36 research outputs found
Using Rasch analysis to form plausible health states amenable to valuation: the development of CORE-6D from CORE-OM in order to elicit preferences for common mental health problems
Purpose: To describe a new approach for deriving a preference-based index from a condition specific measure that uses Rasch analysis to develop health states.
Methods: CORE-OM is a 34-item instrument monitoring clinical outcomes of people with common mental health problems. CORE-OM is characterised by high correlation across its domains. Rasch analysis was used to reduce the number of items and response levels in order to produce a set of unidimensionally-behaving items, and to generate a credible set of health states corresponding to different levels of symptom severity using the Rasch item threshold map.
Results: The proposed methodology resulted in the development of CORE-6D, a 2-dimensional health state description system consisting of a unidimensionally-behaving 5-item emotional component and a physical symptom item. Inspection of the Rasch item threshold map of the emotional component helped identify a set of 11 plausible health states, which, combined with the physical symptom item levels, will be used for the valuation of the instrument, resulting in the development of a preference-based index.
Conclusions: This is a useful new approach to develop preference-based measures where the domains of a measure are characterised by high correlation. The CORE-6D preference-based index will enable calculation of Quality Adjusted Life Years in people with common mental health problems
Robotic neurorehabilitation: a computational motor learning perspective
Conventional neurorehabilitation appears to have little impact on impairment over and above that of spontaneous biological recovery. Robotic neurorehabilitation has the potential for a greater impact on impairment due to easy deployment, its applicability across of a wide range of motor impairment, its high measurement reliability, and the capacity to deliver high dosage and high intensity training protocols
A review : a comprehensive review of soft and rigid wearable rehabilitation and assistive devices with a focus on the shoulder joint
The importance of the human upper limb role in performing daily life and personal activities is significant. Improper functioning
of this organ due to neurological disorders or surgeries can greatly affect the daily activities performed by patients. This paper
aims to comprehensively review soft and rigid wearable robotic devices provided for rehabilitation and assistance focusing on the
shoulder joint. In the last two decades, many devices have been proposed in this regard, however, there have been a few groups
whose devices have had effective therapeutic capability with acceptable clinical evidence. Also, there were not many portable,
lightweight and user-friendly devices. Therefore, this comprehensive study could pave the way for achieving optimal future
devices, given the growing need for these devices. According to the results, the most commonly used plan was Exoskeleton, the
most commonly used actuators were electrical, and most devices were considered to be stationary and rigid. By doing these
studies, the advantages and disadvantages of each method are also presented. The presented devices each have a new idea and
attitude in a specific field to solve the problems of movement disorders and rehabilitation, which were in the form of prototypes,
initial clinical studies and sometimes comprehensive clinical and commercial studies. These plans need more comprehensive
clinical trials to become a complete and efficient plan. This article could be used by researchers to identify and evaluate the
important features and strengths and weaknesses of the plans to lead to the presentation of more optimal plans in the future
The insect pathogenic bacterium Xenorhabdus innexi has attenuated virulence in multiple insect model hosts yet encodes a potent mosquitocidal toxin
Towards coordinated precision assembly with robot teams
We present a system in which a flexible team of robots coordinates to assemble large, complex, and diverse structures autonomously. Our system operates across a wide range of spatial scales and tolerances, using a hierarchical perception architecture. For the successful execution of very precise assembly operations under initial uncertainty, our system starts with high-field of view but low accuracy sensors, and gradually uses low field-of-view but high accuracy sensors. Our system also uses a failure detection and recovery system, integrated with this hierarchical perception architecture: upon losing track of a feature, our system retracts to using high-field of view systems to re-localize. Additionally, we contribute manipulation skills and tools necessary to assemble large structures with high precision. First, the team of robots coordinates to transport large assembly parts which are too heavy for a single robot to carry. Second, we develop a new tool which is capable of co-localizing holes and fasteners for robust insertion and fastening. We present real robot experiments where we measure the contribution of the hierarchical perception and failure recovery approach to the robustness of our system. We also present an extensive set of experiments where our robots successfully insert all 80 of the attempted fastener insertion operations