Utilization of SVM, LSSVM and GP for Predicting the Medical Waste Generation

The prediction of wastes generated in the hospital will help their management for several activities like storage, transport and disposing. This chapter adopts Support Vector Machine (SVM), Least Square Support Vector Machine (LSSVM) and Genetic Programming (GP) in order to estimate the rate of medical waste generation. In the event of predicting the rate, type of hospital, capacity and bed occupancy has been used as inputs of SVM, LSSVM and GP. SVM is based on statistical learning theory, which provides an elegant tool for nonlinear system modeling. LSSVM is the re-formulation to the general SVM. GP, a best part of evolutionary algorithm and also the specification of Genetic Algorithm (GA). These SVM, LSSVM and GP have been used as the regression techniques. The results show the performance of the developed SVM, LSSVM and GP models were elegant and outstanding.

Accounting for Noise Pollution in Planning of Smart Cities

The incorporation of sustainable design measures in urban planning and development has been steadily increasing in the recent years. Achieving a sustainable urban environment requires accounting for the economic, environmental and social impacts of the development involved. An important factor affecting the social and environmental sustainability of urbanised areas which is commonly overlooked in urban planning is the noise pollution level. Despite the proven impacts of noise pollution on the general wellbeing of individuals within an urban setting, there remains a lack of systematic methods to integrate the impact of noise within the design of urban areas. This chapter seeks to raise awareness of the issue of noise pollution in urban settings while proposing novel approaches for its incorporation as a design parameter in planning the layout of smart cities.

Smart Homes and Sustainable Energy in Nigeria

In many developing countries, there is limited access to electricity with the populace typically resorting to purchasing personal electricity generating units. This research explores the factors affecting the possibility of introducing smart homes that would conserve electricity, reduce a need for reliance on the national grid and lower energy costs. Advantages and disadvantages, as well as the impact on society and development in general are examined in addition to future perspectives on smart homes and sustainable energy.

Quality of Resilient Cities, the Issue of Urban Waste

This chapter focuses on the metabolic concept for the management and treatment of construction waste and organic fraction of municipal solid waste in urban areas. Analysis of related Dutch, German and Polish guidelines for environmental zoning of industrial plants, allows formulation of conditions for an optimal siting of waste infrastructure within urban unit. Protection zones are defined in accordance with specific requirements for waste facilities, which treat and recycle both municipal and construction waste. Distances from inhabited areas are related to environmental burdens generated by such facilities (incl. parameters such as odours, noise level, explosion impacts and emissions of other substances). Moreover, this chapter provides the analysis of a selected case studies of waste facilities processing. A comparison of European guidelines and implementation of practical solutions is described in the case study analysis, including the issues open for the discussion about sustainable siting for waste processing infrastructure within an urban unit.

Smart City Solutions for India

Indian Government has proposed to develop 100 Smart Cities and 500 AMRUT (Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation) Cities in its overall commitment of sustainable development. The proposed study aims at documenting the potential and need of developing Smart cities in India, to understand smart city principles and various dimensions of smart city adopted in various parts of the world which will further help in deriving recommendations and lessons for India's future smart cities. The objective of this study is to generate learning and exploration that will improve confidence in civic authorities, experts, city planners, developers; and help stimulate further private sector investment in developing Smart cities of India.

Simulating Passive Design Strategies of Rural Residential Buildings in Severe Cold Regions of Northeast China

With a strong dependency on regions and climate, passive design is the most economically effective strategy to reduce energy consumption. Using Climate Consultant 5.5 software, data analysis is conducted to analyze 16 cities in Northeast China. The independent and integrated effectiveness of nine kinds of passive design strategy are studied like sun shading of windows, high thermal mass, high thermal mass night flushed, direct evaporative cooling, two-stage evaporative cooling, natural ventilation cooling, passive solar direct gain low mass, passive solar direct gain high mass, wind protection of outdoor spaces. The results show that passive solar heat gains are the most important passive design strategy, whether in the heating or non-heating season, with an average contribution rate of 14.64% and 28.38%, respectively. This study provides suggestions on passive design in severe cold regions in Northeast China. The effectiveness-evaluation tables proposed can be referred to by architects in their passive designs.

Sustainable Construction Materials

Due to ever increasing demand for the conventional construction materials as well as an increase in agro-industrial by-products it is essential to reuse these materials. As a smart city solution this chapter briefs an overview for the application of alternate raw materials as a principal source for the development of sustainable construction materials. The potential application of the discussed raw materials is elaborated as cementitious material, the aggregates as well as alternative reinforcement material. To understand the process of application, sustainable masonry product development is discussed in detail. In order to evaluate the feasibility of the raw material, the necessary physico-chemical test evaluation methods are also briefed. The developed end product performance evaluation is also discussed by desired tests as recommended by standards. The chapter concludes with a positive note that reuse of agro-industrial by-products is a feasible solution for the smart city development.

Total Quality Management in Smart City Development

Wastes and pollution are associated with an uncoordinated urbanization trend. This exploratory study investigates total quality management's (TQM) role in smart city development. It delineates smart cities and its conjoined relationship with digital cities. It submits to the complementary relationship between TQM and quality function deployment (QFD) and highlights stakeholder engagement as central to smart city development strategy, underpinned by social theory. It distils that stakeholders and built environment professionals need to work collaboratively to maximize the benefit of smart cities as being an innovation value chain, leading to the use of IT-enabled platform such as building information modelling (BIM). This culminates in the design of an integrative framework with ICT (focusing on BIM) and TQM serving as the information architecture and the ideological premise respectively. It then presents the close-loop (front-end) and open-loop (back-end) approaches to smart city development, discusses future research directions and concludes with implications.

Smart Resilience

Resilient cities are characterized by enough capacity to respond to internal and external changes and uncertainties. Crisis arises from unprepared residents and inadequate capacity of a community to adapt to hazards. It leads to pollution and wastes due to the recovery and reconstruction activities. Empirical data show that unavailability of accurate building information and poorly informed public contribute to most of the crisis. Building resilience is a fundamental component of community resilience. It determines the resilient capacity of a community. The chapter presents a theoretical framework of Building Resilience Information Modeling (BRIM), including a dynamic real-time hazard mapping module and a scaled building vulnerability indicator module, and how it supports multiple stakeholders to collaborate in decision making. It presents not only a solution to community resilience as a use case of smart cities, but also an innovative way of integrating social and environmental aspects in built environments in terms of collective intelligence oriented to anticipating hazards so as to resolve them proactively and effectively.

Towards Smart Urban Transportation System in Harare, Zimbabwe

The concept of smart transportation systems is increasingly becoming critical in addressing the challenges posed by an increasing number of mega cities in both developed and developing regions in maintaining safety, smooth traffic flow, and an environmentally friendly and sustainable urban environment. The Government of Zimbabwe deregulated its transport sector in the early 1990s. This development ushered in the informal public transport operators, locally referred to as ‘kombis'. Major cities such as Harare are characterised by a disjointed and chaotic urban public transport system. The major problems are the impacts this has on the quality of the environment. Currently, the urban public transport system is contributing greatly to both air and noise pollution within the confines of the city, especially in the Central Business Districts. The problem is further exacerbated by the massive importation of used vehicles from outside the country. These developments have resulted in high emission rates of major air pollutants resulting in a deterioration of the ambient air quality especially in the major cities such as Harare. Transportation is a major source of air pollutants. Vehicles are probably the largest single source of pollutants such as hydrocarbons, nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide. Other harmful emissions include as lead, benzene, arsenic, aldehydes, sulphates, particulate matter and the secondary creation of ozone. In Harare the number of registered vehicles increased from 192 901 in 1994 to 292 862 and by August 1999 showing that the increase in the number of vehicles is mostly in the cities. This chapter seeks to explore how smart transportation system can be adopted in Harare, the capital city of Zimbabwe. Harare was purposefully selected as it is experiencing rapid urbanization and motorization in the country. Using documentary analysis, discourse analysis and textual analysis, the chapter also describes and examines the challenges, constraints and opportunities of adopting smart urban transportation system in Harare. From this chapter the major conclusions are that the main problem associated with this rapid growth in vehicle population in the major cities is increase concentration of line and area emission sources due to traffic congestion at peak times. The stock of vehicles is quite old and they lack emission control equipment. Major constraints and limitations are observed in the current pieces of legislation. For example, the current Atmospheric Pollution Prevention Act (1971) does not require vehicles to be fitted with emission control equipment. Most of the vehicles use leaded fuel resulting in emission of the dangerous lead particulate matter in the urban areas. There is therefore an urgent need to design and implement air pollution control measures in the urban areas of the country. It is also critical to develop smart and eco-friendly transportation infrastructures so as to achieve sustainable urban communities. The integration of transportation, land use and decision making is also critical in the achievement of smart transport.