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Intramuscular (IM) injection is mainly performed manually at present. Large-scale COVID-19 vaccination has exposed various problems of manual IM injection. In addition, the clinical success rate of manual IM injection is also unsatisfactory. Using robotic intramuscular injection system (RIMIS) is expected to realize automated vaccination and improve the success rate of IM injection. The existing robotic needle insertion system based on image guidance is not a practical option for IM injection because of the time-consuming medical imaging process. In this paper, an optical guidance method for RIMIS is proposed, which uses near-infrared optical tracking system and retro-reflective patch to achieve rapid acquisition of surface normal vector. A closed loop formed by six coordinate systems is used to realize the accurate control of the injection angle and depth. Experimental results show that the RIMIS based on the proposed method can complete the simulated IM injection operation without image guidance and possess accurate control of the injection angle and depth. © 2022 IEEE.
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Parallèlement à l'augmentation du nombre de personnes qui s'injectent des drogues, il y a eu une augmentation des aiguilles et des débris d'injection mis au rebut de manière non sécuritaire. Alors que la littérature scientifique indique que les programmes de réduction de risques réduisent les débris d'aiguilles, les médias rapportent souvent le contraire. À l'aide du logiciel de système d'information géographique (SIG), nous avons analysé les données géo-spatiales relatives aux débris d'aiguilles à Calgary (Canada), en corrélant les débris avec les boÎtes de dépôt d'aiguilles disponibles, programme de sensibilisation et d'éducation, les surdoses et les changements au cours de la pandémie de COVID. Les débris d'aiguilles étaient les plus denses dans deux quartiers centraux : Beltline et Downtown Commercial Core. Les quartiers centraux de la ville ont contribué à 83 % de tous les rejets d'aiguilles, qui représentent 73 % des emplacements discrets. De plus, 51 % des aiguilles jetées ont été recueillies dans les quartiers Beltline (40 %) et les quartiers de Downtown Commercial Core (11 %), représentant 85 % des grappes et 71 % des points chauds. Les surdoses étaient positivement corrélées avec les débris d'aiguilles. Les restrictions liées à la pandémie de COVID-19 étaient liées à une augmentation du nombre de rejets d'aiguilles. Les débris d'aiguilles sont un problème social, environnemental et de santé publique complexe qui nécessite une approche multidimensionnelle. La cartographie SIG est un outil puissant qui peut localiser les points chauds afin que les ressources puissent être déployées.Alternate :Concomitant with the rise in the number of people who inject drugs has been an increase in unsafely discarded needles and injection debris. While the scholarly literature indicates that harm reduction programs reduce needle debris, the news media often report otherwise. Using geographic information systems (GIS) software ArcGIS Desktop 10.8 (Esri 2020), we analyzed geospatial data pertaining to needle debris in Calgary (Canada), correlating debris with available needle dropboxes, outreach education, overdoses, and changes over the COVID pandemic. Needle debris was most dense in two central neighbourhoods: Beltline and Downtown Commercial Core. The city's central neighbourhoods contributed to 83% of all needle discards, which accounted for 73% of discrete locations. Additionally, 51% of discarded needles were collected from the Beltline (40%) and Downtown Commercial Core (11%) neighbourhoods, accounting for 85% of clusters and 71% of hotspots. Overdoses were positively correlated with needle debris. COVID-19 pandemic restrictions were linked to a spike in the number of discards. Needle debris is a complex social, environmental and public health issue that requires a multifaceted approach. GIS mapping is a powerful tool that can locate hotspots so that resources can be deployed.
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The article discusses a concern related to the nurse graduates whose training was compromised by the Covid-19 pandemic which may be vulnerable to needlesticks in clinical settings. It discusses that blunt suture needles are similarly underused, resulting in many of the suture injuries;and mentions that the failure to replace dangerous sharps with safety devices poses a downstream injury risk to laundry workers, housekeeping, and central sterile supply.
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El objetivo de este estudio es analizar la relación entre el miedo a la aguja (MA) y el miedo a la vacunación (MV), la intención de vacunarse (IV) y los motivos más comúnmente alegados para evitarlo (MEV). Se pretende ampliar la información sobre el tema en un contexto de pandemia. Justo antes de iniciar el plan de vacunación. Se aplicó una encuesta transversal a una muestra (N = 2,175) de ciudadanos españoles adultos (37.60 ± 12.98 años), de ambos sexos (mujeres: 67.3%). Se realizó análisis descriptivo, correlacional y de regresión. Para el MV la prevalencia fue de 5.1%, siendo factores de riesgo ser mujer, entre 20 y 40 años y sin dependientes a cargo. La relación entre MA y MV, IV y MEV (excepto la relacionada con la eficacia de la vacuna) era escasa aunque significativa. Esta relación fue positiva con el MA y los MEV y negativa con el MV. Se comentan los resultados y se recomienda actuar sobre el MA para reducir el MV y los MEV y aumentar la IV. (Spanish) [ FROM AUTHOR]
ABSTRACT
In 2019, Covid-19 pandemic appeared and affected the health of humanity. The virus can spread between people in various ways, but mostly from infected liquid particles. A fundamental method of defense is the use of a face mask in public, however, the efficiency of wearing a mask can be influenced by a number of factors. Most of the masks have a classification based on its filtration efficiency. There are three categories, the FFP1, FFP2 and FFP3, where FFP means filtering facepiece'. All the 3 types can filter particles down to the size of 0.6 micrometer, but the FFP1's efficiency is 80%, the FFP2's 94%, while the FFP3's reaches 99%. In the USA they use the same categories, but call it KN80, KN95 and KN100. The problem is that the commonly used textile masks do not have a classification, which means that these cannot protect the wearer from being infected. The aim of our research is to improve the filter efficiency of masks, and we have described in this paper the first phase, the construction and testing of the laboratory model. Two cases were considered, with one needle and five needle solutions. During the experiments, the electrode distance was varied. When using more needles, the nanofibers covered a larger area, but there was a greater roughness between the fibers generated. Considering that electrospinning starts after a critical electric field strength, some calculations were performed in COMSOL model. © 2022 IEEE.
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Unlike the term sound insulation, which means reducing the penetration of noise into other areas, sound absorption means reducing the reflection and energy of the sound on the surface. It has become a highly noticed issue in recent years because the noise in our daily life is increasing day by day, and it causes some health and comfort disorders. In many areas, textiles have been used for acoustics control and noise absorption purposes. The purpose of this work is to determine the most effective media for sound absorption performance and its relation to thermal conductivity from needle-punched nonwoven, meltblown nonwoven and hybrid forms in different arrangements of these fabrics. To provide comparable samples, both needle-punched nonwoven and meltblown nonwoven samples were produced from 100% Polypropylene fibres. According to sound absorption tests, the hybrid-structured sample having a composition similar to the needle-punched nonwoven sample placed at the bottom of our study, while the meltblown nonwoven sample placed as a face layer outperformed the rest of the samples in terms of sound absorption and thermal conductivity. ‘Meltblown only’ samples had remarkably higher sound absorption efficiency than most of the samples, while the ‘needle-punched nonwoven only’ sample had the lowest sound absorption efficiency in all frequencies.
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Ozone is a highly effective and broad-spectrum non-residual gas disinfectant.The global COVID-19 pandemic has significantly affected public safety and health, and low concentrations of ozone can inactivate the novel coronavirus.The negative ion generator is a safe and efficient method to generate ozone.Through corona discharge on the needle plate, an ion current can be formed between the needle-plate electrodes and a certain concentration of ozone can be released.In the research on the relationship between the electrode-to-plate distance and ozone release in the negative ion generator, different experimental observations show contradictory results, making the theoretical explanation very difficult and complicated.As the needle-to-plate electrode distance increases, the continuous exponential decreasing trend of ozone emission rate changes to a non-continuous step-wised decreasing pattern, which is defined as the Quantum Ozone Emission Effect (QOEE).The QOEE was observed in all negative ion generators when the plate material was aluminium, stainless steel, yellow brass, or copper.The observed quantum ozone emission effect in negative ion generators may be related to the gas ionization potential of the oxygen molecule and to the electron avalanche theory.The quantum effect of ozone emission is a manifestation of the quantum behavior of the microscopic electron world in the macroscopic world.The ozone emission quantum effect provides a novel technical method for measuring the microscopic properties and corona discharge characteristics of materials. © 2022, Editorial Department of Journal of Xidian University. All right reserved.
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OBJECTIVE: To observe the effect of thumb-tack needles based on "Biaoben acupoint compatibility" on sequela symptoms, mental state and pulmonary ventilation function in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) during recovery period. METHODS: Fifty cases of COVID-19 during recovery period were randomly divided into an observation group and a control group, 25 cases in each group. The patients in the observation group were treated with thumb-tack needles at Guanyuan (CV 4), Zusanli (ST 36) and Taiyuan (LU 9). The patients in the control group were treated with sham thumb-tack needles at identical acupoints as the observation group. The treatment in the two groups was given once a day, 7-day treatment was taken as a course of treatment, and totally two courses of treatment were given. The TCM symptom score, Hamilton anxiety scale (HAMA) score, Hamilton depression scale (HAMD) score, pulmonary function (forced vital capacity [FVC], forced expiratory volume in the first second [FEV1], peak expiratory flow [PEF]), the severity of pulmonary ventilation dysfunction and pulmonary imaging changes in the two groups were compared before and after treatment. RESULTS: Compared before treatment, the total scores and each item scores of TCM symptom scale, HAMA scores and HAMD scores in the two groups were reduced after treatment (P<0.05). Except for the symptom scores of dry throat and dry stool, the total score and each item score of TCM symptom scale, HAMA score and HAMD score in the observation group were lower than those in the control group (P<0.05). Compared before treatment, FVC, FEV1 and PEF in the two groups were increased after treatment (P<0.05), and those in the observation group were higher than the control group (P<0.05). The severity of pulmonary ventilation dysfunction in the two groups was reduced after treatment (P<0.05), and the severity in the observation group was better than that in the control group (P<0.05). After treatment, the lung shadow area in the two groups was decreased (P<0.05), and that in the observation group was smaller than the control group (P<0.05). The improvement of imaging change in the observation group was better than that in the control group (P<0.05). CONCLUSION: The thumb-tack needles based on "Biaoben acupoint compatibility" could significantly reduce the sequela symptoms, anxiety and depression in patients with COVID-19 during recovery stage, and improve the pulmonary ventilation function.
Subject(s)
Acupuncture Points , COVID-19 , Anxiety/etiology , COVID-19/complications , COVID-19/therapy , Depression/etiology , Humans , Needles , Respiratory Function Tests , ThumbABSTRACT
At present, fingertip blood sampling is mainly done manually by medical workers. Under the COVID-19 epidemic, medical workers are easily infected, in addition, the finger needs to be squeezed to increase the amount of bleeding during the blood collection process, which will cause the cell fluid to enter the blood and cause the test results to be inaccurate. This paper presents a kind of design about an intelligent fingertip blood sampling robot. We get the finger vein image through the near-infrared imaging module, and select the vein intersection area as the blood collection point after image segmentation, which will be helpful in improving the amount of bleeding. We use the laser to guide the end of the blood collection robot puncture needle and blood collection vessels to achieve rapid and accurate blood puncture and blood collection operation. The experimental results show that the maximum deviation between the blood sampling needle and the blood sampling point does not exceed 0.15mm and the longest time from fingertip blood sampling point selection to guide the blood sampling needle to the blood sampling point is less than 9.8 seconds. © 2021 ACM.
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Understanding the underlying pathology in different tissues and organs is crucial when fighting pandemics like COVID-19. During conventional autopsy, large tissue sample sets of multiple organs can be collected from cadavers. However, direct contact with an infectious corpse is associated with the risk of disease transmission and relatives of the deceased might object to a conventional autopsy. To overcome these drawbacks, we consider minimally invasive autopsies with robotic needle placement as a practical alternative. One challenge in needle based biopsies is avoidance of dense obstacles, including bones or embedded medical devices such as pacemakers. We demonstrate an approach for automated planning and visualising suitable needle insertion points based on computed tomography (CT) scans. Needle paths are modeled by a line between insertion and target point and needle insertion path occlusion from obstacles is determined by using central projections from the biopsy target to the surface of the skin. We project the maximum and minimum CT attenuation, insertion depth, and standard deviation of CT attenuation along the needle path and create two-dimensional intensity-maps projected on the skin. A cost function considering these metrics is introduced and minimized to find an optimal biopsy needle path. Furthermore, we disregard insertion points without sufficient room for needle placement. For visualisation, we display the color-coded cost function so that suitable points for needle insertion become visible. We evaluate our system on 10 post mortem CTs with six biopsy targets in abdomen and thorax annotated by medical experts. For all patients and targets an optimal insertion path is found. The mean distance to the target ranges from (49.9 ± 12.9)mm for the spleen to (90.1 ± 25.8)mm for the pancreas. © 2021 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston.
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Cutaneous manifestation is a newly reported clinical manifestation of COVID-19 infection. The clinical description of cutaneous manifestation is still not fully described. Our patient, a medical person, had viral exanthem distributed in the extremities along with a "Spins and needles sensation," which differs from a previously published paper on cutaneous manifestations. The differential diagnosis of drug-induced skin rash and hand-foot-mouth disease was ruled out based on the patient's previous history and course of the disease.