”Where is your nose?” : developing body awareness skills among children with autism using a humanoid robot

This article describes an exploratory study in which children with autism interact with KASPAR, a humanoid robot, equipped with tactile sensors able to distinguish a gentle from a harsh touch, and to respond accordingly. The study investigated a novel scenario for robot-assisted play, namely to increase body awareness with tasks that taught the children about the identification of human body parts. Based on our analysis of the childrens behaviours while interacting with KASPAR, our results show that the children started looking for a longer period of time to the experimenter, and a lot of interest in touching the robot was observed. They also show that the robot can be considered as a tool for prolonging the attention span of the children, being a social mediator during the interaction between the child and the experimenter. The results are primarily based on the analysis of video data of the interaction. Overall, this first study into teaching children with autism about body parts using a humanoid robot highlighted issues of scenario development, data collection and data analysis that will inform future studies.(undefined

Eine spannende «Berliner Woche» voller Höhepunkte

Nach zwei Jahren virtueller Durchführung fand die DMEA, die grösste europäische Veranstaltung zu Digital Health, wieder vor Ort in der Messe Berlin statt. Ein bunter Themenmix an den Kongressses- sions, über 500 Aussteller in vier Messehallen und viele persönliche Gespräche begeisterten die Studie- renden des Bachelorstudienganges Medizininformatik der Berner Fachhochschule

Comparing validation of four ELISAsystems for detection of Salmonella Derby- and Salmonella Infantis-infected pigs

The objective of this study was the comparative evaluation of four indirect Salmonella ELISA tests at study time approved in Germany to detect Salmonella infection in pigs. Three tests are based on a LPS-antigen mix and directed against specific IgG antibodies. The fourth test is based on a purified S. Typhimurium whole-cell lysate antigen and discriminates between Salmonella- specific IgM-, IgA-, and IgG- antibodies. In a longitudinal study, two groups of six weeks old hybrid piglets were orally infected with a porcine S. Infantis or S. Derby strain. Clinical and bacteriological parameters were monitored weekly during an observation period of 130 days after infection and serum samples were investigated in parallel with the respective ELISAs. Apparently, the LPS-based ELISA systems used in this study failed to recognize S. Infantis-infected pigs although those animals shed the pathogen in high amounts throughout the study until day 81 post infection (p. i.). In contrast, the isotype-specific Salmonella Typhimurium whole-cell-lysate based ELISA was capable of detecting Salmonella-infected pigs from day ten p. i. at all tested serotypes and revealed the highest sensitivity in detection of S. Infantis- infected pigs. Furthermore, it became apparent that the often used surveillance cut-off value of 40 OD% is not appropriate for intra-vitam detection of S. Infantis- and S. Derbyinfected pigs. In contrast, the cut-off values of the ELISAs given by the suppliers result in considerable higher detection rates

Cross-Institutional Pathway Guidance - Chance or Extra Burden?

In this paper, we examine requirements, show potential user interfaces and describe a prototypical development for a Pathway Navigator App that guides the patient through healthcare episodes. Our use case is a fictional patient requiring surgery for a hip total endoprosthesis. Fundamental is the provision of appointment information and the option to contact the healthcare provider for rescheduling. This implied an architecture which was more complicated than expected. We realized an HL7 interface for appointment data from hospital information systems; no comparable standard was found for GP IT systems. The future Swiss Electronic Patient Dossier could enhance the integration of the Path App within a broader health-IT ecosystem

A mother-child intervention program in adolescent mothers and their children to improve maternal sensitivity, child responsiveness and child development (the TeeMo study): study protocol for a randomized controlled trial

Background: Children of adolescent mothers present a high-risk group for child neglect and maltreatment. Previous findings suggest that early interventions can reduce maltreatment by improving the quality of mother-child interaction, particularly maternal sensitivity. The aim of the current study is to evaluate the effects of a mother-child intervention program using home visits and video-feedback regarding mother-child interaction (STEEP-b) plus psychiatric treatment of the mother in cases where mental illness is present compared with TAU (treatment as usual, that is, standardized support by the child welfare system) on enhancing maternal sensitivity and child responsiveness in adolescent, high-risk mothers. The second aim of the current project is to investigate behavioral and neural differences between adolescent and adult mothers at baseline and postintervention. Methods/Design: This is a randomized controlled trial (RCT) with 120 high-risk adolescent mothers (25 years) will additionally be recruited to investigate behavioral and neural differences between the adolescent and adult group. Blind assessments will take place at T1 (pre-intervention), at the end of the 9-month intervention (T2, postintervention) and 6 months postintervention (T3, follow-up). Moderators of treatment outcomes and sociodemographic data will be assessed at T1. The primary outcome hypothesis is that STEEP-b added to treatment as usual will improve maternal sensitivity and child responsiveness compared with treatment as usual alone in high-risk adolescent mothers. The primary hypothesis will be evaluated at the end of the 9-month follow-up assessment based on the intention-to-treat principle. The trial is funded by the German Ministry for Research and Education (BMBF). Data collection started in October 2012. Discussion: This is a randomized controlled trial that evaluates the effects of an early intervention program (STEEP-b) on the quality of mother-child interaction and child development in adolescent, high-risk mothers. Trial registration DRKS00004409 (27 September 2012

Robot-Mediated Interviews with Children: What do potential users think?

This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in Interaction Studies following peer review. Luke Jai Wood, Hagen Lehmann, Kerstin Dautenhahn, Ben Robins, Austen Rainer, and Dag Syrdal, 'Robot-mediated interviews with children: What do potential users think?', Interaction Studies, Vol. 17 (3): 438-460 (2016), DOI: 10.1075/is.17.3.07woo This article is under copyright and the publisher should be contacted for permission to re-use or reprint the material in any form. Publisher: John Benjamin Publishing CompanyTo date research investigating the potential of Robot-Mediated Interviews (RMI) has focused on establishing how children respond to robots in an interview scenario. In order to test if an RMI approach would work in a real world setting, it is important to establish what the experts (e.g. specialist child interviewers) would require from such a system. To determine the needs of such expert users we conducted three user panels with groups of potential real world users to gather their views of our current system and find out what they would require for the system to be useful to them. The user groups consisted of specialist police officers, intermediaries, educational specialists and healthcare specialists. To our knowledge this is the first article investigating user needs for Robot-Mediated Interviews. Due to the novelty of this work, the work presented in this paper is exploratory in nature. The results provide valuable insights into what real world users would need from a Robot-Mediated Interviewing system. Our findings will contribute to future research and technology development in the domain of RMI in particular, and child-robot interaction in general.Peer reviewe

Tour de Suisse – eine Reise durch die Medizininformatik-Landschaft der Schweiz in 5 Tagen

Wie steht es mit dem Elektronischen Patientendossier? Welchen Herausforderungen begegnen Schweizer Spitäler in Bezug auf die digitale Transformation? Diese und weitere Fragen beantworteten VertreterInnen von Firmen, Spitälern und Vereinen, die die Studierenden des Bachelor-Studiengangs Medizininformatik der Berner Fachhochschule im November 2021 besuchten

Robot-Mediated interviews: A field trial with a potential real-world user

© 2020 John Benjamins Publishing Company. This a peer reviewed, author’s accepted manuscript. Contact John Benjamins Publishing Company permission to re-use or reprint the material in any form.In recent years the possibility of using humanoid robots to perform interviews with children has been explored in a number of studies. This paper details a study in which a potential real-world user trialled a Robot-Mediated Interviewing system with children to establish if this approach could realistically be used in a real-world context. In this study a senior educational psychologist used the humanoid robot Kaspar to interview ten primary school children about a video they had watched prior to the interview. We conducted a pre and post interview with the educational psychologist before and after using the system to establish how the system worked for him and the perceived potential for real-world applications. The educational psychologist successfully used the system to interview the children and believed that principally using a small humanoid robot to interview children could be useful in a real-world setting provided the system was developed further.Peer reviewe