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Biosensors May 2024At the heart of the non-implantable electronic revolution lies ionogels, which are remarkably conductive, thermally stable, and even antimicrobial materials. Yet, their...
At the heart of the non-implantable electronic revolution lies ionogels, which are remarkably conductive, thermally stable, and even antimicrobial materials. Yet, their potential has been hindered by poor mechanical properties. Herein, a double network (DN) ionogel crafted from 1-Ethyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride ([Emim]Cl), acrylamide (AM), and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) was constructed. Tensile strength, fracture elongation, and conductivity can be adjusted across a wide range, enabling researchers to fabricate the material to meet specific needs. With adjustable mechanical properties, such as tensile strength (0.06-5.30 MPa) and fracture elongation (363-1373%), this ionogel possesses both robustness and flexibility. This ionogel exhibits a bi-modal response to temperature and strain, making it an ideal candidate for strain sensor applications. It also functions as a flexible strain sensor that can detect physiological signals in real time, opening doors to personalized health monitoring and disease management. Moreover, these gels' ability to decode the intricate movements of sign language paves the way for improved communication accessibility for the deaf and hard-of-hearing community. This DN ionogel lays the foundation for a future in which e-skins and wearable sensors will seamlessly integrate into our lives, revolutionizing healthcare, human-machine interaction, and beyond.
Topics: Humans; Sign Language; Polyvinyl Alcohol; Monitoring, Physiologic; Wearable Electronic Devices; Gels; Imidazoles; Biosensing Techniques; Acrylamide; Tensile Strength
PubMed: 38785701
DOI: 10.3390/bios14050227 -
Frontiers in Neurology 2023Subjective cognitive complaints (SCC) refer to self-reported cognitive decline that may or may not be reflected in objective neuropsychological evaluations. Such SCC are...
INTRODUCTION
Subjective cognitive complaints (SCC) refer to self-reported cognitive decline that may or may not be reflected in objective neuropsychological evaluations. Such SCC are prevalent in neurodegenerative diseases, including Parkinson's disease (PD), but the prevalence and clinical features in patients with progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) have not been investigated.
METHODS
We recruited 83 PSP patients without dementia and investigated their SCC using a semi-structured interview. Comprehensive neuropsychological test results and patient clinical features were compared according to presence of SCC and underlying cognitive state.
RESULTS
Among the 83 patients, 16 had normal cognition (NC), 67 had mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and 36 (43.4%) reported SCC. Among NC patients, 37.5% (6/16) had SCC, while 44.8% (30/67) of MCI patients reported SCC. There were no differences between the neuropsychological test results or demographic and clinical characteristics of PSP patients with or without SCC in the NC group. The demographic and clinical characteristics of the MCI+SCC (MCI with SCC)and MCI-SCC (MCI without SCC) groups were comparable, but the MCI+SCC group had significantly worse neuropsychological scores than the MCI-SCC group, particularly in tests assessing attention, language, visual memory, and fronto-executive function domains.
DISCUSSION
While SCC are commonly reported by PSP patients, patients with PSP and MCI+SCC had worse cognitive function than those who did not report SCC. These findings suggest that SCC in PSP patients with MCI could be a worsening sign of cognitive function. Therefore, it is crucial for physicians to assess SCC in PSP patients and to provide timely diagnosis and management of cognitive decline.
PubMed: 38156084
DOI: 10.3389/fneur.2023.1326571 -
Frontiers in Psychology 2023An increasing number of experimental studies suggest that signs and gestures can scaffold vocabulary learning for children with and without special educational needs...
An increasing number of experimental studies suggest that signs and gestures can scaffold vocabulary learning for children with and without special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). However, little research has been done on the extent to which iconicity plays a role in sign learning, particularly in inclusive day care centers. This current study investigated the role of iconicity in the sign learning of 145 hearing children (2;1 to 6;3 years) from inclusive day care centers with educators who started using sign-supported speech after a training module. Children's sign use was assessed via a questionnaire completed by their educators. We found that older children were more likely to learn signs with a higher degree of iconicity, whereas the learning of signs by younger children was less affected by iconicity. Children with SEND did not benefit more from iconicity than children without SEND. These results suggest that whether iconicity plays a role in sign learning depends on the age of the children.
PubMed: 37655202
DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1196114 -
BMJ Open Feb 2024Research using animal models suggests that intensive motor skill training in infants under 2 years old with cerebral palsy (CP) may significantly reduce, or even...
INTRODUCTION
Research using animal models suggests that intensive motor skill training in infants under 2 years old with cerebral palsy (CP) may significantly reduce, or even prevent, maladaptive neuroplastic changes following brain injury. However, the effects of such interventions to tentatively prevent secondary neurological damages have never been assessed in infants with CP. This study aims to determine the effect of the baby Hand and Arm Bimanual Intensive Therapy Including Lower Extremities (baby HABIT-ILE) in infants with unilateral CP, compared with a control intervention.
METHODS AND ANALYSIS
This randomised controlled trial will include 48 infants with unilateral CP aged (corrected if preterm) 6-18 months at the first assessment. They will be paired by age and by aetiology of the CP, and randomised into two groups (immediate and delayed). Assessments will be performed at baseline and at 1 month, 3 months and 6 months after baseline. The immediate group will receive 50 hours of baby HABIT-ILE intervention over 2 weeks, between first and second assessment, while the delayed group will continue their usual activities. This last group will receive baby HABIT-ILE intervention after the 3-month assessment. Primary outcome will be the Mini-Assisting Hand Assessment. Secondary outcomes will include behavioural assessments for gross and fine motricity, visual-cognitive-language abilities as well as MRI and kinematics measures. Moreover, parents will determine and score child-relevant goals and fill out questionnaires of participation, daily activities and mobility.
ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION
Full ethical approval has been obtained by the , Brussels (2013/01MAR/069 B403201316810g). The recommendations of the ethical board and the Belgian law of 7 May 2004 concerning human experiments will be followed. Parents will sign a written informed consent ahead of participation. Findings will be published in peer-reviewed journals and conference presentations.
TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER
NCT04698395. Registered on the International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) on 2 December 2020 and NIH Clinical Trials Registry on 6 January 2021. URL of trial registry record: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04698395?term=bleyenheuft&draw=1&rank=7.
Topics: Infant, Newborn; Infant; Humans; Child, Preschool; Cerebral Palsy; Upper Extremity; Hand; Parents; Brain Injuries; Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic
PubMed: 38367973
DOI: 10.1136/bmjopen-2023-078383 -
PloS One 2024Sign language recognition presents significant challenges due to the intricate nature of hand gestures and the necessity to capture fine-grained details. In response to...
Sign language recognition presents significant challenges due to the intricate nature of hand gestures and the necessity to capture fine-grained details. In response to these challenges, a novel approach is proposed-Lightweight Attentive VGG16 with Random Forest (LAVRF) model. LAVRF introduces a refined adaptation of the VGG16 model integrated with attention modules, complemented by a Random Forest classifier. By streamlining the VGG16 architecture, the Lightweight Attentive VGG16 effectively manages complexity while incorporating attention mechanisms that dynamically concentrate on pertinent regions within input images, resulting in enhanced representation learning. Leveraging the Random Forest classifier provides notable benefits, including proficient handling of high-dimensional feature representations, reduction of variance and overfitting concerns, and resilience against noisy and incomplete data. Additionally, the model performance is further optimized through hyperparameter optimization, utilizing the Optuna in conjunction with hill climbing, which efficiently explores the hyperparameter space to discover optimal configurations. The proposed LAVRF model demonstrates outstanding accuracy on three datasets, achieving remarkable results of 99.98%, 99.90%, and 100% on the American Sign Language, American Sign Language with Digits, and NUS Hand Posture datasets, respectively.
Topics: Humans; Random Forest; Sign Language; Pattern Recognition, Automated; Gestures; Upper Extremity
PubMed: 38574042
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0298699 -
PloS One 2024This study investigates head nods in natural dyadic German Sign Language (DGS) interaction, with the aim of finding whether head nods serving different functions vary in...
This study investigates head nods in natural dyadic German Sign Language (DGS) interaction, with the aim of finding whether head nods serving different functions vary in their phonetic characteristics. Earlier research on spoken and sign language interaction has revealed that head nods vary in the form of the movement. However, most claims about the phonetic properties of head nods have been based on manual annotation without reference to naturalistic text types and the head nods produced by the addressee have been largely ignored. There is a lack of detailed information about the phonetic properties of the addressee's head nods and their interaction with manual cues in DGS as well as in other sign languages, and the existence of a form-function relationship of head nods remains uncertain. We hypothesize that head nods functioning in the context of affirmation differ from those signaling feedback in their form and the co-occurrence with manual items. To test the hypothesis, we apply OpenPose, a computer vision toolkit, to extract head nod measurements from video recordings and examine head nods in terms of their duration, amplitude and velocity. We describe the basic phonetic properties of head nods in DGS and their interaction with manual items in naturalistic corpus data. Our results show that phonetic properties of affirmative nods differ from those of feedback nods. Feedback nods appear to be on average slower in production and smaller in amplitude than affirmation nods, and they are commonly produced without a co-occurring manual element. We attribute the variations in phonetic properties to the distinct roles these cues fulfill in turn-taking system. This research underlines the importance of non-manual cues in shaping the turn-taking system of sign languages, establishing the links between such research fields as sign language linguistics, conversational analysis, quantitative linguistics and computer vision.
Topics: Humans; Sign Language; Phonetics; Germany; Male; Head; Female; Language; Head Movements
PubMed: 38814896
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0304040 -
Heliyon May 2024Speech and hearing impairments are among the most common problems in Indian societies. It can affect anyone, whether children, adults, or more. Many different treatments...
Speech and hearing impairments are among the most common problems in Indian societies. It can affect anyone, whether children, adults, or more. Many different treatments can help to overcome hearing problems. Different types of hearing aids and cochlear implants help amplify sounds for better hearing. The type of language known as sign language is very scientific and has its grammar and syntax. Still, due to a need for more awareness among hard-of-hearing persons, they need to be made familiar with the institutions where they can learn and equip themselves for communication. This paper describes an approach to aid speech and hard-of-hearing persons so that they are free to communicate with persons who do not have speech and hearing disabilities based on the Indian Sign Language System. To find an appropriate solution, there is a need to develop a system that can act as an interpreter for speech and hard-of-hearing persons. The interpreter system is designed with the help of the Robotic hand model and is programmed using Raspberry Pi 4. Based on the experimental results, it can be observed that the robotic hands generated different signs of the alphabet corresponding to the speech commands uttered by an individual. Several experimental trials were conducted by ten persons who do not have any hearing disabilities. The results of the five experimental trials are shown in this paper. The estimation of performance parameters and statistical analysis are also carried out to analyze better and interpret the experimental results. Based on the experimental results, the proposed robotic hand interpreter system model accurately generates gestures corresponding to different alphabets used in the Indian Sign Language system, yielding an overall accuracy of percent.
PubMed: 38699011
DOI: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e29678 -
Alternative Therapies in Health and... Nov 2023This study aims to explore the efficacy of multi-slice spiral computed tomography (MSCT) and rapid on-site evaluation (ROSE) in diagnosing pulmonary nodules, thereby...
OBJECTIVE
This study aims to explore the efficacy of multi-slice spiral computed tomography (MSCT) and rapid on-site evaluation (ROSE) in diagnosing pulmonary nodules, thereby providing more diagnostic information for clinical diagnosis, and improving the diagnostic efficiency of pulmonary nodules.
METHODS
With the means of a retrospective study, 103 patients with pulmonary nodules in our hospital from January 2019 to December 2021 were analyzed. The included patients had no history of lung surgery, and had no cognitive, audio-visual, language communication and physical activity disorders, with visual lesions in bronchoscopy. All patients underwent MSCT scans and ROSE. In the process of cell puncture or tissue biopsy, cell fluid smears or tissue prints were directly used to make cytological specimens. In the operation site, real-time production, staining and real-time cell analysis were carried out to determine whether the material was qualified. The diagnostic efficacy of MSCT, ROSE, and the combination of the two for pulmonary nodules was analyzed.
RESULTS
Of the 103 patients, there were finally 68 cases diagnosed with solitary nodules (66.02%) and 35 cases with multiple nodules (33.98%), with 196 pulmonary nodules in total; 25 of them were peripheral lung cancer (24.27%) and 78 were benign nodules (75.73%); and based on the results of clinical diagnosis, they were divided into the malignant group and the benign group separately. Diagnosis of MSCT showed that the probabilities of calcification, spicular sign, lobulation sign, vacuolar sign, and spinous process in the malignant group were significantly higher than those in the benign group (P = .000). 30 positive cases and 73 negative cases were detected by MSCT, including 13 false positives and 8 false negatives. ROSE detected 29 positive cases and 74 negative cases, of which 5 positives were diagnosed as negatives, and the 9 negatives were diagnosed as positives. There were 28 positive cases and 75 negative cases detected by the combination of MSCT and ROSE, including 5 false positives and 2 false negatives. The combined diagnosis of MSCT and ROSE demonstrated an accuracy of 93.20%, sensitivity of 92.00%, specificity of 93.59%, positive predictive value of 82.14%, and negative predictive value of 97.33%. The accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values of MSCT diagnosis were 79.61%, 68.00%, 83.33%, 56.67% and 89.04%, respectively. In ROSE diagnosis, the accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values were 86.41%, 80.00%, 88.46%, 68.97% and 93.24%. The combined diagnosis of MSCT and ROSE had a significantly higher diagnosis rate than the single diagnosis of MSCT and ROSE (P = .000). Through ROC analysis, the area under the curve (AUC) of combined diagnosis was overtly larger than that of single diagnosis of MSCT and ROSE (P = .000). The AUC of MSCT diagnosis and ROSE diagnosis were 0.757 (95%CI: 0.639-0.875) and 0.842 (95%CI: 0.742-0.943) respectively, and the AUC of the combined diagnosis of MSCT and ROSE was 0.928 (95%CI: 0.859-0.997).
CONCLUSION
The combination of MSCT and ROSE contributes to the advances in the diagnostic efficacy for pulmonary nodules in order to reduce the damage caused by ineffective biopsy, which is of great clinically instructional value to the early diagnosis of this disease. This method is convenient to provide reasonable reference materials for the formulation of scientific clinical treatment plan and accurate judgment of prognosis, thereby promoting the good prognosis of patients.
PubMed: 37971446
DOI: No ID Found -
Scientific Reports Nov 2023Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) can enhance motor and language rehabilitation after stroke. Though brain lesions distort tDCS-induced electric field...
Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) can enhance motor and language rehabilitation after stroke. Though brain lesions distort tDCS-induced electric field (E-field), systematic accounts remain limited. Using electric field modelling, we investigated the effect of 630 synthetic lesions on E-field magnitude in the region of interest (ROI). Models were conducted for two tDCS montages targeting either primary motor cortex (M1) or Broca's area (BA44). Absolute E-field magnitude in the ROI differed by up to 42% compared to the non-lesioned brain depending on lesion size, lesion-ROI distance, and lesion conductivity value. Lesion location determined the sign of this difference: lesions in-line with the predominant direction of current increased E-field magnitude in the ROI, whereas lesions located in the opposite direction decreased E-field magnitude. We further explored how individualised tDCS can control lesion-induced effects on E-field. Lesions affected the individualised electrode configuration needed to maximise E-field magnitude in the ROI, but this effect was negligible when prioritising the maximisation of radial inward current. Lesions distorting tDCS-induced E-field, is likely to exacerbate inter-individual variability in E-field magnitude. Individualising electrode configuration and stimulator output can minimise lesion-induced variability but requires improved estimates of lesion conductivity. Individualised tDCS is critical to overcome E-field variability in lesioned brains.
Topics: Humans; Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation; Brain; Stroke; Head; Broca Area
PubMed: 37940660
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-45905-7 -
Journal of the Intensive Care Society May 2024Central venous catheters are increasingly inserted using point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) guidance. Following insertion, it is still common to request a confirmatory...
INTRODUCTION
Central venous catheters are increasingly inserted using point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) guidance. Following insertion, it is still common to request a confirmatory chest radiograph for subclavian and internal jugular lines, at least outside of the operating theater. This scoping review addresses: (i) the justification for routine post-insertion radiographs, (ii) whether it would better to use post-insertion POCUS instead, and (iii) the perceived barriers to change.
METHODS
We searched the electronic databases, Ovid MEDLINE (1946-) and Ovid EMBASE (1974-), using the MESH terms ("Echography" OR "Ultrasonography" OR "Ultrasound") AND "Central Venous Catheter" up until February 2023. We also searched clinical practice guidelines, and targeted literature, including cited and citing articles. We included adults (⩾18 years) and English and French language publications. We included randomized control trials, prospective and retrospective cohort studies, systematic reviews, and surveys.
RESULTS
Four thousand seventy-one articles were screened, 117 full-text articles accessed, and 41 retained. Thirteen examined cardiac/vascular methods; 5 examined isolated contrast-enhanced ultrasonography; 7 examined isolated rapid atrial swirl sign; and 13 examined combined/integrated methods. In addition, three systematic reviews/meta-analyses and one survey addressed barriers to POCUS adoption.
DISCUSSION
We believe that the literature supports retiring the routine post-central line chest radiograph. This is not only because POCUS has made line insertion safer, but because POCUS performs at least as well, and is associated with less radiation, lower cost, time savings, and greater accuracy. There has been less written about perceived barriers to change, but the literature shows that these concerns- which include upfront costs, time-to-train, medicolegal concerns and habit- can be challenged and hence overcome.
PubMed: 38737308
DOI: 10.1177/17511437241227739