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The framework consists of three phases Phase 1 consists of the shopfloor setup and data acquisition steps, Phase 2 describes steps to prepare and analyze the data and Phase 3 consists of modeling, predictions and deployment. The first two phases of SPHM are addressed in detail and an overview is provided for the third phase, which is a part of ongoing research. As a use-case, the first two phases of the SPHM framework are applied to data from a milling machine operation.Older adults are susceptible to poor night-time sleep, characterized by short sleep duration and high sleep disruptions (i.e., more frequent and longer awakenings). This study aimed to longitudinally and objectively assess the changes in sleep patterns of older Australians during the 2020 pandemic lockdown. A non-invasive mattress-based device, known as the EMFIT QS, was used to continuously monitor sleep in 31 older adults with an average age of 84 years old before (November 2019-February 2020) and during (March-May 2020) the COVID-19, a disease caused by a form of coronavirus, lockdown. Total sleep time, sleep onset latency, wake after sleep onset, sleep efficiency, time to bed, and time out of bed were measured across these two periods. Overall, there was no significant change in total sleep time; however, women had a significant increase in total sleep time (36 min), with a more than 30-min earlier bedtime. There was also no increase in wake after sleep onset and sleep onset latency. Sleep efficiency remained stable across the pandemic time course between 84-85%. While this sample size is small, these data provide reassurance that objective sleep measurement did not deteriorate through the pandemic in older community-dwelling Australians.This work addresses a method that combines immunomagnetic separation (IMS) and paper-based nucleic acid immunochromatographic assay for the sensitive detection of Mycolicibacterium fortuitum (basonym Mycobacterium fortuitum) In particular, the preconcentration of the bacteria was achieved by using magnetic particles modified with an antibody specific towards mycobacteria. Following the IMS, the bacteria were lysed, and the genome was amplified by double-tagging PCR, using a set of primers specific for the 16S rRNA gene for Mycobacterium. During the amplification, the amplicons were labeled with biotin and digoxigenin tags. Moreover, a comparative study of paper-based immunochromatographic platforms, relying on vertical and lateral flow and on the use of streptavidin gold nanoparticles as a signal generating system, was also performed. The visual readout was achieved when the gold-modified amplicons were captured by the anti-DIG antibody in the test line. The analytical performance of both methods, nucleic acid vertical flow (NAVF) and nucleic acid lateral flow (NALF), is also discussed. Although NALF showed lower limit of detections (LODs), both NALF and NAVF combined with IMS were able to detect the required LOD in hemodialysis water, becoming two promising and useful techniques for the rapid screening of water supplies in hemodialysis centers, to prevent the exposure of immunosuppressed patients to contaminated sources.Gait and jump anomalies are often used as indicators to identify the presence and state of disorders that involve motor symptoms. Physical tests are often performed in specialized laboratories, which offer reliable and accurate results, but require long and costly analyses performed by specialized personnel. The use of inertial sensors for gait and jump evaluation offers an easy-to-use low-cost alternative, potentially applicable by the patients themselves at home. In this paper, we compared three inertial measurement units that are available on the market by means of well-known standardized tests for the evaluation of gait and jump behavior. The aim of the study was to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of each of the tested sensors, considered in different tests, by comparing data collected on two healthy subjects. Data were processed to identify the phases of the movement and the possible inaccuracies of each sensor. The analysis showed that some of the considered inertial units could be reliably used to identify the gait and jump phases and could be employed to detect anomalies, potentially suggesting the presence of disorders.Robotic devices can be used for motor control and learning research. In this work, we present the construction, modeling and experimental validation of a bimanual robotic device. We tested some hypotheses that may help to better understand the motor learning processes involved in the interlimb coordination function. The system emulates a bicycle handlebar with rotational motion, thus requiring bilateral upper limb control and a coordinated sequence of joint sub-movements. The robotic handlebar is compact and portable and can register in a fast rate both position and forces independently from arms, including prehension forces. An impedance control system was implemented in order to promote a safer environment for human interaction and the system is able to generate force fields, suitable for implementing motor learning paradigms. The novelty of the system is the decoupling of prehension and manipulation forces of each hand, thus paving the way for the investigation of hand dominance function in a bimanual task. Experiments were conducted with ten healthy subjects, kinematic and dynamic variables were measured during a rotational set of movements. Statistical analyses showed that movement velocity decreased with practice along with an increase in reaction time. This suggests an increase of the task planning time. Prehension force decreased with practice. However, an unexpected result was that the dominant hand did not lead the bimanual task, but helped to correct the movement, suggesting different roles for each hand during a cooperative bimanual task.Interchannel EEG synchronization, as well as its violation, is an important diagnostic sign of a number of diseases. In particular, during an epileptic seizure, such synchronization occurs starting from some pairs of channels up to many pairs in a generalized seizure. Additionally, for example, after traumatic brain injury, the destruction of interneuronal connections occurs, which leads to a violation of interchannel synchronization when performing motor or cognitive tests. Within the framework of a unified approach to the analysis of interchannel EEG synchronization using the ridges of wavelet spectra, two problems were solved. First, the segmentation of the initial data of long-term monitoring of scalp EEG with various artifacts into fragments suspicious of epileptic seizures in order to reduce the total duration of the fragments analyzed by the doctor. Second, assessments of recovery after rehabilitation of cognitive functions in patients with moderate traumatic brain injury. In the first task, the initial EEG was segmented into fragments in which at least two channels were synchronized, and by the adaptive threshold method into fragments with a high value of the EEG power spectral density. Overlapping in time synchronized fragments with fragments of high spectral power density was determined. As a result, the total duration of the fragments for analysis by the doctor was reduced by more than 60 times. In the second task, the network of phase-related EEG channels was determined during the cognitive test before and after rehabilitation. Calculation-logical and spatial-pattern cognitive tests were used. The positive dynamics of rehabilitation was determined during the initialization of interhemispheric connections and connections in the frontal cortex of the brain.With the development of deformation measuring technology at slope surfaces, prediction methods for rainfall-induced landslides based on the surface movements and tilting of slopes in the pre-failure stage have been recognized as a promising technique for risk reduction of slope failure triggered by rainfall. However, the correlation and possible mechanism for these prediction methods were rarely discussed. In this study, the comparison between the prediction methods of slope failure based on the time history of surface displacements and tilting in the acceleration stage was carried out by conducting a series of laboratory tests and field tests under rainfall, in which the movements and tilting behaviors at the slope surface were measured. The results show that the predicted failure time of tested slopes obtained by different prediction methods is consistent, and the correlation between these landslide prediction methods were also detected. A proportional relationship between the velocity of surface displacements and tilting rate was observed, and a possible mechanism for the sliding behavior was discussed based on this linear relationship as well. In addition, an expression for the linear relationship between the rate of the surface tilting and displacement was also established in this study, and the results could have significance for the understanding of the sliding behavior in the failure process in rainfall-induced landslides.Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have slowly but steadily emerged as a research and commercial hotspot because of their widespread applications. Due to their agility, compact size, and ability to integrate multiple sensors, they are mostly sought for applications that require supplementing human effort in risky and monotonous missions. Despite all of these advantages, rotorcrafts, in general, are limited by their endurance and power-intensive flight requirements, which consequently affect the time of flight and operational range. On the other hand, fixed-wing aircrafts have an extended range, as the entire thrust force is along the direction of motion and are inherently more stable but are limited by their takeoff and landing strip requirements. One of the potential solutions to increase the endurance of VTOL rotorcrafts (Vertical Take-Off and Landing Vehicles) was to exploit the thrust vectoring ability of the individual actuators in multi-rotors, which would enable take-off and hovering as a VTOL vehicle and flight as a fixed-wing aircraft. The primary aim of this paper is to lay out the overall design process of a Hybrid VTOL tilt-rotor UAV from the initial conceptual sketch to the final fabricated prototype. The novelty of the design lies in achieving thrust vectoring capabilities in a fixed-wing platform with minimum actuation and no additional control complexity. This paper presents novel bi-copter that has been designed to perform as a hybrid configuration in both VTOL and fixed wing conditions with minimum actuators in comparison to existing designs. The unified dynamic modelling along with the approximation of multiple aerodynamic coefficients by numerical simulations is also presented. The overall conceptual design, dynamic modeling, computational simulation, and experimental analysis of the novel hybrid fixed-wing bi-copter with thrust vectoring capabilities aiming to substantially increase the flight range and endurance compared to the conventional aircraft rotorcraft configurations are presented.Acne vulgaris is a highly prevalent skin disorder requiring treatment and management by dermatologists. Antibiotics such as clindamycin are commonly used to treat acne vulgaris. However, from both medical and public health perspectives, the development of alternative remedies has become essential due to the increase in antibiotic resistance. Topical therapy is useful as a single or combined treatment for mild and moderate acne and is often employed as maintenance therapy. Thus, the current study investigated the anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, and restorative effects of sesquiterpene farnesol on acne vulgaris induced by Cutibacterium acnes (C. acnes) in vitro and in a rat model. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of farnesol against C. acnes was 0.14 mM, and the IC50 of 24 h exposure to farnesol in HaCaT keratinocytes was approximately 1.4 mM. Moreover, 0.8 mM farnesol exhibited the strongest effects in terms of the alleviation of inflammatory responses and abscesses and necrotic tissue repair in C.