Learning-Based Adaptation for Personalized Mobility Assistance

Mobility assistance is of key importance for people with disabilities to remain autonomous in their preferred environments. In severe cases, assistance can be provided by robotized wheelchairs that can perform complex maneuvers and/or correct the user’s commands. User’s acceptance is of key importance, as some users do not like their commands to be modified. This work presents a solution to improve acceptance. It consists of making the robot learn how the user drives so corrections will not be so noticeable to the user. Case Based Reasoning (CBR) is used to acquire a user’s driving model reactive level. Experiments with volunteers at Fondazione Santa Lucia (FSL) have proven that, indeed, this customized approach at assistance increases acceptance by the user.This work has been partially supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Educacion y Ciencia (MEC), Project TEC2011-29106-C02-01. The authors would like to thank Santa Lucia Hospedale and all volunteers for their kind cooperation and Sauer Medica for providing the power wheelchair

Towards a Shared Control Navigation Function:Efficiency Based Command Modulation

This paper presents a novel shared control algorithm for robotized wheelchairs. The proposed algorithm is a new method to extend autonomous navigation techniques into the shared control domain. It reactively combines user’s and robot’s commands into a continuous function that approximates a classic Navigation Function (NF) by weighting input commands with NF constraints. Our approach overcomes the main drawbacks of NFs -calculus complexity and limitations on environment modeling- so it can be used in dynamic unstructured environments. It also benefits from NF properties: convergence to destination, smooth paths and safe navigation. Due to the user’s contribution to control, our function is not strictly a NF, so we call it a pseudo-navigation function (PNF) instead.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Reactive adapted assistance for wheelchair navigation based on a standard skill profile

Mobility assistance for wheelchair navigation is typically based on the shared control paradigm. Traditionally, control swaps from user to machine depending either on a trigger mechanism or on a explicit user request. Alternatively, in collaborative control approaches both user and robot contribute to control at the same time. However, in this case it is necessary to decide how much impact the user has in the emergent command. User weight has been estimated based on his/her command efficiency or on the environment complexity. However, the user’s command efficiency may change abruptly, whereas the environment complexity depends on the user’s skills. In this work we propose a collaborative control approach where this weight is determined by the user’s ability to cope with the situation at hand with respect to an average person. This estimation relies on an standard navigation skill profile extracted from a large number of traces from real users. This approach has two major advantages: i) the user receives more assistance only when needed according to his/her own skills; and ii) we avoid an excess of assistance to prevent loss of residual skills. The proposed system has been tested with a group of people with disabilities. Tests prove that resulting efficiencies are similar to other collaborative control approaches although the amount of assistance is reduced.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

El hogar inteligente

La sociedad actual ha acogido la tecnología con los brazos abiertos : pocos subsistirían un día sin móvil y hay quien tiene un televisor mayor que su salón. Muchos vivimos en hogares tecnológicos, pero ¿vivimos ya en hogares inteligentes

Autonomía adaptable por predicción individualizada en CARMEN

El objetivo de esta tesis es presentar una arquitectura de control híbrida para sillas de rueda asistivas, completamente centrada en el usuario. La principal novedad de este trabajo es que realiza una adaptación para el usuaro de todo el proceso de navegación mediante el aprendizaje. La población objetivo incluye personas con discapacidades físicas y cognitivas muy diversas. Proporcionar la cantidad justa de asistencia nos permite evitar frustración, pérdida de habilidades residuales y ADLs

Echoic Representations of Two Feminist Models of Women: The Industrious Rosie ‘the Riveter’ and the Eccentric Frida Kahlo

This paper focuses on iconic language as an intense, multimodal way of communication, and, more concretely, on representations endowed with an ‘echoic nature’ that have had the power to convey deeply emotional and persuasive messages in different contexts. After briefly reviewing the various epistemological approaches that have dealt with symbolism in art, two images of archetypal women, repeatedly recreated in various sorts of locative and temporal spaces, will be analysed from the pragmatic-cognitive perspective of Sperber & Wilson’s Relevance Theory (1986, 1995). The first echoic representation has its source in a poster with one of the most well-known faces of US propaganda, Rosie Will Monroe’s, calling for women’s work effort in order to help their country win the war, with the moving advertising slogan “We can do it”. The other model is based on the image of Frida Kahlo who won fame with her pictorial work, in spite of being partially eclipsed by her famous husband, the Mexican muralist Diego Rivera; the portrayal of her “long-suffering self” (egotistical echoicity) and her polemic and eccentric biography turned her into an icon of art, revolution and feminism

Papel de SAM68 en la diferenciación del adipocito

Sam68, sustrato de Src en mitosis, es una proteína STAR (transductor de señales y activador del metabolismo de ARN) que está involucrada en diversos y muy importantes procesos biológicos tales como la regulación de la expresión génica, corte-empalme alternativo, señalización, ciclo celular, exportación de ARN, traducción de proteínas, etc... Debido a esta gran variedad de funciones diferentes es fácil pensar en la importancia de conocer cada uno de los mecanismos biológicos donde se ha encontrado su participación. Nuestro grupo ha trabajado en el papel de Sam68 en la señalización del receptor de insulina y leptina. La insulina es uno de los factores necesarios para la diferenciación del adipocito, y la leptina es una adipocina producida fundamentalmente por el adipocito. Por tanto pensamos que Sam68 podría tener algún papel en la diferenciación del adipocit

CMOS-3D smart imager architectures for feature detection

This paper reports a multi-layered smart image sensor architecture for feature extraction based on detection of interest points. The architecture is conceived for 3-D integrated circuit technologies consisting of two layers (tiers) plus memory. The top tier includes sensing and processing circuitry aimed to perform Gaussian filtering and generate Gaussian pyramids in fully concurrent way. The circuitry in this tier operates in mixed-signal domain. It embeds in-pixel correlated double sampling, a switched-capacitor network for Gaussian pyramid generation, analog memories and a comparator for in-pixel analog-to-digital conversion. This tier can be further split into two for improved resolution; one containing the sensors and another containing a capacitor per sensor plus the mixed-signal processing circuitry. Regarding the bottom tier, it embeds digital circuitry entitled for the calculation of Harris, Hessian, and difference-of-Gaussian detectors. The overall system can hence be configured by the user to detect interest points by using the algorithm out of these three better suited to practical applications. The paper describes the different kind of algorithms featured and the circuitry employed at top and bottom tiers. The Gaussian pyramid is implemented with a switched-capacitor network in less than 50 μs, outperforming more conventional solutions.Xunta de Galicia 10PXIB206037PRMinisterio de Ciencia e Innovación TEC2009-12686, IPT-2011-1625-430000Office of Naval Research N00014111031

El Turismo ornitológico en España como modalidad emergente. Organización interna de la actividad y caracterización de la demanda

El artículo se dirige a analizar el turismo ornitológico en España como modalidad con características específi cas dentro del turismo de naturaleza. Para ello se intenta precisar el concepto y enmarcarlo en el seno de las tendencias turísticas actuales. Igualmente, se realiza una caracterización de su demanda a partir de los datos disponibles y se establecen los rasgos esenciales de la organización de la actividad, con especial detalle en los canales internacionales de comercialización de la misma hacia España. Finalmente, como conclusión, se demuestra el carácter minoritario aunque de estimable nivel de gasto de la clientela extranjera, afi rmando la necesidad estratégica de ampliar la demanda hacia segmentos nacionales.The article tries to analyze the ornithological tourism in Spain as modality with specifi c characteristics inside the tourism of nature. For it tries to specify the concept and to frame it in the context of the tourist current trends. Equally, is realized a characterization of his demand from the available information and are established the essential features of the organization of the activity, with special detail in the international channels of marketing of the same one towards Spain. Finally, like conclusion, the minority character is demonstrated though of estimable level of expense of the foreign clientele, affi rming the strategic need to extend the demand towards national segments