A survey of robot manipulation in contact

In this survey, we present the current status on robots performing manipulation tasks that require varying contact with the environment, such that the robot must either implicitly or explicitly control the contact force with the environment to complete the task. Robots can perform more and more manipulation tasks that are still done by humans, and there is a growing number of publications on the topics of (1) performing tasks that always require contact and (2) mitigating uncertainty by leveraging the environment in tasks that, under perfect information, could be performed without contact. The recent trends have seen robots perform tasks earlier left for humans, such as massage, and in the classical tasks, such as peg-in-hole, there is a more efficient generalization to other similar tasks, better error tolerance, and faster planning or learning of the tasks. Thus, in this survey we cover the current stage of robots performing such tasks, starting from surveying all the different in-contact tasks robots can perform, observing how these tasks are controlled and represented, and finally presenting the learning and planning of the skills required to complete these tasks

Augmenting Immersive Telepresence Experience with a Virtual Body

We propose augmenting immersive telepresence by adding a virtual body, representing the user's own arm motions, as realized through a head-mounted display and a 360-degree camera. Previous research has shown the effectiveness of having a virtual body in simulated environments; however, research on whether seeing one's own virtual arms increases presence or preference for the user in an immersive telepresence setup is limited. We conducted a study where a host introduced a research lab while participants wore a head-mounted display which allowed them to be telepresent at the host's physical location via a 360-degree camera, either with or without a virtual body. We first conducted a pilot study of 20 participants, followed by a pre-registered 62 participant confirmatory study. Whereas the pilot study showed greater presence and preference when the virtual body was present, the confirmatory study failed to replicate these results, with only behavioral measures suggesting an increase in presence. After analyzing the qualitative data and modeling interactions, we suspect that the quality and style of the virtual arms, and the contrast between animation and video, led to individual differences in reactions to the virtual body which subsequently moderated feelings of presence.Comment: Accepted for publication in Transactions in Visualization and Computer Graphics (TVCG), to be presented in IEEE VR 202

Virtual Reality Sickness Reduces Attention During Immersive Experiences

In this paper, we show that Virtual Reality (VR) sickness is associated with a reduction in attention, which was detected with the P3b Event-Related Potential (ERP) component from electroencephalography (EEG) measurements collected in a dual-task paradigm. We hypothesized that sickness symptoms such as nausea, eyestrain, and fatigue would reduce the users' capacity to pay attention to tasks completed in a virtual environment, and that this reduction in attention would be dynamically reflected in a decrease of the P3b amplitude while VR sickness was experienced. In a user study, participants were taken on a tour through a museum in VR along paths with varying amounts of rotation, shown previously to cause different levels of VR sickness. While paying attention to the virtual museum (the primary task), participants were asked to silently count tones of a different frequency (the secondary task). Control measurements for comparison against the VR sickness conditions were taken when the users were not wearing the Head-Mounted Display (HMD) and while they were immersed in VR but not moving through the environment. This exploratory study shows, across multiple analyses, that the effect mean amplitude of the P3b collected during the task is associated with both sickness severity measured after the task with a questionnaire (SSQ) and with the number of counting errors on the secondary task. Thus, VR sickness may impair attention and task performance, and these changes in attention can be tracked with ERP measures as they happen, without asking participants to assess their sickness symptoms in the moment

Clinical characteristics and evaluation of the incidence of cryptococcosis in Finland 2004-2018

Background Cryptococcosis is one of the major causes of mortality among HIV patients worldwide. Though most often associated with late stage HIV infection/AIDS, a significant number of cases occur in other immunocompromised patients such as solid organ transplant recipients and patients with hematological malignancies. Immunocompromised patients are a heterogeneous group and their number increases constantly. Since little is known about the incidence and the clinical features of cryptococcosis in Northern Europe, our aim was to investigate the clinical characteristics of cryptococcosis patients in Finland. Methods We retrospectively reviewed the laboratory confirmed cryptococcosis cases in Finland during 2004-2018. Only those who were treated for cryptococcosis were included in the study. Initial laboratory findings and medical records were also collected. Results A total of 22 patients with cryptococcosis were included in our study. The annual incidence of cryptococcosis was 0.03 cases per 100,000 population. Ten patients were HIV-positive and 12 out of 22 were HIV-negative. Hematological malignancy was the most common underlying condition among HIV-negative patients. Conclusions To our knowledge, this is the first study of the clinical presentation and incidence of cryptococcosis in Finland. We demonstrate that invasive cryptococcal infection occurs not only in HIV/AIDS patients or otherwise immunocompromised patients but also in immunocompetent individuals. Even though cryptococcosis is extremely rare in Finland, its recognition is important since the prognosis depends on rapid diagnostics and early antifungal therapy.Peer reviewe

SNCA mutation p.Ala53Glu is derived from a common founder in the Finnish population

Peer reviewe

Clinical characteristics and evaluation of the incidence of cryptococcosis in Finland 2004-2018

Background: Cryptococcosis is one of the major causes of mortality among HIV patients worldwide. Though most often associated with late stage HIV infection/AIDS, a significant number of cases occur in other immunocompromised patients such as solid organ transplant recipients and patients with hematological malignancies. Immunocompromised patients are a heterogeneous group and their number increases constantly. Since little is known about the incidence and the clinical features of cryptococcosis in Northern Europe, our aim was to investigate the clinical characteristics of cryptococcosis patients in Finland.Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the laboratory confirmed cryptococcosis cases in Finland during 2004-2018. Only those who were treated for cryptococcosis were included in the study. Initial laboratory findings and medical records were also collected.Results: A total of 22 patients with cryptococcosis were included in our study. The annual incidence of cryptococcosis was 0.03 cases per 100,000 population. Ten patients were HIV-positive and 12 out of 22 were HIV-negative. Hematological malignancy was the most common underlying condition among HIV-negative patients.Conclusions: To our knowledge, this is the first study of the clinical presentation and incidence of cryptococcosis in Finland. We demonstrate that invasive cryptococcal infection occurs not only in HIV/AIDS patients or otherwise immunocompromised patients but also in immunocompetent individuals. Even though cryptococcosis is extremely rare in Finland, its recognition is important since the prognosis depends on rapid diagnostics and early antifungal therapy.</p

Älykkäiden hälytysten kehitys seuraavan sukupolven anestesialaitteille

Alarm fatigue is a real problem with the modern anesthesia machines since the research for new measurement technologies has outpaced the research for alarm algorithms. Only recently has the dangerousness of alarm fatigue regarding the patient's safety been acknowledged. The gathering of pre-information before a surgical operation is challenging, and therefore one alarm algorithm should be applicable to all kinds of surgical operations within varying factors. This research concentrated on finding simple and robust methods which would be easily applicable to GE Healthcare's anesthesia machines. The largest causes of nuisance alarms were identified earlier at GE to be end-tidal carbon dioxide (EtCO2, amount of carbon dioxide in the breath at the end of exhalation), apnea (no breathing) and expiration minute volume (MV_EXP, total volume of gas breathed out in one minute). Because EtCO2 was the largest single cause of nuisance alarms, the main focus was on it, while also keeping in mind the applicability to MV. In addition methods to detect clear trends in the signal and present it to the user will be researched. The results show that an auto limits algorithm to adjust the alarm limits when the phase of the surgery is changed is very useful in keeping the alarm limits reasonable without an extensive number of false alarms. Because of the occasional high variance and individual outliers in the signal, there are always clinically false alarms even when the alarm limits are correctly adjusted. A typical outlier removal algorithm, median filtering, is compared against a decision tree algorithm which arises from visual inspection of the signals. The specificity of the decision tree filtering is better than the one of the median filtering, since the median filtering delays all occurring alarms whereas the decision tree only the alarms which are likely to be outliers. For trend detection, a simple method of polynomial fitting was found to be more 'robust and effective than more sophisticated methods, such as ARMA-models or linear dynamical systems. The issue of data gathering is also addressed. In this research there was only signal data available. This means that both the alarm limits and the most important user inputs (manual or mechanical ventilation) had to be simulated. The alarm labelling was done afterwards as well as possible. There should be clinical trials where a surgery case is observed by clinical specialists who label at each time step whether an alarm should have been sounded or not. The problem here is that unnecessary people in the operating theatre could cause a risk to the patient, and also the privacy of the patient must be maintained while gathering the data.Hälytysturtumus on todellinen ongelma nykyaikaisten anestesiakoneiden käytön yhteydessä. Tämä johtuu siitä, että ihmisen elintoimintojen mittaaminen on kehittynyt nopeammin kuin signaalinkäsittelyalgoritmit. Tällaisten signaalinkäsittelyalgoritmien täytyy olla todella vakaita jotta ne toimisivat oikein erilaisissa leikkauksissa ja kaikkien potilaiden kanssa. Tässä tutkimuksessa keskityttiin löytämään yksinkertaisia ja vakaita menetelmiä joita voisi helposti soveltaa GE Healthcaren anestesiakoneisiin. 8uurimman määrän haittahälytyksiä aiheuttavat uloshengitetyn hiilidioksidin pitoisuus (EtCO2), apnea (potilas ei hengitä) sekä uloshengitettyjen kaasujen kokonaismäärä (MV). Tärkein parametri on EtCO2, sillä se aiheuttaa eniten haittahälytyksiä. Lisäksi tutkitaan erilaisia menetelmiä signaaleissa olevien trendien havaitsemiseen. Tulokset näyttävät, että automaattinen rajojen asettaminen leikkausvaiheen vaihtuessa on todella hyödyllinen tapa pitää hälytysrajat järkevinä. Tämä myös minimoi väärien hälytysten määrää. Koska signaaleissa on ajoittain runsaasti kohinaa sekä yksittäisiä poikkeavia havaintoja, vääriä hälytyksiä tulee myös silloin kun hälytysrajat on asetettu oikein. Työssä verrataan tyypillistä poikkeavia havaintoja suodattavaa menetelmää, mediaanisuodatinta, itse kehitettyä päätöspuualgoritmia vastaan. Päätöspuualgoritmin tarkkuus on parempi kuin mediaanisuodattimen, koska mediaanisuodatin viivästyttää kaikkia hälytyksiä kun taas päätöspuualgoritmi viivästyttää vain sellaisia hälytyksiä, joita on syytä epäillä vääriksi. Trendien havaitsemiseen yksinkertainen ensimmäisen asteen polynomin sovittaminen osoittautui paremmaksi kuin monimutkaisemmat menetelmät, kuten ARMA-mallit tai lineaarinen dynaaminen systeemi. Datan keräämiseen liittyviä ongelmia pohditaan myös. Tässä tutkimuksessa oli saatavilla vain signaalidataa eikä oikeita toteutuneita hälytyksiä tai käyttäjän säätöjä. Tästä johtuen sekä hälytysrajat että ventilaatiotapa (koneellinen tai käsikäyttöinen) piti simuloida, ja simuloituja hälytyksiä piti yrittää luokitella oikeiksi tai vääriksi. Jotta saataisiin kerättyä vielä parempaa opetusdataa, pitäisi kliinisten asiantuntijoiden nähdä itse leikkaus ja merkitä ylös kaikki ne hetket joina hälytys olisi pitänyt antaa, sillä hälytyksen tarpeellisuus riippuu todella paljon leikkauksen tyypistä ja potilaan tilasta. Haasteita tämäntyyppisessä datan keräyksessä ovat mahdolliset leikkauksen lisäriskit ylimääräisistä ihmisistä sekä potilaan yksityisyyden turvaaminen. Tällaisen datan keraamisen pitäisi olla prioriteetti, jotta hälytysalgoritmien kehitystä voisi luotettavasti jatkaa