Cultural robotics : The culture of robotics and robotics in culture

Copyright 2013 Samani et al.; licensee InTech. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly citedIn this paper, we have investigated the concept of "Cultural Robotics" with regard to the evolution o social into cultural robots in the 21st Century. By defining the concept of culture, the potential development of culture between humans and robots is explored. Based on the cultural values of the robotics developers, and the learning ability of current robots, cultural attributes in this regard are in the process of being formed, which would define the new concept of cultural robotics. According to the importance of the embodiment of robots in the sense of presence, the influence of robots in communication culture is anticipated. The sustainability of robotics culture based on diversity for cultural communities for various acceptance modalities is explored in order to anticipate the creation of different attributes of culture between robot and humans in the futurePeer reviewe

Cereal yield gaps across Europe

peer-reviewedEurope accounts for around 20% of the global cereal production and is a net exporter of ca. 15% of that production. Increasing global demand for cereals justifies questions as to where and by how much Europe’s production can be increased to meet future global market demands, and how much additional nitrogen (N) crops would require. The latter is important as environmental concern and legislation are equally important as production aims in Europe. Here, we used a country-by-country, bottom-up approach to establish statistical estimates of actual grain yield, and compare these to modelled estimates of potential yields for either irrigated or rainfed conditions. In this way, we identified the yield gaps and the opportunities for increased cereal production for wheat, barley and maize, which represent 90% of the cereals grown in Europe. The combined mean annual yield gap of wheat, barley, maize was 239 Mt, or 42% of the yield potential. The national yield gaps ranged between 10 and 70%, with small gaps in many north-western European countries, and large gaps in eastern and south-western Europe. Yield gaps for rainfed and irrigated maize were consistently lower than those of wheat and barley. If the yield gaps of maize, wheat and barley would be reduced from 42% to 20% of potential yields, this would increase annual cereal production by 128 Mt (39%). Potential for higher cereal production exists predominantly in Eastern Europe, and half of Europe’s potential increase is located in Ukraine, Romania and Poland. Unlocking the identified potential for production growth requires a substantial increase of the crop N uptake of 4.8 Mt. Across Europe, the average N uptake gaps, to achieve 80% of the yield potential, were 87, 77 and 43 kg N ha−1 for wheat, barley and maize, respectively. Emphasis on increasing the N use efficiency is necessary to minimize the need for additional N inputs. Whether yield gap reduction is desirable and feasible is a matter of balancing Europe’s role in global food security, farm economic objectives and environmental targets.We received financial contributions from the strategic investment funds (IPOP) of Wageningen University & Research, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, MACSUR under EU FACCE-JPI which was funded through several national contributions, and TempAg (http://tempag.net/)

Functional mechanisms underlying pleiotropic risk alleles at the 19p13.1 breast-ovarian cancer susceptibility locus

A locus at 19p13 is associated with breast cancer (BC) and ovarian cancer (OC) risk. Here we analyse 438 SNPs in this region in 46,451 BC and 15,438 OC cases, 15,252 BRCA1 mutation carriers and 73,444 controls and identify 13 candidate causal SNPs associated with serous OC (P=9.2 × 10-20), ER-negative BC (P=1.1 × 10-13), BRCA1-associated BC (P=7.7 × 10-16) and triple negative BC (P-diff=2 × 10-5). Genotype-gene expression associations are identified for candidate target genes ANKLE1 (P=2 × 10-3) and ABHD8 (P<2 × 10-3). Chromosome conformation capture identifies interactions between four candidate SNPs and ABHD8, and luciferase assays indicate six risk alleles increased transactivation of the ADHD8 promoter. Targeted deletion of a region containing risk SNP rs56069439 in a putative enhancer induces ANKLE1 downregulation; and mRNA stability assays indicate functional effects for an ANKLE1 3′-UTR SNP. Altogether, these data suggest that multiple SNPs at 19p13 regulate ABHD8 and perhaps ANKLE1 expression, and indicate common mechanisms underlying breast and ovarian cancer risk

Genome-Wide Association Study in BRCA1 Mutation Carriers Identifies Novel Loci Associated with Breast and Ovarian Cancer Risk

BRCA1-associated breast and ovarian cancer risks can be modified by common genetic variants. To identify further cancer risk-modifying loci, we performed a multi-stage GWAS of 11,705 BRCA1 carriers (of whom 5,920 were diagnosed with breast and 1,839 were diagnosed with ovarian cancer), with a further replication in an additional sample of 2,646 BRCA1 carriers. We identified a novel breast cancer risk modifier locus at 1q32 for BRCA1 carriers (rs2290854, P = 2.7×10-8, HR = 1.14, 95% CI: 1.09-1.20). In addition, we identified two novel ovarian cancer risk modifier loci: 17q21.31 (rs17631303, P = 1.4×10-8, HR = 1.27, 95% CI: 1.17-1.38) and 4q32.3 (rs4691139, P = 3.4×10-8, HR = 1.20, 95% CI: 1.17-1.38). The 4q32.3 locus was not associated with ovarian cancer risk in the general population or BRCA2 carriers, suggesting a BRCA1-specific associat

Variation in Structure and Process of Care in Traumatic Brain Injury: Provider Profiles of European Neurotrauma Centers Participating in the CENTER-TBI Study.

INTRODUCTION: The strength of evidence underpinning care and treatment recommendations in traumatic brain injury (TBI) is low. Comparative effectiveness research (CER) has been proposed as a framework to provide evidence for optimal care for TBI patients. The first step in CER is to map the existing variation. The aim of current study is to quantify variation in general structural and process characteristics among centers participating in the Collaborative European NeuroTrauma Effectiveness Research in Traumatic Brain Injury (CENTER-TBI) study. METHODS: We designed a set of 11 provider profiling questionnaires with 321 questions about various aspects of TBI care, chosen based on literature and expert opinion. After pilot testing, questionnaires were disseminated to 71 centers from 20 countries participating in the CENTER-TBI study. Reliability of questionnaires was estimated by calculating a concordance rate among 5% duplicate questions. RESULTS: All 71 centers completed the questionnaires. Median concordance rate among duplicate questions was 0.85. The majority of centers were academic hospitals (n = 65, 92%), designated as a level I trauma center (n = 48, 68%) and situated in an urban location (n = 70, 99%). The availability of facilities for neuro-trauma care varied across centers; e.g. 40 (57%) had a dedicated neuro-intensive care unit (ICU), 36 (51%) had an in-hospital rehabilitation unit and the organization of the ICU was closed in 64% (n = 45) of the centers. In addition, we found wide variation in processes of care, such as the ICU admission policy and intracranial pressure monitoring policy among centers. CONCLUSION: Even among high-volume, specialized neurotrauma centers there is substantial variation in structures and processes of TBI care. This variation provides an opportunity to study effectiveness of specific aspects of TBI care and to identify best practices with CER approaches

The Influence of Number and Timing of Pregnancies on Breast Cancer Risk for Women With BRCA1 or BRCA2 Mutations

Background: Full-term pregnancy (FTP) is associated with a reduced breast cancer (BC) risk over time, but women are at increased BC risk in the immediate years following an FTP. No large prospective studies, however, have examined whether the number and timing of pregnancies are associated with BC risk for BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers. Methods: Using weighted and time-varying Cox proportional hazards models, we investigated whether reproductive events are associated with BC risk for mutation carriers using a retrospective cohort (5707 BRCA1 and 3525 BRCA2 mutation carriers) and a prospective cohort (2276 BRCA1 and 1610 BRCA2 mutation carriers), separately for each cohort and the combined prospective and retrospective cohort. Results: For BRCA1 mutation carriers, there was no overall association with parity compared with nulliparity (combined hazard ratio [HRc] ¼ 0.99, 95% confidence interval [CI] ¼ 0.83 to 1.18). Relative to being uniparous, an increased number of FTPs was associated with decreased BC risk (HRc¼ 0.79, 95% CI ¼ 0.69 to 0.91; HRc¼ 0.70, 95% CI ¼ 0.59 to 0.82; HRc¼ 0.50, 95% CI ¼ 0.40 to 0.63, for 2, 3, and 4 FTPs, respectively, Ptrend < .0001) and increasing duration of breastfeeding was associated with decreased BC risk (combined cohort Ptrend ¼ .0003). Relative to being nulliparous, uniparous BRCA1 mutation carriers were at increased BC risk in the prospective analysis (prospective hazard ration [HRp] ¼ 1.69, 95% CI ¼ 1.09 to 2.62). For BRCA2 mutation carriers, being parous was associated with a 30% increase in BC risk (HRc ¼ 1.33, 95% CI ¼ 1.05 to 1.69), and there was no apparent decrease in risk associated with multiparity except for having at least 4 FTPs vs. 1 FTP (HRc¼ 0.72, 95% CI ¼ 0.54 to 0.98). Conclusions: These findings suggest differential associations with parity between BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers with higher risk for uniparous BRCA1 carriers and parous BRCA2 carriers

Identification of multiple risk loci and regulatory mechanisms influencing susceptibility to multiple myeloma

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have transformed our understanding of susceptibility to multiple myeloma (MM), but much of the heritability remains unexplained. We report a new GWAS, a meta-analysis with previous GWAS and a replication series, totalling 9974 MM cases and 247,556 controls of European ancestry. Collectively, these data provide evidence for six new MM risk loci, bringing the total number to 23. Integration of information from gene expression, epigenetic profiling and in situ Hi-C data for the 23 risk loci implicate disruption of developmental transcriptional regulators as a basis of MM susceptibility, compatible with altered B-cell differentiation as a key mechanism. Dysregulation of autophagy/apoptosis and cell cycle signalling feature as recurrently perturbed pathways. Our findings provide further insight

Rescue of Non-Informative Circulating Tumor DNA to Monitor the Mutational Landscape in NSCLC

In non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) the usage of plasma-derived circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) have come into focus to obtain a comprehensive genetic profile of a given lung cancer. Despite the usage of specific sampling tubes, archived plasma samples as well as inappropriately treated blood samples still cause a loss of information due to cell lysis and contamination with cellular DNA. Our aim was to establish a reliable protocol to rescue ctDNA from such non-informative samples to monitor the mutational landscape in NSCLC. As a proof-of-concept study we used archived plasma samples derived from whole blood EDTA samples of 51 patients suffering from NSCLC. Analysis of the isolated plasma DNA determined only a small fraction of ctDNA in a range of 90&ndash;250 bp. By applying a specific purification procedure, we were able to increase the informative ctDNA content and improve in a cohort of 42 patients the detection of driver mutations from 32% to 79% of the mutations found in tissue biopsies. Thus, we present here an easy to perform, time and cost effective procedure to rescue non-informative ctDNA samples, which is sufficient to detect oncogenic mutations in NGS approaches and is therefore a valuable technical improvement for laboratories handling liquid biopsy samples