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Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction: Dissertations, Thesis, and Student Research
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Full-Text Articles in Architecture
Data Driven Approach To Thermal Comfort Model Design, Mostafa Rafaiejokandan
Data Driven Approach To Thermal Comfort Model Design, Mostafa Rafaiejokandan
Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction: Dissertations, Thesis, and Student Research
Apart from the dominant environmental factors such as relative humidity, radiant, and ambient temperatures, studies have confirmed that thermal comfort significantly depends on internal personal parameters such as metabolic rate, age, and health status. This study reviews the sensitivity of the Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) thermal comfort model relative to its environmental and personal parameters of a group of people in a space. PMV model equations adapted in ASHRAE Standard 55–Thermal Environmental Conditions for Human Occupancy, are used in this investigation to conduct a parametric study by generating and analyzing multi-dimensional comfort zone plots. It has been found that personal …
Evaluation Of Hospital Soundscapes To Improve Patient And Staff Experience, Jay Bliefnick
Evaluation Of Hospital Soundscapes To Improve Patient And Staff Experience, Jay Bliefnick
Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction: Dissertations, Thesis, and Student Research
Hospital soundscapes can be difficult environments to assess acoustically due to the continuous activity within units. Routinely, patients perceive these soundscapes poorly when rating their hospital experience on HCAHPS (Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems) surveys administered after discharge. In addition, hospital staff can be negatively impacted by the acoustical environments in which they work, affecting both performance and job satisfaction. This doctoral research addressed these issues across three phases by collecting acoustical measurements within three individual hospitals, comparing results with provided patient and staff survey information, and conducting laboratory tests of hospital noise perception. In the first …
A Case Study On The Design Of Safe Spaces In Hospitals Vulnerable To Tornadoes In Central Us, Lucy Owusua Ampaw - Asiedu
A Case Study On The Design Of Safe Spaces In Hospitals Vulnerable To Tornadoes In Central Us, Lucy Owusua Ampaw - Asiedu
Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction: Dissertations, Thesis, and Student Research
In the wake of recent disasters happening around the world such as the earthquake in Italy (January 2017); hurricanes in the United States (U.S.) (September 2016 and 2017); and compounding disasters in Haiti (September 2010 and 2016); to our best knowledge, never has the world seen the need to work on preemptive rather than reactionary measures to address this issue. Tornadoes are natural hazards that commonly occur in mid-western and central states of the U.S. Tornadoes, like all natural hazards, are very destructive and result in massive destruction to building structures, causing billions of dollars in damage and claim many …
Effects Of Reverberation Conditions And Physical Versus Virtual Source Placement On Localization In Virtual Sound Environments, Anna Catton
Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction: Dissertations, Thesis, and Student Research
Sound field synthesis systems vary in number and arrangement of loudspeakers and methods used to generate virtual sound environments to study human hearing perception. While previous work has evaluated the accuracy with which these systems physically reproduce room acoustic conditions, less is known on assessing subjective perception of those conditions, such as how well such systems preserve source localization. This work quantifies the accuracy and precision of perceived localization from a multi-channel sound field synthesis system at Boys Town National Research Hospital, which used 24 physical loudspeakers and vector-based amplitude panning to generate sound fields. Short bursts of broadband speech-shaped …