OOML : una biblioteca C++ para el desarrollo mecánico aplicado a la robótica

El presente documento recoge el desarrollo y la documentación del proyecto “OOML: UNA BIBLIOTECA C++ PARA EL DESARROLLO MECÁNICO APLICADO A LA ROBÓTICA”. En este se realiza una explicación detallada de la nueva herramienta de diseño de componentes mecánicos OOML, implementada siguiendo el paradigma Open Source, y de su validación en el diseño de El Mars. Para ello, se disponen gráficos y capturas de pantalla, además de proporcionar planos y comentarios, ampliando la información transmitida. Se puede dividir el proyecto en varios puntos: 1) Inicialmente, se introduce al lector en la corriente Open Source, destacando sus ventajas y su aplicación, cada vez más extendida en robótica, así como el cambio asociado en el modo de trabajo. 2) Además, se aborda la herramienta OpenSCAD como medio para generar archivos STL, junto con la tecnología de las impresoras 3D, mediante las cuales se implementará el prototipo descrito. 3) Tras esto, se justifica la aparición de esta herramienta y se discute sus aportaciones al ámbito científico, así como sus inconvenientes. 4) En los siguientes apartados se introduce una breve explicación sobre el manejo y la utilización de OOML, del mismo modo que se analiza su estructura y diseño. 5) Por otro lado, se evalúa OOML desarrollando un prototipo a partir de esta biblioteca, destacando su complejidad mecánica y el conjunto de opciones que se han barajado. Se detallan las características logradas de este diseño, su capacidad de adaptación al terreno, así como su mecanizado en el mundo físico. 6) Se detallan todos los procesos para la implementación del prototipo: la impresión del mismo, la instalación de la electrónica y la programación necesaria para el control. 7) Por último, este documento finaliza con una serie de ideas sobre posibles las mejoras y actualizaciones, tanto para la herramienta de programación OOML como para los diseños mencionados, que podrán ser parte de un trabajo futuro. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________This document describes the development and the documentation of “OOML C++ LIBRARY FOR MECHANICAL DEVELOPMENT APPLIED TO ROBOTICS” project. Here it’s made a detailed explanation of the new mechanical components design tool OOML, implemented by following the Open Source paradigm, and its validation in the design of Mars. To this end, it’s included pictures and screenshots, besides providing planes and comments, extending the transmitted information. The project can be divided into several points: 1) First, reader is introduced into the Open Source current, emphasizing its advantages and its application, increasingly widespread in robotics, well as the associated change in the working mode . 2) Also, the OpenSCAD tool is covered as a way to generate STL files, along with 3D printer technology, whereby the prototype described is implemented. 3) After, the appearance of this tool is justified and their contributions to the scientific field are discussed, as well as its disadvantages. 4) In the following sections, a brief explanation about the management and OOML use is introduced, in the same way its structure and design is analyze. 5) By the way, OOML is evaluated by developing a prototype from this library, highlighting its mechanical complexity and the set of options has been considered. The achieved features, its ground adaptability, as well as its machining in the physic world are detailed. 6) All processes for implementation of the prototype are detailed: its printed, the installation of the electronics and the necessary programming for the control. 7) Finally, this paper concludes with a number of ideas about the improvements and actualizations for the programming tool OOML and the mentioned designs, which may be part of a future work.Ingeniería Electrónica Industrial y Automátic

LEA: Improving Sentence Similarity Robustness to Typos Using Lexical Attention Bias

Textual noise, such as typos or abbreviations, is a well-known issue that penalizes vanilla Transformers for most downstream tasks. We show that this is also the case for sentence similarity, a fundamental task in multiple domains, e.g. matching, retrieval or paraphrasing. Sentence similarity can be approached using cross-encoders, where the two sentences are concatenated in the input allowing the model to exploit the inter-relations between them. Previous works addressing the noise issue mainly rely on data augmentation strategies, showing improved robustness when dealing with corrupted samples that are similar to the ones used for training. However, all these methods still suffer from the token distribution shift induced by typos. In this work, we propose to tackle textual noise by equipping cross-encoders with a novel LExical-aware Attention module (LEA) that incorporates lexical similarities between words in both sentences. By using raw text similarities, our approach avoids the tokenization shift problem obtaining improved robustness. We demonstrate that the attention bias introduced by LEA helps cross-encoders to tackle complex scenarios with textual noise, specially in domains with short-text descriptions and limited context. Experiments using three popular Transformer encoders in five e-commerce datasets for product matching show that LEA consistently boosts performance under the presence of noise, while remaining competitive on the original (clean) splits. We also evaluate our approach in two datasets for textual entailment and paraphrasing showing that LEA is robust to typos in domains with longer sentences and more natural context. Additionally, we thoroughly analyze several design choices in our approach, providing insights about the impact of the decisions made and fostering future research in cross-encoders dealing with typos.Comment: KDD'23 conference (main research track). (*) These authors contributed equall

Monocular Robust Depth Estimation Vision System for Robotic Tasks Interventions in Metallic Targets

Robotic interventions in hazardous scenarios need to pay special attention to safety, as in most cases it is necessary to have an expert operator in the loop. Moreover, the use of a multi-modal Human-Robot Interface allows the user to interact with the robot using manual control in critical steps, as well as semi-autonomous behaviours in more secure scenarios, by using, for example, object tracking and recognition techniques. This paper describes a novel vision system to track and estimate the depth of metallic targets for robotic interventions. The system has been designed for on-hand monocular cameras, focusing on solving lack of visibility and partial occlusions. This solution has been validated during real interventions at the Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN) accelerator facilities, achieving 95% success in autonomous mode and 100% in a supervised manner. The system increases the safety and efficiency of the robotic operations, reducing the cognitive fatigue of the operator during non-critical mission phases. The integration of such an assistance system is especially important when facing complex (or repetitive) tasks, in order to reduce the work load and accumulated stress of the operator, enhancing the performance and safety of the mission

Cooperative and Multimodal Capabilities Enhancement in the CERNTAURO Human–Robot Interface for Hazardous and Underwater Scenarios

The use of remote robotic systems for inspection and maintenance in hazardous environments is a priority for all tasks potentially dangerous for humans. However, currently available robotic systems lack that level of usability which would allow inexperienced operators to accomplish complex tasks. Moreover, the task’s complexity increases drastically when a single operator is required to control multiple remote agents (for example, when picking up and transporting big objects). In this paper, a system allowing an operator to prepare and configure cooperative behaviours for multiple remote agents is presented. The system is part of a human–robot interface that was designed at CERN, the European Center for Nuclear Research, to perform remote interventions in its particle accelerator complex, as part of the CERNTAURO project. In this paper, the modalities of interaction with the remote robots are presented in detail. The multimodal user interface enables the user to activate assisted cooperative behaviours according to a mission plan. The multi-robot interface has been validated at CERN in its Large Hadron Collider (LHC) mockup using a team of two mobile robotic platforms, each one equipped with a robotic manipulator. Moreover, great similarities were identified between the CERNTAURO and the TWINBOT projects, which aim to create usable robotic systems for underwater manipulations. Therefore, the cooperative behaviours were validated within a multi-robot pipe transport scenario in a simulated underwater environment, experimenting more advanced vision techniques. The cooperative teleoperation can be coupled with additional assisted tools such as vision-based tracking and grasping determination of metallic objects, and communication protocols design. The results show that the cooperative behaviours enable a single user to face a robotic intervention with more than one robot in a safer way

MiniCERNBot Educational Platform: Antimatter Factory Mock-up Missions for Problem-Solving STEM Learning

Mechatronics and robotics appeared particularly effective in students’ education, allowing them to create non-traditional solutions in STEM disciplines, which have a direct impact and interaction with the world surrounding them. This paper presents the current state of the MiniCERNBot Educational Robotic platform for high-school and university students. The robot provides a comprehensive educative system with tutorials and tasks tuned for different ages on 3D design, mechanical assembly, control, programming, planning, and operation. The system is inspired to existing robotic systems and typical robotic interventions performed at CERN, and includes an education mock-up that follows the example of a previous real operation performed in CERN’s Antimatter Factory. The paper describes the learning paths where the MiniCERNBot platform can be used by students, at different ages and disciplines. In addition, it describes the software and hardware architecture, presenting results on modularity and network performance during education exercises. In summary, the objective of the study is improving the way STEM educational and dissemination activities at CERN Robotics Lab are performed, as well as their possible synergies with other education institutions, such as High-Schools and Universities, improving the learning collaborative process and inspiring students interested in technical studies. To this end, a new educational robotic platform has been designed, inspired on real scientific operations, which allows the students practice multidisciplinary STEM skills in a collaborative problem-solving way, while increasing their motivation and comprehension of the research activities

Preliminary Study of the Automatic Annotation of Hospital Discharge Report with ICD-10 codes

En la actualidad, la cantidad de recursos que se destinan a la codificación de informes médicos es enorme. Con la reciente implantación del estándar CIE-10 en el sistema sanitario español se acrecientan las dificultades, ya que se incrementa el número de posibles códigos CIE por cada informe, disponiendo de una escasa cantidad de datos generados y codificados. En este artículo se describen los retos que plantea esta tarea y se propone una primera aproximación de combinación de técnicas para implantar un sistema capaz de, dado un informe, recomendar automáticamente códigos CIE-10 a los codificadores.Nowadays, the amount of resources dedicated to encode medical reports is huge. In spite of this, an automatic solution for annotation does not appear to be consolidated. With the recent implantation of the CIE-10 standard, encoding becomes increasingly complex, since the number of possible CIE codes for each report is increased and at the same time a minimal quantity of generated and encoded data is avaliable. In this paper, it is described the challenges posed by this task and proposed a first combination of techniques for implementing a system capable of automatically assisting coding specialists by recommending CIE-10 codes regarding a medical report.Este trabajo ha sido financiado por el Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación a través del proyecto PROSA-MED: TIN2016-77820-C3

Occupational Nursing Intervention in cardiovascular assessment in health professionals in the Spanish Mediterranean area

Introducción: Las enfermedades cardiovasculares son la primera causa de muerte en el mundo y guardan una estrecha relación con diferentes factores de riesgo modificables a través de un cambio en el estilo de vida de las personas. Los profesionales sanitarios presentan riesgo para su salud por ser una profesión ejercida bajo estrés y desgaste profesional. Objetivo: Identificar el nivel de riesgo cardiovascular según el grupo de profesional sanitario. Materiales y métodos: Estudio retrospectivo y transversal en 8475 profesionales sanitarios (6645 mujeres y 1830 varones) del área mediterránea española. Se valoran variables antropométricas relacionadas con riesgo cardiovascular, índices aterogénicos, síndrome metabólico, escalas de riesgo cardiovascular y escalas de riesgo de diabetes tipo 2. Se realiza análisis multivariante mediante regresión logística y se determinan las odss ratio. Resultados: La mayor prevalencia de riesgo cardiovascular se obtiene en auxiliares y la menor en Enfermería. Los varones presentan mayor riesgo que las mujeres en todos los parámetros analizados. El hábito tabáquico, consumo de alcohol y obesidad afectan negativamente al riesgo cardiovascular. La realización de ejercicio y una alimentación saludable afectan de manera positiva. Discusión: La existencia de diferentes factores de riesgo cardiovasculares en personas aparentemente sanas muestra la necesidad de más estudios para proporcionar las medidas preventivas más adecuadas. Es importante la figura del especialista en Enfermería del Trabajo, crucial para realizar una adecuada vigilancia de la salud de los trabajadores y detectar posibles patologías y alteraciones desconocidas en ese momento.Introduction: Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death in the world and are closely related to different modifiable risk factors through a change in people’s lifestyle. Health professionals are in risk for their health because it is a profession exercised under stress and professional wear. Objective: To identify the level of cardiovascular risk according to the group of health professionals. Methods: Retrospective and transversal study of 8475 health professionals (6645 women and 1830 men) in the Spanish Mediterranean area. Anthropometric variables related to cardiovascular risk, atherogenic indexes, metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular risk scales and risk scales of developing type 2 diabetes are evaluated. A multivariate analysis was performed using logistic regression and odss ratios were estimated. Results: The highest prevalence of cardiovascular risk is obtained in auxiliaries and the lowest in Nursing. Males are at higher risk than females in all parameters analyzed. Smoking, alcohol consumption and obesity negatively affect cardiovascular risk negatively. Physical exercise and healthy eating affect positively. Discussion: The existence of different cardiovascular risk factors in apparently healthy individuals shows the need for more studies to provide the most appropriate preventive measures. It is important the figure of the specialist in Occupational Nursing, essential to develop an adequate monitoring of the health of the workers and to detect possible pathologies unknown at that moment

Design of a dynamic mock-up bench for testing robotic interventions

[Abstract] When a robotic intervention is required in hazardous facilities (e.g. particle accelerators or nuclear plants), it is commonly not possible to test the operation on-site in advance - a considerable challenge since robotic interventions usually require specific tasks for each location -, precluding the team from demonstrating the feasibility of the operation. It becomes mandatory to develop a particular mock-up for each operation, unsuitable for reusing it in future missions. To solve this problem, a general dynamic mock-up bench was designed, allowing to centre the testing of all remote handled tasks and to choose the best set of robots to perform them

Improving the accuracy of the structure prediction of the third hypervariable loop of the heavy chains of antibodies

Motivation: Antibodies are able to recognize a wide range of antigens through their complementary determining regions formed by six hypervariable loops. Predicting the 3D structure of these loops is essential for the analysis and reengineering of novel antibodies with enhanced affinity and specificity. The canonical structure model allows high accuracy prediction for five of the loops. The third loop of the heavy chain, H3, is the hardest to predict because of its diversity in structure, length and sequence composition.Results: We describe a method, based on the Random Forest automatic learning technique, to select structural templates for H3 loops among a dataset of candidates. These can be used to predict the structure of the loop with a higher accuracy than that achieved by any of the presently available methods. The method also has the advantage of being extremely fast and returning a reliable estimate of the model quality.Availability and implementation: The source code is freely available at http://www.biocomputing.it/H3Loopred/Contact: [email protected] Information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online

Design development and implementation of an irradiation station at the neutron time-of-flight facility at CERN

A new parasitic, mixed-field, neutron-dominated irradiation station has been recently commissioned at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN). The station is installed within the neutron time-of-flight (n_TOF) facility, taking advantage of the secondary radiation produced by the neutron spallation target, with neutrons ranging from 0.025 eV to several hundreds of MeV. The new station allows radiation damage studies to be performed in irradiation conditions that are closer to the ones encountered during the operation of particle accelerators; the irradiation tests carried out in the station will be complementary to the standard tests on materials, usually performed with gamma sources. Samples will be exposed to neutron-dominated doses in the MGy range per year, with minimal impact on the n_TOF facility operation. The station has 24 irradiation positions, each hosting up to 100 cm3 of sample material. In view of its proximity to the n_TOF target, inside protective shielding, the irradiation station and its operating procedures have been carefully developed taking into account the safety of personnel and to avoid any unwanted impact on the operation of the n_TOF facility and experiments. Due to the residual radioactivity of the whole area around the n_TOF target and of the irradiated samples, access to the irradiation station is forbidden to human operators even when the n_TOF facility is not in operation. Robots are used for the remote installation and retrieval of the samples, and other optimizations of the handling procedures were developed in compliance with radiation protection regulations and the aim of minimizing doses to personnel. The sample containers were designed to be radiation tolerant, compatible with remote handling, and subject to detailed risk analysis and testing during their development. The whole life cycle of the irradiated materials, including their post-irradiation examinations and final disposal, was considered and optimized