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Journal of Sustainable Architecture and Civil Engineering 2016/3/16

Guest Editor Preface
It is with a great pleasure that I preface this special issue of the Journal of Sustainable Archi-
tecture and Civil Engineering, which comprises invited papers submitted to the 5th International 
Conference on Renewable Energy Sources & Energy Efficiency, organized in May 2016 in Nicosia, 
Cyprus.

The 5th International Conference on Renewable Energy Sources & Energy Efficiency was orga-
nized on the 5th and 6th of May 2016 in Cyprus by the Cyprus Chamber of Commerce and Industry, 
the 1927 founded union of Cypriot businessmen, with a membership of 8,000 enterprises and 
140 Professional Associations. Since 2007, this biannual international conference is organized 
with great success and constitutes a very important venue of exchange of experiences, transfer 
of new knowledge in the field of Energy. The Conference aims at bringing together all the key 
stakeholders interested in renewable energy sources, energy efficiency and conventional fuels: 
industrial experts, academic researchers, policy makers and regulators. The thematic areas of the 
conference focus on the main topics of the sustainable built environment, including the fields of 
renewable energy sources and system integration, energy efficiency and policy, and the education 
and research in energy and environment. The topics of the International Conference on Renewable 
Energy Sources & Energy Efficiency are in line with the scopes of the Journal of Sustainable Archi-
tecture and Civil Engineering, dealing with interdisciplinary fields of civil engineering, architecture 
and sustainability research with the aim to foster the integrated research of civil engineering and 
architecture targeted to promote sustainability.

This special issue includes eight high quality invited studies, which cover a wide range of sub-
jects which concern the sustainable built environment scientific community. Particularly this is-
sue focuses on the field of experimental and computational building physics, with emphases on 
the thermophysical performance of contemporary and innovative building elements. The invited 
studies also cover aspects of economic evaluation of energy retrofit projects, as well as social as-
pects of the energy behavioural change anticipated to enable the implementation of the ambitious 
European target of nearly zero energy buildings. State of the art approaches in the sustainable 
built environment including BIM, LCA and fragility analysis methods are also covered in this issue. 
The included studies concern both contemporary as well as traditional buildings of the southern 
European environment.

One study “Improving Particle Size Distribution in Cement Paste by Blending with Superfine Ce-
ment” included in this special issue was presented in the 5th International Conference Advanced 
Construction 2016, Kaunas, Lithuania.

Taking this opportunity I would like to thank Professor Lina Seduikyte for her continuous support 
towards publishing this special issue, Professors Ioannis Michaelides and Agis Papadopoulos, ex-
ecutive and scientific chairmen of the 5th International Conference on Renewable Energy Sources 
& Energy Efficiency, who enabled with their targeted actions this publication and Ms Angeliki Kylili 
for her valuable editorial and managerial support. 

This issue is anticipated to strengthen the scientific ties between the Cypriot, the Greek and the 
Lithuanian research community, leading into further scientific collaborations within joint research 
initiatives.

Dr.-Ing. Paris A. Fokaides
Guest Editor

School of Engineering, Frederick University, Cyprus