26 research outputs found

    Recent Advances in Minimally Invasive Surgery

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    Minimally invasive surgery has become a common term in visceral as well as gynecologic surgery. It has almost evolved into its own surgical speciality over the past 20 years. Today, being firmly established in every subspeciality of visceral surgery, it is now no longer a distinct skillset, but a fixed part of the armamentarium of surgical options available. In every indication, the advantages of a minimally invasive approach include reduced intraoperative blood loss, less postoperative pain, and shorter rehabilitation times, as well as a marked reduction of overall and surgical postoperative morbidity. In the advent of modern oncologic treatment algorithms, these effects not only lower the immediate impact that an operation has on the patient, but also become important key steps in reducing the side-effects of surgery. Thus, they enable surgery to become a module in modern multi-disciplinary cancer treatment, which blends into multimodular treatment options at different times and prolongs and widens the possibilities available to cancer patients. In this quickly changing environment, the requirement to learn and refine not only open surgical but also different minimally invasive techniques on high levels deeply impact modern surgical training pathways. The use of modern elearning tools and new and praxis-based surgical training possibilities have been readily integrated into modern surgical education,which persists throughout the whole surgical career of modern gynecologic and visceral surgery specialists

    Physical Diagnosis and Rehabilitation Technologies

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    The book focuses on the diagnosis, evaluation, and assistance of gait disorders; all the papers have been contributed by research groups related to assistive robotics, instrumentations, and augmentative devices

    Hysterectomy

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    This book is intended for the general and family practitioners, as well as for gynecologists, specialists in gynecological surgery, general surgeons, urologists and all other surgical specialists that perform procedures in or around the female pelvis, in addition to intensives and all other specialities and health care professionals who care for women before, during or after hysterectomy. The aim of this book is to review the recent achievements of the research community regarding the field of gynecologic surgery and hysterectomy as well as highlight future directions and where this field is heading. While no single volume can adequately cover the diversity of issues and facets in relation to such a common and important procedure such as hysterectomy, this book will attempt to address the pivotal topics especially in regards to safety, risk management as well as pre- and post-operative care

    Augmented Reality

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    Augmented Reality (AR) is a natural development from virtual reality (VR), which was developed several decades earlier. AR complements VR in many ways. Due to the advantages of the user being able to see both the real and virtual objects simultaneously, AR is far more intuitive, but it's not completely detached from human factors and other restrictions. AR doesn't consume as much time and effort in the applications because it's not required to construct the entire virtual scene and the environment. In this book, several new and emerging application areas of AR are presented and divided into three sections. The first section contains applications in outdoor and mobile AR, such as construction, restoration, security and surveillance. The second section deals with AR in medical, biological, and human bodies. The third and final section contains a number of new and useful applications in daily living and learning

    A gaze-contingent framework for perceptually-enabled applications in healthcare

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    Patient safety and quality of care remain the focus of the smart operating room of the future. Some of the most influential factors with a detrimental effect are related to suboptimal communication among the staff, poor flow of information, staff workload and fatigue, ergonomics and sterility in the operating room. While technological developments constantly transform the operating room layout and the interaction between surgical staff and machinery, a vast array of opportunities arise for the design of systems and approaches, that can enhance patient safety and improve workflow and efficiency. The aim of this research is to develop a real-time gaze-contingent framework towards a "smart" operating suite, that will enhance operator's ergonomics by allowing perceptually-enabled, touchless and natural interaction with the environment. The main feature of the proposed framework is the ability to acquire and utilise the plethora of information provided by the human visual system to allow touchless interaction with medical devices in the operating room. In this thesis, a gaze-guided robotic scrub nurse, a gaze-controlled robotised flexible endoscope and a gaze-guided assistive robotic system are proposed. Firstly, the gaze-guided robotic scrub nurse is presented; surgical teams performed a simulated surgical task with the assistance of a robot scrub nurse, which complements the human scrub nurse in delivery of surgical instruments, following gaze selection by the surgeon. Then, the gaze-controlled robotised flexible endoscope is introduced; experienced endoscopists and novice users performed a simulated examination of the upper gastrointestinal tract using predominately their natural gaze. Finally, a gaze-guided assistive robotic system is presented, which aims to facilitate activities of daily living. The results of this work provide valuable insights into the feasibility of integrating the developed gaze-contingent framework into clinical practice without significant workflow disruptions.Open Acces

    Development of new intelligent autonomous robotic assistant for hospitals

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    Continuous technological development in modern societies has increased the quality of life and average life-span of people. This imposes an extra burden on the current healthcare infrastructure, which also creates the opportunity for developing new, autonomous, assistive robots to help alleviate this extra workload. The research question explored the extent to which a prototypical robotic platform can be created and how it may be implemented in a hospital environment with the aim to assist the hospital staff with daily tasks, such as guiding patients and visitors, following patients to ensure safety, and making deliveries to and from rooms and workstations. In terms of major contributions, this thesis outlines five domains of the development of an actual robotic assistant prototype. Firstly, a comprehensive schematic design is presented in which mechanical, electrical, motor control and kinematics solutions have been examined in detail. Next, a new method has been proposed for assessing the intrinsic properties of different flooring-types using machine learning to classify mechanical vibrations. Thirdly, the technical challenge of enabling the robot to simultaneously map and localise itself in a dynamic environment has been addressed, whereby leg detection is introduced to ensure that, whilst mapping, the robot is able to distinguish between people and the background. The fourth contribution is geometric collision prediction into stabilised dynamic navigation methods, thus optimising the navigation ability to update real-time path planning in a dynamic environment. Lastly, the problem of detecting gaze at long distances has been addressed by means of a new eye-tracking hardware solution which combines infra-red eye tracking and depth sensing. The research serves both to provide a template for the development of comprehensive mobile assistive-robot solutions, and to address some of the inherent challenges currently present in introducing autonomous assistive robots in hospital environments.Open Acces

    Políticas de Copyright de Publicações Científicas em Repositórios Institucionais: O Caso do INESC TEC

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    A progressiva transformação das práticas científicas, impulsionada pelo desenvolvimento das novas Tecnologias de Informação e Comunicação (TIC), têm possibilitado aumentar o acesso à informação, caminhando gradualmente para uma abertura do ciclo de pesquisa. Isto permitirá resolver a longo prazo uma adversidade que se tem colocado aos investigadores, que passa pela existência de barreiras que limitam as condições de acesso, sejam estas geográficas ou financeiras. Apesar da produção científica ser dominada, maioritariamente, por grandes editoras comerciais, estando sujeita às regras por estas impostas, o Movimento do Acesso Aberto cuja primeira declaração pública, a Declaração de Budapeste (BOAI), é de 2002, vem propor alterações significativas que beneficiam os autores e os leitores. Este Movimento vem a ganhar importância em Portugal desde 2003, com a constituição do primeiro repositório institucional a nível nacional. Os repositórios institucionais surgiram como uma ferramenta de divulgação da produção científica de uma instituição, com o intuito de permitir abrir aos resultados da investigação, quer antes da publicação e do próprio processo de arbitragem (preprint), quer depois (postprint), e, consequentemente, aumentar a visibilidade do trabalho desenvolvido por um investigador e a respetiva instituição. O estudo apresentado, que passou por uma análise das políticas de copyright das publicações científicas mais relevantes do INESC TEC, permitiu não só perceber que as editoras adotam cada vez mais políticas que possibilitam o auto-arquivo das publicações em repositórios institucionais, como também que existe todo um trabalho de sensibilização a percorrer, não só para os investigadores, como para a instituição e toda a sociedade. A produção de um conjunto de recomendações, que passam pela implementação de uma política institucional que incentive o auto-arquivo das publicações desenvolvidas no âmbito institucional no repositório, serve como mote para uma maior valorização da produção científica do INESC TEC.The progressive transformation of scientific practices, driven by the development of new Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), which made it possible to increase access to information, gradually moving towards an opening of the research cycle. This opening makes it possible to resolve, in the long term, the adversity that has been placed on researchers, which involves the existence of barriers that limit access conditions, whether geographical or financial. Although large commercial publishers predominantly dominate scientific production and subject it to the rules imposed by them, the Open Access movement whose first public declaration, the Budapest Declaration (BOAI), was in 2002, proposes significant changes that benefit the authors and the readers. This Movement has gained importance in Portugal since 2003, with the constitution of the first institutional repository at the national level. Institutional repositories have emerged as a tool for disseminating the scientific production of an institution to open the results of the research, both before publication and the preprint process and postprint, increase the visibility of work done by an investigator and his or her institution. The present study, which underwent an analysis of the copyright policies of INESC TEC most relevant scientific publications, allowed not only to realize that publishers are increasingly adopting policies that make it possible to self-archive publications in institutional repositories, all the work of raising awareness, not only for researchers but also for the institution and the whole society. The production of a set of recommendations, which go through the implementation of an institutional policy that encourages the self-archiving of the publications developed in the institutional scope in the repository, serves as a motto for a greater appreciation of the scientific production of INESC TEC

    복강경 수술 로봇 시스템의 활용도 향상을 위한 추가적인 마스터 인터페이스 개발과 이를 이용한 응용 시스템 개발 연구

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    학위논문 (박사)-- 서울대학교 대학원 공과대학 협동과정 바이오엔지니어링전공, 2017. 8. Sungwan Kim.Robot-assisted laparoscopic surgery offers several advantages compared to open surgery and conventional minimally invasive surgery. However, important issues which need to be resolved are the complexity of current operation room environment for laparoscopic robotic surgery and demand for a larger operation room. To overcome these issues, additional interfaces based on Hands-On-Throttle-And-Stick (HOTAS) concept which can be simply attached and integrated with master interface of da Vinci surgical robot system were proposed. HOTAS controller is widely used for flight control in the aerospace field which can manipulate hundreds of functions and provide feedback to the pilot on flight conditions. The implementation of HOTAS controller significantly reduced the complexity of flights and reduced the number of pilots required in a cockpit from two to one. In this study, to provide above benefits to the operation room for robotic laparoscopic surgery, two types of additional interfaces are proposed. Proposed additional interfaces can be easily manipulated by the surgeons index finger, which is currently operated only by finger clutch buttons, and therefore enable the surgeon to use multiple functions. Initially, a novel master interface (NMI) was developed. The NMI mainly consists of a 9-way switch and a microprocessor with a wireless communication module. Thus, the NMI can be also regarded as a 9-way compact HOTAS. The performance test, latency, and power consumption of the developed NMI were verified by repeated experiments. Then, an improved novel master interface (iNMI) was developed to provide more intuitive and convenient manipulation. The iNMI was developed based on a capacitive touch sensor array and a wireless microprocessor to intuitively reflect the surgeons decision. Multiple experiments were performed to evaluate the iNMI performance in terms of performance test, latency, and power consumption. In addition, two application systems based on Surgical-Operation-By-Wire (SOBW) concept are proposed in this research to enhance the function of laparoscopic surgical robot system based on clinical needs that are stated below. The size of the additional interface is small enough to be easily installed to the master tool manipulators (MTMs) of da Vinci research kit (dVRK), which was used as an operation robot arm system, to maximize convenience to the surgeon when using the additional interfaces to simultaneously manipulate the application systems with the MTMs. Firstly, a robotic assistant that can be simultaneously manipulated via a wireless controller is proposed to allow the surgeon to control the assistant instrument. This approach not only decreases surgeon fatigue by eliminating communication process with assistants, but also resolves collision between the operation robot arms and the assistant instruments that can be caused by an inexperienced assistant or miscommunication and misaligned intent between the surgeon and the assistant. The system comprises two additional interfaces, a surgical instrument with a gripper actuated by a micromotor and a 6-axis robot arm. The gripping force of the surgical instrument was comparable to that of conventional systems and was consistent even after 1,000 times of gripping motion. The workspace was calculated to be 8,397.4 cm3. Recruited volunteers were able to execute the simple peg task within the cut-off time and successfully performed the in vitro test. Secondly, a wirelessly controllable stereo endoscope system which enables simultaneous control with the operating robot arm system is proposed. This is able to remove any discontinuous surgical flow that occurs when the control is swapped between the endoscope system and the operating robot arm system, and therefore prevent problems such as increased operation time, collision among surgical instruments, and injury to patients. The proposed system consists of two additional interfaces, a four-degrees of freedom (4-DOFs) endoscope control system (ECS) and a simple three-dimensional (3D) endoscope. The 4-DOFs ECS consists of four servo motors and employs a two-parallel link structure to provide translational and fulcrum point motions to the simple 3D endoscope. The workspace was calculated to be 20,378.3 cm3, which exceeds the reference workspace. The novice volunteers were able to successfully execute the modified peg transfer task. Throughout the various verifications, it has been confirmed that the proposed interfaces could make the surgical robot system more efficiently by overcoming its several limitations.1. Introduction 1 1.1. Robotic Laparoscopic Surgery 1 1.2. Objectives and Scope 8 1.2.1. Additional Master Interfaces 14 1.2.2. Application Systems 15 2. Materials and Methods 20 2.1. Additional Master Interfaces 20 2.1.1. Novel Master Interface: 9-way Compact Hands-On-Throttle-And-Stick 20 2.1.2. improved Novel Master Interface: Capacitive Touch Type Compact Hands-On-Throttle-And-Stick 26 2.2. Application Systems 34 2.2.1. Robotic Assistant 34 2.2.2. Stereo Endoscope System 49 3. Results 57 3.1. Novel Master Interface with Application Systems 57 3.1.1. Novel Master Interface 57 3.1.2. Robotic Assistant 59 3.1.3. Novel Master Interface with Robotic Assistant 67 3.1.4. Stereo Endoscope System 76 3.1.5. Novel Master Interface with Stereo Endoscope System 82 3.2. improved Novel Master Interface with Application Systems 87 3.2.1. improved Novel Master Interface 87 3.2.2. improved Novel Master Interface with Stereo Endoscope System 90 4. Discussion 91 5. Conclusion 102 References 105 Abstract in Korean 117Docto

    HUMAN-ROBOT COLLABORATION IN ROBOTIC-ASSISTED SURGICAL TRAINING

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    Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH

    Multimodality with Eye tracking and Haptics: A New Horizon for Serious Games?

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    The goal of this review is to illustrate the emerging use of multimodal virtual reality that can benefit learning-based games. The review begins with an introduction to multimodal virtual reality in serious games and we provide a brief discussion of why cognitive processes involved in learning and training are enhanced under immersive virtual environments. We initially outline studies that have used eye tracking and haptic feedback independently in serious games, and then review some innovative applications that have already combined eye tracking and haptic devices in order to provide applicable multimodal frameworks for learning-based games. Finally, some general conclusions are identified and clarified in order to advance current understanding in multimodal serious game production as well as exploring possible areas for new applications
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