English

Heating and cooling of buildings may be done by water based radiant systems, where pipes areembedded in the concrete slabs between each storey. Hundreds of buildings with such systems arenow being constructed or are in operation in Europe.Because these types of systems are using the building mass for heating and cooling it is oftenquestioned how the systems should be controlled and operated. The present paper presents aparametric study of different control and operation concepts for both cooling (summer) and heating(winter) periods.

The indoor air quality management of the railroad passenger cabin is a hot environmental issue inmany countries. Especially, particulate matters are known to be harmful for lung and bronchus, andhigh concentration of carbon dioxide may cause headache and dizziness. Therefore, new regulation tolimit the particulate matters and carbon dioxide concentrations in the railroad passenger cabin is underpreparation in Korea. In this study, a new concept of an integrated novel air cleaning system for railroadpassenger cabin was suggested.

This research determines chemical substance removal rates of domestic air cleaners using with thepollutant constant-emission test. In previous studies, we have already reported the formaldehyderemoval rates of room air cleaners and the high accuracy of our method for predicting indoor pollutantconcentration. In the present study, the VOCs removal rates of room air cleaners were measured.Gas-phase contaminants were supplied to the environmental test-chamber using a custom-builtemission device. And performance evaluation test was conducted to two kinds of air cleaners.

The International Organization for standardization (ISO), Technical Committee 163 "ThermalPerformance and Energy Use in the Built Environment" (ISO/TC 163) is dealing with development oftools that can be used to design and construct or retrofit energy efficient buildings and installations. Theoverall aim for this is to reduce our dependency of non-renewable resources and to reduce theemission of harmful substances to the air. Methods are needed for the evaluation of the energyperformance of complete buildings and parts of buildings or building installations.

Home electrical appliances release hazardous chemical substances produced by the effects of heatingduring their operation. The present study investigated the emission rates of chemical substances onhome electrical appliances such as microwave ovens, vacuum cleaners, electric heaters, electricblankets, multimedia players, electronic dictionaries, MD players and notebook PCs.The VOCs emission rates of comparatively small products were measured using a small-scaleenvironmental chamber with a volume of 0.065 [m3].

This study is focused on the efficient use of cross-ventilation in a densely populated area by using roofwindows in particular. Wind tunnel experiments were conducted to understand not only the relationbetween the building coverage ratio and the coefficient of wind pressure (Cp) but also the relationbetween the roof slope of a residence and Cp value. To simulate an urban area, dummy models wereplaced around a target model, and the building densities were set to 0, 10, 20, and 40%. The roofslopes of residences were set to 0 (flat roof), 15, and 26.7.

The correlation of atmospheric pollution by VOC and NMHC/NOX ratio has been found. By usingNMHC/NOX ratio, the source of NMHC in the region can be presumed without effects from the diffusionand the dilution by the meteorological conditions. At general measurement station in A city OsakaPrefecture, the NMHC/NOX ratio shows high value in summer though NMHC and NOX concentrationshow high value in early winter. As opposed to city A, traffic measurement station C doesnt show thispattern. It suggests that the amount of the exhaust of NMHC increases along with the temperature.

It is difficult to evaluate the effect of indoor environmental quality on productivity by measuring only taskperformance. In this study, the monitoring of cerebral blood flow during task by Near InfraredSpectroscopy is introduced as one of the objective evaluation methods of workers human responsethat are factors affecting task performance.

Radon short-lived decay products generated from the earth is one of the serious indoor air pollutantsin Europe and US. We measured natural radioactive substance and main indoor air pollutants in thefacilities of Sapporo and Nagoya City. The main measured items were composed of 1) air temperature,2) air humidity, 3) CO2, 4) CO, 5) HCHO, 6) VOCs, 7) airborne fungi,8) airborne bacteria, 9) SPM and10) Rn and Rn-Dts. The subjected spaces were laboratories, lecture rooms, libraries, museums, publicunderground spaces, closed spaces without window and outdoors.

Flame retardants have been used in polymers to reduce the flammability of plastics, building materials,fabric and papers. In recent years, organophosphate flame retardants were used as substitutes forBrominated Flame Retardants. The consume amounts of organophosphate flame retardants in 2001was about 5 times than that of 2000 in Japan. Recently, several studies have shown the carcinogenicityand neurotoxicity of organophosphate flame retardants. Reducing the risk of fire is the main advantageof using organophosphate flame retardants.