Introduction to Door Opening Type Classification Based on Human Demonstration

Opening doors and drawers will be an important ability for future service robots used in domestic and industrial environments. However, in recent years, the methods for opening doors and drawers have become more diverse and difficult for robots to determine and manipulate. We can divide doors into three distinct handling types: regular handles, hidden handles, and push mechanisms. While extensive research has been done on the detection and handling of regular handles, the other types of handling have not been explored as much. In this paper, we set out to classify the types of cabinet door handling types. To this end, we collect and label a dataset consisting of RGB-D images of cabinets in their natural environment. As part of the dataset, we provide images of humans demonstrating the handling of these doors. We detect the poses of human hands and then train a classifier to determine the type of cabinet door handling. With this research, we hope to provide a starting point for exploring the different types of cabinet door openings in real-world environments.

Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 infections and exposure in surfaces, points and wastewaters: A global one health perspective

The persistence of SARS-CoV-2 or its RNA on surfaces, points, or wastewaters may increase the risk of transmission of this virus. Therefore, we conducted this review to discuss the places and surfaces with the highest potential for infection and spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Several common and public areas, hospitals, elevators, public transport, local markets, and surfaces such as public toilets, door handles, untreated and treated wastewaters, wastewater plants, and public washrooms are also considered major points for spreading of SARS-CoV-2. Highly contaminated surfaces or places often have materials or contain items made of materials on which the SARS-CoV-2 virus can persist (e.g., metal, wood, and plastic). For example, SARS-CoV-2 can exist up to 4 days on doorknobs made by those materials. For public places such as public transports, elevators, and local markets, crowding and enclosed spaces are major source for transmission. Several measures such as using copper alloy surfaces instead of metal surfaces, disinfectants, and suitable personal protective equipment have been suggested. Our research could be the basis to help develop studies on the existence and transmissibility of SARS-CoV-2 as well as its RNA to take measures to prevent and limit the harmful effects of COVID-19 pandemic.

Making a Case for Infection Control at Public Places of Convenience in Accra, Ghana

In Ghana, environmental hygiene remains a major problem and infection control measures are hardly practised, particularly outside of the hospital. To provide evidence for infection control measures at public places of convenience in Accra (capital city of Ghana), this study was performed. The aim of the study was to evaluate microbial contamination of door handles at public places of convenience in Accra and assess the public health risk. A total of 183 swab specimens were collected aseptically from door handles of public places of convenience of shops, schools, hospitals, lorry stations, churches, and markets. The samples were cultured on bacteriological media, and the isolated organisms were identified. The most prevalent bacterial agent isolated was Bacillus spp. (55.7%), followed by Staphylococcus aureus (20.2%), coagulase-negative staphylococcus spp. (17.1%), Citrobacter freundii (6.0%), Citrobacter koseri (4.4%), and Salmonella Paratyphi A (3.8%). Although in low prevalence, a wide range of enteric bacteria were isolated from door handles, accounting for 12 of the 16 isolated organisms. In conclusion, door handles of places of convenience in Accra harbour several pathogenic microorganisms, especially enteric organisms. This study highlights the need for proper disinfection of door handles of places of convenience in Accra as well as handwashing after visiting such places.

Microbial biogeography of a university campus

BACKGROUND

Microorganisms are distributed on surfaces within homes, workplaces, and schools, with the potential to impact human health and disease. University campuses represent a unique opportunity to explore the distribution of microorganisms within built environments because of high human population densities, throughput, and variable building usage. For example, the main campus of the University of Waterloo spans four square kilometres, hosts over 40,000 individuals daily, and is comprised of a variety of buildings, including lecture halls, gyms, restaurants, residences, and a daycare.

RESULTS

Representative left and right entrance door handles from each of the 65 buildings at the University of Waterloo were swabbed at three time points during an academic term in order to determine if microbial community assemblages coincided with building usage and whether these communities are stable temporally. Across all door handles, the dominant phyla were Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, Actinobacteria, and Bacteroidetes, which comprised 89.0 % of all reads. A total of 713 genera were observed, 16 of which constituted a minimum of 1 % of the 2,458,094 classified and rarefied reads. Archaea were found in low abundance (~0.03 %) but were present on 42.8 % of the door handles on 96 % of buildings across all time points, indicating that they are ubiquitous at very low levels on door handle surfaces. Although inter-handle variability was high, several individual building entrances harbored distinct microbial communities that were consistent over time. The presence of visible environmental debris on a subset of handles was associated with distinct microbial communities (beta diversity), increased richness (alpha diversity), and higher biomass (adenosine 5'-triphosphate; ATP).

CONCLUSIONS

This study demonstrates highly variable microbial communities associated with frequently contacted door handles on a university campus. Nonetheless, the data also revealed several building-specific and temporally stable bacterial and archaeal community patterns, with a potential impact of accumulated debris, a possible result of low human throughput, on detected microbial communities.