Cognitive barriers during monitoring-based commissioning of buildings

Monitoring-based commissioning (MBCx) is a continuous building energy management process used to optimize energy performance in buildings. Although monitoring-based commissioning (MBCx) can reduce energy waste by up to 20%, many buildings still underperform due to issues such as unnoticed system faults and inefficient operational procedures. While there are technical barriers that impede the MBCx process, such as data quality, the focuses of this paper are the non-technical, behavioral and organizational, barriers that contribute to issues initiating and implementing MBCx. In particular, this paper discusses cognitive biases, which can lead to suboptimal outcomes in energy efficiency decisions, resulting in missed opportunities for energy savings. This paper provides evidence of cognitive biases in decisions during the MBCx process using qualitative data from over 40 public and private sector organizations. The results describe barriers resulting from cognitive biases, listed in descending order of occurrence, including: risk aversion, social norms, choice overload, status quo bias, information overload, professional bias, and temporal discounting. Building practitioners can use these results to better understand potential cognitive biases, in turn allowing them to establish best practices and make more informed decisions. Researchers can use these results to empirically test specific decision interventions and facilitate more energy efficient decisions

Occupant Protection during Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle Landings

The constellation program is evaluating current vehicle design capabilities for nominal water landings and contingency land landings of the Orion Crew Exploration vehicle. The Orion Landing Strategy tiger team was formed to lead the technical effort for which associated activities include the current vehicle design, susceptibility to roll control and tip over, reviewing methods for assessing occupant injury during ascent / aborts /landings, developing an alternate seat/attenuation design solution which improves occupant protection and operability, and testing the seat/attenuation system designs to ensure valid results. The EVA physiology, systems and Performance (EPSP) project is leading the effort under the authority of the Tiger Team Steering committee to develop, verify, validate and accredit biodynamics models using a variety of crash and injury databases including NASCAR, Indy Car and military aircraft. The validated biodynamics models will be used by the Constellation program to evaluate a variety of vehicle, seat and restraint designs in the context of multiple nominal and off-nominal landing scenarios. The models will be used in conjunction with Acceptable Injury Risk definitions to provide new occupant protection requirements for the Constellation Program

Chilled Water Thermal Storage System and Demand Response at the University of California at Merced

University of California at Merced is a unique campus that has benefited from intensive efforts to maximize energy efficiency, and has participated in a demand response program for the past two years. Campus demand response evaluations are often difficult because of the complexities introduced by central heating and cooling, non-coincident and diverse building loads, and existence of a single electrical meter for the entire campus. At the University of California at Merced, a two million gallon chilled water storage system is charged daily during off-peak price periods and used to flatten the load profile during peak demand periods, further complicating demand response scenarios. The goal of this research is to study demand response savings in the presence of storage systems in a campus setting. First, University of California at Merced is described and its participation in a demand response event during 2008 is detailed. Second, a set of demand response strategies were pre-programmed into the campus control system to enable semi-automated demand response during a 2009 event, which is also evaluated. Finally, demand savings results are applied to the utility’s DR incentives structure to calculate the financial savings under various DR programs and tariffs

A performance evaluation framework for building fault detection and diagnosis algorithms

Fault detection and diagnosis (FDD) algorithms for building systems and equipment represent one of the most active areas of research and commercial product development in the buildings industry. However, far more effort has gone into developing these algorithms than into assessing their performance. As a result, considerable uncertainties remain regarding the accuracy and effectiveness of both research-grade FDD algorithms and commercial products—a state of affairs that has hindered the broad adoption of FDD tools. This article presents a general, systematic framework for evaluating the performance of FDD algorithms. The article focuses on understanding the possible answers to two key questions: in the context of FDD algorithm evaluation, what defines a fault and what defines an evaluation input sample? The answers to these questions, together with appropriate performance metrics, may be used to fully specify evaluation procedures for FDD algorithms

Validity and reliability of a handheld blood glucose monitor during exercise and an oral glucose tolerance test

The purpose of the present study was to examine the validity and reliability of the handheld Nova Max Plus blood glucose monitor during an oral glucose tolerance test and 60-minute bout of exercise. Thirty subjects (mean age±SD=22.3±1.9 years; body mass=77.6±14.2 kg) volunteered for an oral glucose tolerance test or 60-minute treadmill test. Blood glucose concentrations were measured from the fingertip at six time points during both tests. The reference method of blood glucose analysis was the Yellow Springs Instruments (YSI) 2300. Our results indicated that the blood glucose values provided by the Nova Max Plus were significantly (p<.05) greater than the YSI 2300 at all-time points of the oral glucose tolerance test and treadmill test. In addition, the Nova Max Plus exhibited an overall mean absolute relative deviation (±SD) of 9.0 (±7.0) and did not meet the 95% accuracy requirements of ISO 15197:2013. The Bland-Altman plot for constant error (YSI 2300 – Nova Max Plus) versus the reference method (YSI 2300) indicated an average negative bias (-8.2 mg·dL-1) that increased (r=-0.23) at higher blood glucose values. Intra-device reliability analyses for the Nova Max Plus demonstrated the ICC was R=0.99 and CV=3.0%, with no mean differences between the test and retest values. These findings suggested that the Nova Max Plus provided highly reliable, yet inaccurate blood glucose values compared to the YSI 2300 during the dynamic conditions associated with an oral glucose tolerance test and exercise

The state of indoor air quality in Pakistan—a review

Background and purpose: In Pakistan, almost 70% of the population lives in rural areas. Ninety-four percent of households in rural areas and 58% in urban areas depend on biomass fuels (wood, dung, and agricultural waste). These solid fuels have poor combustion efficiency. Due to incomplete combustion of the biomass fuels, the resulting smoke contains a range of health-deteriorating substances that, at varying concentrations, can pose a serious threat to human health. Indoor air pollution accounts for 28,000 deaths a year and 40 million cases of acute respiratory illness. It places a significant economic burden on Pakistan with an annual cost of 1% of GDP. Despite the mounting evidence of an association between indoor air pollution and ill health, policy makers have paid little attention to it. This review analyzes the existing information on levels of indoor air pollution in Pakistan and suggests suitable intervention methods. Methods: This review is focused on studies of indoor air pollution, due to biomass fuels, in Pakistan published in both scientific journals and by the Government and international organizations. In addition, the importance of environmental tobacco smoke as an indoor pollutant is highlighted. Results: Unlike many other developing countries, there are no long-term studies on the levels of indoor air pollution. The limited studies that have been undertaken indicate that indoor air pollution should be a public health concern. High levels of particulate matter and carbon monoxide have been reported, and generally, women and children are subject to the maximum exposure. There have been a few interventions, with improved stoves, in some areas since 1990. However, the effectiveness of these interventions has not been fully evaluated. Conclusion: Indoor air pollution has a significant impact on the health of the population in Pakistan. The use of biomass fuel as an energy source is the biggest contributor to poor indoor air quality followed by smoking. In order to arrest the increasing levels of indoor pollution, there is a dire need to recognize it as a major health hazard and formulate a national policy to combat it. An integrated effort, with involvement of all stakeholders, could yield promising results. A countrywide public awareness campaign, on the association of indoor air pollution with ill health, followed by practical intervention would be an appropriate approach. Due to the current socioeconomic conditions in the country, development and adoption of improved cooking stoves for the population at large would be the most suitable choice. However, the potential of biogas as a fuel should be explored further, and modern fuels (natural gas and LPG) need to be accessible and economical. Smoking in closed public spaces should be banned, and knowledge of the effect of smoking on indoor air quality needs to be quantified. © 2010 Springer-Verlag