Important Role Research Articles

Occurrence and diversity of Listeria monocytogenes in Portuguese dairy farms

Listeria monocytogenes is a pathogenic microorganism that causes listeriosis, an infection that usually occurs after consumption of contaminated food and is considered particularly dangerous due to its ability to grow and multiply under adverse conditions. In recent years, there has been an increase in the consumption of unprocessed products, such as raw milk and dairy products, by people of all ages, including those with compromised immune systems, which could lead to an increase in foodborne illness. Ruminants play a very important role in the persistence and transmission of L. monocytogenes through a continuous oral-faecal cycle. Therefore, farms are considered a reservoir of this microorganism and are involved in the transmission from animals to humans. In this study, samples of faeces, milk, water, silage, feed and teat cups swabs were collected from 8 farms to assess the distribution of the pathogen in the farm environment. Milk samples were also collected from 100 dairy farms to assess the risk associated with the consumption of raw milk. Detection was performed by real-time PCR, while preparation, enrichment and confirmation were performed according to ISO 11290–1, (2017). The prevalence in water was 8.3%, in faeces 12.5% and in feed 12.0%, while in the other samples the microorganism was not detected. It was also observed that this microorganism was more abundant in spring months. The eight isolates were serotyped by real-time PCR and the most frequent serogroup was IVb with 5 isolates (2 of which were IVb-v1) and the remaining 3 were IIb. Two of the clonal complexes (CCs) identified were shared by two isolates (CC 213 and CC 217), the remaining CCs identified (CC 392, CC 554, CC 489, CC 224 and CC 183) were not identified in more than one isolate. This study contributed to a better understanding of the ecology of L. monocytogenes in dairy farms, showing that most of the clones found in food were not present in this environment and that genes coding for disinfectants and heavy metals were not detected.

Mitofusin 2 plays a critical role in maintaining the functional integrity of the neuromuscular-skeletal axis

PurposeMitofusin 2 (Mfn2) is one of two mitofusins involved in regulating mitochondrial size, shape and function, including mitophagy, an important cellular mechanism to limit oxidative stress. Reduced expression of Mfn2 has been associated with impaired osteoblast differentiation and function and a reduction in the number of viable osteocytes in bone. We hypothesized that the genetic absence of Mfn2 in these cells would increase their susceptibility to aging-associated metabolic stress, leading to a progressive impairment in skeletal homeostasis over time. MethodsMfn2 was selectively deleted in vivo at three different stages of osteoblast lineage commitment by crossing mice in which the Mfn2 gene was floxed with transgenic mice expressing Cre under the control of the promoter for Osterix (OSX), collagen1a1, or DMP1 (Dentin Matrix Acidic Phosphoprotein 1). ResultsMice in which Mfn2 was deleted using DMP1-cre demonstrated a progressive and dramatic decline in bone mineral density (BMD) beginning at 10 weeks of age (n = 5 for each sex and each genotype from age 10 to 20 weeks). By 15 weeks, there was evidence for a functional decline in muscle performance as assessed using a rotarod apparatus (n = 3; 2 males/ 1 female for each genotype), accompanied by a decline in lean body mass. A marked reduction in trabecular bone mass was evident on bone histomorphometry, and biomechanical testing at 25 weeks (k/o: 2 male/1 female, control 2 male/2 female) revealed severely impaired femur strength. Extensive regional myofiber atrophy and degeneration was observed on skeletal muscle histology. Electron microscopy showed progressive disruption of cellular architecture, with disorganized sarcomeres and a bloated mitochondrial reticulum. There was also evidence of neurodegeneration within the ventral horn and roots of the lumbar spinal cord, which was accompanied by myelin loss and myofiber atrophy. Deletion of Mfn2 using OSX-cre or Col1a1-cre did not result in a musculoskeletal phenotype. Where possible, male and female animals were analyzed separately, but small numbers of animals in each group limited statistical power. For other outcomes, where sex was not considered, small sample sizes might still limit the strength of the observation. ConclusionDespite known functional overlap of Mfn1 and Mfn2 in some tissues, and their co-expression in bone, muscle and spinal cord, deletion of Mfn2 using the 8 kB DMP1 promoter uncovered an important non-redundant role for Mfn2 in maintaining the neuromuscular/bone axis.

SLC25A3 negatively regulates NLRP3 inflammasome activation by restricting the function of NLRP3

The NACHT, leucine-rich repeat, and pyrin domains-containing protein 3 (collectively known as NLRP3) inflammasome activation plays a critical role in innate immune and pathogenic microorganism infections. However, excessive activation of NLRP3 inflammasome will lead to cellular inflammation and tissue damage, and naturally it must be precisely controlled in the host. Here, we discovered that solute carrier family 25 member 3 (SLC25A3), a mitochondrial phosphate carrier protein, plays an important role in negatively regulating NLRP3 inflammasome activation. We found that SLC25A3 could interact with NLRP3, overexpression of SLC25A3 and knockdown of SLC25A3 could regulate NLRP3 inflammasome activation, and the interaction of NLRP3 and SLC25A3 is significantly boosted in the mitochondria when the NLRP3 inflammasome is activated. Our detailed investigation demonstrated that the interaction between NLRP3 and SLC25A3 disrupted the interaction of NLRP3-NEK7, promoted ubiquitination of NLRP3, and negatively regulated NLRP3 inflammasome activation. Thus, these findings uncovered a new regulatory mechanism of NLRP3 inflammasome activation, which provides a new perspective for the therapy of NLRP3 inflammasome-associated inflammatory diseases.

The role of maternal emotional expressivity in maternal marital satisfaction and adolescents' depressive symptoms among Chinese families: Moderated by family socioeconomic status

The present study aims to investigate the complex interplay among three family factors: maternal marital satisfaction, maternal emotional expressivity, and family socioeconomic status, and their impact on adolescent depression in Chinese families. A total of 542 Chinese adolescents and their mothers from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds completed the survey. The data revealed that higher maternal marital satisfaction correlated with more positive emotional expressivity and less negative emotional expressivity. Both types of maternal emotional expressivity were associated with depressive symptoms in adolescents. Moreover, both maternal positive and negative emotional expressivity mediated the relationship between maternal marital satisfaction and adolescents’ depressive symptoms. Notably, the mediating role of maternal negative expressivity was only evident when the family’s socioeconomic status was moderate to high. These findings underscore the important role played by maternal emotional expressivity and family socioeconomic status in the dyadic processes between the marital relationship of mothers and the emotional well-being of adolescents in Chinese families. The present study also indicates potential targets for parenting interventions aimed at promoting the mental health of adolescents.

SWAT‐GL: A new glacier routine for the hydrological model SWAT

AbstractThe hydrological model Soil Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) is widely used in water resources management worldwide. It is also used to simulate catchment hydrology in high‐mountainous regions where glaciers play an important role. However, SWAT considers glaciers in a simplistic way. Although some efforts were done to overcome this limitation, there is no official version available that considers glaciers adequately. This strongly impairs its applicability in glacierized catchments. In this technical note, we propose a novel version of the traditional SWAT, called SWAT‐GL, which introduces (1) a mass balance module and (2) a glacier evolution routine to represent dynamic glacier changes. Mass balance calculations are based on a conceptual degree‐day approach, similar to the snow routine implemented in SWAT. Glacier evolution is realized using the delta‐h (∆h) parameterization, which requires a minimum of data and is thus suitable in data‐scarce regions. The approach allows users to simulate spatially distributed glacier changes. Annual mass balance changes are translated to distributed ice thickness changes depending on the glacier elevation. We demonstrate how SWAT‐GL is technically integrated into SWAT and how glaciers are merged with the existing spatial units. Model code and test data are freely accessible to promote further model development efforts and a wide application. Ultimately, SWAT‐GL aims to make SWAT easily applicable in glacierized catchments without the need of additional tools.

Synergistic response to climate stressors in coral is associated with genotypic variation in baseline expression.

As environments are rapidly reshaped due to climate change, phenotypic plasticity plays an important role in the ability of organisms to persist and is considered an especially important acclimatization mechanism for long-lived sessile organisms such as reef-building corals. Often, this ability of a single genotype to display multiple phenotypes depending on the environment is modulated by changes in gene expression, which can vary in response to environmental changes via two mechanisms: baseline expression and expression plasticity. We used transcriptome-wide expression profiling of eleven genotypes of common-gardened Acropora cervicornis to explore genotypic variation in the expression response to thermal and acidification stress, both individually and in combination. We show that the combination of these two stressors elicits a synergistic gene expression response, and that both baseline expression and expression plasticity in response to stress show genotypic variation. Additionally, we demonstrate that frontloading of a large module of coexpressed genes is associated with greater retention of algal symbionts under combined stress. These results illustrate that variation in the gene expression response of individuals to climate change stressors can persist even when individuals have shared environmental histories, affecting their performance under future climate change scenarios.

A path to human‐raccoon dog harmony: Identifying factors influencing the tolerance of urban residents in Shanghai towards a neglected species

Abstract Human‐wildlife interactions become increasingly common in urban areas across all continents and ecosystem types. Depending on the context, human‐wildlife interactions can be categorized as harmonious, neutrality, or in conflict and raises cultural, economic and ecological challenges in maintaining urban biodiversity. Understanding the mechanism behind the tolerance of residents to the presence of wildlife is vital to promoting a harmonious coexistence between humans and wildlife in urban environments. To advance our knowledge of this mechanism, we developed a questionnaire to survey residents in Shanghai, China about their knowledge of and attitude towards raccoon dogs (Nyctereutes procyonoides), a species whose population is increasing in urban areas. Using 281 questionnaires, we conducted structural equation modelling to examine how relational values, including familiarity with raccoon dogs, perceived benefits and risks, together with residents' trust in wildlife management authorities, interactively influence the tolerance for this species. We found that the residents' familiarity with raccoon dogs positively influenced their tolerance, both directly and indirectly through increased perceived benefits and reduced perceived risks. Furthermore, trust in wildlife management authorities contributed to higher tolerance through perceived benefits. Our results suggested that education about the relational values of raccoon dogs to the public can reduce the traditional negative connotation for this species and promote the coexistence of people and raccoon dogs in Shanghai urban environment. Based on our understanding about how raccoon dogs were culturally constructed and the willingness of residents to share landscapes with the species, we advocate that relational values play an important role in future urban biodiversity conservation planning. We also advocate for education programs that familiarize the public with raccoon dogs as well as other species, which can turn urban human‐wildlife conflicts into harmonious relationships in Shanghai and other urban areas. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

Factors Affecting the Success of the National Tuberculosis Control Program in Hospitals in Indonesia Based on the National Hospital Accreditation Standards (SNARS): A Scoping Review

<div><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="left"><tbody><tr><td align="left" valign="top"><p><em>Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease that is one of the leading causes of health problems worldwide and in developing countries. Hospitals have a very important role in the success of Tuberculosis control programs. Tuberculosis prevention and control encompass a range of health initiatives that are designed to safeguard public health, mitigate morbidity, disability, and death rates, disrupt the spread of the illness, combat medication resistance, and alleviate the adverse consequences associated with Tuberculosis. This scoping review aims to assess the factors that influence the success of the national tuberculosis control program in hospitals based on the National Hospital Accreditation Standards. A scoping review was conducted in this work, utilizing four databases: Google Scholar, Ebsco, Pro Quest, and Science Direct. The PRISMA Flowchart is a tool used to guide the process of selecting research publications. The inclusion exclusion criteria in the article search were limited to the last 10 years, starting from 2014 to 2023. The results of the scoping review showed that the factors influencing the success of the national tuberculosis program in hospitals based on the National Hospital Accreditation Standards are health promotion, early detection of tuberculosis or health screening, tuberculosis surveillance, risk factor control, surveillance of tuberculosis case finding and treatment, provision of immunity with vaccines and provision of tuberculosis preventive drugs. And in an effort to enhance the effectiveness of the Tuberculosis program, the government, hospitals, and communities should prioritize the implementation of the Directly Observed Treatment Shortcourse program in hospitals to ensure its smooth execution</em></p><p><em> </em></p></td></tr></tbody></table></div><strong><em>Keywords: Tuberculosis, Hospital, Program</em></strong>

Role of Strategic Planning in Quality Enhancement of Higher Education Institutions: Case Study of Bamyan University

Afghanistan is a conflict-impacted country with a higher education sector that is undergoing rapid growth in the last two decades. The Ministry of Higher Education established the Quality Assurance & Accreditation Commission in 2009; and established the Quality Assurance & Accreditation Directorate (QAAD) in 2011. This body is to administer and oversee the accreditation process in all public and private HEIs of Afghanistan with a strategic outlook. By providing a comprehensive QA Framework and aiming to meet international standards; QAAD is functioning for Internal and External Quality Assurance of HEIs. This Framework emphasizes the development of a Strategic Plan for Higher Education Institutions in its first main criteria. Since QAAD and its relevant processes of Quality Assurance are newly implemented phenomena for the Higher Education Institutions; the processes of Developing Strategic Plans seem to be ineffective, challenging, and not used as a fundamental tool for quality enhancement. Furthermore, there are considerable challenges facing the implementation level of developed plans. Considering the important role of strategic planning in quality assurance; this study aims to evaluate the effectiveness and impacts of strategic planning on the processes of quality enhancement of Bamyan University as one of the National Higher Education Institutions. Nine major aspects of quality issues focusing on three main levels of strategic planning at the institution, Faculty, and Department are among the core subjects of this study. This study is carried out from the implementers’ point of view and includes the responses of all academic and non-academic members of Departments, Faculties, and Leadership of Bamyan University. Furthermore, this provides lessons learned and recommendations for institutions, policy makers, and other Higher Education Institutions. This study is conducted from February to August 2021 in Bamyan University of Afghanistan. A questionnaire was adopted and developed as the instrument of this study and nine major aspects of the qualification issues were included in the instrument. SPSS tool was employed to descriptively analyze the findings of the study. This study has shown that the exercise and experiences of strategic planning have not meaningfully and satisfactorily contributed to the enhancement of the quality of education of this University. The mean value of all aspects is somehow below average or average level. From the respondents’ point of view; the impact of strategic planning on quality assurance activities is greater than other aspects and this impact is lower in the sustainability of financial resources.

The Important Role Of Internal Control In Accounting Information Systems

This study discusses the important role of internal control in Accounting Information Systems. The purpose of this writing is to provide an overview or explanation with a literature study approach on the important role of internal control in accounting information systems. In addition, the writing of this paper aims to provide knowledge of whether the use of computer-based accounting information systems can guarantee the success of a company without supervision from the company's business people. The author discovers six important roles of the Internal Control System. The first is to have a great influence on computer-based Accounting Information Systems. Internal Control Systems can prevent excessive resources in the company, Create accountability of financial statements, and increase the credibility and quality of the company; then, its management makes it easy to make decisions and prevent fraud. Accountant information computer-based systems cannot run properly without management control.

Right Ventricular Dysfunction in Patients With Concomitant Tricuspid Regurgitation Undergoing Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation.

This study investigated the impact and predictive factors of concomitant significant tricuspid regurgitation (TR) and evaluated the roles of right ventricle (RV) function and the etiology of TR in the clinical outcomes of patients with severe aortic stenosis undergoing transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI). We assessed grading of TR severity, TR etiology, and RV function in pre- and post-TAVI transthoracic echocardiograms for 678 patients at Keio University School of Medicine. TR etiology was divided into 3 groups: primary TR, ventricular functional TR (FTR), and atrial FTR. The primary outcomes were all-cause and cardiovascular death. At baseline, moderate or greater TR was found in 55 (8%) patients and, after adjustment for comorbidities, was associated with increased all-cause death (hazard ratio [HR] 2.11; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.19-3.77; P=0.011) and cardiovascular death (HR 2.29; 95% CI 1.06-4.99; P=0.036). RV dysfunction (RVD) also remained an independent predictor of cardiovascular death (HR 2.06; 95% CI 1.03-4.14; P=0.042). Among the TR etiology groups, patients with ventricular FTR had the lowest survival rate (P<0.001). Patients with persistent RVD after TAVI had a higher risk of cardiovascular death than those with a normal or recovered RV function (P<0.001). The etiology of TR and RV function play an important role in predicting outcomes in concomitant TR patients undergoing TAVI.

Dopamine lesions alter the striatal encoding of single-limb gait

The striatum serves an important role in motor control, and neurons in this area encode the body’s initiation, cessation, and speed of locomotion. However, it remains unclear whether the same neurons also encode the step-by-step rhythmic motor patterns of individual limbs that characterize gait. By combining high-speed video tracking, electrophysiology, and optogenetic tagging, we found that a sizable population of both D1 and D2 receptor expressing medium spiny projection neurons (MSNs) were phase-locked to the gait cycle of individual limbs in mice. Healthy animals showed balanced limb phase-locking between D1 and D2 MSNs, while dopamine depletion led to stronger phase-locking in D2 MSNs. These findings indicate that striatal neurons represent gait on a single-limb and step basis, and suggest that elevated limb phase-locking of D2 MSNs may underlie some of the gait impairments associated with dopamine loss.

Police, Victim and Co-victim Interaction: Insights from Australia

Interacting with victims and co-victims of crime and other calls for help are a daily routine for police forces, and there have been many attempts to improve this vital function of policing in modern democratic societies. However, some groups in Australia remain unconvinced by police actions when they report incidents and are suspicious of the response they receive. This article provides insights concerning the way in which the police deal with victims and co-victims in Australia, utilizing a particular focus on high-profile sections of the community. These examples highlight some of the issues; the article concludes by suggesting that policing in Australia needs to be refocused to ensure officers understand the important role victims and co-victims play in reducing and detecting criminality, whilst also supporting the legitimization of the police role.

Impact of on-chip gate voltage on the electric properties of NbTiN superconducting nanowire transistor

In this work, the gate modulation characteristics of superconducting nanowire transistors (SNTs) were investigated under different on-chip gate voltage configurations. By fabricating NbTiN-SNTs with symmetric side gate, we studied the critical current suppression of SNTs under single, opposite, and double voltage gate. We figure out that the gate voltage and leakage current can be adjusted by the gate configuration. Moreover, it revealed an approximately twofold increase in modulation voltage for the opposite gate configuration as compared to the single gate configuration, implying a possible electric field tuned superconductivity. When simultaneously apply voltage on both gates, the onset and offset voltages kept unchanged, but the leakage current is then two times higher than that of single gate. In addition, under all these three types of gate configuration, the suppression of superconductivity coincided with the onset of leakage current, suggesting a potential charge injection mechanism. Our findings demonstrate that both the electric field and charge injection play important roles on the suppression of superconductivity in SNTs, which also contributes to the further optimization and applications of SNT.

Simultaneous Optimization of Bid Shading and Internal Auction for Demand-Side Platforms

Online advertising has been one of the most important sources for industry's growth, where the demand-side platforms (DSP) play an important role via bidding to the ad exchanges on behalf of their advertiser clients. Since more and more ad exchanges have shifted from second to first price auctions, it is challenging for DSPs to adjust bidding strategy in the volatile environment. Recent studies on bid shading in first-price auctions may have limited performance due to relatively strong hypotheses about winning probability distribution. Moreover, these studies do not consider the incentive of advertiser clients, which can be crucial for a reliable advertising platform. In this work, we consider both the optimization of bid shading technique and the design of internal auction which is ex-post incentive compatible (IC) for the management of a DSP. Firstly, we prove that the joint design of bid shading and ex-post IC auction can be reduced to choosing one monotone bid function for each advertiser without loss of optimality. Then we propose a parameterized neural network to implement the monotone bid functions. With well-designed surrogate loss, the objective can be optimized in an end-to-end manner. Finally, our experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness and superiority of our algorithm.

The melano-macrophage: The black leukocyte of fish immunity

Melanin and the process of melanin synthesis or melanogenesis have central roles in the immune system of insects, and production of melanin-synthesizing enzymes from their haemocytes may be induced following activation through danger signals. Melanin-containing macrophage-like cells have been extensively studied in amphibians and they are also present in reptiles. In fish, melano-macrophages are especially recognized with respect to melano-macrophage centres (MMCs), hypothesized to be analogues of germinal centres in secondary lymphoid organs of mammals and some birds. Melano-macrophages are in addition present in several inflammatory conditions, in particular melanised focal changes, or black spots, in the musculature of farmed Atlantic salmon, Salmo salar. Melanins are complex compounds that may be divided into different forms which all have the ability to absorb and scatter light. Other functions include the quenching of free radicals and a direct effect on the immune system. According to the common view held in the pigment cell community, vertebrate melanin synthesis with melanosome formation may only occur in cells of ectodermal origin. However, abundant information suggests that also myeloid cells of ectothermic vertebrates may be classified as melanocytes. Here, we discuss these opposing views and review relevant literature. Finally, we review the current status on the research concerning melanised focal muscle changes that represent the most severe quality problem in Norwegian salmon production, but also other diseases where melano-macrophages play important roles.

Continuous Rotation Group Equivariant Network Inspired by Neural Population Coding

Neural population coding can represent continuous information by neurons with a series of discrete preferred stimuli, and we find that the bell-shaped tuning curve plays an important role in this mechanism. Inspired by this, we incorporate a bell-shaped tuning curve into the discrete group convolution to achieve continuous group equivariance. Simply, we modulate group convolution kernels by Gauss functions to obtain bell-shaped tuning curves. Benefiting from the modulation, kernels also gain smooth gradients on geometric dimensions (e.g., location dimension and orientation dimension). It allows us to generate group convolution kernels from sparse weights with learnable geometric parameters, which can achieve both competitive performances and parameter efficiencies. Furthermore, we quantitatively prove that discrete group convolutions with proper tuning curves (bigger than 1x sampling step) can achieve continuous equivariance. Experimental results show that 1) our approach achieves very competitive performances on MNIST-rot with at least 75% fewer parameters compared with previous SOTA methods, which is efficient in parameter; 2) Especially with small sample sizes, our approach exhibits more pronounced performance improvements (up to 24%); 3) It also has excellent rotation generalization ability on various datasets such as MNIST, CIFAR, and ImageNet with both plain and ResNet architectures.

Expressive Forecasting of 3D Whole-Body Human Motions

Human motion forecasting, with the goal of estimating future human behavior over a period of time, is a fundamental task in many real-world applications. However, existing works typically concentrate on foretelling the major joints of the human body without considering the delicate movements of the human hands. In practical applications, hand gesture plays an important role in human communication with the real world, and expresses the primary intention of human beings. In this work, we are the first to formulate whole-body human pose forecasting task, which jointly predicts future both body and gesture activities. Correspondingly, we propose a novel Encoding-Alignment-Interaction (EAI) framework that aims to predict both coarse (body joints) and fine-grained (gestures) activities collaboratively, enabling expressive and cross-facilitated forecasting of 3D whole-body human motions. Specifically, our model involves two key constituents: cross-context alignment (XCA) and cross-context interaction (XCI). Considering the heterogeneous information within the whole-body, XCA aims to align the latent features of various human components, while XCI focuses on effectively capturing the context interaction among the human components. We conduct extensive experiments on a newly-introduced large-scale benchmark and achieve state-of-the-art performance. The code is public for research purposes at https://github.com/Dingpx/EAI.

Selective genes expression and metabolites transformation drive a robust nitrite accumulation during nitrate reduction under alternating feast-famine condition

Nitrite production via denitrification has been regarded as a key approach for survival of anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) bacteria. Despite the important carbon substrate, little is known about the role of differential genes expression and extracellular metabolite regulation among diverse microbial communities. In this study, a novel alternating feast-famine strategy was proposed and demonstrated to efficiently accumulate nitrite in a low-nitrogen loading rate (NLR) (0.2∼0.8 kg N/m3/d) denitrification system. Highly selective expression of denitrifying genes was revealed as key regulators. Interestingly, in absence of carbon source (ACS) condition, the expression of narG and narI/V genes responsible for reduction of nitrate to nitrite jumped to 2.5 and 5.1 times higher than that in presence of carbon source (PCS) condition with carbon to nitrate ratio of 3.0. This fortunately facilitated a rapid nitrite accumulation once acetate was added, despite a significantly down-regulated narG and narI/narV and up-regulated nirS/nirK. This strategy selected Thauera as the most dominant denitrifier (50.2 %) with the highest contribution to narG and narI/narV genes, responsible for the high nitrite accumulation. Additionally, extracellular xylose, pyruvate, and glucose jointly promoted carbon-central metabolic pathway of key denitrifiers in ACS stage, playing an important role in the process of self-growth and selective enrichment of functional bacteria. The relatively rapid establishment and robust performance obtained in this study shows an engineering-feasible and economically-favorable solution for the regulation of partial denitrification in practical application.

Build Your Own Robot Friend: An Open-Source Learning Module for Accessible and Engaging AI Education

As artificial intelligence (AI) is playing an increasingly important role in our society and global economy, AI education and literacy have become necessary components in college and K-12 education to prepare students for an AI-powered society. However, current AI curricula have not yet been made accessible and engaging enough for students and schools from all socio-economic backgrounds with different educational goals. In this work, we developed an open-source learning module for college and high school students, which allows students to build their own robot companion from the ground up. This open platform can be used to provide hands-on experience and introductory knowledge about various aspects of AI, including robotics, machine learning (ML), software engineering, and mechanical engineering. Because of the social and personal nature of a socially assistive robot companion, this module also puts a special emphasis on human-centered AI, enabling students to develop a better understanding of human-AI interaction and AI ethics through hands-on learning activities. With open-source documentation, assembling manuals and affordable materials, students from different socio-economic backgrounds can personalize their learning experience based on their individual educational goals. To evaluate the student-perceived quality of our module, we conducted a usability testing workshop with 15 college students recruited from a minority-serving institution. Our results indicate that our AI module is effective, easy-to-follow, and engaging, and it increases student interest in studying AI/ML and robotics in the future. We hope that this work will contribute toward accessible and engaging AI education in human-AI interaction for college and high school students.