Environmental science and pollution research international
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Environ Sci Pollut Res Int · Aug 2021
ReviewArtificial intelligence as a fundamental tool in management of infectious diseases and its current implementation in COVID-19 pandemic.
The world has never been prepared for global pandemics like the COVID-19, currently posing an immense threat to the public and consistent pressure on the global healthcare systems to navigate optimized tools, equipments, medicines, and techno-driven approaches to retard the infection spread. The synergized outcome of artificial intelligence paradigms and human-driven control measures elicit a significant impact on screening, analysis, prediction, and tracking the currently infected individuals, and likely the future patients, with precision and accuracy, generating regular international and national data on confirmed, recovered, and death cases, as the current status of 3,820,869 infected patients worldwide. ⋯ The review tends to elaborate the role of industry 4.0 technology, fast diagnostic procedures, and convolutional neural networks, as artificial intelligence aspects, in potentiating the COVID-19 management criteria and differentiating infection in SARS-CoV-2 positive and negative groups. Therefore, the review successfully supplements the processes of vaccine development, disease management, diagnosis, patient records, transmission inhibition, social distancing, and future pandemic predictions, with artificial intelligence revolution and smart techno processes to ensure that the human race wins this battle with COVID-19 and many more combats in the future.
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Environ Sci Pollut Res Int · Jan 2021
ReviewA comprehensive bibliometrics of 'walkability' research landscape: visualization of the scientific progress and future prospects.
This study quantitatively investigated the scientific progress of walkability research landscape and its future prospects using bibliometric indicators to highlight the research hotspots. The results accentuated multifaceted nature of walkability research landscape with a strong association towards public health disciplines. Keyword co-occurrence analysis emphasized that majority of the walkability studies centred on the interactions between walking and other three main factors such as built environment attributes, transportation and obesity. ⋯ Future prospects based on the unexplored research gaps within the hotspots were also discussed. High correlation (r = 0.99, p < 0.05) between annual publications and citation counts demonstrated the significance of walkability studies to the contemporary scientific community. Being one of the comprehensive studies to evaluate the historic trajectory of walkability research landscape, the findings were expected to accelerate a comprehensive understanding of the walkability research domain that will assist future research direction.
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Environ Sci Pollut Res Int · Oct 2019
ReviewPromoting sustainability of use of biomass as energy resource: Pakistan's perspective.
Biomass is primary source of energy for household in rural communities. Developing countries are focusing on increasing utilization of indigenous energy resources for energy security and to achieve sustainable development goal. Combustion of solid biomass is the primary approach for utilizing biomass to generate electricity and heat. ⋯ This paper presents an assessment of biomass resources potential in Pakistan as renewable energy resources and reviews potentials to adopt efficient use of biomass for cooking, heating, and small decentralized electricity generation. Objective of this study is to increase the sustainability of the use of biomass as source of energy in developing countries like Pakistan by an integrating energy-efficient and modern appliances and technologies that fit into a sustainable development path. Promotion of cleaner technologies and efficient use of biomass energy constitute appropriate strategies to mitigate global climate, health risks, and help in attending the targets set by sustainable development goal (SDG) to confirm worldwide access to reliable, affordable, and modern energy services by 2030.
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Environ Sci Pollut Res Int · Oct 2019
ReviewMapping the research of energy subsidies: a bibliometric analysis.
A review of energy subsidy research from a bibliometric perspective was conducted. Based on the bibliometric method, a statistical analysis of energy subsidy-related publications from 1997 to 2016 was undertaken using the Science Citation Index (SCI) and Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) databases. A total of 1182 publications were retrieved, with a significant increase in the number of publications observed after 2006. ⋯ However, the institute-keyword 2-mode network showed that institutes had great potential to cooperate on a number of common topics. Five major themes were identified from the co-keywords analysis: general renewable energy research, bio-energies, sustainability, subsidies, and welfare. The findings, as a complement to previous conventional reviews, will be useful in future energy subsidy research.
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Environ Sci Pollut Res Int · Nov 2017
ReviewUse of carboxyhemoglobin as a biomarker of environmental CO exposure: critical evaluation of the literature.
Carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning is the primary cause for access to emergency department (ED) services for more than 50,000 persons in Europe and the USA every year. CO poisoning diagnosis is based on multiple factors and is usually confirmed by high carboxyhemoglobin (COHb) levels in the blood. We conducted a systematic evaluation of literature to investigate the usefulness of COHb as a biomarker of environmental CO exposure. ⋯ This review indicates that COHb is the most commonly used biomarker to assess CO exposure and seems to be useful. Further studies are needed to establish the reliability of COHb as a biomarker and/or explore other possible biomarkers. Surveillance systems of the general population, correlated with geographical locations and other confounding factors, could be important for CO exposure monitoring and the development of focused prevention programs.