Politecnica Salesiana University

About: Politecnica Salesiana University is a education organization based out in Cuenca, Ecuador. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Computer science & Population. The organization has 2102 authors who have published 1847 publications receiving 7665 citations.

An educational platform based on expert systems, speech recognition, and ludic activities to support the lexical and semantic development in children from 2 to 3 years

Abstract: The language and communication are considered mainstays of cognitive, psychological and emotional development of children. Commonly, during the first four years of life, children make significant progress in learning the language. However, in some cases, there arise delays or differences in patterns of language acquisition, aspects that constitute warnings of developmental problems. For these reasons, in this paper, we describe an educational platform (Pike-Aprende) aimed at supporting the following aspects: a) planning, monitoring, and intervention activities in children (carried out by teachers and Speech and Language Therapists, SLTs), b) automatic design of therapy/stimulation plans for children, and c) supporting the analysis/discrimination of utterances produced by children during sessions. To this aim, we developed a set of tools for web and mobile devices, an expert system for recommending exercises and activities (based on the patient’s profile). With the aim of determining the real feasibility of our proposal, we validated the platform with the support of experts in the initial education program. The experts used the system while developed therapy and stimulation sessions with children. The results show significant progress in several participants (in comparison to traditional therapy).

A Robotic Lower-Limb Exoskeleton for Rehabilitation

Abstract: The use of robotic lower-limb exoskeletons for rehabilitation of individuals with motor impairments is currently a tendency in several research groups, as they can be used to improve therapies in many applications in the field of physiotherapy. The main reasons are that they are safe, allow accurately controlling the range of movement of the individual’s lower-limbs, and can vary their speed and torque to make the movements, according to physiotherapist instructions. This work introduces the exoskeleton ALLOR (Advanced Lower Limb Orthoses for Rehabilitation), which was developed at UFES/Brazil, and presents an experimental protocol to be applied to rehabilitation of individuals with motor impairments. The proposed protocol is progressive and explores the different control strategies implemented in ALLOR: passive, mobilization, assisted, active and resisted, which are suitable for individual’s rehabilitation in three scenarios addressed in this work: stroke, total knee arthroplasty, and anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction. Clinical and functional parameters are also proposed to assess improvements in motion characteristics and its impact over general quality of life, locomotion and pain in the individuals.

Development of a Hand Rehabilitation Therapy System with Soft Robotic Glove

Abstract: The major cause of problems with hand motility in adults is due to work accidents, strokes, injuries and work accidents. The emergence of robotic gloves for hand rehabilitation therapy has been developed to assist with rehabilitation treatment. In this scientific paper, a robotic glove prosthesis is designed and developed for use in hand rehabilitation in patients with grip pathologies. There is talk of mechanical design and operation, and the glove is controlled by a mobile application that allows the physiotherapist to enter the settings for the patient or allow an expert system based on 15 rules to do so. The system is capable of generating reports for the patient, the physiotherapist or the caregiver to review. The developed system is portable, lightweight and easy to transport. The validation of the prototype was carried out with adult patients suffering from hemiparesis.

Kinematic validation of a lower limb exoeskeleton using computer simulation

Abstract: The following article shows the validation of the mechanical design of a lower limb exoskeleton that will give gait support. System was designed based on anthropometrics and human biomechanics characteristics of a specific population, in this case the city of Cuenca – Ecuador, having a configurable dimension range that allows the possibility for user’s better adaptation. The exoskeleton offers active assistance on sagittal plane for hip and knee articulations, meanwhile, provides passive tracing of movement on longitudinal and frontal planes for ankle and hip articulations, reaching twelve degrees of freedom. A gait pattern was experimentally characterized for a study group, obtaining trajectory curves of leg articulations, these curves were numerical validated with the cited studies. Having defined the gait pattern that must be developed by the exoskeleton, a kinematic analysis was made in order to verify system capability to execute all the movements on required ranges without restrict users gait cycle. Using diverse engineering software, a comparison between the pattern curves and the ones generated on proposed design simulation was developed, presenting similarity percentages above 90%, added to mechanical analysis of the system allows to validate the proposed design.

Determinación microbiológica y molecular mediante PCR en tiempo real de dos bacterias del género Bacillus de interés agro biotecnológico

Abstract: Using the Real time PCR technique, which is more sensitive, specific and faster than conventional techniques, molecular detection of two bacteria of the genus Bacillus corresponding to B. licheniformis and B. megaterium has been achieved by analyzing specific regions. To reach the aims, microbiological and statistical analyzes were carried out using growth curves with ANOVA and Tukey to determine the significant difference (p˂0.001) and to evaluate the microbial behavior of the proposed variables. In the factorial analysis for the variable "temperature" there was no significant difference between the strains and neither with the fixed values (28, 32, 37 °C), the variable "pH" if it presented an interaction with values (p<0.0001) between strains; the variable "salinity" also showed significant difference between strains and their respective interactions. In the analysis of the area under the curve, the variable "temperature" showed no significant difference, while the variable "pH and salinity" showed values corresponding to (p<0.0001). For the molecular identification, the presence or absence of the strains of interest was determined by means of the amplification curve, confirming that the BM strain corresponds to Bacillus megaterium through the analysis of the phaC gene, as well as confirming that the BL strain corresponds to Bacillus licheniformis when analyzing the lchAA gene.