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Yes ; The advent of the Internet of Things has witnessed tremendous success in the application of wireless sensor networks and ubiquitous computing for diverse smart-based applications. The developed systems operate under different technologies using different methods to achieve their targeted goals. In this treatise, we carried out an inclusive survey on key indoor technologies and techniques, with to view to explore their various benefits, limitations, and areas for improvement. The mathematical formulation for simple localization problems is also presented. In addition, an empirical evaluation of the performance of these indoor technologies is carried out using a common generic metric of scalability, accuracy, complexity, robustness, energy-efficiency, cost and reliability. An empirical evaluation of performance of different RF-based technologies establishes the viability of Wi-Fi, RFID, UWB, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, ZigBee, and Light over other indoor technologies for reliable IoT-based applications. Furthermore, the survey advocates hybridization of technologies as an effective approach to achieve reliable IoT-based indoor systems. The findings of the survey could be useful in the selection of appropriate indoor technologies for the development of reliable real-time indoor applications. The study could also be used as a reliable source for literature referencing on the subject of indoor location identification. ; Supported in part by the Tertiary Education Trust Fund of the Federal Government of Nigeria, and in part by the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under Grant agreement H2020-MSCA-ITN-2016 SECRET-722424

Apresentação em efectuada na "2nd Conference Environment and Public Health (EPH), Berlin-Potsdam, Germany, 2011" ; Development of building technologies is tightly connected in the network of energy saving demands of growing population, significant problems with waste and economy which tries to be self-sustainble, balancing between profit, social trends like fashion, need for higher living standard and rasing awareness of ireversible destroy of nature. In such social and economical environment building construction sector introduces new technologies and materials which brought large improvement in obeying all these demands but also produces a new complex indoor radiochemical environment. Elimination of waste such as a fly ash by its incorporation in concrete is significinat from the ecological viewpoint, but it may cause increased indoor emissions of ionizing radiation due to the fact that it may contain high levels of radioisotopes. Additionally to indoor radon which levels may be elevated due to regional soil characteristics, usage of zirconium and granit as fashionable elements of indoor finishing can also contribute to final increased exposure to ionizing radiation. Finishing indoor materials which contain nano particles, flame retardants, different organic compounds or ammonia combined with ionizing radiation may produce very complex health effects on occupants, especially on children and possible transplacental effects on fetal development. Introduction of occupancy/use permit which will include measurement of indoor radiochemical emissions will improve life standards and enable enforcement of politics in which occupants will have option to select residence with healty indoor environment. Building construction can be stimulated to apply for such permits via tax ...

Purpose
– VirtuNav is a haptic-, audio-enabled virtual reality simulator that facilitates persons with visual impairment to explore a 3D computer model of a real-life indoor location, such as a room or building. The purpose of this paper is to aid in pre-planning and spatial awareness, for a user to become more familiar with the environment prior to experiencing it in reality.


Design/methodology/approach
– The system offers two unique interfaces: a free-roam interface where the user can navigate, and an edit mode where the administrator can manage test users, maps and retrieve test data.


Findings
– System testing reveals that spatial awareness and memory mapping improve with user iterations within VirtuNav.


Research limitations/implications
– VirtuNav is a research tool for investigation of user familiarity developed after repeated exposure to the simulator, to determine the extent to which haptic and/or sound cues improve a visually impaired user's ability to navigate a room or building with or without occlusion.


Social implications
– The application may prove useful for greater real world engagement: to build confidence in real world experiences, enabling persons with sight impairment to more comfortably and readily explore and interact with environments formerly unfamiliar or unattainable to them.


Originality/value
– VirtuNav is developed as a practical application offering several unique features including map design, semi-automatic 3D map reconstruction and object classification from 2D map data. Visual and haptic rendering of real-time 3D map navigation are provided as well as automated administrative functions for shortest path determination, actual path comparison, and performance indicator assessment: exploration time taken and collision data.

This test method was developed by the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) to determine the initial performance of indoor passive panel technologies (IPPT) in their removal of formaldehyde and toluene gas as well as assess re-emissions of captured gases and harmful by-product formation. This new protocol builds on existing sorption-based standards to evaluate performance of both sorptive- and PCO-based IPPT in removing indoor formaldehyde and toluene. Considering that some PCO-based IPPT may be influenced by sorptive effect, this new protocol differentiates removal performance attributed to light illumination and sorption. This protocol uses an improved chamber with proper control of air velocity and turbulence level to simulate indoor conditions instead of a photoreactor chamber. In addition, the chamber utilises indoor lighting (as opposed to UV) as a source of illumination to better represent indoor applications. By testing by-product formation, this new protocol is the first to address protection of building occupants to harmful pollutant exposures. The project was funded by the Government of Canada's Clean Air Regulatory Agenda to develop three protocols for evaluating the effectiveness of "IAQ Solutions". It was prepared by NRC researchers under the guidance of a Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) assembled for this task, whose members included participants representing Federal and Provincial Agencies, Industry Associations, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), Municipal governments, and Standards Association from Canada. The protocol also considered consultations of stakeholders comprising builders, researchers, industry partners and health professionals. The contributions of the TAC members and stakeholders to this work are gratefully acknowledged. Compliance to the test method and to the data interpretation developed in this test method is voluntary. ; Peer reviewed: No ; NRC publication: Yes

Producción Científica ; Indoor air pollution has traditionally received less attention than outdoors pollution despite indoors pollutant levels are typically twice higher, and people spend 80–90% of their life in increasing air-tight buildings. More than 5 million people die every year prematurely from illnesses attributable to poor indoor air quality, which also causes multi-millionaire losses due to reduced employee's productivity, material damages and increased health system expenses. Indoor air pollutants include particulate matter, biological pollutants and over 400 different chemical organic and inorganic compounds, whose concentrations are governed by several outdoor and indoor factors. Prevention of pollutant is not always technically feasible, so the implementation of cost-effective active abatement units is required. Up to date no single physical-chemical technology is capable of coping with all indoor air pollutants in a cost-effective manner. This problem requires the use of sequential technology configurations at the expenses of superior capital and operating costs. In addition, the performance of conventional physical-chemical technologies is still limited by the low concentrations, the diversity and the variability of pollutants in indoor environments. In this context, biotechnologies have emerged as a cost-effective and sustainable platform capable of coping with these limitations based on the biocatalytic action of plants, bacteria, fungi and microalgae. Indeed, biological-based purification systems can improve the energy efficiency of buildings, while providing additional aesthetic and psychological benefits. This review critically assessed the state-of-the-art of the indoor air pollution problem and prevention strategies, along with the recent advances in physical-chemical and biological technologies for indoor pollutants abatement. ; Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades [proyecto RTI2018-0-096441-B-I00] ; Junta de Castilla y León (CLU 2017-09) y (UIC 071) ; EU-FEDER program, European Union [grant, CLU 2017-09]

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to design and test effective indoor navigation solutions for visually impaired people in situations where GPS, bluetooth or Wi-Fi signals are unavailable. The authors use the inertial measurement units (IMU), the compass and the barometer of a smart phone.


Design/methodology/approach
The authors have used commercial Android smart phones with IMU, compass and barometer to record a path and to give navigation instructions in an adapted way using a mobility-specific vocabulary. The method proposed is to save paths taking into account different indoor waypoints such as the stairs (change from one floor to another) and the change of direction of the trajectory of the path (e.g. one-fourth turn right or left), recording data from the IMU sensor's, compass and barometer of the smart phone. Having this information and the characteristics of the each segment (distance, azimuth to the north and pressure) of the path, it is possible to provide functional navigation guidance to the visually impaired subject. Three different visually impaired people (one partially sighted and two fully blind) and three sighted people have tested the paths. The efficiency of the navigation is analyzed in terms of distance and time using the comparison between blind and sighted people.


Findings
The main finding is that it is possible to guide visually impaired people some hundreds of meters just using the sensors of a smart phone under certain conditions: the visually impaired person has to understand the guidance instructions and respect some strategies (e.g. not to walk diagonally across vast spaces). Additionally it is observed that the visually impaired participants walked distances, which are not much different to the optimal values. On the other hand; because of their hesitations using their white cane to find free paths, they take in some cases 50 percent more time to arrive (for a few minutes path, this time is not critical and even more efficient than looking for a guide). One thing to highlight is that even with this hesitation, the subjects arrived to the final destination.


Originality/value
This paper demonstrates how an IMU coupled to a compass and a barometer from a Smart Phone employing a spoken mobility language (e.g. next corridor to the left; at the end of the stairs turn right, turn left, etc.) can guide visually impaired people inside buildings.

The aim of this thesis was to evaluate new buildings with low-temperature heating systems in terms of energy consumption and thermal comfort, and to pay some attention to energy savings and indoor air quality. To reach this aim, on-site measurements as well as building energy simulations using IDA Indoor Climate and Energy (ICE) 4 were performed. Results show that the investigated buildings with low-temperature heating system could meet the energy requirements of Swedish regulations in BBR (Boverkets byggregler), as well as provide a good level of thermal comfort. Implementing variable air volume ventilation instead of constant flow, i.e. decreasing the ventilation air from 0.35 to 0.10 l·s-1·m-2 during the whole unoccupancy (10 hours), gave up to 23 % energy savings for heating the ventilation air. However, the indoor air quality was not acceptable because VOC (volatile organic compound) concentration was slightly above the acceptable range for one hour after occupants arrive home. So, in order to create acceptable indoor air quality a return back to the normal ventilation requirements was suggested to take place two hours before the home was occupied. This gave 20 % savings for ventilation heating. The results of this study are in line with the European Union 20-20-20 goal to increase the efficiency of buildings by 20 % to the year 2020. ; QC 20130612

International audience ; A novel multi-technology indoor positioning system, Poucet, designed for military and firefighter operations, is introduced in this paper. A mobile agent, wearing a lightweight tracker, is located in real-time during indoor operations through a combination of outdoor stations and indoor beacons dropped by the agent on his way. Beacons and trackers integrate multiple radio positioning technologies, including Global Positioning System, (Long range Radio (LoRa 868MHz and 2.4 GHz), Ultrawide-band (UWB), and altimeters. Poucet's distributed architecture is presented along with the main features of each of the technologies used. A multi-input fusion algorithm provides continuous and reliable positioning. We report experimental results obtained during benchmarks scenarios conducted by the French National Defense on the presented prototypes.

International audience ; A novel multi-technology indoor positioning system, Poucet, designed for military and firefighter operations, is introduced in this paper. A mobile agent, wearing a lightweight tracker, is located in real-time during indoor operations through a combination of outdoor stations and indoor beacons dropped by the agent on his way. Beacons and trackers integrate multiple radio positioning technologies, including Global Positioning System, (Long range Radio (LoRa 868MHz and 2.4 GHz), Ultrawide-band (UWB), and altimeters. Poucet's distributed architecture is presented along with the main features of each of the technologies used. A multi-input fusion algorithm provides continuous and reliable positioning. We report experimental results obtained during benchmarks scenarios conducted by the French National Defense on the presented prototypes.

International audience ; A novel multi-technology indoor positioning system, Poucet, designed for military and firefighter operations, is introduced in this paper. A mobile agent, wearing a lightweight tracker, is located in real-time during indoor operations through a combination of outdoor stations and indoor beacons dropped by the agent on his way. Beacons and trackers integrate multiple radio positioning technologies, including Global Positioning System, (Long range Radio (LoRa 868MHz and 2.4 GHz), Ultrawide-band (UWB), and altimeters. Poucet's distributed architecture is presented along with the main features of each of the technologies used. A multi-input fusion algorithm provides continuous and reliable positioning. We report experimental results obtained during benchmarks scenarios conducted by the French National Defense on the presented prototypes.

International audience ; A novel multi-technology indoor positioning system, Poucet, designed for military and firefighter operations, is introduced in this paper. A mobile agent, wearing a lightweight tracker, is located in real-time during indoor operations through a combination of outdoor stations and indoor beacons dropped by the agent on his way. Beacons and trackers integrate multiple radio positioning technologies, including Global Positioning System, (Long range Radio (LoRa 868MHz and 2.4 GHz), Ultrawide-band (UWB), and altimeters. Poucet's distributed architecture is presented along with the main features of each of the technologies used. A multi-input fusion algorithm provides continuous and reliable positioning. We report experimental results obtained during benchmarks scenarios conducted by the French National Defense on the presented prototypes.

International audience ; A novel multi-technology indoor positioning system, Poucet, designed for military and firefighter operations, is introduced in this paper. A mobile agent, wearing a lightweight tracker, is located in real-time during indoor operations through a combination of outdoor stations and indoor beacons dropped by the agent on his way. Beacons and trackers integrate multiple radio positioning technologies, including Global Positioning System, (Long range Radio (LoRa 868MHz and 2.4 GHz), Ultrawide-band (UWB), and altimeters. Poucet's distributed architecture is presented along with the main features of each of the technologies used. A multi-input fusion algorithm provides continuous and reliable positioning. We report experimental results obtained during benchmarks scenarios conducted by the French National Defense on the presented prototypes.

Abstract
Indoor air pollutant is a serious problem due to its wide diversity and variability. The harmful substances from construction materials and decorative materials may make the indoor air pollution become more and more serious and cause serious health problems. In this paper, the review summarizes the advanced technologies for the removal of indoor air pollutants and the development in the treatment of indoor air pollution by catalytic oxidation technologies. Meanwhile, some catalytic oxidation mechanisms of indoor air pollutants are proposed in detail, and suggestions for the indoor air pollution treatment are also presented, in order to provide some reference for subsequent research.

Indoor Air quality (IAQ) in private or public environments is progressively recognized as a critical issue for human health. For that purpose the poor IAQ needs to be mitigated and immediate drastic measures must be taken. In environmental science and especially in advanced oxidation processes and technologies (AOPs-AOTs), photocatalysis has gained considerable interest among scientists as a tool for IAQ improvement. In the current study an innovative paint material was developed which exhibits intense photocatalytic activity under direct and diffused visible light for the degradation of air pollutants, suitable for indoor use. A laboratory and a real scale study were performed using the above innovative photo-paint. The lab test was performed in a special design photo-reactor while the real scale in a military&rsquo ; s medical building. Nitrogen Oxide (NO) and Toluene concentration was monitored between &ldquo ; reference&rdquo ; rooms (without photo paint) and &ldquo ; green&rdquo ; rooms (with photo-paint) in order to estimate the photocatalytic efficiency of the photo-paint to degrade the above pollutants. Results of the study showed a decrease up to 60% and 16% for NO and toluene respectively under lab scale tests while an improvement of air quality up to 19% and 5% under real world conditions was achieved.