Hakka dwellings are well known as the circular and square or rectangular shaped Tulou (rammed earth construction houses). These domiciles in which those known as the Hakka live are located at the border regions of the three provinces of Fujian, Jiangxi and Guangdong. It is generally known that the Hakka are Han Chinese, moved southward around the 4th century from the Central Plain of the Huangh...

As a part of the worldwide European Community Respiratory Health Survey, possible relations between asthma and emissions from newly painted indoor surfaces were studied. The participants (n = 562) answered a self-administered questionnaire, with questions on symptoms and indoor exposures, including indoor painting, during the last 12 months. The participants also underwent a structured intervie...

Simultaneous indoor radon, radon-thoron progeny and high-resolution in situ gamma spectrometry measurements, with portable high-purity Ge detector were performed in 26 dwellings of Thessaloniki, the second largest town of Greece, during March 2003-January 2005. The radon gas was measured with an AlphaGUARD ionisation chamber (in each of the 26 dwellings) every 10 min, for a time period between ...

A community-based survey of the vaccination status of children aged 12-23 months was conducted to evaluate the impact of a child health outreach programme on vaccination coverage in Alexandra township, South Africa. The EPI cluster sampling technique was adapted for this purpose. The sample size, including the number of clusters and the number of units per cluster, was increased to permit strat...

Seasonal solar thermal energy storage (SSTES) has been investigated widely to solve the mismatch between majority solar thermal energy in summer and majority heating demand in winter. To study the feasibility of SSTES in domestic dwellings in the UK, eight representative cities including Edinburgh, Newcastle, Belfast, Manchester, Birmingham, Cardiff, London and Plymouth have been selected in th...

Approximately one million people in the UK are served by private water supplies (PWS) where main municipal water supply system connection is not practical or where PWS is the preferred option. Chronic exposure to contaminants in PWS may have adverse effects on health. South West England is an area with elevated arsenic concentrations in groundwater and over 9000 domestic dwellings here are supp...

Poor indoor air quality has been implicated in the increase in allergic and respiratory diseases seen in industrialized countries in recent decades. Although air pollution in the workplace is well studied, much less is known about the consequences of poor air quality in homes. In an attempt to halt or slow down the increase in allergic and respiratory diseases, the European Federation of Allerg...

Sometimes, when it is impossible to perform a direct measurement, it is critical to obtain an estimate of the indoor gamma dose rate with adequate accuracy and precision. With a method we set up – the IN-OUT method – it is possible to estimate the indoor gamma dose rate attributable to building materials. Gamma dose rates are measured in contact with an external wall of a dwelling, and then a “...