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(AB) lacerations (AC) awaited (AD) manual (AE) established (BC) autonomous(BD) acquired (BE) bigotry (CD) toyed (CE) crevices (DE) ingenuity(ABC) diverged (ABD) fiddled(ABE) approached (BCD)kicked off(BCE)pivotedIn just a few months, the COVID-19 pandemic has crossed borders and oceans, killingthousands, sickening millions, and forcing millions more to reckon with the economic andpersonal chaos of closures and lockdowns.Yet as the global infection count rises, the crisis has also given rise to acts of __ 51__. Thepandemic has set off a global race for both an effective vaccine and for the accurate,rapid-response tests that will be necessary before workplaces can safely reopen. Vaccines andtests are essential, but they’re not the only front on which to combat the virus.In the face of an urgent threat, scientists have __52__ from other projects and pooled theirresources toward breakthroughs aimed at reducing infection and protecting lives. Chief amongthose are tools that make possible cleaner, safer places for patients and those treating them, andthat alleviate the crushing demands placed on healthcare workers during this crisis.Conor McGinn is a roboticist and professor at Trinity College Dublin. McGinn and hiscolleagues at Trinity’s Robotics and Innovation Lab focus on figuring out how robots can bestassist aging individuals in care homes.The signature product from the lab and its spinoff company, Akara Robotics, is Stevie, a 4 -foot7-inch tall social robot whose primary function is alleviating loneliness.Its team of engineers have also worked closely with care home staff to understand whatadditional functions could be added to the robot to boost patient safety. In July 2019, well beforethe first reports of the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China, the team began exploring whetherStevie might be able to ward off infections too.The team has a longstanding partnership at Knollwood Military Retirement Community inWashington,
(D)
(C) A director there had pointed out that __53__ infections are one of the greatestthreats to health inside care homes. With that in mind, McGinn __54__ Michael Beckett, apostdoctoral research fellow in Trinity’s microbiology department, to discuss whether it would bepossible to equip the robot with an ultraviolet light feature that would be powerful enough to killharmful pathogens, yet safe to use alongside residents and staff.Ultraviolet light at wavelengths between 200 and 280 nanometers, also known as UV-C light,“causes DNA either to change shape, or acts like molecular scissors,” says Beckett. “It will cutthat genetic material and cause little nicks in it.”英文科教師甄試-7Complex organisms and even some bacteria can repair small __55__ themselves. Viruses,which are molecularly much simpler than bacteria, don’t stand a chance.UV-C light is a long-__56__ disinfectant in health care settings. Over the last 10 years,hospitals around the world have adopted machines that sterilize rooms and equipment withpowerful blasts of light. Because UV-C can also cause sunburn and the cell mutations that lead toskin cancer, most machines currently in use can only work safely and effectively in rooms emptyof people, making them impractical for use in high-traffic areas like waiting rooms and othercommon spaces.The Stevie robot already had sensors allowing it to navigate independently and stop when itdetects the presence of a person. A directed light source that automatically shut down when itdetected motion nearby could be a useful feature. Akara __57__with the idea of putting adisinfectant UV-C feature on Stevie, but eventually dropped it when they couldn’t find asatisfactory way to integrate it into the robot’s design.Then on Feb. 29, Ireland’s Health Service Executive (HSE) confirmed the country’s first caseof the novel coronavirus. Less than two weeks later, an elderly woman in a Dublin hospitalbecame Ireland’s first COVID-19 casualty. The Akara team had data on how effective UV-C lightwas as a disinfectant, and knew how to make a relatively lightweight, nimble robot that couldmove effectively around humans in busy healthcare settings. If there was ever a time worthrevisiting the idea for an autonomous UV-C equipped robot, McGinn realized, this was it.The team began drawing up plans for a new robot that would combine the navigationalfeatures they’d designed for Stevie with a UV-C light. The robot wouldn’t have anyanthropomorphic features, but would be designed to work alongside humans. They would call thisone Violet. Violet is one of many robots deployed or soon to be deployed on the front lines of theglobal outbreak, navigating hospitals and assisting health workers and patients with a very lowrisk of spreading the infection.In China, the November emergence of COVID-19 __58__ a rush to get robot technologies tothe frontlines. In March, a hospital in the pandemic’s epicenter, Wuhan, opened a new wing forcoronavirus patients staffed by robots that clean, deliver food to patients, and monitor vit al signs.“As epidemics escalate, the potential roles of robotics are becoming increasingly clear,” agroup of 13 researchers wrote in an editorial last month in the journal Science Robotics. Theysingled out several key areas where robots could make a significant difference: among them,disinfection using UV light.“Instead of __59__ disinfection, which requires workforce mobilization and increases exposurerisk to cleaning personnel, __60__ or remote-controlled disinfection robots could lead tocost-effective, fast, and effective disinfection,” the researchers wrote. “New generations of robots,from macro- to microscale, could be developed to navigate high-risk areas and continually work tosterilize all high-touch surfaces.”[!--empirenews.page--]
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