Real Houses Research Articles

Monitoring the impact of micro-photovoltaic production on a real residential case study

Abstract In this paper a case study of micro-photovoltaic (MPV) production impact on real houses in Rome area is presented. The experimentation was conducted as part of the “Electrical System Research” Program, funded by the Italian Ministry for the Environment, and thanks to a Collaboration Agreement between ENEA (Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development) and ARETI (the Distributor System Operator in Rome urban area). During this experimental activity, it was possible to carry out a few pilot cases and integrate the Smart Home Kit, supplied by ENEA, with the new generation electricity meters, supplied by ARETI. Different types of users were involved, both simple consumers and prosumers equipped with micro-photovoltaic and photovoltaic (PV) panels. Starting from the collected data, some considerations were made regarding the percentage of self-sufficiency of the users. The common goal was to test innovative energy management methods aimed at increasing users’ energy awareness and encouraging a more virtuous and flexible use of energy, also thanks to a greater diffusion of the electric vector.

BUILDING QUALITY ASSURANCE AND CONTRACTOR LIABILITY IN REAL ESTATE HOUSES ACCORDING TO IJÂRAH 'ALA AL-'AMÂL

This article aims to examine the quality assurance of buildings with a piecework system and contractor coverage on real estate houses according to ijârah 'ala al-'amâl. The type of research used is descriptive with a normative sociological approach. Data collection techniques through interviews, documentation, data analysis. The results showed that the occurrence of several post-development damage factors such as material quality, construction errors, extreme environmental conditions. So that it can affect the occurrence of damage to buildings such as damage; structural and non-structural, due to environmental factors, utility systems, improper use and maintenance, humidity, unauthorized structural changes, finishing, exterior and landscape areas, due to natural disasters. Contractor building quality assurance is fully responsible starting from complying with regulations and guidelines, during the construction period the contractor always conducts supervision / inspection on a scale and after the work is completed the contractor repairs defects or damage that arise due to errors in implementation during the construction period. Ijârah 'ala al-'amâl regulates the reciprocal relationship between the parties and the reward in accordance with the agreement, the concept of ijârah 'ala al-'amâl emphasizes to pay attention to the level of quality that must be met and encourages workers to commit to maintaining it. The concept of ijârah 'ala al-'amâl as a whole offers a more structured framework and can provide a stronger foundation for developers to demand the fulfillment of quality standards because the work contract in the context of ijârah 'ala al-'amâl is directed based on the principles of Islamic law and has high legitimacy so as to provide better legal certainty.

Reducing residential cooling demand in a sprawling desert city through vertical urban densification

Traditional desert cities used a compact urban form since it provides benefits in terms of thermal comfort both in urban and interior spaces. However, many current desert cities have shifted to a sprawling model with isolated low-rise buildings, leading to longer travel distances, increased land use, inadequate public space, and higher demand for building cooling. Our study aims to investigate how vertical urban densification can reduce residential cooling demand in hot-dry regions. To achieve this, we compared single-family houses with high-rise multi-family houses in Hermosillo, Mexico. Eight case studies of real houses were selected, representing the city's building stock, including one- and two-story single-family houses, and high-rise multi-family houses. We use dynamic energy simulations to assess the effectiveness of changing building's shape against improving its insulation. Our results indicate that increasing vertical density leads to a reduction in the envelope-to-volume ratio, resulting in a significant decrease in cooling demand. Moving from a one-story single-family house to a high-rise multi-family house can lead to a 72 % reduction in annual cooling demand. Matching the façade material properties of single-family houses and multi-family houses reduces the cooling demands of the single-family houses by 16 %–31 %. However, they still have higher cooling demands compared to high-rise multi-family houses, suggesting that building form has a greater impact on cooling than thermal insulation. Our findings highlight the substantial energy savings achievable by transitioning from detached single-family houses to high-rise multi-family developments in desert cities.

Stair-Fall Risk Parameters in a Controlled Gait Laboratory Environment and Real (Domestic) Houses: A Prospective Study in Faller and Non-Faller Groups.

Falling on stairs is a major health hazard for older people. Risk factors for stair falls have been identified, but these are mostly examined in controlled biomechanics/gait laboratory environments, on experimental stairs with a given set of step dimensions. It remains unknown whether the conclusions drawn from these controlled environments would apply to the negotiation of other domestic staircases with different dimensions in real houses where people live. The aim of this paper is to investigate whether selected biomechanical stepping behavior determined through stair gait parameters such as foot clearance, foot contact length and cadence are maintained when the staircase dimensions are different in real houses. Twenty-five older adults (>65 years) walked on a custom-made seven-step laboratory staircase. Older adults were classified into two groups (fallers and non-fallers) based on recent fall history. Among the 25 participants, 13 people had at least one fall, trip, or slip in the last six months and they were assigned to the fallers group; 12 people did not experience any fall in the last six months, so they were assigned to the non-fallers group. In addition, these participants walked on the stairs in three different real exemplar houses wearing a novel instrumented shoe sensor system that could measure the above stair gait parameters. MATLAB was used to extract fall risk parameters from the collected data. One-way ANOVA was used to compare fall risk parameters on the different staircases. In addition, the laboratory-based fall risk parameters were compared to those derived from the real house stairs. There was a significant difference in selected stair-fall biomechanical risk factors among the house and laboratory staircases. The fall risk group comparisons suggest that high-risk fallers implemented a biomechanically riskier strategy that could increase overall falling risk. The significant differences due to the main effects of the fallers and non-fallers groups were obtained. For example, when ascending, the fallers group had less foot clearance on the entry (p = 0.016) and middle steps (p = 0.003); in addition, they had more foot clearance variability on the entry steps (p = 0.003). This suggests that the fallers group in this present study did not adopt more conservative stepping strategies during stair ascent compared to low-risk older adults. By showing less foot clearance and more variability in foot clearance, the risk for a trip would be increased.

Study on the correspondence between vibration level and vibration evaluation by residents in real houses through one day

In recent years, the issue of environmental vibration has been much discussed due to the diversification of lifestyles and the increasing of habitation performance by residents. Prolonged exposure to vibration can have psychological and physiological effects on residents and may cause complaints. The current vibration evaluation standard for buildings in Japan is used in the "Standard for the Evaluation of Habitability to Building Vibration" by Architectural Institute of Japan (AIJ). The evaluation scale in that standard is also based on the results of short-time vibration evaluation experiments in laboratories. However, this evaluation scale is considered to be different from the vibration evaluation perceived by residents in their daily lives. Therefore, in this study, we researched for the purpose of the evaluation of vibration sensation in long-term daily life. In this paper, we measured vibration through one day in real houses. And we considered the correspondence between vibration levels and residents vibration evaluation.

VGR Dataset: A CFD-based Gas Dispersion Dataset for Mobile Robotic Olfaction

There are many potential applications for an autonomous robotic agent capable of sensing gases in the environment, from locating leaks in pipes to monitoring air quality. However, the current state of the art in the field of robotic olfaction is not mature enough for most real-world applications. Due to the complexity of gas dispersion phenomena and the limitations of sensors, a great deal of research into the development of techniques and algorithms remains necessary. A very important part of this research is thorough experimentation, but carrying out robotic olfaction experiments is far from trivial. Real world experiments are usually limited to very simplified, wind-tunnel-like environments, as it is impossible to closely monitor or control the airflow in more complex scenarios. For this reason, simulation with CFD offers the most plausible alternative, allowing researchers to study the behavior of their algorithms in more challenging and complex situations. This work presents a CFD-based gas dispersion dataset composed of 120 cases generated under variable environmental conditions, taking place in 30 realistic and detailed models of real houses. All the data is made available in multiple formats, and is directly accessible through ROS, to permit easy integration with other robotic tools.

The Real Estate Market in Ghana: The Driving Factors and Housing Price.

Abstract
 The pricing of real estate houses in Ghana is a great concern to most Ghanaians. Numerous factors contribute to this. The purpose of this study was to discover the key variables influencing Ghanaian real estate pricing. Members of the Ghana Real Estate Developers Association (GREDA) were given a total of 196 sets of structured questionnaires. The members comprised of contractors, consultants, the client’s team, and others. Out of these questionnaires distributed, 130 completed questionnaires were returned. The results of the analysis showed the following as the main factors driving real estate prices: construction cost, financial market, structural features, government policies, macroeconomic determinants, and shifting population demography to be the major factors driving the pricing of real estate residential houses in Ghana. The value of R (the correlation coefficient of the regression analysis) was 0.846, indicating a very high positive correlation existing between the dependent and independent variables. This suggests that the two variables are moving in the same direction. The study concludes that population demographics, construction cost, structural feature, macroeconomic variables, government policy, and financial market explain 62.9 percent of the variability in the pricing of real estate residential dwellings in Ghana.

The The Real Estate Market in Ghana: The Driving Factors and Housing Price.

Abstract
 The pricing of real estate houses in Ghana is a great concern to most Ghanaians. Numerous factors contribute to this. This study aimed to investigate the driving factors that influence Real Estate pricing of houses in Ghana. A total of 196 set of structured questionnaires were administered to members of the Ghana Real estate Developers Association (GREDA) and comprised of contractors, consultants, the client’s team, and others. Out of these questionnaires distributed, 130 completed questionnaires were returned. The results of the analysis showed the following as the main factors driving real estate prices: construction cost, financial market, structural features, government policies, macroeconomic determinants, and shifting population demography to be the major factors driving the pricing of real estate residential houses in Ghana. The value of R (the correlation coefficient of the regression analysis) was 0.846, indicating a very high positive correlation existing between the dependent and independent variables. This suggests that the two variables are moving in the same direction. The study concludes that 62.9% of the variations in the pricing of real estate residential houses in Ghana are explained by the population demography, construction cost, structural feature, macroeconomic determinants, government policy, and financial market.

Leveraging hybrid probabilistic multi-objective evolutionary algorithm for dynamic tariff design

Dynamic tariffs play an important role in demand response, contributing to smoothing power consumption and reducing generation capacity requirement and carbon emission. However, in the existing works, tariffs are usually designed without comprehensive consideration, such as potential user responses to tariffs. Thus, assuming an electricity trading market contains a utility company and multiple residential users, a dynamic tariff design method is proposed in this paper, considering user responses to tariff changes. Leveraging the non-intrusive load monitoring technique, rated power and user preference features for each appliance are acquired by the utility company to quantify user comfort (discomfort) based on derived user appliance usage habits. Then, a bi-level Stackelberg game model is built on the supply side for designing optimal dynamic tariffs and imitating the influence of tariff changes on DR plans for users. The upper level represents the utility company, trying to maximize utility profit, social welfare and carbon emission reduction. While the lower level represents users, aiming to minimize electricity bills and user discomfort. By solving such an optimization problem with multiple objectives, a novel hybrid probabilistic multi-objective evolutionary algorithm balancing evolutionary efficiency and stability is applied where random forest is adopted to boost performance. The proposed model is benchmarked with two state-of-the-art pricing methods and validated on a publicly accessible REFIT dataset, where low-rate power measurements are collected from real houses in the UK. The experimental results show the proposed model generally outperforms benchmarks on dynamic tariff design in achieving peak-shaving and low carbon emission while preserving user satisfaction. Furthermore, a case study is implemented, which verifies the necessity of various objectives employed in the proposed method.

The real estate market in Ghana: the nexus between price and income levels

PurposeThis study aimed to identify the link between the income levels of government workers and the prices of real estate houses in Ghana to identify the prevailing mortgage gaps and to stimulate both reactive and proactive government policies backed by continuous stakeholder engagements under the new normal.Design/methodology/approachThe quantitative approach was used for this study. Two data collection methods were used to achieve the objectives of the study: the survey method, using a questionnaire to collect the primary data, and the use of documentary information as the source of secondary data. For the primary data, prices of two-bedroom and three-bedroom houses were collected. The secondary data collected were: (1) salary levels of government employees and (2) mortgage values prevailing. The three data sets were analysed and structured to identify the relationship between income levels and the prices of real estate houses within the prevailing mortgage system.FindingsIt will require a quadrupling of the salaries of only the highest income earners of government employees to afford the average price of a basic two-bedroom and three-bedroom housing in Ghana. Largely, government employees cannot afford these houses with the current price levels and the mortgage systems available. The real estate market in Ghana has not focused on lower-earning groups. The effects of the new normal resulting from the effects of Covid-19 require a paradigm change.Originality/valueThe paper established the relationship between salary levels of government employees and the process of basic accommodation types on offer in the Ghanaian market by the real estate industry: two- and three-bedroom houses. The findings will help real estate developers to consider their approach to housing designs and construction methods and the pricing to ensure that they meet the needs of the public sector workers who could form a large customer base.

The Guta Lag’s injunctions against pagan worship

The term stafgarþr (pl. stafgarþar), as it figures in the Laws of the Gotlanders, refers to earlier farmsteads at which natural topographical features could be combined with buildings, earlier house foundations, and the erection of stretches of palisade so as to form a sacralized enclosure and thereby move ontologically from real everyday houses, barns, byres, and fences to a sacred, inwardly focused site, on the model of other natural and earlier favored cult sites such as hills, woods, and marshes.

Robot@VirtualHome, an ecosystem of virtual environments and tools for realistic indoor robotic simulation

Simulations and synthetic datasets have historically empower the research in different service robotics-related problems, being revamped nowadays with the utilization of rich virtual environments. However, with their use, special attention must be paid so the resulting algorithms are not biased by the synthetic data and can generalize to real world conditions. These aspects are usually compromised when the virtual environments are manually designed. This article presents Robot@VirtualHome, an ecosystem of virtual environments and tools that allows for the management of realistic virtual environments where robotic simulations can be performed. Here “realistic” means that those environments have been designed by mimicking the rooms’ layout and objects appearing in 30 real houses, hence not being influenced by the designer’s knowledge. The provided virtual environments are highly customizable (lighting conditions, textures, objects’ models, etc.), accommodate meta-information about the elements appearing therein (objects’ types, room categories and layouts, etc.), and support the inclusion of virtual service robots and sensors. To illustrate the possibilities of Robot@VirtualHome we show how it has been used to collect a synthetic dataset, and also exemplify how to exploit it to successfully face two service robotics-related problems: semantic mapping and appearance-based localization.

Lessons Learnt From the Residential Zero Carbon District Demonstration Project, Governance Practice, Customer Response, and Zero-energy House Operation in Japan

The building sector is undergoing a low-carbon transition featuring applications of energy-efficient technologies and management innovations. Herein, we contribute to the study of the residential zero-carbon district demonstration project in Japan, introducing smart practices and examining occupants’ awareness. We proposed a questionnaire survey covering more than 400 smart zero-energy house owners that looks beyond the technologies for smart energy management and recognizes how the residential consumers engaged and perceive delivered energy saving and cost reduction issues, and their usage frequency of home energy management system information-based services is also examined considering the impact of the variables of household income and occupants’ age. Overall, the respondents’ energy and cost-saving awareness vary widely, and the results provide the effectiveness of the visual-based service in engaging end-users in the responsive energy management system. In the context of the detailed operational performances of real zero-energy houses, we find evidence that automatic control has reshaped the characteristics of intraday energy balance and gives consumers greater control over their own energy bills. The findings clearly show the detailed role of integrated energy-efficient technologies over typical periods; the grid-connected photovoltaic system plays a significant role in the realization of net annual zero electricity balance, and micro-cogeneration’s contribution to zero-energy houses’ energy self-sufficiency largely depends on the building heating load.

The Development of an Immersive Malay Village Virtual Reality Experience

In this paper we write about using immersive technology, more specifically, Virtual Reality (VR) to develop a Malay Village experience for the younger generation to learn about their heritage and culture. In this project, the research team produced a VR walkthrough by using local content, for instance, using the real environment of a Malay village from southern peninsular Malaysia as a reference to construct the Virtual Environment (VE). 3D models of Malay houses were created based on the images of real Malay houses. The output of this project is a VR walkthrough of traditional Malay houses in a Malay village that can be viewed using a head-mounted VR gear. The walkthrough was then presented to the public in an exhibition. Feedback was taken to enhance the walkthrough experience. The objective of the project is to allow the public to learn and know more about the local heritage and culture through gamification and to promote VR as an approach for edutainment.

Discriminant analysis classification of residential electricity smart meter data

The objective of this study is to apply machine learning classification to predict building characteristics from electricity smart meter data for the purpose of building stock characterization. Given that there are no publicly available large-scale residential electric smart meter data sets with detailed building characteristics, an open-source virtual smart meter (VSM) data set is used. The VSM data consists of electricity consumption profiles for 200,000 homes with 21 known characteristics, which are used to train predictive models with linear discriminant analysis (LDA). The classification accuracy (CA) is determined for a variety of scenarios where the meter data aggregation and period are varied. The CA depends on the parameter to be classified (the class), the number of data points per building (the features) and the number of buildings used for classification. Reliable classification results are obtained when the number of buildings exceeds the number of features by a significant margin. An application of the developed predictive models to a small data set of 30 real houses illustrates the usefulness of the method but also the challenges in achieving a generalized model with virtual data.

Assessment of Personal Relaxation in Indoor-Air Environments: Study in Real Full-Scale Laboratory Houses.

The relationship between chemical concentrations in indoor air and the human sense of comfort and relaxation have been reported. We investigated the effect of the sum of volatile organic compounds (ΣVOCs; sum of 79 VOCs) on the level of relaxation in two laboratory houses with almost identical interior and exterior appearances. The electroencephalogram (EEG) was monitored to evaluate the degree of personal relaxation objectively. The experiments were conducted in laboratory houses (LH) A and B with lower and higher levels of ΣVOCs, respectively. A total of 168 healthy volunteers participated, who each performed the task for 20 min, followed by a 10-min break, and EEG was measured during the break. Simultaneously as subjective evaluations, the participants were asked to fill a questionnaire regarding the intensity of odor and preference for the air quality in each LH. The subjective evaluation showed a significant association between ΣVOCs and participants’ relaxation (OR: 2.86, 95%CI: 1.24–6.61), and the objective evaluation indicated that the participants were more relaxed in the LH with lower levels of ΣVOCs than that with higher levels (OR: 3.03, 95%CI: 1.23–7.50). Therefore, the reduction of ΣVOCs and odors in indoor air would have an effect, which is the promotion of relaxation.

Incentive-Based Demand Response Framework for Residential Applications: Design and Real-Life Demonstration

In 2020, residential sector loads reached 25% of the overall electrical consumption in Europe and it is foreseen to stabilise at 29% by 2050. However, this relatively small increase demands, among others, changes in the energy consuming behaviour of households. To achieve this, Demand Response (DR) has been identified as a promising tool for unlocking the hidden flexibility potential of residential consumption. In this work, a holistic incentive-based DR framework aiming towards load shifting is proposed for residential applications. The proposed framework is characterised by several innovative features, mainly the formulation of the optimisation problem, which models user satisfaction and the economic operation of a distributed household portfolio, the customised load forecasting algorithm, which employs an adjusted Gradient Boosting Tree methodology with enhanced feature extraction and, finally, a disaggregation tool, which considers electrical features and time of use information. The DR framework is first validated through simulation to assess the business potential and is then deployed experimentally in real houses in Northern Greece. Results demonstrate that a mean 1.48% relative profit can be achieved via only load shifting of a maximum of three residential appliances, while the experimental application proves the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms in successfully managing the load curves of real houses with several residents. Correlations between market prices and the success of incentive-based load shifting DR programs show how wholesale pricing should be adjusted to ensure the viability of such DR schemes.

A Study on the Application of VR Technology in the Field of Electronic Commerce

With the start of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, every industry in society is changing, technological development, artificial intelligence, big data, VR technology, and other applications, and technology has also greatly saved time and human costs. At this stage, the use of computers and cell phones is becoming more common, and Internet shopping and Internet buying make our lives easier and faster. Although shopping online is cheap, it may not be suitable for you and then apply for a refund that affects the user experience. Therefore, by applying VR technology, consumers can increase their experience and satisfaction and buy their own products more accurately. On the other hand, in 2020 COVID-19 has caused us a lot of inconveniences. Consumers can't go to the scene to see the house. VR technology can solve this problem easily. Using VR glasses, at home, or designated locations in real estate, through VR glasses, simulates the layout and decorating effects of real houses, saving not only time but also preventing the risk of infection. Our lives and health are affected by COVID-19, but it implies that VR technology should be applied to e-commerce as soon as possible. Although VR technology has many advantages in being applied to e-commerce, there are many disadvantages as well. We should improve and develop this technology. This paper discusses the application of VR technology and explains the application of VR technology.

Association between sum of volatile organic compounds and occurrence of building-related symptoms in humans: A study in real full-scale laboratory houses

It is well known that the indoor environment, particularly indoor air quality (IAQ), has significant effects on building-related symptoms (BRSs) in humans, such as irritation of mucosal membranes, headaches, and allergies, such as asthma and atopic dermatitis. In 2017, Chiba University launched the “Chemiless Town Project Phase 3” to investigate the relationship between IAQ and human health. Two laboratory houses (LHs) were built on a university campus in which the interiors and exteriors were similar, but the levels of indoor air volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were different. A total of 141 participants evaluated IAQ using their sensory perception. There was a significant relationship between differences in VOC levels and BRSs occurrence (OR: 6.89, 95% CI: 1.40–33.98). It was suggested that people with a medical history of allergies (OR: 5.73, 95% CI: 1.12–29.32) and those with a high sensitivity to chemicals (OR: 8.82, 95% CI: 1.16–67.16) tended to experience BRSs. Thus, when buildings are constructed, people with a history of allergies or with a sensitivity to chemicals may be at high risk to BRSs, and it is important to pay attention to IAQ to prevent BRSs.

IOMTARA (INTERIOR OMAH NUSANTARA) : APLIKASI ROOM TOUR DENGAN MENGGUNAKAN TEKNOLOGI VIRTUAL REALITY SEBAGAI MEDIA PENGENALAN PARIWISATA RUMAH TRADISIONAL NUSANTARA

The role of information technology is the main thing that must be fulfilled to support activities in various fields of life, including the promotion of tourism. One of the developing information is Virtual Reality technology. iOMTARA (interior of Omah Nusantara) is a room tour application development that was created as a media for the introduction and promotion of tourism in the Nusantara. The 3D objects displayed in this application are Joglo Yogyakarta Indonesia's traditional house and Melaka Malaysia’s traditional house. Both of them were chosen because currently the traditional house no longer functions as a residence but also as a tourist attraction for both foreign and domestic tourists. This application was developed using interactive visual methods such as virtual worlds that make users feel like they are getting the same information as the experience of entering the space in the real houses. The application of building 3D objects from houses is followed by making video interactions using virtual reality. The final stage, this application will be incorporated into a mobile phone based on the Android operating system so that it can be used easily by the people. The application design method begins with a preliminary study of qualitative methods to obtain data directly in the field. Then the data is used to designing virtual reality in the IOMTARA Room Tour application. The result of making this application is the design of an iOMTARA application that uses Virtual Reality technology and can be used on mobile phone based on the Android system. It is expected that with this application, the people is more familiar with tourism objects in the Nusantara, especially the Joglo Yogyakarta Indonesia’s traditional house and the Melaka Malaysia’s traditional house.