Volume 12, Issue 3

Cognitive robots constitute a highly interdisciplinary approach to the issue of therapy of children with developmental disorders. Cognitive robots become more popular, especially in action and language integration areas, joining the experience of psychologists, neuroscientists, philosophers, and even engineers. The concept of a robot as a cognitive companion for humans may be very useful. The interaction between humans and cognitive robots may be a mediator of movement patterns, learning behaviors from demonstrations, group activities, and social behaviors, as far as higher-order concepts such as symbol manipulation capabilities, words acquisition, and sensorimotor knowledge organization. Moreover there is an occupation to check many theories, such as transferring the knowledge and skills between humans and robots. Although several robotic solutions for children have been proposed the diffusion of aforementioned ideas is still limited. The review summarizes the current and future role of cognitive robots in the development and rehabilitation of children with developmental disorders.

Research on the computational models of the brain constitutes an important part of the current challenges within computational neuroscience. The current results are not satisfying. Despite the continuous efforts of scientists and clinicians, it is hard to fully explain all the mechanisms of a brain function. Computational models of the brain based on fuzzy logic, including ordered fuzzy numbers, may constitute another breakthrough in the aforementioned area, offering a completing position to the current state of the art. The aim of this paper is to assess the extent to which possible opportunities concerning computational brain models based on fuzzy logic techniques may be exploited both in the area of theoretical and experimental computational neuroscience and in clinical applications, including our own concept. The proposed approach can open a family of novel methods for a more effective and (neuro)biologically reliable brain simulation based on fuzzy logic techniques useful in both basic sciences and applied sciences.

Background: The aim of the research is to evaluate the usefulness of the measurement of saccadic refixation in the diagnosis of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)/hyperkinetic disorder (HKD) in adults. Methods: Seventy-eight individuals were examined: 40 with ADHD/HKD and 38 healthy ones. A noninvasive eye movement examination using the Saccadometer (Advanced Clinical Instrumentation, Cambridge, UK) was applied. Two saccadic tests, prosaccades task (PT) and antisaccades task (AT), were carried out. Results: Based on the results, we can assume that selected parameters, such as latency, standard deviation of latency, promptness, and correctness (directional errors), in individuals with ADHD/HKD differ statistically in the relevant parameters from the healthy ones. The latency and the standard deviation of latency in ADHD/HKD participants are greater when compared to healthy ones. ADHD/HKD participants have a greater number of directional errors in comparison to healthy ones. Conclusions: The standard deviation of latency prosaccades is a good parameter for distinguishing people from both groups. An important and innovative solution in this study in comparison to the studies of other authors, who reached similar results, is the use of an automatically calibrating system (autonomous) adapted for clinical use as well as a quantitative analysis of the saccadic parameters.

In this paper, we deal with the problem of the initial analysis of data from evaluation sheets of subjects with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). In the research, we use an original evaluation sheet including questions about competencies grouped into 17 spheres. An initial analysis is focused on the data preprocessing step including the filtration of cases based on consistency factors. This approach enables us to obtain simpler classifiers in terms of their size (a number of nodes and leaves in decision trees and a number of classification rules).

Sequence-to-structure relation is one of the major objects of the analysis of protein folding problem. The pair of two small proteins (domains) of similar structure (β-hairpin/α-helix/β-hairpin) generated by the chains of similar length (about 60 amino acids) with very low sequence similarity (15%) is the object of the comparable analysis of 3D structure. The criterion for similarity estimation is the status of polypeptide chain with respect to the hydrophobic core structure. The fuzzy oil drop model is applied to reveal the differentiated status of fragments of the well-defined secondary structure. This analysis allows the interpretation of the structure in other than the geometric form as it is made based on secondary structure classification. The two compared highly similar proteins appear to be different with respect to the hydrophobic core structure.

Congo red (CR) dye molecules self-associate in water solutions creating ribbon-like supramolecular structures that can bind various aromatic compounds by intercalation, forming mixed supramolecular systems. Mixed supramolecular systems, such as CR-doxorubicin and CR-Evans blue, interact with the surface of carbon nanotubes, leading to their stiffening and ultimately to their breaking and shortening. This work presents a simple method of obtaining short and straight carbon nanotubes with significantly better dispersion in aqueous solutions and consequently improved usability in biological systems.

Urinary incontinence (UI) is a common condition, especially in women, and affects the quality of life in a physical, social, and economic meaning. Despite improvements in surgical techniques and the implementation of minimally invasive procedures, male and female stress UI still affects their well-being. Treatment limitations have encouraged researchers to investigate new approaches, including those of tissue engineering. The injection of autologous mesenchymal-derived stem cells (AMDC) might rebuild the urethra sphincter function and minimize leakage symptoms. The treatment is carried out with a rigid endoscope. The aim of this study is to present a practical calibration procedure for an oblique-viewing endoscope imaging system. This article presents the results of an examination of the variability of the internal camera’s parameters with the angle of rotation of the endoscope’s cylinder. The research proves that the most variable parameters are the coordinates of the image plane’s principal point. The developed model of variability can be implemented as a simple look-up table in a real-time operating device. In this article, a tool is proposed for the computation of the relative angle of cylinder’s rotation based only on images. All developed methods can be implemented in a robot-assisted system for an AMDC urethra sphincter injection procedure.

The cycle of vision is a chain of biochemical reactions that occur after exposure of the pigments to the light. The known mechanisms of the transduction of the light pulse derive mainly from studies on bovine rhodopsin. The objective of this work is to construct molecular models of human rhodopsin and opsins, for which three-dimensional structures are not available, to analyze the retinal environment and identify the similarities and differences that characterize the human visual pigments. One of the main results of this work is the identification of Glu102 as the probable second counterion of the Schiff base in M opsin (green pigments) and L opsin (red pigments). Further, the analysis of the molecular models allows uncovering the molecular bases of the different absorption maxima of M and L opsins with respect to rhodopsin and S opsin. These differences appear to be due to both an increase in the polarity of the retinal environment and specific electrostatic interactions, which determine a reorganization of the electronic distribution of retinal by selectively stabilizing one of the two resonance forms.