A Sustainable Indoor Air Quality Monitoring Approach through Potable Living Wall for Closed Confined Spaces: A Way Forward to Fight Covid19

The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly influenced various aspects of life, part of which has consequently paved the way toward improvements in building design criteria, especially for closed confined spaces. The closed confined spaces are directly proportional to the quantity and quality of the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) present in the atmosphere, from which human beings breathe. In managing the impact produced by VOCs, a practical, sustainable, economical and environmentally friendly concept of indoor living walls has become a prominent feature for improving the indoor air quality (IAQ) of closed confined spaces to efficiently reduce sick building syndrome (SBS) factors. In modification of common practice of ventilation systems, living wall technology leverages the natural ability of plants to purify indoor air quality by reducing air pollutants and allows the recycling of indoor air and the creation of a productive and inspiring environment. In this paper, the concept of a portable living wall through the use of a native plant species locally available in Sindh, Pakistan is introduced. Herein, the portable living concept was assessed by means of the design, construction, and data collection (testing and monitoring) of various environmental parameters carried out before and after the installation of the living wall. The study was monitored for 90 days, and analyses for various types of air pollutants were carried out in the environmental laboratory. During the monitoring period, the parameters humidity, VOCs, hazardous chemicals of concern (HCOC), CO2 and CO showed reductions in their values, with changes observed ranging from 61.5 to 58%, 0.66 to 0.01 ppm, 0.2 to 0.01 ppm, 1070 to 528 ppm and 0.2 to 0.01 ppm, respectively. The outcomes showed noticeable changes in air pollutants coupled with reductions in heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) energy consumption by up to 25%, mainly due to limited air requirements for ventilation

The cross-sectional study of anxiety levels and ratio of severity of thirteen symptoms of anxiety among medical students

Background: Anxiety is defined as physical, behavioral, social and psychological response to treat self-concept characterized by subjective, consciously perceived feelings of tension. Nowadays anxiety is most commonly found among medical students. This study was conducted to find out the anxiety levels and ratio of severity of thirteen symptoms of anxiety.Methods: A questionnaire based study was conducted among 178 medical students which tests the level of anxiety and severity of symptoms of anxiety. The questionnaire used was hamilton anxiety rating scale (HAM-A).Results: Out of 178 students, 80 (44.94%) students scored mild anxiety levels, 63 (35.39%) students scored moderate anxiety levels and 35 (19.66%) students scored severe anxiety levels.Conclusions: Mild form of anxiety is much more common among medical students and majority of these medical students are females. Moreover, the symptoms of anxiety including tension, anxious mood, depressed mood, insomnia, fear and CVS symptoms appear with moderate severity in majority of medical students while on the other hand some symptoms including general somatic muscular and sensory symptoms, difficulties in concentration and memory, genitor-urinary symptoms, respiratory symptoms, GIT symptoms and other autonomic symptoms appear with least severity among majority of medical students

Effect of early tranexamic acid administration on mortality, hysterectomy, and other morbidities in women with post-partum haemorrhage (WOMAN): an international, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial

Background Post-partum haemorrhage is the leading cause of maternal death worldwide. Early administration of tranexamic acid reduces deaths due to bleeding in trauma patients. We aimed to assess the effects of early administration of tranexamic acid on death, hysterectomy, and other relevant outcomes in women with post-partum haemorrhage. Methods In this randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, we recruited women aged 16 years and older with a clinical diagnosis of post-partum haemorrhage after a vaginal birth or caesarean section from 193 hospitals in 21 countries. We randomly assigned women to receive either 1 g intravenous tranexamic acid or matching placebo in addition to usual care. If bleeding continued after 30 min, or stopped and restarted within 24 h of the first dose, a second dose of 1 g of tranexamic acid or placebo could be given. Patients were assigned by selection of a numbered treatment pack from a box containing eight numbered packs that were identical apart from the pack number. Participants, care givers, and those assessing outcomes were masked to allocation. We originally planned to enrol 15 000 women with a composite primary endpoint of death from all-causes or hysterectomy within 42 days of giving birth. However, during the trial it became apparent that the decision to conduct a hysterectomy was often made at the same time as randomisation. Although tranexamic acid could influence the risk of death in these cases, it could not affect the risk of hysterectomy. We therefore increased the sample size from 15 000 to 20 000 women in order to estimate the effect of tranexamic acid on the risk of death from post-partum haemorrhage. All analyses were done on an intention-to-treat basis. This trial is registered with ISRCTN76912190 (Dec 8, 2008); ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT00872469; and PACTR201007000192283. Findings Between March, 2010, and April, 2016, 20 060 women were enrolled and randomly assigned to receive tranexamic acid (n=10 051) or placebo (n=10 009), of whom 10 036 and 9985, respectively, were included in the analysis. Death due to bleeding was significantly reduced in women given tranexamic acid (155 [1·5%] of 10 036 patients vs 191 [1·9%] of 9985 in the placebo group, risk ratio [RR] 0·81, 95% CI 0·65–1·00; p=0·045), especially in women given treatment within 3 h of giving birth (89 [1·2%] in the tranexamic acid group vs 127 [1·7%] in the placebo group, RR 0·69, 95% CI 0·52–0·91; p=0·008). All other causes of death did not differ significantly by group. Hysterectomy was not reduced with tranexamic acid (358 [3·6%] patients in the tranexamic acid group vs 351 [3·5%] in the placebo group, RR 1·02, 95% CI 0·88–1·07; p=0·84). The composite primary endpoint of death from all causes or hysterectomy was not reduced with tranexamic acid (534 [5·3%] deaths or hysterectomies in the tranexamic acid group vs 546 [5·5%] in the placebo group, RR 0·97, 95% CI 0·87-1·09; p=0·65). Adverse events (including thromboembolic events) did not differ significantly in the tranexamic acid versus placebo group. Interpretation Tranexamic acid reduces death due to bleeding in women with post-partum haemorrhage with no adverse effects. When used as a treatment for postpartum haemorrhage, tranexamic acid should be given as soon as possible after bleeding onset. Funding London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Pfizer, UK Department of Health, Wellcome Trust, and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Reduction of reactive red 241 by oxygen insensitive azoreductase purified from a novel strain Staphylococcus KU898286.

An oxygen insensitive azoreductase was purified from a novel bacterial strain (Staphylococcus sp. KU898286) that was isolated from an abandoned site of the textile waste discharge unit. The isolated enzyme had efficiently cleaved the azo-bonds through reductive transformation under aerobic conditions. Initial phenotypic characterization and final construction of phylogenetic tree on the basis of 16s rDNA demonstrated 99% resemblance of the isolate to Staphylococcus aureus. The purified azoreductase was found to have a broad spectrum activity that reduced RR241 at a concentration of 50mg/L with pH between 6-8 and 30°C temperature). Besides, the reactive red 241 (RR241) was reduced at extracellular level as well as NADH dependent intracellular level. Complete reduction/ decolourization of RR241 were achieved after 18 hrs of exposure. The final degradation product observed to be 2-nephthol was purified by High Pressure Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) and the molecular mass was computed by Gas Chromatography-Mass spectroscopy (GC-MS). The study revealed a cost effective and eco-friendly approach to degrade the toxic dyes into less toxic products by Staphylococcus sp. KU898286

Molecular and Morphological Characterization of <i>Eimeria crandallis</i> Isolated from Deer (<i>Cervidae</i>) in Different Captive Animals

Coccidiosis is a protozoan disease that is characterized by diffuse diarrhea, dehydration, emaciation accompanied by moderate morbidity and mild mortality in animals and birds. The current study targeted the molecular characterization of Eimeria isolates in captive deer from different localities in Lahore. The host species was the Cervidae family, such as Hog deer (Axis porcinus) and Punjab urial (Ovis aries vignei). The Eimeria crandallis was isolated from zoo animals. The DNA was extracted from oocysts and amplified by using reported oligonucleotide primers that exhibited the 809 bp product. These were analyzed by using the small subunit 18S rRNA gene-based evolutionary relationship with 36 other Eimeria species reported in caprine, cervinae, bovines, avians, and rodents. Light microscopic examination exhibited 3.29% (7/213) Eimeria-positive fecal samples with morphological features, including sub-spherical forms, the presence of micropyle with polar cap, and oocysts diameters (μm) ranging from 24.32 ± 1.61 to 18.94 ± 1.51. The phylogenetic tree constitutes four distinct clusters with relatively higher values. The evolutionary network showed that sequences were clustered in the monophyletic group of Eimeria species reported in caprine and cervinae. The nucleotide and amino acid sequence similarity matrix analysis exhibited 99.5–99.9% identity of the study isolates with Eimeria crandallis (AF336339). This study provides relevant baseline data to develop strategic control measures for coccidiosis in zoo animals. However, further investigations are required to place the hog deer and Punjab urial-derived E. crandallis into the caprine-originated cluster

Phtotoxicity assessment of reactive red 241 and its degradation product.

<p>Phtotoxicity assessment of reactive red 241 and its degradation product.</p

Phylogenetic analysis of the strain S1 (KU898286) following neighbour joining approach.

<p>Bootstrap values (100%) as generated from Phylogeny.fr, 2016. Here bar indicates the 0.4 substitution after every nucleotide position.</p

SDS-PAGE of azoreductase (purified) showing a weight of 29 kDa.

<p>(10% gel with 0.1% SDS; Lane 2 = 65ng of purified azoreductase).</p

HPLC elution profile.

<p>(a) reactive red 241 and (b) its reduced metabolites after 18hrs of exposure to the enzyme (dye conc. was 50mgL^-1).</p

Effect of different conditions on degradation of reactive red 241 (RR241).

<p>Congo red (CR), methyl red (MR) and azobenzene (AZ) by azoreductse from bacterial isolate S1 (a) incubation time (0-40hrs) at constant pH 7, temperature of 30°C and concentration of 50mg/L (b) incubation temperature (0–50°C) at constant pH 7, incubation time 16hrs and concentration of 50mg/L (c) pH (4–12) at constant temperature 30°C, incubation time 16hrs and concentration of 50mg/L (d) concentration of substrate at constant temperature 30°C, incubation time 16hrs and pH 7.</p