Advanced devices that can assist the therapists to offer rehabilitation are in high demand with the growing rehabilitation needs. The primary requirement from such rehabilitative devices is to reduce the therapist monitoring time. If the training device can autonomously adapt to the performance of the user, it can make the rehabilitation partly self-manageable. Therefore the main goal of our research is to investigate how to make a rehabilitation system more adaptable. The strategy we followed to augment the adaptability of the GENTLE/A robotic system was to (i) identify the parameters that inform about the contribution of the user/robot during a human-robot interaction session and (ii) use these parameters as performance indicators to adapt the system. Three main studies were conducted with healthy participants during the course of this PhD. The first study identified that the difference between the position coordinates recorded by the robot and the reference trajectory position coordinates indicated the leading/lagging status of the user with respect to the robot. Using the leadlag model we proposed two strategies to enhance the adaptability of the system. The first adaptability strategy tuned the performance time to suit the user’s requirements (second study). The second adaptability strategy tuned the task difficulty level based on the user’s leading or lagging status (third study). In summary the research undertaken during this PhD successfully enhanced the adaptability of the GENTLE/A system. The adaptability strategies evaluated were designed to suit various stages of recovery. Apart from potential use for remote assessment of patients, the work presented in this thesis is applicable in many areas of human-robot interaction research where a robot and human are involved in physical interaction.

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Name: Alice Oktábcová Supervisor: Mgr. et Mgr. Jaromíra Uhlířová Oponent: ……………. Diploma thesis: The Application of Robot-Assisted Therapy of Hand after Stroke: Follow-Up Trial of Application of AMADEO Instrument Key words: stroke, robot-assisted therapy, Amadeo Instrument, follow-up study, upper extremity In recent years, western countries noted a gradual increase in stroke survivors. Stroke can cause motor activity impairment and also senzoric and cognitive disorders which lead into restriction of participation of activities of daily living and also reduction of social and community activities. Functional improvment of upper and lower extremity after stroke is a very complex proces which has to be solved in multidiscplinary and multifactorial approach in result of every stroke survivor to live in the most independent way as possible. Robot-assisted therapy for motor recovery could be a successful way to improve motor activity of stroke survivors. Amadeo Instrument is one of robot-assisted therapy for hand rehabilitation of stroke survivors. This instrument can be described as final effector without exoskeleton which allows functional motor therapy for fingers and also a motivational feedback. Amadeo therapy can be passive, assisted, active and also interactive. The aim of this thesis is to...

Quality-of-life and functional outcomes are important in the choice of treatment for men with localized prostate cancer. These issues were investigated in the present thesis. All living 400 men randomized to radical prostatectomy or watchful waiting from 1989 to 1999 in the Scandinavian Prostate Cancer Group Number 4 (SPCG-4) were included. An additional 281 men compromised an age-matched control group. Physical symptoms, symptom-induced stress, sense of well-being and self-assessed quality of life were evaluated by a study-specific questionnaire. Results showed that prostate cancer men, regardless if they were allocated to radical prostatectomy or watchful waiting were suffering of long term adverse effects, mainly erectile dysfunction, urinary leakage and voiding symptoms. In the prostatectomy group, erectile dysfunction and urinary leakage were often consequences of surgery; in the watchful waiting group the side-effects could be caused by tumor progression. The quality of life deteriorated over time. High self-assessed quality of life was reported by 35 % in the radical, 34 % in watchful-waiting, and 43 % in the control groups after a median follow-up time of 12.2 years. The SPCG-4 men significantly more often reported anxiety than did controls. Erectile dysfunction was associated with the most negative influence on quality of life in both SPCG-4 groups. Men in the prostatectomy group were more distressed by erectile dysfunction than watchful waiting. Androgen deprivation therapy had negative effects on all psychological parameters, including quality of life, for the watchful waiting but not for the prostatectomy group. Information about the prostate-cancer disease was significantly higher in the radical-prostatectomy group than in watchful waiting. Check-ups were associated with worry, especially for those on androgen deprivation therapy. Open radical prostatectomy led to an increased rate of inguinal hernia compared with robot-assisted technique. In conclusion, the data of this thesis emphasize that it takes more than a decade to understand the patterns of adverse effects and time dimension of their occurrence for each treatment. Consideration of quality of life has a high priority to aid the ageing man through the shifting scenarios of localized prostate cancer.

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In a regular classroom setting, a more emotionally expressive teacher has been shown to be positively correlated with learning outcomes and task motivation among the students. Would this also be the case if the teacher were a robot? This study investigates how the facial expressions of an anthropomorphic robot affect learning outcomes and task motivation in adult learners studying a second language by setting up an experiment using the Furhat robot. The same interactions were carried out by an experiment group and a control group. The results show no increase in performance in either learning outcomes or task performance. Future studies are suggested to investigate other potential factors of why robots outperform regular computers in these settings. / I ett vanligt klassrumssammanhang har det visats att lärare som visar känslouttryck har en positiv korrelation med läranderesultat och motivation hos studenterna. Skulle detta också vara fallet om läraren var en robot? Den här studien undersöker hur ansiktsuttrycken hos en människoliknande robot påverkar läranderesultat och motivation hos vuxna studenter som lär sig ett andraspråk genom ett experiment med roboten Furhat. Samma interaktioner genomfördes av både en experimentgrupp och en kontrollgrupp. Resultaten visar ingen ökning av varken läranderesultat eller motivation. Framtida studier föreslås att undersöka andra potentiella faktorer som bidrar till att robotar utpresterar människor i dessa sammanhang.

This dissertation presents the design of a novel joining-in-type humanoid robot-assisted language learning that uses two robots to conduct a goal-oriented conversation with the human learner to practice English as a second language. The system uses implicit learning as the main learning style to teach the usage of a specific expression form. A mix of tutoring and peer learning is implemented in the course of a three-party conversation. This learning style enables the learner to gain linguistic knowledge, and at the same time it improves the performance of the speech recognition engine. / 博士(工学) / Doctor of Philosophy in Engineering / 同志社大学 / Doshisha University

<div> <p><br></p> </div> Individuals with disabilities and persons operating in inaccessible environments can greatly benefit from the aid of robotic manipulators in performing activities of daily living (ADLs) and other remote tasks. Users relying on robotic manipulators to interact with their environment are restricted by the lack of sensory information available through traditional operator interfaces. These interfaces only allow visual task access and deprive users of somatosensory feedback that would be available through direct contact. Multimodal sensory feedback can bridge these perceptual gaps effectively. Given a set of object properties (e.g. temperature, weight) to be conveyed and sensory modalities (e.g. visual, haptic) available, it is necessary to determine which modality should be assigned to each property for an effective interface design. However, the effectiveness of assigning properties to modalities has varied with application and context. The goal of this study was to develop an effective multisensory interface for robot-assisted pouring tasks, which delivers nuanced sensory feedback while permitting high visual demand necessary for precise teleoperation. To that end, an optimization approach is employed to generate a combination of feedback properties to modality assignments that maximizes effective feedback perception and minimizes cognitive load. A set of screening experiments tested twelve possible individual assignments to form the combination. Resulting perceptual accuracy, load, and user preference measures were input into a cost function. Formulating and solving as a linear assignment problem, a minimum cost combination was generated. Results from experiments evaluating efficacy in practical use cases for pouring tasks indicate that the solution is significantly more effective than no feedback and has considerable advantage over an arbitrary design. <br>

Background: The best technique of radical prostatectomy – open retropubic versus robot-assisted surgery – is a subject of controversy. Patients and Methods: Between January 1st, 2007 and December 31st, 2011, 2,177 men underwent radical prostatectomy at our department. 252 (12%) cases were laparoscopic robot-assisted, the remainder open retropubic procedures. In Germany, certified prostate cancer centers are required to collect urinary tract-related outcome data after radical prostatectomy using the International Consultation of Incontinence Questionnaire Male Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms. The questionnaire data were used to compare both surgical approaches concerning the urinary tractrelated outcome 1, 2 and 3 years postoperatively. Results: Neither the voiding score nor the incontinence score or the bother scale sum differed between the two cohorts at any of the measurement times. Conclusions: Concerning continence recovery, in this series, there were no detectable differences between robot-assisted and open radical prostatectomy.

Title: Neuro Biomechanical principles in robot-assisted gait training for pediatric patients Background: There is a lack of data on how robot-assisted gait training (RAGT) contributes to gait changes in children with cerebral palsy (CP). Methods: This research study investigated efficacy of a 4-week RAGT intervention in twelve ambulatory spastic diparesis children with CP (10.8±2.6 years old; 2 girls and 10 boys; Gross Motor Function Classification System I-III) by using computerized gait analysis (CGA); passive joint range of motion (PROM); selective control assessment of lower limbs evaluation (SCALE), and the six-minute walk test (6MWT). Pre-post RAGT intervention data of children with CP was compared with the normative data curves of typically developing children by cross-correlation, and further statistically evaluated by a Wilcoxon test. Results: Significant pre-post RAGT intervention differences (p<0.05) that indicate more physiological gait comparing to the normative data curves were found. Biceps femoris, rectus femoris, and tibialis anterior decreased activity almost across all gait cycle phases. Medial gastrocnemius decreased activity mainly in terminal stance, mid-swing, and terminal swing phases. Internal hip rotations and foot progress angles decreased almost across all gait cycle...