A New Approach for Including Social Conventions into Social Robots Navigation by Using Polygonal Triangulation and Group Asymmetric Gaussian Functions.

Many authors have been working on approaches that can be applied to social robots to allow a more realistic/comfortable relationship between humans and robots in the same space. This paper proposes a new navigation strategy for social environments by recognizing and considering the social conventions of people and groups. To achieve that, we proposed the application of Delaunay triangulation for connecting people as vertices of a triangle network. Then, we defined a complete asymmetric Gaussian function (for individuals and groups) to decide zones where the robot must avoid passing. Furthermore, a feature generalization scheme called socialization feature was proposed to incorporate perception information that can be used to change the variance of the Gaussian function. Simulation results have been presented to demonstrate that the proposed approach can modify the path according to the perception of the robot compared to a standard A* algorithm.

Group Emotion Detection Based on Social Robot Perception.

Social robotics is an emerging area that is becoming present in social spaces, by introducing autonomous social robots. Social robots offer services, perform tasks, and interact with people in such social environments, demanding more efficient and complex Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) designs. A strategy to improve HRI is to provide robots with the capacity of detecting the emotions of the people around them to plan a trajectory, modify their behaviour, and generate an appropriate interaction with people based on the analysed information. However, in social environments in which it is common to find a group of persons, new approaches are needed in order to make robots able to recognise groups of people and the emotion of the groups, which can be also associated with a scene in which the group is participating. Some existing studies are focused on detecting group cohesion and the recognition of group emotions; nevertheless, these works do not focus on performing the recognition tasks from a robocentric perspective, considering the sensory capacity of robots. In this context, a system to recognise scenes in terms of groups of people, to then detect global (prevailing) emotions in a scene, is presented. The approach proposed to visualise and recognise emotions in typical HRI is based on the face size of people recognised by the robot during its navigation (face sizes decrease when the robot moves away from a group of people). On each frame of the video stream of the visual sensor, individual emotions are recognised based on the Visual Geometry Group (VGG) neural network pre-trained to recognise faces (VGGFace); then, to detect the emotion of the frame, individual emotions are aggregated with a fusion method, and consequently, to detect global (prevalent) emotion in the scene (group of people), the emotions of its constituent frames are also aggregated. Additionally, this work proposes a strategy to create datasets with images/videos in order to validate the estimation of emotions in scenes and personal emotions. Both datasets are generated in a simulated environment based on the Robot Operating System (ROS) from videos captured by robots through their sensory capabilities. Tests are performed in two simulated environments in ROS/Gazebo: a museum and a cafeteria. Results show that the accuracy in the detection of individual emotions is 99.79% and the detection of group emotion (scene emotion) in each frame is 90.84% and 89.78% in the cafeteria and the museum scenarios, respectively.

Medical decisions concerning the end of life for cancer patients in three Colombian hospitals - a survey study.

BACKGROUND: Cancer patients' end-of-life care may involve complex decision-making processes. Colombia has legislation regarding provision of and access to palliative care and is the only Latin American country with regulation regarding euthanasia. We describe medical end-of-life decision-making practices among cancer patients in three Colombian hospitals. METHODS: Cancer patients who were at the end-of-life and attended in participating hospitals were identified. When these patients deceased, their attending physician was invited to participate. Attending physicians of 261 cancer patients (out of 348 identified) accepted the invitation and answered a questionnaire regarding end-of-life decisions: a.) decisions regarding the withdrawal or withholding of potentially life-prolonging medical treatments, b.) intensifying measures to alleviate pain or other symptoms with hastening of death as a potential side effect, and c.) the administration, supply or prescription of drugs with an explicit intention to hasten death. For each question addressing the first two decision types, we asked if the decision was fully or partially made with the intention or consideration that it may hasten the patient's death. RESULTS: Decisions to withdraw potentially life-prolonging treatment were made for 112 (43%) patients, 16 of them (14%) with an intention to hasten death. For 198 patients (76%) there had been some decision to not initiate potentially life-prolonging treatment. Twenty-three percent of patients received palliative sedation, 97% of all patients received opioids. Six patients (2%) explicitly requested to actively hasten their death, for two of them their wish was fulfilled. In another six patients, medications were used with the explicit intention to hasten death without their explicit request. In 44% (n = 114) of all cases, physicians did not know if their patient had any advance care directives, 26% (n = 38) of physicians had spoken to the patient regarding the possibility of certain treatment decisions to hasten death where this applied. CONCLUSIONS: Decisions concerning the end of life were common for patients with cancer in three Colombian hospitals, including euthanasia and palliative sedation. Physicians and patients often fail to communicate about advance care directives and potentially life-shortening effects of treatment decisions. Specific end-of-life procedures, patients' wishes, and availability of palliative care should be further investigated.

Decision making in the end-of-life care of patients who are terminally ill with cancer - a qualitative descriptive study with a phenomenological approach from the experience of healthcare workers.

BACKGROUND: In Colombia, recent legislation regarding end-of-life decisions includes palliative sedation, advance directives and euthanasia. We analysed which aspects influence health professionals´ decisions regarding end-of-life medical decisions and care for cancer patients. METHODS: Qualitative descriptive-exploratory study based on phenomenology using semi-structured interviews. We interviewed 28 oncologists, palliative care specialists, general practitioners and nurses from three major Colombian institutions, all involved in end-of-life care of cancer patients: Hospital Universitario San Ignacio and Instituto Nacional de Cancerología in Bogotá and Hospital Universitario San José in Popayan. RESULTS: When making decisions regarding end-of-life care, professionals consider: 1. Patient's clinical condition, cultural and social context, in particular treating indigenous patients requires special skills. 2. Professional skills and expertise: training in palliative care and experience in discussing end-of-life options and fear of legal consequences. Physicians indicate that many patients deny their imminent death which hampers shared decision-making and conversations. They mention frequent ambiguity regarding who initiates conversations regarding end-of-life decisions with patients and who finally takes decisions. Patients rarely initiate such conversations and the professionals normally do not ask patients directly for their preferences. Fear of confrontation with family members and lawsuits leads healthcare workers to carry out interventions such as initiating artificial feeding techniques and cardiopulmonary resuscitation, even in the absence of expected benefits. The opinions regarding the acceptability of palliative sedation, euthanasia and use of medications to accelerate death without the patients´ explicit request vary greatly. 3. Conditions of the insurance system: limitations exist in the offer of oncology and palliative care services for important proportions of the Colombian population. Colombians have access to opioid medications, barriers to their application are largely in delivery by the health system, the requirement of trained personnel for intravenous administration and ambulatory and home care plans which in Colombia are rare. CONCLUSIONS: To improve end-of-life decision making, Colombian healthcare workers and patients need to openly discuss wishes, needs and care options and prepare caregivers. Promotion of palliative care education and development of palliative care centres and home care plans is necessary to facilitate access to end-of-life care. Patients and caregivers' perspectives are needed to complement physicians' perceptions and practices.

Emotion Detection for Social Robots Based on NLP Transformers and an Emotion Ontology.

For social robots, knowledge regarding human emotional states is an essential part of adapting their behavior or associating emotions to other entities. Robots gather the information from which emotion detection is processed via different media, such as text, speech, images, or videos. The multimedia content is then properly processed to recognize emotions/sentiments, for example, by analyzing faces and postures in images/videos based on machine learning techniques or by converting speech into text to perform emotion detection with natural language processing (NLP) techniques. Keeping this information in semantic repositories offers a wide range of possibilities for implementing smart applications. We propose a framework to allow social robots to detect emotions and to store this information in a semantic repository, based on EMONTO (an EMotion ONTOlogy), and in the first figure or table caption. Please define if appropriate. an ontology to represent emotions. As a proof-of-concept, we develop a first version of this framework focused on emotion detection in text, which can be obtained directly as text or by converting speech to text. We tested the implementation with a case study of tour-guide robots for museums that rely on a speech-to-text converter based on the Google Application Programming Interface (API) and a Python library, a neural network to label the emotions in texts based on NLP transformers, and EMONTO integrated with an ontology for museums; thus, it is possible to register the emotions that artworks produce in visitors. We evaluate the classification model, obtaining equivalent results compared with a state-of-the-art transformer-based model and with a clear roadmap for improvement.

An Approach of Social Navigation Based on Proxemics for Crowded Environments of Humans and Robots.

Nowadays, mobile robots are playing an important role in different areas of science, industry, academia and even in everyday life. In this sense, their abilities and behaviours become increasingly complex. In particular, in indoor environments, such as hospitals, schools, banks and museums, where the robot coincides with people and other robots, its movement and navigation must be programmed and adapted to robot-robot and human-robot interactions. However, existing approaches are focused either on multi-robot navigation (robot-robot interaction) or social navigation with human presence (human-robot interaction), neglecting the integration of both approaches. Proxemic interaction is recently being used in this domain of research, to improve Human-Robot Interaction (HRI). In this context, we propose an autonomous navigation approach for mobile robots in indoor environments, based on the principles of proxemic theory, integrated with classical navigation algorithms, such as ORCA, Social Momentum, and A*. With this novel approach, the mobile robot adapts its behaviour, by analysing the proximity of people to each other, with respect to it, and with respect to other robots to decide and plan its respective navigation, while showing acceptable social behaviours in presence of humans. We describe our proposed approach and show how proxemics and the classical navigation algorithms are combined to provide an effective navigation, while respecting social human distances. To show the suitability of our approach, we simulate several situations of coexistence of robots and humans, demonstrating an effective social navigation.

De moralidad y eticidad. Dos dimensiones para la bioética / Morality and ethics. Two dimensions for bioethics

La Bioética tiene como reto argumentar en un contexto de multiplicidad de voces éticas. El mundo de hoy está constituido por "amigos" y "extraños" morales, al decir de T. Engelhardt, lo que torna difícil la búsqueda de autoridad moral con base en un mismo contenido. La Bioética debe proponer interpretaciones y noemas para la acción en diversos escenarios: justicia sanitaria, investigación clínica, biodiversidad, genética, entre otros. Siendo éste el reto de la Bioética, resulta útil distinguir, según ha expuesto J. Habermas, lo pragmático, lo ético y lo moral como diferentes usos de la Razón Práctica. Se trata de un lenguaje que pertenece a la tradición kantiana, de la cual hoy todos formamos parte cuando se hace filosofía sobre lo moral. A pesar de que T. Engelhardt no cree en la Teoría de la Acción Comunicativa de Habermas como solución al problema moral contemporáneo, el lenguaje de este último puede ser clave para el ámbito de la Bioética

Bioethics, in providing a stage for interdisciplinary discussion has as its challenge to argue in a context in which there is a multiplicity of ethical voices. The world today, consists of moral "relatives" and moral "strangers", as said by T Engelhardt; the difficulty lies in the return to the search for a moral authority with a communal base content. Bioethics must put forth interpretations and appoint norms for the working in diverse scenarios as justice in health, clinical research, biodiversity and genetics amongst others. This challenge for bioethics results in a useful distinction, following that, which has been expressed by J. Habermas: the pragmatic, the ethical and moral used as different applications of Practical Reason. Furthermore to speak of a language which belongs to the Kantian tradition, of which today we are all part whenever philosophy concerns that which is moral. Despite the fact that T Engelhardt does not believe Habermas´s Theory of Communicative Action to be a solution to the contemporary moral problem, the language of this work may be vital for the field of Bioethics

A Bioética tem como desafio argumentar num contexto de multiplicidade de vozes éticas. O mundo hoje está constituído por "amigos" e "estranhos" morais, no dizer de T. Engelhardt, o que torna difícil a busca de autoridade moral tendo como base um único conteúdo. A Bioética deve propor interpretações e normas para ação em diversos cenários: justiça sanitária, investigação clínica, biodiversidade, genética, entre outros. Sendo este o desafio da Bioética, parece útil distinguir, como já exposto por J. Habermas, o pragmático, o ético e o moral como diferentes aportes da Razão Prática. Trata-se de linguagem que tem origem na tradição kantiana, da qual todos fazemos parte quando se refere a filosofia sobre moral.Mesmo considerando que T. Engelhardt não acredita na teoria da Ação Comunicativa de Habermas como instrumento para a solução do problema moral contemporâneo, a linguagem desse último pensador pode ser decisiva para a Bioética

Filosofía de la medicina: la necesidad de una perspectiva crítica en colombia

La filosofía de la medicina es un interesante campo de estudios que se ocupa de temas y problemas filosóficamente relevantes en la práctica e investigación en medicina. Sin embargo, a pesar de que en otras latitudes la filosofía de la medicina goza de reconocimiento, en Colombia ha recibido poca atención, en particular porque el auge de la bioética ha opacado otro tipo de reflexiones sobre el quehacer médico. En este artículo, partiendo de una mirada general sobre la formación del campo, se argumenta que una filosofía crítica de la medicina debe ser promovida como reflexión amplia y crítica sobre la génesis y posibles salidas a la crisis que el sistema de salud y las profesiones de la salud han experimentado en Colombia en las últimas dos décadas. Esta filosofía crítica de la medicina ha de contribuir entonces a formar médicos y profesionales de la salud para ser capaces de transformar el éthos de sus propias profesiones y el de los servicios de salud.

Philosophy of Medicine is an interesting field of study concerned with issues and problems that are philosophically relevant in practice and research in Medicine. However, although Philosophy of Medicine enjoys recognition in other latitudes, in Colombia it has received little attention, in particular, because of the rise of bioethics, which has overshadowed other kinds of reflections on the medical task. In this paper, departing from an overview about the formation of the field, it is argued that a Critical Philosophy of Medicine should be promoted as a deep and critical reflection on the genesis and possible way outs to the crisis that the healthcare system and the medical profession have experienced in Colombia in the last two decades. A Critical Philosophy of Medicine must then contribute to training physicians and health professionals to be able to transform the ethos of their professions as well as of the health care services.

A filosofia da medicina é um campo excitante de estudos que lidam com temas e problemas filosoficamente relevantes na prática e investigação em medicina. No entanto, embora em outras instâncias da filosofia da medicina tem reconhecimento, na Colômbia tem recebido pouca atenção, especialmente porque o auge da bioética tem ofuscado outro tipo de reflexões sobre o do-que-fazer médico. Neste artigo, a partir de uma visão geral sobre a formação do campo, argumenta-se que uma filosofia crítica da medicina deve ser promovida como reflexão ampla e crítica sobre a gênese e possíveis soluções para a crise que o sistema de saúde e as profissões da saúde têm experimentado na Colômbia nas últimas duas décadas. Esta filosofia crítica da medicina deve, então, contribuir a formar médicos e profissionais da saúde para serem capazes de transformar o ethos de suas próprias profissões e o dos serviços de saúde.

Dystonia and tremor secondary to thalamic infarction successfully treated with thalamotomy of the ventralis intermedius nucleus.

BACKGROUND: Focal thalamic lesions have been associated with a variety of involuntary movements such as tremor, dystonia, and chorea-ballism. METHODS: We describe a patient with severe hyperkinesias of the right arm secondary to a thalamic infarction in the left postero-ventral region of the thalamus. RESULTS: The dystonia and tremor of the right upper limb were subsequently controlled with another surgical lesion of the ventralis intermedius nucleus of the thalamus. CONCLUSION: This observation suggests that ablative surgery might be applied to treat a movement disorder induced by the lesion of the same nucleus, which in addition lead to interesting pathophysiological conjectures.

Caracterización del razonamiento moral en la práctica clínica en relación con el proceso de formación médica en una facultad de medicina, categoría altruismo y dignidad, beneficencia, confidencialidad y deber de cuidado / Characterization of moral reasoning in clinical practice in relation to the process of medical education in a faculty of medicine, and dignity category altruism, charity, confidentiality and duty of care

Profundas transformaciones en el ejercicio de las profesiones de la salud han traído consigo consecuencias de carácter ontológico y ético para la medicina contemporánea. En este escenario alcanzar un adecuado desarrollo moral debe ser un objetivo central de la educación médica. En este artículo se presentan los primeros resultados de una investigación que tuvo como propósito caracterizar el razonamiento moral en la práctica clínica y su relación con el proceso de formación de los estudiantes de medicina de la Universidad Javeriana de Bogotá, Colombia. Para tal fin, se analizó la relación entre cinco categorías/campos de la moral (altruismo, contrato-confianza-justicia en el intercambio, conciencia, descentración-del-interés-propio y adopción roles) y cuatro categorías relevantes para la bioética clínica (dignidad, beneficencia, confidencialidad y deber-de-cuidado). Participaron en total 484 estudiantes que provenían de cada uno de los semestres de primero a decimo de la carrera de medicina durante el segundo periodo académico de 2008. Se encontraron diferencias significativas en cuatro de las cinco sub-variables estudiadas con un nivel de significación de .05 y se pudo apreciar que el razonamiento no se manifiesta como una línea de progreso sino que evidencia rutas particulares e itinerarios diversos.

Abortion: ethically inconclusive Legally and politically feasible / Aborto: inconcusso desde el puto de vista ético, factible desde el punto de vvista legal y político / ABORTO

Tradicionalmente el aborto en Colombia ha sido un tema sensible y bastante controvertido en el escenario público. Aunque la Corte Constitucional descriminalizó el aborto en 2006 en tres circunstancias específicas, la sociedad colombiana permanece polarizada alrededor de la moralidad del aborto. Sin embargo, esta decisión de la Corte es una oportunidad para ver como ética, política y derecho pueden ser en verdad combinados. De hecho, diferenciar cada campo y reconocer sus posibilidades puede ser la llave para convivir pacíficamente, incluso aunque en últimas los desacuerdos éticos no puedan resolverse completamente.

Abortion has traditionally been a deeply controversial and sensitive public issue in Colombia. Although the Constitutional Court decriminalised abortion in 2006 in three specific circumstances, Colombian society is still polarized around the morality of abortion. However, the Court's decision is an opportunity to see how ethics, politics, and law can be rightly combined. Indeed, to differentiate each field and to recognize their possibilities may be the key to coexisting peacefully even if ethical disagreements cannot be completely solved.

Tradicionalmente o aborto na Colômbia tem sido um tema sensível e bastante controvertido no cenário público. Ainda que a Corte Constitucional descriminalizou o aborto em 2006 em três circunstâncias específicas, a sociedade colombiana permanece polarizada ao redor da moralidade do aborto. Entretanto, esta decisão da Corte é uma oportunidade para ver como ética, política e direito podem ser em verdade combinados. De fato, diferencia cada campo e reconhece suas posibilidades pode ser a chave para conviver pacificamente, inclusive ainda que nas últimas os desacordos éticos não podem resolverse completamente.

Evolución de las actitudes en el campo de la ética de la investigación con seres humanos / Evolution of attitudes in the field of human research ethics

Este artículo describe analíticamente el estado de evolución de las actitudes de una muestra de 142 estudiantes que cursan la Carrera de Medicina en la Pontificia Universidad Javeriana – Bogotá (inicio, mitad y final de la carrera), en el campo de la Ética de la Investigación con Seres Humanos (EISH). En la investigación de base se utilizó una escala compleja de actitudes con tres componentes, afectivo, de creencia y comportamental, dividida, a su vez, en términos de tres categorías teóricas tomadas de la bioética, “sujeto fin/medio dignidad”, “beneficencia” y “justicia”. Se analiza la relación existente entre el proceso de formación médica actual y las actitudes en el campo de la EISH que tienen los estudiantes participantes de la investigación. Plantea igualmente algunos criterios con respecto a la educación en EISH para los estudiantes de la Carrera de Medicina en la Pontificia Universidad Javeriana. El artículo describe, en consecuencia, una ligera tendencia al progreso en todas las categorías y en todos los componentes de la actitud a lo largo de la formación médica. La categoría “beneficencia” no evoluciona significativamente de modo que muestre diferencias en las tres escalas y grupos respectivamente; de igual forma, “la categoría sujeto fin/medio dignidad” en dos de las escalas, la afectiva y la conductual, no mostró diferencias significativas; se da cuenta de algunas diferencias representativas en la categoría “justicia” (componente de creencias y conductual) y en la categoría “sujeto fin/medio dignidad” (componente creencias). Así, los resultados permiten preguntar por el papel de la formación y evolución de dichas actitudes a lo largo del proceso académico. En conclusión, las actitudes en general parecen estar en un proceso de relativa progresión sin una evolución contundente.

The state of evolution of attitudes in a sample of 142 Medical Students at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogota (at the beginning, middle and ending of their studies) in the field of Human Research Ethics (HRE) is analytically described. A complex scale of attitudes was used, with three components: affective, beliefs-related and behavioral, further divided into three theoretical categories taken from Bioethics: Subject-End/means-Dignity, Benefit and Justice. The relationship between the current medical education process and the attitudes regarding HRE in the sample are analyzed. A small trend towards progress in all categories and in all components of attitudes throughout medical education is described; neither the Benefit nor the Subject-End/means/Dignity categories evolve in a significant way; some significant differences were observed in the Justice category (beliefs and behavioral) and in the Subject-End/means-Dignity category (beliefs component). The results allow for asking about the role of formation and evolution of those attitudes throughout the academic process. In conclusion, attitudes seem to be progressing relatively, without a decisive evolution.

Crítica a la bioética si ha de ser instrumento para la / Critical to bioethics, if it is going to be an instrument for the construction of peace in Colombia. An approximation from the Clinical Bioethics

El tema de la violencia en Colombia es de tanta importancia en nuestro país que ningún espacio académico, incluyendo la Bioética, escapa de ocuparse de él. Aparece, entonces, la pregunta ¿cómo podría la Bioética aportar a la paz en Colombia? Su respuesta implica, entre otras, el importante papel que ella podría jugar en la superación de la injusticia social,uno de los elementos que tienden a perpetuar la violencia. En el caso de la Bioética Clínica, este papel puede cumplirse mediante la promoción de una conciencia crítica en los profesionales de la salud, cuando ella hace parte del proceso de su formación. La Bioética Clínica no puede terminar convertida en una jerga pseudofilosófica o pseudocientífica, con locual sólo estaría ayudando a perpetuar situaciones de injusticia, caldo de cultivo para la permanencia de diferentes violencias, particularmente en países como Colombia

La formación ética de los estudiantes de medicina: la brecha entre el currículo formal y el currículo oculto / Ethics training of medical students: the gap between the formal curriculum and the hidden curriculum / A formação ética dos estudantes de medicina: a distância entre o currículo formal e o currículo oculto

Tomar decisiones acertadas desde el punto de vista ético-moral en medicina es un asunto complejo y aprender a hacerlo debe constituir uno de los objetivos del entrenamiento médico. Una forma de contribuir a lograrlo es integrar una completa formación teórica en Ética Médica y Bioética con una verdadera correlación frente a lo vivido en la práctica clínica. Tener en cuenta lo que sienten y piensan los estudiantes al respecto es un buen referente para comenzar. En el presente artículo se presentan los resultados de un taller sobre el tema, llevado a cabo con estudiantes de medicina en una etapa avanzada de su formación, junto a las reflexiones suscitadas en el desarrollo de dicho taller.

To take right decisions in medicine from an ethical-moral point of view is a complex matter and to learn to do it must constitute one of the goals of medical training. A way to contribute to achieve this is to integrate a complete theoretical training in Medical Ethics and Bioethics with a true correlation in clinical practice experience. To take into account what students think and feel about the issue is a good reference to start. In the present paper the results on a workshop about the tipic, carried out whith medical students in advances training, are presented together with reflections raise in the workshop development.

Tomar decisões acertadas do ponto de vista ético-moral em Medicina é uma questão complexa e aprender a fazê-las constitui-se em um dos objetivos da formação médica. Uma forma de contribuir a esta questão é integrar uma ampla formação teórica de Ética Médica e Bioética relacionando-a à vivência na prática clínica. Levar em conta o que sentem e pensam os estudantes a respeito desta questão é um bom referencial inicial. O presente artigo apresenta os resultados de uma oficina sobre o tema, envolvendo os estudantes de Medicina em um estágio avançado de sua formaçâo além das reflexôes advindas do desenvolvimento desta oficina.

Dengue en Cuba: historia de una epidemia / Dengue in Cuba: the history of an epidemic

Se muestra una panorámica del trabajo realizado por el Departamento de Arbovirus del IPK, con respecto al estudio del virus del dengue, agente causal de la epidemia de FDH/SSD, que afectó al país en el año 1981. Se incluyen no sólo los trabajos realizados en el transcurso de la epidemia, relacionados directamente con el diagnóstico, sino también otros efectuados posteriormente que abarcan aspectos clínicos, virológicos y epidemiológicos, todos aquellos de gran interés y vigencia, al tener en cuenta que la epidemia cubana ha sido la única ocurrida fuera del contexto del Sudeste Asiático y en la cual se conocen con suficiente exactitud las condiciones epidemiológicas que permitieron su aparición