A human-oriented design process for collaborative robotics

The potential of collaborative robotics often does not materialize in an efficient design of the human-robot collaboration. Technology-oriented approaches are no longer enough in the Industry 4.0 era. This work proposes a set of methods to support manufacturing engineers in the human-oriented design process of integrated production systems to obtain satisfactory performance in the mass customization paradigm, without impacting the safety and health of workers. It founds the design criteria definition on five main pillars (safety, ergonomics, effectiveness, flexibility, and costs), favors the consideration of different design alternatives, and leads their selection. The dynamic impact of the design choices on the various elements of the system prevails over the static design constraints. The method has been experimented in collaboration with the major kitchen manufacturer in Italy, which introduced a collaborative robotics cell in the drawers' assembly line. It resulted in a more balanced production line (10% more), a verified risk minimization (RULA score reduced from 5 to 3 and OCRA score from 13.30 to 5.70), and a greater allocation of operators to high added value activities

Tools and Methods for Human Robot Collaboration: Case Studies at i-LABS

The collaboration among humans and machines is one of the most relevant topics in the Industry 4.0 paradigm. Collaborative robotics owes part of the enormous impact it has had in small and medium size enterprises to its innate vocation for close cooperation between human operators and robots. The i-Labs laboratory, which is introduced in this paper, developed some case studies in this sense involving different technologies at different abstraction levels to analyse the feasibility of human-robot interaction in common, yet challenging, application scenarios. The ergonomics of the processes, safety of operators, as well as effectiveness of the cooperation are some of the aspects under investigation with the main objective of drawing to these issues the attention from industries who could benefit from them

Biological variations in a long-term ex situ cultivation: a Mediterranean demosponge as model system

The demosponge Tethya citrina Sarà & Melone was subjected to long-term aquarium farming, considering that several species belonging to this genus are a rich source of useful bioactive metabolites. The rearing method in the present research was mainly based on applying parameters taken from the current literature. The sponge's biological activity was assessed in terms of survival and growth over time; status of filtering apparatus; protein banding profiles. Farmed sponges showed a high survival rate and marked reduction in size. In addition, they were frequently affected by massive production of asexual buds. Histological and ultrastructural observations showed a gradual disorganization of the sponge choanocyte chambers, with a drastic reduction in choanocytes and a progressive increase in spherulous cells. Comparative electrophoretic analysis of the protein profiles of wild and reared specimens showed differences in protein composition and abundance between the tested groups. Such data are consistent with the increase in spherulous cells whose content was markedly electron-dense, a feature stressing the proteinaceous nature of these inclusions. Experimental tank-rearing of Tethya provided promising responses in terms of high survival rate of the species and easy reproduction, though the rearing protocol used led to profound morpho-functional changes in the sponge. This confirms the inadequate state of knowledge on farming techniques for this taxon, while also highlighting potential applications in biotechnology of ex situ breeding techniques, in order to modify the sponges' biological responses

Dynamic Obstacle Avoidance for Omnidirectional Mobile Manipulators

The last decade witnessed an unprecedented spread of robotics. The production paradigm of Industry 4.0 and 5.0 yielded collaborative robots in production lines of all sizes. Also, the robots started leaving the industrial scenario to play a leading role in the field of personal assistance. These environments share a common challenge, i.e. the safety of people working and/or living around the robots. Collision avoidance control techniques are essential to improve such aspect, by preventing impacts that can occur between the robot and humans or objects. The paper extends algorithms already developed by the authors for robotic arms to the case of mobile manipulators. The control strategy, which has been refined in the contribution of the robot bodies, has then been tested in two simulated case studies involving an industrial mobile robot and the custom service robot Paquitop, developed at Politecnico di Torino

Is the Salmonella contamination of swine carcasses at slaughter related to the Salmonella load in caecum?

The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between the load of Salmonella spp. in caeca and the carcass contamination in an Italian slaughterhouse. The sampling scheme was designed to be representative of the pigs slaughtered in a day and to estimate a 12% prevalence of pigs highly contaminated by Salmonella spp. (HCP, cecal load ≥3log). Environmental swabs were taken before slaughter. Cecal contents and carcass swabs were collected from the same pig. Salmonella MPN were estimated according to ISO6579- 2:2012/A1 and ISO7218:2007/E. The overall Salmonella prevalence were 34.64% and 7.19% for ceca and carcasses respectively, with S. Derby and S. 4,[5],12:i:- being the prevalent serotypes. The HCP prevalence was 11.44%. 7/59 environmental swabs tested positive; when the same serotype was isolated from the environment and from carcasses, the samples were excluded from further analysis. Statistical analysis was performed to investigate the relationship between Salmonella spp. loads in the cecum and contamination of the carcass of the same pig and the prevalence of HCP and the contamination of carcasses on the same day. For this purpose, the days were classified as “high prevalence days” depending on the proportion of caeca resulted positive (≥36%) and as “high load” days depending on the prevalence of HCP (≥10%). A correlation between the contamination of carcasses and the cecal Salmonella loads of the same animal was found (Spearman’s correlation coefficient: 0.2254; p-value=0.0001). No correlation was found between the contamination of carcasses and the categorization of the day of sampling as “high prevalence day”. Conversely, a correlation was found between the contamination of carcasses and the “high load” category of the sampling day (Wilcoxon test, p=0.0011). Notably, not the prevalence of pigs carrying Salmonella spp. but the prevalence of highly contaminated pigs was shown to be related to the contamination of carcasses

Cobertura vacunal sarampión-rubéola en aspirantes al ingreso en el Instituto de Formación Superior IFSP 6001, La Plata año 2014

El sarampión (S) y la rubéola (R) son enfermedades inmunoprevenibles de reservorio humano exclusivo, pasibles de eliminación/erradicación. La vacunación para S se inició en nuestro país en el año 1971 a los 9 meses de edad; y, fue utilizada con diferentes esquemas. Objetivos: Identificar las coberturas de vacunación e implementar la vacunación con indicación personalizada para iniciar/completar esquemas.Facultad de Ciencias Médica

Cobertura vacunal sarampión-rubéola en aspirantes al ingreso en el Instituto de Formación Superior IFSP 6001, La Plata año 2014

El sarampión (S) y la rubéola (R) son enfermedades inmunoprevenibles de reservorio humano exclusivo, pasibles de eliminación/erradicación. La vacunación para S se inició en nuestro país en el año 1971 a los 9 meses de edad; y, fue utilizada con diferentes esquemas. Objetivos: Identificar las coberturas de vacunación e implementar la vacunación con indicación personalizada para iniciar/completar esquemas.Facultad de Ciencias Médica

Nivel de sospecha de enfermedad de Fabry en profesionales de la salud en el primer nivel de atención : Buenos Aires, mayo 2015

La enfermedad de Fabry es una enfermedad genética, hereditaria autosómica recesiva, de depósito lisosomal. Pertenece a los errores innatos del metabolismo. La incidencia varía de 1/40.000 a 1/117.000 nacidos vivos. Causa deficiencia total o parcial de la enzima alfa-galactosidasa A. Esta deficiencia interfiere en la degradación de globotriaosilceramida (Gb3), presente en muchos tipos de células, particularmente en las membranas de los eritrocitos. Los signos y síntomas sugestivos de E. de Fabry son: dolor intenso en manos y pies, dolor abdominal, angioqueratomas, opacidad corneal, facie tosca, proteinuria, entre otras. El compromiso vascular aumenta 12 veces el riego de ACV a partir de los 30 años, además de causar distintas afecciones cardíacas. La progresión del daño en el rinón evoluciona a insuficiencia renal crónica con necesidad de diálisis en la tercera década de la vida. Por todo lo expuesto es muy importante la detección temprana de esta enfermedad para instaurar un tratamiento adecuado con el objetivo de detener el deterioro de los órganos antes mencionados y reducir de esta forma la morbimortalidad de la Enfermedad de Fabry.Facultad de Ciencias Médica

Nivel de sospecha de enfermedad de Fabry en profesionales de la salud en el primer nivel de atención : Buenos Aires, mayo 2015

La enfermedad de Fabry es una enfermedad genética, hereditaria autosómica recesiva, de depósito lisosomal. Pertenece a los errores innatos del metabolismo. La incidencia varía de 1/40.000 a 1/117.000 nacidos vivos. Causa deficiencia total o parcial de la enzima alfa-galactosidasa A. Esta deficiencia interfiere en la degradación de globotriaosilceramida (Gb3), presente en muchos tipos de células, particularmente en las membranas de los eritrocitos. Los signos y síntomas sugestivos de E. de Fabry son: dolor intenso en manos y pies, dolor abdominal, angioqueratomas, opacidad corneal, facie tosca, proteinuria, entre otras. El compromiso vascular aumenta 12 veces el riego de ACV a partir de los 30 años, además de causar distintas afecciones cardíacas. La progresión del daño en el rinón evoluciona a insuficiencia renal crónica con necesidad de diálisis en la tercera década de la vida. Por todo lo expuesto es muy importante la detección temprana de esta enfermedad para instaurar un tratamiento adecuado con el objetivo de detener el deterioro de los órganos antes mencionados y reducir de esta forma la morbimortalidad de la Enfermedad de Fabry.Facultad de Ciencias Médica