The Future of Thermal Comfort in an Energy- Constrained World


Book Description

The dissertation investigates the scientific and business factors that have resulted in air-conditioning being a major contributor to climate-change. With his architectural background, the author demonstrates how a design methodology, not commonly adopted in scientific studies, may actually be a suitable way of dealing with a complex problem: the 'business as usual' scenario involving building science, sociological values and consumer behavior. Using his innovations as case studies, the author shows how good ideas cannot be evaluated on scientific merit alone and demonstrates why commercialization may have a pivotal role in deployment of research-based technology. He advances the theory of personalized thermal comfort which can potentially resolve the air-conditioning conundrum.




Sustainable Development Research in the Asia-Pacific Region


Book Description

This multidisciplinary book focuses on best practices in sustainability research in the Asia-Pacific Region. Drawing links between research, practice, education for sustainability and the needs of industry, it addresses the sustainable development goals (SDGs). The book also presents research undertaken by a wide range of universities on matters related to sustainable development, in order to promote research in this area across multiple disciplines. Four key themes are explored: (1) Education for Sustainability. (2) Sustainable Cities. (3) Sustainable Buildings. (4) Sustainable Infrastructure. This unique book documents and disseminates the wealth of know-how on sustainable development research in the Asia-Pacific Region today. It presents lessons learned and comparative case studies from various countries, including India, China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Bangladesh, New Zealand and Australia.




Adaptive Thermal Comfort: Principles and Practice


Book Description

The fundamental function of buildings is to provide safe and healthy shelter. For the fortunate they also provide comfort and delight. In the twentieth century comfort became a 'product' produced by machines and run on cheap energy. In a world where fossil fuels are becoming ever scarcer and more expensive, and the climate more extreme, the challenge of designing comfortable buildings today requires a new approach. This timely book is the first in a trilogy from leaders in the field which will provide just that. It explains, in a clear and comprehensible manner, how we stay comfortable by using our bodies, minds, buildings and their systems to adapt to indoor and outdoor conditions which change with the weather and the climate. The book is in two sections. The first introduces the principles on which the theory of adaptive thermal comfort is based. The second explains how to use field studies to measure thermal comfort in practice and to analyze the data gathered. Architects have gradually passed responsibility for building performance to service engineers who are largely trained to see comfort as the ‘product’, designed using simplistic comfort models. The result has contributed to a shift to buildings that use ever more energy. A growing international consensus now calls for low-energy buildings. This means designers must first produce robust, passive structures that provide occupants with many opportunities to make changes to suit their environmental needs. Ventilation using free, natural energy should be preferred and mechanical conditioning only used when the climate demands it. This book outlines the theory of adaptive thermal comfort that is essential to understand and inform such building designs. This book should be required reading for all students, teachers and practitioners of architecture, building engineering and management – for all who have a role in producing, and occupying, twenty-first century adaptive, low-carbon, comfortable buildings.




Future Urban Energy System for Buildings


Book Description

This book investigates three main characteristics of future urban energy system for buildings, including flexibility, resilience and optimization. It explores the energy flexibility by considering renewable energy integration with buildings, sector coupling, and energy trading in the local energy market. Energy resilience is addressed from aspects of future climate change, pandemic crisis, and operational uncertainties. Approaches for system design, dynamic pricing and advanced control are discussed for the optimization of urban energy system. Knowledge from this book contributes to the effective means in future urban energy paradigm to closely integrate multiple energy systems (i.e., distribution, mobility, production and storage) with different energy carriers (i.e., heat, electricity) in an optimal manner for energy use. It would facilitate the envision of next-generation urban energy systems, towards sustainability, resilience and prosperity. This book targets at a broad readership with specific experience and knowledge in energy system, transport, built environment and urban planning. As such, it will appeal to researchers, graduate students, engineers, consultants, urban scientists, investors and policymakers, with interests in energy flexibility, building/city resilience and climate neutrality.




Handbook of Sustainable Energy


Book Description

Ô. . . was impressed by the scope of the contributions and their clarity. All appear to have been written specifically for this ÒHandbookÓ and all are readily comprehensible without a large amount of assumed previous knowledge. . . a very useful source document and many of the chapters represent a good starting point for student research projects.Õ Ð Tony Owen, Economics of Energy and Environmental Policy ÔIn todayÕs modern world where energy resources are increasingly scarce, climate change is a hot-button issue, and population growth continues to push the need to promote sustainable living, Handbook of Sustainable Energy is highly recommended as an absolutely invaluable contribution to graduate school libraries and the pool of literature available to professionals in the field.Õ Ð The Midwest Book Review Major contemporary issues and debates relating to the sustainable use of energy are addressed in this far-reaching Handbook. The contributing authors discuss the ongoing debates about sustainability and energy use, energy economics, renewable energy, efficiency and climate policy. New and original chapters from leading academics cover the full spectrum of relevant research including: definitions of sustainability in energy use; consumer behaviour and energy markets; the impacts of innovation and new technologies; energy economics and climate modelling; low carbon economies and renewable energies. The authors critically engage with perspectives from developed and developing countries from both global and regional standpoints. This Handbook will make a timely and important contribution to the study of energy, climate change and climate economics, and will prove essential reading for international researchers in the fields of natural resources, climate change and energy. Students in environmental science faculties, economics departments, business schools and engineering schools will also find this important and enriching compendium insightful. Similarly, policy-makers in energy and environment ministries and international organizations will find much topical debate to engage them.




Standards for Thermal Comfort


Book Description

Current Standards for Indoor Air Temperature are inappropriate in many regions of the world. This forces designers to use highly serviced buildings to achieve air temperatures that accord with the standards to the detriment of the local and global environment. Standards for Thermal Comfort brings together contributions from around the world, reflecting new approaches to the setting of standards which can apply to all climates and cultures.




Routledge Handbook of Resilient Thermal Comfort


Book Description

This book brings together some of the finest academics in the field to address important questions around the way in which people experience their physical environments, including temperature, light, air-quality, acoustics and so forth. It is of importance not only to the comfort people feel indoors, but also the success of any building as an environment for its stated purpose. The way in which comfort is produced and perceived has a profound effect on the energy use of a building and its resilience to the increasing dangers posed by extreme weather events, and power outages caused by climate change. Research on thermal comfort is particularly important not only for the health and well-being of occupants but because energy used for temperature control is responsible for a large part of the total energy budget of the built environment. In recent years there has been an increasing focus on the vulnerabilities of the thermal comfort system; how and why are buildings failing to provide safe and agreeable thermal environments at an affordable price? Achieving comfort in buildings is a complex subject that involves physics, behaviour, physiology, energy conservation, climate change, and of course architecture and urban design. Bringing together the related disciplines in one volume lays strong, multi-disciplinary foundations for new research and design directions for resilient 21st century architecture. This book heralds workable solutions and emerging directions for key fields in building the resilience of households, organisations and populations in a heating world.




Technological Innovation for Collective Awareness Systems


Book Description

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 5th IFIP WG 5.5/SOCOLNET Doctoral Conference on Computing, Electrical and Industrial Systems, DoCEIS 2014, held in Costa de Caparica, Portugal, in April 2014. The 68 revised full papers were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. They cover a wide spectrum of topics ranging from collaborative enterprise networks to microelectronics. The papers are organized in the following topical sections: collaborative networks; computational systems; self-organizing manufacturing systems; monitoring and supervision systems; advances in manufacturing; human-computer interfaces; robotics and mechatronics, Petri nets; multi-energy systems; monitoring and control in energy; modelling and simulation in energy; optimization issues in energy; operation issues in energy; power conversion; telecommunications; electronics: design; electronics: RF applications; and electronics: devices.







Challenges and Opportunities to Develop Organizations Through Creativity, Technology and Ethics


Book Description

This proceedings volume provides a multifaceted perspective on current challenges and opportunities that organizations face in their efforts to develop and grow in an ever more complex environment. Featuring selected contributions from the 2019 Griffiths School of Management Annual Conference (GSMAC) on Business, Entrepreneurship and Ethics, this book focuses on the role of creativity, technology and ethics in facilitating the transformation organizations need in order to be ready for the future and succeed. Growth and development have always been imperative for people, organizations, and societies and a relevant topic in the management sciences. Globalization, along with dramatic changes in social, cultural, and technological progress, are the main factors that determine the current conditions for development, putting forth a new set of challenges and opportunities that are putting pressure on organisations to adapt. Although technology and creativity seem to be the mantra for success in this new context, issues around the ethics of these two factors also seem to be crucial to the sustainability of growth in organizations. Featuring contributions on topics such as academic marketing, technology in healthcare organizations, ethical issues in hospitality, artificial intelligence and data mining, this book provides research and tools for students, professors, practitioners and policy makers in the fields of business, management, public administration and sociology.