Impact of Anthropomorphic Robot Design on Trust and Attention in Industrial Human-Robot Interaction

The application of anthropomorphic features to robots is generally considered beneficial for human-robot interaction (HRI ). Although previous research has mainly focused on social robots, the phenomenon gains increasing attention in industrial human-Robot interaction as well. In this study, the impact of anthropomorphic design of a collaborative industrial robot on the dynamics of trust and visual attention allocation was examined. Participants interacted with a robot, which was either anthropomorphically or non-anthropomorphically designed. Unexpectedly, attribute-based trust measures revealed no beneficial effect of anthropomorphism but even a negative impact on the perceived reliability of the robot. Trust behavior was not significantly affected by an anthropomorphic robot design during faultless interactions, but showed a relatively steeper decrease after participants experienced a failure of the robot. With regard to attention allocation, the study clearly reveals a distracting effect of anthropomorphic robot design. The results emphasize that anthropomorphism might not be an appropriate feature in industrial HRI as it not only failed to reveal positive effects on trust, but distracted participants from relevant task areas which might be a significant drawback with regard to occupational safety in HRI.

PROSPECTS FOR USING PLANTSOF THE ROSA L. GENUS

В статье приведен анализ современного состояния научных исследований видов рода шиповник (Rosa L.) (сем. Розоцветные - Rosaceae) и показаны перспективы всестороннего изучения их в качестве источников возобновляемого растительного сырья для получения отечественных препаратов. Отмечено, что изыскание новых видов лекарственного растительного сырья является весьма актуальной задачей для отечественной фармацевтической промышленности. The article provides an analysis of the current state of scientific research of the rosehip (Rosa L.) (Rosaceae family) and illustrates the prospects for their comprehensive study as sources of renewable plant raw materials for the production of domestic medicines. It is noted that the search for new types of medicinal plant raw materials is a very relevant task for the domestic pharmaceutical industry.

LIFE HACKS FOR NON-ENGLISH-SPEAKING LIBRARIANS: FEATURES OF COMMUNICATIVE PRACTICE IN TRANSLATION

Objective. This paper aims to provide practical recommendations to the non-English-speaking staff working at academic libraries to practice the English language in order to fully utilize the potential of global indexing services such as Scopus and Web of Science. Methods. Comparative analysis and bibliometric analysis were employed to estimate the share of the English-language journals in the aforementioned databases to emphasize the relevance of proper knowledge of English by academic librarians given its current status as the language of global scientific communication. Results. The analysis results revealed that as of August 2021, 56 % of the Scopus-indexed journals were published in the English language only while most of the rest practiced a hybrid language approach allowing their authors to submit papers in two/three languages. In contrast, only 7 journals (0.016 % in the cited database) published their materials in the Ukrainian language only. This indirectly testifies to the importance for scientists in Ukraine to report their findings in English to reach a wider target audience. This assumption may underlie the fact that all the 15 Ukrainian journals newly accepted in the Scopus database (as of Aug 2021) are all hybrid, that is, the papers are published both in English and Ukrainian. Conclusions. It is a relevant task both for researchers in Ukraine and academic librarians at Ukrainian universities to practice their knowledge of the English language given its current status as the language of global science. A practical way to do it is to engage local professional translators (preferably with certified teaching experience) who have confirmed their knowledge of academic English to conduct sessions for librarians to train their practical skills in speaking (at international conferences) and writing (when submitting papers to relevant journals). This work provides a reference framework for such attempts.

VISmaF: Synthetic Tree for Immersive Virtual Visualization in Smart Farming. Part I: Scientific Background Review and Model Proposal

Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI) has received increasing interest in both research and the entertainment industry. Recent advancements in computer graphics allowed researchers and companies to create large-scale virtual environments with growing resolution and complexity. Among the different applications, the generation of biological assets is a relevant task that implies challenges due to the extreme complexity associated with natural structures. An example is represented by trees, whose composition made by thousands of leaves, branches, branchlets, and stems with oriented directions is hard to be modeled. Realistic 3D models of trees can be exploited for a wide range of applications including decision-making support, visualization of ecosystem changes over time, and for simple visualization purposes. In this review, we give an overview of the most common approaches used to generate 3D tree models, discussing both methodologies and available commercial software. We focus on strategies for modeling and rendering of plants, highlighting their accordance or not with botanical knowledge and biological models. We also present a proof of concept to link biological models and 3D rendering engines through Ordinary Differential Equations.

STUDY OF DE-ICING LIQUID WITH AN OPTOELECTRONIC REFRACTOMETER

This work highlights the development of optoelectronic refractometer to study anti-icing liquids. Determining the composition authenticity and the flow rate of these liquids has always been a relevant task for the airport maintenance units, engaged in the processing of the aircraft body. The paper presents the objects of research: aqueous solutions of ethylene glycol and propylene glycol, which make up 95% of the composition of liquids of TYPE I, TYPE II, TYPE IV. The structural diagram and appearance of an optoelectronic refractometer are given. The results of measurements of the temperature dependences of the refractive index n(t) for solutions of ethylene glycol and propylene glycol in the temperature range from 12 °C to 100 °C and for concentrations from 0% to 100% are obtained. The spectra of ultraviolet optical transmission in ethylene glycol and propylene glycol of high purity in the wavelength range λ 210–320 nm with an error not worse than T = 0.5% are studied. The technical characteristics of an optoelectronic refractometer are given.

Cervical cancer in the Russian Federation and the risks of vaginal fistula

This review aims to provide up-to-date information on the factors associated with an increased risk of vaginal fistula in women with cervical cancer, as well as on methods of their prevention and treatment. It includes data on various types of vaginal fistulas in cervical cancer patients and risk factors for their development, according to foreign and Russian research articles published over the last 20 years. Cervical cancer is one of the most challenging oncological diseases in the Russian Federation, because it is detected at stage III–IV in more than 30 % of women. Such a high incidence of cervical cancer and the need for radiotherapy determine high risk of fistulas, which significantly impairs the quality of life. Thus, identification of factors associated with vaginal fistulas, as well as methods of their prevention and treatment remains a highly relevant task for the Russian healthcare system.

The Impact of Isolation Measures during COVID-19 Pandemic on Russian Students’ Motivation for Learning

One of the leading problems of teaching is maintaining the students’ motivation for learning. In the current epidemiological situation, improvement of education quality using digital platforms and educational services by creating conditions for increasing the learning motivation of students is an essential and relevant task. Therefore, the aim of the research was to study the motivation of the educational activity of junior students during the COVID-19 lockdown period and the development of effective approaches to increase the learning motivation of students in the context of distance learning using the Microsoft Teams platform. Research methods: Theoretical analysis of psychological and pedagogical literature, generalization; experiment, questioning, testing and data processing methods. In total, 107 undergraduates took part in the study. The difficulties and benefits that students encountered during the lockdown, as well as the attitude of students to the distance learning format, were revealed. There were specified dominant motivators, intentions and motives that determine the educational activity of students. We have presented approaches to the content management of the educational process in a distance format, with various ways and techniques of increasing the educational motivation of students under the conditions of distance learning.

Point detection through multi-instance deep heatmap regression for sutures in endoscopy

Purpose: Mitral valve repair is a complex minimally invasive surgery of the heart valve. In this context, suture detection from endoscopic images is a highly relevant task that provides quantitative information to analyse suturing patterns, assess prosthetic configurations and produce augmented reality visualisations. Facial or anatomical landmark detection tasks typically contain a fixed number of landmarks, and use regression or fixed heatmap-based approaches to localize the landmarks. However in endoscopy, there are a varying number of sutures in every image, and the sutures may occur at any location in the annulus, as they are not semantically unique. Method: In this work, we formulate the suture detection task as a multi-instance deep heatmap regression problem, to identify entry and exit points of sutures. We extend our previous work, and introduce the novel use of a 2D Gaussian layer followed by a differentiable 2D spatial Soft-Argmax layer to function as a local non-maximum suppression. Results: We present extensive experiments with multiple heatmap distribution functions and two variants of the proposed model. In the intra-operative domain, Variant 1 showed a mean $$F_1$$ F 1 of $$+ 0.0422$$ + 0.0422 over the baseline. Similarly, in the simulator domain, Variant 1 showed a mean $$F_1$$ F 1 of $$+ 0.0865$$ + 0.0865 over the baseline. Conclusion: The proposed model shows an improvement over the baseline in the intra-operative and the simulator domains. The data is made publicly available within the scope of the MICCAI AdaptOR2021 Challenge https://adaptor2021.github.io/, and the code at https://github.com/Cardio-AI/suture-detection-pytorch/.

Mathematical Modeling of a Virtual Platform for Training Specialists in the Oil and Gas Industry

A relevant task in the organization of comprehensive training of specialists in various fields is the development of the necessary theoretical and practical competencies. In the conditions of pandemic restrictions and the need to conduct classes in a distance mode, there is a need to develop new educational resources and means of representing knowledge, functioning on the basis of modern information technologies. One of the promising approaches is the transfer of laboratory and practical exercises to a virtual platform that allows you to master the necessary practical competencies on a computer. However, the functioning and visualization of physical or chemical processes in such virtual platforms must correspond to real processes. The article discusses the mathematical modeling of a virtual platform for training specialists in the oil and gas industry. An approach to the construction of a mathematical model based on the collected experimental data, the study of the laws of equilibrium of liquid and gas, and hydrostatic equations is considered. On the basis of the obtained model, an algorithm for the functioning of a virtual stand on the Unity platform is built. The presented approach can be used in the implementation of various virtual platforms for organizing the learning process in a distance form.

Devising methods for planning a multifactorial multilevel experiment with high dimensionality

This paper considers the task of planning a multifactorial multilevel experiment for problems with high dimensionality. Planning an experiment is a combinatorial task. At the same time, the catastrophically rapid growth in the number of possible variants of experiment plans with an increase in the dimensionality of the problem excludes the possibility of solving it using accurate algorithms. On the other hand, approximate methods of finding the optimal plan have fundamental drawbacks. Of these, the main one is the lack of the capability to assess the proximity of the resulting solution to the optimal one. In these circumstances, searching for methods to obtain an accurate solution to the problem remains a relevant task. Two different approaches to obtaining the optimal plan for a multifactorial multilevel experiment have been considered. The first of these is based on the idea of decomposition. In this case, the initial problem with high dimensionality is reduced to a sequence of problems of smaller dimensionality, solving each of which is possible by using precise algorithms. The decomposition procedure, which is usually implemented empirically, in the considered problem of planning the experiment is solved by employing a strictly formally justified technique. The exact solutions to the problems obtained during the decomposition are combined into the desired solution to the original problem. The second approach directly leads to an accurate solution to the task of planning a multifactorial multilevel experiment for an important special case where the costs of implementing the experiment plan are proportional to the total number of single-level transitions performed by all factors. At the same time, it has been proven that the proposed procedure for forming a route that implements the experiment plan minimizes the total number of one-level changes in the values of factors. Examples of problem solving are given