ABSTRACT
COVID-19, caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, has put most of the world under lockdown. Despite approved vaccines, COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths have remained on the rise. Rapid diagnosis and necessary public health measures are still key parts to contain the pandemic. Here, the colorimetric isothermal nucleic acid amplification tests (iNAATs) for SARS-CoV-2 detection based on loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP), cross-priming amplification (CPA), and polymerase spiral reaction (PSR) were designed and compared in performance for the first time. The findings showed that, for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 genomic-RNA, LAMP outperformed both CPA and PSR, reaction mix exhibiting the limit of detection (LOD) of roughly 43.14 copies/reaction. The results can be read with the naked eye within 45 minutes, without cross-reactivity to closely related coronaviruses. The direct detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in simulated specimens by iNAATs was also successful. Additionally, the lyophilized reagents for LAMP reactions maintained the sensitivity and LOD of the liquid assays. The colorimetric LAMP assay was validated using clinical samples, showing 98.1% sensitivity and 100% specificity upon using extracted samples and 82.4% sensitivity and 86.2% specificity upon using unextracted specimens. The results indicate that the direct colorimetric LAMP assay developed is highly suitable for detecting SARS-CoV-2 at point-of-care.
ABSTRACT
Cleaning and massaging the head is a daily basic need of each person to ensure good health. This is especially important for patients whose immune system is weaker than the healthy people, this makes them vulnerable to external agents. Patients with difficult mobility have difficulty cleaning and washing themselves, they need the support from nurses and nursing staff, which can cause overcrowding in hospitals, especially as the world faces an aging population and COVID-19. Therefore, service robots applied to take care of patients have been increasingly interested in research. This paper proposed a serial manipulator that uses the pressure of a water jet to clean and massage the patient's head. A robot with 3 DOF creates a flexible trajectory so that the water jet can reach any point on the head. The robot is especially safe because it uses a water jet as the end-effecter instead of mechanical parts. The pressure impacting the scalp from water jet is varied by adjusting the water flow and the flow controller based on the fuzzy controller. The controller input variable is the variability between the measured flow value and the set flow value and returns the PWM pulse value to control the linear flow valve. Experimental results show the reliability of the flow fuzzy controller. The system's response signal is no overshoot as well as low error and the response time is fast enough. © 2022. Int. J. Mech. Eng. Rob. Res
ABSTRACT
This study aims to investigate the effect of alpha music therapy that is an affordable, easily implemented, and sustainable method on stress level, cognitive functions, and physiological response of hospital staff amidst the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The testing group was required to listen to alpha music for two weeks. Stress questionnaires, cognitive tasks, and physiological data were collected before and after the intervention. Blood pressure and heart rate between the two groups do not differ significantly and change after intervention. The increase in PSS scores and fast response time in the Matrix Task of the Control group indicate increasing stress levels, reduced attention, and remembering ability. These results of the Control group explain the high workload at the year-end and COVID-19 outbreak in Vietnam occurring during the second data collection week. In contrast, both the PSS and Respond time measures suggest a positive effect of alpha music on the Testing group. © 2021 ECBIOS 2021. All rights reserved.