BACKGROUND This study aims to investigate whether mothers' perceived neighbourhood environment is associated with outdoor playtime of 2- to 3.5-year-old children. METHODS Cross-sectional analyses were conducted using data from the Healthy Beginnings Trial (HBT). Data on children's outdoor playtime and mothers' perceived neighbourhood environment were collected through face-to-face interviews ...

In this paper, we present a control architecture for an intelligent outdoor mobile robot. This enables the robot to navigate in a complex, natural outdoor environment, relying on only a single on-board camera as sensory input. This is achieved through a twofold analysis of the visual data stream: a dense structure from motion algorithm calculates a depth map of the environment and a visual simu...

Respect to the design guidelines of building environments is a complex subject that associated with cultural and economic development of human societies. Therefore, accurately measuring users’ favorites for environment design is a essential subject to optimize the relationship between environmental and personal parameters. This study with the purpose of investigation of patients satisfactory fr...

Poultry are known to harbor antibiotic resistant and pathogenic bacteria, and as such poultry litter and poultry house air can be contaminated with these bacteria. However, the presence of antibiotic resistant bacteria in biological aerosols and litter is largely not understood. The purpose of this study was to determine the amount of aerosolized bacteria and endotoxin, particularly fecal indic...

Here, the potential of colorimetric sensors utilizing porphyrin indicators for long term environmental monitoring is demonstrated. Prototype devices based on commercial color sensing chips (six per device) were combined with in-house developed algorithms for data analysis. The devices are intended to provide real-time sensing of threats. An initial outdoor data set was collected using prototype...

sustainability creates solutions that solve the economic, social and environmental challenges. it has been studied and managed over many scales of time and space and in many contexts. the paper reviews the definitions of sustainability respecting the ecologic concept as well the need for balanced sustainability within its three pillars on equal way, then it goes throw ecologic architecture with...

In site-specific installation or situated media, a significant part of the "I" in NIME is the environment, the site and the implicit features of site such as humans, weather, materials, natural acoustics, etc. These could be viewed as design constraints, or features, even agency determining the outcome of responsive sound installation works. This paper discusses the notion of interface in publi...

An Aedes survey using various larval survey methods was conducted in 12 urban housing areas and 29 vacant lands in Sibu town proper. Aedes albopictus larvae were found in all areas surveyed while Aedes aegypti larvae were present in 10 localities and 4 vacant lands. There were no significant difference in the house index, breteau and larval density index of these two Aedes (Stegomyia) species f...

Smart thermostats can play an important role in achieving more economic energy usage in domestic situations. This paper focuses on the energy used for natural gas-based heating, and monitoring of gas usages versus indoor and outdoor temperatures over time. Two methods are presented that enable the smart thermostat to learn, over time, characteristics of the house such as heat loss rate and heat...