paolo pascolo - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by paolo pascolo

Research paper thumbnail of P4.23 Control mechanisms of finger reaching during perturbed two-dimensional target displacements

Clinical Neurophysiology, 2011

Research paper thumbnail of Electrostimulation Device for Users of Means of Transport

Research paper thumbnail of On the introduction of a new parameter for the analysis of posture by acceleration of the centre of pressure

Europa medicophysica, 2006

With this study we wanted to determine whether the standard parameters for describing posture are... more With this study we wanted to determine whether the standard parameters for describing posture are sufficient. The time-series analysis of statokinesigrams of 50 healthy volunteers and Parkinsonian subjects, the latter representing an excellent example of persons affected by a postural control disorder, were assessed and compared. The tests were carried out using a new parameter ''p'', which is introduced with this work. The novel parameter is adimensional and independent of the subjects' anthropometric data and can be easily computed with elementary mathematics. Parameter ''p'' was found to discriminate healthy subjects from parkinsonians (as an example of subjects affected by a disease of the central control system). A new tool for the early diagnosis of disease of the central control system could theoretically be developed from our results.

Research paper thumbnail of The mirror neuron system simply. An hypothesis? - biomed 2013

Biomedical sciences instrumentation, 2013

The announcement that mirror neurons (MNs) had been found in macaques was made in 1996. The ensui... more The announcement that mirror neurons (MNs) had been found in macaques was made in 1996. The ensuing MN System theory (MNST) was based on the “nearly simultaneous” activity of some neurons detected both when the macaque observed an investigator's action and when it performed the action (e.g. grasp to eat). Studying the seminal investigations on macaques published in the literature, we realized that poorly defined time-scales could lead to multiple interpretations. We also noticed that in the original experimental protocol the synchronization between the observed event and the neural activity hypothetically related to the event itself was not investigated. In spite of this criticism, the MNST has enjoyed an extraordinary popularity in general media as well as in the scientific community, and monkeys have, almost magically, acquired the functional ability of MNs. In this paper, we analyze some recent studies about the MNST, specifically those about direct measurements on humans by ...

Research paper thumbnail of A novel methodology to evaluate the psycho-physical condition of individuals performing at-risk activities

Biomedical sciences instrumentation, 2012

Currently the evaluation of the psycho-physical condition of individuals performing at-risk activ... more Currently the evaluation of the psycho-physical condition of individuals performing at-risk activities involves either subjective evaluations or invasive biological tests, and is not often indicative of the actual ability of the subject to perform the specific activity. We propose a new methodology based on posturographic and reaction time measurements, derived from the strict relationship between the control strategies used to maintain the erect posture and the psycho-physical abilities of an individual. These strategies are affected by fatigue, diseases and substances such as alcohol and drugs. The measuring device consists of a posturographic platform, a hand-held trigger and a personal computer running the software. The subject is asked to perform simultaneously two tasks: move the center of mass of the body to follow a target on the screen, and react to the appearance of another stimulus by pressing the trigger. The task is made more complicated by randomly presenting the stimu...

Research paper thumbnail of The Relationship between Personal Factors and its Effect on Internet Usage

Journal of Mass Communication and Journalism, 2012

The use of communication technology is growing rapidly in colleges and universities. The objectiv... more The use of communication technology is growing rapidly in colleges and universities. The objectives of this study are to identify the effect between age, level of the study, field of the study, gender and income on attitudes toward the Internet, problems in using the Internet and gratification of Internet usage. The present study used the quantitative method by means of a questionnaire survey as a means of achieving its objectives. Sample size for this study is 440 and University Putra Malaysia is chosen as a location. Also quota sampling applied for this investigation. Personal factors in this study include (age, gender, income, level of study and field of study) of respondents. The findings of the study revealed significant relationships between age and attitudes towards Internet, problems in using the Internet and gratification of Internet usage. In addition, there is a significant relationship between educational achievement level and problems in using the Internet. There is a significant relationship between income and attitudes towards Internet, problems in using the Internet and gratification Internet usage.

Research paper thumbnail of The straw man in the brain

Science, 2015

Pop culture claims about the brain make for easy targets, finds Christian Keysers

Research paper thumbnail of Modeling Models: Understanding of Structure of Geophysical Knowledge by the Event Bush Method

Research paper thumbnail of Organization of a geophysical information space by using an event-bush-based collaborative tool

Earth Science Informatics, 2014

Development of knowledge engineering makes it possible to bring an information space relating to ... more Development of knowledge engineering makes it possible to bring an information space relating to an entire domain of knowledge within the field of geoscience into a strict form, which is both computer-tractable and convenient for collaborative research work. Nevertheless, there are issues that seriously hamper this processthe problem of defining key terms, which is often not shared by the colleagueship, and interrelation of concepts developed by different schools within the colleagueship focused on different aspects of this domain. Another issue is the export of results to a wider community unfamiliar with the specificity of local studies. All these issues can be successfully addressed by a novel technique of knowledge engineering, the event bush, brought into the COLLA environment for geoscientific collaborative studies. This paper demonstrates how the said issues can be resolved by the example of one of the most important information domains in the field of seismology, the site effects. Text, graphics, tabular data and a physical model coming from different sources and different contexts are united in one context keeping all the specificity of original understanding and allowing the researchers keep on following their own context and terminology.

Research paper thumbnail of Improvement of Nakamura technique by singular spectrum analysis

Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering, 2006

In this work we investigate the application of the Singular Spectrum Analysis to improve Nakamura... more In this work we investigate the application of the Singular Spectrum Analysis to improve Nakamura Technique. The SSA has a wide and multidisciplinary range of applications; it allows a time series to be decomposed into different components, eg the signal itself, as well as various noise components, which can be subsequently removed from the data. Removal of the minor component of the data can lead to significant improvements in the identification of the system. In this paper the use of SSA Technique allows to optimize the signal to ...

Research paper thumbnail of Dynamics of the Human Cervical Spine and Neuromuscular Control

Journal of Whiplash & Related Disorders, 2005

AbstractThe influence of the neuromuscular control on the dynamics of the human cervical spine is... more AbstractThe influence of the neuromuscular control on the dynamics of the human cervical spine is investigated both experimentally and numerically within a long-term research addressed to the whiplash injury problem. First, the case of small perturbations along the sagittal plane is considered. Specific in vivo measurements highlight that the spinal behavior strictly depends on the muscular activity while contextual kineradiographic observations suggest that an approximate model for the neck could be implemented by considering an inverse pendulum scheme, if either ‘small’ extensions or ‘medium’ flexions are of concern. Although such a model is too simple to represent the complex spinal deformation during the whiplash event, it can still be used to address the study of some control issues. On this subject, specific numerical simulations show that the in vivo experiments could be reproduced by controlling this model via a delayed feedback. This is governed by the velocity of propagation of the action potent...

Research paper thumbnail of P4.23 Control mechanisms of finger reaching during perturbed two-dimensional target displacements

Clinical Neurophysiology, 2011

Research paper thumbnail of Considerations on the application of the chaos paradigm to describe the postural sway

Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, 2006

Time-series of statokinesigram (SKG) of healthy subjects and parkinsonians are investigated and c... more Time-series of statokinesigram (SKG) of healthy subjects and parkinsonians are investigated and compared. This is done by employing the chaos paradigm in order to obtain the main characteristics of the SKG. The interpretation of our findings is twofold: when a proper Theiler window is not used we find a virtual invariance of the chaos parameters when healthy subjects and parkinsonians are compared but a discrepancy of our values (correlation dimension equals to 1.4) with those found in previous works; when a proper Theiler window is used (more) appropriately, the SKGs do not show a convergence of the fractal dimension estimates; therefore nothing can be said in terms of chaoticity of system.

Research paper thumbnail of Dynamical models of the human eye and strabismus

Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, 2009

In this work, the applicability of a recently published dynamical model of the eye to the case of... more In this work, the applicability of a recently published dynamical model of the eye to the case of strabismus is investigated. Although the basic scheme of the original model remains valid, the simulation of the pathological dynamics requires a more suitable coverage of the space of the physiological rotations of the eye. This requisite is reached by developing the original model and by taking into account the contributions of connective tissues that were originally neglected. Possible wider fields of application of the model are then discussed.

Research paper thumbnail of From time series analysis to a biomechanical multibody model of the human eye

Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, 2009

A mechanical model of the human eye is presented aimed at estimating the level of muscular activa... more A mechanical model of the human eye is presented aimed at estimating the level of muscular activation. The applicability of the model in the biomedical field is discussed. Human eye movements studied in the laboratory are compared with the ones produced by a virtual eye described in kinematical terms and subject to the dynamics of six actuators, as many as the muscular systems devoted to the eye motion control. The definition of an error function between the experimental and the numerical response and the application of a suitable law that links activation and muscular force are at the base of the proposed methodology. The aim is the definition of a simple conceptual tool that could help the specialist in the diagnosis of potential physiological disturbances of saccadic and nystagmic movements but can also be extended in a second phase when more sophisticated data become available. The work is part of a collaboration between the Functional Mechanics Laboratory of the University and the Neurophysiopatology Laboratory of the ''S. Maria della Misericordia'' Hospital in Udine, Italy.

Research paper thumbnail of Posture as a chaotic system and an application to the Parkinson’s disease

Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, 2005

In this work we investigate and compare a number of time series of stabilograms of healthy subjec... more In this work we investigate and compare a number of time series of stabilograms of healthy subjects and Parkinsonians. This is carried out by means of the chaos paradigm through the preliminary computation of the first minimum of the mutual information function and the embedding dimension (using false nearest neighbours) in order to obtain the correlation dimension as well as the largest Lyapunov exponent. We show that the postural act is indeed chaotic and especially that the latter two parameters do not allow to discriminate healthy subjects from parkinsonians. Moreover we report a discrepancy of our values with those found in previous works.

Research paper thumbnail of Identifying timescales and possible precursors of the awake to asleep transition in EOG time series

Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, 2005

Research paper thumbnail of Evaluation of remote monitoring of parturition in dairy cattle as a new tool for calving management

BMC Veterinary Research, 2013

Background Proper calving management of dairy herds is a crucial aspect of the bovine life cycle,... more Background Proper calving management of dairy herds is a crucial aspect of the bovine life cycle, as it has profound effects on calf viability and on the post-partum course of the dam. The objectives of this study were to monitor the calving process through the use of a remote alarm system and to determine the impact of prompt emergency obstetric procedures in case of dystocia for the prevention of stillbirths and post-partum reproductive pathologies, and for improving herd fertility. Six groups of experimental animals were studied: monitored heifers (n = 60) and multiparous cows (n = 60) were compared with non-observed animals (n = 60 heifers and n = 60 multiparous) giving birth during the same time period and housed in the calving barn, and with unmonitored animals placed in a dry zone (n = 240 heifers and n = 112 multiparous cows). Results The incidence of dystocia ranged from a minimum of 23.4% (monitored multiparous cows) to a maximum of 33.3% (monitored heifers), and there wer...

Research paper thumbnail of Con l’avviso via sms il parto è più sicuro

Research paper thumbnail of Relazione invitata - Strutturazione di modelli biomeccanici-neurologici

Research paper thumbnail of P4.23 Control mechanisms of finger reaching during perturbed two-dimensional target displacements

Clinical Neurophysiology, 2011

Research paper thumbnail of Electrostimulation Device for Users of Means of Transport

Research paper thumbnail of On the introduction of a new parameter for the analysis of posture by acceleration of the centre of pressure

Europa medicophysica, 2006

With this study we wanted to determine whether the standard parameters for describing posture are... more With this study we wanted to determine whether the standard parameters for describing posture are sufficient. The time-series analysis of statokinesigrams of 50 healthy volunteers and Parkinsonian subjects, the latter representing an excellent example of persons affected by a postural control disorder, were assessed and compared. The tests were carried out using a new parameter ''p'', which is introduced with this work. The novel parameter is adimensional and independent of the subjects' anthropometric data and can be easily computed with elementary mathematics. Parameter ''p'' was found to discriminate healthy subjects from parkinsonians (as an example of subjects affected by a disease of the central control system). A new tool for the early diagnosis of disease of the central control system could theoretically be developed from our results.

Research paper thumbnail of The mirror neuron system simply. An hypothesis? - biomed 2013

Biomedical sciences instrumentation, 2013

The announcement that mirror neurons (MNs) had been found in macaques was made in 1996. The ensui... more The announcement that mirror neurons (MNs) had been found in macaques was made in 1996. The ensuing MN System theory (MNST) was based on the “nearly simultaneous” activity of some neurons detected both when the macaque observed an investigator's action and when it performed the action (e.g. grasp to eat). Studying the seminal investigations on macaques published in the literature, we realized that poorly defined time-scales could lead to multiple interpretations. We also noticed that in the original experimental protocol the synchronization between the observed event and the neural activity hypothetically related to the event itself was not investigated. In spite of this criticism, the MNST has enjoyed an extraordinary popularity in general media as well as in the scientific community, and monkeys have, almost magically, acquired the functional ability of MNs. In this paper, we analyze some recent studies about the MNST, specifically those about direct measurements on humans by ...

Research paper thumbnail of A novel methodology to evaluate the psycho-physical condition of individuals performing at-risk activities

Biomedical sciences instrumentation, 2012

Currently the evaluation of the psycho-physical condition of individuals performing at-risk activ... more Currently the evaluation of the psycho-physical condition of individuals performing at-risk activities involves either subjective evaluations or invasive biological tests, and is not often indicative of the actual ability of the subject to perform the specific activity. We propose a new methodology based on posturographic and reaction time measurements, derived from the strict relationship between the control strategies used to maintain the erect posture and the psycho-physical abilities of an individual. These strategies are affected by fatigue, diseases and substances such as alcohol and drugs. The measuring device consists of a posturographic platform, a hand-held trigger and a personal computer running the software. The subject is asked to perform simultaneously two tasks: move the center of mass of the body to follow a target on the screen, and react to the appearance of another stimulus by pressing the trigger. The task is made more complicated by randomly presenting the stimu...

Research paper thumbnail of The Relationship between Personal Factors and its Effect on Internet Usage

Journal of Mass Communication and Journalism, 2012

The use of communication technology is growing rapidly in colleges and universities. The objectiv... more The use of communication technology is growing rapidly in colleges and universities. The objectives of this study are to identify the effect between age, level of the study, field of the study, gender and income on attitudes toward the Internet, problems in using the Internet and gratification of Internet usage. The present study used the quantitative method by means of a questionnaire survey as a means of achieving its objectives. Sample size for this study is 440 and University Putra Malaysia is chosen as a location. Also quota sampling applied for this investigation. Personal factors in this study include (age, gender, income, level of study and field of study) of respondents. The findings of the study revealed significant relationships between age and attitudes towards Internet, problems in using the Internet and gratification of Internet usage. In addition, there is a significant relationship between educational achievement level and problems in using the Internet. There is a significant relationship between income and attitudes towards Internet, problems in using the Internet and gratification Internet usage.

Research paper thumbnail of The straw man in the brain

Science, 2015

Pop culture claims about the brain make for easy targets, finds Christian Keysers

Research paper thumbnail of Modeling Models: Understanding of Structure of Geophysical Knowledge by the Event Bush Method

Research paper thumbnail of Organization of a geophysical information space by using an event-bush-based collaborative tool

Earth Science Informatics, 2014

Development of knowledge engineering makes it possible to bring an information space relating to ... more Development of knowledge engineering makes it possible to bring an information space relating to an entire domain of knowledge within the field of geoscience into a strict form, which is both computer-tractable and convenient for collaborative research work. Nevertheless, there are issues that seriously hamper this processthe problem of defining key terms, which is often not shared by the colleagueship, and interrelation of concepts developed by different schools within the colleagueship focused on different aspects of this domain. Another issue is the export of results to a wider community unfamiliar with the specificity of local studies. All these issues can be successfully addressed by a novel technique of knowledge engineering, the event bush, brought into the COLLA environment for geoscientific collaborative studies. This paper demonstrates how the said issues can be resolved by the example of one of the most important information domains in the field of seismology, the site effects. Text, graphics, tabular data and a physical model coming from different sources and different contexts are united in one context keeping all the specificity of original understanding and allowing the researchers keep on following their own context and terminology.

Research paper thumbnail of Improvement of Nakamura technique by singular spectrum analysis

Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering, 2006

In this work we investigate the application of the Singular Spectrum Analysis to improve Nakamura... more In this work we investigate the application of the Singular Spectrum Analysis to improve Nakamura Technique. The SSA has a wide and multidisciplinary range of applications; it allows a time series to be decomposed into different components, eg the signal itself, as well as various noise components, which can be subsequently removed from the data. Removal of the minor component of the data can lead to significant improvements in the identification of the system. In this paper the use of SSA Technique allows to optimize the signal to ...

Research paper thumbnail of Dynamics of the Human Cervical Spine and Neuromuscular Control

Journal of Whiplash & Related Disorders, 2005

AbstractThe influence of the neuromuscular control on the dynamics of the human cervical spine is... more AbstractThe influence of the neuromuscular control on the dynamics of the human cervical spine is investigated both experimentally and numerically within a long-term research addressed to the whiplash injury problem. First, the case of small perturbations along the sagittal plane is considered. Specific in vivo measurements highlight that the spinal behavior strictly depends on the muscular activity while contextual kineradiographic observations suggest that an approximate model for the neck could be implemented by considering an inverse pendulum scheme, if either ‘small’ extensions or ‘medium’ flexions are of concern. Although such a model is too simple to represent the complex spinal deformation during the whiplash event, it can still be used to address the study of some control issues. On this subject, specific numerical simulations show that the in vivo experiments could be reproduced by controlling this model via a delayed feedback. This is governed by the velocity of propagation of the action potent...

Research paper thumbnail of P4.23 Control mechanisms of finger reaching during perturbed two-dimensional target displacements

Clinical Neurophysiology, 2011

Research paper thumbnail of Considerations on the application of the chaos paradigm to describe the postural sway

Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, 2006

Time-series of statokinesigram (SKG) of healthy subjects and parkinsonians are investigated and c... more Time-series of statokinesigram (SKG) of healthy subjects and parkinsonians are investigated and compared. This is done by employing the chaos paradigm in order to obtain the main characteristics of the SKG. The interpretation of our findings is twofold: when a proper Theiler window is not used we find a virtual invariance of the chaos parameters when healthy subjects and parkinsonians are compared but a discrepancy of our values (correlation dimension equals to 1.4) with those found in previous works; when a proper Theiler window is used (more) appropriately, the SKGs do not show a convergence of the fractal dimension estimates; therefore nothing can be said in terms of chaoticity of system.

Research paper thumbnail of Dynamical models of the human eye and strabismus

Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, 2009

In this work, the applicability of a recently published dynamical model of the eye to the case of... more In this work, the applicability of a recently published dynamical model of the eye to the case of strabismus is investigated. Although the basic scheme of the original model remains valid, the simulation of the pathological dynamics requires a more suitable coverage of the space of the physiological rotations of the eye. This requisite is reached by developing the original model and by taking into account the contributions of connective tissues that were originally neglected. Possible wider fields of application of the model are then discussed.

Research paper thumbnail of From time series analysis to a biomechanical multibody model of the human eye

Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, 2009

A mechanical model of the human eye is presented aimed at estimating the level of muscular activa... more A mechanical model of the human eye is presented aimed at estimating the level of muscular activation. The applicability of the model in the biomedical field is discussed. Human eye movements studied in the laboratory are compared with the ones produced by a virtual eye described in kinematical terms and subject to the dynamics of six actuators, as many as the muscular systems devoted to the eye motion control. The definition of an error function between the experimental and the numerical response and the application of a suitable law that links activation and muscular force are at the base of the proposed methodology. The aim is the definition of a simple conceptual tool that could help the specialist in the diagnosis of potential physiological disturbances of saccadic and nystagmic movements but can also be extended in a second phase when more sophisticated data become available. The work is part of a collaboration between the Functional Mechanics Laboratory of the University and the Neurophysiopatology Laboratory of the ''S. Maria della Misericordia'' Hospital in Udine, Italy.

Research paper thumbnail of Posture as a chaotic system and an application to the Parkinson’s disease

Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, 2005

In this work we investigate and compare a number of time series of stabilograms of healthy subjec... more In this work we investigate and compare a number of time series of stabilograms of healthy subjects and Parkinsonians. This is carried out by means of the chaos paradigm through the preliminary computation of the first minimum of the mutual information function and the embedding dimension (using false nearest neighbours) in order to obtain the correlation dimension as well as the largest Lyapunov exponent. We show that the postural act is indeed chaotic and especially that the latter two parameters do not allow to discriminate healthy subjects from parkinsonians. Moreover we report a discrepancy of our values with those found in previous works.

Research paper thumbnail of Identifying timescales and possible precursors of the awake to asleep transition in EOG time series

Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, 2005

Research paper thumbnail of Evaluation of remote monitoring of parturition in dairy cattle as a new tool for calving management

BMC Veterinary Research, 2013

Background Proper calving management of dairy herds is a crucial aspect of the bovine life cycle,... more Background Proper calving management of dairy herds is a crucial aspect of the bovine life cycle, as it has profound effects on calf viability and on the post-partum course of the dam. The objectives of this study were to monitor the calving process through the use of a remote alarm system and to determine the impact of prompt emergency obstetric procedures in case of dystocia for the prevention of stillbirths and post-partum reproductive pathologies, and for improving herd fertility. Six groups of experimental animals were studied: monitored heifers (n = 60) and multiparous cows (n = 60) were compared with non-observed animals (n = 60 heifers and n = 60 multiparous) giving birth during the same time period and housed in the calving barn, and with unmonitored animals placed in a dry zone (n = 240 heifers and n = 112 multiparous cows). Results The incidence of dystocia ranged from a minimum of 23.4% (monitored multiparous cows) to a maximum of 33.3% (monitored heifers), and there wer...

Research paper thumbnail of Con l’avviso via sms il parto è più sicuro

Research paper thumbnail of Relazione invitata - Strutturazione di modelli biomeccanici-neurologici