1,720,999 research outputs found
Retrainer project: Perspectives and lesson learnt on clinical trial in rehabilitation robotics to foster industrial exploitation
No full textThe RETRAINER (Reaching and grasping Training based on Robotic hybrid AssIstance for Neurological patients: End users Real life evaluation) project is an Innovation Action funded by the European Commission under the H2020 research framework programme. The project aims at a full technology transfer of the results of a previous FP7 project, MUNDUS, aimed at the development of upper limb assistive technologies, to a robotic system for upper limb and hand rehabilitation to be tested in a wide clinical trial with stroke survivors in two clinical centers. The final result of the project is the design of a validated system suitable to address the rehabilitation market. Along this project’s path, several issues affecting both development and validation have been pointed out and are here summarized to serve as lesson learnt for prospective projects and challenges
It’s all in the type of the task: Dopamine modulates kinematic patterns during competitive vs. cooperative interaction in Parkinson’s disease
No full textIncreasing evidence suggests that a dysfunctional dopaminergic system affects the ability to socially interact. Since Parkinson's disease (PD) provides a model for assessing dopaminergic dysfunctions in humans, our study was designed to investigate social interactions in PD patients receiving dopamine replacement therapy (Levodopa=L-Dopa) and in neurologically healthy controls. We focused on the kinematics of one action, reaching to grasp a wooden block, which was performed within the context of two basic modes of social cognition, namely cooperation and competition. During the cooperative tasks, two participants were instructed to reach and grasp their respective objects and to cooperate in forming a specific configuration on the working table. During the competitive tasks, two participants were instructed to compete to place their own object at the bottom of a tower to be built on the working table. PD patients' ability to modulate motor patterning depending on the intention motivating the action they were about to perform was evaluated in both "on" (with L-Dopa) and "off" (without L-Dopa) states. Study results revealed that both the healthy controls and the 'on' PD patients had distinct kinematic patterns for cooperative and competitive actions and that these differed from patterns mirroring similar actions performed by those same participants in non social conditions. The kinematic patterns of the healthy controls and the 'on' patients were highly correlated during the cooperative tasks. The 'of PD patients were, instead, unable to differentiate between isolated and social conditions. These results support the hypothesis that dopaminergic neurotransmission is involved in shaping the mechanisms underlying social interactions
A kinematic study on (un)intentional imitation in bottlenose dolphins
Get PDFThe aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of observing other's movements on subsequent performance in bottlenose dolphins. The imitative ability of non-human animals has intrigued a number of researchers. So far, however, studies in dolphins have been confined to intentional imitation concerned with the explicit request to imitate other agents. In the absence of instruction to imitate, do dolphins (un)intentionally replicate other's movement features? To test this, dolphins were filmed while reaching and touching a stimulus before and after observing another dolphin (i.e., model) performing the same action. All videos were reviewed and segmented in order to extract the relevant movements. A marker was inserted post hoc via software on the videos upon the anatomical landmark of interest (i.e., rostrum) and was tracked throughout the time course of the movement sequence. The movement was analyzed using an in-house software developed to perform two-dimensional (2D) post hoc kinematic analysis. The results indicate that dolphins' kinematics is sensitive to other's movement features. Movements performed for the "visuomotor priming" condition were characterized by a kinematic pattern similar to that performed by the observed dolphin (i.e., model). Addressing the issue of spontaneous imitation in bottlenose dolphins might allow ascertaining whether the potential or impulse to produce an imitative action is generated, not just when they intend to imitate, but whenever they watch another conspecific's behavior. In closing, this will clarify whether motor representational capacity is a by-product of factors specific to humans or whether more general characteristics such as processes of associative learning prompted by high level of encephalization could help to explain the evolution of this ability
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
Selective reaching in macaques: evidence for action-centered attention
Get PDFWhen a monkey selects a piece of food lying on the ground from among other viable objects in the near vicinity, only the desired item governs the particular pattern and direction of the animal's reaching action. It would seem then that selection is an important component controlling the animal's action. But, we may ask, is the selection process in such cases impervious to the presence of other objects that could constitute potential obstacles to or constraints on movement execution? And if it is, in fact, pervious to other objects, do they have a direct influence on the organization of the response? The kinematics of macaques' reaching movements were examined by the current study that analysed some exemplars as they selectively reached to grasp a food item in the absence as well as in the presence of potential obstacles (i.e., stones) that could affect the arm trajectory. Changes in movement parameterization were noted in temporal measures, such as movement time, as well as in spatial ones, such as paths of trajectory. Generally speaking, the presence of stones in the vicinity of the acting hand stalled the reaching movement and affected the arm trajectory as the hand veered away from the stone even when it was not a physical obstacle. We concluded that nearby objects evoke a motor response in macaques, and the attentional mechanisms that allow for a successful action selection are revealed in the reaching path. The data outlined here concur with human studies indicating that potential obstacles are internally represented, a finding implying basic cognitive operations allowing for action selection in macaques
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