Exploring Indoor Health: An In-depth Field Study on the Indoor Air Quality Dynamics

Indoor air pollution, a significant driver of respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, claims 3.2 million lives yearly, according to the World Health Organization, highlighting the pressing need to address this global crisis. In contrast to unconstrained outdoor environments, room structures, floor plans, ventilation systems, and occupant activities all impact the accumulation and spread of pollutants. Yet, comprehensive in-the-wild empirical studies exploring these unique indoor air pollution patterns and scope are lacking. To address this, we conducted a three-month-long field study involving over 28 indoor spaces to delve into the complexities of indoor air pollution. Our study was conducted using our custom-built DALTON air quality sensor and monitoring system, an innovative IoT air quality monitoring solution that considers cost, sensor type, accuracy, network connectivity, power, and usability. Our study also revealed that conventional measures, such as the Indoor Air Quality Index (IAQI), don't fully capture complex indoor air quality dynamics. Hence, we proposed the Healthy Home Index (HHI), a new metric considering the context and household activities, offering a more comprehensive understanding of indoor air quality. Our findings suggest that HHI provides a more accurate air quality assessment, underscoring the potential for wide-scale deployment of our indoor air quality monitoring platform.Comment: 15 pages, 19 figure

A Comprehensive Solution to Automated Inspection Device Selection Problems using ELECTRE Methods

Selection of an automated inspection device for an explicit industrial application is one of the most challenging problems in the current manufacturing environment. It has become more and more complicated due to increasing complexity, advanced features and facilities that are endlessly being integrated into the devices by different manufacturers. Selection of inspection devices plays a significant role in a manufacturing system for cost effectiveness and improved productivity. This paper focuses on the application of a very popular Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) tool, i.e. ELimination and Et Choice Translating REality (ELECTRE) for solving an automated inspection device selection problem in a discrete manufacturing environment. Using a sample case study from the published literature, this paper attempts to show how different variants of the ELECTRE method, namely ELECTRE II, IS, III, IV and TRI can be suitably applied in choosing the most efficient alternative that accounts for both the decision maker’s intervention and other technical elements. Using different ELECTRE methods, a list of all the possible choices from the best to the worst suitable devices is obtained while taking into account different selection attributes. The ranking performance of these methods is also compared with that of the past researchers

A NOVEL HYBRID METHOD FOR NON-TRADITIONAL MACHINING PROCESS SELECTION USING FACTOR RELATIONSHIP AND MULTI-ATTRIBUTIVE BORDER APPROXIMATION METHOD

Selection of the most appropriate non-traditional machining process (NTMP) for a definite machining requirement can be observed as a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) problem with conflicting criteria. This paper proposes a novel hybrid method encompassing factor relationship (FARE) and multi-attributive border approximation area comparison (MABAC) methods for selection and evaluation of NTMPs. The application of FARE method is pioneered in NTMP assessment domain to estimate criteria weights. It significantly condenses the problem of pairwise comparisons for estimating criteria weights in MCDM environment. In order to analyze and rank different NTMPs in accordance with their performance and technical properties, MABAC method is applied. Computational procedure of FARE-MABAC hybrid model is demonstrated while solving an NTMP selection problem for drilling cylindrical through holes on non-conductive ceramic materials. The results achieved by FARE-MABAC method exactly corroborate with those obtained by the past researchers which validate the usefulness of this method while solving complex NTMP selection problems

Amino Acid Compositions of 27 Food Fishes and Their Importance in Clinical Nutrition

Proteins and amino acids are important biomolecules which regulate key metabolic pathways and serve as precursors for synthesis of biologically important substances; moreover, amino acids are building blocks of proteins. Fish is an important dietary source of quality animal proteins and amino acids and play important role in human nutrition. In the present investigation, crude protein content and amino acid compositions of important food fishes from different habitats have been studied. Crude protein content was determined by Kjeldahl method and amino acid composition was analyzed by high performance liquid chromatography and information on 27 food fishes was generated. The analysis showed that the cold water species are rich in lysine and aspartic acid, marine fishes in leucine, small indigenous fishes in histidine, and the carps and catfishes in glutamic acid and glycine. The enriched nutrition knowledge base would enhance the utility of fish as a source of quality animal proteins and amino acids and aid in their inclusion in dietary counseling and patient guidance for specific nutritional needs

Studies On Proteins - Nucleic Acids Interactions In Regulation Of Replication And Transcription

Negative stranded RNA viruses are considered as one of the most dreaded virus group innature due to its broad spectrum of infectivity. Chandipura virus (CHPV), the virus of interest for this study belongs to the rhabdoviridae family. Viruses belonging to this family owe its name rhabdo, meaning rod-shaped in Greek, to the typical bullet shaped morphology.Similarities between CHPV and Vesicular Stomatitis Virus (VSV) in genetic makeup, polypeptide composition and life cycle lead to include CHPV into vesiculovirus genus within the virus order mononegaviridae. CHPV and other mononegavirales are characterized by non-segmented, single stranded RNA genome of anti-message sense (negative sense)

Construction & establishment of two minigenome rescue systems for Chandipura virus driven by recombinant vaccinia virus expressing T7 polymerase

Background & objectives: Chandipura virus (CHPV) is an emerging pathogenic rhabdovirus with a high case fatality rate. There are no reports of a minigenome system for CHPV, which could help its study without having to use the infectious agent. This study was, therefore, undertaken for the establishment of T7 polymerase-driven minigenome system for CHPV. Methods: The minigenome rescue system for CHPV consists of three helper plasmids expressing the nucleocapsid protein (N), phosphoprotein (P) and large protein (L) based on a recombinant vaccinia virus expressing bacteriophage T7 polymerase (vTF7-3). The minigenome construct is composed of a reporter gene, flanked by the non-coding regions of CHPV. Two minigenomes were constructed in an antigenome or complimentary sense, expressing luciferase or green fluorescent protein (GFP). The minigenome system was evaluated by co-transfection of the minigenome construct and three helper plasmids into CV-1 cells and analysis of the reporter gene activity. Results: All the helper proteins were expressed from the helper plasmids confirmed by Western blotting. Expression of reporter genes was observed from both the GFP and luciferase-based minigenomes. Green fluorescence could be visualized directly in live CV-1 cells. Luciferase activity was found to be significantly different from control. Interpretation & conclusions: The results showed that the helper plasmids provided all the necessary viral structural proteins required for the production of minigenome mRNA template, which in turn could rescue the expression of reporter genes. Thus, these minigenomes can be applied to mimic the manifestation of CHPV life cycle

A Method For Accounting For Pile Setup and Relaxation in Pile Design and Quality Assurance

When piles are installed by jacking or driving, they cause substantial changes in the state of soil located near the pile. These changes result from the complex loading imposed on the soil by expansion of a cylindrical cavity to make room for the pile, by multiple cycles of shearing in the vertical direction as the pile gradually moves down into the ground, and by the slow drainage associated with clayey soils. If a pile is load-tested a short time after installation, it will develop an axial resistance that reflects the existence in the soil of the excess pore pressures caused by the installation process. After the excess pore pressures dissipate, the axial pile resistance will be different from that measured in the short term. This difference is referred to as pile setup (if the resistance increases) or relaxation (if the resistance drops). This report focuses on the pile setup observed in clayey soils, in which it can be quite significant. Pile setup in clays result primarily from shaft resistance gains with time after installation because the base resistance contributes proportionally much less in soft to medium stiff clays, which are the focus of the research. Accordingly, our focus has been on analyzing setup in shaft resistance, validating the equations resulting from these analyses and then proposing design and quality assurance procedures based on the results of the analyses. The analyses were done using the finite element method and an advanced constitutive model developed specifically for this project. The constitutive model captures all the key features required for these analyses, and the finite element analyses are 1D analyses of shaft resistance that can handle the large deformations and displacements involved in pile installation. The results of the analyses compare well with load test data from the literature. Design equations for the unit shaft resistance are proposed. Equations for unit shaft resistance in the short term (for comparison with load tests) are also proposed

Studies on Proteins - Nucleic Acids Interactions in Regulation of Replication and Transcription

From our knowledge of living species, it is quite hard to imagine a living organism without macromolecules even at its most primitive stage of evolution. Macromolecules found within the cell such as proteins and nucleic acids are the essence of life. Synthesis of all biomolecules found within a cell depends on the collaboration of several protein molecules. Within the cell, proteins are used as enzyme for catalysis, structural components and energy generation. Proteins are produced through an amazing assembly process, involving DNA as a template for three types of RNA (mRNA, rRNA and tRNA), which in turn act as different components of protein synthesis. The central dogma of molecular biology (Fig. I.1) deals with this detailed residue-by-residue sequential transfer of information (1). It also states that information can never be transferred from a protein to another protein or nucleic acid. Each step in this complicated synthesis is carried out by an enzyme, which, being a protein had to be synthesized by the same process. In other words, the end products of this reaction aid in the synthesis of the starting components and catalyze each reaction along the way, making up a complicated series of interrelationships. In order to understand life, the appearance of this entire machinery must be explained