Elastic Elements in a Wrist Prosthesis for Drumming Reduce Muscular Effort, but Increase Imprecision and Perceived Stress

Recently, progress has been made in the development of mechanical joints with variable intrinsic stiffness, opening up the search for application areas of such variable-stiffness joints. By varying the stiffness of its joints, the resonant frequency of a system can be tuned to perform cyclical tasks most energy-efficiently, making the variable-stiffness joint a candidate element for an advanced prosthetic device specifically designed for the cyclical task of drumming. A prerequisite for a successful variable-stiffness drumming prosthesis is the ability of human drummers to profitably employ different stiffness levels for playing different beats. In this pilot study, 29 able-bodied subjects (20 drumming novices and 9 experts) wear a cuff on the forearm, to which a drumstick is connected using changeable adapters, consisting of several leaf springs with different stiffness and one maximally stiff connection element. The subjects are asked to play simple regular drum beats at different frequencies, one of which is the resonant frequency of the adapter-drumstick system. The subject's performance of each drumming task is rated in terms of accuracy and precision, and the effort is measured using questionnaires for the perceived stress as well as electromyography (EMG) for the muscular activity. The experiments show that using springs instead of the stiff connection leads to lower muscular activity, indicating that humans are able to use the energy-storing capabilities of the springs, or that muscular activity is reduced due to the lower mass of the springs. However, the perceived stress is increased and the novices' performance lowered, possibly due to a higher cerebral load for controlling the elastic system. The hypothesis that "matching the resonant frequency of the spring-drumstick system to the desired frequency leads to better performance and lower effort" is not confirmed. Possible explanations are discussed. In conclusion, a series-elastic element appears to lower the muscular effort of drumming, while a stiff connection appears to minimize the mental load and has a positive effect on the performance of drumming novices

Control system of bionic hand

V této práci hlavní důraz je kladen na vývoj systému zpětné vazby pro řízení dostupných protéz horní končetiny HACKberry, který byl navržen japonskou společností Exiii a je otevřeným projektem. Tato protéza byla vytištěna na 3D tiskárně a modernizována na Technické univerzitě v Liberci. V této diplomové práci zkoumána možnost vytvoření zpětnovazebního systému založeného na hmatové zpětné vazbě. K dispozici jsou také další možnosti implementace tohoto úkolu, které byly vyvinuty nebo jsou vyvíjeny jinými společnostmi a institucemi, které řeší stejné úkoly. V našem projektu používá dálkové ovládání ruční protézy, které se provádí pomocí bezdrátového přenosu signálů z ovládacího zařízení, - desky Arduino Esplora - na samotnou protézu, kde ovládání patří do desky Arduino Micro. Kromě toho je k dispozici provedení různých gest pomocí myoelektrických signálů. Pro organizaci zpětnovazebního systému bylo rozhodnuto použít dva typy snímačů - snímač ohybu a snímač síly. Cenová dostupnost těchto snímačů umožňuje vývoj levného zpětnovazebního systému pro rozšíření funkčnosti protézy. Kromě použití komerčních senzorů v diplomové práci se také zvažuje možnost vytváření ručně vyrobených senzorů z inteligentních materiálů. Všechny typy senzorů - komerční a ručně vyrobené - byly testovány a vyhodnoceny z hlediska jejich technických vlastností a možnosti použití v našem projektu. Výsledky testů jsou také k dispozici.This work focuses on the development of feedback control system for inexpensive prosthetic hand HACKberry. This hand was originally designed in Japan and then printed with 3D printing technology and modernized in Technical university of Liberec. Before explaining the components and the feedback control design some information about previous works of this topic was collected and presented here. Arduino Esplora board is used here for establishing remote gestures and grips control due to its functional ability. The circuit of the hand powered by Arduino Micro board is not changed and thus, it is possible to control the hand both with muscles activity which and with Arduino Esplora. Communication between Arduino Esplora and Arduino Micro is performed via the wireless transmission. Since the prosthetic hand should be extended with feedback control it was decided to utilize force sensing resistors and flex sensors. Such types of sensors match to the project aims and at the same time allow the prosthetic hand remains at the same price category. Another advantage is in their affordability. Furthermore some hand-made sensors were created. All of the sensors were tested and estimated. The results of these tests are discussed herein

Finding a link in neural correlates of human’s perceptual and illusion

This thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University LondonWith the ability to feel through artificial limbs, users regain more function and increasingly see the prosthetics as parts of their own bodies. So, main focus of this project was dedicated to recuperating sensation by deception both in sighted and unsighted patients, started with illusionary experiments on healthy volunteers, brain signals were captured with medical EEG headsets during these tests to have a better understanding of how the brain works during body ownership illusions. EEG results suggest that gender difference exists in the perception of body transfer illusion. Visual input can be induced to trick the brain. Using the results, a new device has been designed (sound generator system-SGS) with the principal goal to find ways to include rich sensory feedback in prosthetic devices that would aid their incorporation of the user’s body representation or schema. Studying the brain is fascinating; SGS tested and was found to have an adequate level of dexterity over course of one-month multiple times. After each try, the results were more tolerable than before that proved the idea that brain can learn and understand anything and can be manipulated temporary or lasting due to influences. Different methods used to validate the results, EEG acquisition, mapping subject brain function with EEG and finally interviewing participant after each attempt. Although the results of the illusion shows that when heat applies on rubber hand, subjects behave in similar manner as if their real hand was effected, but main question is still remains. How can the conditioning apply to daily life of amputees so that illusion become permanent? This is a rapidly developing field with advancements in technology and greater interdisciplinary integration of medicine, mechatronics and control engineering with the future looking to have permanent, low power consumption, highly functional devices with a greater intuitive almost natural feel using a variety of body signals including EMG, ultrasound, and Electrocorticography

Towards Power-Efficient Design of Myoelectric Controller based on Evolutionary Computation

Myoelectric pattern recognition is one of the important aspects in the design of the control strategy for various applications including upper-limb prostheses and bio-robotic hand movement systems. The current work has proposed an approach to design an energy-efficient EMG-based controller by considering a supervised learning framework using a kernelized SVM classifier for decoding the information of surface electromyography (sEMG) signals to infer the underlying muscle movements. In order to achieve the optimized performance of the EMG-based controller, our main strategy of classifier design is to reduce the false movements of the overall system (when the EMG-based controller is at the `Rest' position). To this end, unlike the traditional single training objective of soft margin kernelized SVM, we have formulated the training algorithm of the proposed supervised learning system as a general constrained multi-objective optimization problem. An elitist multi-objective evolutionary algorithm $-$ the non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGA-II) has been used for the tuning of SVM hyperparameters. We have presented the experimental results by performing the experiments on a dataset consisting of the sEMG signals collected from eleven subjects at five different upper limb positions. It is evident from the presented result that the proposed approach provides much more flexibility to the designer in selecting the parameters of the classifier to optimize the energy efficiency of the EMG-based controller.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Journa

“You Must Be an Android”: The Persistence of Humanist Hierarchies in Posthumanist Science Fiction

This thesis examines science fiction dystopias in which the vestiges of humanist philosophy taint the construction of posthuman subjects. With a grounding in the tenets of both humanist and posthumanist philosophy, I analyze eight works of science fiction that depict artificial intelligence, cyborgs, and body swapping to determine the common critiques made. The source of the troubling aspects of these imagined futures doesn’t derive strictly from the presence of advanced, posthumanist technologies. Instead, the authors shine a light on the monstrosity that results when technological posthumanism comes to fruition while their imagined future societies remain grounded in humanist hierarchies, including that of class, gender, and race

Re-situating Performance Within The Ambiguous, The Liminal, And The Threshold: Performance Practice Understood Through Theories Of Embodiment

This thesis investigates performance as an embodied practice. It draws on theories of embodiment, which act as a catalyst for thinking about performance, and thus provide an interdisciplinary framework for conceptualising the body in performance. I explore a discourse that situates performance itself within the liminal, as an in-between condition, as something that does not fit in. I reflect on performances, ranging from music to cosmetic surgery, and I highlight the in-between conditions and the marginalised space that in my view posits performance as multivalent, multifaceted and full of potential. This line of enquiry is informed by my view of the body as a site of change, discord and ambiguity; what one can refer to as the threshold condition, or what Victor Turner calls the “state of betwixt and between” (Turner, 1982, p.17). I take the body as a starting point for this discussion, as I consider the body as a vanguard to providing a different view to the majority of current music and performance writings. I subscribe to the view that the multi-faceted and, at times, highly controversial debate that has been applied to the body, has not been equivalently explored in the discussion of performance. My background as a music performer who works extensively with new technologies leads me to examine predominantly performance environments that use such technologies. I thus draw on examples from laptop performances and from my work as designer and musician of various performative environments. Other ideas in this thesis are informed by the ways in which I engage with an instrument, prepare for, and think about a performance, as well as from being a listener to somebody else’s performance. A body of writings from various other disciplines forms the backbone to my investigation. I believe that these writings draw attention to essential facets of performance activities and provide different ways of conceptualising performance that I argue are currently under-explored in current music and performance texts

Student Research Colloquium Proceedings 2010

2010 Student Research Colloquium proceedings include the following: explanation of the Student Research Colloquium passport\u27, a schedule of the day\u27s events, acknowledgement of research sponsors, conference presentation abstracts, formal paper competition participants; poster presentation competition participants; student presenter index, research sponsor index, planning committee, poster and paper presentation judges, registration desk, sponsors, and donors, map of Atwood Memorial Center. Keynote Speaker: Michael (Mick) D. Bower, Security Columnist, Linux Journal, Infrastructure Security Architecture Team Lead, Wells Fargo: Notes from the Trenches: Information Security in the So-Called Real World. In this talk, Mick Bauer will tell war stories from his adventures helping to secure one of our nation\u27s largest banks against the best attack efforts of devious hackers, credit-card scammers, organized crime cartels and the scariest type of adversary which information security professions routinely encounter, the enthusiastic businessperson. In so doing, he will illustrate in thrilling, name-dropping detail how his education, comprised of a Masters in Computer Science from St. Cloud State University and a BFA in Music Education, grounded him in the scientific method, a preference for facts over aspirations and an affinity for lecturing and constructing very long but grammatically coherent sentences, has served him well in what has been an unpredictable but very cool career thus far

Suffering And Transformation: the body as a symbol for psychic change

Physical and mental suffering: mutilation, searing pain and trauma can be given context and even made to work for our best interests; we have a long history of bloody myths and fairy tales and a modern history of updating these in the premier medium of time, film. No matter how great the external impact on the body, so long as we survive it’s the mind that suffers and the mind that remains malleable to change and redemption, if we can face the true obstacles those we give force to with our own mental activity