Development of an assistive device for adaptive cycling

Abstract Background Biomechanics literature has widely recognised the importance of creating modifying conditions for Sports for Persons with Disabilities, such as assistive devices. In this context, it is key that the motor function capacity and physical limitations of each person be taken into due account, leading to highly personalised equipment. This project optimised an assistive device for an adaptive cyclist that rides only with the right leg due to a transtibial amputation on the left leg, which remains supported by the assistive device, classifying him as C2 category for competitions, according to Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI). The purpose was to improve the comfort, ergonomics, and safety of the cyclist. Methods Reverse engineering, 3D modelling and manufacturing were the methodology applied to design the device with a crank-arm, a quick step-in pedal type clamp system, a carbon fibre composite shell, adapting the pedal position to support the cyclist stump, and an aluminium alloy 7075-T6 component to anchor to the seat post, providing stability to his body. Results The device which provided stability to the athlete's body was submitted to static and dynamic laboratory tests and real-life (in-track) try-outs. The developed clump system guarantees the athlete’s comfort and safety by automatically detaching him from the bicycle in case of fall. Conclusions The assistive device proved to be determinant for the athlete’s performance due the improvement of the comfort, ergonomics, and safety provided to the cyclist. Thus, qualifying him for the Tokyo 2021 Paralympic Games.

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Numerical Analysis of a DMA Epoxy-Carbon Composite Study

Problems of Mechatronics Armament Aviation Safety Engineering ◽

10.5604/01.3001.0012.7336 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 9 (4) ◽

pp. 101-112

Author(s):

Paweł KOWALECZKO ◽

Andrzej PANAS ◽

Mirosław NOWAKOWSKI

Keyword(s):

Carbon Fibre ◽

Numerical Simulations ◽

Composite Structures ◽

Fibre Composite ◽

Real Life ◽

Elastic Response ◽

Resin Matrix ◽

Fibre Reinforcement ◽

Carbon Fibre Composite ◽

Model Composite

The results of numerical simulations performed for Dynamic Mechanical Analysis (DMA) measurements of thermal and mechanical (or thermomechanical) properties performed on a model composite structure are presented herein. The simulated elastic response of an epoxy-carbon fibre composite specimen was analysed for a case by which the model specimen was subjected to three-point bending with a free support. The epoxy-carbon fibre composite studied as explained herein exhibited extreme differences between the resilient properties of the epoxy resin matrix and the carbon fibre reinforcement. In addition, the carbon fibre reinforcement was both internally and structurally anisotropic. The numerical simulations were performed to demonstrate a qualitative dependence of the DMA measurement results on a certain structure of the investigated specimen and to determine if the DMA results could be qualified as effective or apparent. A macro-mechanical model of the specimen was developed and had the numerical calculations run with COMSOL/M, a FEM modelling software suite. The carbon fibre reinforcement was modelled with an orthotropic structure of laminar or circular inclusions with different characteristic dimensions. Representative material properties were assumed from the results of proprietary experimental investigations and certain reference literature data. The effect of the composite layers’ configuration and their characteristic dimensions on the evaluated model’s elastic modulus value was also studied. The results presented herein suggested a qualitative agreement with the results of the DMA investigations performed on real-life composite structures. They also proved the effectiveness of the developed numerical simulation methodology, shown herein, in the DMA of micro- and macromechanical phenomena

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Available Rights of Persons with Disabilities from Their Mothers' Perspectives in Zagazig City

Evidence-Based Nursing Research ◽

10.47104/ebnrojs3.v1i2.46 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 1 (2) ◽

pp. 11

Author(s):

Gamalat M. Abd El-Ghany ◽

Maha M. Abdelaziz

Keyword(s):

Students With Disabilities ◽

Demographic Data ◽

Real Life ◽

Persons With Disabilities ◽

The Public ◽

Governmental Organizations ◽

Interview Guide ◽

Disability Law ◽

The Right ◽

Community Health Nurse

Background: The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) has a profound influence on disability law and human rights law globally. Aim of the study: to assess the available rights of persons with disability from their mothers' perspectives in Zagazig City. Methods: The study conducted in 3 schools of persons with a disability; El-Nour School for Blind, El-Amal School for Deaf and Hard hearing, and School of Mental disability in Zagazig City, using a descriptive design. It involved 171 mothers of students with disabilities. The data collection tools were an interview guide concerned with demographic data and disability types, and the right of the person with a disability scale that assessed the available rights of persons with disabilities from their mothers’ perspectives. Results: The results showed that 67.4% of the students with disability were males, and 66.7% were aged 6-12 years. 42.1% of the students were mentally retarded, while 35.1% were deaf and 22.8% were blind. All mothers were housewives regardless of their educational level. 68.0% of the mothers said that all rights generally were unavailable, while 23.8% said that the rights were available in part, and 8.1% mentioned that right is available. Conclusion: There is a gap between the rights of the PWDs in Act and the implementation of these rights in real life, as stated by the mothers of the current study. The present study recommends increasing the public and society awareness about the PWDs through mass media and health education programs. Community health nurse should advocate the PWDs and act as a liaison between them and governmental organizations to activate the law of PWDs and meet the PWDS needs.

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Exploring the right to work among persons with disabilities: The role of labor-oriented values

Work ◽

10.3233/wor-203265 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 67 (1) ◽

pp. 193-202

Author(s):

Ofir Y. Pinto ◽

Michel Strawczynski ◽

Arie Rimmerman

Keyword(s):

Employment Status ◽

Early Stage ◽

Real Life ◽

People With Disabilities ◽

Human Values ◽

Negative Attitudes ◽

Persons With Disabilities ◽

The Right ◽

The Relationship

BACKGROUND: The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) assumes that persons with disabilities have similar rights, motivations to work and personal values as those without disabilities. OBJECTIVE: The article examines the corroboration between this assumption and real-life facts to better understand the importance of labor-oriented values in people with disabilities. METHODS: We tested the relationship between human values, employment and wages among Israelis with disabilities who cope with prejudice, negative attitudes and a lack of accessible workplaces in comparison to Israelis without disabilities. RESULTS: We found that the effect of labor-oriented values on employment status is 70% higher among people with disabilities than among those without disabilities. Furthermore, persons with disabilities ranked power and achievement as important values related to employment, but these values were not included in the considerations of persons without disabilities. CONCLUSIONS: These results highlight the importance of labor-oriented values for people with disabilities to overcome challenges in the labor market. Our findings suggest that rehabilitation policies would benefit from identifying personal human values of people with disabilities at an early stage of their career.

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All-inclusiveness: The place of assistive devices for persons with disabilities in the Covid-19 pandemic era

International Journal of Childhood, Counselling and Special Education ◽

10.31559/ccse2021.2.1.4 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 2 (1) ◽

pp. 53-66

Author(s):

Rufus Olanrewaju Adebisi ◽

Hammed Gbenga Adewale

Keyword(s):

Assistive Devices ◽

Assistive Device ◽

Persons With Disabilities ◽

Corona Virus ◽

The Social ◽

Equal Right ◽

Social Separation

An efficacious confrontation to the blowing-out of Covid-19 known as coronavirus have emanated to rely comprehensively on the innovation of assistive devices to flow the indispensable information about the bearing waves of a plague inducted as “Covid-19 or Corona virus”; bridge the social gap flanked by special need condition in the midst of social separation; safeguard the robustness of persons with disabilities (across the ages) during Covid-19 pandemic and ensure the “stay safe” crusade is not epitomized with ostracism. In that case, the immersion of assistive device for swiftness of all-encompassing healthy society particularly that of persons with disabilities is preordained. Whereas handling dynamism nature of persons with disabilities on the ground of equal right with their ‘abled’ counterparts calls for assistive devices. This paper explores the effect of assistive devices in making persons with disabilities evolve with their essence and existence as well as playing own quota in the fight against Covid-19 pandemic. It also describes Covid-19 in relation to persons with disabilities to set a scale of balance on multiplicity nature of human using assistive devices as mechanism for inclusion of all and sundry particularly that of persons with disabilities. Therefore, saving and securing lives and livelihoods of persons with disabilities during Covid-19 era is only achievable through uncompromising influence of assistive devices.

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Accessibility of Persons with Disabilities in Religion Tourism Destinations in Bangkalan District

KnE Social Sciences ◽

10.18502/kss.v4i10.7427 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Farida . ◽

Zulaikha . ◽

Hartopo Eko Putro

Keyword(s):

Survey Methods ◽

Persons With Disabilities ◽

Tourist Destinations ◽

Public Facilities ◽

Religious Tourism ◽

Physical Limitations ◽

Tourism Destinations ◽

District Government ◽

The Right ◽

Almost All

It is the right of everyone to travel, to all tourist destinations, including religious tourism. Likewise, with persons with disabilities who have physical limitations, their right to obtain public facilities is protected under Indonesian law. However, awareness to build public facilities that are disabled-friendly is not yet the awareness of all parties. As a regency city that has many religious tourism destinations, ideally, Bangkalan also provides facilities for people with disabilities. Moreover, although not all, many of the tourist destinations are always provided with places of worship (in this case the mosque). Persons with disabilities are also entitled to worship in places of public worship. Unfortunately, almost all religious tourism destinations and mosques in Bangkalan are not equipped with this facility. This study tries to identify what facilities are not provided in religious tourism destinations and places of worship in the Bangkalan district. Data collected using survey methods. The results of this study are expected to be input for the Bangkalan district government to develop their area into a disability-friendly area. Keywords: disability, destination, religious tourism

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Gesture-Based User Interface for Vehicle On-Board System: A Questionnaire and Research Approach

Applied Sciences ◽

10.3390/app10186620 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 10 (18) ◽

pp. 6620

Author(s):

Krzysztof Małecki ◽

Adam Nowosielski ◽

Mateusz Kowalicki

Keyword(s):

Real Life ◽

Daily Basis ◽

Research Approach ◽

Gesture Interaction ◽

System A ◽

Touchless Interaction ◽

Physical Limitations ◽

Physically Challenged ◽

Hand Gesture Interaction ◽

Board System

Touchless interaction with electronic devices using gestures is gaining popularity and along with speech-based communication offers their users natural and intuitive control methods. Now, these interaction modes go beyond the entertainment industry and are successfully applied in real-life scenarios such as a car interior. In the paper, we analyse the potential of hand gesture interaction in the vehicle environment by physically challenged drivers. A survey conducted with potential users shows that the knowledge of gesture-based interaction and its practical use by people with disabilities is low. Based on these results we proposed a gesture-based system for vehicle on-board system. It has been developed on the available state-of-the-art solutions and investigated in terms of usability on a group of people with different physical limitations who drive a car on daily basis mostly using steering aid tools. The obtained results are compared with the performance of users without any disabilities.

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Using a saddle-assistive device equipped with mechanical orthosis for walking of the person with incomplete spinal cord injury

Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers Part H Journal of Engineering in Medicine ◽

10.1177/09544119211020146 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 095441192110201

Author(s):

Akbar Hojjati Najafabadi ◽

Saeid Amini ◽

Farzam Farahmand

Keyword(s):

Spinal Cord ◽

Spinal Cord Injury ◽

Reaction Force ◽

Assistive Devices ◽

Assistive Device ◽

Walking Ability ◽

Vertical Force ◽

Incomplete Spinal Cord Injury ◽

Combined Application ◽

Cord Injury

The majority of the people with incomplete spinal cord injury lose their walking ability, due to the weakness of their muscle motors in providing torque. As a result, developing assistive devices to improve their conditionis of great importance. In this study, a combined application of the saddle-assistive device (S-AD) and mechanical medial linkage or thosis was evaluated to improve the walking ability in patients with spinal cord injury in the gait laboratory. This mobile assistive device is called the saddle-assistive device equipped with medial linkage or thosis (S-ADEM). In this device, a mechanical orthosis was used in a wheeled walker as previously done in the literature. Initially, for evaluation of the proposed assistive device, the experimental results related to the forces and torques exerted on the feet and upper limbs of a person with the incomplete Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) during walking usingthe standard walker were compared with an those obtained from using the S-ADEM on an able-bodied subject. It was found that using this combination of assistive devices decreases the vertical force and torque on the foot at the time of walking by 53% and 48%, respectively compared to a standard walker. Moreover, the hand-reaction force on the upper limb was negligible instanding and walking positions usingthe introduced device. The findings of this study revealed that the walking ability of the patients with incomplete SCI was improved using the proposed device, which is due to the bodyweight support and the motion technology used in it.

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Neural alignment predicts learning outcomes in students taking an introduction to computer science course

Nature Communications ◽

10.1038/s41467-021-22202-3 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Meir Meshulam ◽

Liat Hasenfratz ◽

Hanna Hillman ◽

Yun-Fei Liu ◽

Mai Nguyen ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Computer Science ◽

Learning Outcomes ◽

Brain Activity ◽

Activity Patterns ◽

Real Life ◽

Final Exam ◽

Neural Representations ◽

Real Life Setting ◽

The Right ◽

Mri Study

AbstractDespite major advances in measuring human brain activity during and after educational experiences, it is unclear how learners internalize new content, especially in real-life and online settings. In this work, we introduce a neural approach to predicting and assessing learning outcomes in a real-life setting. Our approach hinges on the idea that successful learning involves forming the right set of neural representations, which are captured in canonical activity patterns shared across individuals. Specifically, we hypothesized that learning is mirrored in neural alignment: the degree to which an individual learner’s neural representations match those of experts, as well as those of other learners. We tested this hypothesis in a longitudinal functional MRI study that regularly scanned college students enrolled in an introduction to computer science course. We additionally scanned graduate student experts in computer science. We show that alignment among students successfully predicts overall performance in a final exam. Furthermore, within individual students, we find better learning outcomes for concepts that evoke better alignment with experts and with other students, revealing neural patterns associated with specific learned concepts in individuals.

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Identical Limb Dynamics for Unilateral Impairments through Biomechanical Equivalence

Symmetry ◽

10.3390/sym13040705 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (4) ◽

pp. 705

Author(s):

Fatemeh Rasouli ◽

Kyle B. Reed

Keyword(s):

Mathematical Model ◽

Numerical Solution ◽

Dynamic Models ◽

Assistive Devices ◽

Assistive Device ◽

Human Walking ◽

Physical Parameters ◽

Gait Rehabilitation ◽

And Performance ◽

Two Sides

Dynamic models, such as double pendulums, can generate similar dynamics as human limbs. They are versatile tools for simulating and analyzing the human walking cycle and performance under various conditions. They include multiple links, hinges, and masses that represent physical parameters of a limb or an assistive device. This study develops a mathematical model of dissimilar double pendulums that mimics human walking with unilateral gait impairment and establishes identical dynamics between asymmetric limbs. It introduces new coefficients that create biomechanical equivalence between two sides of an asymmetric gait. The numerical solution demonstrates that dissimilar double pendulums can have symmetric kinematic and kinetic outcomes. Parallel solutions with different physical parameters but similar biomechanical coefficients enable interchangeable designs that could be incorporated into gait rehabilitation treatments or alternative prosthetic and ambulatory assistive devices.

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