A Simulation of daylight levels for the determination of visual comfort in large spaces

In sizable environments, such as the collective areas of a big university building, characterised by very long corridors, large hallways and broad glazed surfaces, the daytime illumination factor is often only excellent near to the latter, due to their predominantly horizontal, rather than vertical, nature. His study, which has been carried out thanks to a simulation software, shows the results of a correlation between light contributions, come out from the wide glass surface and those of a big skylight which cross lenghtways the main part of the building. Such results have been compared with some instrumental measurements considering the shifting and getting from them important informations on simulations reliability

Evaluation through adaptive model (ATC) in the levels of thermal comfort in summer in offices in Mediterranea locations.

The design of the building-plant system in the case of office buildings has rarely considered the adaptive model of comfort almost always limited to the control of temperature and humidity and only in some cases of PMV and PPD. Specifically when the building interacts with a climate characterized by high values of external temperature and humidity for long periods, and with high solar radiation in the presence of large glazed areas, it is crucial to take into account relevant aspects of the principle of thermal adaptation. The long stay of the occupants in an air-conditioned environment leads, at the request of colder temperatures very distant from those indicated by the criteria of acceptability of an environment from those occurring at the same moment outside the building, characterizing in this way, a greatly exceeding to negative values with respect to static model of comfort. By using of the adaptive model, the occupant of a building is no longer simply understood as a passive subject, as it appeared in the static model of Fanger, but as an active agent that interacts at all levels with the environment in which stays. This article shows an experimental study, which shows that the results of this model defines comfort temperatures greater and more flexible than the model of Fanger, even with significant energy savings on air conditioning in summer

Urban Waste As Resource For Sustainable Environment

The emerging model of waste disposal, develops an integrated approach based on waste reduction, selection, recycling, energy recovery and residual use of landfill. Here we discuss the fundamentals of a proper planning of waste disposal system, specially the thermal recovery, the integration and the methodological approach, either from the environmental and economic point of view. The growing demand for energy, the resulting environmental problems due to satisfy the demand for energy and the complex-economic system, necessitate the study of new technologies such as energy from municipal solid waste (MSW) obtaining as a result of decrease huge mass of solid waste to sanitary landifill and emissions of landifill gas as (CH4 and CO2 ). Therefore, we propose to validate a technical, economical and environmental analysis of waste-treatment systems with enphasis on generation of energy. The recovery of heat from a waste-to-energy plant, can make a useful contribution to the city energy needs. Whilst we have been slow to exploit fully this resource in Sicily, economically in urban areas

A procedure to evaluate the indoor global quality by a sub objective-objective procedure

This paper proposes two complementary procedures for assessing the indoor global comfort: the first one, prevalently objective, is based on the acquisition of microclimate measured data and computed subjective values; the second one, that is purely subjective, uses a questionnaire drawn from the ISO/DP 10551 Recommendation. An application to some lecture-halls is here showe

FLUSSI TURISTICI E GESTIONE DEI RIFIUTI: IL CASO DI PANTELLERIA

Ogni estate migliaia di turisti raggiungono l’isola siciliana per le vacanze e con loro aumenta la produzione di rifiuti e i problemi legati alla sua gestione. Di fronte a queste preoccupazioni, la Facoltà di Architettura dell’Università di Palermo insieme al Dipartimento di Energia, Ingegneria dell’Informazione e Modelli Matematici dell’Università di Palermo, hanno elaborato uno studio di fattibilità che prevede l’inserimento di un impianto per la valorizzazione energetica dei RSU e delle biomasse

A case study to the Evaluation of Global Environmental Quality, concerning thermal, acoustic and atmospheric conditions of urban areas

In this paper we propose an operative procedure aimed at assessing and check the global environmental quality in the urban areas. This methodology is set up by using an ergonomic approach that analyses the interaction man-environment in terms of cause-effect and uses information and data from various sources contributing to the formation of discomfort degrees.[1-2] The representation technique by normo-grams is used for showing some applications executed along the urban territory of Palermo and allows to evaluate very simply all the parameters involved in human comfort. This paper is divided in 5 sections, after the introduction in section 2 a review of the principal simple and complex indexes is presented, in section 3 the methodology used to assess the air quality is presented and in section 4 some experimental results on some areas of Palermo are presented, finally in section 5 some conclusions are drawn.[3-4

RESEARCH ON MICROCLIMATE LIGHT CONDITIONS IN A SCHOLASTIC ENVIRONMENT, BASED ON ADAPTIVE MODEL

This paper shows the results of a deep research, carried out on a scholastic setting and based on a questionnaire, to evaluate the light microclimate and the satisfaction degree of the users. Through simulations, we have previously identified a number of classrooms where the conditions could be critical, both in terms of over-lightning, glare and disrespected values (suggested by the current normative). The proposed method consist in using device-made-surveys, a simulation software and questionnaires submission to users of the studied rooms. The questionnaires, based on an adaptive model, has been developed to detect subjective data (place, visus…) and other information about the setting and its relationship with the users (difficulty in eyesight, year average frequency using light shelf. The results obtained after the questionnaires’ submission, mapped in a chromatic scale that considers each position held by every users, show high degrees of dissatisfaction even if the device-madesurveys has found values considered quantitatively acceptable. Another simulation shows the possibility of corrective actions, not invasive, in order to control natural light, which results shows a quantitative values reduction from the optimal range followed by a significant improvement in terms of quality of the microclimate light conditions. The procedure we developed derives by the integration of traditional and experimental methods, evaluating the gap that, in this case, seemed to be too high considering the whole school time

Miniaturized Sensors for Detection of Ethanol in Water Based on Electrical Impedance Spectroscopy and Resonant Perturbation Method - A Comparative Study

The development of highly sensitive, portable and low-cost sensors for the evaluation of ethanol content in liquid is particularly important in several monitoring processes, from the food industry to the pharmaceutical industry. In this respect, we report the optimization of two sensing approaches based on electrical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and complementary double split ring resonators (CDSRRs) for the detection of ethanol in water. Miniaturized EIS sensors were realized with interdigitated electrodes, and the ethanol sensing was carried out in liquid solutions without any functionalization of the electrodes. Impedance fitting analysis, with an equivalent circuit over a frequency range from 100 Hz to 1 MHz, was performed to estimate the electric parameters, which allowed us to evaluate the amount of ethanol in water solutions. On the other hand, complementary double split ring resonators (CDSRRs) were optimized by adjusting the device geometry to achieve higher quality factors while operating at a low fundamental frequency despite the small size (useful for compact electronic packaging). Both sensors were found to be efficient for the detection of low amounts of ethanol in water, even in the presence of salts. In particular, EIS sensors proved to be effective in performing a broadband evaluation of ethanol concentration and are convenient when low cost is the priority. On the other end, the employment of split ring resonators allowed us to achieve a very low limit of detection of 0.2 v/v%, and provides specific advantages in the case of known environments where they can enable fast real-time single-frequency measurements

Gas sensing technologies -- status, trends, perspectives and novel applications

The strong, continuous progresses in gas sensors and electronic noses resulted in improved performance and enabled an increasing range of applications with large impact on modern societies, such as environmental monitoring, food quality control and diagnostics by breath analysis. Here we review this field with special attention to established and emerging approaches as well as the most recent breakthroughs, challenges and perspectives. In particular, we focus on (1) the transduction principles employed in different architectures of gas sensors, analysing their advantages and limitations; (2) the sensing layers including recent trends toward nanostructured, low-dimensional and composite materials; (3) advances in signal processing methodologies, including the recent advent of artificial neural networks. Finally, we conclude with a summary on the latest achievements and trends in terms of applications.Comment: arXiv admin comment: This version has been removed by arXiv administrators as the submitter did not have the rights to agree to the license at the time of submissio