An important requirement of household energy simulation models is their accuracy in estimating energy demand and its fluctuations. Occupant behavior has a major impact upon energy demand. However, Markov chains, the traditional approach to model occupant behavior, (1) has limitations in accurately capturing the coordinated behavior of occupants and (2) is prone to over-fitting. To address these...

This case study investigates the effects of ventilation intervention on measured and 12 perceived indoor air quality (IAQ) in a repaired school where occupants reported IAQ problems. 13 Occupants ́ symptoms were suspected to be related to the impurities leaked indoors through the 14 building envelope. The study’s aim was to determine whether a positive pressure of 5-7 Pa prevents 15 the infiltra...

OBJECTIVE To investigate whether the Victorian mandatory personal flotation device wearing regulations that came into effect on 1 December 2005 reduced drowning deaths among recreational boaters in Victoria, Australia. DESIGN A retrospective population-based 'before and after' study using Victorian coronial data on drowning deaths of occupants of recreational vessels operating in Victorian wa...

This study presents a contribution to the characterization of occupants’ behavior regarding the manual control of electric lighting in combination with shading control in offices. The procedure and monitoring results for eight single-occupied office spaces is described. The analysis of the collected data indicated that occupants kept electric lighting On during most of the monitoring period and...

Children who are too large for harness restraints but too small to obtain good restraint from a vehicle seatbelt alone should be seated in a belt-positioning booster. Boosters have been shown to significantly reduce abdominal injuries caused by seatbelts. This effectiveness may be due in part to the fact that boosters reduce the effective seat cushion length, allowing children to sit more comfo...

Various factors play a part in the energy consumption of a building : its physical properties, the equipment installed for its functioning (the heating, ventilation and air-conditioning system, auxiliary production of electricity or hot water), the outdoor environment and the behaviour of its occupants. While software tool designers have made great progress in the simulation of the first three ...

The use of current seat belts has been shown to be effective in reducing deaths and serious injuries to restrained car occupants by 50% compared to unrestrained. Real world accident studies have identified limitations to the performance of set belts. This has led to the next major evolution in restraint design which is the development of the intelligent restraints. The options for intelligent r...

INJURY EVENTS AMONG BUS AND COACH OCCUPANTS – Non-crash Injuries as Important as Crash Injuries – Ulf BJÖRNSTIG Pontus ALBERTSSON Johanna BJÖRNSTIG Department of Surgical and Perioperative Sciences Department of Surgical and Perioperative Sciences Umeå Accident Analysis Group Division of Surgery, Umeå University Division of Surgery, Umeå University University Hospital Umeå, Sweden Umeå, Sweden ...

BACKGROUND High-grade blunt hepatic and/or splenic injuries (BHSI) remain a great challenge for trauma surgeons. The main aim of this study was to investigate the characteristics, mortality rates, and outcomes of high-grade BHSI in motorcyclists and car occupants hospitalized for treatment of traumatic injuries in a Level I trauma center in southern Taiwan. METHODS High-grade BHSI are defined...