This chapter explores the ecology of human development, those forces in the person's environment that affect and influence development. Urie Bronfenbrenner's model of the human ecosystem guides the discussion, making connections between children in families and in communities and the larger society that surrounds them. The human ecosystem model is much like the study of the natural ecology, focusing on the interactions between subjects at various levels of the environment as they affect each other. The interaction between individual and environment forms the basis of an ecological approach to human development. This view sees the process of development as the expansion of the child's conception of the world and the child's ability to act on that world. Risks to development can come from both direct threats and the absence of opportunities for development. Sociocultural risk refers to the impoverishment in the child's world of essential experiences and relationships.

The Ecology of Human Development

A review of human thermal comfort in the built environment

The increasing attention to sustainability is pushing the construction sector to build more sustainable buildings. In this scenario, several sustainable development indicators have been proposed. The worldwide diffusion of sustainability rating systems and that of their structures are considered as proxy variables for the evaluation of sustainable constructions. Available rating systems span from energy consumption evaluation systems to life cycle analysis and total quality assessment systems. In these last systems, a multi-dimensional approach is proposed, as several building ratings are evaluated separately before being considered together. The description of assessment results from a sample of 490 buildings provides data to discuss construction characteristics that, currently, aim at being defined as sustainable. The paper shows that building energy performance is considered the most important criterion in sustainability rating systems, and the least achieved one in sustainability assessments. In contrast, other performance ratings of the building, such as water efficiency or indoor air quality, are achieved with a high rate of success in sustainability assessments. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

Sustainability Assessment in the Construction Sector: Rating Systems and Rated Buildings

In recent years, energy efficiency and thermal comfort in historic buildings have become high-interest topics among scholars. Research has demonstrated that retrofitting buildings to current energy efficiency and thermal comfort standards is essential for improving sustainability and energy performance and for maintaining built heritage of historic structures. This study is an extensive overview of the literature surrounding this topic. This paper summarizes the different methods and techniques that have been used around the world to achieve performance refurbishments. Articles are organized based on the different building types used as case studies (residential, religious, academic and palace, museums, libraries and theaters, urban areas, and others). The results reveal that residential, religious and museum building types, especially from the last two centuries, have been most often used as case studies. Moreover, Europe, particularly Italy, is leading the research. The aim of this note is to demonstrate the feasibility of maintaining built heritage values of historic buildings while achieving significant improvements in their energy efficiency and thermal comfort.

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Energy efficiency and thermal comfort in historic buildings: A review

Life cycle analysis in the construction sector: Guiding the optimization of conventional Italian buildings

http://automatica.dei.unipd.it/public/Schenato/PSC/2010_2011/gruppo4-Building_termo_identification/IdentificazioneTermodinamica20072008/Biblio/Articoli/energy%20performance_comparison%20between%20software%20simulation.pdf

Energy performance building evaluation in Mediterranean countries: Comparison between software simulations and operating rating simulation

Thermal comfort evaluation in kindergarten: PMV and PPD measurement through datalogger and questionnaire

Heritage buildings and energy performance: Mapping with GIS tools

Building and fuel poverty, an index to measure fuel poverty: An Italian case study

The evaluation of the feeling of Thermal Comfort can also be achieved by directly asking users of indoor environments. After all, this is the same approach taken by Fanger. In these cases, taking the questionnaire by which you can determine the indexes of judgment (PMV and PPD) and indexes of preference on the desirable conditions of Thermal Comfort. This chapter describes the contents of the survey questions, and criteria for administration through surveys and/or interviews.

Kristian Fabbri

Papers

Energy performance building evaluation in Mediterranean countries: Comparison between software simulations and operating rating simulation

Thermal comfort evaluation in kindergarten: PMV and PPD measurement through datalogger and questionnaire

Heritage buildings and energy performance: Mapping with GIS tools

Building and fuel poverty, an index to measure fuel poverty: An Italian case study

Assessment of the Influence of the Thermal Environment Using Subjective Judgement Scales