Prospects for intelligent rehabilitation techniques to treat motor dysfunction.

More than half of stroke patients live with different levels of motor dysfunction after receiving routine rehabilitation treatments. Therefore, new rehabilitation technologies are urgently needed as auxiliary treatments for motor rehabilitation. Based on routine rehabilitation treatments, a new intelligent rehabilitation platform has been developed for accurate evaluation of function and rehabilitation training. The emerging intelligent rehabilitation techniques can promote the development of motor function rehabilitation in terms of informatization, standardization, and intelligence. Traditional assessment methods are mostly subjective, depending on the experience and expertise of clinicians, and lack standardization and precision. It is therefore difficult to track functional changes during the rehabilitation process. Emerging intelligent rehabilitation techniques provide objective and accurate functional assessment for stroke patients that can promote improvement of clinical guidance for treatment. Artificial intelligence and neural networks play a critical role in intelligent rehabilitation. Multiple novel techniques, such as brain-computer interfaces, virtual reality, neural circuit-magnetic stimulation, and robot-assisted therapy, have been widely used in the clinic. This review summarizes the emerging intelligent rehabilitation techniques for the evaluation and treatment of motor dysfunction caused by nervous system diseases.

A Feasible Way to Produce Carbon Nanofiber by Electrospinning from Sugarcane Bagasse.

Recently, the nanofiber materials derived from natural polymers instead of petroleum-based polymers by electrospinning have aroused a great deal of interests. The lignocellulosic biomass could not be electrospun into nanofiber directly due to its poor solubility. Here, sugarcane bagasse (SCB) was subjected to the homogeneous esterification with different anhydrides, and the corresponding esterified products (SCB-A) were obtained. It was found that the bead-free and uniform nanofibers were obtained via electrospinning even when the mass fraction of acetylated SCB was 70%. According to the thermogravimetric analyses, the addition of SCB-A could improve the thermal stability of the electrospun composite nanofibers. More importantly, in contrast to the pure polyacrylonitrile (PAN) based carbon nanofiber, the SCB-A based carbon nanofibers had higher electrical conductivity and the surface N element content. In addition, the superfine carbon nanofiber mats with minimum average diameter of 117.0 ± 13.7 nm derived from SCB-A were obtained, which results in a larger Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area than pure PAN based carbon nanofiber. These results demonstrated that the combination of the homogeneous esterification and electrospinning could be a feasible and potential way to produce the bio-based carbon nanofibers directly from lignocellulosic without component separation.

[Detection and analysis of alcohol near-infrared spectrum in vitro and vivo based on wavelet transform].

The near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) signals of alcohol in vivo are always contaminated by noise. In the present study, wavelet analysis was used to eliminate noise and thereby detecting the NIRS signals of alcohol in vivo. In soft and hard threshold function, the spectral signals were de-noised by default threshold, Birge-Massart threshold and mini&max threshold respectively. Signal noise ratio (SNR) and root mean square error (RMSE) method were used to evaluate the effects of the de-noising. The results show that the default threshold de-noising has the best effects. Therefore, the default threshold de-noising was chosen to perform de-noising analysis in vivo and in vitro. Our result shows that the wavelet transform de-noising is effective in removing noise from NRS signals of alcohol in vivo. With different alcohol concentration, the de-noising spectrua can show evident absorption peaks. Wavelet analysis is an effective method in the non-invasive alcohol testing and quantitative analysis.

[Assessment of the effects of pressure on sacrum tissue oxygenation using near infrared spectroscopy].

The objective of the present study is to assess the effect of pressure on blood oxygenation in the sacrum tissue (high-risk area for pressure ulcer) based on near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) signals. NIRS was used to detect the change in the value of blood oxygenation. Thirty subjects were recruited, of which ten were elders (average age, 73.4 y ), ten were persons with spinal cord injury (average age, 32 y) and ten were healthy persons (average age, 25 y). In resting conditions, the blood oxygenation in sacrum tissue of the 30 subjects was monitored for 20 minutes prior to and after the three-minute loading period. The results show that the first three oxygenation parameters in the elderly and persons with spinal cord injury (SCI) changed significantly during the loading period (p < 0.01) and took longer time to return to the normal level than the health persons. TOI in the three groups decreased with the pressure and returned after pressure release. These findings indicated that pressure had significant effect on blood oxygenation and the oxygenation parameters are good indicators of evaluation of pressure sore risk.

[Assessment of cerebral oxygen saturation using near infrared spectroscopy under driver fatigue state].

The objective of the present study is to assess the cerebral saturation under driver fatigue based on the near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) signals. Twenty healthy male subjects were randomly divided into two groups: A-group (study group) and B-group (control group). All subjects were required to be well rested before the experiment. In A-group the subjects were required to perform the simulated driving task for 3 hours. Cerebral oxygenation signal was monitored for 20 minutes prior to and after the prescribed task period from the left frontal lobe. The results show that cerebral oxygen saturation was found to be significantly lower following 3-hour driving in the task group compared to that in the control group (F = 15.92, p < 0.001). Also a significant difference in selective reaction time was observed between the task group and control group during the post task period (p = 0.021). These findings showed that the cerebral blood oxygen saturation was closely related to the driver fatigue. The decline of the cerebral oxygen saturation might indicate a reduced cerebral oxygen delivery. This suggests that NIRS could provide a non-invasive method to detect driver fatigue.

[Spectral analysis of electromyography of low back muscle fatigue induced by simulated driving].

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effects of different vibration frequency on the back muscle fatigue during simulated driving. METHODS: Thirty-six subjects performed three simulated driving experiments under three vertical vibration frequencies which were 1.8, 4.0, 6.0 Hz respectively and the driving time was 90 minutes. At the same time the electromyography of low back was recorded. RESULTS: The median frequencies calculated from the power spectrum were decreased exponentially under three vertical vibration frequencies, especially under 4.0 Hz vibration frequency. CONCLUSION: The 4.0 Hz vibration frequency has the most important effect on the back muscle fatigue under simulated driving condition.