Aware that exposure to stuffy indoor air with high levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) is associated with higher absenteeism and reduced academic performance in school pupils, the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Europe initiated indoor air quality surveys in schools, including CO2 monitoring, to assess ventilation and exposure to stuffy air. Here we report the findings of the first such survey in Croatia. It was conducted in 60 classrooms of 20 urban and rural elementary schools throughout the country during the heating season. Measurements of CO2 levels showed that all 60 classrooms exceeded the international guidelines of 1938 mg/m3. Mean CO2 concentrations ranged from 2771 to 7763 mg/m3. The highest concentration measured in urban schools was 7763 mg/m3 and in rural schools 4771 mg/m3. Average CO2 levels were higher in continental schools (3683 mg/m3) than the coastal ones (3134 mg/m3), but all demonstrate poor ventilation during the heating season all over Croatia.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/aiht-2019-70-3343 | DOI Listing |
PLoS One
January 2025
Crop Research Institute, Prague, Ruzyně, Czech Republic.
The assessment of human perception of the thermal environment is becoming highly relevant in the context of global climate change and its impact on public health. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the suitability of the use of four frequently used thermal comfort indices (thermal indices)-Wet Bulb Global Temperature (WGBT), Heat Index (HI), Physiologically Equivalent Temperature (PET), and Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI)-to assess human thermal comfort perception in three large urban parks in Central Europe, using Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic, as a case study. We investigated the relationship between the four indices and the thermal perception of park visitors, while taking into account the effect of the sex, age, and activity of the respondents and the week-time and daytime of their visit (assessed parameters).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFACS Nano
January 2025
Beijing Key Laboratory of Green Chemical Reaction Engineering and Technology, Department of Chemical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
Radiative cooling is an emerging zero-energy-consumption technology for human body cooling in outdoor scenarios during hot seasons. However, existing radiative cooling textiles are limited by low intrinsic cooling power, high hydrophobicity, and heat-insulating properties, which seriously impede a satisfying cooling effect, perspiration-wicking, and heat dissipation, thus limiting human thermal comfort in practical situations. Here, we developed a radiative cooling meta-fabric that was integrated with high perspiration-wicking and thermal conduction capacity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSci Rep
January 2025
Department of Epidemiology and Health Statistics, School of Public Health and Health Management, Gannan Medical University, Ganzhou, 341000, Jiangxi, China.
To analyze the relationship between hot or cold, and wet or dry interacting weather, and urolithiasis-related hospitalizations. Distributed lag nonlinear model for time series design was used to build exposure-response curves for the association of daily mean temperature and relative humidity with urolithiasis-related hospitalizations. Cut-off values were determined for temperature, humidity, and dichotomous categories to define heat-cold and wet-dry meteorological conditions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBMC Public Health
January 2025
Department of Thoracic Surgery, the 2nd Hospital of Hebei Medical University, Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province, 050000, PR China.
Background: Pulmonary space-occupying lesions are typical chronic pulmonary diseases that contribute significantly to healthcare resource use and impose a large disease burden in China. A time-series ecological trend study was conducted to investigate the associations between environmental factors and hospitalizations for pulmonary space-occupying lesions in North of China from 2014 to 2022.
Methods: The DLNM was used to quantify the association of environmental factors with lung cancer admissions.
Microb Ecol
January 2025
Guangxi Laboratory on the Study of Coral Reefs in the South China Sea, Coral Reef Research Center of China, School of Marine Sciences, Guangxi University, Nanning, 530004, China.
Coral thermal tolerance is intimately linked to their symbiotic relationships with photosynthetic microorganisms. However, the potential compensatory role of symbiotic photosynthetic bacteria in supporting Symbiodiniaceae photosynthesis under extreme summer temperatures remains largely unexplored. Here, we examined the seasonal variations in Symbiodiniaceae and photosynthetic bacterial community structures in Pavona decussata corals from Weizhou Island, Beibu Gulf, China, with particular emphasis on the role of photosynthetic bacteria under elevated temperature conditions.
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