Benchmarking the Effects on Human-Exoskeleton Interaction of Trajectory, Admittance and EMG-Triggered Exoskeleton Movement Control.

Nowadays, robotic technology for gait training is becoming a common tool in rehabilitation hospitals. However, its effectiveness is still controversial. Traditional control strategies do not adequately integrate human intention and interaction and little is known regarding the impact of exoskeleton control strategies on muscle coordination, physical effort, and user acceptance. In this article, we benchmarked three types of exoskeleton control strategies in a sample of seven healthy volunteers: trajectory assistance (TC), compliant assistance (AC), and compliant assistance with EMG-Onset stepping control (OC), which allows the user to decide when to take a step during the walking cycle. This exploratory study was conducted within the EUROBENCH project facility. Experimental procedures and data analysis were conducted following EUROBENCH's protocols. Specifically, exoskeleton kinematics, muscle activation, heart and breathing rates, skin conductance, as well as user-perceived effort were analyzed. Our results show that the OC controller showed robust performance in detecting stepping intention even using a corrupt EMG acquisition channel. The AC and OC controllers resulted in similar kinematic alterations compared to the TC controller. Muscle synergies remained similar to the synergies found in the literature, although some changes in muscle contribution were found, as well as an overall increase in agonist-antagonist co-contraction. The OC condition led to the decreased mean duration of activation of synergies. These differences were not reflected in the overall physiological impact of walking or subjective perception. We conclude that, although the AC and OC walking conditions allowed the users to modulate their walking pattern, the application of these two controllers did not translate into significant changes in the overall physiological cost of walking nor the perceived experience of use. Nonetheless, results suggest that both AC and OC controllers are potentially interesting approaches that can be explored as gait rehabilitation tools. Furthermore, the INTENTION project is, to our knowledge, the first study to benchmark the effects on human-exoskeleton interaction of three different exoskeleton controllers, including a new EMG-based controller designed by us and never tested in previous studies, which has made it possible to provide valuable third-party feedback on the use of the EUROBENCH facility and testbed, enriching the apprenticeship of the project consortium and contributing to the scientific community.

Implementation of ISO/IEEE 11073 PHD SpO2 and ECG Device Specializations over Bluetooth HDP following Health Care Profile for Smart Living.

Current m-Health scenarios in the smart living era, as the interpretation of the smart city at each person's level, present several challenges associated with interoperability between different clinical devices and applications. The Continua Health Alliance establishes design guidelines to standardize application communication to guarantee interoperability among medical devices. In this paper, we describe the implementation of two IEEE agents for oxygen saturation level (SpO2) measurements and electrocardiogram (ECG) data acquisition, respectively, and a smartphone IEEE manager for validation. We developed both IEEE agents over the Bluetooth Health Device Profile following the Continua guidelines and they are part of a telemonitoring system. This system was evaluated in a sample composed of 10 volunteers (mean age 29.8 ± 7.1 y/o; 5 females) under supervision of an expert cardiologist. The evaluation consisted of measuring the SpO2 and ECG signal sitting and at rest, before and after exercising for 15 min. Physiological measurements were assessed and compared against commercial devices, and our expert physician did not find any relevant differences in the ECG signal. Additionally, the system was assessed when acquiring and processing different heart rate data to prove that warnings were generated when the heart rate was under/above the thresholds for bradycardia and tachycardia, respectively.

An algorithm selection methodology for automated focusing in optical microscopy.

Autofocus systems are essential in optical microscopy. These systems typically sweep the sample through the focal range and apply an algorithm to determine the contrast value of each image, where the highest value indicates the optimal focus position. As the optimal algorithm may vary according to the images' content, we evaluate the 15 most used algorithms in the field using 150 stacks of images from four different kinds of tissue. We use four measuring criteria and two types of analysis and propose a general methodology to apply to select the best fitting algorithm for any given application. In this paper, we present the results of this evaluation and a detailed discussion of different features: the threshold used for the algorithms, the criteria parameters, the analysis used, the bit depth of the images, their magnification, and the type of tissue, reaching the conclusion that some of these parameters are more relevant to the study than others, and the implementation of the proposed methodology can lead to a fast and reliable autofocus system capable of performing an analysis and selection of algorithms with no supervision required.

HelpResponder-System for the Security of First Responder Interventions.

Firefighter's interventions under dense smoke and flames are hazardous and ideally need an efficient in-advance geo-located actuation plan. The existing communication and sensing technologies should be customized, optimized, and integrated to better know the conditions (flame locations, air condition) before and during the rescue team's interventions. In this paper, we propose a firefighter intervention architecture, which consists of several sensing devices (flame detectors, carbon dioxide air content) a navigation platform (an autonomous ground wheeled robot), and a communication/localization network (BLE IoT network) that can be used before and during an intervention in rescue or fire extinguishing missions even for indoor or confined spaces. The paper's key novelty presents our integrated solution, giving some key implementation details and an intensive experimentation campaign in two real firefighter scenarios with real controlled fires. Results carried out in these real indoor scenarios are presented to demonstrate the feasibility of the system. A fire detection system is proposed to improve fire focus in real time and moving in confined spaces with no visibility and physical references. The results obtained in the experimentation show the proposal's effectiveness in locating the fire focus's position and orientation reducing time and risk exposure. This kind of location-aware fire integrated systems would significantly impact the speed and security of first responder interventions.

Parametric CAD modeling for open source scientific hardware: Comparing OpenSCAD and FreeCAD Python scripts.

Open source hardware for scientific equipment needs to provide source files and enough documentation to allow the study, replication and modification of the design. In addition, parametric modeling is encouraged in order to facilitate customization for other experiments. Parametric design using a solid modeling programming language allows customization and provides a source file for the design. OpenSCAD is the most widely used scripting tool for parametric modeling of open source labware. However, OpenSCAD lacks the ability to export to standard parametric formats; thus, the parametric dimensional information of the model is lost. This is an important deficiency because it is key to share the design in the most accessible formats with no information loss. In this work we analyze OpenSCAD and compare it with FreeCAD Python scripts. We have created a parametric open source hardware design to compare these tools. Our findings show that although Python for FreeCAD is more arduous to learn, its advantages counterbalance the initial difficulties. The main benefits are being able to export to standard parametric models; using Python language with its libraries; and the ability to use and integrate the models in its graphical interface. Thus, making it more appropriate to design open source hardware for scientific equipment.

Estudio objetivo del olfato mediante resonancia magnética funcional / Objective assessment of olfactory function using functional magnetic resonance imaging

Objetivo: Mostrar los resultados del olfatómetro capaz de generar tareas olfativas en un equipo de resonancia magnética funcional (fMRI). Material y métodos: Estudiamos 10 sujetos normales: 5 varones y 5 mujeres. El olfatómetro está diseñado para que el estímulo que produce se sincronice con el equipo de fMRI mediante la señal desencadenante que suministra el propio equipo. El olfatómetro es capaz de: seleccionar el olor, secuenciar los distintos olores, programar la frecuencia y duración de los olores y controlar la intensidad del olor. El paradigma utilizado responde a un diseño de activación asociada a eventos, en el que la duración del bloque de activación y de reposo es de 15s. La duración del estímulo olfativo (butanol, menta o café) es de 2 segundos, durante toda la serie que consta de 9 ciclos. Resultados: Se ha observado reactividad (contraste BOLD) en las diferentes áreas cerebrales involucradas en las tareas olfativas: bulbo olfatorio, córtex entorrinal (4%), amigdala (2,5%) y córtex temporoparietal. Las áreas relacionadas con integración de las emociones tienen una reactividad mayor. Conclusiones: El dispositivo propuesto nos permite controlar de forma automática y sincronizada los olores necesarios para estudiar la actividad de las áreas olfatorias cerebrales mediante fMRI(AU)

Objective: To show the results of a device that generates automated olfactory stimuli suitable for functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiments. Material and methods: Ten normal volunteers, 5 women and 5 men, were studied. The system allows the programming of several sequences, providing the capability to synchronise the onset of odour presentation with acquisition by a trigger signal of the MRI scanner. The olfactometer is a device that allows selection of the odour, the event paradigm, the time of stimuli and the odour concentration. The paradigm used during fMRI scanning consisted of 15-s blocks. The odorant event took 2s with butanol, mint and coffee. Results: We observed olfactory activity in the olfactory bulb, entorhinal cortex (4%), amygdala (2.5%) and temporo-parietal cortex, especially in the areas related to emotional integration. Conclusions: The device has demonstrated its effectiveness in stimulating olfactory areas and its capacity to adapt to fMRI equipment(AU)

Objective assessment of olfactory function using functional magnetic resonance imaging.

OBJECTIVE: To show the results of a device that generates automated olfactory stimuli suitable for functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiments. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Ten normal volunteers, 5 women and 5 men, were studied. The system allows the programming of several sequences, providing the capability to synchronise the onset of odour presentation with acquisition by a trigger signal of the MRI scanner. The olfactometer is a device that allows selection of the odour, the event paradigm, the time of stimuli and the odour concentration. The paradigm used during fMRI scanning consisted of 15-s blocks. The odorant event took 2s with butanol, mint and coffee. RESULTS: We observed olfactory activity in the olfactory bulb, entorhinal cortex (4%), amygdala (2.5%) and temporo-parietal cortex, especially in the areas related to emotional integration. CONCLUSIONS: The device has demonstrated its effectiveness in stimulating olfactory areas and its capacity to adapt to fMRI equipment.

Changing communications within hospital and home health care.

Over the last decade, new hospitals are integrating Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in their facilities. Although e-health is a relatively recent term for healthcare practice supported by electronic processes, ubiquitous healthcare monitoring, also known as m-health, is already an emerging research area. Patient monitoring in diverse environments, such as nursing homes or assisted living, are gaining importance. Traditional methods present some problems, as they don't allow enough patient mobility. In this situation, real time transmission of multiple medical data, wearable computing, wireless access in ubiquitous systems and wearable devices for pervasive healthcare can meet the needs of these environments. However, the software and infrastructure deployed in hospitals is not easy to migrate to wireless systems. In some cases, the migration to new technologies can be costly. This paper focuses on the design of a modular, scalable and economical framework to improve the monitoring and checking of patients in different contexts. The challenge is to produce a system to transmit the patient's biomedical data directly to a hospital for monitoring or diagnosis using new communication modules. The modular designed adopted is intended to provide a future-proofed system, whose functionality may be upgraded by modifying the hardware or software. The modules have been validated in different contexts to prove their versatility.