Papers by Michele Fiorentino
Computers, 2022
In this work, we propose a Mixed Reality (MR) application to support laboratory lectures in STEM ... more In this work, we propose a Mixed Reality (MR) application to support laboratory lectures in STEM distance education. It was designed following a methodology extendable to diverse STEM laboratory lectures. We formulated this methodology considering the main issues found in the literature that limit MR’s use in education. Thus, the main design features of the resulting MR application are students’ and teachers’ involvement, use of not distracting graphics, integration of traditional didactic material, and easy scalability to new learning activities. In this work, we present how we applied the design methodology and used the framework for the case study of an engineering course to support students in understanding drawings of complex machines without being physically in the laboratory. We finally evaluated the usability and cognitive load of the implemented MR application through two user studies, involving, respectively, 48 and 36 students. The results reveal that the usability of our...
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2019 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (VR), 2019
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The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, 2021
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This paper presents an example of applicability of the STEP standard in a design process of a new... more This paper presents an example of applicability of the STEP standard in a design process of a new specific sub-assembly product in the heavy machinery industry in Serbia. We tested the interoperability of the STEP standard in several CAD systems and their compatibility and quality of conversion process. Results obtained in performed experiments demonstrate that the STEP standard offers simplified data exchange between heterogeneous CAD systems and serves not only as a tool for integration and exchange the data of products and processes, but subsequently supports the integration of companies by increasing the global competitiveness, more efficient archiving, evolving and reusing the data in a solving complex entrepreneurial and production problems worldwide.
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Automotive industry requires a high level of innovation in aesthetics in order to compete in a gl... more Automotive industry requires a high level of innovation in aesthetics in order to compete in a global market full of similar products. Car designers must create new forms which fulfil the strict constraints from engineering, safety and aerodynamics. This complex challenge can be faced only by exploring a very large number of concept designs. Common practice in car design is to prefer manual (pen or pencil) to digital and computer assisted tools. This is mainly due to the intrinsic freedom and ease of paper sketches, but also because advanced computer aided style (CAS) tools do not fully support designers during the creation activity [1]. One of the most limiting aspect in CAS tools is the lack of methodological and formal guides towards the shape character definition and analysis. Stylists use shapes to provide emotional reactions to a generic observer. They commonly use a specific language based on proper words and technical definitions. In particular, the geometrical concept of a ...
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Product maintenance is a service offered to customers which represents an interesting business fo... more Product maintenance is a service offered to customers which represents an interesting business for companies. Their interest is both providing a good service in terms of quality and at the same time cutting operational costs. In this view companies are seeking tools that enable them to reach both goals, among those offered by the rapidly evolving ICT sector. The paper describes an application based on augmented reality and mobile technologies aiming to support remote maintenance operations, and improve maintenance services that companies offer to their customers. The paper describes the main idea at the basis of the application, the requirements as well as its implementation. Finally a case study is presented.
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Nanotechnology, 2021
The procedure commonly adopted to characterize cell materials using atomic force microscopy negle... more The procedure commonly adopted to characterize cell materials using atomic force microscopy neglects the stress state induced in the cell by the adhesion structures that anchor it to the substrate. In several studies, the cell is considered as made from a single material and no specific information is provided regarding the mechanical properties of subcellular components. Here we present an optimization algorithm to determine separately the material properties of subcellular components of mesenchymal stem cells subjected to nanoindentation measurements. We assess how these properties change if the adhesion structures at the cell-substrate interface are considered or not in the algorithm. In particular, among the adhesion structures, the focal adhesions and the stress fibers were simulated. We found that neglecting the adhesion structures leads to underestimate the cell mechanical properties thus making errors up to 15%. This result leads us to conclude that the action of adhesion st...
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Sensors, 2020
Since its beginning at the end of 2019, the pandemic spread of the severe acute respiratory syndr... more Since its beginning at the end of 2019, the pandemic spread of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (Sars-CoV-2) caused more than one million deaths in only nine months. The threat of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases exists as an imminent threat to human health. It is essential to implement adequate hygiene best practices to break the contagion chain and enhance society preparedness for such critical scenarios and understand the relevance of each disease transmission route. As the unconscious hand–face contact gesture constitutes a potential pathway of contagion, in this paper, the authors present a prototype system based on low-cost depth sensors able to monitor in real-time the attitude towards such a habit. The system records people’s behavior to enhance their awareness by providing real-time warnings, providing for statistical reports for designing proper hygiene solutions, and better understanding the role of such route of contagion. A preliminary val...
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Materials, 2020
Despite the wide use of scaffolds with spherical pores in the clinical context, no studies are re... more Despite the wide use of scaffolds with spherical pores in the clinical context, no studies are reported in the literature that optimize the micro-architecture dimensions of such scaffolds to maximize the amounts of neo-formed bone. In this study, a mechanobiology-based optimization algorithm was implemented to determine the optimal geometry of scaffolds with spherical pores subjected to both compression and shear loading. We found that these scaffolds are particularly suited to bear shear loads; the amounts of bone predicted to form for this load type are, in fact, larger than those predicted in other scaffold geometries. Knowing the anthropometric characteristics of the patient, one can hypothesize the possible value of load acting on the scaffold that will be implanted and, through the proposed algorithm, determine the optimal dimensions of the scaffold that favor the formation of the largest amounts of bone. The proposed algorithm can guide and support the surgeon in the choice o...
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Materials, 2020
In spite of the rather large use of the fused deposition modeling (FDM) technique for the fabrica... more In spite of the rather large use of the fused deposition modeling (FDM) technique for the fabrication of scaffolds, no studies are reported in the literature that optimize the geometry of such scaffold types based on mechanobiological criteria. We implemented a mechanobiology-based optimization algorithm to determine the optimal distance between the strands in cylindrical scaffolds subjected to compression. The optimized scaffolds were then 3D printed with the FDM technique and successively measured. We found that the difference between the optimized distances and the average measured ones never exceeded 8.27% of the optimized distance. However, we found that large fabrication errors are made on the filament diameter when the filament diameter to be realized differs significantly with respect to the diameter of the nozzle utilized for the extrusion. This feasibility study demonstrated that the FDM technique is suitable to build accurate scaffold samples only in the cases where the s...
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Endocrine, metabolic & immune disorders drug targets, 2018
New sources of stem cells in adult organisms are constantly emerging. Postnatal Mesenchymal Stem ... more New sources of stem cells in adult organisms are constantly emerging. Postnatal Mesenchymal Stem Cells (MSCs), are the most promising support to perform an effective regenerative medicine: such cells have the ability to differentiate into several lineages, such as osteoblasts and chondroblasts, providing novel strategies to improve different complex treatments, during bone regeneration. 3D-printed biomaterials can be designed with geometry aimed to induce stem cells to differentiate towards specific lineage. The interaction between stem cells easy to isolate and engineered 3D-printed scaffolds can translate the tissue bio-engineering into bone regenerative surgery. For those reasons, to better identify the complexity represented by the activities and responses of MSCs requires the advance of new target therapies which are not current in endocrine, metabolic and immune disorders and yet to be developed. This topical review briefly focuses on the new approaches of translational medici...
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Journal of the mechanical behavior of biomedical materials, 2018
Enhancing the performance of scaffolds for bone regeneration requires a multidisciplinary approac... more Enhancing the performance of scaffolds for bone regeneration requires a multidisciplinary approach involving competences in the fields of Biology, Medicine and Engineering. A number of studies have been conducted to investigate the influence of scaffolds design parameters on their mechanical and biological response. The possibilities offered by the additive manufacturing techniques to fabricate sophisticated and very complex microgeometries that until few years ago were just a geometrical abstraction, led many researchers to design scaffolds made from different unit cell geometries. The aim of this work is to find, based on mechanobiological criteria and for different load regimes, the optimal geometrical parameters of scaffolds made from beam-based repeating unit cells, namely, truncated cuboctahedron, truncated cube, rhombic dodecahedron and diamond. The performance, -expressed in terms of percentage of the scaffold volume occupied by bone-, of the scaffolds based on these unit ce...
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Materials science & engineering. C, Materials for biological applications, 2018
In a context more and more oriented towards customized medical solutions, we propose a mechanobio... more In a context more and more oriented towards customized medical solutions, we propose a mechanobiology-driven algorithm to determine the optimal geometry of scaffolds for bone regeneration that is the most suited to specific boundary and loading conditions. In spite of the huge number of articles investigating different unit cells for porous biomaterials, no studies are reported in the literature that optimize the geometric parameters of such unit cells based on mechanobiological criteria. Parametric finite element models of scaffolds with rhombicuboctahedron unit cell were developed and incorporated into an optimization algorithm that combines them with a computational mechanobiological model. The algorithm perturbs iteratively the geometry of the unit cell until the best scaffold geometry is identified, i.e. the geometry that allows to maximize the formation of bone. Performances of scaffolds with rhombicuboctahedron unit cell were compared with those of other scaffolds with hexahe...
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International journal of medical sciences, 2018
Thanks to the recent advances of three-dimensional printing technologies the design and the fabri... more Thanks to the recent advances of three-dimensional printing technologies the design and the fabrication of a large variety of scaffold geometries was made possible. The surgeon has the availability of a wide number of scaffold micro-architectures thus needing adequate guidelines for the choice of the best one to be implanted in a patient-specific anatomic region. We propose a mechanobiology-based optimization algorithm capable of determining, for bone tissue scaffolds with an assigned geometry, the optimal value Lopt of the compression load to which they should be subjected, i.e. the load value for which the formation of the largest amounts of bone is favoured and hence the successful outcome of the scaffold implantation procedure is guaranteed. Scaffolds based on hexahedron unit cells were investigated including pores differently dimensioned and with different shapes such as elliptic or rectangular. The algorithm predicted decreasing values of the optimal load for scaffolds with po...
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The open dentistry journal, 2016
Endocanalar posts are necessary to build up and retain coronal restorations but they do not reinf... more Endocanalar posts are necessary to build up and retain coronal restorations but they do not reinforce dental roots. It was observed that the dislodgement of post-retained restorations commonly occurs after several years of function and long-term retention may be influenced by various factors such as temperature changes. Temperature changes, in fact, produce micrometric deformations of post and surrounding tissues/materials that may generate high stress concentrations at the interface thus leading to failure. In this study we present an optical system based on the projection moiré technique that has been utilized to monitor the displacement field of endocanalar glass-fibre posts subjected to temperature changes. Measurements were performed on forty samples and the average displacement values registered at the apical and middle region were determined for six different temperature levels. A total of 480 displacement measurements was hence performed. The values of the standard deviation...
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Applied ergonomics, Jan 7, 2017
The evaluation of the exposure to risk factors in workplaces and their subsequent redesign repres... more The evaluation of the exposure to risk factors in workplaces and their subsequent redesign represent one of the practices to lessen the frequency of work-related musculoskeletal disorders. In this paper we present K2RULA, a semi-automatic RULA evaluation software based on the Microsoft Kinect v2 depth camera, aimed at detecting awkward postures in real time, but also in off-line analysis. We validated our tool with two experiments. In the first one, we compared the K2RULA grand-scores with those obtained with a reference optical motion capture system and we found a statistical perfect match according to the Landis and Koch scale (proportion agreement index = 0.97, k = 0.87). In the second experiment, we evaluated the agreement of the grand-scores returned by the proposed application with those obtained by a RULA expert rater, finding again a statistical perfect match (proportion agreement index = 0.96, k = 0.84), whereas a commercial software based on Kinect v1 sensor showed a lower...
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Proceedings of the International Working Conference on Advanced Visual Interfaces, 2016
We present a novel interaction method for augmented industrial maintenance based on a "magic... more We present a novel interaction method for augmented industrial maintenance based on a "magic mirror" interface and virtual motion buttons. The system includes a video camera for object tracking, a video\depth camera for capturing user gestures, a projector for displaying technical instruction to the operator and a LCD monitor providing feedback of the virtual buttons. The operator can trigger maintenance commands by directional swift of the hands in regions sensitive to motion speed and direction. The main advantage of the presented interface is that it can work in realistic industrial conditions: (i) operators wearing gloves, (ii) operators handling tools, (iii) presence of moving machinery and personnel in the background. We measured the performances of the system with a laboratory test and we proved the feasibility with an automotive inspection test case. We calculated an average interaction time below 2 seconds and an error rate lower than 5%. However, we found some performances limitations if the operator is handling tools.
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Communications in Computer and Information Science, 2016
In this paper, we propose a forearm rehabilitation system based on a serious game in Augmented Re... more In this paper, we propose a forearm rehabilitation system based on a serious game in Augmented Reality (AR). We designed and developed a simplified AR arcade brick breaking game to induce rehabilitation of the forearm muscles. We record the electromyographic signals using a low cost device to evaluate the applied force. We collected and analysed data in order to find a relationship between the applied force and the difficulty of the game. This research focuses on the de-hospitalization of subjects in the middle or final stages of their rehabilitation where the new technologies, like Virtual and Augmented Reality, may improve the experience of repetitive exercises.
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PLOS ONE, 2016
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In this paper we introduce a novel method for augmenting the spinal 3D model in real-time scene d... more In this paper we introduce a novel method for augmenting the spinal 3D model in real-time scene during diagnosis of various spinal deformities. By overlaying reconstructed anatomical contents onto the user's field of view via augmented reality visualization platform, the virtual vertebral objects appear geo-referenced to the real environment and help physicians to improve the overall image of the patient's postural condition. Then, we explain the principle of using markers located in prominent anatomical landmarks and interactive integration of virtual objects in the actual scene. In particular, this should be a powerful tool to understand the complex 3D nature and structure of the most common spinal deformities such as scoliosis and kyphosis, by the fusion of optical scans of the patient's back surface and 3D vertebral assembly. From the patient side, conceptual augmented reality framework can enhance the self-awareness during rehabilitation by visualizing the target po...
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Papers by Michele Fiorentino