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Parvalbumin expression in the claustrum of human dog. An immunohistochemical and topographical study with comparative notes of the structure of the nucleus

TitleParvalbumin expression in the claustrum of human dog. An immunohistochemical and topographical study with comparative notes of the structure of the nucleus
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication2015
AuthorsPirone, A, Magliaro, C, Giannessi, E, Ahluwalia, A
JournalJournal of chemical neuroanatomy
Volume64-65
Pagination33-42
Date Published03/2015
KeywordsBioengineering
URLhttp://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0891061815000149
DOI10.1016/j.jchemneu.2015.02.004

Convergence Analysis of Distributed Set-Valued Information Systems

TitleConvergence Analysis of Distributed Set-Valued Information Systems
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication2016
AuthorsFagiolini, A, Dubbini, N, Martini, S, Bicchi, A
JournalIEEE Transactions on Automatic Control
Volume61
Issue6
Pagination1477 - 1491
Date Published06/2016
KeywordsEmbedded Control, Robotics
Abstract
This paper focuses on the convergence of information in distributed systems of agents communicating over a network.
The information on which the convergence is sought is not represented by real numbers, as often in the literature, rather by sets. The dynamics of the evolution of information across the network is accordingly described by set-valued iterative maps. While the study of convergence of set-valued iterative maps is highly complex in general, this paper focuses on Boolean maps, which are comprised of arbitrary combinations of unions, intersections, and complements of sets. For these important class of systems, we provide tools to study both global and local convergence. A distributed geographic information system, leading to successful information reconstruction from partial and corrupted data, is used to illustrate the applications of the proposed methods.
URLhttp://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=7272075
DOI10.1109/TAC.2015.2480176
Refereed DesignationRefereed

Distributed motion misbehavior detection in teams of heterogeneous aerial robots

TitleDistributed motion misbehavior detection in teams of heterogeneous aerial robots
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication2015
AuthorsMartini, S, Di Baccio, D, Alarcòn-Romero, F, Viguria-Jiménez, A, Pallottino, L, Dini, G, Ollero, A
JournalRobotics and Autonomous Systems information
Volume74 part A
Pagination30-39
Date Published12/2015
KeywordsEmbedded Control, Robotics
Abstract

This paper addresses the problem of detecting possible misbehavior in a group of autonomous mobile robots, which coexist in a shared environment and interact with each other and coordinate according to a set of common interaction rules. Such rules specify what actions each robot is allowed to perform in order to interact with the other members of the group. The rules are distributed, i.e., they can be evaluated only starting from the knowledge of the individual robot and the information the robot gathers from neighboring robots. We consider misbehaving those robots which, because of either spontaneous failures or malicious tampering, do not follow the rules and whose behavior thus deviates from the nominal assigned one. The main contribution of the paper is to provide a methodology to detect such misbehavior by observing the congruence of actual behavior with the assigned rules as applied to the actual state of the system. The presented methodology is based on a consensus protocol on the events observed by robots. The methodology is fully distributed in the sense that it can be performed by individual robots based only on the local available information, it has been theoretically proven and validated with experiments involving real aerial heterogeneous robots.
URLhttp://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921889015001360
DOI10.1016/j.robot.2015.06.008
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Refereed DesignationRefereed

Design and Characterization of a Fabric-based Softness Display

TitleDesign and Characterization of a Fabric-based Softness Display
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication2015
AuthorsBianchi, M, Serio, A
JournalIEEE Transactions on Haptics
Volume8
Issue2
Pagination152-163
KeywordsHaptics, Robotics
Abstract

To enable a realistic tactile interaction with remote or virtual objects, softness information represents a fundamental property to be rendered via haptic devices. What is challenging is to reduce the complexity of such an information as it arises from contact mechanics and to find suitable simplifications that can lead an effective development of softness displays. A possible approach is to surrogate detailed tactile cues with information on the rate of spread of the contact area between the object and the finger as the contact force increases, i.e. force/area relation. This paradigm is called contact area spread rate. In this paper we discuss how such a paradigm has inspired the design of a tactile device (hereinafter referred to as Fabric Yielding Display, FYD-2), which exploits the elasticity of a fabric to mimic different levels of stiffness, while the contact area on the finger indenting the fabric is measured. In this manner, the FYD-2 can be controlled to reproduce force-area characteristics. In this work, we describe the FYD-2 architecture and report a psychophysical characterization. FYD-2 is shown to be able to accurately reproduce force-area curves of typical objects and to enable a reliable softness discrimination in human users.
Notes

This work is supported in part by the European Research Council under the Advanced Grant SoftHands “A Theory of Soft Synergies for a New Generation of Artificial Hands” (no. ERC-291166), and by the EU FP7 project (no. 601165) “WEARable HAPtics for Humans and Robots (WEARHAP)”
DOI10.1109/TOH.2015.2404353
Refereed DesignationRefereed

Squeeze pressure bioreactor: a hydrodynamic bioreactor for noncontact stimulation of cartilage constructs

TitleSqueeze pressure bioreactor: a hydrodynamic bioreactor for noncontact stimulation of cartilage constructs
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication2011
AuthorsDe Maria, C, Giusti, S, Mazzei, D, Crawford, A, Ahluwalia, A
JournalTissue engineering. Part C, Methods
Volume17
Pagination757–64
ISSN1937-3392
KeywordsBioengineering
Abstract

A novel squeeze pressure bioreactor for noncontact hydrodynamic stimulation of cartilage is described. The bioreactor is based on a small piston that moves up and down, perpendicular to a tissue construct, in a fluid-filled chamber. Fluid displaced by the piston generates a pressure wave and shear stress as it moves across the sample, simulating the dynamic environment of a mobile joint. The fluid dynamics inside the squeeze pressure bioreactor was modeled using analytical and computational methods to simulate the mechanical stimuli imposed on a construct. In particular, the pressure, velocity field, and wall shear stress generated on the surface of the construct were analyzed using the theory of hydrodynamic lubrication, which describes the flow of an incompressible fluid between two surfaces in relative motion. Both the models and in-situ pressure measurements in the bioreactor demonstrate that controlled cyclic stresses of up to 10 kPa can be applied to tissue constructs. Initial tests on three-dimensional scaffolds seeded with chondrocytes show that glycosaminoglycan production is increased with regard to controls after 24 and 48 h of cyclic noncontact stimulation in the bioreactor.
URLhttp://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/ten.tec.2011.0002 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21410315
DOI10.1089/ten.TEC.2011.0002
PubMed ID21410315

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