Vian Ahmed

• American University of Sharjah

Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) play a critical role in addressing global sustainability challenges and advancing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 4 (Quality Education), SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), and SDG 13 (Climate Action), through knowledge creation and dissemination. Despite their potential, the...

The construction sector holds a paramount position in the economic landscape of any country, serving as its foundational pillar. This sector, characterized by its diverse and dynamic environment, is crucial in job creation across various domains, including transportation, real estate, manufacturing, trade, warehousing, wholesale, and leasing servic...

Climate change, driven by human-induced greenhouse gas emissions, poses a critical threat to the planet, prompting countries worldwide to pledge carbon neutrality by the mid-century. This literature review identifies and analyzes strategies and technologies for achieving carbon neutrality across various sectors and regions. The study aims to determ...

This systematic review investigates the transformative impact of Healthcare 4.0 (HC4.0) technologies on healthcare service quality (HCSQ), focusing on their potential to enhance healthcare delivery while addressing critical challenges. This study reviewed 168 peer-reviewed articles from the Scopus database, published between 2005 and 2023. The sele...

This study examines integrating Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems with performance management (PM) practices in the UAE healthcare sector, identifying key factors for successful adoption. It addresses a critical gap by analyzing the interplay between ERP systems and PM to enhance operational efficiency, patient care, and administrative pro...

The drastically increasing significance of sustainability development has motivated higher education institutions (HEIs) to make efforts to achieve sustainability development goals (SDGs). This has led to the inevitable need to track and assess these efforts. This review is centered on the meticulous collection and analysis of pertinent papers with...

In this review, utilizing the PRISMA methodology, a comprehensive analysis of the use of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) across diverse professional sectors is presented, drawing from 159 selected research publications. This study provides an insightful overview of the impact of GAI on enhancing institutional performance and work productiv...

In the post-COVID era, academic institutions adapted curricula, utilizing aspects of the online delivery in full or partially. Consequently, this research focuses on identifying the factors that influence faculty perceptions of effective online delivery in higher education and comparing them with students’ perceptions. The study involves semi-struc...

Smart technologies have become increasingly prevalent in various industries due to their potential for energy cost reduction, productivity gains, and sustainability. Smart campuses, which are educational institutions that implement smart technologies, have emerged as a specific application of these technologies. However, implementing available smar...

In the ever-evolving era of technological advancements, generative artificial intelligence (GAI) emerges as a transformative force, revolutionizing education. This review paper, guided by the PRISMA framework, presents a comprehensive analysis of GAI in education, synthesizing key insights from a selection of 207 research papers to identify researc...

There is no doubt that the sudden migration to online learning amid COVID-19 has caused a degree of stress to students and faculty in higher education globally. Although several studies have reported on the challenges that faced the academic world during the pandemic and lessons learnt from some of the practices adopted through the delivery of onli...

Despite global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the energy sector remains a major contributor, with hydrocarbon-based resources fulfilling around 80% of energy needs. As such, there is a growing focus on identifying effective and economically feasible policy mechanisms to promote renewable energy adoption. This study focuses on the theor...

The advancement in technologies in the education sector has improved living standards and acts as a sustaining factor for future development. Recently, the integration of technologies into the campus to transform it into a Smart Campus has experienced exponential growth in interest from researchers. Though various definitions of the concept of ‘Sma...

The construction industry is considered one of the largest contributors to climate change through its consumption of natural resources and generation of greenhouse gases. Much of this can be attributed to inadequate decision making and follow-up within construction companies. To mitigate this problem, considerable research on Sustainable Developmen...

Data science is considered a young field by many. This column shares the growing trends of data science as one of the most sought-after career options and as an emerging discipline in almost every industry in the world.

Sustainability has gained popularity and importance around the globe due to the ever-increasing effects of climate change and global warming on Earth. As of the 21st century, human endeavour has caused an enormous amount of damage to the environmental ecological system. Among which, one of the major contributors to the increase in the environmental...

In 2015, the United Nations (UN) adopted the 2030 agenda for Sustainable Development, which set out 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), 169 targets and 231 unique indicators as a significant initiative towards socio-economic development. The SDGs provide the construction industry with a new lens through which global needs and desires can be tr...

As investment increases in capital projects, financial risks increase, and cash flow prediction and control become more paramount. Higher risks could hinder project performance and increase the chances of failure in multiple aspects of a project. While there are models that aim to assess and forecast risks in the construction industry, none present...

Numerous decision support systems have been developed to address the decision-making process in organizations. However, there are no developed mechanisms to track commitment down the line to the decisions made by corporate leaders. This paper is a portion of a study that establishes a framework for a comprehensive metric system to assess commitment...

Disasters have a significant negative impact across the world, and this widespread impact helps to formulate policies, reviews, measures and approaches in managing them. Global efforts towards emergency management allow organizations to join hands and provide international support to developing countries in the form of assistance from international...

The implementation of BIM in construction organisations requires various strategic and change management processes. The effect of organisational culture, manifested through external survival issues, internal integration issues and underlying assumptions, on BIM adoption are absent in the literature. This paper aims to illustrate that a focus on the...

Climate change has become the greatest threat to the survival of world and its ecosystem. With the irreversible impact on the ecosystem, problems like rise in sea level, food-insecurity, natural resources scarcity, seasonal disorders have increased over the past few years. Among these problems, the issue of water scarcity due to the lack of water r...

Purpose Emergency preparedness (EP) is one of the crucial phases of the disaster management cycle for the built environment. The body of knowledge, therefore, reports on different preparedness standards adopted by developed countries such as the United Kingdom (UK), the United States of America (USA), Canada, Japan and Australia. Other countries, h...

The construction industry has a critical role to play in a achieving the SDGs; construction and demolition activities generate large volumes of waste, and this requires the adoption of practices that will reduce waste generated and maximise re-use. The construction industry as a sector could influence the realisation of the SDGs by formulating poli...

In recent times, smart cities and sustainable development have drawn significant research attention. Among developed and developing countries, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has been at the forefront in becoming an incubator for smart cities; in particular, it has placed some efforts in the education sector by transforming the traditional campus in...

Carbon emissions, being hazardous, are triggering social concerns which have led to the creation of international treaties to address climate change. Similarly, the United Kingdom under the Climate Change Act (2008) has committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emission by at least 80% over 1990 levels by 2050. However, being the oldest member of th...

Collaboration in the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) sector increases productivity, improves quality, competitiveness and profitability. This poses the problem of what are the most appropriate collaboration methods available. With building information modelling (BIM) being imposed by the UK Government on AEC projects, the developme...

The UN statistics show that the world’s population is expected to be 9 billion by 2050. As a result, the food production must also to be raised 70% or more. Vertical Farming (VF) is an innovative alternative approach to meet the challenges, however, its management will also be a challenge. This paper, therefore, shares the understanding of future f...