Medico-surgical-rehab robots: fostering community interaction for safety, standards and regulatory issues

This workshop scope is to bring together experts in medico-surgical-rehabilitation robotics in order to discuss the ongoing issues regarding safety, to provide to the participants insight in the ongoing standardization activities, and to collect their live experience input for safety and standards, and regulatory issues, to criss cross the different point of view to produce valuable inputs of the European experts and projects for the standardization ISO working Groups. The discussion shall include the many aspects related to safety in this robotics area, the regulatory and legal aspects, the possible new approaches to risk assessment, software quality, physical and non physical interfaces, human factors, use cases. The field of medical robots including surgical and rehabilitation robotics is expanding with new market viable products implementing latest scientific results. The basic safety and essential performance requirements in this domain are referred to multiple areas: • on one side we need standards to build safe medical robot systems. This is vital because in the medical, surgical and rehabilitation field the robot is typically in direct contact with the exterior and interior of the human body and applies forces to the patient in different ways. This also implies the need for safe control systems, training issues and many other factors that can influence the overall “safety”. • on the other side the safety issues have to be weighed by the medical approach considering if the robotics technology is providing at least the same benefit for the patient as the traditional alternatives. • Multiple regulatory issues are involved that are strictly connected to the safety approach and to the technical implementation choices that are to be subsumed in the standard

Mariabox an autonomous monitoring device for marine pollution: from the laboratory to a product: design challenges and real world trade-off

Peer Reviewe

Effects of 17-day spaceflight on electrically evoked torque and cross-sectional area of the human triceps surae

The effects of spaceflight on triceps surae muscle torque and cross-sectional area (CSA) were investigated on four astronauts using electrically evoked contractions to by-pass neural control. Muscle twitch characteristics, ankle joint angle–twitch torque relation, frequency–torque relation, tetanic torque and fatigability were assessed before, during and after a 17-day Space Shuttle flight (STS-78). Muscle plus bone cross-sectional area (CSAm+b) was evaluated before and after the flight. Whereas no changes in muscle function were observed during the flight, marked alterations were found during the recovery period. Peak twitch (PTw) and tetanic torques at 50 Hz (PT 50) continued to fall up to the 8th recovery day (R+8) on which losses in PTw and PT 50 were 24.4% ( P<0.01) and 22.0% ( P<0.01), respectively. The decline in PTw was not joint-angle-specific. Post-flight, especially on R+8, torque decreased at all stimulation frequencies (1, 20, 30 and 50 Hz); however the shape of the frequency–torque curve, normalised for PT 50, was not modified. Similarly, no changes in twitch kinetics were observed. Post- flight, an 8% ( P<0.01) reduction in CSAm+b was found on R+2. Normalisation of PT 50 values for CSAm+b showed a progressive loss in specific torque (PT 50/CSAm+b), which was maximal on R+2 (19.5%, P<0.05). Also, fatigability during 2-min intermittent stimulation at 20 Hz increased throughout recovery, reaching a nadir of 16.4% ( P<0.01) on R+15. In conclusion, 17 days of spaceflight resulted in significant changes in muscle function during the recovery phase, but not in microgravity. The disproportionate loss of torque compared with that of muscle size suggests the presence of muscle damage due to reloading in 1 g

Mariabox an autonomous monitoring device for marine pollution: from the laboratory to a product: design challenges and real world trade-off

Barattini, Paolo ... et .al.-- 6th International Workshop on Marine Technology - MARTECH 2015, 15-17 September 2015, Cartagena (Spain).-- 4 pages, 2 figuresThe MARIABOX “MARIne environmental in situ Assessment and monitoring tool Box” is an autonomous marine monitoring device for man made and natural pollutants under development in the frame of a project funded by the European Commission (Contract 614088). The device it is conceived for installation on free floating devices, buoys, ships, or to be used as a portable instrument. It will work fully autonomously, collecting the marine water sample, analysing it, storing the data and transmitting them via satellite link. The main, high-level user requirements for the MARIABOX system are for analytical sensitivity below the thresholds for pollutants set by the European Commission, so to enable early warning, to be portable and capable of repeating measurements over at least six months without any servicing so to diminish the costs of logistics when deployed at seaPeer Reviewe

Human-robot interaction: safety, standardization, and benchmarking

Human-Robot Interaction: Safety, Standardization, and Benchmarking provides a comprehensive introduction to the new scenarios emerging where humans and robots interact in various environments and applications on a daily basis. The focus is on the current status and foreseeable implications of robot safety, approaching these issues from the standardization and benchmarking perspectives. Featuring contributions from leading experts, the book presents state-of-the-art research, and includes real-world applications and use cases. It explores the key leading sectors―robotics, service robotics, and medical robotics―and elaborates on the safety approaches that are being developed for effective human-robot interaction, including physical robot-human contacts, collaboration in task execution, workspace sharing, human-aware motion planning, and exploring the landscape of relevant standards and guidelines. Features Presenting a comprehensive introduction to human-robot interaction in a number of domains, including industrial robotics, medical robotics, and service robotics Focusing on robot safety standards and benchmarking Providing insight into current developments in international standards Featuring contributions from leading experts, actively pursuing new robot developmen

Point-of-service diagnostic technology for detection of swine viral diseases

A research project is underway aiming to develop a field diagnostic tool for six important viruses of the pig sector, namely: African swine fever virus (ASFV), porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV), swine influenza virus (SIV), porcine parvovirus (PPV), porcine circovirus (PCV2), and classical swine fever virus (CSFV)