A fundamental question is how the CNS controls the hand with its many degrees of freedom. Several motor cortical areas, including the dorsal premotor cortex (PMd) and primary motor cortex (M1), are involved in reach to grasp. Although neurons in PMd are known to modulate in relation to the type of grasp and neurons in M1 in relation to grasp force and finger movements, whether specific paramete...

In this paper, we investigate the problem of generating trajectories from demonstration and instructing the robot to perform similar tasks under new situations. We present an approach that enables robots to extract movement trajectories from Kinect data capture, automatically segment movement into action units, learn the task-specific models and grasp target object under new situations. The mod...

A haptic display system is presented for manipulating virtual mechanisms derived from a mechanical CAD design. Links are designed and assembled into mechanisms using Utah’s Alpha.1 CAD system, and are then manipulated with a Sarcos Dextrous Arm Master. Based on the mechanism’s kinematics and the virtual grasp, the motion of the master is divided into motion of the mechanism and constraint viola...

This book is part of a series of five short and accessible texts examining ‘better partnership working’ and is designed as an evidence-based and theoreticallyinformed analysis of a number of linked themes—this one concentrating on the issues of management and leadership and why these matter in partnerships. The introductory preamble provides a clear purpose for both the book, and the series for...

V EGETARIANISM is an old and respectable doctrine, and its popularity seems to be growing.' This would be of little interest to moral philosophers except for one fact, namely that some people advocate vegetarianism on moral grounds. Indeed, two well-known moral and social philosophers, Robert Nozick and Peter Singer, have recently advocated not eating meat on moral grounds.2 One job of a moral ...

This paper introduces a principle to guide the design of finger form: invariance of contact geometry over some continuum of varying shape and/or pose of the grasped object in the plane. Specific applications of this principle include scaleinvariant and pose-invariant grasps. Under specific conditions, the principle gives rise to spiral shaped fingers, including logarithmic spirals and straight ...