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"Facility Design and Construction methods"
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Effects of virtual reality v. biophilic environments on pain and distress in oncology patients: a case-crossover pilot study
This pilot study aimed to determine if a biophilic Green Therapy or Virtual Reality environment can decrease an oncology patient’s pain and distress while receiving chemotherapy. A case-crossover pilot study was conducted in a comprehensive cancer infusion center. 33 participants with breast, gynecologic, gastrointestinal, pancreatic and prostate cancers were all included in three rooms in a random order at different cycles: control room, Green Therapy room, and Virtual Reality room to receive chemotherapy, respectively. Participants’ pain, distress, heart rate, blood pressure, and saliva cortisol were measured before and after infusion in each room. No statistical significance differences were shown in the changes of heart rate, systolic, or diastolic blood pressure, saliva cortisol, pain, or distress before and after infusion between the control, Green Therapy, and Virtual Reality rooms. However, more patients reported the experience as “fun” and “enjoyable” when they were in Green Therapy or Virtual reality room as compared to in the control room. Additionally, since participating in the study, 14 patients reported spending at least 30 min or more outside in nature. In this study, we found that patients’ heart rate, blood pressure, and self-reported distress levels were reduced after each biophilic intervention although results are not statistically significant. The study also suggested that biophilic interventions are safe and feasible and may complement the standard of care for oncology patients.
Journal Article
Designing Collective Behavior in a Termite-Inspired Robot Construction Team
Complex systems are characterized by many independent components whose low-level actions produce collective high-level results. Predicting high-level results given low-level rules is a key open challenge; the inverse problem, finding low-level rules that give specific outcomes. We present a multi-agent construction system inspired by mound-building termites, solving such an inverse problem. A user specifies a desired structure, and the system automatically generates low-level rules for independent climbing robots that guarantee production of that structure. Robots use only local sensing and coordinate their activity via the shared environment. We demonstrate the approach via a physical realization with three autonomous climbing robots limited to onboard sensing. This work advances the aim of engineering complex systems that achieve specific human-designed goals.
Journal Article
Enabling Microfluidics: from Clean Rooms to Makerspaces
The traditional requirement for clean rooms and specialized skills has inhibited many biologists from pursuing new microfluidic innovations. Makerspaces provide a growing alternative to clean rooms: they provide low-cost access to fabrication equipment such as laser cutters, plotter cutters, and 3D printers; use commercially available materials; and attract a diverse community of product designers. This Opinion discusses the materials, tools, and building methodologies particularly suited for developing novel microfluidic devices in these spaces, with insight into biological applications and leveraging the maker community. The lower barrier to access of makerspaces ameliorates the otherwise poor accessibility and scalability of microfluidic prototyping.
The use of simple tools and materials to manufacture microfluidic devices provides an opportunity for makerspaces to serve as a hotbed for microfluidic device development.
Materials such as plastic, adhesive, and paper, along with tools such as plotter/laser cutters and 3D printers, enable building integrated microfluidic systems that are more easily translated to large-scale manufacturing.
Makerspaces provide low-cost access to prototyping tools and access to technically diverse human capital, and they enable those without advanced skills to participate in microfluidic device development.
Journal Article
Advancing evidence-based healthcare facility design: a systematic literature review
Healthcare facility design is a complex process that brings together diverse stakeholders and ideally aligns operational, environmental, experiential, clinical, and organizational objectives. The challenges inherent in facility design arise from the dynamic and complex nature of healthcare itself, and the growing accountability to the quadruple aims of enhancing patient experience, improving population health, reducing costs, and improving staff work life. Many healthcare systems and design practitioners are adopting an evidence-based approach to facility design, defined broadly as basing decisions about the built environment on credible and rigorous research and linking facility design to quality outcomes. Studies focused on architectural options and concepts in the evidence-based design literature have largely employed observation, surveys, post-occupancy study, space syntax analysis, or have been retrospective in nature. Fewer studies have explored layout optimization frameworks, healthcare layout modeling, applications of artificial intelligence, and layout robustness. These operations research/operations management approaches are highly valuable methods to inform healthcare facility design process in its earliest stages and measure performance in quantitative terms, yet they are currently underutilized. A primary objective of this paper is to begin to bridge this gap. This systematic review summarizes 65 evidence-based research studies related to facility layout and planning concepts published from 2008 through 2018, and categorizes them by methodology, area of focus, typology, and metrics of interest. The review identifies gaps in the existing literature and proposes solutions to advance evidence-based healthcare facility design. This work is the first of its kind to review the facility design literature across the disciplines of evidence-based healthcare design research, healthcare systems engineering, and operations research/operations management. The review suggests areas for future study that will enhance evidence-based healthcare facility designs through the integration of operations research and management science methods.
Journal Article
Artificial intelligence empowering museum space layout design: Insights from China
The floor plan layout of museum exhibition spaces is the skeleton network of the museum, which determines the internal circulation and spatial form of the museum. This paper studies the method and practice of using artificial intelligence technology to assist in the space design of exhibition halls in urban cultural museums. First, it introduces the limitations of traditional space design methods for exhibition halls in urban cultural museums and the superiority and application prospects of the CGAN (conditional generative adversarial network) model in space design. Second, the principle and training process of the CGAN model are explained in detail, and the experimental results and analysis are given. By learning 100 floor plans of exhibition halls of urban culture museums, the CGAN model can generate a new floor plan design for an exhibition hall, which provides a new idea and innovative method for this design task. Finally, the limitations and future research directions of the CGAN model in the space design of urban cultural museum exhibition halls are discussed. The study shows that using the CGAN model to learn the floor plans of exhibition halls of urban cultural museums can effectively improve the innovation and practicability of space design and has the following advantages: (1) It can quickly generate a large number of exhibition hall floor plans, shorten the design cycle, and improve design efficiency. (2) The generated floor plan designs of the exhibition hall are diverse and personalized, meeting the design requirements of different scenarios and needs. (3) The method promotes the deep integration of space design and artificial intelligence technology and provides new possibilities and ideas for space design. These conclusions provide new ideas and methods for the space design of exhibition halls of urban cultural museums and provide a reference and inspiration for space design and intelligent applications in other fields, such as office space design, home decoration space design, landscape space design, and historical arcade and building renovation design.
Journal Article
Research on sustainable green building space design model integrating IoT technology
\"How can the integration of Internet of Things (IoT) technology enhance the sustainability and efficiency of green building (G.B.) design?\" is the central research question that this study attempts to answer. This investigation is important because it examines how green building and IoT technology can work together. It also provides important information about how to use contemporary technologies for environmental sustainability in the building sector. The paper examines a range of IoT applications in green buildings, focusing on this intersection. These applications include energy monitoring, occupant engagement, smart building automation, predictive maintenance, renewable energy integration, and data analytics for energy efficiency enhancements. The objective is to create a thorough and sustainable model for designing green building spaces that successfully incorporates IoT, offering industry professionals cutting-edge solutions and practical advice. The study uses a mixed-methods approach, integrating quantitative data analysis with qualitative case studies and literature reviews. It evaluates how IoT can improve energy management, indoor environmental quality, and resource optimization in diverse geographic contexts. The findings show that there has been a noticeable improvement in waste reduction, energy and water efficiency, and the upkeep of high-quality indoor environments after IoT integration. This study fills a major gap in the literature by offering a comprehensive model for IoT integration in green building design, which indicates its impact. This model positions IoT as a critical element in advancing sustainable urban development and offers a ground-breaking framework for the practical application of IoT in sustainable building practices. It also emphasizes the need for customized IoT solutions in green buildings. The paper identifies future research directions, including the investigation of advanced IoT applications in renewable energy and the evaluation of IoT’s impact on occupant behavior and well-being, along with addressing cybersecurity concerns. It acknowledges the challenges associated with IoT implementation, such as the initial costs and specialized skills needed.
Journal Article
Structural health monitoring of civil infrastructure
Structural health monitoring (SHM) is a term increasingly used in the last decade to describe a range of systems implemented on full-scale civil infrastructures and whose purposes are to assist and inform operators about continued 'fitness for purpose' of structures under gradual or sudden changes to their state, to learn about either or both of the load and response mechanisms. Arguably, various forms of SHM have been employed in civil infrastructure for at least half a century, but it is only in the last decade or two that computer-based systems are being designed for the purpose of assisting owners/operators of ageing infrastructure with timely information for their continued safe and economic operation. This paper describes the motivations for and recent history of SHM applications to various forms of civil infrastructure and provides case studies on specific types of structure. It ends with a discussion of the present state-of-the-art and future developments in terms of instrumentation, data acquisition, communication systems and data mining and presentation procedures for diagnosis of infrastructural 'health'.
Journal Article