Various Degrees Of Disturbance Research Articles

Evaluation of Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation (PNF) and Therapy Hand Ball to Improve Motor Dexterity in Post-Stroke Patients

Stroke is the leading cause of disability and can cause various degrees of disturbance, such as decreased muscle tone,loss of sensation in various body parts, and limitations in moving the affected limbs to perform certain activities. This studyaimed to see the effectiveness of the Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation (PNF) (Contract-Relax) technique and Therapyhandball exercises in improving the motor skill of the affected hand in non-haemorrhagic post-stroke patients. The sample forthis study was 30 patients and were divided into two groups (Group A & Group B), 15 patients each. Both groups were givenconventional physiotherapy before starting with the interventions respectively. Box and Block tests and Bardel index wereperformed pre-treatment and post-treatment to see the changes and for the outcome measurement. PNF(Contract-Relax)technique was given in sets of three, five days a week, and Therapy Hand Ball exercises in three, five days a week for threeweeks. Both interventions were given to every individual in both Groups. This study found that both groups have improvedmotor dexterity of the hand (affected side), with better improvement observed for the group that did the Therapy Hand Ballexercises compared to the PNF(Contract-Relax) technique. From the data analysis of the prolonged treatment Therapy, HandBall exercises showed better results when compared to the Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation PNF (Contract-Relaxed)Technique, as Therapy Hand Ball exercises can be easily performed at home by the patient himself , whereas the PNF CRtechnique needs a Physiotherapist to perform the treatment.

DNA‐based assessment of environmental degradation in an unknown fauna: The freshwater macroinvertebrates of the Indo‐Burmese hotspot

Abstract New methods are required for biomonitoring of poorly known tropical ecosystems, but biological assessments of environmental status are limited by insufficient information on taxonomy, composition and ecology of local communities. The current work applies DNA‐based assessment to establish the impact of various types of anthropogenic disturbances on the freshwater macroinvertebrates in an understudied biodiversity hotspot in South Asia, an area that attracts increasing attention for the loss of aquatic ecosystems. We sampled 16 river systems in the Chittagong Hill Tracts region of Bangladesh and characterised habitat intactness based on a set of 14 environmental parameters associated with habitat quality and human activities. Whole‐community metabarcoding was used to investigate the distribution of hypothetical species‐level clusters (Operational Taxonomic Units, OTUs) across sites of different impacts. We found >900 DNA clusters of insects, decapods and molluscs, dominated by Diptera, which revealed significant variation (p < 0.001) in richness across sites. The presumed sensitive Ephemeroptera‐Plecoptera–Trichoptera (EPT) represented 15.6% of total OTU richness. The type and strength of anthropogenic stressors varied greatly across streams but did not affect total OTU diversity. In contrast, EPT richness decreased by ~50% in response to habitat degradation. Partial‐network analysis revealed 26 OTUs that may serve as potential indicators for either good or poor ecological status. Overall, our results document high diversity, local endemicity and pronounced responses to disturbance in these largely unexplored but threatened habitats. Synthesis and applications. The proposed methodology combines local habitat surveys across sites of various degrees of disturbance with species‐level metabarcoding, as a model for biological evaluation of water bodies in poorly known and inaccessible places across the world. Implemented here for the Indo‐Burmese hotspot, the approach will have great value for applied conservation management as a step towards building a biomonitoring system in this region where currently little is known about the taxonomy, diversity and endemicity in both intact and disturbed ecosystems.

Remote Sensing Methods for the Biophysical Characterization of Protected Areas Globally: Challenges and Opportunities

Protected areas (PAs) are a key strategy to reverse global biodiversity declines, but they are under increasing pressure from anthropogenic activities and concomitant effects. Thus, the heterogeneous landscapes within PAs, containing a number of different habitats and ecosystem types, are in various degrees of disturbance. Characterizing habitats and ecosystems within the global protected area network requires large-scale monitoring over long time scales. This study reviews methods for the biophysical characterization of terrestrial PAs at a global scale by means of remote sensing (RS) and provides further recommendations. To this end, we first discuss the importance of taking into account the structural and functional attributes, as well as integrating a broad spectrum of variables, to account for the different ecosystem and habitat types within PAs, considering examples at local and regional scales. We then discuss potential variables, challenges and limitations of existing global environmental stratifications, as well as the biophysical characterization of PAs, and finally offer some recommendations. Computational and interoperability issues are also discussed, as well as the potential of cloud-based platforms linked to earth observations to support large-scale characterization of PAs. Using RS to characterize PAs globally is a crucial approach to help ensure sustainable development, but it requires further work before such studies are able to inform large-scale conservation actions. This study proposes 14 recommendations in order to improve existing initiatives to biophysically characterize PAs at a global scale.

HAND EXERCISE USING A RUBBER BALL INCREASES GRIP STRENGTH IN PATIENTS WITH NON-HAEMORRHAGIC STROKE

Stroke can cause various degrees of disturbance, such as decreased muscle tone, loss of sensibility in some parts of the body, limits the ability to move the affected limbs and incapacity in certain activities. This study aimed to identify the effect of hand exercises using a rubber ball on muscle strength in patients with non-haemorrhagic stroke. we measure handgrip strengths of the respondents as it reflects the muscle strength and integrity functions of the upper limbs. The sample in this study was 40 patients with one-sided upper extremity paresis causing by ischaemic stroke. A pre-experimental method with one group pre-post-test design was used in this study. The respondents were given hand exercise using a ragged rubber ball for seven days twice a day. Handgrip strength of were measured by a handgrip dynamometer before and after the interventions. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test was performed with p-value of 0.000 (ά < 0, 05) which means that hand exercises using a rubber ball does increase the muscle strengths of the upper extremity. We suggest that hand therapy using a ragged rubber ball can be used as an alternative for motor exercise in post-stroke patients.

The procedural problems of the legal capability determining of a person who is in clouded consciousness, into stupor, in coma or vegetative state

The article is devoted to the problematic aspects of recognizing a person as having limited legal capacity. The authors consider the cases, which deal with people who are in clouded consciousness, into stupor, in coma or vegetative state. Depending on the degree of depth of lowering the clarity of consciousness the following stages of switching off consciousness are distinguished: clouded consciousness, stupor, coma and vegetative state. These stages successively replace each other when the condition worsens. The authors conduct a legal analysis of various degrees of disturbance of consciousness, project the results onto the institution of recognizing a person as incompetent and, taking into account international experience, suggest the most relevant ways to improve the Russian legislation. Also it has been determined the significant element of the psycho-physical state of a person, which is the basis for limiting the rights and obligations in accordance with his health.

Deep Reinforcement Learning-Based Vehicle Driving Strategy to Reduce Crash Risks in Traffic Oscillations

The primary objective of this study is to propose a deep reinforcement learning-based driving strategy for individual vehicles to mitigate oscillations and optimize traffic safety in stop-and-go waves. A deep deterministic policy gradient (DDPG)-based driving strategy, which requires information that is directly obtained by in-vehicle sensors, is proposed for system performance optimization. Two typical scenarios were simulated based on simulation software (SUMO): (i) the leading vehicle slowed down according to real trajectory data to produce one oscillation; (ii) the leading vehicle conducted several abrupt decelerations with various degrees of disturbance to produce multiple oscillations. The DDPG agents interacted with the SUMO platform to determine the optimal acceleration of vehicles that can reduce crash risks in various stop-and-go waves. The results showed that the proposed DDPG-based driving strategy successfully reduced the crash risk by 68.9%–78.4%. Scenarios with different penetration rates of DDPG agents and in various flow rates were compared to test the effect of the proposed strategy. The DDPG-based driving strategy reduced crash risk more with the increase of penetration rate and this strategy performed better when applied in the scenario with a high traffic flow rate. The proposed strategy is compared with the adaptive cruise control and jam-absorbing driving strategies. Results showed the proposed strategy outperformed other oscillation mitigating strategies in reducing crash risks.

Development of medical capacitive coupling electrodes using the skin-electrode contact control

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is the development and study of capacitive coupling electrodes with the ability to monitor the quality of the skin–electrode contact in the process of electrocardiogram (ECG) diagnostics. The study’s scope embraces experimental identification of distortions contributed into the recorded ECG signal at various degrees of disturbance of the skin–electrode contact.Design/methodology/approachA capacitive coupling electrode is designed and manufactured. A large number of experiments was carried out to record ECG signals with different quality of the skin–electrode contact. Using spectral analysis, the characteristic distortions of the ECG signals in the event of contact disturbance are revealed.FindingsIt was found that the violation of the skin–electrode contact leads to significant deterioration in the recorded signal. In this case, the most severe distortions appear with various violations of the skin–electrode contact of two sensors in one lead. It has been experimentally shown that the developed sensor allows monitoring the quality of the contact, and therefore, improvement of the quality of signal registration, enabled by the use of bespoke processing algorithms.Practical implicationsThese sensors will be used in personalized medicine devices and tele-ECG devices.Originality/valueIn this work, authors studied the effect of the skin–electrode contact of a capacitive electrode with the body on the quality of the recorded ECG signal. Based on the studies, the necessity of monitoring contact was shown to improve the quality of diagnostics provided by personalized medicine devices; the capacitive sensor with contact feedback was developed.

“Complexity–entropy” diagrams and their application to the study of coal tectonic disturbance

It is investigated the possibility of using so–called "complexity–entropy" diagrams for the quantitative description of the degree of coal disturbance using coal images obtained by means of scanning electron microscope (SEM). These diagrams plot structural complexity measure (vertical axis) versus entropy measure (horizontal axis) for distribution of probability given in some way on the image. In this paper, the values of both measures were calculated on the basis of the shearlet transform, and the Jensen divergence was used as the basic divergence for calculating the complexity measure. All calculations were performed for more than 140 images of coal specimens with various degrees of disturbance, obtained from the quiet zone of the seam and the outburst zone. As a result of research, it was found that two-dimensional distributions for measures of complexity and entropy in most cases are informative data sets for differentiating coals by degree of complexity. Moreover, such characteristics of these distributions as mathematical expectation and, to a less degree, mode can be used as simple quantitative descriptors of coals with various degrees of disturbance. These characteristics can be used to show the closeness of the spatial structure for the analyzed coal specimens to strictly periodic or absolutely chaotic ones. On the basis of the obtained results, conclusions about the possibility to separate coals according to the degree of their outburst hazard were done.

The study of coal tectonic disturbance using multifractal analysis of coal specimen images obtained by means of scanning electron microscopy

The possibility of using a multifractal approach to study the tectonic disturbance of coals has been investigated. The relationship between the coal disturbance and the asymmetry of fractal spectra of coal images obtained by means of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) is revealed: it has been established that undisturbed coals are characterized, as a rule, by a symmetric fractal dimension spectrum, and the disturbed coals are described by a fractal spectrum with some degree of asymmetry. It is shown that if fractal spectra of images have a symmetric appearance, then brightness distributions of these images are well fitted by a lognormal curves and parameters of these fittings can be estimated through characteristics of the fractal spectra. By using multifractal analysis of images for more than 140 test coal specimens from the quiet zone of a seam and the outburst zone, differences in the brightness distributions for images of coals with various degrees of disturbance were revealed. The basis of the research is the assumption that differences in the structure of disturbed and undisturbed coals are reflected in histograms of the brightness distributions for images of coal specimens. According to the results of multifractal analysis of images for the test coal specimens, it was established that the brightness distributions for images of the surface of undisturbed coal specimens are lognormal, while the brightness distributions for images of the surface of highly disturbed coal specimens, in most cases, deviate from the lognormal one. The conducted studies allow us to conclude about the applicability of the multifractal approach for assessing the degree of coal disturbance using digital images of coal specimens.

Woody plant invasions into the Upper Volga natural communities

The questions of woody invasive plant introductions into natural communities of the Upper Volga region are considered. It is established that, of 798 alien species of the region, 119 (14.9%) are woody plants, 27 tree and shrub species successfully naturalized and intruded into natural communities of various degrees of disturbance, and 7 species are included in the Black Book of Central Part of European Russia. The majority of invasive woody plants are species of Northern American origin. Examples of invasive woody species introduced into plant communities of the region, including the specially protected natural territories, are given.

An object-based approach to delineate wetlands across landscapes of varied disturbance with high spatial resolution satellite imagery

Mapping wetlands across both natural and human-altered landscapes is important for the management of these ecosystems. Though they are considered important landscape elements providing both ecological and socioeconomic benefits, accurate wetland inventories do not exist in many areas. In this study, a multi-scale geographic object-based image analysis (GEOBIA) approach was employed to segment three high spatial resolution images acquired over landscapes of varying heterogeneity due to human-disturbance to determine the robustness of this method to changing scene variability. Multispectral layers, a digital elevation layer, normalized-difference vegetation index (NDVI) layer, and a first-order texture layer were used to segment images across three segmentation scales with a focus on accurate delineation of wetland boundaries and wetland components. Each ancillary input layer contributed to improving segmentation at different scales. Wetlands were classified using a nearest neighbor approach across a relatively undisturbed park site and an agricultural site using GeoEye1 imagery, and an urban site using WorldView2 data. Successful wetland classification was achieved across all study sites with an accuracy above 80%, though results suggest that overall a higher degree of landscape heterogeneity may negatively affect both segmentation and classification. The agricultural site suffered from the greatest amount of over and under segmentation, and lowest map accuracy (kappa: 0.78) which was partially attributed to confusion among a greater proportion of mixed vegetated classes from both wetlands and uplands. Accuracy of individual wetland classes based on the Canadian Wetland Classification system varied between each site, with kappa values ranging from 0.64 for the swamp class and 0.89 for the marsh class. This research developed a unique approach to mapping wetlands of various degrees of disturbance using GEOBIA, which can be applied to study other wetlands of similar settings.

Control oriented model-based simulation and experimental studies on a compliant legged quadruped robot

Quadruped robots offer better maneuverability over wheeled mobile robots. However, a quadruped robot contains many joint actuators which have to operate in a coordinated fashion to achieve the desired locomotion. Joint actuations cause various degrees of disturbance on the robot body and may even destabilize the system. Thus, prior dynamic analysis plays an important role for development of control laws for quadruped locomotion. Here, a three dimensional dynamic model of a quadruped has been developed using the bond graph technique which can be interfaced with various controller models. This model contains a detailed sub-model for telescopic compliant legs. Results from simulations, animations and experiments are discussed. Turning motion at various leg speeds is studied for dynamic stability of the robot. The effect of leg compliance on locomotion parameters is studied which helps in selecting a suitable compliance. Performance measure is carried out using energy efficiency as deciding criteria. Study on energy efficient quadruped structure, energy efficient locomotion gait and foot trajectory have been carried out for designing an efficient quadruped.

Studying the properties of galaxy cluster morphology estimators

X-ray observations of galaxy clusters reveal a large range of morphologies with various degrees of disturbance, showing that the assumptions of hydrostatic equilibrium and spherical shape which are used to determine the cluster mass from X-ray data are not always satisfied. It is therefore important for the understanding of cluster properties as well as for cosmological applications to detect and quantify substructure in X-ray images of galaxy clusters. Two promising methods to do so are power ratios and center shifts. Since these estimators can be heavily affected by Poisson noise and X-ray background, we performed an extensive analysis of their statistical properties using a large sample of simulated X-ray observations of clusters from hydrodynamical simulations. We quantify the measurement bias and error in detail and give ranges where morphological analysis is feasible. A new, computationally fast method to correct for the Poisson bias and the X-ray background contribution in power ratio and center shift measurements is presented and tested for typical XMM-Newton observational data sets. We studied the morphology of 121 simulated cluster images and establish structure boundaries to divide samples into relaxed, mildly disturbed and disturbed clusters. In addition, we present a new morphology estimator - the peak of the 0.3-1 r500 P3/P0 profile to better identify merging clusters. The analysis methods were applied to a sample of 80 galaxy clusters observed with XMM-Newton. We give structure parameters (P3/P0 in r500, w and P3/P0_max) for all 80 observed clusters. Using our definition of the P3/P0 (w) substructure boundary, we find 41% (47%) of our observed clusters to be disturbed.

Red Giant Flying Squirrel (Petaurista petaurista) in Assam, India

Red Giant Flying Squirrel (Petaurista petaurista) is widely distributed throughout Asia in habitat types including moist evergreen broadleaf forest, temperate forest, and scrub forest in both lowlands and montane areas. It is categorized as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List. Hitherto, no systematic studies have been done on P. petaurista in India. We assessed the density of individuals and habitat selection of this species in different habitat types experiencing various degrees of disturbance. We conducted our study in the Jeypore Reserve Forest (JRF; 108 km2) of Assam, India (27° 06’-27°16’ N, 95° 21’-95° 29’ E; 120-1600 m a.s.l), a rainforest patch of the Eastern Himalayan biodiversity hotspot region

The differences of butterfly (Lepidoptera, Papilionoidea) communities in habitats with various degrees of disturbance and altitudes in tropical forests of Vietnam

A survey was conducted on the species composition, richness and abundance of Papilionoidea (excluding Lycaenidae) butterfly fauna in habitats with various degrees of disturbance and altitudes in tropical forests at Tam Dao National Park, northern Vietnam in 2001. The transect method was used to collect data in the survey. Six transects representing different habitat types at two sites, one site located at a low elevation of 200–250 m a.s.l., and the other located at a high elevation of 950–1000 m a.s.l., were chosen: three transects for each site, with a length of 500 m for each transect. A total of 3594 individuals of 127 species in 240 sets of data were recorded from various habitats. The differences in butterfly composition, species richness, abundance and diversity in different habitat types and altitudes were analyzed. The results showed significant differences of butterfly diversity among the different habitat types and between the low and high altitude sites. The butterfly diversity, species richness and species abundance in the low elevation habitats were higher than in the high elevation habitats. The highest diversity of butterflies occurred in the mixed habitats of agriculture, scrub and clearing lands of high disturbance. However, butterflies most important for conservation are associated with undisturbed or moderately disturbed forests only.

Mamíferos de cuatro áreas con diferente grado de alteración en el sureste de México

Se examinaron 458 especímenes de mamíferos, con el objetivo de comparar la diversidad de las especies en cuatro sitios del sureste de México con diferentes grados de alteración causada por la tala de árboles, la ganadería y la agricultura. Tomando en cuenta a todas las especies capturadas y registradas, el área con la mayor riqueza de especies fue Carlos A. Madrazo (n= 41), que se caracteriza por tener la vegetación mejor conservada seguida de Agua Dulce (n= 37), que presenta huertos y zonas cercanas con vegetación natural, mientras que Jalapita (n= 28) y El Espino (n= 10) fueron los sitios más alterados y con menor diversidad de mamíferos. Las diferencias en la riqueza específica de las cuatro áreas indican que la alteración redujo el número de especies que habitan la zona de estudio. Tabasco y Veracruz se encuentran entre los estados más alterados de México, y una gran parte de su vegetación original ha sido sustituida por pastizales. Por esta razón es urgente que las autoridades responsables de la conservación de las especies y el uso del suelo implementen un plan para que la gente conozca el uso sustentable de los recursos naturales con la finalidad de reorientar su manejo y protección.