Rehabilitation of the upper extremities, especially the hands, is critical for the restoration of independence in activities of daily living for individuals suffering from hand disabilities. There are currently two major challenges in developing robotic devices for hand rehabilitation: (1) design of a device that is compatible with the complex geometry and nonlinear biomechanics of the human ha...

Modal vibrations can be used as a representation for the motion of an elastic system, decoupling the dynamics into a set of independent equations, and providing a good approximation to the system behavior for small displacements from the equilibrium state. In computer animation, elastic joints are commonly used in the simulation and control of articulated characters, which naturally permits a m...

Background. It has been long believed that Parkinsonian rigidity is not velocity-dependent based on the neurological examination. However, this has not been verified scientifically. Methods. The elbow joints of 20 Parkinson's disease patients were passively flexed and extended, and two characteristic values, the elastic coefficient (elasticity) and the difference in bias (difference in torque m...

To investigate the influence of joints on stability underground opening, uniaxial compression tests and FE analyses based a microplane damage model for rocks has been conducted rock-like models with circular hole set non-persistent joints. It was found that peak strength Young’s modulus decrease increase in joint continuity factor k, variation them inclination angle β are W or V-shaped curves m...

A robot finger is developed for five-fingered robot hand having equal number of DOF to human hand. The robot hand is driven by a new method proposed by authors using ultrasonic motors and elastic elements. The method utilizes restoring force of elastic element as driving power for grasping an object, so that the hand can perform the soft and stable grasping motion with no power supply. In addit...

By using an ionic liquid of 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide, we uniformly dispersed single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) as chemically stable dopants in a vinylidene fluoride-hexafluoropropylene copolymer matrix to form a composite film. We found that the SWNT content can be increased up to 20 weight percent without reducing the mechanical flexibility or softnes...

James Sellers, OTR, i.s Director ol O ccupational T herapy, Braintree Hospital, Braintree, Massachusetts. flexion is actively present. The elastic should support the MCP joints at 20 degrees of flexion, but allow full, active rangJe of motion in flexion. Thus the patient will be able to pick up and release objects during the performance of functional tasks. Made of Orthoplast@ (Johnson & Johnso...