Patient-Specific Prosthetic Fingers by Remote Collaboration - A Case Study

The concealment of amputation through prosthesis usage can shield an amputee from social stigma and help improve the emotional healing process especially at the early stages of hand or finger loss. However, the traditional techniques in prosthesis fabrication defy this as the patients need numerous visits to the clinics for measurements, fitting and follow-ups. This paper presents a method for constructing a prosthetic finger through online collaboration with the designer. The main input from the amputee comes from the Computer Tomography (CT) data in the region of the affected and the non-affected fingers. These data are sent over the internet and the prosthesis is constructed using visualization, computer-aided design and manufacturing tools. The finished product is then shipped to the patient. A case study with a single patient having an amputated ring finger at the proximal interphalangeal joint shows that the proposed method has a potential to address the patient's psychosocial concerns and minimize the exposure of the finger loss to the public.Comment: Open Access articl

Effect of frequency difference on sensitivity of beats perception

Two vibrations with slightly different frequencies induce the beats phenomenon. In tactile perception, when two pins of different frequencies stimulate the fingertips, an individual perceives a beats caused by a summation stimulus of the two vibrations. The present study demonstrates experimentally that humans can perceive another vibration based on the beats phenomenon when two tactile stimuli with slightly different frequencies are stimulated on the finger pad with a small contactor in different locations at the same time. Moreover, we examined the amplitude of the detection threshold to be able to perceive beats phenomenon on the index finger with 5 carrier frequency (63.1, 100, 158.5, 251.2, and 398.1 Hz) and 4 beats frequency (2.5, 3.98, 6.31, and 10 Hz) when two stimuli 1 mm distance apart are vibrated at a slightly different frequency. From the experiments, it is concluded that the amplitude threshold to be able to perceive beats decreases as the standard frequency increases under 398 Hz. Furthermore, from comparing the absolute detection threshold and beats detection threshold, as the carrier frequency increases, the required amplitude at two pins for the detection of beats decreases compared to absolute vibration

DTV Newsbreak, Spring 2007

DTV Newsbreak episode originally broadcast on channel 26 in Denton, Texas. Stories include: the City of Denton's Sesquicentennial Celebration, UNT Archive's "Treasures of UNT" exhibit, the Bear Parade at the Emily Fowler branch of the Denton Public Library, and UNT's 15th Annual Conference on Parent Education

to be published], “Design and Assessment of an Intelligent Activity Monitoring Platform

We are interested in designing a reusable and robust activity monitoring platform. In this paper we propose three good properties that an activity monitoring platform should have to enable its reusability for different applications and to insure performance quality: 1) modularity and flexibility of the architecture, 2) separation between the algorithms and the a priori knowledge they use, and 3) automatic evaluation of algorithm results. We then propose a development methodology to fulfill the last two properties. The methodology consists in the interaction between end-users and developers during the whole development of a specific monitoring system for a new application. To validate our approach, first we present a platform that we use to generate activity monitoring systems dedicated to specific applications. Then we explain how we have managed to give concrete expression to these properties in the platform. Finally we describe in details the technical validation and the end-user assessment of an automatic metro monitoring system built with the platform. We give the corresponding validation results for two other systems built with the same platform: a bank agency monitoring system and a building lock chamber access control system