Investigating the potential of using human movements in energy harvesting by installing piezoelectric tiles in Egyptian public facilities

Developing countries are facing huge challenges toward energy production. Energy crisis not only negatively affects the industry, agricultural, commercial, and residential sectors, but it also negatively affects the development of these countries. Relying on renewable energy sources is one of the methods used to tackle the energy problem. The increase in energy costs produced from fossil fuel and the decreasing in fossil fuel production helps in decreasing the gap between the cost of energy generated from renewables and fossil fuel. Using the human population density in generating energy from renewable piezoelectric tiles in public facilities is the aim of this research. The presented research intends to investigate the potential of replacing the floor tiles in public facilities with piezoelectric tiles to generate energy and benefit from the high human population density and movements inside these facilities, and people will start to produce nonstop energy from walking throughout the facility. The presented research used quantitative method to investigate the potential of replacing the floor tiles in Shobra El-Khema metro station with piezoelectric tiles toward energy production. The research compared the electricity generated from piezoelectric tiles with the electricity consumed to electrify the station. According to the population density in Shobra El-Khema metro station, the research revealed that installing 7 Waynergy tiles in a location where all the station passengers are passing through will generate 3990 KW, which will electrify the station.

The role of urbanisation in the spread of Aedes mosquitoes and the diseases they transmit—A systematic review

Background This systematic review aims to assess how different urbanisation patterns related to rapid urban growth, unplanned expansion, and human population density affect the establishment and distribution of Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus and create favourable conditions for the spread of dengue, chikungunya, and Zika viruses. Methods and findings Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines, a systematic review was conducted using the PubMed, Virtual Health Library, Cochrane, WHO Library Database (WHOLIS), Google Scholar, and and the Institutional Repository for Information Sharing (IRIS) databases. From a total of 523 identified studies, 86 were selected for further analysis, and 29 were finally analysed after applying all inclusion and exclusion criteria. The main explanatory variables used to associate urbanisation with epidemiological/entomological outcomes were the following: human population density, urban growth, artificial geographical space, urban construction, and urban density. Associated with the lack of a global definition of urbanisation, several studies provided their own definitions, which represents one of the study’s limitations. Results were based on 8 ecological studies/models, 8 entomological surveillance studies, 7 epidemiological surveillance studies, and 6 studies consisting of spatial and predictive models. According to their focus, studies were categorised into 2 main subgroups, namely “Aedes ecology” and “transmission dynamics.” There was a consistent association between urbanisation and the distribution and density of Aedes mosquitoes in 14 of the studies and a strong relationship between vector abundance and disease transmission in 18 studies. Human population density of more than 1,000 inhabitants per square kilometer was associated with increased levels of arboviral diseases in 15 of the studies. Conclusions The use of different methods in the included studies highlights the interplay of multiple factors linking urbanisation with ecological, entomological, and epidemiological parameters and the need to consider a variety of these factors for designing effective public health approaches.

Mountain definitions and their consequences

Mountains are rugged structures in the landscape that are difficult to delineate. Given that they host an overproportional fraction of biodiversity of high ecological and conservational value, conventions on what is mountainous and what not are in need. This short communication aims at explaining the differences among various popular mountain definitions. Defining mountainous terrain is key for global assessments of plant species richness in mountains and their likely responses to climatic change, as well as for assessing the human population density in and around mountainous terrain.

ESBL/AmpC-Producing Escherichia coli in Wild Boar: Epidemiology and Risk Factors

The complex health problem of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) involves many host species, numerous bacteria and several routes of transmission. Extended-spectrum β-lactamase and AmpC (ESBL/AmpC)-producing Escherichia coli are among the most important strains. Moreover, wildlife hosts are of interest as they are likely antibiotics free and are assumed as environmental indicators of AMR contamination. Particularly, wild boar (Sus scrofa) deserves attention because of its increased population densities, with consequent health risks at the wildlife–domestic–human interface, and the limited data available on AMR. Here, 1504 wild boar fecal samples were microbiologically and molecularly analyzed to investigate ESBL/AmpC-producing E. coli and, through generalized linear models, the effects of host-related factors and of human population density on their spread. A prevalence of 15.96% of ESBL/AmpC-producing E. coli, supported by blaCTX-M (12.3%), blaTEM (6.98%), blaCMY (0.86%) and blaSHV (0.47%) gene detection, emerged. Young animals were more colonized by ESBL/AmpC strains than older subjects, as observed in domestic animals. Increased human population density leads to increased blaTEM prevalence in wild boar, suggesting that spatial overlap may favor this transmission. Our results show a high level of AMR contamination in the study area that should be further investigated. However, a role of wild boar as a maintenance host of AMR strains emerged.

Spatial distribution of Culex mosquito abundance and associated risk factors in Hanoi, Vietnam

Japanese encephalitis (JE) is the major cause of viral encephalitis (VE) in most Asian-Pacific countries. In Vietnam, there is no nationwide surveillance system for JE due to lack of medical facilities and diagnoses. Culex tritaeniorhynchus, Culex vishnui, and Culex quinquefasciatus have been identified as the major JE vectors in Vietnam. The main objective of this study was to forecast a risk map of Culex mosquitoes in Hanoi, which is one of the most densely populated cities in Vietnam. A total of 10,775 female adult Culex mosquitoes were collected from 513 trapping locations. We collected temperature and precipitation information during the study period and its preceding month. In addition, the other predictor variables (e.g., normalized difference vegetation index [NDVI], land use/land cover and human population density), were collected for our analysis. The final model selected for estimating the Culex mosquito abundance included centered rainfall, quadratic term rainfall, rice cover ratio, forest cover ratio, and human population density variables. The estimated spatial distribution of Culex mosquito abundance ranged from 0 to more than 200 mosquitoes per 900m2. Our model estimated that 87% of the Hanoi area had an abundance of mosquitoes from 0 to 50, whereas approximately 1.2% of the area showed more than 150 mosquitoes, which was mostly in the rural/peri-urban districts. Our findings provide better insight into understanding the spatial distribution of Culex mosquitoes and its associated environmental risk factors. Such information can assist local clinicians and public health policymakers to identify potential areas of risk for JE virus. Risk maps can be an efficient way of raising public awareness about the virus and further preventive measures need to be considered in order to prevent outbreaks and onwards transmission of JE virus.

Assessing the Factors of Dengue Transmission in Urban Environments of Pakistan

The rationale of this study is to highlight the significance of relationships of dengue transmission with climate and societal factors for four major cities in Pakistan (i.e., Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore, and Karachi). These cities have been observed to report higher numbers of dengue cases in the last few years, with the highest number of cases reported during 2011. With careful consideration, the relationships of dengue transmission with climate factors, human population density, and traveling in the study areas have been taken into account. Regression model and generalized linear mixed model (GLM) with Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm are computed to determine the relationships and random effects of different social (human population density, traveling) and climate (minimum-maximum temperatures, and rainfall) factors on dengue transmission. Neural network (NN) with multilayer perceptron algorithm is used to analyze the normalized importance of different covariates relative to dengue transmission. The results show that minimum temperature and rainfall, together with societal factors, significantly affecting the transmission of dengue in the study areas. The magnitude of these relationships is also shown by the results of the neural network. GLM also shows the significant random effects of minimum temperature, rainfall, human population density, and traveling on dengue transmission during the studied years (2009–2018).

Leopard (Panthera pardus) occupancy in the Chure range of Nepal.

Conservation of large carnivores like leopards requires large and interconnected habitats. Despite the wide geographic range of the leopard globally, only 17% of their habitat is within protected areas. In Nepal, leopards are distributed widely across the country but their status is not adequately studied which compromised the necessary conservation attention for the species. This study carried out sign-based occupancy survey across the Chure (the Himalayan foothills) range (~19,000 km2) to understand the habitat occupancy of leopards along with the covariates affecting their presence. The model-averaged leopard occupancy in the Chure range was 0.5732 (0.0082 SD) with a detection probability of 0.2554 (0.1142 SE). The top model included wild boar, ruggedness, presence of livestock and human population density as covariates. The β coefficient estimate from the model indicated the wild boar was the primary covariate contributing positively to the leopard occupancy followed by the presence of livestock, ruggedness and human population density. The detection probability of leopard was higher outside the protected areas, less in the densely vegetated areas, and higher in the area where there is a presence of livestock. Enhanced law enforcement and mass awareness activities are necessary to reduce poaching/killing of wild ungulates and leopard in the Chure range and to increase leopard occupancy. In addition, maintaining a sufficient natural prey base can contribute to minimize the livestock depredation and hence, decrease the human-leopard conflict in the Chure range.