Hot waves happened more often in summer due to the global climate change, which leads to hot indoor environment when air conditioning systems are absent. To improve individual thermal comfort in warm/hot indoor environment, a ventilating vest with thermoelectric cooling (TEC) was proposed. The design of TEC module and ventilating vest was introduced. The measured cooling capacity of cooling vest was about 25 W, including both sensible and latent heat. The effect of cooling vest on thermal comfort and cognitive ability was tested in the 29 °C, 31 °C and 33 °C environments. 18 male subjects were recruited to participant in the experiments. Subjective questionnaires including thermal sensation vote, thermal comfort vote, thermal acceptance vote, sweat feeling vote, and cold stimuli sensation vote were collected. Three cognitive tests were conducted including the Stroop test, typing test and number remember test. Physiological parameters including skin temperature, core temperature, local skin heat flux and heart rate variability (HRV) were measured. Results showed that continuous exposure to hot environment made the subjects felt hotter, more uncomfortable, more unbearable and sweatier. With the use of ventilating vest, all these subjective votes were improved significantly. With the ventilating vest, the skin temperatures of chest and back decreased a little, the decline was more significant in 33 °C. The mean skin temperature kept increasing during hot exposure, while the vest stopped the further increasing and reduced it slightly. When cooling vest was used, the core temperature was decreased by 0.05 °C, 0.3 °C, and 0.5 °C in the three temperature conditions, while the local skin heat flux increased approximately 4.8 % to 33.3 %. With the use of ventilating vest, the HRV indices of SDNN (Standard Deviation of Normal to Normal Intervals) and RMSSD (Root Mean Square of Successive Differences) were increased, while the LF/HF (Low Frequency to High Frequency Ratio) was decreased. Subjects’ cognitive performance in the three tests were also improved significantly when the vest was used.

中文翻译：

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研究采用热电冷却的透气背心提高热舒适度和认知能力


由于全球气候变化，热浪在夏季更频繁地发生，这导致在没有空调系统时室内环境炎热。为了提高个人在暖/热室内环境中的热舒适度，提出了一种具有热电冷却 （TEC） 的通风背心。介绍 TEC 模块和通风背心的设计。测得的冷却背心冷却能力约为 25 W，包括显热和潜热。在 29 °C、31 °C 和 33 °C 环境中测试了冷却背心对热舒适性和认知能力的影响。招募了 18 名男性受试者参加实验。收集包括热感觉投票、热舒适投票、热接受投票、汗感投票和寒冷刺激感投票在内的主观问卷。进行了 3 项认知测试，包括 Stroop 测试、打字测试和数字记忆测试。测量皮肤温度、核心温度、局部皮肤热通量和心率变异性 （HRV） 等生理参数。结果显示，持续暴露在炎热的环境中会使受试者感觉更热、更不舒服、更难以忍受和出汗更多。使用通风背心后，所有这些主观投票都得到了显着改善。穿上透气背心后，胸部和背部皮肤温度略有下降，33 °C 时下降更为显著。 在高温暴露期间，平均皮肤温度不断升高，而背心停止进一步升高并略微降低。使用冷却背心时，三种温度条件下核心温度分别降低了 0.05 °C、0.3 °C 和 0.5 °C，而局部皮肤热通量增加了约 4.8 % 至 33.3 %。 使用通气背心后，SDNN （正常到正常区间的标准差） 和 RMSSD （连续差值的均方根） 的 HRV 指数增加，而 LF/HF （低频与高频比） 降低。使用背心时，受试者在三项测试中的认知表现也得到了显着改善。