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The journal retracts the article “Improvement in the Poverty Status of Ecological Migrants under the Urban Resettlement Model: An Empirical Study in China” by Guo et al. [...]

The new museum movement of the twentieth century has driven the development of the form and function of museums around the world. Museums began to be actively open to the public, and some new concepts of museums, such as eco-museums and community museums, emerged. The aim of these museums is to build a cultural bridge between people and the city and to promote the harmonious development of society, economy, and culture. The visitors, as the service targets of the museum, will directly influence the popularity of the museum among the masses by their evaluation of the museum experience; however, at present, there is a clear gap between the design of many museums and the feedback of subsequent visitors’ experiences. Only by understanding visitors’ feelings and preferences can subsequent museum design be improved; this paper will focus on demonstrating the application of the mathematical idea of the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method to community museums; it establishes a community museum quality evaluation system based on human-centered design principles from the perspective of urban community museums and constructs a fuzzy comprehensive evaluation model of a community museum experience. Finally, the design of a community museum in Nottingham, UK, is used as an example to make a comprehensive evaluation of its quality. According to the analysis, the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method has practical value in scientifically evaluating the quality of urban community museums through data on the visitor experience.

In order to incentivise consumers to engage in sustainable consumption, a mobile application system is developed to implement an eco-incentive scheme, in which eco-credits are awarded to consumers who recycle and reuse end-of-life products and in which they can use the eco-credits for discounts in shopping, exchange the eco-credits for museum/theatre tickets, or make donations for tree planting. In this paper, the related concept and eco-incentive scheme are introduced first; the infrastructure of the mobile application system is presented; and the process of system development is detailed. The mobile system infrastructure consists of three layers: a database server; communication and integration; and four functional modules including user registration and login, obtaining eco-credits, spending/donating eco-credits, and viewing eco-credit history. Multiple mobile development techniques are utilised to implement the mobile application system. A case study was conducted, demonstrating that the mobile application for eco-incentive can efficiently support consumers in recycling products and managing their reward records. The literature review and user survey revealed that there has not been a mobile application system with the eco-incentive functions of the mobile app presented in this paper, which indicates the novelty of this research.

Urban areas around the world are increasingly facing environmental challenges such as water scarcity, water pollution, and water-related disasters, which demands sustainable design solutions for cities. Efforts to introduce sustainable methods in architectural education are noteworthy since the early 1990s. However, Water Sensitive Design (WSD) has not been fully integrated to architectural education. WSD is an interdisciplinary approach that considers the water cycle as the primary element of design strategies, integrating the site’s ecological and social aspects to structure water management. The main objective of this study is to identify cases introducing WSD in an architecture design studio revealing its pedagogical approaches, comparing and discussing with a WSD-focused design studio. This study adapts on an exploratory and descriptive research, analyzing the literature on the topic of WSD in architectural education and documenting a graduate-level architectural design studio that proposes the development of water-oriented masterplan. The results suggest that WSD, as interdisciplinary method, can be incorporated into the design studio as the topic due to its tangible tools and strategies towards water. It also fits the proposal of a design studio to integrate knowledge from diverse disciplines. This unique study presents a comprehensive WSD introduction in an architectural design case and indicative pedagogical methods, contributing to the development of an approach for future related works.

In recent years, the aircraft industry has made significant advancements in technology in the context of fuel consumption, maintenance, and performance. The most promising developments in terms of fuel efficiency and minimization of emissions are through future generations of turboprop aircraft (i.e., those generating thrust from a propeller). One important drawback with turboprop aircraft is that they tend to have noisier cabins, and there is an increased level of discomfort from vibration due to the tonality that is present. Human comfort perception is a key factor for aircraft manufacturers in the design of airframes and aircraft interiors. Noise and vibration are major sources of discomfort in aircraft cabins; hence, aircraft manufacturers are seeking to estimate passenger discomfort based on noise and vibration measurements in order to optimize the aircraft design. The aim of this research study is focused on building a comfort model for aircraft to enable designers and engineers to optimize the passengers’ traveling experience. In this paper, an experimental laboratory study is presented, determining the relative importance of noise and vibration for the turboprop aircraft cabin. The results show that with the increase in noise levels and vibration magnitudes, the overall human discomfort also increased. A linear comfort model is presented, allowing for the prediction of overall discomfort from measurements of turboprop noise and vibration for the optimization of aircraft cabins.

We develop a mixed-integer non-linear programming model for firms’ decarbonisation investment decision-making towards a sustainable environment. Our model seeks the optimal investment for a firm to achieve maximum profit under constraints derived from its environmental protection awareness and the government’s taxation policy. We use an uncertainty theory to formulate the relationship of a firm’s environmental protection awareness and its investment budget levels. Governments’ taxation policy is modelled by a step-wise linear function, where reduced carbon dioxide emission can help the firm reduce taxation. A linearisation is proposed to solve the non-linear problem efficiently. A case study for a sector of electronic component manufacturers in Nottingham, the United Kingdom, demonstrates the practical implementation of the proposed model. Several large-sized instances, which were randomly generated, were utilised to evaluate the the efficiency of model in terms of computational time. Our model can be used to explore budget options to obtain higher profits under a particular taxation policy.

Cold storage is an essential operation for many food products in cold supply chains. The main objective of this kind of storage is to preserve the food products for a certain period of time. However, often due to a lack of accurate technology, humidity and temperature in food storge are not monitored in real-time, which will affect the food quality. At present, the Internet of Things (IoT) has become a very popular choice for businesses in food supply chains. This is mainly because of the easy availability of internet, which helps monitor and control the quality of food in storage and transport. In this paper, the experiences of adapting and testing IoT sensors and Big Data technology for reducing food waste in a frozen food manufacturer in the UK are presented. The temperature and humidity monitoring within the operations of this ready-to-eat frozen meal company are also expected to maintain food quality and adhere to legal food safety requirements. Our reflection of experience gained in the installation of the sensors, collecting the data to a cloud server, and conducting data analytics with the data are also described. During the implementation of the technology, the company was able to identify optimal and non-optimal storage conditions for their food products and pre-processed ingredients. This allowed the further development of an alert system and corrective action protocol assisted using the technology installed. Results of the case study evidenced and reported a thorough real-time monitoring system that was able to reduce food waste and assure product quality, which could be applied in different stages of the food supply chain. This case can influence several food businesses to start adapting technology in their routine operations to ensure food quality and safety.

Human milk is the biological norm for newborn nutrition, with breast milk from the mother being recognized as the best source of nutrition for infant health. When the mother’s milk is unavailable, donor human milk is the best alternative for infants with low birthweights. Growing recognition of the benefits of donor human milk has led to increasing global interest in monitoring and controlling human milk’s quality to fulfil the need for donor human milk. In response to this need, the REAMIT project proposed to adapt and apply existing innovative technology to continuously monitor and record human milk quality and signal potential milk quality issues. IoT sensors and big data technology have been used to monitor conditions that may increase spoilage (such as temperature and humidity) in the transportation stage. The sensors were installed in the insulated bags used to transport the milk from the donor’s home or hospital to the human milk bank and vice versa. The temperature and humidity were collected every 30 min, whilst the GPS locator sent data every 2 min. The data are collected in the cloud using GPRS/CAT-M1 technology. An algorithm was designed to send alerts when the milk temperature is above the prespecified threshold specified by the organisation, i.e., above −20 °C. The experience showed evidence that IoT sensors can efficiently be used to monitor and maintain quality in supply chains of high-quality human milk. This rare product needs a high level of quality control, which is possible with the support of smart technologies. The IoT technology used can help the human milk supply chain in five different aspects, namely by reducing waste, assuring quality, improving availability, reducing cost and improving sustainability. This system could be extended to various supply chains of rare and precious commodities, including further medical supplies such as human blood and organs, to completely avoid waste and ensure total quality in supply chains.