Search Results (6)

Environmental contamination represents an important risk factor for the transmission of healthcare-associated pathogens in both human and veterinary medicine. In equine hospitals, open stable environments and high patient turnover may further increase the risk of microbial spread. The aim of this study was to evaluate the hygiene status of an equine referral hospital and to assess the effect of implementing standardized cleaning and disinfection procedures combined with targeted staff training on environmental microbial burden. Surface samples were collected using agar contact plates from predefined environmental surfaces in surgical areas, examination rooms, and stable units of an equine clinic. Sampling was conducted during three investigation periods: prior to intervention, after implementation of revised cleaning protocols and staff training, and during a later follow-up assessment. Colony-forming units (CFU) were quantified and categorized into an ordinal contamination scale (0–4) to enable standardized statistical analysis. Furthermore, delta values were calculated for every sampling period, describing the reduction in the environmental microbial burden. Pre- and post-cleaning microbial burdens were compared using nonparametric statistical methods. A total of 76 locations were sampled before and after cleaning and disinfection in sampling period 1 and 2; in sampling period 3, sample collection focused on sensitive surfaces, and 21 locations were sampled. Bacterial contamination varied considerably between functional areas, with the highest baseline contamination consistently observed in stable environments. Examination and surgical areas showed heterogeneous contamination patterns, particularly on high-touch surfaces, such as keyboards, switches, and door handles. In sampling periods 1 and 2, cleaning and disinfection significantly reduced microbial burden. The delta values in sampling period 2 were significantly lower than the delta values in both sampling period 1 and sampling period 3. These findings demonstrate that environmental contamination in equine hospitals is highly variable and influenced by surface type, clinical workflow, and proximity to patients. Structured hygiene interventions, including standardized cleaning protocols and continuous staff education, can significantly improve environmental hygiene and should be integrated into infection prevention programs in veterinary clinical facilities. Full article

This work describes experimental results concerning the chemical composition of the alloy patina and inlays from the medieval copper alloy door of the cathedral of Troia (southern Italy), dating back to 1127 CE. The analyses were conducted in situ with no sampling or sample preparation required, using a portable energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence (ED-XRF) instrument. The compositional results show that the two door leaves were made using a binary alloy of copper and lead, while the nails, lion protomes, and handles have a different chemical composition. Moreover, the analyses revealed uniform concentrations of chlorine, probably due to cleaning treatments during the restoration. It is important to emphasise that the obtained results are the only ones related to this valuable masterpiece analysed. Full article

In this proof-of-concept study, we aim to produce a polyurethane (PU)-based composite that can reduce the amount of viable SARS-CoV-2 virus in contact with the surface of the polymeric film without further interventions such as manual cleaning. Current protocols for maintaining the hygiene of commonly used touchpoints (door handles, light switches, shop counters) typically rely on repeated washing with antimicrobial products. Since the start of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, frequent and costly surface sanitization by workers has become standard procedure in many public areas. Therefore, materials that can be retrofitted to touchpoints, yet inhibit pathogen growth for extended time periods are an important target. Herein, we design and synthesise the PU using a one-pot synthetic procedure on a multigram scale from commercial starting materials. The PU forms a robust composite thin film when loaded with 10 wt% silver nanoparticles (AgNPs). The addition of AgNPs increases the ultimate tensile strength, modules of toughness and modulus of elasticity at the cost of a reduced elongation at break when compared to the pristine PU. Comparative biological testing was carried out by the addition of pseudotyped virus (PV) bearing the SARS-CoV-2 beta (B.1.351) VOC spike protein onto the film surfaces of either the pristine PU or the PU nanocomposite. After 24 h without further human intervention the nanocomposite reduced the amount of viable virus by 67% (p = 0.0012) compared to the pristine PU treated under the same conditions. The significance of this reduction in viable virus load caused by our nanocomposite is that PUs form the basis of many commercial paints and coatings. Therefore, we envisage that this work will provide the basis for further progress towards producing a retrofittable surface that can be applied to a wide variety of common touchpoints. Full article

The role of mobile robots for cleaning and sanitation purposes is increasing worldwide. Disinfection and hygiene are two integral parts of any safe indoor environment, and these factors become more critical in COVID-19-like pandemic situations. Door handles are highly sensitive contact points that are prone to be contamination. Automation of the door-handle cleaning task is not only important for ensuring safety, but also to improve efficiency. This work proposes an AI-enabled framework for automating cleaning tasks through a Human Support Robot (HSR). The overall cleaning process involves mobile base motion, door-handle detection, and control of the HSR manipulator for the completion of the cleaning tasks. The detection part exploits a deep-learning technique to classify the image space, and provides a set of coordinates for the robot. The cooperative control between the spraying and wiping is developed in the Robotic Operating System. The control module uses the information obtained from the detection module to generate a task/operational space for the robot, along with evaluating the desired position to actuate the manipulators. The complete strategy is validated through numerical simulations, and experiments on a Toyota HSR platform. Full article

Periodic cleaning of all frequently touched social areas such as walls, doors, locks, handles, windows has become the first line of defense against all infectious diseases. Among those, cleaning of large wall areas manually is always tedious, time-consuming, and astounding task. Although numerous cleaning companies are interested in deploying robotic cleaning solutions, they are mostly not addressing wall cleaning. To this end, we are proposing a new vision-based wall following framework that acts as an add-on for any professional robotic platform to perform wall cleaning. The proposed framework uses Deep Learning (DL) framework to visually detect, classify, and segment the wall/floor surface and instructs the robot to wall follow to execute the cleaning task. Also, we summarized the system architecture of Toyota Human Support Robot (HSR), which has been used as our testing platform. We evaluated the performance of the proposed framework on HSR robot under various defined scenarios. Our experimental results indicate that the proposed framework could successfully classify and segment the wall/floor surface and also detect the obstacle on wall and floor with high detection accuracy and demonstrates a robust behavior of wall following. Full article

We aimed to evaluate the impact of an educational intervention on the surface cleaning and disinfection of an emergency room. This is an interventional, prospective, longitudinal, analytical and comparative study. Data collection consisted of three stages (Stage 1—baseline, Stage 2—intervention and immediate assessment, Stage 3—long term assessment). For the statistical analysis, we used a significance level of α = 0.05. The Wilcoxon and the Mann–Whitney test tests were applied. We performed 192 assessments in each stage totaling 576 evaluations. Considering the ATP method, the percentage of approval increased after the educational intervention, as the approval rate for ATP was 25% (Stage 1), immediately after the intervention it went to 100% of the approval (Stage 2), and in the long run, 75% of the areas have been fully approved. Stage 1 showed the existence of significant differences between the relative light units (RLU) scores on only two surfaces assessed: dressing cart (p = 0.021) and women’s toilet flush handle (p = 0.014); Stage 2 presented three results with significant differences for ATP: dressing cart (p = 0.014), women’s restroom door handle (p = 0.014) and women’s toilet flush handle (p = 0.014); in step III, there was no significant difference for the ATP method. Therefore, conclusively, the educational intervention had a positive result in the short term for ATP; however, the same rates are not observed with the colony-forming units (CFU), due to their high sensitivity and the visual inspection method since four surfaces had defects in their structure. Full article