Integrating collaborative robots in manufacturing, logistics, and agriculture: Expert perspectives on technical, safety, and human factors.

This study investigates the implementation of collaborative robots across three distinct industrial sectors: vehicle assembly, warehouse logistics, and agricultural operations. Through the SESTOSENSO project, an EU-funded initiative, we examined expert perspectives on human-robot collaboration using a mixed-methods approach. Data were collected from 31 technical experts across nine European countries through an online questionnaire combining qualitative assessments of specific use cases and quantitative measures of attitudes, trust, and safety perceptions.

Targeted isometric force impulses in patients with traumatic brain injury reveal delayed motor programming and change of strategy.

The capability of quickly (as soon as possible) producing fast uncorrected and accurate isometric force impulses was examined to assess the motor efficiency of patients with moderate to severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) and good motor recovery at a clinical evaluation. Twenty male right-handed patients with moderate to severe TBI and 24 age-matched healthy male right-handed controls participated in the study. The experimental task required subjects to aim brief and uncorrected isometric force impulses to targets visually presented along with subjects' force displays.

Reaching movements in children: accuracy and reaction time development.

The present study was undertaken to follow the development of the capability to produce adult-like fast and precise movements reaching visual targets, during childhood. A two-dimensional reaching task was used. We focussed on pre-planning capabilities, by instructing subjects to produce movements as fast as possible, preventing corrections after initiation of movement.

Physical practice induces excitability changes in human hand motor area during motor imagery.

The present study was undertaken to investigate the effects of physical practice on excitability changes in human primary motor cortex (M1) during motor imagery (MI). Using different intensities of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), we examined changes in the motor evoked potential (MEP) of the first dorsal interosseous (FDI) muscle with and without MI, and before and after physical practice. On comparing results for MEPs recorded before and after physical practice, the difference between the MEP amplitudes observed at rest and during MI only increased at higher TMS intensities.

Reaching movements: mode of motor programming influences programming time by itself.

The present study was undertaken to assess the effect of both target spatial dispersion and mode of motor programming (an implicit strategy, continuous or discrete) on the time needed to initiate accurate arm reaching trajectories. For this purpose, we compared three conditions, in which human subjects were required to reach to one of four possible targets, equidistant from a common origin, in four different directions. The directions were varied across conditions in such a way that (1) the total spatial dispersion of targets varied, or (2) the separations between the medial targets varied, or (3) both (1) and (2) varied.