Smart Face Masks for COVID-19 Pandemic Management: A Concise Review of Emerging Architectures, Challenges and Future Research Directions

Smart sensing technology has been playing tremendous roles in digital healthcare management over time with great impacts. Lately, smart sensing has awoken the world by the advent of smart face masks (SFMs) in the global fight against the deadly Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic. In turn, a number of research studies on innovative SFM architectures and designs are emerging. However, there is currently no study that has systematically been conducted to identify and comparatively analyze the emerging architectures and designs of SFMs, their contributions, socio-technological implications, and current challenges. In this article, we investigate the emerging SFMs in response to Covid-19 pandemic and provide a concise review of their key features and characteristics, design, smart technologies, and architectures. We also highlight and discuss the socio-technological opportunities posed by the use of SFMs and finally present directions for future research. Our findings reveal four key features that can be used to evaluate SFMs to include reusability, self-power generation ability, energy awareness and aerosol filtration efficiency. We discover that SFM has potential for effective use in human tracking, contact tracing, disease detection and diagnosis or in monitoring asymptotic populations in future pandemics. Some SFMs have also been carefully designed to provide comfort and safety when used by patients with other respiratory diseases or comorbidities. However, some identified challenges include standards and quality control, ethical, security and privacy concerns. © 2001-2012 IEEE.

Smart Face Masks for Covid-19 Pandemic Management: A Concise Review of Emerging Architectures, Challenges and Future Research Directions

Smart sensing technology has been playing tremendous roles in digital healthcare management over time with great impacts. Lately, smart sensing has awoken the world by the advent of Smart Face Masks (SFM) in the global fight against the deadly Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic. In turn, a number of research studies on innovative SFM architectures and designs are emerging. However, there is currently no study that has systematically been conducted to identify and comparatively analyze the emerging architectures and designs of SFMs, their contributions, socio-technological implications, and current challenges. In this paper, we investigate the emerging SFMs in response to Covid-19 pandemic and provide a concise review of their key features and characteristics, design, smart technologies, and architectures. We also highlight and discuss the socio-technological opportunities posed by the use of SFMs and finally present directions for future research. Our findings reveal four key features that can be used to evaluate SFMs to include reusability, self-power generation ability, energy awareness and aerosol filtration efficiency. We discover that SFM has potential for effective use in human tracking, contact tracing, disease detection and diagnosis or in monitoring asymptotic populations in future pandemics. Some SFMs have also been carefully designed to provide comfort and safety when used by patients with other respiratory diseases or comorbidities. However, some identified challenges include standards and quality control, ethical, security and privacy concerns. IEEE

Terpenoids from Centella asiatica, a novel inhibitor against RNA-dependent-RNA polymerase activity of NSP12 of the SARS CoV-2 (COVID-19)

Covid-19, the first case of which was reported in Wuhan (China) in December 2019 was found to be a strain of coronaviruses like SARS and MERS reported earlier. These viruses are positive strain RNA viruses composed of both structural as well as non-structural proteins. The enzyme RdRp (RNA dependent RNA polymerase) stands responsible for catalyzing the replication of this virus within the host cell. A disruption in the core catalytic subunit composed of nsp12, nsp7, and nsp8 may inhibit the replication of the same. Different drugs targeting different sites on the virus have been developed. In this context, some of the natural products of the plant Centella asiatica was lead for further drug development against the target proteins of RdRp protein (PDB ID: 6NUR) through molecular docking. These compounds are 2,3-dihydroxyurs-12-en-28-oic acid, corosolic acid and pomolic acid which are triterpenoids and have highest binding affinity against RdRp protein thereby arresting the viral replication. Several previous studies showed triterpenoids as pertinent mediators implicated in the in vitro immune response.

An outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome-2019 (Covid-19): A major health concern

In Wuhan City, the province of Hubei, China, there appeared an unusual epidemic of pneumonia of uncertain ethology in December 2019. A novel coronavirus was identified by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as the triggering agent and subsequently named COVID-19. Considered a relative of SARS, which infected the lower respiratory tract and manifested in people as pneumonia, COVID-19 is the product of a beta-Corona virus called SARS-COV-2. The frequency of COVID-19 infection continue to increase, with more than 278,467 deaths worldwide till May 9, 2020. To stop their further spread scientists and researchers are racing to investigate the nature of this virus and their effects. We summarize the current state of knowledge around COVID-19and the role of some dietary vitamins and immune enhancers that may help the immune system in fight against COVID-19. Moreover, it also highlights the impact of COVID-19 lockdown on pollution particularly in India, in response to this global outbreak.