Current Home Research Articles

Teleworking and housing demand

The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the trend towards teleworking. Many predicted that this would shift housing demand to the suburbs and homes with the potential for high quality office space. We examine these predictions using a survey of the working age population who live in the private housing sector. The majority in the sector are happy with their current home, but new teleworkers who plan to continue to do so – accounting for one fifth of the population – are characterised by a higher intention to move. Consistent with predictions, these teleworkers value a high quality home office more than others and are prepared to live further away from the centre to find it.

A heuristic optimization approach for the scheduling home appliances

In order to develop and execute a demand response (DR) system for a household energy management system, an effective and adaptable energy management architecture is provided in this study. Several issues related to the current home energy management system (HEMS) are among those that do not give their consumers a choice to assure user comfort (UC) or a long-term answer to lowered carbon emissions. Our research suggests a programmable heuristic-based energy management controller (HPEMC) to manage a residential building in order to minimize power costs, reduce carbon emissions, increase UC, and lower the peak-to-average ratio (PAR). In this study, the demand-responsive appliance scheduling problem is solved using an energy management system to reduce the cost and a PAR. Numerous case studies have been used to demonstrate the viability of the suggested method. The simulation results confirmed the effectiveness of the proposed method and that it is capable of running a hybrid microgrid in various modes. The findings indicate that the proposed schedule controller saved 25.98% of energy.

Discovery of Peptidic Ligands against the SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein and Their Use in the Development of a Highly Sensitive Personal Use Colorimetric COVID-19 Biosensor.

In addition to efficacious vaccines and antiviral therapeutics, reliable and flexible in-home personal use diagnostics for the detection of viral antigens are needed for effective control of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the approval of several PCR-based and affinity-based in-home COVID-19 testing kits, many of them suffer from problems such as a high false-negative rate, long waiting time, and short storage period. Using the enabling one-bead-one-compound (OBOC) combinatorial technology, several peptidic ligands with a nanomolar binding affinity toward the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein (S-protein) were successfully discovered. Taking advantage of the high surface area of porous nanofibers, immobilization of these ligands on nanofibrous membranes allows the development of personal use sensors that can achieve low nanomolar sensitivity in the detection of the S-protein in saliva. This simple biosensor employing naked-eye reading exhibits detection sensitivity comparable to some of the current FDA-approved home detection kits. Furthermore, the ligand used in the biosensor was found to detect the S-protein derived from both the original strain and the Delta variant. The workflow reported here may enable us to rapidly respond to the development of home-based biosensors against future viral outbreaks.

A Survey on Technical Challenges of Assistive Robotics for Elder People in Domestic Environments: The ASPiDA Concept

In recent decades, modern developed societies have experienced a significant increase in life expectancy, resulting in a significant degree of aging in the population. This demographic shift has had a significant impact on the daily needs and habits of the population. According to recent demographic projections, the elderly population is expected to triple and reach 2 billion people worldwide by 2050. However, future societies around the world are not adequately prepared to face the potential challenges arising from population aging. Elderly people tend to spend more time at home, but the functionalities and ergonomics of current home equipment and appliances do not fully satisfy their needs. Moreover, the absence of familiarity with new, smarter, and automated domestic technologies creates a significant gap that affects the acceptance and adoption of these technologies by the elderly. In this work, we present the most important technical challenges for the integration of assisted living technologies into a Mobile Robotic Platform (MRP). Additionally, we present the ASPiDA concept, a project proposing a holistic system to support elderly people in their domicile environment.

Masked hypertension in a middle-aged population and its relation to manifestations of vascular disease.

Masked hypertension is associated with cardiovascular disease (CVD). However, previous large studies have not used the same device to measure office and home blood pressure (BP) and adhered to current home BP measurement recommendations of the European Society of Hypertension. We aimed to characterize masked hypertension and explore its relation to manifestations of CVD. A randomly selected cohort of 5057 participants aged 50-64 years from the Swedish CardioPulmonary BioImage Study (SCAPIS) was evaluated with office and home BP using the semi-automatic Omron M10-IT oscillometric device. Additional analyses included pulse wave velocity (PWV) and coronary artery calcium score (CACS). Of participants, 4122 did not have current antihypertensive treatment, and were thus included in our analyses. Of these, 2634 (63.9%) had sustained normotension, and 172 (4.2%) had masked hypertension. Participants with masked hypertension vs. sustained normotension were more often men (66.9 vs. 46.2%, P < 0.001). Those with masked hypertension had higher mean PWV [9.3 (95% confidence interval, 95% CI 9.1-9.5) vs. 8.3 (95% CI 8.2-8.4) m/s, P < 0.001] and odds ratio for CACS at least 100 [1.65 (95% CI 1.02-2.68), P = 0.040]. These associations were similar in a posthoc analysis of masked hypertension and sustained normotension, matched for age, sex and systolic office BP. Masked hypertension was associated with markers of CVD. This suggests that home BP is a better predictor of risk, even when the recordings are performed with the same measurement device, in a population-based setting with randomized recruitment.

Study on population behavior under home quarantine policies of COVID-19 in China based on double-layer network evolutionary games

In the practice of COVID-19 prevention and control in China, the home quarantine policy directly connects and manages the residents, which plays a significant role in preventing the spread of the epi-demic in the community. We evaluate the effectiveness of current home quarantine policy in the actual execution process based on the evolutionary game relationship between the community and res-idents. This paper establishes a double-layer coupled complex network game model, and uses the multi-agent modeling method to study the game relationship between the community and residents in the context of home quarantine policies. The results show that initial strategy of the community with strict supervision and reasonable government reward allocation will increase the proportion of the residents complying with the quarantine rule. When 80% of the communities chose to supervise strictly at the beginning, people are more likely to follow the rules. While when the residents can only get 20% of the government’s reward, the proportion of choosing to violate the quarantine rules is much higher than that when they can get 80% of the reward. Besides, the structure of small-world network and environmental noise will also affect the residents’ strategy. As the probability of reconnection of the small-world network rises from 0.2 to 0.8, the proportion of residents who choose to comply with the strategy becomes much higher. When the environmental noise reaches 0.5, the ratio of residents who choose to violate the strategy is higher than the ratio of complianc. The study is helpful to provide the basis for the government to formulate the quarantine policy and propose an optimization for making effective quarantine measures. In this way, the government can adjust the parameters to make residents achieve the possible level of compliance with quarantine policies as high as possible to contain the spread of the epidemic.

Kidney Failure Patients' Perceptions and Definitions of Health: A Qualitative Study.

Patients with kidney failure who have used multiple treatment modalities are a unique source of information for how different options may best fit their values. We aimed to understand how people interpret their health and kidney failure treatment experience to inform providers who facilitate shared decision-making conversations. This qualitative, interpretive phenomenological study explores how patients with kidney failure interpret health throughout their treatment trajectory. We recruited a purposive sample of patients who had used 3 or more kidney failure treatment options, including transplant and dialysis from transplant clinics and online support groups, for semi-structured interviews. Eligible participants were over 18 and spoke English for a total of 7 current transplant, 10 current home dialysis, and 1 current in-center patient. A 6-step iterative process of data analysis occurred concurrently with data collection. Half of the 18 participants were Black; 67% were women. Three interrelated themes emerged from interviews: ability to engage in meaningful activities; working for balance; and living in context. Participants evaluated health according to their ability to engage in meaningful activities while balancing their emotional and physical needs with their life goals. When their social and treatment environments supported their autonomy, participants also considered themselves healthy. The inclusion of only English-speaking patients limits the transferability of findings. A longitudinal design, repeated interviews, observation, and dyadic interviews would increase the health care providers' understanding and interpretation of health. The themes demonstrated patients evaluated health based on ability to engage in meaningful activities while maintaining balance. The treatment context, particularly how health care providers responded to patients' physiological experience, autonomy, and power, influenced interpretation of patient treatment experiences. Integrating patient interpretations of health with quantitative measures of treatment effectiveness can help health care providers better partner with patients to provide effective care for kidney failure.

The Meaning of Home after Internal Migration for a Local-Based Community in Jakarta

In the context of urbanization in Indonesia, home for migrants is often associated with a place where they will return after leaving. This idea becomes even clearer on Lebaran Day. At that time, many of those who left their homes will do their biggest effort to come home and meet their loved ones at home. It is not to mention people from Lampung who join a local-based community called Komunitas Anak Lampung Selatan (Community of People from South Lampung) or KALS. These people left their hometown for Jakarta in the spirit of accumulating economic capital. This essay discusses the meaning of home for migrants by using KALS as a study case in the context of urbanization in Indonesia. As the analysis shows, the home for KALS is not unified as it involves different places. Since KALS came to Jakarta to gamble their fate, the successful or unsuccessful effort in economic capital accumulation in Jakarta also plays an important role in the meaning construction of homes for KALS. Those who are satisfied with accumulating economic capital tend to see Jakarta as their current and future home. At the same time, they see Lampung as a home to which they will return on special occasions like Lebaran Day which means it is only temporary. However, those who are not satisfied with accumulating the capital tend to see Lampung as a home where they will return permanently in the future and see Jakarta as merely a temporary home.

A User-Centric Evaluation of Smart Home Resolution Approaches for Conflicts Between Routines

With the increasing adoption of smart home devices, users rely on device automation to control their homes. This automation commonly comes in the form of smart home routines, an abstraction available via major vendors. Yet, questions remain about how a system should best handle conflicts in which different routines access the same devices simultaneously. In particular---among the myriad ways a smart home system could handle conflicts, which of them are currently utilized by existing systems, and which ones result in the highest user satisfaction? We investigate the first question via a survey of existing literature and find a set of conditions, modifications, and system strategies related to handling conflicts. We answer the second question via a scenario-based Mechanical-Turk survey of users interested in owning smart home devices and current smart home device owners (N=197). We find that: (i) there is no context-agnostic strategy that always results in high user satisfaction, and (ii) users' personal values frequently form the basis for shaping their expectations of how routines should execute.

Awareness and Profiling of High-Risk Asbestos Exposure Groups in Australia

The increase in home improvement activity during the COVID-19 pandemic gave rise to concerns of increased asbestos exposure risk. This paper describes high-risk asbestos exposure groups based on current home improvement trends in Australia. A series of quantitative and qualitative studies were commissioned to better understand the attitudes, motivations, and behaviours of home improvers in Australia. In 2021, two in three Australian adults were inclined to undertake home improvement projects—big or small—with or without professional help, underscoring the importance of improving the asbestos safety knowledge and capacity of this cohort. The studies commissioned across 2020 and 2021 provide a deep analysis into this cohort, defining who they are and the segments that make up home improvers, their behaviours, and their asbestos awareness and attitudes. This knowledge enables the development and implementation of a range of targeted campaigns to increase asbestos awareness and prevent potential exposure to asbestos fibres.

A Mathematical Model for Home Appliances in a DC Home Nanogrid

A mathematical model for nonlinear loads, that contains, in its design, a switching power supply is presented. The model was tested in home appliances operating in a Direct Current Home Nanogrid (DCHN). Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFLs) and LED lamps were used as nonlinear loads to study, through the model, the experimental results in the profile of ripple in voltage and current of the lamps. The profile of ripples, due to the home appliances, could be explained by the model, even in the simultaneous operation of two loads. Additionally, the effect of decreasing the ripple amplitude when an induction stove in standby mode was incorporated with the DCHN was analyzed.

Smart Home System: A Comprehensive Review

Smart home is a habitation that has been outfitted with technological solutions that are intended to provide people with services that are suited to their needs. The purpose of this article is to perform a systematic assessment of the latest smart home literature and to conduct a survey of research and development conducted in this field. In addition to presenting a complete picture of the current smart home system’s (SHS) development and characteristics, this paper provides a deep insight into latest hardware and trends. The research then moves on to a detailed discussion of some of the important services provided by the SHS and its advantages. The paper also statistically discusses the current and future research trends in the SHS, followed by a detailed portrayal of the difficulties and roadblocks in implementing them. The comprehensive overview of the SHS presented in this paper will help designers, researchers, funding agencies, and policymakers have a bird’s-eye view of the overall concept, attributes, technological aspects, and features of modern SHSs.

Burgler Alarm Using IOT

Abstract: IoT refers to the structure of connected physical bias which is growing at a rapid-fire rate as a huge number of biases and objects are getting associated with the Internet. The Internet of effects can prove that technology has fleetly evolved. currently, the operation of the internet had been extensively used around the world. still, as technology advanced the need for home security systems using the Internet of effects had come more pivotal. Home security is a veritably useful operation of IoT and we're using it to produce an affordable security system for homes as well as artificial use. Besides that, the current home security system on the request was too precious due to the complexity of the bias which occasionally used a precious microcontroller or microprocessor. The Purpose of this trouble was to develop all of the Burglar Alarm system factors which were preliminarily linked and specified as a result of the system design phase conducted earlier . After a brief preface, an executive summary of the results of the development effort is presented . this is followed in a complete description of the overall Burglary Alarm System (BAS), It’s installation , operation, and the tackle details of each of the Individual Subsystems. The test proves that this system is dependable with low- cost, so it can be extensively applied to ultramodern places.

Past structural racism and present home prices

ABSTRACT The widely acknowledged rating system of the Federal Homeowners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) was a relative measure of pre-1940 racist practices in residential real estate activities in large United States central cities. It was not an assessment that guided HOLC or later Federal Housing Administration (FHA) mortgage lending practices. The research question examined here is whether a similar home in different HOLC-rated neighborhoods in the City of Sacramento (California) sold for a different price eight decades after receiving its HOLC grade. A hedonic regression result shows that homes in the two forms of lower-rated neighborhoods sold for about 13% less than those in the two forms of higher-rated neighborhoods. A Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition breaks down the average selling price difference of $195,000 between a home sold in HOLC green/blue compared to yellow/red rated neighborhoods. A third of this difference in home prices, which is not due to home characteristics, represents a starting measure of the legacy of discriminatory housing practices. The remaining two-thirds of the difference could be due to variations in current home characteristics also influenced by Pre-1940s discriminatory housing practices. These findings are relevant to understanding the contribution of past structural racism in the housing market to present inequalities.

Complexity of Smart Home Setups: A Qualitative User Study on Smart Home Assistance and Implications on Technical Requirements

Setup and management of smart home systems is a complex task, and thus challenging for technically inexperienced users. We conducted a qualitative user study to evaluate whether an assistance system could empower users to make better and informed decisions regarding the selection of devices, their interoperability, the resulting set of features and their price. A group of 20 participants used our assistance app on a smartphone to configure a smart home while optimizing for features, interoperability, and the price-performance ratio. The results of our user study show that our assistance app can ease the problem of selecting useful devices and at the same time users become aware of new features resulting from the interoperation of selected devices. Furthermore, the assistance app can counteract the inherent interoperability problem between devices of different vendors or platforms. Finally, users are not only interested in individual device prices. They want to learn the cost of a certain feature set, including the cost of all devices necessary to realize this feature. Interestingly, none of the current smart home systems on the market offer a comparable assistance mechanism. Third-party solutions are not available either, because an assistance app requires meta data about features, interoperability, and usage of devices. This meta data is currently not available via APIs in state-of-the-art smart home systems and marketplaces. Therefore, we present a smart home architecture resulting from our research that can, among other benefits, provide the necessary meta data. Our research indicates that commercial smart home systems should invest more effort in user assistance to gain widespread adoption among technically inexperienced users. This in turn requires substantial changes to the meta data management in smart homes, because otherwise these assistance systems cannot be realized.

Dismantling the structural ageism of ‘ageing in place’ to ensure ‘ageing in the right place’

Dismantling the structural ageism of ‘ageing in place’ to ensure ‘ageing in the right place’

A Sustainable and Efficient IoT Approach for Fire Department Alerting System

The creation of sophisticated fire detection systems is necessary given the rising danger of fire occurrences. The system described in this abstract uses IoT components such an Arduino board, flame sensor, buzzer, SIM800L module, and SIM800L to detect fires in real time and inform users. The flame sensor is the main element of the system, and it uses infrared radiation to identify flames when they are present. The Arduino board receives the signal from the sensor and activates the alarm system when it detects a flame. A loud audible alarm is produced by the buzzer when it is linked to the Arduino board to alert residents to a potential fire threat. The system includes the SIM800L module to support distant notifications in addition to local alerts. Once a fire has been identified, the Arduino board and SIM800L module connect to send an SMS or place a call to preset emergency contacts. This makes it possible to quickly take the necessary action, even if the affected properties are unattended. The IoT device connection with the Arduino board gives the fire detection system flexibility and scalability making it reliable and sustainable. By adding more sensors or integrating with current home automation systems, it is simple to customize and expand. Real-time fire detection, remote alerting capabilities, and IoT ecosystem integration are just a few of the advantages the suggested fire detection system has over conventional fire alarm systems.

Prospects for the application of home care in chronic wound management.

With the aggravation of population aging, the number of patients with chronic diseases increases and public medical resources are increasingly strained. Home care allows patients to receive professional nursing services at home while achieving disease prevention, health promotion, and ease of public healthcare resources. Nowadays, home care services have been gradually applied and promoted in patients with chronic wounds. This article reviews the application effect of current home care services in the daily management of chronic wound patients and puts forward relevant suggestions.

Energy-Saving Smart-Home Automation System Based on the Internet of Things

The widespread availability of the Internet has pushed the state of the art in research into Internet of Things-based applications. Today’s state-of-the-art software typically makes use of web and androidbased technologies to improve the user experience. An energy-efficient and smart home automation system is presented here. Incorporating this technology into your home grants you the opportunity to control and manage your home’s systems from anywhere in the world. The brains of the home system include a module for connecting to the web that may be accessed remotely. This lesson is available on the web. The use of a static IP address is what makes a wireless connection possible. One example of a multimodal application that forms the basis of home automation is the Google Assistant. Voice-recognition based interfaces are just one type of application that may be used to control smart home devices. Since this is the case, our primary motivation for conducting this study is to find ways to make our current home automation system safer and smarter.

Evaluation Guidelines for Assessing Students’ Achievement of Fashion Illustration Objectives within the Clothing and Textiles Programme

The major purpose of the study was to determine evaluation guidelines for assessing students' achievement of the fashion illustration objectives within the Clothing and Textiles Programme in Universities in Nigeria. The population and sample for the study were made up of eight hundred and fifty-nine (859) respondents comprising 46 Home Economics lecturers, 8 Fine Arts lecturers and 805 registered professional garment manufacturers in areas under study were purposely selected. Data for the research was collected using the Fashion Illustration Curriculum Needs Assessment Questionnaire (overall coefficient = 0.984). The findings of the study showed that the 26 evaluation guidelines determined in the study were adequate for assessing achievement of fashion illustration objectives. Based on the findings of the study, it was recommended among others that Curriculum planners (National Universities Commission) and administrators should utilize the evaluation guidelines of fashion illustration developed in this study in their review of the current Home Economics programmes in universities in Nigeria such that their challenging curriculum will prepare students for realistic employment. Therefore, the research study if adopted by benchmark will address curriculum issues. It is necessary to re-train the abilities of lecturers of Home Economics in fashion illustration to enable them to prepare their students for the challenges in the workforce.