ABSTRACT
Water heating in Pakistan and its neighboring countries predominantly relies on inefficient, natural gas-wasting water heaters whose mechanical design has remained largely unmodified since their inception in the 1960s. The inefficiency of these water heaters has added much to the woes of depleting gas reserves of the region, leading to a widening demand-supply gap. Pakistan is facing its worst ever natural gas crisis due to a COVID-19 hit economy that cannot carry the burden of expensive imports, especially during the Russo-Ukrainian conflict that has sent the gas prices soaring in the international market. We respond to this challenge with a sense of urgency by proposing a solution that minimizes the wastage of natural gas in water heating, which consumes about half the gas supplied to residential consumers in the country. Our solution replaces the mechanical control of the water heater with an IoT-inspired, electrical retrofit design combining hardware and software for smart control through user-defined schedules or machine learning, while solving several challenges that arise from replacing a mechanical control system with an electrical one. Empirical results demonstrate 70% reduction in consumption. © 2022 ACM.
ABSTRACT
Introduction Hypoxemia, acute respiratory distress syndrome and coagulopathy are common issues experiences by pts with severe COVID-19 disease.1 The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of anticoagulation therapy in COVID-19 patients. Methods This is a retrospective observational study for patients admitted to a busy district hospital during the peak period of the COVID-19 pandemic. All patients aged >18 with suspected or confirmed RT-PCR COVID-19 and raised D-Dimer were included in this study. Data including demographics, comorbidities, and effects of anticoagulation on mortality were examined. Results A total of 628 pts with more males (n = 365;58.1%), and 48.7% >75 years were included in the study. 27.9% were obese (BMI-30);and 25% were overweight (BMI 25-29.9). 448/628 (71.3%) had a positive swab for coronavirus and a further 70 patients (11.1%) had probable infection based on clinic-radiological suspicion. Nearly half (n = 311;49.5%) of the patients had hypertension and a quarter (n = 166;26.4%) had diabetes. A total of 226 (36%) pts died of which 85.8% (n = 194) had a positive swab compared to 12.8% (n = 29) with negative swab. This was statistically significant with a p-value of 0.001. Patients with a raised D-dimer 150/628 (23.8%) received therapeutic dose anticoagulation and 408/628 (64.9%) received prophylaxis or no anticoagulation. 53 patients (22.5%) of those who received treatment dose died compared to 183 (77.5%) who received prophylactic dose or no anticoagulation due to comorbidities. This was statistically significant (p value 0.02). Conclusion Therapeutic anticoagulation significantly reduces mortality in COVID-19 patients with a high D-dimer.