A Functional Electrical Stimulator to Enable Grasping Through Wrist Flexion

Functional electrical stimulation is an assistive technique that utilizes electrical discharges to produce functional movements in patients suffering from neurological impairments. In this work, a biphasic, programmable current- controlled functional electrical stimulator system is designed to enable hand grasping facilitated by wrist flexion. The developed system utilizes an operational amplifier based current source and is supported by a user interface to adjust stimulation parameters. The device is integrated with an accelerometer to measure the degree of stimulated movement. The system is validated, firstly, on two passive electrical loads and subsequently on four healthy volunteers. The device is designed to deliver currents between 0-30mA, and the error between the measured current and simulated current for two loads were -0.967±0.676mA and -0.995±0.97mA. The angular data from the accelerometer provided information regarding variations in movement between the subjects. The architecture of the proposed system is such that it can, in principle, automatically adjust the parameters of simulation to induce the desired movement optimally by measuring a stimulated movement artifact (e.g., angular position) in real time.

Radar Circular Data Analysis Using a New Watson’s Goodness of Test under Complexity

Watson’s test is applied to test either the given angular data follows the specified distribution or not. The existing Watson’s test under classical statistics is applied when there is no uncertainty and indeterminacy in sample size or angular data. Under indeterminacy, the existing Watson’s test cannot be applied for testing purposes. Neutrosophic statistics is an alternative to classical statistics for this kind of situation. The Watson’s test under neutrosophic statistics is proposed in this paper. The test statistic of Watson’s test is introduced first. The operational procedure of the proposed Watson’s test is discussed with the help of radar data. From the data analysis and simulation study, it is concluded the proposed Watson’s test is efficient than the existing Watson’s test.

Correlation of frankfort horizontal with the sellanasion line angular data in different sagittal skeletal bases

It is of interest to establish the cephalometric correlation of angular data between frankfort horizontal and the sella-nasion line in different sagittal skeletal bases. Beta angle was used to divide the sample based on their sagittal skeletal base relationship. The FH-SN angle was measured for each group. The data were tabulated into IBM SPSS software. Kolmogorov-Smirnov and Shapiro-Wilk test was done to test the normal distribution of the data. One-way ANOVA analysis was done to test the difference of the FH-SN angle among the groups. Independent samples t-Test was done to test for gender dimorphism. The mean FH-SN angle of the sample was 6.33°3.35°. The results of the One-Way ANOVA and independent samples t-Test were insignificant. Results show that is no statistically significant difference in FHSN angle between skeletal class I, II and III.The mean FH-SN angle of the sample was 6.33°3.35°. The distribution of the data was normal. The results of the One-Way ANOVA and Independent samples t-Test were insignificant. There was no statistically significant difference in FH-SN angle between skeletal class I, II and III.

Estimation of Canopy Gap Fraction from Terrestrial Laser Scanner Using an Angular Grid to Take Advantage of the Full Data Spatial Resolution

This paper develops an algorithm to estimate vegetation canopy gap fraction (GF), taking advantage of the full Terrestrial Laser Scanner (TLS) resolution. After calculating the TLS angular resolution, the algorithm identifies the missing laser hits (gaps) within an angular grid in the azimuthal and zenithal directions. The algorithm was first tested on angular data simulations with random (R), cluster (C) and random and cluster together (RC) gap pattern distributions. Noise introduced in the simulations as a percentage of the resolution accounted for the effect of TLS angular uncertainty. The algorithm performs accurately if angular noise is <6% of the angular resolution. To assess the impact of the change in projection, this study compared these GF estimates from angular grid simulations to their transformation into simulated hemispherical images (SHI). SHI with C patterns perform accurately, but R and RC patterns underestimate GF, especially for GF values below 0.6. The SHI performance to estimate GF was always far below the algorithm developed here with the angular grid simulations. When applied to actual TLS data acquired over individual Quercus ilex L. trees, the algorithm rendered a GF between 0.26 and 0.40. TLS had an angular noise <6%. Converting the angular grid into simulated HI (TLS-SHI) provided a better agreement with actual HI acquired in the same location as the TLS data, since they are in the same projection. The TLS-SHI underestimated GF by an average of 4% compared to HI. HI and TLS-SHI presented 14% and 17% lower values than the GF calculated from the angular grids, respectively. Nevertheless, the results from the simulations indicate that the algorithm based on the angular grid should be closer to the actual GF of the tree canopy.