COVID-19 (Corona virus disease, 2019) is a worldwide public health emergency and the disease has been spreading globally at an alarming rate.1,2 There is an urgent need to reduce the healthcare transmission risk among healthcare workers and patients in hospitals due to the pandemic. In the indoor environment, the respiratory infection can be transmitted via direct contact with surfaces contaminated

Globalization and urbanization have caused unprecedented impacts in local identification and cultural protection, and rivers that cross administrative boundaries have attracted attention in the protection of local cultural heritage, resource integration and mobilization. This study selected several cities in the Yellow River Basin and the Rhine River Basin as examples, using street view images, combining

The Internet of Things (IoT) has been considered as an innovation, which ventures out a smarter world spanning the actual world with the digital world. Even though the IoT idea has picked up a lot of consideration during the most recent couple of many years, genuine execution of huge scope IoT network is as yet developing. Globalization has associated urban communities on inverse sides of the planet

A safe and effective evacuation route is important for reducing casualties during building fires, and this topic has been a long-term focus of emergency management. Indoor space is a space within one or multiple buildings consisting of architectural components and is the basis of indoor route analyses. Based on indoor space, an indoor network model is designed that considers fire protection design

In the past 30 years, tubular daylight guide systems (TDGSs) have become one of the most popular ways to transport outdoor natural light into the inner space in building design. However, tubular daylight guide systems are not widely used because of the lack of methods to evaluate methods on the suitability of the TDGSs. This study therefore summarizes the daylight performance metrics of TDGSs and presents

Metro trains running in tunnels cause piston wind, and when a metro train stops in a tunnel due to a fire, the effect of the piston wind on smoke propagation characteristics cannot be ignored. In this paper, a theoretical model based on the unsteady flow theory of the Bernoulli equation was established to describe the change in piston wind speed under fire conditions. The characteristics of the smoke

The airflow distribution characterised by different large- and small-scale eddies in the aircraft cabin is the most important factor to maintain passengers' thermal comfort and to remove contaminants. The airflow distributions in narrow-body aircraft cabins are based on the principle of mixing ventilation. Opposing jets from air diffusers can cause stream deflection and oscillation, which results in

This paper aims to investigate the implication of present and future bioclimatic potential of passive heating and cooling design strategies for climate change scenarios of five locations covering all climate zones of India. Weather data for future climate change were developed for A2 (medium-high) scenario of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for four time slices, namely TMY (Typical

This work is centred on an ancient Italian church. Since 2011, a restoration plan has been undertaken by following sequential phases. The methodological approach to restoration was guided by environmental monitoring campaigns. In particular, two thermo-hygrometric campaigns were carried out during the warm months of the years 2015 and 2016. The first set of measurements was executed during the restoration

The experiment was targeted to develop design strategies and methods by testing the complex interplay between the dynamics of daylight and electrical lighting in an office. The double dynamic lighting design concept is based on the idea of adding task lighting, with a directionality referring to the daylight inflow and a variation on direct/diffuse lighting and respective changes in colour temperature

Radon, thoron and their progeny concentration have been measured in dwellings located within a 90 km2 area around a nuclear power plant using solid-state nuclear track detectors. Time-integrated measurements were carried out on a four-month cycle, making three measurements in each dwelling throughout the year. In total, 145 dwellings were selected for the study. The measured values of gas and their

Cultural Landscape is the result of human culture acting on the natural landscape, and it is a landscape created by both human and nature.1 Settlement Cultural Landscape is a type of cultural landscape, which is the masterpiece created by human in the long-term life and production. It includes people’s learning of nature, exploiting of nature, production development and life creation. The masterpiece

The industrial release of submicron aerosol particles at workplace could cause undue health effect on workers. To effectively capture and remove airborne particles, we need to study the characteristics of various interactive particle motion forces (drag force, Brownian force, Saffman lift force, etc.) and the dispersion of these aerosol particles in indoor air. In this study, the dominant force of

Thermal conditions in operating rooms are mainly dictated by the need to meet the safety/comfort requirements of the patient. However, the accuracy of performed surgical procedures depends on the surgeon and others members of medical team. Hence, their comfort sensation should be also factored in. The study sought to find out how thermal sensations of people working in surgical clothing can be modified

The thermal insulation performance of a building's windows can have an important role in its energy-saving capability. In this work, we proposed a novel, energy-saving insulated window (ESIW) and investigated its winter insulation ability by conducting temperature, comfort, energy and entropy analyses of a house outfitted with the ESIW system. The natural indoor temperature of houses with ESIW(A) structure

In addition to typical indoor and outdoor spaces, there are numerous transitional spaces in a building that are unlike indoor and outdoor spaces, where most people spend time for entertainment. There is a need to investigate the comparison between these three types of spaces, including indoor spaces, transitional spaces and outdoor spaces. In this study, the thermal responses and thermal environmental

With the ever-increasing trend of incorporation of various wastes into building materials, monitoring the potential rise in the radioactive load due to used waste is needed. This paper presents the results of our investigation into the radioactivity of cement mortars of various percentage of granulated blast furnace slag (GBFS). The calculated gamma indexes, Iγ, reached 0.19–0.22 and thus did not exceed

In recent years, the pollution of the air environment has been increasing, which has seriously endangered human health. The large amount of coal burning and automobile exhaust emissions in winter have caused serious regional pollution, which has greatly increased the prevalence of respiratory disease of people. The purpose of this study is to use Jilin Province as an example to map out the environmental

Unearthed historical sites represent non-renewable resources of significant historical, artistic and scientific value. Historical sites are usually preserved at the place where they were unearthed in order to maintain the original appearance. These sites are exposed to atmospheric processes and are facing serious challenges related to climate change, environmental pollution and human activities.1–3

The popularity of decoration and refurbishment of rental apartments in China may give rise to indoor VOC levels, posing health threats to tenants. A questionnaire was conducted on the renovation characteristics and tenant information of rental apartments in Beijing. The study selected 143 rental bedrooms to study the characteristics of HCHO and BTX (benzene, toluene and xylene) and assessed the health

This paper presents an experimental research study intended to evaluate daylight perception in work environments. The current metrics for assessing daylight in work environments involve quantifying daylight and do not provide insight into the actual appearance of the space, thus overlooking the qualitative aspects of light and their effect on occupants. Conceptual content cognitive mapping (3CM), a

This study investigated, using validated computational fluid dynamics techniques, the potential infection risks to medical staff when performing endotracheal intubation in the negative pressure isolation ward during treatment of COVID-19 patients. The research first simulated the airflow distribution in negative pressure isolation ward and then examined the potential infection risks to medical staff

Urban residents are suffering from serious thermal stress resulting from urban heat island and global warming. Investigators have explored several methods to address this issue. Vegetation, especially trees, were found to play a vital part in urban environments. It produces a cooling effect by reducing temperature and radiation levels. To find thermal performances of trees in detail, this study physically

As the most densely populated area, a city is an open and complex giant system. This has been widely agreed by scientists.1–3 ‘System’ is a complex entirety formed by a group of interacting or interdependent parts. Each system is divided by its spatial and temporal boundaries, influenced by its surrounding environment, described by its structure and purpose and reflected in its function.4 The open

Hygroscopic material can moderate the indoor humidity variation due to its moisture buffering effect. This effect would change when used as interior finish mainly due to air exchange and wall moisture transfer. The author focused on clarifying the extent of the wall'’s influence on indoor moisture buffering and building humidity environment. A room model was established and the situation of no wall

In recent years, several epidemics by transmissible respiratory viruses have emerged, especially pandemics caused by coronaviruses. The most significant public health emergency may be the COVID-19 pandemic. Identifying the transmission of infectious disease plays an important role in healthcare for protecting and implementing effective measures for public health. However, studies on SARS-CoV-2 transmission

As a public building for exercises and entertainments, gymnasiums play an important role in people's daily life. In regions with hot-humid climate, thermal sensation in gymnasiums is directly related to the human health as well as energy consumption. However, little can be found in the systematic evaluation system reported for thermal sensation of athletes in gymnasium in hot-humid climate regions;

Fangcang shelter hospitals – erected by installing medical equipment in large public venues – played an essential role during the COVID-19 pandemic in China. Their isolation, interior density and patients' mutual exposure deviate from normal living conditions, necessitating the study on the adaptation, social organisation and emotional response of patients. For this purpose, we conducted spatial analysis

To investigate the role of different pattern of ambient air pollutants exposure during early life on childhood pneumonia, we conducted a retrospective cohort study of 3226 preschool children aged three to six years in Shenzhen, China during 2015 to 2016. Each child's exposure to three main air pollutants (PM10, SO2 and NO2) was calculated by the inverse distance weighted method. Multiple logistic regression

Colour of interior surfaces has to be considered in order to provide optimal visual and non-visual performance. Colour selection is often related to the occupant's colour preferences. First part of the presented study was a questionnaire-based cross-sectional study among the employees of the University of Ljubljana conducted in December 2019 in order to identify possible association between personal

Most existing models and standards for volatile organic compounds emission assume that contaminants are uniform in the testing devices. In this study, a three-dimensional transient numerical model was proposed to simulate the mass transport process based on a full-scale test chamber with a mixing fan, and the airflow field and contaminants concentration distribution were obtained within the chamber

Solar radiation intensity affects both subjective reactions and physiological functions, especially for people who exercise heavily. Field experiments including a questionnaire survey at various ambient temperatures were performed; outdoor activities under shading (irradiance I = 50 ± 20 W/m2) and non-shading (I = 700 ± 50 W/m2) conditions during summer in Xi'an were recorded. The results of questionnaires

The outdoor physical environments of many old communities are unable to meet modern living requirements and require improvement urgently. This is especially true for communities in regions with extremely hot summers and cold winters, which may cause additional difficulties. This study used measurements and questionnaire data to investigate outdoor environment (the thermal, sound, light environments

In the human–land system, a river basin is the geographical unit most commonly imprinted by human activities,1 leading this highly variable environment to have complex human–land relationships.2 Most of the world’s civilisations have been cultivated by rivers or originated from river basin areas,3 allowing human settlements and rivers to interact, and thereby developing co-evolutionary processes and

Accurate and reliable indoor pollutant concentration prediction is essential to solve the time-lag problem of indoor air quality control systems. Thus, the representation of time in pollutant forecasting models is very important. One approach is to introduce an Elman neural network using a direct inference strategy into the time series forecast of indoor pollutant concentration. In this study, measurements

A neuro-human thermal model was optimized to increase the prediction accuracy of the physiological variables of a group of 15 healthy male students exposed to transient environmental conditions. The effect of both the passive and active systems parameters was studied using a sensitivity analysis, and the parameters that had the most influence on the neuro-human thermal model outputs were established

Fuel poverty affects around 34% of European homes, representing a considerable burden to society and healthcare systems. This pilot study assesses the impact of an intervention to install a new first time central heating system in order to reduce fuel poverty on household satisfaction with indoor temperatures/environment, ability to pay bills and mental well-being. In Cornwall, 183 households received

Background In Ethiopia, there is not enough information about indoor air bacterial pollution. Therefore, this study aimed to determine bacterial indoor air pollution and its associated risk factors among residences of Gondar town. Methods A cross-sectional survey of indoor air pollution was conducted on 259 selected houses from February to May 2019. Sociodemographic and housing characteristics were

The impact of human body heat dissipation on the containment of a fume hood was conducted via experiments and numerical model. The experiments evaluated hood face velocity and the temperature around the mannequin; the results validated the simulation. The numerical model was based on the governing equations of fluid flow via the finite volume method. The face velocities (0.3–0.9 m·s−1) and temperature

At present, more than 55% of the world's population lives in cities, and this is expected to rise to 68% by 2050, with nearly 90% of the increase in the urban population occurring in Asia and Africa, especially for India and China.1 Thanks to the rapid urbanization, the proportion of China's urban population has increased from 17.92% in 1978 to 58.5% in 2017, which is expected to exceed 60% in 2020

The concentration of 10 potentially toxic heavy metals in indoor dust from homes in Neyshabur was investigated. The concentrations of heavy metals in indoor dust from homes ranged from 28.1 to 190.4 µg g−1 for Cr, 24.7 to 162.2 µg g−1 for Ni, 43.8 to 640.4 µg g−1 for Cu, 13.7 to 5,345.7 µg g−1 for Pb, 135.5 to 1,033.0 µg g−1 for Mn, 105.8 to 2,958.0 µg g−1 for Zn, 6,288.0 to 32759.8 µg g−1 for Fe,

Radiation is an important phenomenon as it is used in a variety of different fields. However, its possible hazardous effect should be taken into account and it should be shielded. As the concrete is a widely used construction material, the mechanical and radiation shielding properties of concretes containing boron-bearing aggregate additives have been studied. The results show that the addition of

The present study presents a three-step methodology to determine the environmental satisfaction levels of the elderly individuals in nursing home gardens. The first step comprised the selection of seven nursing homes in five provinces in the Eastern Black Sea region in Turkey. In the second step, 130 participants were selected among the residents of these seven nursing homes via random sampling. In

Naturally ventilated buildings play a vital role in mitigating climate change since they produce lower CO2 emissions compared to mechanically ventilated alternatives. Also, occupants have better experiences in naturally ventilated buildings than in mechanically ventilated buildings. However, the application of natural ventilation design is often hindered by extreme weather conditions. To cope with

Buildings account for 34% of world energy consumption and about half of electricity consumption. The nearly/Net Zero Energy Building (nZEB/NZEB) concepts are regarded as solutions for minimizing this problem. The countries of Southern Europe, which included the nZEB concept recently in their regulatory requirements, have both heating and cooling needs, which adds complexity to the problem. Brazil may

In traditional air-conditioning system, low-temperature chilled water is used to cool air. Generally, the temperature difference between air to be operated and the chilled water is high, and majority of air can be operated using water at higher temperatures. Therefore, this paper proposes the concept of grade of load and the method of dividing cooling/heating load into different grades. A traditional

The polyvinylidene fluoride hollow fibre membrane air dehumidification tests were carried out between the liquid desiccant solutions and the wet air. Three liquid desiccant solutions of LiBr solution (50%), LiCl solution (35%) and CaCl2 solution (40%) were tested under different wet air conditions. The results showed that all the membrane dehumidification processes were stable. The air moisture content

Radium, which is naturally present in many building materials, decays to the radioactive gas radon, which is exhaled from the surface of concrete block and is a major source of human exposure to radioactivity. In this study, an experimental evaluation of radon exhalation was conducted on a concrete block covered with mortar and acrylic render. Factors such as sand aggregates content and water content

Cool roofs with higher solar reflectance and emittance can effectively reduce building energy consumption. However, it is still limited to use at night on account of the development of roof materials during the past decades. The newly proposed metamaterial-based cool roof (MCR) greatly improves the possibility of the radiative cooling in the daytime. To study the influence of MCR on the energy consumption

Novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is spreading rapidly all over the world with over 23 million infected near the end of August 2020. There are also asymptomatic patients (APs) who are difficult to identify, but they are infectious and believed to be one of the transmission sources. No specific medicine, no vaccine and even no reliable quick identification tests on SARS-CoV-2

Carbon dioxide is the largest component of the human footprint and one of the major components of all greenhouse gases. The expected increase in population will lead to growth in energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. The building industry has the highest potential for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, buildings should become not only efficient consumers but also energy producers

The outbreak of pneumonia caused by 2019 Novel Coronavirus arises significant concern for virus transmission and control. The control of the indoor environment or public-enclosed environment is crucial to reduce the risk of infection. Heating, ventilation, air-conditioning (HVAC) systems are used to create a healthy, thermal-comfort indoor environments. Thus, the rational use of HVAC systems is of

The purpose of this article is to examine inclusive access criteria and explore the significance of post-occupancy evaluation (POE) for establishing and sustaining social inclusion in urban centres. Since the post-occupancy evaluation research framework was drawn on for appraising urban open space's accessibility and usability for people with and without physical disabilities, the POE methodology could

In Portugal, residential buildings commonly have their ventilation strategy changed after commissioning. This occurs due to the building managers' willingness to reduce shared costs with the electricity needed for fan operation. However, this option is not technically supported, and the effects of such a strategy on indoor air quality-related to human pollutants are yet to be quantified. CO2 was monitored

The transportation of influenza virus in a group of buildings under the condition of natural wind field was studied. The curves of natural wind power spectrum and the velocity field with respect to time were simulated by the improved weighted amplitude wave superposition with fast Fourier transform. According to Davenport spectrum, the approximation function of wind velocity field with respect to time

The acoustic environment in an urban dwelling is a key factor in human health, especially in megacities, where there are high levels of traffic noise. This study investigated the effects of various socio-economic indicators (gender, age, roadside residence, average daily time at home) on the subjective evaluation of residential acoustic environments, employing a series of questionnaire surveys and

This study investigated the effect of airflow distance from a personalized ventilation (PV) system on the personal exposure of a PV user to exhaled droplets from different orientations. Constant and dynamic airflow from the PV system was studied. A PV system was designed to produce both constant and dynamic airflows with different periods. Thermal manikins were used to simulate a healthy person (HP)

This special issue, ‘Building Environmental Control for the Wellbeing of Occupants’ was initiated in response to the increasing demand for a better environmental control for the wellbeing of occupants, and in consideration of the government policy1 and the introduction of Chinese standards on ventilation for environmental control of indoor environments, which have been reviewed.2 The environmental

Indoor corrosion inside electric boxes is important for the reliability of electric and electronic instruments. A parallel evaluation of indoor/outdoor atmospheric corrosion of steel, pollutants and meteorological parameters was made at two sites, i.e. a rural site and a coastal site of the Tabasco State, Mexico. Two exposure conditions were evaluated: outdoors and inside electric boxes. Very low levels

Computational fluid dynamics have been used to numerically study the particle diffusion and deposition in a residential kitchen under several ventilation modes. First, combining the renormalized group turbulent model with cooking release conditions, the airflow field in a kitchen was simulated and its airflow characteristics were analysed. Second, the drift flux model was adopted to predict the spatial