We investigate the global dynamics of solutions of four distinct competitive rational systems of difference equations in the plane. We show that the basins of attractions of different locally asymptotically stable equilibrium points are separated by the global stable manifolds of either saddle points or nonhyperbolic equilibrium points. Our results give complete answer to Open Problem 2 posed recently by Camouzis et al. (2009).

Pushing micro-objects using point contact provides more flexibility and less complexity compared to pick and place operation. Due to the fact that in micro-world surface forces are much more dominant than inertial forces and these forces are distributed unevenly, pushing through the center of mass of the micro-object may not yield a pure translational motion. In order to translate a micro-object, the line of pushing should pass through the center of friction. In this paper, a semi-autonomous scheme based on hybrid vision/force feedback procedure is proposed to push micro-objects with human assistance using a custom built tele-micromanipulation setup to achieve translational motion. In the semi-autonomous pushing process, velocity controlled pushing with force feedback is realized along x-axis by the human operator while y-axis orientation is undertaken automatically using visual feedback. In this way the desired line of pushing for the micro-object is controlled to pass through the varying center of friction. Experimental results are shown to prove nano-Newton range force sensing, scaled bilateral teleoperation with force feedback and pushing operation.

Aims Patient access to reperfusion therapy and the use of primary percutaneous coronary intervention (p-PCI) or thrombolysis (TL) varies considerably between European countries. The aim of this study was to obtain a realistic contemporary picture of how patients with ST elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) are treated in different European countries. Methods and results The chairpersons of the national working groups/societies of interventional cardiology in European countries and selected experts known to be involved in the national registries joined the writing group upon invitation. Data were collected about the country and any existing national STEMI or PCI registries, about STEMI epidemiology, and treatment in each given country and about PCI and p-PCI centres and procedures in each country. Results from the national and/or regional registries in 30 countries were included in this analysis. The annual incidence of hospital admission for any acute myocardial infarction (AMI) varied between 90–312/100 thousand/year, the incidence of STEMI alone ranging from 44 to 142. Primary PCI was the dominant reperfusion strategy in 16 countries and TL in 8 countries. The use of a p-PCI strategy varied between 5 and 92% (of all STEMI patients) and the use of TL between 0 and 55%. Any reperfusion treatment (p-PCI or TL) was used in 37–93% of STEMI patients. Significantly less reperfusion therapy was used in those countries where TL was the dominant strategy. The number of p-PCI procedures per million per year varied among countries between 20 and 970. The mean population served by a single p-PCI centre varied between 0.3 and 7.4 million inhabitants. In those countries offering p-PCI services to the majority of their STEMI patients, this population varied between 0.3 and 1.1 million per centre. In-hospital mortality of all consecutive STEMI patients varied between 4.2 and 13.5%, for patients treated by TL between 3.5 and 14% and for patients treated by p-PCI between 2.7 and 8%. The time reported from symptom onset to the first medical contact (FMC) varied between 60 and 210 min, FMC-needle time for TL between 30 and 110 min, and FMC-balloon time for p-PCI between 60 and 177 min. Conclusion Most North, West, and Central European countries used p-PCI for the majority of their STEMI patients. The lack of organized p-PCI networks was associated with fewer patients overall receiving some form of reperfusion therapy.

In this paper we propose a trainable system that learns grounded language models from examples with a minimum of user intervention and without feedback. We have focused on the acquisition of grounded meanings of spatial and adjective/noun terms. The system has been used to understand and subsequently to generate appropriate natural language descriptions of real objects and to engage in verbal interactions with a human partner. We have also addressed the problem of resolving eventual ambiguities arising during verbal interaction through an information theoretic approach.

This paper introduces “outside-in design” as a collaborative approach to social robot design and human-robot interaction research. As an interdisciplinary group of social and computer scientists, we follow an iterative practice of collecting and analyzing data from realworld interaction, designing appropriate robotic perception and control mechanisms, developing models of interaction through automatic coding of behaviors and evaluation by human subjects, and validating the models in embodied human-robot interaction. We apply this approach in the context of shadow puppeteering, a constrained interaction space which allows us to study the foundational elements of synchronous interaction and apply them to a robot. We contribute to both social and computer sciences by combining the study of human social interaction with the design of socially responsive robot control algorithms. Interaction with robotic technologies in the real world poses both social and technical challenges. For a robot to collaborate seamlessly with humans in an everyday activity, it has to be situationally aware, able to take advantage of the human’s knowledge of the world, and adapt its behavior accordingly. To enable a socially interactive robot to perceive and display relevant social behaviors, designers must solve complex problems in real-time perception and control involving multiple mechanical and computational systems. Designing robots for social interaction also calls for expertise in analyzing social behavior to understand the factors that make people respond to robots as social actors. The challenges of social human-robot interaction suggest that it is difficult to neatly ‘divide and conquer’ social robot design through partial solutions bounded off within social and computational disciplines. This paper describes a collaborative practice bringing together computational and social expertise in the exploration and design of social human-robot interaction. We use an “outside-in” 1 design strategy, iterating between real