This work introduces a new socially assistive robot termed MARIA T21 (meaning “Mobile Autonomous Robot for Interaction with Autistics”, with the addition of the acronym T21, meaning “Trisomy 21”, which is used to designate individuals with Down syndrome). This new robot is used in psychomotor therapies for children with Down syndrome (contributing to improve their proprioception, postural balance, and gait) as well as in psychosocial and cognitive therapies for children with autism spectrum disorder. The robot uses, as a novelty, an embedded mini-video projector able to project Serious Games on the floor or tables to make already-established therapies funnier to these children, thus creating a motivating and facilitating effect for both children and therapists. The Serious Games were developed in Python through the library Pygame, considering theoretical bases of behavioral psychology for these children, which are integrated into the robot through the robot operating system (ROS). Encouraging results from the child–robot interaction are shown, according to outcomes obtained from the application of the Goal Attainment Scale. Regarding the Serious Games, they were considered suitable based on both the “Guidelines for Game Design of Serious Games for Children” and the “Evaluation of the Psychological Bases” used during the games’ development. Thus, this pilot study seeks to demonstrate that the use of a robot as a therapeutic tool together with the concept of Serious Games is an innovative and promising tool to help health professionals in conducting therapies with children with autistic spectrum disorder and Down syndrome. Due to health issues imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the sample of children was limited to eight children (one child with typical development, one with Trisomy 21, both female, and six children with ASD, one girl and five boys), from 4 to 9 years of age. For the non-typically developing children, the inclusion criterion was the existence of a conclusive diagnosis and fulfillment of at least 1 year of therapy. The protocol was carried out in an infant psychotherapy room with three video cameras, supervised by a group of researchers and a therapist. The experiments were separated into four steps: The first stage was composed of a robot introduction followed by an approximation between robot and child to establish eye contact and assess proxemics and interaction between child/robot. In the second stage, the robot projected Serious Games on the floor, and emitted verbal commands, seeking to evaluate the child’s susceptibility to perform the proposed tasks. In the third stage, the games were performed for a certain time, with the robot sending messages of positive reinforcement to encourage the child to accomplish the game. Finally, in the fourth stage, the robot finished the games and said goodbye to the child, using messages aiming to build a closer relationship with the child.
A engenharia tecidual é um campo interdisciplinar voltado para desenvolvimento de estruturas biológicas que restaurem, mantenham ou melhorem funções teciduais. Dentre os componentes necessários para isso, há os arcabouços tridimensionais, estruturas criadas para suporte inicial das células e consequente formação de um tecido. Para avaliação do desempenho do arcabouço, é importante analisar características microestruturais como a porosidade, a interconectividade e o tamanho dos poros. Algumas técnicas como a microscopia eletrônica de varredura (MEV), picnometria e porosimetria de mercúrio, já vem sendo usadas para caracterizar os arcabouços. Todavia, alguns estudos mostraram a microtomografia computadorizada como padrão ouro para extrair informações detalhadas sem danificar a amostra em estudo. A Microtomografia Computadorizada de Raios X (microCT) é uma técnica não invasiva e apresenta uma alta resolução, contribuindo para análise e visualização tridimensional interna de vários tipos de amostras. Devido a essas vantagens, diversos pesquisadores vem estudando a microCT como técnica para caracterização de arcabouços para engenharia tecidual, visando obter informações mais apuradas a respeito da porosidade dessas estruturas, que irão influenciar diversos fatores como o desempenho biológico e as propriedades mecânicas das mesmas. O objetivo do trabalho consiste em apresentar a microCT como ferramenta de caracterização de arcabouços para engenharia tecidual e compará-la com outras técnicas utilizadas atualmente. Verificou-se que a microCT vem sendo utilizada na área para análises qualitativas e quantitativas, principalmente por conseguir visualizar poros cegos e área da seção transversal, sem utilizar elementos tóxicos ou sem destruir a amostra. Existem algumas desvantagens, que seriam pouca capacidade de absorção de raios-x em amostras de baixa densidade radiográfica. No entanto, apesar do crescente interesse em utilizar essa técnica, é possível perceber que muitos pesquisadores não a dominam por não ter relatórios com detalhes importantes sobre vários parâmetros da microestrutura e da utilização correta da microCT. Concluiu-se que a caracterização de arcabouços por microtomografia computadorizada é uma área que ainda está em desenvolvimento e com acesso limitado, porém vem ganhando destaque e tende a se tornar mais procurada e usada entre os pesquisadores para aplicação na engenharia tecidual.
Ovarian cancer is a leading cause of gynecological cancer-related deaths in women worldwide, mainly because of its late diagnosis. In many cases, at the time of diagnosis, the cancer cells are chemoresistant and invasive. Early detection of the disease is crucial for a clinically satisfactory outcome, treatment planning, and a better prognosis. The development of new strategies for early detection may contribute to improving overall survival in patients. Inflammation is an established factor in carcinogenesis, and protein complexes named inflammasomes, along with their components and subproducts, such as interleukins and other molecules, have been explored as promising potential Note to the reader: This chapter is part of the book Ovarian Cancer
The use of medical technologies has grown steadily in all health fields, offering numerous benefits to patients. However, related adverse events, which may cause severe consequences for patients, also have increased. Technical factors and human aspects that cause dangers to patients may be related to the complexity of the devices, quality control in manufacturing, software used, maintenance procedures, materials, and mode of use. Thereby, our objective is to present the main alerts, dangers, and failures related to medical equipment and ways to attenuate them. For that purpose, we performed an analysis of adverse events reported for medical equipment in the Food Drugs Administration (FDA/USA) and the Brazilian Health Surveillance Agency (ANVISA) databases, since 2016. Finally, we classified the events into different categories, according to similarity. The results show a total of 3,100 cases registered in the FDA for six types of equipment at the study and 75 cases in ANVISA for two of these equipment. Based on the top ten health hazards (2016-2020) provided by the Emergency Care Research Institute (ECRI) we were able to understand which equipment most offers hazards and the main ways to mitigate them. We found that the risks are common to medical devices, therefore, it is crucial that there are preventative measures to avoid them, for example, training users to use the products, maintenance, improving quality, and reporting adverse events to manufacturers.
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