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Gulbinas, Rimas Viktoras. "Motivating and Quantifying Energy Efficient Behavior among Commercial Building Occupants." Diss., Virginia Tech, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/64867.
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The environmental and economic consequences of climate change are severe and are being exacerbated by increased global carbon emissions. In the United States, buildings account for over 40% of all domestic and 7.4% of all global CO2 emissions and therefore represent an important target for energy conservation initiatives. Even marginal energy savings across all buildings could have a profound effect on carbon emission mitigation. In order to realize the full potential of energy savings in the building sector, it is essential to maximize the energy efficiency of both buildings and the behavior of occupants who occupy them. In this vein, systems that collect and communicate building energy-use information to occupants (i.e. eco-feedback systems) have been demonstrated to motivate building occupants to significantly reduce overall building energy consumption. Furthermore, advancements in building sensor technologies and data processing capabilities have enabled the development of advanced eco-feedback systems that also allow building occupants to share energy-use data with one another and to collectively act to reduce energy consumption. In addition to monitoring building occupant energy-use, these systems are capable of collecting data about specific conservation actions taken by occupants and their interactions with different features of the eco-feedback system. However, despite recent advancements in eco-feedback and building sensor technologies, very few systems have been specifically designed to enable research on the effectiveness of different behavior-based energy conservation strategies in commercial buildings. Consequently, very little research has been conducted on how access to such systems impacts the energy-use behavior of building occupants. In this dissertation, I describe how my research over the past three years has advanced an understanding of how eco-feedback systems can impact the energy-use behavior of commercial building occupants. First, I present a novel eco-feedback system that I developed to connect building occupants over energy-use data and empower them to conserve energy while also collecting data that enables controlled studies to quantify the impacts of a wide variety of energy conservation strategies. Next, I present a commercial building study in which this eco-feedback system was used to investigate the effects of organizational network dynamics on the energy-use of individuals. I then introduce a new set of metrics based on individual energy-use data that enables the classification of individuals and building occupant networks based on their energy-use efficiency and predictability. I describe the principles behind the construction of these metrics and demonstrate how these quantitative measures can be used to increase the efficacy of behavior-based conservation campaigns by enabling targeted interventions. I conclude the dissertation with a discussion about the limitations of my research and the new research avenues that it has enabled.Ph. D.
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Thu, Nguyen Huong. "Integration of BIM and IoT to improve building performance for occupants’ perspecti." Thesis, KTH, Fastigheter och byggande, 2016. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-190212.
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The purpose of this thesis is to describe and implement how a specific form of IoT, sensors, can be integrated with BIM in order to improve the building performance, when the perspective taken is the end-users. It seeks to explore different perceived values of BIM and sensor integration for the occupants who directly use the building facilities. The thesis also describes the concept, frameworks and cases of how BIM and sensors integration can be setup. These are used for an implementation at a case facility. Three main methods are used – literature review, comparative case study, and a smallscale implementation, containing a survey and sensor implementation based on the respondents’ satisfaction with the office air quality. A basic literature review is used to gather the fundamental concepts used within the relevant areas, and to review the empirical research connected to these. The conceptual part of the thesis review frameworks for BIM and sensor integration, and points toward a more user-centric framework that is later developed in relation to the thesis’ empirical results. The theoretical framework integrates Information Systems Theories with Knowledge Management for a framework of understanding how knowledge about new kinds of Information Systems in developing areas function. The empirical part of the thesis is structured into two main phases, one descriptive comparative case study, and the other an implementation based in the first phase results. The first phase is descriptive, where two cases of sensor and BIM implementation processes for FM are described. The main case of Tyréns company (Tyréns), and a reference case of Mästerhuset is used for understanding how different organizational structures may lead to different perceived values and processes of BIM and sensor integration for the end-users. The second phase is an implementation at the main case, Tyréns’ headquarter building. Here the end-user perspective is employed with a survey that is constructed in accordance with some of the fundamental concepts and research reviewed, in order to measure the perceived satisfaction with the air quality of the end-users working environment. The answers show concerns with air quality in the meeting rooms, and this is used as the basis for a small-scale implementation of sensors, where CO2 and temperature sensors are set up. The results show how different organizational-specific conditions generate different perceived values of BIM and sensor integration depending on ownership relation to the end-users. The case study also illustrate the different processes of BIM and sensor integration may be setup to supplement building performance. This points to a needed add-on into frameworks that conceptualizes BIM and sensor integration without the inclusion of the end-users’ perspective. Based on this an end-user conceptual framework of BIM and sensors is proposed with the supplementary part of a knowledge layer, named analytic layer and data source from occupants.
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Wei, Shen. "Preference-based modelling and prediction of occupants window behaviour in non-air-conditioned office buildings." Thesis, Loughborough University, 2013. https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/2134/14066.
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In naturally ventilated buildings, occupants play a key role in the performance and energy efficiency of the building operation, mainly through the opening and closing of windows. To include the effects of building occupants within building performance simulation, several useful models describing building occupants and their window opening/closing behaviour have been generated in the past 20 years. However, in these models, the occupants are classified based on the whole population or on sub-groups within a building, whilst the behavioural difference between individuals is commonly ignored. This research project addresses this latter issue by evaluating the importance of the modelling and prediction of occupants window behaviour individually, rather than putting them into a larger population group. The analysis is based on field-measured data collected from a case study building containing a number of single-occupied cellular offices. The study focuses on the final position of windows at the end of the working day. In the survey, 36 offices and their occupants were monitored, with respect to the occupants presence and window use behaviour, in three main periods of a year: summer, winter and transitional. From the behaviour analysis, several non-environmental factors, namely, season, floor level, gender and personal preference, are identified to have a statistically significant effect on the end-of-day window position in the building examined. Using these factors, occupants window behaviour is modelled by three different classification methods of building occupants, namely, whole population, sub-groups and personal preference. The preference-based model is found to perform much better predictive ability on window state when compared with those developed based on whole population and sub-groups. When used in a realistic building simulation problem, the preference-based prediction of window behaviour can reflect well the different energy performance among individual rooms, caused by different window use patterns. This cannot be demonstrated by the other two models. The findings from this research project will help both building designers and building managers to obtain a more accurate prediction of building performance and a better understanding of what is happening in actual buildings. Additionally, if the habits and behavioural preferences of occupants are well understood, this knowledge can be potentially used to increase the efficiency of building operation, by either relocating occupants within the building or by educating them to be more energy efficient.
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Ng, Wun-yin. "Impacts of the indoor environment on the health of occupants in open-plan offices in Hong Kong." Click to view the E-thesis via HKU Scholars Hub, 2004. http://lookup.lib.hku.hk/lookup/bib/B37931039.
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Love, J. A. "Understanding the interactions between occupants, heating systems and building fabric in the context of energy efficient building fabric retrofit in social housing." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 2014. http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1433401/.
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In order for the UK to meet its 2050 carbon targets there needs to be a major energy efficient retrofit of the UK dwelling stock, of which one fifth is social housing. Evidence suggests that retrofit often leads to an increase in mean internal temperature at the expense of energy savings. Research has quantified this effect but little investigation has taken place regarding why temperature increase occurs. This thesis measures the temperature change after installation of external wall insulation in social housing and attempts to separate out the causal influences of the building fabric and occupant behaviour. A longitudinal mixed physical and social methodology was used to collect data from 13 case study social housing dwellings. Physical variables of air and radiator temperature, relative humidity, secondary heating and use of space were measured in each room in the property, and combined with occupant interviews, in two consecutive winters before and after insulation was applied. Mean internal temperature was observed to increase after retrofit: the majority of this was attributed to insulated properties cooling down more slowly. Observed changes in occupant behaviour consisted mostly of reduction in daily hours of heating, and no occupants increased the thermostat setting. Only a minority of homes purposefully increased their demand for heat. This is contrary to assumptions normally made about occupants deliberately ‘taking back’ energy savings as increased comfort. However, the temperature during heated periods did increase in most dwellings. In several it appeared to have been previously constrained by the ability of the heating system to deliver sufficient heat. The current algorithms for predicting mean internal temperature in models such as SAP and BREDEM are a simplification of the complex physical and social reality in most dwellings. This research gives recommendations as to how domestic heating use could be better modelled and controlled.
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Jiang, Lai. "Building energy management and occupants' behaviour-intelligent agents, modelling methods and multi-objective decision making algorithms." Thesis, University of Reading, 2017. http://centaur.reading.ac.uk/68391/.
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In the UK, buildings contribute around one third of the energy-related greenhouse gas emissions. Space heating and cooling systems are among the biggest power consumers in buildings. Thus, improvement of energy efficient of HVAC systems will play a significant role in achieving the UK carbon reduction target. This research aims to develop a novel Building Energy Management System (BEMS) to reduce the energy consumption of the HVAC system while fulfilling occupants’ thermal comfort requirements. The proposed system not only considers the occupants’ adaptations when making decisions on the set temperature, but also influences occupants’ behaviours by providing them with suggestions that help eliminate unnecessary heating and cooling. Multi-agent technologies are applied to design the BEMS’s architecture. The Epistemic-Deontic-Axiologic (EDA) agent model is applied to develop the structure of the agents inside the system. The EDA-based agents select their optimal action plan by considering the occupants’ thermal sensations, their behavioural adaptations and the energy consumption of the HVAC system. Each aspect is represented by its relevant objective function. Newly-developed personal thermal sensation models and group-of-people-based thermal sensation models generated by support vector machine based algorithms are applied as objective functions to evaluate the occupants’ thermal sensations. Equations calculating heating and cooling loads are used to represent energy consumption objectives. Complexities of adaptive behaviours and confidence of association rules between behaviours and thermal sensations are used to build objective functions of behavioural adaptations. In order to make decisions by considering the above objectives, novel multi-objective decision-making algorithms are developed to help the BEMS system make optimal decisions on HVAC set temperature and suggestions to the occupants. Simulation results prove that the newly-developed BEMS can help the HVAC system reduce energy consumption by up to 10% while fulfilling the occupants’ thermal comfort requirements.
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Tsang, Wai-man Wyman, and 曾偉文. "A study on the usage and perceptions of office building occupants to green roofs in Hong Kong." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10722/208521.
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As Hong Kong is famous for its image of leading international financial metropolis, many high-rise office buildings are confined inside some developed commercial districts of Hong Kong. A place for provision of greenery in such districts seems impracticable. However, greenery can exist in forms of green roof onto office buildings, it seems a practical way to embellish this concrete city.
Academic studies from other countries have proven that having green roof onto buildings is able to bring numerous psychological benefits to the building occupants, but is this fact still true for office building occupants of Hong Kong? Besides, what do office building occupants think about the presence of green roof onto the building they are working inside? In this study we would like to explore the perceptions of office building occupants in Hong Kong toward green roof, as well as their mode of green roof usage in case green roof is present. The opinions on how office building occupants get satisfied with the green roof they have visited during their working time may give us a glance to the direction of green roof development in the future. What they expect on green roof is the best source of evidence in designing an optimal green roof on human-based consideration.
Study result features that green roof on office building can provide a decent leisure place to occupants for relaxation, although they seem do not treat green roof as a vital place where they must go. Office building occupants are generally satisfied with green roof having appropriate provisions such as large variety of vegetation, attractive appearance and good management level. Some crucial characteristics of green roof have been identified in the viewpoints of office building occupants such as its aesthetic nature and location for convenient access. In considering the numerous benefits of green roof, every visitor, as office building occupants, agrees that green roof should be present for their needs. It gives positive and supportive evidence as incentive to the industry and developers for future green roof development.published_or_final_version
Housing Management
Master
Master of Housing Management
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THOMAS, GREGORY A. "SERUM BIOMARKER AND ENVIRONMENTAL MEASURES OF FUNGAL EXPOSURE IN OCCUPANTS OF A WATER DAMAGED BUILDING AND ASSOCIATED HEALTH EFFECTS." University of Cincinnati / OhioLINK, 2006. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1155180288.
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Anastasopoulou, Kyriaki. "Creation of a Low Energy Building with the help of Energy Simulation." Thesis, Högskolan i Gävle, Avdelningen för bygg- energi- och miljöteknik, 2017. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hig:diva-25325.
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In this Thesis Project, the creation of a Low Energy building was examined in order to investigate how complex was to select the suitable parameters and systems of the dwelling, aiming to achieve the lowest possible energy consumption in one year period. All the technologies implemented into the system intended to be as energy efficient and profitable as possible. Another objective of this study was also to present the potential of the system to produce a part of the consumed energy, through renewable energy sources, approaching by this way also the standards of a Zero Energy Building. Firstly, the floor plan of the 150 m2 detached house, was drawn in the designing program AutoCAD. In continuation, this 2D floor plan was imported into the simulation program as well as all the initial input data so as for the Base model of the building to be created For the analysis of the building, the Simulation Program IDA ICE 4.7 was used. Gradually, alternations and adjustments were made into the Base model. Different models were created planning to analyze their results and conclude to the proper solution. All the simulations run for one year time period in order to present the total energy usage, system’s losses and demands in each case. In addition, as for the current study, the location of the construction was Athens, all building’s characteristics were chosen to comply with the Greek Regulation for Low Energy Buildings. Finally, through the procedure followed after having accomplished a series of simulations, the final annually energy demands managed to be within the required limits.Online Presentation
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Messer, Shawn Arden. "Assessment of regional fungal concentrations and diversity and their possible association with self-reported health effects among a national sample of office building occupants in the United States." Diss., University of Iowa, 2018. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/6472.
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Data from the Environmental Protection Agency’s Building Assessment and Survey Evaluation (BASE) study was analyzed for culturable fungi detected in air samples collected from 100 office buildings located among ten climate regions in the United States. Fungi identified and quantified in the study were evaluated in indoor and outdoor environments. Evenness of species for both summer and winter, and the diversity and similarity indices of species were calculated between climate region groups in order to observe potential climate-based differences in the fungal microbiome. Respiratory and neurological health symptoms of study building occupants (n = 4,326) were self-reported by questionnaire, and were analyzed in order to assess seasonal and climate differences.
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Vorger, Éric. "Étude de l'influence du comportement des habitants sur la performance énergétique du bâtiment." Thesis, Paris, ENMP, 2014. http://www.theses.fr/2014ENMP0066/document.
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Le comportement humain est modélisé de manière sommaire dans les logiciels de simulation énergétique des bâtiments. Or son impact est considérable et il est à l'origine d'écarts importants entre résultats de simulation et mesures in situ. Les occupants influencent les consommations d'énergie des bâtiments par leur présence et leurs activités, les ouvertures/fermetures de fenêtres, la gestion des dispositifs d'occultation, l'utilisation de l'éclairage artificiel et des appareils électriques, la gestion des consignes de chauffage et les puisages d'eau chaude sanitaire. La thèse propose une modélisation de l'occupation incluant l'ensemble de ces aspects suivant une approche stochastique statistique, pour les bâtiments résidentiels et de bureaux. La construction des modèles fait appel à un grand nombre de données issues de campagnes de mesures, d'enquêtes sociologiques et de la littérature scientifique. Le modèle d'occupation proposé est couplé à l'outil de simulation thermique dynamique Pléiades+COMFIE. En propageant les incertitudes des facteurs du modèle d'occupation et du modèle thermique (enveloppe, climat, systèmes), un intervalle de confiance des résultats de simulation peut être estimé, ouvrant ainsi la voie à un processus de garantie de performance énergétiqueHuman behaviour is modelled in a simplistic manner in building energy simulation programs. However, it has a considerable impact and is identified as a major explanatory factor of the discrepancy between simulation results and in situ measurements. Occupants influence buildings energy consumption through their presence and activities, the opening/closing of windows, the actions on blinds, the use of artificial lighting and electrical appliances, the choices of temperature setpoints, and the water consumptions. The thesis proposes a model of occupants' behaviour including all these aspects, according to a stochastic approach, for residential and office buildings. Models' development is based on numerous data from measurements campaigns, sociological surveys and from the scientific literature. The proposed model for occupants' behaviour is coupled to the simulation tool Pléiades+COMFIE. By propagating the uncertainties of factors from the occupants' behaviour model and the thermal model (envelope, climate, systems), the simulation results confidence interval can be estimated, opening the way to an energy performance guarantee process
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Talbourdet, Fabien. "Développement d'une démarche d’aide à la connaissance pour la conception de bâtis performants." Thesis, Vaulx-en-Velin, Ecole nationale des travaux publics, 2014. http://www.theses.fr/2014ENTP0010/document.
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Les demandes des usagers conjuguées à la réglementation nécessitent de concevoir des bâtiments de plus en plus confortables et économes en énergie. En parallèle de ces exigences, les réglementations concernant les bâtiments sont renforcées dans différents domaines (acoustique, sécurité incendie, risque sismique,…) afin d’obtenir des bâtiments plus sûrs et correspondant aux demandes des usagers. Les impacts conjugués de ces deux facteurs engendrent une complexification de la conception des bâtiments.Cette thèse présente une démarche d’aide à la connaissance pour la conception de bâtis performants se basant sur une méthode d’optimisation. Cette démarche vise à ce que les architectes et les bureaux d’études aient une connaissance claire du potentiel de leur projet (exploration de solutions) en phase amont de conception, pour concevoir des bâtiments les plus performants possibles. Ce potentiel est évalué via des paramètres de la géométrie extérieure et intérieure ainsi que des caractéristiques énergétiques du bâti. La démarche leur permet également d’évaluer les avantages et inconvénients de différentes géométries et solutions de conception qu’ils envisagent pour répondre à leurs projets. Cette démarche est appliquée à un immeuble de bureaux à Lyon.Pour le cas testé, la démarche permet d’obtenir rapidement des solutions performantes et de définir pour certains des paramètres étudiés, des valeurs conduisant aux solutions performantes dans une partie de l’espace des solutions ou dans l’ensemble de cet espace.Cette application de la démarche montre également qu’il peut exister des solutions ayant des besoins énergétiques et des coûts de construction proches mais étant très différentes en termes de paramètres de conception. Bien que remettant en cause l'applicabilité directe de la démarche, ce résultat met en exergue un problème nouveau. Cette thèse pose alors les bases pour une nouvelle étudeBoth aspirations of users and improvements in the thermal regulation require that the comfort and the energy efficiency of new buildings improve. In addition to these requirements, regulations are strengthening in many fields such as acoustics, fire safety and mechanical performance. The combined effects of these factors are making it increasingly hard to design buildings. This thesis presents a knowledge-aid approach for designing high-performance buildings based on an optimization method. This approach aims to provide clear knowledge of the potential of projects (exploration of various options) for architects and design offices at the beginning of the design that will allow them to design the best possible high-performance buildings. This potential is evaluated using external and internal geometric parameters as well as the energy characteristics of buildings. This approach also allows them to assess geometries and design solutions which are intended to be used for their projects.This approach will be applied to an office building in Lyon, France. For the tested case, the approach obtains quickly efficient solutions and also finds, for some parameters, values to design efficient solutions on part of the Paretofront or in this entire front. This application of the approach also shows that there may be solutions which are close in terms of energy needs and cost but could be very different on design parameters. This problem could influence robustness of the approach but highlights a new problem. This thesis then lays the foundation of a new study on this topic
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Chapman, Jacob. "Multi-agent stochastic simulation of occupants in buildings." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2017. http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/39868/.
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One of the principle causes for deviations between predicted and simulated performance of buildings relates to the stochastic nature of their occupants: their presence, activities whilst present, activity dependent behaviours and the consequent implications for their perceived comfort. A growing research community is active in the development and validation of stochastic models addressing these issues; and considerable progress has been made. Specifically models in the areas of presence, activities while present, shading devices, window openings and lighting usage. One key outstanding challenge relates to the integration of these prototype models with building simulation in a coherent and generalizable way; meaning that emerging models can be integrated with a range of building simulation software. This thesis describes our proof of concept platform that integrates stochastic occupancy models within a multi agent simulation platform, which communicates directly with building simulation software. The tool is called Nottingham Multi-Agent Stochastic Simulation (No-MASS). No-MASS is tested with a building performance simulation solver to demonstrate the effectiveness of the integrated stochastic models on a residential building and a non-residential building. To account for diversity between occupants No-MASS makes use of archetypical behaviours within the stochastic models of windows, shades and activities. Thus providing designers with means to evaluate the performance of their designs in response to the range of expected behaviours and to evaluate the robustness of their design solutions; which is not possible using current simplistic deterministic representations. A methodology for including rule based models is built into No-MASS, this allows for testing what-if scenarios with building performance simulation and provides a pragmatic basis for the modelling of the behaviours for which there is insufficient data to develop stochastic models. A Belief-Desire-Intention model is used to develop a set of goals and plans that an agent must follow to influence the environment based on their beliefs about current environmental conditions. Recommendations for the future development of stochastic models are presented based on the sensitivity analysis of the plans. A social interactions framework is developed within No-MASS to resolve conflicts between competing agents. This framework resolves situations where each agent may have different desires, for example one may wish to have a window open and another closed based on the outputs of the stochastic models. A votes casting system determines the agent choice, the most votes becomes the action acted on. No-MASS employs agent machine learning techniques that allow them to learn how to respond to the processes taking place within a building and agents can choose a strategy without the need for context specific rules. Employing these complementary techniques to support the comprehensive simulation of occupants presence and behaviour, integrated within a single platform that can readily interface with a range of building (and urban) energy simulation programs is the key contribution to knowledge from this thesis. Nevertheless, there is significant scope to extend this work to further reduce the performance gap between simulated and real world buildings.
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Cawthorne, Douglas. "Daylighting and occupant health in buildings." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1995. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.390261.
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Mackenzie, Andrew. "A mixed-methods research approach exploring the relationship between 'green' building performance and organizational productivity." Thesis, University of Manchester, 2017. https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/a-mixedmethods-research-approach-exploring-the-relationship-between-green-building-performance-and-organizational-productivity(8a04db6a-8bac-4337-9d6a-1fd67aeb2b25).html.
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Society is at an energy crossroads today. How will our global economy become sustainable for future generations? For today's global organizations can the right thing and the profitable thing be the same thing? Can (or should) successful organizations improve the human condition? Worldwide, buildings account for 17 per cent of fresh water withdrawals, 25 per cent of wood harvest, 33 per cent of CO2 emissions and 40 per cent of material and energy use. Integrated 'green' and sustainable building design is being heralded as the fastest route to ecological modern buildings in Europe, North America and Asia (United States Green Building Council, 2008). On average North Americans spend 90 per cent (United States Environmental Protection Agency, 2009) of their time indoors, a large portion of this time in commercial buildings. Furthermore, salaries and wages account for approximately 90 per cent (Romm and Browning, 1994) of an organization's building-related expenses. However, in our rush to create 'green' and sustainable North American commercial buildings and a laser-like focus on reducing carbon footprints and reducing energy costs have we lost sight of the purpose of the commercial building which is the generation of wealth through the productivity of the commercial building occupant and by extension the occupant's organization. For if any slight increase or if any slight decrease in occupant and organizational productivity can be proven this would easily justify or (un)justify respectively most if not all North American commercial building sustainability initiatives as 'productivity is the fundamental economic measure of a technology's contribution' (Brynjolfsson, 1994). In other words have we increased or at a minimum maintained occupant and organizational productivity as we move our North American commercial building occupants and organizations into these newly created enhanced 'green' and sustainable structures with their new or enhanced 'green' and sustainable systems, processes and designs. The originality of the research will be in the linking of these two distinct areas namely; organizational productivity to North American commercial building 'green' and sustainability initiatives. Furthermore, through the mixed-methods research methodology approach we will attempt to develop new knowledge and findings as we implement measureable 'green' and sustainable strategies into comparative North American commercial building research settings.
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Gill, Zachary M. "Building performance evaluation of aspiring low carbon and low energy domestic buildings and the impact of occupant behaviours." Thesis, University of Bristol, 2012. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.573398.
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In the UK it is well documented that the domestic buildings we occupy contribute significantly to anthropogenic climate change, through their energy consumption and associated carbon dioxide emissions. To reduce these emissions, strict legislative targets require considerable changes to the construction of dwellings (for instance, by improving insulation and air tightness) and also to the technological systems that service them (both passively and actively). Routine validation of, and feedback from, the operation of occupied buildings is seldom conducted despite growing evidence that performance often aligns poorly with expectations or even traditional equivalents. Furthermore, the extent to which the performance of buildings is assignable to the structural and technical features, rather than the actions of the occupant, is not well understood and can lead to profligate consumption and improper (or unexpected) utilisation of design features. The contributions to knowledge documented in this thesis are two-fold. The first contribution is a survey tool and interview structure to capture information on domestic occupant behaviours, which can explain a proportion of performance variation between otherwise comparable dwellings. Five case studies are reported on, alongside wider performance assessments (including occupant comfort and satisfaction, resource consumption and associated carbon emissions, and building integrity). This constitutes the second contribution to knowledge: performance results from four nominally low-energy and low-carbon domestic sites. The fifth case study site was selected to represent a traditional, non-environmentally informed development. Both contributions resulted in individual peer-reviewed academic journal publications. In the absence of measurement, building performance can only be assumed and hence compliance with design expectations or progression towards strict legislative targets cannot be validated. At the low-energy case study sites, average total normalised carbon emissions ranged between 22 and 34 kgC02/m2/year, 39. - 65% lower than local and national benchmarks and most sites exceeded overall comfort and satisfaction benchmarks. At each site large household-to-household variations in consumption of resources and carbon emissions confirmed the importance of human factors (factors of difference ranged from 2.7 - 36). Occupant behaviour, in some houses, undermined overall performance and compliance with standards and design expectations. Interviews with residents at two sites enabled unprecedented access and insight into behaviours and helped explain performance variation in depth. The survey, which aimed to provide a repeatable and rigorous method for capturing behavioural data, explained between 7 - 48% of overall performance variation and facilitated detailed investigation of pertinent behaviours. Socio-demographic and• lifestyle factors are proposed to explain the varying accuracy and inconsistency between individual site results and are of interest for further work and method refinement.
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Rogers, Jane Brenda. "Performance benefits of atrium office building occupancy." Thesis, Ulster University, 2016. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.714497.
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The rationale of this study is to investigate the relationship between the design characteristics of atrium office buildings and the performance of the occupants leading to organisation effectiveness. A central theme is to understand the spatial configuration of the accommodation within and surrounding the atrium space and how this affects office worker behaviour. The background to this study was established through a comprehensive literature review that considered what is known about knowledge worker performance and workplace productivity and how these are measured from a behavioural perspective. The literature review established that there was a need to better understand the behaviour of office workers within the entire office building setting and presented the hypothesis of whether the particular design qualities of an atrium office design could enhance worker performance and organisational effectiveness by facilitating co-worker connectivity, a sense of community and employee well-being. Five office building and their occupants were studied during the research period using a mixed methods case study methodology which employed questionnaires, interviews, drawings, surveys and observations. Two of the office buildings were occupied by the same organisation and formed the foundation study. Crucially one of the office buildings had an atrium and the other did not. The comparative analysis resulted in several emerging themes that influenced the behaviour of the office workers within the atrium office building. These themes were then further tested in three subsequent case studies performed in owner occupied atrium office buildings of a similar size but with contrasting atrium designs and with occupants involved in different work purposes. These studies resulted in the derivation of several key design characteristics and spatial relationships that appeared to impact on worker performance and organisational effectiveness and which can be employed by designers and investors of office buildings towards the development of facilitating work environments.
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Jasek, Megan Cathleen. "Building an interactive occupant packaging model with human figure." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1995. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/37778.
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Thesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 1995.Includes bibliographical references (p. 91-93).
by Megan Cathleen Jasek.
M.Eng.
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Stevens, Sarah. "Automated glazed facades : occupant responses and architects rationales." Thesis, Oxford Brookes University, 1999. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.325292.
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Fried, Chelsea. "Where Design Meets Occupant Engagement: Studying the Importance of Occupant Engagement for Green Buildings, LEED and Pomona College." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2014. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/pomona_theses/104.
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A building is not independent from the people who inhabit it. Humans play an important role in determining the resource consumption of buildings. This thesis argues that it is essential for rating systems like LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), that promote green building to include occupant engagement as an important part of the sustainable building equation. Occupant engagement, which includes connecting residents to the sustainable capacity of their buildings, has the potential to lead to reductions in resource consumption and to create a culture of sustainability and awareness. Through a case study of Pomona College strategies for occupant engagement, such as signage and feedback, are investigated more closely. This thesis makes recommendations on how to improve occupant engagement at Pomona College, and how these best practices can be applied on a larger scale.
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Bourgeois, Denis J. "Detailed occupancy prediction, occupancy-sensing control and advanced behavioural modelling within whole-building energy simulation." Doctoral thesis, Québec : Université Laval, 2005. http://www.theses.ulaval.ca/2005/22706/22706.pdf.
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Burton, Melissa Deanne. "Effects of low frequency wind-induced building motion on occupant comfort." online access from Digital Dissertation Consortium, 2006. http://libweb.cityu.edu.hk/cgi-bin/er/db/ddcdiss.pl?3268726.
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Nasrollahi, Nazanin. "Thermal environments and occupant thermal comfort in Iranian office buildings." Thesis, Cardiff University, 2007. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.445202.
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Tomlinson, Jonathan. "A premises occupancy cost forecasting model." Thesis, University of Liverpool, 1998. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.339957.
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Zhao, Jie. "Design-Build-Operate Energy Information Modeling for Occupant-Oriented Predictive Building Control." Research Showcase @ CMU, 2015. http://repository.cmu.edu/dissertations/472.
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Green buildings aim to save land, energy, water, and material, as well as to create a healthy and comfortable environment for their occupants throughout the life-cycle. One of the primary goals for the design of green buildings is reducing operating energy costs. Mainly due to the energy performance requirements of various green building rating systems, building energy modeling (BEM) is being increasingly used in the building industry, which definitely improves building energy efficiency through code and standard compliances. However, as a scientific and standardized method, using BEM can provide far more benefits than just code and standard compliances. BEM can be used for many other purposes at different stages of the building life-cycle. This dissertation has developed and demonstrated the concept of Design-build-operate Energy Information Modeling (DBO-EIM) infrastructure, which can be used at different stages of the building life-cycle to improve energy and thermal comfort performance. The whole process is tested using a medium-size office building in Pittsburgh, PA. At the design stage, for the purpose of design decision making a parametric BEM process is demonstrated in the test-bed building. The case study results show that the proposed design case building has better energy performance than the baseline, design alternatives, and various benchmark buildings. At the commissioning and early operation stages, an EnergyPlus model calibration method is introduced using empirical data that are collected from the test-bed building. The final calibrated model has a mean biased error of 1.27% and a coefficient of variation of the root mean squared error of 6.01%. This calibration method provides a scientific and systematic framework to conduct high accuracy EnergyPlus model calibration. At the operation stage, on the basis of the calibrated EnergyPlus model, an occupant-oriented mixed-mode EnergyPlus predictive control (OME+PC) system is developed. Given the Pittsburgh weather context and current operation assumptions, the simulation results suggest a potential 29.37% reduction in annual HVAC energy consumption. In addition, OME+PC enables building occupants to control their thermal environment through an internet-based dashboard. Several important research findings are also concluded from the studies in the DBO-EIM development process that may benefit future work in the building science realm, including the development of an occupant behavior modeling method, the integration of the real-time building operation data collection system, an passive cooling control simulation study, and an occupant subjective thermal comfort field study. In order to show the applicability of the Design-build-operation Energy Information Modeling infrastructure, the process is demonstrated again in a generic Department of Energy prototype medium office EnergyPlus model. Step-by-step instructions and computation time are documented to facilitate future studies. In summary, this dissertation has demonstrated that an original design stage EnergyPlus model can be updated and utilized through the entire DBO-EIM process. Compared to typical building operation, implementing this process can achieve better energy performance and maintain occupant thermal comfort.
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Naylor, Sophie. "Managing the uncertainty of occupant behaviour for building energy evaluation and management." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2018. http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/51466/.
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The influence of building occupancy and user behaviour on energy usage has been identified as a source of uncertainty in current understanding of operational buildings, and yet it is rarely directly monitored. Gathering data on the occupancy of buildings in use is essential to improve understanding of how energy is used relative to the actual energy requirements of building users. This thesis covers the application of occupancy measurement and processing techniques in order to address the gap in knowledge around the contextual understanding of how occupants’ changing use of a building affects this building’s optimum energy demand in real time. Through targeted studies of running buildings, it was found that typical current occupancy measurement techniques do not provide sufficient context to make energy management decisions. Useable occupancy information must be interpreted from raw data sources to provide benefit: in particular, many slower response systems need information for pre-emptive control to be effective and deliver comfort conditions efficiently, an issue that is highlighted in existing research. Systems utilising novel technologies were developed and tested, targeted at the detection and localisation of occupants’ personal mobile devices, making opportunistic use of the existing hardware carried by most building occupants. It was found that while these systems had the potential for accurate localisation of occupants, this was dependent on personal hardware and physical factors affecting signal strength. Data from these sources was also used alongside environmental data measurements in novel algorithms to combine sensor data into a localised estimation of occupancy rates and to estimate near-future changes in occupancy rate, calculating the level of confidence in this prediction. The developed sensor combination model showed that a selected combination of sensors could provide more information than any single data source, but that the physical characteristics and use patterns of the monitored space can affect how sensors respond, meaning a generic model to interpret data from multiple spaces was not feasible. The predictive model showed that a trained model could provide a better prediction of near-future occupancy than the typically assumed fixed schedule, up to an average of approximately two hours. The systems developed in this work were designed to facilitate the proactive control of buildings services, with particular value for slower-response systems such as heating and ventilation. With the application of appropriate control logic, the systems developed can be used to allow for greater energy savings during low or non-occupied periods, while also being more robust to changing occupant patterns and behaviours.
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Dwivedula, Venkata Krishna Chanakya. "Impact of Occupant Activity-Driven Building Control on Energy Use and Indoor Comfort." University of Cincinnati / OhioLINK, 2018. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1530272440273917.
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Natarajan, Hariharan. "Post occupancy energy analysis of the Gwinnett Environmental and Heritage Center." Thesis, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/1853/41214.
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Yun, Geun Young. "Occupant behaviour in buildings : thermal performance implications of window use patterns." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2008. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.612484.
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Field, Kristin Marcella. "Effects of variations in occupant behavior on residential building net zero energy performance." Connect to online resource, 2007. http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:1447693.
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Meng, Yao. "Assessing the effect of new control and payment methods on heating energy consumption and occupant behaviour in Chinese dwellings." Thesis, Loughborough University, 2017. https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/2134/25749.
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Energy demand reduction has become a global issue involving all countries, including China. As major energy consumers in today s society, the need for buildings to be built and operated more energy efficiently is well recognized. In 1995, the national standard on building energy efficiency in China (JGJ 26-95) was refined and updated to become the new residential Buildings standard (JGJ 26-2010) published in 2010. In the new version, many changes have been made to support the construction of more energy efficient buildings in China. For example, in the new standard, all buildings are highly recommended to install personal control on the heating system, such as by Thermostatic Radiator Valves (TRVs), together with pay for what you use tariffs. Previous practice comprised uncontrolled heating with payment based on floor area. In order to reduce building energy consumption, Chinese government has revised the Chinese building design standard. In the new guide the use of individual room temperature control is highly recommended for new and refurbishment buildings. However, evidence to quantify the extent to which this improvement impact upon on the building energy consumption is currently lacking. This thesis evaluates the impact of updated building design standards on thermal conditions and energy consumption in Chinese residential buildings. In order to evaluate the impact on the building energy consumption, two types of residential buildings have been chosen, one complying with the old Chinese building design standard, while the other complies with the new standard. The study was carried out in seven apartments in each type of building, a total of fourteen apartments and comprised with a longitudinal monitoring of indoor air temperature, outdoor air temperature, window position and energy consumption of each apartment. The impact of the new design standard has been evaluated in relation to a number of aspects, that include building construction, indoor thermal environment, occupant behaviour, thermal comfort and building energy consumption. It is concluded that updating the building design standard has had a positive influence on the building conditions and energy consumption. Furthermore, a thermal comfort survey was carried out in both new and old apartments according to updated standards. The results show that the Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) model has a efficiently adequate predictor of occupants thermal comfort in both type of apartments. Thereby allowing confirmation that the new control refine did not compromise on thermal comfort. The percentage of acceptable of occupants is higher in new apartments compared with the old apartments.
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Preston, Melanie. "Monumental mixed-use developments in U.S. urban centers examining shared consumer and corporate spaces /." Diss., Connect to the thesis (Haverford College Users Only), 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10066/3708.
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Hill, Adrienne Marie. "Comparison of Occupant Behavior in a Traditional, Green Featured, and LEED Certified Building Case." Thesis, Virginia Tech, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/74971.
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In developed nations, 20-40% of greenhouse gas emissions and more than one-third of energy consumption are attributable to buildings. Among various available strategies, the building sector has the greatest potential for carbon emission reduction. Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) took early action to promote sustainable designs in buildings and has become the most well-known rating system in the field of building sustainability. However, little research has evaluated the effects of LEED on occupant pro-environmental behavior. To examine this, a Post-Occupancy Evaluation (POE) was conducted in a traditional, green featured, and LEED certified building case to compare the similarities and differences in environmental awareness, perceptions, and perceived ease or difficulty of pro-environmental behaviors, as well as to assess the degree to which pro-environmental behaviors were exhibited by occupants. This was used to determine if the aforementioned factors influence occupant behavior in different building cases. Ease or difficulty of pro-environmental behaviors and environmental awareness were found to be significant factors in influencing pro-environmental behavior in the LEED certified and green featured building cases. In addition, being in a LEED building appears to influence occupant pro-environmental behavior in a positive way. Also, there is evidence to suggest that being in a green featured building appears to influence occupants to exhibit pro-environmental behavior as well. These findings are valuable for owners and designers that want occupants in their buildings to exhibit pro-environmental behavior.Master of Science
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Nip, Wing-ki Vicky. "Redevelopment of Yeung Uk Road complex : market as activity generator /." Hong Kong : University of Hong Kong, 2001. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/record.jsp?B25947709.
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Zalejska-Jonsson, Agnieszka. "In the Business of Building Green : The value of low-energy residential buildings from customer and developer perspectives." Doctoral thesis, KTH, Bygg- och fastighetsekonomi, 2013. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-131375.
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An overarching aim of this research was to investigate the comprehensive value of green residential buildings as seen from two perspectives: that of the developer and that of the occupant (the customer). The dissertation consists of studies presented in seven papers. The studies conducted to investigate the developer’s perspective focused on construction cost and potential profit (papers I and VII). The customer’s perspective was examined with three approaches: the impact that energy and environment have on the decision to purchase (or rent) an apartment (paper V), willingness to pay for a green apartment (paper VI) and finally, the occupants’ satisfaction with the dwelling and indoor environment (papers II, III and IV). The first paper examines whether increased investment costs are profitable, taking into account the reduction in operating costs. The investment viability is approached by comparing investment in conventional and green residential building, particularly passive houses, using real construction and post-occupancy conditions. The increased investment costs in energy-efficient building were also the focus of paper VII. In this paper, the aim was to study how technologies used in energy-efficient residential building construction affect the available saleable floor area and how this impacts on the profitability of the investment. Potential losses and gains of saleable floor area in energy-efficient buildings were assessed using a modelled building and analysed with the help of the average construction cost. Papers II and IV present results from a study of occupants’ satisfaction and indoor environmental qualities. Both papers aim at comparing and analysing responses from occupants living in green and conventional buildings. Paper III focuses on a similar subject, but investigates occupants’ satisfaction among all adults living in multi-family buildings in Sweden, providing a national context for the results presented in papers II and IV. The results indicate that occupants are generally satisfied with their dwellings, but indoor environment proved to have a statistically significant effect on overall satisfaction. The results in paper V indicate that energy and environmental factors have a minor impact on customers’ decision to purchase or rent an apartment. However, availability of information on building energy and environmental performance may have an effect on the likelihood of the buyers’ being interested in environmental qualities and consequently an impact on their decision. The study presented in paper VI shows that customer interest in energy and environmental factors has a significant impact on stated willingness to pay for green dwellings. The paper discusses the stated willingness to pay for low-energy buildings and buildings with an environmental certificate and attempts to assess the rationale of the stated willingness to pay for low-energy dwellings given potential energy savings.Fokus i detta forskningsprojekt har legat på att undersöka värdet av gröna bostäder ur ett brett perspektiv, dvs både genom att studera byggherrens och de boendes (kundens) synpunkter. I avhandlingen ingår sju uppsatser. Undersökningen av byggherrens synpunkter fokuserades på kostnader och potentiella inkomster (uppsats I och VII). Kundernas åsikter undersöktes på tre olika sätt: vilken effekt energi och miljö faktorer hade på beslut att köpa eller hyra en lägenhet (uppsats V), betalningsvilja för gröna bostäder (uppsats VI) och slutligen de boendes trivsel samt nöjdhet med inomhusmiljön (uppsats II,III och IV). Den första uppsatsen syftar till att undersöka om ökningen av investeringskostnader vid byggande av gröna byggnader kan täckas av framtida energibesparingar och minskning av driftkostnad. Investeringens lönsamhet undersöktes genom att jämföra skillnader i byggkostnader mellan konventionella och gröna bostäder med skillnader i driftskostnader givet olika antaganden om energipriser och räntekrav. Huvudfokus i uppsats VII var också byggkostnader, men denna gång undersöktes hur nya tekniska lösningar påverkar boarea och lönsamhet av energieffektiva bostäder. Genom att konstruera en modell av ett typhus analyserades potentiella ökningar i boarea med nya lösningar och hur detta påverkade lönsamheten i olika geografiska lägen (prisnivåer). Uppsatserna II och IV presenterar resultat från boendeundersökningar. Båda uppsatserna syftar till att undersöka boendes trivsel och nöjdhet med inomhusmiljö samt att testa skillnaden i svar från boende i gröna och konventionella bostäder. Uppsats III fokuserar också på inomhusmiljön, men analysen gjordes på svaren som samlades in under Boverkets projekt BETSI och resultaten är därmed representativa för alla vuxna som bor i flerfamiljshus i Sverige. Uppsats III ger därmed en national kontext för uppsatserna II och IV. Resultaten visar att boende trivs i sina bostäder, men inomhusmiljön har en statistiks signifikanta effekt på allmän nöjdhet faktor.. Resultaten i uppsats V tyder på att energi- och miljöaspekter spelar mindre roll i beslutet att köpa eller hyra en lägenhet. Den synliga informationens tillgänglighet angående byggnadens energi- och miljöprestanda, påverkar kundens intresse för dessa faktorer och därmed indirekt hushållets beslut. Resultaten i uppsats VI pekar på att kunderna, som är intresserade av byggnaders energi och miljö prestanda, är villiga att betala mer för gröna bostäder. I uppsats 6 diskuteras betalningsvilja för låg-energi byggnader och för byggnader med miljöcertifikat samt utvärderas om den angivna betalningsviljan är rationell beslut när man tar hänsyn till nuvärdet av framtida energibesparingar.
QC 20131014
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Gomez, Ortega Jose Luis. "Occupant behaviour pattern modeling and detection in buildings based on environmental sensing." Thesis, Manchester Metropolitan University, 2017. http://e-space.mmu.ac.uk/618445/.
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Occupant presence and behaviour have a signi cant impact on building energy performance. An occupant present in a building generates pollutants like CO2, odour, heat, which can directly change the indoor environment. Because of this change, the occupant may interact with the building environment to maintain the comfort level, for example, he or she may turn on air conditioning systems. Today's Building Energy Management Systems (BEMS) are usually operated based on a xed seasonal schedule and maximum design occupancy assumption but fail to capture dynamic information. This is both costly and ine cient. Recent e orts on exploitation of environmental sensors and data-driven approaches to monitor occupant behaviour patterns, have shown the potential for dynamically adapt BEMS according to real user needs. Furthermore, this occupant information can also be used for other applications such as home security, healthcare or smart environments. However, most of existing models su er from inaccuracy and imprecision for occupant state classi cation, could not adaptively learn from real-time sensor input and they mainly focused on single occupant scenarios only. To address these issues, we present a novel data-driven approach to model occupant behaviour patterns accurately, for both single occupant and multiple occupants with real-time sensor information. The contributions can be summarised as follows: Firstly, we have conducted a thorough benchmark evaluation of classi cation performance of state-of-the-art Machine Learning (ML) methods and occupant related publicly available datasets. Secondly, based on the ndings in literature and our own experimental evaluations, we have developed a novel dynamic hidden semi-Markov model (DHSMM), which can accurately detect occupant behaviour patterns from sensor data streams in real-time. Thirdly, built upon the online DHSMM model, we have developed a novel incremental learning approach to allow dynamically learning over streaming data. Finally, we have conducted an experimental evaluation of our proposed model Online DHSMM Multi-Occupant for occupancy detection for both single and multiple occupants. We have validated our approach using real datasets and the experimental results show our proposed approach outperforms existing methods in terms of classi cation accuracy and processing time/scalability. To the best of our knowledge, we have rst developed a HSMM-based incremental online learning approach to fast and accurate learn building occupant patterns over streaming data for both single and multiple occupants in a holistic way. Additionally, our approach signi cantly improves the classi cation accuracies of traditional Markov models (over 10% accuracy increase, while maintaining the model complexity and performing multioccupant detection).
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Norbert, Harmati. "Energy performance optimization of administrative buildings in the function of occupant comfort." Phd thesis, Univerzitet u Novom Sadu, Fakultet tehničkih nauka u Novom Sadu, 2015. http://www.cris.uns.ac.rs/record.jsf?recordId=94816&source=NDLTD&language=en.
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The research is aimed in order to increase the efficiency and improve theenergy performance of multi-level administrative buildings in temperateclimate conditions. Special emphasis is on achieving and maintainingacceptable indoor environmental standards and thermal comfort ofoccupants. The investigation is based on a complex multi-criteria optimizationutilizing the most contemporary technology of dynamic energy simulations.The developed methodology for energy performance evaluation andimprovement in the function of occupant comfort will have the possibility ofapplication on similar and newly designed buildings. The formulated modelalso possesses flexibility and adaptability for further improvement andapplication in different climatic conditions.Истраживање је усмерено на повећање ефикасности и унапређење енергетских перформанси вишеспратних административних зграда у умереним климатским условима. Посебан нагласак је на постизању и одржавању прихватљивих унутрашњих микроклиматских стандарда и термичког комфора корисника. Истраживања су заснована на комплексној вишекритеријумској оптимизацији уз примену најсавременије технологије динамичке енергетске симулације. Развијена је методологија, флексибилна и прилагодљива, за вредновање и унапређење енергетских перформанси у функцији корисничког комфора, за примене и на друге сличне и новопројектоване објекте. Формулисан модел је подобан за даља унапређења и примену у различитим климатским условима.
Istraživanje je usmereno na povećanje efikasnosti i unapređenje energetskih performansi višespratnih administrativnih zgrada u umerenim klimatskim uslovima. Poseban naglasak je na postizanju i održavanju prihvatljivih unutrašnjih mikroklimatskih standarda i termičkog komfora korisnika. Istraživanja su zasnovana na kompleksnoj višekriterijumskoj optimizaciji uz primenu najsavremenije tehnologije dinamičke energetske simulacije. Razvijena je metodologija, fleksibilna i prilagodljiva, za vrednovanje i unapređenje energetskih performansi u funkciji korisničkog komfora, za primene i na druge slične i novoprojektovane objekte. Formulisan model je podoban za dalja unapređenja i primenu u različitim klimatskim uslovima.
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Haddox, John Christopher. "Essays on Evidence-Based Design as Related to Buildings and Occupant Health." Thesis, West Virginia University, 2014. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=3601333.
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This dissertation is comprised of three essays that explore the connections between buildings and their impacts on outcomes associated with occupant health. The essays are: 1. The Effect of Certified Green Office Buildings on Occupant Health: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis, 2. Understanding Evidence-Based Design Through a Review of the Literature, 3. Future Directions for Evidence-Based Design in Health Care Facilities.
Essay one, entitled The Effect of Certified Green Office Buildings on Occupant Heath: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis, explores the connections between certified green office buildings and their impacts on occupant health via the application of a systematic review and meta-analysis. An extensive literature search was conducted to locate any studies that examined the health of occupants in conventional buildings versus the health of the same populations after a move into a certified green building. The literature review followed the Cochrane Collaboration protocol for conducting systematic reviews. The results of a meta-analysis of the two studies uncovered by the systematic review show a positive relationship between certified green office buildings and improved occupant health (SMD 1.09), yet there was insufficient power (CI -0.88, 3.05) to prove causality.
Essay two, entitled Understanding Evidence-Based Design Through a Review of the Literature, relates the current understanding of the concept of Evidence-Based Design (EBD), as specifically related to health care facilities, through the vehicle of an annotated bibliography of the relevant literature. EBD lacks a universally agreed upon definition, but one of the stronger definitions from the architecture discipline states that evidence-based design is a process for the conscientious, explicit, and judicious use of current best evidence from research and practice in making critical decisions, together with an informed client, about the design of each individual and unique project. The outcomes of primary concern with health care facilities tend to fall into three categories—patient/family outcomes, staff outcomes and fiscal outcomes.
The thirty-one annotated articles reveal that the concept of EBD is quite complex, especially as it relates to the gathering and assessment of data and how such data is used to inform the building project. The bulk of the complexity lies with the word `evidence.' The current literature suggests disparity among researchers and practitioners over the collection, assessment and incorporation of evidence related to the collection, analysis and incorporation of evidence into building projects that seek to have a positive impact on the three main outcome categories of interest in healthcare facilities—patient outcomes, staff outcomes and fiscal outcomes.
Essay three, entitled Future Directions for Evidence-Based Design in Health Care Facilities, anticipates the future of evidence-based design as related to the design and construction of health care facilities. Reimbursement policies are driving health care to include more community based and customer services oriented delivery models. Pay based on performance—quality and efficiency of health care delivered—as well as customer satisfaction are taking on new importance and will drive designers of health care facilities to develop ever new methodologies for gathering and assessing evidence.
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Wu, Jindong. "Thermal comfort and occupant behaviour in office buildings in south-east China." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2015. http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/29435/.
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Natural ventilation is a passive cooling method that has significant potential to reduce building energy consumption and to positively contribute to indoor environmental conditions. Because the window is an important element in naturally ventilated buildings, it can be used to adjust indoor air flow. However, lack of knowledge about occupants‘ window control behaviour and how this relates to different window typology would result in discrepancy between actual and proposed building performance. And also, limit the potential of natural ventilation in the building. This thesis explores the relationship between indoor air velocity, occupants‘ window control behaviour and window design. This study is based on field measurement and occupant comfort survey in four office buildings in a hot and humid climate in South-east China. The field study was carried in September and October of 2012. The indoor and outdoor thermal conditions, indoor air flow speed, window state and effective opening area were monitored. Occupant thermal comfort questionnaires were given to participants four times a day to record their comfort perceptions in the office. The field study gives new insights into the correlation between indoor air speed, occupants‘ window control behaviour and window design. For the research 14400 set of indoor and outdoor temperature and relative humidity data, 174560 indoor air velocity records and 1344 copies of questionnaires were collected. The results of this study defined comfort zone for this climate which is consistent with Givoni‘s comfort zone for a hot and humid climate. The indoor air flow path is identified by measuring the indoor air velocity across different parts of the office and related window opening combinations. Besides, the effective opening area is reduced with decreased indoor air temperature when the indoor air temperature is lower than 25°c. None of the windows is closed when the indoor air temperature is higher than 28°c. During the working hours, the changing of effective opening is related to the air velocity across the desk surface. And measured maximum indoor air velocity measured around the occupant is 1.8m/s which did not result in occupants‘ window changing behaviour to adjust for comfort. In conclusion, this study proved that occupants who live in hot and humid climate can accept higher humidity level. If the air velocity can be avoided across the occupant‘s working surface, then a higher indoor air velocity is still accepted by occupant as within their comfort threshold. So, there are great potentials for occupant to extend their comfort threshold and adapt to the local climate. Besides, window opening type and position has a significant impact on indoor air velocity and pattern. It would also influence convective cooling affect and occupant thermal comfort. This is evident from the indoor air velocity measurement results and the occupant comfort survey results. In addition, accessibility is important to window design. In the naturally ventilated office building, if occupants find it difficult to operate the window, this will have an influence on the natural ventilation potential in the building and cause the occupant discomfort. Thus, the findings of this study will help architects and engineers to design naturally ventilated office buildings in South-east China.
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Zaraket, Toufic. "Stochastic activity-based approach of occupant-related energy consumption in residential buildings." Thesis, Châtenay-Malabry, Ecole centrale de Paris, 2014. http://www.theses.fr/2014ECAP0033/document.
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Le secteur du bâtiment est considéré comme un gros consommateur d'énergie et une source de pollution majeure parmi tous les secteurs économiques. Il représente entre 16 et 50 pour cent des consommations nationales d'énergie. La réduction de ces consommations et des émissions est donc une étape importante vers un développement durable. Récemment, la transition vers la construction des bâtiments à faible consommation d’énergie a conduit à de nouvelles exigences en matière de performance et de durabilité, et ainsi encore complexifié le processus de conception des bâtiments. Le comportement des occupants est maintenant considéré comme un facteur déterminant de la performance énergétique d’un bâtiment, particulièrement dans le cas des bâtiments basse consommation (BBC). Pourtant, les outils de simulation utilisés dans l'industrie des bâtiments ne sont pas aujourd'hui en mesure de fournir des estimations fiables de la demande d'énergie des occupants. Par conséquent, les experts en énergie et bâtiments portent une grande attention à développer des méthodes plus précises pour la modélisation et la prévision de l’influence des occupants sur la performance du bâtiment. Ces modèles doivent pouvoir fournir des estimations plus précises des consommations d’énergie et évaluer la variabilité de ces consommations. En conséquence, l’objectif visé est de permettre aux experts en construction d’améliorer leurs solutions techniques, améliorer la performance de leurs services, et promouvoir des incitations mieux ciblées vers les usagers afin de réduire leurs consommations énergétiques. L'objectif de cette thèse est de proposer un modèle pour estimer la consommation d'énergie liée aux comportements des occupants de bâtiments résidentiels, en prenant en compte la variabilité des modes de consommation au travers de la diversité des profils socio-démographiques et économiques des occupants. Une approche stochastique basée sur la notion d’activité est donc adoptée. Avec ce modèle, la consommation d'énergie d'un ménage est estimée en additionnant la consommation d'énergie des différentes activités domestiques (comme faire la cuisine, le lavage du linge, etc.). La nature stochastique du modèle est due aux relations probabilistes établies entre les attributs des ménages d'une part (type de ménage, nombre d'occupants, etc.) et la possession des équipements domestiques, les caractéristiques des appareils, leur puissance, et les quantités d'activité d’autre part. Afin d'établir ces relations stochastiques, un nombre suffisant d'attributs est pris en compte pour caractériser un ménage. Le modèle proposé a été appliqué pour deux activités domestiques, à savoir regarder la télévision et laver le linge. Des simulations de Monte Carlo sont effectuées pour fournir des estimations de consommation d'énergie pour ces deux activités dans trois cas de figure : pour un ménage spécifique, pour des ménages générés aléatoirement avec des contraintes sur leurs attributs, et pour des ménages totalement aléatoires représentatifs de la population française. Une comparaison entre les résultats de la simulation de modèle d’une part et des données de consommation d'énergie réelle d’autre part, a permis de valider le modèle pour les deux activités considérées. Un cadre de généralisation du modèle pour d'autres activités domestiques a été introduit, et sa possible intégration dans le processus de conception des bâtiments a été discutée et illustrée au travers d’un certain nombre d’exemplesRésumé en Anglais : The building sector is considered as a major energy consumer and pollution source among all economic sectors. It accounts for important shares, ranging between 16 and 50 percent, of national energy consumption worldwide. Reducing these consumptions and emissions is thus an important step towards sustainable development. Recently, the shift towards constructing low-consuming and nearly zero-energy buildings lead to further requirements with regard to performance and sustainability, and thus caused the design process of buildings to be more complex. Occupants’ behavior is now considered as a key determinant of building’s energy performance especially in the case of green buildings. Yet, energy simulation tools used in buildings industry nowadays are not capable of providing accurate estimations of occupant-related energy demands. Therefore, buildings and energy experts are devoting considerable efforts on developing more precise methods for modeling and forecasting occupants influence on whole building performance. Such models can provide accurate energy estimates and can assess future consumption variability. Consequently, building experts may improve their technical solutions, ameliorate their service performances, and promote targeted incentives. The objective of this dissertation is to propose a model for forecasting occupant-related energy consumption in residential buildings, while accounting for variability in consumption patterns due to diversity in occupants’ socio-demographic and economic profiles. A stochastic activity-based approach is thus adopted. By activity-based, it means that energy consumption of a household is estimated by summing up the energy use of different activities performed (such as cooking, washing clothes, etc.). The stochastic nature of the model is due to the probabilistic mapping established between household attributes from one side (household type, number of occupants, etc.) and the corresponding appliance ownership, appliance characteristics and power rating, and activity quantities from the other side. In order to establish these stochastic relations, a fairly sufficient number of households’ characterizing attributes is taken into account. The proposed model is applied for two domestic activities, namely watching TV and washing laundry. Three types of Monte Carlo simulations are performed to provide energy estimates for these two activities: for a given specified household, for randomly generated households with constraints, and for totally random population-wise households. A comparison between model’s simulation results and real measured energy consumption data enables validating the model for the two considered activities. A generalization framework of the modeling approach for other domestic activities is sketched, and its possible integration into buildings design process is discussed and illustrated through a number of examples
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Carlander, Jakob. "On the Effect of Occupant Behavior and Internal Heat Gains on the Building’s Energy Demand : A case study of an office building and a retirement home." Licentiate thesis, Högskolan i Gävle, Energisystem och byggnadsteknik, 2021. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hig:diva-35507.
Full textAbstract:
About 12% of the greenhouse gas emissions and 40% of the total energy use in the EU derive from the buildings. User behavior, construction, and HVAC systems has a significant impact on a building’s energy use. If a building is to be energy-efficient it is important to understand how all these parameters are connected. This study is motivated by the need to decrease the energy use in buildings to reach the goals of energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. In this thesis, measurements of indoor climate and electricity use, together with time diaries was used to create input data for an energy simulation model of a retirement home. A parametric study was conducted to simulate how energy demand was affected by changes in five different parameters in an office building. Also, two different energy-efficiency indicators were used to see how indicators can affect the perceived energy-efficiency of buildings. High amount of airing and low electricity use had the most impact on the heating demand in the retirement home, and electricity use had the highest impact on the total energy demand in the office building. The model of the retirement home using data gathered on-site had 24% higher energy use than the model using standard user input data. In the office building, total energy demand for heating and cooling could be lowered with 12-31% by lowering the electricity use with 30% compared to standard user input data. For office buildings the most important thing to lower total energy demand seems to be lowering the electricity use. Using today’s standard user input data does not correspond well to using on-site gathered data in a retirement home and it is therefore important to develop the standard user input data further. The indicator kWh/m2, seems to promote buildings with low occupancy. This could lead to buildings being utilized in an in-efficient way. The indicator kWh/m2 should either be replaced or combined with an indicator that takes occupancy into consideration.Runt 12% av utsläppen av växthusgaser och 40% av den totala energianvändningen i EU kommer från byggnader. Brukarbeteende, konstruktion och HVAC-system har signifikant påverkan på en byggnads energianvändning. Om en byggnad ska bli så energieffektiv som möjligt är det viktigt att förstå hur dessa parametrar hör ihop. Denna studie motiveras av behovet att minska energianvändning i byggnader för att nå målen för energianvändning och utsläpp av växthusgaser. I denna avhandling användes mätningar av inomhusklimat och elanvändning, tillsammans med tidsdagböcker, för att skapa indata till en energisimuleringsmodell av ett ålderdomshem. En parameterstudie genomfördes för att simulera hur energibehovet påverkades av ändringar i fem olika parametrar i en kontorsbyggnad. Två olika indikatorer för energieffektivitet användes också, för att se hur olika indikatorer påverkar hur en byggnads energieffektivitet uppfattas. Hög grad av vädring och låg elanvändning hade störst påverkan av energibehovet i ålderdomshemmet, och i kontorsbyggnaden påverkades det totala energibehovet mest av elanvändningen. Modellen av ålderdomshemmet där data insamlad på plats användes hade 24% högre värmebehov än modellen som använde standardiserade brukarindata. Det totala energibehovet för värme och kyla i kontorsbyggnaden kunde sänkas med 12-31% genom att sänka elanvändningen med 30% jämfört med standardiserad brukarindata. Det viktigaste för att få ner det totala energibehovet i kontorsbyggnader verkar vara att sänka elanvändningen. Att använda dagens standardvärden för brukarindata överensstämmer inte väl med att använda data insamlad på plats för ett ålderdomshem. Det är därför viktigt att vidareutveckla standardiserad brukarindata. Indikatorn kWh/m2 verkar främja byggnader med låg beläggning. Detta skulle kunna leda till att byggnader utnyttjas på ett ineffektivt sätt. Indikatorn kWh/m2 skulle därför behöva ersättas eller kombineras med en indikator som även tar byggnadens beläggning i beaktande.
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Leung, Ming. "A novel approach to determine building occupancy for cooling energy consumption prediction." Thesis, City, University of London, 2017. http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/17403/.
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Building cooling load prediction is one of the key elements in the energy conservation achievements. Most of the mathematical models using in the industry nowadays include forward and inverse modeling approaches. However, these models consume much computer resources and require a longer computational time. Multi-layer perceptron (MLP) model of artificial neural network (ANN) is adopted in this thesis. The model is widely used in engineering approaches that render good performance in adaptability, nonlinearity and mapping. It also has good ability in predicting the cooling energy consumption of buildings. It is reported that the occupants’ activities inside the buildings can have significant impact on the accuracy of the model. The existing input parameters used for the ANN models could not represent the complexity of the activities inside the buildings well. Most of the traditional ANN models adopted fixed profile or historic load data to represent building occupancy in simulating building cooling energy consumption. However, building occupancy is never still. The dynamic changes occurred in the occupancy of the buildings therefore make the forecasting of building cooling load difficult and less accurate. This thesis aims at (i) introducing a novel model to represent occupants’ presence and activities; and (ii) investigating the effect of using the novel model on improving the predictive accuracy of building cooling energy consumption. The simulation results demonstrate that building occupancy data play a significant role in building cooling energy consumption prediction and the use of the novel approach significantly improves the predictive accuracy of building cooling energy consumption model.
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May, Ross. "The reinforcement learning method : A feasible and sustainable control strategy for efficient occupant-centred building operation in smart cities." Licentiate thesis, Högskolan Dalarna, Mikrodataanalys, 2019. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:du-30613.
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Over half of the world’s population lives in urban areas, a trend which is expected to only grow as we move further into the future. With this increasing trend in urbanisation, challenges are presented in the form of the management of urban infrastructure systems. As an essential infrastructure of any city, the energy system presents itself as one of the biggest challenges. As cities expand in population and economically, global energy consumption increases and as a result so do greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. To achieve the 2030 Agenda’s sustainable development goal on energy (SDG 7), renewable energy and energy efficiency have been shown as key strategies for attaining SDG 7. As the largest contributor to climate change, the building sector is responsible for more than half of the global final energy consumption and GHG emissions. As people spend most of their time indoors, the demand for energy is made worse as a result of maintaining the comfort level of the indoor environment. However, the emergence of the smart city and the internet of things (IoT) offers the opportunity for the smart management of buildings. Focusing on the latter strategy towards attaining SDG 7, intelligent building control offers significant potential for saving energy while respecting occupant comfort (OC). Most intelligent control strategies, however, rely on complex mathematical models which require a great deal of expertise to construct thereby costing in time and money. Furthermore, if these are inaccurate then energy is wasted and the comfort of occupants is decreased. Moreover, any change in the physical environment such as retrofits result in obsolete models which must be re-identified to match the new state of the environment. This model-based approach seems unsustainable and so a new model-free alternative is proposed. One such alternative is the reinforcement learning (RL) method. This method provides a beautiful solution to accomplishing the tradeoff between energy efficiency and OC within the smart city and more importantly to achieving SDG 7. To address the feasibility of RL as a sustainable control strategy for efficient occupant-centred building operation, a comprehensive review of RL for controlling OC in buildings as well as a case study implementing RL for improving OC via a window system are presented. The outcomes of each seem to suggest RL as a feasible solution, however, more work is required in the form of addressing current open issues such as cooperative multi-agent RL (MARL) needed for multi-occupant/multi-zonal buildings.
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Shao, Huijuan. "Temporal Mining Approaches for Smart Buildings Research." Diss., Virginia Tech, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/84349.
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With the advent of modern sensor technologies, significant opportunities have opened up to help
conserve energy in residential and commercial buildings. Moreover, the rapid urbanization we are
witnessing requires optimized energy distribution. This dissertation focuses on two sub-problems
in improving energy conservation; energy disaggregation and occupancy prediction. Energy disaggregation
attempts to separate the energy usage of each circuit or each electric device in a building
using only aggregate electricity usage information from the meter for the whole house. The second
problem of occupancy prediction can be accomplished using non-invasive indoor activity tracking
to predict the locations of people inside a building. We cast both problems as temporal mining
problems. We exploit motif mining with constraints to distinguish devices with multiple states,
which helps tackle the energy disaggregation problem. Our results reveal that motif mining is
adept at distinguishing devices with multiple power levels and at disentangling the combinatorial
operation of devices. For the second problem we propose time-gap constrained episode mining
to detect activity patterns followed by the use of a mixture of episode generating HMM (EGH)
models to predict home occupancy. Finally, we demonstrate that the mixture EGH model can also
help predict the location of a person to address non-invasive indoor activities tracking.Ph. D.
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Kishnani, Nirmal. "Climate, buildings and occupant expectations : a comfort-based model for the design and operation of office buildings in hot humid conditions /." Curtin University of Technology, School of Architecture, Construction and Planning, 2002. http://espace.library.curtin.edu.au:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=12749.
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Office buildings in hot humid Singapore appear to be designed for stable and uniform indoor conditions. It is proposed in this thesis that this is unnecessary, as occupant comfort expectations do not warrant it and energy is wasted as a result. A comfort-based approach to design is advocated, as a means of balancing user needs with the objective of energy conservation.This issue of how perception of comfort is linked with indoor stability emerged from the question, 'why do office buildings, despite Bioclimatic prescriptions for hot humid conditions, continue to be predominantly climate rejecting and active-run?' The literature was found to be polarised by arguments for architectural solutions that are climatically responsive and present lower energy costs, and those for engineered solutions that deliver greater, more consistent comfort, albeit through reliance on electro-mechanical systems.It is argued that comprehending the gaps in the literature, and between theory and application, requires a better understanding of occupant comfort. This would be an inside-out view of comfort and climate, predicated on how the occupant is affected by the building and the cognitive nature of comfort itself.Relying on a sample of office buildings, the thesis set out to establish the following:Prevalence of the climate-based approach, specifically Yeang's Bioclimatic ModelPrevalence of uniformity and stability of the indoor environmentOccupant perception of indoor comfort, both thermal and visual, particularly with regard to variability of ambient conditionsOccupant perception of various operational modes: passive, mixed and activeThese goals were addressed through observations of form, envelope and layout, occupant surveys and the monitoring of buildings in passive and active modes.It was found that the Bioclimatic approach is non-existent in the context of the Singapore office ++building. In the case of two Bioclimatic buildings in Malaysia, the Model is not consistently applied. This disparity appears partly due to conflicting priorities, in particular style, cost and client pressures, and partly due to assumptions about occupant comfort.The Singapore office building was found to be predominantly active-run, operating within a narrow bandwidth of temperatures across most spaces. Occupant perception of variability outside the primary workplace, however, is one of acceptance, even preference. It was found through analysis of user feedback that the office building, on the basis of comfort expectations, could be divided into three activity zones: Work, Support and Transit.This 3-tiered structure was subsequently tested through a large-scale, longitudinal survey carried out across three spaces, each representing an activity zone, within a single building. The survey was accompanied by adjustments to the building's temperature settings to test the limits of acceptance in each zone. Findings from this exercise support the notion of a three-zoned office building, in which thermal conditions for each zone could be varied without affecting comfort. Energy figures that were monitored before and after the resetting showed drops of 7.1 % in chiller consumption and 2.9% in overall consumption.These findings led to a comfort-based, tri-modal proposal for office buildings in hot humid conditions, defined as the Psychoclimatic Model for its basis in comfort expectations and the interaction between climate, building and the occupant.The implications of the thesis outcome on regulatory control in Singapore and thermal comfort theory are discussed. Recommendations are made for future research into other building types and national context, plus a parametric study into the full energy-saving potential of the Psychoclimatic Model.
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Borodinova, Baiba. "Inner yard building occupant’s perception versus the computer simulated metrics of daylight : Field study and simulation-based analysis of inner yard building." Thesis, KTH, Ljusdesign, 2018. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-233840.
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This Master thesis was aimed at investigating common daylight evaluation methods related to Swedish building codes versus human perception of daylight in residential spaces. Field (interview) and simulation-based study were conducted in one of the typical 20thcentury residential, closed courtyard buildings in Stockholm. 12 residents of Kv. Väktaren 16 were interviewed and simulation models were prepared for the apartments occupied by the participants. Resident perception of light was mostly contrary to daylight assessing values and methods of daylight factor – DF in a point (CIE overcast sky) and alternative method of window to floor area ratio – AF that are stated in Swedish standard (Boverkets byggregler BFS 2016:6). Attractive and interesting view, access to direct sunlight and visual comfort played important role in overall occupant satisfaction level, this suggests that daylight metrics should include perception-based factors, which positively impact our health and well-being.
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Gou, Zhonghua, and 苟中华. "Addressing human factors in green office building design : occupant indoor environment quality survey in China." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10722/194619.
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Although requirements in relation to indoor environment quality (IEQ) have been made in green building rating systems such as LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) and China GBL (Green Building Label) to promote occupant comfort, health and productivity, in practice, very little is known about user perception and satisfaction with IEQ in green buildings. Recruitment and post-occupancy evaluation of 10 office buildings (8 green buildings and 2 non-green buildings) and their 696 occupants for this study generated a dataset representing many potential avenues of inquiry. From the occupant’s point of view, the green offices in buildings with whole-building certification were significantly more satisfactory than the non-green offices, whereas the green offices certified only on the basis of their interiors were comparable to the non-green offices. Mixed-mode ventilation performed much better than other ventilation types (central air-conditioning and split air-conditioning). However, the mixed-mode green buildings were invariably perceived to be too cold in winter. A correlation model showed that green building users tended to appreciate a well ventilated, daylit, and quiet indoor environment for their health and productivity. The findings in the study made critical suggestions with regard to pursuing green building certification and addressing human factors in sustainable building design and research. The strengths and weaknesses of this study were discussed to inform future studies.published_or_final_version
Architecture
Doctoral
Doctor of Philosophy
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Pinder, James. "Modelling the utility and occupancy costs of local authority office buildings." Thesis, Sheffield Hallam University, 2004. http://shura.shu.ac.uk/20230/.
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A review of the published literature revealed that although obsolescence in buildings has been the subject of academic interest for a number of decades, existing research into the subject is limited. There have been a number of empirical studies into property depreciation, which have resulted in statistical models for explaining variation between the value of buildings based on differences in their physical and locational characteristics. However, these models are intended for use by property owners and investors. This study therefore developed comparable models for occupiers, using data from a sample of 64 office buildings spread across five English local authorities. The primary contribution of this study is in the theoretical framework and research methods that were used to develop the models. Data were collected in respect of the physical characteristics of the sample buildings, the characteristics of the buildings' occupants and the characteristics of the occupier organisations. These characteristics were employed as explanatory variables in the analysis. Data were also collected in relation to the utility (functional performance) and operation costs (financial performance) of the buildings. These performance measures were employed as outcome variables in the analysis. One of the key contributions of this study was the development of a valid and reliable scale for evaluating utility. Derived from exhaustive focus group research with building occupants, the scale indicated that utility could be measured along 22 attributes and four distinct factors: configuration, environment, appearance and functionality. The results of the statistical analysis lend support to the premise that the physical characteristics of a building and the characteristics of its occupants can be used to explain its utility relative to a group of similar buildings. The statistically significant relationships provided an insight into which combinations of building and occupant characteristics were associated with higher or lower scores on particular factors and attributes. By and large, the relative contribution of the two groups of explanatory variables varied across the four factors, a finding that might have implications for the management and refurbishment of buildings. Nevertheless, the inclusion of other additional explanatory variables, such as cultural indicators, might improve the level of explanation provided by the regression models. The level of explanation provided by the operation cost models was found to be higher than for the utility models. Measures of cost efficiency were found to be correlated with building characteristics and occupancy characteristics. The results of the analysis were therefore an improvement over those from previous research, which had concluded that there was littlecorrelation between costs and building characteristics. This improvement might be attributed to the wider range of building characteristics analysed in this study. Moreover, by modelling utility and operation costs in tandem, it was possible to identify areas of divergence between functional and financial performance. Such information could be of use during the design and refurbishment of buildings. For instance, design characteristics or utilisation strategies that are associated with higher costs but lower utility could be changed or omitted.
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Hamilton, Vicki Gottleber. "A mixed-use building for Washington D.C.'s Pennsylvania Avenue development area: diversity and urbanity as a design problem." Thesis, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1985. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/53073.
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Clark, Gary George. "Rule-based integrated building management systems." Thesis, Brunel University, 1993. http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/5150.
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The introduction of building management systems in large buildings have improved the control of building services and provided energy savings. However, current building management systems are limited by the physical level of integration of the building's services and the lack of intelligence provided in the control algorithms. This thesis proposes a new approach to the design and operation of building management systems using rule-based artificial intelligence techniques. The main aim of is to manage the services in the building in a more co-ordinated and intelligent manner than is possible by conventional techniques. This approach also aims to reduce the operational cost of the building by automatically tuning the energy consumption in accordance with occupancy profile of the building. A rule-based design methodology is proposed for building management systems. The design adopts the integrated structure made possible by the introduction of a common communications network for building services. The 'intelligence' is coded in the form of rules in such a way that it is both independent of any specific building description and easy to facilitate subsequent modification and addition. This is achieved using an object-oriented approach and classifying the range of data available into defined classes. The rules are divided into two knowledge-bases which are concerned with the building's control and its facilities management respectively. A wide range of rule-based features are proposed to operate on this data structure and are classified in terms of the data classes on which they operate. The concepts presented in this thesis were evaluated using software simulations, mathematical analysis and some hardware implementation. The conclusions of this work are that a rule-based building management system could provide significant enhancements over existing systems in terms of energy savings and improvements for both the building's management staff and its occupants.