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Category: robotics/AI – Page 859

Transforming the cardiometabolic disease landscape: Multimodal AI-powered approaches in prevention and management

Multimodal #AI for better prevention and treatment of cardiometabolic diseases.

The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) has revolutionized various scientific fields, particularly in medicine, where it has enabled the modeling of complex relationships from massive datasets. Initially, AI algorithms focused on improved interpretation of diagnostic studies such as chest X-rays and electrocardiograms in addition to predicting patient outcomes and future disease onset. However, AI has evolved with the introduction of transformer models, allowing analysis of the diverse, multimodal data sources existing in medicine today.

Researchers reach new AI benchmark for computer graphics

Computer graphic simulations can represent natural phenomena such as tornados, underwater, vortices, and liquid foams more accurately thanks to an advancement in creating artificial intelligence (AI) neural networks.

Working with a multi-institutional team of researchers, Georgia Tech Assistant Professor Bo Zhu combined computer graphic simulations with machine learning models to create enhanced simulations of known phenomena. The new benchmark could lead to researchers constructing representations of other phenomena that have yet to be simulated.

Zhu co-authored the paper “Fluid Simulation on Neural Flow Maps.” The Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group in Computer Graphics and Interactive Technology (SIGGRAPH) gave it a best paper award in December at the SIGGRAPH Asia conference in Sydney, Australia.

Toyota’s new soft humanoid picks things up with its whole body

Most humanoid robots pick things up with their hands – but that’s not how we humans do it, particularly when we’re carrying something bulky. We use our chests, hips and arms as well – and that’s the idea behind Toyota’s new soft robot.

Punyo, as it’s called, is a torso-up humanoid research platform. First and foremost, it’s adorably Japanese, with a cute and approachable looking face and a cuddly, husky look reminiscent of the Baymax robot from Disney’s Big Hero 6. Adding to the cuddle factor, he appears to be wearing a big, cosy-looking sweater.

And indeed, this “sweater” is highly hug-focused. It’s made using grippy materials that provide a squishy, compliant layer over Punyo’s hard metal skeleton, and the fabric is loaded with tactile sensors that allow it to feel exactly what it’s hugging, be it a person or an item that it’s carrying.

Toward Self-Aware Robots

Despite major progress in Robotics and AI, robots are still basically “zombies” repeatedly achieving actions and tasks without understanding what they are doing. Deep-Learning AI programs classify tremendous amounts of data without grasping the meaning of their inputs or outputs. We still lack a genuine theory of the underlying principles and methods that would enable robots to understand their environment, to be cognizant of what they do, to take appropriate and timely initiatives, to learn from their own experience and to show that they know that they have learned and how. The rationale of this paper is that the understanding of its environment by an agent (the agent itself and its effects on the environment included) requires its self-awareness, which actual ly is itself emerging as a result of this understanding and the distinction that the agent is capable to make between its own mind-body and its environment. The paper develops along five issues: agent perception and interaction with the environment; learning actions; agent interaction with other agents–specifically humans; decision-making; and the cognitive architecture integrating these capacities.

We are interested here in robotic agents, i.e., physical machines with perceptual, computational and action capabilities. We believe we still lack a genuine theory of the underlying principles and methods that would explain how we can design robots that can understand their environment and not just build representations lacking meaning, to be cognizant about what they do and about the purpose of their actions, to take timely initiatives beyond goals set by human programmers or users, and to learn from their own experience, knowing what they have learned and how they did so.

AI and predictive medicine: Recent advances

In a recent review published in the Journal of Human Genetics, a group of authors explored the potential of deep learning (DL), particularly convolutional neural networks (CNNs), in enhancing predictive modeling for omics data analysis, addressing challenges and future research directions.

Study: Advances in AI and machine learning for predictive medicine. Image Credit: NicoElNino/Shutterstock.com.

New dressing robot can ‘mimic’ the actions of care workers

Scientists have developed a new robot that can ‘mimic’ the two-handed movements of care workers as they dress an individual.

Until now, assistive dressing robots, designed to help an or a person with a disability get dressed, have been created in the laboratory as a one-armed machine, but research has shown that this can be uncomfortable for the person in care or impractical.

To tackle this problem, Dr. Jihong Zhu, a robotics researcher at the University of York’s Institute for Safe Autonomy, proposed a two-armed assistive dressing scheme, which has not been attempted in previous research, but inspired by caregivers who have demonstrated that specific actions are required to reduce discomfort and distress to the individual in their care.

UH Engineers develop magnetically navigated robots to attack and remove blood clots

In a collaboration with Houston Methodist Hospital, researchers from the UH Engineering Robotic Swarm Control Laboratory led by Aaron Becker, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, are developing a novel treatment for pulmonary embolism (PE) using millimeter-scale corkscrew shaped robots controlled by a magnetic field. PE is the third most common cardiovascular disease, resulting in up to 300,000 deaths annually.

“Using non-invasive miniature magnetic agents could improve patient comfort, reduce the risk of infection and ultimately decrease the cost of medical treatments,” according to Julien Leclerc, a Cullen College research associate specializing in applied electromagnetics. “My goal is to quickly bring this technology into the clinical realm and allow patients to benefit from this treatment method as soon as possible.\.

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