The robot in the classroom: A review of a robot role

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020. The 20th-century was the age of computers and information communication technology; at the beginning of the 21st-century researchers are exploring the use of robots in the classroom. Our review investigates the implementation of copresent social robots with teaching purposes in a classroom setting in areas other than the teaching of subjects that are closely related to the field of Robotics. We are interested in anthropomorphic robots, with an active role in the classroom and capable of human-like activity. With a search of the WOS database and a subsequent manual search in 19 journals we identified 24 relevant articles which have been included in the analysis. Studies mostly include small number of participating learners. In all studies special conditions are established for the robot intervention in a classroom. Most often robots appear in roles as teacher, teacher assistant and Care-Receiving Robot. Robots interventions were conducted by NAO, Saya, RoboThespian, Bioloid, BAXTER, Darwin, NIMA-Robocop, Robosapien, TIRO. Social robots diverge from the computer-mediated communication technologies, as they are not mediating interaction but are partner in interaction. ITSs and ILEs assist teachers in teaching, while the teacher and a robot have a shared presence in the classroom. The copresent social robots perform a social role by interacting with students. Robotic activities are aimed at delivering learning materials and not primarily for individualised teaching, which encompasses the delivery of feedback and the tailoring learning activities for individual learner’s needs

Distinct QTLs are linked to cardiac left ventricular mass in a sex-specific manner in a normotensive inbred rat intercross

Genetic mapping of the progeny of an F2 intercross between WKY and WKHA rats had previously allowed us to detect male-specific linkage between locus Cm24 and left ventricular mass index (LVMI). By further expanding that analysis, we detected additional loci that were all linked to LVMI in a sexspecific manner despite their autosomal location. In males, we detected one additional locus (Lvm8) on Chromosome 5 (LOD = 3.4), the two loci Lvm13 (LOD = 4.5) and Lvm9 (LOD = 2.8) on Chromosome 17, and locus Lvm10 (LOD = 4.2) on Chromosome 12. The locus Lvm13 had the same boundaries as locus Cm26 previously reported by others using a different cross. None of these loci showed linkage to LVM in females. In contrast, we identified in females the novel locus Lvm11 on Chromosome 15 (LOD = 2.8) and locus Lvm12 (LOD = 2.7) that had the same boundaries on Chromosome 3 as locus Cm25 detected previously by others using a cross of other normotensive strains. In prepubertal males, there were no differences in the width of cardiomyocytes from WKY and WKHA rats, but cardiomyocytes from WKHA became progressively wider than that of WKY as sexual maturation progressed. Altogether, these results provide evidence that distinct genes may influence LVMI of rats in a sexdependent manner, maybe by involving sex-specific interactions of sex steroids with particular genes involved in the determination of LVMI and/or cardiomyocyte width.Bastien Llamas, Zhibin Jiang, Marie-Line Rainville, Sylvie Picard and Christian F. Descheppe