5,154 research outputs found
Investigation of motor unit recruitment during stimulated contractions of tibialis anterior muscle
Advances in surface EMG signal simulation with analytical and numerical descriptions of the volume conductor
Surface electromyographic (EMG) signal modeling is important for signal interpretation, testing of processing algorithms, detection system design, and didactic purposes. Various surface EMG signal models have been proposed in the literature. In this study we focus on 1) the proposal of a method for modeling surface EMG signals by either analytical or numerical descriptions of the volume conductor for space-invariant systems, and 2) the development of advanced models of the volume conductor by numerical approaches, accurately describing not only the volume conductor geometry, as mainly done in the past, but also the conductivity tensor of the muscle tissue. For volume conductors that are space-invariant in the direction of source propagation, the surface potentials generated by any source can be computed by one-dimensional convolutions, once the volume conductor transfer function is derived (analytically or numerically). Conversely, more complex volume conductors require a complete numerical approach. In a numerical approach, the conductivity tensor of the muscle tissue should be matched with the fiber orientation. In some cases (e.g., multi-pinnate muscles) accurate description of the conductivity tensor may be very complex. A method for relating the conductivity tensor of the muscle tissue, to be used in a numerical approach, to the curve describing the muscle fibers is presented and applied to representatively investigate a bi-pinnate muscle with rectilinear and curvilinear fibers. The study thus propose an approach for surface EMG signal simulation in space invariant systems as well as new models of the volume conductor using numerical methods
Past and future blurring at fundamental length scale
We obtain the -deformed versions of the retarded and advanced Green
functions and show that their causality properties are blurred in a time
interval of the order of a length parameter . The functions also
indicate a smearing of the light cone. These results favor the interpretation
of as a fundamental length scale below which the concept of a point in
spacetime should be substituted by the concept of a fuzzy region of radius ,
as proposed long ago by Heisenberg.Comment: Essentially, this is the version published in the Phys. Rev. Lett.
105, 211601 (2010). It has 4 pages and contains 2 figure
One-dimensional symmetry and Liouville type results for the fourth order Allen-Cahn equation in R
In this paper, we prove an analogue of Gibbons' conjecture for the extended
fourth order Allen-Cahn equation in R N , as well as Liouville type results for
some solutions converging to the same value at infinity in a given direction.
We also prove a priori bounds and further one-dimensional symmetry and rigidity
results for semilinear fourth order elliptic equations with more general
nonlinearities
On the use of R-PET strips for the reinforcement of cement mortars
We study the alkali resistance and the flexural response of a cement-based mortar reinforced through polyethylene terephthalate (PET) strips obtained through hand cutting of ordinary post-consumer bottles. On considering 1% fiber volume ratio and different strip geometries, we show that the analyzed reinforcing strips owe remarkable alkali resistance and are able to markedly improve the toughness of the base material. Comparisons are established with the outcomes of a recent study on a similar reinforcement technique of a cement-lime mortar
Neuromorphic decoding of spinal motor neuron behaviour during natural hand movements for a new generation of wearable neural interfaces
We propose a neuromorphic framework to process the activity of human spinal motor neurons for movement intention recognition. This framework is integrated into a non-invasive interface that decodes the activity of motor neurons innervating intrinsic and extrinsic hand muscles. One of the main limitations of current neural interfaces is that machine learning models cannot exploit the efficiency of the spike encoding operated by the nervous system. Spiking-based pattern recognition would detect the spatio-temporal sparse activity of a neuronal pool and lead to adaptive and compact implementations, eventually running locally in embedded systems. Emergent Spiking Neural Networks (SNN) have not yet been used for processing the activity of in-vivo human neurons. Here we developed a convolutional SNN to process a total of 467 spinal motor neurons whose activity was identified in 5 participants while executing 10 hand movements. The classification accuracy approached 0.95 ±0.14 for both isometric and non-isometric contractions. These results show for the first time the potential of highly accurate motion intent detection by combining non-invasive neural interfaces and SNN
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