Addressing the ethics of telepresence applications through end-user engagement

Portacolone et al.’s Ethics Review highlights the ethical challenges associated with the implementation of telepresence devices and applications in the context of aging and dementia. In this response, we review ethical considerations as they relate to specific modalities of telepresence, with an emphasis on the continuum of potential interaction agents, from known individuals to fully automated and intelligent interlocutors. We further discuss areas in need of empirical evidence to inform regulatory efforts in telepresence. We close with a call for meaningful end-user engagement at all stages of technology development

Towards a critical posthumanist perspective on participatory design

Participatory design places a strong emphasis on human agency, user perspectives and democratic ideals of inclusivity and empowerment, and is therefore often associated with humanist principles and values. In contrast, critical posthumanism questions key humanist assumptions about the centred and singular nature of the ‘human condition’. Instead, posthumanism points to the evolving and diverse lived experiences of people and how these are transformed by (and are transforming of) culture, environment and technology. In this commentary, we explore how participatory design could benefit from a posthumanist perspective that more explicitly acknowledges the entangled and interconnected nature of our technologised lives

Socially assistive robots as mental health interventions for children : a scoping review

Socially Assistive Robots are promising in their potential to promote and support mental health in children. There is a growing number of studies investigating the feasibility and effectiveness of robot interventions in supporting children’s mental wellbeing. Although preliminary evidence suggests that Socially Assistive Robots may have the potential to help address concerns such as stress and anxiety in children, there is a need for a greater focus in examining the impact of robotic interventions in this population. In order to better understand the current state of the evidence in this field and identify critical gaps, we carried out a scoping review of the available literature examining how social robots are investigated as means to support mental health in children. We identified existing types of robot intervention and measures that are being used to investigate specific mental health outcomes. Overall, our findings suggest that robot interventions for children may positively impact mental health outcomes such as relief of distress and increase positive affect. Results also show that the strength of evidence needs to be improved to determine what types of robotic interventions could be most effective and readily implemented in pediatric mental health care. Based on our findings, we propose a set of recommendations to guide further research in this area

Influence of user personality traits and attitudes on interactions with social robots: systematic review

Social robots are robots that can interact and communicate with people in accordance with social norms. They are increasingly implemented in various environments including healthcare, education and the service industry. Individual differences, such as personality traits and attitudes are drivers of human social behaviours and interactions. As robots are increasingly developed as social agents, the drive to develop more socially acceptable, user-centered robots calls for a synthesis of existing findings to improve our understanding how user traits and attitudes influence human-robot interactions (HRI). Understanding the role of individual differences, and their impact on lived experience, is crucial for designing interactions that are better tailored to users. Currently, it is unclear whether or how personality traits and user attitudes affect HRI, which interaction modalities are being investigated and what is the quality of existing evidence. To address these questions, we conducted a systematic search of the literature, yielding 56 articles, from which we extracted relevant findings. As some of the studies included qualitative outcomes, we used a mixed methods meta-aggregation, in which findings were grouped into categories to form more general synthesized findings. We found evidence that user personality traits and attitudes are indeed correlated with social HRI outcomes, including extraversion being associated with preferred distance from the robot, preference for similar robot personality traits, users’ impressions of robots and behavior towards robots. Our analysis also revealed that existing evidence has limitations which prevent us from drawing unambiguous conclusions, such as disparate interaction outcome measures, lack of comparison between different robots and small sample sizes. We provide a comprehensive summary of the existing evidence and propose that these findings can guide the development of research hypotheses to extend knowledge and to provide clarification where the existing literature is ambiguous or contradictory. Findings that warrant future investigation include different preferred robot behaviours based on extroversion and introversion, the impact of user traits on perceived robot anthropomorphism and social presence of the robot

Ortho-functionalized pyridinyl-tetrazines break the inverse correlation between click reactivity and cleavage yields in click-to-release chemistry

The bioorthogonal tetrazine-triggered cleavage of trans-cyclooctene(TCO)-linked payloads has strong potential for widespread use in drug delivery and in particular in click-cleavable antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs). However, clinical translation is hampered by an inverse correlation between click reactivity and payload release yield, requiring high doses of less reactive tetrazines to drive in vivo TCO reactions and payload release to completion. Herein we report that the cause for the low release when using the highly reactive bis-(2-pyridinyl)-tetrazine is the stability of the initially formed 4,5-dihydropyridazine product, precluding tautomerization to the releasing 1,4-dihydropyridazine tautomer. We demonstrate that efficient tautomerization and payload elimination can be achieved by ortho-substituting bis-pyridinyl-tetrazines with hydrogen-bonding hydroxyl or amido groups, achieving a.o. release yields of 96% with 18-fold more reactive tetrazines. Applied to on-tumor activation of a click-cleavable ADC in mice, these tetrazines afforded near-quantitative ADC conversion at a ca. 10- to 20-fold lower dose than what was previously needed, resulting in a strong therapeutic response.</p

Author Correction:Ortho-functionalized pyridinyl-tetrazines break the inverse correlation between click reactivity and cleavage yields in click-to-release chemistry (Communications Chemistry, (2024), 7, 1, (302), 10.1038/s42004-024-01392-z)

Correction to:Communications Chemistry (2024) 7:302; https://doi.org/10.1038/s42004-024-01392-z, published online 19 December 2024 The original version of this Article contained an error in Fig. 2, in which the dimethylamine moieties in compounds 9 and 10 were obscured from view owing to the magenta spheres appearing in the foreground rather than the background. This has now been corrected in both the PDF and HTML versions of the Article.</p

Математическое моделирование тепломассопереноса в канале с пористой вставкой

Выпускная квалификационная работа 105 с., 22 рис., 5 табл., 19 источников, 1 прил. Объект исследования - канал с пористым материалом, в том числе рабочая зона газогенератора. Цель работы – исследование процессов тепломассопереноса в канале, заполненном пористой вставкой, на основе математического моделирования. В работе использован пакет вычислительной гидродинамики FLUENT совместно с сеточным генератором GAMBIT. Установлены особенности использования различных приближений к математическому моделированию тепломассопереноса в каналах с пористыми вставками, а также показана возможность применения пакетов вычислительной гидродинамики для анализа термогидродинамических структур в канале газогенератора без учета влияния физико-химических особенностей процесса газификацииThe paper consists of 105 pp., 22 fig., 5 tab., 19 references, 1 appendix. The objects of study are the channel with porous material and the work area of the gasifier. The purpose of the work is heat and mass transfer processes study in the channel filled with porous insert based on mathematical modeling. CFD package FLUENT was used together with the finite element mesh generator GAMBIT. The features of the use of various approximations to the mathematical modeling of heat and mass transfer in porous inserts channels are specified. The possibility of using computational fluid dynamics package for the analysis of thermohydrodynamic structures in the channel of gasifier excluding the impact of physical and chemical characteristics of the gasification process is proved