This story appeared in my Apple News Feed today. Read on to hear about my personal experience and how my Canāree Air Quality Monitor alerted me before the EPA did…
Wildfire Smoke in Bristol RI !!
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Family of Intelligent Particle Sensors boast high accuracy at low cost
This article from Fierce Electronics discusses Piera Systems family of Intelligent Particulate Matter Sensors and how they can be used to measure Air Quality for many applications . Initially called the Piera-1 we have created a family of devices which are Software-Defined. They have superior accuracy, resolution to existing low cost sensors, calculate PM size, count and mass concentration and allow you to select the best price/performance specifications for your product. Our flagship device, the Piera-7100 with 7 Particle Size bins is used in our Canāree Air Quality Monitors and is capable of classifying sources of PM such as vape, smoke, etc.
Air Pollution’s Systemic Effects
This article from Harvard Magazine discusses the surprising extent to which the presence of fine air particles affects human health. It highlights a study that carried out new techniques and collected data on just how much on an economic impact fine air particles can have because of their severe health impacts. “The research demonstrates that every microgram-per-cubic-meter increase in PM2.5 within a 24-hour period has an incremental effect on human health… In the United States, such increases in pollution occur on more than 122 days a year in every geographic region… [representing] ‘one additional hospitalization per day for every zip code for half of the year.’ These data correspond to $100 million in annual inpatient and post-acute care costs, and an estimated $6.5 billion in lost value of human life.”
Although this study acknowledged that it likely underestimated the true economic toll, it is still a significant number that should be paid attention to. At Piera Systems, our Piera-1 Intelligent Particle Sensor embedded in IoT devices can provide the kind of accurate, real-time data at low cost required to monitor and improve air quality to prevent unneeded economic costs.
Global emissions plunged an unprecedented 17 percent during the coronavirus pandemic
This article from WAPO highlights the dramatic reduction in air pollution due to Covid-19 BUT it also points out the challenges of reducing emissions from the vast infrastructure already in place. “Although the decline in emissions during the pandemic may have been unprecedented, it was relatively small when it comes to combating global warming. The peak 17 percent decline in global emissions — which occurred in early April — meant nations continued to generate more than 80 percent of carbon pollution. “
Nations, industry and consumer need to commit to investing in green energy and a global monitoring network to ensure compliance and track progress. At Piera Systems, our Piera-1 Intelligent Particle Sensor embedded in IoT devices can provide the kind of accurate, real-time data at low cost required to monitor and improve Air Quality.
If your company is building Air purifiers, HVAC systems, Air quality monitors, Vape/Smoke detectors or any other application that would benefit from this type of data you should get one of our Evaluation Kits or contact us to find out more.
Can Particulate Matter Carry Coronavirus?
In a previous post we referenced articles that stated the hypothesis that air pollution and the severity of COVID-19 were linked. It was said to be due to bad air taking a toll on the lungs and rendering people more vulnerable to the effects of the virus. A recent study conducted in Italy suggests another way by which high particulate matter in air can increase the spread and severity of the Coronavirus; the virus is carried on the particulate.
More details in the article from The Times of Israel.
Air Pollution Strongly Linked to Alzheimer’s
We started Piera Systems to address the public health threat due to Air Pollution. We developed our Piera-1 Intelligent Particle Sensor so that researchers, gov’t agencies, consumers and businesses would have accurate, real-time, complete data at a low cost in order to identify, classify what’s in your air and take action. None of us anticipated the emergence of COVID-19 and the global pandemic the novel Coronavirus has caused. We were moved to create Piera initially by the World Health Organizations reports that particulate matter <2.5 was the cause of one in 9 deaths annually. We just posted a white paper in which we referenced reports out of Italy linking PM10 to the spread of the novel Coronavirus. Every day new articles emerge with more evidence of other health threats that indicate Air Pollution is an even greater threat.
This month’s Issue of Scientific American (available through Apple News) has a special report on Alzheimer’s and how fresh approaches are unearthing hopeful clues in the fight against Alzheimer’s.
Some of our staff has been impacted by this disease either directly or indirectly and everyone needs to be aware of the threat and take action to minimize its impact on our health and ability to enjoy our ‘golden years’. In fact, evidence says the time to start is at a young age.
One article in this issue discusses The Role of Air Pollution citing research linking “Bad Air to Damaged Brains” caused by PM2.5 and below. High Exposure over a long period leads to memory loss with more than 10 studies that link late-life exposure to air pollution and dementia. Nevertheless, more study and data are needed.
Jennifer Weuve, associate professor at the Boston University School of Public Health, led one of the first U.S.-wide investigations into the link between air pollution and brain disease and published the results in 2012. “In a perfect world, everyone would wear an air-pollution monitor so that we could get real-time data on their exposures,” Weuve says. But this is not a perfect world. So, we work with experts to build estimation models. It’s not enough. In the case of Alzheimer’s, it’s chronic, long-term exposure that counts, and we don’t even have a worldwide registry of people with Alzheimer’s, let alone the resources to follow people for many years prior to their acquiring the disease. So, it is quite difficult to nail down causation.” Indeed, in some regions of the world, air pollution is so bad that people die of heart disease long before they would ever show symptoms of late-onset Alzheimer’s.
The article concludes with, “While the disease remains a horror facing millions of people around the globe, there is some encouraging news in these discoveries about air pollution, several scientists say: people can take action to diminish the hazards. Most drugs so far have not helped patients, says George Washington University epidemiologist Melinda Power, who focuses on identifying modifiable risk factors for cognitive decline and dementia. “So, at the moment, prevention through the reduction of environmental and lifestyle factors looks like our best bet,” she says. “And air-pollution exposure is looking [like it could be] very important.””
At Piera we are committed to delivering, the type of low-cost sensors that can power the type of monitors and deliver the real-time data desired by researchers.
If you are interested in finding out more about how Piera-1 addresses this need, contact us. We can also put you in touch with a number of companies that are evaluating our sensor to include in Air Quality Monitors, HVAC systems, Air Purifiers, Masks as well as companies that provide data about Air Pollution. Together we can move closer to the Perfect World and remove this threat to our health.
Whitepaper: Accurately Measuring Particulate Matter and Its Impact on Health
The Coronavirus has affected the entire world in a manner that has seldom been seen before. As more research is done to better understand this pandemic, we come across new information that helps us be more well equipped to fight it. Our white paper linked below contains important updates about COVID-19 that may enable us to do exactly this:
Accurately Measuring Particulate Matter and Its Impact on Health
Coronavirus severity and Air Quality linked?
As if the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic wasn’t bad enough as is, poor air quality could be making the virus even more deadly. The virus manifests differently amongst individuals, with many being asymptomatic while proving fatal to many others. The elderly and immunocompromised are more at risk as the data from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention suggests. Similarly, poor air quality and smoking, for instance, can cause lung inflammation and leave the body prone to more severe Coronavirus symptoms. More research is required however, to prove the connection between the two, as more and more experts have begun to lean in favor of the hypothesis.
For more detail, checkout the article by Washington Post and by The Guardian.