BUSCADOR RECOLECTA

The first choice treatment in urinary incontinence (UI) is rehabilitation of the pelvic floor in order to improve muscle strength. However, no entirely reliable instruments for quantifying pelvic floor muscle (PFM) strength are currently available. Our aim was to test the intra-rater reliability and diagnostic accuracy of a new vaginal dynamometer for measuring PFM strength. Methods: Test-retest reliability study. One hundred and four women with stress urinary incontinence (SUI) were recruited. Patients were excluded if they had a history consistent with urge urinary incontinence or pelvic organ prolapse, pregnancy, previous urogynecological surgery, severe vaginal atrophy, or neurological conditions. The examination comprised digital palpation quantified by the modified Oxford scale and by two consecutive dynamometry measurements obtained using a new prototype dynamometer. This instrument comprises a speculum in which an inductive displacement sensor LVDTSM210.10.2.KTmodel, Schreiber) is attached to a spring of known stiffness constant (k). The intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was calculated to assess intra-rater reliability.
Diagnostic accuracy was assessed using Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC) curves analysis. Results: Of the 104 subjects included, 59.6% presented scores between 0–2 on the Oxford scale. Intra-rater reliability was 0.98 (95%CI: 0.97– 0.99). In the Bland & Altman plot, the distribution of disagreements was similar in the lowest and the highest strength values. The diagnostic accuracy of the dynamometer with regard to digital palpation showed an area under the curve of 0.85 (95%CI: 0.77–0.93). Conclusions: Our results suggest that this new vaginal dynamometer is a reliable and valid instrument for quantifying PFM strength., Peer Reviewed

This material may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the American Society of Civil Engineers. This material may be found at https://ascelibrary.org/doi/pdf/10.1061/%28ASCE%29IR.1943-4774.0001415., The Cequia of Manresa is a 26-km open channel constructed in the fourteenth century that conveys water from the Llobregat River to the city of Manresa using an elevation difference of 10.4 m. The channel is still operational today, supplying water for domestic, industrial, and agricultural uses to an overall population of 150,000 people. A hydrometric module was constructed in 1864 to regulate the flow rate in the Cequia to under 1,000¿¿L/s. This module was dismantled in 1959 and is currently nonoperational. This work studied the operation of the module and determined whether it met the objectives for which it was built. The module was modeled numerically. Owing to the lack of experimental measures from the module, the model was validated with an analytical model from the literature, which demonstrated its accuracy. The model was created by applying computational fluid dynamics (CFD) using FLOW-3D software. The results showed that the numerical model reproduced the dynamic behavior of the hydrometric module (transitory), and that the old automated system operated correctly, limiting the flow to the required value. The numerical models can be used as a tool for historical research., Peer Reviewed

The final version of this work is available at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ifacol.2017.08.1578
Copyright of all papers belongs to IFAC and must be referenced if derivative journal papers are produced from the conference papers., One of the main foci of robotics is nowadays centered in providing a great degree of autonomy to robots. A fundamental step in this direction is to give them the ability to plan in discrete and continuous spaces to find the required motions to complete a complex task. In this line, some recent approaches describe tasks with Linear Temporal Logic (LTL) and reason on discrete actions to guide sampling-based motion planning, with the aim of finding dynamically-feasible motions that satisfy the temporal-logic task specifications. The present paper proposes an LTL planning approach enhanced with the use of ontologies to describe and reason about the task, on the one hand, and that includes physics-based motion planning to allow the purposeful manipulation of objects, on the other hand. The proposal has been implemented and is illustrated with didactic examples with a mobile robot in simple scenarios where some of the goals are occupied with objects that must be removed in order to fulfill the task., Peer Reviewed

The most reliable prognostic factors associated with Upper Extremity (UE) recovery are localized motor impairments, especially in the musculature of the hand and abduction of the shoulder in the first days after a stroke. Evaluation of the biomechanics of the hand allows an accurate identification of the motion arcs of the digital joints.
Objective: Assess the prognostic value of the range of motion of the finger joints using an instrumental glove (CyberGlove II®) one week after stroke for UE functional recovery at 6 months.
Methodology: A prospective, longitudinal, observational study with follow-ups at 3-4 days, 1 week, 3 and 6months of patients with UE motor impairment. Variables collected included: demographic data, level of stroke severity (NIHSS), deep sensitivity, sphincter incontinence, Fugl Meyer Assessment of UE (FM-UE), muscle balance with the Medical Research Council (MRC), muscle tone (Modified Ashworth Scale) and pre- and post-stroke functional ability (Barthel Index and Modified Rankin Scale). Active range of motion of the metacarpophalangeal and interphalangeal joints of the index, middle finger, annulary, and little finger was assessed with CyberGlove II® without and against gravity. The dependent variable UE function was evaluated with the Action Research Arm Test (ARAT) categorized as good function (ARAT=10) and poor function (ARAT<10).
Results: 31 patients were included, 18 of which completed the 6-month follow-up. Mean age was 68.2 years (SD = 9.1) and 72.2 % were men. A total of 77.8 % of strokes were ischemic, and 50 % of these were lacunar. Mean NIHSS score was 9.2 (SD = 5.5). Motor NIHSS of UE, FM-UE and MRC of the flexion-extension musculature of the digits and wrist were prognostic factors for the recovery of UE function., Peer Reviewed

Numerical Model for a 19th Century Hydrometric (Case 1: 1000 L/s inlet flow).
Aquests datasets són els models numèrics que corresponen als 6 casos de simulacions fetes amb el software de CFD anomenat Flow3D.

© 20xx IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting /republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works, The paper presents a planning procedure that allows an anthropomorphic dual-arm robotic system to perform a manipulation task in a natural human-like way by using demonstrated human movements. The key idea of the proposal is to convert the demonstrated trajectories into attractive potential fields defined over the configuration space and then use an RRT*-based planning algorithm that minimizes a path-cost function designed to bias the tree growth towards the human-demonstrated configurations. The paper presents a description of the proposed approach as well as results from a conceptual and a real application example, the latter using a real anthropomorphic dual-arm robotic system. A path-quality measure, based on first-order synergies (correlations between joint velocities) obtained from real human movements, is also proposed and used for evaluation and comparison purposes.
The obtained results show that the paths obtained with the
proposed procedure are more human-like., Peer Reviewed

En este artículo se presenta el diseño de una prótesis de mano que se adapta al crecimiento del usuario, desde los 4 años hasta la edad adulta. Se ha considerado en el diseño el estudio de las necesidades de los pacientes y el estudio de las medidas antropométricas de los usuarios en la edad de crecimiento. El diseño incluye únicamente la estructura externa y los mecanismos de movimiento, así pues no se ha incluido en este trabajo el diseño del control ni de la electrónica

Physics-based motion planning is a challenging task, since it requires the computation of the robot motions while allowing possible interactions with (some of) the obstacles in the environment. Kinodynamic motion planners equipped with a dynamic engine acting as state propagator are usually used for that purpose. The difficulties arise in the setting of the adequate forces for the interactions and because these interactions may change the pose of the manipulatable obstacles, thus either facilitating or preventing the finding of a solution path. The use of knowledge can alleviate the stated difficulties. This paper proposes the use of an enhanced state propagator composed of a dynamic engine and a low-level geometric reasoning process that is used to determine how to interact with the objects, i.e. from where and with which forces. The proposal, called ¿-PMP can be used with any kinodynamic planner, thus giving rise to e.g. ¿-RRT. The approach also includes a preprocessing step that infers from a semantic abstract knowledge described in terms of an ontology the manipulation knowledge required by the reasoning process. The proposed approach has been validated with several examples involving an holonomic mobile robot, a robot with differential constraints and a serial manipulator, and benchmarked using several state-of-the art kinodynamic planners. The results showed a significant difference in the power consumption with respect to simple physics-based planning, an improvement in the success rate and in the quality of the solution paths., Peer Reviewed

There is a lack of quality indexes to evaluate grasps that are more likely to allow a hand-to-hand transfer of an object during a ma- nipulation task. In order to overcome it, this paper presents a proposal of grasp transfer quality measures to evaluate how easy or feasible is that an object grasped by one hand could be grasped by another hand to per- form a hand-to-hand transfer. Experiments were conducted to evaluate the proposed grasp transfer quality measures using different objects and the model of a real robotic hand, Peer Reviewed

In manipulation planning, dynamic interactions between the objects and the robots play a significant role. In this scope, dynamic engines allow to consider them within motion planners, giving rise to physics-based motion planners that consider the purposeful manipulation of objects. In this context, the representation of knowledge regarding how the objects have to be manipulated
eases a semantic-based reasoning that reduces the computational cost of physics-based planners. In this work, an ontology framework is proposed to organize the knowledge needed for physics-based manipulation planning, allowing to derive
manipulation regions and behaviors. A semantic map is constructed to categorize and assign the manipulation constraints based on the robot, the objects and the type of actions. The ontology framework can be queried using Description Language to obtain the necessary knowledge for the robot to manipulate the objects in its environment., Peer Reviewed

The objective of this paper is to simulate the human hand when grasping an object, considering the angles of the finger joints and the fingertip deformation. To study the grasp of an object used in activities of daily life (ADL) we focus on the equations given by grasps with force-closure. In this paper we address several topics and study grasping holistically, including power and precision grasping, the position of the finger and joint angles, fingertip deformation and fingertip forces (normal and frictional forces), and assess ho wall these features combine to perform a complete grasping action.
Conclusions: We describe the strategy used to solve the problem of calculating the force when grasping with five fingers; the same strategy is used in both power and precision grasps., Peer Reviewed

© 2016 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works, The paper deals with the problem of motion planning for anthropomorphic dual-arm robots. It introduces a measure of the similarity of the movements needed to solve two given tasks. Planning using this measure to select proper arm synergies for a given task improves the planning performance and the resulting plan., Peer Reviewed

© 2016 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works, The paper presents a novel teleoperation system that allows the simultaneous and continuous command of a ground mobile manipulator and a free flying camera, implemented using an UAV, from which the operator can monitor the task execution in real-time. The proposed decoupled position and orientation workspace mapping allows the teleoperation from a single haptic device with bounded workspace of a complex robot with unbounded workspace. When the operator is reaching the position and orientation boundaries of the haptic workspace, linear and angular velocity components are respectively added to the inputs of the mobile manipulator and the flying camera. A user study on a virtual environment has been conducted to evaluate the performance and the workload on the user before and after proper training. Analysis on the data shows that the system complexity is not an obstacle for an efficient performance. This is a first step towards the implementation of a teleoperation system with a real mobile manipulator and a low-cost quadrotor as the free-flying camera.

Premio ROBOTNIK, a la mejor comunicación del Grupo de Robótica, en las XXXVIII Jornadas de Automática, del Comité Español de Automática, En este artículo se presenta un método para calcular fuerzas de contacto para prensiones bimanuales. El método propuesto utiliza dos funciones de coste para optimizar la distribución de la fuerza de las manos con las que se realiza la prensión bimanual y para minimizar la fuerza ejercida por los dedos. Las funciones de coste y las restricciones del problema de optimización se han formulado en función de los torques de las articulaciones tomando como base la relación existente entre las fuerzas de contacto, la matriz jacobiana de la mano y los torques de las articulaciones. Adicionalmente se presenta uníndice para medir la distribución de la fuerza entre las manos. El artículo incluye algunos ejemplos prácticos del enfoque propuesto., Award-winning

Aims: Assess the intrarater and interrater reliabilities and diagnostic accuracy of a new vaginal dynamometer to measure pelvic floor muscle (PFM) strength in incontinent and continent women.
Methods: A test-retest reliability study including 152 female patients. Exclusion criteria: history of urge urinary incontinence, prolapse of pelvic organ, pregnancy, previous urogynecological surgery, severe vaginal atrophy, or neurological conditions. The examination comprised digital assessment using the modified Oxford scale (MOS) and dynamometry measurements with a new prototype hand-held dynamometer. The MOS score ranges from 0 to 5: 0, no contraction; 1, flicker; 2, weak; 3, moderate; 4, good; 5, strong.
Examinations were performed by a physiatrist, a physiotherapist and a midwife.
The rest period between each rater measurement was 5 minutes. Assessment of intrarater and interrater reliability was calculated with the intraclass correlation coefficient., Peer Reviewed

This paper presents a method to compute con-
tact forces for bimanual grasps. The method is based on the
optimization of the force distribution of the hands and min-
imizing the force exerted by each finger, using two different
cost functions. Both cost functions and the constrains of the
optimization problem are formulated as functions of the joint
torques based on the existing relation between the grasping
forces, the hand-jacobian matrix and the torque of the joint
fingers. Additionally, a bimanual grasp index is presented to
measure the force distribution between the hands. The paper
includes some application examples of the proposed approac, Peer Reviewed

Grasping an object in unstructured and uncertain environments is a challenging task, particularly when a collision-free trajectory does not exits. High-level knowledge and reasoning processes, as well as the allowing of interaction between objects, can enhance the planning efficiency in such environments. In this direction, this study proposes a knowledge-oriented physics-based motion planning approach for a hand-arm system that uses a high-level knowledge-based reasoning to partition the workspace into regions to both guide the planner and reason about the result of the dynamical interactions between rigid bodies. The proposed planner is a kinodynamic RRT that uses a region-biased state sampling strategy and a smart validity checker that takes into account uncertainty in the pose of the objects. Complex dynamical interactions along with possible physics-based constraints such as friction and gravity are handled by a physics engine that is used as the RRT state propagator. The proposal is validated for different scenarios in simulation and in a real environment using a 7-degree-of-freedom KUKA Lightweight robot equipped with a two-finger gripper. The results show a significant improvement in the success rate of the execution of the computed plan in the presence of object pose uncertainty., Peer Reviewed

Different types of neurological deficits and sequels in the upper extremities that affect the activities of daily living (ADL) in patients who have undergone stroke have been analyzed from a subjective clinical point of view.
The aim of this work is to show a novel environment to simulate the initial improvement of the upper limb functions a few days after stroke and simulate the functional recovery of patients under a rehabilitation
program.
Eighteen patients in the first seven days of stroke were selected. Five men and thirteen women participated in the experiments. After six months, six of them recovered all the functionality of the hand tested with the ARAT test and wearing a Ciberglobe system, five recovered part of the hand functionality, and seven did not show
apparent recovery of the functionality of the hand., Peer Reviewed

[ES] En este trabajo se presenta un análisis cinemático aplicado a dos manipuladores serie redundantes: el Kuka LWR 4+ y el ABB Yumi. En particular se deriva la cinemática directa para ambos manipuladores y se resuelve el problema de la cinemática inversa. Para el Kuka LWR 4+ dicha solución se obtiene en forma analítica, mientras que para el ABB Yumi se sigue un enfoque analítico y numérico. Además, se calculan simbólicamente tanto las singularidades del Kuka LWR 4+ como las direcciones singulares asociadas a estas. Este estudio contribuye al conocimiento cinemático de dos manipuladores redundantes de gran actualidad e interés para la comunidad robótica, y proporciona información útil para el diseño de diferentes algoritmos y leyes de control., [EN] This paper presents a kinematic analysis of two redundant serial manipulators: Kuka LWR 4+ and ABB Yumi. This analysis includes the derivation of the forward kinematics for both manipulators as well as the solution of the inverse kinematic problem. For the Kuka LWR 4+ this solution is analytical whereas for the ABB Yumi an analytical and numerical approach is proposed. Besides, the singularities of the Kuka LWR 4+ are obtained symbolically and the singular directions associated are calculated. This study intends to increase the kinematic knowledge of two actual redundant manipulators as well as to provide valuable information that can be used in the definition of different algorithms or control laws., Este trabajo ha sido realizado en parte gracias al apoyo de
los proyectos DPI2013-40882-P, DPI2014-57757-R y las becas
pre-doctorales BES-2012-059884 y BES-2012-054899.

[Resumen] En este artículo se presenta un esquema para la integración de un sistema robótico bi-brazo, para transformar resultados obtenidos de simulaciones en ejecuciones en un entornos real. Este esquema utiliza una capa de comunicación basada en "The Robot Operating System (ROS)" y el software "The Kautham Project", para calcular las trayectorias de movimiento, validar la existencia de soluciones de cinemáticas inversas, chequeo de colisiones y visualizar gráficamente la simulación del entorno. El sistema robótico bi-brazo utilizado es ADARS (Anthropomorphic Dual Arm Robotic System). Se han utilizado dos tipos de aplicaciones de cooperación bi-brazo para mostrar la validez del esquema durante la experimentación real., Este trabajo ha sido parcialmente financiado por el Gobierno de España a través de los proyectos DPI2013-40882-P y DPI2014-57757-R. A. Rojas fue parcialmente apoyado por la beca doctoral mexicana CONACyT 313768, https://doi.org/10.17979/spudc.9788497498081