Trust-Based Control of (Semi)Autonomous Mobile Robotic Systems

Despite great achievements made in (semi)autonomous robotic systems, human participa-tion is still an essential part, especially for decision-making about the autonomy allocation of robots in complex and uncertain environments. However, human decisions may not be optimal due to limited cognitive capacities and subjective human factors. In human-robot interaction (HRI), trust is a major factor that determines humans use of autonomy. Over/under trust may lead to dispro-portionate autonomy allocation, resulting in decreased task performance and/or increased human workload. In this work, we develop automated decision-making aids utilizing computational trust models to help human operators achieve a more effective and unbiased allocation. Our proposed decision aids resemble the way that humans make an autonomy allocation decision, however, are unbiased and aim to reduce human workload, improve the overall performance, and result in higher acceptance by a human. We consider two types of autonomy control schemes for (semi)autonomous mobile robotic systems. The first type is a two-level control scheme which includes switches between either manual or autonomous control modes. For this type, we propose automated decision aids via a computational trust and self-confidence model. We provide analytical tools to investigate the steady-state effects of the proposed autonomy allocation scheme on robot performance and human workload. We also develop an autonomous decision pattern correction algorithm using a nonlinear model predictive control to help the human gradually adapt to a better allocation pattern. The second type is a mixed-initiative bilateral teleoperation control scheme which requires mixing of autonomous and manual control. For this type, we utilize computational two-way trust models. Here, mixed-initiative is enabled by scaling the manual and autonomous control inputs with a function of computational human-to-robot trust. The haptic force feedback cue sent by the robot is dynamically scaled with a function of computational robot-to-human trust to reduce humans physical workload. Using the proposed control schemes, our human-in-the-loop tests show that the trust-based automated decision aids generally improve the overall robot performance and reduce the operator workload compared to a manual allocation scheme. The proposed decision aids are also generally preferred and trusted by the participants. Finally, the trust-based control schemes are extended to the single-operator-multi-robot applications. A theoretical control framework is developed for these applications and the stability and convergence issues under the switching scheme between different robots are addressed via passivity based measures

The Effect of Step Load Moving on the Surface of a Cylindrical Cavity Using Neural Networks

Potential functions and Fourier series method in the cylindrical coordinate system are employed to solve the problem of moving loads on the surface of a cylindrical bore in an infinite elastic and isotropic medium. The steady state dynamic equations of medium are uncoupled by applying potential functions. The medium responses are obtained by using an appropriate numerical method of Laplace transform inversion. The solution has an integral form; therefore, a feedforward backpropagation neural network is designed and trained using the response evaluated numerically in a finite set of random points to approximate stress and displacement components in the medium. It is shown that because of the super seismic nature of the problem, two mach cones are formed and opened toward the rear of the front in the medium

Psychotherapy for Depression and Anxiety in Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS): A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Background: There are several therapeutic methods for the premenstrual syndrome (PMS). Although psychotherapy has been introduced for women with PMS, no regular reconsiderations of these treatments are available. Aim of the present meta-analysis was conducted to evaluate the effect of psychotherapy interventions on the PMS. Materials and Methods:  The present systematic review and meta- analysis was conducted no restriction in date of publication until 13th March 2018 on electronic international databases of Medline (via PubMed), Scopus, Web of Science, and Cochrane Library as well as Iranian databases, such as Magiran, Medlib, and SID, using equivalent keywords in Persian. The quality of studies and data extraction was assessed by two authors. The standardized mean difference (SMD) measure was applied to calculate the main effect size. Results: Seven trials were included in systematic review. Depression level [SMD =-0.978;

Effectiveness of exercise interventions in animal models of multiple sclerosis

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is associated with an impaired immune system that severely affects the spinal cord and brain, and which is marked by progressive inflammatory demyelination. Patients with MS may benefit from exercise training as a suggested course of treatment. The most commonly used animal models of studies on MS are experimental autoimmune/allergic encephalomyelitis (EAE) models. The present review intends to concisely discuss the interventions using EAE models to understand the effectiveness of exercise as treatment for MS patients and thereby provide clear perspective for future research and MS management. For the present literature review, relevant published articles on EAE animal models that reported the impacts of exercise on MS, were extracted from various databases. Existing literature support the concept that an exercise regimen can reduce the severity of some of the clinical manifestations of EAE, including neurological signs, motor function, pain, and cognitive deficits. Further results demonstrate the mechanisms of EAE suppression with information relating to the immune system, demyelination, regeneration, and exercise in EAE. The role for neurotrophic factors has also been investigated. Analyzing the existing reports, this literature review infers that EAE is a suitable animal model that can help researchers develop further understanding and treatments for MS. Besides, findings from previous animal studies supports the contention that exercise assists in ameliorating MS progression

Effects of salinity and ascorbic acid on growth, water status and antioxidant system in a perennial halophyte

Salinity causes oxidative stress in plants by enhancing production of reactive oxygen species, so that an efficient antioxidant system, of which ascorbic acid (AsA) is a key component, is an essential requirement of tolerance. However, antioxidant responses of plants to salinity vary considerably among species. Limonium stocksii is a sub-tropical halophyte found in the coastal marshes from Gujarat (India) to Karachi (Pakistan) but little information exists on its salt resistance. In order to investigate the role of AsA in tolerance, 2-month-old plants were treated with 0 (control), 300 (moderate) and 600 (high) mM NaCl for 30 days with or without exogenous application of AsA (20 mM) or distilled water. Shoot growth of unsprayed plants at moderate salinity was similar to that of controls while at high salinity growth was inhibited substantially. Sap osmolality, AsA concentrations and activities of AsA-dependant antioxidant enzymes increased with increasing salinity. Water spray resulted in some improvement in growth, indicating that the growth promotion by exogenous treatments could partly be attributed to water. However, exogenous application of AsA on plants grown under saline conditions improved growth and AsA dependent antioxidant enzymes more than the water control treatment. Our data show that AsA-dependent antioxidant enzymes play an important role in salinity tolerance of L. stocksii.Higher Education Commission of Pakistan for provision of funds under a research grant entitled ‘Salt-induced Oxidative Stress: Consequences and Possible Management’

Global burden of 369 diseases and injuries in 204 countries and territories, 1990–2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019

Background: In an era of shifting global agendas and expanded emphasis on non-communicable diseases and injuries along with communicable diseases, sound evidence on trends by cause at the national level is essential. The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) provides a systematic scientific assessment of published, publicly available, and contributed data on incidence, prevalence, and mortality for a mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive list of diseases and injuries. Methods: GBD estimates incidence, prevalence, mortality, years of life lost (YLLs), years lived with disability (YLDs), and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) due to 369 diseases and injuries, for two sexes, and for 204 countries and territories. Input data were extracted from censuses, household surveys, civil registration and vital statistics, disease registries, health service use, air pollution monitors, satellite imaging, disease notifications, and other sources. Cause-specific death rates and cause fractions were calculated using the Cause of Death Ensemble model and spatiotemporal Gaussian process regression. Cause-specific deaths were adjusted to match the total all-cause deaths calculated as part of the GBD population, fertility, and mortality estimates. Deaths were multiplied by standard life expectancy at each age to calculate YLLs. A Bayesian meta-regression modelling tool, DisMod-MR 2.1, was used to ensure consistency between incidence, prevalence, remission, excess mortality, and cause-specific mortality for most causes. Prevalence estimates were multiplied by disability weights for mutually exclusive sequelae of diseases and injuries to calculate YLDs. We considered results in the context of the Socio-demographic Index (SDI), a composite indicator of income per capita, years of schooling, and fertility rate in females younger than 25 years. Uncertainty intervals (UIs) were generated for every metric using the 25th and 975th ordered 1000 draw values of the posterior distribution. Findings: Global health has steadily improved over the past 30 years as measured by age-standardised DALY rates. After taking into account population growth and ageing, the absolute number of DALYs has remained stable. Since 2010, the pace of decline in global age-standardised DALY rates has accelerated in age groups younger than 50 years compared with the 1990–2010 time period, with the greatest annualised rate of decline occurring in the 0–9-year age group. Six infectious diseases were among the top ten causes of DALYs in children younger than 10 years in 2019: lower respiratory infections (ranked second), diarrhoeal diseases (third), malaria (fifth), meningitis (sixth), whooping cough (ninth), and sexually transmitted infections (which, in this age group, is fully accounted for by congenital syphilis; ranked tenth). In adolescents aged 10–24 years, three injury causes were among the top causes of DALYs: road injuries (ranked first), self-harm (third), and interpersonal violence (fifth). Five of the causes that were in the top ten for ages 10–24 years were also in the top ten in the 25–49-year age group: road injuries (ranked first), HIV/AIDS (second), low back pain (fourth), headache disorders (fifth), and depressive disorders (sixth). In 2019, ischaemic heart disease and stroke were the top-ranked causes of DALYs in both the 50–74-year and 75-years-and-older age groups. Since 1990, there has been a marked shift towards a greater proportion of burden due to YLDs from non-communicable diseases and injuries. In 2019, there were 11 countries where non-communicable disease and injury YLDs constituted more than half of all disease burden. Decreases in age-standardised DALY rates have accelerated over the past decade in countries at the lower end of the SDI range, while improvements have started to stagnate or even reverse in countries with higher SDI. Interpretation: As disability becomes an increasingly large component of disease burden and a larger component of health expenditure, greater research and developm nt investment is needed to identify new, more effective intervention strategies. With a rapidly ageing global population, the demands on health services to deal with disabling outcomes, which increase with age, will require policy makers to anticipate these changes. The mix of universal and more geographically specific influences on health reinforces the need for regular reporting on population health in detail and by underlying cause to help decision makers to identify success stories of disease control to emulate, as well as opportunities to improve. Funding: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY 4.0 licens

تغییر در الگوهاي جهاني سلامت و بيماري: انتقال جمعيتي و انتقال اپيدميولوژيک

At the outset of the 20th century, it became widely accepted that death ad fertility rate in many western countries has declined. This historical experience has led to the appearance of the major population theory, i.e. demographic transition or transition theory. Knowledge of the health transition in every country is one of the most important pieces of data that is used in the social development program and the plans for providing, maintaining, and promoting social health. The main purpose of this paper is to study the historical change in the global model of health and illness. A quantitative historical-comparative study has been used. Using a data collection method for health and epidemiologic data, that part of the data related to demographic change and its effect on health conditions that have not yet been seriously taken into consideration, are gathered and analyzed. Health transition is based on demographic and epidemiologic transitions. Health transition is a well-recognized and scientific idea affected by two balanced transitions, tat are demographic and epidemiologic transitions. The economic-social development of Iran in the past two or three decades has resulted in a dramatic change in the demographic and epidemiologic indices of the country. For this purpose, the data regarding censuses and demographic studies at a 45-year interval and the data regarding death at a 30-year interval has been used, and through the comparison of the demographic and epidemiologic indices, the health conditions of the country at various times and its current conditions are presented.با شروع قرن بيستم اين امرآشکار شد که مرگ و مير در بسياري از کشورهای غربي‌کاهش يافته و باروري در حال کاهش است. اين تجربه تاريخي به ظهور تئوري بزرگ جمعيتي يعني انتقال جمعيتي يا تئوري انتقال منجر شد. آگاهي از دگرگوني سيماي سلامتي در هر کشور از مهمترين اطلاعاتي است که در برنامه توسعه‌ اجتماعي و برنامه‌ريزي براي تأمين، حفظ و ارتقاي سلامت جامعه مورد استفاده قرار‌مي‌گيرد. هدف اصلی مطالعه حاضر بررسی تاریخی تغییر در الگوهای جهانی سلامت و بیماری است. این مطالعه از نوع تاریخی- تطبیقی کمّی است. با استفاده از روش جمع‌‌آوري اطلاعات مربوط به داده‌هاي جمعيتي و بهداشت و سلامت، آن بخش از داده‌هايي که در مورد تغييرات جمعيتي و تاثيرات آن بر وضعيت سلامت تا کنون مورد توجه جدي قرار‌نگرفته‌اند گردآوري و مورد بررسي تحليل قرار‌گرفته است. دگرگوني سيماي سلامتي بر پايه دو گذار جمعيت شناسی و همه‌گير‌شناسي استوار است. دگرگوني سيماي سلامتي تعبيري شناخته شده و علمي است که از دو گذار متعادل نسبت به هم، يعني گذار جمعيت شناسي و گذار همه‌گير شناسي شکل مي‌گيرد. توسعه اجتماعي- اقتصادي طي دو يا سه دهه‌ي اخير در ايران، سبب بروز تغييرات عمده‌اي در شاخص‌هاي جمعيتي و همه‌گير‌شناسي کشور شده‌است. به اين منظور اطلاعات مربوط به سرشماري‌ها و مطالعات جمعيتي در يک فاصله زماني 45 ساله و نيز اطلاعات مربوط به مرگ در يک فاصله زماني 30 ساله مورد استفاده قرارگرفته و با مقايسه ‌شاخص‌هاي دموگرافيک و اپيدميولوژيک، سيماي سلامتي کشور در طول زمان و چهره کنوني آن نشان داده ‌خواهد‌شد

Cytological study of Hordeum bulbosum L. in Iran

Hordeum bulbosum L. (Poaceae) is considered to be sources of useful alleles which can be used in cereal improvement. Thirty two native Iranian H. bulbosum were collected from different localities and were studied by karyotype analysis. We assessed the karyotype asymmetry of the Iranian bulbous barley populations and analyzed the data to look for their geographic distribution correlations. All of the studied populations were tetraploid (2n=4x=28) and the analysed parameters of karyotype of H. bulbosum support the autopolyploidy origin of the species with nearly symmetric karyotype. The results showed the most asymmetric karyotypes within northeast (Golestan) and northwest (Gardane-e Heiran) populations and the most symmetric karyotyps in populations from the west of Iran. Therefore, it can be assumed that the oldest populations are in the slopes of Zagros Mountains and the youngest germplasms occur in the northeast of this country. It can be concluded that the species originated from the west of Iran and distributed towards east and northeast

Chaos synchronization and parameter identification of a finance chaotic system with unknown parameters, a linear feedback controller

In this research study, an adaptive linear feedback controller is presented for controlling the behavior of a financial chaotic system and identical/non-identical synchronization with unknown system parameters. An adaptive linear feedback controller is introduced based on the Lyapunov stability theorem, which is added to the nonlinear chaotic systems to achieve synchronization. Furthermore, the disparity amount of system parameters is estimated simultaneously. Identical and non-identical synchronizations are followed by some numerical simulations to verify the validity of the proposed method. The results show the effectiveness of the theoretical discussions. Keywords: Chaos synchronization, Linear feedback controller, Finance chaotic system, Parameter identificatio