การศึกษาเปรียบเทียบตำแหน่งของศีรษะ และต้นแขนขณะทำงานของนิสิตทันตแพทย์ที่ใช้และไม่ใช้อุปกรณ์การยศาสตร์เพื่อฝึกงานทางทันตกรรม

การปฏิบัติงานทางทันตกรรมของนิสิตทันตแพทย์พบว่า เป็นสาเหตุของอาการเจ็บปวดบริเวณคอ บ่า ไหล่ หลัง ซึ่งเกิดจากการทำงานในท่าที่ไม่อยู่ในสมดุลเป็นเวลานานๆ ถึงแม้ว่าจะมีความรู้ทางการยศาสตร์มาช่วยเพื่อให้ทำงานในท่าทางที่เหมาะสมแต่ยังคงมีอาการเจ็บปวด ปัจจุบันจึงมีการนำเทคโนโลยีเข้ามาออกแบบอุปกรณ์เพื่อพัฒนาท่าทางให้อยู่ในสมดุลวัตถุประสงค์ งานวิจัยนี้เป็นการพัฒนาอุปกรณ์การยศาสตร์เพื่อฝึกงานทางทันตกรรม (Intelligent Ergonomic Trainer: IET) จากความสามารถในการกำหนดตำแหน่งที่เหมาะสมในการทำงานของนิสิตทันตแพทย์โดยมีข้อมูลป้อนกลับขณะทำงานในท่าที่ไม่เหมาะสม โดยทำการเปรียบเทียบกับการชมภาพวีดีทัศน์การปฏิบัติงานย้อนหลังวัสดุอุปกรณ์และวิธีการ ผู้เข้าร่วมวิจัย จำนวน 32 คน แบ่งเป็น 2 กลุ่มๆ ละ 16 คน โดยใช้วิธีแบบสุ่ม ทั้งสองกลุ่มจะได้รับการฝึกท่าทางทั้งการใช้อุปกรณ์การยศาสตร์เพื่อฝึกงานทางทันตกรรมโดยมีข้อมูลป้อนกลับ และชมภาพวีดีทัศน์การปฏิบัติงานย้อนหลังในลำดับที่ต่างกันในขณะทำการอุดฟันกรามบนขวาซี่ที่หนึ่งในหุ่นจำลอง ครั้งละ 5 ซี่ ในวันแรกทำการบันทึกการเคลื่อนไหวจากการวัดมุมของศีรษะและต้นแขนของทั้ง 2 กลุ่ม เพื่อเป็นข้อมูลพื้นฐานจากนั้นทำการฝึกในวิธีที่ต่างกันในแต่ละกลุ่มในครั้งที่ 2 ครั้งที่ 3 ทำการทดสอบ และบันทึกการเคลื่อนไหวเพียงอย่างเดียวทั้งสองกลุ่ม ครั้งที่ 4 สลับวิธีการฝึกในแต่ละกลุ่ม ครั้งที่ 5 ทำการทดสอบ และบันทึกการเคลื่อนไหวเพียงอย่างเดียวทั้งสองกลุ่ม นำข้อมูลการเคลื่อนไหวของทั้ง 2 กลุ่ม ที่เป็นข้อมูลพื้นฐานเปรียบเทียบกับข้อมูลครั้งที่สามและครั้งหลังสุดโดยใช้สถิติ pair t-testผลการศึกษา กลุ่มนิสิตทันตแพทย์ที่มีการใช้อุปกรณ์การยศาสตร์โดยมีข้อมูลป้อนกลับเพื่อฝึกงานทางทันตกรรม และการชมภาพวีดีทัศน์ที่มีการบันทึกการเคลื่อนไหวย้อนหลังทั้งสองกลุ่มมีการพัฒนาท่าทางในการทำงานให้กลับมาอยู่ในช่วงการเคลื่อนไหวที่เหมาะสมอย่างมีนัยสำคัญทางสถิติ แต่ไม่มีความแตกต่างกันระหว่างทั้งสองกลุ่มในการสลับวิธีการฝึกตามลำดับ สรุป อุปกรณ์การยศาสตร์เพื่อฝึกงานทางทันตกรรม และการชมภาพวีดีทัศน์ย้อนหลังช่วยพัฒนาท่าทางการทำงานที่เหมาะสมในนิสิตทันตแพทย์ คำสำคัญ: อุปกรณ์การยศาสตร์เพื่อฝึกงานทางทันตกรรม  การให้ข้อมูลป้อนกลับชนิดเสียง  การชมวีดีทัศน์ซ้ำ  ความผิดปกติทางระบบโครงร่างและกล้ามเนื้อWorking posture of dental students can cause work related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs) in neck, shoulder and back areas. This was resulting from the repetitive improper posture. Although the dental ergonomics was applied to improve the posture, the pain still occurred. Therefore, in the present trend, the material design technology has been applied to the devices for improving the ergonomic posture.Objective: The aim of this study was to develop the ergonomic devices to improve posture for dental students namely, Intelligent Ergonomic Trainer (IET) and compared with watching the video playback. IET had a capability to determine the proper position in dental practice and help correcting the work position by recording and warning when the dental students were not working in the appropriate posture by comparison with viewing of video after work.Materials and Methods: The real time feedback IET program and video playback with no feedback IET program were applied to 32 dental students who randomly divided into 2 groups. Each group did 5 sessions of filling 5 upper right first molar typodont teeth per session. Both groups were applied both programs different sequence. The baseline data of angles of head and upper arm were collected on the first day from both groups for using IET program with each group were separated to complete their task (the real time feedback IET task and video playback with no feedback IET task). Then the second practice in different ways in each group in the second session. In the third time, both groups were tested and recorded only the movement assessment I data. In the fourth time, the participant in two groups were switched their task (the real time feedback IET task and video playback with no feedback IET task). Finally, the fifth time, both groups were tested and recorded the assessment II data. The data from the first, third, and fifth times were statistically analyzed using the pair t-test.Results: The results showed that both IET programs with feedback and video playback was significantly improving the posture in dental students. However, there was no statistically significant difference between two groups when alternating the training programs.Conclusion: Both IET programs with feedback and video playback can develop the proper posture for dental students.Keywords: Intelligent Ergonomic Trainer, Real Time Feedback, Video Playback, Musculoskeletal Disorder

Electric Wheelchair Hybrid Operating System Coordinated with Working Range of a Robotic Arm

Electric wheelchair-mounted robotic arms can help patients with disabilities to perform their activities in daily living (ADL). Joysticks or keypads are commonly used as the operating interface of Wheelchair-mounted robotic arms. Under different scenarios, some patients with upper limb disabilities such as finger contracture cannot operate such interfaces smoothly. Recently, manual interfaces for different symptoms to operate the wheelchair-mounted robotic arms are being developed. However, the stop the wheelchairs in an appropriate position for the robotic arm grasping task is still not easy. To reduce the individual’s burden in operating wheelchair in narrow spaces and to ensure that the chair always stops within the working range of a robotic arm, we propose here an operating system for an electric wheelchair that can automatically drive itself to within the working range of a robotic arm by capturing the position of an AR marker via a chair-mounted camera. Meanwhile, the system includes an error correction model to correct the wheelchair’s moving error. Finally, we demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed system by running the wheelchair and simulating the robotic arm through several courses

Smart system for aircraft passenger neck support

Air travel is becoming increasingly more accessible to people due to the availability of low cost air travel. However, long distance air travel is not a normal activity for human. During air travel, people experience different levels of physiological and psychological discomfort. The discomfort may affect the passenger’s health and feeling. With the rapid development of technology, the comfort of service has become an important issue. Nowadays, comfort is an attribute which is highly demanded by aircraft passengers. The comfort of aircraft passengers depends on different features and the cabin environment during air travel. Seat is one of the important features for the passengers and in which a passenger spends almost all their time during air travel. Different seat aspects have to be seen and taken into account in the comfort model. The research has five goals. First goal, literature research starts with the study on the state of the art and recent development of vehicle seat design which is available in current literature and products. The literature review gives a general idea about the research and the measurement method related to seating comfort and discomfort. Second goal, four surveys were conducted to identify the comfort factor of economy class aircraft passenger, body discomfort for truck driver, body discomfort for economy class aircraft passenger and relationship between seat location and sitting posture. The first survey is to identify and investigate the comfort factors for economy class aircraft passenger seat. Subsequently, survey on the body back sitting discomfort over travel time was conducted for truck driver and economy class aircraft passenger. The third survey is to investigate the relationship of the seat location and sitting posture of passengers in the economy class aircraft cabin. The postures of subjects were observed and recorded based on seven predefined sitting postures. Third goal, we contributed to develop a smart neck support system for economy class aircraft passenger. Our system aims to support and reduce neck muscle stress. A functional and working prototype was built to demonstrate the design concept and to perform experimental validation. Forth goal, we developed a low cost aircraft cabin simulator and we utilized it to validate our developed smart neck support system. The aircraft cabin simulator was built with motion platform and it is able to simulate a broad range of flight procedures. Next, a calibration experiment was conducted to investigate SCM muscle stress in relation to different support conditions, time interval and head rotation angle. Fifth goal, a validation experiment was conducted in the aircraft cabin simulator to evaluate the smart neck support system. The objective and subjective results show that the smart neck support system is able to reduce SCM muscle stress adaptively in a fully automate manner

A Person-Centric Design Framework for At-Home Motor Learning in Serious Games

abstract: In motor learning, real-time multi-modal feedback is a critical element in guided training. Serious games have been introduced as a platform for at-home motor training due to their highly interactive and multi-modal nature. This dissertation explores the design of a multimodal environment for at-home training in which an autonomous system observes and guides the user in the place of a live trainer, providing real-time assessment, feedback and difficulty adaptation as the subject masters a motor skill. After an in-depth review of the latest solutions in this field, this dissertation proposes a person-centric approach to the design of this environment, in contrast to the standard techniques implemented in related work, to address many of the limitations of these approaches. The unique advantages and restrictions of this approach are presented in the form of a case study in which a system entitled the "Autonomous Training Assistant" consisting of both hardware and software for guided at-home motor learning is designed and adapted for a specific individual and trainer. In this work, the design of an autonomous motor learning environment is approached from three areas: motor assessment, multimodal feedback, and serious game design. For motor assessment, a 3-dimensional assessment framework is proposed which comprises of 2 spatial (posture, progression) and 1 temporal (pacing) domains of real-time motor assessment. For multimodal feedback, a rod-shaped device called the "Intelligent Stick" is combined with an audio-visual interface to provide feedback to the subject in three domains (audio, visual, haptic). Feedback domains are mapped to modalities and feedback is provided whenever the user's performance deviates from the ideal performance level by an adaptive threshold. Approaches for multi-modal integration and feedback fading are discussed. Finally, a novel approach for stealth adaptation in serious game design is presented. This approach allows serious games to incorporate motor tasks in a more natural way, facilitating self-assessment by the subject. An evaluation of three different stealth adaptation approaches are presented and evaluated using the flow-state ratio metric. The dissertation concludes with directions for future work in the integration of stealth adaptation techniques across the field of exergames.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Computer Science 201

Learning Opportunities and Challenges of Sensor-enabled Intelligent Tutoring Systems on Mobile Platforms: Benchmarking the Reliability of Mobile Sensors to Track Human Physiological Signals and Behaviors to Enhance Tablet-Based Intelligent Tutoring Systems

Desktop-based intelligent tutoring systems have existed for many decades, but the advancement of mobile computing technologies has sparked interest in developing mobile intelligent tutoring systems (mITS). Personalized mITS are applicable to not only stand-alone and client-server systems but also cloud systems possibly leveraging big data. Device-based sensors enable even greater personalization through capture of physiological signals during periods of student study. However, personalizing mITS to individual students faces challenges. The Achilles heel of personalization is the feasibility and reliability of these sensors to accurately capture physiological signals and behavior measures. This research reviews feasibility and benchmarks reliability of basic mobile platform sensors in various student postures. The research software and methodology are generalizable to a range of platforms and sensors. Incorporating the tile-based puzzle game 2048 as a substitute for a knowledge domain also enables a broad spectrum of test populations. Baseline sensors include the on-board camera to detect eyes/faces and the Bluetooth Empatica E4 wristband to capture heart rate, electrodermal activity (EDA), and skin temperature. The test population involved 100 collegiate students randomly assigned to one of three different ergonomic positions in a classroom: sitting at a table, standing at a counter, or reclining on a sofa. Well received by the students, EDA proved to be more reliable than heart rate or face detection in the three different ergonomic positions. Additional insights are provided on advancing learning personalization through future sensor feasibility and reliability studies

DEVELOPMENT AND EVALUATION OF AN ADVANCED REAL-TIME ELECTRICAL POWERED WHEELCHAIR CONTROLLER

Advances in Electric Powered Wheelchairs (EPW) have improved mobility for people with disabilities as well as older adults, and have enhanced their integration into society. Some of the issues still present in EPW lie in the difficulties when encountering different types of terrain, and access to higher or low surfaces. To this end, an advanced real-time electrical powered wheelchair controller was developed. The controller was comprised of a hardware platform with sensors measuring the speed of the driving, caster wheels and the acceleration, with a single board computer for implementing the control algorithms in real-time, a multi-layer software architecture, and modular design. A model based real-time speed and traction controller was developed and validated by simulation. The controller was then evaluated via driving over four different surfaces at three specified speeds. Experimental results showed that model based control performed best on all surfaces across the speeds compared to PID (proportional-integral-derivative) and Open Loop control. A real-time slip detection and traction control algorithm was further developed and evaluated by driving the EPW over five different surfaces at three speeds. Results showed that the performance of anti-slip control was consistent on the varying surfaces at different speeds. The controller was also tested on a front wheel drive EPW to evaluate a forwarding tipping detection and prevention algorithm. Experimental results showed that the tipping could be accurately detected as it was happening and the performance of the tipping prevention strategy was consistent on the slope across different speeds. A terrain-dependent EPW user assistance system was developed based on the controller. Driving rules for wet tile, gravel, slopes and grass were developed and validated by 10 people without physical disabilities. The controller was also adapted to the Personal Mobility and Manipulation Appliance (PerMMA) Generation II, which is an advanced power wheelchair with a flexible mobile base, allowing it to adjust the positions of each of the four casters and two driving wheels. Simulations of the PerMMA Gen II system showed that the mobile base controller was able to climb up to 8” curb and maintain passenger’s posture in a comfort position

Climbing and Walking Robots

With the advancement of technology, new exciting approaches enable us to render mobile robotic systems more versatile, robust and cost-efficient. Some researchers combine climbing and walking techniques with a modular approach, a reconfigurable approach, or a swarm approach to realize novel prototypes as flexible mobile robotic platforms featuring all necessary locomotion capabilities. The purpose of this book is to provide an overview of the latest wide-range achievements in climbing and walking robotic technology to researchers, scientists, and engineers throughout the world. Different aspects including control simulation, locomotion realization, methodology, and system integration are presented from the scientific and from the technical point of view. This book consists of two main parts, one dealing with walking robots, the second with climbing robots. The content is also grouped by theoretical research and applicative realization. Every chapter offers a considerable amount of interesting and useful information

A Mobile Healthcare Solution for Ambient Assisted Living Environments

Elderly people need regular healthcare services and, several times, are dependent of physicians’ personal attendance. This dependence raises several issues to elders, such as, the need to travel and mobility support. Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) and Mobile Health (m-Health) services and applications offer good healthcare solutions that can be used both on indoor and in mobility environments. This dissertation presents an ambient assisted living (AAL) solution for mobile environments. It includes elderly biofeedback monitoring using body sensors for data collection offering support for remote monitoring. The used sensors are attached to the human body (such as the electrocardiogram, blood pressure, and temperature). They collect data providing comfort, mobility, and guaranteeing efficiency and data confidentiality. Periodic collection of patients’ data is important to gather more accurate measurements and to avoid common risky situations, like a physical fall may be considered something natural in life span and it is more dangerous for senior people. One fall can out a life in extreme cases or cause fractures, injuries, but when it is early detected through an accelerometer, for example, it can avoid a tragic outcome. The presented proposal monitors elderly people, storing collected data in a personal computer, tablet, or smartphone through Bluetooth. This application allows an analysis of possible health condition warnings based on the input of supporting charts, and real-time bio-signals monitoring and is able to warn users and the caretakers. These mobile devices are also used to collect data, which allow data storage and its possible consultation in the future. The proposed system is evaluated, demonstrated and validated through a prototype and it is ready for use. The watch Texas ez430-Chronos, which is capable to store information for later analysis and the sensors Shimmer who allow the creation of a personalized application that it is capable of measuring biosignals of the patient in real time is described throughout this dissertation

Research Naval Postgraduate School, v.12, no.3, October 2002

NPS Research is published by the Research and Sponsored Programs, Office of the Vice President and Dean of Research, in accordance with NAVSOP-35. Views and opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the Department of the Navy.Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited