A mechatronic leg replica to benchmark human-exoskeleton physical interactions

: Evaluating human-exoskeleton interaction typically requires experiments with human subjects, which raises safety issues and entails time-consuming testing procedures. This paper presents a mechatronic replica of a human leg, which was designed to quantify physical interaction dynamics between exoskeletons and human limbs without the need for human testing. In the first part of this work, we present the mechanical, electronic, sensory system and software solutions integrated in our leg replica prototype. In the second part, we used the leg replica to test its interaction with two types of commercially available wearable devices, i.e. an active full leg exoskeleton and a passive knee orthosis. We ran basic test examples to demonstrate the functioning and benchmarking potential of the leg replica to assess the effects of joint misalignments on force transmission. The integrated force sensors embedded in the leg replica detected higher interaction forces in the misaligned scenario in comparison to the aligned one, in both active and passive modalities. The small standard deviation of force measurements across cycles demonstrates the potential of the leg replica as a standard test method for reproducible studies of human-exoskeleton physical interaction

Relevance of hazards in exoskeleton applications: a survey-based enquiry

Exoskeletons are becoming the reference technology for assistance and augmentation of human motor functions in a wide range of application domains. Unfortunately, the exponential growth of this sector has not been accompanied by a rigorous risk assessment (RA) process, which is necessary to identify the major aspects concerning the safety and impact of this new technology on humans. This situation may seriously hamper the market uptake of new products. This paper presents the results of a survey that was circulated to understand how hazards are considered by exoskeleton users, from research and industry perspectives. Our analysis aimed to identify the perceived occurrence and the impact of a sample of generic hazards, as well as to collect suggestions and general opinions from the respondents that can serve as a reference for more targeted RA. Our results identified a list of relevant hazards for exoskeletons. Among them, misalignments and unintended device motion were perceived as key aspects for exoskeletons' safety. This survey aims to represent a first attempt in recording overall feedback from the community and contribute to future RAs and the identification of better mitigation strategies in the field

Factors associated with the intention to participate in COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials: A cross-sectional study in Peru

Objective: To evaluate the factors associated with the intention to participate in COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials in the Peruvian population. Methods: Cross-sectional study and secondary analysis of a database that involved Peruvian population during September 2020. The Poisson regression model was used to estimate the associated factors. Results: Data from 3231 individuals were analyzed, 44.1% of whom intended to participate in COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials. Factors associated with the outcome were being male (RPa: 1.25; 95% CI: 1.15–1.35), being from the highlands region (RPa: 1.18; 95% CI: 1.09–1.28) or jungle (RPa: 1.30; 95% CI: 1.15–1.47), having a relative that is a healthcare professional (PRa: 1.16; 95% CI: 1.06–1.28), using a medical source of information (PRa: 1.28; 95% CI: 1.17–1.41), and trusting in the possible effectiveness of vaccines (PRa: 1.40; 95% CI: 1.29–1.51). The main reason for not participating in the trial was the possibility of developing side effects (69.80%). Conclusion: There is an urgent need to generate a perception of safety in COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials, to increase the population's intention to participate in these studies, and to provide evidence-based information about the vaccine.Revisión por pare

Highly automated bioburden-free continuous manufacturing biologics GMP operations: How to get there?

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Individual common variants exert weak effects on the risk for autism spectrum disorders.

While it is apparent that rare variation can play an important role in the genetic architecture of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), the contribution of common variation to the risk of developing ASD is less clear. To produce a more comprehensive picture, we report Stage 2 of the Autism Genome Project genome-wide association study, adding 1301 ASD families and bringing the total to 2705 families analysed (Stages 1 and 2). In addition to evaluating the association of individual single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), we also sought evidence that common variants, en masse, might affect the risk. Despite genotyping over a million SNPs covering the genome, no single SNP shows significant association with ASD or selected phenotypes at a genome-wide level. The SNP that achieves the smallest P-value from secondary analyses is rs1718101. It falls in CNTNAP2, a gene previously implicated in susceptibility for ASD. This SNP also shows modest association with age of word/phrase acquisition in ASD subjects, of interest because features of language development are also associated with other variation in CNTNAP2. In contrast, allele scores derived from the transmission of common alleles to Stage 1 cases significantly predict case status in the independent Stage 2 sample. Despite being significant, the variance explained by these allele scores was small (Vm< 1%). Based on results from individual SNPs and their en masse effect on risk, as inferred from the allele score results, it is reasonable to conclude that common variants affect the risk for ASD but their individual effects are modest

Prevention and control practices against Sars-Cov2 infection in the peruvian population

Objetive: To describe the prevention and control practices for the infection to SARS-COV2 in the Peruvian population. Material and Methods: Observational descriptive study. We evaluated a non-probabilistic sample of adult residents in some departments of Peru. Preventive practices were evaluated in people without a history of COVID-19 and control practices in people who had suffered it. Results: We evaluated 3630 Peruvians (mean age 25.4 ± 9.5), of that 3231 don't have a history of COVID-19 and 399 who had suffered it. The prevention and control practices that were realized often or always, with more frequencies, was the use of a mask when they go out home (97.9% vs 87.7), cover their nose or mouth when they sneeze (95.4% vs 89.9%), save the distance to other people in the street (91.4% vs 74.7%), wash their hands when they came home (92.5% vs 88.7%), and disinfect the objects and personal places (82.6% vs 77.4%). The 22.1% and 83.7%, the 59.7% and 80.2, and the 8.0% and 16.8% consumed some type of medicine, medicinal plant, and chlorine dioxide to prevent and control the infection, respectively. Conclusion: In general, less than 50% of the participants performed prevention and control practices against COVID-19 often or always.Revisión por pare

LSST Science Book, Version 2.0

A survey that can cover the sky in optical bands over wide fields to faint magnitudes with a fast cadence will enable many of the exciting science opportunities of the next decade. The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will have an effective aperture of 6.7 meters and an imaging camera with field of view of 9.6 deg^2, and will be devoted to a ten-year imaging survey over 20,000 deg^2 south of +15 deg. Each pointing will be imaged 2000 times with fifteen second exposures in six broad bands from 0.35 to 1.1 microns, to a total point-source depth of r~27.5. The LSST Science Book describes the basic parameters of the LSST hardware, software, and observing plans. The book discusses educational and outreach opportunities, then goes on to describe a broad range of science that LSST will revolutionize: mapping the inner and outer Solar System, stellar populations in the Milky Way and nearby galaxies, the structure of the Milky Way disk and halo and other objects in the Local Volume, transient and variable objects both at low and high redshift, and the properties of normal and active galaxies at low and high redshift. It then turns to far-field cosmological topics, exploring properties of supernovae to z~1, strong and weak lensing, the large-scale distribution of galaxies and baryon oscillations, and how these different probes may be combined to constrain cosmological models and the physics of dark energy.Comment: 596 pages. Also available at full resolution at http://www.lsst.org/lsst/sciboo

Measurement of the cosmic ray spectrum above 4×10184{\times}10^{18} eV using inclined events detected with the Pierre Auger Observatory

A measurement of the cosmic-ray spectrum for energies exceeding $4{\times}10^{18}$ eV is presented, which is based on the analysis of showers with zenith angles greater than $60^{\circ}$ detected with the Pierre Auger Observatory between 1 January 2004 and 31 December 2013. The measured spectrum confirms a flux suppression at the highest energies. Above $5.3{\times}10^{18}$ eV, the "ankle", the flux can be described by a power law $E^{-\gamma}$ with index $\gamma=2.70 \pm 0.02 \,\text{(stat)} \pm 0.1\,\text{(sys)}$ followed by a smooth suppression region. For the energy ($E_\text{s}$) at which the spectral flux has fallen to one-half of its extrapolated value in the absence of suppression, we find $E_\text{s}=(5.12\pm0.25\,\text{(stat)}^{+1.0}_{-1.2}\,\text{(sys)}){\times}10^{19}$ eV.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO