Early prosthetic rehabilitation of a juvenile patient with hereditary ectodermal dysplasia – a case report

Ectodermal dysplasia is the term used to describe a large and heterogenic group of congenital disorders. Ectodermal dysplasia affects at least two ectoderm-derived structures. The dental abnormalities associated with ectodermal dysplasia are hipodontia, oligodontia and even anodontia. Aim of the study. The authors describe a clinical case of 5-yearold boy with hereditary hidrotic ectodermal dysplasia. Materials and methods. The first stage in the clinical treatment of a young patient affected by ectodermal dysplasia is presented. Complete dentures were made. Conclusion. Early prosthetic rehabilitation of juvenile patients with ectodermal dysplasia is a very complex problem. Early rehabilitation and an interdisciplinary approach are essential for successful treatment

An Institutional Robotics Approach to the Design of Socially Aware Multi-Robot Behaviors

We propose an institutional robotics approachto the design of socially-aware multi-robot systems, wherecooperation among the robots and their social interactions withhumans are guided using institutions. Inspired by the conceptsstemming from economical sciences, robot institutions serve ascoordination artifacts, which specify behavioral rules that areacceptable or desirable given the situation and which can bereplaced by other rules to enforce new acceptable or desirablebehaviors without changing the robot’s core code. In this paperwe propose a formal methodology for consistent design ofcoordinated multi-robot behaviors intended for use in human-populated environments. We illustrate theoretical concepts withpractical examples. Graph-based formations serve as a basisfor coordinated multi-robot behaviors and concepts from theliterature on human-aware navigation provide social rules thatare enforced by the institutions. Experiments are carried outin a high-fidelity robotic simulator to illustrate the applicationof the theoretical concepts

A Robust Relative Positioning System for Multi-Robot Formations Leveraging an Extended GM-PHD Filter

We propose a multi-robot tracking method to provide state estimates that allow a group of robots to maintain a formation even when the communication fails. We extend a Gaussian Mixture Probability Hypothesis Density filter to incorporate, firstly, absolute poses exchanged by the robots, and secondly, the geometry of the desired formation. Sensory detections, information about the formation, and communicated data are all combined in the extended Gaussian Mixture Probability Hypothesis Density filter. Our method is capable of maintaining the state estimates even when long-duration occlusions occur, and improves awareness of the situation when the communication rate is slow or sporadic. The method is evaluated using a high-fidelity simulator in scenarios with a formation of up to five robots. Experiments confirm the ability of the filter to deal with occlusions and refinement of the state estimate even when poses are exchanged at a low frequency, resulting in drastic reduction of the chance of collisions compared to a tracking-free implementation

Towards Institutions for Mixed Human-Robot Societies

We report an exploration into normative reasoning for robots in human societies using the concept of institutions

Towards Norm Realization in Institutions Mediating Human-Robot Societies

Social norms are the understandings that govern the behavior of members of a society. As such, they regulate communication, cooperation and other social interactions. Robots capable of reasoning about social norms are more likely to be recognized as an extension of our human society. However, norms stated in a form of the human language are inherently vague and abstract. This allows for applying norms in a variety of situations, but if the robots are to adhere to social norms, they must be capable of translating abstract norms to the robotic language. In this paper we use a notion of institution to realize social norms in real robotic systems. We illustrate our approach in a case study, where we translate abstract norms into concrete constraints on cooperative behaviors of humans and robots. We investigate the feasibility of our approach and quantitatively evaluate the performance of our framework in 30 real experiments with user-based evaluation with 40 participants

Graph-Based Distributed Control for Adaptive Multi-Robot Patrolling through Local Formation Transformation

Multi-robot cooperative navigation in real-world environments is essential in many applications, including surveillance and search-and-rescue missions. State-of-the-art methods for cooperative navigation are often tested in ideal laboratory conditions and not ready to be deployed in real- world environments, which are often cluttered with static and dynamic obstacles. In this work, we explore a graph-based framework to achieve control of real robot formations moving in a world cluttered with a variety of obstacles by introducing a new distributed algorithm for reconfiguring the formation shape. We systematically validate the reconfiguration algorithm using three real robots in scenarios of increasing complexity

A Social Model for Health Promotion for an Aging Population: Initial Evidence on the Experience Corps Model

This report evaluates whether a program for older volunteers, designed for both generativity and health promotion, leads to short-term improvements in multiple behavioral risk factors and positive effects on intermediary risk factors for disability and other morbidities. The Experience Corps® places older volunteers in public elementary schools in roles designed to meet schools\u27 needs and increase the social, physical, and cognitive activity of the volunteers. This article reports on a pilot randomized trial in Baltimore, Maryland. The 128 volunteers were 60-86 years old; 95% were African American. At follow-up of 4-8 months, physical activity, strength, people one could turn to for help, and cognitive activity increased significantly, and walking speed decreased significantly less, in participants compared to controls. In this pilot trial, physical, cognitive, and social activity increased, suggesting the potential for the Experience Corps to improve health for an aging population and simultaneously improve educational outcomes for children

Early Educational Intervention, Early Cumulative Risk, and the Early Home Environment as Predictors of Young Adult Outcomes Within a High-Risk Sample

The extent to which early educational intervention, early cumulative risk, and the early home environment were associated with young adult outcomes was investigated in a sample of 139 young adults (age 21) from high-risk families enrolled in randomized trials of early intervention. Positive effects of treatment were found for education attainment, attending college, and skilled employment; negative effects of risk were found for education attainment, graduating high school, being employed and avoiding teen parenthood. The home mediated the effects of risk for graduating high school, but not being employed or teen parenthood. Evidence for moderated mediation was found for educational attainment; the home mediated the association between risk and educational attainment for the control group, but not the treated group

Adult outcomes as a function of an early childhood educational program: An Abecedarian Project follow-up.

Adult (age 30) educational, economic, and social-emotional adjustment outcomes were investigated for participants in the Abecedarian Project, a randomized controlled trial of early childhood education for children from low-income families. Of the original 111 infants enrolled (98% African American), 101 took part in the age-30 follow-up. Primary indicators of educational level, economic status, and social-adjustment were examined as a function of early childhood treatment. Treated individuals attained significantly more years of education, but income-to-needs ratios and criminal involvement did not vary significantly as a function of early treatment. A number of other indicators were described for each domain. Overall, the findings provide strong evidence for educational benefits, mixed evidence for economic benefits and little evidence for social-adjustment outcomes. Implications for public policy are discussed

The evolving landscape of COVID‐19 and post‐COVID condition in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia: A study by ERIC, the European research initiative on CLL

In this retrospective international multicenter study, we describe the clinical characteristics and outcomes of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and related disorders (small lymphocytic lymphoma and high-count monoclonal B lymphocytosis) infected by SARS-CoV-2, including the development of post-COVID condition. Data from 1540 patients with CLL infected by SARS-CoV-2 from January 2020 to May 2022 were included in the analysis and assigned to four phases based on cases disposition and SARS-CoV-2 variants emergence. Post-COVID condition was defined according to the WHO criteria. Patients infected during the most recent phases of the pandemic, though carrying a higher comorbidity burden, were less often hospitalized, rarely needed intensive care unit admission, or died compared to patients infected during the initial phases. The 4-month overall survival (OS) improved through the phases, from 68% to 83%, p = .0015. Age, comorbidity, CLL-directed treatment, but not vaccination status, emerged as risk factors for mortality. Among survivors, 6.65% patients had a reinfection, usually milder than the initial one, and 16.5% developed post-COVID condition. The latter was characterized by fatigue, dyspnea, lasting cough, and impaired concentration. Infection severity was the only risk factor for developing post-COVID. The median time to resolution of the post-COVID condition was 4.7 months. OS in patients with CLL improved during the different phases of the pandemic, likely due to the improvement of prophylactic and therapeutic measures against SARS-CoV-2 as well as the emergence of milder variants. However, mortality remained relevant and a significant number of patients developed post-COVID conditions, warranting further investigations