"Virtual Vet" pioneering experience, undertaken in 2012 at Oniris to supplement clinical training through simulation devices

Les Ecoles Nationales Vétérinaires françaises (ENVF) veillent à ce que le socle de compétences médicales soit consolidé par la formation clinique au sein des Centres Hospitaliers Universitaires Vétérinaires (CHUV). Mais celle-ci a des limites liées à la rareté de certains cas et au respect du bien être animal. En 2012 et pour la première fois dans les ENVF, le directeur d’Oniris a souhaité compléter la formation clinique par des apprentissages par simulation. Cette stratégie, dénommée ‘Virtual Vet’, est rapportée dans cette communication. ‘Virtual Critical Care’ et son mannequin haute-fidélité Simdog®, acquis grâce à une chaire d’entreprise avec le Crédit Agricole,simule des situations d’urgence-réanimation. Ont également été installés : une salle d’autoapprentissage de gestes de base, une formation numérique en histopathologie, des mannequins pour palpations internes chez le cheval et chez la vache, un simulateur pour formation chirurgicale robotisée. Nous avons construit, avec la société Hill’s, la première Chaire d’entreprise des ENVF, permettant des consultations simulées et constituant le premier démonstrateur européen de formation à la communication clinique. L’ambition est qu’en soutien au CHUV coexiste un « CHUV virtuel », avec plusieurs avantages. Il contribue à l’obligation de former des vétérinaires exemplaires en matière de bien être animal. Chaque étudiant reproduit de nombreuses fois ses réactions face à une situation. Les simulations sont mutualisables à distance entre ENV. La simulation programmable permet de former les diplômés à l’animation d’équipes. Cette pédagogie représente un outil puissant de formation continue. Ces dispositifs existent pour la formation hospitalière humaine nantaise, avec laquelle Oniris collabore sur ce sujet dans la stratégie “une santé de l’animal à l’homme”. Ces évolutions gagneraient à être développées simultanément dans une fédération des quatre ENVF.The French National Veterinary Schools (FNVS) optimize training for the medical skills, which must be consolidated. Clinical training is guaranteed by the practice within University Veterinary Hospitals (UVH), but has limitations related to the scarcity of cases and the respect of animal welfare, that limit the repetition of situations. In 2012, for the first time in FNVS, the dean decided to complete clinical training at Oniris by virtual learning systems simulating situations, and called Virtual Vet this strategy. Virtual Critical Care, equipped with a high-fidelity Simdog® mannequin, acquired with a Chair of business with Crédit Agricole, allows to test reactions to situations of emergency and resuscitation. Were also set up, a room for self-learning basic gestures, digital training in histopathology, simulation models for internal body searches in horses and cattle, equipment for robotic surgical education. We got the signing with Hill’s society of the first Chair of business in the FNVS, that, with simulated consultations, was the first european demonstrator for clinical communication training. These actions contribute to the ambition that a virtual UVH coexists with the real UVH. Simulation techniques have advantages. Each student reproduces many times his reactions to give a reassuring automaticity. With distance learning, simulation allows sharing between FNVS and contribute to an international demonstration. Simulation is programmable, allowing training in animation of care teams. It is a powerful tool for continuing education. It helps to train veterinarians for better consideration of animal welfare. These devices exist for human training in the Nantes hospital with which Oniris is partnering on this subject as a new action of the from animal to man health strategy. These developments should be performed simultaneously in the 4 FNVS

Development of a sensor-based approach for local minima recovery in unknown environments

This paper introduces a new methodology for escaping from local minima using an actual-virtual target switching strategy. In particular, this approach proposes suitable steps to detect trap situations and guide the robot away from local minima even when the environment is completely unknown. In this work the navigation system consists of two layers. In the low-level layer, a Nearest Virtual Target (NVT) approach is adapted as a reactive collision avoidance method for mobile robot navigation to achieve collision free motion in cluttered, dense and troublesome scenarios. Where the robot is surrounded by obstacles and a trap situation is likely to occur, the high-level layer becomes responsible to plan a path to pull the robot out of the trap. Finally, the performance of the proposed approach is validated by simulation results

New process for the production of permeate powders without spray dryer

An innovative process scheme for the production of dairy permeate powders was tested at the pilot scale. It includes: (i) overconcentration of the permeate concentrate from 60 to 80% w/w dry matter (DM) content; (ii) granulation of the overconcentrate with powder up to 88% DM; and (iii) drying of the granules up to 97% DM.The quality of the resulting powder was comparable to a standard powder produced using conventional technologies. Furthermore, considering energy required for water removal, the new process led to significant savings: they were estimated in the range of 10.7 to 23.5% and up to 32% when taking into account the whole production process or the drying step alone, respectively

Nanofiltration of lactic acid whey: A process to improve the dryability and the quality of powder

Nanofiltration of lactic acid whey: A process to improve the dryability and the quality of powder. 6. European Drying Conference: EuroDrying 201

A hybrid control architecture for autonomous mobile robot navigation in unknown dynamic environment

This paper introduces a new hybrid control architecture for solving the navigation problem of mobile robot in an unknown dynamic environment based on an actual-virtual target switching strategy. This hybrid architecture is a combination of deliberative and reactive architectures which consists of three layers: modeling, planning and reaction. The deliberative architecture produces collision-free with shortest-distance path, while using the reactive architecture generates safe and time minimal navigation path. The proposed approach differs from previous ones in its integration architecture, the control techniques implemented in each module, and interfaces between the deliberative and reactive components. Validity and feasibility of the proposed approach are verified through simulation and real robot experiments

Site-Specifically Labeled Immunoconjugates for Molecular Imaging—Part 1: Cysteine Residues and Glycans

Due to their remarkable selectivity and specificity for cancer biomarkers, immunoconjugates have emerged as extremely promising vectors for the delivery of diagnostic radioisotopes and fluorophores to malignant tissues. Paradoxically, however, these tools for precision medicine are synthesized in a remarkably imprecise way. Indeed, the vast majority of immunoconjugates are created via the random conjugation of bifunctional probes (e.g., DOTA-NCS) to amino acids within the antibody (e.g., lysines). Yet antibodies have multiple copies of these residues throughout their macromolecular structure, making control over the location of the conjugation reaction impossible. This lack of site specificity can lead to the formation of poorly defined, heterogeneous immunoconjugates with suboptimal in vivo behavior. Over the past decade, interest in the synthesis and development of site-specifically labeled immunoconjugates—both antibody-drug conjugates as well as constructs for in vivo imaging—has increased dramatically, and a number of reports have suggested that these better defined, more homogeneous constructs exhibit improved performance in vivo compared to their randomly modified cousins. In this two-part review, we seek to provide an overview of the various methods that have been developed to create site-specifically modified immunoconjugates for positron emission tomography, single photon emission computed tomography, and fluorescence imaging. We will begin with an introduction to the structure of antibodies and antibody fragments. This is followed by the core of the work: sections detailing the four different approaches to site-specific modification strategies based on cysteine residues, glycans, peptide tags, and unnatural amino acids. These discussions will be divided into two installments: cysteine residues and glycans will be detailed in Part 1 of the review, while peptide tags and unnatural amino acids will be addressed in Part 2. Ultimately, we sincerely hope that this review fosters interest and enthusiasm for site-specific immunoconjugates within the nuclear medicine and molecular imaging communities

Customizing supercontinuum generation via on-chip adaptive temporal pulse-splitting

Modern optical systems increasingly rely on complex physical processes that require accessible control to meet target performance characteristics. In particular, advanced light sources, sought for, for example, imaging and metrology, are based on nonlinear optical dynamics whose output properties must often finely match application requirements. However, in these systems, the availability of control parameters (e.g., the optical field shape, as well as propagation medium properties) and the means to adjust them in a versatile manner are usually limited. Moreover, numerically finding the optimal parameter set for such complex dynamics is typically computationally intractable. Here, we use an actively controlled photonic chip to prepare and manipulate patterns of femtosecond optical pulses that give access to an enhanced parameter space in the framework of supercontinuum generation. Taking advantage of machine learning concepts, we exploit this tunable access and experimentally demonstrate the customization of nonlinear interactions for tailoring supercontinuum properties

Intelligent Systems for Geosciences: An Essential Research Agenda

A research agenda for intelligent systems that will result in fundamental new capabilities for understanding the Earth system. Many aspects of geosciences pose novel problems for intelligent systems research. Geoscience data is challenging because it tends to be uncertain, intermittent, sparse, multiresolution, and multiscale. Geosciences processes and objects often have amorphous spatiotemporal boundaries. The lack of ground truth makes model evaluation, testing, and comparison difficult. Overcoming these challenges requires breakthroughs that would significantly transform intelligent systems, while greatly benefitting the geosciences in turn