Upcoming Webinar: Creating Robotic Technology for Ultra-minimally Invasive Surgery

The IET: Great Minds on Innovation series will present a free webinar on April 18th at 10 AM EDT. Dr. Pierre Dupont, Boston Childern’s Hospital, will present: Creating Robotic Technology for Ultra-minimally Invasive Surgery. In this webinar, Dr. Dupont will discuss “challenges and opportunities of medical device development in an academic research environment.” In addition, he will described his own research at Boston Children’s Hospital.

For more information and to regeister for this event, please visit the event page at: https://cc.readytalk.com/cc/s/registrations/new?cid=ydkobqz4k63u .

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Open Access Publishing Fund Established

Mason announced the establishment of the Open Access Publishing Fund (OAPF) to provide financial support to Mason scholars and researchers who wish to publish in open access (OA) journals. Establishment of the $25,000 fund is in direct response to faculty interest in open access journal publishing.

Support for the article processing fees required by some OA journals will be available to faculty, postdoctoral fellows and registered graduate students. More information and application forms will be posted to the University Libraries’ homepage (library.gmu.edu). The OAPF will operate on a first-come, first-served basis, concluding once all the funds have been awarded during the fiscal year.

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Engineers develop advanced biomechanical legs

Engineers at the U. of Arizona’s Robotics and Neural Systems Laboratory recently announced this week that they have “…made the world’s most advanced pair of biomechanical legs.” The legs, which are plastic, are made using a 3D printer. Kevlar straps connected to motors are used to bend and strengthen the legs. Sensors in the straps monitor the force, giving the robot a sense of its limbs’ postions and movements.

The goal of this project is to create more human-like movement in robots. The research may also explain better how humans walk which may have applications in thteaching spinal cord injury patients to walk.

Read the Research: Theresa J Klein and M Anthony Lewis 2012 J. Neural Eng. 9 046011 doi:10.1088/1741-2560/9/4/046011
http://mutex.gmu.edu/login?URL=http://iopscience.iop.org/1741-2552/9/4/046011

Watch the Video at Wired.com: http://bcove.me/cn1y9x4h

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Robotic Finger IDs Materials Better Than Human Finger

Researchers at the University of Southern California (USC) have announced the creation of a robotic finger, called BioTac, that is capable of sensing textures and identifying materials with greater accuracy than a human finger. The robotic finger consists of a liquid core wrapped with a soft, flexible skin that vibrates when the finger slides over a textured surface. To identify the material, software is used to match the vibrations with materials it has on file. USC researchers trained the finger on over 100 common materials, including paper, wood, sponge, etc. When trying to identify unknown materials, the robot had a 95% success rate. Funding for the project was provided by NIH and DARPA.

For more info: http://www.usc.edu/uscnews/newsroom/news_release.php?id=2755
Source: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-06/19/robot-finger

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Stroke Victims Use Thoughts to Control Robotic Arm

In a research recently published in Nature, researchers detailed a project in which two stroke victims controlled the actions of a robotic arm using their thoughts. The victims, both long-standing quadraplegics, used implanted neural inferaces to control the actions of the robotic arm while performing reaching and grasping tasks in three-dimensions.

The VA, NIH and a number of private foundations provided support for this research.

Read the research (GMU only): http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v485/n7398/full/nature11076.html
For more information: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/17/science/bodies-inert-they-moved-a-robot-with-their-minds.html?_r=2&hpw

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New Resource: SpringerMaterials

The SpringerMaterials online database is now available to Mason Library users.  It can be accessed through the Libraries’ database portal (http://furbo.gmu.edu/dbwiz/alpha.php?start=s). 

The SpringerMaterials database is the world’s largest resource for physical and chemical information in materials science.  It is based on the Landolt-Bornstein New Series which is a unique, fully evaluated data collection in all areas of physical science and engineering.  The database contains information on a number of topics including inorganic solid phases, chemical safety data, thermophysical properties, semiconductivity and superconductivity, magnetism, advanced materials, etc.

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