Search Results (7)

Background. Although spending time outdoors is beneficial for development, little is known about outdoor time during infancy. The aim of this study was to assess frequencies and durations of (1a) outdoor walking and carrying in mother–infant dyads and (1b) infant outdoor sleeping in a stationary cot or pram. We furthermore aimed to identify associations of (2a) outdoor walking and carrying and (2b) infant outdoor sleeping, with infant, maternal and environmental sample characteristics. Methods. An online survey was distributed among mothers of 0- to 12-month-old infants. Initially, 1453 mothers were recruited, of which 1275 were included in the analyses. With respect to (1a) the outcomes of interest were: mother–infant dyads’ total weekly duration of walking in minutes, frequency of walking on weekdays, as well as weekends, and the frequency of using an infant carrier during walks, as well as the daily duration of carrying in hours (indoors and outdoors together). With respect to (1b) the outcome variables were: placing the infant outdoors to sleep (yes/no), the total weekly duration of outdoor sleeping and the weekly frequency of outdoor sleeping. For aim 2, associations of the outcome variables with infant (i.e., age), maternal (i.e., working status) and environmental (i.e., house type) sample characteristics were assessed. Results. Mother–infant dyads engaged in walks for a total weekly duration of 201 min, for approximately one to three walks over weekdays (Monday through Friday), as well as one to three walks on the weekend. The infant carrier was used by 22% of mothers at least half of the time during outdoor walks, and 18% reported a daily duration of infant carrying of one hour or more. Among other associations, infant and maternal enjoyment of outdoor walking correlated positively with the duration as well as the frequency of walking during weekdays and during the weekend. Furthermore, employed mothers walked for a shorter duration and less frequently on weekdays as compared to mothers on maternity leave or mothers without a paid job. The availability of nearby recreational areas correlated positively with the weekly duration and frequency of walks. The infant carrier was used more frequently during outdoor walks if more than one child lived in the household. Infant carrying during outdoor walks was also related to infant behavior at night. Roughly a third of the mothers (29%) regularly had their infant sleep outdoors for a weekly duration of four hours and a weekly frequency of approximately one to two times. Younger infants, infants of mothers with higher education and infants living in detached houses were more likely to be placed outdoors to sleep. Discussion. We identified associations of infant, maternal and environmental characteristics with outdoor time spent during infancy. These results lay the foundation for future research on the effects of the outdoors on child development as well as on facilitators and barriers for caregivers. Full article

Australia aims to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, and its building sector needs rapid change. The Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS) is supported by the Australian Government to expand the current building envelope thermal performance energy star rating to a whole-of-home (WoH) energy rating. The NatHERS Administrator supports CSIRO to develop a benchmark WoH energy rating tool for new and existing housing, respectively. The tool for new housing was released in June 2023. This study presents the tool development for Australian existing housing. A case study was conducted using the tool for the eight capital cities of Australian states and territories. It shows that with a detached house built in the 1900s being updated to six or more stars and replacing old equipment and appliances with high-energy-efficient ones, more than 50% of energy can be saved in all the eight cities. To be zero-energy (carbon) housing, 5 kW solar PV needs be installed in Darwin and Hobart, 4 kW in Melbourne and Canberra, 3.5 kW in Adelaide and Sydney, and 3 kW in Brisbane and Perth. It demonstrates that this tool can be used for housing retrofitting to be low/zero-carbon emissions and low operational cost. Full article

Single-family detached homes—the lowest-density housing type—continue to dominate the U.S. home construction industry. These homes are carbon-intensive and automobile dependent; the built environments they produce militate against civic relations and attitudes. Cities need to increase density, support multimodality, and develop social capital, but these issues are not propelling cities to diversify their housing stock. The objective of this research is to facilitate this shift by establishing economic arguments for increased density and housing diversity. Municipal-level U.S. Census data is used to explore the interurban relationships between diversity in housing stocks and unemployment rates in 146 mid-size American cities. A measure of diversity, Shannon’s H, is applied to housing stock and found to be strongly associated with lower unemployment for workers over 25 years old after controlling for measures of urban social burden. In contrast to the much-heralded “trade-offs” between environmental quality, social equity, and economic development, these findings suggest that the dense, walkable, low-carbon city, and the economically sustainable city might be the same place. Full article

Water plays an important role in the deterioration of rocks. Often, the condensation cannot be ignored in addition to the rain and seepage, especially for stone relics built with tuff in humid areas. As part of this study, a century-old stone house in southeastern China was investigated alongside the microclimate, including temperature, humidity, and rainfall in the study area. Results showed that the main types of deterioration in this house were detachment, with some areas exhibiting surface hardness decreased by more than 50%. This decay was caused in part by condensation on the inner walls of the stone house during the rainy season. According to statistics, more than two-thirds of the time the rainy season produces condensate on the inner wall, which is primarily found on the north side of the house because there is less solar radiation. Conversely, the stress caused by severe temperature differences on the south side contributes more to the deterioration of rock. Environmental conditions with high humidity and strong temperature differences will accelerate the deterioration process of tuff stone with high porosity. Consequently, it is recommended that stones built by tuff in such a humid environment take rainproof measures and maintain good air circulation to reduce the adverse effects of condensation. Full article

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has witnessed fast growth in urban development in the past four decades. A plan to build 7270 houses by 2021 has been initiated by the local authorities. Different local sustainability guidelines are being implemented, including the Public Realm Manual in Abu Dhabi. These local guidelines are tailored to consider the hot and arid climate of the UAE as well as the applied materials, the inclusion of greenery, shading devices, etc. Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Al Ain are cities that have imposed the application of such guidelines. Additionally, the newly developed housing programs match the governmental plan. To understand the effect of these design programs on the outdoor thermal comfort (OTC), further investigations are necessary for each city. The most widely built prototype is detached villas, which result in untreated waste areas without shading or greenery. In the old local neighborhoods, Arabic houses were built next to each other to maximize the shading and to ease pedestrians’ walkability. This study aims to examine the districts where the housing programs are applied and to determine the most effective strategy to minimize the outdoor air temperatures and enhance walkability. The methodology implements the following processes in order: district analyses of the buildings as well as the externally applied materials, microclimate site measurements, ENVI-met (main software used) models of the current and future scenarios, results and recommendations. The strategies have different impacts in both cites due to the microclimate and other conditions. Full article

Neural network models are data-driven and are effective for predicting and interpreting nonlinear or unexplainable physical phenomena. This study collected building information and heating energy consumption data from 16,158 old houses, selected key input variables that affect the heating energy consumption based on the collected datasets, and developed a deep neural network (DNN) model that showed the highest accuracy for the prediction of heating energy consumption in an old house. As a result, 11 key input variables were selected, and an optimal DNN model was developed. This optimal DNN model showed the highest prediction accuracy (R² = 0.961) when the number of hidden layers was five and the number of neurons was 22. When the optimal DNN model was applied for the standard model of low-income detached houses, the prediction accuracy (Cv(RMSE)) of the optimal DNN model, compared to the EnergyPlus calculation result, was 8.74%, which satisfied the ASHRAE standard sufficiently. Full article

This study examines how the energy renovation of old detached houses affects the hourly power consumption of heating and electricity in Finland. As electrification of heating through heat pumps becomes more common, the effects on the grid need to be quantified. Increased fluctuation and peak power demand could increase the need for fossil-based peaking power plants or call for new investments to the distribution infrastructure. The novelty in this study is the focus on hourly power demand instead of just annual energy consumption. Identifying the influence of building energy retrofits on the instantaneous power demand can help guide policy and investments into building retrofits and related technology. The work was done through dynamic building simulation and utilized building configurations obtained through multi-objective optimization. Deep energy retrofits decreased both the total and peak heating power consumption. However, the use of air-source heat pumps increased the peak power demand of electricity in district heated and wood heated buildings by as much as 100%. On the other hand, peak power demand in buildings with direct electric heating was reduced by 30 to 40%. On the building stock level, the demand reduction in buildings with direct electric heating could compensate for the increase in the share of buildings with ground-source heat pumps, so that the national peak electricity demand would not increase. This prevents the increase of demand for high emission peaking power plants as heat pump penetration rises. However, a use is needed for the excess solar electricity generated by the optimally retrofitted buildings, because much of the solar electricity cannot be utilized in the single-family houses during summer. Full article