In order to investigate the awareness of hearing-impaired students on sound environment in class, we performed on-site questionnaires and acoustic measurement in elementary and junior high schools. The survey was carried out in 7 hearing-impaired classrooms with different grades of acoustic performances, and in 11 normal classrooms for three grades of students. On the whole, it was found that half of students felt listening difficulty in the special classrooms, while one third do in the normal classrooms regardless of students' grade. The students' responses on listening difficulty were not clearly related to their hearing levels and noise levels in class, but some relationships between their responses on noise distraction and the grades of acoustic performances were observed in the special classrooms.

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To obtain the basic characteristics of the vibration in the building many vibration measurements were carried out to devise a simple prediction method of the structure borne sound. In this paper, vibration measurements of the three buildings were carried out to construct the analysis model to predict how vibration input into the foundation amplifies it in each floor of the building, and a multi-degree-of-freedom system to simulate these measurement results were proposed. In addition, although some measures method for the structure borne sound was devised and it has been in use, the Tuned Mass Damper (TMD) which used the vibration of balconies and corridors as an idea of structure borne sound reduction tuned in the desired frequency were devised, and the effect were confirmed by the simulation using the proposed analysis model.

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There are many information signs in a city. They have the important task in order to act smoothly. However we cannot find out required information easily when they have too much signs. And also it's difficult to resuce signs easily to someone's interest because the required information varies according to peoples. Then, we investigated the required information way efficiently under conditions of visual aid presentation at the same time. We utilized the result of experiments in order to simplify vision information, which tendency is our orderly way.
The results are as follows : 1) We found out no difference in the speed on information acquisition, even in the sign aligned regularly or irregularly. 2) Combined with the regularity of presentation conditions such as sizes and colors of signs and acquired information, the acquisition speed was improved.

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The energy consumption of residential sector in Japan has been continuing to increase. It is necessary to grasp the usage and the catalog of home electric appliances. The energy-efficiency performance of air-conditioner has been improved recently. It is said, however, the relationship between the performance of the catalog and of actual usage of air-conditioner is different. In this paper, we grasp the electricity if air-conditioner in 14 houses in Kanto district, and study the relationship between actual and expected usage of air-conditioner.

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In this paper, to clarify the influence of sky radiance distribution on thermal loads of buildings, we compared 1) the maximum load , Qmeas,c/Qmeas,h, Quni,c/Quni,h 2) the seasonal load Qmeas,c / Qmeas,h, Quni,c / Quni,h which were calculated by using measured sky radiance distribution and uniform sky respectively. The relative difference of the maximum heating load Puni,h is as large as to exceed +8%, and that of the seasonal heating load Puni,h is +8.7% in the case of southern perimeter. So the influence of the sky radiance distribution on thermal loads isn't negligible.
Moreover, in order to verify the availability of method of identifying the sky types on the calculation of the thermal loads, 1) the maximum load Qcie,c/ Qcie,h and 2) seasonal load Qcie,c / Qcie,h calculated by using irradiance values of the identified sky types are compared with Qmeas,c/Qmeas,h, Qmeas,c / Qmeas,h respectively. Both the relative difference of the maximum load Pcie,c, Pcie,h and that of the seasonal load Pcie,c, Pcie,h are fully small. Therefore, we conculuded the availability of this method on the calculation of thermal loads is verified.

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This paper proposes a hygrothermal model of Green Wall to evaluate the cooling effects by the wall. The proposed model of Green Wall takes into account heat and moisture transfer in a green layer. In order to examine the hygrothermal behavior in the Green Wall and validate the model, heat and moisture behavior of two types of Green Walls were measured. The calculated results by the model agreed very well with the measured ones. Finally, the reduction of thermal impacts on indoor and outdoor environment through the use of Green Wall were predicted by the model, and they were shown that green layer itself is effective in reduction of the thermal impacts, and the reduction increases by green layer in combination with soil panel.

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Sprinkling water on the roof to reduce the indoor temperature is one way to improve the hot thermal environment. This method is particularly effective for steel roofs which offer poor thermal insulation, and which are often used for factories and warehouses. Based on measurements from experiments and actual roof sprinkler systems, this paper describes results concerning the following: (1) planning for and characteristics of a rotary sprinkler system with nozzles that sprinkle water over a circular area; (2) the potential of the intermittent and sequential sprinkling methods for saving water and efficient cooling, and the potential of the sprinkled water recovery system and rainwater utilization system; and (3) simulation of the running cost of the roof sprinkler system, and comparison with conventional space cooling. It is concluded that a roof sprinkler system is effective for indoor cooling provided that an appropriate water source is available.

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Meso-scale climate analysis is very useful to understand the structure of the urban heat island. MM5, provided by National Center for Atmospheric Research, is one of major meso-scale model in the world. However, parameterization of ground surface in MM5 is rather coarse to analyze urban climate. That is, in MM5, ground surface parameters are determined by most superior land-use in each mesh. However, this method is unable to represent detail urban structure, to say, the effect of Cool Island with green or water body is neglected. In this paper, ground surface parameterization in MM5 is modified to represent land-use fraction. Furthermore , effect of anthropogenic heat release is also incorporated in MM5.

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This study was designed to record some psychological and physiological responses to evaluate the effects of such responses by a convective air conditioning system in a hospital on the quality of sleep. Changes in skin temperature, degree of relaxation, movement in sleep and feeling of sleep were recorded. Results of skin temperature and autonomic nervous system showed sleep is composed 3 periods,24:00-2:00, 2:00-5:00 and 2:00-5:00. During first period of 24:00-2:00, 26°C was found to be better than 28°C and 30°C. As for second and third periods of 2:00-7:00, 26-28°C is superior to 30°C for sleep in a hospital.

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According to the decline of the farming population, irrigation ponds are losing its values. However, the values of the irrigation ponds are not only for farming but also for some other purposes, such as recreation, regional landscape, historical place, and so on. For that reason, to clarify the evaluation structure in the consciousness of the inhabitants around irrigation pond is meaningful for reevaluating irrigation pond.
This research is based on the questionnaire survey carried out in 2003. 10 irrigation ponds in Higashihiroshima city were selected based on their characteristics. The number of the questionnaires distributed around the 10 ponds was 1000. Factor analysis, qualification method of the third type, and multiple regression analysis method were applied on this research thesis.
As the result of this study, the tendencies of the environmental evaluation and its correlation with the evaluation for the synthetic satisfaction were grasped in each inhabitants group classified by the analysis.

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The purpose of this study is to examine how differences in surrounding environmental conditions affect air conditioning behavior in the summer. As a result of a questionnaire survey, subjects were categorized into groups according to the factors they considered significant in air conditioning behavior. One group was affected by others' eyes, and other groups were affected by factors such as ventilation, heat, and by multiple environmental conditions, etc. The above groups had different opinions on what constituted the best design for a living environment to reduce the use of air conditioners while maintaining comfort. Moreover, it was found that subjects who had received an architectural education tended to take ventilation into consideration when assessing air conditioning behavior, and subjects in their forties and fifties tended to take more others' eyes into consideration than subjects in their twenties and thirties.

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