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The paucity of artisans in some construction trades and the transitioning of the experience of the few for sustainability calls for concern. Mentorship programmes offer a promising mechanism to support construction artisans through those transitions. Mentorship may enhance artisan decent work and economic growth, like increased income for artisans. This is part of Sustainable Development Goal 8 (Goal 8). Hence, this study aims to investigate issues hindering construction artisan skills growth and suggest measures to improve construction artisan skills through mentorship mechanisms to achieve Goal 8.

The study adopted a qualitative approach and collected data via oral interviews with knowledgeable participants. The participants were consultant experts in mentorship and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) matters, construction organisation management staffers and construction artisans in the Nigerian construction industry. The study covered Lagos and Abuja and achieved saturation at the 30th interviewee. Also, the research utilised a thematic method to analyse the collated data.

Enhanced knowledge sharing accelerates junior artisans’ learning skills quickly, improving artisans’ performance, ensuring sustainability of the skills learned (knowledge retention), encouraging collaboration, building the next generation of leaders and transitioning of experience to mentees emerged as mentorship’s role in developing construction artisans’ skills. Findings show that mentorship mechanisms to develop construction artisan skills face encumbrances. The perceived 32 encumbrances were re-clustered into mentee, mentor and government-related encumbrances. Also, achieving Goal 8 regarding construction artisans may be threatened if these issues are not checked. Thus, the study recommended measures improving construction artisan skills through mentorship mechanisms to achieve Goal 8.

Identifying the major encumbrances facing construction artisan skills improvement through mentorship would be useful to advocate measures to improve construction artisan’s skills to achieve Goal 8.

Despite the global shift toward smart building features and technologies, the level of awareness among stakeholders in Nigeria’s construction sector remains unclear, limiting engagement with these innovations. This study examines the awareness of smart building features and technologies, providing insights to address knowledge gaps and improve understanding within the sector.

This study adopted the quantitative research approach, using a questionnaire survey to obtain data from construction stakeholders that were purposively selected in Lagos State and Abuja, Nigeria. The collected data were analyzed using various statistical tools such as frequencies, percentiles, mean item scores, standard deviation and the Mann–Whitney U test.

From the result of the analysis, the study concluded that the most cognizant smart building features and technology were security doors, escalators and lifts, solar panels and energy-saving equipment, fire alarms, heating, ventilation, air and conditioning.

This study provides insights into the awareness of smart building features and technologies among Nigerian construction stakeholders, bridging theory and practice. It informs policy development, enhances professional knowledge and promotes educational initiatives. Its findings support sustainable construction efforts, potentially improving societal attitudes and quality of life.

This study uniquely explores the level of awareness of smart building features and technologies among clients and professionals in Nigeria’s construction sector. Identifying existing knowledge gaps provides critical insights that can guide efforts to enhance understanding and foster deeper engagement with these innovations.

Vertical urban settlements are becoming the predominant form of contemporary urban design in response to population increase and rapid urbanization. These developments are, however, perceived to be poorly designed and incongruent with the users’ needs. The purpose of this study was to present a resident satisfaction assessment of Hong Kong’s vertical settlements.

A review of the literature was conducted on the concept of vertical urbanism, residential satisfaction and postoccupancy evaluation. Fifty performance indicators were classified into three groups including indoor environment, safety and maintenance; furniture, utilities and spaces; and privacy, appearance and city life. These indicators were used to develop a Web-based questionnaire administered to residents in the three administrative regions of Hong Kong. Ninety-eight respondents participated in the study, and the results were analyzed using the resident satisfaction index and the overall satisfaction index. A multilinear regression analysis was also made to develop a model describing the most relevant performance indicators for determining the overall residential satisfaction.

The results revealed that residents expressed dissatisfaction with performance indicators, including “level of noise generated from outside the building (neighboring buildings, traffic, noise, etc.),” “variation and stability of indoor temperature,” “sustainable design of the building’s environment (cyclability, walkability, electric charging stations, etc.),” “availability and capacity of car parking,” “size and adequacy of spaces for social interaction” and “considerations for occupants with special needs (disabled, aged people, children, occupants with a medical condition, etc.).” The results also revealed that some indicators such as the maintenance of elevators, adequate interior space and surrounding areas were considered as significantly influencing residential satisfaction. Similarly, the building height and wind-induced motion were not significantly influencing residential satisfaction. The results also revealed that a multilinear Regression model with five variables and an adjusted R² value of 93% could estimate the overall residential satisfaction.

The concept of vertical urban design is the new paradigm in the shaping of future cities. The originality of this study is its adoption of post-occupancy evaluation to assess occupants’ residential satisfaction. As well as the determination of factors that should inform the planning, design and management of vertical urban settlements. Thus, the study has significant implications for research in vertical urban development, as well as the professional practice of building and urban planners, designers and managers.

This research purpose was to develop a Value-Focused Thinking (VFT)-based framework for implementing an Agile-BIM in public institutions in Brazil. The framework is used for structuring an action plan for implementing the Agile-BIM.

The methodology used to structure the Agile-BIM implementation framework is based on the VFT method, which enables a decision-maker’s strategic, fundamental and means-end objectives for the context analyzed to be more easily identified and better understood. The network developed shapes the decision context, shows possible paths toward achieving the fundamental objectives and guides the institution under study on the implementation process. Based on the networks of two decision-makers and the implementation factors identified, the Agile-BIM implementation framework is proposed.

The study developed an Agile-BIM implementation framework that provides guidance for creating an Agile-BIM implementation plan in a public sector construction project and supports decision-making, in addition to clarifying the decision context for decision-makers and other actors involved. The framework consists of three main dimensions: “Project Stakeholder,” “Technology Infrastructure” and “Standardization and Procedures.” Each dimension comprises several factors that contribute to the Agile-BIM implementation process. The findings show that a structured approach to Agile-BIM implementation can support institutions in achieving a smooth and structured transition to BIM usage, thereby ensuring enhanced performance and compliance with legal requirements.

The proposed framework can support the assessment of organizational needs and serves as a basis for guiding the implementation of Agile-BIM in public institutions. This framework for Agile-BIM implementation can guide other public institutions in formulating their action plans for implementing Agile-BIM. The framework demonstrates potential for being applicable in different contexts and being able to adapt to these. It can be transferred to other emerging and/or developing countries that are seeking to embrace Agile-BIM while considering the requisite adjustments inherent to each organization.

The originality of this study lies in addressing the implementation of BIM in the public sector as a decision problem and using the values of the manager who is in charge in the institution to structure the Agile-BIM implementation, based on the VFT method. Furthermore, it proposes an implementation framework that integrates agile methodologies and BIM, known as Agile-BIM.

Recently, there has been a shift toward the embodied energy assessment of buildings. However, the impact of material service life on the life-cycle embodied energy has received little attention. We aimed to address this knowledge gap, particularly in the context of the UAE and investigated the embodied energy associated with the use of concrete and other materials commonly used in residential buildings in the hot desert climate of the UAE.

Using input–output based hybrid analysis, we quantified the life-cycle embodied energy of a villa in the UAE with over 50 years of building life using the average, minimum, and maximum material service life values. Mathematical calculations were performed using MS Excel, and a detailed bill of quantities with >170 building materials and components of the villa were used for investigation.

For the base case, the initial embodied energy was 57% (7390.5 GJ), whereas the recurrent embodied energy was 43% (5,690 GJ) of the life-cycle embodied energy based on average material service life values. The proportion of the recurrent embodied energy with minimum material service life values was increased to 68% of the life-cycle embodied energy, while it dropped to 15% with maximum material service life values.

The findings provide new data to guide building construction in the UAE and show that recurrent embodied energy contributes significantly to life-cycle energy demand. Further, the study of material service life variations provides deeper insights into future building material specifications and management considerations for building maintenance.

This paper aims to focus on identifying key health-care issues amenable to digital twin (DT) approach. It starts with a description of the concept and enabling technologies of a DT and then discusses potential applications of DT solutions in healthcare facilities management (FM) using four different scenarios. The scenario planning focused on monitoring and controlling the heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning system in real-time; monitoring indoor air quality (IAQ) to monitor the performance of medical equipment; monitoring and tracking pulsed light for SARS-Cov-2; and monitoring the performance of medical equipment affected by radio frequency interference (RFI).

The importance of a healthcare facility, its systems and equipment necessitates an effective FM practice. However, the FM practices adopted have several areas for improvement, including the lack of effective real-time updates on performance status, asset tracking, bi-directional coordination of changes in the physical facilities and the computational resources that support and monitor them. Consequently, there is a need for more intelligent and holistic FM systems. We propose a DT which possesses the key features, such as real-time updates and bi-directional coordination, which can address the shortcomings in healthcare FM. DT represents a virtual model of a physical component and replicates the physical data and behavior in all instances. The replication is attained using sensors to obtain data from the physical component and replicating the physical component's behavior through data analysis and simulation. This paper focused on identifying key healthcare issues amenable to DT approach. It starts with a description of the concept and enabling technologies of a DT and then discusses potential applications of DT solutions in healthcare FM using four different scenarios.

The scenarios were validated by industry experts and concluded that the scenarios offer significant potential benefits for the deployment of DT in healthcare FM such as monitoring facilities’ performance in real-time and improving visualization by integrating the 3D model.

In addition to inadequate literature addressing healthcare FM, the study was also limited to one of the healthcare facilities of a large public university, and the scope of the study was limited to IAQ including pressure, relative humidity, carbon dioxide and temperature. Additionally, the study showed the potential benefits of DT application in healthcare FM using various scenarios that DT experts validated.

The study shows the practical implication using the various validated scenarios and identified enabling technologies. The combination and implementation of those mentioned above would create a system that can effectively help manage facilities and improve facilities' performances.

The only identifiable social solution is that the proposed system in this study can manually be overridden to prevent absolute autonomous control of the smart system in cases when needed.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the only study that has addressed healthcare FM using the DT approach. This research is an excerpt from an ongoing dissertation.

Studies show that building information modelling (BIM) technology can improve construction productivity regarding the design, construction and maintenance of a project life cycle in the 21st century. Revit has been identified as a frequently used tool for delivering BIM in the built environment. Studies about BIM technology via Revit are scarce in training middle-level workforce higher education institutions. Thus, this study aims to investigate the relevance of BIM technology and offer measures to promote digitalisation in Nigeria’s built environment polytechnic undergraduates via Revit.

Given the unexplored nature of training the middle-level workforce in Nigeria, 37 semi-structured virtual interviews were conducted across Nigeria, and saturation was achieved. The participants were knowledgeable about construction-related BIM. The researchers used a thematic analysis for the collected data and honed them with secondary sources.

Improved visualisation of design, effective and efficient work productivity, automatic design and quantification, improved database management and collaboration and data storage in the centrally coordinated model, among others, emerged as BIM’s benefits. BIM technology via Revit is challenging, especially in Nigeria’s polytechnic education curriculum. The 24 perceived issues were grouped into government/regulatory agencies-related, polytechnic management-related and polytechnic undergraduate students-related hindrances in Nigeria’s built environment.

This study is limited to BIM implications for Nigeria’s built environment polytechnic undergraduates.

This study contributes to the literature paucity in attempting to uncover perceived issues hindering the implementation of BIM technology via Revit in training Nigeria’s built environment polytechnic undergraduates via a qualitative approach.

This study aims to examine the influence of brand awareness on brand equity with the mediating role of brand association and perceived quality.

This research is applied in terms of the objective and descriptive survey in terms of methodology because its objective is to describe the studied conditions or phenomena and also the relationship between research variables that have been conducted in the field method.

The results explained that 53% of respondents are female and 47% of respondents are male. Most respondents are between 30 and 40 years old, and the youngest respondents are less than 30 years old. Most respondents were specialists, and the 134 respondents were subspecialists. The results explained that the significance level of the Kolmogorov–Smirnov test for research variables is less than 0.05 and has an abnormal distribution. The abnormality of the data in this study directed the authors to use PLS software to analyze the data.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is the first time that research is prepared to study the impact of these marketing parameters on dentists’ prescription behavior.

The study aims to promote the use of qualitative methods in service research by investigating how these methods are reported in service journals, how the level of reporting has evolved and whether methodological reporting influences the downloads or citations received by qualitative articles.

Methodological reporting practices were identified through content analysis of 318 qualitative articles published in three major service research journals and comparison with prior methodological literature. Regression analysis was used to test how the level of methodological reporting influences article downloads and citations.

The study identifies 29 reporting practices related to 9 key methodological reporting areas. The overall level of methodological reporting in published qualitative articles has increased over time. While differences in the level of reporting between service journals persist, they are narrowing. The level of methodological reporting did not influence downloads or citations of qualitative articles.

Service scholars using qualitative methods should pay attention to methodological reporting as it can improve the chances of being published. Factors such as theoretical contributions are likely to have a greater influence on article impact than methodological reporting.

No prior study has explored methodological reporting practices across different qualitative methodologies or how reporting influences article impact. For authors, reviewers and editors, the study provides an inventory of reporting practices relevant for evaluating qualitative articles, which should lower barriers for qualitative methods in service research by providing practical guidelines on what to focus on when reporting and assessing qualitative research.