Assessing the Risks of Dampness and Mould Growth in Renovated Properties

A large portion of the UK housing stock was built before the introduction of the 1989’s building regulations in which insulated cavity walls became mandatory. It is estimated that 65% of the UK housing stock have uninsulated walls and 49% have single glazed leaky windows making them inefficient in terms of energy performance. There have been great efforts during the recent years to improve the quality and energy performance of such buildings through retrofitting/refurbishment not only to improve the living standards of their occupants but also to achieve UK’s carbon emission targets for 2050. Refurbishing such buildings to improve their quality/energy performance may, at the same time, increase the risk of poor indoor air quality (IAQ), condensation, dampness, and mould growth in these buildings. Many refurbished housing stock in the UK are facing similar problems. Damp and mould issues affect between 30-50% of new or refurbished buildings. There is therefore a need for appropriate design strategies not only to improve the quality and thermal performances of such buildings but also to reduce the aforementioned risks through better design, construction detailing, methods, and management processes. This paper reports on the first phase of a joint university/industry Knowledge Transfer project to address the above issues in renovated student accommodations in North West England. Temperature, relative humidity, CO2, and meter readings are measured and recorded in three case study buildings. Results revealed a direct relationship between energy consumption, IAQ, and occupants’ behaviours in the buildings. CO2, Temperature, and RH levels were more acceptable in one of the case study buildings; however, its energy consumption was 7 times higher when compared with a similar building

Comparison of Delay Distributions of Responses in a Home Area Network using Wi-Fi with and without in-network Data Aggregation

Smart Grid is divided into seven sub domains by NIST. The customer domain refers to the end users of electricity. In addition to the traditional role of consumer, they will also participate in generation as well as storage of energy. They would respond to signals coming from the grid and reduce or increase consumption and/or generation accordingly. For this purpose the customer premise should be equipped with an information network, which is called a Home Area Network. Architecture of a Home Area Network needs to be optimised in terms of time and energy. In this research the behaviour of a HAN in terms of time is studied. Delays of responses from the devices for the requests made by the central controller were measured for two most popular architectures, with and without in-network data aggregation. When the probability mass functions were plotted, it was evident that the delays in the two cases do not differ by much

Development of a flexible porous pipe using rubber crumb and recycled polyethylene

The main objective of this study is to develop a porous flexible rubber pipe utilizing the rubber crumband recycled polyethylene for micro irrigation system to maintain under ground moisture content.The research work was mainly based on the formula development and the process development.Initially number of formulations based on the plastic binder and vulcanized rubber powder (rubbercrumb) and their blends were used. After selecting some useful formulas, process development wascarried out based on the temperature settings of the extruder barrels and the mixing characteristics ofthe blends.Flexible porous pipe products based on the developed formulas were tested on range of applicationrequirements such as strength properties (tensile & tear strengths), resistance properties (UV, ESCR,chemical resistances), water discharge rate through its wall, pressure existence, durability and densityof the product. Results obtained were evaluated to select the most suitable compound compositionfor porous pipes that yields the best compromise of processability parameters and performancecharacteristics.After careful examination of performance applications and quality aspects of the selected product, aprocess was developed for commercial implementation with a competitive price. As the final productcontains fairly high percentage of recycled rubber (rubber crumb) it is going to be one of the majorsolution for growth of the amount of wasted tire in the environment. The product based on thedeveloped compound composition is fully implemented in commercial scale and expected to introduceto local market and also in foreign market.

Updates on the Morphometric Characterization of Indian Pangolin (Manis crassicaudata) in Sri Lanka

An accurate morphological description and analysis based on reliable data are unavailable for the geographically isolated population of M. crassicaudata in Sri Lanka. This study provides the most updated morphological description of M. crassicaudata with special reference to body measurements directly obtained from 27 specimens collected island-wide. Morphological parameters were recorded under three age classes that were defined based on their body weight (BW) and total body length (TBL); juvenile (BW: 7.3 kg TBL: >101 cm) and gender to reveal sexual dimorphism based on morphometric parameters. The TBL of adult males ranged between 137 and 177 cm while body weight ranged between 20.4 and 48.8 kg. The average count of body scales was 511 ± 21. The body scales were found arranged in 13 longitudinal rows with the highest number of scales observed on the vertebral scale row (16 ± 1). Three major scale morphs were identified; broad rhombic scales, elongated kite-shaped scales, and folded shaped scales. Broad rhombic shaped scales was the dominant scale type (80.49%) on the body (405 ± 7). The tail-length to body-length ratio of an Indian pangolin was 0.87. The tail length of an Indian pangolin is a reliable predictor of the TBL and has potential implications in quick field data gathering

Global Environmental Flow Information for the Sustainable Development Goals

Environmental flows (EF) are an important component of Goal 6 (the ‘water goal’) of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Yet, many countries still do not have well-defined criteria on how to define EF. In this study, we bring together the International Water Management Institute’s (IWMI’s) expertise and previous research in this area to develop a new methodology to quantify EF at a global scale. EF are developed for grids (0.1 degree spatial resolution) for different levels of health (defined as environmental management classes [EMCs]) of river sections. Additionally, EF have been separated into surface water and groundwater components, which also helps in developing sustainable groundwater abstraction (SGWA) limits. An online tool has been developed to calculate EF and SGWA in any area of interest

Plasmoelectronic-Based Ultrasensitive Assay of Tumor Suppressor microRNAs Directly in Patient Plasma: Design of Highly Specific Early Cancer Diagnostic Technology

It is becoming understood that microRNAs hold great promise for noninvasive liquid biopsies for screening for different types of cancer, but current state-of-the-art RT-PCR and microarray techniques have sensitivity limitations that currently restrict their use. Herein, we report a new transduction mechanism involving delocalization of photoexcited conduction electrons wave function of gold triangular nanoprism (Au TNP) in the presence of -ssDNA/microRNA duplexes. This plasmoelectronic effect increases the electronic dimension of Au TNPs and substantially affects their localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) properties that together allow us to achieve a sensitivity for microRNA assay as low as 140 zeptomolar concentrations for our nanoplasmonic sensors. We show that the position of a single base-pair mismatch in the -ssDNA/microRNA duplex dramatically alters the LSPR properties and detection sensitivity. The unprecedentedly high sensitivity of nanoplasmonic sensors has allowed us to assay four different microRNAs (microRNA-10b, -182, -143, and -145) from bladder cancer patient plasma (50 μL/sample). For the first time, we demonstrate the utility of a label-free, nanoplasmonic sensor in quantification of tumor suppressor microRNAs, the level of tumor suppressor microRNAs goes down in a cancer patient as compared to normal healthy individuals, in metastatic and nonmetastatic bladder cancer patient plasma. Our statistical analysis of patient samples unequivocally suggests that the tumor suppressor microRNAs are more specific biomarkers (p-value of <0.0001) than oncogenic microRNAs for differentiation between metastatic and nonmetastatic bladder cancer, and nonmetastatic cancer from healthy individuals. This work demonstrating the electron wave functions delocalization dependent ultrasensitive LSPR properties of noble metal nanoparticles has a great potential for fabrication of miniaturized and extremely powerful sensors to investigate microRNA properties in other cancers (for example breast, lung, and pancreatic) through liquid biopsy

ECO FRIENDLY SEWERAGE SYSTEM FOR A LOW INCOME COASTAL COMMUNITY

The purpose of a sewerage disposal system is to carry human excreta &amp; urine (Black water) and wastewater (Gray water) back to nature in a proper way without any harm to the environment as well as to human beings. But the implementing and operating costs of the sewerage disposal systems are normally very high which make low income communities unable to access these techniques. The aim of this study was to find a proper sewerage system for a low income coastal community, “Pittaniya Watta” in Moratuwa Municipal Council. The community consists of 142 families with about 710 people spreading over a 5051m2 limited area. At first the real situation and the problems prevailing were found  through a questionnaire survey considering a proper cross section. Questionnaires were analyzed and evaluated and daily water consumption, sewerage disposal capacities, communicannt’s desire were found. Finally Eco-sanitation units and simplified sewerage system were selected as the most economical solutions for the problem.Number of Eco-sanitation units required for the said community was 142. The simplified sewerage system (“off-site disposal system”) was designed considering both self cleansing velocity (0.5 m/s) as well as tractive tension (1 Pa). The results revealed that the best fitted minimum sewer gradient and the minimum sewer diameter were 1 in 208 and 100mm respectively. The collected sewage will be treated in primary and secondary stages in anaerobic digestion units. Three units were provided with each dimension length, width and depth of 6.2mx 3mx4m respectively and 0.2 m of free board. Using a lift station a head was added to the effluent to take it from 5m below the ground to the ground surface where the Reed bed was provided before it is released to the existing drains that are directed to the sea. Estimated hydraulic retention time of the reed bed is 6.79 hours while dimensions are water depth = 0.6m and surface area of the bed=78m2. According to the basic cost analysis on two systems Eco-san unit for each house is Rs 47925. When considering the whole community, the total cost for Eco-san was Rs 6,805,350 while the simplified sewerage system was Rs 2,886,000. However, at the operational stage of simplified sewerage system, with maintenance cost, the total cost was estimated as Rs 16,606,390.00. Therefore, based on the cost the most suitable system for the subjected community is Eco-san. But according to communicant’s desire, land scarcity, and population growth as well as future forecast on water consumption, improvement of the living standards etc. simplified sewerage system was selected as the best sewerage disposal system to implement at Pitaniya Watta low income community

Methodology for input data modelling in the simulation of manufacturing systems.

Computer simulation is a well-established decision support tool in manufacturing industry. However, factors such as wrong conceptualisation, inefficient input data modelling, inadequate verification and validation, poorly planned experimentation and lengthy model documentation inhibit the rapid development and deployment of simulation models. A serious limitation among the above factors is inefficient data modelling. Typically, more than one third of project time is spent on identification, collection, validation and analysis of input data.This study investigated potential problems which influence inefficient data modelling. On the basis of a detailed analysis of data modelling problems, the study recommends a methodology to address many of these difficulties. The proposed methodology, discussed in this thesis, is called MMOD (Methodology for Modelling Of input Data). An activity module library and a reference data model, both developed using the IDEF family of constructs, are the core elements of the methodology. The methodology provides guidance on the best way of implementation and provide a tool kit to accelerate the data modelling exercise. It assists the modeller to generate a customised data model (entity model), according to the knowledge gained from the conceptualisation phase of the simulation project. The resulting customised data model can then be converted into a relational database which shows how the entities and relationships will be transformed into an actual database implementation. The application of the MMOD through simulation life cycle also enables the modeller to deal with important phases in the simulation project, such as system investigation, problems and objective definitions and the level of detail definitions. A sample production cell with different level of detail has been used to illustrate the use of the methodology. In addition, a number of useful methods of data collection and the benefits of using a MMOD approach to support these methods and data rationalisation which accelerates the data collection exercise are also covered. The aim of data rationalisation is to reduce the volume of input data needed by simulation models. This work develops two useful data rationalisation methods which accelerate the data collection exercise and reduce the model complexity. This work produced a novel approach to support input data modelling in simulation of manufacturing system. This method is particularly useful when the complex systems are modelled