How Albot0 Finds Its Way Home: A Novel Approach to Cognitive Mapping Using Robots

Much of what we know about cognitive mapping comes from observing how biological agents behave in their physical environments, and several of these ideas were implemented on robots, imitating such a process. In this paper a novel approach to cognitive mapping is presented whereby robots are treated as a species of their own and their cognitive mapping is being investigated. Such robots are referred to as Albots. The design of the first Albot, Albot₀, is presented. Albot₀ computes an imprecise map and employs a novel method to find its way home. Both the map and the return‐home algorithm exhibited characteristics commonly found in biological agents. What we have learned from Albot₀’s cognitive mapping are discussed. One major lesson is that the spatiality in a cognitive map affords us rich and useful information and this argues against recent suggestions that the notion of a cognitive map is not a useful one.     

Lower leg mass in pulmonary embolism: a case of popliteal vein aneurysm

Emergency Radiology - Popliteal vein aneurysms (PVAs) are rare entities, with less than 300 hundred cases reported in the global literature. Despite their rarity, they have immense consequences,...     

Increased Hepatotoxicity Associated with Sequential Immune Checkpoint Inhibitor and Crizotinib Therapy in Patients with Non–Small Cell Lung Cancer

Introduction

Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) are standard therapies in advanced NSCLC. Although genotype-directed tyrosine kinase inhibitors represent the standard of care for subsets of oncogene-driven NSCLC, patients may receive ICIs during their disease course. The impact of sequential ICI and tyrosine kinase inhibitor therapy on the risk of hepatotoxicity has not been described.

Allogeneic bone marrow transplantation versus autologous stem cell transplantation in multiple myeloma: a retrospective case-matched study from the European Group for Blood and Marrow Transplantation

A retrospective case-matched analysis was performed comparing 189 myeloma patients treated with allogeneic bone marrow transplantation (allo-BMT) with an equal number of patients who received autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT). Matching was performed with respect to gender and number of treatment lines before transplantation. The groups were comparable with the exception of median age (43 years for allo-BMT v 49 years for ASCT, P = .0001) and median posttransplant follow-up (46 months for allo-BMT v 30 months for ASCT, P = .0003). The overall survival was significantly better for ASCT than for allo-BMT, with a median survival of 34 months and 18 months, respectively (P = .001). However, this survival advantage was only observed in men, but not in women. The statistically significant survival advantage for ASCT was seen in most subgroups, ie, chemotherapy-responsive patients, patients who had received two or more treatment lines before transplantation, patients in partial remission, patients with an IgG- subtype, patients older than 46 years of age, patients with stage II disease, and patients with a low or high serum-beta-2-microglobulin at diagnosis. The main reason for the poorer survival in allo-BMT patients was higher transplant-related mortality (41% v 13% for ASCT, P = .0001), which was not compensated for by a lower rate of relapse and progression. However, in patients alive at 1 year posttransplant, there was a trend for better long-term survival (P = .09) and significantly better progression-free survival (P = .02) for allo-BMT as compared with ASCT. We conclude that the median survival is superior for ASCT. However, allo-BMT has a lower relapse rate, which results in a similar long-term outcome for both approaches, but a longer follow-up is needed to assess the final outcome.