The adverse health effects and costs of IAQ problems could be reduced significantly with proper use and maintenance of buildings and early detection and remediation of problems.Dissemination of information is the key to these savings. Therefore, the Finnish ministries responsible for IAQ decided to launch an education and information campaign IndoorClimate 2002. The activities were coordinated by the Finnish Society of Indoor Air Qualityand Climate (FiSIAQ).
As the office environment is always changing new ways of looking at diffuser selection is mandatory.Changes in the office air delivery system may be due to new building codes/regulations, or to changing interior loads.New technologies allow innovative manners to treat heating and cooling needs. Some strategies may be used in retrofitting.
The study was carried out on 30 female subjects exposed in a low-polluting office in either presence or absence of personal computers that had been in service for 3 months. Under each of the two conditions, the persons performed simulated office work using low-polluting PCs. They were found to be strong indoor pollution sources, having a negative impact on perceived air quality, on performance of office work and on some SBS symptoms.
In the course of laboratory investigation we examined the adaptability of naive panels onindoor air quality measurements. We made the investigation on a measuring team of 45participants. We examined the measurement precision and standard deviation of themeasuring team with the help of Olf-Box. Our results show that despite the economicefficiency the number of persons in a measuring team cannot be reduced to less than 30subjects. We built a measuring system to examine the emission of indoor used materials.
A minaret of a mosque, traditionally used as a high platform to deliver adhan (the call forprayer), has greatly lost its functional significance with the invention of loudspeakers. Despiteof being a functionally redundant element, people still like to erect a minaret as a traditionalsymbol, identity and beauty of a mosque.
The provision of adequate naturally generated airflow is a vital component of energy-efficienthealthy buildings. Increasing densification in cities of today acts as a dominant influence onthe wind regime, diverting and obstructing natural wind flow to unpredictable levels.Localized air movement is often inadequate and vastly different from regional magnitudes anddirections and cannot be used as the basis of design.
A cross-sectional study was carried out to investigate the prevalence of sick buildingsyndrome (SBS) among the office workers in Mauritius. Data were collected through selfadministeredquestionnaires answered by 384 occupants in 25 randomly selected buildings. Awalk-through investigation and some indoor climate variables were also monitored. All datacollected were analysed using Epi-Info and SPSS softwares. P values less than 0.05 wereconsidered significant.Personal factors such as sex, allergy and active smoking were significantly related to SBSsymptoms.
During the past few decades various symptoms and illnesses have been attributed to nonindustrialindoor environments. Problems associated with the indoor environment are acommon health issue faced by clinicians; generally, these complaints are regarded as beingdue to sick building syndrome. Mauritius is a small island with a subtropical climate.Mauritius is also a country where the prevalence of bronchial asthma among the population ishigh. No data on the sick building syndrome were available for Mauritius.
A nationwide survey on indoor air quality will be set up in France in 2003-2004. The aim ofthe survey is to assess household exposure to indoor air pollutants. The target population isthe national housing stock of approximately 24 million permanently occupied housing units.A nationally representative sample of dwellings will be selected based on a three-stagesampling design. At the first stage, the Primary Sampling Units (PSUs) are categorized basedon French territorial divisions. The second stage of the design is the sampling of segmentswithin the PSUs.
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