Eye-Hand Coordination during Dynamic Visuomotor Rotations

Background for many technology-driven visuomotor tasks such as tele-surgery, human operators face situations in which the frames of reference for vision and action are misaligned and need to be compensated in order to perform the tasks with the necessary precision. The cognitive mechanisms for the selection of appropriate frames of reference are still not fully understood. This study investigated the effect of changing visual and kinesthetic frames of reference during wrist pointing, simulating activities typical for tele-operations. Methods using a robotic manipulandum, subjects had to perform center-out pointing movements to visual targets presented on a computer screen, by coordinating wrist flexion/extension with abduction/adduction. We compared movements in which the frames of reference were aligned (unperturbed condition) with movements performed under different combinations of visual/kinesthetic dynamic perturbations. The visual frame of reference was centered to the computer screen, while the kinesthetic frame was centered around the wrist joint. Both frames changed their orientation dynamically (angular velocity\u200a=\u200a36\ub0/s) with respect to the head-centered frame of reference (the eyes). Perturbations were either unimodal (visual or kinesthetic), or bimodal (visual+kinesthetic). As expected, pointing performance was best in the unperturbed condition. The spatial pointing error dramatically worsened during both unimodal and most bimodal conditions. However, in the bimodal condition, in which both disturbances were in phase, adaptation was very fast and kinematic performance indicators approached the values of the unperturbed condition. Conclusions this result suggests that subjects learned to exploit an \u201caffordance\u201d made available by the invariant phase relation between the visual and kinesthetic frames. It seems that after detecting such invariance, subjects used the kinesthetic input as an informative signal rather than a disturbance, in order to compensate the visual rotation without going through the lengthy process of building an internal adaptation model. Practical implications are discussed as regards the design of advanced, high-performance man-machine interfaces

Diagnostic Palpation in Osteopathic Medicine: A Putative Neurocognitive Model of Expertise

This thesis examines the extent to which the development of expertise in diagnostic palpation in osteopathic medicine is associated with changes in cognitive processing. Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 review, respectively, the literature on the role of analytical and non-analytical processing in osteopathic and medical clinical decision making; and the relevant research on the use of vision and haptics and the development of expertise within the context of an osteopathic clinical examination. The two studies reported in Chapter 4 examined the mental representation of knowledge and the role of analogical reasoning in osteopathic clinical decision making. The results reported there demonstrate that the development of expertise in osteopathic medicine is associated with the processes of knowledge encapsulation and script formation. The four studies reported in Chapters 5 and 6 investigate the way in which expert osteopaths use their visual and haptic systems in the diagnosis of somatic dysfunction. The results suggest that ongoing clinical practice enables osteopaths to combine visual and haptic sensory signals in a more efficient manner. Such visuo-haptic sensory integration is likely to be facilitated by top-down processing associated with visual, tactile, and kinaesthetic mental imagery. Taken together, the results of the six studies reported in this thesis indicate that the development of expertise in diagnostic palpation in osteopathic medicine is associated with changes in cognitive processing. Whereas the experts’ diagnostic judgments are heavily influenced by top-down, non-analytical processing; students rely, primarily, on bottom-up sensory processing from vision and haptics. Ongoing training and clinical practice are likely to lead to changes in the clinician’s neurocognitive architecture. This thesis proposes an original model of expertise in diagnostic palpation which has implications for osteopathic education. Students and clinicians should be encouraged to appraise the reliability of different sensory cues in the context of clinical examination, combine sensory data from different channels, and consider using both analytical and nonanalytical reasoning in their decision making. Importantly, they should develop their skills of criticality and their ability to reflect on, and analyse their practice experiences in and on action

A digital prototype for collaborative conceptual design in the Thai AEC sector

The construction industry is currently driving to reach a high level of achievement for future sustainable built environments. The UK and USA models for the building design and construction process have been developed to enable relevant stakeholders to work closely from the beginning of a project. Indeed, design production is particularly significant, particularly at the concept design stage, as design decisions cost less to change and there is greater opportunity for change at the concept design stage. These are important considerations for this study. In addition, collaboration can significantly reduce redundant loops of performance in the subsequent processes leading to savings both in cost and time. However, the traditional design phases in the USA and Thailand have faced barriers due to silos of effort, a lack of overall project awareness, inefficient collaboration between silos, and poor communication among silos due to the fragmentation of the functional disciplines involved.Furthermore, stakeholders working in partnership in the AEC industry are connected together in a complex way so information sharing is not straightforward; however, they are now supported by digital tools and communication technology, which can mediate this collaborative process. Effective collaboration can be promoted by technology through existing digital tools, for example, CAD or BIM. These tools can enable important increases in productivity through the strategic sharing of information. However, these are not appropriate tools for the concept design stage due to the complex information involved and the difficult user interfaces. This difficult interface leads to consumption of memory and an obstruction of the mental workflow, which does not support designers at the concept design stage. Moreover, the purpose of collaboration among multidisciplinary and multi-functional teams is to enable the integration of other disciplines, to maintain and sustain knowledge and information sharing, and to predict colleague behaviour. Knowledge sources and the retrieval of knowledge and information are significant; however, communication has pros and cons, and current tools, such as email or instant messaging, are difficult to use for the purpose of collaboration.Therefore, this research has developed an innovative digital tool to facilitate collaboration and support designers at the concept design stage. This tool enhances the creative thinking process by emphasising the streaming of the cognitive workload. In addition, collaborative communication supports the creation and structure of contents, posts and replies and supports designers to retrieve information. Collaborators/stakeholders can therefore share space and information. The research methodology for this study was designed to collect data in Thailand; it included the design and development of a prototype, and an evaluation of a case study in Thailand. The prototype is the first pilot of the digital tool to support designers at the concept design stage and could be further developed for use in practice

Urban food strategies in Central and Eastern Europe: what's specific and what's at stake?

Integrating a larger set of instruments into Rural Development Programmes implied an increasing focus on monitoring and evaluation. Against the highly diversified experience with regard to implementation of policy instruments the Common Monitoring and Evaluation Framework has been set up by the EU Commission as a strategic and streamlined method of evaluating programmes’ impacts. Its indicator-based approach mainly reflects the concept of a linear, measure-based intervention logic that falls short of the true nature of RDP operation and impact capacity on rural changes. Besides the different phases of the policy process, i.e. policy design, delivery and evaluation, the regional context with its specific set of challenges and opportunities seems critical to the understanding and improvement of programme performance. In particular the role of local actors can hardly be grasped by quantitative indicators alone, but has to be addressed by assessing processes of social innovation. This shift in the evaluation focus underpins the need to take account of regional implementation specificities and processes of social innovation as decisive elements for programme performance.

Intelligent laser scanning for computer aided manufacture.

Reverse engineering requires the acquisition of large amounts of data describing the surface of an object, sufficient to replicate that object accurately using appropriate fabrication techniques. This is important within a wide range of commercial and scientific fields where CAD models may be unavailable for parts that must be duplicated or modified, or where a physical model is used as a prototype. The three-dimensional digitisation of objects is an essential first step in reverse engineering. Optical triangulation laser sensors are one of the most popular and common non-contact methods used in the data acquisition process today. They provide the means for high resolution scanning of complex objects. Multiple scans of the object are usually required to capture the full 3D profile of the object. A number of factors, including scan resolution, system optics and the precision of the mechanical parts comprising the system may affect the accuracy of the process. A single perspective optical triangulation sensor provides an inexpensive method for the acquisition of 3D range image data

Space and the Contemporary Hollywood Action Sequence

This thesis investigates the manner in which the action sequences of contemporary Hollywood cinema reflect and constitute ways of imagining space. The thesis proposes that these sequences are highly spatialised presentations of bodily interaction with the world, and as such manifest cultural anxieties regarding the relationship between the individual and the built environment, and work to assure their viewers of the capacity of the human form to survive the disorienting spaces of contemporary architecture, globalisation and technology. In order to demonstrate this, the aesthetic and formal properties of action sequences are read alongside critical work exploring how space shapes social life, including influential texts by Henri Lefebvre, Michel de Certeau, Fredric Jameson and others. These readings reveal that both action sequences and critical spatial theory are similarly attentive to the difficulties, contradictions and possibilities of built space. A range of action sequences from Hollywood films of the last fifteen years, including sequences from Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, The International, The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Ultimatum, Jumper, Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, Sucker Punch, Inception, Swordfish, The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded, TRON: Legacy, Resident Evil, Resident Evil: Afterlife and Dredd 3D are analysed for how they depict space and spatial agency. Rather than concentrating upon the narratives of these films, the chapters of the thesis deal in turn with the ways in which action sequences express contemporary developments within the built environment; the consequences of globalisation; the impact of these spatial changes upon mental life; the challenges to bodily engagement raised by digital technology and cyberspace; and the modifications to representing space on film prompted by stereoscopic exhibition. Examinations of these sequences are used to build a model of the action sequence that suggests spatial appropriation and ideas around place-creation are crucial elements of the form.Queen Mary Studentship award

Imagineering the community: The vagrant spaces of the malls, enclave estates, the filmic and the televisual

The idea of \u27community\u27 is an all pervasive and persuasive notion within society. But it is an elastic concept used by diverse groups and institutions to rally people to a cause or to reassure the public in times of (perceived) calamity. Of late the various forms of the media and certain elements of society have been focussing their attention on the \u27breakdown of community\u27 values citing the (perceived) rise in crime, the (supposed) fragmentation of the family and the (hypothetical) loss of respect for authority and authority figures as contributing to an ailing communal sensibility. However, as Anderson (1983) has argued in his discussion on the rise of nationalism the \u27community\u27 is always an imagined entity. This study investigates this concept of the imagined community and looks at how this notion is manifested (and sold to the public) in the \u27real\u27 sites of the contemporary shopping malls and the ever more visible master planned communities. These sites present nostalgic impulses of a community which is in harmony with itself, specifically drawing upon the concert of no idealised \u27village\u27 ethos which speaks of a more simple life enhanced by an intimate relationship to a restorative \u27natural\u27 world. The study also seeks to discoverer how communities are represented in the \u27imagined\u27 worlds of the pictorial, filmic and televisual texts. It is suggested that these sites/sights also offer versions of a lifestyle which, in essence, sells a concept of a commendable community suggested by the mall owners/operators and the enclave estate entrepreneurs. To assist in this investigation the Disneyesque concept of \u27imagineering\u27 will he remotivated and will he linked to what McCannell (1976) called \u27touristic consciousness’. The former suggests that community is found in the conjoining of the perceptual and the conceptual - the real and imagined - or what Soja calls the first and second spaces. The Iatter informs how the sites/sights for community are seen and read. Soja suggest that community is found in the third spaces or what Lefebvre calls the ‘lived’ space. However, it will be argued that there is a fourth space of \u27livable\u27 community that is inherently present in the sites/sights under discussion. This fourthspace is what can be called the vagrant space because it is both present as a fleeting spatiality and absented by the conjoining of first and second spaces. It also acts as a Foucauldian heterotopic space which when present in its absence informs notions of a participatory, coherent community, something which is seen as lacking in the \u27lived\u27 community. Thus the vagrant space suggests an \u27otherness\u27 and \u27difference\u27 within the homogeneous sameness and familiarity of the community of the third space

Telepräsente Bewegung und haptische Interaktion in ausgedehnten entfernten Umgebungen

Das hier vorgestellte System zur weiträumigen Telepräsenz erlaubt wirklichkeitsnahe Exploration und Manipulation in ausgedehnten entfernten Umgebungen. Durch immersive Schnittstelle versetzt sich der menschliche Benutzer an die Stelle eines mobilen Teleoperators. Weiträumige Bewegung durch natürliches Gehen wird durch das substantiell erweiterte Verfahren der Bewegungskompression ermöglicht. Für die haptische Interaktion wird eine speziell entwickelte haptische Schnittstelle vorgestellt