The main objective of this study is to develop a thermal comfort (TC) prediction model suitable for Naturally Ventilated (NV) buildings located in hot and humid tropical climate. More than 1000 data were collected through extensive field survey in Singapore and Indonesia. The surveys finding based on the statistical analyses unveiled that people in the tropics have shown tolerance and different perception of TC than those in the temperate climate. Fuzzy logic concept is adopted to develop an appropriate TC model for tropical NV houses.
This paper documents people’s comfort during a 24-h period of typical daily life, immediately followed by a standard climate chamber experiment. The objective of this study is to determine the influence of outdoor weather, expectation, adaptive behaviours
This presentation will review two major microbial cell wall agents (MCWA) - endotoxin and (1->3)-ß-D-glucan - concerning their toxic effects after inhalation and their role for the development of symptoms among persons in buildings with humidity problem.
By simulating ‘the ramp change of thermal environment’ in the laboratory, we carried out the thermal comfort experiment and observed the changes of subjects' thermal reaction to the ramp change. We compared the effect of air velocity on the change of subj
Microbial growth has been known as one of the major problems related to IAQ inresidential and commercial buildings. International and local standards define theupper limits of indoor relative humidity in order to avoid moisture related problems.However, setting limits on indoor relative humidity does not guarantee a mould-freeenvironment.
Japanese Building Maintenance Law defines that indoor humidity shall be maintained not lower than40%. But it is sometime very difficult to comply with the law. Indoor air humidifies in office buildingsmostly below 40% especially in wintertime. A request to deregulate the provision arises from HVACindustries. But a question concerning risk to deregulate the lower limit of humidity is arising.According to researches in 1960s, activity levels of influenza virus become higher when indoorrelative humidity becomes lower than 40%.
The aim was to study changes of symptoms and signs in an office exposed to flooding fromheavy rain. All 18 workers participated in medical investigations in January 1998. Thesubjects were first investigated on a Monday in a reference building and then all moved backand were reinvestigated in a damp building after 2 days of exposure.
A questionnaire on e.g. building characteristics including dampness, and allergic symptomsamong children from 8 918 homes was carried out in the year 2000. 18-24 months later, 6professional inspectors visited 390 of the homes and made inspections and measurements.Questionnaire reports on building characteristics, type of ventilation system, and buildingmaterials were in good agreement with observations from the inspectors (K=0.68-0.87). Individualkappa-values for the inspectors varied in the range of 0.33-0.96.
In order to identify the effects of various kinds of floor materials and that of humidity on theconcentration of mite allergens in houses of allergy patients, measurements were carried outin two houses near Tokyo in August, November and December 2001. Temperature, humidityand mite allergens, Der p 1, Der f 1 and Der 2, were measured and a questionnaire survey wasconducted.
Thirty classrooms in 10 schools in Shanghai, China, were investigated in winter. Dust wascollected by vacuum cleaning, analysed for ergosterol, muramic acid, and 3-hydroxy fattyacids (LPS) by tandem mass spectrometry (GC-MSMS). Airborne microoganisms weresampled on Nucleopore filters (CAMNEA). The compound 1-octen-3-ol was found in higherconcentrations in indoor than in outdoor air. Total indoor bacteria were positively correlatedto both LPS and muramic acid in settled dust. Indoor and outdoor air contained many viablespecies.