Getting Incentives Right: do we need ex post CBA?

This paper, presented at the Sixth European Conference on Evaluation of Cohesion Policy (Warsaw, 30 November-1 December 2009), discusses why there is a strong need of ex-post Cost-Benefit analysis and which conditions should be met for a proper ex-post exercise to be carried out in the framework of Cohesion Policy major projects. After an introduction about the objectives and instruments of the 2007-2013 EU Cohesion Policy, and in particular the legal framework for co-financing environmental and transport projects, the paper illustrates and discusses some methodological choices which have been made by the authors of the EC CBA Guide. It is showed that, without an ex-post Cost-Benefit analysis, the ex-ante exercise is also weakened as a decision making tool. In particular, in the light of evidence from literature about the most common mistakes and pitfalls in ex-ante project appraisal, it is explained how systematic ex-post evaluation is important in particular linked to ex-ante incentives to reveal true information about the projects characteristics (especially on investment costs and demand forecast which are often respectively under and overestimated due to an optimism bias) and ex-post performance assessment. The EC has a unique role to play in this context, and recommendations are given about how to improve the use of CBA for investment decisions and how to contract co-funding of major projects in the framework of incentive theory.CBA, Cohesion Policy, Incentives

Estimation of Phantom Arm Mechanics About Four Degrees of Freedom After Targeted Muscle Reinnervation

The intuitive control of bionic arms requires estimation of amputee's phantom arm movements from residual muscle bio-electric signals. The functional use of myoelectric arms relies on the ability of controlling large sets of degrees of freedom (>3 DOFs) spanning elbow, forearm, and wrist joints. This would assure optimal hand orientation in any environment. As part of this paper we recorded high-density electromyograms with >190 electrodes from the residual stump of a trans-humeral amputee who underwent targeted muscle reinnervation. We employed clustering to determine eight spatially separated sub-sets of channels sampling electromyograms associated to the actuation of four phantom arm DOFs. We created a large-scale musculoskeletal model of the phantom arm encompassing 33 musculo-tendon units. For the first time, this enabled the accurate electromyography-driven simulation of complex phantom joint rotations about elbow flexion-extension, forearm pronation-supination, wrist flexion-extension, and radial-ulnar deviation. These results support the potential for a new class of bionic limbs that are controlled as natural extensions of the body, an important step toward next-generation prosthetics that mimic human biological functionality and robustness

Robust simultaneous myoelectric control of multiple degrees of freedom in wrist-hand prostheses by real-time neuromusculoskeletal modeling

Objectives: Robotic prosthetic limbs promise to replace mechanical function of lost biological extremities and restore amputees' capacity of moving and interacting with the environment. Despite recent advances in biocompatible electrodes, surgical procedures, and mechatronics, the impact of current solutions is hampered by the lack of intuitive and robust man-machine interfaces. Approach: Based on authors' developments, this work presents a biomimetic interface that synthetizes the musculoskeletal function of an individual's phantom limb as controlled by neural surrogates, i.e. electromyography-derived neural activations. With respect to current approaches based on machine learning, our method employs explicit representations of the musculoskeletal system to reduce the space of feasible solutions in the translation of electromyograms into prosthesis control commands. Electromyograms are mapped onto mechanical forces that belong to a subspace contained within the broader operational space of an individual's musculoskeletal system. Results: Our results show that this constraint makes the approach applicable to real-world scenarios and robust to movement artefacts. This stems from the fact that any control command must always exist within the musculoskeletal model operational space and be therefore physiologically plausible. The approach was effective both on intact-limbed individuals and a transradial amputee displaying robust online control of multi-functional prostheses across a large repertoire of challenging tasks. Significance: The development and translation of man-machine interfaces that account for an individual's neuromusculoskeletal system creates unprecedented opportunities to understand how disrupted neuro-mechanical processes can be restored or replaced via biomimetic wearable assistive technologies

Building Back Better: idee e percorsi per la costruzione di comunità resilienti

I saggi raccolti in questo volume richiamano l’attenzione su quanto è possibile fare sin d’ora, nel nostro paese, per mobilitare le migliori energie e attivare processi virtuosi nella direzione tracciata dalle Nazioni Unite nel Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-30. Si tratta certamente di “ricostruire meglio” (Building Back Better), ma servono anche azioni di prevenzione che diventano prioritarie in un contesto dove ai rischi naturali si aggiungono vulnerabilità sociali ed economiche. La comunità scientifica ha il dovere di partecipare alla creazione di condizioni che incrementino la resilienza dei territori e delle comunità a rischio o già colpiti. Solo un fecondo e concreto dialogo fra i numerosi saperi, competenze e responsabilità dei diversi attori coinvolti può consentire di intraprendere azioni adeguate per ottenere risultati incisivi e duraturi a sostegno dei territori e delle comunità. Un hub internazionale, caratterizzato da contributi multidisciplinari, può valorizzare una massa critica di ricerca e innovazione, come testimonia questo libro, attivando un proficuo confronto con i decisori politici per progettare e realizzare interventi concreti sui territori. Il volume raccoglie contributi di ricercatori di università italiane (Bologna, Camerino, Firenze, Macerata, Modena e Reggio Emilia, Politecnica delle Marche, Urbino), enti e centri di ricerca (Centro euromediterraneo di documentazione Eventi Estremi e Disastri, Gran Sasso Science Institute, Istituto nazionale di fisica nucleare, Istituto nazionale di geofisica e vulcanologia) e di ActionAid. La parte Strategie in azione raccoglie le interviste ai responsabili dell’Agenzia per la coesione territoriale, del Piano Casa Italia, della Protezione civile e di Loccioni Group

Training and vocational value of apprenticeships for Italian women graduated in Human Sciences

Poster presentato al 30th International Congress of Psychology (ICP), Cape Town, 22-27 July 201

MyoSim:Fast and physiologically realistic MuJoCo models for musculoskeletal and exoskeletal studies

Owing to the restrictions of live experimentation, musculoskeletal simulation models play a key role in biological motor control studies and investigations. Successful results of which are then tried on live subjects to develop treatments as well as robot aided rehabilitation procedures for addressing neuromusculoskeletal anomalies ranging from limb loss, to tendinitis, from sarcopenia to brain and spinal injuries. Despite its significance, current musculoskeletal models are computationally expensive, and provide limited support for contact-rich interactions which are essential for studying motor behaviors in activities of daily living, during rehabilitation treatments, or in assistive robotic devices. To bridge this gap, this work proposes an automatic pipeline to generate physiologically accurate musculoskeletal, as well as hybrid musculoskeletal-exoskeletal models. Leveraging this pipeline we present MyoSim - a set of computationally efficient (over 2 orders of magnitude faster than state of the art) musculoskeletal models that support fully interactive contact rich simulation. We further extend MyoSim to support additional features that help simulate various real-life changes/diseases, such as muscle fatigue, and sarcopenia. To demonstrate the potential applications, several use cases, including interactive rehabilitation movements, tendon-reaffirmation, and the cosimulation with an exoskeleton, were developed and investigated for physiological correctness. Web-page: https://sites.google.com/view/myosuit