ABSTRACT
A service (social) robot is defined as the Internet of Things (IoT) consisting of a physical robot body that connects to one or more Cloud services to facilitate human-machine interaction activities to enhance the functionality of a traditional robot. Many studies found that anthropomorphic designs in robots resulted in greater user engagement. Humanoid service robots usually behave like natural social interaction partners for human users, with emotional features such as speech, gestures, and eye-gaze, referring to the users’ cultural and social background. During the COVID-19 pandemic, service robots play a much more critical role in helping to safeguard people in many countries nowadays. This paper gives an overview of the research issues from technical and social-technical perspectives, especially in Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), emotional expression, and cybersecurity issues, with a case study of gamification and service robots. © 2022, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
ABSTRACT
Introduction: Burnout syndrome (BO) has negative consequences for the doctors, their family members, coworkers, and also the patients. We conducted this study to estimate the prevalence of BO among doctors working in a tertiary care hospital in Kashmir valley just after the peak of the second COVID-19 wave. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted among doctors working at one tertiary care hospital in Kashmir Valley. Participants included interns, residents (junior and senior residents) and faculty members. An online questionnaire containing Oldenburg Burnout Inventory to estimate burnout was used for data collection from 1st to 10th July 2021. In addition, the questionnaire captured demographic information, job profile and work-related information. Mean scores of ≥ 2.25 on exhaustion and ≥ 2.1 in the disengagement domain were used to define burnout. Binary logistic regression was used to evaluate associations. Results: Of the 322 participants in the study, 119 (36.9%) had completed their post-graduate degree. Of the participants, 150 (46.6%) had to perform 6 or more-night shifts per month and, 61 (18.9%) had previously been diagnosed with COVID-19. Of the participants, 257 (79.8%) had BO, 24 (7.5%) were exhausted and 17 (5.3%) were disengaged. BO was associated with female gender, younger age, number of night duties and emergency room duties per month, being a resident doctor and history of COVID-19 infection on binary logistic regression. Conclusion: This survey reported a very high prevalence of burnout among doctors. Addressing BO among healthcare workers should be a key priority for improving quality of life among doctors and to improve quality of care. This journal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 International License.
ABSTRACT
Introduction: Real-time Reverse Transcription-Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) can be considered to be the gold standard for diagnosis of Coronavirus Disease-2019 (COVID-19). Though it is highly accurate but has some limitations in terms of its use, which means that Rapid Antigen Tests (RAT) can support COVID-19 mitigation efforts. Aim: To estimate sensitivity, specificity and degree of agreement of STANDARD Q COVID-19 Antigen Detection Kit in comparison to real-time quantitative RT-PCR (qRT-PCR). Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted at Government Medical College, Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India, in April 2021. Socio-demographic and clinical information was collected on a pretested schedule after which two consecutive nasopharyngeal swabs were collected from each subject. One sample was tested using the STANDARD Q COVID-19 antigen test and the other was tested using qRT- PCR. Sensitivity and specificity were calculated using standard formulas. Cohen's Kappa was calculated and Mann-Whitney test was used for comparison. Results: The study included 473 subjects with a mean age of 38.4 +/- 12.2 years. Around 1/4th of subjects were symptomatic at testing with the most common symptoms being fever (57.2%), cough (50%), sore throat (43%), myalgia (25%) and diarrhoea (13%). The sensitivity, specificity, positive likelihood ratio and negative likelihood ratio were estimated to be 54.4%, 99.2%, 71.49 and 0.46, respectively. The Cohen's Kappa between the two tests was 0.644. Cycle threshold value was significantly lower in subjects with symptoms and those with a positive rapid test among those positive on qRT-PCR. Conclusion: The STANDARD Q COVID-19 antigen test has a reasonable sensitivity, high specificity with a substantial inter-test agreement in comparison to qRT-PCR.