scholarly journals Assessing Stability of Crutch Users by Non-Contact Methods

Author(s):  
Achilles Vairis ◽  
Suzana Brown ◽  
Maurice Bess ◽  
Kyu Hyun Bae ◽  
Jonathan Boyack

Enhancing gait stability in people who use crutches is paramount for their health. With the significant difference in gait compared to users who do not require an assistive device, the use of standard gait analysis tools to measure movement for temporary crush users and physically disabled people proves to be more challenging. In this paper, a novel approach based on video analysis is proposed as non-contact low-cost solution to the more expensive alternative with the data collected from processed videos, two values are calculated: the Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) of acceleration, and the Signal to Noise Ratio of the jerk (time derivative of acceleration), to assess the user’s stability while they walk with crutches. The adopted methodology has been tested on a total of 10 participants. Five are temporary users of assistive devices with one being a long-term user and the other four novice users, and five are disabled participants who use those assistive devices permanently. Preliminary results show differences between novice users, long-term users, and physically disabled users. The approach is promising and could improve the assessment of crutch user stability, allowing for the correction of gait for individuals while using an inexpensive non-contact setup and preventing unnecessary falls.

2021 ◽  
pp. 20210465
Author(s):  
Tsutomu Tamada ◽  
Ayumu Kido ◽  
Yu Ueda ◽  
Mitsuru Takeuchi ◽  
Takeshi Fukunaga ◽  
...  

Objective: High b-value diffusion-weighted imaging (hDWI) with a b-value of 2000 s/mm2 provides insufficient image contrast between benign and malignant tissues and an overlap of apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) between Gleason grades (GG) in prostate cancer (PC). We compared image quality, PC detectability, and discrimination ability for PC aggressiveness between ultra-high b-value DWI (uhDWI) of 3000 s/mm2 and hDWI. Methods: The subjects were 49 patients with PC who underwent 3T multiparametric MRI. Single-shot echo-planar DWI was acquired with b-values of 0, 2000, and 3000 s/mm2. Anatomical distortion of prostate (AD), signal intensity of benign prostate (PSI), and lesion conspicuity score (LCS) were assessed using a 4-point scale; and signal-to-noise ratio, contrast-to-noise ratio, and mean ADC (×10–3 mm2/s) of lesion (lADC) and surrounding benign region (bADC) were measured. Results: PSI was significantly lower in uhDWI than in hDWI (p < 0.001). AD, LCS, signal-to-noise ratio, and contrast-to-noise ratio were comparable between uhDWI and hDWI (all p > 0.05). In contrast, lADC was significantly lower than bADC in both uhDWI and hDWI (both p < 0.001). In comparison of lADC between tumors of ≤GG2 and those of ≥GG3, both uhDWI and hDWI showed significant difference (p = 0.007 and p = 0.021, respectively). AUC for separating tumors of ≤GG2 from those of ≥GG3 was 0.731 in hDWI and 0.699 in uhDWI (p = 0.161). Conclusion: uhDWI suppressed background signal better than hDWI, but did not contribute to increased diagnostic performance in PC. Advances in knowledge: Compared with hDWI, uhDWI could not contribute to increased diagnostic performance in PC.


2019 ◽  
Vol 829 ◽  
pp. 252-257
Author(s):  
Azhari ◽  
Yohanes Hutasoit ◽  
Freddy Haryanto

CBCT is a modernized technology in producing radiograph image on dentistry. The image quality excellence is very important for clinicians to interpret the image, so the result of diagnosis produced becoming more accurate, appropriate, thus minimizing the working time. This research was aimed to assess the image quality using the blank acrylic phantom polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) (C­5H8O2)n in the density of 1.185 g/cm3 for evaluating the homogeneity and uniformity of the image produced. Acrylic phantom was supported with a tripod and laid down on the chin rest of the CBCT device, then the phantom was fixed, and the edge of the phantom was touched by the bite block. Furthermore, the exposure of the X-ray was executed toward the acrylic phantom with various kVp and mAs, from 80 until 90, with the range of 5 kV and the variation of mA was 3, 5, and 7 mA respectively. The time exposure was kept constant for 25 seconds. The samples were taken from CBCT acrylic images, then as much as 5 ROIs (Region of Interest) was chosen to be analyzed. The ROIs determination was analyzed by using the ImageJ® software for recognizing the influence of kVp and mAs towards the image uniformity, noise and SNR. The lowest kVp and mAs had the result of uniformity value, homogeneity and signal to noise ratio of 11.22; 40.35; and 5.96 respectively. Meanwhile, the highest kVp and mAs had uniformity value, homogeneity and signal to noise ratio of 16.96; 26.20; and 5.95 respectively. There were significant differences between the image uniformity and homogeneity on the lowest kVp and mAs compared to the highest kVp and mAs, as analyzed with the ANOVA statistics analysis continued with the t-student post-hoc test with α = 0.05. However, there was no significant difference in SNR as analyzed with the ANOVA statistic analysis. The usage of the higher kVp and mAs caused the improvement of the image homogeneity and uniformity compared to the lower kVp and mAs.


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (7) ◽  
pp. 331-339
Author(s):  
Dilshad Mahjabeen ◽  
Moshiur Rahman Tarafder ◽  
T Saikat Ahmed

Focus of this paper is mainly evaluating the performance of Long Term Evolution (LTE) system in different terrains such as urban, suburban and rural area. The performance parameters such as, Bit Error Rate (BER) and the Data Throughput are reported in terms of Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR). The system parameters taken into consideration are signal to noise ratio (SNR), number of receiving antenna (RxAn), reference channel and duplex mode. All of the simulations were performed in MATLAB, version 2014a simulink. The results are presented in table and graph which gives clear idea of the effect of environment on signal and receiver sensitivity. Also bit-error-rate, an important parameter in case of receiving signal, is analyzed with respect to SNR values. A comparative analysis of bit-error-rate is performed between three areas for same conditions which proves that LTE signal is well suited in a rural area than that of a suburban and urban area.


IoT ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 60-72
Author(s):  
Davi V. Q. Rodrigues ◽  
Delong Zuo ◽  
Changzhi Li

Researchers have made substantial efforts to improve the measurement of structural reciprocal motion using radars in the last years. However, the signal-to-noise ratio of the radar’s received signal still plays an important role for long-term monitoring of structures that are susceptible to excessive vibration. Although the prolonged monitoring of structural deflections may provide paramount information for the assessment of structural condition, most of the existing structural health monitoring (SHM) works did not consider the challenges to handle long-term displacement measurements when the signal-to-noise ratio of the measurement is low. This may cause discontinuities in the detected reciprocal motion and can result in wrong assessments during the data analyses. This paper introduces a novel approach that uses a wavelet-based multi-resolution analysis to correct short-term distortions in the calculated displacements even when previously proposed denoising techniques are not effective. Experimental results are presented to validate and demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed algorithm. The advantages and limitations of the proposed approach are also discussed.


2019 ◽  
Vol 91 (1) ◽  
pp. 334-342
Author(s):  
Jihua Fu ◽  
Xu Wang ◽  
Zhitao Li ◽  
Hao Meng ◽  
Jianjun Wang ◽  
...  

Abstract The automatic phase‐picking detection of earthquakes is a challenge under the background of big data and strong noise circumstances. The short‐term average/long‐term average (STA/LTA) ratio is widely used to detect earthquake due to its simplicity and robustness. However, STA/LTA‐based methods may not perform well with noisy data. Based on the signal‐to‐noise‐ratio (SNR) concept, a short‐term power/long‐term power (STP/LTP) ratio method is proposed. The characteristic function and the detection thresholds of the STP/LTP method are given physical meanings. Through a sample analysis, the STP/LTP detection results of both the P and S phases are better than the results of the STA/LTA by means of mean deviation, standard deviations, distributions of detection results, error rate, and missed rate on different SNR levels. In general, the STP/LTP method inherits the simple characteristics of the STA/LTA method, and it is suitable for phase picking of low‐SNR seismic data.


Author(s):  
R. D. Pingree ◽  
Linda Pennycuick

This paper estimates the turbulent transport of heat, fresh water and nutrients through the seasonal thermocline. In order to obtain a representative estimate of the annual variation it is necessary to average data obtained at a single position over a number of years. The number of years of sampling required depends on the particular parameter being studied. This can be seen by comparing the annual variation with the standard deviation, σ, for a specific month. This is analogous to the signal to noise ratio. For example, the annual range of temperature (or signal) is about 8°C for the water of the western English Channel. The variability of temperature in the same area (or noise) is about o.6°C. This figure is the standard deviation for the temperature obtained in a specific month at a fixed depth when data from a large number of different years are available. This variability can be attributed to a number of causes, to list a few; horizontal patchiness, local weather, advection, long term climatic changes. Hence for temperature the signal to noise ratio is about 13 and the annual pattern of events will clearly be established on the basis of monthly values obtained at a position during a single year.


Author(s):  
Walid Maulana Hadiansyah

Transmisi data kecepatan tinggi menjadi sorotan masyarakat saat ini karena semakin banyak masyarakat menggunakan teknologi nirkabel pita lebar untuk memenuhi kebutuhan sehari-hari. Long Term Evolution (LTE) masih menjadi teknologi eksisting yang memanfaatkan sistem Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) sebagai solusi penghematan bandwidth. Untuk mempertahankan kualitas data dari distorsi, maka dibutuhkan teknik estimasi kanal. Dengan mengetahui hasil estimasi kanal, maka akan didapatkan solusi untuk meminimalisasi efek distorsi. Respon impuls diasumsikan berupa kanal fading Rayleigh. Estimasi kanal yang dipakai adalah metode estimasi Piece-wise Linear dengan 2 slope. Serangkaian penelitian yang bisa dilakukan setelah estimasi kanal adalah estimasi efek doppler, minimalisasi interferensi antar-simbol, dan efisiensi serta optimalisasi sistem. Dari hasil simulasi menggunakan program Matlab dengan 100 kali iterasi, dapat diambil kesimpulan bahwa semakin besar Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR), semakin kecil error yang terjadi. Nilai rata-rata error estimasi dari SNR=9-40 dB adalah 2.4%-38.2%.


1990 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Willshaw ◽  
Peter Dayan

A recent article (Stanton and Sejnowski 1989) on long-term synaptic depression in the hippocampus has reopened the issue of the computational efficiency of particular synaptic learning rules (Hebb 1949; Palm 1988a; Morris and Willshaw 1989) — homosynaptic versus heterosynaptic and monotonic versus nonmonotonic changes in synaptic efficacy. We have addressed these questions by calculating and maximizing the signal-to-noise ratio, a measure of the potential fidelity of recall, in a class of associative matrix memories. Up to a multiplicative constant, there are three optimal rules, each providing for synaptic depression such that positive and negative changes in synaptic efficacy balance out. For one rule, which is found to be the Stent-Singer rule (Stent 1973; Rauschecker and Singer 1979), the depression is purely heterosynaptic; for another (Stanton and Sejnowski 1989), the depression is purely homosynaptic; for the third, which is a generalization of the first two, and has a higher signal-to-noise ratio, it is both heterosynaptic and homosynaptic. The third rule takes the form of a covariance rule (Sejnowski 1977a,b) and includes, as a special case, the prescription due to Hopfield (1982) and others (Willshaw 1971; Kohonen 1972).


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