Wastewater-based epidemiology has potential as an early-warning tool for determining the presence of COVID-19 in a community. The University of Arizona (UArizona) utilized WBE paired with clinical ...testing as a surveillance tool to monitor the UArizona community for SARS-CoV-2 in near real-time, as students re-entered campus in the fall. Positive detection of virus RNA in wastewater lead to selected clinical testing, identification, and isolation of three infected individuals (one symptomatic and two asymptomatic) that averted potential disease transmission. This case study demonstrated the value of WBE as a tool to efficiently utilize resources for COVID-19 prevention and response. Thus, WBE coupled with targeted clinical testing was further conducted on 13 dorms during the course of the Fall semester (Table 3). In total, 91 wastewater samples resulted in positive detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA that successfully provided an early-warning for at least a single new reported case of infection (positive clinical test) among the residents living in the dorm. Overall, WBE proved to be an accurate diagnostic for new cases of COVID-19 with an 82.0% positive predictive value and an 88.9% negative predictive value. Increases in positive wastewater samples and clinical tests were noted following holiday-related activities. However, shelter-in-place policies proved to be effective in reducing the number of daily reported positive wastewater and clinical tests. This case study provides evidence for WBE paired with clinical testing and public health interventions to effectively contain potential outbreaks of COVID-19 in defined communities.
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•Positive detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in wastewater led to selected clinical testing.•WBE identified one symptomatic and two asymptomatic individuals in a dorm.•79 positive wastewater samples provided early warnings of infection(s) in 13 dorms.•Cases increased following holidays and shelter-in-place policies proved effective.•WBE paired with clinical testing and interventions effectively contained outbreaks.
“Framework” and “case-study” are the two most prominent features in the optimization of architectural building design. The first can improve the speed of the process, the accuracy and integration of ...the outcome. The second can evolve the design knowledge of the various types of buildings in practice. This paper presents the “PCA-ANN integrated NSGA-III” framework that is a fast, accurate, and integrated solution for practical, erosive, and complicated building performance optimization problems, especially when the case study is a multi-type building such as a dormitory. The novelty and contribution of this paper exist in all three phases of its research framework. First, the dormitory building was parametrically modeled as a case study in two conventional dormitory building types. Second, an artificial model called PCA-ANN is presented in which problems that have a more complicated and practical case study with a multi-type building can be solved simply, integratively, and accurately. Third, the capabilities of NSGA-III are introduced and showed that it could be more accurate in comparison with NSGA-II, and then NSGA-III was integrated with the PCA-ANN model to solve the many-objective problem posed in this study. R2 score for PCA-ANN in the best-presented structure reached 0.99. In the overall best building alternative, energy efficiency and daylight performance for the whole year and thermal comfort performance in the free running period improved by 41.27%, 42.24%, and 15.57%, respectively, compared to its reference model. The presented framework can be applied and generalized to building energy optimization problems in practical and complex cases.
•PCA-ANN and NSGA-III are integrated to optimize vast and complicated solutions.•Generative design of two dormitory types is set up to evaluate the main potentials.•The design space is discovered and datasets are generated for both types of building.•PCA-ANN is selected for the practical problem raised in this study from a comparison.•Final selection is made based on NSGA-III and the architect’s conditional decisions.
In Japan, several meningococcal disease outbreaks have recently been reported among adolescent dormitory residents of schools. However, little is known about meningococcal carriage dynamics among ...healthy individuals. The purpose of this study was to investigate the carriage rate over time and characteristics of Neisseria meningitidis strains among dormitory students. The survey was conducted twice between November 2018 and January 2019 for first to third year students (N=376) in a medical school dormitory. The two surveys yielded carriage rates of 0.4% (one positive among 257 students) and 2.1% (two positive among 97 students, including 90 re-participants), respectively. No transmission or persistence of a specific strain was found during the two months. A limited number of students had a history of potential risk behaviors for carriage, such as smoking (3.0%, six among 202 aged ≥ 20 years; 5.2%, four among 77 aged ≥ 20 years) and attending parties more than once a week (4.3% 11/257, 2.1% 2/97). Two isolates were unencapsulated, consistent with the participants being asymptomatic.
•Model proposed for assessing energy consumption distribution characteristics.•Method proposed for grouping time periods throughout the year with similar daily energy consumption ...characteristics.•ICEEMDAN-BILSTM model is developed to train grouped short-term energy consumption prediction models.•Similar models could be applied to short-term prediction problems using complex time series in other fields.
Accurate short-term energy consumption prediction is essential for studying renewable energy utilization in building technologies. University dormitory energy consumption is affected by meteorological factors and teaching schedules, presenting a more complex time series compared to residential buildings, rendering traditional methods unsuitable. Therefore, in the present study, we developed a model called energy consumption grouping-Improved Complete Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition with Adaptive Noise-Bi-directional Long Short-Term Memory (ECG-ICEEMDAN-BILSTM) for predicting short-term energy consumption in university dormitory buildings. Model was tested using electricity consumption data from university dormitory buildings in cold regions of China. Based on the energy consumption characteristics, we identified two consumption patterns comprising high power energy consumption (HPEC) and low power energy consumption (LPEC). Using the ECG method, data with similar daily energy consumption distributions for HPEC and LPEC were grouped. Subsequently, individual prediction models were constructed based on ICEEMDAN-BILSTM for each specific energy consumption group. The experimental results showed the ECG-ICEEMDAN-BILSTM model obtained more accurate predictions compared with other neural network models. In addition, the model was more effective at forecasting the complex distribution of the HPEC pattern, with reductions of at least 16.21% and 15.82% in MAPE and PRMSE, respectively. Thus, study still can obtain valuable insights to address the problem of short-term prediction using complex time series.
In the present work, we investigated the characteristics of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and metal(loid)s in indoor/outdoor PM10, PM2.5, and PM1 in a retirement home and a school dormitory ...in Tehran from May 2012 to May 2013. The results indicated that the annual levels of indoor and outdoor PM10 and PM2.5 were much higher than the guidelines issued by the World Health Organization (WHO). The most abundant detected metal(loid)s in PM were Si, Fe, Zn, Al, and Pb. We found higher percentages of metal(loid)s in smaller size fractions of PM. Additionally, the results showed that the total PAHs (ƩPAHs) bound to PM were predominantly (83–88%) found in PM2.5, which can penetrate deep into the alveolar regions of the lungs. In general, carcinogenic PAHs accounted for 40–47% of the total PAHs concentrations; furthermore, the smaller the particle size, the higher the percentage of carcinogenic PAHs. The percentages of trace metal(loid)s and carcinogenic PAHs in PM2.5 mass were almost twice as high as those in PM10. This can most likely be responsible for the fact that PM2.5 can cause more adverse health effects than PM10 can. The average BaP-equivalent carcinogenic (BaP-TEQ) levels both indoors and outdoors considerably exceeded the maximum permissible risk level of 1ng/m3 of BaP. The enrichment factors and diagnostic ratios indicated that combustion-related anthropogenic sources, such as gasoline- and diesel-fueled vehicles as well as natural gas combustion, were the major sources of PAHs and trace metal(loid)s bound to PM.
•PM2.5 and PM1 were found to be enriched with trace metals and carcinogenic PAHs.•Mobile sources together with natural gas combustion were the main sources of PAHs.•High concentrations of BaP-TEQ and BaP-MEQ were found for both indoor and outdoor.
Medical students are vulnerable to sleep disorders, which could be further exaggerated by poor dormitory environment and roommate behaviour. However, there is little evidence of whether dormitory ...environment intervention is effective in improving the sleep quality of medical college students in developing countries. The present study aimed to evaluate the effects of a comprehensive multidomain intervention on dormitory environment and roommate behaviour among medical college students in China. In this cluster randomised controlled trial, a total of 106 dormitories (364 students) were randomly allocated into an intervention group (55 dormitories, 193 students) and a control group (51 dormitories, 171 students). The intervention group received a three-month intervention with multiple components to improve or adapt to sleep environments in dormitories; the control group received no intervention. Primary and secondary outcomes were measured at study enrolment and three months later for both groups. The linear mixed-effects models showed that, compared with the control group, the intervention was associated with a significantly decreased Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (β = -0.67,
= 0.012), and a marginally significant effect on reducing roommates' influence on sleep schedule (β = -0.21,
= 0.066). Students in the intervention group rated "making dormitory sleep rules" and "wearing eye masks" as the most effective intervention measures. These findings could contribute to the limited body of scientific evidence about sleep intervention in Chinese medical students and highlight the importance of dormitory sleep environments in maintaining sleep quality.
With the rise in the number of COVID-19 cases in Egypt, the Ministry of Health and Population decided to use the university student dormitories as isolation hospitals for mild cases. The present ...study was conducted to describe the current situation of isolated COVID-19 cases in Smouha Alexandria Student Dormitory from the 7th till the 31st of May 2020. The cumulative number of reported COVID-19 cases was 487 by the 31st of May 2020, with 41.7% still under treatment, 24.4% isolated at home while still under treatment, 19.9% completely cured, 13.8% transferred to one of the isolation hospitals, and only 0.2% died. The death rate was very low. Moreover, the transfer to isolation hospitals decreased and the cure rate increased to one fifth by the end of the month. These rates denote good quality of care and good prognosis among the cases admitted to the dormitory. With the increase in number of cases, it is recommended to prepare more dormitories to be used with isolation hospitals in case of emergency.
Background: Undoubtedly, lack of good quality sleep is a major problem for students, affecting their educational success causing them academic failure. Therefore, this study is carried out aiming to ...determine sleep quality and its relation with educational status of Iran University of Medical Sciences students. Methods: This study is a sectional-analytic one performed on dormitory and non-dormitory students of Iran University of Medical Sciences. The criteria of entering the study include being student for at least one year, non-affliction to special diseases and not using drugs and tobacco. People were selected in proportional stratified sampling method after determining the sample volume (400), and Petersburg sleep quality questionnaires were distributed among them. After completion of the questionnaires, their data were extracted and introduced into SPSS version 21. The data obtained via T statistical tests for which Pearson correlation was analyzed were independent. Results: The sleep quality mark was higher than 5 for majority of the students including the dormitory and non-dormitory ones; expressing weak sleep quality. Sleep quality was 7.36 for dormitory students and 7.97 for non-dormitory ones; expressing significant statistical difference (p=0.018). The results suggest that educational status of non-dormitory students (0.22) is better than the dormitory ones (-1.23), and the difference is statistically significant (p=0.000). moreover, the results suggest that there is no relation between good sleep quality and educational status of the students (p=0.232). Conclusion: The study results suggest that sleep quality is not related to educational status. Considering that educational status is a complex matter and is affected by multiple factors including: intelligence, motivation and hard work, sleep quality plays less significant role regarding educational status.
Dormitory is not only place for lodging college students, but also used as a place of forming mental, moral discipline and attitude. Preliminary survey showed lighting 31.05 lux was not fulfi lled and ...humidity 82.5% was not fulfi lled while the temperature 26°C was fulfi lled and respondents said uncomfortable. The study was done in order to know the correlation between environment (lighting, temperatures, and humidity) in dormitory with a convenience of learning dormitory inhabitant in dormitory I of Yogyakarta Health Polytechnic 2013. The method of research was cross sectional approach. The location of research was in dormitory I of Yogyakarta Health Polytechnic with respondents were 50 dormitory in 50 rooms. Independent variable were environment (lighting, temperatures, and humidity) dependent variable was convenient learn. It was analyzed using standard chi-square with signifi cant 5%. The results showed that the lighting not fulfi lled were 26 rooms (52.0%), the temperature not fulfi lled were 27 rooms (54.0%), humidity not fulfi lled were 26 rooms (52.0%), and 25 respondents (50.0%) said uncomfortable. It is concluded that there is a signifi cant correlation between lighting with a convenience of learning. Signifi cant correlation between temperatures with a convenience of learning. Signifi cant correlation between humidity with a convenience of learning. It is suggested to set the dormitory’s facilities for dormitoring inhabitant. In order to not close the natural and artifi cial light’s direction, to open the dormitory window at the morning and afternoon, and also to close the windows at night so the air is not humid circumstances. For the administrator of the dormitory, to add a fan in order to reduce heat.
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