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Background and Purpose: Ankle muscle strength is an important criterion to consider and assess for return to play (RTP) after lateral ankle sprain (LAS). This study therefore focuses on the reported ankle muscle strength consideration for RTP by physicians and physiotherapists, both clinicians involved in RTP decisions, and how they assess it in daily practice. The primary aim is to compare reported clinical practice on ankle muscle strength evaluation between physicians and physiotherapists. Our secondary aims are: to assess the prevalence of use of qualitative versus quantitative assessment and; to determine if there are any differences in how clinicians with or without a Sports Medicine or Physiotherapy Education approach this assessment. Methods: A survey on RTP criteria after LAS was completed by 109 physicians in a previous study. A number of 103 physiotherapists completed the same survey. A comparison between clinicians' answers was realized and additional questions on ankle muscle strength were analysed. Results: Physiotherapists consider ankle strength for RTP more than physicians (p < 0.001). A large majority of physicians (93%) and physiotherapists (92%) reported assessing ankle strength manually and less than 10% use a dynamometer. Physicians and physiotherapists with Sports Medicine or Physiotherapy Education selected more quantitative assessment than those without (p < 0.001). Discussion: Despite being recognized as an important criterion, ankle muscle strength is not always part of the RTP criteria after LAS in daily practice. The dynamometers are scarcely used by physicians and physiotherapists, whereas it could accurately quantify ankle strength deficits. Sports Medicine or Physiotherapy Education increases the use of quantitative ankle strength assessments by clinicians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thrust testing units with a piezoelectric dynamometer have unique traits such as excessive stiffness, tremendous measurement accuracy, dynamic performance and no hysteresis. These are widely used in the applications requiring force/thrust measurements in the aerospace industry and high‐end tool condition monitoring. The performance of these units is necessary to be evaluated. In this study, an improved layout of six‐degree of freedom force/thrust measurement stand is proposed and analysed theoretically and experimentally. The measurement stand is a structural component to measure six components of force, such as axial force/thrust (FX, FY, and FZ) and other components (MX, MY, and MZ). Test stand consists of seven piezoelectric sensors in two sections. The front part consists of four piezoelectric force sensors, while the rear part consists of three sensors. The rear section is hexagonal, with three sensors mounted at 120°. The measurement stand can measure the principal force/thrust up to 50,000 N. A mathematical model is derived for every sensor against forces in all directions. To calibrate the stand, a calibration platform is designed and fabricated. The calibration platform can generate a range of forces/moments. Calibration experiments verifies that the measurement stand is fairly functional to measure variety of forces/moments with high repeatability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel neural network algorithm for indirect measurement of the polished rod load of the beam-pumping unit is proposed. The dynamometer card is a two-dimension graph of polished rod load versus horse head position, and it is widely used for working state monitoring of pumping unit. The drift problem of load sensor makes the direct measurement of polished rod load not economical and practical, so indirect measurement of polished rod load is crucial. Through the analysis of the mechanical characteristics of the pumping unit, a neural network with physical meaning (physical network) is designed. The experiment shows that the physical network can simulate the energy transfer process properly with only 18 training data items, which is about 1% of other data-driven models, and maintains good performance under different down-hole conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study addresses an optimisation method for interior permanent magnet synchronous generators (IPMSGs) to improve the efficiency of the electric power generating system of a range‐extended electric vehicle. The target operating point of the IPMSG is specified with an optimal operating line (OOL) of the newly developed two‐cylinder engine. The performance and efficiency of the IPMSG throughout the OOL are numerically identified in association with finite element analysis (FEA). For optimal design, intelligent mesh adaptive direct search with clustering and elastic net, which has been validated as a global searching optimisation algorithm with fast convergence on electric machines, is applied for IPMSG to maximise efficiency based on FEA. Furthermore, the optimised prototype is experimentally validated via the resultant efficiency map built up by the static and dynamic dynamometer tests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the usage of a nine‐phase induction motor (IM) in internal combustion engine vehicle hybridisation. Aiming to minimise structural changes, the parallel‐through‐the‐road (TTR) hybrid architecture was chosen. First, a real vehicle was experimented on the mobility technology centre Federal University of Minas Gerais (CTM‐Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG) laboratory) to get its characteristics. After that, this technical information was used to model and simulate on the software advanced vehicle simulator (ADVISOR). The simulated model results were compared with the experimental tests results realised with the vehicle on the tests track and CTM‐UFMG. Posteriorly, through a validated vehicle model, a drivetrain powered by a prototype of a nine‐phase IM was integrated into the rear axle to do the hybridisation process simulation. To do that some structures modifications were necessary on ADVISOR since this tool does not include the parallel‐TTR architecture. Vehicles modelled were simulated using the urban driving dynamometer schedules. Finally, the comparative analyses of simulation results show the improvements in fuel consumption, vehicle efficiency, emission gas, and the nine‐phase motor operation in a hybrid TTR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, a double fuzzy control strategy for the parallel hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) is proposed, then based on the genetic algorithm (GA) to get better simulation results, and the results are verified by dynamic programming (DP) optimisation. First, the energy management strategy is established by fuzzy control theory. On this basis, considering braking energy recovery, this study designs a double fuzzy vehicle energy control strategy. A simulation analysis of the above two control strategies is carried out in urban dynamometer driving schedule, and the comparison with the work efficiency of the engine and fuel economy performance, respectively, is made; the simulation results show that the double fuzzy control strategy can effectively improve the HEV performance. In order to make rule base more accurate, this study also uses a GA to optimise the fuzzy control rules of the fuzzy controller. Then the DP is used to optimise the energy control strategy and obtain optimal results. The results verified that the design of fuzzy controllers is correct, and the optimised fuzzy control strategy by GA can improve the work efficiency of the engine and fuel consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Walker is a widely used mobility aid to improve users' stability and ambulatory ability. Its dynamometer instrumentation is necessary for quantitative study of basic biomechanics and functional requirements for effective use. How to extract the kinetic demands exactly and without any disturbance to normal gait remains a bottleneck for walker dynamometer design. Based on the force measurement of handle reaction vectors (HRVs) applied to the walker, this study developed a novel strain gauge‐based wireless walker dynamometer system integrated with a static calibration algorithm based on ant colony system (ACS). Compared with the traditional measurement of HRV, the proposed method enhances security and flexibility of walker use by using one wireless data transmission system connecting 12 strain‐gauge bridges mounted on the walker frame with the computer. To improve high‐dimensional calibration performance, an ACS algorithm was employed to optimise the sensitivity weight matrix during calibration. To evaluate force measurement reliability, system performance with ACS algorithm was testified and its mean non‐linearity, mean crosstalk and maximal force measurement accuracy error were found to be 6.88, 6.10 and 7.46%, respectively, which were much better than those of traditional linear calibration methods. This implemented walker dynamometer system may prove to be a reliable tool for measurement of hand loads and description of kinetic analysis of basic walker‐assisted gait. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]