Cellulo: Tangible Haptic Swarm Robots for Learning

Robots are steadily becoming one of the significant 21st century learning technologies that aim to improve education within both formal and informal environments. Such robots, called Robots for Learning, have so far been utilized as constructionist tools or social agents that aided learning from distinct perspectives. This thesis presents a novel approach to Robots for Learning that aims to explore new added values by means of investigating uses for robots in educational scenarios beyond those that are commonly tackled: We develop a platform from scratch to be "as versatile as pen and paper", namely as composed of easy to use objects that feel like they belong in the learning ecosystem while being seamlessly usable across many activities that help teach a variety of subjects. Following this analogy, we design our platform as many low-cost, palm-sized tangible robots that operate on printed paper sheets, controlled by readily available mobile computers such as smartphones or tablets. From the learners' perspective, our robots are thus physical and manipulable points of hands-on interaction with learning activities where they play the role of both abstract and concrete objects that are otherwise not easily represented. We realize our novel platform in four incremental phases, each of which consists of a development stage and multiple subsequent validation stages. First, we develop accurately positioned tangibles, characterize their localization performance and test the learners' interaction with our tangibles in a playful activity. Second, we integrate mobility into our tangibles and make them full-blown robots, characterize their locomotion performance and test the emerging notion of moving vs. being moved in a learning activity. Third, we enable haptic feedback capability on our robots, measure their range of usability and test them within a complete lesson that highlights this newly developed affordance. Fourth, we develop the means of building swarms with our haptic-enabled tangible robots and test the final form of our platform in a lesson co-designed with a teacher. Our effort thus contains the participation of more than 370 child learners over the span of these phases, which leads to the initial insights into this novel Robots for Learning avenue. Besides its main contributions to education, this thesis further contributes to a range of research fields related to our technological developments, such as positioning systems, robotic mechanism design, haptic interfaces and swarm robotics

ORGANİZASYONEL MODÜLERLİK: LİTERATÜR ARAŞTIRMASI

Organizasyonel modülerlik, organizasyonların değişen koşullara hızlı uyum sağlamasında ve buna bağlı olarak yeniden yapılandırılabilmesinde kritik bir öneme sahiptir. Organizasyonlarla ilişkili araştırmalarda oldukça yaygın olarak kullanılmakla birlikte, organizasyonel modülerlik kavramının, ürün modülerliği kavramında olduğu gibi genel kabul görmüş bir tanımı ve geliştirilmiş bir ölçüm modeli bulunmamaktadır. Bu çalışmada organizasyonel modülerlik kavramına ilişkin bir literatür araştırması yapılmış ve modülerlik literatürü ve modülerliğin temel özellikleri göz önünde bulundurularak bir organizasyonel modülerlik tanımı önerilmiştir. Ürün mimarisi ile organizasyon yapısı arasındaki ilişkiyi araştıran çalışmalar temel alınarak, ürün modülerliği ile organizasyonel modülerlik arasındaki ilişki irdelenmiş ve organizasyonel modülerliğin avantaj ve dezavantajları listelenmiştir. Ayrıca, organizasyonel modülerliğin ölçümünü içeren modeller ve yaklaşımlar incelenerek, organizasyonel modülerliğe ilişkin gelecek çalışmalarla ilgili önerilerde bulunulmuştur

Effects of hyperbaric oxygen treatment on implant osseointegration in experimental diabetes mellitus

Objective: To evaluate whether hyperbaric oxygen (HBO) treatment has a favorable effect on implant osseointegration in diabetic rabbits. Material and Methods: An experimental diabetes model was induced in 32 New Zealand rabbits through IV injection of alloxan. After the state of diabetes had been confirmed, one dental implant was placed in the metaphysical region of each animal’s tibia. After the implants’ placements, the animals were divided into two groups. Half of the animals underwent HBO treatment, while the other group did not receive HBO treatment and served as the control group. The animals were euthanized at the 4th and 8th weeks. The osseointegration of the implants were compared by histomorphometry and resonance frequency analysis (RFA). Results: The Bone Implant Contact (BIC) values were significantly higher in the HBO group than in the control group at the 4th week. There was no difference in the BIC values between the groups at the 8th week. There was no significant difference in the RFA scores between the groups both at the 4th and 8th weeks after the operation. Conclusion: Histomorphometry findings suggest that HBO has positive effect on implant osseointegration in the early healing period in diabetic rabbits. However, implant stability is not affected by HBO treatment

Bringing letters to life: handwriting with haptic-enabled tangible robots

In this paper, we present a robotic approach to improve the teaching of handwriting using the tangible, haptic-enabled and classroom-friendly Cellulo robots. Our efforts presented here are in line with the philosophy of the Cellulo platform: we aim to create a ready-to-use tool (i.e. a set of robot-assisted activities) to be used for teaching handwriting, one that is to coexist harmoniously with traditional tools and will contribute new added values to the learning process, complementing existing teaching practices. To maximize our potential contributions to this learning process, we focus on two promising aspects of handwriting: the visual perception and the visual-motor coordination. These two aspects enhance in particular two sides of the representation of letters in the mind of the learner: the shape of the letter (the grapheme) and the way it is drawn, namely the dynamics of the letter (the ductus). With these two aspects in mind, we do a detailed content analysis for the process of learning the representation of letters, which leads us to discriminate the specific skills involved in letter representation. We then compare our robotic method with traditional methods as well as with the combination of the two methods, in order to discover which of these skills can benefit from the use of Cellulo. As handwriting is taught from age 5, we conducted our experiments with 17 five-year-old children in a public school. Results show a clear potential of our robot-assisted learning activities, with a visible improvement in certain skills of handwriting, most notably in creating the ductus of the letters, discriminating a letter among others and in the average handwriting speed. Moreover, we show that the benefit of our learning activities to the handwriting process increases when it is used after traditional learning methods. These results lead to the initial insights into how such a tangible robotic learning technology may be used to create cost-effective collaborative scenarios for the learning of handwriting

TIP: Tangible e-Ink Paper Manipulatives for Classroom Orchestration

While digital tools are more and more used in classrooms, teachers' common practice remains to use photocopied paper documents to share and collect learning exercises from their students. With the Tangible e-Ink Paper (TIP) system, we aim to explore the use of tangible manipulatives interacting with paper sheets as a bridge between digital and paper traces of learning. Featuring an e-Ink display, a paper-based localisation system and a wireless connection, TIPs are envisioned to be used as a versatile tool across various curriculum activities. In this paper, we present the design principles of TIPs and a first functional prototype. We conclude by presenting future works in the evaluation of TIPs as a distributed sensor for teachers in their classroom, including learning scenario examples to illustrate our statements

Use of (pet-g) material in mini-scale unmanned surface vehicle (usv) for additive manufacturing

Thisstudy aims to determine the material performance of additive manufacturingmethods, which enable flexible designs against rapidly changing market needswith a high benefit/cost ratio to meet the increasing defense needs ofcountries. In addition, the design of an unmanned surface vehicle (UVS)resistant to sea conditions has been realized and produced by additivemanufacturing. Advantages such as freedom of design, on-site manufacturing, andlow cost in low-volume production have made additive manufacturing methods thefocus of today's production method and research topic. Among the additivemanufacturing methods, Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) is the mostcost-effective and widely used method. In today's small craft sector, boatsmade of thermoplastic material are replacing metal hulls and thermosettingmatrix composite hull boats day by day. Although composite boats withthermoplastic or thermosetting matrix have limitations in terms of size, it canbe said that they are ideal for small USV. In this study, resistance analysisof the forms of 3 different boats was made with finite element and empiricalmethods. The hull form, which exhibits the lowest resistance value, wasproduced using the FFF method using PETG co-polymer developed fromenvironmentally friendly PET material. Cruise and field tests were carried out.Material performances were determined to be used in the production ofsmall-scale USVs with the FFF method, and the mini-scale USV was produced usingthe PETG material with the FFF method. The suitability of PETG material formarine uses was emphasized.</p

Rare side effect caused by atezolizumab, an immune checkpoint inhibitor: Cold agglutinin disease

Introduction Immune checkpoint inhibitors are drugs that are included in the guidelines of hematological and solid cancer treatments, give highly effective results and increase T cell functionality. However, these drugs can cause immune-related adverse events resembling autoimmune diseases. Case report A 50-year-old male patient was admitted to an external center with complaints of chest pain and dyspnea. Thoracic CT revealed a 97 x 58 mm mass in the left lung, and a diagnosis of Small Cell Lung Cancer (SCLC) was made by biopsy. The PET/CT performed for staging was also evaluated as extensive stage small cell lung cancer. It was decided to give a combination of atezolizumab and carboplatin-etoposide to the patient. Management and outcome: The patient completed 3 cycles without any problem. Discordance was detected in the hemogram of the patient who came to the control for the assessment of response and had a regression in the imaging. Hemoglobin 9.6 g/dl (N: 14-17.5) hematocrit 14.8% (N: 41-51) were detected in the hemogram. Agglutinins were seen in the peripheral smear performed. Cold agglutinin (+4 positive) and indirect coombs (+3 positive) were found positive. Atezolizumab was stopped and methylprednisolone was started. After 10 days of treatment, discordance improved and methylprednisolone was discontinued by decreasing to half dose every 5 days. Discussion With the increasing use of immune checkpoint inhibitors, the variety of side effects has increased and case reports have increased. After detection of cold agglutinin, IgG, cryoglobulin, mycoplasma pneumonia, hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV were found negative in the differential diagnosis, Our case appears to be immune checkpoint inhibitor-related Cold Agglutinin Disease (CAD). It should not be forgotten that immune checkpoint inhibitors, which are widely used, may cause CAD, and hemoglobin-hematocrit discordance should be paid attention to in routine controls