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Public restrooms can be a breeding ground for germs and viruses, especially in light of the current COVID-19 pandemic. Touching surfaces like door handles can have a lot of harmful bacteria and microorganisms that increase the risk of transmission of infectious diseases. Additionally, ensuring the cleanliness of public restrooms can be a challenge as its being used by a lot of people on a day-to-day basis. To overcome this, we propose a model that provides a touchless door-locking mechanism with self-sanitization capabilities, thereby reducing the risk of transmission and ensuring a safer and cleaner environment for users. As the Internet of Things is an evolving technology and is providing modern solutions for various problems, the proposed system uses touchless doors that are incorporated with Node Microcontroller Unit and automatic Ultraviolet C sanitization. UVC light radiation is used for disinfecting purposes. The overall invention combines various features to provide a hygienic, secure, and safe restroom experience, ensuring that the restroom is always clean, secure, and accessible to those who need it. © 2023 IEEE.
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Bilateral divergent fracture dislocations of the shoulder are very rare. Caution with regards to seizure development in COVID-19 patients must be taken to avoid such injuries. This is the case of a male COVID-19 patient who sustained hyponatremia-induced seizure that resulted in bilateral divergent shoulder fracture dislocations. The patient suffered a lesser tuberosity fracture on his left shoulder which was posteriorly dislocated, and a greater tuberosity fracture on his right, which was anteriorly dislocated. The patient underwent bilateral open reduction and internal fixation, with suture anchor fixation for the lesser tuberosity fracture on the left side, and a proximal humerus locking plate for the greater tuberosity fracture on the right side. Education on postoperative complications and expectations were provided to the patient.
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BACKGROUND: "Laparoscopist's thumb," or thenar paresthesia, can result from prolonged or excessive grip force during laparoscopy, as can more general syndromes, such as carpal tunnel syndrome. This is particularly relevant in gynecology, where laparoscopic procedures are standard. Although this method of injury is well known, there is a paucity of data to guide surgeons in selecting more efficient, ergonomic instruments. OBJECTIVE: This study compared the ratio of applied tissue force and required surgeon input in a sample of common ratcheting laparoscopic graspers in a small-handed surgeon, to provide potential metrics applicable to surgical ergonomics and surgeon instrument choice. STUDY DESIGN: Laparoscopic graspers with varied ratcheting mechanisms and tip shapes were evaluated. Brands included Snowden-Pencer, Covidien, Aesculap, and Ethicon. A Kocher was used as an open instrument comparison. Flexiforce A401 thin-film force sensors were used to measure applied forces. Data were collected and calibrated using an Arduino Uno microcontroller board with Arduino and MATLAB software. Single-handed, complete closure of each device's ratcheting mechanism was performed 3 times. The maximum required input force in Newtons was recorded and averaged. The average output force was measured with a bare sensor and the same sensor between 2 different thicknesses of LifeLike BioTissue. RESULTS: The most ergonomic ratcheting grasper for a small-handed surgeon was identified by the output ratio: the highest output force relative to the required surgeon input (the most force for the least amount of effort). The Kocher required an average input force of 33.66 N, with its highest output ratio of 3.46 (112 N output). The Covidien Endo Grasp was the most ergonomic, with an output ratio of 0.96 on the bare force sensor (31.4 N output). The Snowden-Pencer Wavy grasper was the least ergonomic, with an output ratio of 0.06 when applied to the bare force sensor (5.9 N output). All graspers except for the Endo Grasp had improving output ratios as tissue thickness and subsequent grasper contact area increased. Input force above that provided by the ratcheting mechanisms did not increase output force in a clinically relevant amount for any of the instruments evaluated. CONCLUSION: Laparoscopic graspers vary widely in their ability to provide reliable tissue force without requiring excessive input by the surgeon, and a point of diminishing returns often exists with increased surgeon input over designed ratcheting mechanisms. Output force and output ratio are potential quantitative measures of the efficiency of laparoscopic instruments. Providing users with this type of data could assist in optimizing instrument ergonomics.
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In December 2019, the Novel Coronavirus became a global epidemic. Because of COVID-19, all ongoing plans had been postponed. Lockdowns were imposed in areas where there was an excessive number of patients. Constantly locking down areas had a significant negative influence on the economy, particularly on developing and underdeveloped countries. But the majority of countries were locking down their areas without making any assumptions where some were successful and some were failures. In this situation, this paper presents a novel approach for determining which parts of a country should be immediately placed under lockdown during any pandemic situation while considering the lockdown history at the time of COVID-19. This work makes use of a self-established dataset containing data from several countries of the world and uses the successful presence of lockdown in that area as the target attribute for machine learning algorithms to determine the areas to keep under lockdown in the future. Here, the Random Forest algorithm has provided the highest accuracy of 92.387% indicating that this model can identify the areas with an impressive level of accuracy to retain under lockdown.
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As we all know fingerprint recognition is one of the secure and accurate Biometric Technologies. If think about it in deep even with the Biometric system the virus can be spread during these situations. To overcome this, we need to come up with a secure and contactless way of authentication. So, let's update to some contactless remedies like Iris authentication which are unique for every individual and they don't need to have any physical contact. So, we can use this Iris detection for a secure and contactless authentication system. The main aim of this research is to provide contactless remedies for students in Educational institutes like Smart Locking system, Attendance management system, and Library Transaction by using their Iris authentication and Face Recognition. Coming to the outline of the attendance management system, we will first collect the data from the Kaggle repository. Next, we split the data into training and testing, then we will train the data using transfer learning techniques and test the model by using test data. Finally, we integrated the trained model with the flask. If the Iris matches then the attendance of a particular person will be posted. If not matched then we train the model by adding new person's data. For the construction of modern electronic security systems, real-time face recognition is crucial. Face detection, feature extraction, and face recognition are the three procedures involved. After recognizing the face, it will check whether the person's face matches the collected database. If it matches it will show the person's name, the number of books he took, and what those books are for Library transactions and in the same way the locker will be open if the person's data is matched. The proposed methods are secure and unique contactless ways of authentication for every individual. So, we can use these detection and authentication systems for secure and contactless applications. It can be successfully used for students in Educational institutes like Smart Locking system, Attendance management system, and Library Transaction by using their Iris authentication and Face Recognition. The Covid-19 infection in society will undoubtedly decline if the proposed argument is implemented. © 2023 The authors and IOS Press.
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Proximal humeral fractures are common in elderly, but despite the high incidence, optimal treatment is still discussed and remains a topic of controversy. Nonoperative treatment continuous to be the main modality. However, due to advancements in surgical technology with new techniques and implants, operative treatment could lead to better outcomes and less complications, even in older patients. Decision-making in elderly should incorporate comorbidities, activity level and patient expectations. This study was performed with the intention to find out, if there is a significant difference in treatment strategy and number of operations, in the last five years. Patients older than 65 years with proximal humeral fractures were included. Retrospective analysis of radiographic material and post-injury data was performed, from patients treated in 2015, 2019 and 2020. Last two years were also compared separately to exclude the effect of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Epidemiological data assessment, fracture type and treatment strategy were analysed for corresponding years. Statistical analysis was focused on complex three-and four-part fractures. There were no statistically significant differences regarding incidence between the analysed years. Low energy fall was the mechanism of injury in majority of patients. Patients with tuberosity fractures were in average younger than patients in other groups. Although there were more computed tomography (CT) scans done in younger elderly patients, there was no significant difference in number of CTs compared to older patients (year 2015: p = 0.246;year 2019: p = 0.710, year 2020: p = 0.849). The number of operative interventions was the lowest in 2019 (p = 0.498) and the same was for the osteosynthesis using intramedullary nails (p = 0.014). Frequency of reversed shoulder arthroplasty surgeries is increasing, but the difference is not significant (p = 0.390). Both operative and nonoperative treatment result in similar range of motion (ROM) measurements (p = 0.164 for anteflexion. p = 0.163 for abduction), however the groups were not comparable regarding exact fracture types. In the analysed period of 5 years, epidemiology and treatment strategy of proximal humeral fractures did not change. Nonoperative approach remained the main treatment modality. No significant difference was noted in number of interventions or implants used, although there seemed to be an increased trend towards treatment with reverse shoulder arthroplasty (RSA) in complex fractures. A strong correlation was observed between radiographic indications for conservative treatment and actual implementation of it. However, when surgical treatment was indicated using the same radiological criteria, there were more than half of patients, who were not operated on. Radiologic indications are thus not enough for decision-making in treatment of three-and four-part fractures, and patient factors, such as comorbidities and pre-injury activity level, play a major role. Copyright © 2023 The Author(s). Published by MRE Press.
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In response to the COVID-19 outbreak, the governments of different countries adopted, such as locking down cities and restricting travel and social contact. Online health communities (OHCs) with specialized physicians have become an important way for the elderly to access health information and social support, which has expanded their use since the outbreak. This paper examines the factors influencing elderly people’s behavior in terms of the continuous use of OHCs from a social support perspective, to understand the impact of public health emergencies. Research collected data from March to April 2019, February 2020, and August 2021, in China. A total of 189 samples were collected and analyzed by using SmartPLS. The results show that (1) social support to the elderly during different stages has different influences on their sense of community and (2) the influence of the sense of community on the intention to continuously use OHCs also seems to change over time. The results of this study provide important implications for research and practice related to both OHCs and COVID-19.
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Polyethylene liner dissociation (PLD) is a rare but catastrophic complication following total hip arthroplasty (THA). When it occurs in the early postoperative period, it can be easy to miss the diagnosis. Liner dissociation has been reported previously with the Pinnacle® (DePuy), Harris-Galante® (Zimmer), and Trident® (Stryker) acetabular components. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first case reporting PLD in the G7® cup (Zimmer-Biomet). This case report, along with a review of the literature, highlights the clinical presentation, radiological imaging, treatment options, and technical tips to avoid PLD in the early postoperative period.
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The prefabricated construction industry, also known as off-site construction, has been operating in North America for several years now and differs from traditional construction in its much shorter project timelines, lower costs, and increased build quality. However, the lack of a suitable and efficient assembly solution has been identified by many as a barrier to the use of off-site construction for larger buildings. To maximise the benefits of off-site manufacturing for multistorey buildings, an automated connection solution is presented in this paper. A new plug-in self-locking device was developed according to the following product design phases: on-site observations, definition of the problem and product specifications, solution generation, prototyping, fabrication, and testing. The plug-in self-locking device allows the assembly process to be accelerated by eliminating the fastening steps and a higher completion of modules off-site to be achieved. The design bears the compressive, tensile, and shear loads and contributes to the load path of the building.
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This research aimed to integrate a face recognition capability in a smart door prototype. By using a camerabased face recognition, the house owner does not need to make physical contact to open the door. Avoid physical contact is important due to the coro navirus disease 2019 (COVID19) pandemic. Raspberry Pi 3B was used as the main controller, while a servo motor was utilized as a locking door actuator. The program was developed using NodeRED , Blynk , and message queue telemetry transport ( MQTT ) platforms which are very powerful for developing internet of things (IoT) devices. All of the programs were coded using Python. Haar cascade and local binary pattern histogram methods were implemented on the face recognition stage. Google Assistant int egration was done by using D ialogflow and Firebase as Google Cloud services. Integration of face recognition and the smart door was successful. The smart door was unlocked if faces were recognized (average threshold=60%). If a face was not recognized, an e mail notification containing a face image is sent to the house owner. The Google Assistant could handle user requests successfully with a success rate of 92.8% from 147 trials .
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During the COVID-19 epidemic, draconian countermeasures forbidding nonessential human activities have been adopted in several countries worldwide, providing an unprecedented setup for testing and quantifying the current impact of humankind on climate and for driving potential sustainability policies in the postpandemic era from a perspective of complex systems. In this study, we consider heterogeneous sources of environmental and human activity observables, considered as components of a complex socioenvironmental system, and apply information theory, network science, and Bayesian inference to analyze their structural relations and nonlinear dynamics between January 2019 and August 2020 in northern Italy, i.e., before, during, and after the national lockdown. The topological structure of a complex system strongly impacts its collective behavior;therefore, mapping this structure is essential to fully understand the functions of the system as a whole and its fragility to unexpected disruptions or shocks. To this aim, we unravel the causal relationships between the 16 environmental conditions and human activity variables, mapping the backbone of the complex interplay between intervening physical observables—such as NO2 emissions, energy consumption, intervening climate variables, and different flavors of human mobility flows—to a causal network model. To identify a tipping point during the period of observation, denoting the presence of a regime shift between distinct network states (i.e., before and during the shock), we introduce a novel information-theoretic method based on statistical divergence widely used in statistical physics. We find that despite a measurable decrease in NO2 concentration, due to an overall decrease in human activities, locking down a region as a climate change mitigation is an insufficient remedy to reduce emissions. Our results provide a functional characterization of socioenvironmental interdependent systems, and our analytical framework can be used, more generally, to characterize environmental changes and their interdependencies using statistical physics.
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Background: There is an increasing trend of door locking practices in acute psychiatric care. The aim of the present study was to illuminate the symbolic dimensions of doors in Greek mental health nurses' experiences of open and locked working spaces. Results: A sequential mixed-method designexplored the experiences of nurses working in both open and locked psychiatric acute care units. Participants experiences revealed four types of doors related to the quality of recovery-oriented care: (a) the open door, (b) the invisible door, (c) the restraining door, and (d) the revolving door. Open doors and permeable spacesgenerated trust and facilitated the diffusion of tension and the necessary perception of feeling safe in order to be involved in therapeutic engagement. When the locked unit was experienced as a caring environment, the locked doors appeared to be "invisible". The restraining doors symbolized loss of control, social distance and stigma echoing the consequences of restrictingpeople's crucial control over spaceduring the COVID-19 pandemicin relation toviolence within families, groups and communities. The revolving door (service users' abscondence/re-admission) symbolised the rejection of the offered therapeutic environment and was a source of indignation and compassion fatigue in both open and locked spaces attributed to internal structural acute care characteristics (limited staffing levels, support, resources and activities for service users) as well as 'locked doors' in the community (limited or no care continuity and stigma). Conclusions: The impact of COVID-19 restrictions on people's crucial control of space provides an impetus for erecting barriers masked by the veil of habit and reconsidering the impact of the simple act of leaving the door open/locked to allow both psychiatric acute care unit staff and service users to reach their potential. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)
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Facing many challenges of division in all aspects (social distancing, political and social divisions, remote work environments), University of South Florida Libraries took the lead in exploring how to overcome these various separations by providing access to its high-quality information sources to its local community and beyond. USFs purchases were informed by work at other institutions, such as the University of Minnesotas antiracism reading lists, which has in turn grown into a rich resource that includes other valuable resources like the Mapping Prejudice Project and a link to the Umbra Search.2 The Triad Black Lives Matter Protest Collection at the University of North Carolina Greensboro is another example of a cultural institution reacting swiftly to document, preserve, and educate.3 These new pages and lists being generated by libraries and cultural institutions seem to be curated by hand using tools that require human intervention to make them and keep them up to date. Umbra Search is a tool that aggregates content from more than 1,000 libraries, archives, and museums.4 It is also supported by high-profile grants from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, and the Council on Library and Information Resources. Despite enthusiasm from libraries and other cultural institutions, new purchases and curated content are not going to reach the world as fully as hoped. [...]libraries adopt open data formats in favor of locking away content in closed records like MARC, library and digital content will remain siloed from the internet.
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Social distancing and the recent lockdown due to COVID-19 have increased the feeling of disconnection, isolation, and suffering in vulnerable individuals and have brought forward questions regarding locked acute care psychiatric units that cannot be answered by the literature. In Greece, there is no available research on how locked ward environments are perceived and experienced by mental health professionals. The aim of the present study is to illuminate nursing care providers' perceptions of psychiatric care in units with locked doors. Fifteen nursing care providers were interviewed and inductive content analysis was employed to explore their experiences of working in locked psychiatric acute care units. Negative and positive feelings about door locking did not appear to match the specific system of practice. Some participants described how locked doors influenced their professional role by placing emphasis on control rather than care while others regarded locked doors as a symbolic way of therapeutic boundary setting. Participants had positive experiences when they perceived their working environment as caring. The therapeutic benefits of locked doors were prominent when locked doors were perceived as "invisible."
Subject(s)
COVID-19 , Mental Disorders , Communicable Disease Control , Humans , Mental Disorders/therapy , SARS-CoV-2 , Security MeasuresABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: The hypercoagulability seen in patients with novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) likely contributes to the high temporary hemodialysis catheter (THDC) malfunction rate. We aim to evaluate prophylactic measures and their association with THDC patency. METHODS: A retrospective chart review of our institutions COVID-19 positive patients who required placement of a THDC between February 1 to April 30, 2020, was performed. The association between heparin locking, increased dosing of venous thromboembolism (VTE) prophylaxis and systemic anticoagulation on THDC patency was assessed. Proportional hazards modeling was used to perform a survival analysis to estimate the likelihood and timing of THDC malfunction with the three different prophylactic measures. We also determined the mortality, rate of THDC malfunction and its association with d-dimer levels. RESULTS: A total of 48 patients with a mortality rate of 71% were identified. THDC malfunction occurred in 31.3% of patients. Thirty-seven patients (77.1%) received heparin locking, 22 (45.8%) received systemic anticoagulation, and 38 (79.1%) received VTE prophylaxis. Overall, the rate of THDC malfunction was lower at a trend level of significance, with heparin vs saline locking (24.3% vs 54.6%; P = .058). The likelihood of THDC malfunction in the heparin locked group is lower than all other groups (hazard ratio [HR], 0.07; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.01-0.45]; P = .005). The rate of malfunction in patients with subcutaneous heparin (SQH) 7500 U three times daily is significantly lower than of the rate for patients receiving none (HR, 0.03; 95% CI, 0.001-0.74; P = .032). A trend level significant association was found for SQH 5000 U vs none (P = .417) and SQH 7500 vs 5000 U (P = .059). Systemic anticoagulation did not affect the THDC malfunction rate (P = .240). Higher d-dimer levels were related to greater mortality (HR, 3.28; 95% CI, 1.16-9.28; P = .025), but were not significantly associated with THDC malfunction (HR, 1.79; 95% CI, 0.42, 7.71; P = .434). CONCLUSIONS: Locking THDCs with heparin is associated with a lower malfunction rate. Prospective randomized studies will be needed to confirm these findings to recommend locking THDC with heparin in patients with COVID-19. Increased VTE prophylaxis suggested a possible association with improved THDC patency, although the comparison lacked sufficient statistical power.