scholarly journals Fall Inducing Movable Platform (FIMP) for Overground Trips and Slips

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jie Kai Er ◽  
Cyril John William Donnelly ◽  
Seng Kwee Wee ◽  
Wei Tech Ang

Abstract Background: The study of falls and fall prevention/intervention devices requires the recording of true fallsincidence. However, true falls are rare, random, and difficult to collect in real world settings. A system capableof producing falls in an ecologically valid manner will be very helpful in collecting the data necessary toadvance our understanding of the neuro and musculoskeletal mechanisms underpinning real-world falls events.Methods: A fall inducing movable platform (FIMP) was designed to arrest or accelerate a subject's ankle toinduce a trip or slip. The ankle was arrested posteriorly with an electromagnetic brake and acceleratedanteriorly with a motor. A power spring was connected in series between the ankle and the brake/motor toallow freedom of movement (system transparency) when a fall is not being induced. A gait phase detectionalgorithm was also created to enable precise activation of the fall inducing mechanisms. Statistical ParametricMapping (SPM1D) and one-way repeated measure ANOVA were used to evaluate the ability of the FIMP toinduce a trip or slip.Results: During FIMP induced trips, the brake activates at the terminal swing or mid swing gait phase toinduce the lowering or skipping strategies, respectively. For the lowering strategy, the characteristic leg loweringand subsequent contralateral leg swing was seen in all subjects. Likewise, for the skipping strategy, all subjectsskipped forward on the perturbed leg.Slip was induced by FIMP by using a motor to impart unwanted forward acceleration to the ankle with thehelp of friction-reducing ground sliding sheets. Joint stiffening was observed during the slips, and subjectsuniversally adopted the surfing strategy after the initial slip.Conclusion: The results indicate that FIMP can induce ecologically valid falls under controlled laboratoryconditions. The use of SPM1D in conjunction with FIMP allows for the time varying statistical quanticationof trip and slip reactive kinematics events. With future research, fall recovery anomalies in subjects can nowalso be systematically evaluated through the assessment of other neuromuscular variables such as joint forces,muscle activation and muscle forces.

Author(s):  
Jie Kai Er ◽  
Cyril John William Donnelly ◽  
Seng Kwee Wee ◽  
Wei Tech Ang

Abstract Background The study of falls and fall prevention/intervention devices requires the recording of true falls incidence. However, true falls are rare, random, and difficult to collect in real world settings. A system capable of producing falls in an ecologically valid manner will be very helpful in collecting the data necessary to advance our understanding of the neuro and musculoskeletal mechanisms underpinning real-world falls events. Methods A fall inducing movable platform (FIMP) was designed to arrest or accelerate a subject’s ankle to induce a trip or slip. The ankle was arrested posteriorly with an electromagnetic brake and accelerated anteriorly with a motor. A power spring was connected in series between the ankle and the brake/motor to allow freedom of movement (system transparency) when a fall is not being induced. A gait phase detection algorithm was also created to enable precise activation of the fall inducing mechanisms. Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM1D) and one-way repeated measure ANOVA were used to evaluate the ability of the FIMP to induce a trip or slip. Results During FIMP induced trips, the brake activates at the terminal swing or mid swing gait phase to induce the lowering or skipping strategies, respectively. For the lowering strategy, the characteristic leg lowering and subsequent contralateral leg swing was seen in all subjects. Likewise, for the skipping strategy, all subjects skipped forward on the perturbed leg. Slip was induced by FIMP by using a motor to impart unwanted forward acceleration to the ankle with the help of friction-reducing ground sliding sheets. Joint stiffening was observed during the slips, and subjects universally adopted the surfing strategy after the initial slip. Conclusion The results indicate that FIMP can induce ecologically valid falls under controlled laboratory conditions. The use of SPM1D in conjunction with FIMP allows for the time varying statistical quantification of trip and slip reactive kinematics events. With future research, fall recovery anomalies in subjects can now also be systematically evaluated through the assessment of other neuromuscular variables such as joint forces, muscle activation and muscle forces.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jie Kai Er ◽  
Cyril John William Donnelly ◽  
Seng Kwee Wee ◽  
Wei Tech Ang

Abstract Background: The study of falls and fall prevention/intervention devices requires the recording of true falls incidence. However, true falls are rare, random, and difficult to collect in real world settings. A system capable of producing falls in an ecologically valid manner will be very helpful in collecting the data necessary to advance our understanding of the neuro and musculoskeletal mechanisms underpinning real-world falls events. Methods: A fall inducing movable platform (FIMP) was designed to arrest or accelerate a subject's ankle to induce a trip or slip. The ankle was arrested posteriorly with an electromagnetic brake and accelerated anteriorly with a motor. A power spring was connected in series between the ankle and the brake/motor to allow freedom of movement (system transparency) when a fall is not being induced. A gait phase detection algorithm was also created to enable precise activation of the fall inducing mechanisms. Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM1D) and one-way repeated measure ANOVA were used to evaluate the ability of the FIMP to induce a trip or slip. Results: During FIMP induced trips, the brake activates at the terminal-swing or mid-swing gait phase to induce the lowering or skipping strategies, respectively. For the lowering strategy, the characteristic leg lowering and subsequent contralateral leg swing was seen in all subjects. Likewise, for the skipping strategy, all subjects skipped forward on the perturbed leg. Slip was induced by FIMP by using a motor to impart unwanted forward acceleration to the ankle with the help of friction-reducing ground sliding sheets. Joint stiffening was observed during the slips, and subjects universally adopted the surfing strategy after the initial slip. Conclusion: The results indicate that FIMP can induce ecologically valid falls under controlled laboratory conditions. The use of SPM1D in conjunction with FIMP allows for the time varying statistical quantification of trip and slip reactive kinematics events. With future research, fall recovery anomalies in subjects can now also be systematically evaluated through the assessment of other neuromuscular variables such as joint forces, muscle activation and muscle forces.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jie Kai Er ◽  
Cyril John William Donnelly ◽  
Seng Kwee Wee ◽  
Wei Tech Ang

Abstract The study of falls and any related fall prevention/intervention device requires the recording of true falls incidence. However, true falls are rare, random and difficult to collect. Therefore, a system that can perturb falls in an ecologically valid and repeatedly manner will greatly benefit the understanding of the neuromuscular mechanisms underpinning real-world falls events. A fall inducing movable platform (FIMP) was designed to arrest and accelerate the subject's ankle to induce trip via a brake and slip via a motor respectively. A gait phase detection algorithm was also created to allow the timely activation of the fall mechanisms to induce different recovery actions. Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM1D) and two sample t-test were used to evaluate the transparency of the platform before it was used to induce falls. Thereafter, SPM1D and one-way repeated measure ANOVA were used assess the effectiveness of FIMP in inducing realistic falls. Walking with the FIMP's fall mechanisms attached on the ankle (SW) was found to be similar to normal walking (NW), except for a slight increase in ankle flexion during the swing phase. However, the magnitude of change would be considered negligible when compared to the changes in joint angles during the trips and slips of interest. During the FIMP induced trips, the brake activates at the terminal-swing and mid-swing gait phase to induce the lowering and skipping strategies respectively. The characteristic leg lowering and the subsequent contralateral leg swing was seen in all subjects for the lowering strategy. Likewise, for skipping strategy, all subjects skipped forward on the perturbed leg. On the other hand, slip was induced by FIMP using the motor to impart unwanted forward acceleration to the ankle with the help of friction-reducing ground sliding sheets. Joints stiffening was observed during slips, and subjects adopt the \textit{surfing} strategy after the initial slip. Results indicate that FIMP can induce reliable and ecologically valid falls repeatedly under simulated experimental conditions. The usage of SPM1D with FIMP allows the creation of the first ever quantifiable trip and slip reactive kinematics comparison. Effects of fall recovery anomalies can now be easily identified.


Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 596
Author(s):  
Marco Buzzelli ◽  
Luca Segantin

We address the task of classifying car images at multiple levels of detail, ranging from the top-level car type, down to the specific car make, model, and year. We analyze existing datasets for car classification, and identify the CompCars as an excellent starting point for our task. We show that convolutional neural networks achieve an accuracy above 90% on the finest-level classification task. This high performance, however, is scarcely representative of real-world situations, as it is evaluated on a biased training/test split. In this work, we revisit the CompCars dataset by first defining a new training/test split, which better represents real-world scenarios by setting a more realistic baseline at 61% accuracy on the new test set. We also propagate the existing (but limited) type-level annotation to the entire dataset, and we finally provide a car-tight bounding box for each image, automatically defined through an ad hoc car detector. To evaluate this revisited dataset, we design and implement three different approaches to car classification, two of which exploit the hierarchical nature of car annotations. Our experiments show that higher-level classification in terms of car type positively impacts classification at a finer grain, now reaching 70% accuracy. The achieved performance constitutes a baseline benchmark for future research, and our enriched set of annotations is made available for public download.


2010 ◽  
pp. 2310-2325
Author(s):  
Adam Slagell ◽  
Kiran Lakkaraju

It is desirable for many reasons to share information, particularly computer and network logs. Researchers need it for experiments, incident responders need it for collaborative security, and educators need this data for real world examples. However, the sensitive nature of this information often prevents its sharing. Anonymization techniques have been developed in recent years that help reduce risk and navigate the trade-offs between privacy, security and the need to openly share information. This chapter looks at the progress made in this area of research over the past several years, identifies the major problems left to solve and sets a roadmap for future research.


Author(s):  
Kingsley Ofosu-Ampong ◽  
Thomas Anning-Dorson

Despite advances in information technology, studies suggest that there is little knowledge of how developing countries are applying gamification in agriculture, education, business, health, and other domains. Thus, from a systematic review, this chapter examines the extent of gamification research in the developing country context. In this chapter, 56 articles were reviewed, and the search was done in the Scopus database. This chapter explains the idea of game design elements in information systems and provides real-world examples of gamified systems outcomes from developing countries. The authors conclude with directions for future research to extend our knowledge of gamification and advance the existing methodologies, domains, and theories.


Author(s):  
Luis M. de Campos

In this chapter, we present a thesaurus application in the field of text mining and more specifically automatic indexing on the set of descriptors defined by a thesaurus. We begin by presenting various definitions and a mathematical thesaurus model, and also describe various examples of real world thesauri which are used in official institutions. We then explore the problem of thesaurus-based automatic indexing by describing its difficulties and distinguishing features and reviewing previous work in this area. Finally, we propose various lines of future research.


Author(s):  
Sammy Elzarka ◽  
Valerie Beltran ◽  
Jessica C. Decker ◽  
Mark Matzaganian ◽  
Nancy T. Walker

The purposes of this chapter are threefold: to explore the research on and relationships among metacognition, reflection, and self-regulated learning; to analyze students' experiences with metacognition, reflection, and self-regulated learning activities in computer-based learning (CBL) courses; and to provide strategies that can be used in a CBL environment to promote students' metacognition, reflection, and self-regulation. A review of underlying frameworks for and prior study findings in metacognition and reflection are presented. Case study findings are also described and form the basis for the suggested strategies. The value and implications of using such strategies are also offered. Finally, future research should address the teaching of metacognition and reflection in CBL environments with an emphasis on real world application.


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elina Renko ◽  
Keegan Knittle ◽  
Minttu Palsola ◽  
Taru Lintunen ◽  
Nelli Hankonen

Abstract Background To achieve real-world impacts, behavior change interventions need to be scaled up and broadly implemented. Implementation is challenging however, and the factors influencing successful implementation are not fully understood. This study describes the nationwide implementation of a complex theory-based program targeting physical activity and sedentary behavior in vocational schools (Lets’s Move It; LMI). The implementation primarily involved a systematic and theory-based training and user manual for school staff. We explore how the perceived acceptability of this training (in line with the Theoretical Framework of Acceptability) relates to (un) successful implementation. The study evaluates (1) the experienced acceptability of the training and anticipated acceptability of later delivering the program; (2) reach and implementation, including adaptations and barriers; (3) whether acceptability ratings predict teachers’ intentions for implementation. Methods Upper secondary school staff from vocational and high schools (n = 194) enrolled in a two-part training, covering implementation of the LMI program and training in motivational interaction styles. One hundred fifty-one participants attended both parts of the training. Participants reported their perceived acceptability of the training and their implementation efforts in online questionnaires at baseline, after training sessions and at long-term follow-up. Qualitative data (open-ended questions) were analysed with content analysis to collate responses. Quantitative data analyses involved correlations and logistic regression. Results Participants rated the training as highly acceptable on all dimensions (average ratings exceeded 4.0 on a 5-point scale). The implementation reached at least 6100 students and 341 school classes. Most teachers intended to continue program implementation. Acceptability ratings explained 51.7% of teachers’ intentions to implement the student program (훘2 = 30.08; df = 8; p < .001), with affective attitude, perceived effectiveness and self-efficacy the most influential. Teachers commonly reported condensing program content, and reported deficits of time and collegial support as common barriers to implementation. Conclusion High acceptability and reach of the training indicate strong potential for implementation success. Multiple facets of acceptability seem important to successful implementation. Future research should explore ways to improve acceptability, thereby promoting successful implementation in real-world settings.


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