Enhancing Robotic Perception through Synchronized Simulation and Physical Common-Sense Reasoning.

We introduce both conceptual and empirical findings arising from the amalgamation of a robotics cognitive architecture with an embedded physics simulator, aligning with the principles outlined in the intuitive physics literature. The employed robotic cognitive architecture, named CORTEX, leverages a highly efficient distributed working memory known as deep state representation. This working memory inherently encompasses a fundamental ontology, state persistency, geometric and logical relationships among elements, and tools for reading, updating, and reasoning about its contents. Our primary objective is to investigate the hypothesis that the integration of a physics simulator into the architecture streamlines the implementation of various functionalities that would otherwise necessitate extensive coding and debugging efforts. Furthermore, we categorize these enhanced functionalities into broad types based on the nature of the problems they address. These include addressing challenges related to occlusion, model-based perception, self-calibration, scene structural stability, and human activity interpretation. To demonstrate the outcomes of our experiments, we employ CoppeliaSim as the embedded simulator and both a Kinova Gen3 robotic arm and the Open-Manipulator-P as the real-world scenarios. Synchronization is maintained between the simulator and the stream of real events. Depending on the ongoing task, numerous queries are computed, and the results are projected into the working memory. Participating agents can then leverage this information to enhance overall performance.

Incorporation of feeding behaviour traits to increase the genetic gain of feed efficiency in Pietrain pigs.

Improved feed efficiency is an essential goal for the sustainability of pig production in economic and environmental terms. Traits such as feed conversion rate (FCR), residual feed intake (RFI), residual body weight gain (RG) and feeding behaviour, such as duration (TPV) and feeding rate per visit (FR) can now be measured by automatic feeding systems. The aim of this study was to evaluate the benefits of incorporating feeding behaviour traits into a selection index to improve feed efficiency in a nucleus of purebred Pietrain pigs. Data on body weight, feed intake and duration were recorded at each visit in 1608 animals. The information contained in 843,605 visits was grouped by animal ID to obtain a set of feed efficiency and feeding behaviour traits. These traits were obtained in three periods (first, second and total period). Bayesian models were built to estimate the posterior marginal distribution of the variance components. The heritabilities were between 0.44 and 0.59 for feeding behaviour traits and between 0.31 and 0.49 for feed efficiency traits. The FCR and RFI showed a considerable genetic correlation with daily feed intake (~0.65). FCR showed a genetic correlation with feeding behaviour traits, such as feed intake per visit (FPV) (0.44) and FR (0.33). Furthermore, the fast-eating pigs were less efficient. This was due to the positive genetic correlation found between the FR and the FCR (0.33) and the RFI (0.23), and the negative correlation found with the RG (-0.28). On the other hand, the inclusion of the feeding behaviour traits into a selection index slightly increased the selection response for FCR (4%) and RFI (1.8%). However, there was an increase of up to 19% in the selection response for RG and an improvement in accuracy from 0.59 to 0.70. Therefore, we concluded that it would be interesting to include feeding behaviour traits in a selection index to improve the selection response and accuracy of feed efficiency traits.

Point-of-Care Noninvasive Technology for Pediatric Dehydration Assessment.

OBJECTIVE: Dehydration is a commonly encountered problem worldwide. Current clinical assessment is limited by subjectivity and limited provider training with children. The objective of this study is to investigate a new noninvasive, point-of-care technology that measures capillary refill combined with patient factors to accurately diagnose dehydration. METHODS: This is a prospective observational study at a tertiary care children's hospital in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Patients were eligible if younger than 10 years who presented to the emergency department with vomiting and/or diarrhea whom the triage nurse deems to be potentially dehydrated. Patients had the digital capillary refill device done on presentation in addition to standard of care vital signs and weight. Patients had serial weights measured on hospital scales throughout their stay. The primary outcome was dehydration, which was calculated as a percent change in weight from admission to discharge. RESULTS: Seventy-six children were enrolled in the study with 56 included in the final analysis. A stepwise forward method selection chose malnutrition, temperature, and systolic blood pressure for the multivariable model. The area under the curve for the final model was fair (0.7431). To further look into the utility of such a device in the home setting where blood pressure is not available often, we reran the model without systolic blood pressure. The area under the curve for the final model was 0.7269. CONCLUSIONS: The digital capillary refill point-of-care device combined with readily available patient-specific factors may improve the ability to detect pediatric dehydration and facilitate earlier treatment or transfer to higher levels of care.

Microwave-Assisted Synthesis of Zeolite A from Metakaolinite for CO2 Adsorption.

The global demand for energy and industrial growth has generated an exponential use of fossil fuels in recent years. It is well known that carbon dioxide (CO2) is mainly produced, but not only from fuels, which has a negative impact on the environment, such as the increasing emission of greenhouse gases. Thus, thinking about reducing this problem, this study analyzes microwave irradiation as an alternative to conventional heating to optimize zeolite A synthesis conditions for CO2 capture. Synthesis reaction parameters such as different temperatures (60-150 °C) and different time durations (1-6 h) were evaluated. The CO2 adsorption capacity was evaluated by CO2 adsorption-desorption isotherms at 25 °C and atmospheric pressure. The results showed that the synthesis of zeolite A by microwave irradiation was successfully obtained from natural kaolinite (via metakaolinization), reducing both temperature and time. Adsorption isotherms show that the most promising adsorbent for CO2 capture is a zeolite synthesized at 100 °C for 4 h, which reached an adsorption capacity of 2.2 mmol/g.

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy for hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy in non-fatal drowning.

Paroxysmal autonomic instability syndrome with dystonia (PAISD) is a possible complication that worsens the prognosis of hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy related to non-fatal drowning. There are case reports of hyperbaric oxygen (HBO2) therapy enhancing recovery in such cases. We report a case of a 5-year-old boy admitted to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit after a non-fatal drowning. He was transferred under mechanical ventilation and sedation, with hemodynamic instability and hypothermia. On admission he had a Glasgow Coma Score of 6. On the fifth day of admission he presented episodes of dystonia with decerebration posture, diaphoresis, tachycardia and hypertension, sometimes with identified triggers, suggesting PAISD. The episodes were difficult to control; multiple drugs were needed. Electroencephalography showed diffuse slow wave activity, and cranioencephalic magnetic resonance imaging showed hypoxia-related lesions, suggesting hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy. Early after admission the patient started physiotherapy combined with normobaric oxygen therapy. Subsequently he started HBO2 therapy at 2 atmospheres, with a total of 66 sessions. Dystonia progressively subsided, with gradual discontinuation of therapy. He also showed improvement in spasticity, non-verbal communication and cephalic control. This case highlights the diagnostic and therapeutic challenges of PAISD and the potential benefit of HBO2 therapy, even in the subacute phase, in recovery of hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy.

Designing a Cyber-Physical System for Ambient Assisted Living: A Use-Case Analysis for Social Robot Navigation in Caregiving Centers.

The advances of the Internet of Things, robotics, and Artificial Intelligence, to give just a few examples, allow us to imagine promising results in the development of smart buildings in the near future. In the particular case of elderly care, there are new solutions that integrate systems that monitor variables associated with the health of each user or systems that facilitate physical or cognitive rehabilitation. In all these solutions, it is clear that these new environments, usually called Ambient Assisted Living (AAL), configure a Cyber-Physical System (CPS) that connects information from the physical world to the cyber-world with the primary objective of adding more intelligence to these environments. This article presents a CPS-AAL for caregiving centers, with the main novelty that includes a Socially Assistive Robot (SAR). The CPS-AAL presented in this work uses a digital twin world with the information acquired by all devices. The basis of this digital twin world is the CORTEX cognitive architecture, a set of software agents interacting through a Deep State Representation (DSR) that stored the shared information between them. The proposal is evaluated in a simulated environment with two use cases requiring interaction between the sensors and the SAR in a simulated caregiving center.

A Passive Learning Sensor Architecture for Multimodal Image Labeling: An Application for Social Robots.

Object detection and classification have countless applications in human-robot interacting systems. It is a necessary skill for autonomous robots that perform tasks in household scenarios. Despite the great advances in deep learning and computer vision, social robots performing non-trivial tasks usually spend most of their time finding and modeling objects. Working in real scenarios means dealing with constant environment changes and relatively low-quality sensor data due to the distance at which objects are often found. Ambient intelligence systems equipped with different sensors can also benefit from the ability to find objects, enabling them to inform humans about their location. For these applications to succeed, systems need to detect the objects that may potentially contain other objects, working with relatively low-resolution sensor data. A passive learning architecture for sensors has been designed in order to take advantage of multimodal information, obtained using an RGB-D camera and trained semantic language models. The main contribution of the architecture lies in the improvement of the performance of the sensor under conditions of low resolution and high light variations using a combination of image labeling and word semantics. The tests performed on each of the stages of the architecture compare this solution with current research labeling techniques for the application of an autonomous social robot working in an apartment. The results obtained demonstrate that the proposed sensor architecture outperforms state-of-the-art approaches.

Object Classification in Semi Structured Enviroment Using Forward-Looking Sonar.

The submarine exploration using robots has been increasing in recent years. The automation of tasks such as monitoring, inspection, and underwater maintenance requires the understanding of the robot's environment. The object recognition in the scene is becoming a critical issue for these systems. On this work, an underwater object classification pipeline applied in acoustic images acquired by Forward-Looking Sonar (FLS) are studied. The object segmentation combines thresholding, connected pixels searching and peak of intensity analyzing techniques. The object descriptor extract intensity and geometric features of the detected objects. A comparison between the Support Vector Machine, K-Nearest Neighbors, and Random Trees classifiers are presented. An open-source tool was developed to annotate and classify the objects and evaluate their classification performance. The proposed method efficiently segments and classifies the structures in the scene using a real dataset acquired by an underwater vehicle in a harbor area. Experimental results demonstrate the robustness and accuracy of the method described in this paper.

Proton conduction and long-range ferrimagnetic ordering in two isostructural Copper(II) mesoxalate metal-organic frameworks.

Two compounds of formula {(H3O)[Cu7(Hmesox)5(H2O)7]·9H2O}n (1a) and {(NH4)0.6(H3O)0.4[Cu7(Hmesox)5(H2O)7]·11H2O}n (1b) were prepared and structurally characterized by single-crystal X-ray diffraction (H4mesox = mesoxalic acid, 2-dihydroxymalonic acid). The compounds are crystalline functional metal-organic frameworks exhibiting proton conduction and magnetic ordering. Variable-temperature magnetic susceptibility measurements reveal that the copper(II) ions are strongly ferro- and antiferromagnetically coupled by the alkoxide and carboxylate bridges of the mesoxalate linker to yield long-range magnetic ordering with a Tc of 17.6 K, which is reached by a rare mechanism known as topologic ferrimagnetism. Electric conductivity, measured by impedance methods, shows values as high as 6.5 × 10(-5) S cm(-1) and occurs by proton exchange among the hydronium/ammonium and water molecules of crystallization, which fill the voids left by the three-dimensional copper(II) mesoxalate anionic network.

Muecas: a multi-sensor robotic head for affective human robot interaction and imitation.

This paper presents a multi-sensor humanoid robotic head for human robot interaction. The design of the robotic head, Muecas, is based on ongoing research on the mechanisms of perception and imitation of human expressions and emotions. These mechanisms allow direct interaction between the robot and its human companion through the different natural language modalities: speech, body language and facial expressions. The robotic head has 12 degrees of freedom, in a human-like configuration, including eyes, eyebrows, mouth and neck, and has been designed and built entirely by IADeX (Engineering, Automation and Design of Extremadura) and RoboLab. A detailed description of its kinematics is provided along with the design of the most complex controllers. Muecas can be directly controlled by FACS (Facial Action Coding System), the de facto standard for facial expression recognition and synthesis. This feature facilitates its use by third party platforms and encourages the development of imitation and of goal-based systems. Imitation systems learn from the user, while goal-based ones use planning techniques to drive the user towards a final desired state. To show the flexibility and reliability of the robotic head, the paper presents a software architecture that is able to detect, recognize, classify and generate facial expressions in real time using FACS. This system has been implemented using the robotics framework, RoboComp, which provides hardware-independent access to the sensors in the head. Finally, the paper presents experimental results showing the real-time functioning of the whole system, including recognition and imitation of human facial expressions.

Techno-functional aspects of kombucha analogs formulated from mulberry coproducts.

This study investigated the techno-functional conditions for producing fermented beverages using the kombucha artisanal consortium (kAC) while implementing sustainable strategies. According to the circular economy principles, the study focused on mulberry coproducts (MC) generated as agro-industrial waste during mulberry fruit production. The presence of target microorganisms in the beverage and biofilm was recorded to determine the MC content necessary for establishing kAC. Additionally, the physicochemical characteristics, carbohydrate and polyphenol profiles were analyzed to understand their impact on antioxidant activity and sensory responses in the soft drink. Notably, a concentration of 0.25% MC was found to yield fermented soft drinks rich in probiotic populations and displaying nutraceutical qualities that enhance antioxidant activity and sensory acceptability. This study offers valuable technical guidance for repurposing mulberry pruning coproducts in the creation of novel products.

Understanding the Characteristics of At-Risk Youths in Guatemala: Evidence from a Sports for Human Development Program.

Guatemala is a multiethnic and multicultural country that has suffered from poverty and violence. Sports can serve as tool to foster development across the country; however, there is limited research on the use of sports as a tool for promoting broader social benefits in Guatemala. The purpose of this study was to compare sports and the health and physiological characteristics of at-risk youths in Guatemala. The research objectives were achieved through a quantitative approach and the participation of 90 youths involved in an educational organization through sports and 91 youths who have not been influenced by any organization. The results showed that urban at-risk youths involved in a sports for education organization develop more self-esteem; they have higher levels of physical activity than their peers who are not involved in an educational organization; the socioemotional competencies of self-regulation and motivation are higher in urban areas; empathy is higher in men than in women; the level of the self-perception of health is lower and health literacy higher. However, the at-risk youths who are not involved in an educational organization showed that their self-regulation was higher, and the level of health literacy was higher for all factors. This was through a set of attitudes and skills as a result of their historical development and sociocultural strategies transmitted from generation to generation to foster health and physical activity.

Management of status epilepticus in childhood: a survey conducted at pediatric hospitals in the City of Buenos Aires. / Manejo del estado epiléptico en niños: encuesta en hospitales pediátricos de la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires.

Introduction. Status epilepticus is the most common neurological emergency. Although mortality in children is low, morbidity may exceed 20%. Objective. To evaluate the management of status epilepticus by pediatricians who usually treat this condition. Population and methods. Descriptive, cross-sectional study based on a survey administered to physicians from 3 pediatric hospitals in the City of Buenos Aires. Results. A total of 292 surveys were administered (complete response rate as high as 86%); 77% were administered to pediatricians and 16% to intensive care specialists. Forty-seven percent of the participants reported that they administer the first dose of a benzodiazepine within the correct timeframe; 56% use intrarectal diazepam when intravenous access is not available; 95% choose lorazepam as the initial benzodiazepine if an intravenous line is available; 58% initiate the administration of a second-line drug within the correct timeframe; 84% administer phenytoin as the first-choice, second-line drug; and 33% do not measure treatment time. Overall adherence to international recommendations was 17%. Conclusions. Our study highlights poor adherence of pediatricians to international guidelines, particularly in time-dependent decisions. Greater heterogeneity was observed in treatment approaches as the treatment algorithm progressed.

Introducción. El estado epiléptico constituye la emergencia neurológica más frecuente. Si bien la mortalidad en niños es baja, su morbilidad puede superar el 20 %. Objetivo. Conocer las pautas de manejo del estado epiléptico referidas por médicos pediatras que atienden esta patología en forma habitual. Población y métodos. Estudio descriptivo, transversal, basado en una encuesta a médicos de tres hospitales pediátricos monovalentes de gestión pública de la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires. Resultados. Se administraron 292 encuestas (la tasa de respuesta completa alcanzó el 86 %); el 77 % se administró a pediatras y el 16 %, a especialistas en cuidados intensivos. Un 47 % de los participantes refiere indicar la primera benzodiacepina en el tiempo correcto; el 56 % utilizar diazepam intrarrectal en ausencia de un acceso intravenoso; el 95 % elige lorazepam como benzodiacepina inicial en caso de contar con acceso intravenoso; el 58 % refiere iniciar la etapa de fármacos de segunda línea en tiempo adecuado; el 84 % opta por fenitoína como fármaco inicial de segunda línea, un 33 % no cronometra el tiempo durante el tratamiento. La adherencia global a las recomendaciones internacionales fue del 17 %. Conclusiones. Nuestro estudio advierte una baja adherencia referida de los pediatras a las guías internacionales, en particular en las decisiones tiempo-dependientes. También se observó mayor heterogeneidad en las conductas terapéuticas a medida que se avanza en el algoritmo de tratamiento.

[Atypical choroid plexus papilloma in adults: case report and literature review]. / Papiloma atípico de los plexos coroideos en el adulto: publicación de un caso clínico y revisión de la bibliografía.

INTRODUCTION: Atypical choroid plexus papilloma is a rare tumour, recently defined by the World Health Organisation and with very few cases reported to date. Choroid plexus tumours are rare intraventricular neoplasms originating from choroid plexus epithelium, with benign papillomas being more frequent than carcinomas. Most of these lesions appear in children, mainly located in the lateral ventricles. Those arising from the fourth ventricle are more frequent in adulthood. Surgery with complete resection can be curative in papillomas, with 5-year survival rates close to 100% and occasional recurrences. Radical surgery in carcinomas is difficult and usually requires adjuvant therapy, prognosis is worse and survival rates are lower. We report a case of atypical choroid plexus papilloma in adulthood located in the fourth ventricle, describing the different therapeutic options and reviewing the existing literature. CASE REPORT: 38-year old male with an atypical choroid plexus papilloma located in the fourth ventricle, totally resected by posterior fossa craniectomy and telovellar approach. CONCLUSION: Atypical choroid plexus papillomas are associated with an increased risk of recurrence or malignant transformation when compared to "typical" papillomas. At present, complete surgical excision and close follow-up seems to be the most reliable treatment. Adjuvant chemotherapy or radiotherapy should be considered in cases of partial resection, recurrence or dissemination.

Visual odometry based on structural matching of local invariant features using stereo camera sensor.

This paper describes a novel sensor system to estimate the motion of a stereo camera. Local invariant image features are matched between pairs of frames and linked into image trajectories at video rate, providing the so-called visual odometry, i.e., motion estimates from visual input alone. Our proposal conducts two matching sessions: the first one between sets of features associated to the images of the stereo pairs and the second one between sets of features associated to consecutive frames. With respect to previously proposed approaches, the main novelty of this proposal is that both matching algorithms are conducted by means of a fast matching algorithm which combines absolute and relative feature constraints. Finding the largest-valued set of mutually consistent matches is equivalent to finding the maximum-weighted clique on a graph. The stereo matching allows to represent the scene view as a graph which emerge from the features of the accepted clique. On the other hand, the frame-to-frame matching defines a graph whose vertices are features in 3D space. The efficiency of the approach is increased by minimizing the geometric and algebraic errors to estimate the final displacement of the stereo camera between consecutive acquired frames. The proposed approach has been tested for mobile robotics navigation purposes in real environments and using different features. Experimental results demonstrate the performance of the proposal, which could be applied in both industrial and service robot fields.

Mechanical and Geometric Performance of PLA-Based Polymer Composites Processed by the Fused Filament Fabrication Additive Manufacturing Technique.

In this work, the effect of short carbon fibre (CF) on the mechanical and geometric properties of 3D printed polylactic acid (PLA) composite parts processed using the Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) technique have been analysed. Tensile, flexural and interlaminar shear strength (ILSS) tests were performed to obtain the mechanical performance of the different samples. The surface quality and geometric accuracy of the printed specimens were also evaluated. Finally, Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) images of the printed samples are analysed. The results revealed that the addition of carbon fibres effectively improved all assessed mechanical properties of PLA-CF composites as compared to the neat PLA. In particular, Flat PLA-CF samples showed an average increase in tensile performance of 47.1% for the tensile strength and 179.9% for the tensile stiffness in comparison to the neat PLA. From the flexural behaviour point of view, Flat PLA-CF samples revealed an increase in average flexural strength and stiffness of 89.75% and 230.95%, respectively in comparison to the neat PLA. Furthermore, PLA-CF samples depicted the best ILSS performance. In general, the use of short carbon fibre as reinforcement did not affect the dimensional accuracy of the PLA-CF samples, and even improved the surface roughness in certain cases, particularly in Flat and On-edge orientations.

Curvature-based environment description for robot navigation using laser range sensors.

This work proposes a new feature detection and description approach for mobile robot navigation using 2D laser range sensors. The whole process consists of two main modules: a sensor data segmentation module and a feature detection and characterization module. The segmentation module is divided in two consecutive stages: First, the segmentation stage divides the laser scan into clusters of consecutive range readings using a distance-based criterion. Then, the second stage estimates the curvature function associated to each cluster and uses it to split it into a set of straight-line and curve segments. The curvature is calculated using a triangle-area representation where, contrary to previous approaches, the triangle side lengths at each range reading are adapted to the local variations of the laser scan, removing noise without missing relevant points. This representation remains unchanged in translation or rotation, and it is also robust against noise. Thus, it is able to provide the same segmentation results although the scene will be perceived from different viewpoints. Therefore, segmentation results are used to characterize the environment using line and curve segments, real and virtual corners and edges. Real scan data collected from different environments by using different platforms are used in the experiments in order to evaluate the proposed environment description algorithm.

Additive Manufacturing of PLA-Based Composites Using Fused Filament Fabrication: Effect of Graphene Nanoplatelet Reinforcement on Mechanical Properties, Dimensional Accuracy and Texture.

Fused filament fabrication (FFF) is a promising additive manufacturing (AM) technology due to its ability to build thermoplastics parts with advantages in the design and optimization of models with complex geometries, great design flexibility, recyclability and low material waste. This technique has been extensively used for the manufacturing of conceptual prototypes rather than functional components due to the limited mechanical properties of pure thermoplastics parts. In order to improve the mechanical performance of 3D printed parts based on polymeric materials, reinforcements including nanoparticles, short or continuous fibers and other additives have been adopted. The addition of graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs) to plastic and polymers is currently under investigation as a promising method to improve their working conditions due to the good mechanical, electrical and thermal performance exhibited by graphene. Although research shows particularly promising improvement in thermal and electrical conductivities of graphene-based nanocomposites, the aim of this study is to evaluate the effect of graphene nanoplatelet reinforcement on the mechanical properties, dimensional accuracy and surface texture of 3D printed polylactic acid (PLA) structures manufactured by a desktop 3D printer. The effect of build orientation was also analyzed. Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) images of failure samples were evaluated to determine the effects of process parameters on failure modes. It was observed that PLA-Graphene composite samples showed, in general terms, the best performance in terms of tensile and flexural stress, particularly in the case of upright orientation (about 1.5 and 1.7 times higher than PLA and PLA 3D850 samples, respectively). In addition, PLA-Graphene composite samples showed the highest interlaminar shear strength (about 1.2 times higher than PLA and PLA 3D850 samples). However, the addition of GNPs tended to reduce the impact strength of the PLA-Graphene composite samples (PLA and PLA 3D850 samples exhibited an impact strength about 1.2-1.3 times higher than PLA-Graphene composites). Furthermore, the addition of graphene nanoplatelets did not affect, in general terms, the dimensional accuracy of the PLA-Graphene composite specimens. In addition, PLA-Graphene composite samples showed, in overall terms, the best performance in terms of surface texture, particularly when parts were printed in flat and on-edge orientations. The promising results in the present study prove the feasibility of 3D printed PLA-graphene composites for potential use in different applications such as biomedical engineering.

Laparoscopic Distal Pancreatectomy: Our Experience in a Tertiary Referral Center.

BACKGROUND: Despite an increase in the number of laparoscopic distal pancreatectomy (LDP) procedures being performed, the long-term oncology and operative results are still unclear. The aim of this study was to present the surgical and long-term results of patients undergoing LDP for the treatment of distal pancreatic tumors. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A retrospective review was made of patients who underwent LDP in our clinic, between 2006 and 2018, and who were diagnosed with pancreas tail, neck, and corpus tumors. For the purposes of this study, the data related to the preoperative, operative, and postoperative characteristics of the patients were determined. RESULTS: A total of 46 patients were identified as suitable for inclusion in the study. Of these, 52.1% were female individuals, and the average age of the whole group was 63 years. Previous surgery for malignant diseases was recorded for 54.3% of the patients, due to premalignant diseases in 13% and benign diseases in 32.7%. On average, 10 lymph nodes were removed from patients diagnosed with malignant tumors. The conversion rate was found to be 2.1%. The postoperative pancreatic fistula rate was 26%, and there was 1 complication each of grades III and IV according to the Clavien-Dindo classification. The mortality rate was 0%. CONCLUSIONS: It was concluded that LDP of distal pancreas tumors seems to be both safe and effective in respect of the long-term results in addition to the early results of the operation.