Prediction of local particle pollution level based on artificial neural network

Citizens eager to know the local pollution level to prevent from air pollution. The real-time measurement for everywhere is a very expensive way, a statistical model based on artificial neural network is applied in this research. This model can estimate particle pollution level with some influencing factors, including background pollution level, weather conditions, urban morphology and local pollution sources. The monitoring from regulatory monitoring sites is considered as the background level. The field measurements of 20 locations are conducted to feed the output layer of ANN model. The average relative error of prediction compared with measurement is 9.24% for PM10 and 18.90% for PM2.5

An investigation on energy consumption of public buildings in Chongqing, China

Global climate change is one of the most important environmental issues that human have ever faced. China is taking an active role in reducing carbon dioxide emission in order to alleviate the climate change process. Building sectors contribute for 30% of carbon emission and 27.5% of total energy consumption in China. There is an urgent need for improving building energy efficiency to achieve carbon reduction. New buildings are legislated by national standards and regulations to secure a relatively high level of energy efficiency. However, the diversity of architectural design, system operation and management make it a big challenging to achieve energy efficiency in existing buildings. Existing researches have already investigated the building retrofit technologies and strategies. However, information on the current building stocks is even more important due to its impact in decision makings of retrofit strategies. This paper investigates the energy consumption of public buildings in Chongqing, China. Building energy consumption data collected from Chongqing public building energy consumption monitoring platform was analyzed by SPSS software. The data collection and analysis are focused on governmental office, general office, hotel buildings and shopping mall. Statistical hypothesis test, using log-normal P-P plot and Shapiro–Wilk test, reveals that the annual energy consumption densities of these types of building are log-normal distributed

Indoor thermal environments in Chinese residential buildings responding to the diversity of climates

China has a diversity of climates and a unique historic national heating policy which greatly affects indoor thermal environment and the occupants’ thermal response. This paper quantitatively analyzes the data from a large-scale field study across the country conducted from 2008 to 2011 in residential buildings. The study covers nine typical cities located in the five climate zones including Severe Cold (SC), Cold (C), Hot Summer and Cold Winter (HSCW), Hot Summer and Warm Winter (HSWW) and Mild (M) zones. It is revealed that there exists a large regional discrepancy in indoor thermal environ- ment, the worst performing region being the HSCW zone. Human’s long-term climate adaptation leads to wider range of acceptable thermal comfort temperature. Different graphic comfort zones with accept- able range of temperature and humidity for the five climate zones are obtained using the adaptive Predictive Mean Vote (aPMV) model. The results show that occupants living in the poorer thermal environments in the HSCW and HSWW zones are more adaptive and tolerant to poor indoor conditions than those living in the north part of China where central heating systems are in use. It is therefore recommended to develop regional evaluation standards of thermal environments responding to climate characteristics as well as local occupants’ acclimatization and adaptation in order to meeting dual targets of energy conservation and indoor thermal environment improvement

Exploring the “black box” of thermal adaptation using information entropy

Thermal adaptation has been interpreted well by behavioral, physiological, and psychological factors, but the mechanism and interaction between the three factors remain in the “black box”. This paper aims to apply the theory of general system and information entropy to investigate the quantitative relationships of the three thermal adaptation processes. Based on the database from the field survey and laboratory experiments conducted in the hot summer and cold winter climate zone of China, three typical adaptive indices: clothing insulation (Clo), thermal sensation votes (TSV) and sensory nerve conduction velocity (SCV) were selected to calculate Clo entropy, TSV entropy, SCV entropy and total entropy. The regression models were developed between these entropies and the indoor air temperature to quantify the weights of the three adaptive categories. The models were used to compare the differences between China and Pakistan as well as between adaptive approaches and climate chamber experiments. The thermal comfort and acceptable temperature ranges were obtained using the entropy models. Our findings propose a new perspective using entropy to quantify the behaviorally, physiologically, and psychologically adaptive approaches, which contribute to a better understanding of opening the “black box” of thermal adaptation

A multidimensional model for green building assessment: a case study of a highest-rated project in Chongqing

Green building is an inevitable trend in the construction industry which deeply affects the social development of the economy, environment and a series of industries. There is practical significance for the multidimensionally balanced development of green buildings. A model for multi-objective assessment of green building is devel-oped under three dimensions: Objective, Professional and Time (OPT) according to the green building definition. The OPT coordinate system was built up based on the scoring centroid system of both the China Green Building Labelling scheme (GBL) and the Singapore Green Mark (GM) by the introduction of the Coefficient of Varia-tion and Moment of Inertia. Both these frameworks are restructured based on a case study of a practical project in Chongqing which had achieved the highest GBL and GM awards. Results show that GBL distributes its scores more evenly while GM concentrates on energy saving with greater diversity in land supply and building oper-ations (normalized coefficients of variation of 0.435 and 0.350). The project’s com-pliance coefficients are 1.27 and 0.31 under GBL and GM respectively indicating its higher degree of compliance with the GM framework. The developed model provides multitarget-oriented guidelines for green building design, assessment and stand-arddevelopment

An object-oriented energy benchmark for the evaluation of the office building stock

Energy benchmarking is useful for understanding and enhancing building performance. The aim of this research is to develop an object-oriented energy benchmarking method for the evaluation of energy performance in buildings. Statistical analysis of the four-year monitored energy consumption data for office buildings was conducted. The results show that the energy use intensity follows the lognormal distribution with the Shapiro–Wilk normality test. Based on the lognormal distribution, the energy rating system for office buildings has been established. An object-oriented energy use intensity quota determination model has been developed. This research provides practical tools that enable decision-makers to evaluate a building's energy performance and determine the energy benchmark

A simplified thermoregulation model of the human body in warm conditions

Thermoregulation models of the human body have been widely used in thermal comfort studies. The existing models are complicated and not fully verified for application in China. This paper presents a simplified thermoregulation model which has been statistically validated by the predicted and measured mean skin temperature in warm environments, including 21 typical conditions with 400 Chinese subjects. This model comprises three parts: i) the physical model; ii) the controlled system; and iii) the controlling system, and considers three key questions formerly ignored by the existing models including: a) the evaporation efficiency of regulatory sweat; b) the proportional relation of total skin blood flow and total heat loss by regulatory sweating against body surface area; and c) discrepancies in the mean skin temperatures by gender. The developed model has been validated to be within the 95% confidence interval of the population mean skin temperature in three cases

A study of thermal comfort in residential buildings on the Tibetan Plateau, China

Tibet is located on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau in China, the highest and largest plateau in the world. It is in the Cold and Severe Cold zones according to the Chinese climatic division for building design and has unique climatic characteristics and traditional cultural background. In order to obtain a comprehensive understanding about the real indoor thermal environment and the residents’ thermal comfort status in Tibet, a field investigation of residential buildings was conducted in the Tibetan Alpine region with on-site environmental parameter measurements and a simultaneous survey using a subjective thermal comfort questionnaire. Based on the analysis of the data collected from the field study, the value of the adaptive coefficient λ in the adaptive thermal comfort model "aPMV=" "PMV " /"1+λPMV" " " suitable to the Tibet area has been obtained as -0.34; and thus the acceptable thermal comfort temperature range for residential buildings in this area has been produced. The research findings provide comprehensive knowledge and a useful reference for the development of a design and evaluation standard for indoor thermal environments in the Tibet region

The Management of Hazardous Waste in Developing Countries

This book chapter discusses the management of hazardous waste in developing countries, with particular emphasis on industrial hazardous waste, medical waste, and household hazardous waste. It seeks to identify the current situation and also aims to provide a review of the existing strategies that are particularly related to hazardous waste management. In developing countries, hazardous waste management systems lack a systematic approach to administer waste management programmes; inability to effectively collect and manage wastes as well as to reduce the negative impacts of those activities. The current regulatory frameworks and regulations do not adequately address hazardous waste treatment and final disposal. There are inadequacies in the implementation of regulations associated with hazardous waste management due to fragmented responsibilities among government departments and local authorities. The chapter provides practical best processes for the management of hazardous waste aimed at improving the current situation