Transport of gaseous pollutants by convective boundary layer around a human body

<div><p>This study investigates the ability of the human convective boundary layer to transport pollution in a quiescent indoor environment. The impact of the source location in the vicinity of a human body is examined in relation to pollution distribution in the breathing zone and the thickness of the pollution boundary layer. The study, in addition, evaluates the effects of the room air temperature, table positioning, and seated body inclination. The human body is represented by a thermal manikin that has a body shape, size, and surface temperature that resemble those of a real person. The results show that the source location has a considerable influence on the breathing zone pollution concentrations and on the thickness of the pollution boundary layer. The highest breathing zone concentrations are achieved when the pollution is located at the chest, while there is negligible exposure for the pollution emitted at the upper back or behind the chair. The results also indicate that a decrease in personal exposure to pollutants released from or around the human body increases the extent to which the pollution spreads to the surroundings. Reducing the room air temperature or backward body inclination intensifies the transport of the pollution to the breathing zone and increases personal exposure. The front edge of a table positioned at zero distance from the human body can reduce the pollution transport to the breathing zone, or it can increase transport of the clean air from beneath if positioned at a 10-cm (0.33-ft) distance.</p></div

SMELs: A Data-driven Middleware for Smart Miscellaneous Electrical Load Management in Buildings

Growth in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has trigged an unprecedented proliferation of appliances a.k.a. Miscellaneous Electrical Loads (MELs) in buildings. Till now, managing MELs energy consumption in an optimum, cost-effective and intelligent manner in buildings remain an open-challenge. This article introduces a new supervised, data-driven middleware towards Smart Miscellaneous Electrical Load management in buildings (SMELs). It can perform automatic extraction, modeling and classification of the semantics of office appliances by analyzing aggregated electrical load signatures from several electrical outlets in the workplace environment. The results of analyzing more than 2,000 electrical load signatures from office workstations present classification performance ranging from 79.4% upto 95.8%. The preliminary findings from the study demonstrate the potential of SMELs as a middleware technology in Internet-of-Things (IoT) enabled smart buildings. The novelty of the proposed approach lies in combining the use of optimum sensors and existing data-driven techniques to extract detailed insights about appliances operation in real buildings

Airflow Dynamics of Coughing in Healthy Human Volunteers by Shadowgraph Imaging: An Aid to Aerosol Infection Control

Cough airflow dynamics have been previously studied using a variety of experimental methods. In this study, real-time, non-invasive shadowgraph imaging was applied to obtain additional analyses of cough airflows produced by healthy volunteers. Twenty healthy volunteers (10 women, mean age 32.2±12.9 years; 10 men, mean age 25.3±2.5 years) were asked to cough freely, then into their sleeves (as per current US CDC recommendations) in this study to analyze cough airflow dynamics. For the 10 females (cases 1–10), their maximum detectable cough propagation distances ranged from 0.16–0.55 m, with maximum derived velocities of 2.2–5.0 m/s, and their maximum detectable 2-D projected areas ranged from 0.010–0.11 m2, with maximum derived expansion rates of 0.15–0.55 m2/s. For the 10 males (cases 11–20), their maximum detectable cough propagation distances ranged from 0.31–0.64 m, with maximum derived velocities of 3.2–14 m/s, and their maximum detectable 2-D projected areas ranged from 0.04–0.14 m2, with maximum derived expansion rates of 0.25–1.4 m2/s

Airflow Dynamics of Human Jets: Sneezing and Breathing - Potential Sources of Infectious Aerosols

10.1371/journal.pone.0059970PLoS ONE84

Qualitative Real-Time Schlieren and Shadowgraph Imaging of Human Exhaled Airflows: An Aid to Aerosol Infection Control

Using a newly constructed airflow imaging system, airflow patterns were visualized that were associated with common, everyday respiratory activities (e.g. breathing, talking, laughing, whistling). The effectiveness of various interventions (e.g. putting hands and tissues across the mouth and nose) to reduce the potential transmission of airborne infection, whilst coughing and sneezing, were also investigated. From the digital video footage recorded, it was seen that both coughing and sneezing are relatively poorly contained by commonly used configurations of single-handed shielding maneuvers. Only some but not all of the forward momentum of the cough and sneeze puffs are curtailed with various hand techniques, and the remaining momentum is disseminated in a large puff in the immediate vicinity of the cougher, which may still act as a nearby source of infection. The use of a tissue (in this case, 4-ply, opened and ready in the hand) proved to be surprisingly effective, though the effectiveness of this depends on the tissue remaining intact and not ripping apart. Interestingly, the use of a novel ‘coughcatcher’ device appears to be relatively effective in containing coughs and sneezes. One aspect that became evident during the experimental procedures was that the effectiveness of all of these barrier interventions is very much dependent on the speed with which the user can put them into position to cover the mouth and nose effectively