Tool Use Research Articles

Greasing the wheels, or a spanner in the works? Permitting the adaptive re-use of redundant office buildings into residential use in England

This paper explores the challenges involved in planning the adaptation of the urban built environment. It approaches this subject by appraising a recently introduced national planning policy (the permission to convert office buildings into residential use without planning permission) in England. Drawing on interviews conducted with planning practitioners, it is possible to unravel the impact of this policy instrument at the coal face of the discipline. The office-to-residential conversion policy has removed the long-established process of local planning discretion in England in favour of a developer led planning policy. Consequently, there has been a tactical manipulation of additional planning tools, originally designed for other use, to re-exert influence at the local level by local planning authorities. Rather than greasing the wheels of office-to-residential conversion, the new policy has thrown a spanner in the works of a unique local planning process that was originally developed to manage urban change. The paper concludes by calling for local planners to reformulate their role in planning urban adaptation by reasserting their role as “market actors” through the development of city information models, the exploitation of professional communication networks and the transference of their own tacit knowledge.

Adaptive bill morphology for enhanced tool manipulation in New Caledonian crows.

Early increased sophistication of human tools is thought to be underpinned by adaptive morphology for efficient tool manipulation. Such adaptive specialisation is unknown in nonhuman primates but may have evolved in the New Caledonian crow, which has sophisticated tool manufacture. The straightness of its bill, for example, may be adaptive for enhanced visually-directed use of tools. Here, we examine in detail the shape and internal structure of the New Caledonian crow’s bill using Principal Components Analysis and Computed Tomography within a comparative framework. We found that the bill has a combination of interrelated shape and structural features unique within Corvus, and possibly birds generally. The upper mandible is relatively deep and short with a straight cutting edge, and the lower mandible is strengthened and upturned. These novel combined attributes would be functional for (i) counteracting the unique loading patterns acting on the bill when manipulating tools, (ii) a strong precision grip to hold tools securely, and (iii) enhanced visually-guided tool use. Our findings indicate that the New Caledonian crow’s innovative bill has been adapted for tool manipulation to at least some degree. Early increased sophistication of tools may require the co-evolution of morphology that provides improved manipulatory skills.

Comparing national home-keeping and the regulation of translational stem cell applications: An international perspective

A very large grey area exists between translational stem cell research and applications that comply with the ideals of randomised control trials and good laboratory and clinical practice and what is often referred to as snake-oil trade. We identify a discrepancy between international research and ethics regulation and the ways in which regulatory instruments in the stem cell field are developed in practice. We examine this discrepancy using the notion of ‘national home-keeping’, referring to the way governments articulate international standards and regulation with conflicting demands on local players at home.Identifying particular dimensions of regulatory tools – authority, permissions, space and acceleration – as crucial to national home-keeping in Asia, Europe and the USA, we show how local regulation works to enable development of the field, notwithstanding international (i.e. principally ‘western’) regulation. Triangulating regulation with empirical data and archival research between 2012 and 2015 has helped us to shed light on how countries and organisations adapt and resist internationally dominant regulation through the manipulation of regulatory tools (contingent upon country size, the state's ability to accumulate resources, healthcare demands, established traditions of scientific governance, and economic and scientific ambitions).

Predictability and Robustness in the Manipulation of Dynamically Complex Objects.

Manipulation of complex objects and tools is a hallmark of many activities of daily living, but how the human neuromotor control system interacts with such objects is not well understood. Even the seemingly simple task of transporting a cup of coffee without spilling creates complex interaction forces that humans need to compensate for. Predicting the behavior of an underactuated object with nonlinear fluid dynamics based on an internal model appears daunting. Hence, this research tests the hypothesis that humans learn strategies that make interactions predictable and robust to inaccuracies in neural representations of object dynamics. The task of moving a cup of coffee is modeled with a cart-and-pendulum system that is rendered in a virtual environment, where subjects interact with a virtual cup with a rolling ball inside using a robotic manipulandum. To gain insight into human control strategies, we operationalize predictability and robustness to permit quantitative theory-based assessment. Predictability is quantified by the mutual information between the applied force and the object dynamics; robustness is quantified by the energy margin away from failure. Three studies are reviewed that show how with practice subjects develop movement strategies that are predictable and robust. Alternative criteria, common for free movement, such as maximization of smoothness and minimization of force, do not account for the observed data. As manual dexterity is compromised in many individuals with neurological disorders, the experimental paradigm and its analyses are a promising platform to gain insights into neurological diseases, such as dystonia and multiple sclerosis, as well as healthy aging.

右下肢に道具の強迫的使用を呈した症例

右下肢に道具の強迫的使用を呈した症例

Testing the concurrent validity of a naturalistic upper extremity reaching task.

Point-to-point reaching has been widely used to study upper extremity motor control. We have been developing a naturalistic reaching task that adds tool manipulation and object transport to this established paradigm. The purpose of this study was to determine the concurrent validity of a naturalistic reaching task in a sample of healthy adults. This task was compared to the criterion measure of standard point-to-point reaching. Twenty-eight adults performed unconstrained out-and-back movements in three different directions relative to constant start location along midline using their nondominant arm. In the naturalistic task, participants manipulated a tool to transport objects sequentially between physical targets anchored to the planar workspace. In the standard task, participants moved a digital cursor sequentially between virtual targets, veridical to the planar workspace. In both tasks, the primary measure of performance was trial time, which indicated the time to complete 15 reaches (five cycles of three reaches/target). Two other comparator tasks were also designed to test concurrent validity when components of the naturalistic task were added to the standard task. Spearman's rank correlation coefficients indicated minimal relationship between the naturalistic and standard tasks due to differences in progressive task difficulty. Accounting for this yielded a moderate linear relationship, indicating concurrent validity. The comparator tasks were also related to both the standard and naturalistic task. Thus, the principles of motor control and learning that have been established by the wealth of point-to-point reaching studies can still be applied to the naturalistic task to a certain extent.

The Mapping Process in Imitation of Tool Manipulation(2)

The Mapping Process in Imitation of Tool Manipulation(2)

P104. Two methods for one network: Toward an understanding of the left lateralized pathways for tool use

Introduction This project investigates the neural networks involved in the daily use of tools, a fundamental human activity that may be impaired in patients who have suffered strokes, particularly in the middle cerebral artery, resulting in apraxia. Previous experiments with healthy young adults and brain damaged patients have employed various paradigms to address the neural representations of manipulation and employment of tools; but important factors, such as aging or side of brain injury, have not been addressed. Our goal is test the same task, the use of individual tools, using two fundamentally different methods of brain imaging to determine the consistency of findings and to discover the nature of the different components of tool use. Method The methodology comprised fMRI in healthy subjects and lesion analysis in brain damaged patients. Both approaches employed a similar version of the tool carousel, an apparatus built for the presentation of single tools and objects. Twelve tools in the lesion experiment and 10 in the fMRI were presented with the instruction, “Use the tool presented the way you know”. An event-related fMRI experiment was conducted on 17 young and 17 elderly controls. In the lesion study 31 left brain damaged patients and 19 patients with right brain injuries were tested. FMRI-data was analyzed with SPM8 in a factorial design (tool vs. non-tool and use vs. transport) during the planning- and execution-phase. In the lesion study Voxel Lesion Symptom Mapping was applied to the behavioral scoring of patients and VOIs damaged to analyze the following factors: score parameter, damaged side (left, right) and tools used; in addition a ROI analysis specified the findings. Results A left-lateralized network that includes the superior and inferior parietal lobes, the dorsal and ventral premotor cortex and the middle frontal gyrus, the temporal cortex and the lateral occipital complex is similarly involved in tool use in young and elderly controls and in left-brain damaged patients. A difference can be observed in the elderly subjects, who recruit a wider and less focused network during action planning but a smaller, weaker activation pattern during actual motion execution. Despite moderate performance errors in patients with right brain damage, these pathways were not detected, suggesting a more widely-spread distribution of responsible networks and different sources for failure in the correct use of the tools. Conclusions The correspondence of the areas revealed by fMRI in healthy subjects and left-side areas damaged in the patient group demonstrates the role of dorsal and ventral pathways in complex actions like tool use, with particular importance for the frontal and parietal areas. The carousel benefits to test single tool use in patients and healthy participants; this fact and, in addition, the employment of this two different populations validate the findings of the project.

Electronic Health Record Tools to Care for At-Risk Older Drivers: A Quality Improvement Project.

Evaluating driving safety of older adults is an important health topic, but primary care providers (PCP) face multiple barriers in addressing this issue. The study's objectives were to develop an electronic health record (EHR)-based Driving Clinical Support Tool, train PCPs to perform driving assessments utilizing the tool, and systematize documentation of assessment and management of driving safety issues via the tool. The intervention included development of an evidence-based Driving Clinical Support Tool within the EHR, followed by training of internal medicine providers in the tool's content and use. Pre- and postintervention provider surveys and chart review of driving-related patient visits were conducted. Surveys included self-report of preparedness and knowledge to evaluate at-risk older drivers and were analyzed using paired t-test. A chart review of driving-related office visits compared documentation pre- and postintervention including: completeness of appropriate focused history and exam, identification of deficits, patient education, and reporting to appropriate authorities when indicated. Data from 86 providers were analyzed. Pre- and postintervention surveys showed significantly increased self-assessed preparedness (p < .001) and increased driving-related knowledge (p < .001). Postintervention charts showed improved documentation of correct cognitive testing, more referrals/consults, increased patient education about community resources, and appropriate regulatory reporting when deficits were identified. Focused training and an EHR-based clinical support tool improved provider self-reported preparedness and knowledge of how to evaluate at-risk older drivers. The tool improved documentation of driving-related issues and led to improved access to interdisciplinary care coordination.

SU‐E‐E‐02: An Excel‐Based Study Tool for ABR‐Style Exams

Purpose:As the landscape of learning and testing shifts toward a computer‐based environment, a replacement for paper‐based methods of studying is desirable. Using Microsoft Excel, a study tool was developed that allows the user to populate multiple‐choice questions and then generate an interactive quiz session to answer them.Methods:The code for the tool was written using Microsoft Excel Visual Basic for Applications with the intent that this tool could be implemented by any institution with Excel. The base tool is a template with a setup macro, which builds out the structure based on user's input. Once the framework is built, the user can input sets of multiple‐choice questions, answer choices, and even add figures. The tool can be run in random‐question or sequential‐question mode for single or multiple courses of study. The interactive session allows the user to select answer choices and immediate feedback is provided. Once the user is finished studying, the tool records the day's progress by reporting progress statistics useful for trending.Results:Six doctoral students at UTHSCSA have used this tool for the past two months to study for their qualifying exam, which is similar in format and content to the American Board of Radiology (ABR) Therapeutic Part II exam. The students collaborated to create a repository of questions, met weekly to go over these questions, and then used the tool to prepare for their exam.Conclusion:The study tool has provided an effective and efficient way for students to collaborate and be held accountable for exam preparation. The ease of use and familiarity of Excel are important factors for the tool's use. There are software packages to create similar question banks, but this study tool has no additional cost for those that already have Excel. The study tool will be made openly available.

Collision detection for virtual machine tools and virtual robot arms using the Shared Triangles Extended Octrees method

The performance of virtual machine tools and virtual robot arms relies on the use of efficient and precise collision detection methods. This study proposes an octree-based collision detection method, called the ‘shared triangles extended octrees’, applied on virtual machine tools and virtual robot arms. The proposed scheme combines the high computational efficiency of the octree test and the high numerical accuracy of an analytical surface boundaries intersection test. In the proposed algorithm, the overlapping voxels between neighbouring geometries in the virtual mechanisms are identified using octrees, and the intersections of the triangles within these voxels are then checked. It works efficiently, with rapid generation of deformed geometry by shared triangles without using decomposition.The proposed collision detection scheme is implemented on virtual machine tools and the virtual robot arms in a virtual manufacturing cell. The virtual machine tools and virtual robot arms are composed of component trees, which describe the kinematic relation between components. The necessity to check for collisions between each component is indicated by a Boolean matrix. The pairs of components selected by the Boolean matrix are checked using the proposed shared triangles extended octree method.The proposed collision detection method is an efficient tool for verifying the manipulation of CNC machine tools and robot arms and is of great help to CAD/CAM engineers and manufacturing engineers and operators of machine tools and robot arms.

The influence of handedness on hemispheric representation of tools: A survey

An important debate exists in contemporary cognitive neuroscience about the innate or experience-dependent origin of the brain representation of conceptual categories. The ‘domains of knowledge’ hypothesis maintains that innate factors subsume the categorical organization at the brain level of animals, plant life and artefacts. On the other hand, the ‘sensory-motor model of conceptual knowledge’ and the embodied cognition theory attribute this categorical organization to experience-dependent factors. I tried to clarify this issue by surveying the influence that handedness could have on the lateralization of tools representation in the inferior fronto-parietal and posterior middle temporal cortices of the left hemisphere. The underlying assumption was that, if this lateralization results from innate mechanisms, then handedness should not influence this hemispheric asymmetry. If, on the other hand, this lateralization is due to the motor and somatosensory experiences made with the right dominant hand during the manipulation of tools and other artefacts, then this asymmetry should be inverted or strongly attenuated in left-handers. Results of the review strongly suggest that manual experience acquired during tool manipulation can influence the hemispheric representation of tools and other artefacts. They also suggest, however, that handedness-related embodiment is not fixed, but influenced by personal motor experiences (such as those made by left-handers who have been forced to use their right hand) and by social visual experiences (such as the fact that, living in a right-handed world, left-handers see more people in their environment who use the right rather than the left hand) during tool manipulation.

Framework of a Machine Tool Configurator for Energy Efficiency

The energy consumption behavior of installed machine tools and manufacturing systems are nowadays well evaluated and the field of action for comprehensive improvements and optimization activities is open. Despite the possible improvement potential of installed machine tools, its implementation is limited due to constrains such as high investment costs with unknown amortisation time for the machine tool reconfiguration. The planned configuration of components tailored to the machine tool's target use is seen as a promising way to address the expected energetic performance in the configuration phase using detailed multichannel measurements and knowledge of past improvement activities.A modular configuration approach, based on multichannel measurements, in order to improve the energy efficiency of the machine tool, including all auxiliaries, is not present yet. In conjunction with a case study, this paper introduces a concept for a machine tool configurator to integrate the requirements for the energy use during the use phase of the machine tool and its components. Beyond this, the paper provides information for TCO calculations and investment decision.The integrated approach enables machine tool builders to optimize the machine tool configuration, select components in order to increase energy efficiency and achieve cost savings for the machine tool user, in line and validated with the machine tool builder's business case.

Mimicry Enhances Observational Learning in 16-Month-Old Infants.

We examined the effect of mimicry on how 16-month-old infants learn by observation a novel tool use action, which consisted of using a rake to retrieve a toy. Across four conditions, we manipulated whether during an initial play phase, an adult mimicked the infant's play or not (testing the effect of mimicry), the infant played with the adult or played alone (controlling the effect of interacting with a contingent partner) and whether the infant saw a demonstration of the tool's use or not (evaluating baseline performance). We found that infants who had been mimicked learned best from a demonstration of the rake's use and performed better than infants who only played with the experimenter without mimicry or played by themselves before the demonstration. As expected, infants did not learn from a demonstration of the rake's use when they played by themselves and thus had no previous interaction with an experimenter. The mechanisms driving this powerful learning effect of mimicry are discussed.

The cognitive and neural bases of human tool use.

The cognitive and neural bases of human tool use.

Involvement of vision in tool use in crow.

Birds are capable of dexterous sensory-motor activities such as tool use. Reaching is a crucial component of tool use and is a vision-guided behavior in primates, in which arm movement is monitored online in a stable visual frame. However, vision-guided reaching in primates is enabled by anatomical separation of the head and arm; neck reaching in birds accompanies head movement, which produces unstable vision because the eye necessarily moves with the bill. This anatomical difference raises the question whether tool use in birds involves visuomotor mechanisms that are distinct from those in primates. As the role of vision in avian tool use has been poorly understood, we investigated the role of vision in tool use in the large-billed crow (Corvus macrorhynchos), a nontool user in the wild. Crows were trained to manipulate an L-shaped hook to retrieve food that was otherwise out of reach. After training, an opaque panel was placed on the front window of the platform to block their vision, and the effects on tool use were tested with respect to performance and movement trajectory. Vision blocking caused similar deviation of tool movement trajectories for both near and far targets, as well as far target-specific deviation. This suggests the involvement of vision in tool use by crows, specifically in the premanipulation process for conversion of vision-body coordinates for motor planning and in the process of tool manipulation. This is the first behavioral evidence for the involvement of vision in avian tool use.

The Mapping Process in Imitation of Tool Manipulation

The Mapping Process in Imitation of Tool Manipulation

HAPTIC HUMAN INTERFACES FOR ROBOTIC TELEMANIPULATION

Recent investigation in haptic man-robot interaction suggests that there are ultimately only two topical tactile feedback generation modalities for haptic human interfaces. These allow the human operator to handle either (i) temporary virtual reality-based material replicas of the local geometric and/or force profile at the contact areas of an unlimited set of generic objects that could virtually be handled during the manipulation, or (ii) permanent material replicas of a limited set of typical objects. In this paper, the two modalities are analyzed and examples of tactile human interfaces developed by the authors for telerobotic blind tactile exploration of objects, and for telerobotic hapto-visual stylus-style tool manipulation are presented to illustrate the proposed approaches. The necessary modelling of the elastic properties of 3D objects from experimental tactile and range imaging data is also presented using a neural network architecture that becomes an important component of the haptic interface.

Observed manipulation enhances left fronto-parietal activations in the processing of unfamiliar tools.

Tools represent a special class of objects, as functional details of tools can afford certain actions. In addition, information gained via prior experience with tools can be accessed on a semantic level, providing a basis for meaningful object interactions. Conceptual representations of tools also encompass knowledge about tool manipulation which can be acquired via direct (active manipulation) or indirect (observation of others manipulating objects) motor experience. The present study aimed to explore the impact of observation of manipulation on the neural processing of previously unfamiliar, manipulable objects. Brain activity was assessed by means of functional magnetic resonance imaging while participants accomplished a visual matching task involving pictures of the novel objects before and after they received object-related training. Three training session in which subjects observed an experimenter manipulating one set of objects and visually explored another set of objects were used to make subjects familiar with the tools and to allow the formation of new tool representations. A control object set was not part of the training. Training-related brain activation increases were found for observed manipulation objects compared to not trained objects in a left-hemispheric network consisting of inferior frontal gyrus (iFG) pars opercularis and triangularis and supramarginal/angular gyrus. This illustrates that direct manipulation experience is not required to elicit tool-associated activation changes in the action system. While the iFG activation might indicate a close relationship between the areas involved in tool representation and those involved in observational knowledge acquisition, the parietal activation is discussed in terms of non-semantic effects of object affordances and hand-tool spatial relationships.

Using Blogs in the Marketing and Advertising Classroom: Exploratory Insights and Recommendations for Future Use

The use of blogs in business and higher education is increasing, yet little is written about using blogs in marketing or advertising education. The authors review the literature about using blogs in higher education and explain their benefits and pedagogical importance for marketing, advertising, business and journalism/mass communications classes. An author's pedagogical experiences with using blogs in an e-Marketing course and with a study abroad program are described and the qualitative feedback from the student participants is reviewed. In general, students enjoyed their blogging experience, felt that they had improved their skills and recommended the tool's continued use. The authors' recommendations for using blogs in the marketing, advertising, business or journalism/ mass communications classroom and suggestions for further research are also presented.