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Many cervical spine pathologies involve degeneration of the stabilizing mechanisms of vertebrae segments and often cause pain. Abnormal intervertebral motion is an indication for surgery. Currently, spinal fusion surgery is widely adopted to fix the instable vertebral segments but recently, disk arthroplasty is more and more adopted as an alternative to restore normal kinematics and biomechanics of...
In this paper we extend the finite-time stability (FTS) theory to two dimensional (2D)-systems. Such class of systems plays an important role in many engineering contexts, such as digital filtering, image processing, gas absorpsion technology, as well as in other fields, like seismological data processing, thermal and industrial processes. Each independent variable of a 2D-systems attains values into...
The preservation of stability and body coordination in humans is assured by the correct working of the postural control system. Usually, postural oscillations is measured by the magnitude of center of pressure (CoP) movement over time. The conventional parameters in frequency domain to quantify changes of the CoP dynamics are estimated using Fourier spectral methods. However, considering the non-stationarity...
The monitoring of vital parameters for athletes of all disciplines is becoming more and more essential, to improve performances and to ensure a constant control of athletes' physical conditions, thus preventing health risks and injuries. However, especially in amatorial competitions, the low available budget limits leads to the use of inexpensive and thus ineffective instrumentation. In this paper,...
The Electrical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) measurements, in addition to being used for research purposes, are increasingly spreading in clinical setting. Thanks to the improvement of electronic and information technology, the necessary equipment is becoming increasingly simple and small, suitable for example for home care applications. In this work, the characteristics of a smartphone based system...
In this paper we present a modified version of a previously proposed anomaly detector for polarimetric imagery. This modified version is a more adaptive, range invariant anomaly detector based on the covariance difference test, the M-Box. The paper demonstrates the underlying issue of range to target dependency of the previous algorithm and offers a solution that is very easily implemented with the...
This presentation describes an ongoing investigation of efficient methodologies for testing cognitive radios (CRs) and other dynamic spectrum access (DSA) radios based on approaches that have transformed testing of human cognition and behavioral performance over several decades.
Linear measures of heart rate variability (HRV) during ECG stress test has been widely questioned due to the high signal non-stationary. Such limitations can be overcome by nonlinear measures of HRV based on typical properties of chaotic systems and deterministic fractal. Very few paper addressed such issue and aim of the paper is to describe fractal behavior of HRV during exercise. A fractal analysis...
The present study was aimed to assess blood flow oscillatory patterns in rat pial microcirculation by laser speckle imaging. Laser speckle methods provides maps of cerebral blood flow with elevated temporal and spatial resolution. The study was carried out on male Wistar rats. An open cranial window was prepared on the parietal region. Pial arterioles were classified by Strahler method in five orders...
Robots need to be able understand the haptic sensations that occur during physical interaction in order to recognize and manipulate objects. This paper centers on the problem of robotic toolmediated haptic surface recognition. We collected data as a PR2 robot interacted with fifteen different surfaces through a novel tool that captures high-definition recordings of tactile vibrations, contact forces,...
Through a lumped parameter modelling approach, a dynamical model, which can reproduce the motion of the muscles of a human body standing in different postures during Whole Body Vibrations (WBVs) treatment, has been developed. The key parameters, associated to the dynamics of the motion of the muscles of the lower limbs, have been identified starting from accelerometer measurements. The developed model...
Although symbolic dynamics analysis (SDA) has been proposed for encoding words of different length and symbols, the resulting rapidly growing number of patterns has limited its clinical use. Aim of this study is to propose new SDA indices tested on a clinical data-set. We studied 40 ECG Holter of normal (NR), post-MI (MI), heart failure (HF) and transplanted (TR) subjects. RR differences were encoded...
Variations in kinematic performances and muscle activations, underlying improvements in muscle function and strength, in response to upper arm training of patients with congenital or acquired brain injuries, are still poorly understood. One of the most interesting features of a robotmediated therapy is the ability to quantify the performance of the rehabilitation tasks proposed to the patient. Although...
Dragging a tool across a textured object creates rich high-frequency vibrations that distinctly convey the physical interaction between the tool tip and the object surface. Varying one's scanning speed and normal force alters these vibrations, but it does not change the perceived identity of the tool or the surface. Previous research developed a promising data-driven approach to embedding this natural...
Perfusion CT is a feasible technique for obtaining quantitative informations about tumor-related vascularization of liver. Time Attenuation Curve (TAC) computation is the first step to obtain perfusion parameters from mathematical modeling. We apply “slope method” analysis to TAC to assess arterial blood flow (BFa) in liver tumor (HCC-Hepatocellular Carcinoma). A new algorithm which removes outlier...
Congenital Nystagmus (CN) is an ocular-motor disorder characterised by involuntary, conjugated ocular oscillations, and its pathogenesis is still unknown. The pathology is defined as “congenital” from the onset time of its arise which could be at birth or in the first months of life. Visual acuity in CN subjects is often diminished due to nystagmus continuous oscillations, mainly on the horizontal...
Microcomputed tomography (microCT) is a particular version of computerized axial tomography commonly used by radiologists which reaches resolutions of the order of a few micrometers. In biology, this technique is especially useful for the study of hard tissues, such as calcified bone and dental matrices, because of their high linear attenuation coefficient. MicroCT images, though, are affected by...
A valuable alternative to traditional diagnostic tool to record fetal heart rate, to monitor the general fetal well-being, is fetal phonocardiography, a passive and low cost acoustic recording of fetal heart sounds. In this paper, it is presented a simulating software of fetal phonocardiographic signals relative to different fetal physiological states and recording conditions (for example different...
Spreadsheets are intensively used for crucial management activities by several organizations. Collaboration through spreadsheet is recognized to be a powerful means to enhance crucial activities carried out in Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SME). However, the main obstacles to its realization appears to be the small size and the limited human and financial resources, which usually characterize...
Extracting information about the structure of biological tissue from static image data is a complex task which requires a series of computationally intensive operations. Here we present how the power of multi-core CPUs and massively parallel GPUs have been utilised to extract information about the shape, size and path followed by the mammalian oviduct, called the fallopian tube in humans, from histology...
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