Perception Of Position Research Articles

Use of Soft Cervical Collar Improves Surgeon Ergonomics During Simulated Otologic Surgery.

To determine whether surgeon use of a soft cervical collar during endoscopic and microscopic otologic surgery is feasible and impacts surgeon ergonomics as measured by inertial sensors. Prospective crossover trial. US-based otolaryngology training program. Otolaryngology residents and fellows. Therapeutic-use of a soft cervical collar during simulated otologic surgery. Time spent in high-risk angles of neck and back flexion and extension; average angle of neck flexion, extension, rotation, and lateral bending; validated assessment of neck pain; average daily phone use. Fifteen subjects met criteria for inclusion. Ten of 15 (67%) were male. Seven of 15 (47%) were postgraduate year 1-2. Seven of 15 (47%) reported a history of neck pain. None reported prior spinal steroid injections or surgery. Across all subjects, use of the soft cervical collar significantly reduced time spent in high-risk angles of neck flexion/extension during both endoscopic (56% vs. 35%, p < 0.05) and microscopic (60% vs. 32%, p < 0.05) otologic surgery. There was no effect on back flexion or extension. There was no difference in time spent in high-risk neck or back angles between endoscopic and microscopic surgery. Average angles of neck or back flexion, extension, lateral bending, and rotation were not significantly different for subgroups with more operative experience, increased phone use, perception of good posture, or history of neck pain. Use of a soft cervical collar during simulated otologic surgery significantly reduced time spent in high-risk neck positions. These data support feasibility of soft collar use during otologic surgery and hold promise for reduction in the high rates of neck pain reported by neurotologists. Improving surgeon ergonomics for otologic surgery. To identify a therapeutic intervention to mitigate neck pain in surgeons caused by assumption of high-risk cervical neck flexion and extension. To demonstrate that use of a readily available soft cervical collar reduces risk of neck pain in otologic surgeons. II. Exempt.

The impact of a single “Body technique vitality protocol” treatment on vitality restoration: a randomized trial in urban women

Purpose: The main purpose of the study was to investigate the efficiency and factorial validity of a newly developed vitality questionnaire (AMRJ) in women. Methods: In this randomized trial over six weeks, 161 women were randomly included. Each category of age represents one period of life as follows: 17.5 years (adolescence), 30 years (menstruation and sexual activity), 45 years (perimenopause) and 60 years (menopause). Opposed to subjective vitality status questionnaire (SVS), the AMRJ was designed to understand one's personal perception of posture, body tissue, breathing, self-perception of health, pain and quality of life. Results: For the AMJR, the two-factor solution explained 64% of variance among items, and all items loaded highly with their underlying factors (all λ &gt; .55). A large effect size (d= - .89) was observed for 17.5-year-olds, and a medium effect size (d=- .50) was observed for 60-year-olds. Furthermore, current vitality ratings from the AMJR questionnaire were significantly larger as well after the intervention, but the interpretation of the significant interaction terms goes in another direction. In AMJR, the effects of the intervention increased with the participant’s age. The intervention effect had a medium effect size for 17.5-year-olds (d= .67), and a large effect size (d= - .92) for 60-year-olds. Conclusions: The AMJR questionnaire brings a new perspective on self-measured vitality and is published for the first time with the affiliated presentation of validity. It shows current and potential vitality associated with the physical domain. Potential point as a concrete individual fact brings objective goals and important motivational stimulus for vitality improvements.

Framework of rod-like crops sorting based on multi-object oriented detection and analysis

Quality grading and sorting are crucial post-harvest procedures to increase the market value of crops. To reduce the over-dependence on manual work for these tasks, automated sorting methods have been studied. However, we find existing research focuses mainly on round-like fruits and vegetables, and most machines can only grade one object at a time in their vision pipeline. To address these limitations, this paper proposes a comprehensive framework specifically for detecting and analyzing rod-like crops based on multi-object oriented detection. Zizania shoots are primarily used to validate our methods. To implement the deep learning models, an efficient oriented bounding box label software called OBBLabel is developed, and several large-scale image datasets are constructed. Both of the software and datasets are open-sourced for the community. Based on YOLOv8 architecture, the proposed YOLO-OBB model predicts oriented bounding boxes to extract all rod-like targets in image with 0.903 mAP@0.5. A multi-label recognition model YOLO-MLD then conducts quality grading and posture perception on individual target with 93.4% mean accuracy. Thus, precise position and quality information for all objects can be obtained in near real-time for subsequent suction cup-based sorting operations. Furthermore, according to the framework, this paper designs and manufactures a prototype sorting machine with edge intelligence for rod-like crops.

Exploring the influence of individual factors on the perception of mental workload and body postures

Studies have revealed that physical and mental demands, psychosocial factors, and individual factors can contribute to the development of WMSDs. Yet, much is still unknown regarding the effects of individual characteristics on WMSDs susceptibility. Previous studies discovered people assumed more awkward body postures to perform an activity when the perception of mental workload is higher. This research study explored if individual characteristics such as age, sex, personality, and anxiety help explain changes or differences in the perception of mental workload and body postures assume when performing activities. The study provided evidence that these individual characteristics have a modifying role on perceived mental workload and body postures. The results suggest that perceived mental workload is influenced to a higher extent by individual characteristics such as anxiety, sex, and personality traits. Women have a higher (18.7%) mental workload perception than men. Likewise, NASA-TLX scores are 22% higher for feelers than thinkers. In general, higher perceptions of mental workload were observed in participants with higher anxiety levels. On the other hand, body postures seem to be influenced by different individual factors depending on the nature of the activity. RULA scores increased on average by 13.1% between baseline and time constraint conditions. Larger differences were observed in certain individuals (e.g. introverts (19.7%) and intuitors (13.8%)) across conditions.

Stereo matching method based on high-precision occlusion-recovering and discontinuity-preserving

Stereo matching is the core of machine vision, such as 3D reconstruction, posture perception and driverless technology in the future etc. Currently, there are still great difficulties in improving the matching accuracy of disparity discontinuity and occlusion regions. In this paper, we propose a new high-precision occlusion-recovering and discontinuity-preserving method for stereo matching. We focus on disparity refinement, and present an adaptability-based disparity reconstruction that achieves accurate occlusion-recovering by fusing color aberration, distance, and disparity value. For discontinuity-preserving, disparity-based secondary guided filtering is proposed, then introduce adaptive image enhancement and adaptive Canny edge detection to correct errors in discontinuous regions. The experiments on Middlebury standard dataset show that our algorithm has high overall accuracy, especially in the disparity discontinuity and occlusion regions. This novel method is more direct, efficient, and less sensitive to the accuracy of disparity estimation, and the live-action shooting shows the robustness of our algorithm. The method has the prospect of civil and engineering use, and presents scientific reference for high-precision target identification, target tracking, 3D measurement, etc.

MD-Pose: Human Pose Estimation for Single-Channel UWB Radar

Human pose estimation based on optical sensors is difficult to solve the situation under harsh environments and shielding. In this paper, a Micro-Doppler (MD) based human pose estimation for the single-channel ultra-wideband (UWB) radar, called MD-Pose, is proposed. The MD characteristic reflects the kinematics of the human and provides a unique method for identifying the targets posture, which offers a more comprehensive perception of human posture. We explore the relationship between the human skeleton and the MD signature, which reveals the fundamental origins of these previously unexplained phenomena. The single-channel UWB radar is widely used because of its small size, low cost, and portability. In contrast, its resolution is lower than that of the MIMO UWB radar. Therefore, this paper reveals how to implement fine-grained human posture based on the MD signature with fewer channels. The MD spectrogram of the human target is obtained by the short-time Fourier transform (STFT), which is the input data of the proposed MD-Pose. A quasi-symmetric U-Net neural network is trained with the UWB radar MD spectrogram, which can estimate the human keypoints. The experiments show comparable quantitative results with the state-of-the-art human pose estimation method and provide the underlying insights needed to guide the design of radar-based human pose estimation.

Effects of video display terminal fatigue on situational awareness ability of operators and modeling study

In order to study the changing pattern of the posture perception ability of video display terminal operators in the main control room of energy power plants such as nuclear power plants in a state of fatigue, subjective and objective data of 19 energy system operators were collected through experiments. The effect of video display terminal fatigue on the operator's level of situational awareness was analyzed, and the subjective and objective data were selected to construct an XGboost model to predict the identified operator's situational awareness capability. The study results showed that the subjective and objective data showed significant differences, and it could be inferred that the subjects had developed video display terminal fatigue. The combination of data showed that fatigue affected the manipulator's ability to perceive and understand, decreasing the manipulator's situational awareness. The XGboost model, based on subjective and objective data, achieved a validation rate of 88.90%, indicating that the model can identify and predict the situational awareness of video display terminal manipulators. The study's results can be used to assess the situational awareness of video display terminal operators in nuclear power plants and provide a scientific basis for safety training in nuclear power plants and other energy power plants.

Tactile localization on stretched skin.

The ability to localize touch on the skin is an important aspect of tactile perception. As our limbs move, the skin stretches flexibly, and research has found that signals specifying stretch affect perception of limb posture. Skin stretch also distorts the relative spatial position of different locations on the skin, posing potential problems for tactile localization. Here, we investigated the effects of skin stretch using an established test of tactile localization on the hand. Twenty participants completed a tactile localization task in no-stretch and stretched conditions, respectively, after giving informed consent. The current study found a clear distal and radial bias in both the no-stretch condition and the stretched condition. Indeed, the distal bias was even larger in the stretched condition than at baseline. Critically, however, this change in distal bias was entirely accounted for by changes in the actual location of stimulus as a result of skin stretch, with no corresponding change in the judged location. Thus, the somatosensory system appears to disregard stretch when calculating the location of tactile stimuli. These results mirror recent findings showing that tactile distance perception also fails to take skin stretch into account. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Https://journals.scholarpublishing.org/index.php/JBEMi/issue/view/443

The role of the biophysics consists of the study of the vital pro­cesses which take place in the living organisms, their correlations in the discovery of the causal relationships between the phenomena, establishing the underlying connections and the quality differences of the processes which take place in the living organism. In the contemporary times of explosive development of nature sciences, medical biophysics – a borderline science with interdisciplinary aspects – having as object the modelling of the human organism, becomes a basic discipline in the biomedical studies. Medical biophysics can be applied in all the fields of medicine. The problem of aging preoccupied the researchers a lot. Several theories and hypothesis have been issued regarding the causes of aging. The aging itself are an indispensable condition of the evolution of life on earth. The aging is characteristics of the all analyzers. In older age, the perception of posture becomes less steady and precise, because structural changes occur in the spinal column that clearly mislead our organ sensing balance, from the aspect of infor­mation. They found that the so-called method of amplitude estimation resulted in values with very dispersed intervals, therefore, they applied the correlation of the analyzers.

Single 24-GHz FMCW Radar-Based Indoor Device-Free Human Localization and Posture Sensing With CNN

The position information and posture information of a device-free human in a confined indoor environment have multiple uses in health monitoring and other areas. In this study, we aim to use a single-input-single-output (SISO) frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) radar at 24-GHz band for simultaneous localization and posture estimation of one device-free human target. This device is easy to deploy in new setups. We use image formation to convert temporal measurements of the radar signal into image-like data and convert the problem of simultaneous position estimation and posture perception into an image classification problem. Leveraging the use of convolutional neural networks (CNNs) for image classification, we design a variety of tests to explore the most favorable parameters of the CNN model and then use the best practice model to accomplish the classification task involving a fusion of localization and pose recognition. To explain the primary causes of inaccuracies, we examine not only cases based on a fused position and posture dataset but also cases based on position-only and posture-only datasets. On both real-life datasets, our proposed scheme can achieve 98% classification accuracy and less than 1-m localization accuracy within 0.95 cumulative error probability within the area of interest, outperforming traditional classification methods.

Atypical influence of biomechanical knowledge in Complex Regional Pain Syndrome-towards a different perspective on body representation

Part of the multifaceted pathophysiology of Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) is ascribed to lateralized maladaptive neuroplasticity in sensorimotor cortices, corroborated by behavioral studies indicating that patients present difficulties in mentally representing their painful limb. Such difficulties are widely measured with hand laterality judgment tasks (HLT), which are also used in the rehabilitation of CRPS to activate motor imagery and restore the cortical representation of the painful limb. The potential of these tasks to elicit motor imagery is critical to their use in therapy, yet, the influence of the body’s biomechanical constraints (BMC) on HLT reaction time, supposed to index motor imagery activation, is rarely verified. Here we investigated the influence of BMC on the perception of hand postures and movements in upper-limb CRPS. Patients were slower than controls in judging hand laterality, whether or not stimuli corresponded to their painful hand. Reaction time patterns reflecting BMC were mostly absent in CRPS and controls. A second experiment therefore directly investigated the influence of implicit knowledge of BMC on hand movement judgments. Participants judged the perceived path of movement between two depicted hand positions, with only one of two proposed paths that was biomechanically plausible. While the controls mostly chose the biomechanically plausible path, patients did not. These findings show non-lateralized body representation impairments in CRPS, possibly related to difficulties in using correct knowledge of the body’s biomechanics. Importantly, they demonstrate the challenge of reliably measuring motor imagery with the HLT, which has important implications for the rehabilitation with these tasks.

Validation of SuPerSense, a Sensorized Surface for the Evaluation of Posture Perception in Supine Position.

This study aimed to validate a sensorized version of a perceptive surface that may be used for the early assessment of misperception of body midline representation in subjects with right stroke, even when they are not yet able to stand in an upright posture. This device, called SuPerSense, allows testing of the load distribution of the body weight on the back in a supine position. The device was tested in 15 patients with stroke, 15 age-matched healthy subjects, and 15 young healthy adults, assessing three parameters analogous to those conventionally extracted by a baropodometric platform in a standing posture. Subjects were hence tested on SuPerSense in a supine position and on a baropodometric platform in an upright posture in two different conditions: with open eyes and with closed eyes. Significant correlations were found between the lengths of the center of pressure path with the two devices in the open-eyes condition (R = 0.44, p = 0.002). The parameters extracted by SuPerSense were significantly different among groups only when patients were divided into those with right versus left brain damage. This last result is conceivably related to the role of the right hemisphere of the brain in the analysis of spatial information.

On the Aesthetic Perception of Gymnastic Body Postures and Their Corresponding Figural Shapes

Object’s, observer’s, and the context’s characteristics contribute to the aesthetic perception of motor skills. Whether non-biological and biological objects are perceived similarly or differently when based upon the same motor stimuli remains open. Different gradations of body angles within gymnastic body postures and their corresponding figural shapes are investigated in relation to the aesthetic perception of observers with different sensory-motor experiences. Results indicate that observers’ aesthetic perception scores of body postures increase the larger the split angle, while observers’ aesthetic perception scores of figural shapes interact with observer group and stimuli gradation. The observer’s different sensory-motor experiences seem less related to the aesthetic perception of body postures than to the aesthetic perception figural shapes. Although the overall shape of body postures and figural shapes is the same, additional perceptual and contextual information within and beyond those stimuli seem to be related to an observer’s aesthetic perception.

The Effect of a Comprehensive Corrective Exercise Program on Kyphosis Angle and Balance in Kyphotic Adolescents.

This study aimed to investigate the effects of a comprehensive corrective exercise program on the kyphosis angle and balance in kyphotic adolescents. A total of 62 male adolescents (between the ages of 10 and 18, mean BMI 21.7 kg/m2) with a thoracic kyphosis (TK) angle of ≥ 50° were divided into three groups using the simple randomization method: CCEP (comprehensive corrective exercise program), TEP (thoracic exercise program) and control group. The CCEP program consisted of corrective exercises plus postural perception training (PPT). Exercise programs were applied for 40-50 min, 3 days a week for 12 weeks. The kyphosis angle was measured using a flexible ruler, and balance was assessed using the Romberg index obtained from pedobarography. After training, a highly significant reduction in the kyphosis angle was observed in the CCEP and TEP groups (p &lt; 0.001). Comparison among the groups showed a greater reduction in the kyphosis angle in the CCEP group (p &lt; 0.020). Postural perception improved in the CCEP group versus other groups (p &lt; 0.001). Improvement of the Romberg index (balance) was found only in the CCEP group upon within-group comparison (p &lt; 0.001), with no difference among the groups (p &gt; 0.05). The use of postural perception in combination with corrective exercise programs for thoracic kyphosis represents a comprehensive approach, and PPT can increase the effectiveness of the intervention.

Effects of Exercises on Postural Balance in Patients with Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis: A Systematic Review

<h3>Objective(s)</h3> To evaluate the effect of exercise interventions on balance and postural stability in patients with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS). <h3>Data Sources</h3> Embase, Scopus, Pubmed (Medline), and Web of Science. <h3>Study Selection</h3> Databases were searched using the terms Idiopathic Scoliosis, Physiotherapy, and balance. The articles were published in English in peer-reviewed journals from January 2012 to July 2022. <h3>Data Extraction</h3> Two authors independently applied the inclusion criteria to potential studies. Methodological quality was assessed using the PEDro scale. A best-evidence grading system was used to determine the strength of the evidence. <h3>Data Synthesis</h3> Ten studies met the inclusion criteria. PEDro scale values ranged from 2 to 6 (mean, 3.6), indicating a low level of scientific rigor. In this sample, spinal stabilization exercises were most often examined (n=3), followed by Schroth's exercise (n=2), stretching and self-elongation exercise (n=2), exercise protocol of Moe and Blount, physiotherapeutic scoliosis specific exercise, and proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation exercise (n=1). The most frequent outcomes investigated were the center of pressure variance (n=3), postural sway (n=2), overall stability index (n=2), body alignment changes (n=1), plantar pressure (n=1), and subjective postural perception (n=1). Emerging evidence was found that spinal stabilization exercises improved postural balance while stretching and self-elongation exercises did not affect the postural balance in patients with AIS. <h3>Conclusions</h3> Physical therapists will be able to apply physiotherapeutic scoliosis-specific exercise and spinal stabilization exercises to manage balance impairments of patients with AIS, while further studies providing more robust evidence are needed. <h3>Author(s) Disclosures</h3> No conflicts.

Soft Robots' Dynamic Posture Perception Using Kirigami-Inspired Flexible Sensors with Porous Structures and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) Neural Networks.

Soft robots can create complicated structures and functions for rehabilitation. The posture perception of soft actuators is critical for performing closed-loop control for a precise location. It is essential to have a sensor with both soft and flexible characteristics that does not affect the movement of a soft actuator. This paper presents a novel end-to-end posture perception method that employs flexible sensors with kirigami-inspired structures and long short-term memory (LSTM) neural networks. The sensors were developed with conductive sponge materials. With one-step calibration from the sensor output, the posture of the soft actuator could be calculated by the LSTM network. The method was validated by attaching the developed sensors to a soft fiber-reinforced bending actuator. The results showed the accuracy of posture prediction of sponge sensors with three kirigami-inspired structures ranged from 0.91 to 0.97 in terms of . The sponge sensors only generated a resistive torque value of 0.96 mNm at the maximum bending position when attached to a soft actuator, which would minimize the effect on actuator movement. The kirigami-inspired flexible sponge sensor could in future enhance soft robotic development.

Facial Expressions-Controlled Flight Game With Haptic Feedback for Stroke Rehabilitation: A Proof-of-Concept Study

Most stroke patients suffer from a combination of motor and sensory dysfunction and central facial paralysis. Specific rehabilitation training is required to restore those functions. Current research focuses on developing stimulating and straightforward rehabilitation training processes so that patients adhere to the training at home after hospital release. This study proposes enhancing patients enthusiasm to participate in facial muscle exercises and improving their postural perception and balance by controlling virtual objects to complete assigned tasks in virtual reality games using different facial expressions with the assistance of haptic feedback. The different rehabilitation exercises for motor, sensory, and facial dysfunctions were combined in one virtual reality game for the first time. The proposed haptic feedback device was modeled, simulated, and characterized. A user study was conducted to validate the proposed system. The experiment result shows that all the designed functions of the comprehensive stroke rehabilitation virtual reality game can be achieved. The added haptic feedback enhances the performance of the aircraft control with facial expressions by lowering the trajectory deviation by 22.57%. This implies that the proposed game may improve users' performance, thus attracting them to conduct more training.

Motor Control Alterations and the Perception of Postural Instability in non-Fallers Latinx-Hispanic Adults Living with HIV

People who have advanced HIV can display inadequate postural control because of the virus affecting the brain. Antiretroviral therapy (ART) mitigates some repercussions of the disease, maintaining a healthy immune system. The issue is that prolonged usage of ART may affect balance at a slower pace. Purpose: Assess postural control and balance perception in Latinx-Hispanic people living with HIV with a stable immune system. Methods: 42 (30 men and 12women) subjects took part in the investigation (57.2± 8.7 years old). Participants had to be diagnosed with HIV to enroll in the study with a CD4 count of &gt; 500 cells/µL. The eight balance tasks (15 s each) were accomplished on a thick balance foam mat and further partitioned into two parts, four single and four dual cognitive tasks (subjects counting backward three numbers at a time). Results: We measured balance using body-worn accelerometers (ACC) and the ABC scale. There was a considerable increase in sway movements within the different tasks, χ2 (8) = 194.314, p = 0.00. This increment in postural movements was observed when single and dual tasks were contrasted for EO (Z=-2.169, p=005) and EOHUD (Z=-2.344, p 0.05). Related to the ABC scale, subjects scored lower, notably in tasks involving more balance demands. Conclusion: HIV-diagnosed individuals with a stable immune system exhibit increased postural alteration and perceive balance difficulties with activities requiring higher motor control demands. Clinicians should assess the balance in people living with HIV in all stages of the disease as a prevention tool.

Multilingual pre-school education: teachers’ training and perceived needs. Results of an investigation in the municipality of Brescia and proposals for intervention

The multilingualism of the Italian school is a fact, both because of the migratory flows of the last 30 years and for historical reasons. Multilingual language education, also following the studies in the field, is therefore a necessity. The article aims to clarify the theoretical framework of transversal language education, the development of critical multilingual language awareness and it introduces the notions of school discomfort and perceived (formative) need. A case study will then be presented linked to a two-year training provided on the Brescia area, whose population will also be illustrated in terms of students with a migratory background. After presenting the research methods and the survey tools, we will analyze the degree of awareness of the multilingual question of teachers and of responsibility towards the phenomenon, trying to identify the possible causes at the origin of this perceptual position. To conclude, possible training courses will be hypothesized to increase awareness and transform school discomfort into a stimulating challenge for teacher professionalism, with the support of expert figures.

Review of persistent postural-perceptual dizziness and experience of diagnosis and treatment

The concept and diagnostic standard of persistent postural-perceptual dizziness（PPPD） improve the ability of clinical workers to recognize these diseases to some extent. However, the diagnosis of PPPD mainly depends on the identification of postural symptoms and the elimination of structural vestibular diseases, so the subjectivity is relatively strong. Moreover, the lack of objective criteria and a slight carelessness will lead to generalized diagnosis or omission diagnosis and misdiagnosis. At present, there is a lack of domestic large sample epidemiological investigation and other related studies, therefore it is a problem for diagnosing generalization of persistent posture perception dizziness and needed to be alert and corrected. Only those items meeting the criteria of the diagnostic standards can be carried out for diagnosis. The treatment needs to ensure sufficient dose and full therapy course. Generally, the medication should not be less than half a year.