2 research outputs found
Spread of a SARS-CoV-2 variant through Europe in the summer of 2020.
Get PDFFollowing its emergence in late 2019, the spread of SARS-CoV-21,2 has been tracked by phylogenetic analysis of viral genome sequences in unprecedented detail3–5. Although the virus spread globally in early 2020 before borders closed, intercontinental travel has since been greatly reduced. However, travel within Europe resumed in the summer of 2020. Here we report on a SARS-CoV-2 variant, 20E (EU1), that was identified in Spain in early summer 2020 and subsequently spread across Europe. We find no evidence that this variant has increased transmissibility, but instead demonstrate how rising incidence in Spain, resumption of travel, and lack of effective screening and containment may explain the variant’s success. Despite travel restrictions, we estimate that 20E (EU1) was introduced hundreds of times to European countries by summertime travellers, which is likely to have undermined local efforts to minimize infection with SARS-CoV-2. Our results illustrate how a variant can rapidly become dominant even in the absence of a substantial transmission advantage in favourable epidemiological settings. Genomic surveillance is critical for understanding how travel can affect transmission of SARS-CoV-2, and thus for informing future containment strategies as travel resumes. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited
KERO-Playable Robotic Platform to Contribute to Non-verbal Communication Teaching in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder
Get PDFThis work presents the design and construction of a recreational platform named KERO, which is oriented to the development of non-verbal communication skills in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) levels 1 and 2, between ages of 4 and 7 years old. The development of a friendly-looking robot with head and upper limbs movement is presented, which can perform 8 gestures such as: Cry, happy, Affirm, Deny, Say Hello, Exclaim, Quiet, Aim. KERO is a social robot that interacts with children with ASD through the usage of an intuitive interface. This interface allows proper interaction with the robot. In this interface, two games were developed to complement the robot-children interaction and increase their cognitive abilities by observing improvements in his/her attention, perception, memory, and problem-solving. The tests were validated under two different scenarios, preliminary and field tests, involving psychopedagogues, initial education students, therapists and children with ASD. Tests were carried out in a different number of sessions for each child. Each patient with ASD showed a different degree of social interaction with the KERO playable kit; their therapists evaluated this interaction during all sessions. At the end of the sessions with the patients, an improvement of 45% in recognition of gestures and 23.06% in the execution time of the memory game could be observed
