This study proposes both steel and fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) composites as main reinforcement for modern reinforced concrete (RC) moment-resisting frame (MRF) structures. A detailed three-dimensional finite element model (3D FEM), which takes into account the material and geometric nonlinearity and the bond behavior of steel and glass FRP (GFRP) reinforcement, was created and validated against the available experimental results. 54 cases covering several combinations of steel-to-GFRP reinforcements and design scenarios (under and over reinforced design scenarios) were studied. The analysis results of steel-FRP reinforced concrete (SFRC) joints pointed to the ratio between the effective FRP reinforcement ratio and the balanced FRP reinforcement ratio (the normalized reinforcement ratio) as the main design tool that can be adopted to achieve a predefined seismic behavior. Moreover, a definition is given to the lower and upper limits of the normalized ratio. Design recommendations regarding the controllability of the serviceability state, the post-yielding state, the ultimate state, and the residual strength of SFRC joints through an appropriate design for the steel-to-FRP mixing ratio are drawn. Ultimately, a mechanical model describing the behavior of SFCR joints with different steel-to-FRP reinforcement ratios is introduced based on the general behaviors of the simulated joints.

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Indoor environment has a potential impact on health by influencing behaviors, actions, and interactions of patients and their families as well as the health providers. The motto of health professionals since Hippocrates “First, do no harm” seems to be not widely followed in recent times. Unhealthy buildings can cause a lot of illnesses to occupants. Sick building syndrome (SBS) is a poorly understood phenomenon where people have a range of symptoms related to a certain building and there is no specific identifiable cause. The effect of poor indoor environmental quality (IEQ) is not only on physical health of the building occupants, but also on their psychological health. Through extensive review, the paper addresses different factors, which affect both physical and psychological health of occupants in healing environments. These factors are divided into two main categories; (a) spatial factors, which include the architecture design of the space, views of nature and nature images, indoor plants and landscaping, wayfinding and orientation of the space, pleasant color scheme, the presence of coordinated art objects, furniture layout, and video and virtual reality environments; and (b) environmental factors include air quality and freshness, availability of daylight, thermal comfort, and acoustic quality. Since hospitals are profoundly different from other types of buildings, the study focused on integrating the aforementioned factors toward an optimal healing environment for children in a state pediatric hospital in Assiut city, which has potential impacts on occupant satisfaction and wellbeing. Based on a comprehensive literature review, the paper also summarizes both negative and positive factors, which provide a point of departure for further investigation and exploration within the field of IEQ in healing environments.

Indoor environment has a potential impact on health by influencing behaviors, actions, and interactions of patients and their families as well as the health providers. The motto of health professionals since Hippocrates “First, do no harm” seems to be not widely followed in recent times. Unhealthy buildings can cause a lot of illnesses to occupants. Sick building syndrome (SBS) is a poorly understood phenomenon where people have a range of symptoms related to a certain building and there is no specific identifiable cause. The effect of poor indoor environmental quality (IEQ) is not only on physical health of the building occupants, but also on their psychological health. Through extensive review, the paper addresses different factors, which affect both physical and psychological health of occupants in healing environments. These factors are divided into two main categories; (a) spatial factors, which include the architecture design of the space, views of nature and nature images, indoor plants and landscaping, wayfinding and orientation of the space, pleasant color scheme, the presence of coordinated art objects, furniture layout, and video and virtual reality environments; and (b) environmental factors include air quality and freshness, availability of daylight, thermal comfort, and acoustic quality. Since hospitals are profoundly different from other types of buildings, the study focused on integrating the aforementioned factors toward an optimal healing environment for children in a state pediatric hospital in Assiut city, which has potential impacts on occupant satisfaction and wellbeing. Based on a comprehensive literature review, the paper also summarizes both negative and positive factors, which provide a point of departure for further investigation and exploration within the field of IEQ in healing environments.

Cultural heritage is neither static nor stable. There is a need to explore ways for effectively communicating with cultural heritage to tourists and society at large, in an age of immediacy, a time of multiple realities and to multi-cultural tourists. It is vital to consider cultural heritage as a creative and relational process where places and communities are constantly remade through creative performance. The paper introduces virtual technologies as an approach to attain effective communication with cultural heritage. This approach emphasizes the importance of “user, content and context” in guiding the production of virtual heritage, as opposed to technology being the sole motivator. It addresses how these three issues in virtual heritage need to be transformed from merely representing quantitative data towards cultural information using the proposed effective communication triangle through representing meaningful relationships between cultural heritage elements, users and context. The paper offers a focused articulation of a proposed computational platform of “interactive, personalized and contextual-based navigation” with Egyptian heritage monuments as a one step forward towards achieving effective communication with Egyptian cultural heritage.

Cultural heritage is neither static nor stable. There is a need to explore ways for effectively communicating with cultural heritage to tourists and society at large, in an age of immediacy, a time of multiple realities and to multi-cultural tourists. It is vital to consider cultural heritage as a creative and relational process where places and communities are constantly remade through creative performance. The paper introduces virtual technologies as an approach to attain effective communication with cultural heritage. This approach emphasizes the importance of “user, content and context” in guiding the production of virtual heritage, as opposed to technology being the sole motivator. It addresses how these three issues in virtual heritage need to be transformed from merely representing quantitative data towards cultural information using the proposed effective communication triangle through representing meaningful relationships between cultural heritage elements, users and context. The paper offers a focused articulation of a proposed computational platform of “interactive, personalized and contextual-based navigation” with Egyptian heritage monuments as a one step forward towards achieving effective communication with Egyptian cultural heritage.

The World Health Organization estimated in 2014 that 285 million people worldwide are visually impaired: 39 million are blind and 246 million have low vision. Islam is a universal religion; achieving equality is one of its most important values. Islam is a faith community in which everybody interacts with everybody else. The Holy Quraan mentioned the disabled as part of our life, discussed their rights and urged to take care of them in more than one place. Therefore, everyone has a responsibility to contribute to the best of their ability. In order to achieve equality for blind people, a suitable environment should be offered to them to facilitate their mobility in public spaces and holy spaces like Mosques. Mobility and orientation are very challenging for blind or visually impaired persons. Difficulties in wayfinding may cause stress and anxiety, which may discourage them to visit unknown places. Therefore, blind Muslims have the right to navigate inside mosques without any direct help, providing essential information for them, such as Qibla direction, ablution places and other facilities. Several mobile applications have been developed to help blind or visually impaired people to find their ways in large spatial environments, yet religious environments require such applications to help B/VI people navigate inside mosques without direct help. Most of these applications depend mainly on GPS. However, it is argued that GPS is inadequate for indoor localization due to the loss of GPS signal indoors. Accordingly, this paper introduces an indoor positioning system, relying on Bluetooth devices.

Physical heritage objects and assets are related to a vast amount of digital information of different kinds, which are challenging to be communicated to visitors in understandable and engaging ways. Yet recent technological advances promise new opportunities to more tightly merge the digital with the physical world. This paper therefore introduces the concept of “phygital heritage”, the integration of digital technology ‘into’ physical reality, as a potential medium for more enriched and playful communication of heritage values and qualities. We propose that phygital heritage should enable the exploitation of typical advantages of both digital and physical reality, and that distinct categories of phygital can be recognized based on: 1) the level of physical affordance; and 2) in how far the technology is integrated into the physical reality. The paper also opens the discussion about the potential challenges and concerns which future explorations, scientific research and real-world applications of phygital heritage probably will encounter.

Physical heritage objects and assets are related to a vast amount of digital information of different kinds, which are challenging to be communicated to visitors in understandable and engaging ways. Yet recent technological advances promise new opportunities to more tightly merge the digital with the physical world. This paper therefore introduces the concept of “phygital heritage”, the integration of digital technology ‘into’ physical reality, as a potential medium for more enriched and playful communication of heritage values and qualities. We propose that phygital heritage should enable the exploitation of typical advantages of both digital and physical reality, and that distinct categories of phygital can be recognized based on: 1) the level of physical affordance; and 2) in how far the technology is integrated into the physical reality. The paper also opens the discussion about the potential challenges and concerns which future explorations, scientific research and real-world applications of phygital heritage probably will encounter.

Built heritage objects possess multiple types of information, varying from simple, factual aspects to more complex qualitative information and values, such as the architectural qualities, the construction techniques, or symbolic meanings of monuments. This qualitative information is relatively difficult to communicate using the conventional ways like museum labels or audio guides. Nonetheless, tangible interaction is a promising paradigm for communicating tacit information, its qualities have been demonstrated in a wide range of applications in different realms. Therefore, this study investigates how tangible interaction can enable the communication of qualitative information of built heritage to lay visitors. The main objectives of this study are communicating tacit and architectural qualities of built heritage in a physical form, investigating the effect of tangible interaction on social interaction among heritage visitors, and enhancing visitors' in-situ experience of built heritage or 1:1 replicas. Our early findings indicate the capability of tangible interaction for engaging museum visitors to accomplish additional endeavors, and facilitating their understanding of cultural values and architectural qualities of built heritage.