Barrier-free-conscious design for handicapped and aged persons is required for hospitals and public spaces in the present. The objective of this paper is to fmd out what kind of lobby chairs and benches are utilized and to confirm the suitable selection for use in hospitals, in onier to develop the design method of lobby chairs and benches for physically handicapped persons and the aged persons. Field surveys were carried out in 15 hospitals to measure shapes and dimensions of the lobby chairs and benches. The measured dimensions and angles in each part of the chairs and the benches were analyzed. They were classified into three types. The distribution and mean values of the dimensions for each type were founded and were compared with the suitable size of the pmtotype chairs by Kohara. The obtained sizes of the chairs and the benches in this study were not necessarily agreed with the pretotypes. It was found that only 14 kinds of lobby chairs and benches agreed with the prototypes II and III by Kohara and they were not suitably selected for use in the hospitals.

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This paper discusses the thermal environment of vernacular houses in San-in area in summer over eight days from 29th August 2001 . Indoor thermal environment of three town houses with small courtyard (tsuboniwa) and their surrounding outdoor spaces were measured at twenty six points. The results of the measurements showed that, in the daytime, it was cooler at the tooriniwa than any other point. Based on the result, in order to carry out a detailed investigation of the effect of tsuboniwa on the living rooms, air temperatures were simultaneously measured at sixty points in the tsuboniwa and in two rooms adjacent to it over fours days from 22th August 2003, making use of thermo couples. It is confirmed that the tsuboniwa was the coolest space. Opening the sliding doors between the tsuboniwa and the living rooms caused the cooling air to enter the living rooms, and as a result, it contributed to decreasing the temperature of the living rooms. Consequently, the tsuboniwa can have the effective cooling performance on the adjacent rooms and it is the useful space from the point of view of environmental symbiosis.

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The aim of this research is to develop a bio-weather preventive medicine methodology individualized to people's health and living environments based on analyzing relationships between meteorological elements and meteorotropism. In this paper, using a large database of emergency medical transfers, we analyze quantitatively the effect of weather on disease by decision tree-making as a data mining method. In the analysis for cerebral infarction, a data set composed of meteorological elements and transfer counts for each season and period of average is constructed, decision trees are extracted from the data, branches in the decision tree at which the onset rate increases are investigated, and these results are compared from the viewpoints of the factors responsible for the increase. The result that the decision tree induced from the average meteorological conditions within every 6-hour period makes clear the bifurcation of the onset rate is obtained. Seasonal analysis suggests that the onset rate increases remarkably when the relative humidity decreases in winter and when the temperature increases in summer. Consequently, this analyzing method is efficient at inducing the relationships between meteorological elements and increases in the disease.

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The purpose of this study was to compare bathing conditions in each area of Japan and to find the features of them in order to investigate factors affecting regional differences in death rates in the bathroom. In this study, a questionnaire survey was carried out in 11 areas, Sapporo, Akita, Sendai, northern and southern Chiba, Shizuoka, Toyama, Osaka, Hiroshima, Fukuoka, and Kagoshima. Questionnaires were distributed to approximately 30 detached houses in each area twice in summer and winter. Subjects were asked on passed years after building their houses, fixtures and thermal sensations in the houses, behaviors during bathing, and so on. Answers showed the regional differences in bathing conditions among areas as follows: From the view points of retentiveness and insulation of heat, newer and northern houses are better than older and southern ones. Unexpectedly, subjects of the southern areas reported colder thermal sensation in the bathroom in winter than those of the northern areas. There were regional differences in frequency and duration of bathing, and the person who take a bath first It seems that there may be the relationship between the bathing condition in each area and death rates in the bathroom, but ftirther investigations are needed.

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