Incorporating multimodal feedback in automated cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) training systems has emerged as a crucial advancement in medical education, aiming to improve the quality and efficacy of CPR performance. This work presents an extensive and technical literature search on automated training CPR systems, specifically focusing on the feedback modality they provide during training sessions. We completed the search in the IEEE, ACM, Springer, SAGE, Elsevier, MDPI, Scholar, and Scopus databases between 2015 and 2025 (August) using the keywords “CPR,” “Virtual Reality (VR),” “Augmented Reality (AR),” “feedback,” and “training.” We categorized our findings based on the type of feedback provided (i.e., visual, audio, haptic, or a combination of these), the display type used to render the feedback, the technology used to monitor the trainee’s performance, and the type of manikin used. We conclude with recommendations for future research.

Soft growing robots mimic plant-like growth to navigate complex environments thanks to their specific actuation and material. This class of robots can also be used for manipulation tasks. While manufacturing these robots for specific tasks, it is crucial to carefully design their length and placement of joints. In this work, we extend our state-of-the-art optimizer for planar soft growing manipulators design, which retrieves the optimal robot dimensions for a specific given task. While the first version of the optimizer only considered a base case (where targets were only points in space), in this work, we implement five target handling modalities based on real-case manipulation scenarios. Specifically, targets are treated as obstacles and, as such, occupy space in the environment. Depending on the modality, the way these targets are handled can change. Results show that with this extension, the optimizer can tackle different manipulation cases correctly.

Robotic exoskeletons can enhance human strength and aid people with physical disabilities. However, designing them to ensure safety and optimal performance presents significant challenges. Developing exoskeletons should incorporate specific optimization algorithms to find the best design. This study investigates the potential of Evolutionary Computation (EC) methods in robotic design optimization, with an underactuated hand exoskeleton (U-HEx) used as a case study. We propose improving the performance and usability of the U-HEx design, which was initially optimized using a naive brute-force approach, by integrating EC techniques such as Genetic Algorithm and Big Bang-Big Crunch Algorithm. Comparative analysis revealed that EC methods consistently yield more precise and optimal solutions than brute force in a significantly shorter time. This allowed us to improve the optimization by increasing the number of variables in the design, which was impossible with naive methods. The results show significant improvements in terms of the torque magnitude the device transfers to the user, enhancing its efficiency. These findings underline the importance of performing proper optimization while designing exoskeletons, as well as providing a significant improvement to this specific robotic design.

The rapid integration of digital technologies into physical systems has given rise to cyber-physical systems, where the interaction between the computational and physical components plays a crucial role. This study explores optimal decision-making in event detection and transmission scheduling within cyber-physical systems, emphasizing the crucial aspect of efficient decision-making. We consider the problem of monitoring and reporting about a single event taking place within a finite time window achieving a reward related to the timeliness of the status update. Thus, the objective corresponds to minimizing the age of information between the instant of the event x and the status update time t, with a further penalty for a missed event. The monitoring apparatus decides when to perform the status update without knowing the value of x, but only knowing its statistical distribution. We assume a triangular probability density function for the instant of the event taking place, with a variable average. We provide an analytical derivation of the optimal choice of the status update, highlighting interesting trends, such as the saturation in the value of t as x grows close to the limit of the observation window. This proposed problem and its analytical formalization may serve as a further foundation for the general analysis of optimal monitoring of cyber-physical systems.

Robot-assisted rehabilitation often makes use of virtual environments to present the therapy tasks. Virtual reality has the ability of providing valuable visual feedback and enjoyable interaction to the patients; therefore, the way they are displayed to users becomes crucial. Is the monitor size an important feature that influences how the task is perceived and thus affects patients’ performance?This study on healthy participants investigates the influence of displays in perceiving haptic effects. The participants performed an experiment using an end-effector robot, where they followed a moving target around a trajectory while disturbed by a simulated perturbation and assisted by an adaptive algorithm. The experiment was presented on two different monitors to assess whether a different size affects their performance. Statistically significant results show that the performance achieved with the large monitor features lower error compared to the small monitor, implying that large monitors might be a better solution for rehabilitation with virtual tasks and assistive robots.

Soft robot serial chain manipulators with the capability for growth, stiffness control, and discrete joints have the potential to approach the dexterity of traditional robot arms, while improving safety, lowering cost, and providing an increased workspace, with potential application in home environments. This paper presents an approach for design optimization of such robots to reach specified targets while minimizing the number of discrete joints and thus construction and actuation costs. We define a maximum number of allowable joints, as well as hardware constraints imposed by the materials and actuation available for soft growing robots, and we formulate and solve an optimization problem to output a planar robot design, i.e., the total number of potential joints and their locations along the robot body, which reaches all the desired targets, avoids known obstacles, and maximizes the workspace. We demonstrate a process to rapidly construct the resulting soft growing robot design. Finally, we use our algorithm to evaluate the ability of this design to reach new targets and demonstrate the algorithm's utility as a design tool to explore robot capabilities given various constraints and objectives.

Soft growing robots are proposed for use in applications such as complex manipulation tasks or navigation in disaster scenarios. Safe interaction and ease of production promote the usage of this technology, but soft robots can be challenging to teleoperate due to their unique degrees of freedom. In this paper, we propose a human-centered interface that allows users to teleoperate a soft growing robot for manipulation tasks using arm movements. A study was conducted to assess the intuitiveness of the interface and the performance of our soft robot, involving a pick-and-place manipulation task. The results show that users were able to complete the task 97% of the time and achieve placement errors below 2 cm on average. These results demonstrate that our body-movement-based interface is an effective method for control of a soft growing robot manipulator.

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is a first-aid key survival technique used to stimulate breathing and keep blood flowing to the heart. Its effective administration can significantly increase the chances of survival in victims of cardiac arrest. In this paper, we propose a markerless system for quality CPR training based on RGB-D (RGB + Depth) sensors, called RELIVE. Then, we report the results of a series of experimental tests conducted to evaluate RELIVE tracking performance. The proposed system is able to accurately track the 3-D position of the hands performing CPR by means of RGB-D sensors to estimate the chest compression rate and depth, providing a real-time visual/audio feedback about the rescuer's performance. Finally, the system usability has been assessed by both healthcare professionals and lay people.

Falls are one of the major risks of injury for elderly living alone at home. Computer vision-based systems offer a new, low-cost and promising solution for fall detection. This paper presents a new fall-detection tool, based on a commercial RGB-D camera. The proposed system is capable of accurately detecting several types of falls, performing a real time algorithm in order to determine whether a fall has occurred. The proposed approach is based on evaluating the contraction and the expansion speed of the width, height and depth of the 3D human bounding box, as well as its position in the space. Our solution requires no pre-knowledge of the scene (i.e. the recognition of the floor in the virtual environment) with the only constraint about the knowledge of the RGB-D camera position in the room. Moreover, the proposed approach is able to avoid false positive as: sitting, lying down, retrieve something from the floor. Experimental results qualitatively and quantitatively show the quality of the proposed approach in terms of both robustness and background and speed independence.

BACKGROUND: Expressed sequences (e.g. ESTs) are a strong source of evidence to improve gene structures and predict reliable alternative splicing events. When a genome assembly is available, ESTs are suitable to generate gene-oriented clusters through the well-established EasyCluster software. Nowadays, EST-like sequences can be massively produced using Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) technologies. In order to handle genome-scale transcriptome data, we present here EasyCluster2, a reimplementation of EasyCluster able to speed up the creation of gene-oriented clusters and facilitate downstream analyses as the assembly of full-length transcripts and the detection of splicing isoforms. RESULTS: EasyCluster2 has been developed to facilitate the genome-based clustering of EST-like sequences generated through the NGS 454 technology. Reads mapped onto the reference genome can be uploaded using the standard GFF3 file format. Alignment parsing is initially performed to produce a first collection of pseudo-clusters by grouping reads according to the overlap of their genomic coordinates on the same strand. EasyCluster2 then refines read grouping by including in each cluster only reads sharing at least one splice site and optionally performs a Smith-Waterman alignment in the region surrounding splice sites in order to correct for potential alignment errors. In addition, EasyCluster2 can include unspliced reads, which generally account for >50% of 454 datasets, and collapses overlapping clusters. Finally, EasyCluster2 can assemble full-length transcripts using a Directed-Acyclic-Graph-based strategy, simplifying the identification of alternative splicing isoforms, thanks also to the implementation of the widespread AStalavista methodology. Accuracy and performances have been tested on real as well as simulated datasets. CONCLUSIONS: EasyCluster2 represents a unique tool to cluster and assemble transcriptome reads produced with 454 technology, as well as ESTs and full-length transcripts. The clustering procedure is enhanced with the employment of genome annotations and unspliced reads. Overall, EasyCluster2 is able to perform an effective detection of splicing isoforms, since it can refine exon-exon junctions and explore alternative splicing without known reference transcripts. Results in GFF3 format can be browsed in the UCSC Genome Browser. Therefore, EasyCluster2 is a powerful tool to generate reliable clusters for gene expression studies, facilitating the analysis also to researchers not skilled in bioinformatics.