Abstract
The thermo-physiological human simulator has been used in many regions for estimating thermal behavior of the locals. The applicability of the human simulator to populations from different regions is, however, questioned due to its lack of consideration for the ethnic diversities in thermoregulation. This study checked the potential of improving the applicability of the Newton human simulator, one of the most popular simulators, by correcting its local set point skin temperatures according to the target population (Chinese as an example). First, new set point skin temperatures were obtained by conducting tests with 101 Chinese under a thermal neutral condition. Then, simulator tests using the original and new set point skin temperatures were conducted separately for evaluating thermal responses of the Chinese under non-neutral conditions. The evaluated skin and core temperatures by the simulators were compared with those measured from the real human tests. It demonstrated that the evaluated skin temperatures are positively related with the set point skin temperatures of the simulator. Adjusting set point skin temperatures according to the Chinese improved the prediction performance of the local skin temperatures, with the root-mean-square-deviation being reduced for over 50% of the body segments. The proposed idea of correcting local set point skin temperatures would contribute to evaluating the thermal interaction between human body and its surroundings with a higher accuracy.
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Abbreviations
- Simulator_ori:
-
Human simulator using its original set point skin temperatures
- Simulator_adj:
-
Adjusted human simulator using the newly obtained set point skin temperatures
- ULCI:
-
Upper limit of the confidence interval
- LLCI:
-
Lower limit of the confidence interval
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Acknowledgements
The participants are sincerely thanked for their commitment to the experiments.
Funding
The authors would like to acknowledge financial support from the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant NO. 2232022G-08), International Cooperation Fund of Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality (Grant NO. 21130750100), and Opening Project of Key Laboratory of Jiangsu Province for Silk Engineering, Soochow University (Grant NO. KJS2167).
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Xu, J., Li, J., Huang, Q. et al. Improving the applicability of the thermo-physiological human simulator by correcting its local set point skin temperatures. Int J Biometeorol 66, 1639–1651 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-022-02307-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-022-02307-0