Assessment of Mobile Air Cleaners to Reduce the Concentration of Infectious Aerosol Particles Indoors

Airborne transmission via aerosol particles without close human contact is a possible source of infection with airborne viruses such as SARS-CoV-2 or influenza. Reducing this indirect infection risk, which is mostly present indoors, requires wearing adequate respiratory masks, the inactivation of the viruses with radiation or electric charges, filtering of the room air, or supplying ambient air by means of ventilation systems or open windows. For rooms without heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems, mobile air cleaners are a possibility for filtering out aerosol particles and therefore lowering the probability of indirect infections. The main questions are as follows: (1) How effectively do mobile air cleaners filter the air in a room? (2) What are the parameters that influence this efficiency? (3) Are there room situations that completely prevent the air cleaner from filtering the air? (4) Does the air cleaner flow make the stay in the room uncomfortable? To answer these questions, particle imaging methods were employed. Particle image velocimetry (PIV) was used to determine the flow field in the proximity of the air cleaner inlet and outlet to assess regions of unpleasant air movements. The filtering efficiency was quantified by means of particle image counting as a measure for the particle concentration at multiple locations in the room simultaneously. Moreover, different room occupancies and room geometries were investigated. Our results confirm that mobile air cleaners are suitable devices for reducing the viral load indoors. Elongated room geometries, e.g., hallways, lead to a reduced filtering efficiency, which needs to be compensated by increasing the volume flow rate of the device or by deploying multiple smaller devices. As compared to an empty room, a room occupied with desks, desk separation walls, and people does not change the filtering efficiency significantly, i.e., the change was less than 10%. Finally, the flow induced by the investigated mobile air cleaner does not reach uncomfortable levels, as by defined room comfort standards under these conditions, while at the same time reaching air exchange rates above 6, a value which is recommended for potentially infectious environments.

EMERGENCY CONVERSION OF SPORTS HALLS INTO TEMPORARY HOSPITALS CAUSED BY COVID-19 PANDEMIC Case Studies of Thermal Comfort and Energy Consumption Analysis

An emergency caused by the COVID-19 pandemic affected the rethinking of existing healthcare systems. The increased need for hospital beds appeared short after the outbreak of the pandemic and the solution was to adapt the existing buildings, primarily public ones. Among all, sports buildings, i.e. sports halls were successfully used around the globe for conversion into hospitals. Topic of the paper was to investigate whether sports halls in Serbia, which were also used as temporary hospitals, are suitable for conversion in terms of energy consumption needed for achieving thermal comfort. Two case studies were analysed. The energy simulations were done using the DesingBuilder software. The results of thermal comfort summary and energy consumption led to the conclusion that this building type in Serbia could be successfully used for hospital purposes. Although the multiple increase in energy consumption was noted during the heating period, the results were within the limits required by both national and international standards. © 2023 Society of Thermal Engineers of Serbia Published by the Vinča Institute of Nuclear Sciences, Belgrade, Serbia. This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 terms and conditions

Using the big data analysis and basic information from lecture Halls to predict air change rate

School lecture halls are often designed as confined spaces. During the period of COVID-19, indoor ventilation has played an even more important role. Considering the economic reasons and the immediacy of the effect, the natural ventilation mechanism becomes the primary issue to be evaluated. However, the commonly used CO2 tracer gas concentration decay method consumes a lot of time and cost. To evaluate the ventilation rate fast and effectively, we use the common methods of big data analysis - Principal Component Analysis (PCA), K-means and linear regression to analyze the basic information of the lecture hall to explore the relation between variables and air change rate. The analysis results show that the target 37 lecture halls are divided into two clusters, and the measured 11 lecture halls contributed 64.65%. When analyzing the two clusters separately, there is a linear relation between the opening area and air change rate (ACH), and the model error is between 6% and 12%, which proves the feasibility of the basic information of the lecture hall by calculating the air change rate. © 2023 Elsevier Ltd

Using the big data analysis and basic information from lecture Halls to predict air change rate

School lecture halls are often designed as confined spaces. During the period of COVID-19, indoor ventilation has played an even more important role. Considering the economic reasons and the immediacy of the effect, the natural ventilation mechanism becomes the primary issue to be evaluated. However, the commonly used CO2 tracer gas concentration decay method consumes a lot of time and cost. To evaluate the ventilation rate fast and effectively, we use the common methods of big data analysis - Principal Component Analysis (PCA), K-means and linear regression to analyze the basic information of the lecture hall to explore the relation between variables and air change rate. The analysis results show that the target 37 lecture halls are divided into two clusters, and the measured 11 lecture halls contributed 64.65%. When analyzing the two clusters separately, there is a linear relation between the opening area and air change rate (ACH), and the model error is between 6% and 12%, which proves the feasibility of the basic information of the lecture hall by calculating the air change rate.

Promoting Strategies for Healthy Environments in University Halls of Residence under Regular Epidemic Prevention and Control: An Importance-Performance Analysis from Zhejiang, China.

In the post-epidemic era, regular epidemic prevention and control is a daunting and ongoing task for nations all around the world. University halls of residence have been important spaces where university students balance their studies, work, and personal lives after COVID-19. Therefore, a healthy physical living environment deserves more attention. This paper compares situations before and after COVID-19 in an effort to evaluate the impact of indoor environments in university halls of residence on students. The study proposed eight vital dimensions for creating a healthy university hall of residence environment and, from 14 September to 4 October 2022, used an online questionnaire to collect data from 301 university students studying in Zhejiang, China. The key quality of service characteristics for fostering a healthy environment in university halls of residence were discovered using descriptive statistical analysis and revised importance-performance analysis (IPA). We found that an improved indoor physical environment and efficient arrangement of indoor space were crucial for the health of university students. The quality of educational services could be improved, and indoor exercise should be utilized effectively, both of which can contribute significantly to a healthy indoor environment. This study aims to contribute to the development of future initiatives to support healthy physical living environments in university halls of residence.

Reflections on ICRA 2022 [President’s Message]

Having witnessed the nearly five thousand participants gathered in Philadelphia for the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2022, I think it’s safe to say that in-person meetings are emphatically back. It’s true that the coronavirus continues to evolve and still stubbornly refuses to go away, and many travel restrictions across borders remain in place. Still, after more than two years of meeting remotely, the chance to have informal conversations in the hallway with speakers, to connect with both old and new friends outside meetings, and to disconnect from the distractions of daily life and rituals were, especially for me, too much to pass up. To the organizers and volunteers who organized such a tremendously successful event through the uncertainty and challenges of the pandemic, let me express my deep gratitude on behalf of the entire robotics community.

GOVERNMENTAL WEBSITES QUALITY IN ROMANIAN CITIES: USABILITY, ACCESSIBILITY, AND THE INFLUENCE OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

The website of any governmental institution is the main channel through which digital public services, both informational and transactional, are offered. This became even more relevant during pandemic times, when face-to-face interaction was severely curtailed in most European countries. This happened in Romania also, and our aim with this research (repeated once every two years from now on) is to evaluate the quality of the websites offered by Romanian city halls in large and medium-sized cities. Most of the services offered by the government to citizens and companies are, in Romania, provided at the local level by city halls. Access to these services can be helped or hampered by the site ergonomics, loading speed or its overall quality. We are also trying to ascertain if other factors (the amount of collected taxes, the size of the city, the political party of the mayor, etc.) has any influence on the quality of the official site. Any such correlations could inform the necessary decisions that aim to improve the websites and, ultimately, the success of digital public services (both transactional and informational) that use it as a delivery channel. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Transylvanian Review of Administrative Sciences is the property of Transylvanian Review of Administrative Sciences and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Designing the temporary dental clinic in the Covid-19 global pandemic

Covid-19 pandemic has directed hospitals to concentrate services for patients who are positive or still in undefined status. Some countries are even forced to build temporary structures or utilize multifunctional buildings such as sports/public halls. On the other hand, hospitals still have to keep performing other routine services and this becomes a challenge for them. When global attention nowadays focuses more on how hospitals serve the Covid-19 cases, this research proposes another side of healthcare service needed by people in the pandemic, which is the dental clinic. The spread of Covid-19 through droplets puts both dental patients and practitioners at risk target of Covid-19 transmission. Therefore, particular standards and protocols are mandatory to be deployed. A prototype design of the temporary dental clinic is the main output from this research. The main objective is to provide service for the community without being afraid of contracting the pandemic as the clinic will be isolated from the regular hospital buildings. To achieve this objective, this research employed three approaches for the methodology. It was started with the desk study to review references on recent technology of temporary building structures. Followed by the online questionnaire using the Google platform distributed to 206 registered dental practitioners in Aceh, in collaboration with the Indonesian Dental Association, Aceh Province, Indonesia. The questionnaire collected the data related to the needs, standards, procedures, and dental service protocols under the Covid-19 pandemic as the main reference for the design process. The last approach was gathering feedback from dentists and international architects who are experts in building science and technology. This was done through a series of pre-design reviews. This research has a high degree of urgency globally, including Saudi Arabia, which is also impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. It is also in line with Saudi Vision 2030 to enhance the standard quality and sustainability of healthcare services. The prototype design proposed in this research does not only contribute to the Covid-19 pandemic in particular but also post-Covid scenarios or other possible global pandemics in the future.

High Sensitivity and Specificity of Dormitory-Level Wastewater Surveillance for COVID-19 during Fall Semester 2020 at Syracuse University, New York.

A residential building's wastewater presents a potential non-invasive method of surveilling numerous infectious diseases, including SARS-CoV-2. We analyzed wastewater from 16 different residential locations at Syracuse University (Syracuse, NY, USA) during fall semester 2020, testing for SARS-CoV-2 RNA twice weekly and compared the presence of clinical COVID-19 cases to detection of the viral RNA in wastewater. The sensitivity of wastewater surveillance to correctly identify dormitories with a case of COVID-19 ranged from 95% (95% confidence interval [CI] = 76-100%) on the same day as the case was diagnosed to 73% (95% CI = 53-92%), with 7 days lead time of wastewater. The positive predictive value ranged from 20% (95% CI = 13-30%) on the same day as the case was diagnosed to 50% (95% CI = 40-60%) with 7 days lead time. The specificity of wastewater surveillance to correctly identify dormitories without a case of COVID-19 ranged from 60% (95% CI = 52-67%) on the day of the wastewater sample to 67% (95% CI = 58-74%) with 7 days lead time. The negative predictive value ranged from 99% (95% CI = 95-100%) on the day of the wastewater sample to 84% (95% CI = 77-91%) with 7 days lead time. Wastewater surveillance for SARS-CoV-2 at the building level is highly accurate in determining if residents have a COVID-19 infection. Particular benefit is derived from negative wastewater results that can confirm a building is COVID-19 free.

Menstrual Health: Taking Action Against Period Poverty

Many menstruators tend to conceal their menses out of fear or embarrassment, which yields conditioned self-silencing of their needs and further perpetuation of a generational and societal spiral of silence.9 This resounding stigma continually hinders both open discussion and policy engagement on menstrual experiences, management, and hygiene needs. [...]the purpose of this work is to combat this stigma by describing five actionable steps we can all take to begin addressing period poverty. Many who learn of this real and concerning phenomenon are surprised. [...]the definition of and concepts related to period poverty need to be openly discussed in public forums, such as town halls, city council meetings, and school board meetings-any place where social services and resource limitations are discussed. CONDUCT RESEARCH AND ENGAGE WITH THE COMMUNITY In-depth understanding and research on period poverty remain limited, and further research is needed to better conceptualize the full impact of period poverty in the community. [...]application of collaborative communitybased participatory research (CBPR) is necessary. CBPR places emphasis on community-researcher collaboration, which can uncover unique insights into the sociocultural composition of the community.9 This partnership-based approach can help to develop a more comprehensive understanding of public health concerns within a specific population, as well as potential solutions.9 CBPR may help facilitate and foster new evidence-based understanding of period poverty and can be used to ultimately address menstrual equity. [...]varied research methodologies should be considered and explored.