Journée du GdR Robotique GT Robotique Médicale et du GdR STIC-Santé

source: site du GdR Robotique

Appel à présentation à destination des acteurs de la communauté: praticiens, industriels, chercheurs

Sujet: Interfaces des assistants robotiques en chirurgie et en médecine interventionnelle

Lieu et Date: le mercredi 21 mai 2014 à l’ISIR 

L’usage d’un dispositif médical au bloc opératoire est fortement contraint en matière d’ergonomie : son installation doit être rapide, simple et robuste, son interface de pilotage doit être intuitive et dénuée d’ambiguïté. D’un point de vue général, la charge cognitive qu’engendrent l’usage et le pilotage de ces dispositifs doit être minimisée. 

Ceci s’applique particulièrement aux dispositifs robotiques, qu’il faut souvent recaler dans la salle ou vis-à-vis du patient via un imageur ou une autre modalité, et qui offrent des modes de fonctionnement variés que le praticien doit pouvoir sélectionner de façon simple au cours de l’intervention. Par ailleurs, les dispositifs robotiques et les imageurs peuvent mettre à disposition des informations qu’il est pertinent de retourner au praticien, mais les interactions avec divers équipements et les personnels de soin sont nombreuses et compliquent l’interfaçage.

Dans les laboratoires comme au sein des entreprises innovantes du secteur, de nombreuses propositions voient le jour pour intégrer de façon synergique les dispositifs robotiques d’assistance dans le processus et la gestuelle opératoire. Les retours haptiques, la réalité augmentée, la télémanipulation ou la comanipulation, les interfaces vocales, les systèmes de tracking de geste, etc. sont autant de modalités d’interfaçage qui sont à l’étude. L’objectif de cette journée est de faire un point sur ces aspects. 

Les doctorants, comme à chaque journée, peuvent solliciter un financement (typiquement transport) pour participer à cette journée. Adresser vos demandes (à temps) à bernard.bayle (AT) unistra.fr

Guillaume Morel
Tanneguy Redarce
Bernard Bayle

power napping !

I’ve always loved spanish people for their siesta culture… Wikipedia defines the siesta as “a short nap taken in the early afternoon, often after the midday meal“ and explains that the word origin is “hora sexta”, meaning “sixth hour” (after the dawn, so about midday) in ancient latin language. Anyway, I’ve decided to stop yawning for a while and learn some interesting things related to naps 🙂

The first important thing to know is that the sleep need varies by age and condition. The sleep need, trivially, is the amount of sleep that a person needs to properly “recharge batteries” and wake up again without feeling tired. On average, newborns need 12 to 18 hours of sleep per day, adolescents about 9 hours and adults 7 to 9 hours per day. First consideration: Yes, we would all like to be newborns for the rest of our lives! Second consideration: the sleep need decreases with age and enormously varies among individuals, so there is no rule. What is sure is that sleep is cumulative: if at night we don’t sleep enough, the next day we’ll be fatigued and actually feel a sort of “sleep debt”.

Many hypotheses have been made to explain the functions of sleep, but it is still too hard to draw up an exhaustive list endorsed by scientific evidences. The second important thing to know is that our sleep follows some patterns known as sleep cycles. Without giving too many details (that you can find here), we sleep by cyclically alternating light and deep sleep phases. Intuitively, it is much easier to wake up during a light sleep period, better known as REM sleep phase, than during a deep sleep one. As it is depicted by the figure below, under normal conditions REM sleep phases recur on average every 90 minutes.

When we decide to take a nap, we should know that, if we are about to start the usual sleep cycle, after about 45 minutes we’ll be in the midst of the first deep sleep phase. In a sense, if we need to set the alarm, we should decide for either taking a short nap (20 to 30 minutes) or a long one (90 minutes), so as to wake up immediately after or before a light sleep phase. Unless you’re lucky enough to afford a nap of one hour and a half per day, you should probably take these considerations seriously 🙂

As this website explains, a power nap is a “sleep session that happens during the day (ideally between 1:00 to 4:00 PM) lasting between 10 and 30 minutes“. Power napping has been scientifically assessed as an effective way to relax, reduce fatigue, boost responsiveness and improve the mood. Apparently, a quick nap is even better than caffeine to improve both motor and learning skills.

Of course, napping can have negative effects as well. This webpage reports that “napping isn’t for everyone. Some people have trouble sleeping in places other than their own beds, while others simply can’t sleep during the day“. Right after the nap time, it may happen to feel disoriented and groggy… this is called sleep inertia. In other cases, a nap could interfere with night-time sleep and make us feel perfectly awake at 2:00 AM, thus leading to wonderful insomnia night sessions (that I wouldn’t wish even on my worst enemy).

Kind Yawns to You all.

once again, new CV format!

Hello everybody, I’ve just finished updating my CV.

I decided to get back to the 2-pages version, so as to add also my publications (that I updated, too). The content is organized now more “scientifically” and my research topics are presented in a more effective way. The layout comes from a Latex template that I found on the web and modified a little bit.

As usual, you can find my CV in three languages at this page.

1st European Computational Motor Control Summer School

-original message by Philippe Fraisse–

Dear Colleague,

It is our pleasure to announce the first European Computational Motor Control Summer School, which will take place at the Mas des Violettes, a pleasant southern French countryside setting near Montpellier, from Sunday June 15th to Saturday June 21st, 2014.

The overall organization will be a morning lecture and an afternoon Matlab-tutorial, each taught by internationally acclaimed researchers in the field:

• Monday: Introduction to human motor control and learning . Jeroen Smeets (AM) and David Franklin (PM)
• Tuesday: Neuro-mechanics. Francisco Valero-Cuevas (AM) and James Finley (PM)
• Wednesday: Motor Control. Etienne Burdet (AM) and Nathanael Jarrassé, Emmanuel Guigon (PM)
• Thursday: Lectures by PM faculty, LIRMM and M2H Euromov researchers (AM); outdoor activities (PM)
• Friday: Motor Learning. Stefan Schaal (AM) and Michael Mistry (PM)

We will also have student presentations, outdoors activities (canoe, hiking in the Garrigue…), “aperitifs”, visit of Saint Guilhem-le-Desert, wine cave visits, banquet, etc. So we expect this summer school to be instructive, fun, as well as a good networking opportunity. The long-term goal of this summer school, which is made possible in large part by a grant from the multidisciplinary large–scale NUMEV initiative in Montpellier, is to promote the field of Computational Motor Control in Europe in general, and in France in particular, as the field is not as developed as it is in the US. Other sponsors include the Division of Physical Therapy and Biokinesiology at USC, and the M2H Euromov laboratory in Montpellier.

The prime target applicants are PhD students and post-doctoral fellows, but applications from junior researchers will be considered. No knowledge of computational motor control, or motor control, is necessary to attend. However, students are expected to know Matlab and have a good level in mathematics, in particular basics in linear algebra and differential equations. Some knowledge in systems neuroscience would be preferable. Each student will need to bring his/her laptop with Matlab pre-installed. To apply for participation, please email a CV and a brief statement of purpose to Nicolas Schweighofer (please use “Summer school: your name” as title). Note that place is very limited and application is therefore likely to be competitive. The first 15 accepted students will have reduced fees of 450 Euros (others 500 Euros). This fee will cover the course, accommodation, complete full room and board, all activities, and transportation to and from downtown Montpellier (France) on Sunday 15th PM and Saturday 21st AM. The payment will have to be made by May 9th via bank transfer.

And finally, for those of you ready to relax and party after this week of intense work, Saturday 21st evening is “la Fête de la Musique” in France, and Montpellier is party-town all night long – no need for a hotel room (this is of course out of the summer school program)!

We hope to see you in June at the Mas des Violettes!

Nicolas Schweighofer
Denis Mottet
Phillipe Fraisse
David Guiraud