'Elbows Out' - Predictive tracking of partially occluded pose for Robot-Assisted dressing

© 2016 IEEE. Robots that can assist in the activities of daily living, such as dressing, may support older adults, addressing the needs of an aging population in the face of a growing shortage of care professionals. Using depth cameras during robot-assisted dressing can lead to occlusions and loss of user tracking, which may result in unsafe trajectory planning or prevent the planning task proceeding altogether. For the dressing task of putting on a jacket, which is addressed in this letter, tracking of the arm is lost when the user's hand enters the jacket, which may lead to unsafe situations for the user and a poor interaction experience. Using motion tracking data, free from occlusions, gathered from a human-human interaction study on an assisted dressing task, recurrent neural network models were built to predict the elbow position of a single arm based on other features of the user pose. The best features for predicting the elbow position were explored by using regression trees indicating the hips and shoulder as possible predictors. Engineered features were also created based on observations of real dressing scenarios and their effectiveness explored. Comparison between position and orientation-based datasets was also included in this study. A 12-fold cross-validation was performed for each feature set and repeated 20 times to improve statistical power. Using position-based data, the elbow position could be predicted with a 4.1 cm error but adding engineered features reduced the error to 2.4 cm. Adding orientation information to the data did not improve the accuracy and aggregating univariate response models failed to make significant improvements. The model was evaluated on Kinect data for a robot dressing task and although not without issues, demonstrates potential for this application. Although this has been demonstrated for jacket dressing, the technique could be applied to a number of different situations during occluded tracking

Laser scattering, optical constants and connection to other material performances (Kerr constant, mobility/diffusion coefficient/electrophoresis and depolarization)

Scattering of optical photons from the view of parallel methods related to absorption, scattering, fluorescence, reflection with inclusion of the polarization states of laser beams from experiment and theory give many possibilities for obtaining indirect data on material, processes, and dynamics. As a method with minimal perturbations, if low power beams are involved, certain type of data is provided. In fundamental dependences of various material properties, many phenomenological and basic laws are covered. Several coupled variables, primarily with the processes of scattering, pointing out further possibilities for linking the obtained theoretical or experimental results were presented. By including simulations, this associates with biological environments / variables for properties equivalent to defined tissues, cells, and characteristics. Along with selected formalisms including Stokes vectors and scattering matrices, a biological cell as an object can be monitored in time and influence of various environments could be predicted. Connecting Kerr’s effect with depolarization and scattering makes the complete description of molecule possible. Angular scattering observation with experimental possibilities gives the fastest practical data. This enables interpretation of E. coli with the application of Stokes vector formalisms. A relatively small number of material constants for many simulation cases could give draft estimation, but the experiment depends on the measuring devices and samples. The necessary symmetries showing the size of the scattering centers are analyzed, with the scattering data for some liquids (known / less known). From measured data, depolarization could be calculated, and with refractive index (molar refraction) connection with Kerr effect/ birefringence for selected solutions and behavior of molecules could be monitored. From the experimental Rayleigh factors, cross section (apparent/ effective) and attenuation coefficients for pure liquids were calculated. An approach for the correct assessment of the measurement uncertainty in the process of calibration of polyethylene samples. Keywords: Scattering, laser, Kerr effect, depolarization, bacteria, Mieplo

Personalized robot assistant for support in dressing

Robot-assisted dressing is performed in close physical interaction with users who may have a wide range of physical characteristics and abilities. Design of user adaptive and personalized robots in this context is still indicating limited, or no consideration, of specific user-related issues. This paper describes the development of a multi-modal robotic system for a specific dressing scenario - putting on a shoe, where users’ personalized inputs contribute to a much improved task success rate. We have developed: 1) user tracking, gesture recognition andposturerecognitionalgorithmsrelyingonimagesprovidedby a depth camera; 2) a shoe recognition algorithm from RGB and depthimages;3)speechrecognitionandtext-to-speechalgorithms implemented to allow verbal interaction between the robot and user. The interaction is further enhanced by calibrated recognition of the users’ pointing gestures and adjusted robot’s shoe delivery position. A series of shoe fitting experiments have been performed on two groups of users, with and without previous robot personalization, to assess how it affects the interaction performance. Our results show that the shoe fitting task with the personalized robot is completed in shorter time, with a smaller number of user commands and reduced workload

Predictors of health-related quality of life in Serbian patients with head and neck cancer

The aim of this study was to identify predictors of the Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) in patients with head and neck cancers (HNCs). In total, 345 patients with HNCs were interviewed. A self-report questionnaire was administered to collect data about demographic characteristics, health status, smoking, alcohol consumption habits, and HRQoL. It were used the EORTC Instruments - Quality of Life Questionnaire-Core 30-questions (QLQ-C30), Quality of Life Questionnaire - Head and Neck Module 35-questions (QLQ-H&N 35) and OHIP-14 instrument for HRQoL assessments. Clinical information and treatment data were collected from medical records. Five groups of HRQoL predictors were identified: demographic, socioeconomic, behavioral, psychophysical, and clinical/treatment. These HRQoL predictors had a strong (i.e., age, level of social support and social contact, level of education, depression, fatigue, presence of gastrostomy, comorbidities, and use of pain medications and supplements), a moderate (i.e., marital status, smoking, sexuality problems, time since diagnosis, presence of tracheostomy, and side effects outcomes of radio and chemotherapy) and a small impact (i.e., employment/financial difficulties, tumor site and stage, and surgical procedure). Study identified nineteen predictors that had significant, moderate and small impact on the HRQoL of patients with HNCs. Some of the predictors, like levels of social support and social contact, depression, and comorbidities could be targets for innervations to improve HRQoL

Short-term health effects of air quality changes during the COVID‑19 pandemic in the City of Novi Sad, the Republic of Serbia

ObjectivesThe objective of this research is to determine the change in outdoor air quality during the COVID‑19 related state of emergency resulting in a lockdown and the potential health benefits for the urban population.Material and MethodsDuring 53 days of the COVID‑19 related state of emergency with a lockdown (March 15–May 6, 2020) in the Republic of Serbia, as well as in the corresponding periods of 2018 and 2019, data on the daily sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), ground-level ozone (O3) and particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5) concentrations were analyzed. The total mortality data were analyzed to estimate the impact of the COVID‑19 related lockdown measures on the burden of health in a given population, attributed to the outdoor air quality in the City of Novi Sad, using AirQ+ software.ResultsThe average daily concentrations of PM2.5, NO2, PM10 and SO2 were reduced by 35%, 34%, 23% and 18%, respectively. In contrast, the average daily concentration of O3 increased by 8%, even if the primary precursors were reducing, thus representing a challenge for air quality management. In the City of Novi Sad, a reduction in the average daily PM2.5 concentration of 11.23 μg/m³ was significant, which resulted in a quantified number of avoided deaths.ConclusionsAir pollution in the City of Novi Sad had a chance to be improved due to some preventive measures related to the infectious disease (the COVID‑19 related lockdown), which in turn was the mitigation measure to air pollution with positive public health effects. The confirmed positive effects of the improved air quality on public health could also include raising collective resistance to mass non-communicable and infectious diseases such as COVID‑19 and reducing economic costs

Smanjenje bolesti ozimog stočnog graška u združenoj setvi u polju

A field experiment was conducted at the experimental field of the Institute of Field and Vegetable Crops in Novi Sad to investigate the effect of forage winter pea and winter oat intercropping on ascochyta blight and powdery mildew infections. Seeding rations of pea and oat in Treatment 1 (50:50%) and Treatment 2 (75:25%, respectively) reduced ascochyta leaf infection by 32.5% and 12.8%, and powdery mildew infection by 12.3% and 17.5%, respectively, compared to pea monoculture used as a control (Treatment 3). The same seeding rations in Treatment 1 and 2 reduced ascochyta blight on pea plants by 37.2% and 18.3%, respectively. However, there were no significant differences between the treatments in reducing powdery mildew on plants. The effects of different treatments on the average number of pods per plant, seed per pod, shriveled pods and seed weight were analyzed using Spearman’s correlation coefficient. Negative but not statistically significant effects on those measured parameters were registered in Treatments 2 and 3, while Treatment 1 showed positive effects on all parameters except shriveled pods. According to all data obtained in this research, the intercropping mixture of pea and oat at 50:50% seeding ratio had the best effect on the measured parameters while the intercropping mixture of pea and oat at 75:25% seeding ratio had low to moderate effect in comparison with pea monocrop.Poljski ogled je postavljen na oglednom polju Instituta za ratarstvo i povrtarstvo u Novom Sadu kako bi se istražio uticaj smeše ozimog stočnog graška i ozimog ovsa na pojavu antraknoze i pepelnice. Smeše graška i ovsa u Tretmanu 1 (50:50%) i Tretmanu 2 (75:25%) smanjile su antraknozu lista za 32.5% i 12.8%, a pepelnicu za 12.3% i 17.5% u odnosu na monokulturu graška, koja je uzeta za kontrolu (Tretman 3). Navedene smeše u Tretmanima 1 i 2 su smanjile pojavu antraknoze celih biljaka za 37.2% i 18.3%. Međutim, između tretmana nije uočena značajnija razlika u pojavi pepelnice na celoj biljci graška. Uticaj tretmana na prosečan broj mahuna po biljci, šturih mahuna po biljci, zrna po mahuni i mase semena analizirani su Spearman-ovim koeficijentom korelacije. Negativne ali ne statistički značajne korelacije sa merenim parametrima su registrovane u Tretmanima 2 i 3, dok je Tretman 1 imao pozitivan efekat na merene parametre sa izuzetkom šturih mahuna. Prema dobijenim rezultatima u sprovedenom istraživanju, združena setva ozimog stočnog graška i ozimog ovsa u smeši 50:50% je imala najbolji efekat na istraživane parametre dok je združeni usev graška i ovsa u smeši 75:25% imao slab do srednji uticaj u poređenju sa kontrolom, odnosno monokulturom graška

What's “up”? Resolving interaction ambiguity through non-visual cues for a robotic dressing assistant

@2017 Personal use of these materials is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating news collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other worksRobots that can assist in activities of daily living (ADL) such as dressing assistance, need to be capable of intuitive and safe interaction. Vision systems are often used to provide information on the position and movement of the robot and user. However, in a dressing context, technical complexity, occlusion and concerns over user privacy pushes research to investigate other approaches for human-robot interaction (HRI). We analysed verbal, proprioceptive and force feedback from 18 participants during a human-human dressing experiment where users received dressing assistance from a researcher mimicking robot behaviour. This paper investigates the occurrence of deictic speech in an assisted-dressing task and how any ambiguity could be resolved to ensure safe and reliable HRI. We focus on one of the most frequently occurring deictic words “up”, which was captured over 300 times during the experiments and is used as an example of an ambiguous command. We attempt to resolve the ambiguity of these commands through predictive models. These models were used to predict end effector choice and the direction in which the garment should move. The model for predicting end effector choice resulted in 70.4% accuracy based on the user's head orientation. For predicting garment direction, the model used the angle of the user's arm and resulted in 87.8% accuracy. We also found that additional categories such as the starting position of the user's arms and end-effector height may improve the accuracy of a predictive model. We present suggestions on how these inputs may be attained through non-visual means, for example through haptic perception of end-effector position, proximity sensors and acoustic source localisation.Peer Reviewe

A quantitative analysis of dressing dynamics for robotic dressing assistance

Assistive robots have a great potential to address issues related to an aging population and an increased demand for caregiving. Successful deployment of robots working in close proximity with people requires consideration of both safety and human–robot interaction (HRI). One of the established activities of daily living where robots could play an assistive role is dressing. Using the correct force profile for robot control will be essential in this application of HRI requiring careful exploration of factors related to the user’s pose and the type of garments involved. In this paper, a Baxter robot was used to dress a jacket onto a mannequin and human participants considering several combinations of user pose and clothing type (base layers), while recording dynamic data from the robot, a load cell, and an IMU. We also report on suitability of these sensors for identifying dressing errors, e.g., fabric snagging. Data were analyzed by comparing the overlap of confidence intervals to determine sensitivity to dressing. We expand the analysis to include classification techniques such as decision tree and support vector machines using k-fold cross-validation. The 6-axis load cell successfully discriminated between clothing types with predictive model accuracies between 72 and 97%. Used independently, the IMU and Baxter sensors were insufficient to discriminate garment types with the IMU showing 40–72% accuracy, but when used in combination this pair of sensors achieved an accuracy similar to the more expensive load cell (98%). When observing dressing errors (snagging), Baxter’s sensors and the IMU data demonstrated poor sensitivity but applying machine learning methods resulted in model with high predicative accuracy and low false negative rates (=5%). The results show that the load cell could be used independently for this application with good accuracy but a combination of the lower cost sensors could also be used without a significant loss in precision, which will be a key element in the robot control architecture for safe HRI.Peer Reviewe

Railway technical system as a support to the environment

Abstract Electrified railways are part of the transport solutions of 21st century. Some new emerging technologies and technical solutions used in railway infrastructure in a variety of cases, could be used for non typical railway applications. Thus, possible improvements in more and more pronounced environmental protection, related to railway, could be achieved. This paper will elaborate some of the technologies and solutions that could influence and monitor life and its dynamics in specific railway areas. Keywords: fibre optic sensing systems, remote areas, railway fibre optic cables. Zbornik radova/ Proceedings: pp. 691 – 696. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1n-SXTjzZgxETExgTMJMPgtymZYuD3PAA/vie