Relative Movement Research Articles

When mechanical engineering inspired from physiology improves postural-related somatosensory processes

Despite numerous studies uncovering the neural signature of tactile processing, tactile afferent inputs relating to the contact surface has not been studied so far. Foot tactile receptors being the first stimulated by the relative movement of the foot skin and the underneath moving support play an important role in the sensorimotor transformation giving rise to a postural reaction. A biomimetic surface, i.e., complying with the skin dermatoglyphs and tactile receptors characteristics should facilitate the cortical processes. Participants (n = 15) stood either on a biomimetic surface or on two control surfaces, when a sudden acceleration of the supporting surface was triggered (experiment 1). A larger intensity and shorter somatosensory response (i.e., SEP) was evoked by the biomimetic surface motion. This result and the associated decrease of theta activity (5–7 Hz) over the posterior parietal cortex suggest that increasing the amount of sensory input processing could make the balance task less challenging when standing on a biomimetic surface. This key point was confirmed by a second experiment (n = 21) where a cognitive task was added, hence decreasing the attentional resources devoted to the balance motor task. Greater efficiency of the postural reaction was observed while standing on the biomimetic than on the control surfaces.

Effectiveness and tolerability of trimetazidine 80mg once daily in patients with chronic coronary syndrome: the V-GOOD observational study

Abstract Background Trimetazidine (TMZ) has shown anti-ischemic and anti-anginal effects by shifting the production of ATP from free fatty acid to glucose oxidation. Few clinical studies have looked at the effectiveness and tolerability of a new presentation of TMZ (80mg once daily) in real-world practice. Purpose The V-GOOD study was conducted in routine clinical practice to evaluate the effect of adding TMZ 80mg OD to treat patients with angina or angina equivalents despite treatment with background anti-anginal therapies. Methods This multicenter, prospective, observational study recruited symptomatic adult outpatients with a confirmed diagnosis of stable angina to whom physicians had decided to prescribe TMZ 80mg OD in 70 health facilities across Brazil from October 2021 to June 2022. Data on the number of angina attacks, the prevalence of angina-free patients, severity of angina (CCS class), impairment in daily activities, treatment adherence, tolerability, and physician and patient satisfaction were collected at baseline (V1) and at 1-month (V2) and 3-month (V3) follow-up visits. Patients with known hypersensitivity to TMZ, Parkinson's disease, related movement disorders, and severe or moderate renal impairment were excluded. Results 1,029 patients (57.9% women) with a mean age of 66.8±10.3 years were included, and 959 (93.2%) completed all three planned visits. Diabetes (53.7%), dyslipidemia (85.1%), and hypertension (85.1%) were the most frequent cardiovascular risk factors; 55.7% of patients had angina CCS class II and 25.1% class III. At V1, the mean number of angina attacks per week was 5.1±3.7 despite anti-anginal therapy, including beta-blockers (82%), CCBs (23%), and nitrates (22%). Following the addition of TMZ 80 OD, it decreased to 3.4±3.3 attacks per week at V2 and 3.5±6.4 at V3 (P<.001). The prevalence of angina-free patients increased from 15.4% (V1) to 73% at V3 (P<.001); accordingly, there was a significant decrease in the proportion of patients with limiting angina (CCS 3 or 4) from 27.3% (V1) to 8.7% (V3) (P<.001). The assessment of impairment in daily activities by a visual scale (ranging from 0 to 10) showed a significant improvement from V1 (5.1±2.2) to V3 (2.1±2.2) (P<.001). Patient adherence to the anti-anginal treatment was excellent, with only 4.4% of patients reporting forgetting to take the drug. The incidence of any adverse event was 2.1% on V3, with 1.1% attributed to the drug. In the end, satisfaction with treatment was classified as satisfactory/very satisfactory by 97.1% of patients and 91.0% of doctors. Conclusion The study confirms that the new formulation of TMZ 80mg OD when added to anti-anginal therapy in patients with symptomatic chronic coronary syndrome effectively reduced the angina frequency and severity, improved functional class, yielded a significant proportion of patients free of angina, decreased physical limitation, and it was well tolerated.

Participants-based Synchronous Optimization Network for skeleton-based action recognition

Nowadays, graph convolutional networks are widely used in skeleton-based action recognition. However, these methods ignore the difference between main participant and subordinate participant, as well as the consistency and causality reasoning in human–human interactive actions. In this paper, we construct a novel Participants-based Synchronous Optimization Network (PSONet). Firstly, we construct main participant branch, subordination participant branch and relative movements branch for the individual and interactive information of participants. Secondly, in the training process, Participants-based Synchronous Response (PSR) loss is constructed to optimize our network. Online mutual response mechanism in PSR regulates the consistency and captures the causality between the main participant action and the overall interactive action. Joint cross-entropy loss in PSR is used to constrain the action instances with individual and interactive action information. Finally, Representative Temporal Enhanced (RTE) block is proposed to complement representative temporal aggregation features and enhance the spatial modeling of representative temporal frames. Experiments have been conducted on the NTU RGB+D 60 dataset and the NTU RGB+D 120 dataset, which have verified that PSONet outperforms state-of-the-art methods.

Design of Micro Hydrokinetic Energy Harvester of Marine Animal Movement for Underwater Monitoring

The underwater mobile monitoring platform that utilizes marine animals as carriers provides a new solution to address the issues of short endurance, high costs, and bulky size associated with traditional underwater mobile monitoring platforms. Based on most marine animals that have the behavioral habit of long‐duration swimming, a micro hydrokinetic energy harvesting system is proposed. This system applies a miniature vertical‐axis water turbine as its energy conversion component. The hydrokinetic energy is derived from the relative movement between marine animals and the surrounding seawater. A conceptual design of a novel underwater mobile monitoring platform is presented. A finite element model of the external‐rotor permanent magnet synchronous generator is established to comprehensively evaluate the performance of the generator. Numerical simulation is utilized to conduct a comparative analysis of different diversion channel designs. Preliminary water tank experiments show that the designed micro energy harvester can effectively capture the hydrokinetic energy generated by water flow movement. The startup flow rate of the harvester is around 0.16 m s−1. The output power increases with the increase in water flow velocity, reaching a maximum value of ≈57 mW within the range of water flow rate of about 0.2–0.5 m s−1.

The Importance of Data Quality Control in Using Fitbit Device Data From the Research Program.

Abstract Wearable digital health technologies (DHTs) have become increasingly popular in recent years, enabling more capabilities to assess behaviors and physiology in free-living conditions. The All of Us Research Program (AoURP), a National Institutes of Health initiative that collects health-related information from participants in the United States, has expanded its data collection to include DHT data from Fitbit devices. This offers researchers an unprecedented opportunity to examine a large cohort of DHT data alongside biospecimens and electronic health records. However, there are existing challenges and sources of error that need to be considered before using Fitbit device data from the AoURP. In this viewpoint, we examine the reliability of and potential error sources associated with the Fitbit device data available through the AoURP Researcher Workbench and outline actionable strategies to mitigate data missingness and noise. We begin by discussing sources of noise, including (1) inherent measurement inaccuracies, (2) skin tone–related challenges, and (3) movement and motion artifacts, and proceed to discuss potential sources of data missingness in Fitbit device data. We then outline methods to mitigate such missingness and noise in the data. We end by considering how future enhancements to the AoURP’s Fitbit device data collection methods and the inclusion of new Fitbit data types would impact the usability of the data. Although the reliability considerations and suggested literature are tailored toward Fitbit device data in the AoURP, the considerations and recommendations are broadly applicable to data from wearable DHTs in free-living conditions.

Models for determining the orientation of the solar battery of an observation spacecraft relative to the Sun during object survey and retargeting

Simplified models and algorithms have been developed to estimate the current value of the angle between the normal to the plane of the solar panel and the sun vector at the time of object survey and during the reorientation of the Earth remote sensing spacecraft, taking into account the relative movement of observation objects in the field of view of the spacecraft. The models differ from the existing ones in that they do not require knowledge of the spacecraft control programs at pitch, roll and yaw angles at each moment of time of the process of its targeted functioning and re-targeting, Based on the obtained models, a software module that does not require large computing resources used in the simulation software package simulating targeted functioning of the space surveillance system has been developed, taking into account the long-term orbital motion of satellites, changes in the parameters of the orbit, the sun vector and other factors. The adequacy of the developed models was verified by visualizing the orbital motion of the spacecraft and its turns during re-targeting, as well as by comparing the simulation results with the results of analytical calculation for particular cases of the initial data. Examples of the implementation of software windows are given.

Inducers of motion sickness in vehicles: A systematic review of experimental evidence and meta-analysis

With the development of intelligent cabins and the popularity of smart devices, motion sickness has become an increasing concern. A number of theories have been proposed to explain the cause of motion sickness in vehicles. However, because of the diversity of the dynamical characteristics, road conditions, and in-vehicle human–machine interaction designs, the influence of the inducers on motion sickness in vehicles has not yet been fully quantified. Thus, in this paper, we aim to review and summarize the influential factors of motion sickness in road vehicles through a systematic review. In total, we identified 57 studies related to influential factors of motion sickness in vehicles, of which, 27 were further included for meta-analysis. In total, we identified eight categories of motion sickness inducers in vehicles, including the type of eye view, non-driving-related task availability, existence of artificial motion cues, head dynamic movement, vehicle dynamics, internal layout of vehicle, individual differences, and others. Most inducers had consistent effects on inducing motion sickness; however, inconsistent results have also been observed in vehicle dynamics, head dynamic movement, eye view, individual difference, and artificial motion cues (i.e., cues regarding the motion states of the ego-vehicle provided through in-vehicle auditory, tactile, or visual interfaces). Additional meta-analysis was conducted for motion cues. It was found that only natural present motion cues (i.e., cues regarding relative movement between the ego-vehicle and the environment through the windshield or side windows) and non-visual artificial anticipatory motion cues (i.e., auditory or tactile artificial motion cues regarding the future motion of ego-vehicle) were effective in alleviating motion sickness. Future research directions have been pointed out. Our study can provide insights into the optimization of vehicle design to mitigate motion sickness among occupants.

Impact of COVID-19 related movement restrictions on the follow-up care visits of adults with chronic conditions: A Saudi arabian survey study

AimsLockdown measures implemented during the initial phase of the pandemic resulted in the delay and disruption of healthcare utilization for individuals with chronic conditions. We aimed to evaluate the impact of COVID-19 movement restrictions on the follow-up care visits of individuals with chronic illnesses. We also assessed the possible reasons patients missed their follow-ups and the potential barriers impeding follow-up during the pandemic. MethodsA total of 397 adults with pre-existing medical conditions participated in an online cross-sectional survey from October to December 2022. The study sample comprised 57 % females and 43 % males, with a mean age of 43 years. A 36-item online self-report survey was used for data collection.Results: Fifty-five percent of participants reported missing their follow-up during COVID-19 pandemic, and 14 % made emergency department visits due to their missed follow-up appointments. In addition, 24 % experienced complications due to their missed appointments. The mean score on the fear of COVID-19 scale was 17.8 ± 6.5 (SD). For the majority of participants (60 %), pandemic-related restrictions were the predominant barrier to their follow-up visits. Additionally, we found that as individuals’ COVID-19 fear scores increased, the likelihood of missing a follow-up care visit also increased (AOR: 1.067; p-value = 0.001). However, participants who did not perceive COVID-19 pandemic–related restrictions as a barrier were less likely to miss their follow-up visits (AOR: 0.581; p-value = 0.031). Furthermore, those who understood the significance of follow-up care were less likely to miss any of their follow-up visits (AOR: 0.224; p-value < 0.001) than those who had limited understanding of its importance. ConclusionThe results showed that pandemic-related movement restrictions negatively affected attendance at follow-up visits for people with pre-existing health conditions. Initiatives should therefore be undertaken during global public health emergencies to provide medical and psychological support to vulnerable and high-risk groups.

Movement fracturing “the international” —or, what does it mean to give primacy to movement?

Movement fracturing “the international” —or, what does it mean to give primacy to movement?

A replaceable sandwiched metallic fuse damper for seismic protection of braced frames

In this study, a replaceable Sandwiched Fuse Damper referred to as SFD is introduced to enhance the seismic performance of braced frames. The SFD consists of one or several fuses made by Hollow Structural Section (HSS), sandwiched between two steel plates. The fuses are welded to the steel plates in a parallel pattern. An axial force in a brace equipped with the SFD imposes a relative movement on the steel plates welded to the fuses. The fuses yield as a result of such relative movements and dissipate the input energy. In contrast to other metallic dampers, the fabrication and installation of the SFD are much simpler, resulting in lower construction and maintenance costs. The seismic performance of the SFD was investigated through a series of displacement-controlled cyclic tests, in which the SFD was installed within a brace and its cyclic response was compared with that of the bare brace. The experimental results showed that the SFD-brace system possessed stable hysteresis loops, a large deformation capacity, and an excellent energy dissipation capacity. An analytical model was developed to estimate the SFD’s yield strength and its corresponding displacement. Experimental results were employed to examine the efficiency of the proposed model. It was shown that the yield strength of tested specimens was estimated with good accuracy.

Non-consummatory behavior signals predict aversion-resistant alcohol drinking in head-fixed mice

A key facet of alcohol use disorder is continuing to drink alcohol despite negative consequences (so called “aversion-resistant drinking”). In this study, we sought to assess the degree to which head-fixed mice exhibit aversion-resistant drinking and to leverage behavioral analysis techniques available in head-fixture to relate non-consummatory behaviors to aversion-resistant drinking. We assessed aversion-resistant drinking in head-fixed female and male C57BL/6 J mice. We adulterated 20% (v/v) alcohol with varying concentrations of the bitter tastant quinine to measure the degree to which mice would continue to drink despite this aversive stimulus. We recorded high-resolution video of the mice during head-fixed drinking, tracked body parts with machine vision tools, and analyzed body movements in relation to consumption. Female and male head-fixed mice exhibited heterogenous levels of aversion-resistant drinking. Additionally, non-consummatory behaviors, such as paw movement and snout movement, were related to the intensity of aversion-resistant drinking. These studies demonstrate that head-fixed mice exhibit aversion-resistant drinking and that non-consummatory behaviors can be used to assess perceived aversiveness in this paradigm. Furthermore, these studies lay the groundwork for future experiments that will utilize advanced electrophysiological techniques to record from large populations of neurons during aversion-resistant drinking to understand the neurocomputational processes that drive this clinically relevant behavior.This article is part of the Special Issue on “PFC circuit function in psychiatric disease and relevant models”.

Analysis of lignocellulose and microcrystalline cellulose densification in the powder bed during gas pressurization

High-pressure gasification of fiber powders is an effective way to produce syngas. Since fiber powders are elastic materials, conveying and discharging under pressurized environment is challenging. In this paper, the compression process of lignocellulose and microcrystalline cellulose under gas pressurization was experimentally studied and the difference of compression behavior was systematically compared. The results showed that particle shape and surface roughness were important factors leading to the high compressibility of the lignocellulose powder bed. The irregular shape and the ductility of filamentous fibers caused the large void fraction of lignocellulose. The compression effect of gas penetration on lignocellulose was higher than that of microcrystalline cellulose. Furthermore, the small surface roughness weakened the difficulty of the relative movement between lignocellulose particles, making the packing state easy to change. The rebound behavior of the lignocellulose bed illustrated the existence of elastic deformation and extended the understanding of compression mechanisms with gas pressurization. The release coefficient of the bed was positively correlated with the degree of densification during the pressurization process.

Laser Profilometry Application in Welding Geometrical Characterization

Welding processes are commonly used in the industry for the manufacture of large parts or due to their complex geometry that does not allow the part to be manufactured as a whole. Nevertheless, the union can show worst mechanical properties than the rest of the piece, affecting negatively its service behavior, so it is necessary evaluate weald seam to ensure the correct process application. Electrical welding operations are commonly used due to the reduced equipment size or their possibilities application in numerous metallic materials. Notwithstanding, different variables have to be taken into account during the metal deposition, as intensity or speed deposition, among others. Weald seam geometrical evaluation is usually utilized to validate the union surface conditions. Despite this, surface irregularities caused during the process make its difficult to measure correctly with conventional equipment. However, laser profilometry is a non-contact technique that can be used to generate 3D profile of weald seam, facilitating its measurement with high accuracy. Therefore, in this work an initial analysis of the influence of material deposition speed and arc welding intensity on the weald seam geometry will be carried out using a laser profilometry equipment. In addition, to ensure a correct information acquisition, the laser profilometer requires a constant speed movement in relation with the weald seam analyzed, so new equipment has been manufactured, using additive manufacturing techniques, to support the profilometer throughout the information acquisition process.

Statistical arbitrage portfolio construction based on preference relations

Statistical arbitrage methods identify mispricings in securities with the goal of building portfolios which are weakly correlated with the market. In pairs trading, an arbitrage opportunity is identified by observing relative price movements between a pair of two securities. By simultaneously observing multiple pairs, one can exploit different arbitrage opportunities and increase the performance of such methods. However, the use of a large number of pairs is difficult due to the increased probability of contradictory trade signals among different pairs. In this paper, we propose a novel portfolio construction method based on preference relation graphs, which can reconcile contradictory pairs trading signals across multiple security pairs. The proposed approach enables joint exploitation of arbitrage opportunities among a large number of securities. Experimental results using three decades of historical returns of roughly 500 stocks from the S&P 500 index show that the portfolios based on preference relations exhibit robust returns even with high transaction costs, and that their performance improves with the number of securities considered.

The Portrayal of Marine Life in Chudori’s the Sea Speaks His Name

Many countries in the world have experienced a massive movement. In Indonesia, one of them was the 1998 Indonesian student movement which was able to push Soeharto (Indonesian president at that time) to resign from his president position which had lasted for 32 years. This movement is narrated in a novel entitled The Sea Speaks His Name which is a translation work of an Indonesian novel entitled Laut Berbicara and is written by Leila S. Chudori. Laut Biru as the main character of this work took part in the 1998 Indonesian student movement and was drawn into an ocean as a result of his action. Interestingly, the portrayal of marine life and its surrounding is repeated several times in this work. Deploying difference and repetition theory of Delueze and reader-response approach, the researcher applied a closed reading method and wrote the analysis results descriptively. This study found that the portrayal of marine life and its surrounding tended to show the acceptance of Laut’s struggle to create a freedom in Indonesia. In this case, Chudori’s novel provided a different point of view that as a maritime country, the beauty of marine life and its surrounding had some important roles to convey the 1998 student movement in relation to love, struggle and setting.

Effect of pad rotation angle and coefficient of friction on fretting fatigue crack nucleation behavior

Fretting fatigue may occur on surfaces that are in contact, subjected to a normal load, and where there is a cyclic small relative movement between them. It could occur in press-fitted shafts, bolted and dovetail joints, and many other engineering components. It is recognized that the coefficient of friction of the contacting bodies is a primary variable in the fretting process. Also, a recent study indicates that its behavior might be greatly affected by the possible rotation of the pad. Consequently, the aim of this investigation is to evaluate the impact of diverse angles of rotation of the pad and different coefficients of friction on crack initiation angle, location, and life. For this purpose, a numerical model based on a finite element model of a cylinder-plane test configuration is constructed. The Fatemi-Socie damage parameter for multiaxial fatigue is used to evaluate initiation behavior. Firstly, different angles of rotation are applied to the pad, in order to model a lack of stiffness of the test rig, while the coefficient of friction is kept constant and equal to 0.75. Secondly, several coefficients of friction between the pad and the specimen are utilized, while considering a cyclic rotation of the pad between 0.19° and – 0.19°. For the case studied, the results indicate that an increase of the coefficient of friction (μ) may cause a substantial reduction of crack initiation life. However, a variation of μ in the range 0.75 ≤ μ ≤ 0.85 does not produce a significant change in life estimation. This suggests that it cannot be stated that an increase in the coefficient of friction always leads to a reduction in nucleation life. Regarding the angle of initiation of the crack, the results show that an increase of μ causes an approximately linear reduction of the angle. In the case of an increase of the pad angle of rotation, this causes a longer nucleation life and a smaller crack nucleation angle. Even the rotation angle of 0.23° produces an increase of initiation life from 16.6 to 154 thousand cycles. It is concluded that there is a major impact on initiation behavior of the coefficient of friction and the rotation of the pad, which may be due to the lack of rigidity of the test setup. Therefore, controlling the stiffness of the test rig and measuring accurately the coefficient of friction are important factors to consider in fretting fatigue research.

An automatic detection method for schizophrenia based on abnormal eye movements in reading tasks

Schizophrenia is a common mental disease worldwide. To assist doctors in diagnosing schizophrenia through objective biological indicators, an automatic detection method for schizophrenia is proposed in this work. The proposed automatic detection method, which is based on the abnormal eye movements of schizophrenic patients in reading tasks, includes three parts: valid reading state trajectory extraction, eye movement trajectory extraction, and model construction based on abnormal eye movements in schizophrenic patients. The valid reading state trajectory extraction algorithm is proposed to divide the reading process into a valid reading state and an invalid reading state based on the visual perception of the subjects in the reading process. For the eye movement trajectory extraction, an eye center positioning algorithm based on the double ring of the limbic boundary is proposed for the valid reading state. Based on the extracted eye movement trajectory, models from three aspects of abnormalities of schizophrenic patients during reading are built: the merged eye-head movement, relative eye movement, and comprehensive reading performance. The features extracted from the three models are combined with a pattern recognition classifier to realize the automatic diagnosis of schizophrenia (the support vector machine, random forest, and adaptive boosting are used in this work). The video dataset used in this experiment was recorded using 40 subjects (20 schizophrenic patients and 20 healthy controls) from the Psychiatry Department of the Mental Health Center. The experimental results show that the detection accuracy of the automatic detection method for schizophrenia can reach 96.25%, which indicates that the proposed method can be used as a computer-aided diagnosis method for schizophrenia.

Between Skin and Stone

Abstract This piece, written in the form of a letter to my son, explains the meaning of his name. In Spanish the word lienzo is a type of drystone wall. Spanning rural areas of Mexico, the lienzo has—for centuries—been a way to gently delineate space. I frame the composition of this hand-stacked structure, which is designed to accommodate movement in relation to the biopolitical technology of the U.S.-Mexico border fence, migrant dispossession, and my own family’s experiences navigating borders and cleaved spaces.

Depicting reflections of power on illocutionary acts of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe’s speeches on Covid-19

Speeches are often construed to exert one’s power while projecting a political intent towards the audience. This research examines how power is reflected in speeches by Shinzō Abe, a former Prime Minister of Japan, through the categorisation of speech acts. The speeches were delivered in many of his press conferences during the Covid-19 pandemic. The research employed a quantitative approach, and the analysis largely drew on Searle's classification of speech acts to identify and categorise Mr Abe’s expressions of power. Data for this study focused on various formal press briefings, interviews, or other communicative exchanges he conducted in his role as a prime minister. Eight texts were selected for the analysis, and they were collected from the website of the Japanese Prime Minister's Secretariat office from February to May 2020. Findings from the analysis indicated that the prime minister mostly utilised performative verb utterance directions, such as informing (66%), asking (78%), promising (90%), thanking (54%), and deciding (76%), in a form of polite and respectful language, Keigo, to demonstrate reverence towards diplomatic entities. In addition, he frequently highlighted statistical data regarding the circumstances and the prevailing factors of the pandemic that led to a regime of truth and knowledge about Covid-19 in Japan. The findings provided better understanding of Shinzō Abe’s exercise of authority in managing the variability of Covid-19 incidences in Japan, as reflected in the movement of relations with the society and with those diplomatic entities. This suggests that Shinzo Abe’s speeches during the pandemic have a potential pathway that world leaders, linguists or students can traverse and inquire into to ensure community resilience to counteract the fragility caused by a pandemic.

МОДЕЛИРОВАНИЕ ДВИЖЕНИЯ БЕСПИЛОТНЫХ ЛЕТАТЕЛЬНЫХ АППАРАТОВ

The relevance is due to insufficient knowledge and development of movement patterns for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which include all possible drones and, in particular, various copters in mobile and turbulent atmosphere. Unmanned aerial vehicles are used both in civilian industries and in military affairs [1 – 4]. When operating UAVs in real conditions, their movement is affected by disturbances from air masses [5, 6], which are generally random in nature. At the same time, the operator is faced with inadequate UAV behaviour caused by disturbances, which makes it difficult to control. The aim of the article is to simulate the complex movement of UAVs, mainly quadrocopters, in space to understand the dynamics of UAV flight under the influence of several forces. The models are based on kinematics and dynamics of a material point, in the form of which the UAV is represented, involved in complex relative and translational movements. Kinematic models of drone movement patterns based on coordinate transformation are de-scribed. Planar and spatial trajectories of UAV movement are presented.