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This article develops a flexible and robust robotic system for autonomously drawing on 3-D surfaces. The system takes 2-D drawing strokes and a 3-D target surface (mesh or point clouds) as input. It maps the 2-D strokes onto the 3-D surface and generates a robot motion to draw the mapped strokes using visual recognition, grasp pose reasoning, and motion planning. The system is flexible compared to conventional robotic drawing systems as we do not fix drawing tools to the end of a robot arm. Instead, a robot recognizes and picks up pens online and holds the pens to draw 3-D strokes. Meanwhile, the system has high robustness thanks to the following crafts: First, a high-quality mapping method is developed to minimize deformation in the strokes. Second, visual detection is used to reestimate the drawing tool’s pose before executing each drawing motion. Third, force control is employed to compensate for noisy visual detection and calibration and ensure a firm touch between the pen tip and the surface. Fourth, error detection and recovery are implemented to deal with slippage and other anomalies. The planning and executions are performed in a closed-loop manner until the strokes are successfully drawn. We evaluate the system and analyze the necessity of the various crafts using different real-world tasks. The results show that the proposed system is flexible and robust to generate robotic motion that picks up the pens and successfully draws 3-D strokes on given surfaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The current study was to evaluate the association of Lipoprotein (a) [Lp(a)] and in-hospital outcomes in patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS) undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). Methods: ACS patients undergoing PCI were retrospectively enrolled. Based on Lp(a) level, patients were divided into low (<30 mg/dL) and high (≥30 mg/dL) Lp(a) groups. Results: Compared to those with low Lp(a), patients with high Lp(a) had larger numbers of coronary arteries ≥70% stenosis and had longer coronary artery lesion (P < 0.05). After adjustment for covariates, high Lp(a) remained associated with higher odds of having coronary artery ≥70% stenosis, type C coronary lesion and pre-PCI TIMI flow grade 1/0. Patients with high Lp(a) had a higher unadjusted odds of acute stent thrombosis (odds ratio [OR] 1.10 and 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.01–2.27), congestive heart failure (OR 1.24 and 95% CI 1.15–2.38) and composite in-hospital outcomes (OR 1.28 and 95% CI 1.18–2.42). After adjustment for covariates, patients with high Lp(a) still had a higher odds of congestive heart failure (OR 1.08 and 95% CI 1.01–1.78) and composite in-hospital outcomes (OR 1.12 and 95% CI 1.04–1.81). Conclusion: In ACS patients undergoing PCI, compared to those with low Lp(a), patients with high Lp(a) had more severe coronary artery lesion, higher risk of congestive heart failure and composite in-hospital outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The new law may present obstacles to some kinds of research.