For effective verbal communication in collaborative tasks, robots need to account for the different perspectives of their human partners when referring to objects in a shared space. For example, when ...a robot helps its partner find correct pieces while assembling furniture, it needs to understand how its collaborator perceives the world and refer to objects accordingly. In this work, we propose a method to endow robots with perspective-taking abilities while spatially referring to objects. To examine the impact of our proposed method, we report the results of a user study showing that when the objects are spatially described from the users’ perspectives, participants take less time to find the referred objects, find the correct objects more often and consider the task easier.
•Robots can dynamically generate spatial referring expressions from a user’s perspective.•Referring to objects from users’ perspectives helps people perform the task faster.•Perspective-taking facilitates accurate task completion.•The task is perceived as easier when objects are described from users’ perspectives.•Perspective-taking improves task efficiency in human–robot interaction.
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This study aimed to develop inhalable powders containing phages active against antibiotic-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa for pulmonary delivery. A Pseudomonas phage, PEV2, was spray ...dried into powder matrices comprising of trehalose (0–80%), mannitol (0–80%) and l-leucine (20%). The resulting powders were stored at various relative humidity (RH) conditions (0, 22 and 60% RH) at 4°C. The phage stability and in vitro aerosol performance of the phage powders were examined at the time of production and after 1, 3 and 12 months storage. After spray drying, a total of 1.3 log titer reduction in phage was observed in the formulations containing 40%, 60% and 80% trehalose, whereas 2.4 and 5.1 log reductions were noted in the formulations containing 20% and no trehalose, respectively. No further reduction in titer occurred for powders stored at 0 and 22% RH even after 12 months, except the formulation containing no trehalose. The 60% RH storage condition had a destructive effect such that no viable phages were detected after 3 and 12 months. When aerosolised, the total lung doses for formulations containing 40%, 60% and 80% trehalose were similar (in the order of 105 pfu). The results demonstrated that spray drying is a suitable method to produce stable phage powders for pulmonary delivery. A powder matrix containing ≥40% trehalose provided good phage preservation and aerosol performances after storage at 0 and 22% RH at 4°C for 12 months.
Using the behavioral economics framework, the current study assessed the effectiveness of compliance gaining techniques and social normative influences to reduce vaccine hesitancy and increase ...vaccination behavior among college students. A total of 1,283 students responded to a cross-sectional survey assessing the influence of compliance gaining techniques and normative pressures upon vaccine attitudes and behavior. Findings suggest that being female, a person of color, and politically liberal were associated with increased likelihood of vaccination behavior. Likelihood of getting vaccinated was influenced by previous influenza vaccine behavior and parents' vaccination status, suggesting the importance of parental social norms. Compliance gaining techniques may have strengthened attitudes for unvaccinated students but were less successful at motivating actual vaccine behavior.
A longstanding barrier to deploying robots in the real world is the ongoing need to author robot behavior. Remote data collection–particularly crowdsourcing—is increasingly receiving interest. In ...this paper, we make the argument to scale robot programming to the crowd and present an initial investigation of the feasibility of this proposed method. Using an off-the-shelf visual programming interface, non-experts created simple robot programs for two typical robot tasks (navigation and pick-and-place). Each needed four subtasks with an increasing number of programming statements (if statement, while loop, variables) for successful completion of the programs. Initial findings of an online study (N = 279) indicate that non-experts, after minimal instruction, were able to create simple programs using an off-the-shelf visual programming interface. We discuss our findings and identify future avenues for this line of research.
Overutilization of low-value services (unnecessary or minimally beneficial tests or procedures) has been cited as a large contributor to the high costs of health care in the United States.
To analyze ...trends in utilization of low-value services from 2009 to 2014 among commercial and Medicare Advantage (MA) enrollees 50 and older.
A retrospective analysis of deidentified claims obtained from the OptumLab Data Warehouse.
Adults 50 and older enrolled in commercial plans and adults 65 and older enrolled in MA plans between 2009 and 2014.
Costs and utilization of 16 low-value services in the following categories: cancer screening, imaging, and invasive procedures.
The most commonly performed low-value service was imaging of the head for syncope, at rates of 33%-39% in commercial enrollees and 45% in MA enrollees. The least common service was peripheral artery stenting (<1%) in commercial enrollees, and laminectomy (0.15% in 2009) and renal artery stenting in MA enrollees (0.07% in 2014). Renal artery stenting decreased by roughly 75% over the study period, the largest decrease in utilization, with ∼$30 million and $10 million in reduced spending for commercial and MA plans and enrollees, respectively. Spending on these services in 2014 totaled $317.6 million for commercial and $100.8 million for MA health plans.
Clinicians, researchers, and policymakers should strive to reach consensus on methods for more reliably and accurately identifying low-value service utilization. Greater consistency would facilitate monitoring use of low-value services and changing clinical practice patterns over time.
We describe recent progress in our program of research that aims to use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to identify and delineate the brain systems involved in social perception and to ...chart the development of those systems and their roles as mechanisms supporting the development of social cognition in children, adolescents, and adults with and without autism. This research program was initiated with the intention of further specifying the role of the posterior superior temporal sulcus (STS) region in the network of neuroanatomical structures comprising the social brain. Initially, this work focused on evaluating STS function when typically developing adults were engaged in the visual analysis of other people's actions and intentions. We concluded that that the STS region plays an important role in social perception via its involvement in representing and predicting the actions and social intentions of other people from an analysis of biological-motion cues. These studies of typically developing people provided a set of core findings and a methodological approach that informed a set of fMRI studies of social perception dysfunction in autism. The work has established that dysfunction in the STS region, as well as reduced connectivity between this region and other social brain structures including the fusiform gyrus and amygdala, play a role in the pathophysiology of social perception deficits in autism. Most recently, this research program has incorporated a developmental perspective in beginning to chart the development of the STS region in children with and without autism.
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This study aimed to assess the robustness of using a spray drying approach and formulation design in producing inhalable phage powders. Two types of Pseudomonas phages, PEV2 ...(Podovirus) and PEV40 (Myovirus) in two formulations containing different amounts of trehalose (70% and 60%) and leucine (30% and 40%) were studied. Most of the surface of the produced powders was found to be covered in crystalline leucine. The powders were stored at 4 °C and 20 °C under vacuum. The phage stability and in vitro aerosol performance of the phage powders were examined on the day of production and after 1, 3 and 12 months of storage. A minor titer loss during production was observed for both phages (0.2–0.8 log10 pfu/ml). The storage stability of the produced phage powders was found to be phage and formulation dependent. No further reduction in titer occurred for PEV2 powders stored at 4 °C across the study. The formulation containing 30% leucine maintained the viability of PEV2 at 20 °C, while the formulation containing 40% leucine gradually lost titer over time with a storage reduction of ∼0.9 log10 pfu/ml measured after 12 months. In comparison, the PEV40 phage powders generally had a ∼ 0.5 log10 pfu/ml loss upon storage regardless of temperature. When aerosolized, the total in vitro lung doses of PEV2 were of the order of 107 pfu, except the formulation containing 40% leucine stored at 20 °C which had a lower lung dose. The PEV40 powders also had lung doses of 106–107 pfu. The results demonstrate that spray dried Myoviridae and Podoviridae phage in a simple formulation of leucine and trehalose can be successfully stored for one year at 4 °C and 20 °C with vacuum packaging.
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It was previously demonstrated that the loss of infectivity of a myovirus PEV44 after jet nebulization was closely related to a change in bacteriophage (phage) structure. In this ...follow-up study, we further examined the impact of jet nebulization on tailed phages, which constitute 96% of all known phages, from three different families, Podoviridae (PEV2), Myoviridae (PEV40) andSiphoviridae (D29). Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) identified major changes in phage structures after jet nebulization, correlating with their loss of infectivity. For the podovirus PEV2, jet nebulization had a negligible impact on its activity (0.04 log10 pfu/mL loss) and structural change. On the other hand, the proportion of intact phages in the nebulized samples dropped from 50% to ∼27% for PEV40 and from 15% to ∼2% for D29. Phage deactivation of PEV40 measured by the TEM structural damage (0.52 log10 pfu/mL) was lower than that obtained by plaque assay (1.02 log10 pfu/mL), but within the range of variation (±0.5 log10 pfu/mL). However, TEM quantification considerably underestimated the titer reduction of D29 phage, ∼2 log pfu/mL lower than that obtained in plaque assay (3.25 log10 pfu/mL loss). In conclusion, nebulization-induced titre loss was correlated with morphological damage to phages and in particular, the tail length may be an important consideration for selection of phages in inhaled therapy using jet nebulization.
The posterior superior temporal sulcus (STS) region plays an important role in the perception of social acts, although its full role has not been completely clarified. This functional magnetic ...resonance imaging experiment examined activity in the STS region as participants viewed actions that were congruent or incongruent with intentions established by a previous emotional context. Participants viewed an actress express either a positive or a negative emotion toward one of two objects and then subsequently pick up one of them. If the object that was picked up had received positive regard, or if the object that was not picked up had received negative regard, the action was congruent; otherwise, the action was incongruent. Activity in the right posterior STS region was sensitive to the congruency between the action and the actress's emotional expression (i.e., STS activity was greater on incongruent than on congruent trials). These findings suggest that the posterior STS represents not only biological motion, but also how another person's motion is related to his or her intentions.
Understanding biochemical mechanisms and changes associated with disease conditions and, therefore, development of improved clinical treatments, is relying increasingly on various biochemical mapping ...and imaging techniques on tissue sections. However, it is essential to be able to ascertain whether the sampling used provides the full biochemical information relevant to the disease and is free from artefacts. A multi-modal micro-spectroscopic approach, including FTIR imaging and PIXE elemental mapping, has been used to study the molecular and elemental profile within cryofixed and formalin-fixed murine brain tissue sections. The results provide strong evidence that amino acids, carbohydrates, lipids, phosphates, proteins and ions, such as Cl(-) and K(+), leach from tissue sections into the aqueous fixative medium during formalin fixation of the sections. Large changes in the concentrations and distributions of most of these components are also observed by washing in PBS even for short periods. The most likely source of the chemical species lost during fixation is the extra-cellular and intra-cellular fluid of tissues. The results highlight that, at best, analysis of formalin-fixed tissues gives only part of the complete biochemical "picture" of a tissue sample. Further, this investigation has highlighted that significant lipid peroxidation/oxidation may occur during formalin fixation and that the use of standard histological fixation reagents can result in significant and differential metal contamination of different regions of tissue sections. While a consistent and reproducible fixation method may be suitable for diagnostic purposes, the findings of this study strongly question the use of formalin fixation prior to spectroscopic studies of the molecular and elemental composition of biological samples, if the primary purpose is mechanistic studies of disease pathogenesis.
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