Hand Placement Research Articles

Long-term follow-up on tendon transfers to the extensors of the wrist and fingers in patients with cerebral palsy

Thirty-eight patients with cerebral palsy had tendon transfers to improve extension of the wrist and fingers. The 10 patients who had poor hand placement, sensibility, or motor control failed to improve in functional grasp or release. The remaining 28 patients, with better preoperative criteria, had improved function. On long-term follow-up, 5 of the 12 patients with transfers to the wrist extensor had extension contractures with difficulty in release, and in seventeen patients transfers to the finger extensors resulted in improved finger extension and release, with no sacrifice in the ability to grasp.

The Gesture of Hand Placement in the Hebrew Bible and in Hittite Literature

This article discusses the meaning of hand placement gestures in the Hebrew Bible and Hittite ritual literature. It accepts the conclusion of R. Peter (VT27 [1977] 48-55) that there are two forms of the gesture in the Old Testament, one performed with two hands on persons in nonsacrificial contexts and the other performed with one hand on animals in sacrifice. It is argued here that the two-handed form serves to designate who the recipient of the ritual action is, while the one-handed form serves to ritually attribute the offering animal and concomitant sacrificial acts to the one who performs the gesture. A similar gesture among the Hittites, like the one-handed rite in biblical sacrifice, serves to attribute the offering material and offering act to the one who performs hand placement.

Retention of cardiopulmonary resuscitation skills by physicians, registered nurses, and the general public.

To evaluate retention of CPR skills by medical residents (MDs), registered nurses (RNs), we tested single-rescuer CPR skills of 21 MDs, 17 RNs, and 21 laypersons using recording manikin and American Heart Association criteria. All study participants had been trained from 4 to 12 months before testing. No MD or RN and only one layperson performed each step correctly and in proper sequence. If calls for assistance were eliminated, one additional layperson, two MDs, and two RNs performed correctly. There were no significant differences between the MDs and RNs. MDs and RNs did better (p less than .01) in assessment compared to laypersons, but some individuals in each group initiated ventilations and compressions without assessing need. There was no difference in the ability to perform ventilations; all three groups did poorly. MDs and RNs performed compression skills better than laypersons (p less than .01), but all had difficulty with rate and depth of compressions. Moreover, only one-third of the general public demonstrated correct hand placement. Despite more training and experience, MD and RN performance was comparable to layperson performance. These data suggest that improving basic life-support skills could save more lives.

Excerpts From the Dances of Haiti

To discuss adequately the function of the dance, a few words must be said of the form. (Notes on the interrelation of form and function have been reserved for the last section of this paper). It is only after months of continual observation and actual participation that the significance of emphasis on certain parts of the body, on floor pattern, on accent, on carriage of the head, and placement of hands and arms becomes distinguishable as definite patterns with distinct form. This same observation and participation is necessary if the association of form and terminology are to reach any degree of accuracy. The local tendency to use descriptive terminology is an initial aid in recognizing form. Thus certain dances are dance grouillfr, or colle, or dos-bas, or zepaules. Others are the hanches, others de pie, and still others du ven. Most of these terms refer to the part of the body stressed in the dance, i.e.,

A Procedure for Placement of Standard-Cell VLSI Circuits

This paper describes a method of automatic placement for standard cells (polycells) that yields areas within 10-20 percent of careful hand placements. The method is based on graph partitioning to identify groups of modules that ought to be close to each other, and a technique for properly accounting for external connections at each level of partitioning. The placement procedure is in production use as part of an automated design system; it has been used in the design of more than 40 chips, in CMOS, NMOS, and bipolar technologies.

Hand Placement in Manual Materials Handling

This paper reviews the use of handles on containers and manually propelled vehicles. It is concluded that handle shape and size are relatively easy to define, but placement of handles on containers represents a more difficult problem. Laboratory and field studies of hand and handle placement are reviewed with the conclusion that handles should be placed so as to give both horizontal and vertical stability, except for heavy lifting, in which a symmetrical handle placement may be preferred, as it minimizes arm forces.

Gross Appearance of Turkey Cloacae Before and After Single or Multiple Manual Semen Collections

The gross appearance of the turkey cloaca was examined before and after single or multiple semen collections. All cloacae exhibited some degree of hemorrhage formation, the extent of which was dependent upon 1) frequency of semen collection, 2) number of cloacal strokes, and 3) individual differences in semen collectors’ techniques. Cloacae of males subjected to multiple semen collections of more than four cloacal strokes per semen collection were the most severely injured. Cloacae examined three days after the last semen collection were nearly normal in appearance. It is suggested that cloacal hemorrhages resulting from semen collection can be minimized by 1) reducing the number of cloacal strokes per semen collection to one or two and 2) using the correct hand placement and pressure on the cloaca during the cloacal strokes.

Staircase concept of instrument placement in microsurgery.

A new technique of mechanical support for microinstruments of action (e.g., scissors and air turbine drills) is presented. The technique consists of attaching instruments to ball and cable retractor arms (Flexbars) and securing them to a framework around the operative site. By assigning functional levels for instrument and hand placement, surgical procedures are simplified and shortened. A brief comparison of self-retaining retractors and an evaluation of them in terms of this technique is also included.

Developmental characteristics of a forward roll.

Abstract A category checklist of developmental characteristics for the forward roll, modeled after Roberton's “component” approach, was hypothesized for this study. The categories were used to examine the usefulness of a component approach for describing actions occurring during the forward roll. Age-relatedness of category sequences was also explored. Three components were defined: hand/arm, head/neck, hip/leg. Each component was divided into phases which described the temporal course of actions occurring throughout the forward roll, from initial hand placement to heel strike. Within each component phase were hierarchically arranged steps, ordered from primitive to advanced. The potential usefulness of the components as a developmental checklist was examined using three criteria: (1) the comprehensiveness of the category system for describing observed movement behaviors; (2) the observed ordering of each component sequence in relation to the hypothesized ordering; and (3) the sign of the slopes of the ag...

Nitrogen in the P Band for Forage Establishment1

AbstractBand seeding, a recommended practice for forage establishment, increases seedling growth primarily because of early P uptake. Ammonium N (NH4+) has been demonstrated to increase P uptake with several crop species. The objective of the experiments reported herein was to determine if the inclusion of N as NH4+ in the P band would result in a further increase in the seedling weight of forage species.Five field experiments were conducted on a Typic Hapludalf soil using hand placement of the fertilizer band and seed in 1 m rows of alfalfa (Medicago sativa), bird'sfoot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus), and bromegrass (Bromus inermis). Monocalcium phosphate, labelled with 32P, was placed in a band 5 cm directly below the surface placed seed with NO3‐ supplied as Ca(NO3)2 or NH4+ supplied as (NH4)2 SO4. Dry weight per plant, total uptake of P and uptake of fertilizer P were measured 5 weeks after seeding.Band seeding up to 30 kg P/ha increased seedling growth as much as five‐fold in all experiments regardless of species or soil test level for P. Consistent evidence that NH4+ was increasing the concentration and/or uptake of fertilizer P and hence the concentration and/or uptake of total P by forage species was not established. In one experiment, up to 52% greater seedling growth of alfalfa, in addition to that obtained with P alone, was obtained by including NH4+ in the band in contrast to a 20% increase with NO3‐. In a second experiment, inclusion of N in the band increased growth by 11% without a preference for the form of N. Using 32P techniques one of two experiments showed the increased growth associated with the N applications was due to enhanced fertilizer P concentration and uptake, and hence increased total P uptake resulting from including the NH4+ nitrogen in the P band. It is concluded that NH4+ in the P band is of minor importance for increasing early seedling growth of cool season forage species.

Arch Placement Machine for Support of Continuous Tunnels Over Vegetables

ABSTRACT A tractor-mounted mechanism was designed and built to mechanically insert small wire arches into the ground for purposes of supporting continuous plant pro-tecting row covers. The device used an air cylinder and specially designed jaws to grip and rapidly insert the arches. Field trials by hand feeding arches to the device indicated that the device could insert approximately one arch per second, which is at least four times faster than conventional hand placement.

Improving social interaction in chronic psychotic using discriminated avoidance ("nagging"): experimental analysis and generalization.

Three social-interaction behaviors of a withdrawn chronic schizophrenic were increased using a discriminated avoidance ("nagging") procedure. The three behaviors were: (a) voice volume loud enough so that two-thirds of his speech was intellibible at a distance of 3m; (b) duration of speech of at least 15 sec; (c) placement of hands and elbows on the armrests of the chair in which he was sitting. "Nagging" consisted of verbal prompts to improve performance when the behaviors did not meet their criteria. A combined withdrawal and multiple-baseline design was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the procedure, and the contingency was sequentially applied to each of the three behaviors in each of four different interactions to determine the degree of stimulus and response generalization. Results indicated that the contingency was the effective element in increasing the patient's appropriate performance, and that there was a high degree of stimulus generalization and a moderate degree of response generalization. After the patient's discharge from the hospital, the durability of improvement across time and setting was determined in followup sessions conducted at a day treatment center and at a residential care home. Volume and duration generalized well to the new settings, while arm placement extinguished immediately.

Upper left hand placement of human figure drawings as an indicator of anxiety.

Summary The present study explored the validity of upper left hand placement as an indicator of anxiety in human figure drawings. The DAP and the IPAT Anxiety Scale were administered to 103 college students. Their drawings were then judged for the presence or absence of the indicator under investigation. A Mann-Whitney U-test was used to test for differences in anxiety scores between the indicator present and the indicator absent group. Significant differences were found (p < .01) supporting the hypothesis that upper left placement is a valid indicator of anxiety.

Personal Verification and Identification Using Hand Geometry

This research proposes a study of personal verification and identification using hand geometry. Hand geometry used in this research consists of the lengths and widths of fingers and the width of a palm. Users can place their hands freely without the need for pegs to fix the hand placement. In this research, systems using six different distance functions were tested and compared. Test data are from 96 users. Among the six different distance functions, S1 gives the best results in both verification and identification.

Habituation to electrical stimulation of the brain in unanesthetized cats

Electrical stimulation of the amygdala, the posterior suprasylvian gyrus and the mesencephalon yielded orienting behavior and low voltage fast EEG activity in unanesthetized cats. There was no apparent difference between the responses elicited by the first few stimuli. Repeated stimulation yielded significant differences between cortical and amygdalar placements on the one hand and mesencephalic placements on the other. Repeated stimulation of amygdala and cortex soon failed to elicit any arousal. The response attenuation fitted the criteria for habituation, indicating that the brain is able to treat information from amygdala and cortex in much the same way as it treats adequate sensory information. Repeated stimulation of the mesencephalon continued to elicit clear-cut behavioral and EEG arousal, in some cases even after 100 stimuli. The data are discussed within the framework of prevalent notions of the arousal-producing mechanisms of the brain. Arousal produced by mesencephalic stimulation seems to be mediated via a more direct route than arousal produced by telencephalic areas. Telencephalic arousal areas most likely activate the brain via the midbrain activating system much in the same way as is believed to be the case for adequate sensory information. In both cases habituation may be due to an input block to this central activating system.

Proficiency in drawing and placement of hands in drawings of the human figure.

Proficiency in drawing and placement of hands in drawings of the human figure.