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Designing sustainable and resilient buildings is a complex process involving multiple actors and numerous, often conflicting, criteria to describe the social, environmental, and economic consequences of design decisions. Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) is a well-established branch of systematic decision science that may be used to narrow the choice set and balance decision criteria and objectives. MCDM methods rely on eliciting decision makers' (DM) criteria preferences through surveys—a critical, but often time-consuming and expensive process. This study compares two survey methods—Simple Multi-Attribute Rating Technique and Potentially All Pairwise RanKings of all possible Alternatives—used to capture DM's preferences for subjective criteria relevant to the design of resilient and sustainable buildings. Significant differences were found between the results of the two methods, indicating that building design criteria are evaluated differently in different contexts. However, most DMs reported that both surveys accurately captured their preferences, complicating conclusions about DM's actual preferences through single surveys. The design professionals surveyed also report lower cognitive load for the direct weighting method. Although this study does not report a preferred survey method, the findings suggest that great care must be taken when eliciting DM preferences, and when attempting to apply MCDM to building design decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel potentiometric sensor, based on carbon paste electrode (CPE), modified with ion-imprinted polymer (IIP) and multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs), is introduced for detection of chromium (III). The IIP nanomaterial was synthesised and characterised by using scanning electron microscopy and Fourier Transform Infrared. The modification of the CPE with the IIP (as a ionophore) resulted in an all-solid-state Cr(III)-selective sensor. However, the presence of appropriate amount of MWCNTs in the electrode composition was found to be necessary to observe Nernstian response. The optimised electrode composition was 76.7% graphite, 14.3% binder, 5% IIP, and 4% CNT. The proposed sensor exhibited Nernstian slope of 20.2 ± 0.2 mV decade−1in the working concentration range of 1.0 × 10−6−1.0 × 10−1 mol L−1(52 µg L−1–5.2 g L−1), with a detection limit of 5.9 × 10−7 mol L−1(30.68 µg L−1) and a fast response time of less than 40 s. It displayed a stable potential response in the pH range of 2–5. It exhibited also high selectivity over some interfering ions. The proposed sensor was successfully applied for the determination of Cr(III) in real samples (sea, river water and soil). [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]