Assessment of seating forces imparted through daily activity by children with special needs

Extensor spasms regularly occur in spastic Cerebral Palsy (CP) children making their bodies unbalanced and causing wheelchair instability. Furthermore the child may be uncomfortable as a result of the high contact forces potentially causing pain and injury, which will impair their functional ability. Dynamic seating systems have been designed to absorb the energy associated with these spasms. For people with physical disabilities, especially patients who have strong extensor spasticity, the dynamic design prevents pressure ulcers and injury from impact. However, the quantitative effectiveness and impact of using dynamic components has yet to be established. Therefore our objective is to compare the imparted forces on equivalent rigid and dynamic seating systems, to understand the interactions between force, wheelchair compliance and physical activity throughout a four hour session of non-laboratory based daily living

Battery development and testing at ESA

The principal activities of the Energy Storage Section of the Space Research and Technology Center (ESTEC) of the European Space Agency are presented. Nickel-hydrogen and fuel cell systems development are reported. The European Space Battery Test Center (ESBTC) facilities are briefly described along with the current test programs and results obtained

Capital Flight and the Nigerian Economy

The paper explores empirically the relative effect of capital outflows on the growth rate of GDP in Nigeria. To accomplish this task, three models of GDP growth rate were specified with each model incorporating a different measure of capital flight from Nigeria. The variables in the models were examined for possible co-integration. Research findings shows that capital flight impacts adversely on the growth rate of GDP and such growth rate effect of capital outflow is significant, capital control is insignificant in stimulating GDP growth rate in Nigeria, exchange controls are weak, industrial output is a veritable resource of GDP growth rate in Nigeria, public expenditure has significant positive impact on GDP growth rate in Nigeria and that the growth effects of domestic investment is insignificant in Nigeria. There is therefore the need for effective control of capital outflows. Also, there is an acute need to implement economic policies that can re-invigorate domestic investment and discourage capital flight in order to enhance economic growth in Nigeria. Key Words: Capital flight, balance of payment approach, residual approach, bank deposit approach, Nigeri

Democratization is the determinant of technological change

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationship between democracy and technological innovation. The primary findings are that most free countries, measured with liberal, participatory, and constitutional democracy index, have higher technological innovation than less free and more autocratic countries, so that the former have a higher interaction among social, economic and innovation systems with fruitful effects on economic growth and the wealth of nations. In fact “democracy richness” in these countries displays a higher rate of technological innovation. In addition, democratization is an antecedent process (cause) to technological innovation (effect), which is a major wellknown determinant of economic growth. These findings lead to the conclusion that policy makers need to be cognizant of positive association between democratization and technological innovation to sustain modern economic growth and future technological progress in view of the accelerating globalization.Democratization, Technological Innovation, Patents, Royalty Licenses Fee, Economic Grow

An Efficient Home-Based Risk of Falling Assessment Test Based on Smartphone and Instrumented Insole

The aim of this study is to improve and facilitate the methods used to assess risk of falling among older people at home. We propose an automatic version of One-Leg Standing (OLS) test for risk of falling assessment by using a Smartphone and an instrumented insole. For better clinical assessment tests, this study focuses on exploring methods to combine the most important parameters of risk of falling into a single score. Twenty-three volunteers participated in this study for evaluating the effectiveness of the proposed system which includes eleven elderly participants: seven healthy elderly (67.16 ± 4.24 years), four Parkinson disease (PD) subjects (70 ± 12.73 years); and twelve healthy young adults (28.27 ± 3.74 years). Our work suggests that there is an inverse relationship between OLS score proposed and risk of falling. Proposed instrumented insole and application running on Android could be useful at home as a diagnostic aid tool for analyzing the performance of elderly people in OLS test

Home-based risk of falling assessment test using a closed-loop balance model

The aim of this study is to improve and facilitate the methods used to assess risk of falling at home among older people through the computation of a risk of falling in real time in daily activities. In order to increase a real time computation of the risk of falling, a closed-loop balance model is proposed and compared with One-Leg Standing Test (OLST). This balance model allows studying the postural response of a person having an unpredictable perturbation. Twenty-nine volunteers participated in this study for evaluating the effectiveness of the proposed system which includes seventeen elder participants: ten healthy elderly (68.4 ± 5.5 years), seven Parkinson’s disease (PD) subjects (66.28 ± 8.9 years), and twelve healthy young adults (28.27 ± 3.74 years). Our work suggests that there is a relationship between OLST score and the risk of falling based on center of pressure (COP) measurement with four low cost force sensors located inside an instrumented insole, which could be predicted using our suggested closed-loop balance model. For long term monitoring at home, this system could be included in a medical electronic record and could be useful as a diagnostic aid tool

APFIC/FAO Regional Consultative Workshop: Securing sustainable small-scale fisheries: Bringing together responsible fisheries and social development, Windsor Suites Hotel, Bangkok, Thailand 68 October 2010

In the Global Overview, we attempt to view reefs in terms of the poor who are dependent on reefs for their livelihoods, how the reefs benefit the poor, how changes in the reef have impacted the lives of the poor and how the poor have responded and coped with these changes. It also considers wider responses to reef issues and how these interventions have impacted on the lives of the poor

An Overview of Smart Shoes in the Internet of Health Things: Gait and Mobility Assessment in Health Promotion and Disease Monitoring

New smart technologies and the internet of things increasingly play a key role in healthcare and wellness, contributing to the development of novel healthcare concepts. These technologies enable a comprehensive view of an individual’s movement and mobility, potentially supporting healthy living as well as complementing medical diagnostics and the monitoring of therapeutic outcomes. This overview article specifically addresses smart shoes, which are becoming one such smart technology within the future internet of health things, since the ability to walk defines large aspects of quality of life in a wide range of health and disease conditions. Smart shoes offer the possibility to support prevention, diagnostic work-up, therapeutic decisions, and individual disease monitoring with a continuous assessment of gait and mobility. This overview article provides the technological as well as medical aspects of smart shoes within this rising area of digital health applications, and is designed especially for the novel reader in this specific field. It also stresses the need for closer interdisciplinary interactions between technological and medical experts to bridge the gap between research and practice. Smart shoes can be envisioned to serve as pervasive wearable computing systems that enable innovative solutions and services for the promotion of healthy living and the transformation of health care

A serious game for training balance control over different types of soil

It is known that the type of the soil can affect balance. Here we report a serious game designed for training users at maintaining balance over five types of soil (broken stone, stone dust, sand, concrete and wood). By using an augmented shoe and proposed navigation metaphor, in this game, the user is invited to browse a maze while standing balance over the physical grounds. During the exploration, exercises targeting assessment of balance control are suggested. To insure the effectiveness of this training program, four exercises based on the Berg Balance Scale and the Tinetti Balance Assessment Tool are incorporated in the game