Esta tesis quisiera ser el reflejo de un recorrido personal por las intenciones del proyecto moderno. La tesis se ha elaborado a partir de la suma de ensayos sobre la dificultad en la búsqueda moderna del habitar, sobre la noción de casa dentro del proyecto moderno.Se ha dividido en tres capítulos que desarrollan un recorrido a seguir en esta personal confrontación existencial y artística que investiga los procesos y dificultades inherentes que todo individuo atesora en la búsqueda moderna del habitar, y un cuarto capítulo de conclusiones. El primer capítulo se ha subdividido en nueve temas con sus subsiguientes apartados:· El primer tema nos remite a presentar el concepto arquitectónico como base sustancial del proyecto artístico contemporáneo.· El segundo tema introduce el concepto de habitar como clave para desentrañar la relación que conforma el individuo con su espacio vivencial.· El tercer tema hace referencia a concretar a través de pequeñas pinceladas lo que denominamos casa burguesa, su formación y posterior evolución hasta nuestros días.· La noción de confort aparece en el cuarto tema focalizando su desarrollo en base a las pautas histórico-sociales que el vocablo simboliza.· El apartado quinto se pregunta sobre la conciencia de las relaciones históricas de los géneros, masculino y femenino.· En la casa y sus enseres, tema sexto, introduzco apuntes antropológicos que me sirven para apoyar el inicio de una teoría de las necesidades del individuo arcaico.· El séptimo apartado reflexionará hacia el concepto de domesticidad del objeto cotidiano.· En el título octavo nos acercamos a la noción de objeto, se intentará tejer un paralelismo entre referentes psicológicos y filosóficos.· Y por último el noveno tema se centrará en una visión artística que subvierte la idea de bienestar en el mueble doméstico.El segundo capítulo aborda desde una mirada mucho más clarificada la exposición de referentes artísticos y arquitectónicos contemporáneos que han priorizado en su temática el escenario del habitar. La elección de artistas y arquitectos se ha formalizado queriendo y buscando encontrar conexiones con mi propio proyecto artístico y con parámetros que pueden generar una visión poliédrica de las disfunciones de las que participan las diferentes geografías del habitar.El tercer capítulo se centra en abordar de una manera más personalizada toda la evolución de mi trabajo artístico y conceptual creando metáforas con referentes literarios, arquitectónicos, filosóficos y plásticos. Este capítulo se subdivide en dos subtítulos en el primero de ellos, "Memoria de una casa esencial", puntualizo brevemente los impulsos y condicionantes que me llevaron a adquirir y reflexionar acerca del concepto de una vivienda propia. El segundo apartado y desde un punto más descriptivo técnicamente dibuja la geografía autobiográfica y territorial de mi casa particular.Todo el capítulo tercero adquiere el formato de conclusión final al texto de tesis anterior, dicha conclusión ejemplifica y recoge mi proyecto artístico sobre la escenografía doméstica occidental. / DOCTORAL THESIS:"Difficulty in the modern search of living. The domestic territory as artistic and existential confrontation"TEXT:This thesis is a reflection of a personal tour along the intentions of a modern project. It has been elaborated from a sum of essays based on the difficulty in the modern search of living, related to the notion of housing inside a modern project. The thesis is divided in three chapters which develop an existential and artistic confrontation. This confrontation investigates the processes and difficulties that an individual hoards in the modern search of living, and the fourth chapter is the conclusion.The first chapter has been subdivided in nine topics with its following paragraphs:- The first topic shows us the architectural concept as an important base of the artistic contemporary project.- The second topic introduces the concept of living as a way of uncovering the relationship between the individual and its existential space.- The third topic refers to making concrete across small brushstrokes what we name bourgeois house, their building and their evolution towards the present day.- The notion of comfort appears in the fourth topic focusing its development on the basis of the social and historical guidelines that the word symbolizes.- The fifth paragraph wonders on the conscience of the historical relations of the genres, masculine and feminine.- In the house and its chattels, the sixth topic introduces anthropologic notes that were used for the beginning of a theory about the needs of the archaic individual.- The seventh paragraph thinks about the concept of domesticity of a daily object.- In the eighth paragraphs we approach the notion of object, trying to weave a parallelism between psychological and philosophical modals.- And finally the ninth topic will focus on an artistic vision that subverts the idea of well-being in domestic furniture.The second chapter approaches, from a much more clarified look, on the exhibition of artistic and architectural contemporary reference which have prioritized its subject matter, the scene of living. The choice of the artists and architects has been done by finding connections with both my own artistic project and parameters that can generate a polyhedral vision of the dysfunctions of those who participate in different geographies of living.The third chapter aims at approaching in a more personalized way the whole evolution of my artistic and conceptual work by creating metaphors with literary, architectural, philosophical and plastic references. This chapter subdivides in two paragraphs. The first one," Memories of an essential house ", I briefly specify the impulses that bring me to think about the concept of owning a house. From a more descriptive point, the second paragraph draws the autobiographical and territorial geography of my particular house.The whole fourth chapter is a conclusion of the previous thesis which exemplifies and gathers my artistic project on the domestic western scenery.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to highlight what is perceived as- and what is not perceived as- supportive and comforting, by the sick child in palliative care, and by its family. Method: Systematic literature review in which only scientific articles from the years 2001-2010 have been included. Analysis: A method inspired by qualitative content analysis was used. Results: The analysis revealed five categories of what the sick child and its family experienced as supportive and comforting - and what was perceived negatively - in the context of palliative care for children. The results showed that it was very important to have competent, dedicated and compassionate staff that not only care for the child but also see to the whole family. Recurrence factors were the importance of straight and honest information and communication and to be close and involved in the child's care. Discussion: The results summarized available research on comfort to families in the palliative care for children and may be of importance in clinical practice due to the lack of depth in the available literature. Conclusion: For a nurse to be present and accessible, appears to be the greatest help for grieving families.

<p>The carbody plays an important role in rail vehicle dynamics.This thesis aims atdeveloping validated modelling methods tostudy its dynamics, how it is excited on trackand how itinteracts with the passengers. The primary interest is ridecomfort,considering vibrations up to 20 Hz. In this frequencyrange, the structural flexibility ofthe carbody is of majorconcern. The models are intended for use intime-domainsimulation, calling for small-sized models to reducecomputational time and costs. Keyparameters are proposed toselect carbody eigenmodes for inclusion in a flexiblemultibodymodel, and to quantify the interaction between passengers andcarbody.</p><p>Extensive comparisons between measurements and correspondingsimulations arecarried out in a case study. On-track measurementsare performed to obtain operatingdeflection shapes and powerspectral densities of the accelerations in the carbody.Thecomplete vehicle is modelled using the pieces of softwareGENSYS (flexible multibodymodel) and ANSYS (finite element modelof the carbody). Actual, measured trackirregularities are used asinput. In order to investigate the influence of passengerload,experimental modal analysis of the carbody is performed withand without passengers.Also, amplitude dependence is examined.Simple models, based on human-body modelsfrom literature, of thepassenger-carbody system are proposed and validated.Verticalseating dynamics is considered. The models areimplemented and tested in the casestudy. Finally, ideas on modelreduction and approximation are presented and applied.</p><p>The main conclusions drawn from the study are that</p><p>    the structural flexibility of the carbody must be takeninto account when predictingvertical vibration comfort. It ispossible to predict which carbody modes that willcontributemost to the vibrations.</p><p>    the carbody dynamical properties depend on the excitationamplitude.</p><p>    passengers and carbody interact significantly.- theproposed models describe the interaction quite well. Theproposed passenger-carbodymodel gives an upper boundary on theinteraction.</p><p>    the proposed passenger-seat-carbody model can be used tostudy the influence of theseat parameters on the interaction.This merits to be investigated further, however.</p><p><b>Keywords</b>: Carbody, Experimental modal analysis, Human-bodydynamics, Modelreduction, Multibody dynamics, Operatingdeflection shapes, Rail-vehicle dynamics,Ride comfort, Seatingdynamics, Structural dynamics.</p>

published_or_final_version / Transport Policy and Planning / Master / Master of Arts in Transport Policy and Planning

Residential buildings in the United States are responsible for the consumption of 38% of electricity, and for much of the fluctuations in the power demands on the electric grid, particularly in hot climates. Residential buildings are also where occupants spend nearly 69% of their time. As “smart” technologies, including electric grid-connected devices and home energy management systems are increasingly available and installed in buildings, this research focuses on the use of these technologies combined with available energy use data in accomplishing three main objectives. The research aims to: (a) better understand how residential buildings currently use electricity, (b) evaluate the use of these smart technologies and data to reduce buildings’ electricity use and their contribution to peak loads, and (c) develop a methodology to assess the impacts of these operational changes on occupant thermal comfort. Specifically this study focuses on two of the most significant electricity consumers in residential buildings: large appliances, including refrigerators, clothes washers, clothes dryers and dishwashers, and heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems. First, to develop an improved understanding of current electricity use patterns of large appliances and residential HVAC systems, this research analyzes a large set of field-collected data. This dataset includes highly granular electricity consumption information for residential buildings located in a hot and humid climate. The results show that refrigerators have the most reliable and consistent use, while the three user-dependent appliances varied more greatly among houses and by time-of-day. In addition, the daily use patterns of appliances vary in shape depending on a number of factors, particularly whether or not the occupants work from home, which contrasts with common residential building energy modeling assumptions. For the all-air central HVAC systems studied, the average annual HVAC duty cycle was found to be approximately 20%, and varied significantly depending on the season, time of day, and type of residential building. Duty cycle was also correlated to monthly energy use. This information provides an improvement to previously assumed values in indoor air modeling studies. Overall, the work presented here enhances the knowledge of how the largest consumers of residential buildings, large appliances and HVAC, operate and use energy, and identifies influential factors that affect these use patterns. The methodologies developed can be applied to determine use patterns for other energy consuming devices and types of buildings, to further expand the body of knowledge in this area. Expanding on this knowledge of current energy use, smart large appliances and residential HVAC systems are investigated for use in reducing peak electric grid loads, and building energy use, respectively. This includes a combination of laboratory testing, field-collected data, and modeling. For appliance peak load reduction, refrigerators are found to have a good demand response potential, in part due to the nearly 100% of residential buildings that have one or more of these appliances, and the predictability of their energy consumption behavior. Dryers provide less consistent energy use across all homes, but have a higher individual peak power demand during afternoon and evening peak use times. These characteristics also make dryers also a good candidate for demand response. The study of continuous commissioning of HVAC systems using energy data found that both runtime and energy use are increased, and cooling capacity and efficiency are reduced due to the presence of faults or inefficiencies. The correction of these faults have an estimated 1.4% to 5.7% annual impact on a residential building’s electricity use in a cooling-dominated climate such as the one studied. Overall, appliance peak load reduction results are useful for utility companies and policy makers in identifying what smart appliance may provide the most peak energy reduction potential through demand response programs. The results of the HVAC study provides a methodology that can be used with energy use data, to determine if an HVAC system has the characteristics implying an inefficiency may be present, and to quantify the annual savings resulting from its correction. The final aspect of this research focuses on the development of a tool to enable an assessment the effect of operational changes of a building associated with energy and peak load reduction on occupant comfort. This is accomplished by developing a methodology that uses the response surface methodology (RSM), combined with building performance data as input, and uncertainly analysis. A second-order RSM model constructed using a full-factorial design was generally found to provide strong agreement to in and out-of-sample building simulation data when evaluating the Average Percent of People Dissatisfied (PPD[subscript avg]). This 5-step methodology was applied to assess occupant thermal comfort in a residential building due to a 1-hour demand response event and a time-of-use pricing rate schedule for a variety of residential building characteristics. This methodology provides a model that can quickly assess, over a continuous range of values for each of the studied design variables, the effect on occupant comfort. This may be useful for building designers and operators who wish to quickly assess the effect of a change in building operations on occupants. / text

Bakgrund:Beröring används inom sjukvården som komplement till olika behandlingar som exempelvis taktil massage. Vid beröring frisätts ämnen i kroppen som gör att vi känner välbefinnande. Beröring är också en viktig del i den icke-verbala kommunikationen. Syftet är att beskriva hur beröring som kommunikation påverkar vårdrelationen. Metod:Detta är en litteraturöversikt där metoden innebar att kvalitativa artiklar söktes fram med sökord som touching, nursing och caring. Dessa analyserades genom att söka gemensamma nämnare och skapa teman. Totalt har tolv artiklar analyserats. Resultat:Till resultatet framkom fyra teman: Beröring som tröst, Beröring för att fördjupa relationen, Beröring som maktfaktor och Beröringens sexuella aspekter. Diskussion:Beröring är ett medel för att trösta samt skapa och upprätthålla vårdrelationen. Dock kan beröring också upplevas som något kränkande och missförstås som en sexuell antydan. Samhällets normer och det sociala arvet påverkar individens värderingar och attityder till hur beröring uppfattas. Beröringen är komplex till sin natur.

The primary purpose of the current research was to implement a numerical model to investigate the interactions between the energy consumption in Heating, Ventilating, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems and occupants’ thermal comfort in commercial buildings. A numerical model was developed to perform a thermal analysis of a single zone and simultaneously investigate its occupants’ thermal sensations as a non-linear function of the thermal environmental (i.e. temperature, thermal radiation, humidity, and air speed) and personal factors (i.e. activity and clothing). The zone thermal analyses and thermal comfort calculations were carried out by applying the heat balance method and current thermal comfort standard (ASHRAE STANDARD 55-2004) respectively. The model was then validated and applied on a single generic zone, representing the perimeter office spaces of the Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability (CIRS), to investigate the impacts of variation in occupants’ behaviors, building’s envelope, HVAC system, and climate on both energy consumption and thermal comfort. Regarding the large number of parameters involved, the initial summer and winter screening analyses were carried out to determine the measures that their impacts on the energy and/or thermal comfort were most significant. These analyses showed that, without any incremental cost, the energy consumption in both new and existing buildings may significantly be reduced with a broader range of setpoints, adaptive clothing for the occupants, and higher air exchange rate over the cooling season. The effects of these measures as well as their combination on the zone thermal performance were then studied in more detail with the whole year analyses. These analyses suggest that with the modest increase in the averaged occupants’ thermal dissatisfaction, the combination scenario can notably reduce the total annual energy consumption of the baseline zone. Considering the global warming and the life of a building, the impacts of climate change on the whole year modeling results were also investigated for the year 2050. According to these analyses, global warming reduced the energy consumption for both the baseline and combination scenario, thanks to the moderate and cold climate of Vancouver.

This thesis reports a new set of experimental data and presents an in-depth analysis of the flow physics of a jet stream produced by a large quarter-round corner-mounted displacement diffuser. The air velocity, temperature and turbulence intensity inside the displacement ventilation (DV) jet have been thoroughly analyzed and compared with the reported findings of previous studies and model predictions. Furthermore, thermal comfort has been analyzed using the measured data following the ASHRAE standard. This thesis also aims at establishing an accurate numerical approach for simulating the heat and fluid flow in a room ventilated by a DV system. The supply boundary condition has been thoroughly investigated, which includes tests of the conventional box and momentum modeling methods, and proposal of a more accurate modeling approach. In addition, the predictive accuracy of the standard k-ϵ, RNG k-ϵ, SST k-ω and RSM turbulence models has been examined against the experimental data.

Unfavorable thermal comfort conditions are common in the non-conditioned apartment buildings typical of Dhaka (Ali, 2007; Hafiz, 2004). Causes behind such unfavorable thermal comfort conditions include (but are not limited to) Dhaka?s climate, microclimate in Dhaka's typical residential neighborhood, its socio-economic context, housing type, and its inadequate planning regulations. Dhaka's climate is hot humid but it can be tackled with well designed buildings as well as well as designed neighborhoods, both of which demands ample open space. However, due to land scarcity and high population density, building developments lack open spaces and that results in unfavorable thermal comfort conditions in apartment buildings. Dhaka?s previous zoning regulations were unable to control this dense development, and therefore, a new set of zoning regulations were enacted (2008). However, no post-evaluation study was conducted to research the effect of this new set of regulations. The intention of this research is to first evaluate the existing regulations, and second, to suggest appropriate zoning regulation schemes for Dhaka's non-conditioned apartment buildings (for a lot size of 1/3 acre), which would provide favorable thermal comfort conditions without changing its existing density. To accomplish the first goal, this research analyzed two existing zoning schemes (one based on regulations of 1996, and the other based on the regulations of 2008). To accomplish the second goal, this research analyzed two hypothetical zoning schemes. The hypothetical ones were studied because this research finds 1996 and 2008 regulations to be two extremes (in terms of allowing open space and building height), and therefore examination of in-between alternative zoning schemes seemed essential for this study. To analyze the four zoning regulation schemes' impact on thermal comfort in apartment buildings, four sets of built environment were created in EnergyPlus (Energy Simulation software) as well as in Fluent (Computational Fluid Dynamics software). Each set of built environment is a cluster of nine buildings; and each set is different from each other in terms of their building footprints and building heights. The building on the center was modeled implicitly, and remaining buildings were modeled as solid blocks (to act as neighboring buildings) for blocking sun and wind. The ES and CFD software simulated possible solar, daylight, and wind availability inside the central building, and consequently produce data on thermal comfort conditions, namely indoor temperature and air velocity. The simulation results were compared to see which zoning schemes provided the most favorable thermal comfort conditions. This research found one of the in-between schemes (60% allowable footprint, 9-story height limit) to be more appropriate in terms of thermal comfort conditions than the other three schemes; because it provides better solar protection and better natural ventilation and consequently it reduces indoor temperature and increases indoor air velocity.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between comfort food preferences of college faculty when under normal (non-stressful) and stressful conditions. Thirty-four percent (n=63) of the participants were males and 66 percent (n=121) were females. Sixty-seven percent (n=123) experienced a change in appetite when stressed, with 69 percent (n=85) experiencing an increase and 31 percent (n=38) experiencing a decrease in appetite. Participants chose a significantly wider variety of foods when under stressful conditions for both sweet (p=<.001) and salty/crunchy food categories (p=.004). High restrained eaters chose significantly more types of sweet foods (p=.031) and beverages (p=.020) than low restrained eaters when comparing stressful and normal conditions. These findings suggest the majority of adults may experience changes in appetite with stress, specifically an increased appetite, and may choose more types of sweet and salty/crunchy foods. An individual's restraint level, gender, and age may also play a role in comfort food choice. / Department of Family and Consumer Sciences