Sensory dominance and multisensory integration as screening tools in aging

Multisensory information typically confers neural and behavioural advantages over unisensory information. We used a simple audio-visual detection task to compare healthy young (HY), healthy older (HO) and mild-cognitive impairment (MCI) individuals. Neuropsychological tests assessed individuals' learning and memory impairments. First, we provide much-needed clarification regarding the presence of enhanced multisensory benefits in both healthily and abnormally aging individuals. The pattern of sensory dominance shifted with healthy and abnormal aging to favour a propensity of auditory-dominant behaviour (i.e., detecting sounds faster than flashes). Notably, multisensory benefits were larger only in healthy older than younger individuals who were also visually-dominant. Second, we demonstrate that the multisensory detection task offers benefits as a time- and resource-economic MCI screening tool. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis demonstrated that MCI diagnosis could be reliably achieved based on the combination of indices of multisensory integration together with indices of sensory dominance. Our findings showcase the importance of sensory profiles in determining multisensory benefits in healthy and abnormal aging. Crucially, our findings open an exciting possibility for multisensory detection tasks to be used as a cost-effective screening tool. These findings clarify relationships between multisensory and memory functions in aging, while offering new avenues for improved dementia diagnostics

A knowledge capture framework for remote collaborative virtual environments

Due to globalization, the need for geographically separated teams to collaborate on engineering tasks and learn from each other has increased. As a result, being able to observe and hence understand the actions of others in collaborative sessions is very important because it enables the users to work towards a common task’s goal. In this work, we propose and develop a novel collaborative knowledge framework that can be used to achieve a common task understanding during remote collaborative tasks. The collaborative knowledge framework provides playback and reuse facilities to enable the storage of knowledge elements (i.e. utterances, manipulations of shared representations, documents accessed during a collaborative session) as well as their recall in future engineering tasks. We validate the framework using an automotive use case

The effectiveness of virtual environments in developing collaborative strategies between industrial robots and humans

Testing and implementation of Human-Robot Collaboration (HRC) could be dangerous due to the high-speed movements and massive forces generated by industrial robots. Wherever humans and industrial robots share a common workplace, accidents are likely to happen and always unpredictable. This has hindered the development of human robot collaborative strategies as well as the ability of authorities to pass regulations on how humans and robots should work together in close proximities. This paper presents the use of a Virtual Reality digital twin of a physical layout as a mechanism to understand human reactions to both predictable and unpredictable robot motions. A set of established metrics as well as a newly developed Kinetic Energy Ratio metric are used to analyse human reactions and validate the effectiveness of the Virtual Reality environment. It is the aim that Virtual Reality digital twins could inform the safe implementation of Human-Robot Collaborative strategies in factories of the future

The CloudUPDRS smartphone software in Parkinson’s study: cross-validation against blinded human raters

Digital assessments of motor severity could improve the sensitivity of clinical trials and personalise treatment in Parkinson’s disease (PD) but have yet to be widely adopted. Their ability to capture individual change across the heterogeneous motor presentations typical of PD remains inadequately tested against current clinical reference standards. We conducted a prospective, dual-site, crossover-randomised study to determine the ability of a 16-item smartphone-based assessment (the index test) to predict subitems from the Movement Disorder Society-Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale part III (MDS-UPDRS III) as assessed by three blinded clinical raters (the reference-standard). We analysed data from 60 subjects (990 smartphone tests, 2628 blinded video MDS-UPDRS III subitem ratings). Subject-level predictive performance was quantified as the leave-one-subject-out cross-validation (LOSO-CV) accuracy. A pre-specified analysis classified 70.3% (SEM 5.9%) of subjects into a similar category to any of three blinded clinical raters and was better than random (36.7%; SEM 4.3%) classification. Post hoc optimisation of classifier and feature selection improved performance further (78.7%, SEM 5.1%), although individual subtests were variable (range 53.2–97.0%). Smartphone-based measures of motor severity have predictive value at the subject level. Future studies should similarly mitigate against subjective and feature selection biases and assess performance across a range of motor features as part of a broader strategy to avoid overly optimistic performance estimates

Factors associated with spontaneous stone passage in a contemporary cohort of patients presenting with acute ureteric colic. Results from the MIMIC Study (A Multi-centre cohort study evaluating the role of Inflammatory Markers in patients presenting with acute ureteric Colic)

Objectives There is conflicting data on the role of white blood cell count (WBC) and other inflammatory markers in spontaneous stone passage in patients with acute ureteric colic. The aim of the study was to assess the relationship of WBC and other routinely collected inflammatory and clinical markers including stone size, stone position and Medically Expulsive Therapy use (MET) with spontaneous stone passage (SSP) in a large contemporary cohort of patients with acute ureteric colic. Subjects and Methods Multi‐centre retrospective cohort study coordinated by the British Urology Researchers in Surgical Training (BURST) Research Collaborative at 71 secondary care hospitals across 4 countries (United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland, Australia and New Zealand). 4170 patients presented with acute ureteric colic and a computer tomography confirmed single ureteric stone. Our primary outcome measure was SSP as defined by the absence of need for intervention to assist stone passage. Multivariable mixed effects logistic regression was used to explore the relationship between key patient factors and SSP. Results 2518 patients were discharged with conservative management and had further follow up with a SSP rate of 74% (n = 1874/2518). Sepsis after discharge with conservative management was reported in 0.6% (n = 16/2518). On multivariable analysis neither WBC, Neutrophils or CRP were seen to predict SSP, with an adjusted OR of 0.97 [95% CI 0.91 to 1.04, p = 0.38], 1.06 [95% CI 0.99 to 1.13, p = 0.1] and 1.00 [95% CI 0.99 to 1.00, p = 0.17], respectively. Medical expulsive therapy (MET) also did not predict SSP [adjusted OR 1.11 [95% CI 0.76 to 1.61]). However, stone size and stone position were significant predictors. SSP for stones 7mm. For stones in the upper ureter the SSP rate was 52% [95% CI 48 to 56], middle ureter was 70% [95% CI 64 to 76], and lower ureter was 83% [95% CI 81 to 85]. Conclusion In contrast to the previously published literature, we found that in patients with acute ureteric colic who are discharged with initial conservative management, neither WBC, Neutrophil count or CRP help determine the likelihood of spontaneous stone passage. We also found no overall benefit from the use of MET. Stone size and position are important predictors and our findings represent the most comprehensive stone passage rates for each mm increase in stone size from a large contemporary cohort adjusting for key potential confounders. We anticipate that these data will aid clinicians managing patients with acute ureteric colic and help guide management decisions and the need for intervention

A review of manufacturing systems for introducing collaborative robots

Industry 4.0 highlights a new industrial revolution for the manufacturing system. This work aims to provide a review of different types of manufacturing systems and present motivations of introducing collaborative robots into manufacturing. We start with a discussion about the existing research of human-robot collaboration as well as its perception and control strategies. Then, we give a review of the current applications of swarm robots in manufacturing. Finally, we propose some insights for future directions of human-robot society

Obstructive sleep apnea in patients with Down syndrome: current perspectives

Ryne Simpson,1 Anthony A Oyekan,2 Zarmina Ehsan,1,2 David G Ingram1,2 1Department of Pediatrics, Children’s Mercy Hospital, Kansas City, MO, USA; 2School of Medicine, University of Missouri-Kansas City, Kansas City, MO, USA Abstract: For individuals with Down syndrome (DS), obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a complex disorder with significant clinical consequences. OSA is seen frequently in DS, and when present, it tends to be more severe. This increased prevalence is likely related to common anatomic abnormalities and a greater risk of additional comorbidities such as hypotonia and obesity. Because signs and symptoms do not often correlate with disease, all children and adults with DS should receive routine screening for OSA. Similar to the general population, polysomnography remains the gold standard for diagnosis. Because individuals with DS may be more susceptible to cardiovascular and neurocognitive sequelae, early diagnosis and treatment of OSA is becoming increasingly important. Treatment options generally involve upper airway surgery (primarily adenotonsillectomy) and continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP); however, various adjunctive therapies including intranasal steroids, palatal expansion, and oropharyngeal exercises are also available. Residual disease status post adenotonsillectomy is common, and further evaluation (eg, drug-induced sleep endoscopy [DISE]) is often needed. More advanced and directed airway surgery can be performed if additional sites of obstruction are observed. Novel therapies including hypoglossal nerve stimulation are emerging as effective treatments for refractory OSA. Due to the diversity among individuals with DS, personalized treatment plans should be developed. Within this arena, opportunities for research remain abundant and should include areas involving patient risk factors, alternative diagnostic methods, and outcome analysis. Keywords: sleep-disordered breathing, pediatric, adenotonsillectomy, polysomnography, positive airway pressure, drug-induced sleep endoscop

A bio-inspired controller for unmanned aerial vehicles in chemical cloud coverage

This paper presents a bio-inspired controller capable of controlling a swarm of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to provide a visual representation of an invisible airborne hazardous substance such as a chemical cloud. By using this approach, the position of the individuals in the swarm of UAVs forms a distribution map without the need for transmitting sensor data to a base station for chemical map generation. A behaviour-based approach is adopted to develop this controller so that it is computationally cheap and highly effective, compared to other coverage methods such as Voronoi partition or simulated annealing. Simulation results show that the approach is highly responsive to dynamic changes in the environment. © Authors 2011