Weather dynamics affect the long-term thermal and hydrological performance of different green roof designs.

Owing to climate change, numerous regions around the world are expected to experience heightened occurrences of extreme events, including heat waves and intense precipitation. This will disproportionately impact the well-being of urban populations. The implementation of green roofs is actively considered as a viable climate adaptation strategy enhancing the resilience of cities.

Characteristics of anthropogenic heat with different modeling ideas and its driving effect on urban heat islands in seven typical Chinese cities.

Anthropogenic heat (AH), an essential urban heat source, is often overlooked or simplified in research on the multiple temporal and spatial driving mechanisms of the urban heat island (UHI), and case studies investigating the impacts of different AH connotations are scarce. This study estimated the AH in seven typical Chinese cities based on a remote sensing surface energy balance model (AH) and an energy consumption inventory-machine learning model (AH). The intensity of the surface UHI was extracted using land surface temperatures, and then the linear mixed-effects model and geographic detectors were used to analyze the driving effect of AH on the UHI.

Anthropogenic heat variation during the COVID-19 pandemic control measures in four Chinese megacities.

Anthropogenic heat (AH) is an important input for the urban thermal environment. While reduction in AH during the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic may have weakened urban heat islands (UHI), quantitative assessments on this are lacking. Here, a new AH estimation method based on a remote sensing surface energy balance (RS-SEB) without hysteresis from heat storage was proposed to clarify the effects of COVID-19 control measures on AH.

Spatial Distribution of PM-Related Premature Mortality in China.

PM is a major component of air pollution in China and has a serious threat to public health. It is very important to quantify spatial characteristics of the health effects caused by outdoor PM exposure. This study analyzed the spatial distribution of PM concentration (45.

Impact of urban heat island on meteorology and air quality at microenvironments.

This study analyzes the air pollution characteristics and their relation to meteorological conditions in Chennai, India. Meteorological conditions were the primary factor determining variations in daily average pollutant concentrations. The influence of urban infrastructure on meteorology is an important prediction on air quality.

How to convert urban energy balance into contributions to urban excess temperatures?

A new approach partitioning the urban heat island intensity (ΔT) into its contributing processes is developed for the neighbourhood scale. The method transforms individual terms of the energy balance (radiation, evapotranspiration, heat storage, and convection) into partitions of temperature and is exemplified using the output of a micrometeorological model. •The temperature contribution is determined by climate sensitivity and a gain function depending on the energy redistribution factor.

Wearable sensors for multifactorial personal exposure measurements - A ranking study.

Individuals are simultaneously exposed to multiple environmental stressors during their daily life. Studies of adverse health effects and their etiology as well as recommendations for a healthier life style demand for an assessment of multifactorial personal exposure, according to the exposome concept. A challenge is to record exposure while people are moving in heterogeneous urban environments.

Advanced Smartphone-Based Sensing with Open-Source Task Automation.

Smartphone-based sensing is becoming a convenient way to collect data in science, especially in environmental research. Recent studies that use smartphone sensing methods focus predominantly on single sensors that provide quantitative measurements. However, interdisciplinary projects call for study designs that connect both, quantitative and qualitative data gathered by smartphone sensors.

Urban heat island (UHI) influence on secondary pollutant formation in a tropical humid environment.

Unlabelled: The combined action of urbanization (change in land use) and increase in vehicular emissions intensifies the urban heat island (UHI) effect in many cities in the developed countries. The urban warming (UHI) enhances heat-stress-related diseases and ozone (O) levels due to a photochemical reaction. Even though UHI intensity depends on wind speed, wind direction, and solar flux, the thermodynamic properties of surface materials can accelerate the temperature profiles at the local scale.

Degradation of indoor limonene by outdoor ozone: A cascade of secondary organic aerosols.

In indoor air, terpene-ozone reactions can form secondary organic aerosols (SOA) in a transient process. 'Real world' measurements conducted in a furnished room without air conditioning were modelled involving the indoor background of airborne particulate matter, outdoor ozone infiltrated by natural ventilation, repeated transient limonene evaporations, and different subsequent ventilation regimes. For the given setup, we disentangled the development of nucleated, coagulated, and condensed SOA fractions in the indoor air and calculated the time dependence of the aerosol mass fraction (AMF) by means of a process model.

Integrating modelling and smart sensors for environmental and human health.

Sensors are becoming ubiquitous in everyday life, generating data at an unprecedented rate and scale. However, models that assess impacts of human activities on environmental and human health, have typically been developed in contexts where data scarcity is the norm. Models are essential tools to understand processes, identify relationships, associations and causality, formalize stakeholder mental models, and to quantify the effects of prevention and interventions.

The lasting effect of limonene-induced particle formation on air quality in a genuine indoor environment.

Atmospheric ozone-terpene reactions, which form secondary organic aerosol (SOA) particles, can affect indoor air quality when outdoor air mixes with indoor air during ventilation. This study, conducted in Leipzig, Germany, focused on limonene-induced particle formation in a genuine indoor environment (24 m(3)). Particle number, limonene and ozone concentrations were monitored during the whole experimental period.

Individual and combined effects of mycotoxins from typical indoor moulds.

The mycotoxins patulin, gliotoxin and sterigmatocystin can be produced by common indoor moulds and enter the human body via inhalation of mycotoxin containing spores and particulates. There are various studies about the individual effects of these mycotoxins, but a lack of knowledge about their effects in mixtures. The aim of this study was to evaluate combined effects on the singe celled organism Tetrahymena pyriformis.

Size-fractioned particulate air pollution and cardiovascular emergency room visits in Beijing, China.

Background: Although short-term exposure to ambient particulate matter has increasingly been linked with cardiovascular diseases, it is not quite clear how physical characteristics of particles, such as particle size may be responsible for the association. This study aimed at investigating whether daily changes in number or mass concentrations of accurately size-segregated particles in the range of 3nm-10μm are associated with daily cardiovascular emergency room visits in Beijing, China.

Methods: Cardiovascular emergency room visit counts, particle size distribution data, and meteorological data were collected from Mar.

Genetic association between obstructive bronchitis and enzymes of oxidative stress.

Objective: Obstructive respiratory diseases, mainly the chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma, are associated with functional polymorphisms of xenobiotic-metabolizing enzymes (XMEs). To date, association for obstructive bronchitis has not been described.

Material/methods: In this study, we investigated the genotypes from 26 functional polymorphisms of 20 XMEs in children (n, 1028) at the age of 6 years from the German prospective birth cohort study (LISAplus) and analyzed the associations between genotypes and obstructive bronchitis.

Sub-micrometer particulate air pollution and cardiovascular mortality in Beijing, China.

Background: While the link between particulate matter and cardiovascular mortality is well established, it is not fully investigated and understood which properties of the aerosol might be responsible for the health effects, especially in polluted mega-city areas.

Objectives: Our goal was to explore the association between daily cardiovascular mortality and different particle metrics in the sub-micrometer range in Beijing, China.

Methods: We obtained daily counts of cause-specific cardiovascular deaths in the Beijing urban area for the period March 2004 to August 2005.

Associations between size-segregated particle number concentrations and respiratory mortality in Beijing, China.

Numerous studies have described the adverse associations between particle mass and respiratory health. The aim of the study was to analyze the associations of particle properties, especially size-segregated particle number concentrations (PNC), and respiratory mortality in Beijing, P.R.

Cumulative risk assessment of chemical exposures in urban environments.

We performed a cumulative risk assessment for people living in a hypothetical urban environment, called Urbania. The main aims of the study were to demonstrate how a cumulative risk assessment for a middle-sized European city can be performed and to identify the bottlenecks in terms of data availability and knowledge gaps. The assessment focused on five air pollutants (i.

Maternal immune status in pregnancy is related to offspring's immune responses and atopy risk.

Background: The influence of maternal immune responses in pregnancy on children's immune competence and the development of atopic diseases later in life are poorly understood. To determine potential maternal effects on the maturation of children's immune system and resulting disease risks, we analysed immune responses in mother-child pairs in a prospective birth cohort study.

Methods: Within the Lifestyle and Environmental factors and their Influence on Newborns Allergy risk (LINA) study, concentrations of Th1/Th2/Th17 and inflammatory cytokines/chemokines as well as IgE were measured in phytohemagglutinin and lipopolysaccharide stimulated maternal blood in the 34th week of gestation and in corresponding children's blood at birth and 1 year after (n = 353 mother-child pairs).

Truncated Lévy flights and agenda-based mobility are useful for the assessment of personal human exposure.

Receptor-oriented approaches can assess the individual-specific exposure to air pollution. In such an individual-based model we analyse the impact of human mobility to the personal exposure that is perceived by individuals simulated in an exemplified urban area. The mobility models comprise random walk (reference point mobility, RPM), truncated Lévy flights (TLF), and agenda-based walk (RPMA).

Respiratory effects of indoor particles in young children are size dependent.

Background: Extensive epidemiological studies have provided evidence of an association between elevated outdoor particulate air pollution and adverse health effects. However, while people typically spend majority of time indoors, there is limited knowledge on airborne indoor particles and on the correlation between the concentrations of indoor particles and health effects. Even insights into the influence of differently sized indoor particles on human health are still rare.

Size-segregated particle number concentrations and respiratory emergency room visits in Beijing, China.

Background: The link between concentrations of particulate matter (PM) and respiratory morbidity has been investigated in numerous studies.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to analyze the role of different particle size fractions with respect to respiratory health in Beijing, China.

Methods: Data on particle size distributions from 3 nm to 1 µm; PM10 (PM ≤ 10 µm), nitrogen dioxide (NO(2)), and sulfur dioxide concentrations; and meteorologic variables were collected daily from March 2004 to December 2006.

A rigorous small area modelling-study for the Helicobacter pylori epidemiology.

This paper presents an investigation into spatial risk differences over small distances for the Helicobacter pylori infection in the city of Leipzig, Germany and two rural districts. A model, using Bayesian inference, was developed that adjusts the risk for individual-specific factors, and for spatial or individual over-dispersion, respectively. Additionally, the model takes into account conditional spatial autocorrelation.

Evaluation of human mobility models, for exposure to air pollutants.

The subject of the present study is to find the best way of making a simulation model for the exposure assessment of mobile individuals. For that purpose we consider and apply several very different approaches to model movement patterns in a more or less random way and compare them in terms of the exposure resulting for the individuals. The models combine random movement with agenda-driven movement.