CDG – an update

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A motion system for social and animated robots

This paper presents an innovative motion system that is used to control the motions and animations of a social robot. The social robot Probo is used to study Human-Robot Interactions (HRI), with a special focus on Robot Assisted Therapy (RAT). When used for therapy it is important that a social robot is able to create an "illusion of life" so as to become a believable character that can communicate with humans. The design of the motion system in this paper is based on insights from the animation industry. It combines operator-controlled animations with low-level autonomous reactions such as attention and emotional state. The motion system has a Combination Engine, which combines motion commands that are triggered by a human operator with motions that originate from different units of the cognitive control architecture of the robot. This results in an interactive robot that seems alive and has a certain degree of "likeability". The Godspeed Questionnaire Series is used to evaluate the animacy and likeability of the robot in China, Romania and Belgium

Defined neoglycoproteins as candidate vaccines against Streptococcus pneumoniae type 3

Several bacteria that are surrounded by a polysaccharide coat can cause severe diseases like meningitis, pneumonia and otitis media, especially in young children. Against the bacterium Streptococcus pneumoniae, a polysaccharide vaccine exists. However, it does not effectively protect high-risk groups such as young children. In contrast, neoglycoprotein vaccines, containing carbohydrate material derived from the polysaccharide capsule conjugated to a protein, have been shown to afford protection, also in the high-risk groups. The immunological mechanism of this type of vaccines remains unclear. To investigate this, neoglycoproteins with a defined structure have to become available. In this thesis, neoglycoproteins have been prepared according to the structure of the capsular polysaccharide (CPS) of S. pneumoniae type 3. Both chemical synthesis and partial acid hydrolysis of the CPS have been carried out to obtain defined oligosaccharides with a unique structure. Neoglycoproteins were prepared using the synthetic carbohydrates and their immunogenicity in mice was studied. Eventually, the use of this type of defined antigens will increase the insight in the immune response of conjugate vaccines and will hopefully lead to the development of more efficient vaccines

The AMP-Foot 3, new generation propulsive prosthetic feet with explosive motion characteristics: design and validation

The last decades, rehabilitation has become a challenging context for mechatronical engineering. From the state-of-the-art it is seen that the field of prosthetics offers very promising perspectives to roboticist. Today’s prosthetic feet tend to improve amputee walking experience by delivering the necessary push-off forces while walking. Therefore, several new types of (compliant) actuators are developed in order to fulfill the torque and power requirements of a sound ankle-foot complex with minimized power consumption. At the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, the Robotics and Multibody Mechanics research group puts a lot of effort in the design and development of new bionic feet. In 2013, the Ankle Mimicking Prosthetic (AMP-) Foot 2, as a proof-of-concept, showed the advantage of using the explosive elastic actuator capable of delivering the full ankle torques ( $$\pm 120$$ ± 120  Nm) and power ( $$\pm 250$$ ± 250 W) with only a 60 W motor. In this article, the authors present the AMP-Foot 3, using an improved actuation method and using two locking mechanisms for improved energy storage during walking. The article focusses on the mechanical design of the device and validation of its working principle.This work and the publication costs of this article have been funded by the European Commissions 7th Framework Program as part of the project Cyberlegs under grant no. 287894 and by the European Commission ERC Starting grant SPEAR under grant no. 337596.Peer reviewe

Metabolic Cardiomyopathies and Cardiac Defects in Inherited Disorders of Carbohydrate Metabolism:A Systematic Review

Heart failure (HF) is a progressive chronic disease that remains a primary cause of death worldwide, affecting over 64 million patients. HF can be caused by cardiomyopathies and congenital cardiac defects with monogenic etiology. The number of genes and monogenic disorders linked to development of cardiac defects is constantly growing and includes inherited metabolic disorders (IMDs). Several IMDs affecting various metabolic pathways have been reported presenting cardiomyopathies and cardiac defects. Considering the pivotal role of sugar metabolism in cardiac tissue, including energy production, nucleic acid synthesis and glycosylation, it is not surprising that an increasing number of IMDs linked to carbohydrate metabolism are described with cardiac manifestations. In this systematic review, we offer a comprehensive overview of IMDs linked to carbohydrate metabolism presenting that present with cardiomyopathies, arrhythmogenic disorders and/or structural cardiac defects. We identified 58 IMDs presenting with cardiac complications: 3 defects of sugar/sugar-linked transporters (GLUT3, GLUT10, THTR1); 2 disorders of the pentose phosphate pathway (G6PDH, TALDO); 9 diseases of glycogen metabolism (GAA, GBE1, GDE, GYG1, GYS1, LAMP2, RBCK1, PRKAG2, G6PT1); 29 congenital disorders of glycosylation (ALG3, ALG6, ALG9, ALG12, ATP6V1A, ATP6V1E1, B3GALTL, B3GAT3, COG1, COG7, DOLK, DPM3, FKRP, FKTN, GMPPB, MPDU1, NPL, PGM1, PIGA, PIGL, PIGN, PIGO, PIGT, PIGV, PMM2, POMT1, POMT2, SRD5A3, XYLT2); 15 carbohydrate-linked lysosomal storage diseases (CTSA, GBA1, GLA, GLB1, HEXB, IDUA, IDS, SGSH, NAGLU, HGSNAT, GNS, GALNS, ARSB, GUSB, ARSK). With this systematic review we aim to raise awareness about the cardiac presentations in carbohydrate-linked IMDs and draw attention to carbohydrate-linked pathogenic mechanisms that may underlie cardiac complications.</p

Case Study on Human Walking during Wearing a Powered Prosthetic Device: Effectiveness of the System “Human-Robot”

It is known that force exchanges between a robotic assistive device and the end-user have a direct impact on the quality and performance of a particular movement task. This knowledge finds a special reflective importance in prosthetic industry due to the close human-robot collaboration. Although lower-extremity prostheses are currently better able to provide assistance as their upper-extremity counterparts, specific locomotion problems still remain. In a framework of this contribution the authors introduce the multibody dynamic modelling approach of the transtibial prosthesis wearing on a human body model. The obtained results are based on multibody dynamic simulations against the real experimental data using AMP-Foot 2.0, an energy efficient powered transtibial prosthesis for actively assisted walking of amputees