ABSTRACT
Education is defined as the process of building an individual and eradicating illiteracy from society. Education is the main engine of the prosperity and development of civilizations. In addition, to being the center of measurement of growth and development of societies, all peoples care about it and seek to develop it. Given the difficult conditions that the world is going through due to the epidemic of Covid-19, the educational sector has a renewed interest in a humanoid social robot, to limit contact with the public and avoid overcrowding in schools and keep pace with education despite the pandemic. This paper aims to propose an interactive tutoring environment, using an assisting humanoid robot to support the teaching and learning process in the classroom. Statistics indicate that the use of educational robots has seen a notable evolution recently, more than 85.70% of teachers have been using robots in the classroom for less than 5 years. The teaching humanoid robot assistant can catch student’s attention, then help teachers improve the way they present their courses and manage their classes. In this work, we represent the main activities that a teacher does to invade the classroom to have a good session with his students. All these activities represent knowledge level tasks for the teacher, while for our humanoid robot assistant, we have defined its tasks that represent primitive level tasks, and we have chained these tasks to give a generic knowledge model that allows defining a knowledge level task for the teacher from a composition of primitives tasks of the assistant humanoid robot in the teaching act. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
ABSTRACT
A 68-year-old man was referred to the general surgeons on account of his abdominal pain of unknown cause. He had contracted COVID-19, 9 days prior. CT chest abdomen and pelvis revealed an extensive thrombus extending from the portal vein to the superior mesenteric vein. Further investigation ruled out haematological causes, and COVID-19 was determined to be the cause. He was treated with an extended course of therapeutic dose low molecular weight heparin under the guidance of the haematology team. He was discharged once he was clinically stable and pain-free, with a plan to be followed up by both the surgeons and haematologists. This case highlights the different ways in which COVID-19 presents, and the need for clearer guidance on the treatment and prevention of thromboembolism in COVID-19.
ABSTRACT
Introduction Erectile dysfunction (ED) is usually a symptom of another medical condition. People with poor overall health are more likely to develop severe form of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and may have unwanted symptoms such as ED. COVID-19-related stress, anxiety, and depression can also impact sexual health and possibly lead to ED. There are various treatment options for patients with ED. However, real-world evidence of the impact of COVID-19 on the treatment and comorbidities of patients with ED is limited. Objectives To estimate the impact of COVID-19 on the treatment and comorbidities of patients with ED in the United States. Methods This retrospective real-world data (RWD) analysis used the IQVIA PharMetrics® Plus claims database, which is a patient-Centric, closed claims database of fully adjudicated pharmacy, hospital and medical claims anonymized at the patient level, that captures the complete patient journey for all services billed to and covered by the patient's health plan. We compared the ED treatment and comorbidities in adult males aged 18+ years with ED in the same 3-month periods before (01March - 31May, 2019) and during (01March – 31May, 2020) the COVID-19 pandemic. ED treatment included any ED-related claims, prescriptions of any and individual phosphodiesterase-5 inhibitor (PDE5i) medications (avanafil, sildenafil, tadalafil and vardenafil). Results See the table below for number of patients having ED-related claims, having any and individual PDE5i prescriptions, number of patients with COVID-19 diagnosis, and percentage of patients with each of the top 10 comorbidities, in the 3-month periods before and during COVID-19. Conclusions RWD showed that ED-related claims significantly decreased during the COVID-19 pandemic, reflecting the pandemic's impact on ED patients’ health. However, the use of PDE5i medications remained stable during the pandemic. Key comorbidities including hypertension, hyperlipidemia, type 2 diabetes mellitus, benign prostatic hyperplasia with lower urinary tract symptoms, testicular hypofunction, and malignant neoplasm of the prostate, during the pandemic, compared with pre-pandemic period, highlighted the impact of the pandemic on ED patients’ health and need for managing their other comorbid chronic diseases. Disclosure Work supported by industry: yes, by Viatris. A consultant, employee (part time or full time) or shareholder is among the authors (Viatris).