AuthorBY- ANUSHRI M WHAT ARE COBOTS? We all would have heard about robots but what are cobots? Collabarative robots also known as cobots are capable of collaborating with humans. This collaboration is supposed to enhance human abilities in a safe way. Collaborative robots are capable of monitoring the environment and co-existing in the same facility together with humans without sacrificing performance or safety. DESIGN OF COBOTS: Cobots are designed using continuously variable transmission (CTVs) as an alternative traditional motor driven links. Flexibility and ease of use are the key advantages of cobots. It should be designed in such a way that it can be relocated and reprogrammed to a range of functions, specifically the ease with which it can be inserted into an existing production line or logistics setting. Because the robots are collaborative, they cannot work without human assistance and supervision. HOW COBOTS ARE USED? Manual pick and place is one of the most repetitive tasks performed by human workers today. Pick and place functions require an end-effector that can grasp the object. It could either be a gripper or vacuum cup effector. A subset of the pick and place is the packaging and palletizing of products. These tasks are repetitive and involve small payloads, making them ideal for cobots.
A cobot can provide the necessary force, repetition, and accuracy required for finishing jobs. These finishing jobs can include polishing, grinding, and deburring. WIDE APPLICATIONS: According to BIS Research, by 2021, the collaborative-robot market is expected to grow to approximately $2 billion and 150,000 units. Cobots have a wide applications in most of the industries. Some of them are discussed below: Automobile manufacturers were the first companies to embrace collaborative industrial robots given the manual, repetitive tasks they require. The BMW Mini factory in the UK has been using a cobot to transform its riveting process. The medical manufacturing firm Dynamic Group based out of Minnesota employ cobots that are responsible for picking and placing component at the injection molding site, transporting parts to the trimming area etc.,
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AuthorBY- DIVIYA BHAVAANI Bioinformatics is an integrative field in life sciences that combines biology and information technology. Its application includes the study of molecular sequences and genomics data. Being a combination of different branches of life sciences, the objective of bioinformatics is to develop methodologies and tools to study large volumes of biological data in order to organize, store, systematize, visualize, annotate, query, understand and interpret those data. Bioinformatics utilizes modern computer science that includes cloud computing, statistics, mathematics and even pattern recognition, reconstruction, machine learning, simulation and iterative approaches, and molecular modelling /algorithms. Applications of bioinformatics in medicine: Bioinformatics has proven quite useful in medicine as the complete sequencing of the human genome has helped to unlock the genetic contribution for many diseases. Its applications include drug discovery, personalized medicine, preventative medicine and gene therapy. 1. Drug discovery Infectious diseases are currently the world’s major killer of children and young adults. According to WHO, infectious diseases account for over 13 million deaths yearly. Developing countries record the most number of deaths from infectious diseases and this was contributed to the non-availability of drugs and high cost associated with the drugs if available. One of the main problems encountered is the development of cheap and efficient drugs for a disease can be solved by rational drug design using Bioinformatics. Furthermore, the pharmaceutical industry has moved from the trial and error process of drug discovery to a rational and structure-based drug design. With a successful and reliable drug design process, the time and cost of developing effective pharmacological agents can be reduced. The process of drug target identification and drug candidate screening can be accelerated, and safer/more effective drugs can be developed based on molecular modelling and simulation. 2. Personalized medicine Personalized medicine is a model of healthcare that is tailor-made to each person’s unique genetic make-up. A patient’s genetic profile can assist the doctor to predict susceptibility to certain diseases, provide proper medication and with the proper dose to reduce side-effects. It is applied in the treatment of personalized cancer medicine, diabetes-related disease and HIV. Bioinformatics is used in personalized medicine to analyze data from genome sequencing or microarray gene expression analysis in search of mutations or gene variants that could affect a patient’s response to a particular drug or modify the disease prognosis. 3. Preventive medicine Preventive medicine focuses on the health of individuals, communities and defined populations. It uses various research methods, including biostatistics, bioinformatics and epidemiology, to understand the patterns and the causes of health and disease, and to transform such information into programs designed to prevent disease, disability and death. An example of preventive medicine is the screening of newborns immediately after birth for health disorders, such genetic diseases or metabolic disorders, that are treatable but not clinically evident in the newborn period. To develop such screening tests to identify the disease at an early stage, researchers use bioinformatic tools to analyze genomics, proteomics and metabolomics data for possible disease biomarkers. 4. Gene therapy
Gene therapy is the method of replacing defective genes with a functional one in the cells of the patient. Gene therapy has not been widely used because developing a generic gene therapy method is quite complicated, as each person’s genetic profile is different. Bioinformatics could help to identify the best gene target site for each individual by taking their genetic profile into consideration. This can reduce the risk of unintended side effects. The application of bioinformatics is not limited to the field of medicine. It is wide-ranging and constantly evolving as more areas in life sciences are transformed by it. |