Eco-friendly flame-retardant treatments for cellulosic green building materials
Despite significant progress having been made in the study of flame retardancy of cellulosic building materials, the quest to find the ideal flame retardant material still continues. This review paper explores various options to substitute halogenated flame retardants by halogen-free alternatives in green building materials. Conventional flame retardants do not chemically react with cellulosic building materials such as bamboo. Owing to this, they remain an extraneous part of the substrate and could easily leach out due to various factors leading to low efficiency of the flame-retardant action. Durability of flame retardan...
Source: Indoor and Built Environment - April 14, 2015 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Sharma, N. K., Verma, C. S., Chariar, V. M., Prasad, R. Tags: Original Papers Source Type: research
Integrated pest management programme in hospital environment
Urban pests are known to infest health service facilities, especially in a warm, wet neotropical climate. In practice, pest control services for health service facilities are generally outsourced and in most cases are not properly monitored. To address this problem, an integrated pest management (IPM) programme was developed at a hospital in the municipality of Botucatu, state of Sao Paulo, Brazil, by the infection control committee. The method of control applied used spreadsheet pest reports to monitor the presence of vectors. These reports were forwarded to the committee and used to implement several actions of integrate...
Source: Indoor and Built Environment - April 14, 2015 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Cintra-Socolowski, P., Malaspina, O., Cavalcante, R. S., Mondelli, A. L., Bueno, O. C. Tags: Original Papers Source Type: research
Drag constants for common indoor bioaerosols
This study demonstrates that using the default Stokes’ law settings in FLUENT to computationally predict the drag coefficients for bioaerosol deposition is not really appropriate: the average fractional bias is 7% and the average normalized mean square error is 15%. Comparatively, the errors for bacteria (–12% to 24%) are larger than those for fungi (–8% to 26%). These errors, however, can be minimized by selecting a suitable drag constant, which can be determined based on the bioaerosol diameter. The average drag constants for bacteria were shown by the results to vary from 0.25 to 3.1, which are much sm...
Source: Indoor and Built Environment - April 14, 2015 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Wong, L. T., Yu, H. C., Mui, K. W., Chan, W. Y. Tags: Original Papers Source Type: research
Application of solar-induced ventilation prototype in small and medium enterprise building
This paper discusses the application of a solar-induced ventilation strategy in a small and medium enterprise (SME) building, which is a single-storey shophouse. The aim of the study was to examine the performance of the proposed strategy to enhance the indoor environment of the selected building. The poposed strategy comprises two parts, namely roof solar collector and vertical stack. The research method employed a simulation modelling, which was validated against field measurement. The findings indicated that the proposed strategy was able to reduce the indoor air temperature, as well as increase the indoor air flow rate...
Source: Indoor and Built Environment - April 14, 2015 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Yusoff, W. F. M., Sapian, A. R., Salleh, E., Adam, N. M., Johar, S. Tags: Original Papers Source Type: research
What we do - and don't - know about the Smart Home: An analysis of the Smart Home literature
Technological innovations, from ubiquitous computing, augmented reality, telecommunication to intelligent appliances and robotics, bring new possibilities to the Smart Home domain, which has led to an increase in the number of academic publications in this domain. To date, no comprehensive overview and clustering of the core concepts used in these publications have been produced. Based on an extensive review of existing literature on the Smart Home, this paper visualizes the state of the art in the Smart Home research in a systematic way and outlines future research challenges. To do so, a business model framework is appli...
Source: Indoor and Built Environment - April 14, 2015 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Solaimani, S., Keijzer-Broers, W., Bouwman, H. Tags: Original Papers Source Type: research
A comprehensive computational fluid dynamics simulation on the air distribution in an operating room at University of Malaya Medical Centre Malaysia
A practical case study on the air distribution in an operating room (OR) at University of Malaya Medical Centre, Kuala Lumpur is presented. The OR has a relatively large floor area since it is connected with the medical storage room and served by a total of 14 room air inlets and 3 exhausts. The room air inlets are located at the peripheral of the surgical site rather than just above the surgical site. From the measurement conducted, the average room inlet air velocity was 0.19 m/s with a standard deviation of 0.03 m/s for all inlets and 33.5 air change per hour. In line with its current design, the air distribution was si...
Source: Indoor and Built Environment - April 14, 2015 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Yau, Y. H., Ding, L. C. Tags: Original Papers Source Type: research
Understanding the children's perception and preferences on nature-based outdoor landscape
This study evaluates the landscape perception and preferences of students from different education levels in Düzce province, Turkey. Several research have demonstrated that environmental attitudes and behaviours of adults are formed according to their environmental experiences. Outdoor recreational activity preferences of a family could also have a substantial influence on landscape preferences of children. There has been little research that evaluate children’s perception and about their playgrounds. Consideration of children’s needs and their landscape preferences would be important for designing better ...
Source: Indoor and Built Environment - April 14, 2015 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Muderrisoğlu, H., Gultekin, P. G. Tags: Original Papers Source Type: research
Characterizing ambient concentration of PM10 in urban environment of central south China
This study characterizes the ambient concentration of PM10 in urban environment of Changsha. Hourly PM10 concentrations and meteorological parameters were monitored over a year in 2008 at the city centre of Changsha in central south China. The variation in ambient PM10 concentration and its association with meteorological parameters were statistically analyzed. The concentration could vary in seasons and week days; higher particulate concentration was found in cold seasons and weekdays than in warm seasons and weekends. The diurnal variations showed a bimodal distribution in the morning and evening rush hours. The temporal...
Source: Indoor and Built Environment - April 14, 2015 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Deng, Q., Lu, C., Yu, C. Tags: Original Papers Source Type: research
Airborne methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in the indoor environment of King Abdullah University Hospital, Jordan
The objectives of this study were to isolate and characterize the airborne MRSA in different wards of a referral university hospital. Thirty-four air samples of 100 litres volume/min were collected by a microbiological air sampler, then impacted on trypticase soy agar (TSA) and incubated at 37℃ for 48 h. Recovered colonies were identified by standard methods. From all S. aureus, 9.3% was identified as MRSA which comprised 4.2%, 3.1% and 2% in the adult and nursery intensive care units, and operating theatres (ICU, NICU and OT, respectively). MRSA isolates were remarkably susceptible (87.1%) to each of amikacin, chlo...
Source: Indoor and Built Environment - April 14, 2015 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Saadoun, I., Jaradat, Z. W., Tayyar, I. A. A., Nasser, Z. E., Ababneh, Q. Tags: Original Papers Source Type: research
Indoor airborne microbial burden and risk of acute respiratory infections among children under five in Ibadan, Nigeria
This study was designed to determine the burden of airborne microbes in indoor environment that predispose under-five children to acute respiratory infections. A prospective case–control design was employed for this study. Two hundred and twenty under-five children each with acute respiratory infection (cases) and without acute respiratory infection (controls) were selected from children visiting Oni-memorial Children Hospital and University College Hospital, Ibadan. A follow-up of 66 consented cases and controls each was carried out to assess the burden of indoor airborne microbes using a non-volumetric method, and ...
Source: Indoor and Built Environment - April 14, 2015 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Ana, G. R., Fakunle, G. A., Ogunjobi, A. A. Tags: Original Papers Source Type: research
A computational fluid dynamics study on the effects of computer fan on indoor airflow and indoor air quality in breathing zone
In this study, a CFD model of a typical office room was built and simulations were conducted to investigate the airflow field and volatile organic compounds (VOC) distribution under two scenarios: (1) computer as a ‘hot box’ without a fan and (2) a more realistic computer model with an operating case fan. The comparison of CFD results yielded from these two scenarios demonstrated that the role of computer fan is very important in terms of airflow field and contaminant distribution and should be included in CFD office simulations for the purpose of improved reliability. (Source: Indoor and Built Environment)
Source: Indoor and Built Environment - April 14, 2015 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Zhuang, R. N., Li, X., Tu, J. Tags: Original Papers Source Type: research
Update on IBE and 2014 papers of the year
(Source: Indoor and Built Environment)
Source: Indoor and Built Environment - April 14, 2015 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Yu, C. W. F. Tags: Editorial Source Type: research
The impact of classroom settings on students' seat-selection and academic performance
Lack of proper architectural factors based on students’ viewpoint has created various unpleasant situations within the academic environment. The purpose of this inquiry is to investigate how classroom physical setting impacts learners’ seat-selection to enhance their performance according to gender; furthermore, path model was generated to verify the influence of achievement motivation and architectural features on learners’ performance. A quantitative method was employed to achieve learners’ requirements from 370 public high school students in Shiraz, Iran. Based on cluster sampling, 165 girls and ...
Source: Indoor and Built Environment - March 18, 2015 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Haghighi, M. M., Jusan, M. B. M. Tags: Original Papers Source Type: research
Evaluation of total concentration and size distribution of bacterial and fungal aerosol in healthcare built environments
This study aims to assess the levels and size distribution of airborne bacteria and fungi in two different types of orthopaedic theatres (conventionally ventilated and laminar flow), a general ward and outdoors in a hospital. The sampling was carried out with an Andersen six-stage viable impactor over a period of eight weeks. The highest mean concentration of total bacteria was found outdoors followed by the general ward, conventionally ventilated theatre and laminar flow theatre. With reference to Gram-negative bacteria, the general ward had the highest mean concentration followed by outdoors and the conventionally ventil...
Source: Indoor and Built Environment - March 18, 2015 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Nasir, Z. A., Mula, V., Stokoe, J., Colbeck, I., Loeffler, M. Tags: Original Papers Source Type: research
Indoor air quality audit and evaluation on thermal comfort in a school in Portugal
Given the Portuguese national programme for rehabilitation of school buildings and the new regulations for thermal comfort and air quality in Portugal, whose demands contribute to increase energy costs, it became relevant to study a case before any refurbishment intervention, in order to assess the potential of different methods of actions and to improve results. It was also intended with this study to evaluate the indoor thermal quality and the indoor air quality experienced by the school occupants. From a practical case, a school in Coimbra, the procedure passed through the measurement of some environmental physical para...
Source: Indoor and Built Environment - March 18, 2015 Category: Occupational Health Authors: Pereira, L. D., Cardoso, E., da Silva, M. G. Tags: Original Papers Source Type: research
