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Heating and cooling in buildings accounts for over 20% of total energy consumption in China. Therefore, it is essential to understand the thermal requirements of building occupants when establishing building energy codes that would save energy while maintaining occupants' thermal comfort. This paper introduces the Chinese thermal comfort dataset, established by seven participating institutions under the leadership of Xi'an University of Architecture and Technology. The dataset comprises 41,977 sets of data collected from 49 cities across five climate zones in China over the past two decades. The raw data underwent careful quality control procedure, including systematic organization, to ensure its reliability. Each dataset contains environmental parameters, occupants' subjective responses, building information, and personal information. The dataset has been instrumental in the development of indoor thermal environment evaluation standards and energy codes in China. It can also have broader applications, such as contributing to the international thermal comfort dataset, modeling thermal comfort and adaptive behaviors, investigating regional differences in indoor thermal conditions, and examining occupants' thermal comfort responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents results of a longitudinal field study which aims to investigate adaptive comfort behaviours (i.e. turning on air-conditioner, turning on fans and opening windows or doors) in residential buildings. Field measurements were conducted in 43 homes in Tianjin, northern China, from Spring through early Winter in 2016. Occupants' 'right-here-right-now' thermal perception and adaptive comfort behaviours were collected through online questionnaires delivered to their smartphones. Results indicated that clothing insulation adjustment was the requisite adaptive behaviour to attain thermal comfort. Clothing insulation was more climate-responsive in Tianjin's autumn than in summer. Statistical models were developed to predict the likelihood of various thermally adaptive behaviours with regard to outdoor air temperatures. An outdoor air temperature of 25.2°C was associated with maximum use of windows/doors for comfort ventilation and minimum use of air conditioning (AC). When outdoor air temperature exceeded 32.5°C, 50% of occupants turned on AC for cooling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a field study conducted in office settings in Sydney, Australia, background survey and right‐here‐right‐now thermal comfort questionnaires were collected from a sample of office workers. Indoor environmental observations, including air temperature, mean radiant temperature, air velocity, and relative humidity, were also recorded and matched with each questionnaire according to the time and location. During exploratory data analyses, we observed that female subjects aged over 40 and 50 or younger registered significantly warmer sensations than other subjects, male and female, from other age ranges. To further explore this phenomenon, the sample of building occupants was classified into two groups—women of perimenopausal age (over 40 and 50 or younger) while the remaining respondents served as a reference group for comparison. Women in the perimenopausal age range demonstrated an increased perception of warmth (p < 0.01) and expressed thermal dissatisfaction more frequently (p < 0.01) than the reference group respondents who were exposed to the same indoor environmental conditions. Furthermore, women of perimenopausal age also expressed preference for cooler thermal environments, that is, lower air temperature (p < 0.01) and greater air movement (p<0.01) than the reference group, and their thermal neutrality (ie, the room temperature corresponding to a neutral thermal sensation) was approximately 2°C cooler than that of the reference group (20.7°C vs 22.4°C). A potential physiological explanation for the distinct thermal perception of women aged over 40 and 50 or younger observed in this study could stem from menopausal symptoms—the presence of hot flushes and dysregulation of the thermoregulatory system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Growth in energy use for indoor cooling tripled between 1990 and 2016 to outpace any other end use in buildings. Part of this energy demand is wasted on excessive cooling of offices, a practice known as overcooling. Overcooling has been attributed to poorly designed or managed air-conditioning systems with thermostats that are often set below recommended comfort temperatures. Prior research has reported lower thermal comfort for women in office buildings, but there is insufficient evidence to explain the reasons for this disparity. We use two large and independent datasets from US buildings to show that office temperatures are less comfortable for women largely due to overcooling. Survey responses show that uncomfortable temperatures are more likely to be cold than hot regardless of season. Crowdsourced data suggests that overcooling is a common problem in warm weather in offices across the US. The associated impacts of this pervasive overcooling on well-being and performance are borne predominantly by women. The problem is likely to increase in the future due to growing demand for cooling in increasingly extreme climates. There is a need to rethink the approach to air-conditioning office buildings in light of this gender inequity caused by overcooling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research into human thermal perception indoors has focused on "neutrality" under steady‐state conditions. Recent interest in thermal alliesthesia has highlighted the hedonic dimension of our thermal world that has been largely overlooked by science. Here, we show the activity of sensory neurons can predict thermal pleasure under dynamic exposures. A numerical model of cutaneous thermoreceptors was applied to skin temperature measurements from 12 human subjects. A random forest model trained on simulated thermoreceptor impulses could classify pleasure responses (F1 score of 67%) with low false positives/negatives (4%). Accuracy increased (83%) when excluding the few extreme (dis)pleasure responses. Validation on an independent dataset confirmed model reliability. This is the first empirical demonstration of the relationship between thermoreceptors and pleasure arising from thermal stimuli. Insights into the neurophysiology of thermal perception can enhance the experience of built environments through designs that promote sensory excitation instead of neutrality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sleep is essential for the body to recover from both physical and psychological fatigue accruing throughout the day, and to restore energy to maintain bodily functions. Bedroom environmental quality is one of the key causes of sleep disturbance, so a better understanding of the associations of bedroom temperature and ventilation rate (using CO2 as the surrogate) with sleep quality is necessary. This field study was conducted during summer in subtropical Sydney, Australia, with a sample of 48 householders, including both males and females. In addition to a questionnaire-based subjective sleep quality scales, sleep metrics were also monitored using wrist-wearable sensors. An indoor environmental quality monitoring station (SAMBA) was installed in each survey bedroom for continuous measurements of thermal and air quality parameters at 5-minute intervals for five consecutive days for each subject. The thermal sensation subjects used to characterize their night's sleep showed no relationship with the actual thermal conditions prevailing in the bedroom while sleeping. Sleep efficiency (ratio of time asleep to time in bed) and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep (%) were both negatively correlated with bedroom operative temperature; as bedroom operative temperature increases by 1 K, the estimate of sleep efficiency and REM sleep percentage decrease by 1.036% and 1.647%, respectively. Deep sleep percentage was negatively related to bedroom CO2 concentration, with a 4.3% decrement for every 100 ppm increase in the overnight mean CO2 concentration. The deterioration in subjectively evaluated air freshness was associated with poorer self-reported sleep quality. The effect of bedroom CO2 concentration on light sleep percentage varied significantly under different bedroom operative temperature levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study assessed the effect of wind on human thermal comfort by preforming outdoor urban climatic comfort simulations using state-of-the-art heat-balance models of human thermo-physiology (Universal Thermal Climate Index—UTCI). A series of simulations for computing “wind cooling potential” have been performed using the UTCI index temperatures. The comfort cooling effect of wind has been estimated by modelling with wind taken into account, and under calm wind (0.05 m/s) (ΔUTCI). A novel wind rose biometeorological data visualisation tool that integrates an additional thermal comfort dimension into the conventional climatology wind rose visualisation was developed in this study. The new wind rose graphic tool identifies “predominant” wind directions, and whether or not they are “desirable” from the human thermal comfort point of view. This tool’s utility lies in its identification of the optimal building orientation in its surrounding urban morphology, based on the cooling potential of wind resources when enhanced ventilation is desirable for thermal comfort. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years there has been a shift in research focus away from the negative effects of draught towards the positive benefits of air movement, particularly in the context of personal environmental control (PEC) systems. Thermal perception under targeted air movement is different from exposures in airflow uniformly distributed across the body, but is less well understood. Specification of performance criteria for PEC systems remains unresolved, as there are no clear conclusions regarding optimum target area, velocity ranges or patterns of velocity dynamics. This paper examines the effects of different local air-velocity profiles on thermal sensation and thermal pleasure experienced by human subjects near the upper boundary of the comfort zone, and interprets the findings within the theoretical framework of spatial alliesthesia. It was found that positive thermal pleasure can be achieved when contrasting relationships between local and global skin temperatures trends are established. The substantial body of research literature on local thermal discomfort can be coherently interpreted within the theoretical framework of spatial alliesthesia; local discomfort represents thermal alliesthesia with the incorrect polarity between local and global thermal states. Spatial alliesthesia therefore provides a conceptual framework to understand PEC systems and their potential to minimize occupant thermal dissatisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The comfort zone is bounded by thermal environmental conditions that may be described as acceptably cool or acceptably warm, and engineering out of existence these innocuous thermal conditions on the fringes of the adaptive comfort range may not be necessary. In contrast to the conventional understanding of local discomfort, spatial alliesthesia exploits corrective differences in the rate of change in skin temperature between individual body segments to elicit positive affective sensations. This paper examines reverse instances of local discomfort, or spatial alliesthesia, from warm contact stimuli applied to hand and feet when exposed to ambient conditions towards the lower margin of the comfort zone. It was found that subjects with moderate feelings of displeasure or even indifference were still capable of experiencing a pleasant response to localized thermal stimuli. Brief whole-body thermal pleasure was observed fromin-situskin temperature changes at a single distal body site. These effects were subtle and not universally experienced, so the success of their deliberate implementation in built environments depends heavily on some form of individual control. Spatial alliesthesia therefore complements the body of literature investigating personal environmental control and local thermal discomfort by providing a theoretical framework of thermal perception in non-neutral environments. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Research findings point to three methodological shortcomings of current post-occupancy evaluation (POE) tools: (1) contextualizing results, (2) adding instrumental data side by side to survey results and (3) producing meaningful feedback to its key stakeholders. This paper introduces the holistic BOSSA (Building Occupants Survey System Australia) and tools developed under this project's scope in close collaboration with industry. It aims to present and discuss the statistical analysis used in the BOSSA tool, distilling the survey results down to nine indoor environmental quality (IEQ) dimensions and their association with four overall indices. Principal component analysis (PCA) extracted nine IEQ dimensions that were uncorrelated with each other: spatial comfort, indoor air quality, personal control, noise distraction and privacy, connection to the outdoor environment, building image and maintenance, individual space, thermal comfort, and visual comfort. Four separate multiple regression analyses were conducted, one for each global evaluation item as an independent variable: work area comfort, building satisfaction, productivity and health. This statistical analysis provided the rational basis of BOSSA's scoring system, designed to simplify how occupant survey results are communicated to key stakeholders from the property industry and researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The principle of thermal alliesthesia indicates that the hedonic character of a thermal environment is determined as much by the general state of the subject as by the environment itself. An environmental stimulus that offsets or counters a thermoregulatory load error will be pleasantly perceived, and vice versa. Extant empirical evidence supporting thermal alliesthesia only exists for instances of core temperature deviation. Yet the reconciliation of alliesthesia with contemporary neurophysiological discourse (in the previous paper in this series) renders the concept directly relevant to everyday experiences in built environments where core temperature rarely deviates from neutral values. New experimental data are presented that explore alliesthesia in non-steady-state conditions across three different physiological states: thermoneutral; the upper and lower fringes of the thermoneutral zone; and mild excursions into the sweating and shivering regulatory zones. Thirteen human subjects evaluated the hedonic tone of a sequence of temperature step-changes and ramps. It was found that the psychophysiological principle of thermal alliesthesia operates within the thermoneutral zone, making it equally relevant to quotidian indoor environments as it is to the extremes found in traditional physiological research. Non-steady-state built environments can potentially offer spatial alliesthesia through carefully managed contrasts between local and mean skin temperature trends. Transitional zones are suggested as design solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This survey of thermal comfort in classrooms aimed to define empirically the preferred temperatures, neutral temperatures and acceptable temperature ranges for Australian school children, and to compare them with findings from adult populations. The survey was conducted in a mixture of air-conditioned, evaporative-cooled and naturally ventilated classrooms in nine schools located in three distinct subtropical climate zones during the summer of 2013. A total of 2850 questionnaires were collected from both primary (grade) and secondary (high) schools. An indoor operative temperature of about 22.5°C was found to be the students’ neutral and preferred temperature, which is generally cooler than expected for adults under the same thermal environmental conditions. Despite the lower-than-expected neutrality, the school children demonstrated considerable adaptability to indoor temperature variations, with one thermal sensation unit equating to approximately 4°C operative temperature. Working on the industry-accepted assumption that an acceptable range of indoor operative temperatures corresponds to group mean thermal sensations of −0.85 through to +0.85, the present analysis indicates an acceptable summertime range for Australian students from 19.5 to 26.6°C. The analyses also revealed between-school differences in thermal sensitivity, with students in locations exposed to wider weather variations showing greater thermal adaptability than those in more equable weather districts. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

International standards that define thermal comfort in uniform environments are based on the steady-state heat balance equation that posits ‘neutrality’ as the optimal occupant comfort state for which environments are designed. But thermal perception is more than an outcome of a deterministic, steady-state heat balance. Thermal alliesthesia is a conceptual framework to understand the hedonics of a much larger spectrum of thermal environments than the more thoroughly researched concept of thermal neutrality. At its simplest, thermal alliesthesia states that the hedonic qualities of the thermal environment are determined as much by the general thermal state of the subject as by the environment itself. A peripheral thermal stimulus that offsets or counters a thermoregulatory load-error will be pleasantly perceived and vice versa, a stimulus that exacerbates thermoregulatory load-error will feel unpleasant. The present paper elaborates the thermophysiological hypothesis of alliesthesia with a particular focus on set-point control and the origins of thermoregulatory load-error signals, and then discusses them within the broader context of thermal pleasure. Alliesthesia provides an overarching framework within which diverse and previously disconnected findings of laboratory experiments, field studies and even comfort standards spanning the last 40 years of thermal comfort research can be more coherently understood. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Historically, post-occupancy evaluation (POE) was developed to evaluate actual building performance, providing feedback for architects and building managers to potentially improve the quality and operation of the building. Whilst useful in gathering information based on user satisfaction, POE studies have typically lacked contextual information, continued feedback and physical measurements of the building's indoor climate. They, therefore, sometimes over-exaggerate poor building performance. POEs conducted in two academic office buildings: a mixed-mode (MM) and a naturally ventilated (NV) building located within a university in Sydney, Australia, suggest high levels of occupant dissatisfaction, especially in the MM building. In order to test the validity of the POE results, parallel thermal comfort studies were conducted to investigate the differences in occupant satisfaction and comfort perceptions between these two questionnaires. Instrumental measurements of each building's indoor environment reveal that occupants tended to over-exaggerate their POE comfort responses. Analysis of thermal satisfaction and acceptability in each building indicate that occupants of the NV building were more tolerant of their thermal environment despite experiencing significantly warmer temperatures than their MM counterparts. In discussing these results, along with participant comments and anecdotal evidence from each building, this article contends that POE does not accurately evaluate building performance, suggesting occupants can and do use POE as a vehicle for complaint about general workplace issues, unrelated to their building. In providing a critical review of current POE methods, this article aims to provide recommendations as to how they can be improved, encouraging a more holistic approach to building performance evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many new technologies and approaches to the provision of comfort inside buildings such as displacement ventilation, mixed-mode strategies, personally controllable (task-ambient) designs, chilled beams as well as some old but recently fashionable ones such as natural ventilation are prompting a rethink of the accepted comfort wisdom. How can a single combination of thermal environmental parameters be deemed unacceptable in a conventional heating ventilation and air-conditioning setting, and yet be regarded as acceptable, or even pleasant, in a naturally ventilated or mixed-mode setting? Why do current comfort standards prescribe static and isothermal conditions for comfort in one building, and dynamic and spatially variable indoor climates for comfort in another? The phenomenon of alliesthesia is used to differentiate thermal pleasure from thermal neutrality and acceptability. Alliesthesia is proposed as the logical framework of a new approach to thermal comfort modelling, building on the solid foundation of multi-node physiological models currently available in the literature. De nombreuses technologies et approches nouvelles visant a assurer le confort a l'interieur des immeubles, telles que la ventilation par deplacement d'air, les strategies a mode mixte, les conceptions a commandes individuelles (integrant des luminaires autorisant un eclairage individualise des differentes taches), les poutres froides, ainsi que certaines technologies et approches anciennes, mais revenues en vogue, telles que la ventilation naturelle, amenent a repenser les idees recues sur le confort. Comment une combinaison donnee de parametres environnementaux thermiques peut-elle etre consideree comme non acceptable dans un cadre a chauffage, ventilation et climatisation classiques, et neanmoins jugee comme acceptable, voire agreable, dans un cadre a ventilation naturelle ou a mode mixte ? Pourquoi les normes de confort actuelles prescrivent-elles des conditions statiques et isothermes pour assurer le confort dans un immeuble donne, et des climats interieurs dynamiques et spatialement variables pour assurer le confort dans un autre ? Le phenomene d'alliesthesie est utilise pour differencier le plaisir thermique de la neutralite thermique et de l'acceptabilite. L'alliesthesie est proposee comme cadre logique d'une nouvelle approche de la modelisation du confort thermique, s'appuyant sur les bases solides qu'offrent les modeles physiologiques multinodaux actuellement disponibles dans la litterature. Mots cles: acceptabilite alliesthesie asymetrie isotherme statique confort thermique perception thermique plaisir thermique thermorecepteur transitoire [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Brazilian Federal Government has been recently promoting energy-conservation initiatives, most notably the 'Thermal Performance in Buildings - Brazilian Bioclimatic Zones and Building Guidelines for Low-Cost Housing' and the 'Federal Regulation for Voluntary Labelling of Energy Efficiency Levels in Commercial, Public and Service Buildings'. These new regulations provide information for designers based on Brazil's climate requirements, with specific advice related to lighting systems, HVAC and the thermal envelope of buildings. Nevertheless, requirements for naturally ventilated indoor environments appear as an open category without clear criteria. To address this, the paper proposes guidelines for naturally ventilated environments in which specific thermal and air movement acceptability goals must be achieved. The guidelines are based on results from field experiments in non-residential naturally ventilated buildings in different climatic zones as well as drawing on other studies. The proposed guidelines consider occupants' adaptive potential as well as thermal and air movement acceptability. Combining thermal acceptability with air movement acceptability is a key design challenge. Permissible operative temperature ranges are based on the ASHRAE 55 adaptive comfort standard, and minimum air velocity requirements within the occupied zone are specified. Considerations also included 'active' occupants and specific control over openings and fans. Le Gouvernement federal bresilien encourage depuis peu les initiatives en faveur des economies d'energie, et tout particulierement les initiatives « Performances Thermiques des Immeubles - Zones Bioclimatiques Bresiliennes et Directives de Construction pour les Logements a Faible Cout » et « Reglementation Federale pour l'Etiquetage Volontaire des Niveaux de Rendement Energetique des Immeubles Commerciaux, Publics et de Services ». Ces reglementations nouvelles fournissent aux concepteurs des informations basees sur les exigences climatiques du Bresil, et s'accompagnent de conseils specifiques relatifs aux systemes d'eclairage, aux systemes CVCA et a l'enveloppe thermique des immeubles. Neanmoins, les exigences relatives aux environnements interieurs a ventilation naturelle apparaissent comme une categorie ouverte sans criteres clairs. Pour traiter ce probleme, le present article propose des directives pour les environnements a ventilation naturelle dans lesquels des objectifs specifiques d'acceptabilite thermique et en matiere de circulation d'air doivent etre atteints. Ces directives sont basees sur les resultats d'experiences de terrain menees dans des immeubles non residentiels a ventilation naturelle dans differentes zones climatiques, mais s'appuient egalement sur d'autres etudes. Les directives proposees prennent en consideration le potentiel adaptatif des occupants aussi bien que l'acceptabilite thermique et en matiere de circulation d'air. Reussir a combiner l'acceptabilite thermique et l'acceptabilite en matiere de circulation d'air pose un probleme de conception essentiel. Les plages de temperature de service admissibles sont basees sur la norme de confort adaptatif ASHRAE 55, et les exigences minimales quant a la vitesse de l'air dans la zone occupee sont precisees. Ont egalement ete pris en consideration les occupants « actifs » et les commandes specifiques des ouvertures et des ventilateurs. Mots cles: confort adaptatif acceptabilite de la circulation d'air directives de conception ventilation naturelle occupants satisficing [strategie de prise de decision] acceptabilite thermique confort thermique [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thermal perceptions and preferences of individuals outdoors cannot be entirely explained by the energy balance of the human body. They are also affected by psychological and behavioural factors or the so-called thermal adaptation. To examine the effect of thermal adaptation on seasonal outdoor thermal comfort, 1644 interviews with concurrent micrometeorological measurements were conducted outdoors in central Taiwan. Results indicate a deviation of 1.3 °C standard effective temperature (SET*) in neutral temperatures between hot and cool seasons, and a deviation of 1.8 °C SET* in preferred temperature between hot and cool seasons. Additionally, although subjects' temperature and sunshine preferences were highly correlated with SET*, they diverged between seasons for identical SET* exposures in the two seasons. Analysis reveals that people's thermal perceptions were strongly related to the air temperature (Ta) and mean radiant temperature (Tmrt), but not significant to air speed and air humidity. These results demonstrate that thermal adaptation markedly influences seasonal outdoor thermal comfort, knowledge of which may be useful in the planning and design of outdoor environments in hot-humid regions. Copyright © 2010 Royal Meteorological Society [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The occurrence of fog can significantly impact air transport operations, and plays an important role in aviation safety. The economic value of aviation forecasts for Sydney Airport alone in 1993 was estimated at $6.8 million (Australian dollars) for Quantas Airways. The prediction of fog remains difficult despite improvements in numerical weather prediction guidance and models of the fog phenomenon. This paper assesses the ability of artificial neural networks (ANNs) to provide accurate forecasts of such events at Canberra International Airport (YSCB). Unlike conventional statistical techniques, ANNs are well suited to problems involving complex nonlinear interactions and therefore have potential in application to fog prediction. A 44-yr database of standard meteorological observations obtained from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology was used to develop, train, test, and validate ANNs designed to predict fog occurrence. Fog forecasting aids were developed for 3-, 6-, 12-, and 18-h lead times from 0600 local standard time. The forecasting skill of various ANN architectures was assessed through analysis of relative operating characteristic curves. Results indicate that ANNs are able to offer good discrimination ability at all four lead times. The results were robust to error perturbation for various input parameters. It is recommended that such models be included when preparing forecasts for YSCB, and that the technique should be extended in its application to cover other similarly fog-prone aviation locations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concentrations of tropospheric ozone often exceed Australian air quality goals in Sydney during summer. However, features in the occurrence of ozone in Sydney are yet to be fully explained. Meteorological conditions associated with ozone episodes in Sydney are caused by complex interactions between synoptic and meso-scale processes. This paper discusses the meteorological influences behind ozone pollution episodes in Sydney. A synoptic climatology of ozone episodes in Sydney was generated using multivariate statistical techniques, including principal component analysis (PCA) and a two-stage cluster analysis, to classify days into meteorologically homogeneous synoptic categories. Surface and upper air meteorological data for warm months (Oct-Mar) over a 10-year period were used as input into the statistical analyses. Eleven synoptic categories were identified in Sydney during the warm season and ozone concentrations associated with each of the synoptic categories were investigated. One synoptic category was found to be associated almost exclusively with high pollution concentrations. High ozone concentrations were found to be associated with a high-pressure system located in the middle to eastern Tasman Sea producing light northwesterly gradient winds, an afternoon sea breeze, high afternoon temperatures, a shallow mixing height at the coast and warming aloft during the day. Over 90% of all days exceeding current air quality goals for ozone in Sydney fell within the synoptic category associated with the highest ozone concentrations. It is envisaged that results from this research will be useful to Australian regulatory bodies from both a forecast point of view and for the siting of future ozone precursor sources in Sydney and surrounding regions. Copyright © 2006 Royal Meteorological Society [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An apparent error was detected in the calculation of windchill equivalent temperatures (WCETs) in the “new” chart and corresponding equation that were adopted in 2001 by the weather services in the United States and Canada. The problem is caused by significant discontinuities in WCETs at the assumed “calm” wind speed condition of 1.34 m s-1. As a result, published WCETs are not equal to, as they should be by definition, but are lower than air temperatures at the assumed calm wind speed condition. This inconsistency further propagates to higher wind speeds beyond the assumed calm condition. In this paper, a straightforward correction is proposed to circumvent these inconsistencies of the new windchill. The proposed correction makes this transition gradual rather than abrupt by applying it to the expression used for estimating the effects of wind on the convective heat exchange coefficient between humans and their cold and windy environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effects of environmental and individual factors on thermal sensation in air-conditioned office environments were analysed for two large, fully compatible thermal comfort field studies in contrasting Australian climates. In the hot - humid location of Townsville, 836 office workers were surveyed; 935 workers participated in hot - arid Kalgoorlie-Boulder. Overall perceived work area temperature and measured indoor operative temperature correlated moderately with thermal sensation for Townsville (T) subjects but only perceived temperature correlated with Kalgoorlie-Boulder (KB) sensation. Multiple regression analyses confirmed that indoor climatic variables (including Predicted Mean Vote) contributed to actual thermal sensation vote (24% T; 15% KB), with operative temperature having more of an effect in T than in KB. Subsequent analyses of individual characteristics showed no linear contributions to thermal sensation. The remaining variances were significantly related to perceived work area temperature (7% additional explained variance in T; 12% in KB). Mann - Whitney analyses (after correction for climatic variables) showed that T subjects with higher job satisfaction had thermal sensations closer to 'neutral'. Males, healthier subjects, non-smokers, respondents with earlier survey times and underweight occupants had lower median thermal sensations in KB. Townsville occupants appeared more adapted to their outdoor climatic conditions than Kalgoorlie-Boulder respondents, perhaps due to limited home air-conditioning. Further research into non-thermal impacts on gender-related thermal acceptability is suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Air conditioning (A/C) is generally responsible for a significant proportion of total building energy consumption. However, occupants' air conditioning usage patterns are often unrealistically characterised in building energy performance simulation tools, which leads to a gap between simulated and actual energy use. The objective of this study was to develop a stochastic model for predicting occupant behaviour relating to A/C cooling and heating in residential buildings located in the Subtropical Sydney region of Australia. Multivariate logistic regression was used to estimate the probability of using A/C in living rooms and bedrooms, based on a range of physical environmental (outdoor and indoor) and contextual (season, day of week, and time of day) factors observed in 42 Sydney region houses across a two-year monitoring period. The resulting models can be implemented in building energy performance simulation (BEPS) tools to more accurately predict indoor environmental conditions and energy consumption attributable to A/C operation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A response by Avraham Shitzer and Richard de Dear to a letter to the editor about their article "Inconsistencies in the New Windchill Chart at Low Wind Speeds" in the previous issue is presented.