The Impacts of Human-Cobot Collaboration on Perceived Cognitive Load and Usability during an Industrial Task: An Exploratory Experiment.

OCCUPATIONAL APPLICATIONSSince cobots (collaborative robots) are increasingly being introduced in industrial environments, being aware of their potential positive and negative impacts on human collaborators is essential. This study guides occupational health workers by identifying the potential gains (reduced perceived time demand, number of gestures and number of errors) and concerns (the cobot takes a long time to perceive its environment, which leads to an increased completion time) associated with working with cobots. In our study, the collaboration between human and cobot during an assembly task did not negatively impact perceived cognitive load, increased completion time (but decreased perceived time demand), and decreased the number of gestures performed by participants and the number of errors made.

Noncardiac surgery brain injury: etiologic factors and prevention.

EXCERPT: During total joint arthroplasty, showers of bony spicules, marrow fat, and clot are carried by venous blood to the lungs, creating conditions not unlike those present in patients who have suffered traumatic long bone fractures. There is recent evidence that, like the fat embolism syndrome (FES), which often has a component of neurologic dysfunction, total joint arthroplasty and femoral nailing are associated with intraoperative brain embolization as determined by transcranial Doppler ultrasonography, and magnetic resonance brain imaging. Although there are good data demonstrating that intraoperative brain embolization occurs during total joint arthroplasties, the makeup and, even more importantly, the clinical significance of these emboli remain speculative.

Results of periprosthetic hip and knee infections caused by resistant bacteria.

Seventy patients with deep periprosthetic hip or knee infections were treated between May 1997 and March 2001. Thirty-five patients had periprosthetic infections of their total hip arthroplasties and 35 patients had periprosthetic infections of their total knee arthroplasties. The patients were subdivided into two subgroups: patients who had infections with Staphylococcal bacterial strains that were sensitive to methicillin and patients who had infections with bacteria that were resistant to methicillin (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus epidermidis).