Cells in macaque ventral premotor cortex (area F5c) respond to observation or production of specific hand-object interactions. Studies in humans associate the left inferior frontal gyrus, including putative F5 homolog pars opercularis, with observing hand actions. Are these responses related to the realized goal of a prehensile action or to the observation of dynamic hand movements? Rapid, even...

Three studies are reported, investigating changes in body engagement by 5to 6-month-old infants as they reach for ObJects in the environment. Infants are distinguished and compared based on their relative ability to maintain a sitting posture without any external body support. The first study demonstrates that manual reaching by sitter infants is coordinated with forward leamng of the trunk, wh...

Programmable vector elds are an abstraction to represent a new class of devices for distributed, non-prehensile manipulation for applications in parts feeding, sorting, positioning, and assembly. Unlike robot grippers, conveyor belts, or vibratory bowl feeders, these devices generate force vector elds in which the parts move until they may reach a stable equilibrium pose. Recent research in the...

This work presents a novel active visuo-tactile based framework for robotic systems to accurately estimate pose of objects in dense cluttered environments. The scene representation is derived using declutter graph (DG) which describes the relationship among decluttering by leveraging semantic segmentation and grasp affordances networks. formulation allows robots efficiently workspace autonomous...

Using retrograde neuronal tracers, a study of the distribution of hypoglossal motor neurons innervating the tongue musculature was performed in the African pig-nosed frog, Hemisus marmoratum. This species is a radically divergent anuran amphibian with a prehensile tongue that can be aimed in three dimensions relative to the head. The results illustrate a unique rostrocaudal distribution of the ...

The mobility of ray I was analysed in seventy-eight Early Permian to Late Cretaceous specimens of non-mammalian Synapsida and one extant mammal. In all non-mammaliamorph Synapsida investigated, ray I formed a digital arcade. The first phalanx was maximally extendable to the zero position in the metapodiophalangeal joint I. Metapodiale I was the functional equivalent to a basal phalanx of digits...

Abstract The prehensile-tailed skink Corucia zebrata is endemic to the Solomon Islands. It most traded reptile from country. During 2000–2019, CITES reported legal export of 10,567 individuals. Although level this trade well documented, impacts on skink's survival in its native range are comparatively unknown. January–May 2020, we surveyed 146 people 12 islands collect information habitats pref...