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This paper provides a remote access control experiment for students who can't go to the campus because of the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper utilizes the SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) using LabView with the Internet of things technology to control the laboratory remotely in real-time. Remote access experiments of a Linear actuator, PID algorithm, Dynamics and Control of Second-order system response, and survey questionnaires were applied and used as an example to show how effective the research study is. The safety of the SCADA system was also considered by using the Virtual Private Network as the primary connection between the student and the server. The remote access laboratory will give a solution to the current problem of the academe for not providing a real-time laboratory equipment experiment. © 2022 IEEE.
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The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has created an urgent global demand for ventilators, respirators and various resuscitation devices. Various research and development organizations, private companies and individual engineers have collaborated and carried out the development of low-cost ventilation prototypes. In turn, doctors and nurses are collapsed due to the exponential increase in COVID-19 cases. This scenario worsens more when the tasks are manual in nature. The article`s objective to describe the electronic system designed, developed and implemented in a functional prototype of an automatic ventilator in order to be evaluated by a team of health professionals to be later used in cases of health emergencies. This system automates the manual ventilation task aided by a few medical resources in a scenario of scarce resources and is a temporary solution when a respirator is not available. © 2023, Institute of Advanced Engineering and Science. All rights reserved.
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During the COVID-19 pandemic the healthcare facilities all over world collapsed due to shortage of essential biomedical devices. ECG devices are one of those crucial instruments required for tracing electrical activities of heart. Due to the high cost of gold standard ECG devices used in the medical industries, the availability of on-demand ECG devices was not accessible to everyone. Thus, the need of portable, low cost, on-demand ECG device was needful at the earliest. In this paper we propose a novel, versatile, 3-lead, IoT enabled, LM324/LM741 operational amplifiers in instrumentation amplifier configuration Electrocardiogram machine that is aimed towards providing accurate information about the electrical activity of our heart in real time. In this attempt, we have come up with an analogue circuit design consisting of multiple operational amplifier IC based fundamental circuit blocks. The prototype is designed in such a way that the output of ECG can be visualised worldwide using IoT. © 2023 IEEE.
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An approach to online laboratory exercises for analytical chemistry students with demonstrated practical exercises through the use of remote-controlled gas chromatography (GC) instrumentation is discussed. The approach allows for a practical-based learning activity to be carried out by students who are unable to attend in-person laboratory exercises and was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Learning activities focused on the operation of GC instrumentation were completed prior to a research-based analysis activity being conducted by students. At the end of this experiment, the students are expected to understand, independently operate, and learn how to achieve better separation through the manipulation of GC settings, such as split/splitless injections, carrier gas flow rate, and oven temperature, and apply principles of GC to a practical application. Additional flexibility from this approach could also be beneficial during postpandemic and/or in the circumstance where students cannot physically attend the class.
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The CRyogenic InfraRed Echelle Spectrograph (CRIRES) Upgrade project CRIRES+ extended the capabilities of CRIRES. It transformed this VLT instrument into a cross-dispersed spectrograph to increase the wavelength range that is covered simultaneously by up to a factor of ten. In addition, a new detector focal plane array of three Hawaii 2RG detectors with a 5.3 μm cutoff wavelength replaced the existing detectors. Amongst many other improvements, a new spectropolarimetric unit was added and the calibration system has been enhanced. The instrument was installed at the VLT on Unit Telescope 3 at the beginning of 2020 and successfully commissioned and verified for science operations during 2021, partly remotely from Europe due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The instrument was subsequently offered to the community from October 2021 onwards. This article describes the performance and capabilities of the upgraded instrument and presents on sky results. © 2023 The Author(s).
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The pandemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome 2 (SARS-CoV-2) revealed the necessity of diagnosis of the infected people to prevent the prevalence infection cycle. Many commercial pathogen diagnosis methods are based on the detection of genomic materials. Isothermal amplification methods such as loop-mediated-isothermal amplification (LAMP) are the method of choice in these cases. Reverse transcription steps are efficiently coupled to LAMP for the detection of pathogens with genomic RNAs such as SARS-CoV-2. Many detection systems for LAMP include fluorescent readout systems. Although such systems result in desirable limits of detection, the need for special instrumentation is the main dispute of such systems to become real point of care assays. In contrast, colorimetric detection methods would reduce costs and improve the applicability of the system. In this study one-step reverse transcription-LAMP reaction was established that enables visual detection of the SARS-CoV-2 genome. Nasopharyngeal RNA samples were first validated by reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction and then subjected to RT-LAMP. To lower the cost associated with the readout system equipment, malachite green (MG) was used. The color change of MG to blue allowed visual detection of the virus. Firstly, experiments were set up as two-step RT-LAMP reaction to identify the best primer sets. In addition, MG concentration was optimized with the significant colorimetric signal for the positive samples. Next, a one-step colorimetric method was developed for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 based on MG color shift in 2 h.
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Over the years, transportable instrumentation for cultural heritage (CH) in situ measurements has noticeably widespread, due to logistic, economical and safety reasons. Ion beam analysis, a powerful set of analytical techniques, of great importance for CH, is instead carried out by using fixed instrumentation. To overcome this limit, the Italian national Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN), CERN (European Centre for Nuclear Research) and the Opificio delle Pietre Dure (OPD), started MACHINA, the "Movable Accelerator for CH In-situ Non-destructive Analysis: the new generation of accelerators for art” to build a transportable accelerator, compact, with strongly reduced weight, absorbed power and cost. MACHINA will be installed at the OPD and dedicated to CH. It will be moved to major conservation centres and museums, when needed. The INFN-CERN proposal, approved in December 2017, became operative in February 2018. 2018 was dedicated to the acquisition of material/instrumentations, to set up both a dummy accelerator (to test the vacuum system) and a vacuum chamber (to test the source). Due to COVID, in 2020 and 2021 the experimental work was slowed down, but we kept developing the control electronics/software and built the second-generation supporting structure. The HF-RFQ power supplies were integrated in October 2021. At the rise of 2022, after conditioning the cavities, we tested the system and in March 2022 we got the first extracted 2-MeV proton beam. In this paper, we present the structure of the MACHINA system, the approach followed and the main solutions adopted, with a special focus on the control system, and finally the first experimental results. © 2023, The Author(s).
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Learning in times of pandemic represented a challenge for teachers and students, due to the difficulties generated by social distancing. During the Covid-19 pandemic, learning processes in educational institutions used multiple computer and electronic media. As for engineering programs, laboratory practices were discarded in many cases. This work develops a computer application with non-immersive virtual reality, applying a physical/actual laboratory guide in a virtual environment, in which a current loop for an Endress+Hausser PMD75 differential pressure transmitter had to be configured. This application was developed by students and the tutor of the AR/VR research incubator in conjunction with the teacher of the Industrial Instrumentation course, who acted as a client. The Unity3D game engine was used to simulate a tank, a cabinet and industrial instrumentation to measure the pressure at the bottom of the tank. Student were allowed to carry out the wiring of the different instruments inside the cabinet, and the configuration of the transmitter via a hand-terminal;In addition, the application includes a record of student events and interactions for future analysis. The perception of the application was evaluated through a survey applied to 43 students. The results showed that this tool, although it is a valuable support during virtual courses, and provides a first approach to real practice, the student requires interaction with real instruments. Therefore, the tool becomes a valuable complement prior to practices in a real laboratory. © 2022 IEEE.
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Subject and scope: A reflection is made on the challenges that the pandemic has generated in the area of medical civil liability. Based on the regulations, the possible scenarios in which health professionals or health facilities would incur in a case of civil liability within this context of covid-19 are determined. Characteristics: In the case of new diseases, the principles of fault liability will prevent medical providers from being condemned for facts or circumstances that could not have been foreseen or avoided according to the state of knowledge of science. In addition, with regard to the public health problem, any judgment of liability should take into account the changes that will occur in the medical lex artis and differentiate the eventual liability of health care providers from that of the authority in charge of controlling the effects of the pandemic. Findings: As everything new is unknown, covid-19 was and will be a learning process in all fields. Conclusions: The health emergency caused by the coronavirus shows that the responsibility regimes must be able to differentiate the conceptual instruments available to deal with a new disease that, in addition, became a pandemic.
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The design and deployment of a conventional water treatment experiment, the Jar Test, are presented in a virtual format. It used a low-cost online platform to reproduce the experimental steps and the actual lab setting to empower students with experiential skills. Skills like experimentation, instrumentation, learning from failure, and communication for their professional success. These skills are evaluated in the accreditation criteria for engineering programs of the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology. This virtual experience provided one-hundred and sixty-three civil engineering students with the knowledge to perform experimentation at an engineering level, from water sampling campaigns to performing the Jar Test experiment and measuring physicochemical quantities to draw technical conclusions. According to students' perceptions, the simulation strengthened their capacity for conducting experiments and data collection-processing using virtualized lab instruments. It also consolidated theoretical knowledge to report conclusions according to research findings and enhanced their confidence to perform in-person experiments based on the revised virtual procedure. The results from this study demonstrate that virtual tools could be deployed as a powerful supplement to deliver the practical syllabus when limitations of face-to-face interaction occur. It can also be a blended educational approach since the computer-assisted simulation provides the necessary pre-knowledge that maximizes learning during in-person experimentation.
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Society is under tremendous tension and pressure due to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Coronavirus pandemic-2019 is a critical health emergency with respect to the international concern. Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-1) disease first came in 2002 and then Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) affects us in 2012. SARS-CoV-2 is the third coronavirus to emerge in the past two decades, which are acting as a serious warning to humans. These pandemic presents major challenges to scientist and international medical agencies to save the earth by this global life-threatening pandemic. Fighting with these major issues, scientists and doctors pointed out the solutions for COVID and Related pandemics, in which the most populated solution, such as ultraviolet (UV)-based disinfection systems. This article is presenting a unique technology for the COVID-19 infected surfaces to either sides. The proposed research is the providing the solutions with the integration/merging of two different technologies in the portable form to provide a unique disinfection system to disinfect the infected/suspected surfaces by ‘Coronavirus disease’ from top and bottom side by exposing the specified samples like currencies/hand held devices/mobile phones/various types of cards, etc. According to the various literatures, ultraviolet-C light as well as 650 nm laser light has the power to destroy the COVID-19 and related viruses. The proposed system is developed to disinfect the above-mentioned items surfaces from COVID-19 like issues and has the ability to disinfect the items in few second (within 3–5 s). The proposed system has the capability to serve the nation at different level as it may be designed and developed in different sizes as per the application. This integrated technology can serve the society in most of the applications like, the major field for disinfection is food and agriculture sectors. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
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This work aims to show a theoretical model of community-based tourism, to explain its component subsystems, to provide its theoretical–methodological foundation and to discuss the indications of its practical instrumentation in facing the changes that tourism of the future imposes and will impose. The research was carried out in the tourist context of Ecuador, for which the deductive method was applied, which allowed for examining the problem, and the more general theories related to tourist activity, which allowed for identifying the premises and objectives of the work to reach accurate conclusions on the subject studied. This was a mixed investigation that allowed for integrating the contributions of qualitative and quantitative analyses in the treatment and processing of information. The results included achieving systematization of the theoretical models linked to community-based tourism and, from a practical point of view, obtaining a new model of community-based tourism, a graphic representation of the subsystems that form this model, and its arguments. The findings show the need to update the community-based tourism model as a contribution to the scientific development of tourism as well as the systemic nature of its components from a new perspective of analysis that considers the need for changes as a developmental factor.
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The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has elevated the development of novel diagnostic solutions, including rapid nucleic acid amplification tests (NAATs), to a global priority to meet the high demand for accurate, timely viral detection and diagnosis. However, ubiquitously implemented NAATs, such as polymerase chain reaction (PCR), consume hours of testing. We report a field-forward instrument capable of ultra-fast real-time PCR for amplification-based nucleic acid detection in a custom-designed microfluidic chip. Prudent selection and unconventional positioning of thermal cyclers relative to the microfluidic chip and a fluorescent detector permit ultra-fast simultaneous amplification and detection, with 40 cycles complete in under 10 minutes. © 2021 MicroTAS 2021 - 25th International Conference on Miniaturized Systems for Chemistry and Life Sciences. All rights reserved.
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Environment and Climate Change Canada’s (ECCC’s) Emergencies Science and Technology Section (ESTS) is tasked with providing scientific and technical advice to its federal partners during environmental emergencies including oil spill incidents. In addition, ESTS maintains a wide array of field instrumentation and equipment, which is available to support different areas of a spill response such as detection and monitoring, health and safety, and sampling. During a response, ESTS needs to quickly, and effectively, convey to ECCC Environmental Emergencies Officers what tools and equipment could be available for the response, and how they can help meet ECCCs objectives for the response. This can often be a challenge, especially when ESTS personnel cannot deploy on-site alongside the instrumentation and equipment, as the information must be provided in an easily understandable format, yet thorough enough to ensure proper usage of the particular tool or piece of equipment. To address these challenges, ESTS has begun the development of a suite of job aids or “Tactical Sheets”. Each Tactical Sheet contains necessary, condensed, information on a field method or equipment maintained by ESTS for use at an environmental emergency. The goal of these Tactical Sheets is to highlight what the specific objectives for ECCC are, and how a given piece of equipment or method can help meet that objective at a response. These Tactical Sheets come with a number of features including a standardized format, a visually appealing design layout, a required equipment list, a simplified procedure, and a summary of the typical use for the particular tool or piece of equipment. ESTS has begun trialing these Tactical Sheets at certain incidents throughout the Covid-19 pandemic to increase ESTS’ capability of providing remote support when on-site presence is not an option. These Tactical Sheets are meant to bolster ESTS’ portfolio of support options available to our partners during environmental emergency responses. This paper will present information on the program to update field methods used during an environmental emergency by ECCC. © 2022 44th AMOP Technical Seminar on Environmental Contamination and Response. All rights reserved.
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PURPOSE: Increased ophthalmology-specific risk of novel coronavirus 2019 (SARS-CoV-2) transmission is well-established, increasing the fear of infection and causing associated decreased rates of procedures known to save vision. However, the potential transmission from exposure to clinic instrumentation is unknown, including which additional pathogens may be spreading in this context. This study seeks to fill this gap by characterizing the microbiota of instrumentation in ophthalmology clinics during the COVID-19 pandemic and identifying potential sources of pathogenic spread encountered by patients and healthcare workers. METHODS: Thirty-three samples were captured using standard cultures and media. Ten positive and negative controls were used to confirm proper technique. Descriptive statistics were calculated for all samples. Samples were collected from the retina (N = 17), glaucoma (N = 6), cornea (N = 6), and resident (N = 4) clinics with rigorous disinfection standards at a tertiary academic medical center. Standard media cultures and/or polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was performed for each sample. RESULTS: From 33 samples, more than half (17/33, 51.5%) yielded bacterial growth. Using two different molecular methods, three samples (3/33, 9%) tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 (cycle thresholds 36.48, 37.14, and 37.83). There was no significant difference in bacterial growth (95% confidence interval [95% CI]: - 0.644-0.358, p = 0.076) among different clinics (retina, glaucoma, cornea, resident). Staphylococcus (S.) epidermidis grew most frequently (12/35, 34%), followed by S. capitis (7/35, 20%), Micrococcus luteus (2/35, 5.7%), Corynebacterium tuberculostearicum (2/35, 5.7%), and Cutibacterium ([C.], Propionibacterium) acnes (2/35, 5.7%). C. acnes growth was more frequent with imaging device forehead rests (2/7, 28.6%) than other surfaces (0/26, 0%, 95% CI: 0.019-0.619, p = 0.040). No samples isolated fungus or adenovirus. CONCLUSIONS: Most samples across subspecialty clinic instrumentation grew bacteria, and several tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. Many isolated pathogens have been implicated in causing infections such as endophthalmitis, conjunctivitis, uveitis, and keratitis. The clinical implications of the ophthalmology microbiome for transmitting nosocomial infections warrant optimization of disinfection practices, strategies for mitigating spread, and additional study beyond the pandemic.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 , Glaucoma , Microbiota , Ophthalmology , COVID-19/epidemiology , Humans , Pandemics , SARS-CoV-2ABSTRACT
In the last decade, there has been a rapid increase in the number of surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) spectroscopy applications in medical research. In this article we review some recent, and in our opinion, most interesting and promising applications of SERS spectroscopy in medical diagnostics, including those that permit multiplexing within the range important for clinical samples. We focus on the SERS-based detection of markers of various diseases (or those whose presence significantly increases the chance of developing a given disease), and on drug monitoring. We present selected examples of the SERS detection of particular fragments of DNA or RNA, or of bacteria, viruses, and disease-related proteins. We also describe a very promising and elegant 'lab-on-chip' approach used to carry out practical SERS measurements via a pad whose action is similar to that of a pregnancy test. The fundamental theoretical background of SERS spectroscopy, which should allow a better understanding of the operation of the sensors described, is also briefly outlined. We hope that this review article will be useful for researchers planning to enter this fascinating field.
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Airborne transmittable diseases such as COVID-19 spread from an infected to healthy person when they are in proximity to each other. Epidemiologists suggest that the risk of COVID-19 transmission increases when an infected person is within 6 feet from a healthy person and contact between them lasts longer than 15 minutes (also called Too Close For Too Long (TC4TL). In this paper, we systematically investigate Machine Learning (ML) methods to detect proximity by analyzing publicly available dataset gathered from smartphones' built-in Bluetooth, accelerometer, and gyroscope sensors. We extract 20 statistical features from accelerometer and gyroscope sensors signals and 28 statistical features of Bluetooth signal, which are classified to determine whether subjects are closer than 6 feet as well as the subjects' context. Using machine learning regression, we also estimate the range between the subjects. Among the 19 ML classification and regression methods that we explored, we found that ensemble (boosted and bagged trees) methods perform best with accelerometer and gyroscope data while regression trees ML algorithm performs best with the Bluetooth signal. We further explore sensor fusion methods and demonstrate that the combination of all three sensors achieves a higher accuracy of range estimation than when using each individual sensor. We show that proximity (< 6ft or not) can be classified with 72%-90% accuracy using the accelerometer, 78%-84% accuracy using gyroscope sensor, and with 76%-92% accuracy with the Bluetooth data. Our model outperforms the current state-of-the-art methods using neural networks and achieved a Normalized Decision Cost Function (nDCF) score of 0.34 with Bluetooth radio and 0.36 with sensor fusion.
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With the further development of online shopping and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the logistics industry has further increased the demand for unmanned, automated warehousing and logistics handling. To realize intelligent warehousing and logistics handling, reliable positioning navigation technology is indispensable. Therefore, this paper designs a Dual-lidar high-precision natural navigation system based on the ROS (Robot Operating System) platform, which can fulfill the basic warehousing and logistics requirements. The natural navigation system uses the Lidar-SLAM method based on graph optimization to construct the 2D environment map, the PF (Particle Filter) algorithm in MRPT (Mobile Robot Programming Toolkit) is used for system positioning, and the real-time correction algorithm is used for motion control. On the built hardware platform, the navigation system completed the fixed-point cruise navigation task, and finally achieved a navigation accuracy of 4 cm and an average repeatable navigation accuracy of 6 mm. The designed navigation system has reference significance for multi-sensor fusion navigation. In reality, it can be applied to the transportation of warehousing and logistics, and it is expected to be mass-produced in the future.