Online Learning and Planning for Crowd-aware Service Robot Navigation

Mobile service robots are increasingly used in indoor environments (e.g., shopping malls or museums) among large crowds of people. To efficiently navigate in these environments, such a robot should be able to exhibit a variety of behaviors. It should avoid crowded areas, and not oppose the flow of the crowd. It should be able to identify and avoid specific crowds that result in additional delays (e.g., children in a particular area might slow down the robot). and to seek out a crowd if its task requires it to interact with as many people as possible. These behaviors require the ability to learn and model crowd behavior in an environment. Earlier work used a dataset of paths navigated by people to solve this problem. That approach is expensive, risks privacy violations, and can become outdated as the environment evolves. To overcome these drawbacks, this thesis proposes a new approach where the robot learns models of crowd behavior online and relies only on local onboard sensors. This work develops and tests multiple planners that leverage these models in simulated environments and demonstrate statistically significant improvements in performance. The work reported here is applicable not only to navigation to target locations, but also to a variety of other services

Evaluating the role of hemogram based parameters in febrile seizures

Background: One of the most common childhood neurological disorders is febrile seizures (FS). Parents may have trouble describing the events pertaining to seizures, which might lead to aberrations in the diagnosis and classification of FS. Hence, objective biomarkers to predict and classify FS will be clinically beneficial. The aim of this study was to evaluate role of hemogram based parameters (NLR, PLR, RDW, MPV) in the outcome of children with febrile seizures (FSs) and in differentiating between simple and complex febrile seizures. Methods: A total of 50 patients with FSs (group A) who were hospitalized in our hospital were selected. Fifty patients with fever and without seizures (group B). The results of hemogram were collected retrospectively and analysed. Results: The hemogram analysis showed that hemoglobin (Hb) in group A was significantly lower than in the group B (p<0.05). The neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR), MPV and RDW in group A was significantly higher than in group B. The MPV and NLR values in the CFS group was higher in comparison to SFS group (p<0.05). Conclusions: As statistically significant differences were found in the hemogram parameters like HB, RDW, MPV, NLR PLR between febrile seizure group and non-febrile seizure group, these parameters can aid in diagnosing the same. High NLR and MPV levels may be able to serve as simple yet effective laboratory indicator for distinguishing between simple and complex febrile seizures

Eating Disorders among Indian Adolescents

Objective: To assess and compare the prevalence and risk for eating disorders (ED) among middle and late adolescents in India.Materials and Methods: A prospective study conducted among 1855 adolescents of age group 14 years to 19 years from four schools and three colleges in Mangalore city. A standardized structured questionnaire was used to evaluate the subjects’ attitude toward and preoccupation with food, dieting, eating, physical appearance, and personal control over eating. Eating Attitudes Test questionnaire (EAT-26), consisting of 26 questions that assess the symptoms and concerns that are characteristic of eating disorders and four additional questions to asses weight control behavior patterns adapted. Participants who scored 20 and above on EAT were considered to have eating disorder that would require professional attention.Results: 1855 students participated in the study and completed the self-report EAT-26. Among the study participants, 47.3% were in mid-adolescence and 52.7% in late-adolescent age group respectively. 26.7% of participants scored 20 and above; scores attained were correlated with the behavioral patterns adapted which was found to be statistically significant, indicating a high risk for development of eating disorders among adolescents. Higher prevalence of eating disorder was noted in those with increased BMI (p-value <0.0001) but age and gender did not have a significant influence.Conclusion: Eating disorders and subthreshold eating conditions are prevalent in sample of Indian adolescents and were strongly associated with psychological, behavioral and socio-environmental domains, which show the necessity of initiating routine screening programs and intervention programs to control eating disorders among Indian adolescents. Further evaluation, counseling and follow-up with a qualified professional is essential to rule out any underlying cause for eating disorder

ACM bundles, quintic threefolds and counting problems

We review some facts about rank two arithmetically Cohen-Macaulay bundles on quintic threefolds. In particular, we separate them into seventeen natural classes, only fourteen of which can appear on a general quintic. We discuss some enumerative problems arising from these. © 2012 Versita Warsaw and Springer-Verlag Wien

Mnemonic Utilization in Stroke Education: FAST and BEFAST Adoption by Certified Comprehensive Stroke Centers

Introduction Symptom recognition and timely access to treatment are critical components of acute stroke care systems. Two mnemonics widely used in public educational campaigns for recognizing stroke symptoms include FAST (Face-Arm-Speech-Time) and BEFAST (Balance-Eyes-Face-Arm Speech-Time). The FAST mnemonic can miss up to 14% of strokes. BEFAST includes common posterior circulation stroke symptoms and has been implemented by several Comprehensive Stroke Centers (CSCs). Methods We sought to analyze the pattern of public educational materials available on the websites of US CSCs. The Joint Commission (JC) quality check website compiles a list containing the names and locations of the country’s 217 JC-certified CSCs, which was downloaded in August, 2022. Each CSC’s website was searched for educational material containing FAST and BEFAST mnemonics for stroke symptom recognition. Results The FAST mnemonic was listed by 35% of CSCs, the BEFAST by 58%, with 7% listing no specific mnemonic. The highest portion of CSCs using BEFAST was in western (65%) and southeastern (63%) states. The highest percentage of CSCs with no listed mnemonic were in the northeastern (14%) and southeastern (13%) states. Conclusion Consistency is critical in shaping public health education related to stroke symptoms recognition. Our study suggests further effort is needed to unify the public messaging on stroke recognition

Spatial Natural Language Generation for Location Description in Photo Captions

We present a spatial natural language generation system to create captions that describe the geographical context of geo-referenced photos. An analysis of existing photo captions was used to design templates representing typical caption language patterns, while the results of human subject experiments were used to create field-based spatial models of the applicability of some commonly used spatial prepositions. The language templates are instantiated with geo-data retrieved from the vicinity of the photo locations. A human subject evaluation was used to validate and to improve the spatial language generation procedure, examples of the results of which are presented in the paper