KCT: a MATLAB toolbox for motion control of KUKA robot manipulators

Abstract—The Kuka Control Toolbox (KCT) is a collection of MATLAB functions for motion control of KUKA robot manipulators, developed to offer an intuitive and high-level programming interface to the user. The toolbox, which is compatible with all 6 DOF small and low payload KUKA robots that use the Eth.RSIXML, runs on a remote computer connected with the KUKA controller via TCP/IP. KCT includes more than 30 functions, spanning operations such as forward and inverse kinematics computation, point-to-point joint and Cartesian control, trajectory generation, graphical display and diagnostics. The flexibility, ease of use and reliability of the toolbox is demonstrated through two applicative examples. I

a teleoperation system for micro invasive brain surgery

AbstractThis paper deals with controller design issues for a neurosurgical teleoperator system. The specific application of interest consists of remotely inserting a linear-stage rigid endoscope into the patient's brain for microinvasive neurosurgery interventions. This work aims at evaluating advantages and drawbacks of using a general-purpose control architecture versus a simpler task-oriented architecture, from a point of view of stability and transparency. Experiments revealed that in spite of its simplicity, the task-oriented design allows an improvement in the trade-off between performance, transparency and stability requirements

Design of a wearable skin stretch cutaneous device for the upper limb

This paper presents a novel cutaneous device capable of providing independent skin stretches at the palmar, dorsal, ulnar, and radial sides of the arm. It consists of a lightweight bracelet with four servo motors. Each motor actuates a cylindrical shaped end-effector that is able to rotate, generating skin stretch stimuli. To understand how to control and wear the device on the forearm to evoke the most effective cutaneous sensations, we carried out perceptual experiments evaluating its absolute and differential thresholds. Finally, we carried out an experiment of haptic navigation to assess the effectiveness of our device as a navigation feedback system to guide a desired rotation and translation of the forearm. Results demonstrate an average rotation and translation error of 1.87○ and 2.84 mm, respectively. Moreover, all the subjects found our device easy to wear and comfortable. Nine out of ten found it effective in transmitting navigation information to the forearm

facial emotion recognition performance influences executive control impairment in anorexia nervosa an exploratory study

AbstractObjectivesSince evidence on executive control among women with Anorexia or Bulimia Nervosa (AN/BN) are somehow inconclusive, we aimed to explore whether performance in set-shifting in AN/BN might be influenced by Facial Emotion Recognition (FER).MethodsWe randomly recruited women with a diagnosis of AN or BN, from an Eating Disorders Outpatient Clinic in Italy, as well as healthy controls (HCs). We evaluated with established tools: diagnosis (Eating Disorder Examination- EDE-17.0), executive control (Intra-Extra Dimensional Set Shift-IED) and FER (Ekman 60 Faces Test-EK-60F). Univariate distributions by diagnostic subgroups were assessed on sociodemographic and clinical variables, which were selected for subsequent multiple linear regression analyses.ResultsWomen with AN performed significantly worse than HCs on IED adjusted total errors. HCs scored significantly better than AN and BN on EK-60F fear subscale. Although IED set shifting was associated (p = 0.008) with AN, after controlling for age, EK-60F fear subscale, alexithymia and depression (i.e., clinically relevant covariates identified a priori from the literature, or associated with AN/BN at univariate level), this association could not be confirmed.ConclusionsImpaired executive control may not be a distinctive feature in women with AN, since several clinical characteristics, including fear recognition ability, are likely to have an important role. This has significant implications for relevant interventions in AN, which should aim at also improving socio-emotional processing

Paediatric recurrent pericarditis: Appropriateness of the standard of care and response to IL1-blockade

Objective: To analyse, in a cohort of paediatric patients with recurrent pericarditis (RP) undergoing anti-IL-1 treatment: the agent and dosing used as first line treatment, the long-term efficacy of IL1-blockers, the percentage of patients achieving a drug-free remission, the presence of variables associated with drug-free remission. Study design: Data were collected from patients' charts. Annualized relapse rate (ARR) was used for evaluation of treatment efficacy, bivariate logistic regression analysis for variables associated with drug-free remisison. Results: 58 patients, treated between 2008 and 2018, were included in the study (mean follow-up 2.6 years). 14/56 patients non-responsive to first line drugs were under-dosed. 57 patients were treated with anakinra: the ARR before and during daily treatment was 3.05 and 0.28, respectively (p<0.0001); an increase to 0.83 was observed after the reduction/withdrawal of treatment (p<.0001). The switch from anakinra to canakinumab (5 patients) was associated to an increase of the ARR (0.49 vs 1.46), but without statistical significance (p=0.215). At last follow-up only 9/58 patients had withdrawn all treatments. With the limits of a retrospective study and the heterogeneity between the patients enrolled in the study, a shorter duration of treatment with anakinra was the only variable associated with drug-free remission. Conclusion: This study shows that most of the pediatric patients with RP needing IL-1 blockade received an inadequate treatment with first line agents. The effectiveness of anakinra is supported by this study, but few patients achieved drug free-remission. The different rate of response to anakinra and canakinumab may suggest a possible role of IL1α in the pathogenesis of RP

Predicting respiratory failure in patients infected by SARS-CoV-2 by admission sex-specific biomarkers

Background: Several biomarkers have been identified to predict the outcome of COVID-19 severity, but few data are available regarding sex differences in their predictive role. Aim of this study was to identify sex-specific biomarkers of severity and progression of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) in COVID-19. Methods: Plasma levels of sex hormones (testosterone and 17β-estradiol), sex-hormone dependent circulating molecules (ACE2 and Angiotensin1-7) and other known biomarkers for COVID-19 severity were measured in male and female COVID-19 patients at admission to hospital. The association of plasma biomarker levels with ARDS severity at admission and with the occurrence of respiratory deterioration during hospitalization was analysed in aggregated and sex disaggregated form. Results: Our data show that some biomarkers could be predictive both for males and female patients and others only for one sex. Angiotensin1-7 plasma levels and neutrophil count predicted the outcome of ARDS only in females, whereas testosterone plasma levels and lymphocytes counts only in males. Conclusions: Sex is a biological variable affecting the choice of the correct biomarker that might predict worsening of COVID-19 to severe respiratory failure. The definition of sex specific biomarkers can be useful to alert patients to be safely discharged versus those who need respiratory monitoring

Linear Integration of Tactile and Non-tactile Inputs Mediates Estimation of Fingertip Relative Position

While skin, joints and muscles receptors alone provide lower level information about individual variables (e.g., exerted limb force and limb displacement), the distance between limb endpoints (i.e., relative position) has to be extracted from high level integration of somatosensory and motor signals. In particular, estimation of fingertip relative position likely involves more complex sensorimotor transformations than those underlying hand or arm position sense: the brain has to estimate where each fingertip is relative to the hand and where fingertips are relative to each other. It has been demonstrated that during grasping, feedback of digit position drives rapid adjustments of fingers force control. However, it has been shown that estimation of fingertips' relative position can be biased by digit forces. These findings raise the question of how the brain combines concurrent tactile (i.e., cutaneous mechanoreceptors afferents induced by skin pressure and stretch) and non-tactile (i.e., both descending motor command and joint/muscle receptors signals associated to muscle contraction) digit force-related inputs for fingertip distance estimation. Here we addressed this question by quantifying the contribution of tactile and non-tactile force-related inputs for the estimation of fingertip relative position. We asked subjects to match fingertip vertical distance relying only on either tactile or non-tactile inputs from the thumb and index fingertip, and compared their performance with the condition where both types of inputs were combined. We found that (a) the bias in the estimation of fingertip distance persisted when tactile inputs and non-tactile force-related signals were presented in isolation; (b) tactile signals contributed the most to the estimation of fingertip distance; (c) linear summation of the matching errors relying only on either tactile or non-tactile inputs was comparable to the matching error when both inputs were simultaneously available. These findings reveal a greater role of tactile signals for sensing fingertip distance and suggest a linear integration mechanism with non-tactile inputs for the estimation of fingertip relative position

Cutaneous device for teleoperated needle insertion

A new device providing cutaneous feedback is presented. Two motors are used to flex two mobile platforms, applying a normal force to the user's thumb and index finger pads. The cutaneous device substitutes the typical kinesthetic and cutaneous feedback, usually provided by grounded haptic interfaces, with the cutaneous component only. The main advantage of this approach is that it does not suffer from typical stability issues and it can be considered intrinsically safe when used in a teleoperation system. The proposed technique can be casted in a sensory substitution framework but there are relevant differences which are worth underlining. Its main advantage, with respect to classic sensory substitution techniques which employ visual and/or auditory feedback, is that the substitution occurs at the cutaneous level and the feedback is applied directly on the finger pads, i.e. exactly where the force feedback is expected by the operator. A teleoperated needle insertion application is considered, in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the device