Review of real brain-controlled wheelchairs

This paper presents a review of the state of the art regarding wheelchairs driven by a brain-computer interface (BCI). Using a brain-controlled wheelchair (BCW), disabled users could handle a wheelchair through their brain activity, granting autonomy to move through an experimental environment. A classification is established, based on the characteristics of the BCW, such as the type of electroencephalographic (EEG) signal used, the navigation system employed by the wheelchair, the task for the participants, or the metrics used to evaluate the performance. Furthermore, these factors are compared according to the type of signal used, in order to clarify the differences among them. Finally, the trend of current research in this field is discussed, as well as the challenges that should be solved in the future

Brain switch mode: an alternative to drive a brain-controlled wheelchair

To date, different control paradigms of low level navigation have been tested for brain-controlled wheelchairs, mainly divided into continuous or discrete control [1]. However, these paradigms have certain drawbacks such as the need to keep the mental tasks active for a long time, as in continuous mode, or the impossibility to freely choose any distance of the movement or the turn, as in the discrete mode. An alternative paradigm to solve these problems could be the use of the brain switch mode [2], which would allow a more flexible control of the distance, requiring a lower workload for the user.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Proposals of Control Paradigms Applied to a Brain-Controlled Wheelchair

Proposals of Control Paradigms Applied to a Brain-Controlled Wheelchair, Ron-Angevin R., Velasco-Álvarez F., Fernández Rodriguez A., Proceeding og the BITs 4th Annual World Congress of Smart Material 2018, Osaka (Japan), 6-8 March 2018Several of the neurological diseases that human beings can result in severe disabilities. In some cases, people who suffer from such deficiencies lose any chance of communication with their environment, being the only possible alternative to give the brain a new channel not based on muscular activity, allowing these people to send messages and commands to the external world. The systems that allows the latter is what is known as Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI). Their common feature is to process the brain’s electrical activity for extracting information that can be used to command an external device, as for example, a wheelchair to provide them some mobility. One of the most important limitations of these brain controlled wheelchair is to guarantee that a person can, through his mental activity, safely control the variety of navigation commands that provide control of the wheelchair: advance, turn, move back, and stop. The vast majority of the mobile robot navigation applications that are controlled via a BCI demand that the user performs as many different mental tasks as there are different control commands, worsening the classification accuracy. In order to enable an effective and autonomous wheelchair navigation with a BCI system without worsening user performance, the Brain–Computer Interface (BCI) group of the University of Málaga (UMA-BCI) proposed and later developed a new paradigm based on the discrimination of only two classes (one active mental task versus any other mental activity), which enabled the selection of four commands: move forwards, turn right, move backward and turn left. The final aim of this contribution is to show how to control a robotic wheelchair through the use of only two mental tasks. The mapping of these two mental tasks into several navigation commands allows the Brain-Controlled Wheelchair to be moved and turned in order to achieve effective navigation.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Optimising Humanness: Designing the best human-like Bot for Unreal Tournament 2004

This paper presents multiple hybridizations of the two best bots on the BotPrize 2014 competition, which sought for the best humanlike bot playing the First Person Shooter game Unreal Tournament 2004. To this aim the participants were evaluated using a Turing test in the game. The work considers MirrorBot (the winner) and NizorBot (the second) codes and combines them in two different approaches, aiming to obtain a bot able to show the best behaviour overall. There is also an evolutionary version on MirrorBot, which has been optimized by means of a Genetic Algorithm. The new and the original bots have been tested in a new, open, and public Turing test whose results show that the evolutionary version of MirrorBot apparently improves the original bot, and also that one of the novel approaches gets a good humanness level.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Nuevos datos para la caracterización arqueológica de la vida municipal en la Bética: primeras notas en torno a un edificio público documentado en la antigua "Ilipa" (Alcalá del Río, Sevilla)

Tan sólo como noticia preliminar, se presenta en el breve trabajo que sigue un nuevo edificio público de excavación muy reciente en la actual población sevillana de Alcalá del Río, antigua Ilipa romana. El excelente estado de conservación en el que se encuentra el conjunto, tanto en lo que se refiere a su planta íntegra como a sus acabados, hacen de él un edificio del todo excepcional en la Bética e, incluso, en la totalidad de las provincias hispanas. No obstante, su probable identificación con la curia de la ciudad, hace tomarlo con el justo valor de un elemento indispensable en el funcionamiento cívico de todo núcleo provincial con estatuto privilegiado.In the following paper we present the preliminary results obtained from the recent excavation of a public building from the ancient Roman Ilipa, nowadays Alcalá del Río (Seville). It offers an excellent conservation, -not only what corresponds to the preservation of the whole plan, but to the finishing materials and techniques of walls and pavement, that makes it an exceptional building in the province of Baetica and further, in whole Hispania. Its features make probable its identification as the curia of the Roman city, due to this it must be considered in a wider way as an example of a fundamental piece of the municipal life of the provincial cities

Educación mediática, competencia digital, formación del profesorado en TIC y medios

Este trabajo fin de grado (TFG) tiene como principal objetivo determinar el nivel de formación digital de los maestros de educación primaria, sus intereses, dudas y necesidades sobre las nuevas tecnologías aplicadas en el aula, así como su opinión sobre la figura del CompiDigEdu y la Capacitación Digital Docente de la Comunidad de Madrid. Como punto de partida se ha buscado información sobre las nuevas tecnologías en la educación y sobre la formación del profesorado. Esta recogida de información se refleja en el punto 4 de este trabajo, referido al marco teórico. Para poder obtener información sobre el nivel de formación de los docentes en nuevas tecnologías y sobre los otros aspectos anteriormente mencionados he decidido utilizar el cuestionario, dividido en ocho bloques de preguntas, como herramienta de investigación. En el punto 6 se presenta el contexto, la metodología y el análisis de los resultados, que son la base de las conclusiones finales.Grado en Educación Primari

El enoturismo en Burdeos

Este trabajo consiste en dar a conocer cuál es el significado de enoturismo o turismo enológico y como ha ido evolucionando esta tipología turística a lo largo del tiempo. En este caso el trabajo está centrado en la región de Burdeos (Francia). En primera instancia se narra la historia del vino de manera general ligada a la historia del vino de Burdeos, para dar paso al nacimiento de un turismo del vino. Posteriormente se detalla el proceso del vino, desde su plantación hasta que es embotellado y distribuido, y cuál es su clasificación. También se incluyen las zonas de la región bordolesa donde se cultiva la vid y se produce vino. Finalmente se plasma la promoción turística vinícola internacional y la característica de Burdeos, y se detalla un breve estudio comparativo con la región de la Rioja (España).Universidad de Sevilla. Grado en Turism

Brain-Computer Interface Control of Smartphone Messaging Applications

This work-in-progress paper presents an implementation of a Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) system focused on the control of the most common messaging applications of a smartphone: WhatsApp, Telegram, e-mail and Short Message Service (SMS). The control of these applications is achieved through the use of a virtual assistant running in the smartphone. The BCI system is based on the visual Row-Column Paradigm (RCP), which allows users to select several control commands and to spell messages that are converted to synthesized voice and received by the mentioned virtual assistant in the smartphone.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Afloramiento artificial producido con energía eólica con aplicación a la maricultura

Offshore wind is proposed as an energy source to upwell nutrient-rich deep water to the ocean photic layers. A spar-buoy wind turbine with a rigid tube about 300 m long is proposed as a pipe to drive deep water up to the surface. The minimum energy required to uplift the water is the potential energy difference between surface waters inside and outside the pipe, which depends on the background density profile. The corresponding surface jump or hydraulic head, h, calculated for several analytical and experimental density profiles, is of the order of 10 cm. If the complete turbine power (of the order of several MW) is used for raising the water (assuming a 100% pump efficiency), in a frictionless flow, very large water volumes, of the order of thousands of m3 s-1, will be transported to the photic layers. In a more realistic case, taking into account pipe friction in wide pipes, of the order of 10 m radius, and a power delivered to the fluid of 1 MW, the volume transport is still very large, about 500 m3 s-1. However, such a large amount of dense water could sink fast to aphotic layers due to vertical static instability (the fountain effect), ruining the enhancement of primary production. Hence, some ways to increase the turbulent entrainment and avoid the fountain effect are proposed. From the energetic viewpoint, artificial upwelling using offshore wind energy is a promising way to fertilize large open sea regions. This mariculture application is, however, severely subjected to atmosphere and ocean climatology, as well as to ecological dynamics. The general problem is multidisciplinary, and some important physical, engineering and ecological questions need to be seriously addressed to improve our confidence in the approach presented here.Analizamos el uso de la energía eólica marina como fuente de energía para aflorar aguas profundas ricas en nutrientes a las capas fóticas del océano. Una turbina de viento tipo boya-pértiga, con un tubo rígido de unos 300 m de largo, se propone para transportar las aguas profundas hasta la superficie. La energía mínima necesaria para elevar el agua es la diferencia de energa potencial entre las aguas superficiales dentro y fuera de la tubería, que depende del perfil de densidad de fondo. El salto superficial de agua, o cabezal hidráulico h, calculado para varios perfiles analíticos y experimentales de densidad, resulta ser del orden de 10 cm. Si la potencia total de la turbina (del orden de varios MW) se utiliza para elevar el agua (suponiendo una eficiencia de la bomba del 100%), en un flujo sin fricción, el transporte de volumen de agua transportado a las capas fóticas es muy elevado, del orden de miles de m3 s-1. En un caso más realista, teniendo en cuenta la fricción en tuberías de un ancho del orden de 10 m radio, y una potencia proporcionada al fluido de 1 MW, el transporte volumen sigue siendo muy grande, de alrededor de 500 m3 s-1. Sin embargo, una cantidad tan grande de agua densa podría hundirse rápidamente a las capas afóticas debido a la inestabilidad estática vertical (efecto fuente) arruinando la mejora de la producción primaria. Por lo tanto se proponen algunas maneras de aumentar el arrastre turbulento y evitar el efecto fuente. Desde el punto de vista energético, el afloramiento artificial utilizando energía eólica marina parece una manera prometedora de fertilización de grandes regiones del mar abierto. Esta aplicación de maricultura, sin embargo, depende severamente de la climatología atmosférica y océanica, así como de la dinámica ecológica. El problema global es multidisciplinar, y algunos aspectos importantes de física, ingeniería, y ecología tienen que ser mejor estudiados para poder aumentar nuestra confianza en el método aquí presentado