Development of an EMG-controlled mobile robot

This paper presents the development of a Robot Operating System (ROS)-based mobile robot control using electromyography (EMG) signals. The proposed robot’s structure is specifically designed to provide modularity and is controlled by a Raspberry Pi 3 running on top of an ROS application and a Teensy microcontroller. The EMG muscle commands are sent to the robot with hand gestures that are captured using a Thalmic Myo Armband and recognized using a k-Nearest Neighbour (k-NN) classifier. The robot’s performance is evaluated by navigating it through specific paths while solely controlling it through the EMG signals and using the collision avoidance approach. Thus, this paper aims to expand the research on the topic, introducing a more accurate classification system with a wider set of gestures, hoping to come closer to a usable real-life applicatio

Proteinuria and haematuria in apparently healthy primary school children in Enugu, Nigeria

Background: Mass screening for proteinuria and haematuria is advocated, especially in resource-poor countries with non-existent health insurance policy, to enhance awareness of renal diseases. This screening increases the chance for early detection and treatment, which in turn reduces incidences of resultant kidney failures. Objective: To determine the prevalence of asymptomatic proteinuria and haematuria in apparently healthy primary school children in Enugu. Methodology: This was a cross-sectional descriptive survey involving apparently healthy primary school children in Enugu, aged 6 to 12 years, conducted from January 2018 and March 2018 through a pre-tested, caregiver administered questionnaire. Subjects were clinically examined, and samples of on-the-spot mid-stream urine collected from each participant for dipstick urinalysis. The data obtained were analyzed using the Software Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 22 for Windows Results: One thousandchildren comprising, 437 (44%) males and 563 (56%) females were selected with an age range of 6 to 12 years and a mean of 10.13 ± 1.81 years. A total of 190(19%) urinary abnormalities were noted existing as isolated proteinuria, isolated haematuria or as a combination of both. These urinary abnormalities were more in the females, higher among the early adolescents (9-12 years) with proteinuria predominating.Conclusion: Asymptomatic urinary abnormalities can easily be detected early in the course of renal disease development. A urine dipstick is an important tool in the screening program for everybody, including children of school age. It is important that screening programs be organized for these children at regular intervals and those with positive findings referred immediately for appropriate management. Keywords: Proteinuria, Haematuria, Primary school children, Prevalence. Running title: Proteinuria and haematuria in school-aged children in Enugu

Collisional rates for the inelastic Maxwell model: application to the divergence of anisotropic high-order velocity moments in the homogeneous cooling state

The collisional rates associated with the isotropic velocity moments $$and the anisotropic moments$$ and $$ are exactly derived in the case of the inelastic Maxwell model as functions of the exponent $r$, the coefficient of restitution $\alpha$, and the dimensionality $d$. The results are applied to the evolution of the moments in the homogeneous free cooling state. It is found that, at a given value of $\alpha$, not only the isotropic moments of a degree higher than a certain value diverge but also the anisotropic moments do. This implies that, while the scaled distribution function has been proven in the literature to converge to the isotropic self-similar solution in well-defined mathematical terms, nonzero initial anisotropic moments do not decay with time. On the other hand, our results show that the ratio between an anisotropic moment and the isotropic moment of the same degree tends to zero.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures; v2: clarification of some mathematical statements and addition of 7 new references; v3: Published in "Special Issue: Isaac Goldhirsch - A Pioneer of Granular Matter Theory