The risk assessments during the COVID-19 pandemic were primarily based on dose–response models derived from the pooled datasets for infection of animals susceptible to SARS-CoV. Despite similarities, differences in susceptibility between animals and humans exist for respiratory viruses. The two most commonly used dose–response models for calculating the infection risk of respiratory viruses are the ...

The study of aerosol dispersion in indoor environments is essential to understanding and mitigating airborne virus transmission, such as SARS-CoV-2. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) has emerged as a valuable tool for investigating aerosol dispersion, providing an alternative to costly experimental methods. In this study, we investigated the performance of four (4) Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes ...

Sensitivity analyses of rate constants for chemical kinetics of the pyrolysis reaction are essential for the efficient valorization of plastic waste into combustible liquids and gases. Finding the role of individual rate constants can provide important information on the process conditions, quality, and quantity of the pyrolysis products. The reaction temperature and time can also be reduced through ...

Studies report that writing skills of many beginner students in Norwegian higher education institutions are not adequately developed, showing a lack of critical thinking and referencing technique and a poor requisite language ability (Lødding and Aamodt 2015, Wollcheid et al. 2020). Literature also shows that a traditional lecture setting does not help students to enhance their learning autonomy ...

The literature of higher education has shown that formative peer assessment (FPA) promotes students’ learning across disciplines (Topping, 1998, Lynch et al. 2012, Li et al. 2019, among others). Despite the solid reported benefits, studies on an effective implementation of FPA are still limited in the literature (Nicol, Thomson, and Breslin 2014, Wanner and Palmer, 2018). A debilitating factor ...

Ice has unique physical properties, which tend to vary depending on how, where, and when it forms. In the presented work, we looked deeper into various physical properties of ice. In one of the studies, we focused on studying the ice adhesion on two types of polymers; polyurethane (PU) and polyvinyl-chloride (PVC). It revealed interesting behaviors with a viable potential for roads/highways coated ...

In industrial processes, powder coating is widely utilized to attain functional or aesthetic surface properties on manufactured parts. A Eulerian-Lagrangian Multiphysics solver has been developed within the OpenFOAM framework in order to simulate and optimize such processes with regards to coating efficiency and homogeneity. In the scope of this study, the powder particle-substrate and particle-particle ...

The use of experimental rate constants for producing a high yield of liquid fuels from the pyrolysis of plastic waste is not widely accepted owing to a lack of compatibility between the different kinetic rate constants responsible for successful conversion reactions. In R software, the Arrhenius law can forecast the ideal combination of reaction rate constants and frequency factors and then perform ...

Predictive models for airborne infection risk have been extensively used during the pandemic, but there is yet still no consensus on a common approach, which may create misinterpretation of results among public health experts and engineers designing building ventilation. In this study we applied the latest data on viral load, aerosol droplet sizes and removal mechanisms to improve the Wells Riley ...

Recent advances in computing software have enabled the development of calibrated building energy simulations tools that allow retrofit-related analysis including optimization and energy-efficient building design. However, to create a national energy and climate plan, using these tools may imply a great deal of effort (time, cost, and human resources) to carry out simulations for the full set of ...