Robotic Tensegrity Structure with a Mechanism Mimicking Human Shoulder Motion

This paper proposes a three degrees-of-freedom tensegrity structure with a mechanism inspired by the ligamentous structure of the shoulder. The proposed mechanism simulates the wide motion ranges of the human shoulder joint and is composed of three rigid bodies and sixteen steel wires with three mutually perpendicular rotating axes. Since it belongs to the class 1 tensegrity structure that the rigid bodies do not make any contact with each other, the joint has a certain amount of flexibility, which not only can help protect its mechanism from external impacts but also can prevent human injury that might happen when the mechanism and humans interact each other. Moreover, the proposed mechanism can be manufactured by using fewer materials than a fully rigid mechanism, and thus, it can be made in a lightweight fashion and reduce the inertial effects as well. Finally, to actuate the robotic shoulder, the cables connected to each motor are able to drive the rotating shafts of the joint mechanism.

An Exploratory Investigation of UAS Regulations in Europe and the Impact on Effective Use and Economic Potential

Unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) have rapidly become more common in various applications. At the same time, the need for a safe UAS operation is of great importance to minimize and avoid risks that could arise with the deployment of this technology. With these requirements, UAS regulators in the European Union (EU) are making large efforts to enable a reliable legal framework of conditions for UAS operation to keep up with new capabilities of this technology and to minimize the risk of property damage and, most importantly, human injury. A recent outcome of the mentioned efforts is that new EU drone regulations are into force since 1 January 2021. In this paper we aim to provide a sound overview of recent EU drone regulations and the main changes to the rules since the first wave of regulations adopted in 2017. We highlight how such new rules help or hinder the use of UAS technology and its economic potential in scientific and commercial sectors by providing an exploratory investigation of UAS legal frames in Europe. An example of the impact of legislation on the operation of one particular UAS in Germany is provided, which has been in use since 2013 for atmospheric research.

Evaluation of the Effect of a Rear Operator Guard On the Overall Safety for Operators of Stand-up Lift Trucks

Stand up high lift trucks have an open operator compartment designed to allow for easy egress from the truck in the event of an off dock, off trailer, or tip over accident. The open compartment design also protects the operator during non tip over collision accidents, provided the operator maintains themself within the compartment prior to impact. However, it has been suggested that an additional rear operator guard would better protect operators during non tip over collision accidents. This study aimed to investigate operator injury potential and kinematics during off dock and off-trailer accidents where the presence of a rear operator guard prevents the operator from exiting the truck and to evaluate the potential for an operator to restrain themself within the operator compartment of a stand up lift truck during an off dock or off trailer accident. An instrumented anthropomorphic test device (ATD) was subjected to a series of off dock accidents and a single off-trailer accident utilizing three different stand up lift trucks. The kinematics and loads experienced by the ATD were quantified and correlated to human injury potential. Additionally, this study examined the potential for a rear operator guard to impede operator egress during an off-dock or off-trailer accident. Testing demonstrated the potential for serious or greater injury to an operator subjected to an off dock or off-trailer accident. The authors conclude that a rear guard would negatively impact the overall safety of a stand up lift truck in most working environments.

Analysis of Dangerous Conditions and Actions of the Painting Process

Occupational health and safety is one of the most important issues in a company which is an important subject that has attracted a lot of attention in recent years. Work safety management system is the effort shown to the elements in production (human, equipment, materials and work environment), so that peaceful production activities can be realized and produce products that do not endanger the safety and health of workers. This is due to the interaction of elements in the production system in the form of death, serious injury, human injury, property damage and cessation of process loss. Primary data collection is done by distributing questionnaires to employees to record hazardous actions and hazardous conditions that are the direct cause of accidents resulting in serious injury and property damage or endangering workers and employees. The overall value of hazardous actions is 37% and hazardous conditions 24% still have a small effect that triggers the occurrence. OSHA measurement values prove that accidents, loss of time and other losses can be analyzed with the results of FR and SR values.

Scalp injury management by a maxillofacial surgeon in a low-resource hospital

Background Head or scalp injury is a life-threatening and typically accidental human injury. Most medical departments require immediate medical treatment and proper treatment with specialized medical personnel and facilities. However, in low-resource environments, such as the rural region of West Africa, the authors have treated emergency trauma patients and provided immediate treatment despite lack of resources. Case presentation We reviewed three cases of scalp injury patients, with representative clinical information, and used these cases to outline feedback on scalp trauma treatment based on the specialty knowledge of general and emergency surgeon. Conclusions Oral and maxillofacial surgeons are medical specialists that can immediately diagnose and treat these scalp injuries based on their medical knowledge and experience with the maxillofacial region.

Testing the Validity of the NIJ Clay Standard for Approving Body Armor With a Preliminary Insight Into Injury Correlation

Body armor is tested for efficacy using the NIJ’s clay standard. This standard is based on a 44 mm upper limit of back face deformation into the clay to prevent severe cases of behind armor blunt trauma (BABT). The NIJ clay standard has never been directly correlated with human injury, and it is previously unknown how 44 mm into clay translates to the response of a human torso. This study developed a method for reproducing BABT in a laboratory setting, and performed matched pair testing on the ballistics clay and a cadaveric specimen. Tests at a low, non-injurious speed and a high, injurious speed were performed at the NIJ specified clay temperature, along with two tests at a lower temperature representing exposure to a room temperature setting. It was found that for both speeds the displacement into the human thorax was greater than the displacement into the clay. The greatest displacement into the clay was only 5mm above the standard’s limit, and the same speed into the human model caused failure of the ribcage. Lowering the clay temperature by two degrees Celsius resulted in a passing clay displacement for the extremely injurious high speed test. This experimentation is sufficient in showing that the NIJ standard may not be valid for preventing serious BABT injuries in the wearers of body armor. Further testing is required to correlate clay displacements with human injury risk.

Human Injury causing Road Traffic Accident at Debre Markos Town

Objective: A Road traffic accident (RTA) is when in a road Vehicle collides with another Vehicle, pedestrian, animal or geographical or architectural obstacle. The RTAs can result in human injury, property damage and death. RTA result in the deaths of 1.2 million people worldwide each year and injuries about 4 times this number. The objective of this study is to identify the main causing-factors that contribute to road traffic accidents involving human injuries. Literature suggested factors considered for analysis are: Driver's Age, Driver’s Education status, Driver's experience, Vehicle type, Driver Vehicle Ownership, Vehicle year of service, Road type, Road division, Road condition, Problem with car, Weather condition, and accident time (day or night). Results: Among the candidate variables, Pearson Chi-Square method identified weather condition, driver’s experience, Vehicle year of service; Road division, Driver Vehicle Ownership, and accident time (day or night ) as significantly associated variables. Furthermore, percentage is used to describe the magnitude of associated variable. The result from Poisson regression analyses revealed that low driver experience, high Vehicle year of service (old cars), and Road division (one way road) are the significant contributing factors for increment of human injuries accidents.

REAL-TIME DRONE MAPPING BASED ON REFERENCE IMAGES FOR VEHICLE FACILITY MONITORING

Facilities such as road, parking lots play an important role in our lives nowadays. Damage to such a vehicle facility can cause human injury, as well as inconvenience and cost. To prevent this, facility monitoring is performed periodically, but the current monitoring method is low efficiency by blocking the facility or performing it late at night. In order to increase the efficiency of monitoring, research using images, especially drone images, was conducted. However, when using a drone image, there is a trade-off relationship between accuracy and processing time. In this study, we propose a real-time drone mapping based on reference images for efficient vehicle facility monitoring. The real-time drone mapping based on the reference image is composed of reference images build, aerial triangulation (AT) based on reference images (refAT), and orthophoto generation. The refAT refers to a method of performing AT by using a reference images as reference data. We compared the processing time and processing accuracy of direct georeferencing and refAT. We built 154 drone reference images in the target area. The refAT showed a processing time of about 8.95 seconds and an accuracy of 3.4 cm, and the direct georeferencing method showed a processing time of about 1.49 seconds and an accuracy of 22.5 m. If the method of this study is used for facility monitoring, it is expected that the efficiency of monitoring will be improved with speed and accuracy.