1,720,967 research outputs found
A New Wearable System for Sensing Outdoor Environmental Conditions for Monitoring Hyper-Microclimate
No full textThe rapid urbanization process brings consequences to urban environments, such poor air
quality and the urban heat island issues. Due to these effects, environmental monitoring is gaining
attention with the aim of identifying local risks and improving cities’ liveability and resilience.
However, these environments are very heterogeneous, and high-spatial-resolution data are needed to
identify the intra-urban variations of physical parameters. Recently, wearable sensing techniques
have been used to perform microscale monitoring, but they usually focus on one environmental
physics domain. This paper presents a new wearable system developed to monitor key multidomain
parameters related to the air quality, thermal, and visual domains, on a hyperlocal scale from
a pedestrian’s perspective. The system consisted of a set of sensors connected to a control unit
settled on a backpack and could be connected via Wi-Fi to any portable equipment. The device was
prototyped to guarantee the easy sensors maintenance, and a user-friendly dashboard facilitated a
real-time monitoring overview. Several tests were conducted to confirm the reliability of the sensors.
The new device will allow comprehensive environmental monitoring and multidomain comfort
investigations to be carried out, which can support urban planners to face the negative effects of
urbanization and to crowd data sourcing in smart cities
Multi-domain human-oriented approach to evaluate human comfort in outdoor environments
No full textHuman comfort outdoors is widely investigated, but most studies explore the comfort domains singularly. This paper aimed to evaluate human comfort in parks, verifying the importance of using a multi-domain (simultaneously evaluating thermal, visual, acoustic, and air quality) and multi-disciplinary (combining environmental and social fields) approach. A walk through a pre-defined path from one park to another was repeated twice per day on four consecutive days in June, with three participants per walk. The two investigated parks are in central Italy and were chosen because they differ in their design and spatial characteristics. Environmental data were recorded with an innovative wearable device during the whole walk, and surveys were used to assess people’s perceptions of the parks. Despite observed differences in collected physical parameters, the survey’s responses were similar, and different comfort domains showed dependence on each other in the two parks. Logistic regression models were developed for each park, and they revealed that the qualitative information predicted the overall comfort level more accurately than the environmental data. In detail, the models based on environmental data resulted in R(2) equal to 0.126 and 0.111 in Parks 1 and 2, respectively, whereas using the survey answers increased it up to 0.820 (Park 1) and 0.806 (Park 2). This study contributes to addressing the gap in multi-domain comfort studies outdoors and confirms the importance of using multi-disciplinary and multi-domain approaches for a complete comfort analysis, supporting holistic human-biometeorology-oriented models and forecasting opportunities that can promote improvements in urban environmental quality and liveability. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00484-022-02338-7
On the performance of human thermal stress models in the outdoors against observations
No full textUrban overheating significantly impacts human well-being, requiring outdoor thermal comfort assessments. This research aims to assess the performance of models to calculate mean skin temperature in outdoor environments against measurements. The study compares a Lumped Human Energy Budget (LHEB) model, which is a simplified representation of the human body thermal state developed in an Urban Canopy Model (UCM), and the more sophisticated thermoregulation model JOS-3. Skin temperatures computed with the LHEB one-node model were significantly higher than observed values (RMSE: 1.71 – 2.76 °C). This variation, however, cannot be attributed to differences between simulated and monitored environmental data. It probably results from simplifications assumed in the human energy balance, such as disregarding dynamic thermoregulation processes, which considerably impact outdoor human comfort. The JOS-3 model, more advanced in terms of heat exchange and thermoregulation processes, performed better (RMSE: 0.21 – 1.62 °C, considering sessions when sensors were stabilized). Since all JOS-3 meteorological inputs can be provided by a UCM, the model can be directly integrated into UCMs for investigating the effects of urban overheating and mitigation strategies on human thermal stress. Therefore, it can serve as the human thermal comfort module for UCMs. The collected dataset is the first to combine measurements of the biophysical energy model outputs and the required UCM inputs, and to evaluate the reliability of the LHEB and the JOS-3 models outdoors, contributing to improve thermal stress modeling in inter-building urban contexts, which is an important approach for designing effective human-centric heat reduction measures and improving cities’ livability
Crowdsourced data as a strategic approach to include the human dimension in outdoor environmental quality assessments
No full textOutdoor environments extend living spaces as venues for various activities. Comfortable open public spaces can positively impact citizens' health and well-being, thereby improving the livability and resilience of cities. Considering the visitors' perception of these environments in comfort studies is crucial for ensuring their well-being and promoting the use of these spaces. However, traditional survey methods may be time- and resource-consuming to gather significant sample sizes, usually focusing on selected homogeneous samples. Crowdsourced data, then, has emerged as an alternative for assessing human perception, as it eases the collection of subjective feedback and potentially amplifies impact and inclusivity. This study presents a strategic approach for analyzing publicly available and willingly reported crowdsourced data from a digital mapping platform in outdoor comfort evaluations, aiming to verify whether these data are informative regarding environmental quality perception and to identify the environmental factors that people are most sensitive to. Urban parks located in New York City served as a case study. A multi-source, interdisciplinary information framework combined crowdsourced reviews with environmental data used to determine prevailing thermal conditions. Overall perception of parks was well-rated, revealing that their attractions and activities are probably the most appealing characteristics for park attendance. Regarding environmental perception, acoustic and thermal factors are clearly the most influential. Acoustics were well-rated, while the main aspect regarding the thermal domain is the recognition of shading as a mitigator for hot conditions. Environmental data provided complementary insights, particularly concerning the range of thermal sensations experienced in urban parks. The findings confirm that willingly reported crowdsourced data can provide valuable insights into urban crowd environmental perception, presenting a potentially suitable and effective method to include the human perspective in environmental quality assessments, as well as to evaluate and predict environmental-related risks
On urban microclimate spatial-temporal dynamics: Evidence from the integration of fixed and wearable sensing and mapping techniques
No full textRevitalizing tactical urban parks (TUPs) through environmental monitoring and participatory approaches for urban overheating mitigation
No full textThe 6th assessment report by IPCC underscores the necessity to switch from immediate to timely actions to foster (urban) climate change adaptation and mitigation. Green areas such as tactical urban parks could represent a strategic asset towards healthier and more sustainable cities and societies. Specifically studied greenery may indeed improve local microclimate and air quality conditions, supporting the socio-ecological resilience of cities while enhancing social interactions.Using a multidisciplinary approach, this study aims to evaluate the environmental quality and local community needs of a neighbourhood located near the historic centre of Perugia (Italy) to provide guidelines for its requalification, especially for outdoor spaces. To achieve this goal, the study conducted dedicated environmental monitoring, demonstrating the massive thermal behavior differences (by about 5K in summer) within the same urban area all over the year, and carried out surveys campaigns focusing on outdoor perceptions and needs reported by the local community. The results confirm that local residents mainly use the area as a thoroughfare to access established activities by car (63% of respondants), leading to high vehicular traffic and pollutants emissions during peak hours, with PM10 concentration peaks reaching 55 μg/m3 and 180 μg/m3 close to the parking lot in winter and spring, respectively. An effective intervention was recognized in the introduction of furniture in the area, creating attractive places to spend the lunch break, enabling people to enjoy the outdoors and maximize thermal comfort benefits. Moreover, reducing vehicular traffic and fostering slow mobility also demonstrated to be attractive measures to improve comfort, health and well-being and reduce negative consequences on air quality
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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