Correlation between accelerometry and clinical balance testing in stroke

[Purpose] The purpose of this study was to determine the correlation between the Berg Balance Scale (BBS) and acceleration of postural sway in the Clinical Test of Sensory Interaction and Balance (CTSIB) by using a triaxial accelerometer for quantitative assessment. [Subjects and Methods] Twenty-seven stroke patients participated in this study. Balance ability was evaluated with the BBS, and postural sway was evaluated with a triaxial accelerometer. The data were then analyzed for frequency and correlation by using statistical software (SPSS 18.0). [Result] Acceleration in left-right and forward-backward directions in all conditions of the CTSIB assessment showed a significant correlation with BBS assessment. Acceleration in Signal Vector Magnitude values in condition 3 of the CTSIB assessment showed a significant correlation with BBS assessment. [Conclusion] This study revealed that postural sway represented balance ability as acceleration in the quantitative measurement of kinematic analysis. This finding suggests that the triaxial accelerometer could be used as a measurement tool in clinical conditions.clos

Probabilistic Risk Assessment for FPSO Topside Structures Under Drop Impact: An Application to Pipeline Protections

In offshore structural design, it is necessary to evaluate probabilistic risk so that the topside structure has sufficient capacity to resist the effects of accidental loads such as drop impact, helicopter impact, vessel collision, fire, and explosion. Most engineers in the offshore industry, however, have difficulties in estimating a reliable risk value because there are still too many uncertainties in computing the probability of exceeding a target structural damage where the guideline for hazard analysis, which provides design load, is quite well described. Therefore, a framework to compute reasonable probability of structural failure is proposed in this paper. 88 impact scenarios were applied to a pipeline protection system on a topside module of Nexus genetic FPSO in order to perform regression analysis for structural damage. For risk calculation, the hazard analysis in this study is based on the detail engineering report worked by Ramboll Oil & Gas.Copyright © 2011 by ASM

Anodic aluminium oxide membranes for immunoisolation with sufficient oxygen supply for pancreatic islets

Immunoisolation membranes have been developed for various cell encapsulations for therapeutic purposes. However effective encapsulation systems have been hindered by low oxygen (O-2) permeability or imperfect immunoisolation caused by either low porosity or non-uniform pore geometry. Here, we report an encapsulation method that uses an anodic aluminum oxide membrane formed by polyethylene oxide self-assembly to obtain nanochannels with both high selectivity in excluding immune molecules and high permeability of nutrients such as glucose, insulin, and O-2. The extracorporeal encapsulation system composed of these membranes allows O-2 flux to meet the O-2 demand of pancreatic islets of Langerhans and provides excellent in vitro viability and functionality of islets.X116sciescopu

Thermally assisted alkali/zinc ion hybrid battery for high roundtrip efficiency

The growth of renewable energy generation has necessitated electric energy storage (EES) systems. Batteries are the most promising small-scale EES system, given their portability, quick response time, and high compatibility with electrical devices. We present a thermally assisted K/Zn ion hybrid battery for high roundtrip efficiency. The battery contains a copper hexacyanoferrate (CuHCFe) cathode and a zinc metal anode with a discharging voltage of 1.75 V in a K/Zn ion hybrid aqueous electrolyte. The battery's roundtrip efficiency improved by 2.1-4.5% when cycled between 10 and 30 °C. Its discharging voltage and temperature coefficient improved dramatically when the K ion was replaced with a Rb ion. The proposed thermally assisted battery cycle can be used with various conventional batteries to reduce EES energy loss during charge/discharge cycles.Ministry of Education (MOE)S.W.L. acknowledges the support by Academic Research Fund Tier 2 from the Ministry of Education, Singapore under ref. no. MOE2019-T2-1-122

Temperature-Dependent Fracture Resistance of Silicon Nanopillars during Electrochemical Lithiation

During the lithation of silicon anodes, the solid-state diffusion of lithium into LixSi follows the Arrhenius law, the resulting morphology and fracture behavior are determined by the silicon anode operation temperature. Here, we reveal the temperature dependence of the lithiation mechanics of crystalline silicon nanopillars (SiNPs) via microscopic observations of the anisotropic growth and fracture behavior. We fabricated 1D SiNP structures with various orientations (< 100 >, < 110 >, and < 111 >) as working electrodes and operated them at temperatures ranging from -20 to 40 degrees C. The lithiation of crystalline silicon at low temperatures exhibited preferential volume expansion along < 110 > and decreased fracture resistance. Furthermore, low temperatures caused the catastrophic fracture of amorphous silicon after the second lithiation. Our findings demonstrate the importance of silicon anode temperature control to prevent mechanical fracture during the cycle of lithium-ion batteries in harsh environments (e.g., electric vehicles in winter)