Om evaluering af samspillet mellem lokale og centrale myndigheder - belyst ved arbejdet med trafik- og miljøhandlingsplaner

Trafik- og miljøpuljen 1992-95 havde til formål at støtte udarbejdelsen og gennemførelsen af lokale handlingsplaner i kommunerne. Målsætningen var at reducere den trafikskabte miljøforurening i større bykommuner. Dette mål skulle opnåes gennem en tostrenget strategi, der dels bestod af en påvirkning af indholdet i de lokale handlingsplaner gennem en centralt formuleret vejledning, og dels var der knyttet økonomiske incitamenter til puljen, som kunne støtte gennemførelsen af konkrete foranstaltninger. Gennem denne strategi lykkedes det Miljøministeriet at skabe strategiske alliancer i kommunerne. Det gæler politikere og interessenter i almindelighed og de tekniske forvaltninger i særdeleshed. resultaterne var, at det i nogle kommuner lykkedes at anbringe de trafikskabte miljøproblemer på den kommunal- og miljøpolitiske dagsorden. Afslutningsvist stilles dog fokus på strategiens begrænsninger, idet der er en grænse for, hvor mange ressourcer kommunerne kan og vil afsætte til matche statslige initiativer

A 4-DOF Upper Limb Exoskeleton for Physical Assistance: Design, Modeling, Control and Performance Evaluation

Wheelchair mounted upper limb exoskeletons offer an alternative way to support disabled individuals in their activities of daily living (ADL). Key challenges in exoskeleton technology include innovative mechanical design and implementation of a control method that can assure a safe and comfortable interaction between the human upper limb and exoskeleton. In this article, we present a mechanical design of a four degrees of freedom (DOF) wheelchair mounted upper limb exoskeleton. The design takes advantage of non-backdrivable mechanism that can hold the output position without energy consumption and provide assistance to the completely paralyzed users. Moreover, a PD-based trajectory tracking control is implemented to enhance the performance of human exoskeleton system for two different tasks. Preliminary results are provided to show the effectiveness and reliability of using the proposed design for physically disabled people

Computer Vision-Based Adaptive Semi-Autonomous Control of an Upper Limb Exoskeleton for Individuals with Tetraplegia

We propose the use of computer vision for adaptive semi-autonomous control of an upper limb exoskeleton for assisting users with severe tetraplegia to increase independence and quality of life. A tongue-based interface was used together with the semi-autonomous control such that individuals with complete tetraplegia were able to use it despite being paralyzed from the neck down. The semi-autonomous control uses computer vision to detect nearby objects and estimate how to grasp them to assist the user in controlling the exoskeleton. Three control schemes were tested: non-autonomous (i.e., manual control using the tongue) control, semi-autonomous control with a fixed level of autonomy, and a semi-autonomous control with a confidence-based adaptive level of autonomy. Studies on experimental participants with and without tetraplegia were carried out. The control schemes were evaluated both in terms of their performance, such as the time and number of commands needed to complete a given task, as well as ratings from the users. The studies showed a clear and significant improvement in both performance and user ratings when using either of the semi-autonomous control schemes. The adaptive semi-autonomous control outperformed the fixed version in some scenarios, namely, in the more complex tasks and with users with more training in using the system