Resilient cooling strategies – A critical review and qualitative assessment

The global effects of climate change will increase the frequency and intensity of extreme events such as heatwaves and power outages, which have consequences for buildings and their cooling systems. Buildings and their cooling systems should be designed and operated to be resilient under such events to protect occupants from potentially dangerous indoor thermal conditions. This study performed a critical review on the state-of-the-art of cooling strategies, with special attention to their performance under heatwaves and power outages. We proposed a definition of resilient cooling and described four criteria for resilience—absorptive capacity, adaptive capacity, restorative capacity, and recovery speed —and used them to qualitatively evaluate the resilience of each strategy. The literature review and qualitative analyses show that to attain resilient cooling, the four resilience criteria should be considered in the design phase of a building or during the planning of retrofits. The building and relevant cooling system characteristics should be considered simultaneously to withstand extreme events. A combination of strategies with different resilience capacities, such as a passive envelope strategy coupled with a low-energy space-cooling solution, may be needed to obtain resilient cooling. Finally, a further direction for a quantitative assessment approach has been pointed out

Premature mortality attributable to COVID-19: potential years of life lost in 17 countries around the world, January–August 2020

Background Understanding the impact of the burden of COVID-19 is key to successfully navigating the COVID-19 pandemic. As part of a larger investigation on COVID-19 mortality impact, this study aims to estimate the Potential Years of Life Lost (PYLL) in 17 countries and territories across the world (Australia, Brazil, Cape Verde, Colombia, Cyprus, France, Georgia, Israel, Kazakhstan, Peru, Norway, England & Wales, Scotland, Slovenia, Sweden, Ukraine, and the United States [USA]). Methods Age- and sex-specific COVID-19 death numbers from primary national sources were collected by an international research consortium. The study period was established based on the availability of data from the inception of the pandemic to the end of August 2020. The PYLL for each country were computed using 80 years as the maximum life expectancy. Results As of August 2020, 442,677 (range: 18–185,083) deaths attributed to COVID-19 were recorded in 17 countries which translated to 4,210,654 (range: 112–1,554,225) PYLL. The average PYLL per death was 8.7 years, with substantial variation ranging from 2.7 years in Australia to 19.3 PYLL in Ukraine. North and South American countries as well as England & Wales, Scotland and Sweden experienced the highest PYLL per 100,000 population; whereas Australia, Slovenia and Georgia experienced the lowest. Overall, males experienced higher PYLL rate and higher PYLL per death than females. In most countries, most of the PYLL were observed for people aged over 60 or 65 years, irrespective of sex. Yet, Brazil, Cape Verde, Colombia, Israel, Peru, Scotland, Ukraine, and the USA concentrated most PYLL in younger age groups. Conclusions Our results highlight the role of PYLL as a tool to understand the impact of COVID-19 on demographic groups within and across countries, guiding preventive measures to protect these groups under the ongoing pandemic. Continuous monitoring of PYLL is therefore needed to better understand the burden of COVID-19 in terms of premature mortality

Excess all-cause mortality and COVID-19-related mortality: a temporal analysis in 22 countries, from January until August 2020

Background This study aimed to investigate overall and sex-specific excess all-cause mortality since the inception of the COVID-19 pandemic until August 2020 among 22 countries. Methods Countries reported weekly or monthly all-cause mortality from January 2015 until the end of June or August 2020. Weekly or monthly COVID-19 deaths were reported for 2020. Excess mortality for 2020 was calculated by comparing weekly or monthly 2020 mortality (observed deaths) against a baseline mortality obtained from 2015–2019 data for the same week or month using two methods: (i) difference in observed mortality rates between 2020 and the 2015–2019 average and (ii) difference between observed and expected 2020 deaths. Results Brazil, France, Italy, Spain, Sweden, the UK (England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland) and the USA demonstrated excess all-cause mortality, whereas Australia, Denmark and Georgia experienced a decrease in all-cause mortality. Israel, Ukraine and Ireland demonstrated sex-specific changes in all-cause mortality. Conclusions All-cause mortality up to August 2020 was higher than in previous years in some, but not all, participating countries. Geographical location and seasonality of each country, as well as the prompt application of high-stringency control measures, may explain the observed variability in mortality changes

Cross-cultural adaptation and psychometric properties of the greek sensory profile (Sp-Gr) caregiver questionnaire

OBJECTIVE Cross-cultural adaptation and assessment of the psychometric properties of the Sensory Profile (SP) caregiver questionnaire in the Greek language (SP-Gr). METHOD The SP caregiver questionnaire was translated, culturally adapted and piloted according to internationally accepted guidelines. The questionnaire was translated into Greek by two bilingual translators, who then discussed and compiled the results of the two separate translations (T1 and T2) into a joint version of the questionnaire (T12). A third bilingual person translated the joint version back into English and all three collaborated to produce a semi-final version. The semi-final version was pilot tested on 30 mothers of children aged 3 to 10 years, 20 of which had children of typical development and 10 atypical development. For the test-retest reliability, 66 parents (mainly mothers of differing educational and socioeconomic background, of children aged 3–10 years, 38 of typical development and 28 of atypical development), completed the SP-Gr at two different times, spaced 7–14 days apart. For construct validity, the known-group method was utilized, exploring the differences between the two groups (typical development and atypical development) in all the SP parameters (sections, factors, and quadrants). The atypical development group consisted of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), specific learning disabilities, attention-deficit/ hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and Down syndrome. RESULTS Test-retest reliability was very high for quadrant (ICC=0.91–0.95), for factor (ICC=0.78–0.94) and section scores (ICC=0.81–0.95). Internal consistency was also high for quadrants (α=0.86–0.92), and for all but two factors (α=0.80–0.91) and fairly good for the section scores (α=0.75–0.88). Differences between children of typical and atypical development were significant in almost all sections, factors and quadrants (p<0.05), demonstrating the construct validity of the questionnaire. CONCLUSIONS The SP-Gr caregiver questionnaire was found to be acceptable, understandable, valid and reliable by Greek parents and may thus be used in cross-cultural clinical practice and research. This study supports the use of quadrant scores over factor and section scores to analyze children’s sensory processing patterns. © Athens Medical Society

Association of Vitamin D with adiposity measures and other determinants in a cross-sectional study of Cypriot adolescents

Objective To assess vitamin D status among Cypriot adolescents and investigate potential determinants including BMI and body fat percentage (BF%). Design Participants had cross-sectional assessments of serum vitamin D, physical activity, dietary vitamin D intake and sun exposure. Linear and logistic regression models were used to explore the associations of vitamin D with potential predictors. Setting Hospitals, Cyprus, November 2007-May 2008. Subjects Adolescents (n 671) aged 16-18 years. Results Mean serum vitamin D was 22·90 (sd 6·41) ng/ml. Only one in ten children had sufficient levels of vitamin D (≥30 ng/ml), while the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency (12-20 ng/ml) and severe deficiency (&lt;12 ng/ml) was 31·7 % and 4·0 %, respectively. Lower vitamin D was associated with winter and spring season, female gender, reduced sun exposure in winter and darker skin. Participants with highest BMI and BF% when compared with a middle reference group had increased adjusted odds of vitamin D insufficiency (OR = 3·00; 95 % CI 1·21, 7·45 and OR = 5·02; 95 % CI 1·80, 13·97, respectively). A similar pattern, although not as strong, was shown for vitamin D deficiency with BF% (OR = 1·81; 95 % CI 1·04, 3·16) and BMI (OR = 1·51; 95 % CI 0·85, 2·67). Participants in the lowest BMI and BF% groups also displayed compromised vitamin D status, suggesting a U-shaped association. Conclusions Vitamin D deficiency in adolescence is very prevalent in sunny Cyprus, particularly among females, those with darker skin and those with reduced sun exposure in winter. Furthermore, vitamin D status appears to have a U-shaped association with adiposity measures. © 2014 The Authors

Small-Area Mapping of Premature Mortality and its Association with Area Socio-Economic Characteristics on the Small Island of Cyprus

INTRODUCTION: In Cyprus, there are no accepted measures of deprivation. This study investigates the association between all-cause premature mortality ( 3000). Up to two-fold differences remained in smoothed maps (range: 0.76–1.35), with 39% of the variation explained locally. A striking southeast to northwest spatial pattern was revealed with higher rates in less dense and remote areas. Strong negative associations were observed with proportion of households with persons aged less than 14 (0.89, 95% CI = 0.85–0.94 per SD increase) and proportion of houses constructed after 1990 (0.90, 95% CI = 0.86–0.94). Surprisingly, traditional indicators of deprivation, such as unemployment, did not exhibit associations with premature mortality. The top five indicators associated were increased proportion of retired people, disabled or chronically ill, illiterate, single-person households and households with no PC, all with an increase of about 10% per SD increase.CONCLUSIONS: There appeared to be a clear urban-rural divide in premature mortality, with rural and remote areas at a disadvantage. While the indicators which demonstrated significant associations with mortality are commonly used as proxy measures of deprivation, they are also characteristic of rural life. Since deprivation may take different meaning depending on context, this should be incorporated into the development of an index of deprivation