Uncertainty and social considerations for mobile assistive robot navigation

An increased interest in mobile robots has been seen over the past years. The wide range of possible applications, from vacuum cleaners to assistant robots, makes such robots an interesting solution to many everyday problems. A key requirement for the mass deployment of such robots is to ensure they can safely navigate around our daily living environments. A robot colliding with or bumping into a person may be, in some contexts, unacceptable. For example, if a robot working around elderly people collides with one of them, it may cause serious injuries. This thesis explores four major components required for effective robot navigation: sensing the static environment, detection and tracking of moving people, obstacle and people avoidance with uncertainty measurement, and basic social navigation considerations. First, to guarantee adherence to basic safety constraints, sensors and algorithms required to measure the complex structure of our daily living environments are explored. Not only do the static components of the environment have to be measured, but so do any people present. A people detection and tracking algorithm, aimed for a crowded environment is proposed, thus enhancing the robot's perception capabilities. Our daily living environments present many inherent sources of uncertainty for robots, one of them arising due to the robot's inability to know people's intentions as they move. To solve this problem, a motion model that assumes unknown long-term intentions is proposed. This is used in conjunction with a novel uncertainty aware local planner to create feasible trajectories. In social situations, the presence of groups of people cannot be neglected when navigating. To avoid the robot interrupting groups of people, it first needs to be able to detect such groups. A group detector is proposed which relies on a set of gaze- and geometric-based features. Avoiding group disruption is finally incorporated into the navigation algorithm by means of taking into account the probability of disrupting a group's activities. The effectiveness of the four different components is evaluated using real world and simulated data, demonstrating the benefits for mobile robot navigation.Open Acces

Genetic Improvement of Oilseed Crops Using Modern Biotechnology

In 2009, big challenges facing the agricultural sector in the twenty-first century were presented to the world. Human population growth, increased life expectancy, loss of biodiversity, climate change and accelerated land degradation are the main factors contributing to rethink agriculture system production. In that scenery, modern biotechnology has set a stage for the advancement of agricultural practices and it is clearly an important ally to apply a broad array of technologies and innovative systems where they are most needed, such as enhancing crop productivity, increasing yields, and ultimately ensuring food security. One of the biggest challenges is related to technify production systems, but with no doubt, developing genetic improvement toward getting an efficient and sustainable agriculture, generating new seed qualities (new traits), such as, among others, to upset fatty acids content in oilseed crops have been growing up significantly due to industry interest. In this study, a review about the main advances in genetic improvement of some oilseed crops, starting with omics to understand metabolic routes and to find out key genes in seed oil production, and also, getting in use of modern biotechnology to alter the production of fatty acids, and to face biotic challenges in oilseed crops is presented

Mitochondrial Genomes of Lepidopteran Insects Considered Crop Pests

In this chapter, the complete mitochondrial genome of Guatemalan potato moth, Tecia solanivora (Povolny, 1973) (Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae) is presented as a model to understand how to characterize and study a mitogenome in insects. It was sequenced, analyzed, and compared with other lepidopteran insects. T. solanivora mitogenome is a circular double-stranded molecule, typically found in insects and containing 37 genes, all them well described over the other lepidopteran mitogenomes sequenced. Interestingly, in this mitogenome was found a gene arrangement in the tRNA-Met gene different from the ancestral arrangement, but commonly present in insect mitogenomes. Other important characteristics are the high A + T-biased and negative AT- and GC-skews contents, but also unusual canonical start codons in 12 protein-coding genes and an incomplete stop codon in the cytochrome oxidase subunit II gene consisting of just a Thymine. Another common feature shared with lepidopteran mitogenomes is the A + T-rich region. It is characterized by having 325 bb, the ‘ATAGA’ motif, a 17 bp poly (T) stretch and a (AT)8 element preceded by the ‘ATTTA’ motif. Likewise, this mitogenome has 21 intergenic spacer regions. In addition, an update about other recent mitogenomes research done mainly over lepidopteran insects considered crop pests is presented. On the other hand, a novel development based on induced mutations by CRISPR-Cas9 in the mitogenomes seeking applicable capability for pest control is shown. The utility of this study is to improve scientific databases and support future studies of population genetic in lepidopteran

Aplicación de PSO y GAs a la síntesis de agrupaciones lineales de antenas

Genetic algorithms (GAs) and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) are commonly used to solve many optimization and synthesis problems. An important issue facing the user is the selection of their parameters, such as crossover and mutation strategies and rates in GAs, or the population size and boundary conditions in PSO. This paper shows an exhaustive process to obtain those parameters and demonstrates that PSO is more efficient than the real-valued GA when both are applied to linear array synthesis. PSO, with less computational burden and generally fewer lines of code than GAs, turns out to be a more efficent algorithm for the design problem analyzed

The striking geographical pattern of gastric cancer mortality in Spain: environmental hypotheses revisited

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Gastric cancer is decreasing in most countries. While socioeconomic development is the main factor to which this decline has been attributed, enormous differences among countries and within regions are still observed, with the main contributing factors remaining elusive. This study describes the geographic distribution of gastric cancer mortality at a municipal level in Spain, from 1994-2003.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Smoothed relative risks of stomach cancer mortality were obtained, using the Besag-York-Molliè autoregressive spatial model. Maps depicting relative risk (RR) estimates and posterior probabilities of RR being greater than 1 were plotted.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>From 1994-2003, 62184 gastric cancer deaths were registered in Spain (7 percent of all deaths due to malignant tumors). The geographic pattern was similar for both sexes. RRs displayed a south-north and coast-inland gradient, with lower risks being observed in Andalusia, the Mediterranean coastline, the Balearic and Canary Islands and the Cantabrian seaboard. The highest risk was concentrated along the west coast of Galicia, broad areas of the Castile & Leon Autonomous community, the province of Cáceres in Extremadura, Lleida and other areas of Catalonia.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>In Spain, risk of gastric cancer mortality displays a striking geographic distribution. With some differences, this persistent and unique pattern is similar across the sexes, suggesting the implication of environmental exposures from sources, such as diet or ground water, which could affect both sexes and delimited geographic areas. Also, the higher sex-ratios found in some areas with high risk of smoking-related cancer mortality in males support the role of tobacco in gastric cancer etiology.</p

Consenso colombiano para el manejo de pacientes con Hipofosfatasia

La hipofosfatasia (HPP) es una enfermedad metabólica, de tipo hereditario, causada por mutaciones en el gen ALPL. Teniendo en cuenta los retos del manejo adecuado de los pacientes con HPP, se realizó un consenso interdisciplinario de expertos (endocrocrinólogos pediatras, nefrólogos pediatras, ortopedistas infantiles y genetistas clínicos) con el fin de proponer recomendaciones de utilidad clínica para el diagnóstico, tratamiento y seguimiento de los pacientes colombianos con HPP. Estas sugerencias se realizan en el contexto de los diferentes tipos de presentaciones y las edades de los pacientes.Q41-7Hypophosphatasia (HPP) is a hereditary metabolic disease caused by mutations in the ALPL gene. Taking into account the challenges found in the adequate management of patients with HPP, an interdisciplinary consensus of experts (pediatric endocrinologists, pediatric nephrologists, pediatric orthopedists and clinical geneticists) was carried out, in order to propose recommendations of clinical utility for the diagnosis, treatment and follow-up of Colombian patients with HPP. These suggestions are made in the context of the different types of presentations and the ages of the patients

Reducing the environmental impact of surgery on a global scale: systematic review and co-prioritization with healthcare workers in 132 countries

Abstract Background Healthcare cannot achieve net-zero carbon without addressing operating theatres. The aim of this study was to prioritize feasible interventions to reduce the environmental impact of operating theatres. Methods This study adopted a four-phase Delphi consensus co-prioritization methodology. In phase 1, a systematic review of published interventions and global consultation of perioperative healthcare professionals were used to longlist interventions. In phase 2, iterative thematic analysis consolidated comparable interventions into a shortlist. In phase 3, the shortlist was co-prioritized based on patient and clinician views on acceptability, feasibility, and safety. In phase 4, ranked lists of interventions were presented by their relevance to high-income countries and low–middle-income countries. Results In phase 1, 43 interventions were identified, which had low uptake in practice according to 3042 professionals globally. In phase 2, a shortlist of 15 intervention domains was generated. In phase 3, interventions were deemed acceptable for more than 90 per cent of patients except for reducing general anaesthesia (84 per cent) and re-sterilization of ‘single-use’ consumables (86 per cent). In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for high-income countries were: introducing recycling; reducing use of anaesthetic gases; and appropriate clinical waste processing. In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for low–middle-income countries were: introducing reusable surgical devices; reducing use of consumables; and reducing the use of general anaesthesia. Conclusion This is a step toward environmentally sustainable operating environments with actionable interventions applicable to both high– and low–middle–income countries