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Resting tremor is an essential characteristic in patients suffering from Parkinson's disease (PD).

Quantification and monitoring of tremor severity is clinically important to help achieve medication or rehabilitation guidance in daily monitoring.

Wrist-worn tri-axial accelerometers were utilized to record the long-term acceleration signals of PD patients with different tremor severities rated by Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS). Based on the extracted features, three kinds of classifiers were used to identify different tremor severities. Statistical tests were further designed for the feature analysis.

The support vector machine (SVM) achieved the best performance with an overall accuracy of 94.84%. Additional feature analysis indicated the validity of the proposed feature combination and revealed the importance of different features in differentiating tremor severities.

The present work obtains a high-accuracy classification in tremor severity, which is expected to play a crucial role in PD treatment and symptom monitoring in real life.

The present work obtains a high-accuracy classification in tremor severity, which is expected to play a crucial role in PD treatment and symptom monitoring in real life.

The exoskeleton for lower limb rehabilitation is an uprising field of robot technology. However, since it is difficult to achieve all the optimal design values at the same time, each lower extremity exoskeleton has its own focus.

This study aims to develop a modular lightweight lower extremity exoskeleton (MOLLEE) with novel compliant ankle joints, and evaluate the movement performance through kinematics analysis.

The overall structure of the exoskeleton was proposed and the adjustable frames, active joint modules, and compliant ankle joints were designed. The forward and inverse kinematics models were established based on the geometric method. The theoretical models were validated by numerical simulations in ADAMS, and the kinematic performance was demonstrated through walking experiments.

The proposed lower extremity offers six degrees of freedom (DoF). The exoskeleton frame was designed adjustable to fit wearers with a height between 1.55m and 1.80m, and waist width from 37cm to 45cm. The joint modmeet the needs of daily rehabilitation activities.

Addressing intensity inhomogeneity is critical in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) because associated errors can adversely affect post-processing and quantitative analysis of images (i.e., segmentation, registration, etc.), as well as the accuracy of clinical diagnosis. Although several prior methods have been proposed to eliminate or correct intensity inhomogeneity, some significant disadvantages have remained, including alteration of tissue contrast, poor reliability and robustness of algorithms, and prolonged acquisition time.

In this study, we propose an intensity inhomogeneity correction method based on volume and surface coils simultaneous reception (VSSR).

The VSSR method comprises of two major steps 1) simultaneous image acquisition from both volume and surface coils and 2) denoising of volume coil images and polynomial surface fitting of bias field. Extensive in vivo experiments were performed considering various anatomical structures, acquisition sequences, imaging resolutions, and orientations. In terms of correction performance, the proposed VSSR method was comparatively evaluated against several popular methods, including multiplicative intrinsic component optimization and improved nonparametric nonuniform intensity normalization bias correction methods.

Experimental results show that VSSR is more robust and reliable and does not require prolonged acquisition time with the volume coil.

The VSSR may be considered suitable for general implementation.

The VSSR may be considered suitable for general implementation.

Traditional healthcare is centred around providing in-hospital services using hospital owned medical instruments. 5-Fluorouracil nmr The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that this approach lacks flexibility to insure follow-up and treatment of common medical problems. In an alternative setting adapted to this problem, participatory healthcare can be considered centred around data provided by patients owning and operating medical data collection equipment in their homes.

In order to trigger such a shift reliable and price attractive devices need to become available. Snoring, as a human sound production during sleep, can reflect sleeping behaviour and indicate sleep problems as an element of the overall health condition of a person.

The use of off-the-shelf hardware from Internet of Things platforms and standard audio components allows the development of such devices. A prototype of a snoring sound detector with this purpose is developed.

The device, controlled by the patient and with specific snoring recording and analysing functions is demonstrated as a model for future participatory healthcare.

Design of monitoring devices following this model could allow market introduction of new equipment for participatory healthcare, bringing a care complementary to traditional healthcare to the reach of patients, and could result in benefits from enhanced patient participation.

Design of monitoring devices following this model could allow market introduction of new equipment for participatory healthcare, bringing a care complementary to traditional healthcare to the reach of patients, and could result in benefits from enhanced patient participation.

Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopment condition that is normally linked with substantial healthcare costs. Typical ASD screening techniques are time consuming, so the early detection of ASD could reduce such costs and help limit the development of the condition.

We propose an automated approach to detect autistic traits that replaces the scoring function used in current ASD screening with a more intelligent and less subjective approach.

The proposed approach employs deep neural networks (DNNs) to detect hidden patterns from previously labelled cases and controls, then applies the knowledge derived to classify the individual being screened. Specificity, sensitivity, and accuracy of the proposed approach are evaluated using ten-fold cross-validation. A comparative analysis has also been conducted to compare the DNNs' performance with other prominent machine learning algorithms.

Results indicate that deep learning technologies can be embedded within existing ASD screening to assist the stakeholders in the early identification of ASD traits.

The proposed system will facilitate access to needed support for the social, physical, and educational well-being of the patient and family by making ASD screening more intelligent and accurate.

The proposed system will facilitate access to needed support for the social, physical, and educational well-being of the patient and family by making ASD screening more intelligent and accurate.

Trunk control ability is an important component of functional independence after the onset of stroke. Recently, it has been reported that robot-assisted functional training is effective for stroke patients. However, most studies on robot-assisted training have been conducted on upper and lower extremities.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of robot-assisted trunk control training on trunk postural control and balance ability in stroke patients.

Forty participants with hemiparetic stroke were recruited and randomly divided into two groups the RT (robot-assisted trunk control training) group (n= 20) and the control group (n= 20). All participants underwent 40 sessions of conventional trunk stabilization training based on the Bobath concept (for 30minutes, five-times per week for 8weeks). After to each training session, 15minutes of robotassisted trunk control training was given in the RT group, whereas the control group received stretching exercise for the same amount of time. Robot-asective to improve trunk postural control and balance ability in stroke patients. Therefore robot-assisted training may be suggested as an effective intervention to improve trunk control ability in patients with stroke.

There is a growing concern among the scientific community that the effects of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) are highly variable across studies. The use of different tDCS devices and electrode sizes may contribute to this variability; however, this issue has not been verified experimentally.

To evaluate the effects of tDCS device and electrode size on quadriceps motor cortical excitability.

The effect of tDCS device and electrode size on quadriceps motor cortical excitability was quantified across a range of TMS intensities using a novel evoked torque approach that has been previously shown to be highly reliable. In experiment 1, anodal tDCS-induced excitability changes were measured in twenty individuals using two devices (Empi and Soterix) on two separate days. In experiment 2, anodal tDCS-induced excitability changes were measured in thirty individuals divided into three groups based on the electrode size. A novel Bayesian approach was used in addition to the classical hypothesis testing during data analyses.

There were no significant main or interaction effects, indicating that cortical excitability did not differ between different tDCS devices or electrode sizes. The lack of pre-post time effect in both experiments indicated that cortical excitability was minimally affected by anodal tDCS. Bayesian analyses indicated that the null model was more favored than the main or the interaction effects model.

Motor cortical excitability was not altered by anodal tDCS and did not differ by devices or electrode sizes used in the study. Future studies should examine if behavioral outcomes are different based on tDCS device or electrode size.

Motor cortical excitability was not altered by anodal tDCS and did not differ by devices or electrode sizes used in the study. Future studies should examine if behavioral outcomes are different based on tDCS device or electrode size.

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) can monitor or modulate brain excitability. However, reliability of TMS outcomes depends on consistent coil placement during stimulation. Neuronavigated TMS systems can address this issue, but their cost limits their use outside of specialist research environments.

The objective was to evaluate the performance of a low-cost navigated TMS approach in improving coil placement consistency and its effect on motor evoked potentials (MEPs) when targeting the biceps brachii at rest and during voluntary contractions.

We implemented a navigated TMS system using a low-cost 3D camera system and open-source software environment programmed using the Unity 3D engine. MEPs were collected from the biceps brachii at rest and during voluntary contractions across 2 sessions in ten non-disabled individuals. Motor hotspots were recorded and targeted via two conditions navigated and conventional.

The low-cost navigated TMS system reduced coil orientation error (pitch 1.18°±1.2°, yaw 1.99°±1.9°, roll 1.18°±2.2° with navigation, versus pitch 3.7°±5.7°, yaw 3.11°±3.1°, roll 3.8°±9.1° with conventional). The improvement in coil orientation had no effect on MEP amplitudes and variability.

The low-cost system is a suitable alternative to expensive systems in tracking the motor hotspot between sessions and quantifying the error in coil placement when delivering TMS. Biceps MEP variability reflects physiological variability across a range of voluntary efforts, that can be captured equally well with navigated or conventional approaches of coil locating.

The low-cost system is a suitable alternative to expensive systems in tracking the motor hotspot between sessions and quantifying the error in coil placement when delivering TMS. Biceps MEP variability reflects physiological variability across a range of voluntary efforts, that can be captured equally well with navigated or conventional approaches of coil locating.