Search results for " air quality"
showing 10 items of 56 documents
Unconventional Reducing Gases Monitoring in Everyday Places
2017
Abstract Air pollution, be it indoors or outdoors, is a major environmental health concern as it can lead to serious health effects, such as respiratory diseases, including asthma and lung cancer. Much progress has been made in Europe in improving outdoor air quality and limit values have been set for several pollutants. However, indoor air quality also requires attention because this is where we spend most of our time. Measurements at appropriate spatial and temporal scales are essential for understanding and monitoring heterogeneous environments with complex and highly variable emission sources, such as in urban areas. However, the costs and complexity of conventional air quality measurem…
The associations of indoor environment and psychosocial factors on the subjective evaluation of Indoor Air Quality among lower secondary school stude…
2017
Subjective evaluation of Indoor Air Quality (subjective IAQ) reflects both building-related and psychosocial factors, but their associations have rarely been studied other than on the individual level in occupational settings and their interactions have not been assessed. Therefore, we studied whether schools' observed indoor air problems and psychosocial factors are associated with subjective IAQ and their potential interactions. The analysis was performed with a nationwide sample (N = 195 schools/26946 students) using multilevel modeling. Two datasets were merged: (i) survey data from students, including information on schools' psychosocial environment and subjective IAQ, and (ii) data fr…
Determination of indoor air quality of a phytosanitary plant.
2011
A new methodology has been developed to determine volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and pesticides in ambient air using membrane based devices as passive samplers. Pesticides were determined by gas chromatography with mass spectrometry detection (GC-MS) after their microwave-assisted extraction (MAE) from the passive sampler and the required clean-up. On the other hand, VOCs were also caught with the same samplers and directly determined by head space (HS) coupled to GC-MS. The use of samplers filled with florisil and activated carbon allows us to catch with a simple device both, VOCs and pesticides, with a high vapor pressure. Results obtained in the deployment of samplers in different sit…
Indoor Air Quality including Respiratory Viruses
2021
The detection of SARS-CoV-2 in indoor environments is a cause of increasing concern. In this study, three sampling methodologies have been used in order to collect SARS-CoV-2 and 17 other respiratory viruses in indoor air, combined with a new analytical process to analyze respiratory viruses. Different areas of an ophthalmological hospital were investigated for the presence of these airborne viruses. Moreover, indoor air quality (IAQ) parameters (carbon dioxide, CO2; carbon monoxide, CO; nitrogen dioxide, NO2; volatile organic compounds, VOCs; formaldehyde, HCHO; and particulate matter, PM) have been examined to study the relationship between IAQ and airborne viruses. All indoor air and sur…
Three Hours Ahead Prevision of SO2 Pollutant Concentration Using an Elman Neural based Forecaster
2008
Abstract Indoor air quality near the industrial site is tightly joined to pollutant concentration level, since outdoor pollution heavily influences air quality and, consequently, inhabitants health. A pollution management system is essential for health protection. Automatic air quality management systems have became an important research issue with strong implications for inhabitants’ health. In this paper an automatic forecaster based on neural networks for SO 2 concentration prevision is proposed. The analyzed area covers different small towns near the industrial site of Priolo, in the south of the world. Among these towns, Melilli was the first town in Italy that was evacuated for high l…
A comparison of HONO budgets for two measurement heights at a field station within the boreal forest in Finland
2015
Atmospheric concentrations of nitrous acid (HONO), one of the major precursors of the hydroxyl radical (OH) in the troposphere, significantly exceed the values predicted by the assumption of a photostationary state (PSS) during daytime. Therefore, additional sources of HONO were intensively investigated in the last decades. This study presents budget calculations of HONO based on simultaneous measurements of all relevant species, including HONO and OH at two different measurement heights, i.e. 1 m above the ground and about 2 to 3 m above the canopy (24 m above the ground), conducted in a boreal forest environment. We observed mean HONO concentrations of about 6.5 × 108 molecules cm−3 (26 p…
Characterization of materials toward toluene traces detection for air quality monitoring and lung cancer diagnosis
2017
International audience; The aim of this work was to identify a nanoporous material able to trap toluene traces in order to develop a gas detection device for indoor air quality monitoring or biomedical diagnosis. A set of various adsorbents such as zeolites and activated carbon microspheres was studied here. First a detailed characterization of their porous properties was performed by nitrogen adsorption. Then adsorption of toluene and other interfering compounds which can selectively adsorbed with it, such as water and carbon dioxide, was studied in order to select the most suitable material. Results revealed that the activatedcarbon microspheres W5 and the zeolite NaY, which exhibit high …
Students’ school‐level symptoms mediate the relationship between a school’s observed moisture problems and students’ subjective perceptions of indoor…
2021
Moisture damage can influence the subjective assessment of indoor air quality (subjective IAQ) in various ways. We studied whether the frequency of symptoms reported across students at school level mediates the relationship between observed mold and dampness in a school building and students’ subjective IAQ. To answer this research question, we tested a multilevel path model. The analyzed data was created by merging two nationwide data sets: 1) survey data from students, including information on subjective IAQ (N = 24,786 students); 2) data from schools, including information on mold and dampness in a school building (N = 222). After the background variables were adjusted, schools’ observed…
Indoor Comfort in School Buildings: The Case Study of Palermo
2014
Buildings primary energy consumption in developed countries accounts for about 40% of whole uses. Therefore, the European Union has released many regulations, concerning energy saving issues; particularly, it has enacted Directive 2002/91/EC regarding the energy performance of buildings, and its Recast Directive 2010/31/EU, that promotes the Nearly Zero Energy Building targets, introducing more strict parameters in this aim. Furthermore, the latter Directive asks Member States to include within their national plans measures aimed at supporting public authorities to become early adopters of building energy efficiency improvements. In the same time, Public Authorities should implement effecti…
ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS ON FRACTIONAL EXHALED NITRIC OXIDE IN ALLERGIC CHILDREN
2011
Fractional exhaled nitric oxide (FeNO) is a non-invasive marker of airway inflammation in asthma and respiratory allergy. Environmental factors, especially indoor and outdoor air quality, may play an important role in triggering acute exacerbations of respiratory symptoms. The authors have reviewed the literature reporting effects of outdoor and indoor pollutants on FeNO in children. Although the findings are not consistent, urban and industrial pollution—mainly particles (PM2.5 and PM10), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), and sulfur dioxide (SO2)—as well as formaldehyde and electric baseboard heating have been shown to increase FeNO, whilst ozone (O3) tends to decrease it. Among children exposed to …