Fenestration obscuration techniques

The goal of this project was to demonstrate technical feasibility of an integrated approach for deep energy retrofits by packaging innovative technologies with smart communicating controls that represent the next generation of energy efficiency. The integrated solutions for optimized performance (ISOP) package integrates (i) advanced lighting and plug load controls; (ii) intelligent daylight harvesting through automated self-powered shades and window films; (iii) advanced HVAC controls sequences (ASHRAE Guideline (GDL) 36); and (iv) fault detection and diagnosis (FDD) and continuous commissioning (CCx) using advanced analytics. These technologies address energy use across multiple building end uses that represent more than 60% of the energy consumption in all commercial buildings. The project was structured to be implemented over three budget periods: Budget Period 1 scope included site selection, project design, site-specific customization of technology packages, procurement of technologies, initiation of installation of technologies, the development of a measurement and verification plan and collection of pre-retrofit data collection. The first year go/no-go decision was based on securing host sites representing 250,000 sq. ft. of occupied operational spaces, savings analysis, technology procurement and initiation of installation. Budget Period 2 planned to complete technology installations and initiate data collection of post-retrofit performance data. The second year go/no-go was to be the completion of technology installations and commissioning, metering and data collecting to support the requirements laid out in site specific M&V plans. Budget Period 3 planned to collect and analyze post-retrofit performance data and provide data and reporting to support energy efficiency rebate programs. After the team completed activities planned for Budget Period 1, the team reached a Go/No-Go Decision Point. At that point, TRC recommended that DOE discontinue the project without prejudice due to challenges with securing demonstration sites to meet the full 250,000 sf of occupied operational spaces and DOE concurred. In Budget Period 1, the TRC team developed criteria to recruit and evaluate potential demonstration host sites. TRC worked with Princeton University, the project demonstration partner, to identify buildings on their campus as potential candidates for the demonstration. Following the selection of demonstration sites, the TRC team customized energy technology packages according to the needs and characteristics of each site. TRC defined technology specifications, identified vendors, and conducted analysis to estimate energy and cost savings potential. The project team then developed schedules for technology procurement processes and scheduled for installation at all selected demonstration sites. The project team worked with Princeton University and DOE to develop an approach to verify energy savings achieved through measurement and verification (M&V) 2.0 methods. Princeton University initiated open bids to procure the necessary materials and installation contractors. Bid results came back higher than estimates due to a couple of factors – lack of familiarity of the bidders with the proposed technologies and lack of local trained installers to execute the installation of these new measures. Due to the higher bids, projects no longer met the internal cost-effectiveness criteria used by Princeton to proceed with procurement of the full suite of technologies as proposed in ISOP. Princeton had already procured parts of the ISOP package as part of a campus-wide initiative for FDD and lighting retrofits, but with the higher costs for other ISOP components, Princeton could no longer commit to the full ISOP package on the selected sites. Based on this, the team reached the Go/No-Go decision point, where they decided not to proceed with the project. Princeton is separately installing portions of the ISOP package where they individually meet Princeton’s payback criteria but on a different schedule than would have been needed for the DOE ISOP project. The team has learned several lessons from project progress in the first budget period. The team will utilize these lessons in future projects, as should any team which proceeds with a project around the ISOP technology. The first lesson is that more information about the proposed sites is required earlier in the process (perhaps even at the proposal stage) in order to have a successful demonstration. Technical details not evident earlier in the process (such as the TLED limitations for ALCS) can derail project execution. The second lesson is that pricing of emerging technologies is highly variable due to lack of familiarity of local installers and distributor with the proposed technologies as well as alternate bids using products they were more familiar with, but that cost more than the ones proposed by TRC. Finally, the last major lesson is that the host site’s internal project criteria is of critical importance. Based on these higher installed costs and lack of an informed installer base for the products proposed for this project, the project does not meet Princeton’s simple payback goals of five years.

Abstract. Cultural heritage sites worldwide are increasingly vulnerable to disasters and climate-related risks, threatening their physical integrity and cultural value. In Malaysia, iconic sites such as Masjid Kampung Laut and Bangunan Sultan Abdul Samad have experienced the impacts of such hazards. However, heritage conservation efforts in the country still largely rely on conventional methods, lacking the integration of advanced technologies like Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and Building Information Modeling (BIM). These tools offer significant potential for comprehensive disaster risk assessments and proactive site management, yet their application remains limited. The absence of GIS and BIM in Conservation Management Plans (CMPs) has resulted in reactive conservation practices that leave heritage sites susceptible to irreversible damage caused by environmental threats and urban encroachment. This study investigates the sufficiency of technology adaptation in the monitoring criteria of Malaysia’s heritage management plans, particularly for sites located in disaster-prone areas. Employing a qualitative research design, the study conducts a detailed content review of selected CMPs and on-site observations of the two heritage sites. The findings reveal a significant gap in the incorporation of technology-driven risk assessment, indicating an urgent need for reform in the monitoring and conservation practices. The study highlights the importance of GIS in spatial risk classification and BIM in structural analysis and mitigation planning. Aligning with UNESCO’s “Managing Disaster Risk for World Heritage” manual, the study advocates for a technology-enriched conservation framework that promotes data-driven, predictive, and resilient strategies for safeguarding cultural heritage in Malaysia.

Fifty years after the ratification of the World Heritage Convention, we have come to learn that there is a huge discrepancy between the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) ideals of protecting heritage sites with outstanding universal values and unmatched realities in situ. I attempt to elucidate what World Heritage ideals of heritage protection are held in iconic sites in Southeast Asia. The studied sites are ancient monumental heritage sites of national importance – namely, Borobudur of Indonesia, Sukhothai and Ayutthaya of Thailand, and Angkor of Cambodia. The authorities in these countries have converted heritage sites into parks for visitors and for capitalization, which has placed authenticity and integrity at stake as well as converting the sites for contestation between the authorities and local communities. In order to solve the dilemma of the World Heritage ideals and their unwanted realities, I explore possible effective approaches for UNESCO and its partners to take into consideration.

Recently, considerable attention has justifiably been directed towards energy savings in buildings as they account for up to 20–40% of total energy consumption in developed countries. In the United Kingdom, studies have revealed that buildings’ CO2 emissions for account for at least 43% of total emissions. Window panels are a major component of the building fabric with considerable influence on the façade energy performance and are accountable for up to 60% of a building’s overall energy loss. Therefore, the thermal performance of glazing materials is an important issue within the built environment. This work evaluates the impact of solar window films on the overall energy consumption of an existing commercial building via the use of a case study U.K. hotel and TAS dynamic simulation software. The study results demonstrated that the impact of window films on the overall energy consumption of the case study hotel is approximately 2%. However, an evaluation of various overall energy consumption components showed that the window films reduce the annual total cooling energy consumption by up to 35% along with a marginal 2% increase in the annual total heating energy consumption. They can also provide overall cost and CO2 emissions savings of up to 3%.

The economy and well-being of modern societies relies on complex and interdependent infrastructure systems to enable delivery of utilities and movement of goods, people and services. This complexity has resulted in an increased potential for cascading failures, whereby small scale initial failures in one system can result in events of catastrophic proportions across the wider network. Resilience and the emerging concept of resilience engineering within infrastructure are among the main concerns of those managing such complex systems. However, the disparate nature of resilience engineering development in various academic and industrial regimes has resulted in a diversity of definitions and characterisations. These are discussed in this paper, as are the commonalities between sectors and between different engineering disciplines. The paper also highlights the various methodologies used as part of resilience engineering implementation and monitoring, current practices including existing approaches and metrics, and an insight into the opportunities and potential barriers associated with these methodologies and practices. This research was undertaken for the Resilience Shift initiative to shift the approach to resilience in practice for critical infrastructure sectors. The programme aims to help practitioners involved in critical infrastructure to make decisions differently, contributing to a safer and better world.

Buildings, consuming over 70% of the electricity in the U.S., play significant roles in smart grid infrastructure. The automatic operation of buildings and their subsystems in responding to signals from a smart grid is essential to reduce energy consumption and demand, as well as improve the resilience to power disruptions. In order to achieve such automatic operation, high fidelity and computationally efficiency building energy forecasting models under different weather and operation conditions are needed. Currently, data-driven (black box) models and hybrid (grey box) models are commonly used in model based building control operation. However, typical black box models often require long training period and are bounded to weather and operation conditions during the training period. On the other hand, creating a grey box model often requires long calculation time due to parameter optimization process and expert knowledge during the model structure determining and simplification process. An earlier study by the authors proposed a system identification approach to develop computationally efficient and accurate building energy forecasting models. This paper attempts to extend this early study and to quantitatively evaluate how the most important characteristics of a building energy system: its nonlinearity and response time, affect the system identification process and model accuracy. Two commercial building: a small-size and a medium-size commercial building, with varying chiller nonlinearity, are simulated using EnergyPlus in lieu of real buildings for model development and validation. The system identification method proposed in the early study is applied to these two buildings that have varying nonlinearity and response time. Adaption of the proposed system identification method based on systems’ nonlinearity and response time is proposed in this study. The energy forecasting results demonstrate that the adaption is capable of significantly improve the performance of the system identification model.

This paper looks at the trends in design procedures in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). Rapid advances in technology are enabling more and more capability to be placed on smaller airframes which is spurring a large increase in the number of UAVs being deployed in the army. The military role of UAV is growing at unprecedented rates. The UAV is an acronym for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, which is an aircraft with no pilot on board. UAVs can be remote controlled aircraft (e.g. flown by a pilot at a ground control station) or can fly autonomously based on pre-programmed flight plans or more complex dynamic automation systems. A variety of design configurations are in use. The primary driving parameters in all UAVs is the need for maximizing available wing area and wing effectiveness, while minimizing the required storage volume. The major factors in determining the relative merit of the different concepts are the evaluation of structural viability, mechanical complexity and overall system survivability by G forces. This paper examines some of the design methodologies and hardware-in-the loop simulation environment to support and validate the UAV hardware and software development.

The emergence of the recent SARS-CoV-2 global health crisis introduced key challenges for epidemiological research and clinical testing. Characterized by a high rate of transmission and low mortality, the COVID-19 pandemic necessitated accurate and efficient diagnostic testing, particularly in closed populations such as residential universities. Initial availability of nucleic acid testing, like nasopharyngeal swabs, was limited due to supply chain pressure which also delayed reporting of test results. Saliva-based reverse transcriptase quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) testing has shown to be comparable in sensitivity and specificity to other testing methods, and saliva collection is less physically invasive to participants. Consequently, we developed a multiplex RT-qPCR diagnostic assay for population surveillance of Clemson University and the surrounding community. The assay utilized open-source liquid handling robots and thermocyclers instead of complex clinical automation systems to optimize workflow and system flexibility. Automation of saliva-based RT-qPCR enables rapid and accurate detection of a wide range of viral RNA concentrations for both large- and small-scale testing demands. The average turnaround for the automated system was < 9 h for 95% of samples and < 24 h for 99% of samples. The cost for a single test was $2.80 when all reagents were purchased in bulk quantities.

Analysing causes of avoidable waste in complex systems: a case study from the nuclear industry

&lt;p&gt;The objective of this research was to determine the adequacy of Android devices capturing High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography, and using it as a tool for daylight analysis in New Zealand’s commercial building stock. This study was conducted with an Android Smartphone and later an Android Tablet, employing the use of a US$50 magnetic fisheye lens. The overall aim of this research was to evaluate whether an inexpensive programmable data acquisition system could provide meaningful and useful luminance data. To complete this research, the adequacy of computer simulation using HDR photography of the real horizontal and vertical skies was explored. Using the method documented in this research, the luminance distribution of the building interiors could then be mapped accurately in daylight simulations. The BRANZ Building Energy End-Use Study (BEES) team currently have one internal lighting measurement point, which records light levels in each of more than 100 commercial buildings randomly selected to be representative of commercial buildings in New Zealand. The HOBO U12 data logger typically records the environmental data on a desktop within the main area of the monitored premises. The HOBO data loggers only provide the environmental measurement of that specific location and do not provide the researcher the daylight distribution of the whole space. Using the data collected by BEES, a thesis was developed to explore the utility of HDR imaging as a supplement to the use of a single internal light measurement in the analysis of daylight potential in New Zealand’s commercial building stock. Three buildings were randomly selected from the BEES targeted strata five database to be monitored over a one day period. Within each building, at least three rooms were studied, all facing different orientations. The pilot study and the first two buildings monitored employed the use of a Motorola Defy Smartphone to capture the low dynamic range (LDR) photographs of each scene using both the HDR Camera application available from the Android Google Play Application Store, and the built-in camera application that came with the Smartphone. The vertical (by pressing the Smartphone hard up against the window) and horizontal (from the ground) skies were also captured simultaneously as only one device was available at each monitored building and to ensure consistency in each building. These photographs were fused using an HDR software called Photosphere, into a single HDR image. However, before the HDR images could be generated to contain accurate luminance data within the images, a camera response curve is required to be generated. A camera response curve is unique to each device and only needs to be generated once and can be generated using Photosphere. Unfortunately, a camera response curve could not be generated for the Motorola Defy Smartphone and through various experimentations and tests in both the lighting laboratory and in-field, it was discovered that this had nothing to do with the EXIF data contained within the photographs captured as originally thought, but the JPEG image format itself. This resulted in a generic camera response curve, from Photosphere, being used for the pilot study and the first two monitored buildings. For the final building that was monitored, a Galaxy Note Tablet was used. A camera response curve for this device could be easily generated using Photosphere. The pilot study and three monitored buildings were geometrically simulated using Google SketchUp 8 and were then exported in to Radiance Lighting Simulation and Rendering System using the su2rad plug-in. The files were then edited in Ecotect™ Radiance Control Panel, after which the real and simulated images were compared using HDRShop and RadDisplay. The four comparison methods were used to compare the real and simulated data were pixel to pixel comparison; section to section pixel comparison; surface to surface comparison and visual field comparison. Of the four methods used the first two were visual based comparisons, whereas the latter two were numerical, which employ the use of a calculation method to calculate the relative error percentages. The biggest problem that arose from the visual comparisons was the geometrical misalignment due to the use of a fisheye lens and only provided the luminance difference ranging from a scale of 0 cd/m2 to 50 cd/m2. The numerical comparison methods provided a 60% correlation between real and simulated data. It was concluded that, depending on the Android device used, HDR photographs are able to provide reliable images that contain accurate luminance data when a camera response curve for the device could be generated.&lt;/p&gt;

Vital Signs: Deficiencies in Environmental Control Identified in Outbreaks of Legionnaires’ Disease—North America, 2000–2014

As lighting energy consumption increases, various studies are carried out to solve such a problem. As a solution to the problem, a variety of studies are conducted since the performance of light-shelf using external natural light is excellent. The light-shelf is divided into external, internal and mixed type light shelves, and also it is divided into single light shelf and double light-shelf according to reflector's installation type. Preceding studies on light shelves are mostly simulation studies. In this regard, this study aimed to conduct an experiment research of double light-shelf, and the study results are as follows: 1) When a double light-shelf is applied, average illuminance increases compared with a single light-shelf. 2) When an internal double light-shelf is applied, uniformity factor declines compared with a single light-shelf, and this is a factor to consider in installing a light-shelf. 3) In case of the internal double light-shelf selected in this study, when separation distance diminishes, uniformity factor improves. Also, when separation distance is 100mm, indoor illuminance distribution is high, which is advantageous to lighting energy reduction. Therefore, proper separation distance of an internal double light- shelf is 100mm on the summer solstice.

Light is an inevitable reality, and at the same time the only one capable of overcoming it. The difference between architecture as a whole and underground architecture, is similar to the difference between external light, which produces the masterly play of objects brought into the light, and internal light, which gives life to the spaces enclosed by the volume itself. A difference that translates into a light that wants to embrace everything and is therefore indistinguishable from the construction, and a light that is directed at specific points, illuminating the darkness in which the structure is immersed in a differentiated way. Hence, the subterranean world reveals how a completely dark environment can take on life, vibrate and become space even simply due to the effects of a lit candle.

The urban parks and gardens are usually surrounded by busy streets, commercial buildings and areas of high noise levels due to human activities and heavy traffic. These parks and gardens therefore have a unique function of providing relatively quiet areas to get away from the hustle and bustle of city lives. In this study, the sonic environment of the Singapore Botanic Gardens, which was the first UNESCO Heritage site in Singapore, was measured on various occasions and benchmarked with various urban gardens and parks around the world, namely the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris, Real Jardín Botánico in Madrid. St James’s Park in London, Old Botanical Gardens Hamburg, and Carlton Gardens in Melbourne. The Leq noise level was found to be compatible with the respective Leq noise level of the other urban parks and gardens. The sonic environment of the Singapore Botanic gardens was found to be dominated by cicada sound, human activities and water features. The sound level of various water features such as mini waterfalls and water fountains were also measured and analysed.

Tracheal intubation is older than the recognized his-tory of general anesthesia itself. In the late 18th cen-tury, The Royal Humane Society of London used tra-cheal intubation for resuscitating the near-drowned.Approximately 100 years later, MacEwan (1) per-formed a digital tracheal intubation in an awake pa-tient before a chloroform and air general endotrachealanesthetic for the resection of a tongue tumor, and in1928, Magill (2) incorporated blind nasal tracheal in-tubation as a part of a general anesthetic. Althoughlaryngoscopes were invented in the 19th century, tra-cheal intubation under direct visualization was greatlyenhanced by the development of a special laryngo-scope blade by Macintosh (3) in 1943.The first reported use of a lighted stylet used tofacilitate intubation came in 1957 when (by now SirRobert) Macintosh (4) described an 18-inch illumi-nated tracheal tube introducer, which was designed tostiffen the tube and better illuminate the cords bysupplementing the light of the laryngoscope. Berman(5) described a similar device in 1959 and said it wasuseful “when the fickle light of the laryngoscope hasgone out at the most inopportune time.” In the sameyear, Yamamura et al. (6) described a light bulb-tippedwire that was inserted into the tracheal tube beforeblind nasal intubation in awake patients. The tubeposition was then determined by the medial transillu-mination of the external throat and neck.In 1977, Foster (7) used a transilluminating fiberop-tic bundle to facilitate tracheal intubation in a youngchild with trismus, and Ducrow (8), in the followingyear, used a flexible surgical light (Flexi-lum™, Con-cept Corporation, Clearwater, FL) to achieve the sameend by first passing a guide (two plastic suction cath-eters connected end-to-end) into the trachea followedby passage of the tracheal tube over the guide. In acorrespondence to the latter article, Rayburn (9) com-mented that the Flexi-lum™ could be positioned in-side the tracheal tube, thereby shortening the intuba-tion sequence and claimed that the technique,nicknamed “lightwand intubation,” had been used forsome years at the Brooke Army Medical Center.