeholders in the Nigerian Agricultural insurance subsector develop strategies that will encourage much participation in their insurance interventions and also create more awareness among farming households to encourage participation in the program.

Pyrene-containing conjugated organic microporous polymers for photocatalytic hydrogen evolution from water

Pyrene based conjugated microporous polymers (CMPs) as photocatalysts with promising H2 production efficiencies and very high stability.

A Study on the Coupling Coordination between Forestry Production Efficiency and Regional Economic Development in China

Forestry production is one of the fundamental industries of the national economy, and enhancing production efficiency can aid in balancing the contradiction between the economic growth of forestry and forest resource conservation. Therefore, studying the coupling coordination between forestry production efficiency and regional economic development is of great practical significance for obtaining the development philosophy of green and circular economies and implementing supply-side structural reform in forestry. In this study, the forestry production efficiencies and economic development levels of 31 provincial-level administrative regions of China during 2009 to 2018 are estimated using the super efficiency slacks-based measure model and the entropy weight method. Additionally, the coupling coordination and development trends of forestry production efficiencies and regional economic development levels are investigated by means of the coupling coordination model and GM (1,1) model. Research findings suggest that forestry production efficiencies and economic development levels of 31 provincial-level administrative regions in China maintained steadily growing trends during 2009 to 2018; however, there was middle to low-level coupling coordination between regions. Such coupling coordination remains to be improved because it indicated a spatial pattern of high in the east and south and low in the west and north. To conclude, some suggestions for promoting sound and coordinated interactions between forestry production efficiency and regional economic development are offered.

Evaluation of a Novel Shallow Aggregate Ebb-and-flood Culture System and Transplant Size Effects on Hydroponic Basil Yield

Ornamental bedding plant operations transitioning to leafy greens and herb production must decide whether to invest in new hydroponic equipment or modify existing culture systems for edible crops. In addition, common practices used to increase space-use and production efficiencies during bedding plant production may be modified for hydroponic leafy greens and herbs, such as purchasing large seedlings for transplant. The objective of the first experiment was to evaluate plant growth in a modified and novel shallow aggregate ebb-and-flood (SAEF) system intended for bedding plant growers with an emphasis on comparing yield across four basil (Ocimum basilicum) cultivars grown in the SAEF system to those grown using the traditional nutrient film technique (NFT) and deep water culture (DWC) hydroponic systems. The second experiment objective was to evaluate basil seedling size and the time of transplant to NFT hydroponic systems to determine effects on the final yield. ‘Genovese’ basil seedlings were grown in trays with cell counts of 32, 50, 72, 105, and 162 cells with corresponding root volumes per plant of 98.1, 50.2, 38.5, 19.6, and 16.3 cm3, respectively. Seedlings were transplanted to NFT systems at 14, 21, and 28 days after sowing and were harvested at 35 days. In the first experiment, overall basil shoot fresh and dry weights per plant were intermediate in the SAEF system (90.4 and 8.3 g) compared with the DWC (102.6 and 9.1 g) and NFT (75.8 and 6.6 g) hydroponic systems. In the second experiment, final shoot fresh and dry weight per plant increased as seedling root volume increased from 16.3 cm3 [72.8 and 5.5 g (162-cell tray)] to 98.1 cm3 [148.5 and 12.2 g (32-cell tray)]. Transplanting seedlings at later dates decreased yield across tray size and root volume treatments. Differences in yield between culture systems may have resulted from differences in nutrient supply and availability for plant uptake. Transplant of large seedling plugs to hydroponic culture was not shown to increase space-use efficiency after transplant without compromising yield, likely because root zone factors limited growth during seedling production. Further investigation into maximizing plant growth during seedling production and evaluating the effects of seedling size and transplant practices are needed to determine the potential for increasing space-use and production efficiencies.