Classifying Compliant Manipulation Tasks for Automated Planning in Robotics

Many household chores and industrial manufacturing tasks require a certain compliant behavior to make deliberate physical contact with the environment. This compliant behavior can be implemented by modern robotic manipulators. However, in order to plan the task execution, a robot requires generic process models of these tasks which can be adapted to different domains and varying environmental conditions. In this work we propose a classification of compliant manipulation tasks meeting these requirements, to derive related actions for automated planning. We also present a classification for the sub-category of wiping tasks, which are most common and of great importance in service robotics. We categorize actions from an object-centric perspective to make them independent of any specific robot kinematics. The aim of the proposed taxonomy is to guide robotic programmers to develop generic actions for any kind of robotic systems in arbitrary domains

Multiparametric immune profiling in HPV- oral squamous cell cancer.

Evaluation of T lymphocyte frequency provides prognostic information for patients with oral squamous cell cancer (OSCC). However, the effect of simultaneously evaluating T cell frequency and assessing suppressive elements and defects in antigen-processing machinery (APM) has not been clarified. Simultaneous characterization of CD3+, CD8+, FoxP3+, CD163+, and PD-L1+ cells using multispectral imaging was performed on sections from 119 patients with HPV- OSCC. Expression of β2-microglobulin, MHC class I heavy chain, and large multifunctional peptidase 10 was quantified, and all data were correlated with patient outcome. We found that, consistent with previous reports, high numbers of CD8+ T cells at the invasive margin correlated significantly with prolonged overall survival (OS), while the number of FoxP3+ or PD-L1+ cells did not. Compiling the number of FoxP3+ or PD-L1+ cells within 30 μm of CD8+ T cells identified a significant association with a high number of suppressive elements close to CD8+ T cells and reduced OS. Integrating this information into a cumulative suppression index (CSI) increased correlation with OS. Incorporating tumor expression levels of APM components with CSI further improved prognostic power. This multiparametric immune profiling may be useful for stratifying patients with OSCC for clinical trials

EDAN - An EMG-controlled Daily Assistant To Help People With Physical Disabilities

Injuries, accidents, strokes, and other diseases can significantly degrade the capabilities to perform even the most simple activities in daily life. A large share of these cases involves neuromuscular diseases, which lead to severely reduced muscle function. However, even though affected people are no longer able to move their limbs, residual muscle function can still be existent. Previous work has shown that this residual muscular activity can suffice to apply an EMG-based user interface. In this paper, we introduce DLR's robotic wheelchair EDAN (EMG-controlled Daily Assistant), which is equipped with a torque-controlled, eight degree-of-freedom light-weight arm and a dexterous, five-fingered robotic hand. Using electromyography, muscular activity of the user is measured,processed and utilized to control both the wheelchair and the robotic manipulator. This EMG-based interface is enhanced with shared control functionality to allow for efficient and safe physical interaction with the environment

Perspectives in Melanoma: Meeting Report From the Melanoma Bridge (December 1st–3rd, 2022-Naples, Italy)

Outcomes for patients with melanoma have improved over the past decade with the clinical development and approval of immunotherapies targeting immune checkpoint receptors such as programmed death-1 (PD-1), programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) or cytotoxic T lymphocyte antigen-4 (CTLA-4). Combinations of these checkpoint therapies with other agents are now being explored to improve outcomes and enhance benefit-risk profiles of treatment. Alternative inhibitory receptors have been identified that may be targeted for anti-tumor immune therapy, such as lymphocyte-activation gene-3 (LAG-3), as have several potential target oncogenes for molecularly targeted therapy, such as tyrosine kinase inhibitors. Unfortunately, many patients still progress and acquire resistance to immunotherapy and molecularly targeted therapies. To bypass resistance, combination treatment with immunotherapies and single or multiple TKIs have been shown to improve prognosis compared to monotherapy. The number of new combinations treatment under development for melanoma provides options for the number of patients to achieve a therapeutic benefit. Many diagnostic and prognostic assays have begun to show clinical applicability providing additional tools to optimize and individualize treatments. However, the question on the optimal algorithm of first- and later-line therapies and the search for biomarkers to guide these decisions are still under investigation. This year, the Melanoma Bridge Congress (Dec 1st-3rd, 2022, Naples, Italy) addressed the latest advances in melanoma research, focusing on themes of paramount importance for melanoma prevention, diagnosis and treatment. This included sessions dedicated to systems biology on immunotherapy, immunogenicity and gene expression profiling, biomarkers, and combination treatment strategies

Integrating organizational, social, and individual perspectives in Web 2.0-based workplace e-learning

From the issue entitled 'Special Issue: Emerging Social and Legal Aspect'E-learning is emerging as a popular approach of education in the workplace by virtue of its flexibility to access, just-in-time delivery, and cost-effectiveness. To improve social interaction and knowledge sharing in e-learning, Web 2.0 is increasingly utilized and integrated with e-learning applications. However, existing social learning systems fail to align learning with organizational goals and individual needs in a systemic way. The dominance of technology-oriented approaches makes elearning applications less goal-effective and poor in quality and design. To solve the problem, we address the requirement of integrating organizational, social, and individual perspectives in the development of Web 2.0 elearning systems. To fulfill the requirement, a key performance indicator (KPI)-oriented approach is presented in this study. By integrating a KPI model with Web 2.0 technologies, our approach is able to: 1) set up organizational goals and link the goals with expertise required for individuals; 2) build a knowledge network by linking learning resources to a set of competences to be developed and a group of people who learn and contribute to the knowledge network through knowledge creation, sharing, and peer evaluation; and 3) improve social networking and knowledge sharing by identifying each individual's work context, expertise, learning need, performance, and contribution. The mechanism of the approach is explored and elaborated with conceptual frameworks and implementation technologies. A prototype system for Web 2.0 e-learning has been developed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach. © Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2009.postprin

Model-Augmented Haptic Telemanipulation: Concept, Retrospective Overview, and Current Use Cases

Certain telerobotic applications, including telerobotics in space, pose particularly demanding challenges to both technology and humans. Traditional bilateral telemanipulation approaches often cannot be used in such applications due to technical and physical limitations such as long and varying delays, packet loss, and limited bandwidth, as well as high reliability, precision, and task duration requirements. In order to close this gap, we research model-augmented haptic telemanipulation (MATM) that uses two kinds of models: a remote model that enables shared autonomous functionality of the teleoperated robot, and a local model that aims to generate assistive augmented haptic feedback for the human operator. Several technological methods that form the backbone of the MATM approach have already been successfully demonstrated in accomplished telerobotic space missions. On this basis, we have applied our approach in more recent research to applications in the fields of orbital robotics, telesurgery, caregiving, and telenavigation. In the course of this work, we have advanced specific aspects of the approach that were of particular importance for each respective application, especially shared autonomy, and haptic augmentation. This overview paper discusses the MATM approach in detail, presents the latest research results of the various technologies encompassed within this approach, provides a retrospective of DLR's telerobotic space missions, demonstrates the broad application potential of MATM based on the aforementioned use cases, and outlines lessons learned and open challenges

Processing unit resources in a distributed computing systems

The described program is designed for collecting, storing and processing data of distributed file system

31st Annual Meeting and Associated Programs of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC 2016) : part two

Background The immunological escape of tumors represents one of the main ob- stacles to the treatment of malignancies. The blockade of PD-1 or CTLA-4 receptors represented a milestone in the history of immunotherapy. However, immune checkpoint inhibitors seem to be effective in specific cohorts of patients. It has been proposed that their efficacy relies on the presence of an immunological response. Thus, we hypothesized that disruption of the PD-L1/PD-1 axis would synergize with our oncolytic vaccine platform PeptiCRAd. Methods We used murine B16OVA in vivo tumor models and flow cytometry analysis to investigate the immunological background. Results First, we found that high-burden B16OVA tumors were refractory to combination immunotherapy. However, with a more aggressive schedule, tumors with a lower burden were more susceptible to the combination of PeptiCRAd and PD-L1 blockade. The therapy signifi- cantly increased the median survival of mice (Fig. 7). Interestingly, the reduced growth of contralaterally injected B16F10 cells sug- gested the presence of a long lasting immunological memory also against non-targeted antigens. Concerning the functional state of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), we found that all the immune therapies would enhance the percentage of activated (PD-1pos TIM- 3neg) T lymphocytes and reduce the amount of exhausted (PD-1pos TIM-3pos) cells compared to placebo. As expected, we found that PeptiCRAd monotherapy could increase the number of antigen spe- cific CD8+ T cells compared to other treatments. However, only the combination with PD-L1 blockade could significantly increase the ra- tio between activated and exhausted pentamer positive cells (p= 0.0058), suggesting that by disrupting the PD-1/PD-L1 axis we could decrease the amount of dysfunctional antigen specific T cells. We ob- served that the anatomical location deeply influenced the state of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes. In fact, TIM-3 expression was in- creased by 2 fold on TILs compared to splenic and lymphoid T cells. In the CD8+ compartment, the expression of PD-1 on the surface seemed to be restricted to the tumor micro-environment, while CD4 + T cells had a high expression of PD-1 also in lymphoid organs. Interestingly, we found that the levels of PD-1 were significantly higher on CD8+ T cells than on CD4+ T cells into the tumor micro- environment (p < 0.0001). Conclusions In conclusion, we demonstrated that the efficacy of immune check- point inhibitors might be strongly enhanced by their combination with cancer vaccines. PeptiCRAd was able to increase the number of antigen-specific T cells and PD-L1 blockade prevented their exhaus- tion, resulting in long-lasting immunological memory and increased median survival

Towards Intelligent Compliant Service Robots

Force-sensitive manipulation is one of the key aspects for future service robots in domestic and human environments. In this video we will demonstrate our hybrid reasoning framework capable of planning and executing force-sensitive whole-body manipulation tasks. A modular concept allows to combine robot capabilities together with object knowledge to parameterize a task symbolically and geometrically w.r.t. the actual state of the environment. A whole-body impedance control architecture is utilized to exert forces with various tools in order to solve everyday cleaning tasks. The framework is implemented on the humanoid robot Rollin' Justin and validated in three experiments which represent typical household chores: wiping a window, cleaning a mug, and sweeping the floor with a broom

Object-Centered Hybrid Reasoning for Whole-Body Mobile Manipulation

Many houseworks such as cleaning the floor or wiping the windows require to manipulate tools over wide areas. It is necessary to move along a path while manipulating a tool with the whole body and applying exactly the right amount of force to successfully accomplish the task. So mastering such a challenge demands detailed knowledge about the involved objects and the underlying process models. Reasoning about an appropriate parameterization of the task is thereby essential. In this paper we propose a combination of object-centered hybrid reasoning and compliant force control to solve complex wholebody mobile manipulation issues. Depending on the objects involved in the task, an appropriate controller is selected and automatically parameterized. The methods are validated in an elaborate experiment on the humanoid robot Rollin’ Justin