Can we conceive machines that can formulate autonomous intentions and make conscious decisions? If so, how would this ability affect their ethical behavior? Some case studies help us understand how ...advances in understanding artificial consciousness can contribute to creating ethical AI systems.
Trust is a critical issue in human-robot interactions: as robotic systems gain complexity, it becomes crucial for them to be able to blend into our society by maximizing their acceptability and ...reliability. Various studies have examined how trust is attributed by people to robots, but fewer have investigated the opposite scenario, where a robot is the trustor and a human is the trustee. The ability for an agent to evaluate the trustworthiness of its sources of information is particularly useful in joint task situations where people and robots must collaborate to reach shared goals. We propose an artificial cognitive architecture based on the developmental robotics paradigm that can estimate the trustworthiness of its human interactors for the purpose of decision making. This is accomplished using Theory of Mind (ToM), the psychological ability to assign to others beliefs and intentions that can differ from one's owns. Our work is focused on a humanoid robot cognitive architecture that integrates a probabilistic ToM and trust model supported by an episodic memory system. We tested our architecture on an established developmental psychological experiment, achieving the same results obtained by children, thus demonstrating a new method to enhance the quality of human and robot collaborations. This article is part of the theme issue 'From social brains to social robots: applying neurocognitive insights to human-robot interaction'.
This paper discusses the concept of Rilkean memories, recently introduced by Mark Rowlands, to analyze the complex intermix of hardware and software related to the self of a robot. The Rilkean memory ...of an event is related to the trace of that episode left in the body of the individual. It transforms the act of remembering into behavioral and bodily dispositions, thus generating the peculiar behavioral style of the individual, which is at the basis of her autobiographical self. In the case of long-life operating robots, a similar process occurs: the software of the robot has to cope with the changes that happened in the body of the robot because of damaging events in its operational life. Thus, the robot, in compensating the damages of its body, acquires a particular behavioral style. The concept of Rilkean memory is essential in self-adapting robotics technologies where human intervention on a robot is not possible, and the robot must cope with its faults, and also in applications concerning green robotics.
To investigate the prevalence, distribution, and prognostic role of BRAF mutations in a large cohort of white patients with non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
A retrospective series of 1,046 ...NSCLCs-comprising 739 adenocarcinomas (ADCs) and 307 squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs)-was investigated for BRAF mutations. High-resolution melting analysis followed by sequencing and strip hybridization assay were used. All patients were also analyzed for KRAS and EGFR mutations.
BRAF mutations were present in 36 ADCs (4.9%) and one SCC (0.3%; P = .001). Twenty-one of the mutations (56.8%) were V600E, and 16 (43.2%) were non-V600E. V600E mutations were significantly more prevalent in females (16 of 187 patients; 8.6%) than in males (five of 552 patients; 0.9%), as indicated by multivariate logistic regression analysis (hazard ratio HR, 11.29; P < .001). V600E-mutated tumors showed an aggressive histotype characterized by micropapillary features in 80% of patients and were significantly associated with shorter disease-free and overall survival rates on both univariate (HR, 2.67; P < .001 and HR, 2.97; P < .001, respectively) and multivariate analyses (HR, 2.19; P = .011 and HR, 2.18; P = .014, respectively). All non-V600E mutations were found in smokers (P = .015) and were associated with neither clinicopathologic parameters nor prognosis. BRAF and EGFR were concomitantly mutated in two tumors.
We report for the first time to our knowledge that V600E and non-V600E BRAF mutations affect different patients with NSCLC. V600E mutations are significantly associated with female sex and represent a negative prognostic factor. In addition, we identified a number of other clinicopathologic parameters potentially useful for the selection of patients carrying BRAF mutations.
The inner speech is thoroughly studied in humans, and it represents an interdisciplinary research issue involving psychology, neuroscience, and pedagogy. A few papers only, mostly theoretical, ...analyze the role of inner speech in robots. The present study investigates the potential of the robot's inner speech while cooperating with human partners. A cognitive architecture is designed and integrated with standard robot routines into a complex framework. Two threads of interaction are discussed by setting the robot operations with and without inner speech. Thanks to the robotic self-dialog, the partner can easily trace the robot's processes. Moreover, the robot can better solve conflicts leading to successful goal achievements. The results show that functional and transparency requirements, according to the international standards ISO/TS:2016 and COMEST/Unesco for collaborative robots, are better met when inner speech accompanies human-robot interaction. The inner speech could be applied in many robotics contexts, such as learning, regulation, and attention.
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•An inner speech cognitive architecture enables robots for rehearsing and self-talk•Robot's inner speech affects functionality and transparency in human-robot cooperation•To self-talk enables the robot to further reasoning and plans in accomplishing the task•The inner speech is applicable in many robotics contexts as learning and regulation
Cognitive Neuroscience; Human-Centered Computing; Robotics; Psychology
-deregulated NSCLC represents an urgent clinical need because of unfavorable prognosis and lack of specific therapies. Although recent studies have suggested a potential role for crizotinib in ...patients harboring
amplification or exon 14 mutations, no conclusive data are currently available. This study aimed at investigating activity of crizotinib in patients harboring
or
alterations.
Patients with pretreated advanced NSCLC and evidence of
rearrangements (cohort A) or
deregulation (amplification, ratio MET/CEP7 >2.2 or
exon 14 mutations, cohort B) were treated with crizotinib 250 mg twice daily orally. The coprimary endpoint was objective response rate in the two cohorts.
From December 2014 to March 2017, 505 patients were screened and a total of 52 patients (26 patients per cohort) were enrolled onto the study. At data cutoff of September 2017, in cohort A, objective response rate was 65%, and median progression-free survival and overall survival were 22.8 months 95% confidence interval (CI) 15.2-30.3 and not reached, respectively. In cohort B, objective response rate was 27%, median progression-free survival was 4.4 months (95% CI 3.0-5.8), and overall survival was 5.4 months (95% CI, 4.2-6.5). No difference in any clinical endpoint was observed between
-amplified and exon 14-mutated patients. No response was observed among the 5 patients with cooccurrence of a second gene alteration. No unexpected toxicity was observed in both cohorts.
Crizotinib induces response in a fraction of
-deregulated NSCLC. Additional studies and innovative therapies are urgently needed.
The experience of inner speech is a common one. Such a dialogue accompanies the introspection of mental life and fulfills essential roles in human behavior, such as self-restructuring, ...self-regulation, and re-focusing on attentional resources. Although the underpinning of inner speech is mostly investigated in psychological and philosophical fields, the research in robotics generally does not address such a form of self-aware behavior. Existing models of inner speech inspire computational tools to provide a robot with this form of self-awareness. Here, the widespread psychological models of inner speech are reviewed, and a cognitive architecture for a robot implementing such a capability is outlined in a simplified setup.
Assessment of EGFR mutation in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients is mandatory for optimization of pharmacologic treatment. In this respect, mutation analysis of circulating tumor cells ...(CTCs) may be desirable since they may provide real-time information on patient's disease status.
Blood samples were collected from 37 patients enrolled in the TRIGGER study, a prospective phase II multi-center trial of erlotinib treatment in advanced NSCLC patients with activating EGFR mutations in tumor tissue. 10 CTC preparations from breast cancer patients without EGFR mutations in their primary tumors and 12 blood samples from healthy subjects were analyzed as negative controls. CTC preparations, obtained by the Veridex CellSearch System, were subjected to ultra-deep next generation sequencing (NGS) on the Roche 454 GS junior platform.
CTCs fulfilling all Veridex criteria were present in 41% of the patients examined, ranging in number between 1 and 29. In addition to validated CTCs, potential neoplastic elements were seen in 33 cases. These included cells not fulfilling all Veridex criteria (also known as "suspicious objects") found in 5 (13%) of 37 cases, and isolated or clustered large naked nuclei with irregular shape observed in 33 (89%) cases. EGFR mutations were identified by NGS in CTC preparations of 31 (84%) patients, corresponding to those present in matching tumor tissue. Twenty-five (96%) of 26 deletions at exon 19 and 6 (55%) of 11 mutations at exon 21 were detectable (P = 0.005). In 4 (13%) cases, multiple EGFR mutations, suggesting CTC heterogeneity, were documented. No mutations were found in control samples.
We report for the first time that the CellSearch System coupled with NGS is a very sensitive and specific diagnostic tool for EGFR mutation analysis in CTC preparations with potential clinical impact.
Liquid biopsy has emerged as an alternative source of nucleic acids for the management of Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (
)-mutant non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC). The use of circulating ...cell-free DNA (cfDNA) has been recently introduced in clinical practice, resulting in the improvement of the identification of druggable
mutations for the diagnosis and monitoring of response to targeted therapy.
-dependent (T790M and C797S mutations) and independent (Mesenchymal Epithelial Transition
gene amplification, Kirsten Rat Sarcoma
, Phosphatidyl-Inositol 4,5-bisphosphate 3-Kinase Catalytic subunit Alpha isoform
, and RAF murine sarcoma viral oncogene homolog B1
gene mutations) mechanisms of resistance to EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) have been evaluated in plasma samples from NSCLC patients using highly sensitive methods (i.e., digital droplet PCR, Next Generation Sequencing), allowing for the switch to other therapies. Therefore, liquid biopsy is a non-invasive method able to detect the molecular dynamic changes that occur under the pressure of treatment, and to capture tumor heterogeneity more efficiently than is allowed by tissue biopsy. This review addresses how liquid biopsy may be used to guide the choice of treatment strategy in
-mutant NSCLC.
Recently, there has been considerable interest and effort to the possibility to design and implement conscious robots, i.e., the chance that robots may have subjective experiences. Typical approaches ...as the global workspace, information integration, enaction, cognitive mechanisms, embodiment, i.e., the Good Old-Fashioned Artificial Consciousness, henceforth, GOFAC, share the same conceptual framework. In this paper, we discuss GOFAC's basic tenets and their implication for AI and Robotics. In particular, we point out the intermediate level fallacy as the central issue affecting GOFAC. Finally, we outline a possible alternative conceptual framework toward robot consciousness.
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