Shimizu Corporation (清水建設株式会社, Shimizu Kensetsu kabushiki gaisha) is an architectural, civil engineering and general contracting firm. It has an annual sales of approximately US$15 billion and has been widely recognized as one of the top 5 contractors in Japan and among the top 20 in the world.It is a family business listed in the Tokyo and Osaka stock exchanges and a constituent of the Nikkei 225 index.
Urban Air Mobility (UAM) is experiencing rapid global development and is projected to deliver substantial benefits to the evolution of modern cities. Its application requires a precise understanding of urban wind environments and the establishment of safe flight operations. This paper organizes the relationship between UAM and urban wind environments into ten key questions, summarizing essential concepts, technological advancements, and research trends. It examines the effects of turbulent flows generated by buildings and structures in urban areas on the flight stability of UAM, while also exploring methods for airflow prediction and wind environment control through urban design. Furthermore, it discusses evaluation techniques for urban airflow using numerical fluid and meteorological analysis, wind tunnel experiments, observational technologies, and the potential of new predictive methods leveraging machine learning. Additionally, the paper presents challenges and countermeasures for UAM operations, including the mitigation and optimization of wind conditions through building layout and design, flight route planning, UAM’s influence on non-wind urban environments, and the establishment of operation regulations.
Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are increasingly implicated in systemic diseases, but their contribution to skin disorders such as atopic dermatitis (AD) remains unclear. This study assessed VOC concentrations in medical environments, their effects on AD development, and the efficacy of VOC removal using chemical filters. Total VOC levels were monitored in 3 types of veterinary hospitals. AD-like lesions were induced in female NC/Nga mice by repeated dermal application of toluene diisocyanate or house dust mite ointment, with or without topical exposure to a VOC mixture (10 μg/ml). Clinical parameters, including dermatitis scores, transepidermal water loss, and skin thickness, were measured weekly, and immunological and histological analyses were performed. VOC monitoring revealed that 1 hospital exhibited concentrations exceeding 400 μg/m³. In the mouse model, direct VOC exposure significantly aggravated keratinocyte inflammation and worsened AD symptoms. Application of chemical filtering systems effectively reduced VOC levels in real clinical settings, and their use in the experimental model suppressed AD development. However, therapeutic application of VOC removal showed only limited effects on systemic immunological markers. These findings suggest that VOCs present in healthcare environments may contribute to the onset and progression of AD. Incorporating VOC-removing filters into air-conditioning systems could serve as a preventive strategy to improve the management of allergic skin diseases.
Local Climate Zones (LCZ) have been used worldwide in the field of urban climate. In most previous studies, LCZ maps—zoning maps for LCZ categories—were generated using the WUDAPT Level 0 method with satellite images and machine learning techniques. As this method can generate maps without relying on geometric information about urban morphology, it is useful for urban climate analysis in cities where such numerical information is not publicly available. However, this method involves the subjectivity of the mapmaker, resulting in different threshold values between LCZ categories for different mapmakers, which makes it difficult to compare and analyze urban climates within the same category across multiple cities generated by different researchers. Although one solution is the use of Geographic Information System (GIS) data to determine the LCZ category for each location, some LCZ categories cannot be determined based on numerical information alone. This study proposes a method for generating LCZ maps that allows all LCZs to be classified according to their actual conditions and matched to the correct urban morphological values by combining GIS and machine learning techniques. Using the proposed method in this study, LCZ maps were generated for Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Singapore. As a result, the consistency of the average building height and building coverage ratio with the reference values was verified. For all form-based categories (LCZ 1-6, 9) in the three cities, average building height (ABH) and building coverage ratio (BCR) were found to be within the range of the reference values. Additionally, the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) simulation incorporating the map across multiple Asian cities showed that the closer a city is to the equator, the greater the effect of sea breezes in reducing future temperatures, and identified the influence of different latitudes on future changes in open high-rise areas.
