Recent publications have suggested that high-resolution cervical auscultation (HRCA) signals may provide an alternative non-invasive option for swallowing assessment. However, the relationship between hyoid bone displacement, a key component to safe swallowing, and HRCA signals is not thoroughly understood. Therefore, in this work we investigated the hypothesis that a strong relationship exists between hyoid displacement and HRCA signals. Videofuoroscopy data was collected for 129 swallows, simultaneously with vibratory/acoustic signals. Horizontal, vertical and hypotenuse displacements of the hyoid bone were measured through manual expert analysis of videofluoroscopy images. Our results showed that the vertical displacement of both the anterior and posterior landmarks of the hyoid bone was strongly associated with the Lempel-Ziv complexity of superior-inferior and anterior-posterior vibrations from HRCA signals. Horizontal and hypotenuse displacements of the posterior aspect of the hyoid bone were strongly associated with the standard deviation of swallowing sounds. Medial-Lateral vibrations and patient characteristics such as age, sex, and history of stroke were not significantly associated with the hyoid bone displacement. The results imply that some vibratory/acoustic features extracted from HRCA recordings can provide information about the magnitude and direction of hyoid bone displacement. These results provide additional support for using HRCA as a non-invasive tool to assess physiological aspects of swallowing such as the hyoid bone displacement.

The treatment of several solid and hematologic malignancies with immune checkpoint inhibitors (against PD-1/PD-L1) has dramatically changed the cancer treatment paradigm. However, no checkpoint inhibitors were previously approved for the treatment of triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), a difficult-to-treat disease with a high unmet therapeutic need. Based on IMpassion130 clinical trial (NCT02425891), FDA has recently granted an accelerated approval for atezolizumab (TECENTRIQ®), a monoclonal antibody drug targeting PD-L1, plus chemotherapy (Abraxane; nab®-Paclitaxel) for the treatment of adults with PD-L1-positive, unresectable, locally advanced or metastatic TNBC. FDA has also approved the Ventana diagnostic antibody SP142 as a companion test for selecting TNBC patients for treatment with atezolizumab. In the present review, we briefly discuss the importance of this breakthrough as the first cancer immunotherapy regimen to be approved for the management of breast cancer.

Background: The physical education of students who have a deviation in their state of health requires a joint effort from teachers and doctors. Aim: The aim of the study was to substantiate the necessity of swimming classes as an effective means of physical rehabilitation in students with health disorders within the physical education curriculum classes. Methods: Students with low-level somatic health (54 students) were grouped into the Basic Group (BG, 27 students) and the Control Group (CG, 27 students). The Basic Group students were offered special swimming classes aimed at their physical rehabilitation. At the beginning of the study and after 24 training classes the authors assessed the somatic health, physical and mental endurance, and adaptation abilities of the autonomic nervous system. Results: Implementation of the method into the curriculum of the BG students resulted in a significant improvement (by 48.1%) of their somatic health. A reliable re-distribution of the students with “poor” and “lower than average” somatic health to the “average” and “higher than average” health group was noted (p < 0.05). The students’ physical characteristics improved by 36.4%. Conclusion: The conducted research proved the necessity of using sectional swimming activities as a means of physical rehabilitation of students with low health.

Objectives To describe and explore differences in formal regulations around sick leave and work disability (WD) for patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), as well as perceptions by rheumatologists and patients on the system’s performance, across European countries. Methods We conducted three cross-sectional surveys in 50 European countries: one on work (re-)integration and social security (SS) system arrangements in case of sick leave and long-term WD due to RA (one rheumatologist per country), and two among approximately 15 rheumatologists and 15 patients per country on perceptions regarding SS arrangements on work participation. Differences in regulations and perceptions were compared across categories defined by gross domestic product (GDP), type of social welfare regime, European Union (EU) membership and country RA WD rates. Results Forty-four (88%) countries provided data on regulations, 33 (75%) on perceptions of rheumatologists (n=539) and 34 (77%) on perceptions of patients (n=719). While large variation was observed across all regulations across countries, no relationship was found between most of regulations or income compensation and GDP, type of SS system or rates of WD. Regarding perceptions, rheumatologists in high GDP and EU-member countries felt less confident in their role in the decision process towards WD (β=−0.5 (95% CI −0.9 to −0.2) and β=−0.5 (95% CI −1.0 to −0.1), respectively). The Scandinavian and Bismarckian system scored best on patients’ and rheumatologists’ perceptions of regulations and system performance. Conclusions There is large heterogeneity in rules and regulations of SS systems across Europe in relation to WD of patients with RA, and it cannot be explained by existing welfare regimes, EU membership or country’s wealth.

Regarding interventions for SGMY, this review identified 9 interventions for mental health, 2 for substance use, and 1 for violence victimization. CONTEXT: Compared with cisgender (nontransgender), heterosexual youth, sexual and gender minority youth (SGMY) experience great inequities in substance use, mental health problems, and violence victimization, thereby making them a priority population for interventions. OBJECTIVE: To systematically review interventions and their effectiveness in preventing or reducing substance use, mental health problems, and violence victimization among SGMY. DATA SOURCES: PubMed, PsycINFO, and Education Resources Information Center. STUDY SELECTION: Selected studies were published from January 2000 to 2019, included randomized and nonrandomized designs with pretest and posttest data, and assessed substance use, mental health problems, or violence victimization outcomes among SGMY. DATA EXTRACTION: Data extracted were intervention descriptions, sample details, measurements, results, and methodologic rigor. RESULTS: With this review, we identified 9 interventions for mental health, 2 for substance use, and 1 for violence victimization. One SGMY-inclusive intervention examined coordinated mental health services. Five sexual minority–specific interventions included multiple state-level policy interventions, a therapist-administered family-based intervention, a computer-based intervention, and an online intervention. Three gender minority–specific interventions included transition-related gender-affirming care interventions. All interventions improved mental health outcomes, 2 reduced substance use, and 1 reduced bullying victimization. One study had strong methodologic quality, but the remaining studies’ results must be interpreted cautiously because of suboptimal methodologic quality. LIMITATIONS: There exists a small collection of diverse interventions for reducing substance use, mental health problems, and violence victimization among SGMY. CONCLUSIONS: The dearth of interventions identified in this review is likely insufficient to mitigate the substantial inequities in substance use, mental health problems, and violence among SGMY.

Welcome to this year’s third issue of the ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction. We are excited to bring you five outstanding articles on a wide range of topics that showcase the diversity of the field of HRI, from legal and normative concerns, to robot learning, and the design of multimodal behaviors for interactive robots. Sarathy, Arnold, and Scheutz open up the issue with a thought-provoking exploration of how existing legal notions of consent can be applied to everyday HRI scenarios and applications, such as concerns that may emerge when robotic vacuum cleaners or waiters approach a person or when robots seek to manipulate objects in people’s environments as they assist them. The next two articles present innovative approaches to robot learning. Doering et al. combine data-driven offline learning with curiosity-driven online learning from HRI with a robotic shopkeeper to allow for on-the-fly adaptation to individual users, which they show can improve user experiences of the interaction. Oguz et al. describe an ontology of human-human interaction scenarios for one-on-one collaborative interactions in close proximity, which they apply to the development of behavioral policies for interactive robots using imitation learning. The final two articles consider the design and analysis of multimodal interactive behaviors and cues for robots. Thibault et al. present a new analytical framework for studying multimodal HRI in the context of different timescales of human action, from a few milliseconds to weeks or decades, and ways to make connections between them in user evaluations of HRI. Karreman et al. investigate how to design multimodal interaction behavior for non-humanoid robots. Their online and field studies with a museum guide robot suggest that, for non-humanoid robots, designing behaviors based on robot-optimized capabilities can lead to improved user experience when compared to simply imitating behaviors gleaned from human-human interaction models. The articles in this issue open up a wide set of options for the development and evaluation of human-robot interaction from ethical, technical, and design perspectives. We hope that reading this issue will provide you with inspiration for your own future studies and also motivate you to submit your newest work for consideration for inclusion in next year’s ACM THRI. We look forward to hearing from you!

For investment decisions to be made in tourism sector, it is necessary to determine tourism potential on the first place. Tourism potential is the ability of a particular location to attract and host tourists. Tourism development should be based on strengthening sustainability, and thus tourism will provide good effects. Since rural settlements have experienced recession in the past few decades, these areas need to be revitalized. This can be achieved through development of rural tourism. Sustainability of rural tourism potential in Brcko District of Bosnia and Herzegovina is in focus of this study. Based on sustainability criteria, we assessed the rural potential in Brcko District of Bosnia and Herzegovina for certain rural settlements. Assessment of the sustainability of rural tourism potential in Brcko District of Bosnia and Herzegovina was carried out with expert evaluation and used methods of FUCOM, ARAS and CRITIC, and a decision model will be created for this purpose. The findings from this study will provide guidelines for improvement of rural tourism in Brcko District of Bosnia and Herzegovina through examination of good and bad sides of the examined rural settlements. The model with certain corrections can also be used in determining sustainable tourism potential in other branches of tourism.

BINDING AND THEIR ANTIBACTERIAL EFFECT Eder, Markus (University of Graz, Graz, AUT); Dordic, Andela (University of Graz, Graz, AUT); Sagmeister, Theo (University of Graz, Graz, AUT); Damisch, Elisabeth (University of Graz, Graz, AUT); Vejzovic, Djenana (University of Graz, Graz, AUT); Berni, Francesca (Leiden University, Leiden); Codee, Jeroen (Leiden University, Leiden); Palva, Airi (University of Helsinki, Helsinki); Vonck, Janet (Max-Planck-Institut für Biophysik, Frankfurt am Main, GER); Oberer, Monika (University of Graz, 8010, AUT); Pavkov-Keller, Tea (University of Graz, 8010, AUT)

This paper presents a novel localization method for electric vehicles (EVs) charging through wireless power transmission (WPT). With the proposed technique, the wireless charging system can self-determine the most efficient coil to transmit power at the EV’s position based on the sensors activated by its wheels. To ensure optimal charging, our approach involves measurement of the transfer efficiency of individual transmission coil to determine the most efficient one to be used. This not only improves the charging performance but also minimizes energy losses by autonomously activating only the coils with the highest transfer efficiencies. The results show that with the proposed system, it is possible to detect the coil with maximum transmitting efficiency without the use of actual power transmission and comparison of the measured efficiency. This paper also proves that with the proposed charger set-up, the position of the receiver coil can be detected almost instantly, which indeed saves energy and boosts the charging time.

This article critiques key proposals of the United Kingdom’s “Online Harms” White Paper; in particular, the proposal for new digital regulator and the imposition of a “duty of care” on platforms. While acknowledging that a duty of care, backed up by sanctions works well in some environments, we argue is not appropriate for policing the White Paper’s identified harms as it could result in the blocking of legal, subjectively harmful content. Furthermore, the proposed regulator lacks the necessary independence and could be subjected to political interference. We conclude that the imposition of a duty of care will result in an unacceptable chilling effect on free expression, resulting in a draconian regulatory environment for platforms, with users’ digital rights adversely affected.