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This paper aims to investigate the optimization of window and shading designs to reduce the building energy consumption of a standard office room while improving occupants' comfort in Tehran and Auckland.

The NSGA-II algorithm, as a multi-objective optimization method, is applied in this study. First, a comparison of the effects of each variable on all objectives in both cities is conducted. Afterwards, the optimal solutions and the most undesirable scenarios for each city are presented for architects and decision-makers to select or avoid.

The results indicate that, in both cities, the number of slats and their distance from the wall are the most influential variables for shading configurations. Additionally, occupants' thermal comfort in Auckland is much better than in Tehran, while the latter city can receive more daylight. Furthermore, the annual energy use in Tehran can be significantly reduced by using a proper shading device and window-to-wall ratio (WWR), while building energy consumption, especially heating, is negligible in Auckland.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study that compares the differences in window and shading design between two cities, Tehran and Auckland, with similar latitudes but located in different hemispheres. The outcomes of this study can benefit two groups: firstly, architects and decision-makers can choose an appropriate WWR and shading to enhance building energy efficiency and occupants' comfort. Secondly, researchers who want to study window and shading systems can implement this approach for different climates.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a selected bibliography of recent resources on library instruction and information literacy.

Introduces and annotates periodical articles, monographs, and audiovisual material examining library instruction and information literacy.

Provides information about each source, discusses the characteristics of current scholarship, and describes sources that contain unique scholarly contributions and quality reproductions.

The information may be used by librarians and interested parties as a quick reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy.

In spite of the effectiveness of opioid antagonist treatment (OAT) in reducing injecting drug use and needle sharing, programmes in prison continue to be largely stigmatised. This affects programme participation and the quality of programmes delivered. This study aims to explore how Indonesian prison staff and prisoners perceived and experienced stigma relating to prison OAT programmes and identify potential strategies to alleviate this stigma.

Three prisons in Indonesia were selected as part of a qualitative case study. Two of the prisons provided OAT, in the form of methadone maintenance treatment (MMT). Purposive and snowball sampling were used to recruit study participants. In total, 57 semi-structured interviews were conducted with prison governors, health-care staff, prison officers and prisoners. Prisoners included both participants and non-participants in methadone programmes. The data were analysed thematically.

MMT programme participants were perceived by both prison staff and other prisoners to be engaged in illicit drug use, and as lazy, poor, dirty and unproductive people. They were also presumed to be HIV-positive. These multi-layered, intersectional sources of (inter-personal) stigma amplified the effects on prisoners affecting not only their quality of life and mental health but also their access to prison parole programmes, and therefore the possibility of early release. In addition, organisational factors – notably non-confidential programme delivery and lack of both family and institutional supports for methadone prisoners – exacerbated the stigmatisation of MMT programme participants.

Effective strategies to alleviate stigma surrounding OAT programmes such as MMT programmes are urgently needed to ensure participation in and the quality of programmes in prisons.

Many prisoners reported experiencing stigma relating to their participation in MMT programmes in both the methadone prisons studied. They often emphasised the ways that this stigmatisation was amplified by the ways that MMT programme participation was associated with drug use and HIV infection. However, these intersecting experiences and concerns were not recognised by health-care staff or other prison staff. Effective strategies to alleviate stigma surrounding OAT programmes such as MMT programmes are urgently needed to ensure participation in and the quality of programmes in prisons.

Opioid agonist treatment (OAT) programmes in prisons play a significant role in preventing the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Despite its proven effectiveness, both the availability and coverage of prison OAT programmes remain low. This Indonesian study explores facilitators of, and barriers to, the delivery of methadone programmes in prisons using the social ecological model (SEM).

The study used a qualitative case study approach comprising two prisons with, and one prison without, methadone programmes. Purposive and snowball sampling was used to recruit study participants. In total, 57 in-depth interviews were conducted with prison governors, health-care staff, prison officers and prisoners. Data was analysed thematically.

The study findings identified facilitators of and barriers to the delivery of prison OAT programmes at all three levels of the SEM as follows: intrapersonal barriers including misperceptions relating to HIV transmission, the harm reduction role of OAT programmes, methadone dependency and withdrawal symptoms; interpersonal barriers such as inflexible OAT treatment processes and the wide availability of illicit drugs in prisons and; social-structural barriers, notably the general lack of resources.

The findings highlight the importance of and overlap between, organisational and inter-personal, as well as intrapersonal factors. Such an approach is particularly important in the context of the implementation and delivery of methadone programmes in low/middle income countries, where the lack of resources is so significant.

Three main strategies for improvement were suggested as follows: the development of comprehensive education and training programmes for prisoners and all prison staff; the re-assessment of practices relating to the delivery of methadone, and a comprehensive review of harm reduction strategy in prisons, that should consider the role of prisoners’ families to increase support for prisoner participation; the re-assessment of prison policies to support the delivery of methadone programmes in prisons.

The author suggests that ongoing international support and national drug policies are vital to the continuation and sustainability of methadone programmes in prisons.

This study contributes to the overall evidence base for OAT programmes in middle-income prison contexts.

The purpose of this study is to analyze magnetohydrodynamic three-dimensional flow of Casson nanofluid over a stretching sheet in presence of thermophoresis and Brownian motion effects. In contrast, the convective surface boundary conditions with the effects of radiation are applied.

The governing partial differential equations are transformed into highly nonlinear coupled ordinary differential equations consisting of the momentum, energy and nanoparticle concentration via suitable similarity transformations, which are then solved the using optimal homotopy analysis method (OHAM) a Mathematica Package BVPh2.0.

The influence of emerging physical flow parameters on fluid velocity component, temperature distribution and nanoparticle concentration are discussed in detail. Also, an OHAM solution demonstrates very good correlation with those obtained in the previously published results. It is noticed that OHAM can overcome the earlier restriction, assumptions and limitation of traditional perturbation method. The main advantage of this method is that OHAM can be applied directly to nonlinear differential equations without using linearization and round-off errors, and therefore, it cannot be affected by error associated to discretization.

Here the approximate solutions are compared with the numerical results published in earlier work.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically explore how the effect of intellectual capital (IC) on organizational performance is indirect and mediated through performance measurement (PM) systems.

Data were collected from a survey of 128 chief financial officers of Iranian publicly listed companies. Hypotheses were tested using partial least squares regression, a structural modeling technique which is appropriate for highly complex predictive models.

Results from the structural model indicate that, in general, companies with a higher level of IC place a premium on the balanced use of PM systems in a diagnostic and interactive style. Furthermore, the results provide some evidence that IC is indirectly associated with organizational performance through the intervening variable of the balanced use of interactive and diagnostic PM systems.

This study sheds light on the issue of how senior management should use PM systems to take full advantage of intellectual assets which could lead to improved organizational performance.

This is the first study of its kind to synthesize a model which examines IC, PM systems, and organizational performance. Although the effect of different types of intangible assets on performance has been substantially examined in the literature, less effort has been devoted to understanding the role of PM systems in leveraging an organization’s IC.

This paper aims to present an adaptive robust sliding mode tracking controller for a 6 degree-of-freedom industrial assembly robot with parametric uncertainties and external disturbances. The controller is used to achieve both stringent trajectory tracking, accurate parameter estimations and robustness against external disturbances.

The controller is designed based on the combination of sliding mode control, adaptive and robust controls and hence has good adaptation and robustness abilities to parametric variations and uncertainties. The unknown parameter estimates are updated online based on a discontinuous projection adaptation law. The robotic dynamics is first formulated in both joint spaces and workspace of the robot’s end-effector. Then, the design procedure of the adaptive robust sliding mode tracking controller and the parameter update law is detailed.

Comparative tests are also conducted to verify the effectiveness of the proposed controller, which show that the proposed controller achieves significantly better dynamic trajectory tracking performances as compared with conventional proportional derivative controller and sliding mode controller under the same conditions.

This is a new innovation for industrial assembly robot to improve assembly automation.