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A mobile robot is a type of robot that can move to change positions and orientations using actuators. Robot movement was controlled by using various methods in previous studies. In order to control the movement of mobile robot more intuitively, several gesture-based control algorithms had been investigated. The remaining problem is how to produce a gesture-based control method with fast computing time and accurate results. To be able to recognize a gesture, this research used a webcam to capture image data in RGB format. The webcam reading results used as input to control the robot movement by applying the proposed method. This study proposes to use shoulder and elbow angles of skeletal image of the robot user. The differential-steering mobile robot is controlled by adjusting the velocity of right and left motors in order to move forward, backward, turn right, turn left and stop. Based on the experiments that has been carried out regarding robot movement control using gestures based on this proposed method, it shows that the proposed system has the accuracy of 97.8%. The proposed method has the potential for a great approach to human-robot interaction in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Customer profiling is one of the important aspects for retailers or service providers used in analyzing consumer characteristics and needs. To build a customer profile, various customer information can be used ranged from demographic information (such as age, gender, salary, address) to customer behavior (such as the frequency to visit shop and money spent). Due to the enormous amount of information available, it becomes inefficient to analyze it through descriptive analysis. Instead, data mining can be used to cluster and summarize the huge amount of information without much information loss. This paper discuss method of utilizing LRFMP (Length Recency Frequency Monetary Periodicity) model and K-means clustering in data mining techniques to perform customer profiling. Furthermore, this paper will describe the evaluation of this work which is based on Elbow method, Silhouette Index, Davies-Bouldin Index, and Calinski Harabasz test. The result suggested LRFMP model is a viable model in customer profiling when use together with K-means clustering technique despite some variable may had contributed less than another. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Promotion is one way that can be used to increase the number of registrants at a university. The number of registrants for a university has greatly increased in the student segmentation process carried out to determine the target area for promotion. A good segmentation process can produce accurate information that can be used as a basic promotion or marketing strategy. This study develops a model based on the KMeans algorithm for the segmentation process based on the number of registrants and the citizen population (school-age) in a city. This algorithm was chosen because it can group data that has similarities into a cluster. Elbow method is used to determine the cluster optimum number based on Within Cluster Sum of Squared Errors (WSS) calculations and inertia is used for calculations to visualize data in a plot or graph. The results of this study are in the form of a model that can interpret clusters, namely clusters with high population but have a small number of registrants, cluster with high population and have a high number of registrants (promotional targets), cluster with a low population but have high number of registrants, and a cluster with low population but less registrants. With the interpretation of the model a university can determine the target city for promotion based on the targeted cluster. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this research paper, a wearable vigorous low-cost 3D printed prosthetic arm has been designed and fabricated for an amputee with a lost transradial or below the elbow prosthesis. An experimental test has been conducted to find out the efficiency, accuracy, gripping strength and feasibility of the designed prosthetic arm. A total control of a 6 degree of freedom hand is accomplished successfully using electromyographic signals. Different gripping patterns have been tested to check out the overall object gripping strength of the prosthetic arm. The arm is a lightweight robotic prosthesis which can be used daily for a long period of time. The total manufacturing cost of the arm is 3,120 Indian rupees which can be considered to be cheap compared to the currently available solutions in the market, thus making it one of the most reliable and low-cost prosthesis for an amputee. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

MSMEs in Indonesia is currently growing very quickly from year to year. One of the MSMEs is slondok. After conducting field observations and interviews, the slondok printing machines owned by several MSMEs in Yogyakarta have not paid attention to occupational health and safety aspects. Workers complain of disturbances in some parts of the body that interfere with their productivity. This study aims to determine the body posture of workers when doing slondok printing. Researchers conducted initial identification with the NBM (Nordic Body Map) questionnaire, the results obtained that there were several parts that felt painful including below the neck, upper right arm, right elbow, right forearm, left knee, right knee. The next step is using the work posture method. The method used is the REBA method, because the REBA method analyzes all parts of the body. The final result of the REBA method is a score of 11 on a level scale with a high risk for work posture in slondok printing workers. Furthermore, the results of REBA are used as the basis for the recommendation for the design of the slondok printing machine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An improvement of design in the draft tube and its performance employed in reaction turbines is studied. The elbow draught tube was measured during that work with the aid of CFD, DoE, and surrogate models. The system confirms the form of draft tube square measurement used in function parameters whereas the pressure rebuild resolves and therefore the loss of head square measurement of the product obtained from this study. The pressure issue that is to be sag generated and therefore the head loss have to be compelled to be decreased. The optimized results square measure obtained and therefore the verification of these models is finished by comparison with CFD results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pipe bends are the critical components in piping systems. Pipe bends deform in its own plane and out of plane when it is subjected to bending load. Pipe bends exhibit shell type geometry and their shell type behavior due offers greater flexibility. In comparison with straight pipe of same size, material and under similar loading conditions, pipe bends are accompanied by larger magnitude of stresses and strains. Hence there is a need for reliable estimation of load capacity and deep understanding of elastic-plastic behaviour under different combined loading conditions. The current research aims at studying the elastic behaviour of pipe bends, under in-plane moment loading and the effects under internal pressure. The numerical method is employed to model and analyse the pipe elbow subjected to Internal pressure varying from 0% to 40% of the yield pressure in increments of 20%. The results are exhibited in the form of load deflection plots. The analysis work has been extended to the above stated component made up of Graphite-epoxy composite. The identical boundary conditions have been considered. The behaviour of the composite elbow under the varying loading conditions is believed to be good compared to the conventional one. The work helps towards the potential replacement of the conventional one with the new proposed elbow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Walking could be a motion and it's totally different from one person to another. Walking is one in every of life science that helps to see the identity of an individual while not his data and from an excellent distance during this study we tend to planned to extract the dynamic characteristics looking at the characteristics of the skeleton and therefore the angles of the correct elbow, left elbow, right knee and left knee and changing it to a curve. The video was taken by a digital camera, and the video was inserted into the program, which converts it from second to 3D and exploits the temporal and special changes of the walking cycle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pipework in process facilities such as oil and gas or petrochemical plants is subjected to various dynamic excitations. Such excitations may include flow-induced forces due to turbulence or due to change in flow momentum (e.g., at reducers, ex-panders, elbows, etc.), shaking due to imbalances of rotating machinery, gas pulsations in closed branches and gas pulsations due to reciprocating machinery. Since process pipework usually conveys hot/cooled fluids, they cannot be rigidly fixed, and design codes (e.g., ASME B31.1) dictate a degree of flexibility of process pipework. The ensuing vibrations from these dynamic loads (overtime) may cause vibration-induced fatigue failures (VIF). It is in the operator's interest to quantify the risk of such vibrations as part of a risk-based inspection regime to ensure the plant's optimal and safe operations. Ideally, the risk of VIF is quantified by measuring strain. However, measuring strain in process plants can be challenging due to multiple reasons: the installation of strain gauges requires paint removal and surface preparation; pipework is often hot or insulated; the installation itself may be challenging physically if the pipework is excessively shaking. A popular alternative to strain measurement is to measure the vibration using widely available accelerometers and commercially available single channel analyzers. The motive here is that the velocity of vibration is correlated to the dynamic stress, and thus, vibration levels can be used as an indication of the risk of VIF. Current vibration acceptance criteria use the root-mean-square of the velocity and the dominant frequency of vibration to classify pipework vibrations into three categories: OK, CONCERN and PROBLEM levels. This paper uses one-dimensional (1D) convolutional neural networks (CNNs) to classify pipework vibrations. We use an experimental setup to generate vibration and stress signals in a pipe/shaker setup, and we pre-classify the stress signals into the three categories mentioned earlier. Wethen use the vibration time history signals to train the 1D CNN. Preliminary results show that the proposed CNN can classify the vibration data 95% of the time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pipes made of Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) are widely used in households and in the industrial world to transfer clean and dirty water. The elbows of PVC Pipes available in the market have a large pressure loss because they are not designed aerodynamically. This study aims to determine the loss of water flow in PVC pipes experimentally. The models investigated are elbow available in the market and elbows made by bending the pipes 90o with a radius of 2 Diameter of the pipe. Diameter of the pipe is 21 mm. The experimental investigation is carried out by varying the water flow rate in the pipe, namely 20, 25, 30 and 35 liter/minute. The experimental results show that the pressure loss at the elbows available in the market is greater than that of the bent pipe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the pandemic, apart from maintaining social distance, people are encouraged to vaccinate. Vaccination is a step to make the body's immune stronger against COVID-19. Several types of vaccines circulating in Indonesia are Sinovac, AstraZeneca, Sinopharm, Moderna and Pfizer. Nowadays people often share opinions on social media regarding many things. One of them is about the vaccination program. Many people talk about experiences with vaccines, types of vaccines, vaccine resistance and other things related to vaccines. To succeed in vaccination program, the government needs to monitor and analyze public opinion related to vaccines to make better vaccination policies. This research proposes to cluster public opinion from social media using the K-Means algorithm with the Elbow method to get the optimal number of clusters. Each cluster will be grouped based on the similarity of one record to another. From the result of the experiments, it was found that 3 is the best number of clusters. Cluster 1 is the largest cluster with a discussion pattern about the experience of having been vaccinated and post-vaccinated. Cluster 0 contains the relationship between Israel and Palestine related to vaccines and cluster 2 talks vaccines related to schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

UD Sabeena's business has a simple production process. The process of cutting the skin causes musculoskeletal disorders of workers such as back pain, fatigue, and others. Musculoskeletal disorders result in decreased productivity. SNQ is used to identify, analyze, and calculate the percentage of complaints to workers. From SNQ obtained complaints on the buttocks 100%, waist, back and right hand 92%, upper right arm and left shoulder 83%, upper left arm, right and left forearm 75%, this is because the tools used require workers to bend, bend feet and standing repeatedly for more than 8 hours/day. Suggestions for cutting leather tools based on the results of anthropometric measurements of workers. The length and width of the table are based on the dimensions of the reach of the hand with an average of the 50th percentile where the width of the hand table is 76 cm. Meanwhile, the height of the table is based on the dimensions of standing elbow height where the average is the 50th percentile so that the height of the table is 90 cm. It is proposed to redesign the leather cutting tool using the QFD method which considers the needs and desires of consumers into a product design including a rectangular stainless steel leather cutter with a size of 76 x 76 cm, blue color, has a blade of 72 cm following the size of the table with a vertical position and horizontal with a density of 1 cm, the height of the table leg is 86 cm, and there is foam on the handle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the development of medical rehabilitation tools, muscle signals or electromyographic (EMG) are often used as feedback from the body in order to facilitate normal movement patterns. Through this signal, the force, torque, and angle can be estimated to produce the desired movement in the robot to assist patients in rehabilitation therapy. There had been various research done on estimating the extremities' joint angle, including the system identification method with Auto-Regressive Integrated Moving Average with Exogenous Input (ARIMAX) model structure. This research aims to model biceps brachii's EMG signal and the elbow joint angle using the ARIMAX model structure. In modeling, the order of the model was selected using the methods of minimizing the AIC (Akaike Information Criteria) and RMSE (Root Mean Square Error) values. The reported results showed the comparison of the outcome and model orders from three data sets with a frequency sampling of 47.6690 Hz, l66.3248 Hz, and 935.6743 Hz, respectively. The frequency sampling of l66.3248 Hz results showed the best accuracy performance of the ARIMAX model structure. The model order which is selected based on the minimization of the RMSE value obtained the best estimate, while the order models were selected based on the minimization of the AIC value showed a more consistent performance on the data estimation and validation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hierarchical cluster analysis is commonly recommended as a practical method in identifying significant clusters within samples that can superficially appear homogeneous. The present paper provided a theoretical historical past to hierarchical clustering, specifically outlining the assessment of hierarchical clustering strategies with the aid of cophenetic correlation, figuring out the premiere number of clusters by way of elbow approach, silhouette and gap statistic and illustration of dissimilarity analysis. The empirical study is carried out through the use of grain yield and its component characteristics data of fifty maize genotypes in the North-West plain zone of India had been accrued from the annual maize progress report Kharif 2018, All India Coordinated Research Project on Maize. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims at assessing ergonomics and usability variables in wearable elbow exoskeleton prototype. Ergonomics testing is conducted in three level of iteration. Usability testing is performed based on Nielsen approach. The results of ergonomics testing in the third iteration of observation show that the product has met all the existing checklists and is ready to be tested directly on the patient. In terms of medical and therapeutic stages, the product can withstand the load, the repetition speed is good and the delay between reps is also not long. The respondents agreed that the stroke therapy aids were easy to understand and acceptable (80%). Respondents chose neutral level of memorability (70.83%). It means stroke therapy aids can help them make it easier for them to undergo therapy. Respondents chose neutral regarding the level of efficiency (80.83%) of the stroke therapy aid. There was an error while undergoing therapy with a stroke therapy aid, but felt comfortable undergoing therapy with the help of a stroke therapy aid. Respondents feel happy, satisfy and comfortable (83%) undergoing therapy with stroke therapy aids and are able to adjust to the differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human-robot interactions have gained popularity in the recent past, particularly in the advent and revolution of industry 4.0 era. There are still open research issues to be addressed, e.g., human-machine interaction, especially in robotic operation using bio-signal. This paper presents surface electromyography (sEMG) signal analysis of the motion of upper limb muscles to control the robotic arm. The objective is to use as few EMG channels to estimate joint angles for application in a robotic arm. The overall target is how this information can be applied to a robot control scheme. Three motions are proposed based on the 2 degrees of freedom (DOF) between joint elbow and shoulder. Three sEMG channel signal is captured using a DAQ unit comprising of pre-amplifier and NI USB 6008 and a laptop running LabVIEW software. The analysis is conducted using Matlab software. The result indicates that the sEMG from three muscles of the upper limb gives useful information and the performance of the sEMG synergy-based model has a good prospect for the controlling robot arm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ducting system has considerable energy losses in a high building. Pressure drop in ducting caused by friction loss, separation loss, and secondary flow. The high-pressure drop leads to an increased amount of energy consumption required. The method identified in reducing this energy loss is by using passive flow control. This study aims to identify the characteristics of the fluid in the ducting with variations in the circular turbulator gap. The variation of the gap between circular turbulator and inner of 90° elbows (g/Dh) is 0.01 - 0.05. The ducting model used is a square duct with a hydraulic diameter of 125 mm. Ducting consists upstream duct of 7Dh, Circular turbulator (CT) with a diameter of 12.5 mm, elbow with a curvature ratio (Rc/Dh) of 1.5, and a downstream duct of 15Dh. Tests are carried out at Reynolds numbers (ReDh) 3.97 × 104, 8.74 × 104, and 13.5 × 104. The results showed that the addition of circular turbulator g/Dh = 0.02 reduced the overall pressure drop by 20.52 %. While g/Dh = 0.04 and 0.05 can increase pressure drop. The addition of CT can form a shear layer that has a higher turbulence intensity (TI) so that it can fight adverse pressure or delay flow separation due to the inner of 90° elbow. The use of CT with g/Dh = 0.02 can increase TI by 30.92 %. While the ducting without CT only produces turbulence intensity of 18.02%. The use of CT with g/Dh = 0.01, 0.03, 0.04 and 0.05 found a decrease in turbulence intensity of 13.17 %, 15.95 %, 15.89 % and 8.51 % respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents numerical investigation results of airflow through a square duct with an installed tripping rod. A square section duct with a hydraulic diameter of 125 mm was built for this study. This duct consists of straight duct at upstream and downstream also square elbow 90° with curvature ratio (R/Dh=3). Tripping rod is installed on a square elbow (90°) with three variations on shapes. These shapes are circular cylinder, square cylinder, and oriented square cylinder, respectively. All tripping rod has a constant dimension based on circular cylinder diameter. Tripping rods are located near the inner wall of a square elbow with a constant gap ratio of (g/d) 0.2. The turbulent viscous models are used to simulate with a k-epsilon standard with enhanced wall treatment. All simulations are modeled for Re 1.59 x 104 based on the hydraulic diameter of the duct. The numerical simulation result is consists of turbulent intensity and pressure drop. There is a reduction of downstream pressure drop based on the result if the circular cylinder used as the comparison point, as follows oriented square cylinder has 2.23 % reduction. square cylinder has 1.74 % reduction at downstream at 8°. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is tackling the elbows bending process using hot mandrels. Through this process the pipe is pushed over a fix or mobile mandrel, which defines the expansion and the radius of curvature and is very important that mandrel deformation to be minimum. The paper presents the finite element model developed for the process described above, the optimization of tool parameters used to obtain and validate the simulation conditions in order to evaluate the effect of different materials on mandrels performances. The numerical simulation analyses were carried out by finite element analysis software NASTRAN and LS-DYNA which has a vast array of capabilities to simulate extreme deformation problems. Results obtained following the manufacturing process FEM simulation optimization are expected to reduce the mandrel production and exploitation costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The normal, lean forward and standing are three basic postures in the cycling sports studies. Past studies have successfully demonstrated the effects of cycling postures on cycling performance from the ergonomic, medical and mechanical perspectives. However, no works have attempted to identify the cycling postures based on the cyclist’s body joint orientations. Therefore, the goal of this study was to classify the normal, lean forward and standing cycling postures using a data mining approach. In order to examine whether the differences in body joint orientations distinguishes the cycling postures, the dynamics of stationary cycling by six cyclists on normal, lean forward and standing positions were assessed. The data obtained were the coordinates of the body joints: head, shoulder, elbow, wrist, pelvis, knee and ankle along with five joint angles measured from the origin point (centre of the bike front wheel). A total of 19 body joint attributes with a class attribute of 1080 instances were classified on ZeroR, J48, IBk and Naïve Bayes algorithms of Waikato Environment for Knowledge Analysis (WEKA) tool. Findings show that the IBk classifier gives the highest classification accuracy of 87%. The results suggest that although all cyclists perform similar cycling postures, the distinctive individual posture patterns classified on the three cycling postures differ from 41%-100% accuracy. The lower limb joints, in particular, the knee and ankle coordinates of skilled cyclist are more effective to differentiate the normal, lean forward and standing postures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High performance in the elbowjoint angle estimation, using electromyography (EMG) signal, is essential in the devices which uses EMG as a control signal. The purpose of this study is to evaluate Kalman filter performance which is used to improve the linearity of the elbowjoint angle estimation. The EMG signal is recorded from biceps muscle while the elbow performed a flexion and extension motion with two second periods of motion. In order to acquire the information which is associated with the elbowjoint angle, the EMG signal is extracted for every 100 milliseconds by using the twelve time-domain features. Kalman filter is used to improve the elbow joint angle estimation after feature extraction process. The findings show that the maximum performance of the elbowjoint angle estimation is 0.96±0.01 (correlation), 0.93±0.02 (R²), 9.02°±6.82° (intercept), 0.89±0.09 (slope) from sign slope change (SSC) feature. This proposed method has revealed the effectiveness of Kalman filter to improve the performance of the elbow joint angle estimation based on EMG signal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses research which analyzed the cracking of stainless steel 90 degree elbow on the liquid level gauge in the bottom of atmospheric fractionator. Topics discussed include methods to identify failure mechanism and possible causes of leakage including scanning electron microscopy (SEM) coupled with energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) and chemical composition analysis and hardness test.

The article discusses research which proposed a numerical method to estimate sand particle erosion in elbows for annular-mist flow. Topics discussed include the liquid film thickness and droplet diameter as major characteristics of annual-mist flow and their effects on the erosion process and numerical erosion prediction procedure and empirical or semi-empirical erosion models.

This paper proposes an efficient method of defect detection at elbow part of piping. The comparison between the simulation and experimental results shown in the paper implies regions with high sensitivity correspond to high-amplitude regions. The simulation results show that the locations of high-amplitude regions can be controlled by the center frequency of the input signal. Therefore, efficient defect detection at elbow part can be realized by using a suitable frequency for the target area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We have been developing a hand gesture based computer mouse controlling system, whose central issue is the precise controllability and the comfort of the user. The Kinect for Windows sensor provides the data to process. We have investigated 11 different hand signs inside a special zone to choose appropriate gestures for controlling. In this paper we point out the advantages and disadvantages of the potential solutions and present the preliminary results of our system. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Development of technologies for people with disabilities is necessary to improve the quality of life of elderly people in the future aging society. A light compact arm balancer with three-dimensional acceleration sensors accomplishes that goal. This device particularly features a motion analysis system. Results of experiments show that the program ascertains the speed from the acceleration sensor input. The system has an actual operating principle that is simple and reliable. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper we propose a multimedia environment that can capture kinematic data from live gestures of a child having Hemiplegia disability and generate live analytical results to be useful for decision making system of a therapist. The kinematic data is obtained from some clinically suggested therapy modules that are used to monitor quality of improvement of a disabled child, which includes exercises involving the affected joints and muscles. The proposed environment uses the 3D depth sensing Microsoft Kinect device to detect, recognize and track the movement of different key joints of the body and deduce kinematic data from these movements. The method is non-invasive as the child does not need to wear any external devices in the body. The proposed environment incorporates Second Life serious game environment where the live therapeutic movement of child, therapist and one's community of interest is synchronized between physical and virtual world. Finally, we share our preliminary test data, which is validated by the therapists from three different disability hospitals that treat children with Hemiplegia. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A pronation and supination of forearms is used as one of diagnostic indices for developmental disorders. However, this index has a demerit in which evaluation results between doctors are not consistent. The present study aims to establish more quantitative and evaluating method. We have developed a simple and portable evaluation system to measure pronation and supination of forearms. In this study, we have measured the pronation and supination of the forearms of 261 subjects aged 7 to 12 years (healthy children: 201, ADHD children: 60) and compared the function of healthy children's pronation and supination with the function of ADHD children's pronation and supination by new indices. From the results, we could obtain a difference between healthy children and ADHD children. The results showed that our developed system has the potential to become diagnostic criteria for developmental disorders. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study was to investigate the motor control changes after stroke by neuromusculoskeletal (NMS) modeling on elbow joint. An EMG-driven model was built through combining the in vivo ultrasound-measured musculotendon parameters to predict the joint trajectory during reaching. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper details advancements in the field of dead-front separable insulated connectors for underground distribution systems. Heretofore, all dead-front loadbreak separable insulated connectors have been limited to 200 A of load current. This work describes in detail the latest technology in dead-front separable insulated connectors: the 600 A loadbreak connector system. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Proxemics is the study of how people interact. We present a computational formulation of visual proxemics by attempting to label each pair of people in an image with a subset of physically based “touch codes.” A baseline approach would be to first perform pose estimation and then detect the touch codes based on the estimated joint locations. We found that this sequential approach does not perform well because pose estimation step is too unreliable for images of interacting people, due to difficulties with occlusion and limb ambiguities. Instead, we propose a direct approach where we build an articulated model tuned for each touch code. Each such model contains two people, connected in an appropriate manner for the touch code in question. We fit this model to the image and then base classification on the fitting error. Experiments show that this approach significantly outperforms the sequential baseline as well as other related approches. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We present an augmented reality system based on Kinect for on-line handbag shopping. The users can virtually try on different handbags on a TV screen at home. They can interact with the virtual handbags naturally, such as sliding a handbag to different positions on their arms and rotating a handbag to see it from different angles. The users can also see how the handbags fit them in different virtual environments other than the current real background. We describe the technical details for building such a system and demonstrate the experimental results. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

It may be difficult task for physically weak elderly, disabled and injured individuals to perform the day to day activities in their life. Therefore, many assistive devices have been developed in order to improve the quality of life of those people. Especially upper-limb power-assist exoskeletons have been developed since the upper limb motions are vital for the daily activities. Electromyography (EMG) signals of the upper limb muscles have sometimes been used as a primary signal to control the power assist exoskeletons since the EMG signals directly reflect the motion intention of the user. But one of the main obstacles for EMG based controller is the muscle fatigue, because the muscle fatigue might change the EMG patterns. It is important for power-assist exoskeleton to correctly assist the user for longer period of time. But it has high probability of user muscles been fatigued because users getting more and more exhausted at the end of the day. Therefore it is necessary to consider the variations of EMG signals due to the effect of muscle fatigue. In this paper it demonstrates the study which was conducted to find out the effects of muscle fatigue on the three EMG features derived from the raw EMG signals of the Bicep brachii, Deltoid-posterior, Deltoid-anterior and Supinator muscles of the upper limb. Shoulder vertical flexion/extension, shoulder abduction/adduction, elbow flexion/extension and forearm pronation/supination motions were carried out before and after a set of muscle fatiguing exercises. The three features computed in this experiment were RMS (Root Mean Square), MPF (Mean Power Frequency) and a spectral feature (FInsm5) which was proposed by Dimitrov. Comparison results of these three features of all muscles before and after the fatiguing exercises showed an percentage increase of the RMS and FInsm5 features whereas MPF showed a percentage decrease with respect to the before fatiguing conditions. The result showed that the EMG RMS may not a reliable feature to use as the only input signal in EMG based control for human upper-limb power assist in the muscle fatiguing conditions. Therefore, it is suggested that a modification method for compensating the effect of muscle fatigue is required on the EMG based control in order to have a long and reliable use of the human upper-limb power assist exoskeletons. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Bali traditional dance has gain international reputation thanks to its highly articulated body-part motions, fascinating eyes movement, facial expressions, and colorful costumes. Although the motions are viewed as the main aesthetic factors, automatic recognition and verification of their kinesthetic elements using computer is a challenging problem. Numerous studies have been conducted on dance recognition from its kinesthetic elements, however, to the best of our knowledge, little is known on automatic annotation, clustering, recognition, and verification of Bali traditional dance elements. This paper presents a skeleton descriptor based on dynamic time warping which enables similarity measurement between two dance sequences that may vary in time and speed. Our experiments shown that a combination of a set of time-series descriptors and exponential data time warping distance achieved the highest clustering performance than other tested combinations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The paper deals with a rapidly growing trend in robotics - anthropomimetics. Following a human paragon, bio-inspired control of the robot arm is presented using artificial neural networks. This work demonstrates results achieved by feedforward control comparing feedforward backpropagation networks and radial bases networks. Use of radial bases network prevails as an efficient tool to evade the exact mathematical modeling and conventional control of the complex mechanical system that is highly nonlinear and includes passive compliance. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents a technique to map two dissimilar master-slave devices with similar, human-like workspaces for telemanipulation. The mapping focuses on achieving full geometric pose correspondence between the operator and the slave device while avoiding reaching into areas close to singularities and joint limits. The approach followed can be divided in 4 steps, namely: master workspace offset and scaling adjustment to ensure that the operator always controls the manipulator within reachable areas; optimized mounting of the slave end-effector to eliminate manipulator wrist singularities; redundancy mapping using the arm angle criteria for geometric pose correspondence; slave manipulator base placement optimization to place the task-space area in the zone of highest manipulability. A setup using the EXARM exoskeleton and a virtual model of the Kuka 7-DOF Lightweight Robot is used to show that the proposed method generates geometric correspondence and places the operation within areas far from joint limits and singularities for the human arm workspace, thus ensuring robust tracking of human operators in real-time for arbitrary trajectories inside the task-space. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We have developed a three-dimensional force display robot (3D robot) to discover and embody needs in rehabilitation site. Then we have exchanged opinions with therapists by using the 3D robot together in rehabilitation site. From a therapist' needs we have developed repeated resistance training system by using the 3D robot as one of the application of the 3D robot. On the basis of the results we have developed a simplified repeated resistance training system equipped with a user interface for easy operation for therapists. Moreover, we have developed a brace for fixation as the attachment between the training system and the patient's arm. In this paper, we perform the functional evaluation of the simplified repeated resistance training system and the brace in the clinical site. These results are based on the opinions from the therapist and the patient. Moreover, we verify the therapeutic effects of the repeated resistance training using the simplified system for a hemiplegic stroke patient. The AROMs of pronation and supination of the patient were improved after repeated resistance training using the simplified system. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The purpose of this study was to investigate the improving effect of muscle unbalance according to exercise load deviation during rowing exercise. We recruited twenty four subjects who one side's muscle strength is bigger in more 20% than other side. Subjects divided two groups. One is dominant left side and the other was dominant right side. Subjects performed rowing exercise in electric load deviation rowing equipment (Robo.gym. Humonic. Co., Korea). Exercise was progressed four sets a day including twenty five times a set, and three days a week, total eight weeks. Measurements consist of evaluation of grip power and joint torque in elbow, shoulder and lumbar. Exercise load deviation adapted that difference value of muscle strength in left and right side multiply 1RM% plus 1-RM 50% in each side. The results in adapted load deviation showed that the differences of maximal peak torque in 22.75% were getting increase significantly during exercise in 5.72%. This results could interpret that rowing exercise with loading deviation types could provide muscle strength and muscular endurance exercise in same time for balance. Our study found out that loading deviation could provide muscle strength and muscular endurance exercise for improving muscle unbalance. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An understanding of how the brain constrains dimensions of freedom to control the body would be beneficial for the robotic engineering of a humanoid robot. We estimated joint stiffness in a female Japanese monkey (Macaca fuscata) during arm reaching movements and carried out a numerical simulation. The estimated stiffness was high at movement onset and movement end, and decreased at the mid-point of the movement. These characteristic patterns were reproduced by the numerical simulation using a 2-link 6-muscle arm model and an approximately optimal feedback control. Although the arm model was a redundant system with multiple dimensions of freedom, the optimal control was able to solve the redundancy problem by optimizing a task-relevant cost function. We suggest that the brain may control the body according to a similar optimal control law. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper is aimed at describing a framework to implement sensorless torque estimation and control in wearable exoskeletons, for the purpose of handling power augmentation tasks. The proposed method relies on accurately identifying and compensating the joint-level disturbance torques caused by stiction, viscous friction, and gravitational loads. Utilizing off-the-shelf techniques, the characteristics of these disturbances are primarily identified. Subsequently, additional torque inputs are superimposed to the system via feedforward loops in a way to counteract to these disturbances. Having compensated frictional and gravitational loads acting on the actuation module; we are able to estimate the external torque exerted at each joint by using disturbance observers. In this manner, torque control is enabled without any requirement of built-in torque sensing units. In order to validate the proposed framework, we conducted weight lifting and upholding experiments on able-bodied human subjects with and without wearing the upper extremity of exoskeleton suit. Comparison of EMG and IEMG signals acquired in two cases indicates that the exoskeleton system provides sufficient power augmentation reliably. In conclusion, the proposed method is validated to be efficient and it can be potentially used for rehabilitation, training and power augmentation tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The novel cable-driven anthropomorphic-arm manipulator (CDAM) mentioned in this paper is a 7-DOF hybrid redundant mechanism which fuse the advantages of redundant manipulator and cable-driven mechanism. This paper focuses on the stiffness of the CDAM and gives the Cartesian stiffness matrix calculation process. The process can be divided into three steps: firstly, the calculation of the stiffness of shoulder and wrist which are both four-cable-driven parallel mechanism; secondly, the stiffness in elbow which is a cable-driven single joint; lastly, by merging the wrist, elbow and shoulder stiffness to the joint stiffness matrix, the modified conservative congruence transformation (CCT) is used to get the solution of Cartesian stiffness matrix of CDAM. Base on the stiffness analysis of CDAM, a stiffness optimal algorithm is proposed to enhance the stiffness in motion and the simulation and experiment proves the effectiveness of this algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Base on the existing control system of a hybrid driving two-arm robot, a voice recognition system based on Atmega16L single chip and M-LD3320 voice recognition module is designed. So that the two-arm robot can act according to the voice commands by applying this voice recognition system to the origin robot control system. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, based on the automatic extraction of the three-dimensional human skeleton, the kinematics for joint points of 3D human skeleton is introduced. The adjacent joint points show all kinds of motions by the change of position. The conformal geometric algebra method is used to describe 3D human model to realize the direct calculation using geometric language. The human skeleton gesture is driven by the joint points to get the key frames and interpolation between frames to realize gesture sequences. Then, analysis the synergy rules of adjacent joint points. Finally, to getting the better match between 3D human skeleton and the corresponding video. Meanwhile, the joint point's 3D information makes a good groundwork for recognition the different gestures. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

There is a variety of definitions for the term ‘motorcycle’ found in documents sources and past research. Manufacturers tend to categorize motorcycles according to engine displacement sizes, while researchers have the tendency to class them according to types, usage, mechanical function and the like. Aside from manufacturer's classification, most of these definitions and classifications of motorcycle are subjective. Due to the variations, research that directly relates to the motorcycle such as emission issues, impact of motorcycle design on ergonomics, and rider's protective gear against accidents is uncoordinated. Consequently, since the field of research is vast, consistency and reliability of data collected are questionable. This paper aims to fill this research gap by proposing a standardized method for easy and practical motorcycle nomenclature system, that is using a classification of motorcycles for ergonomics study that will aid future research on motorcycles. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study is a cross-sectional study with the objective to determine mismatch between school furniture and anthropometric measurement among primary school children in Mersing. The sample consisted of 91 primary school children (46 male and 45 female) from Year 2 and Year 5 in two schools in Mersing District, Malaysia. Seven anthropometric measurement (height, weight, popliteal height, buttock-popliteal length, hip breadth, shoulder height and elbow height while sitting) as well as 5 furniture dimensions (seat height, seat depth, seat width, backrest height and seat to desk height) were taken. Instruments used were Martyn type anthropometer set, ruler, height scale and weighing scale. Differences between genders in anthropometric measurements were also investigated in this study. Findings showed 100% high mismatch for seat height, seat depth, desk height respectively while 56% match and only 44% mismatch for backrest height among Year 2 children. Year 5 students reported contrary result with 79% mismatch for seat height, 91% for backrest height and 100% for both seat depth and desk height. There was no significant difference between genders for both age groups. In conclusion, there was a mismatch between furniture and children's anthropometric measurements. It is recommended that school furniture be redesigned so as to conform to the children's physiological measurement. The use of adjustable furniture can be taken into consideration in designing new furniture for school environments in order to meet all the differences in children anthropometry. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Comfortable amplitudes of rhythmic forearm movements increase as periods increase. To explain this phenomenon in the horizontal plane, it has been suggested that the nervous system prefers a high-stability movement under a feedforward control of the musculo-skeletal system. Here we tested this hypothesis in the vertical plane. The experimental measurement and the stability analysis of the nonlinear muscle model were performed. The stability analysis of the musculo-skeletal model showed a wide range of high-stability conditions, which cannot clearly explain the experimentally observed period-amplitude relationship. Reasons for the unclear results were discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper shows effectiveness of bracing for precise and low electrical energy consumption of the end-effector in the case with and without the constraint of the joint of mobile manipulator. Considering that human can do accurate task with less power by bracing elbow on the table, we believe that manipulators can save energy and do a task more precisely like human by bracing itself. Therefore this paper first discuss the motion equation of robot with constraint condition, and robots dynamics including motor's dynamics also. Then the effects of bracing are analyzed and displayed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Underground residential distribution (URD) power cables are aged due to electrical, thermal, mechanical stresses and environmental stress during their service. For utilities, the online diagnostics of the dielectric conditions of the cables are of much interest. One of the cable online diagnostic methods is based on analysis of the voltage transients in URD. The cable elbow connectors are manufactured with capacitive voltage test points to indicate the power frequency voltage on the cable conductor. A voltage transient measurement system based on signal processing using the cable elbow connectors will be presented in the paper. Using this technique, less expensive cable elbow connectors can be calibrated and installed widespread in underground residential distribution power cables. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Patients with Parkinson's disease (PD), a chronic progressive neurodegenerative disorder, can have symptoms similar to essential tremor (ET), a 'benign' condition, making differential diagnoses sometimes challenging. In this paper we investigate the performance of a support vector machine classifier which may facilitate diagnosing PD and ET patients. Wireless inertial sensors were used to measure angular velocity and acceleration during multi-joint arm motion as well as during rest, postural and action tremor tasks from seven PD, seven ET and seven CO patients. Mean rest tremor was statistically significantly different between the PD and CO groups, while for the ET and CO groups mean postural tremor was statistically significantly different. Two SVMs were developed which operated on features extracted from the tremor acceleration signals. The misclassification rates of the SVMs were 9.5% for the tremor versus non-tremor SVM and 14.3% for the PD versus ET SVM. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A wearable elbow joint with three passive joints is proposed in this paper. The joint has an advantage of easy attachment to a human arm, without thorough adjustment when attached. This paper describes kinematics, statics and a prototype of the proposed joint, and then reports results of preliminary evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]