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Commercially available bioethanol-fueled fireplaces are a potential source of burns and are commonly used for home use. The present study aimed to evaluate the quality of life following burn injuries that were caused by bioethanol-related accidents. Burned patients who were admitted to our burn unit with burn injury due to bio-ethanol fueled fire places between January 2010 and December 2021 were contacted to ask for their willingness to participate in this study. They were asked to answer questions regarding the circumstances of the accident and three questionnaires to capture burn specific and general health related quality of life (Burn Specific Health Scale-Brief (BSHS-B), Short-Form Health Survey 36 (SF-36)) and general information about the accident. Patients were matched and compared to a group of patients suffering comparable burns from other burn mechanisms, which were also admitted to our burn unit at the same time. Of 35 patients that met the inclusion criteria, 19 answered the questionnaire and were compared to 38 patients with other burn mechanisms. There were no statistical differences regarding age (bioethanol: 37.4 ± 14.7 years vs. control: 36.2 ± 14.3 years, p = 0.777), TBSA (9.9 ± 6.8% vs. 8.9 ± 10.4, p = 0.715), and sex (42.1% females vs. 36.8% females, p = 0.882). Most patients in the bioethanol-group reported that they did not follow the manual instructions (68.4%) and that the accident happened during the refilling process (52.6%). There was no significant difference in any subscale of the BSHS-B or the SF-36. Burns related to bioethanol-fueled fireplaces are rare compared to other typical burn mechanisms. However, as they are used for personal pleasure and interior design, psychological impairment following burn may be even more critical. Detailed education on the use of these fireplaces needs to take place in order to reduce the risk of accidents. • The instruction manual but it was not (thoroughly) studied before the first use. Most accidents happened when refilling • When comparing the means of each subscale of the Burns Specific Health-Scale Brief between the bioethanol and the control groups, there was no significant differences in any of the subscales. • Regarding general health related quality of life when measuring with the SF-36 questionnaire, there was no significant difference in the physical health summary scale or the mental health summary scale, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the seventeenth-eighteenth centuries, the houses of Vilnius' citizens were heated by fireplaces and tile stoves, and brick cooking stoves and dough troughs as well as other baking stoves were used for cooking. Cooking stoves and baking stoves mostly stood in the kitchen equipped in the entry, but sometimes, baking stoves were bricked in the rooms or other premises. In some kitchens, cooking stoves and baking stoves stood separately, while in others, the baking stove was placed under the cooking stove. There was a brick chimney above the cooking stove for the smoke and steam to escape. The houses in Vilnius were heated by stoves of colorless, green, white, brown tiles, less rarely - tiles of other colors. In the seventeenth century, green-tile stoves were the most popular, although white-tile ones are also found in the homes of wealthy inhabitants, which were usually located in the premises used for representative purposes. They became more prevalent in the eighteenth century, especially its second half. In addition to the stoves described above, the stoves in the rooms began to be decorated with tiles of green, brown and other colors with horizontal bands of white tiles. Stoves with one band are the most common; however, there were also those with several bands, as well as ornate colored-tile stoves with white-tile ledges, figural cornices and other architectural elements and details. Such stoves were usually bricked in the representative premises of wealthy citizens. In the houses of the less wealthy people there were colorless or greentile stoves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2021, the Centro Internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio (CISAAP) in Vicenza and the Department of Architecture at the University of Bologna collaborated for a didactical joint initiative involving students from the Photogrammetry for Architecture course. The main goal was to develop a new teaching approach for architectural education exploiting photogrammetry as a digital tool for joining the Architectural Heritage (AH) documentation with the architecture analysis and design interpretation. Beginning from the new technological advances (semi-automatic workflows and smartphone cameras use), a ‘learning-by-doing’ didactical method and situated real work problems, a whole systematic process, based on the concept of a digital copy of an architectural artifact as mean to collect and to aggregate knowledge, was developed and inferred to the student. Starting from the designed teaching path, in which the perspectives of the historian, the surveyor, and the designer are blended to get a holistic vision of the architecture, 29 fireplaces by Andrea Palladio were chosen as emblematic case studies. These microarchitectures let students understand the complexities of historic objects and of their digitalization to produce 3D models as outcomes of an acquisition pipeline useful to train them for a future professional career.

Background and aim: Epidemiological studies conducted mostly in low- and middle-income countries have found a positive association between household combustion of wood and lung cancer. However, most studies have been retrospective, and few have been conducted in the United States where indoor wood-burning usage patterns differ. We examined the association of exposure to indoor wood smoke from fireplaces and stoves with incident lung cancer in a U.S.-wide cohort of women. Methods: We included 50,226 women without prior lung cancer participating in the U.S.-based prospective Sister Study. At enrollment (2003–2009), women reported frequency of use of wood-burning stoves and/or fireplaces in their longest-lived adult residence. Cox regression was used to estimate adjusted hazard ratios (HRadj) and 95 % confidence intervals (CI) for the association between indoor wood-burning fireplace/stove use and incident lung cancer. Lung cancer was self-reported and confirmed with medical records. Results: During an average 11.3 years of follow-up, 347 medically confirmed lung cancer cases accrued. Overall, 62.3 % of the study population reported the presence of an indoor wood-burning fireplace/stove at their longest-lived adult residence and 20.6 % reported annual usage of ≥30 days/year. Compared to those without a wood-burning fireplace/stove, women who used their wood-burning fireplace/stove ≥30 days/year had an elevated rate of lung cancer (HRadj = 1.68; 95 % CI = 1.27, 2.20). In never smokers, positive associations were seen for use 1–29 days/year (HRadj = 1.64; 95 % CI = 0.87, 3.10) and ≥30 days/year (HRadj = 1.99; 95 % CI = 1.02, 3.89). Associations were also elevated across all income groups, in Northeastern, Western or Midwestern U.S. regions, and among those who lived in urban or rural/small town settings. Conclusions: Our prospective analysis of a cohort of U.S. women found that increasing frequency of wood-burning indoor fireplace/stove usage was associated with incident lung cancer, even among never smokers.

This study investigates fireplaces in the Neolithic settlement of Çatalhöyük in Anatolia, Turkey (levels South L–S and 4040 G–H, 6700–6100 BC). Taking a holistic view with a contextual, multi-scalar approach, I consider spatial and temporal dimensions: Large-scale landscape resources and small-scale material assemblages associated with food processing provide the context for the fireplaces, and I observe the changes over the long-term, the 600 years of my study, and the short-term impact of daily practice. Firstly, I determine the criteria for identifying different types of fireplaces, their practical function and uses. I then look at the construction of ovens and hearths in Çatalhöyük and their internal and external locations. I find individual variations between households and alterations over time and challenge interpretations that emphasise uniformity and seek trends and a grand narrative of symbolic meaning in the fireplaces. I find the abandonment of fireplaces is mainly guided by practical considerations, while the few symbolic deposits suggest the importance given to food preparation. I argue that not only natural resources and culture, but also daily practice impacts on landscape, architectural features and artefacts. I conclude that fire installations enabled households to be self-sufficient and therefore ovens and hearths had special significance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the evolution of Ottoman fireplaces, limited scholarly attention. It explores the technical and aesthetic changes in wall-mounted fireplaces between the 17 and 19 centuries, emphasizing their emergence as luxury appliances and their sociocultural significance. It mentions the significance of chimneys in the external profile of dwellings as markers of wealth and social status, particularly in regions central to the Ottoman imperial economy and trade.

In view of the tremendous emissions of toxic gases and particulate matter (PM) by low-power firewood-fueled fireplaces, there is an urgent need for effective measures to lower emissions to keep this renewable and economical source for private home heating available in the future. For this purpose, an advanced combustion air control system was developed and tested on a commercial fireplace (HKD7, Bunner GmbH, Eggenfelden, Germany), complemented with a commercial oxidation catalyst (EmTechEngineering GmbH, Leipzig, Germany) placed in the post-combustion zone. Combustion air stream control of the wood-log charge combustion was realized by five different control algorithms to describe all situations of combustion properly. These control algorithms are based on the signals of commercial sensors representing catalyst temperature (thermocouple), residual oxygen concentration (LSU 4.9, Bosch GmbH, Gerlingen, Germany) and CO/HC-content in the exhaust (LH-sensor, Lamtec Mess- und Regeltechnik für Feuerungen GmbH & Co. KG, Walldorf (Germany)). The actual flows of the combustion air streams, as calculated for the primary and secondary combustion zone, are adjusted by motor-driven shutters and commercial air mass flow sensors (HFM7, Bosch GmbH, Gerlingen, Germany) in separate feedback control loops. For the first time, the residual CO/HC-content (CO, methane, formaldehyde, etc.) in the flue gas is in-situ monitored with a long-term stable AuPt/YSZ/Pt mixed potential high-temperature gas sensor, which allows continuous estimation of the flue gas quality with an accuracy of about ±10%. This parameter is not only an essential input for advanced combustion air stream control but also provides monitoring of the actual combustion quality and logging of this value over a whole heating period. By many firing experiments in the laboratory and by field tests over four months, it could be demonstrated that with this long-term stable and advanced automated firing system, depression of the gaseous emissions by about 90% related to manually operated fireplaces without catalyst could be achieved. In addition, preliminary investigations at a firing appliance complemented by an electrostatic precipitator yielded PM emission depression between 70% and 90%, depending on the firewood load.

In light of the enculturation of landscapes by ethnographically documented hunter-gatherers, we should expect Mesolithic hunter-gatherers to have endowed their early Holocene landscapes with meaning. Attempts to find evidence for this have focussed on the unusual and exotic – those aspects of the archaeological record that seem immediately unrelated to subsistence. In this contribution, I suggest that fireplaces, ubiquitous on Mesolithic sites and often swiftly passed over in site reports as evidence for cooking alone, had played a key role in the process of landscape enculturation. Although we cannot reconstruct the specific meanings once attached to early Holocene landscapes, by appreciating the social and cultural significance of fireplaces we gain a more holistic view of the Mesolithic than is currently the case, whether in those studies that focus on settlement and subsistence or those that cite examples of ritual. In the course of making this argument, I summarise the evidence for fireplaces from Mesolithic Britain, noting the need for more systematic reporting. Finally, I provide a case study from western Scotland that seeks to view a suite of fireplaces in the context of the landscape topography, early Holocene environments, subsistence economy, and by drawing on selected ethnographic analogies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In view of the tremendous emissions of toxic gases and particulate matter (PM) by low-power firewood-fueled fireplaces, there is an urgent need for effective measures to lower emissions to keep this renewable and economical source for private home heating available in the future. For this purpose, an advanced combustion air control system was developed and tested on a commercial fireplace (HKD7, Bunner GmbH, Eggenfelden, Germany), complemented with a commercial oxidation catalyst (EmTechEngineering GmbH, Leipzig, Germany) placed in the post-combustion zone. Combustion air stream control of the wood-log charge combustion was realized by five different control algorithms to describe all situations of combustion properly. These control algorithms are based on the signals of commercial sensors representing catalyst temperature (thermocouple), residual oxygen concentration (LSU 4.9, Bosch GmbH, Gerlingen, Germany) and CO/HC-content in the exhaust (LH-sensor, Lamtec Mess- und Regeltechnik für Feuerungen GmbH & Co. KG, Walldorf (Germany)). The actual flows of the combustion air streams, as calculated for the primary and secondary combustion zone, are adjusted by motor-driven shutters and commercial air mass flow sensors (HFM7, Bosch GmbH, Gerlingen, Germany) in separate feedback control loops. For the first time, the residual CO/HC-content (CO, methane, formaldehyde, etc.) in the flue gas is in-situ monitored with a long-term stable AuPt/YSZ/Pt mixed potential high-temperature gas sensor, which allows continuous estimation of the flue gas quality with an accuracy of about ±10%. This parameter is not only an essential input for advanced combustion air stream control but also provides monitoring of the actual combustion quality and logging of this value over a whole heating period. By many firing experiments in the laboratory and by field tests over four months, it could be demonstrated that with this long-term stable and advanced automated firing system, depression of the gaseous emissions by about 90% related to manually operated fireplaces without catalyst could be achieved. In addition, preliminary investigations at a firing appliance complemented by an electrostatic precipitator yielded PM emission depression between 70% and 90%, depending on the firewood load. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2021, the Centro Internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio (CISAAP) in Vicenza and the Department of Architecture at the University of Bologna collaborated for a didactical joint initiative involving students from the Photogrammetry for Architecture course. The main goal was to develop a new teaching approach for architectural education exploiting photogrammetry as a digital tool for joining the Architectural Heritage (AH) documentation with the architecture analysis and design interpretation. Beginning from the new technological advances (semi-automatic workflows and smartphone cameras use), a 'learning-by-doing' didactical method and situated real work problems, a whole systematic process, based on the concept of a digital copy of an architectural artifact as mean to collect and to aggregate knowledge, was developed and inferred to the student. Starting from the designed teaching path, in which the perspectives of the historian, the surveyor, and the designer are blended to get a holistic vision of the architecture, 29 fireplaces by Andrea Palladio were chosen as emblematic case studies. These microarchitectures let students understand the complexities of historic objects and of their digitalization to produce 3D models as outcomes of an acquisition pipeline useful to train them for a future professional career. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyses the problem of attribution between the creator of models of factory-made tile stoves and fireplaces and the prototypes of decorative elements, and the manufacturer of mass-produced artefacts in the nineteenth – first half of the twentieth century. Questions are raised as to who is the author of the prototype of an industrial product and what helps or impedes the identification of both the author of the model and the specific factory where the product was mass produced according to that model. The analysis is based on the insights of researchers from Germany, Finland and Russia, the provisions of the factory laws of the Russian Empire of the second half of the nineteenth century, examples of factory catalogues, and cases of attribution of specific products. The research showed that in Germany, which set the trends in the production of tile stoves in the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century, the prototypes of industrially produced tile stoves were mostly created by well-known architects and sculptors, whose names are recorded in factory documents, and quite many of them are known today. It is known that in Germany, where the industrial revolution started in the early nineteenth century, state institutions were concerned about the quality of the prototype, and in the first half of the nineteenth century, they published various albums of prototypes of industrial production and invited renowned artists of the time to illustrate them. Master classes and exhibitions organised by various cultural figures in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, when the exhibited products were put into production in factories not only in Germany, but also in other countries, also played an important role in improving the quality of industrial products. In the countries with less developed industry, the problem of the prototype of mass-produced artefacts was solved in a slightly different way. Such countries include the Russian Empire, part of which Lithuania was in the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century. There, it was required by law that the models of new products, including tile stoves, be registered as inventions with the state institutions that regulated trade and industry, but the authors of the prototypes retained their exclusive rights to them only for a very short period from one to three years. In addition, according to the Russian law, the owner of the factory rather than the artisan who created the model of the artefact was considered to be the owner of the prototype. For that reason, we practically do not know the names of the authors of models in this region. On the other hand, as research shows, at least the factories operating in the territory of Lithuania did not try to create new models, but prided themselves on producing artefacts according to the newest examples from abroad, although that “newness” could mean a period of several to several dozen years since the creation of the prototype. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper proposes critical summary of the current data on fireplaces, ovens and furnaces identified in protohistoric Sardinia archaeological contexts between the Middle Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age. The aim of the research is to offer a reflection both on the quantity and quality of data in order to the use of fire in archaeological contexts, and on the difficulties about to their recognition and to the related functional interpretation. The analysis was carried out on the basis of an updated repertory, including all the published evidence, with the aim of proposing the typological classification of combustion structures and of determining their features also in relation to the different areas of reference. It was necessary to identify a criterion for pyrotechnic structures classification that would take into account the type of context, morphology and, when possible, function. Traces of fire use have been identified in the archaeological stratifications, in more or less structured spaces and coinciding with different monumental evidences such as nuraghi, village areas, cultural complexes. In correspondence with these areas, within domestic, cultural or uncertain destination spaces, there are fireplaces and points of fire with widely varied structuring methods. Both combustion zones of different shapes and sizes without delimitation elements and structured hearths, defined by lithic elements, characterized by different levels of finishing and complexity, can be recognized. Ovens and furnaces are not well documented in quantitative terms but are better defined for their typological characteristics. The functional aspects have been examined through the recognition of indicators such as associated artifacts or other elements derived from the specific context and the spatial location of structures related to pyrotechnic activities.

The aim of the paper is to illustrate a sharing project of an on-line digital atlas of prehistoric structures, where scholars can share the products of their research or their discoveries, enrich their mind of knowledge through several updated comparisons, analyze any details of construction and related stratigraphy, identify main types, open discussions within the frame of interpretation of ancient features. Actually, particularly related to this meeting, the early phase of the project regards published protohistoric ovens and fireplaces, proposing a basic form to fill with information and documentation as well as introducing a general discussion on models and processes. Instead of proposing a classification the paper deals with indicating characters and markers recognizable in the archaeological context as well as building a conceptual map related to the ontology of use of fire in prehistory.

Traditional fireplaces (ocaks), which have been commonly utilized in Anatolian historical buildings, possess functional values in addition to their aesthetic significance. Specifying the thermal properties of these elements is an evaluation field, which assists in determining the extent of the interventions that are undertaken to sustain the thermal comfort for contemporary reuse of historical houses. The aim of this study is to determine the potential of traditional ocaks to meet the thermal needs depending on contemporary utilization scenarios. The studied building type is open-hall (sofa) historical houses. The method of the study consists of collecting annual on-site thermal readings on two cases from rural and urban settlements, determining the thermophysical properties of construction materials used in these buildings and modeling the buildings on DesignBuilder v5.4.0.21 software for conducting their transient thermal analyses after calibrating the models. The changing values of spatial heating energy rate demands were calculated by analyses, were compared to the maximum heating powers of the ocaks in the chosen case buildings and the demand fulfillment rate of the ocaks were calculated. The presented analysis stages aim to contribute to the methodology of heating system evaluations for historical houses. As a result of this study, it was determined that two of the three ocaks in urban case are highly satisfactory for their corresponding spaces however one lacks this high-level of sufficiency, and all analyzed ocaks in rural case have adequate heating levels. Thus, data were generated to determine the scope of possible heating arrangements to be designed in the examined buildings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to optimize firewood combustion in low-power firewood-fuelled fireplaces, a novel combustion airstream control concept based on the signals of in situ sensors for combustion temperature, residual oxygen concentration and residual un-combusted or partly combusted pyrolysis gas components (CO and HC) has been introduced. A comparison of firing experiments with hand-driven and automated airstream-controlled furnaces of the same type showed that the average CO emissions in the high-temperature phase of the batch combustion can be reduced by about 80 % with the new control concept. Further, the performance of different types of high-temperature CO / HC sensors (mixed-potential and metal oxide types), with reference to simultaneous exhaust gas analysis by a high-temperature FTIR analysis system, was investigated over 20 batch firing experiments (∼ 80 h). The distinctive sensing behaviour with respect to the characteristically varying flue gas composition over a batch firing process is discussed. The calculation of the Pearson correlation coefficients reveals that mixed-potential sensor signals correlate more with CO and CH4; however, different metal oxide sensitive layers correlate with different gas species: 1 % Pt / SnO2 designates the presence of CO and 2 % ZnO / SnO2 designates the presence of hydrocarbons. In the case of a TGS823 sensor element, there was no specific correlation with one of the flue gas components observed. The stability of the sensor signals was evaluated through repeated exposure to mixtures of CO, N2 and synthetic air after certain numbers of firing experiments and exhibited diverse long-term signal instabilities.

The paper presents quantitative approach for management decisions of the manufacturing system for production of fireplaces, related to evaluation of key parameters - productivity and throughput, which most authors and methodologies consider to be substantial. Methodology was based on creating the simulation model of the fireplace production line in software Witness; optimizing the production capacity by selecting constraints, based on results from simulation model; evaluating the simulation experiments with the goal to increase productivity; setting production to maximize sales profits using Simplex method. Simulation model was built according to a technological process of fireplaces in a semi-automated production. Improvement in a production process within theory of constraints philosophy is complemented by mathematical modelling - Simplex method, that estimate profit maximization in case the company management decides to produce more product variants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A partire dalla rilettura della dispositio vitruviana in stretta relazione con quella visione unitaria della disciplina che si inscrive nel solco della trattatistica e mira alla trasmissibilità del sapere in funzione della sua applicazione pratica, il saggio esamina i cambiamenti occorsi nella pratica architettonica dal Settecento in avanti per riflettere sul ruolo progettuale e disciplinare di alcuni dei dispositivi architettonici – compositivi e non-compositivi – caratteristici della postmodernità, collocandoli all’interno di una sorta di ragionamento sul linguaggio, e da qui sull’architettura in generale, a partire dai due poli dell’illuminismo e del postmoderno, quest’ultimo inteso nel senso della condizione postmoderna del pensiero. / Starting with a consideration on the Vitruvian dispositio, characterized in architectural treatises by a unified vision of Architecture as a discipline, and aimed to the transmission of knowledge in relation to its practice, the essay analyses the changes which have occurred in Architecture since the 18th century, in order to reflect upon the design and disciplinary role of some of the architectural tools (both compositional and non-compositional) typical of postmodernity. The framework is a sort of reasoning through the language and about architecture in general, starting from the two poles of Enlightenment and post-modern – the latter meant as the post-modern condition of thought.

Carbon monoxide (CO) concentration in the body will be decreased after smoking cessation. However, confounding factors may influence the results. Exhaled CO (eCO) assessment of lung is a simple, noninvasive tool, but confounder factors such as gas fireplaces might influence results. We thus quantified the effect of them in two smokers with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). We described one of these confounder factors in two smokers with COPD in a clinical trial study setting with IRCT201609271457N11 coding in IRCT. The amounts of eCO and carboxyhemoglobin of these patients rose while the average daily smoking decreased (in the first patient) or stopped smoking (in the second patient). We found that they had used the fireplace to heat their home. These measures decreased in both patients by discontinuing the use of the gas fireplace. The gas fireplaces influence the results of eCO assessments in smoking cessation programs.

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