Applied Mechanics and Materials Vols. 284-287

Abstract: The present study was conducted to determine the strength of somatosensory stimuli applied to the human body as a method for recovery of musculoskeletal function deterioration vibration, to perform a mutual comparison of the threshold-measuring methods which allow physical quantification of the vibration sense, and to verify the accuracy and reliability of the measured threshold through the activity of the muscles. According to the results of experiments conducted on men, the threshold intensity obtained via the ascent and descent methods showed a 1.09-fold difference in size and a 0.43-fold deviation. In addition, the difference in muscular activity found through the comparison of EMG and ultrasound imaging, a 1.43-fold activity difference was observed. The results of the present study can be utilized for the threshold intensity setting of the sensory stimulation vibration and can be used as the basis for the integration of various thresholds measurements.

Abstract: The identification of potential predictors for motor outcome after rehabilitation helps underscore the factors that may affect treatment outcomes and target individuals who benefit the most from the therapy. In this study, we addressed and utilized a classifier to identify the potential predictors for motor performance outcome for patients with stroke after rehabilitation. The potential predictors selected and used by different assessments in this study were age, sex, time since stroke, education, neurologic status, and the movement performance of the upper extremity. This study aimed to identify predictors of motor performance outcomes after rehabilitation for stroke patients. The PSO-SVM was chosen in this study to find the predictor of motor function for clients with stroke. The potential predictors for motor outcome after rehabilitation were motor ability assessment of the Fugl-Meyer Assessment (FMA) and the Functional Independence Measure (FIM). This study is to investigate the potential demographic and clinical characteristics of stroke that can serve to predict rehabilitation outcomes in motor performance.

Abstract: This research discusses about recognizing direction by brainwave characteristic frequency band in the digital coding mode. The experiences proceeded by catching brainwave signals of human vision while sensing the test interfaces of graphics and words representing direction by brainwave sensor. To compile the related samples of energies from brainwave frequency band and times of appearances, then establish the directions which stand for left-turn, right-turn, forward and backward of brainwave characteristics frequency band and its digital coding modes. Studies are to derive and analyze brainwave signals from testing interfaces of different color combinations of patterns and words, and after that build the digital coding combinations of brainwave characteristics frequency band. This research is to analyze and discuss every kind of brainwave frequency band characteristics while subjects recognize the directions; moreover, to confer the topics such as analyzing the influences of different designs of pattern and word testing interfaces made in brainwave of recognizing directions in the view of Cognitive Neuroscience as well as defining if testing interfaces of color designs effect the brain wave signals while judging directions from human vision.

Abstract: The description of syndromes and symptoms in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is extremely complicated. And how to diagnose the patient's syndrome in a better way is the primary objective of clinical health care workers all the time. It was a good attempt to diagnose patient's syndrome by combining Latent Semantic Analysis and the feature of TCM knowledge----both syndromes and organs have the same clinical manifestation collection that are symptoms. In this paper, correlative degrees would be computed and sorted in a certain latent semantic space which was constructed by syndromes and organs . According to the result of correlative degrees computing, the classifying could be done by choosing the highest correlative degree as the belonging class. The experimental results show that this method performs quite well.

Abstract: Electrocardiogram (ECG) is a kind of weak signal. It was disturbed by surrounding factors, even by patient him/herself. It was happened mostly in portable device. Filtering is an usual step in ECG signal processing. Therefore, the quality evaluation of ECG signal became necessary. In the paper, some indexes were proposed to evaluate the quality of filtered ECG signal. The definition and recommended values or limits of the indexes were discussed. The indexes covered from the aspects of signal procession and clinical diagnosis meanings. They were Signal-to Noise Ratio (SNR), Autocorrelation coefficient (AC), Transformation Ratio (StTR) and Voltage Amplitude Change (StTV) of ECG ST Segment. Median, Wavelet, and Morphology filters were selected in the experiments. From the experiment results, Wavelet performs best in controlling attenuation, but it distorted ST segment the most, both in shape and in its voltage amplitude. The shape change ratio may reach 25%, compare to 17% of median and 14% of morphology, and those filters were acceptable clinical evaluation. It was proved that the indexes can become the potential standard in quality evaluation in ECG signal filtering process.

Abstract: The goal of the study is to non-invasively image the tympanic membrane in vivo, using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). 8 subjects between the ages of 20 and 26 (4 male and 4 female) were recruited for the study. A comparison was made between the results of imaging the right tympanic membrane by high resolution computed tomography (HRCT) and MRI. The experiment employed the techniques of HRCT and MRI to produce images of the human tympanic membrane, in vivo. The experiment also involved analyzing the performance of the multi-slice single echo (MSSE) sequence of MRI, and an evaluation of their respective image qualities and differences. This study has helped to establish an in vivo imaging procedure for the human tympanic membrane. The study has revealed that HRCT images have a higher resolution and SNR as compared to MRI images. This could be due to the inherent tissue composition of the tympanic membrane and/or the higher background noise encountered in MRI systems. As HRCT imaging systems contribute to patient radiation dose, MRI and surface coil were employed to generate in vivo human tympanic membrane images. We are able to clearly observe the 3D spatial boundaries and structures of the human tympanic membrane in vivo, indicating that our technology can provide valuable information, which can aid clinical diagnosis and patient management after myringoplasty.

Abstract: Lung cancer has been a leading cause of death in the world, and it is known that prompt diagnosis and treatment may be the only chance for curing the cancer. Early lung cancer often presents as a solitary pulmonary nodule (SPN) and the timely detection of it is critical to save life from cancer death. In this paper, we present an effective method to detect SPNs on thoracic CT images through object continuity analyses. First, a lung region is segmented from other chest organs using morphological operations and thresholding techniques, and an initial set of candidate SPNs are identified. To represent the SPN, we define the rotation-invariant bounding rectangle (riBR) that tightly encloses an object. The subsequent processing is based on the riBR instead of an object itself to avoid the processing overhead. Next, non-nodule objects are pruned using geometric features and the object continuity analyses on a series of CT slice images. Through the analyses, cylinder-shaped non-nodule objects such as blood vessels and bronchia are eliminated and a final set of candidate SPNs is obtained. An experimental result shows that the proposed method works effectively in detecting SPNs. The application context addressed in this study is the pulmonary nodule detection but other application areas also can benefit.

Abstract: In this paper, we present a physical rehabilitation assistant system based on skeleton detection with Kinect. The users do not have to install the detectors on the exercise equipment anymore. And then, they can just use the rehabilitation equipment with Kinect using the skeleton detection technique. In this study, we build a normalized three-dimensional Cartesian coordinates location of correct postures under OpenNI system. We find out 15 human skeleton joints with three dimensional coordinates and calculate the feature values, than we use support vector machine (SVM) as classifier to define the accuracy of posture. Finally, the system can judge the correct degree of user’s postures. Also, we can have the rehabilitation purpose.

Abstract: Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is one of the most important sleep disorders. The gold standard diagnosis of OSA is overnight PSG examination that is time-consuming and labor intensive. Overnight ECG signal was developed to examine OSA, with easy implementation and portable equipment. There were various ECG derived features used for OSA identification, in this study, intrinsic mode function (IMF) was developed. IMF is a byproduct of Hilbert-Huang transform. IMF decompose original signal into various sub components, due to its complexity. In this study, some novel IMF derived features were used to examine the OSA duration measured from ECG signal, compared with traditional HRV features.

Abstract: Since the medical environment becomes more complicated nowadays, an efficient teleconsultation plays an important role for surgical emergency and medical decision making. The advances in the information communication technique during the past decade have already made the remote consulting feasible. The remote consulting must provide rapid response time, high quality radiological images and flexible cooperation platform. Based on the mobile internet device (MID) and computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) platform, we propose an effective teleconsultation system to improve the medical quality of service. The internet virtual community concept is also adopted to provide a convenient and rapid connection manner. The results demonstrate that it fulfills the requirements of remote consultation system.