Psychosexual Education Interventions for Autistic Youth and Adults-A Systematic Review

(1) Background: The literature shows a general lack of sexual knowledge and appropriate sexual health education in persons with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Moreover, the existing interventions mainly target the neurotypical population, without addressing the specific needs of individuals with ASD. (2) Aims: The current systematic review aimed at analyzing the literature encompassing psycho-educational interventions on sexuality addressed exclusively to people with ASD, in order to report the good practices and to describe the effectiveness of the existing programs. (3) Methods: The systematic review followed the PRISMA-P method. The literature search was conducted in June 2022, examining PsycInfo, PsycArticle, PubMed, and Education Source. The search strategy generated 550 articles, of which 22 duplicates were removed, 510 papers were excluded for not matching the criteria, and 18 articles were finally included. (4) Results: Ten papers presented good practices and eight focused on intervention validation. The analysis showed that the good practices were essentially applied in the intervention studies. No intervention proved to be successful both in increasing psychosexual knowledge and in promoting appropriate sexual behaviors; thus, further research is needed. (5) Conclusions: The current review allows for critical reflection on the need for validated sexuality interventions

Towards Safe Human-Robot Interaction: evaluating in real-time the severity of possible collisions in industrial scenarios

It is today a common opinion that a more structured and fruitful human-robot cooperation will facilitate industrial robots to be massively used also in SMEs. In order to guarantee a certain level of safety while removing physica

Molecular Implication of PP2A and Pin1 in the Alzheimer's Disease Specific Hyperphosphorylation of Tau

Tau phosphorylation and dephosphorylation regulate in a poorly understood manner its physiological role of microtubule stabilization, and equally its integration in Alzheimer disease (AD) related fibrils. A specific phospho-pattern will result from the balance between kinases and phosphatases. The heterotrimeric Protein Phosphatase type 2A encompassing regulatory subunit PR55/Bα (PP2A(T55α)) is a major Tau phosphatase in vivo, which contributes to its final phosphorylation state. We use NMR spectroscopy to determine the dephosphorylation rates of phospho-Tau by this major brain phosphatase, and present site-specific and kinetic data for the individual sites including the pS202/pT205 AT8 and pT231 AT180 phospho-epitopes.We demonstrate the importance of the PR55/Bα regulatory subunit of PP2A within this enzymatic process, and show that, unexpectedly, phosphorylation at the pT231 AT180 site negatively interferes with the dephosphorylation of the pS202/pT205 AT8 site. This inhibitory effect can be released by the phosphorylation dependent prolyl cis/trans isomerase Pin1. Because the stimulatory effect is lost with the dimeric PP2A core enzyme (PP2A(D)) or with a phospho-Tau T231A mutant, we propose that Pin1 regulates the interaction between the PR55/Bα subunit and the AT180 phospho-epitope on Tau.Our results show that phosphorylation of T231 (AT180) can negatively influence the dephosphorylation of the pS202/pT205 AT8 epitope, even without an altered PP2A pool. Thus, a priming dephosphorylation of pT231 AT180 is required for efficient PP2A(T55α)-mediated dephosphorylation of pS202/pT205 AT8. The sophisticated interplay between priming mechanisms reported for certain Tau kinases and the one described here for Tau phosphatase PP2A(T55α) may contribute to the hyperphosphorylation of Tau observed in AD neurons

Hypothermia-induced hyperphosphorylation: a new model to study tau kinase inhibitors

Tau hyperphosphorylation is one hallmark of Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathology. Pharmaceutical companies have thus developed kinase inhibitors aiming to reduce tau hyperphosphorylation. One obstacle in screening for tau kinase inhibitors is the low phosphorylation levels of AD-related phospho-epitopes in normal adult mice and cultured cells. We have shown that hypothermia induces tau hyperphosphorylation in vitro and in vivo. Here, we hypothesized that hypothermia could be used to assess tau kinase inhibitors efficacy. Hypothermia applied to models of biological gradual complexity such as neuronal-like cells, ex vivo brain slices and adult non-transgenic mice leads to tau hyperphosphorylation at multiple AD-related phospho-epitopes. We show that Glycogen Synthase Kinase-3 inhibitors LiCl and AR-A014418, as well as roscovitine, a cyclin-dependent kinase 5 inhibitor, decrease hypothermia-induced tau hyperphosphorylation, leading to different tau phosphorylation profiles. Therefore, we propose hypothermia-induced hyperphosphorylation as a reliable, fast, convenient and inexpensive tool to screen for tau kinase inhibitors

Review of the techniques used in motor‐cognitive human‐robot skill transfer

Abstract A conventional robot programming method extensively limits the reusability of skills in the developmental aspect. Engineers programme a robot in a targeted manner for the realisation of predefined skills. The low reusability of general‐purpose robot skills is mainly reflected in inability in novel and complex scenarios. Skill transfer aims to transfer human skills to general‐purpose manipulators or mobile robots to replicate human‐like behaviours. Skill transfer methods that are commonly used at present, such as learning from demonstrated (LfD) or imitation learning, endow the robot with the expert's low‐level motor and high‐level decision‐making ability, so that skills can be reproduced and generalised according to perceived context. The improvement of robot cognition usually relates to an improvement in the autonomous high‐level decision‐making ability. Based on the idea of establishing a generic or specialised robot skill library, robots are expected to autonomously reason about the needs for using skills and plan compound movements according to sensory input. In recent years, in this area, many successful studies have demonstrated their effectiveness. Herein, a detailed review is provided on the transferring techniques of skills, applications, advancements, and limitations, especially in the LfD. Future research directions are also suggested

Multiple Camera Human Detection and Tracking inside a Robotic Cell - An Approach based on Image Warping, Computer Vision, K-d Trees and Particle Filtering

In an industrial scenario the capability to detect and track human workers entering a robotic cell represents a fundamental requirement to enable safe and efficient human-robot cooperation. This paper proposes a new approach to the problem of Human Detection and Tracking based on low-cost commercial RGB surveillance cameras, image warping techniques, computer vision algorithms, efficient data structures such as k-dimensional trees and particle filtering. Results of several validation experiments are presented

High-velocity walk-through programming for industrial applications

Traditionally, industrial robots are programmed by highly specialized workers that either directly write code in platform-specific languages, or use dedicated hardware (teach-pendant) to move the robot through the desired via-points. Unsurprisingly, the inherently complex and time-consuming nature of this task is one of the factors that are still preventing industrial manipulators from being massively adopted by companies that require a high degree of flexibility in order to cope with limited production volumes and rapidly changing product requirements. In this context, the introduction of sensor-based walk-through programming approaches represents the ideal solution as far as the need to reduce programming complexity and time is concerned. Nevertheless, the main shortcomings of these solutions typically consist in limited reachable velocities during the programming phase due to safety constraints and in relying on open robot controllers. To this regard, this paper proposes a control architecture for walk-through programming of industrial manipulators specifically designed in order to (i) reach high velocities while guaranteeing the operator's safety; (ii) allow straightforward integration with a generic closed robotic controller. The proposed solution is extensively validated on an industrial manipulator