A recent consensus within an international society for sports traumatology revealed that approximately 40% of ACL grafts are being surgically misplaced in current clinical practice. To help solve this problem, a computer-assisted system has been developed at the M.E. Miiller Institute for Biomechanics to perform intraoperative planning and guidance of ACL replacement. Dynamic reference bases are fixed on the femur and tibia to track the knee's movement, No intraoperative imaging is required, and potential ligament attachment sites can be directly digitized using a computerized palpation hook in a minimally invasive fashion when used in conjunction with standard endoscopic tools. The palpation hook can be used by the surgeon to interactively define various anatomical structures and reference landmarks that are important for proper ligament positioning. The system can input a standard diagnostic X-ray (sagittal view of the femur) and allows intraoperative registration of this image with the patient to provide valuable X-ray landmarks for intraoperative guidance. The computer helps in situ planning of ligament placement by providing the surgeon with a 3D overview of the relevant anatomical landmarks and information on graft impingement and elongation for various simulated surgical insertions and graft sizes. After planning, the computer helps guide placement of the chosen insertion tunnels. This approach provides an augmented 3D view of knee anatomy and ligament function prior to drilling that is not possible with current procedures. The flexibility of the system in permitting surgeon-defined landmarks and free interpretation of functional hctors allows it to supp011-a variety of surgical workflows and techniques. Comp Aid Surg 7:25-40 (2002). Q200.2 Wey-Liss, hc.
This article presents a robust and heavy duty physical latching connection mechanism, which can be actuated with DC motors to actively connect and disconnect modular robot units. The special requirements include a lightweight and simple construction providing an active, strong, hermaphrodite, completely retractable connection mechanism with a 90 degree symmetry 1 and a no-energy consumption in the locked state. The mechanism volume is kept small to fit multiple copies into a single modular robot unit and to be used on as many faces of the robot unit as possible. This way several different lattice like modular robot structures are possible. The large selection for dock-able connection positions will likely simplify self-reconfiguration strategies. Tests with the implemented mechanism demonstrate its applicative potential for self-reconfiguring modular robots.
This paper presents an experimental research that focuses on collaboration in a multi-player game. The aim of the project is to study the cognitive impacts of awareness tools, i.e., artifacts that allow users of a collaborative system to be aware of what is going on in the joint virtual environment. The focus is on finding an effect on performance as well as on the representation an individual builds of what his partner knows, plans and intends to do (i.e., mutual modeling). We find that using awareness tools has a significant effect by improving task performance. However, the players who were provided with this tool did not show any improvement of their mutual modeling. Further analysis on contrasted groups revealed that there was an effect of the awareness tool on mutual modeling for players who spent a large amount of time using the tool.
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