hot climate

A cross-sectional study was carried out to investigate the prevalence of sick buildingsyndrome (SBS) among the office workers in Mauritius. Data were collected through selfadministeredquestionnaires answered by 384 occupants in 25 randomly selected buildings. Awalk-through investigation and some indoor climate variables were also monitored. All datacollected were analysed using Epi-Info and SPSS softwares. P values less than 0.05 wereconsidered significant.Personal factors such as sex, allergy and active smoking were significantly related to SBSsymptoms.

During the past few decades various symptoms and illnesses have been attributed to nonindustrialindoor environments. Problems associated with the indoor environment are acommon health issue faced by clinicians; generally, these complaints are regarded as beingdue to sick building syndrome. Mauritius is a small island with a subtropical climate.Mauritius is also a country where the prevalence of bronchial asthma among the population ishigh. No data on the sick building syndrome were available for Mauritius.

This paper presents findings from a recent call centre study conducted in an air-conditionedoffice in the Tropics. The effects of temperature and outdoor air supply rate, each kept at twoset points within currently acceptable limits, were explored in a 2 2 balanced experimentaldesign over a 9-week period. The results indicate that both a slightly cooler thermalenvironment and improved indoor air quality improve performance by reducing average callduration. Temperature and outdoor air supply rate were synergistically related to one anotherin affecting operator performance (P < 0.062).

The aim of this quasi-experimental research was to investigate the influence of buildingrelated symptoms on self-reported productivity and work disruption based on a randomsample comprising 348 employees. The investigations were carried out in two air-conditioned,high rise office buildings located in South Africa. Respondents self-reported productivity wasassessed by their own ratings of how frequently symptoms reduced their ability to work andcaused them to leave work early or stay at home. In addition, work disruption due to sickbuilding syndrome (SBS) symptoms was determined.

A blind intervention study in which air temperature and the outside air supply rate were changed in a 2 × 2 design was carried out in a call centre in Singapore. The reported intensity of headache and difficulty in concentrating were reduced by 19.5% (P

Correlation analysis of subjective responses of tropically acclimatized office workers in a fieldstudy conducted over nine continuous weeks using a 2 2 balanced design with temperatureand fresh air ventilation rates as control variables revealed that several related SBS symptomsare highly correlated. Thermal comfort and acceptability of air quality exhibit a strongcorrelation, whereas perceived indoor environmental variables have poor correlations amongthemselves. Principal component analysis further improved measures to variability bycombining coherent variables into six factors.

The concept of personalized ventilation (PV) is at the cutting edge of technologicaldevelopments in the area of air-conditioning and is fundamentally based on improvingventilation to every individual in the built environment. A PV system provides occupants withcontrol so that they can adjust their individual thermal environment as well as achieve goodindoor air quality.

A Personalised Ventilation system provides occupants with means of adjusting their individualthermal environment and of achieving good indoor air quality. The individual control ofenvironmental variables makes it possible to compensate for the differences between people withregard to their requirements. In most tropical designs, the air-conditioning and mechanicalventilation system maintains the indoor spaces at cold temperatures in the vicinity of 21 C.

This paper presents the indoor air quality performance of a displacement ventilation system ina thermal chamber. This study consists of two sets of experiments. In the first experiment, thethermal chamber was operated under displacement ventilation (DV) mode with the relativehumidity (RH) set at about 65% while the ambient temperature (AT) at 1.3 m height variedfrom 22 to 26C. In the second experiment, all the conditions are the same except that theventilation strategy is changed to mixing ventilation (MV).

Natural ventilation is a prevailing way to relieve the indoor thermal environment against warmand humid climate. The field measurement of the thermal performance of a model house withnaturally ventilated double skin walls compared with a conventional insulated model housewas carried out. Only the gap between the double skins is ventilated, while the indoor of theconventional model is ventilated mechanically.