The Durability, Functionality and Acceptability of Novel Screened Doors and Windows After Four Years of Use in A Gambian Village: A Cross-Sectional Survey

Background: The World Health Organization recommends house screening as a tool for malaria control, yet evidence of the long-term durability, functionality and acceptability of this intervention is lacking. Here we examined the sustainability and use of novel types of screened doors and windows four years after installation in a Gambian village. Methods: A survey of 31 houses, each with two screened doors and two screened windows, was conducted in the rainy season. There were four types of screened door and two types of screened window. Trained staff carried out the survey and interviews of room owners were conducted in the local language before translation into English.Results: Structurally, the manufactured doors and windows were highly durable and in excellent condition. Most doors shut smoothly 50/61 (82%), although only 25/61 (41%) shut fully automatically with the latch slotting into the hole on the frame and holding fast. Door locks were less robust, with only (24/61) 39% present and working. Blinds proved especially flimsy, with only 4/109 (4%) of door blinds and 10/56 (18%) of window blinds present and in working order. Householders hung curtains inside most doors 50/61 (82%) and in 26/61 (43%) of the windows. Front doors were commonly found propped open 21/31 (68%) and 23/27 (85%) of those with a front door curtain, put their curtains down at night. Doors and windows were well liked, 19/31 (61%) of respondents were happy with them because they kept mosquitoes out 14/31 (45%) and provided security 12/31 (39%). The main reason given for the use of curtains was to provide privacy 26/28 (93% of those with curtains), especially while the door was open or had ‘see-through’ panels.Conclusions: Overall, the screened doors and windows were in excellent condition after four years of use. Improvements to the lock design are needed before scale-up. Installation of screening in buildings should be accompanied with health messaging recommending that at night, doors and windows be closed and curtains lifted or drawn to one side - to improve ventilation and keep the house cool.

Effect of Modified Silica Materials on Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) Substrates to Obtain Transparent and Hydrophobic Hybrid Coatings

In this research, we report a simple and inexpensive way to prepare transparent and hydrophobic hybrid coatings through deposition of different silica materials on polyvinyl chloride (PVC) substrates. The silica materials were prepared using an acid-catalyzed sol–gel method at room temperature (25 ± 2 °C), using alkoxysilanes: tetraethoxysilane (TEOS), as the silica source, and ethoxydimethylvinylsilane (DMVES), triethoxyoctylsilane (OTES), and trimethoxyhexadecylsilane (HDTMES), as modifier agents. The obtained materials were characterized (either as powders or as thin films) by Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), UV/Vis spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), atomic force microscopy (AFM), spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE), and water contact-angle measurements. UV/Vis spectra showed that the PVC substrate coated with the silica material containing TEOS/DMVES/OTES had a transmittance of about 90% in the wavelength range of 650–780 nm. The water contact angles increased from 83° for uncoated PVC substrate to ~94° for PVC substrates coated with the sol–gel silica materials. These PVC films with hybrid silica coatings can be used as the materials for outdoor applications, such as energy-generating solar panel window blinds or PVC clear Windmaster outdoor blinds.

Analysis of Human-Building Interactions in Office Environments: to What Extent Energy Saving Boundaries can be Displaced?

Building energy consumption can be enhanced to a certain level, but human-oriented dimensions can open the doors to new opportunities. This article presents an assessment on the interactions between human-driven factors and energy consumption patterns in office buildings based on empirical evidence and a co-simulation. The objective of this work is to evaluate a range for saving capacities as a result of readjusting occupants’ prior habits and engaging them in building operation by determining internal and external factors associated with human-building drivers, needs, actions, and systems. The study is based on a real office building, and according to real behavioral data and subjective measurement to analyze human attitudes and interactions with the building end-uses such as cooling, lighting, and equipment along with factors that directly impact energy use such as fenestrations and window blinds. The survey results are extensively investigated and the correlations between demographic/socioeconomic traits and behavioral factors are examined. The survey results are incorporated into a co-simulation testbed to represent occupant attitudes and behaviors and model human-building interactions accordingly. Different scenarios are designed to perform an assessment on the role of human factors such as attitude, awareness of consequences, habits, ascription of responsibility and personal/social norms on building energy end-uses. The outcomes of this study demonstrate that by adjusting behavioral factors in an office building, an energy saving between 9 and 18% can be achieved without sophisticated technology interface or building retrofit/upgrade. The results are elaborated, and recommendations are explained in detail.

Deposition Rates of Asthma Triggers on Conventional and Enclosed Window Treatments

Environmental interventions are an important element of managing allergies and asthma. Health professionals often recommend that draperies be replaced with window blinds however no data exist on accumulation of inhalant allergens or inflammatory bioaerosols on window treatments. Installing blinds that accumulate less dust may reduce breathing zone exposures when blinds are adjusted if hazardous amounts of bioaerosols are deposited. We sought to determine the rate of accumulation of dust, allergens, bacterial endotoxin and fungal glucan on window blinds of two distinct types mounted on the two types of windows most commonly installed in U.S. homes. The blinds tested were conventional horizontal slat blinds hanging on the inside of the window (roomside blinds) and similar blinds placed between the exterior window glass and an extra pane of glass on the interior side (between-glass blinds). The study was conducted in six households as a paired, repeated measures study. Households were identified for participation, having met the study criteria of children and cats living inside a carpeted home. Standard window blinds accumulated cat allergen, endotoxin and fungal glucan at rates of 5940ng/m², 1910EU/m², and 11,360ng/m² per month. Between-glass blinds reduced the loading of asthma triggers by 25- to 185-fold. Comparison with clinical thresholds associated with asthma morbidity indicates that room-side blinds accumulate potentially hazardous quantities of asthma triggers.

Optimum Building Design Variables in a Warm Saharan Mediterranean Climate Zone

This research contributes to making residential buildings more efficient in the city of Azraq, Jordan, which is located in a warm climate zone in the Saharan Mediterranean region (classified as a hot desert climate according to the Köppen climate classification). It involved the optimisation of several envelope parameters with the aim of reducing the usage of energy within a normal structure occupying an area of 186 m2 without the occupants’ involvement in saving energy in the building to solely measure the building envelope’s thermal performance. The DesignBuilder software was used for the sensitivity analysis using 12 design variables, which enabled their significance for both cooling and heating loads. The selected variables were separated into two categories based on their level of significance: a group with higher importance (window to wall %, local type of shading, ground floor building, natural rate of ventilation, rate of infiltration, kind of glazing, and flat roof structure) as well as a group with lower importance (partition construction, site position, construction of outside walls, kind of window blinds, and window shade control timetable); these variables will save a significant amount of heating and cooling energy.

Impact Of Building Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV) In Architectural Science Building (ARC) Ryerson University

Solar heat gains, heating, cooling and lighting energy demands are the primary energy associated with building operation. Glare and solar heat gains are the common issues in the buildings with high window to wall ratio. Window blinds are commonly used to control the glare which blocks the natural lights as well. Scientifically designed external shading devise also helps to control glare which are merely used in the tall modern glass buildings. So renewable technologies like Building Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV) can be one of the strategies to address the primary energy demand of the building, glare control as well as on site electricity generation. The study includes the performance of BIPV application in the faculty office area of third floor of ARC building at Ryerson University. It shows that the BIPV can be effective by addressing the lighting, cooling demand effectively.

Impact Of Building Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV) In Architectural Science Building (ARC) Ryerson University

Solar heat gains, heating, cooling and lighting energy demands are the primary energy associated with building operation. Glare and solar heat gains are the common issues in the buildings with high window to wall ratio. Window blinds are commonly used to control the glare which blocks the natural lights as well. Scientifically designed external shading devise also helps to control glare which are merely used in the tall modern glass buildings. So renewable technologies like Building Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV) can be one of the strategies to address the primary energy demand of the building, glare control as well as on site electricity generation. The study includes the performance of BIPV application in the faculty office area of third floor of ARC building at Ryerson University. It shows that the BIPV can be effective by addressing the lighting, cooling demand effectively.

The intercorporeality of closing a curtain

Jointly coordinated affective activities are fundamental for social relationships. This study investigates a naturally occurring interaction between two women who produced reciprocal emotional stances towards similar past experiences. Adopting a microanalytic approach, we describe how the participants re-enact their past experiences through different but aligning synchronized gestures. This embodied dialogue evolves into affective flooding, in which participants co-produce their body memories of pulling down window blinds to block out sunshine. We show how the participants live this moment intercorporeally and how multiple timescales are tied together in gesture, which is both an incarnation of body history and a novel expression of it. Thus, collaborative gesturing is a resource for experiencing together emotions re-enacted from body memories. Contributing to our understanding of the intercorporeality of human action, we provide an empirical investigation into how emotions and multiple timescales are nested in cooperative gestures. Data are in Finnish with English translations.

Enterprise Security for the Internet of Things (IoT): Lightweight Bootstrapping with EAP-NOOB

The emergence of radio technologies, such as Zigbee, Z-Wave, and Bluetooth Mesh, has transformed simple physical devices into smart objects that can understand and react to their environment. Devices, such as light bulbs, door locks, and window blinds, can now be connected to, and remotely controlled from, the Internet. Given the resource-constrained nature of many of these devices, they have typically relied on the use of universal global shared secrets for the initial bootstrapping and commissioning phase. Such a scheme has obvious security weaknesses and it also creates undesirable walled-gardens where devices of one ecosystem do not inter-operate with the other. In this paper, we investigate whether the standard Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) framework can be used for secure bootstrapping of resource-constrained devices. EAP naturally provides the benefits of per-device individual credentials, straightforward revocation, and isolation of devices. In particular, we look at the Nimble out-of-band authentication for EAP (EAP-NOOB) as a candidate EAP authentication method. EAP-NOOB greatly simplifies deployment of such devices as it does not require them to be pre-provisioned with credentials of any sort. Based on our implementation experience on off-the-shelf hardware, we demonstrate that lightweight EAP-NOOB is indeed a way forward to securely bootstrap such devices.