Ventilation of Apartment Buildings and Nursing Homes

The paper presents the results of the investigations into the indoor climate and energy efficiency of ventilation devices in residential buildings and nursing homes. The indoor climate studies discussed in the article were conducted in a nursing home where room ventilation is based on Meltem Air Handling Units (AHU). Similar studies have been carried out in apartment buildings where CO2 levels in bedrooms were compared before and after renovating the ventilation with Meltem AHU and installing exhaust fans in the bathroom/WC and kitchen. Tenants evaluate the use of Meltem AHU in apartments very positively. The article presents the efficiency results of Meltem AHU with different external air temperatures conducted in apartments in real-life situations. The study shows that skilful renovation of ventilation in old apartment buildings enables to achieve good indoor climate and energy saving at the same time.

A Data Analytics Study on Building Characteristics Impacting Energy Consumption in Single-Family Attached Homes

San Antonio, Texas is the seventh largest city in the United States with a population of 1.4 million people, and ranked among the fastest growing cities. To assess the implications of past and present building practices within the residential sector on future energy consumption, the energy utilization of single-family attached homes (SFAH) in Bexar County, Texas is studied. The available dataset includes 3932 SFAH records representing about 33% of the total number of SFAHs within the county. The study is based on pairing and analyzing data at the individual building level from a variety of sources including the buildings’ physical characteristics, access to fuels, and monthly energy consumption. The results indicate that the area of conditioned space, presence of swimming pools, number of stories, presence of fireplaces, fuel-type, and number of shared walls are a significant factor on the energy consumption of single-family attached homes. In terms of energy consumption, all-electric two-story homes sharing two walls are the most energy efficient among SFAHs. This study can aid comprehensive master planning efforts for developing sustainable communities by highlighting key features of SFAHs and making the case for higher density housing as a viable and more energy efficient alternative to single-family detached homes (SFDH).

EVER GREEN:A POST-OCCUPANCY BUILDING PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF LEED CERTIFIED HOMES IN NEW ENGLAND

The purpose of this research was to conduct a pilot study of LEED certified homes in New England one to five years after occupancy to determine whether they continue to perform at the level predicted during the certification process.Four criteria were defined to assess the performance of each home:(1)energy consumption for heating,cooling,lighting,electronics and appliances;(2)building envelope and air infiltration;(3)operations and maintenance;and(4)occupant satisfaction and indoor air quality.Both qualitative and quantitative methods including blower door and duct blaster tests,utility bill analysis,and an occupant satisfaction survey were used to measure the post-occupancy performance of seven LEED certified homes in New England.Discrepancies were found between the original building performance as determined at the time of certification and the current level of building performance.While this is limited,initial research,these findings indicate a need for further post-occupancy research that can provide feedback to green certification programs,allowing them to be modified as necessary to better reflect the actual environmental impacts of certified buildings.

A New Dynamic and Vertical Photovoltaic Integrated Building Envelope for High-Rise Glaze-Facade Buildings

Substantially glazed facades are extensively used in contemporary high-rise buildings to achieve attractive architectural aesthetics.Inherent conflicts exist among architectural aesthetics,building energy consumption,and solar energy harvesting for glazed facades.In this study,we addressed these conflicts by introducing a new dynamic and vertical photovoltaic integrated building envelope(dvPVBE)that offers extraordinary flexibility with weather-responsive slat angles and blind positions,superior architectural aesthetics,and notable energy-saving potential.Three hierarchical control strategies were proposed for different scenarios of the dvPVBE:power generation priority(PGP),natural daylight priority(NDP),and energy-saving priority(ESP).Moreover,the PGP and ESP strategies were further analyzed in the simulation of a dvPVBE.An office room integrated with a dvPVBE was modeled using EnergyPlus.The influence of the dvPVBE in improving the building energy efficiency and corresponding optimal slat angles was investigated under the PGP and ESP control strategies.The results indicate that the application of dvPVBEs in Beijing can provide up to 131%of the annual energy demand of office rooms and significantly increase the annual net energy output by at least 226%compared with static photovoltaic(PV)blinds.The concept of this novel dvPVBE offers a viable approach by which the thermal load,daylight penetration,and energy generation can be effectively regulated.

Reinforcement Learning Model for Energy System Management to Ensure Energy Efficiency and Comfort in Buildings

This article focuses on the challenges ofmodeling energy supply systems for buildings,encompassing both methods and tools for simulating thermal regimes and engineering systems within buildings.Enhancing the comfort of living or working in buildings often necessitates increased consumption of energy and material,such as for thermal upgrades,which consequently incurs additional economic costs.It is crucial to acknowledge that such improvements do not always lead to a decrease in total pollutant emissions,considering emissions across all stages of production and usage of energy and materials aimed at boosting energy efficiency and comfort in buildings.In addition,it explores the methods and mechanisms for modeling the operating modes of electric boilers used to collectively improve energy efficiency and indoor climatic conditions.Using the developed mathematical models,the study examines the dynamic states of building energy supply systems and provides recommendations for improving their efficiency.These dynamic models are executed in software environments such as MATLAB/Simscape and Python,where the component detailing schemes for various types of controllers are demonstrated.Additionally,controllers based on reinforcement learning(RL)displayed more adaptive load level management.These RL-based controllers can lower instantaneous power usage by up to 35%,reduce absolute deviations from a comfortable temperature nearly by half,and cut down energy consumption by approximately 1%while maintaining comfort.When the energy source produces a constant energy amount,the RL-based heat controllermore effectively maintains the temperature within the set range,preventing overheating.In conclusion,the introduced energydynamic building model and its software implementation offer a versatile tool for researchers,enabling the simulation of various energy supply systems to achieve optimal energy efficiency and indoor climate control in buildings.

Building an Intelligent Home Space for Service Robot Based on Multi-Pattern Information Model and Wireless Sensor Networks

This paper is concerned with constructing a prototype intelligent home environment for home service robot. In this environment, multi-pattern information can be represented by some intelligent artificial marks. Light-packs service robots can provide reliable and intelligent service by interacting with the environment through the wireless sensor networks. The intelligent space consists the following main components: smart devices with intelligent artificial mark;home server that connects the smart device and maintains the information through wireless sensor network;and the service robot that perform tasks in collaboration with the environment. In this paper, the multi-pattern information model is built, the construction of wireless sensor networks is presented, the smart and agilely home service is introduced. Fi- nally, the future direction of intelligent space system is discussed.

Role of outdoor trees on pedestrian wind and thermal conditions around a pre-education building for sustainable energy management

Finding sustainable energy resources is essential to face the increasing energy demand.Trees are an important part of ancient architecture but are becoming rare in urban areas.Trees can control and tune the pedestrian-level wind velocity and thermal condition.In this study,a numerical investigation is employed to assess the role of trees planted in the windward direction of the building complex on the thermal and pedestrian wind velocity conditions around/inside a pre-education building located in the center of the complex.Compared to the previous studies(which considered only outside buildings),this work considers the effects of trees on microclimate change both inside/outside buildings.Effects of different parameters including the leaf area density and number of trees,number of rows,far-field velocity magnitude,and thermal condition around the main building are assessed.The results show that the flow velocity in the spacing between the first-row buildings is reduced by 30%-40% when the one-row trees with 2 m height are planted 15 m farther than the buildings.Furthermore,two rows of trees are more effective in higher velocities and reduce the maximum velocity by about 50%.The investigation shows that trees also could reduce the temperature by about 1℃around the building.

Debris flow runout behaviors considering the influences of densely populated buildings

Debris flows pose serious risks to communities in mountainous areas,often resulting in large losses of human life and property.The impeding presence of urban buildings often affects the runout behavior and deposition of debris flows.But the impact of different building densities and sizes on debris flow dynamics has yet to be quantified to guide urban planning in debris flow risk zones.This study focused on a debris flow that occurred in Zhouqu County,Gansu Province,China on August 7th,2010,which was catastrophic and destroyed many buildings.The FLO-2D software was used to simulate this debris flow in two scenarios,i.e.the presence and the absence of buildings,to obtain debris-flow intensity parameters.The developed model was then used to further analyze the influence of large buildings and narrow channels within the urban environment.The simulation results show that considering the presence of buildings in the simulation is essential for accurate assessment of debris flow intensity and deposition distribution.The layout of buildings in the upstream urban area,such as large buildings or parallel buildings which form narrow channels,can affect the flow velocity and depth of debris flow heading towards downstream buildings.To mitigate damage to downstream buildings,the relative spacing(d/a)between upstream and downstream buildings should not exceed a value of two and should ideally be even lower.These findings provide valuable insights for improving the resistance of mountainous cities to urban debris flows.

Factors influencing the employed caregiver burden for patients with dementia residing in nursing homes:A cross-sectional study from China

Objective:The institutionalization of care for patients with dementia is becoming a trend.Understanding the burden on employed caregivers and exploring associated factors are of great importance in practice.Therefore,this study aimed to examine the relationship between basic attributes,caring ability,and caregiver burden in employed caregivers practicing in nursing homes.Methods:This cross-sectional study included 541 employed caregivers in 11 four-star nursing homes in Zhejiang Province from April to December 2022.Caregiver burden was assessed using the Zarit Burden Interview(ZBI).Demographic characteristics of participants,characteristics of the older patients with dementia,caring characteristics,training in dementia care,and caring abilities were collected for analysis of influencing factors.A hierarchical multiple regression analysis was conducted to explore the factors influencing the burden on employed caregivers in nursing homes.Results:The ZBI score of employed caregivers in nursing homes was 40.42±10.18,representing a moderate caregiver burden.Factors such as age(U=27.82,P<0.001),residence(U=7.89,P<0.001),educational level(H=55.81,P<0.001),self-care of older patients with dementia(H=85.21,P<0.001),daily care hours(H=73.25,P<0.001),number of older people with dementia cared for(H=14.56,P<0.012)and training in dementia care(U=-9.43,P<0.001)were significantly associated with caregiver burden.Caring ability was negatively associated with caregiver burden(r=-0.22,P<0.01).Furthermore,after controlling for demographic characteristics,the characteristics of older people with dementia,caring characteristics,training in dementia care,and caring ability explained 8.5%,5.8%,and 4.8%of the caregiver burden,respectively.Conclusion:The burden of employed caregivers on patients with dementia in nursing homes can be attributed to various factors.We recommend tailored interventions,such as dementia care training and reviewing the number and duration of hours worked to reduce the burden experienced by caregivers.

Deterioration Reason and Improvement Measure of the Retarding Effect of Protein Retarder on Phosphorus Building Gypsum

The retarding effect of protein retarder on phosphorus building gypsum(PBG)and desulfurization building gypsum(DBG)was investigated,and the results show that protein retarder for DBG can effectively prolong the setting time and displays a better retarding effect,but for PBG shows a poor retarding effect.Furthermore,the deterioration reason of the retarding effect of protein retarder on PBG was investigated by measuring the pH value and the retarder concentration of the liquid phase from vacuum filtration of PBG slurry at different hydration time,and the measure to improve the retarding effect of protein retarding on PBG was suggested.The pH value of PBG slurry(<5.0)is lower than that of DBG slurry(7.8-8.5).After hydration for 5 min,the concentration of retarder in liquid phase of DBG slurry gradually decreases,but in liquid phase of PBG slurry continually increases,which results in the worse retarding effect of protein retarder on PBG.The liquid phase pH value of PBG slurry can be adjusted higher by sodium silicate,which is beneficial to improvement in the retarding effect of the retarder.By adding 1.0%of sodium silicate,the initial setting time of PBG was efficiently prolonged from 17 to 210 min,but little effect on the absolute dry flexural strength was observed.

Effect of building energy efficiency standards on carbon emission efficiency in commercial buildings

The building sector plays a crucial role in the worldwide shift toward achieving net-zero emissions.Building energy efficiency standards(BEESs)are highly effective policies for reducing carbon emissions.Therefore,exploring the provincial variations in carbon emission efficiency(CEE)in the building sector and identifying the effect of BEESs on CEE is crucial.This study focuses on commercial buildings in China and applies a difference in differences model to evaluate the impact of BEESs on the CEE of commercial buildings.The slacks-based measure–data envelopment analysis model is employed to assess the CEE of commercial buildings in 30 Chinese provinces from 2000 to 2019.Furthermore,heterogeneous tests are used to explore how climate characteristics and economic conditions affect the efficiency of BEESs.The results indicate that BEESs positively influence the CEE of commercial buildings.Specifically,a 1%increase in the intensity of BEESs causes a 0.1484%increase in the CEE of commercial buildings.Moreover,the impact of BEESs is particularly pronounced in the southern and western provinces.This study provides valuable scientific evidence for governments to enhance BEESs implementation.

Study on Evacuation Strategy of Commercial High-Rise Building under Fire Based on FDS and Pathfinder

With the development of economy and society and the growth of population,the high-rise and multi-function of commercial buildings have become an international trend.But it also poses huge fire hazards.Most of the existing studies’research objects are predominantly high-rise residential buildings,without considering the impact of different functional zones(Standard floor,entertainment zone,office zone,equipment room and so on)and personnel distribution of commercial buildings evacuation.And the influence of using elevators to carry evacuees on the refuge floor on personnel evacuation is rarely studied.In this work,the fire scenario of the Yangtze River InternationalConferenceCenter,a high-rise commercial building,is simulated with the Pyrosim programto get the necessary parameters under various fire scenarios and to calculate the available evacuation time TASET.At the same time,according to the complex functional zone of the commercial high-rise building and the distribution of people in different time periods,a reasonable evacuation strategy is developed and simulated by Pathfinder software.The results indicate that unorganized evacuation will lead individuals to take the erroneous evacuation route,resulting in a vast region of congestion;comprehensive consideration of the time staggering and the reasonable distribution of evacuation routes can significantly improve evacuation efficiency,and the TRSET of night and working hours is 36.6%–55.3%and 49.9%–79.6%of unorganized evacuation,respectively.For the night fire,60%of the people use elevator-refuge floor to evacuate is the optimal strategy;for the fire during working hours,half of the people on standard floors use the elevator to evacuate and people on multifunctional floors evacuate in four batches is the best plan.The results of this study can provide viable solutions and a foundation for analyzing the fire evacuation and safety of big commercial high-rise buildings.

Farm buildings and agri-food transitions in Southern France:Mapping dynamics using a stakeholder-based diagnosis

This study's goal is to present a dynamic portrait of the farm-buildings environment in Occitania,in Southern France,in order to better identify the transitions underway in agri-food chains.To this end,we undertook a ter-ritorial diagnosis based on actor statements,using 28 semi-structured interviews across Occitania.This diagnosis was enriched by graphic modelling,which enabled the spatialization of the dynamics described.We show that the process of standardisation of farm buildings prevails in the majority of the territories studied.This phenomenon has intensified in recent years with the development of vast photovoltaic-roofed sheds,accentuating the farm-land conversion and soil sealing.At the same time,in areas with strong environmental,landscape and heritage contexts,a'new adventure in farm buildings'(2022 survey)is taking shape.It is primarily driven by local short food chains,which rely on self-construction,repurposing and refurbishment,the sharing of tools and equipment,and which favour the use and reuse of local resources.This study shows that farm-buildings dynamics crystallise many challenges confronting the reterritorialisation of agriculture and food production.

Controllable thermal rectification design for buildings based on phase change composites

Phase-change material(PCM)is widely used in thermal management due to their unique thermal behavior.However,related research in thermal rectifier is mainly focused on exploring the principles at the fundamental device level,which results in a gap to real applications.Here,we propose a controllable thermal rectification design towards building applications through the direct adhesion of composite thermal rectification material(TRM)based on PCM and reduced graphene oxide(rGO)aerogel to ordinary concrete walls(CWs).The design is evaluated in detail by combining experiments and finite element analysis.It is found that,TRM can regulate the temperature difference on both sides of the TRM/CWs system by thermal rectification.The difference in two directions reaches to 13.8 K at the heat flow of 80 W/m^(2).In addition,the larger the change of thermal conductivity before and after phase change of TRM is,the more effective it is for regulating temperature difference in two directions.The stated technology has a wide range of applications for the thermal energy control in buildings with specific temperature requirements.

Building the Capacity of Health Professionals in Monitoring and Evaluation in a Public Health Institution: Experience of the National Institute of Public Health (NIPH) of Côte d’Ivoire

Background: In the context of the fight against HIV, a lack of skills in monitoring and evaluating the personnel in charge of activities has been identified at the national level. It was the subject of a priority axis of the national plan for monitoring and evaluating the fight against HIV (2006-2010) that was aimed at strengthening the capacities of actors in this area. To increase the critical mass of competent human resources in the short term, the National Institute of Public Health (NIPH) of Côte d’Ivoire organized monitoring and evaluation training sessions for healthcare professionals from 2011 to 2016. Methods: A single case study with multiple levels of analysis was carried out, combining a qualitative survey and a literature review. An evaluation was carried out six months after each training session. In addition, the results of the pre- and post-tests and of the daily and final evaluations that accompanied the various training sessions were used to provide further information. The qualitative data collected were analyzed using INVIVO 15 software. Results: Some 89 health professionals (69% men and 31% women) working at the national level (51% at the central level, including 58% in health programs) and in development partner agencies (37%) participated in this capacity building program. Most participants were senior health managers (56%), data managers (23%), and statisticians and computer scientists (10%). Almost all the trainings were financed by 16 technical and financial partners (85%), mainly the MEASURE Evaluation project (27%). Conclusion: M&E training, despite all its imperfections, has made it possible to identify M&E training needs at the national level and to increase the critical mass of national skills and to have some culture in M&E.

Dynamic response of buildings under debris flow impact

This study employs the smoothed particle hydrodynamics–finite element method(SPH–FEM) coupling numerical method to investigate the impact of debris flow on reinforced concrete(RC)-frame buildings. The methodology considers the variables of debris flow depth and velocity and introduces the intensity index IDV(IDV = DV) to evaluate three different levels of debris flow impact intensity. The primary focus of this study is to investigate the dynamic response and failure mechanism of RC-frame buildings under debris flow impact, including structural failure patterns, impact force and column displacement. The results show that under a highintensity impact, a gradual collapse process of the RCframe building can be observed, and the damage mode of the frame column reflects shear failure or plastic hinge failure mechanism. First, the longitudinal infill walls are damaged owing to their low out-of-plane flexural capacity;the critical failure intensity index IDV value is approximately 7.5 m2/s. The structure cannot withstand debris flows with an intensity index IDV greater than 16 m2/s, and it is recommended that the peak impact force should not exceed 2100 k N. The impact damage ability of debris flow on buildings mostly originates from the impact force of the frontal debris flow, with the impact force of the debris flow body being approximately 42% lower than that of the debris flow head. Finally, a five-level classification system for evaluating the damage status of buildings is proposed based on the numerical simulation and investigation results of the disaster site.

A Stroke-Limitation AMD Control System with Variable Gain and Limited Area for High-Rise Buildings

Collisions between a moving mass and an anti-collision device increase structural responses and threaten structural safety.An active mass damper(AMD)with stroke limitations is often used to avoid collisions.However,a strokelimited AMD control system with a fixed limited area shortens the available AMD stroke and leads to significant control power.To solve this problem,the design approach with variable gain and limited area(VGLA)is proposed in this study.First,the boundary of variable-limited areas is calculated based on the real-time status of the moving mass.The variable gain(VG)expression at the variable limited area is deduced by considering the saturation of AMD stroke.Then,numerical simulations of a stroke-limited AMD control system with VGLA are conducted on a high-rise building structure.These numerical simulations show that the proposed approach has superior strokelimitation performance compared with a stroke-limited AMD control system with a fixed limited area.Finally,the proposed approach is validated through experiments on a four-story steel frame.

LSTM Based Neural Network Model for Anomaly Event Detection in Care-Independent Smart Homes

This study introduces a long-short-term memory(LSTM)-based neural network model developed for detecting anomaly events in care-independent smart homes,focusing on the critical application of elderly fall detection.It balances the dataset using the Synthetic Minority Over-sampling Technique(SMOTE),effectively neutralizing bias to address the challenge of unbalanced datasets prevalent in time-series classification tasks.The proposed LSTM model is trained on the enriched dataset,capturing the temporal dependencies essential for anomaly recognition.The model demonstrated a significant improvement in anomaly detection,with an accuracy of 84%.The results,detailed in the comprehensive classification and confusion matrices,showed the model’s proficiency in distinguishing between normal activities and falls.This study contributes to the advancement of smart home safety,presenting a robust framework for real-time anomaly monitoring.

eQUEST Based Building Energy Modeling Analysis for Energy Efficiency of Buildings

Building energy performance is a function of numerous building parameters.In this study,sensitivity analysis on twenty parameters is performed to determine the top three parameters that have the most significant impact on the energy performance of buildings.Actual data from two fully operational commercial buildings were collected and used to develop a building energy model in the Quick Energy Simulation Tool(eQUEST).The model is calibrated using the Normalized Mean Bias Error(NMBE)and Coefficient of Variation of Root Mean Square Error(CV(RMSE))method.The model satisfies the NMBE and CV(RMSE)criteria set by the American Society of Heating,Refrigeration,and Air-Conditioning(ASHRAE)Guideline 14,Federal Energy Management Program(FEMP),and International Performance Measurement and Verification Protocol(IPMVP)for building energy model calibration.The values of the parameters are varied in two levels,and then the percentage change in output is calculated.Fractional factorial analysis on eight parameters with the highest percentage change in energy performance is performed at two levels in a statistical software JMP.For building A,the top 3 parameters from the percentage change method are:Heating setpoint,cooling setpoint and server room.From fractional factorial design,the top 3 parameters are:heating setpoint(p-value=0.00129),cooling setpoint(p-value=0.00133),and setback control(p-value=0.00317).For building B,the top 3 parameters from both methods are:Server room(pvalue=0.0000),heating setpoint(p-value=0.00014),and cooling setpoint(p-value=0.00035).If the best values for all top three parameters are taken simultaneously,energy efficiency improves by 29%for building A and 35%for building B.

Studies of an event-building algorithm of the readout system for the twin TPCs in HFRS

The High-energy Fragment Separator(HFRS),which is currently under construction,is a leading international radioactive beam device.Multiple sets of position-sensitive twin time projection chamber(TPC)detectors are distributed on HFRS for particle identification and beam monitoring.The twin TPCs'readout electronics system operates in a trigger-less mode due to its high counting rate,leading to a challenge of handling large amounts of data.To address this problem,we introduced an event-building algorithm.This algorithm employs a hierarchical processing strategy to compress data during transmission and aggregation.In addition,it reconstructs twin TPCs'events online and stores only the reconstructed particle information,which significantly reduces the burden on data transmission and storage resources.Simulation studies demonstrated that the algorithm accurately matches twin TPCs'events and reduces more than 98%of the data volume at a counting rate of 500 kHz/channel.