Musculoskeletal disorders (MSD) are the most common cause of work-related injuries and lost production involving approximately 1.7 billion people worldwide and mainly affect low back (more than 50%) and upper limbs (more than 40%). It has a profound effect on both the workers affected and the company. This paper provides an ergonomic assessment of different work activities in a horse saddle-making company, involving 5 workers. This aim guides the design of a wrist exoskeleton to reduce the risk of musculoskeletal diseases wherever it is impossible to automate the production process. This evaluation is done either through subjective and objective measurement, respectively using questionnaires and by measurement of muscle activation with sEMG sensors.

A humanoid robot can relay video and touch sensations to a person wearing haptic feedback gloves and a virtual reality (VR) headset hundreds of kilometres away, offering a way for people to attend events without travelling. The iCub 3 robot is a 52-kilogram, 125- centimetre-tall robot with 54 points of articulation across its aluminium alloy and plastic body. Its head contains two cameras where a human's eyes would be, and an internet-connected computer where the brain would go. Along with the cameras, sensors covering its body send data to the robot's "brain". These sensations are then replicated on a suit and VR headset worn by a remote human operator.

Researchers at IIT-Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (Italian Institute of Technology) and INAIL (Italian Worker's Compensation Authority) have designed and created innovative prototypes of wearable robotic exoskeletons for industrial use to make work in the industrial and manufacturing sectors safer. Via electric motors and artificial intelligence algorithms, these wearable robotic devices will assist workers engaged in the most physically demanding tasks, significantly reducing the effort required by up to 40% and lowering the percentage of accidents at work and chronic occupational disorders. Researchers are starting to test the prototypes in real scenarios and are planning further development in order to reach the technological level required to bring them to the market in few years. In Italy, occupational injuries affecting the musculoskeletal system are the most frequent complaints in the workplace: 68% of the occupational injuries reported to INAIL are related to the musculoskeletal system. Of this percentage, the largest share (about 41%) concerns the spinal column.

Bio: Antonio Bicchi is a scientist interested in robotics and intelligent machines. After graduating in Pisa and receiving a Ph.D. from the University of Bologna, he spent a few years at the MIT AI Lab of Cambridge before becoming Professor in Robotics at the University of Pisa. In 2009 he founded the Soft Robotics Laboratory at the Italian Institute of Technology in Genoa. Since 2013 he is Adjunct Professor at Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ. He has coordinated many international projects, including four grants from the European Research Council (ERC).

Mobile manipulators that combine mobility and manipulability, are increasingly being used for various unstructured application scenarios in the field, e.g. vineyards. Therefore, the coordinated motion of the mobile base and manipulator is an essential feature of the overall performance. In this paper, we explore a whole-body motion controller of a robot which is composed of a 2-DoFs non-holonomic wheeled mobile base with a 7-DoFs manipulator (non-holonomic wheeled mobile manipulator, NWMM) This robotic platform is designed to efficiently undertake complex grapevine pruning tasks. In the control framework, a task priority coordinated motion of the NWMM is guaranteed. Lower-priority tasks are projected into the null space of the top-priority tasks so that higher-priority tasks are completed without interruption from lower-priority tasks. The proposed controller was evaluated in a grapevine spur pruning experiment scenario.

IIT's teams will compete in the "Powered Arm Prosthesis" category showing two different robotic arm prostheses made in Italy: SoftHandPro and Hannes. The race course is about 30 metres long and will see the pilots compete in three races on 6 stations reproducing daily tasks. The IIT-Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (Italian Institute of Technology) will participate in the Cybathlon Global Edition 2020, an international event organised by the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, Switzerland, and dedicated to new prosthetic devices. People with physical disabilities from all over the world will compete, as pilots, in different disciplines that reproduce daily useful tasks, using the latest discoveries in technology such as robotic prostheses, exoskeletons and new generation wheelchairs. IIT will participate by presenting two robotic arm prostheses: the SoftHand Pro, stemming from a research project funded by the European Research Council (ERC), and the Hannes robotic hand developed together with the Italian Centro Protesi INAIL (the prosthetic unit of the National Institute for Insurance against Accidents at Work).

Astrophysicists use artificial intelligence to determine exoplanets sizes 2019 October 09 This artist's impression shows several of the planets orbiting the ultra-cool red dwarf star TRAPPIST-1. KornmesserTrue radii as a function of the predicted radii for the test set. Credit: Ulmer-Moll et al.A team1 of Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço (IA2) researchers has published an article3, led by Solène Ulmer-Moll, which shows that by knowing an exoplanet's mass and equilibrium temperature, it's possible to constrain its radius, with higher accuracy than previous methods. Solène Ulmer-Moll, a PhD student at the Science Faculty of the University of Porto (FCUP) explains this result was obtained by using knowledge from different fields: "This novel way to forecast exoplanet radius is a perfect example of the synergy between exoplanet science and machine learning techniques." To characterize a planet, both its mass and radius are needed, in order to find the planet's density, and from that infer its composition.

Robot dogs have come along way from the days of being tipped over by humans. A surprising new video shows off just how advanced the four-legged droids have become, as a'HyQReal' robo-dog can be seen dragging an airplane that weighs a whopping 3 tons across the Geneva Airport in Italy. HyQReal was created by researchers at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) as a device designed to support humans in emergency situations. Luckily, as the video shows, the robot dog would almost certainly be capable of lifting a heavy human. The robot dog drags the heavy airplane with apparent ease across approximately 33 feet before a researcher with a game controller makes it stop. It's an amazing feat, considering the HyQReal weighs just over 280lbs and is roughly 4ft long.

The Compunet Research Line at Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) in Genoa is opening a postdoctoral position (2 years) with focus on bioinformatics and machine learning: in particular deep learning for genomics for disease/pharmaceutical predictions. Knowledge of computational drug discovery will be considered a plus. Knowledge of Caffe, Theano, TensorFlow or related deep learning GPU enabled/ machine learning software libraries is also a desirable skill. The salary will be internationally competitive and commensurate with the candidate's experience. Applicants are invited to submit a cover letter stating research goals, a curriculum vitae and contact information of 2 referees to panagiota.dimopoulou@iit.it

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