Pressure Sensitive Floor Research Articles

DESIGN OF INSTRUMENTED INSOLE FOR GAIT DYNAMICS MONITORING

This article focuses on the design and implementation of a device aimed at monitoring gait dynamics. In clinical settings, gait dynamics are conventionally observed within specialized motion laboratories that rely on camera systems or pressure-sensitive floor mats. Unfortunately, these methods provide clinicians with only a temporally restricted perspective on a patient's health within the hospital environment. The objective of this study is to propose and develop a functional prototype of a measurement device that utilizes force-sensing resistors integrated into a sensorics insole placed within a shoe. By fusion of the 3D printing technology and force-sensing sensors, we developed a wearable prototype consisting of an instrumented insole and wireless data acquisition unit. This approach enables the capture of both static and dynamic parameters of gait, not only in clinical environments but also in non-hospital settings.

Prototype of Project AI4Math: Interdisciplinary and Innovative Technology for Accelerated Learning of Mathematics

As the demand for sustainable education increases, teaching and learning strategies also change and evolve. They are becoming more innovative, creative and technology-based. It is mathematics that is one of the most important subjects with horizontal influence on other sectors, which poses the greatest challenges to educators with the question "How to teach students in such a way that they become interested in mathematics?" As an answer to the question, a new product was created. Using a carefully developed methodology and taking into account the needs of students, the post-doctoral research project "Artificial Intelligence (AI) Support for Approach of Accelerated Learning of Mathematics (AI4Math)”, through the cooperation of an interdisciplinary team in the fields of information technology, mathematics, mechatronics, sports and artificial intelligence, a prototype was developed for an innovative technology that arouses emotions in students of different ages, creates a competitive spirit and promotes accelerated learning of mathematics. The AI4Math prototype combines 3 components: 1) a pressure-sensitive floor platform for jumping out the solutions of mathematical expressions, 2) application for calculation of math expressions, evaluation of answers, accumulation and processing of Big Data, 3) an AI solution for emotion control. The study makes a valuable contribution to researchers, entrepreneurs and the education industry, as it reveals the conditions necessary for modern and sustainable accelerated learning of mathematics. Given that the AI4Math prototype provides an innovative approach to learning mathematics through physical activity, the survey data indicated support and future development prospects for the interdisciplinary technology.

Keeping in step with the young: Chronometric and kinematic data show intact procedural locomotor sequence learning in older adults.

Sequence learning in serial reaction time tasks (SRTT) is an established, lab-based experimental paradigm to study acquisition and transfer of skill based on the detection of predictable stimulus and motor response sequences. Sequence learning has been mainly studied in key presses using visual target stimuli and is demonstrated by better performance in predictable sequences than in random sequences. In this study, we investigated sequence learning in the context of more complex locomotor responses. To this end, we developed a novel goal-directed stepping SRTT with auditory target stimuli in order to subsequently assess the effect of aging on sequence learning in this task, expecting that age-related performance reductions in postural control might disturb the acquisition of the sequence. We used pressure-sensitive floor mats to characterise performance across ten blocks of trials. In Experiment 1, 22 young adults demonstrated successful acquisition of the sequence in terms of the time to step on the target mat and percent error and thus validated our new paradigm. In Experiment 2, in order to contrast performance improvements in the stepping SRTT between 27 young and 22 old adults, motion capture of the feet was combined with the floor mat system to delineate individual movement phases during stepping onto a target mat. The latencies of several postural events as well as other movement parameters of a step were assessed. We observed significant learning effects in the latency of step initiation, the time to step on the target mat, and motion parameters such as stepping amplitude and peak stepping velocity, as well as in percent error. The data showed general age-related slowing but no significant performance differences in procedural locomotor sequence learning between young and old adults. The older adults also had comparable conscious representations of the sequence of stimuli as the young adults. We conclude that sequence learning occurred in this locomotor learning task that is much more complex than typical finger-tapping sequence learning tasks, and that healthy older adults showed similar learning effects compared to young adults, suggesting intact locomotor sequence learning capabilities despite general slowing and normal age-related decline in sensorimotor function.

GENERATION OF RENEWABLE ENERGY THROUGH ROADS, BRIDGES AND CYCLE PATHS

Abstract: The economic growing and technological development brought advantages to society. However, the adoption of the sustainable development is necessary so the future generations will not be compromised. In this way, the present work has as its objective presenting a bibliographical review about roads, bridges and bike lanes that generate renewable energy. The photovoltaic panels are very important to generate energy on the roads and, as an example, the acoustic barriers on the roads can be exchanged or implemented with photovoltaic panels to maintain the function of sound barrier and of generator of electric power at the same time. Another way of generating renewable energy are bike lanes, in the Netherlands, as an example, it is utilized a special concrete, superimposed by a layer of highly resistant glass with photovoltaic cells, so the installed floor can convert sunlight into energy. The piezoelectric energy can also generate energy in bike lanes using a pressure-sensitive floor with friction from bicycle tires. When it comes to bridges, a project developed in Italy intends to place solar panels and wind generation turbines in a bridge as a way of generating energy, generating around 40 million kW/h in one year. The proposal of this bridge is to fulfill empty spaces among the existing pillars on the bridge to integrate the system of wind turbines in the structure. It can be concluded that, throughout time, the renewable energies have been standing out and civil construction has shown an important role in this sector, presenting technological solutions and taking advantage of spaces in relation to the implantation of roads, bridges and bike lanes.Key words: Sustainability. Renewable Energy. Photovoltaic Plates. Piezoeletric Energy. Wind Energy.

Toilet Grab-Bar Preference and Center of Pressure Deviation During Toilet Transfers in Healthy Seniors, Seniors With Hip Replacements, and Seniors Having Suffered a Stroke

Multiple toilet grab-bar configurations are required by people with a diverse spectrum of disability. The study purpose was to determine toilet grab-bar preference of healthy seniors, seniors with a hip replacement, and seniors post-stroke, and to determine the effect of each configuration on centre of pressure (COP) displacement during toilet transfers. METHODS: 14 healthy seniors, 7 ambulatory seniors with a hip replacement, and 8 ambulatory seniors post-stroke participated in the study. Toilet transfers were performed with no bars (NB), commode (C), two vertical bars (2VB), one vertical bar (1VB), a horizontal bar (H), two swing-away bars (S) and a diagonal bar (D). COP was measured using pressure sensitive floor mats. Participants rated the safety, ease of use, helpfulness, comfort and preference for instalment. RESULTS: 2VB was most preferred and had the smallest COP deviation. Least preferred was H and NB. C caused largest COP displacement but had favourable ratings. DISCUSSION: The preference and safety of the 2VB should be considered in the design of accessible toilets and in accessibility construction guidelines. However these results need to be verified in non-ambulatory populations. C is frequently prescribed, but generates large COP deviation, suggesting it may present an increased risk of falls.

A FOOTPRINT TRACKING METHOD FOR GAIT ANALYSIS

Gait analysis is popular in many clinical and biomechanical applications, such as diagnosis of diabetic neuropathy, rehabilitation evaluation of stroke patients and performance measurement of sports training. With the rapid and in-depth development of flexible sensing technology, a large-area pressure-sensitive floor can be easily installed in many locations. Complex movement besides linear walking can be designed on large-area floors for gait analysis in clinical or sports research. To conduct those researches, as a basic step, a computational approach is necessary to track each footprint correctly during the movement process. A multi-stage methodology is proposed to solve two main subtasks in the tracking process: (1) the labeling of different footprints and (2) the detection of basic foot gestures in the movement process. The methodology consists of an initial clusters creating stage, a cluster labeling stage and an overlapped footprints separating process. Tai Chi Chuan, one of complex foot movements, was used as an example to evaluate the proposed approach. An overall accuracy of 99.07% for footprint labeling and 90.39% for basic foot gesture detecting were achieved by the method.

Using water to cool cattle: Behavioral and physiological changes associated with voluntary use of cow showers

Water is commonly used to cool cattle in summer either at milking or over the feed bunk, but little research has examined how dairy cows voluntarily use water separate from these locations. The objectives were to describe how and when dairy cattle voluntarily used an overhead water source separate from other resources, such as feed, and how use of this water affected behavioral and physiological indicators of heat stress. Half of the 24 nonlactating cattle tested had access to a “cow shower” composed of 2 shower heads activated by a pressure-sensitive floor. All animals were individually housed to prevent competition for access to the shower. Over 5 d in summer (air temperature=25.3±3.3°C, mean ± standard deviation), cattle spent 3.0±2.1 h/24h in the shower, but considerable variability existed between animals (individual daily values ranged from 0.0 to 8.2 h/24h). A portion of this variation can be explained by weather; shower use increased by 0.3h for every 1°C increase in ambient temperature. Cows preferentially used the shower during the daytime, with 89±12% of the time spent in the shower between 1000 and 1900h. Respiration rate and skin temperature did not differ between treatments [53 vs. 61 breaths/min and 35.0 vs. 35.4°C in shower and control cows, respectively; standard error of the difference (SED)=5.6 breaths/min and 0.49°C]. In contrast, body temperature of cows provided with a shower was 0.2°C lower than control cows in the evening (i.e., 1800 to 2100h; SED=0.11°C). Cows with access to a shower spent half as much time near the water trough than control animals, and this pattern became more pronounced as the temperature-humidity index increased. In addition, cattle showed other behavioral changes to increasing heat load; they spent less time lying when heat load index increased, but the time spent lying, feeding, and standing without feeding did not differ between treatments. Cows had higher respiration rate, skin temperature, and body temperature as heat load index increased, regardless of treatment. These data suggest that cattle, when given the opportunity, will make considerable use of a shower to reduce heat load, but that individuals are highly variable in their use of this resource. The variability between cows indicates that the behavioral response to water is likely an important, but poorly understood, consideration in the design of sprinkler systems used for summer cooling.

Methods for person identification on a pressure-sensitive floor: Experiments with multiple classifiers and reject option

This paper presents methods for footstep-based person identification using a large pressure-sensitive floor with a sensory system. The aim was to analyse and compare different pattern classification methods for their ability to solve this particular problem as well as to introduce some novel and useful methodological extensions, which can improve classification accuracy and the adaptability of the system. These extensions are based on the conditional posterior probability outputs of classifiers, i.e., efforts to combine classifiers trained with different feature sets and to combine multiple footstep instances of a single person walking on the floor. Additionally, a method to reject unreliable examples in order to increase accuracy was applied to the system. The experiments demonstrated the usefulness of these methods. An identification method that uses a combination of multiple classifiers and multiple examples yielded very promising results with an overall accuracy rate of 92% for ten different walkers. When the reject option was added, a classification rate of 95% with a 9% rejection rate was achieved. This methodology can be applied to smart room applications where a small number of persons need to be identified.