Off-Grid System Development for House Car Pouch Lighting

Practically to electrify lighting system electricity supply is a necessity to power the light. Thus, solar energy is known as an alternative source to provide electricity. This paper presents an off-grid system development for house car porch lighting system. Development of the system is composed of photovoltaic panel, environmental sensors, charge controller, battery and lighting loads such as florescent lamp. The off-grid system focuses to supply electricity in small scale which is integrated with some energy saving characteristics. An auto timer and smart charge controller is integrated into the off-grid system to turn-on and turn-off the lighting at the house car pouch. Integration of some smart functions is an ideal solution for small scale electricity supply or particularly for location which cannot be accessed by grid supply

Development of Solar Educational Training Kit

The ability of utilize free resources of energy to generate electricity is one of the major tasks for environmentally research engineers. Numerous researches have been conducted to convert sunlight to direct current through Photovoltaic (PV) system. Nowadays PV research has become a popular study and has gained attention of many engineers and researchers due to free application, improving efficiency and high reliable energy source availability and is predicted to grow in years to come. With understanding of the aforementioned importance, PV systems aim to satisfy the growing demand for sustainable energy. This paper proposes a model of a real time grid assisted from low power direct current to high power alternating current as a solar educational training kit for an early education process to understand about the sustainability of energy conversion process. Integrating the switching concept, grid connection will only be switched on if the stored energy in the battery is insufficient to energize or supply the training kit. Programmable Integrated Circuit (PIC) is integrated into the educational training kit to enable it to display and indicates the battery voltage level as it also take part in switching between the battery and grid. In the nutshell, a simple and user friendly measurement training kit is intentionally designed for user’s handwork purposes

The evolving SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in Africa: Insights from rapidly expanding genomic surveillance

INTRODUCTION Investment in Africa over the past year with regard to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) sequencing has led to a massive increase in the number of sequences, which, to date, exceeds 100,000 sequences generated to track the pandemic on the continent. These sequences have profoundly affected how public health officials in Africa have navigated the COVID-19 pandemic. RATIONALE We demonstrate how the first 100,000 SARS-CoV-2 sequences from Africa have helped monitor the epidemic on the continent, how genomic surveillance expanded over the course of the pandemic, and how we adapted our sequencing methods to deal with an evolving virus. Finally, we also examine how viral lineages have spread across the continent in a phylogeographic framework to gain insights into the underlying temporal and spatial transmission dynamics for several variants of concern (VOCs). RESULTS Our results indicate that the number of countries in Africa that can sequence the virus within their own borders is growing and that this is coupled with a shorter turnaround time from the time of sampling to sequence submission. Ongoing evolution necessitated the continual updating of primer sets, and, as a result, eight primer sets were designed in tandem with viral evolution and used to ensure effective sequencing of the virus. The pandemic unfolded through multiple waves of infection that were each driven by distinct genetic lineages, with B.1-like ancestral strains associated with the first pandemic wave of infections in 2020. Successive waves on the continent were fueled by different VOCs, with Alpha and Beta cocirculating in distinct spatial patterns during the second wave and Delta and Omicron affecting the whole continent during the third and fourth waves, respectively. Phylogeographic reconstruction points toward distinct differences in viral importation and exportation patterns associated with the Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Omicron variants and subvariants, when considering both Africa versus the rest of the world and viral dissemination within the continent. Our epidemiological and phylogenetic inferences therefore underscore the heterogeneous nature of the pandemic on the continent and highlight key insights and challenges, for instance, recognizing the limitations of low testing proportions. We also highlight the early warning capacity that genomic surveillance in Africa has had for the rest of the world with the detection of new lineages and variants, the most recent being the characterization of various Omicron subvariants. CONCLUSION Sustained investment for diagnostics and genomic surveillance in Africa is needed as the virus continues to evolve. This is important not only to help combat SARS-CoV-2 on the continent but also because it can be used as a platform to help address the many emerging and reemerging infectious disease threats in Africa. In particular, capacity building for local sequencing within countries or within the continent should be prioritized because this is generally associated with shorter turnaround times, providing the most benefit to local public health authorities tasked with pandemic response and mitigation and allowing for the fastest reaction to localized outbreaks. These investments are crucial for pandemic preparedness and response and will serve the health of the continent well into the 21st century