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Purpose of the present study was to determine if routine biochemical markers of acute phase response are associated with unfavorable outcome in patients with good-grade aneurysmal SAH.

This contribution presents an ongoing research effort addressing the performance assessment of a number of buildings planned by the Austrian architect Konrad Frey, who is considered to be one of the pioneers of sustainable architecture in Austria. A number of his buildings, planned in the 1970s, consequently integrated principles of modern solar houses. Relevant key projects are subject of an on-going research project. Thereby numeric building simulation was deployed to assess the energy performance of the buildings. In this contribution, we present the intermediate results of a study that focused on one of his latest buildings, namely the prefabricated low-cost loft house. As opposed to architect’s rather complex early designs the loft house concept targeted inexpensive solutions and used simple and commonly available building components and systems. As part of the overall project, the thermal performance of this building was evaluated in terms of the effectiveness of passive cooling via various ventilation schemes (including night time ventilation).

Buildings are responsible for a major amount of the annual energy consumption. A detailed recording and evaluation of building data could provide a deeper understanding of building operation schemes and the corresponding performance. This could help building owners and operators to evaluate and better understand the actual situation. Based on this (real-time) data an optimized operation scheme can be designed and implemented for future time steps. Additionally, a more detailed understanding of the impact of previous building systems interactions will be possible. The building automation industry and the related service provider sector are actually providing proprietary solutions for data logging, visualization and energy optimization. Such solutions are regularly integrated into their own specific software of the used proprietary building management solutions. As an alternative, we suggest an Internet of Things (IoT) and web services inspired concept for the implementation of a generic web service for building diagnostics. Our suggestion encompasses a holistic performance evaluation that considers both the energy consumptions and delivered building service. In this contribution, a general design of a web service based solution is presented and the future possibilities for data access from various sources are discussed. Furthermore, details of actually developed and demonstratively implemented software components for data preprocessing are presented. Data processing examples for different types of data are included and highlight the potential of such web-based approaches. Moreover, possibilities for improved building control by the use of web services for operation schedule generation or model predictive control are illustrated and critically debated.

The present contribution, reports on the results of ongoing research efforts on performance assessment of a number of buildings designed by the Austrian architect, Konrad Frey. He is a pioneer of energy-efficient architecture, and his designs, those dating back to the 1970s, adapted the principles of modern solar houses. The current study focuses on the Kindergarten Hart, which was especially designed focusing on the availability of cross ventilation option in building. For the purpose of analyzing thermal comfort, indoor air quality, and the occupants’ adaptive actions with respect to natural ventilation, we conducted long-term monitoring under summer and winter conditions. The monitoring efforts covered indoor and outdoor environmental conditions, as well as the state of windows. Thereby, study of the monitored dataset provides a better understanding of the building performance. Moreover, it makes it possible to examine whether the architect’s expectations in terms of thermal comfort and indoor air quality levels are fulfilled or not. In addition, investigation of the occupants’ interactions with windows, together with indoor and outdoor environmental conditions, assists understanding of possible associations between the window opening/closing and environmental parameters, as well as potential optimization of the control-oriented actions.

The present paper focuses on the evaluation of different methods for calculation of air change rates due to natural ventilation through windows. Such estimations are of utmost importance for the studies, in which the influence of window operation on thermal comfort, air quality and building performance is to be addressed. Especially, to build accurate building performance models and to develop reliable building simulation scenarios, it is crucial to predict proper values of air exchange. A number of standards and recent scientific contributions present various models for the estimation of air change rates, whereby different sets of input parameters related to room and outdoor conditions are needed. The current contribution examines the reliability of calculated air change rates obtained via a number of widely used estimation methods for a case study room with single sided windows. To this end, a number of tracer gas measurements in a variety of window state settings were conducted, and the real air change rates were calculated based on the measured concentration decay of the tracer gas. Consequently, using the resulting measured and calculated values of air change rates, the reliability of estimation methods could be extensively explored.

In recent years, many researchers have focused on the energy efficiency and performance of existing buildings. In order to predict the hygrothermal performance and minimize the risk of moisture damage in retrofit cases, user-friendly moisture calculation tools have been developed. However, concerns have been raised as to how to increase the reliability of such tools. In this context, the present study uses simulation to investigate the retrofit potential of the historical building façades via application of silica aerogels on the external walls. Monitored data provided the basis for generation of a more accurate initial simulation model, as well as the evaluation of the predictive performance of the model.