Building energy consumption in China recently surpassed the US building consumption, and it is expected to increase significantly in the next decade pushed by the continuous population and urbanization increase. In response to that situation, the Chinese government introduced a series of building energy codes and rating systems to assess and enhance the building energy performance. The purpose ...

The human body is a constant flux of thousands of chemical/biological interactions and processes connecting molecules, cells, organs, and fluids, throughout the brain, body, and nervous system. Up until recently it was thought that all these interactions operated in a linear sequence, passing on information much like a runner passing the baton to the next runner. However, the latest findings in...

ing methods, we still experience frustrating situations for patients and even for doctors. Accordingly studies should be continued. Although the efficacies of the drugs and of the administration methods are the key points, practical points, such as the planned timetable and schedules, could be obstacles to bowel cleansing. In short, frustration still exists in bowel preparation. A tailored appr...

The new EU policy for climate protection and promotion of renewable energies introduces under other strategies the concept of buildings as power plants. This concept is based on so called Energy-Plus-House, the next generation of Passive House – a building that would produce more energy than it consumes. Even though the institutional policies do promote the new, innovative forms of buildings an...

While in the historic urban fabric of Iran's cities, there are numerous traditional buildings that have stood up for more than one hundred years, today's buildings, in spite of advanced construction technologies, are not comparable with those traditional ones in terms of resiliency and durability. The sustainable vernacular strategies in design and construction of these traditional houses are t...

China building energy consumption (BEC) has been gradually derived and also sparked attention. However, something worth discussing is estimating the BEC based on the definition of life cycle or building operation. In addition, there exists discrepancy in the previous studies and the real status of BEC has not been known well. In order to settle the disputes over the calculation of BEC, this pap...

An investigation of 24 buildings in the Greater Boston Area revealed that one-third (8 of 24) contained caulking materials with polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) content exceeding 50 ppm by weight, which is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) specified limit above which this material is considered to be PCB bulk product waste. These buildings included schools and other public build...