Significance of Vertical Farming – Plant Factory

A plant factory is a closed growing facility which helps in balanced and constant production of superior quality vegetables throughout the year. This kind of facility cultivates vegetables by artificially controlling the entire environment, i.e., temperature, light, humidity, culture solution, fertigation and carbon dioxide concentration; and thereby enabling growers to mass production of plants. Plant factory practices vertical farming which is producing food in vertically stacked layers, inclined surfaces or incorporated in various other structures. The modernized and latest techniques of vertical farming make use of controlled-environment agriculture (CEA) technology, in which all the possible environmental elements can be controlled. A few of the vertical farms use procedures analogous to greenhouses, where natural light i.e., the sun can be easily bettered with artificial lighting and metal-reflectors.

A few of the advantages of Vertical farming are –

Can be set up on non-farmland areas, e.g., vacant stores, industrial parks, etc.

Proficient of throughout-year production with stability

Work-friendly environment wherein even disabled as well as elderly people can work

Can hire novice farmers owing to light workload

Safe and superior-quality agricultural production with no or very minimum use of pesticide

Verticalfarming is categorized into three types - Mixed-use skyscrapers, Despommier's skyscrapers and Stackable shipping containers.

Mixed-use skyscrapers – This concept was proposed and executed by architect Ken Yeang. He suggested that as an alternative to hermitically sealed mass-produced agriculture which plant must be cropped within open air, mixed-use skyscrapers for the purpose of climate control and consumption. This variant of vertical farming is dependent on personal and/or community use instead of extensive production along with distribution of plant life which aims to feed a complete city.

Despommier's skyscrapers – This theory of vertical farming surfaced in 1999 at the Columbia University. It encourages mass cultivation of plant life in skyscrapers for commercial purposes. The concept is quite similar to the mixed-use skyscrapers, except that these would predominately be sealed off from the rest of the world and would be operational with very minimum to no human interaction.

Stackable shipping containers – The concept of stacking recycled shipping containers especially in urban settings have become a latest trend. For example, Freight Farms develops a ‘leafy green machine’ which is a full farm-to-table system outfitted along with vertical hydroponics, climate controls, LED lighting, all within a 12m x 2.4m shipping  container.

Uses and Importance of Ammonia

Ammonia (NH₃) is one of the frequently developed chemical compounds which are generally used in various industries. Consisting one atom of nitrogen and three atoms of hydrogen, this chemical is either a strong smelling gas or liquid. It is utilized in several industries and commerce as well as it is present in us, humans and also in the environment.

Many biological procedures require ammonia and it also functions a precursor for amino acids and nucleotide synthesis. Ammonia is a vital part of the entire nitrogen cycle and is developed in soil from bacterial processes. Apart from synthetically producing it, ammonia can also be created in a natural manner by decomposing organic matter which includes animals, plants and animal wastes. Ammonia-based commercial products are many a time used to fertilize crops, and clean grime. This chemical compound is very harmful and even in minimal amount, if got in contact with skin or accidentally inhaled can cause fainting, dizziness, burning and can sometimes prove fatal.

A few of the many physical and chemical properties of ammonia –

It has alkaline properties and is corrosive.

Ammonia, in pure form is called anhydrous ammonia and is hygroscopic (readily absorbs moisture).

Ammonia is generally transported in a compressed manner in steel containers.

It forms a clear liquid when under pressure.

Ammonia in the form of gas is considerably lighter than air. Therefore, it will never be confined indoors like other hazardous gases, like propane. Even though ammonia is pungent, acrid and has a typical odor, it is clear and cannot be easily combusted unless it is very concentrated. This factor makes it much safer than other chemicals for in-house usage. There are many uses of ammonia – approximately 80% of the total ammonia produced by the industries is used as a fertilizer in agriculture. This compound is also used for cleansing of the water supplies and used as refrigerant gas. Apart from these, it is also used in the manufacturing of textiles, plastics, pesticides, explosives, and other chemicals. Ammonia cleaning solutions in household are specifically developed by diluting 5% to 10% ammonia in water.

A Complete Know-how About Goat Milk and its Infant Formula

When we think of milk, by default we visualize cows. Nonetheless, there exists a wide variety of milk and dairy products beyond our cattle pals. In the past few years the milk market has flourished owing to people’s awareness over the benefits of diverse forms of dairy. Goat’s milk has gained tremendous popularity as one of the dairy alternatives; in fact one particular survey conducted states that, “65 percent of the world drinks goat’s milk over cow’s milk.” As a result more and more parents are switching their infant’s formula base to this kind of dairy. Babies born with a cow’s milk protein allergy or who suffer from lactose intolerance might get benefitted from goat milk and goat milk based food product.

Many parents get suggestions from their pediatricians that goat’s milk might settle more comfortably and is also easier to digest in a baby’s tummy having lactose intolerance. But, goat’s milk is not completely lactose-free; it does comprise of small portions of lactose and not all infants will gain advantages from goat-milk based food. In various parts of the world, people prefer goat’s milk over cow’s milk for self and their infants. The proteins present in goat’s milk as compared to cow’s milk forms lesser, softer and looser curd in the stomach. Also, it degrades quicker than cow milk protein. This could be a possible advantage for babies who spit up a lot and/or who go through gastro-esophageal reflux (GER). The allergenic protein known as alpha-S1 casein is found in traces in goat’s milk, but, both goat’s and cow’s milk has a another variant of same allergenic protein called the beta-lactoglobulin. Hence, a few percentage of toddlers are allergic to both cow’s as well as goat’s milk.

However, goat’s milk has less percentage of folic acid, iron and vitamin D and hence it may not be that ideal for children under two years of age. Lastly, to sum up goat’s milk of any infant formula derived from goat’s milk is slightly more beneficial than any other diary variant because of a few factors such as it consists of less allergenic proteins, it is more digestible than the rest, and slightly less lactose.

Benefits of Clinical Trial Management System

A Clinical Trial Management System (CTMS) is a software system used by pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries to deal with clinical trials in clinical research. This systematic software system manages and maintains planning, reporting and executing several functions, along with contact information of the participants. That’s not all one can also track deadlines and set milestones. Any new drug or medical device or therapeutic product prior to a final launch in the market, undergoes a clinical trial which is a medical research related study carried out on humans to ensure the efficiency and safety of those products. Many pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, and clinical research organizations (CRO) have made precise and proper managements of such clinical trials as their priority. Clinical trial management system assists in analysis and storage of drugs associated clinical data. This software system in mainly used to manage large chunk of informative data which includes a great amount of preparation, planning and reporting. This software also renders data to a business intelligence system. Its user-friendliness allows clinicians to keep a tab and manage the clinical trials, especially the one which are very complex in nature.

Globally, Clinical trial management system market is worth approximately US $534.0 million in 2016 and is predicted to grow at a CAGR of 11.5% during the forecast period from 2016 to 2021. The global acceptance of the CTMS software is on demand owing to the efficiency and significance of the outcomes and also the fact that it lessens the cost of amount invested on clinical trials. Major factors which are driving the lucrative growth of CTMS market are rising adoption of CTMS solutions in clinical trials, and increased R&D expenses of the biopharmaceutical pharmaceutical companies. Nevertheless, the acute insufficiency of trained and skilled professionals to function the latest CTMS solutions and restrained budget of small to medium sized biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies along with small CROs are hindering the future growth of this market.

Categories and Treatment of Pressure Ulcers

Pressure ulcers are many a time termed as bedsores, pressure sores or decubitus ulcers. These are localized skin injuries or inherent tissue which generally occurs over a bony protrusion as a result of pressure along with a combination of friction. These pressure ulcers happen owing to the pressure applied to soft tissues which partially or completely block the blood supply to that particular tissue.

These types of ulcers mostly happen to people who have not moved in a long time such as been bedridden or been on a wheelchair. The most common places on the body where these ulcers usually occur are over a bony prominence such as sacrum/ischium, heels, hips (trochanter), even knees, ankles, elbows, back of the head (occipit) and ears, coccyx, and at the back of the shoulders. It has been proved that a few other external factors can also encourage the tolerance of skin for any kind of pressure and eventually increasing the chances of pressure ulcer development. Microclimate (skin wetness because of sweating or incontinence), diseases that lessen the skin’s sensation (paralysis or neuropathy), protein-calorie malnutrition, and diseases that reduce blood flow to the skin (arteriosclerosis) are a few examples. The rate at which these pressure ulcers heal might get affected owing to the age of an individual, his/her health conditions – for instance diabetes, any kind of infection, or arteriosclerosis, having smoking habit, or consuming any anti-inflammatory drugs.

Classification and Treatment of Pressure Injury

Pressure injuries which occur due to pressure ulcers are usually classified depending on the intensity of the damage which has been suffered.

Stage 1 – When the skin remains intact with some visible changes and redness

Treatments – Keep the affected area clean and dry. Apply moisture barrier cream and reduce the pressure on that particular area by repositioning the body.

Stage 2 – When the skin becomes partially thick and has dermis or epidermis

Treatment – Clean the affected area with saline and small amount of hydrogel application is needed. Also, change the dressing every day. Off load the pressure ulcer area by distributing the weight to other places.

Stage 3 – Excessive thickness with necrosis of hypodermic tissue which might extend to underlying fascia

Treatment – Saline cleansing and hydrogel application. Cover the wound with non-adherent dressing and change regularly. Seek the help of a medical practitioner before the wound worsens.

Stage 4 – Complete thickness with skin loss with extreme tissue damage along with muscle and bone damage

Treatment – As this is the extreme stage of pressure ulcer, it might involve surgical procedure and severe medication depending upon the condition.

Apart from the above-mentioned treatments, there are also many products such as pressure relief mattress and bed pads, anti-bedsore mattress/cushions, etc., available in the market which helps in getting some relief from the pressure ulcers. Also, remember to keep yourself hydrated at all times, as dehydration might lead to rapid worsening of the pressure ulcer.

Brief Description of mHealth (Mobile Healthcare) Ecosystem

M-Health ecosystem refers to the habitual practice of rendering health services and health-related information with the help of mobile and electronic devices such as smart phones, tablets, PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants) and wireless infrastructure. mHealth is the most important branch of the e-health (electronic health) and most of the times referred to as wireless health or digital health. mHealth ecosystem helps in providing one-to-one care and treatment for patients living in remote areas who do not have access to any personal medical care and are suffereing from acute illnesses. mHealth is drastically changing the way the world functions today because of the constantly evolving strategy.

 mHealth being ubiquitous, cost efficient along with the personalization of mobile devices are rendering unanticipated possibilities to provide healthcare services as quick and efficient as possible. mHealth is a sub-domain of electronic health technology and is emerging at a lightning speed with far reaching implications for the complete healthcare ecosystem. As per a recent survey, the total number of individuals using mobile monitoring devices with incorporated cellular connectivity surpassed one million in 2012 and is predicted to reach 7.10 million by the end of 2017. mHealth empowers people to opt for healthier lifestyles by making use of wireless monitoring devices in order to better manage acute diseases.

Cancer and diabetic patients using mHealth monitoring devices which constantly monitors medication schedule have been showing better adhesion to the guidelines of the treatment. At the primary care provider end of the mHealth ecosystem using mobile monitoring devices allows smart alert systems which notifies medical practitioners through a platform which is cloud based when a particular patient is not consuming his/her medicines and an intervention is needed. Many government organizations across the world have been investing to a great extent in mHealth ecosystem. The more mHealth ecosystem grows, the technology will emerge as a prime factor in impacting the overall healthcare industry.

What are Hemofiltration Generators and How do they work?

Hemofiltration Generators are machines used in hemofiltration procedure which is a therapy very similar to hemodialysis. This process is used in case of renal failure as a substitute to the function of kidneys. As compared to hemodialysis, hemofiltration is more often than not used in case of severe and acute renal failure or acute kidney injury (AKI) and that too in intensive care settings. The procedure involves the patient’s blood to pass through the hemofiltarion generators which separates out water and waste products from the blood and then adds the replacement fluid (a fluid to preserve the blood volume and supplies electrolytes) just before injecting the treated blood back to the patient’s body.

Hemofiltration is a prolonged, lengthy and uninterrupted process which generally needs 12 to 24 hours per session and is performed on a regular basis for as much as needed depending on the patient’s condition. Also, acute renal failure can be reversed effectively if the diagnosis is done at an early stage with an immediate appropriate treatment. The hemofiltration generators work slightly different from that of the machines used in hemodialysis, meaning the filtration method of both these machines are different. While both the methods involve a use of semi-permeable membrane to filter the blood, hemofiltration generators use convectional heat along with diffusion. The convectional heat enables positive pressure of the fluid to thrust out solutes and water via the filtering membrane, and therefore the hemofiltration generators are more effective than that of a hemodyliasis machine. The heat mechanism of the machine solves the underlying problem in diffusion alone by enabling the filtration of solutes of various sizes at a similar rate; and this rate of blood filtration of differently-sized solutes are balanced with the help of hemofiltration and dialysis one behind the other. It is a procedure which is termed as hemodiafiltration.

Different Functions of a Hemofiltration Generator:

·         To imitate the physiology and functions of the native organ

·         Repairing and maintaining of homeostasis

·         Qualitative and quantitative blood purification

·         Avoid complex and good clinical tolerance

·         Render conditions preferring the early recovery of renal function

Presently, there is an elevated demand of hemofiltration generators on a global level. This is owing to a few key factors such as rise in the number of acute kidney injuries (AKI), rising geriatric population with increasing number of ICU patients. Nonetheless, the complicated procedure and its cost per session, along with strict regulations and insufficiency of trained ICU nurses in the United States are hindering the market growth.