Mobile Quantification and Therapy Course Tracking for Gait Rehabilitation

This paper presents a novel autonomous quality metric to quantify the rehabilitations progress of subjects with knee/hip operations. The presented method supports digital analysis of human gait patterns using smartphones. The algorithm related to the autonomous metric utilizes calibrated acceleration, gyroscope and magnetometer signals from seven Inertial Measurement Unit attached on the lower body in order to classify and generate the grading system values. The developed Android application connects the seven Inertial Measurement Units via Bluetooth and performs the data acquisition and processing in real-time. In total nine features per acceleration direction and lower body joint angle are calculated and extracted in real-time to achieve a fast feedback to the user. We compare the classification accuracy and quantification capabilities of Linear Discriminant Analysis, Principal Component Analysis and Naive Bayes algorithms. The presented system is able to classify patients and control subjects with an accuracy of up to 100\%. The outcomes can be saved on the device or transmitted to treating physicians for later control of the subject's improvements and the efficiency of physiotherapy treatments in motor rehabilitation. The proposed autonomous quality metric solution bears great potential to be used and deployed to support digital healthcare and therapy.Comment: 5 Page

Scattered Pilot-Based Channel Estimation for Channel Adaptive FBMC-OQAM Systems

Shaping the pulse of FilterBank MultiCarrier with Offset Quadrature Amplitude Modulation subcarrier modulation (FBMC-OQAM) systems offers a new degree of freedom for the design of mobile communication systems. In previous studies, we evaluated the gains arising from the application of Prototype Filter Functions (PFFs) and subcarrier spacing matched to the delay and Doppler spreads of doubly dispersive channels. In this paper, we investigate the impact of having imperfect channel knowledge at the receiver on the performance of Channel Adaptive Modulation (CAM) in terms of channel estimation errors and Bit Error Rate (BER). To this end, the channel estimation error for two different interference mitigation schemes proposed in the literature is derived analytically and its influence on the BER performance is analyzed for practical channel scenarios. The results show that FBMC-OQAM systems utilizing CAM and scattered pilot-based channel estimation provide a significant performance gain compared with the current one system design for a variety of channel scenarios ("one-fits-all") approach. Additionally, we verified that the often used assumption of a flat channel in the direct neighborhood of a pilot symbol is not valid for practical scenarios. © 2017 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works

Statistical signal analysis and estimation algorithms for mud pulse telemetry systems

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Prevalence of migraine and tension headaches and related factors, 2014

Background: Migraine and tension type headache (TTH) due to their effect on life and reducing efficacy are two major problems in human life. This study aimed to investigate the prevalence of migraine and tension headaches and factors affecting their occurrence in Ardabil, Iran.Methods: In this cross sectional descriptive study, 900 cases were selected randomly from referral outpatients to neurology clinic of Ardabil, Iran during 2014. Diagnosis of headache type was confirmed by a neurologist and required information was obtained by general and neurological examinations of patients and recorded in a checklist and then analyzed by statistical methods in SPSS.19.Results: Of all referral cases, 767 (85.2%) have headache which from them 27.9% have migraine and 48.2% have TTH. Among migraine patients, 15.4% was male and 84.6% was female, and among TH patients 38.1% were male and 61.9% were female. Most location of headache in migraine and TH patients was frontal and temporal with 37.8% and 28.9%, respectively. Frequency of headache attacks in migraine patients was often weekly or monthly (74.3%) and in TH patients was often daily or weekly (85.7%). The prevalence of headache history among migraine patients was significantly more than TH patients (43.5% versus 34.1%).Conclusions: Results showed that the prevalence of migraine and TH was high in our society and most of headache attacks were weekly or daily. Because of headache causes to private and social dysfunctions, doing studies to determine risk factors in incidence of migraine and tension headaches for early detection of them is essential

On the efficiency of PAPR reduction schemes deployed for DRM systems

Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) is the universally, openly standardized digital broadcasting system for all frequencies including LW, MW, and SW as well as VHF bands. Alongside providing high audio quality to listeners, DRM satisfies technological requirements posed by broadcasters, manufacturers and regulatory authorities and thus bears a great potential for the future of global radio. One of the key issues here concerns green broadcasting. Facing the need for high-power transmitters to cover wide areas, there is room for improvement concerning the power efficiency of DRM-transmitters. A major drawback of DRM is its high peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) due to the applied transmission technology based on Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM), which results in non-linearities in the emitted signal, low power efficiency, and high costs of transmitters. To overcome this, numerous schemes have been investigated for reducing PAPR in OFDM systems. In this paper, we review and analyze various technologies to reduce PAPR providing that the technical feasibility and DRM-specific system architecture and edge conditions regarding the system performance in terms of modulation error rate, compliance with frequency mask, and synchronization efficiency are ensured. All evaluations are carried out with I/Q signals which are monitored in real operation to present the actual performance of proposed PAPR techniques. Subsequently, the capability of the best approach is evaluated via measurements on a DRM test platform, where achieved transmit power gain of 10 dB is shown. According to our evaluation results, PAPR reduction schemes based on active constellation extension followed by a filter prove to be promising towards practical realization of power-efficient transmitters. © 2016, The Author(s)

The Prophylactic Effects of Zintoma and Ibuprofen on Post-endodontic Pain of Molars with Irreversible Pulpitis: A Randomized Clinical Trial

Introduction: Post endodontic pain is often linked to the inflammatory process as well as additional central mechanisms. The purpose of the present double-blind randomized clinical trial study was to compare the prophylactic effects of a derivative of Zingiber Officinale, Zintoma, and Ibuprofen on post endodontic pain of molars with irreversible pulpitis. Materials and Methods: The post endodontic pain of 72 enrolled patients suffering from irreversible pulpitis was assessed after prophylactic use of 400 mg Ibuprofen, 2 gr Zintoma and placebo. Using the Heft-Parker Visual Analogue Scale, the patients recorded their perceived pain before taking the medicament (baseline), immediately after and also at 4, 8, 12, 24, 48, and 72 h post one-visit endodontic treatment. The statistical analysis was done using Kruskal-Wallis, Mann-Whitney, and Freedman tests (P<0.05). Results: At all times, there was significant difference between the Ibuprofen and Zintoma (P<0.05) and also between the Ibuprofen and placebo (P<0.05). However, there was no significant difference between Zintoma and the placebo in any of time intervals (P>0.05). No side effects were observed. Conclusion: The obtained results of the trial revealed that prophylactic use of 2 gr Zintoma is not an effective pain relieving agent

A study on the activity and thermal stability of adenosine deaminase in the presence of spermine

Adenosine Deaminase is an aminohydrolase (EC 3.5.4.4) which participates in the purine metabolism where it degrades either adenosine or 2'-deoxyadenosine producing inosine or 2'-deoxyinosine, respectively. The enzyme contains a parallel alpha/beta -barrel motif with eight central beta strands and eight peripheral alpha helices. ADA is located both in the cytosol and on the cell membrane. Since spermine, a natural metabolite, exists in all cells and tissues and its effect on the cell proliferation and enzyme regulation have been reported,  thermal inactivation of the ADA and spermine regulatory effect on the ADA activity have been investigated in this study. Percentage of ADA activity in the presence and absence of spermine (1000 µM) in Tris buffer 50 mM, pH 7.5 at physiologic and pathologic temperatures have been reported in the present study. Thermal inactivation curves for ADA in the absence and presence of spermine (1000 µM) in different temperatures ranging from 55 oC to 70 oC have been drawn. Our data showed that spermine activates the enzyme in the low concentrations of adenosine at 37 oC. However, it inhibits ADA activity at 42 oC in the same concentrations of substrate. It is concluded that spermine regulatory effect depends on combined influence of temperature and adenosine concentration. Furthermore, thermal stability of the enzyme also depends on temperature in presence of spermine. Binding site of spermine on the enzyme has been identified by docking analysis

Assessing the Effects of Climate Change on the Intensity and Magnitude of Floods in Future Periods

The purpose of this study was to investigate the trend of hydro-climatic variables, detect the occurrence of climate change and subscale the climatic variables during future periods and evaluate the intensity and magnitude of future floods. The trend of hydroclimatic variables was first investigated using Mann-Kendall and Sen tests. Then, the output data of maximum temperature, minimum temperature and precipitation of CANESM2 general circulation model were sub-scaled under RCP2.6 and RCP8.5 climate change scenarios using SDSM 4.2.9 model. Later, HEC-HMS model was used to evaluate the intensity and magnitude of events in the Emameh watershed in future periods. The results showed that 20.8 and 14.6% of the maximum temperature and minimum temperature series had a significant upward trend. While 5.5% of the rainfall time series had a significant upward trend. Therefore, unlike the temperature variable, the monthly precipitation variable did not have a definite trend during the observation period as in future periods, in some months it showed an increasing trend and in some months it showed a decreasing trend. However, the maximum and minimum temperatures under the diffusion scenarios increased in the following periods. The peak flow and volume ​​of the simulated floods, under the most severe events in each period, was significantly smaller for future periods than for the observation period. Comparison of the most severe events with each other in different periods showed an increase in the volume and magnitude of the flood in the RCP2.6 scenario compared with RCP8.5. Therefore, in the context of climate change, the number of floods and their destructive power has increased and managers and planners are recommended to pay attention to this, especially in urban areas