Search

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate a co-designed intervention using digital resources "Vietnam Cancer Caring Coping" (V-CCC) on the health literacy, depression, and quality of life of caregivers supporting a cancer patient in oncology hospitals in Vietnam. METHODS: A pre-post quantitative evaluation with adult cancer caregivers across regional Oncology hospitals in Vietnam (Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang, Can Tho, and Hue). Participants completed baseline and follow-up measures of health literacy (HLS-SF12) depression (PHQ-9) and Health-related Quality of Life (5Q-5D-5L). Participants accessed and reviewed V-CCC for a 2-week period. RESULTS: Two hundred and thirty-four caregivers completed pre and post-tests. Most participants were female (n = 143, 61%), married (n = 165, 70%), aged 18-44 (n = 155, 66%), lived rurally (n = 157, 67%). All health literacy scores of participants in post-intervention were significantly higher than that in pre-intervention across all domain's healthcare, disease prevention, and health promotion as well as the total score (p < 0.001). A significant reduction in the proportion of caregivers reporting PHQ-9 moderately severe/severe depression post-intervention was demonstrated (10.2 vs. 6.1%, respectively (p ≤ 0.001). No significant differences were observed pre and post-intervention across four 5Q-5D-5L health dimensions: mobility, self-care, usual activities, and pain/discomfort. Regarding anxiety/depression as measured by 5Q-5D-5L the proportion of participants who reported having moderate, severe, and extreme problems in pre- and post-intervention was statistically significant (32 vs. 24%), respectively (p = 0.0028). CONCLUSION: Co-designed digital resources can reduce health literacy inequities and improve psychological outcomes for cancer caregivers.

People with dementia sometimes show changed behaviours such as agitation, hallucination, and wandering during the moderate and severe dementia stages. In addition to individual health factors, contextual factors, such as indoor environment conditions, spatial layout, and human activities, may trigger or influence these behaviours, but there is a lack of solid evidence. We used mixed methods to collect data, including the fly-on-the-wall method to observe the residents' daily lives and deploying environmental sensors to monitor the indoor environments of two central living rooms and ten bedrooms in a nursing home in the Netherlands. A data collection campaign from August to September 2022 focused on the indoor environmental parameters, ventilation control of monitored rooms, the observation of ten participants' locations, activities, clothing levels, and changed behaviours. The data were analysed using Fisher's exact tests and heatmap analysis. The results show that even though the nursing home was well maintained according to existing indoor environmental quality standards, the room conditions of temperature, TVOC, and HCHO levels and contextual factors (main activity and numbers of people in the space) were significantly correlated with locations of changed behaviours. By analysing observation data with spatial layout, participants had larger activity ranges on the days that exhibited changed behaviours than those without. Most of these behaviours were observed at the edge of common spaces, where caregivers need to pay more attention.

Renovation projects in social housing tend to focus on diminishing the costs of the renovation. An affordable solution is sought for an average household, thus assumptions are made about the residents' behaviour when calculating the energy performance of the dwellings. However, households have different needs and preferences, and therefore the actual use of the building can affect the achievement of the zero energy goals. In the Netherlands, until 2020, the calculation of the energy performance coefficient (EPC) was necessary to obtain building permission. The EPC was calculated based on standardised occupancy, and took into account the characteristics of the building envelope and installations. Furthermore, the EPV (energieprestatievergoeding, energy performance compensation in English) is an instrument used by housing associations and landlords to recover part of their investments in renovating social housing into (nearly) zero energy homes through a regulated increase in the rent, while protecting the residents from increase on their costs of living. In this research, we used a monitoring case study in the Netherlands to investigate the effect of assumptions made during design regarding occupants' behaviour, preferences, needs and lifestyle on achieving energy neutrality goals. The following questions are answered: What assumptions where made during the design of the building, and how do they differ from actual behaviour?, and what are the consequences of the behaviour for the performance of the building and for the EPV? The objective of this research is to determine the importance of design assumptions in the design and evaluation of zero energy buildings., Applied Ergonomics and Design

Dwellings and systems are becoming ever more complex. In achieving high energy performances, the interaction among user, building and systems plays an increasingly crucial role. We studied this interaction in 16 recently renovated low-energy dwellings, to advance the field in terms of methods, and to derive pointers for improved renovation concepts. We used sensors to monitor the indoor environment. And we further developed a method that uses questionnaires, diaries and a so-called 'walk through the house' interview technique to gain insights into occupant behaviour and the reasons for the occupants' behaviours. The results show that the observed behaviour was almost always a normal response to the situation, but often not the behaviour that was expected when designing the renovation concept. A major reason for this was the occupants' efforts to reduce discomfort, which was often the result of the renovation solution itself (for example draught, noise or a warm bedroom). So, we found that behaviour was often a quite normal reaction to the renovation solution. We conclude that the resulting underperformances of renovation concepts are caused by technology centred design. We posit that this can be improved by testing renovation concepts in real world situations., Applied Ergonomics and Design

As the goal-setting in the European Green Deal is to reach carbon neutrality by 2050, great efforts have been put to improve the energy efficiency in residential buildings. As residential buildings are towards high energy efficiency, building envelopes are becoming better thermally insulated and systems are becoming more energy-efficient. Therefore, the role of occupants in the actual building performance is becoming more important. However, contradictions exist between the uncertainties caused by occupant behaviour (OB) and the over-simplified consideration of OB in building design. Therefore, this paper aims to present a state-of-the-art of how OB is represented in residential buildings. Through a literature study, this paper first reviews different occupant behaviours and how they are considered in the design and operation of high-performance residential buildings. Modelling methods are categorized by occupant activities. In addition, behavioural theories in the application of analysing building performance are reviewed. How the behavioural theories are integrated with state-of-the-art building technologies is outlined. Finally, challenges and suggestions for representing the interaction between occupants and buildings in the design and operation of residential buildings are discussed., Applied Ergonomics and Design

The paper presents the results of monitoring a Passivhaus care home regarding the effect of design intentions, occupancy practices and user preferences, on building energy and indoor environmental quality performance through a mixed methods approach. The results of the thermal comfort assessment showed that the staff is uncomfortable, while the residents are comfortable. Warm temperatures are preferred by the residents. The staff understands the needs of the residents and acknowledge the fact that their discomfort assures the comfort of the residents. Energy usage is higher than expected. None of the daily routines required in a care home were considered in the energy calculations. The calculations were made by a team of designers, who did not know well the activities carried out in the care home. As a result, the expected performance of the building was unrealistic in terms of energy use. The results point at the importance of taking into account the user during the design process: even though the actual needs and preferences of the occupants were not considered in the energy calculations, they were considered in the design of the building's installations. This allowed the staff to air the rooms daily without compromising the comfort of the residents.

The architectural form of the façade determines its identity as well as interactions with micro-climate forces of the ambient environment, such as solar radiation. The dynamic nature of daylight and occupants' positions can cause some issues such as heat gains and visual discomfort, which need to be controlled in real-time operation. Improving daylight performance and preventing visual discomfort for multiple occupants simultaneously is challenging. However, integrating the biomimicry principles of morphological adaptation with dynamic, complex fenestration, and human-in-loop systems can lead us to find an optimal solution. This research builds on relevant literature study, biomimicry morphological approaches, and parametric simulations, to develop a bio-inspired interactive kinetic façade for improving multiple occupants' visual comfort simultaneously, inspired by plant's stomata movement and behavior principles. Learning from the transitory stage and hunting new position of stomata's patchy patterns, leads us to identify the dynamic transitory-sensitive area of attraction point on the façade that is triggered by the dynamic sun-timing position and multiple occupants. The annual climate-based metrics and luminance-based metric simulation results of 810 bio-inspired interactive kinetic façade alternatives prove that the elastic-deformable-complex-kinetic form triggered by the dynamic transitory-sensitive area can improve the visual comfort of multiple occupants simultaneously. In particular, the bio-inspired interactive kinetic façade with grid division 8x1 displays extraordinary daylight performance for south direction that prevents visual discomfort by keeping cases in the imperceptible range while providing an adequate average Spatial Daylight Autonomy of 60.5%, Useful Daylight illuminance of 90.47%, and Exceed Useful Daylight illuminance of 2.94%.

BACKGROUND: Over the recent decades, Vietnam has attained remarkable achievements in all areas of health care. However, shortcomings including health disparities persist particularly with a rapidly aging population. This has resulted in a shift in the disease burden from communicable to noncommunicable diseases such as dementia, cancer, and diabetes. These medical conditions require long-term care, which causes an accelerating crisis for the health sector and society. The current health care system in Vietnam is unlikely to cope with these challenges. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this paper was to explore the opportunities, challenges, and necessary conditions for Vietnam in transforming toward a patient-centered care model to produce better health for people and reduce health care costs. METHODS: We examine the applicability of a personalized and integrated Bespoke Health Care System (BHS) for Vietnam using a strength, weakness, opportunity, and threat analysis and examining the successes or failures of digital health care innovations in Vietnam. We then make suggestions for successful adoption of the BHS model in Vietnam. RESULTS: The BHS model of patient-centered care empowers patients to become active participants in their own health care. Vietnam's current policy, social, technological, and economic environment favors the transition of its health care system toward the BHS model. Nevertheless, the country is in an early stage of health care digitalization. The legal and regulatory system to protect patient privacy and information security is still lacking. The readiness to implement electronic medical records, a core element of the BHS, varies across health providers and clinical practices. The scarcity of empirical evidence and evaluation regarding the effectiveness and sustainability of digital health initiatives is an obstacle to the Vietnamese government in policymaking, development, and implementation of health care digitalization. CONCLUSIONS: Implementing a per

The dynamic nature of daylight and occupant's position can cause some issues such as heat gains and visual discomfort, which need to be controlled in real-time operation. Responsive facades have been pervasively used for preventing daylight glare and meeting daylight performance requirements. However, some passive strategies such as the colored glass of the Orosi typical architectural elements used in Iranian central courtyard buildings have the potential to filter excess daylight, as well as providing other functions such as aesthetics and privacy. This paper explores, for the first time, the possibility of coupling a kinetic façade with colored glasses to improve the daylight performance. This research builds on a combination of relevant literature and parametric simulation to investigate the development of integration of colored glass from Orosi with interactive kinetic façades, triggered by sun timing and occupants' positions. In total, 72 interactive kinetic façade cases are parametrically simulated, and their daylight performance is evaluated through climate-luminance based metrics. The simulation results confirm the high performance of the interactive kinetic facades for improving daylight performance regarding a base case. The integrated interactive kinetic façade with colored glass provides a real-time adaptation of the multifunctional passive strategy to sun timing and occupants' position. The integrated interactive kinetic façade with colored glass which uses parametric decentralized and hierarchical rotating (0–45°) movements, shows more improvement in daylight performance compared to other cases based on climate-luminance based metrics evaluation.

Applying active occupant engagement into a responsive façade concept leads us to a transition from the façade regulatory function to the interactive phase. The Interactive facade has the capacity for hierarchically filtering daylight and real-time control, and preventing daylight discomfort. This research applied the combination of qualitative and quantitative methods for studying innovative daylight guide systems functions, relation with building forms and development of kinetic façade forms as advanced real-time daylight control. Literature referred to the responsive modular elements which can be adapted to dynamic daylight by continuously changing façade configurations. In particular, parametric decentralized façade's apertures interact with sun radiation based on relationship between external environment, interior space and occupant position as well. In this study, we develop a kinetic interactive façade with the capability to be transformed based on dynamic daylight and occupant position (functional scenario based) in order to meet visual comfort. Also, daylight parametric simulation investigates visual comfort performance provided by the kinetic façade forms through climate based daylight metrics. The simulation results prove high performance of the kinetic interactive facades for improving visual comfort regarding the base case. In particular, the three dimensional shape changes façade provides more visual comfort improvement than the two dimensional shape changes one regarding UDI, Exceed UDI and DGP metrics. Also, the results refer to multifunctional aspects of the three dimensional shape changes façade, as an advanced interactive daylighting system, which has a capability to control solar radiation in the facade ambient environment for preventing thermal discomfort.

OBJECTIVE: To co-design and test the acceptability of a peer-led web-based resource (PLWR) for cancer carers to provide practical and emotional advice on common issues. METHODS: A six-step co-design model informed PLWR development. Content was developed through three cancer carer workshops and monthly meetings with an expert advisory team (n = 12). User-testing was conducted via web-based survey and telephone interview. Descriptive statistics and thematic analysis were utilised. Google analytics explored site visits, commonly used components, and time spent using the PLWR. RESULTS: The PLWR was developed to deliver cancer carer information tailored to each stage of the illness trajectory regardless of cancer type, in the form of videoed personal experiences. From November to May 2018, there were 2789 unique visits to the PLWR with 743 returners. The majority of time was spent on the full unclipped peer stories (414 views), and diagnosis-specific information (159 views), with less time spent on bereavement, cancer treatment, or self-care (120 views each). Fifty-five individuals completed the resource evaluation, with 10 participating in telephone interviews. Fifty-four carers rated the resource as excellent, useful, and easy to use. The web-based videos were regarded as convenient as and less burdensome than written information. The resource provided relevant information, potentially reducing isolation and uncertainty. CONCLUSION: The content and design of the PLWR appear acceptable to cancer carers. The co-design model is an effective way to develop appropriate information for service users and could be utilised as a framework for development of other interventions in a variety of disease groups.

A number of facade solutions have been developed in recent years to solve the problem of large-scale renovation of housing. In the Netherlands, housing associations have the ambition to achieve an energy-neutral renovation approach, and so, some aim at energy neutrality. However, few address the complexity of multi-family rental dwellings and more importantly, the importance of user behaviour in the actual performance of the buildings. In current approaches, the zero energy target is sought for an average household. In this paper we present an approach to zero energy renovation in which the influence of occupants’ behaviour in building performance is taken into account to eliminate the uncertainties related to energy savings. The results are used to inform the design process regarding the amount of energy production required to reach zero energy performance, and the feasibility of the on-site energy production only with photovoltaic panels. The research showed large statistically significant differences on energy consumption between the different household types, which could contribute to pre-bound effects if these differences are not considered when calculating energy savings and return of investments. When considering scenarios based on behaviour after renovation, the difference between the lowest and the highest heating demand is reduced to 34%., Design Conceptualization and Communication, Design of Constrution, Applied Ergonomics and Design

The energy and building research community acknowledges the importance of including occupants' wellbeing in the evaluation of building energy performance. Particularly in office buildings, occupants' comfort assessment is not yet a common practice, partially due to the shortcomings of the comfort assessment activities. Contextual factors such as the organizational culture, occupants' personality traits and emotional states, and the building and research measurement infrastructures do interact with occupants' motivation to report and influence their actual reporting behaviour. By means of an in situ mixed method approach combining real-world research and user-centric methods, this study investigates the impact of a reporting-based comfort assessment. Two buildings, representing different organizational cultures, were selected to study the influence of reporting behaviour on comfort assessment. The buildings were equipped with innovative indoor climate monitoring and in situ comfort reporting infrastructure and 2-week field studies were conducted in both buildings. By discussing results from these studies, this paper contributes to the development of building research methodologies of indoor climate and comfort assessment by providing practical experience in embedding comfort reporting behaviour in the analysis of comfort assessment. A contextual typology of reporting behaviour is introduced and its implications regarding the reliability and validity of comfort reporting techniques are discussed., Design Conceptualization and Communication

The ambition to renovate the post-war building stock to an energy-neutral quality is getting a lot of attention from social housing corporations and other institutional owners, financial organizations, and users. An effective renovation plan must significantly improve the current energy performance of a target building towards nearly zero-energy levels. A number of facade solutions have been developed in recent years to solve the problem of large-scale renovation of housing. In the Netherlands, several exemplary renovation projects have the ambition to achieve an energy-neutral objective. One such project is the 2ndSkin Façade refurbishment approach for post-war residential buildings. Nevertheless, the market intake of such renovation is currently very slow, as housing associations are reluctant to invest the increased cost of a zero-energy refurbishment, despite the energy savings and ongoing benefits for the occupants. Within the framework of the research project 2ndSkin, this paper presents a prefabricated and integrated façade module that provides the possibility to improve energy performance up to zero-energy use, while ensuring minimum disturbance for the occupants, both during and after renovation. Based on the proposed integrated refurbishment solution, the study presents a financial breakdown of this case-study concept - including options to lower the initial investment - in order to outline a more attractive business case. Firstly, three design variations, ranging from a standard external insulation upgrade to a zero-energy renovation, are compared, using a range of positive, average, and negative values for a series of financial and economic parameters. Subsequently, the financial performance of a zero-energy renovation investment is calculated for three different apartment properties with diverse market values, to determine the circumstances that can justify an energy renovation investment. The analysis showed that, for properties with an in, Design of Constrution, Delft Projectmanagement, Design Conceptualization and Communication, Applied Ergonomics and Design

The ambition to renovate the post-war building stock to an energy-neutral quality is getting a lot of attention in social housing association and other institutional owners, financial institutions and users. The Energy Agreement for Sustainable Growth indicates that 300.000 dwellings have to be renovated in the Netherlands annually. An effective renovation plan has to be long-term, target the deep transformation of the existing building stock, and to significantly improve its actual energy performance towards nearly zero energy levels. This level of energy saving typically requires a holistic approach, viewing the renovation as a package of measures working together. Even though the need for refurbishment is urgent, the rate of renovation and the resulting energy savings are relatively low. Main barriers identified are related to the available investment funds, awareness, advice and skills and the separation of expenditure and benefit. To address these issues, the paper presents a prefabricated and integrated façade module that gives the possibility to improve the current energy performance up to zero energy, while ensuring minimum disturbance for the occupants, during and after the renovation. Given that the design and installation take this constrain into consideration, it is possible to reach zero energy by adding more efficient installations and energy generation, as well as taking possible behavioural changes into account. Moreover, the paper evaluates such a zero-energy refurbishment in terms of financial feasibility. The proposed approach results in a feasible solution, which achieves high energy savings and addresses the complex issue of integrated refurbishment., Design of Constrution, Design Conceptualization and Communication, Applied Ergonomics and Design

Building simulations are often used to predict energy demand and to determine the financial feasibility of the low-carbon projects. However, recent research has documented large differences between actual and predicted energy consumption. In retrofit projects, this difference creates uncertainty about the payback periods and, as a consequence, owners are reluctant to invest in energy-efficient technologies. The differences between the actual and the expected energy consumption are caused by inexact input data on the thermal properties of the building envelope and by the use of standard occupancy data. Integrating occupancy patterns of diversity and variability in behaviour into building simulation can potentially foresee and account for the impact of behaviour in building performance. The presented research develops and applies occupancy heating profiles for building simulation tools in order create more accurate predictions of energy demand and energy performance. Statistical analyses were used to define the relationship between seven most common household types and occupancy patterns in the Netherlands. The developed household profiles aim at providing energy modellers with reliable, detailed and ready-to-use occupancy data for building simulation. This household-specific occupancy information can be used in projects that are highly sensitive to the uncertainty related to return of investments., Design Conceptualization and Communication, Applied Ergonomics and Design

Large differences between the expected and actual energy consumption have been found in energy efficient dwellings. Research has shown that these differences are partially caused by occupant behaviour. The financing and payback periods of low carbon technologies are often uncertain because of the impact of the occupants on building performance. This translates into a reluctance to invest in deep renovation projects. The goal of this design-inclusive research project is to develop a solution for zero energy renovation that reduces the uncertainty on building performance cause by occupants' behaviour by reducing the uncertainty in design decisions and energy calculations. This investigation focuses on the identification of building type specific occupants and their characteristics, requirements and living practices. This paper presents the user research approach developed for the renovation process. The approach consists of statistical analysis of Dutch households, a monitoring campaign in the area of study and co-creation research through mock-ups, enactments and interviews. Case studies results are presented to highlight the effect of different household types on energy consumption and occupants' requirements, and point at the importance of taking into account household typology and socio-economic characteristics in energy calculations or building simulations, as well as occupant requirements in the design process., Design Conceptualization and Communication, Applied Ergonomics and Design, Design of Constrution

Although refurbishment is a necessary step to reach the ambitious energy and decarbonisation targets for 2020 and 2050, which require an eventual reduction up to 90% in CO2 emissions, the rate of renovation is still relatively low. There is an increasing demand to upgrade both the physical condition and the performance of the building, with the minimum disturbance to the interior, so that the occupants do not have to be relocated during construction. Thus, the role of the occupant becomes essential not only in terms of performance during the post-refurbishment phase, but also in terms of the design and planning of the refurbishment. Furthermore, the traditional design and delivery processes are fragmented and are not efficient to take on the challenges ahead. To address these issues, the 2ndSkin-BTA project brings different stakeholder together, aiming at reversing the traditional decision-making process, to integrate their expertise and objectives into an innovate building technology concept. The objective is to design, construct and monitor a renovation project that achieves zero energy use of a dwelling, while providing upscaling possibilities and broad adoptability of the process. This paper presents the first project phase, which is the integrated design process. To this end, the development of the preliminary design of the refurbishment strategy is based on a reference building. It proceeds in parallel with the prototypes’ development and it benefits from the test results. Nevertheless, the proposed design is not a one-project solution but rather an approach that highlights the underlying argumentation line for different retrofitting measures, in different cases., Architectural Engineering +Technology, Architecture and The Built Environment

A number of second skin solutions have been developed in recent years to solve the problem of large scale renovation of housing. The 2ndSkin approach presented in this paper is currently under development by a consortium of academic and industry partners in the Netherlands. The objective of the 2ndSkin project is to develop a strategy for an integrated and effective renovation solution. This approach aims at developing a market-ready zero-energy solution that can be applied to rental apartment blocks in the Netherlands. The project will develop a process for post-occupancy monitoring and evaluation to provide feedback to users to ensure the zero-energy target. The 2ndSkin approach seeks a zero energy target regardless of the user. Thus in this approach, both building–related and user-related energy consumption are considered within the strategy. The objective is a solution that is zero energy regardless of the type of occupancy of the building. The strategy also aims at developing an integrated approach in which the user is part of the renovation strategy from early stages of the development in order to increase the acceptability of the renovation process and the understanding of the functioning of the systems. In addition, The WoON 2012 Dutch database was used to determine occupancy profiles for building simulation. Through statistical analysis, seven household types have been identified. Seven different occupancy profiles, based on the household types and seven occupancy factors created through Factor Analysis have been defined. Results of the pattern compositions are presented. The results of this investigation aim to inform the design process., Industrial Design, Industrial Design Engineering

Recent research has shown large differences between the expected and the actual energy consumption in buildings. The differences have been attributed partially, to the assumptions made during the design phase of buildings when simulation methods are employed. More accurate occupancy profiles on building operation could help to carry out more precise building performance calculations. This study focuses on the post-occupancy evaluation of two apartments, one renovated and one non renovated, in Madrid within the same building complex. The aim of this paper is to present an application of the mixed-methods methodology (Creswell, 2007) to assess thermal comfort and occupancy practices used in the case studies, and to discuss the shortcomings and opportunities associated with it. The mixed-methods methodology offers strategies for integrating qualitative and quantitative methods to investigate complex phenomena. This approach is expected to contribute to the growing knowledge of occupants’ behaviour and building performance by explaining the differences observed between energy consumption and thermal comfort in relation to people’s saving and comfort practices and the related experiences, preferences and values., Industrial Design, Industrial Design Engineering