Priorities for use of passive and active solar systems in cold climate buildings.

Increasing consumption of energy derived from fossil fuels while has caused rapid economic growth in different communities, due to pollutant emission and its consequences, has faced the world with risky changes as well. Limitation of this non-renewable sources cased that energy consumption optimization policy become the governments work programs outline. On the other hand, growth of science and technology in the world has led to transformation of the commonly used methods of energy consumption, and discovering new energy sources has caused a major evolution in development of human societies. In this regard, the relatively simple technology, not  polluting the environment etc. are the reasons that make the necessity of using solar energy more and more evident. Since most of the energy is consumed in buildings, functional identification of optimization systems in buildings is essential. The present study aimed to introduce, evaluate, and set priorities for use of energy systems in buildings. To this aim, first, all systems were identified and their fields of application were specified. Then, in a comparative study, the priorities for use of the systems and their application were examined in building sector.Key words: energy, solar system, active systems, passive systems

Exploring the influence of indoor environment and spatial layout on changed behaviours of people with dementia in a nursing home

People with dementia sometimes show changed behaviours such as agitation, hallucination, and wandering during the moderate and severe dementia stages. In addition to individual health factors, contextual factors, such as indoor environment conditions, spatial layout, and human activities, may trigger or influence these behaviours, but there is a lack of solid evidence. We used mixed methods to collect data, including the fly-on-the-wall method to observe the residents' daily lives and deploying environmental sensors to monitor the indoor environments of two central living rooms and ten bedrooms in a nursing home in the Netherlands. A data collection campaign from August to September 2022 focused on the indoor environmental parameters, ventilation control of monitored rooms, the observation of ten participants' locations, activities, clothing levels, and changed behaviours. The data were analysed using Fisher's exact tests and heatmap analysis. The results show that even though the nursing home was well maintained according to existing indoor environmental quality standards, the room conditions of temperature, TVOC, and HCHO levels and contextual factors (main activity and numbers of people in the space) were significantly correlated with locations of changed behaviours. By analysing observation data with spatial layout, participants had larger activity ranges on the days that exhibited changed behaviours than those without. Most of these behaviours were observed at the edge of common spaces, where caregivers need to pay more attention

Treatment of wastewater from rubber industry in Malaysia

Presently, Malaysia is the third largest rubber producer in the world, whereby the rubber industry is an economically and socially significant industry. Rubber industry consumes large volumes of water, uses chemicals and other utilities and produces enormous amounts of wastes and effluent. Discharge of untreated rubber effluent to waterways resulted in water pollution that affected the human health. With a new global trend towards a sustainable development, the industry needs to focus on cleaner production technology, waste minimization, utilization of waste, resource recovery and recycling of water. The present work aims at highlighting various technologies that currently have been used for treatment of rubber effluent in Malaysia. The work introduces the basis of these processes including their benefits and also problems. It also adheres to the future trends of rubber effluent treatment in Malaysia by reviewing various treatment technologies for natural rubber industry implemented by Thailand, the world largest rubber producer. These new and effective effluent treatment methods would minimize environmental pollution of rubber industry and bring it to become sustainable and environmental friendly.Key words: Rubber industry, effluent, waste management, Malaysia

Supporting dementia care by monitoring indoor environmental quality in a nursing home

The indoor environment quality in care facilities impacts residents’ daily lives. Sensor technology has been proven useful in evaluating the indoor environment of buildings, but the process of using this information to improve residents’ comfort, specifically in the context of nursing homes, is still underdeveloped. Thus, this study focuses on monitoring indoor environmental quality in a nursing home in the Netherlands, supported by professional caregivers’ insights. A campaign was conducted for one year to monitor eight rooms, and a mixed-method approach was used to collect and analyse the data on local weather, building facility operation and proxies’ responses to residents’ comfort. Seventeen care professionals and twenty-two guardians (visitors) answered questions based on their opinions and observation. The results show that the low indoor humidity during heating seasons and high CO2 concentration at night were the main factors leading to environment-related symptoms of residents and care professionals, such as dry eyes. Furthermore, we found that data outliers can help to reveal residents’ occupancy, ventilation habits and activity time, thus showing the application value of environmental sensors in dementia care. We also recommend using non-intrusive sensors for nursing home residents and taking into account room layouts and occupants’ conditions before installing sensors

Nano-Fe3O4/O2: Green, Magnetic and Reusable Catalytic System for the Synthesis of Benzimidazoles

Magnetic nano-Fe3O4 was applied in the presence of atmospheric air as a green, efficient, heterogeneous and reusable catalytic system for the synthesis of benzimidazoles via the reactions of o-phenylenediamine (1 eq) with aryl aldehydes (1 eq) in excellentyields (85–97 %) and short reaction times (30–100 min) with a proposed mechanism.Keywords: Benzimidazole, benzene-1,2-diamine, aldehyde, nano-Fe3O4, heterogeneous catalyst, magnetite, O

Understanding the Twitter Usage of Science Citation Index (SCI) Journals

This paper investigates the Twitter interaction patterns of journals from the Science Citation Index (SCI) of Master Journal List (MJL). A total of 953,253 tweets extracted from 857 journal accounts, were analyzed in this study. Findings indicate that SCI journals interacted more with each other but much less with journals from other citation indices. The network structure of the communication graph resembled a tight crowd network, with Nature journals playing a major part. Information sources such as news portals and scientific organizations were mentioned more in tweets, than academic journal Twitter accounts. Journals with high journal impact factors (JIFs) were found to be prominent hubs in the communication graph. Differences were found between the Twitter usage of SCI journals with Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) journals.Comment: Paper accepted for presentation at 21st International Conference on Asia-Pacific Digital Libraries (ICADL 2019

Hypoglycemic effect of white (Morus alba L.) and black (Morus nigra L.) mulberry fruits in diabetic rat

The aim of the present study was to investigate the hypoglycemic effect of white (Morus alba L.) and black (Morus nigra L.) mulberry fruits either used individually or in a combination on alloxan diabetic rats. These fruits are reported to be rich in antioxidants, flavonoids and phenolics that can potentially fight against diabetes mellitus. Male albino rats were divided into 5 groups: normal control, alloxan-diabetic control, diabetic rats treated with white mulberry fruit powder at 5% in the diet, diabetic rats treated with black mulberry fruit powder at 5% in the diet and diabetic rats treated with mixture of white and black mulberry fruits powder at 5% in the diet. After 4 weeks of treatment, blood glucose level, liver and kidney enzymes activity, lipid profile, lipid peroxidation and histopathological studies on liver, kidney and pancreas were evaluated. The mixture of white and black mulberry fruits showed the most significant (p < 0.05) improvement in feed efficiency ratio with increasing body weight gain, as well as decrease in blood glucose level and liver-kidney dysfunction when compared with diabetic control rats. Significant decrease in serum cholesterol, triglycerides and low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDLc) as well as significant increase in high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDLc) in diabetic rats was observed with all treatments. Moreover, mulberry fruits administration caused significant inhibition in lipid peroxidation and α-amylase activity. In addition, the beneficial effect of all treatments was further confirmed with histopathological examination of liver, kidney and pancreas. This study reveals hypoglycemic and hypolipidemic effects of white and black mulberry fruits either used individually or in combination as a dietary supplement in alloxan diabetic rats