Bio-Inspired Adaptive Control for Active Knee Exoprosthetics.

On the quest to bring function of prosthetic legs closer to their biological counterparts, the intuitive interplay of their control with the user's impedance modulation is key. We present two control features to enable more physiological and more user-adaptive control of prosthetic legs: a neuromusculoskeletal impedance model ( ) including a reflexive component, and a human model reference adaptive controller ( ), which can be combined with the former. In stance-phase simulations, the allowed to control a prosthetic leg with physiological knee joint angle and moment.

Intact Rapid Facial Mimicry as well as Generally Reduced Mimic Responses in Stable Schizophrenia Patients.

Spontaneous emotional expressions (rapid facial mimicry) perform both emotional and social functions. In the current study, we sought to test whether there were deficits in automatic mimic responses to emotional facial expressions in patients (15 of them) with stable schizophrenia compared to 15 controls. In a perception-action interference paradigm (the Simon task; first experiment), and in the context of a dual-task paradigm (second experiment), the task-relevant stimulus feature was the gender of a face, which, however, displayed a smiling or frowning expression (task-irrelevant stimulus feature).

Effects of sensory augmentation on postural control and gait symmetry of transfemoral amputees: a case description.

Despite recent advances in leg prosthetics, transfemoral amputees still experience limitations in postural control and gait symmetry. It has been hypothesized that artificial sensory information might improve the integration of the prosthesis into the human sensory-motor control loops and, thus, reduce these limitations. In three transfemoral amputees, we investigated the effect of Electrotactile Moving Sensation for Sensory Augmentation (EMSSA) without training and present preliminary findings.

Control strategies for active lower extremity prosthetics and orthotics: a review.

: Technological advancements have led to the development of numerous wearable robotic devices for the physical assistance and restoration of human locomotion. While many challenges remain with respect to the mechanical design of such devices, it is at least equally challenging and important to develop strategies to control them in concert with the intentions of the user.This work reviews the state-of-the-art techniques for controlling portable active lower limb prosthetic and orthotic (P/O) devices in the context of locomotive activities of daily living (ADL), and considers how these can be interfaced with the user's sensory-motor control system.

Concentration, detection and discrimination of Bacillus anthracis spores in orange juice using aptamer based surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy.

Herein, we developed an innovative label free platform for concentration, detection and discrimination of Bacillus anthracis spores. Based on aptamer capture and surface enhanced Raman scattering detection, we were able to detect 10(4) CFU spores spiked in orange juice and discriminate between spores B. anthracis and B.