Proceedings of the 1st Standardized Knowledge Representation and Ontologies for Robotics and Automation Workshop

Welcome to IEEE-ORA (Ontologies for Robotics and Automation) IROS workshop. This is the 1st edition of the workshop on! Standardized Knowledge Representation and Ontologies for Robotics and Automation. The IEEE-ORA 2014 workshop was held on the 18th September, 2014 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. In!the IEEE-ORA IROS workshop, 10 contributions were presented from 7 countries in North and South America, Asia and Europe. The presentations took place in the afternoon, from 1:30 PM to 5:00 PM. The first session was dedicated to “Standards for Knowledge Representation in Robotics”, where presentations were made from the IEEE working group standards for robotics and automation, and also from the ISO TC 184/SC2/WH7. The second session was dedicated to “Core and Application Ontologies”, where presentations were made for core robotics ontologies, and also for industrial and robot assisted surgery ontologies. Three posters were presented in emergent applications of ontologies in robotics. We would like to express our thanks to all participants. First of all to the authors, whose quality work is the essence of this workshop. Next, to all the members of the international program committee, who helped us with their expertise and valuable time. We would also like to deeply thank the IEEE-IROS 2014 organizers for hosting this workshop. Our deep gratitude goes to the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, that sponsors! the IEEE-ORA group activities, and also to the scientific organizations that kindly agreed to sponsor all the workshop authors work

Designing and Managing Advanced, Intelligent and Ethical Health and Social Care Ecosystems

The ongoing transformation of health systems around the world aims at personalized, preventive, predictive, participative precision medicine, supported by technology. It considers individual health status, conditions, and genetic and genomic dispositions in personal, social, occupational, environmental and behavioral contexts. In this way, it transforms health and social care from art to science by fully understanding the pathology of diseases and turning health and social care from reactive to proactive. The challenge is the understanding and the formal as well as consistent representation of the world of sciences and practices, i.e., of multidisciplinary and dynamic systems in variable context. This enables mapping between the different disciplines, methodologies, perspectives, intentions, languages, etc., as philosophy or cognitive sciences do. The approach requires the deployment of advanced technologies including autonomous systems and artificial intelligence. This poses important ethical and governance challenges. This paper describes the aforementioned transformation of health and social care ecosystems as well as the related challenges and solutions, resulting in a sophisticated, formal reference architecture. This reference architecture provides a system-theoretical, architecture-centric, ontology-based, policy-driven model and framework for designing and managing intelligent and ethical ecosystems in general and health ecosystems in particular.Peer reviewe

Robot ontologies for sensor- and Image-guided surgery

Robots and robotics are becoming more com- plex and flexible, due to technological advancement, improved sensing capabilities and machine intelligence. Service robots target a wide range of applications, relying on advanced Human–Robot Interaction. Medical robotics is becoming a leading application area within, and the number of surgical, rehabilitation and hospital assistance robots is rising rapidly. However, the complexity of the medical environment has been a major barrier, preventing a wider use of robotic technology, thus mostly teleoperated, human-in-the-loop control solutions emerged so far. Providing smarter and better medical robots requires a systematic approach in describing and translating human processes for the robots. It is believed that ontologies can bridge human cognitive understanding and robotic reasoning (machine intelligence). Besides, ontologies serve as a tool and method to assess the added value robotic technology brings into the medical environment. The purpose of this paper is to identify relevant ontology research in medical robotics, and to review the state-of-the art. It focuses on the surgical domain, fundamental terminology and interactions are described for two example applications in neurosurgery and orthopaedics

AI and Robotics in the Fight Against COVID-19 Pandemic

The outbreak of the novel coronavirus and its disease, COVID-19 present an unprecedented challenge for humanity. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robotics may help fighting COVID-19. Potential applications of AI in this accelerating pandemic include, but are not limited to, early detection and diagnosis, massive agent modeling and simulation, data analytics, assistive robots, disinfection robots, public awareness and patrolling, contactless delivery services, virtual healthcare assistants, drug repurposing and vaccination discovery. This chapter sheds light on the roles AI and robotics can play in fighting this disastrous pandemic, and possible future ones. It highlights several potential applications to transform this challenge into opportunities. This chapter also discusses the ethical implications of AI and robotics during the pandemic and in the post-pandemic world

The first global ontological standard for ethically driven robotics and automation systems

In the complex and rapidly evolving fields of artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics, the elaboration of ethical concerns, considerations, and requirements helps elucidate the nature of technology’s reach and impact on society where there is a legal void. Thus, establishing ethics in AI and robotics is fundamental to identifying their potential risks and benefits, especially in our pandemicwrecked world [1]. The development of AI and robotics within an ethical framework enables the anticipation of future application contexts and articulation of uses that do not yet exist. Ethical considerations help to create a much-desired relationship between technology and human values and address the impacts a technology can have, thereby addressing issues of trust, safety, security, data privacy, and algorithmic bias. The need for an ethical framework is urgent because of the increasing adoption and use of autonomous and intelligent systems (A/ISs) in many domains, such as health care, education, finance, and insurance services

Interação Universidade-Sociedade: um estudo aplicado ao Programa Bom Negócio Paraná - Núcleo Francisco Beltrão

O objetivo deste estudo foi analisar a rede de inter-relações entre todos os atores ligados ao Programa Bom Negócio Paraná (PBNP) - Núcleo Francisco Beltrão, e os respectivos resultados obtidos pelo projeto no processo de capacitação empresarial na região Sudoeste do Paraná, durante o período de 2018 a 2019. Mediante análise documental, concluiu-se que os agentes da sociedade detêm grande importância para a efetivação das turmas do PBNP. Nesse sentido, verificou-se que quanto maior a interação entre os atores envolvidos em cada município, melhores serão os indicadores de empresários capacitados pelo PBNP e, consequentemente, melhor será o retorno para a sociedade

Robotics and Intelligent Systems Against a Pandemic

The outbreak of the novel coronavirus and its disease COVID-19 presents an unprecedented challenge for humanity. Intelligent systems and robotics particularly are helping the fight against COVID-19 several ways. Potential technology-driven solutions in this accelerating pandemic include, but are not limited to, early detection and diagnosis, assistive robots, indoor and outdoor disinfection robots, public awareness and patrolling, contactless last-mile delivery services, micro- and nano-robotics and laboratory automation. This article sheds light on the roles robotics and automation can play in fighting this disastrous pandemic and highlights a number of potential applications to transform this challenge into opportunities. The article also highlights the ethical implications of robotics and intelligent systems during the emergency side and in the post-pandemic world

Produtividade de soja em consequência do atraso da colheita e de condições ambientais

The objective of this work was to evaluate the effect of harvest delay on grain moisture, thousand grain weight, and soybean productivity, as well as to identify the most important meteorological variables during pre‑harvest and to propose empirical algorithms to estimate soybean yield losses. The experiments were carried out in the municipalities of Castro, in the state of Paraná, and of Itaberá, in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, in the seasons from 2011/2012 to 2013/2014, with the soybean cultivar 'NA5909RG', in seven environments. Treatments consisted of eight harvest times of soybean after phenological stage R8.2. The analysis of group of experiments showed a significant interaction between environments and harvest times. Grain moisture and grain yield are directly affected by the number of days with rainfall equal to or higher than 3 mm. At the R8.2 phenological stage, the highest values of productivity are obtained; however, after this stage, there is a decline of productivity as a consequence of harvest delay. The greatest, accumulated losses of productivity occur in environments with high frequency of rainfall, and high temperature and solar radiation. Two algorithms based on agrometeorological variables are proposed to estimate soybean yield loss.O objetivo deste trabalho foi avaliar o efeito do atraso da colheita sobre umidade dos grãos, massa de mil grãos e produtividade da soja, assim como identificar as variáveis agrometeorológicas mais importantes durante o período pré‑colheita e propor algoritmos empíricos para a estimativa das perdas de produtividade. Os experimentos foram realizados em Castro, PR, e Itaberá, SP, nas safras de 2011/2012 a 2013/2014, da cultivar de soja 'NA5909RG', em sete ambientes. Os tratamentos consistiram de oito momentos de colheita de soja a partir do estádio fenológico R8.2. A análise de grupos de experimentos mostrou interação significativa entre ambientes e momentos de colheita. A umidade e a produção de grãos são influenciadas diretamente pelo número de dias com precipitação pluvial igual ou superior a 3 mm. No estádio fenológico R8.2, são obtidos os maiores valores de produtividade; no entanto, após esse estádio, há declínio da produtividade em consequência do atraso da colheita. As maiores perdas acumuladas de produtividade ocorrem em ambientes com alta frequência de precipitações pluviais e com temperatura e radiação solar global elevadas. Dois algoritmos com base em variáveis agrometeorológicas são propostos para a estimativa da perda de produtividade de soja

Defining positioning in a core ontology for robotics

Unambiguous definition of spatial position and orientation has crucial importance for robotics. In this paper we propose an ontology about positioning. It is part of a more extensive core ontology being developed by the IEEE RAS Working Group on ontologies for robotics and automation. The core ontology should provide a common ground for further ontology development in the field. We give a brief overview of concepts in the core ontology and then describe an integrated approach for representing quantitative and qualitative position information.3-7 November 201